When she died, Henry proposed to replace her by Mademoiselle D'Entragues, whose beauty had made some sensation at court. Negotiations were opened with the lady, who dutifully placed the matter in the hands of her family, and father, mother, and brothers began to treat with the king for the prostitution of their daughter and sister. They asked a hundred thousand crowns. The king thought the sum large, and offered fifty thousand, but the family refusing to give way, he acceded to their demands. They then added that they would like to have a promise of marriage, conditioned upon the lady's bearing a male child within a year. To this likewise Henry agreed, in spite of Sully's remonstrances; and Mdlle. D'Entragues became the acknowledged mistress of the king. It need not be added that the promise of marriage was never fulfilled. Some time afterward Henry fell in love with a young lady who was betrothed to Marshal Bassompierre. As ardent as ever, he sent for the marshal, explained his feelings, and ordered Bassompierre to renounce his claims. The marshal obeyed, and Henry married the lady (who was a Montmorency) to the Prince of Condé. The marriage was hardly over before the king opened negotiations with the bride. It will be scarcely credited that the emissary he employed was the mother of the Prince of Condé, who left no means untried to effect the dishonor of her son. The prince, of less complacent temper than most other courtiers, refused to allow his wife to become the king's mistress. He removed her from France, and, just as Henry was about to send after her, the assassin Ravaillac freed Condé from the danger. The disorders of Henry III., the predecessor of the King of Navarre, are shamefully notorious. There was a time during his reign when, for the same reason which induced the establishment of _Dicteria_ at Athens, prostitution almost seemed a desirable institution at Paris. In his youth he had been a famous seducer of the ladies of honor. An anecdote of his life at this period not only reveals the tone of the court, but happily shows that depravity was not so universal as might be imagined. When Henry was chosen King of Poland, he was anxious to settle his mistress, Mdlle. de Chateauneuf, by finding her a husband. He applied to a courtier, the Provost of Paris, M. de Nantonillet, but received the scathing reply that "M. de Nantonillet would not marry a prostitute till the king had established brothels in the Louvre." It is best, perhaps, to throw a veil over the later stories of Henry III., his _mignons_, and the frightful infamies that were practiced in Paris in his time. They may be divined from the fact that Brantome mentions some orgies in which the king and a party of friends, male and female, stripped themselves naked, and tried to place themselves on a level with the brute creation, as rather redeeming instances of his sensuality.