That same evening the Duc de Bouillon arrived at Court. The King at once spoke to him about the proposed purchase of his post of First Gentleman of the Chamber by Bassompierre, and he answered that he had come to arrange the matter. Bassompierre, who was present, with several other nobles and gentlemen, exchanged a few words with the duke, as did the rest of the company; but he forgot to pay him a visit on the morrow, as he most certainly ought to have done, seeing that Bouillon was the Constable’s nephew,[63] and “for all manner of other reasons.” His unfortunate omission appears to have wounded the pride of this most haughty of nobles, who was already none too well disposed towards the projected marriage, since he believed that it was the work of the Duc d’Épernon, of whom, Bassompierre tells us, he had been all his life intensely jealous. He therefore resolved to do what he could to prevent it, and that evening, when he was talking to the King, who had just returned from the Queen’s apartments, “where he had seen Mlle. de Montmorency, whom he and everyone had found perfect in beauty,” he told him that he was greatly astonished that his Majesty should have given his consent to the marriage, since the Prince de Condé, the first Prince of the Blood,[64] was of an age to marry, and that, while it was inexpedient that he should marry a foreign princess, there were no young ladies of sufficiently high rank for him to wed in France, with the exception of Mlle. de Mayenne and Mlle. de Montmorency. Well, no one who had his sovereign’s interests at heart could possibly counsel his union with Mlle. de Mayenne, since the remnant of the League was still too powerful for it to be prudent to strengthen it by a marriage between the daughter of its former chief and the first Prince of the Blood. On the other hand, there could be no such objection to his marriage with Mlle. de Montmorency, which would give him no new connections, since he was already related to the Montmorencys on his mother’s side.[65] And he besought his Majesty very humbly to weigh the counsel which he had had the honour to give him and to reflect well upon it. This the King promised to do, and the interview ended.