“Never, never,” rejoins Roquelaure, looking round to note who arrives, “it is an ill-assorted union. You, Bassompierre, would have loved her well. It was possible she might have reformed your manners. Ha! I have you there, Marshal. Pardon my joke,” adds he, as he sees a dark scowl again gathering on the Marshal’s face. “But Condé, the _rustre_, he hates women--I never saw him address one in his life; a cold, austere fellow, as solitary as an owl; a miser, and silent too--if he does speak he is rude and ungracious; and with the temper of a fiend. If he does right, it is only through obstinacy. I am told he suspects the lady already, and has set spies to watch her. A pretty match for the fair Montmorenci truly, who has lived with a sovereign at her feet.” “Duke,” cries Bassompierre fiercely, secretly writhing under the Duke’s malicious probing of a heart-wound which still bled, “I have already observed that any inuendoes touching Mademoiselle de Montmorenci displease me.” “Inuendoes! why, Marshal, even Condé confessed the other day that rich as was the prize, and surpassing the lady, he hesitated to accept ‘one whom the King’s attention had made so notorious!’ ” Bassompierre’s eyes flash. He is about to make an angry rejoinder when a page approaches and summons them to attend his Majesty. The marriage between Charlotte de Montmorenci and the Prince de Condé was, as had been anticipated, a failure. Condé, devoured by jealousy, shut up his wife at Chantilly, or at the still more remote Château of Muret. The petted beauty, accustomed to the incense of a Court and the avowed admiration of an infatuated sovereign, scolded and wept, but in vain. The more bitterly they quarrelled, the more deep and dangerous became Condé’s enmity to Henry. Disloyalty was the tradition of his race, rebellious practices with Spain the habit of his house. We have seen how a Condé was ready to usurp the throne under pretence of a Regency, during the conflict with the Huguenots at Amboise. His son, “the great Condé,” is by-and-by to head the standard of revolt, and at the head of Spanish troops to bring France to the brink of ruin. Avarice had led him to accept the hand of Charlotte de Montmorenci--avarice and poverty--and he had counted upon constant espionage and absence from Court as sufficient precautions. But he was young: he had yet to learn the wilfulness of his wife and the audacity of the King. As he gradually discovered that the Princess was neither to be soothed nor coerced, his rage knew no bounds. Sully, seriously alarmed at the rumours that reached him respecting the Prince’s language, requested a visit from him at the Arsenal.