The Infanta, who, despite her age and infirmities, was a frequent visitor in the sick room of her illustrious guest, and who saw with alarm the rapid progress of the disease under which the unhappy Marie de Medicis had laboured for upwards of forty days, encouraged by the arrival of the French envoy, at length wrote to inform the King that his mother, who placed the greatest confidence in the skill of her own physician Vautier, had expressed the most earnest desire for his attendance; and it is probable that at so extreme a crisis Louis would not have hesitated to comply with her wishes had not Richelieu opposed his liberation from the Bastille, asserting that Marie de Medicis had induced Isabella to make the request for the sole purpose of once more having about her person a man who had formerly given her the most pernicious advice, and who encouraged her in her rebellion. All, therefore, that the King would concede under this impression was his permission to Vautier to prescribe in writing for the royal invalid; but the physician, who trusted that the circumstance might tend to his liberation, excused himself, alleging that as he had not seen the Queen-mother for upwards of two years, he could not judge of the changes which increased age, change of air, and moral suffering had produced upon her system; and that consequently he dared not venture to propose remedies which might produce a totally opposite result to that which he intended. But, at the same time that the Cardinal refused to gratify the wishes of the apparently dying Queen, he was profuse in his expressions of respect and affection towards her. "His Majesty is about to despatch you to Ghent," he had said to the envoy when he went to receive his parting instructions. "Assure the Queen-mother from me that although I am aware my name is odious to her, and conscious of the whole extent of the ill-will which she bears towards me, those circumstances do not prevent my feeling the most profound attachment to her person, and the deepest grief at her indisposition. Do not fail to assure her that I told you this with tears in my eyes. God grant that I may never impute to so good a Princess all the injury which I have suffered from her friends, nor the calumnies which those about her incessantly propagate against me; although it is certain that so long as she listens to these envenomed tongues I cannot hope that she will be undeceived, nor that she will recognize the uprightness of my intentions." [197]