This lady, thus richly gifted with youth, beauty, and high birth, had been, even before her appearance at Court, promised in marriage by her father to the Maréchal de Bassompierre, to whom indeed he had himself offered her hand,[393] but she was no sooner seen by Henry in the circle of the Queen than he became violently enamoured of her person, and resolved to prevent the alliance; a determination in which he found himself strengthened by the remonstrances of the Duc de Bouillon, the nephew of the Connétable, and consequently the cousin of the young beauty, whose favour Bassompierre had, in the excess of his happiness, neglected to conciliate, and who represented to the King that he could not conceal his astonishment on ascertaining that his Majesty was about to permit the union of Mademoiselle de Montmorency with a mere noble, however deserving of such distinction, when the Prince de Condé had attained to a marriageable age, and that it would be imprudent to countenance his alliance with a foreign princess; while as regards himself, he could not discover another eligible match save his cousin or Mademoiselle du Maine; and he was inclined to believe that none of the advisers of his Majesty would counsel him to authorize his own marriage with the latter, while the remnant of the League continued so formidable as to threaten a still more forcible and dangerous demonstration should they once find themselves under a leader with the power which he possessed to further their cause. He then represented that his alliance with Mademoiselle de Montmorency would involve no such results, as the allies and interests of the Connétable were his own, and concluded by entreating that his Majesty, before he sanctioned the marriage of Bassompierre with his cousin, would give the matter ample reflection.[394]