magistrate of the kingdom, and under circumstances so peculiar, only
tended, however, to arouse M. de Harlay to an assumption of the dignity
attached to his office, and he replied with haughty severity to the
individual who had been charged with the royal message:--

"During fifty years I have been a judge, and for the last thirty I have
had the honour to be the head of the sovereign Court of Peers of this
kingdom; and I never before have seen either duke, lord, or peer, or any
other man whatever might be his quality, accused of the crime of
_lèse-majesté_ as M. d'Epernon now is, who came into the presence of his
judges booted and spurred, and wearing his sword at his side. Do not
fail to tell the Queen this." [31]

So marked an exhibition of the opinion entertained by the Parliament on
the subject of the complicity of the Duke in the crime then under
investigation, did not fail to produce a powerful effect upon all to
whom it became known, but it nevertheless failed to shake the confidence
of Marie de Medicis in the innocence of a courtier who had, in the short
space of a few days, by his energy and devotion, rendered himself
essential to her; while thus much must be admitted in extenuation of her
conduct, reprehensible as it appeared, that every rumour relative to the
death of her royal consort immediately reached her, and that two of
these especially appeared more credible than the guilt of a noble, who
could, apparently, reap no benefit from the commission of so foul and
dangerous a crime. In the first place, the Spanish Cabinet had been long
labouring to undermine the power of France, in which they had failed
through the energy and wisdom of the late King, whose opposition to the
alliance which they had proposed between the Dauphin and their own
Infanta had, moreover, wounded their pride, and disappointed their
projects; and there were not wanting many who accused the agents of