Quand le soleil tout riant D’Orient Nous monstre sa blonde tresse, Il me semble que je voy Devant moy Lever ma belle maistresse. Quand je sens, parmi les prez Diaprez, Les fleurs dont la terre est pleine, Lors je fais croire à mes sens Que je sens La douceur de son haleine. Je voudrois, au bruit de l’eau D’un ruisseau, Desplier ses tresses blondes, Frizant en autant de nœus Ses cheveux Que je verrois frizer d’ondes. Je voudrois, pour la tenir, Devenir Dieu des ces forests désertes La baisant autant de fois Qu’en un bois Il y a de feuilles vertes.” With the exception of Du Fresne, who passed for her _amant de cœur_, it is doubtful if any of the gentlemen we have named ever saw his hopes materialize, for the fair Isabelle was exceedingly fastidious. Moreover, she appears to have been one of those sirens who have a nice appreciation of the commercial value of their charms, and who not only set an exalted price upon their favours, but do not scruple to discount it in advance and subsequently decline to meet their obligations. “Monseigneur,” writes she to the Duc d’Aumale, in a letter appealing to his benevolence, “if you have not discovered how much I desired to do the thing which was agreeable to you, it was not because you had not the means, but the will.”[31] Isabelle lent herself the more readily to Catherine’s plans, since the mission confided to her was one in which her inclination happened to harmonize with her interests. For she seems to have been attracted from the first by this good-humoured little man, with his pleasant face and his laughing eyes, who danced so gracefully, paid such pretty compliments to the ladies, and, notwithstanding his lack of inches, could hold his own in manly exercises with any gentleman at the Court. And, besides, he was a Prince of the Blood and one of the bravest captains in France; and his narrow escape from the scaffold three years before, his exploits in the field, and his recent captivity, all of which naturally made a powerful appeal to ladies of a romantic disposition, had greatly enhanced the favour with which he had always been regarded by the opposite sex, many of whom would have been only too willing to accept him as a “_serviteur_.” As for Condé, flattered by the preference of a young beauty for whom some of the most fascinating gallants of the Court had sighed in vain, he never paused to consider how far this _bonne fortune_ was due to his own attractions, but plunged into it with the same impetuosity with which on the battlefield he threw himself into the thick of the enemy’s squadrons. He promised himself merely an agreeable adventure; he found one of those entanglements from which it is a difficult matter to escape. * * * * *