The counsel of the more prudent members of the party was to leave things alone, and to trust to time. It proved a wise decision. Passions of this kind are more frequently nourished than overcome by opposition; while, on the other hand, the greater the facilities for enjoying the society of the enchantress, the more speedily do disillusion and lassitude arrive. After the first rapture of the reunion, Condé began to ask himself whether, after all, he was not acting very unwisely in quarrelling with his personal friends and jeopardizing his political future for the sake of a girl who had been the cause of so much scandal, and who, he had good reason to believe, had not even troubled to remain faithful to him. Isabelle, perceiving that the prince had not the least intention of regularizing their connexion, and mortified by the manner in which her name was being bandied about, began to regard Condé as the author of her misfortunes. Hence arose quarrels, tears, recriminations. Condé reproached Isabelle with her intimacy with Du Fresne and others. Isabelle retorted by accusing the prince of neglecting her for the Maréchale de Saint-André, to whom, in recognition of the gift of Valery, he had felt obliged to pay some fugitive attentions, and did not fail to take advantage of the opportunity which his acceptance of the maréchale’s calculating generosity afforded her for the exercise of her powers of sarcasm. Wit is a dangerous weapon for lovers to play with, and Isabelle’s was sharper than a two-edged sword. At length, the situation became so unpleasant that Condé determined to put an end to it; and, towards the close of the spring, he broke of his own free will with Isabelle and was reconciled to the Protestants. They, needless to say, received the repentant prodigal with open arms and lost no time in setting to work to procure him a second wife. They found her in Mlle. de Longueville,[76] a young lady who joined to high rank and the profession of the Reformed faith considerable personal attractions, and, in September, Condé set off for Niort to obtain the King’s sanction to his marriage, “leaving the Maréchale de Saint-André dissolved in tears and regrets for having been so foolish as to consume her substance in vain expenses to acquire the quality of the wife of a Prince of the Blood.” Catherine, though disappointed at the reconciliation between Condé and his party, was greatly relieved that the prospect of an alliance with the Guises had come to nothing; and Charles IX., on her advice, not only expressed his approval of the marriage, but authorized its celebration at the Court, according to the rites of the Protestant religion, where it took place on 5 November 1565.