To overthrow the political influence of the Huguenots she must seduce their leaders. Of this Catharine was sure. With whom, then, should she commence but with the brilliant Conde? The calm and commanding admiral, indeed, was the true head and heart of the late war--never more firm and uncompromising than after defeat--as reluctant to renounce war without securing, beyond question, the religious liberty he sought, as he had been averse to take up the sword at all in the beginning. Of such a man, however, little hope could be entertained. But Louis of Bourbon was cast in another mould. Excessively small in stature and deformed in person, he was a general favorite; for he was amiable, witty, and talkative.[306] Moreover, he was fond of pleasure to an extent that attracted notice even in that giddy court, and as open to temptation as any of its frivolous denizens.[307] For such persons Catharine knew how to lay snares. Never did queen surround herself with more brilliant enticements for the unwary. Her maids of honor were at once her spies and the instruments of accomplishing her designs. As she had had a fair Rouhet to undermine the constancy of Antoine, so she had now an Isabeau de Limueil to entrap his younger brother. Nor did Catharine's device prove unsuccessful. Conde became involved in an amorous intrigue that shook the confidence of his Huguenot friends in his steadfastness and sincerity; while the silly girl whom the queen had encouraged in a course that led to ruin, as soon as her shame became notorious, was ignominiously banished from court--for no one could surpass Catharine in the personation of offended modesty.[308] Yet, notwithstanding a disgraceful fall which proved to the satisfaction of a world, always sufficiently sceptical of the depth of religious convictions, that ambition had much more to do with the prince's conduct than any sense of duty, Conde was not wholly lost to right feelings. The tears and remonstrances of his wife--the true-hearted Eleonore de Roye--dying of grief at his inconstancy, are said to have wrought a marked change in his character.[309] From that time Catharine's power was gone. In vain did she or the Guises strive to gain him over to the papal party by offering him, in second marriage, the widow of Marshal Saint Andre, with an ample dower that might well dazzle a prince of the blood with but a beggarly appanage;[310] or even by proposing to confer upon him the hand of the yet blooming Queen of Scots,[311] the Prince of Conde remained true to the cause he had espoused till his blood stained the fatal field of Jarnac. [Sidenote: Huguenot progress.]