In neither case, however, was he destined to be successful, both these ladies possessing too much self-respect to accord any attention to his illicit gallantries; and this failure, especially with the latter, of whom he had become seriously enamoured, only tended to re-engage him with Madame de Verneuil. Throughout all the period occupied by the christening festivities, Madame de Nevers[354] had been the object of his special pursuit; but so carefully did she avoid all occasions of private conversation, that the King, unaccustomed to so decided a resistance, became irritated to a degree which induced her to escape from the Court as soon as the found it practicable; and accordingly, on the very day after the festivities, she left Fontainebleau without any previous intimation of such a design, resisting all the efforts made by the sovereign to detain her. Nor did she yield to his subsequent endeavours for her recall, but on the appointment of her husband during the following year to the embassy at Rome, she accompanied him thither; and several months elapsed ere she reappeared in France, where her duty having compelled her to pay her respects to the Queen on her return, Henry was so little master of himself as to display his mortification by inquiring who she was, and on her name being announced, to exclaim loud enough for her to hear his reply: "Ha! Madame la Duchesse de Nevers! She is terribly altered." The shaft fell harmless. The lady evinced the most perfect composure under the royal criticism, and having fulfilled her duties as a subject towards her sovereigns, she once more withdrew from the Court, and terminated her life as she had commenced it, without scandal or reproach.[355] FOOTNOTES: [312] Mamanga was the name given in playfulness by the Dauphin to Madame de Montglat. [313] Madame de Drou was the governess of the infant Princess. [314] Mademoiselle de Piolant, femme-de-chambre to the royal children. [315] Sully, _Mém_. vol. vi. pp. 151-161. [316] Bassompierre, _Mém_. p. 45. [317] Madame Christine de France, who subsequently became Duchess of Savoy. [318] L'Etoile, vol. iii. p. 36; [319] _Mémoires_, p. 46. [320] Charles Emmanuel de Lorraine, Comte de Sommerive, second son of the Duc de Mayenne, who restored the city of Laon to the King in 1594, and died at Naples in 1609. [321] Charles de Gonzaga de Clèves, Duc de Nevers, was the son of Louis de Gonzaga, Prince of Mantua, Duc de Nevers, and Governor of Champagne (who died in 1601, and to whose title he succeeded), and of Henriette de Clèves, Duchesse de Nevers et de Réthel. [322] _Mercure Français_, 1606, pp. 100, 101. [323] Richelieu, _La Mère et le Fils_, vol. i. p. 14. [324] _Mercure Français_, 1606, p. 102. [325] _Mercure Français,_ 1606, p. 106. [326] L'Etoile, vol. iii. p. 358. [327] Mézeray, vol. x. p. 282. [328] Dreux du Radier, vol. vi. pp. 102, 103.