The new Princesse de Condé was in many ways an estimable young woman, and the marriage, which was to be cut short by the prince’s tragic death three years later, appears to have been a happy one. She had, however, been very strictly brought up and was, moreover, of a decidedly jealous disposition, and she was determined not to permit the souvenirs of her husband to be dragged about France by his former mistresses. No sooner married, than, following the example of the Duchesse d’Étampes when she had supplanted Madame de Châteaubriand in the affections of François I., she imperiously demanded of the prince that he should require Isabelle to restore all the presents that he had made her; and Condé, who was one of those men who are quite incapable of resisting the caprices of the preferred of the moment, was mean enough to obey. When the messenger sent by the prince informed Isabelle of the object of his visit, she flew into the most violent passion and made so terrible a scene that, had he not happened to be a Huguenot of a particularly inflexible type, he would doubtless have returned to Condé and reported the failure of his mission. As it was, he waited patiently until her fury had expended itself, and then repeated his request. The lady left the room and presently returned with a packet, in which she had placed all the jewels she had received from Condé and a portrait of the prince by a celebrated painter, the first token of his love that he had given her. Sitting down at the table, she placed the portrait before her and decorated it with an enormous pair of horns; and then contemptuously tossed it and the packet of jewels to the astonished messenger. “Take them, my friend,” said she, “and carry them to your master; I send him everything that he gave me. I have neither added nor taken away anything. Tell that beautiful princess, his wife, who has importuned him so much to demand from me what he gave me, that, if a certain nobleman--mentioning him by name--had treated her mother in the same way, and had claimed and taken away all that he had given her, she would be as poor in trinkets and jewels as any demoiselle of the Court. Well, let her make use of the paste and the baubles; I leave them to her.”[77] It is to be hoped that Condé had the grace to feel ashamed of himself when his messenger returned; but since, in common with the majority of his contemporaries, he possessed a pretty thick skin, we are inclined to doubt whether such a reproof would have occasioned him more than a momentary vexation. Public opinion, we are told, however, judged him very severely, and declared that he had acted most ungenerously “in having despoiled this poor lady, who had honestly earned such presents _par la sueur de son corps_.”[78]