The girl, who well knew whom she had to thank for these annoyances, was furious against La Roche-sur-Yon, and made no secret of the hatred which she entertained for him. One of those to whom she expressed her opinion of the prince was the Comte de Maulevrier,[58] a great admirer of hers, who had himself no cause to love his Highness. In the summer of 1560, it had happened that Maulevrier was hunting with the prince’s only son, the Marquis de Beaupréau, a boy of thirteen. The marquis’s horse stumbled and fell; Maulevrier, who was close behind, was unable to stop his, and the animal came down with all its weight upon the unfortunate lad, who was so badly crushed that he died shortly afterwards. Although this calamity was obviously due to pure accident, La Roche-sur-Yon, who had been passionately attached to his son, conceived the most violent resentment against Maulevrier, and swore that he should answer for the boy’s life with his own. So threatening an attitude did he assume, that the count deemed it prudent to go into hiding for some time, and though, thanks to the intervention of Catherine, the bereaved father was eventually persuaded to forego his vengeance, it was only on the understanding that Maulevrier should never again venture to appear before him. Maulevrier had no desire to do so, and carefully avoided the prince, until one day, in the previous summer, they happened to meet by accident. No sooner did La Roche-sur-Yon catch sight of the involuntary murderer, than he drew his sword and rushed upon him like a madman, and the count only saved himself from being spitted like a fowl by promptly taking to his heels. Such being the relations between La Roche-sur-Yon and Maulevrier, it is not surprising that Isabelle should have expected to find in the latter a sympathetic listener, when she inveighed against the prince as the instigator of all the annoyances to which she and her colleagues were being subjected by the Grand Mistress, or that, when in his company, she should have occasionally indulged in that extravagant language in which angry and excitable women are accustomed to find an outlet for their wounded feelings, but to which, fortunately for them, sensible people seldom attach any importance. For how could she have imagined that Maulevrier, who had always expressed so much admiration for her, and who had himself been subjected to such unmerited persecution at the hands of La Roche-sur-Yon, would betray her confidences to their common enemy? But Maulevrier, whether because he had some secret grudge against the girl, or, more probably, because he hoped that, by pretending to render a great service to La Roche-sur-Yon, he might persuade that personage to be reconciled to him, gave a most sinister interpretation to the expressions which the exasperated Isabelle permitted to escape her, and communicated them to the prince, with no doubt a good many exaggerations.