The assembly of the States-General occupied the commencement of the year 1615 ; and was closed on the 22nd of February, by their Majesties in person, with extreme pomp. When the King and his august mother had taken their seats, and that the heralds had proclaimed silence, Armand Jean du-Plessis, Bishop of Luçon, presented to the sovereign the requisition of the clergy ; and after a long harangue, in which he detailed their several demands, he entered into an animated eulogium of the administration of the Queen, exhorting his Majesty to continue to her the power of which she had so ably availed herself during his minority. He spoke fluently, but in a broken and uncertain voice, and with an apparent apathy, which, according to contemporaneous authors, gave no indication of the extraordinary talents that he subsequently displayed.

The States-General had no sooner closed than Marie de Medicis resolved to terminate the double alliance which had been concluded with Spain; and in honour of this event she determined that Madame, the promised bride of Philip, should appear in a ballet, which by the sumptuousness of its decorations, the beauty of its machinery, and the magnificence of its entire arrangements, should eclipse every entertainment of the kind hitherto exhibited at the French court.