He had no sooner, therefore, irrevocably arrived at this decision, than he addressed a letter to the Regent, in which he requested her permission to retire from the Government; and, satisfied that his suit must prove successful, he calmly awaited her reply. Meanwhile, resolved that no reproach should be cast upon him after his departure, he demanded an audience of the King, in order to explain to him the exact state of the royal treasury, and the manner in which its contents had been diminished since the demise of his royal father; but as a private interview with a mere child would not have satisfactorily sufficed to accomplish this object, Sully produced his papers before all the members of the royal household; and while engaged in the necessary explanation, he remarked that the antiquated fashion of his costume, which he had not changed for years, had excited the hilarity of the younger courtiers. He suddenly paused, and after glancing coldly round the giddy circle, looked fixedly at the young monarch, and said with a dignity which chased in an instant every inclination to mirth in the bystanders: "Sire, I am too old to change my habits with every passing wind. When the late King, your father of glorious memory, did me the honour of conferring with me upon state affairs, he was in the habit of previously clearing the apartment of all buffoons and mountebanks." [97] To the Princes of the Blood, the ministers of state, and the nobles of the Court, Sully that day added to the list of his enemies the boy-courtiers of the royal circle. Thus in heart-burning and uncertainty closed the year which had commenced with the assassination of the King. An arrogant and unruly aristocracy, a divided and jealous ministry, and a harassed and discontented population were its bitter fruits. FOOTNOTES: [73] Richelieu, _La Mère et le Fils_, vol. i. p. 91. [74] _Mercure Français_, 1610, p. 505. [75] L'Etoile, vol. iv. pp. 191, 192. [76] Mézeray, vol. xi. pp. 10, 11. D'Estrées, _Mém_. p. 379. [77] _Mercure Français_, 1610, pp. 510, 511. [78] Matthieu, _Hist, des Derniers Troubles_, book iii. p. 455. [79] Sully, _Mém_. vol. viii. pp. 81-84. [80] _Mercure Français_, 1610, p. 505. [81] Mézeray, vol. xi. p. 11. L'Etoile, on the contrary (vol. iv. p. 132), asserts that the command was offered to Bouillon, but that he wisely declined it. [82] Claude de la Châtre was originally one of the pages of the Duc de Montmorency, who continued to protect him throughout his whole career. He distinguished himself in several battles and sieges, and having embraced the party of the League possessed himself of Berry, which he subsequently surrendered to Henri IV. At the period of his death, which occurred on the 18th of December 1614, at the advanced age of seventy-eight years, he was Marshal of France, Knight of the King's Orders, and Governor of Berry and Orleans. [83] Mézeray, vol. xi. p. 13. [84] L'Etoile, vol. iv. p. 146. [85] L'Etoile, vol. iv. p. 147.