We shall not attempt here more than a very brief account of the career of Condé during the troublous minority of Louis XIII. For a moment it seemed as though the prince were well disposed towards the new government, and Marie de’ Medici certainly did everything in her power to confirm him in his pacific intentions. She purchased, for 400,000 écus, the Hôtel de Gondi, in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, the finest residence in Paris after the Louvre, and presented it to him; she confirmed him in all his offices and appointments, increased his pension to 200,000 écus, and gave him a large sum to pay his debts. But Condé was ambitious and meddlesome; he could not forget that he had once been heir to the throne, and that ill-fortune had in all probability alone deprived him of the regency.[167] Scarcely had he returned, than he became the principal factor in fomenting opposition to the Government, with the design of diminishing the Queen-Mother’s authority to the advantage of the great nobles of the realm, and for a time found the _métier_ of rebel a highly profitable one. At the peace of Sainte-Ménéhould (May, 1614), he received Amboise as a place of surety, and the sum of 450,000 livres in cash; and at the Peace of Loudon (February, 1616), so enormously had the wages of rebellion risen in the interval, the government of Berry and 1,500,000 livres were required to purchase his neutrality. But, at length, he went too far, and a rumour having spread that his principal adherents, the Ducs de Bouillon, de Longueville, de Mayenne and de Vendôme, were about to make an attempt to place him on the throne, on 1 September, 1616--which, by a singular coincidence, happened to be his birthday,--the Regent, on the advice of Richelieu and Sully, caused him to be arrested at the Louvre, whither he had come to attend a meeting of the Council. For three weeks Condé remained a close prisoner in an upper apartment of the palace, none of his Household being permitted to have access to him, with the exception of his apothecary, “whose attentions were necessary after two months of a somewhat dissolute life.” But in the night of 24–25 September, he was transferred to the Bastille, where he was treated as a State criminal, and subjected to a most rigorous confinement in a gloomy chamber, the windows of which were so closely grated that scarcely a ray of light was permitted to enter. Ever since their formal reconciliation six years before, the relations between Condé and his wife had been very cool; indeed, it would appear that the tie which bound them had become merely a nominal one. Nevertheless, on learning of the arrest of her husband, the princess, who was at Valery, showed real magnanimity. Without a moment’s delay, she set out for Paris, sent the prince messages assuring him of her sympathy and devotion, and begged the Regent to allow her to share his captivity. Her request, however, was refused, and she received orders to leave Paris at once and return to Valery.