They augured from this fact a brilliant future for the little Prince, who had come into the world at the very moment when the great work had been achieved; and this feeling was shared by the august parents of the royal infant.

So little can human foresight fathom the designs of the Almighty Disposer of all things! Men congratulated each other in the public street; and, forgetting the Huguenot origin of Henry, considered him only as the champion of the Romish faith; while they coupled his name and that of the Queen with every endearing epithet of which they were susceptible.
The remainder of the summer was occupied by the monarch in the embellishment of the capital, in high play,[370] and in his rapidly-waning passion for Madame de Verneuil; while the Court resided alternately at Fontainebleau and St.Germain; the Queen confining herself more and more to the society of her children and her immediate favourites, listening with jealous avidity to every rumour of infidelity on the part of her royal consort, and occasionally renewing those unhappy differences by which the whole of their married life had been embittered.
The kingdom was at peace, but anarchy still reigned within the walls of the palace.

It is true that the advancing age of the monarch appeared to offer a sufficient guarantee for his moral reformation, but the daily experience of the Queen sufficed to convince her that she must never hope for domestic happiness; and this conviction doubtless tended to place her more thoroughly in the power of those treacherous advisers who, in order to strengthen their own influence, did not hesitate to exaggerate (where exaggeration was possible) the painful errors of her husband.

She saw herself idolized by the people, who regarded her with earnest affection as the mother of two Princes whom they looked upon as pledges for the safety and prosperity of France, while she found herself at the same time an object of indifference to the monarch whom they were destined to succeed; and who, while he lavished upon his children incessant tokens of tenderness, sacrificed her personal happiness to every passing fancy, even at the time when he affected to reproach her with a coldness of which he was himself the cause.
Again we fearlessly repeat that the historians of the time have not done Marie de Medicis justice.

They expatiate upon her faults, they enlarge upon her weaknesses, they descant upon her errors; but they touch lightly and carelessly upon the primary influences which governed her after-life.