However, a little reflection sufficed to convince the Huguenot leaders that the discredit which it was bringing upon their Faith was not the most serious aspect of Condé’s infatuation for Isabelle; in other words, that Catherine was at the bottom of the affair, and had deliberately thrown the two together again, “with a view to the prince becoming what his brother had already become by means of la Rouet.” “Suspecting which,” continues the writer of the letter already cited, “the gentlemen of Condé’s party took counsel together to find a remedy for so great an evil, and resolved upon three courses: first, that the ministers should speak out roundly to him, representing the personal danger and disgrace of the affair, and the scandal common to the whole Religion, since he was its chief, and persuade him, if he could not keep continent, to take a wife. The second remedy, if the first did not succeed, was for the principal gentleman of the Religion, acting in common accord, and his own intimate friends, to wait upon him and address to him the same remonstrances, making him understand that, if he did not separate himself from la Limeuil, they would leave him alone; and, in effect, if he declined to do so, they would leave him. The third remedy, in the event of the first two not succeeding, was that la Limeuil should be excommunicated, anathematized, and delivered into the power of Satan.” In accordance with these resolutions, a deputation selected from the most prominent Huguenot divines waited upon the backsliding prince at Valery and endeavoured to awaken him to a sense of the error of his ways. Condé received his reverend friends courteously enough, but declared that he “could not keep continent and could not take a wife, since it was difficult to find a person of his own rank belonging to the same religion, and impossible to find one of another religion.” Sadly the ministers withdrew, and the lay deputation advanced to the attack. It met with anything but a cordial reception: indeed, his Highness expressed his opinion of its interference with his private affairs in such exceedingly plain language that it was obliged to beat a precipitate retreat. Whence, we are told, “the Religion found itself in great trouble and knew not what further to do, since it feared to make matters worse by excommunicating la Limeuil, Condé being of a nature so inclined to women that there was great danger lest la Limeuil should have more power over him than the Religion.”