The Cardinal's Musketeer by Mary Imlay Taylor

TIME passed, and there were changes in state and at court. The trouble between the Huguenots and the Catholics had reached a climax, and France had once more beheld a religious war. The gallant Duke of Rohan had made his fight and lost. The famous siege of La Rochelle was now a thing of the past; vanishing in the distance as the white sails of Buckingham's fleet vanished from before the starving city and left it to the mercy of the cardinal. Richelieu had triumphed in war and peace, though still beset by constant plotting and counterplotting at home. The queen-mother, who had at first supported and patronized him, had become jealous of his increasing influence with the king, and was now intriguing to overthrow the minister. She was seconded in her efforts by her second son, the Duke of Orleans, who, led on by his mother, had openly rebelled against his brother the king, and invoked the aid of Spain. His defeat at Castelnaudary had ruined the gallant Montmorency, and Monsieur was ever ready to desert those whom he had involved in his own dishonor. Marie de' Medici had been defeated at every point in her struggle with Richelieu, and finding herself in danger of being shut up by the cardinal at Moulins and stripped of the last vestige of authority, she fled at night, attended by only one gentleman, and took refuge in Brussels. There she continued to hatch innumerable conspiracies, determined to overthrow Richelieu and regain her own place in the councils of her son. The struggle between mother and son which Henri Quatre had predicted, was only to terminate with her death.

Unhappily she lived long enough to keep affairs in a constant turmoil during most of her son's reign, and at her death there was still left the Duke of Orleans, who inherited her temperament. However, it was during the early years of the queen-mother's exile at Brussels that the greatest number of plots were constantly springing up under the feet of Richelieu, and it was at this time that he made the most use of his followers and tried the merits of all those in his service.