[103] Letters of Louis XIII.:--Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, section France, 5. _Journal d’Héroard_. _Lettres Missives d’Henri IV._, vol. v. p. 507. [104] It is generally believed that the famous vow of Louis XIII., placing his kingdom under the protection of the Virgin, was made on account of Anne of Austria’s pregnancy. It was not so. The Queen’s condition was manifest in January, 1638, and “the declaration for the protection of the Virgin” is of December, 1637. It was made “on account of gratitude for so many evident favours accorded to the King.”--_Lettres et Papiers de Richelieu_, vol. v. p. 908. [105] Richelieu left Ruel at the end of July, and went successively to Amiens, Abbeville, Ham, and Saint-Quentin. It was in this last town that he learnt the happy event and went at once to the church with a grand _cortège_. “He heard mass sung there by his chaplain, then the _Te Deum_ and the _Domine salvum_.” He then wrote to the King and Queen to congratulate them.--_Gazette de France_, p. 535; _Lettres et Papiers de Richelieu_, vol. vi. p. 75, _et seq._ The 2nd October, Richelieu left the army to return to Saint-Germain. “The King arrived on Wednesday at Saint-Germain, whither the Cardinal-duke repaired from our armies the same day and almost the same hour as his Majesty, whom he found in the room of Monseigneur the Dauphin, where the Queen also was. It would be difficult to express with what transports of joy his eminence was seized on seeing between the father and the mother this admirable child, the object of his desires and the limit of his content.”--_Gazette de France_, p. 580. [106] At this part of his work, M. Topin has thought it necessary for his argument to dwell on certain medical details, which, out of delicacy to English readers, I have preferred to suppress.--_Trans._ [107] In the account we have reproduced in Chap. I. See p. 15 _ante_. CHAPTER V. Motives which hinder one from admitting the Existence, the Arrest and the Imprisonment of a mysterious Son of Anne of Austria--The Period at which he is said to have been handed over to Saint-Mars, according to the Authors of this Theory, cannot be reconciled with any of the Dates at which Prisoners were sent to this Gaoler--Other Considerations which formally oppose even the Probability of the Theory that makes the Man with the Iron Mask a Brother of Louis XIV.