Although she was treated with extreme kindness by the Infanta, the young princess had grown heartily weary of the dull little Court of Brussels, and not only stimulated the passion of her royal adorer by the tenderness of her replies to his letters, but complained bitterly of the restraints to which she was subjected, and which, she declared, would have a most serious effect upon her health, unless his Majesty procured her speedy liberation. Meanwhile, Condé, at Milan, was becoming as bored with the imperturbable gravity and solemn pomp which surrounded him as was his young wife at Brussels, and, in order to find some distraction from the monotony of his existence, had been driven to the study of the antiquities of the neighbourhood and to beginning a translation of Tacitus, under the guidance of his learned secretary, Virey. Fearing that the prince might be persuaded to cast in his lot definitely with the Spaniards, the French Government despatched agents to represent to him that it would be more consonant with his dignity as a Prince of the Blood were he to remove to Rome and place himself under the protection of the common father of the faithful, rather than under that of the common enemy of his race and country. Condé seemed disposed to adopt this suggestion, but the arguments of Fuentes, and the news of the invasion of Lombardy by the Duke of Savoy and Lesdiguières, caused him to abandon all idea of leaving Milan, and to place himself entirely under the guidance of Spain. Had Henri IV. lived, two things are tolerably certain to have happened: the first, that the Archdukes would sooner or later have been compelled to surrender the princess; the second, that Condé would have been found in arms against his country. But, on 14 May, 1610, the knife of Ravaillac settled the question both of love and war, and Henri de Bourbon, with all his greatness and his littleness, his splendid schemes and his shameful passions, was but lifeless clay.