Note 67 — Chapter XXXIV
Reading edition
In Bassompierre’s dispatches to his Court we find further details of the stormy interview. “I was treated,” he writes to Louis XIII, “with great rudeness, and found the King very little disposed to oblige my master.” Charles complained bitterly of the intrigues of the Queen’s French attendants; of their malice in seeking to wean his wife’s affection from him, and their insolence in prejudicing her against the English language and nation. The King grew at length so warm as to exclaim to the Ambassador: “Why do you not execute your commission and declare war?” “I am not a herald to declare war,” was the answer, “but a marshal of France, to make it when declared.”