But the news of his conversion having reached the ears of the King, his Majesty privately asked him to absent himself for a time from Court.
In response a meeting of Catholics was held in London, and the contribution being recommended, the collection was entrusted to Montagu and Sir Kenelm Digby.
In due course he was ordained priest, became a naturalised subject of France, and was in favour with the Queen-Regent, Marie de Medicis, at whose Court he appears to have resided.
Through her influence he was made abbot of the Benedictine monastery at Nanteuil, in the diocese of Metz, and subsequently the commendatory abbacy of St. Martin, near Pontoise, was conferred upon him.
The Queen-Regent also appointed him a member of her Cabinet Council, and in this capacity he was the chief instrument of introducing Cardinal Mazarin to Henrietta Maria.
[1] It is said that in 1643 Montagu came over to England with letters of importance and was apprehended at Rochester, and remained in confinement there until 1647, when he was banished the kingdom by a vote of Parliament.
It would certainly appear that Montagu was some time imprisoned in the Tower of London, for in 1645 the Puritan minister, John Bastwick, published his version of the disputation he there held with him, and the Parliament's order of banishment is dated 1649.
[10] After the Restoration, and Somerset House had been prepared for her Majesty's reception in 1663, the abbot was summoned to reside with her there, and apparently returned to France with her in June 1665.
[1] In 1670 he received an order from Court to remove from his abbey, and surrender his apartments to the young Cardinal Bouillon, who was designated to be his successor, and forthwith assumed the title of Abbot of St. Martin's.
In 1673[12] he blessed the church decidated to St. Anne belonging to convent of the Conceptionist Order of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady,[13] at Faubourg Saint-Antoine in Paris.
The marriage of the prince and Belesa is of course solemnized; the king renews his suit to Fidamira, but she prefers to remain in Paradise, where she is chosen perpetual queen.