Gregory XIII., who had just caused a medal to be struck with his own portrait on one side, and, on the other, a destroying angel immolating the Huguenots, was graciously pleased to accord the petition of the young couple, and granted them absolution and dispensation, in virtue of which they were married again, this time according to the Catholic ritual, in the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés (December, 1572). Notwithstanding their abjuration, the King of Navarre and Condé were still regarded with suspicion and remained in a sort of quasi-captivity. Their position was a difficult one, and it must have needed all their self-control to prevent them from openly resenting the sneers and taunts which the nobles of the Court felt themselves safe in levelling at them. “On All Hallows’ Eve,” writes L’Estoile, “the King of Navarre was playing tennis with the Duc de Guise, when the scant consideration which was shown this little prisoner of a kinglet, at whom he threw all kinds of jests and taunts, deeply pained a number of honest people who were watching them play.”[96] The “kinglet,” however, knew how to accommodate himself to circumstances, and was often able to turn the laugh on his own side by some lively repartée. After a while, too, Charles IX., who had always entertained a strong liking for Henri, began to treat him with kindness and even affection, in consequence of which even the Guises felt obliged to show him a certain degree of deference. [Illustration: HENRI I DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE CONDÉ FROM A LITHOGRAPH BY DELPECH, AFTER THE PAINTING BY MAUZAISSE] With Condé, however, it was very different. To one of his austere nature, this Court, which had degenerated to such an appalling extent, owing to the corruption of morals produced by the civil wars, that vice had become the mode, and virtue, even ordinary decency, was mocked at and derided, must have seemed the very anti-chamber of hell; and he was at no pains to conceal the disgust with which it inspired him. The King of Navarre might drink and gamble with the murderers of his faithful followers, and make love to the high-born courtesans who had passed obscene jests on the stripped corpses of the Huguenot nobles as they lay in the courtyard of the Louvre on that terrible morning. Policy required, he said, that he and his cousin should dissimulate their feelings. Well, let him do it! For himself, he would have no dealings with them, beyond that which ordinary courtesy demanded. And so he stood aloof, a gloomy, silent figure--an object of suspicion, dislike and derision to King and courtiers alike--with none to sympathize or condole with him in his loneliness and humiliation.