This was duly reported to
Richelieu, and by Richelieu to King Louis. But his Most Christian
Majesty merely sneered, accounted it more empty boasting on the
part of the parvenu, and dismissed it from his mind.
Richelieu found this attitude singularly exasperating in a King
who was temperamentally suspicious. It so piqued and annoyed him,
that when considered in addition to his undying rancour against
Anne of Austria, it is easily believed he spared no pains to
obtain something in the nature of a proof that the Queen was not
as innocent as Louis insisted upon believing.
Now it happened that one of his London agents informed him, among
other matters connected with the Duke's private life, that he had
a bitter and secret enemy in the Countess of Carlisle, between
whom and himself there had been a passage of some tenderness too
abruptly ended by the Duke. Richelieu, acting upon this
information, contrived to enter into correspondence with Lady
Carlisle, and in the course of this correspondence he managed her
so craftily--says La Rochefoucauld--that very soon she was,
whilst hardly realizing it, his Eminence's most valuable spy near
Buckingham. Richelieu informed her that he was mainly concerned
with information that would throw light upon the real relations
of Buckingharn and the Queen of France, and he persuaded her that
nothing was too insignificant to be communicated.
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