In vain did the Due de Villeroy, Sully, and others of the great nobles, endeavour to mediate between them: reason was lost in passion on both sides; and once more Henry declared his determination to exile the Queen to one of his palaces.

From this extreme measure he was, however, dissuaded by his ministers; and at length, after the estrangement between the royal couple had lasted nearly three weeks, a partial reconciliation was effected; but Marie, although she was induced by the representations of her advisers to restrain her indignation, was from that hour alienated in heart from her husband, by whom she felt that her dignity had been compromised both as a Queen and as a wife.
Profiting, however, by this partial calm, several of the nobility proposed to add to the amusements of the Carnival, in commemoration of the recent escape of their Majesties, a ballet in which the Queen consented to appear; and the preparations were already far advanced when the King solicited her permission to include Madame de Moret among the performers, but Marie, who had previously condescended to associate herself in a similar exhibition with the Marquise de Verneuil, had been rendered less amenable by recent circumstances, and she peremptorily refused to appear in such intimate association with another of her husband's mistresses.

The concession was not one upon which Henry could insist with any propriety, a fact of which the Queen was so well aware, that in order to terminate the affair as gracefully as possible she declined altogether either to assist in the entertainment or even to witness it, a decision which caused it to be abandoned altogether.[336] This mortification was, however, compensated to the Countess by a donation from the King of eighty-five thousand five hundred francs.[337] At the commencement of July the King had accredited the Marechal de Bassompierre as his ambassador-extraordinary to Lorraine, to be present at the marriage of the Duc de Bar, his brother-in-law, with the daughter of the Duke of Mantua, the Queen's niece; and had also furnished him with instructions to invite the Duchess of Mantua[338] to become the godmother of the Dauphin, and the Duc de Lorraine to act as sponsor to the younger Princess.

The marriage took place at Nancy, where M.de Bassompierre, as the representative of his sovereign, was magnificently and gratuitously entertained.[339] Numerous balls were given, and a joust concluded the festivities; which were no sooner terminated than the courtly envoy communicated the royal invitation, which was received "with proper respect and honour"; and he then hastened his return to Paris in order to prepare the gorgeous dress already alluded to elsewhere as having been defrayed by his gains at play.
Towards the close of the month, the two illustrious sponsors reached Villers-Cotterets, where they were met by the King and Queen, with the whole Court, and thence conducted to Paris.

The Duchess arrived in a state coach of such extreme magnificence as to attract immediate notice, but with so slender a retinue as to provoke the sarcasms of the courtiers, who declared that they recognized her rank only by the carriage in which she rode; and _the Mantuan suite_ accordingly became a favourite topic with the idle and the censorious.