Departure of Anjou for Poland--Condé, compromised in the conspiracy of the “Politiques,” escapes to Strasbourg, where he reverts to the Protestant faith--Death of Charles IX., who is succeeded by the King of Poland--Flight of the new King from Cracow--Death of the Princesse de Condé: extravagant grief of Henry III.--Condé invades France at the head of an army of German mercenaries--The “_Paix de Monsieur_”--Condé endeavours to establish himself in the West of France--Formation of the League and renewal of the civil war--Condé refuses the hand of Mlle. de Vaudémont, Henry III.’s sister-in-law--His second Odyssey--He commands the Huguenot forces in Poitou and Saintonge--He proposes for the hand of Charlotte Catherine de la Trémoille--Letter of Mlle. de la Trémoille to the prince--He visits her at the Château of Taillebourg--Disastrous expedition of Condé against Angers--He is obliged to take refuge in Guernsey. The Court escorted the King of Poland as far as La Fère, Condé accompanying it. On taking leave of the Prince, his Majesty informed him that he had obtained for him the restoration of his government of Picardy and permission to proceed thither whenever he wished. This pretended favour was really a precautionary measure, for fresh troubles were brewing, and Catherine desired to separate Condé and the King of Navarre, and deprive the latter, who was erroneously believed to be as vacillating as his father, of the support and advice of his kinsman. However, Condé was well-pleased to turn his back on the Court, where he had suffered so many humiliations, and at the end of the autumn he set out for Amiens. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew had been not only a crime, but a blunder of the most fatal kind. It had shocked and horrified the moderate Catholic party--the “Politiques” as they had now begun to be called--and convinced their leaders, the Montmorencies, that the Queen-Mother intended their ruin after that of the Bourbons and the Châtillons. The result was a _rapprochement_ between the “Politiques” and the Huguenots, which, by the beginning of 1574, had developed into a vast conspiracy enveloping nearly the whole of France. Its secret head was Catherine’s youngest son, the ambitious and treacherous François, Duc d’Alençon, who had long chafed under the subjection to which his brother’s dislike and his mother’s indifference had relegated him, and was determined to assert himself at all hazards. The plans of the conspirators were carefully laid. At the end of February, risings were to take place simultaneously in Normandy, Picardy, Champagne, Poitou, Dauphiné, Guienne, and Languedoc; while a bold Huguenot chief, the Sieur de Guitry-Bertichères, with several hundred men, was to force the gates of the Château of Saint-Germain, where the Court was then residing, and carry off Alençon and the King of Navarre, who would at once put themselves at the head of the rebels.