The Huguenots were now in unrestrained power in France, and Elizabeth, as usual when she was in fear of Spain, was carrying on a desperate flirtation with the Duke of Anjou, and surpassing herself in her blandishment to Catharine de Medici. Simultaneously with the expulsion of de Spes from England, the Spanish ambassador in Paris, Don Francés de Alava, found France similarly uncongenial to him; for he had been plotting against the Huguenots as de Spes had plotted against the Protestants, and had fled in disguise to Flanders, so that Philip found himself alienated both from England and France at the same time, a position that always made him uneasy, especially now that not only a marriage but a national alliance was in full negotiation between Elizabeth and Catharine.[204] For the next six months the farcical political courtship of the young Duke of Alençon, the boy brother of Anjou and the King of France, was carried on furiously by the middle-aged Queen of England as an antidote for the unappeasable anger of Spain. But with her usual diplomacy, now that she had worked her will in everything, Elizabeth thought best not to drive Philip into violent courses against her. She had seized his million ducats and all the property of his subjects in England, she had unmasked all his plots, had expelled his ambassador, flouted his great viceroy Alba, her subjects had harried Spanish ships on every sea, and helped unchecked the Dutch rebels who defied him; but she did not wish to go to war with him if she could help it, especially if she could gain all she wanted without doing so. When the Spanish ambassador in Paris was about to escape, Walsingham, the English ambassador, had gone and congratulated him upon the great naval victory over the Turks in the Mediterranean that King Philip’s brother, Don Juan, had just gained at Lepanto; and then, after asking many curious questions about Don Juan, Walsingham had said to Don Francés, as if in joke, “This sounds like a marriage, does it not?” The Spaniard retorted in the same tone, “Yes; let you and I manage it together.” With this opening Walsingham became serious, and enlarged upon Elizabeth’s personal obligations and liking for her Spanish brother-in-law, and the turpitude of certain ministers in sowing discord between them. If it were not for the obstacle of religion, he continued, the marriage hinted at might take place. It was, of course, mere talk, and was intended to be no more; but Walsingham spoke with a purpose, and knew that his mistress thought it time to repair some of the broken ties that held her country to Spain.