Whatever offers Condé may have made, they had no effect upon Mary, who was now firmly resolved to marry Darnley, and was, besides, thoroughly disgusted with the unabashed selfishness of the Cardinal de Lorraine. But the Queen of Scotland was not the only card in his Eminence’s hand, and, though a match with the widowed Duchesse de Guise--whose infatuation for the fascinating Duc de Nemours was common knowledge--or with her daughter, a girl of thirteen, was not likely to prove so attractive to Condé, there was still a possibility that it might be arranged, and for months the Protestants were in a state of trepidation. Their alarm was shared by Catherine de’ Medici, to whom the prospect of so intimate a _rapprochement_ between the Houses of Bourbon and Lorraine was anything but pleasing. Fully sensible though her Majesty was of the importance of detaching the first Prince of the Blood from the Protestant cause, she judged that this advantage would be too dearly purchased by the subordination of the Crown to two ambitious families, which would be the inevitable consequence of their alliance; and she was determined to use every means in her power to avert such a calamity. It was, of course, the King’s prerogative to refuse to sanction a marriage of which he might happen to disapprove, but arbitrary measures seldom commended themselves to Catherine, who always preferred to gain her ends by indirect means, and shift the odium which she would otherwise incur upon the shoulders of her agents. She therefore bethought herself of Isabelle de Limeuil, who had lately been transferred from Vienne to the Château of Tournon. Here, ready to her hand, was a woman, who, as their intercepted correspondence had shown her, had contrived, notwithstanding the infidelities of Condé, to preserve all her power over him--a woman who knew better than any other how to govern that emotional and fickle heart, by associating the most incredible expressions of tenderness with the most exaggerated flatteries. If Isabelle and her prince were brought together again, if matters could be so arranged that the latter should be compelled to offer his mistress the shelter of one of his own residences, was it not probable that, in the joy of this reunion, the question of his second marriage would be relegated, for a time at least, to the background? And was it not probable, too, that the open scandal would provoke remonstrances from his co-religionists which would irritate Condé and widen the breach which existed between him and his party?