The conference was renewed, this time in the presence of the Queen-Mother. Catherine had always exercised a great influence over Condé, and, only a few months before, in an interview between them at Thoury, she had all but brought him to conclude peace on her own conditions, when Coligny had interfered and caused the negotiations to be broken off. Now, however, Coligny was far away, and Catherine did not fail to press her advantage home. She made an eloquent appeal to the prince’s patriotism; she flattered him; she “insinuated that, if he were to conclude peace without being too obstinate over the conditions, he should be elevated to the rank of the late King of Navarre, his brother,[20] and might do, from that time, all that he wished for those of the Religion.” [Illustration: LOUIS I DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE CONDÉ FROM AN ENGRAVING] Condé was ambitious; he was far from unsusceptible to flattery, and he ardently desired to recover his freedom. He looked at the subtle diplomatist who was speaking him so fair, and forced himself to believe that she was sincere in her protestations. He looked at Damville and his guards, and thought with a shudder of the gloomy fortress which he had lately left, and to which it would probably be his fate to return, if the negotiations were broken off. And then his glance wandered to the maids-of-honour, standing just out of earshot, and rested on Isabelle de Limeuil; and he felt his heart beat a trifle faster, as he noted her charming face and the graceful lines of her figure. Did she not represent all the pleasures of the Court from which he had been so long separated, but which it was now in his power to enjoy again? The prince was already won over, already prepared to accept important modifications of the “Edict of January,” when, that same evening, with the consent of the Queen, he entered Orléans to confer with the council of the Protestant Association. He found the council divided into two sharply defined parties; on the one side were all the ministers, to the number of seventy-two, with Théodore de Bèze at their head; on the other, the great majority of the Huguenot gentlemen. “The men of war demanded only peace; the ministers of the Holy Gospel called for the continuance of the war, at least until the “Edict of January” was re-established in its entirety, and invited the prince to require the King to mete out rigorous punishment to all ‘atheists, freethinkers, Anabaptists, Servetists, and other heretics and schismatics.’ Barely escaped from the stake themselves, they demanded the right to drag other victims to it.”[21]