Death of the Princesse de Condé--Question of the prince’s remarriage--The Maréchale de Saint-André’s bid for his hand--Rumours of a matrimonial alliance with the Guises--Catherine de’ Medici, alarmed at such a prospect, resolves to set Mlle. de Limeuil at liberty--Isabelle joins Condé at Valery--Intense indignation of the Huguenots at the scandalous conduct of the prince--Quarrel between Condé and Coligny--The leaders of the party take counsel together “to find a remedy for so great an evil”--The deputation of Protestant pastors--Condé declines to separate from his mistress, but eventually breaks with her--His marriage with Mlle. de Longueville--Condé persuaded by his wife to demand the return of the presents he has given his mistress--Revenge of Isabelle--Her marriage--Renewal of the civil war--Battle of Saint-Denis--Peace of Longjumeau--Flight of Condé to La Rochelle--Third war of Religion breaks out--Battle of Jarnac--Death of Condé. Meanwhile, an event had occurred which had occasioned a great stir in both political camps. The gloomy prognostications of the Princesse de Condé’s physicians, which her husband had at first ridiculed, proved only too correct; all through the remainder of the spring and the first weeks of summer the poor lady was gradually becoming weaker, and by the middle of July it was plain that she had but a few days to live. To the last she was full of consideration for the husband who had shown so little consideration for her. “Fearing to distress him too much, if she told him herself that she felt death approaching,” writes her biographer, “the princess charged two grave personages, friends of her family, to go to Condé’s apartments, to acquaint him with what she foresaw must soon happen, and to ask to be allowed to entrust him with her last wishes in an authentic form. ‘Tell the prince’ said she to these two friends, ‘that, since God is pleased so soon to separate our bodies, I trust that at least our souls may continue to be bound inseparably together in the love that we ought to bear to our common Saviour Jesus Christ, who has delivered us so miraculously, in the eyes of all Europe, from so many enemies and dangers. Tell him also that,--to begin my will,--I constitute him the universal heir to the mass of love I have vowed to my children, and I conjure him, in loving them doubly henceforth both for himself and for me, to keep vigil in my place, so that they may be brought up in the fear of God, which I am convinced is the surest estate and patrimony that I can bequeath to them’”[66]