It was in the midst of this splendid dissipation that the Regent received tidings of the death of the Duc de Mayenne, a loss which, from the good understanding recently established between herself and that Prince, was of serious importance to her authority; while the event produced a still more painful impression from the fact that his wife, Henrietta of Savoy, had died of grief a few days subsequently, and that they had been carried to the grave together. The next news which reached the Court was that of the demise of Marguerite of Austria, Queen of Spain; an event which, from the recent treaty concluded between the two countries, had become doubly interesting to France. This Princess, who was the daughter of Charles, Archduke of Gratz, Duke of Styria and Carinthia, and of Marie of Bavaria, had become the wife of Philip III in November 1599; and had left four sons, viz. Philip, Charles, Ferdinand, and Alfonso; and two daughters, Anne and Marguerite, the former of whom was promised to Louis XIII. Other and more personal interests sufficed, nevertheless, to dry the tears of the Queen-mother, as at this period the Duchesse de Lorraine explained the purport of her visit; which, it is asserted, was to induce her royal niece to redeem the pledge given by her deceased husband that the Dauphin should espouse the Princesse de Lorraine, who would bring as her dowry to the young King the duchies of Lorraine and Bar. Marie was, however, too deeply compromised with Spain as well as with the Pope and the Grand Duke of Tuscany, both of whom were earnest to effect the completion of that alliance, to follow up a policy which could not but have proved much more beneficial to the French nation; while the Condé de Fuentes, who immediately suspected the purpose of Madame de Lorraine, loudly and arrogantly asserted that the French King could not have two wives; that his marriage with the Infanta was concluded; and that his sovereign was not to be cheated with impunity.[122] Oppressed by this double weight of regret and anxiety, Marie and her Court returned to the Louvre; but her grief was still fated to be fearfully increased, for she had scarcely established herself in the palace when her maternal terrors were suddenly awakened by intelligence of the dangerous illness of her second son, the Duc d'Orléans, upon which she hastened to St. Germain. The fiat had, however, gone forth, and two days subsequently the little Prince, upon whose precocious intellect and sweetness of disposition so many hopes had been built up, was a corpse in his mother's arms; and within a few hours Madame de Lorraine and her brother had taken leave of their illustrious relative, while the Court of the Louvre, so lately giddy with gaiety, was once more draped in sables.[123]