The only influence that the great minister Sully feared was that of Gabrielle, whom the King had promised to marry when the tie that bound him to his beautiful, wilful, dissolute cousin, Marguerite of Valois, should be annulled by the Pope. Sully, however, had other ambitions for Henry and for France, as he was already entering into negotiations with the Medici with a view to a marriage with a daughter of their house, which would swell the depleted coffers of France and bring some coveted territory to the kingdom. Here in the old chateau at Angers, the scene of Gabrielle's most signal triumph over the favorite minister, during whose absence her son was created Duke of Vendome and affianced to the little heiress of the Duke of Mercoeur, we could not help wondering whether Henry of Navarre's life would not have been very different had he been allowed to marry the woman of his choice. As the daughter of the Baron d'Estrees, and connected with royalty through the Courtenays, it seemed to us that Gabrielle was quite as suitable a consort for the French King as one of the daughters of the Medici who had never brought good fortune to France. Sully, who evidently thought more of the coffers of the kingdom than of the happiness of the King, was the persistent enemy of Gabrielle from the early days when Henry incurred untold dangers in passing the enemy's lines in order to secure a brief half hour with her, to a later time when as Duchesse de Beaufort she seemed to be perilously near the throne. The tragedy of her sudden death, which has been attributed to poison at the instance of Sully, and the King's agony of grief have added a pathetic interest to the history of Gabrielle d'Estrees, Duchesse de Beaufort. It should be said, in justice to Sully, that there is no proof that he had anything whatever to do with the death of the Duchesse de Beaufort; but there is little doubt that the tidings of her death brought relief to his mind, after the first shock was over.