The Queen of Navarre, having listened very attentively to Mme. de Dampierre, answered her rather coldly, but with a smiling face, as her manner was: “Madame de Dampierre, what you say to me may be good for you; you need favours, pleasures, and benefits, and were I you the words you say to me might be very suitable and proper to be received and put in practice; but to me, who am the daughter of a king, the sister of kings, and the wife of a king, they have no meaning; because with that high and noble rank I cannot, for my honour’s sake, be a beggar of favours and benefits from the king, my brother; and I hold him to be of too good a nature and too well acquainted with his duty to deny me anything unless I have the favour of a du Gua; if otherwise, he will do great wrong to himself, his honour, and his royalty. And even if he be so unnatural as to forget himself and what he owes to me, I prefer, for my honour’s sake and as my courage tells me, to be deprived of his good graces, because I would not seek du Gua to gain his favours, or be even suspected of gaining them by such means and intercession; and if the king, my brother, feels himself worthy to be king, and to be loved by me and by his people, I feel myself, as his sister, worthy to be queen and loved, not only by him but by all the world. And if my aunts, as you allege, degraded themselves as you say, let them do as they would if such was their humour, but their example is no law to me, nor will I imitate it, or form myself on any model if not my own.” On that she was silent, and Mme. de Dampierre retired; not that the queen was angry with her or showed her ill-will, for she loved her much. Another time, when M. d’Épernon went to Gascoigne after the death of Monsieur (a journey made for various purposes, so they said), he saw the King of Navarre at Pamiers, and they made great cheer and caresses to each other. I speak thus because at that time M. d’Épernon was semi-king of France because of the dissolute favour he had with his master, the King of France. After having caressed and made good cheer together the King of Navarre asked him to go and see him at Nérac when he had been to Toulouse and was on his way back; which he promised to do. The King of Navarre having gone there first to make preparations to feast him well, the Queen of Navarre, who was then at Nérac, and who felt a deadly hatred to M. d’Épernon, said to the king, her husband, that she would leave the place so as not to disturb or hinder the fête, not being able to endure the sight of M. d’Épernon without some scandal or venom of anger which she might disgorge, and so give annoyance to the king, her husband. On which the king begged her, by all the pleasures that she could give him, not to stir, but to help him to receive the said Sieur d’Épernon and to put her rancour against him underfoot for love of him, her husband, and all the more because it greatly concerned both of them and their grandeur.