Alarmed at the menacing attitude assumed by the Duc d'Orléans, Richelieu renewed his attempts to conciliate the Queen-mother, not only personally, but also through the medium of those about her. All these efforts, however, proved abortive; and although the King himself deeply and openly resented her resolute estrangement from the Cardinal, by whom he was at this period entirely governed, nothing could induce her to listen to such a proposal; and she was further strengthened in her resolve by the representations of her partisans, who constantly assured her of her popularity with the people, and asserted that they were loud in their denunciations of the weakness of the sovereign, and the tyranny of his minister; while they anticipated from their experience of the past that she would, by maintaining her own dignity, place some curb upon the encroaching ambition of a man who was rapidly undermining the monarchy, and sapping the foundations of the throne. Having failed in this endeavour, Richelieu resolved no longer to delay his cherished project of effecting the exile of his former benefactress; and as a preliminary measure, he no sooner ascertained that the Duc d'Orléans had indeed retired to his government than he insinuated to Louis that Monsieur had been instigated to this overt act of opposition by the counsels of Marie de Medicis. When reproached with this new offence, the Queen-mother denied that she had encouraged the Prince to leave the capital; bitterly remarking that she was not so rich in friends as to desire the absence of any who still remembered that she was the mother and mother-in-law of the two greatest monarchs in Europe; that she had given one Queen to England, another to Spain, and a female sovereign to Savoy; and that she was moreover the widow of Henry the Great. Little credence was, however, vouchsafed to these disclaimers; the Cardinal coldly remarking that Gaston never acted save in conformity with her will; and Louis loudly declaring that his brother had been urged to his disobedience entirely by herself, in order to gratify her hatred of his minister.[145] The struggle continued. Encouraged by her adherents, and calculating on the feeble health of the King, who had never rallied from the severe attack by which he had been prostrated at Lyons, Marie de Medicis still flattered herself that she should ultimately triumph; an opinion in which she was confirmed by the astrologers, in whom, as we have already shown, she placed the most unbounded faith. One of these charlatans had assured her that at the close of the year 1631 she would be more powerful and fortunate than she had ever before been; and she had such perfect confidence in the prophecy that when it was uttered, although at that period surrounded by difficulty and danger, she had replied with a calm and satisfied smile: "That is sufficient. I have therefore now only to be careful of my health."