Leicester in the meanwhile was furious, and the Spanish ambassador was missing no opportunity of fanning the flame of discontent against the marriage. The Queen dined alone with Alençon in Simier’s room on the 17th of August, the day after his arrival, and although the young Prince was no beauty, with his swart, pocked-marked face, Elizabeth at once fell in love with him. He became from the first day her “frog” (grenouille), and the little endearments of the two young lovers went on ceaselessly all day, and often far into the night. “The Queen,” writes Mendoza on the 25th of August, “is delighted with Alençon, and he with her, as she has let out to some of her courtiers, saying that she was pleased to have known him, was much taken with his good parts, and admired him more than any man. She says that for her part she will not stand in the way of his being her husband.”[110] Castelnau, the French ambassador, writing at the same time, says to the Queen-mother: “These loving conferences have lasted eight days. The lady has with difficulty been able to entertain the Duke, being captivated, overcome with love: she told me she had never found a man whose nature and actions suited her better. She begs me to write to your Majesty asking you not to punish him too much for the great folly of risking so much in coming to see a woman so unworthy as she is.” The young Prince had been brought up in a Court where love-making was the great business of life, and flattered and languished as successfully as La Mole and Simier had done, and Elizabeth’s overweening vanity had probably never been so satisfied before. She gave a ball on Sunday, the 23rd of August, 1579, at Greenwich, Alençon, being only half hidden behind the arras. The Queen danced and posed even more than usual, and ever and anon made signals to her guest, of whose presence all the courtiers pretended to be ignorant. On the same night news came to the Duke that his staunch friend, Bussy d’Amboise, had at last been killed in a duel, and on the 27th Alençon started by coach to Dover to take the ship which was awaiting to carry him to Calais. Castelnau said after he went that he wrote letters “ardent enough to set fire to water,” and to judge from the curious letters sent by him and Simier from Dover before he embarked, the ambassador was not very wide of the mark. These letters are in the Hatfield collection, and are worth transcribing as a specimen of the love-letters of the time, although that of the Prince seems to our eyes a perfect burlesque, considering that it was written by a lover of twenty-four to a mature beauty of nearly double his age. He is, he says, envious of his letter which will reach her hand. He dare not commit himself to a long discourse, knowing well that he is not himself, as he is continually occupied in stanching the tears which flow from his eyes without intermission. He swears that his affection for her will last for ever, and that he is and will remain the most