Strong in the unaccustomed sway which she exercised, but exaggerating its extent, Anne of Austria was not content with holding in the King’s heart the place which properly belonged to her. Aided by the ambitious and vindictive Marie de Medicis, after having occupied herself with her griefs as a wife, she desired to extend her censure to affairs of State, and to attack, in Richelieu, not only one who had kept alive the mistrust of herself, who had called suspicion into existence, and had separated King and Queen, mother and son, but also the stubborn pursuer of the great policy of Henri IV., who maintained abroad the pre-eminence of France over Spain, and the abasement of the House of Austria. We know how Louis XIII., who was incapable of vast projects, but who understood their value, was recalled by reasons of State to Richelieu, and, on a famous day, confirmed his authority at the very instant that it seemed annihilated.[84] To what period are we to assign the commission of the fault resulting in Anne’s pregnancy of January, 1631? It cannot have been on September 30, 1630, when Louis XIII.’s life was in danger, for the Queen was delivered during the first five days of April, 1631.[85] Was it on the arrival of Louis XIII. at Lyons, at the commencement of August, 1630? But Anne of Austria did not then have the same interest in being a mother, which, according to her accusers, she would have on September 30, when the King was dying. Either the child was still-born, or else its conception dates from a period when Louis XIII. was its father. The origin of this pregnancy is suspected because Richelieu, in a journal attributed to him, and of which it has been said “that it lent to Voltaire’s supposition rather a serious ground of argument,”[86] was pleased to note the progress of the Queen’s condition, often sent to inquire after her health, carried off her apothecary, then returned him to her, forbade the Spanish ambassador to make too frequent visits to the Louvre, and, in a word, exercised over Anne of Austria a suspicious and unceasing vigilance. But if we admit the authenticity of this journal, which, probable enough in certain details, is much less so when taken as a whole, all the facts which it relates, the espionage which it chronicles, the suspicions which it insinuates, concern the Spaniard, irritated at Richelieu’s unexpected triumph and dreaming of overthrowing him, not the guilty spouse whose crime it is desired to prove. Accepting this last theory, why should Richelieu have restored to the Queen the medical attendant who could have aided her in concealing the consequences of her fault? Why was she not entirely separated from all her confidants? Why were not the visits of the Spanish ambassador altogether forbidden? Richelieu, it is true, caused the Countess de Fargis to be dismissed. But it was only because she had advised the Queen to espouse her brother-in-law, Gaston d’Orléans,