The retirement of Monsieur to Orleans tended to strengthen these idle and baseless hopes; and the flatterers of the Queen-mother consequently found little difficulty in persuading her that ere long half the nation would rise to avenge her wrongs; that all the great nobles would rally round the Duc d'Orléans; and that the principal cities, weary of the despotism of Richelieu, would declare in favour of the heir-presumptive, in the event of the King still seeking to support his obnoxious minister. Misled by these assurances, and consulting only her own passions, Marie de Medicis no longer hesitated. She refused to acknowledge the authority of the Cardinal, not only as regarded her own personal affairs, but also in matters of state; and absented herself from the Council, loudly declaring that her only aim in life hereafter would be to accomplish his ruin. The infatuated Princess had ceased to remember that she was braving no common adversary, and that she was heaping up coals of fire which could not fail one day to fall back upon her own head; for resolute, fearless, and vehement as she was, she had to contend against the first diplomatist of the age, whose whole career had already sufficiently demonstrated that he was utterly uninfluenced by those finer feelings which have so frequently prevented a good man from becoming great. What were to Richelieu the memories of the past? Mere incentives to the ambition of the future. Concini had been his first friend, and he had abandoned him to the steel of the assassin so soon as his patronage had become oppressive. Marie herself had overwhelmed him with benefits, but she had now lost her power, and he, who had won, was resolved to keep it. He had dared to talk of passion to the wife of his sovereign, by whom he had been repulsed, and fearfully had he resented the affront. Such a man was no meet antagonist for the impulsive and imprudent Princess who had now entered the lists against him; and the issue of the conflict was certain.