Here, some further pretext is invented for detaining him some days longer at the Court, but he resigns himself to the delay with a good grace, for those few minutes’ conversation in the ante-chamber have not been barren of result. A few hours later, he receives a courteous note from Catherine, greatly regretting the inconvenience to which he is being subjected and inviting him to a ball which she is giving the following evening. “The Religion” looks with scant favour on such worldly pleasures, but he tells himself that it would be churlish, perhaps impolitic, to refuse. Naturally, he meets Mademoiselle, arrayed in a ravishing toilette--very probably a present from the Queen--and looking more alluring than ever. He requests to be presented to her; they dance together, and he finds her as charming as she is beautiful. Opportunities for further meetings will not be wanting, for by this time the girl has received her instructions from headquarters; and soon there will be no further need for Catherine to devise pretexts for keeping the gentleman at Court. When our Huguenot’s partisans learn what is going on, they will write letter upon letter, warning him that an ambush is being laid for him, and reproaching him with bringing discredit upon the Faith. But he is now fairly in the toils, and their warnings and reproaches will serve no purpose save to irritate him against them and loosen the ties which bind him to them. Perhaps, lured by the blandishments of his inamorata and incensed by the suspicions of his party, he will end by abandoning it altogether; at the least, a breach will be created between them which will not be easy to heal, and some very useful information, which has escaped his lips in unguarded moments, will find its way into Catherine’s cabinet. It was thus that Condé’s elder brother, Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarre, had met Louise de la Beraudière,[25] Demoiselle de Rouet--_la belle_ Rouet, as the Court called her--in whom he found so refreshing a contrast to his sharp-featured and austere consort that he permitted her to lead him whither she, or rather Catherine, willed.[26] She was the cause of his death. Wounded at the siege of Rouen and scarcely convalescent, he called her to him, and “behaved as though he considered that kings were immortal,” with the result that might be expected. “Cy-gist le corps au vers en proye Du roy qui mourut pour la Roye [Rouet]. Cy-gist qui quitta Jésus-Christ Pour un royaume par escript,[27] Et sa femme très vertueuse Pour une puante morveuse.” So ran a Huguenot epitaph on the ill-fated Antoine. But her connexion with the King of Navarre did not prevent _la belle_ Rouet from making an advantageous marriage with Robert de Gombault, Sieur d’Arcis-sur-l’Aube, _maître d’hôtel_ to Charles IX., whom she presented with two daughters. * * * * *