But the impulse of an exultant moment rapidly chilled in the case of Ercole and his duchess. Madame de Soubise's secret labours prevented any but the briefest pacification. And Ercole had not long been duke when he came to the conclusion that, even at the price of a break with France, the daily infliction of her person was no longer supportable. With as much tact as the circumstances permitted, he wrote to Francis I. upon the subject, and in the end received authority for her departure. But even so, difficulties arose about the actual journey, and she still continued long enough in Ferrara to negotiate one last unpleasantness for Ercole. He went away for a short time, and during his absence Madame de Soubise subtly arranged with the French royalties that Renée should at last go on a visit to her own country. Ercole returned to find the invitation waiting for him. He was placed by it in a very awkward position. An unhappy wife, quivering to tell a tale of misery and ill-treatment, was not a politic person to send to her own people when, should it suit them, they possessed the power to make affairs very difficult for the husband. On the other hand, to refuse might be to rouse suspicion and displeasure. Not entirely unperturbed, Ercole chose the second risk as the less dangerous of the two. In reply to the French invitation, he wrote that Renée had several small children to take care of, and that she was also still too feeble in health to undertake so long and dangerous a journey. The refusal came almost like a loss of all hope to Renée. Thought of it had been a sudden irradiating anticipation in the drear distastefulness of life. Nothing in a monotonous existence is more uplifting than an incident to make plans for, and now from the sudden quickening influence of a contemplated holiday she was flung back again upon the old confusing friction of her days in the grim Castello. Every year Ercole's interests diverged more widely from her own. Renée loved France instinctively, as people love the home of their forefathers. When she first married Ferrara's interests lay in friendship with France. But Ercole's policy brought him later to the side of Pope and Emperor, when support from France ceased to be important. After Madame de Soubise, therefore, had at last been sent from Italy, and all hope of Renée's going home had been withdrawn, the latter must have experienced almost a sense of desolation. The easement of heart entailed by merely telling the hoarded mischances of her married life would have warmed her spirit like a cordial. She did not naturally love Ercole better for getting rid of the woman who had been motherly to her all her days, and for having thwarted the one intense longing which it was in his power to gratify. Their antagonism quieted not a whit through the departure of Renée's governess; Ercole had rid himself of one grievance only to find another grow more hardy.