Enraged at this open violation of his wishes, and still reluctant to commence a war which he was conscious would rather owe its origin to private feeling than to national expediency, Henry resolved, as a last resource, to invest M. de Coeuvres with full powers to treat with the revolted Prince; and for this purpose he furnished him with an autograph letter, in which he assured the fugitive of an unreserved pardon in the event of his immediate return to France; but threatened, should he persist in his contumacy, to declare him guilty of the crime of _lèse-majesté._ M. de Condé simply replied to this missive by a declaration of his innocence, and his respect for the person of the King, and by protesting against all that might be done to prejudice his interests; nor did the interviews which took place between himself and the royal envoy prove more satisfactory, although the Marquis exerted all his eloquence to induce him to comply with the will of the sovereign. Moreover, the letter of Henry, instead of exciting his confidence, had rendered the Prince more suspicious than ever of the designs of the monarch; and he accordingly left Brussels, where he no longer considered himself safe, at the end of February (1610), and took refuge at Milan with the Condé de Fuentes, the governor of that city. More than one rumour had meanwhile reached the Archduchess that Madame de Condé was by no means so indifferent to the degrading passion of the King as was befitting to her honour, and the Princess was accordingly soon made sensible that her sojourn at Brussels had degenerated into a species of ceremonious imprisonment. Naturally vain and volatile, dazzled by the consciousness that she had become a sort of heroine, and moreover saddened by her memories of the brilliant existence from which she had been so suddenly shut out, the widowed bride would gladly have followed her husband to the gayer city of Milan, even wounded as she was by his indifference and coldness, rather than remain at the austere Court of the pious Infanta, where she was aware that her words and actions were subjected to the closest scrutiny; but the will of her father compelled her to remain at Brussels, the Connétable being apprehensive, from the marked neglect and suspicion evinced towards her by the Prince, that this latter might endeavour to remove her beyond the reach of her friends in order to hold her more completely in his power. Under this impression her father had consequently insisted upon her residence at the Archducal Court, and had instructed her to solicit the influence of the Infanta, and to employ every means in her own power, to prevent M. de Condé from effecting her removal in the event of his finding it himself expedient to leave Flanders.