Interesting indeed must have been the letters which passed at this time between the captive of Tournon and the enamoured prince, as the result of which Isabelle was not only rescued from her prison, but conducted to her lover at Valery, the château presented to Condé by her rival--a piquant revenge, in good truth, upon the Maréchale de Saint-André for the advantage which she had taken of Isabelle’s enforced absence from the field! Unfortunately, the correspondence has not been preserved, and the only light cast upon the situation is a passage in a despatch from Smith to Cecil, dated 10 April, 1565: “The Prince de Condé has by a certain gentleman stolen Mademoiselle de Lymoel (_sic_) from Tournon, where she was kept, and has her with him.”[72] And has her with him! Yes, under the same roof! “_Grand Dieu!_ it was enough to make Calvin rise from his grave!”[73] cried the Huguenot pastors, holding up their hands in righteous horror. “Had the prince taken leave of his senses that he should choose to create a public scandal and make ‘the Religion’ a by-word in the mouths of the forward, at the very moment when Catherine and Philip of Spain were believed to be plotting its destruction? Had not the way of salvation been made sufficiently plain to him? Had not Bèze and Pérussel and l’Espine and Laboissière spread the choicest flowers of their eloquence before him, and in sermons two hours long insisted on the necessity of the leaders of the faithful leading lives that should be beyond reproach. And this was the result! Out upon him for an evil-liver and an apostate!” The politicians of the party were scarcely less indignant than the divines, and the reappearance of Isabelle upon the scene was the signal for a very pretty quarrel between them and the prince, of which a piquant account is given in an anonymous letter in Italian in the Simancas Collection: “I have seen a letter of Madame de Chelles,[74] from which she appears to entertain great hopes of friendship between her brother and the cardinal [de Lorraine]. My friend and I think that nothing can be founded upon the words or the acts of so frivolous a man as Condé shows himself to be, who is at present more than ever enamoured of his Limeuil. Paroceli[75] has been here four or five days, and has preached in private to his Huguenots. Languet learned from him that dissension has arisen, on the subject of la Limeuil, between Condé and Châtillon [Coligny], and subsequently between the aforesaid Condé and his followers, in such manner that Châtillon has parted from him, has come to Paris, and has withdrawn, some say to Châtillon, others to an abbey belonging to him, and that Condé’s followers have almost all abandoned him.