“Not at all, Sire; but my heart and my feelings also are with your Majesty, not with the Princess. Proceed, Sire, with this touching narrative.” “Condé then, says Laperrière, the night beginning to fall, purchased a pillion at Couçy, and mounted his wife behind him on horseback.” Sully shook with laughter; but fearing to offend his master, suppressed it as well as he could. “Her two attendants mounted behind two of the suite, the guides being in advance. It rained heavily. _Pardieu!_ I can hardly bear to speak of it. My dear Charlotte in such a condition! The night was dark; but Condé rode on like a devil incarnate to Castellin, the first village across the frontier. When she was taken down, Charlotte fainted.” The tears ran down Henry’s cheeks as he said this. “She fainted; and then Laperrière, convinced of some treason on the part of my nephew, despatched his son to tell me these particulars. Now, Sully,” and the King rose suddenly and seized his hand, shaking off the sorrow that had overcome him during the narrative, “now tell me, what am I to do? I would lose my Crown rather than not succour her.” “Do nothing, Sire,” replied Sully quietly. “How, Sully! Do nothing?” “Yes, Sire; I advise you--I implore you, do nothing. If you leave Condé to himself he will be laughed at. Even his friends will ridicule his escapade. In three months he will be back again at Court with the Princess, ashamed of himself. Meantime Madame la Princesse will see foreign Courts, acquire the Spanish manner from the Archduchess, and return more fascinating than ever. On the other hand, if you pursue him, you will exalt him into a political victim; all your Majesty’s enemies will rally round him.” Excellent advice, which the King was too infatuated to follow! Forgetting all decency, and even the law of nations, he insisted on punishing Condé as a rebel, and called on the Spanish Government formally to release the Princess. Spain refused; and this ridiculous passion may be said to have been the approximate cause of that formidable alliance against Spain in which, at the time of his death, Henry was about to engage. The favour which Henry had shown his Protestant subjects had long rankled in the minds of the Catholics. He was held to be a renegade and a traitor. It was affirmed that his conversion was a sham, to which he lent himself only the more effectually to advance the interests of the reformed faith. While he gave himself up to amorous follies and prepared for foreign wars, a network of hate, treachery, and fanaticism was fast closing around him. Enemies and spies filled the Louvre, and dogged his every movement. Already the footsteps of the assassin approached. After the birth of the Dauphin a strong political party had gathered round Marie de’ Medici. Her constant dissensions with the King, her bitter complaints, and the scandal of his private life, afforded sufficient grounds for elevating her into a kind of martyr.