I cannot believe that she will
continue obstinate when she knows what apprehensions you have of
disaster."
"Perhaps not, perhaps not," he answered. But his tone was not
sanguine. "Try to persuade her, Sully. Without her consent I
cannot do this thing. But you will know how to persuade her. Go
to her."
Sully suspended the preparations for the coronation, and sought
the Queen. For three days, he tells us, he used prayers, entreaties,
and arguments with which to endeavour to move her. But all was
labour lost. Maria de' Medici was not to be moved. To all Sully's
arguments she opposed an argument that was unanswerable.
Unless she were crowned Queen of France, as was her absolute
right, she would be a person of no account and subject to the
Council of Regency during the King's absence, a position unworthy
and intolerable to her, the mother of the Dauphin.
And so it was Henry's part to yield. His hands were tied by the
wrongs that he had done, and the culminating wrong that he was
doing her by this very war, as he had himself openly acknowledged.
He had chanced one day to ask the Papal Nuncio what Rome thought
of this war.
"Those who have the best information," the Nuncio answered
boldly, "are of opinion that the principal object of the war is
the Princess of Conde, whom your Majesty wishes to bring back to
France.
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