than it should have happened, or if she had decided to break it off that she had not done so ten months before. Elizabeth continued her great show of cordiality to the French ambassador, and when the Prince of Condé himself came in June to complain to her of the treatment suffered by the Protestants in France, and to beg her aid, she went to the length of refusing to receive him excepting in the presence of Castelnau, and by every means in her power sought to bring about an understanding with the French Government before she pledged herself single-handed too deeply in the troubled affairs of Flanders. But this did not at all suit Alençon, who had his own game to play and knew full well that if a cordial alliance were arranged between his brother and the Queen of England there would be no need for the latter to marry him, or for either party to risk an open rupture with Spain for the sake of his personal aggrandisement; particularly at the present moment, when Elizabeth was in great alarm at a powerful Spanish fleet which had just put to sea. So the faithful “frog” and his attendant monkey began to get ardent again. De Vray was sent to smooth down misunderstandings and to mollify Leicester, who, after grumbling that the French were not giving him enough presents, had gone whining to the Spanish ambassador to offer his services to impede the understanding with the French--for a consideration. Simier writes on the 18th of April:[118] “As for your frog, his flame is immortal, and his love towards you can never end either in this world or the next. By God, Madame, lose no more time! Take counsel with yourself and those whose faithful attachment is known to you for your own sake rather than their advancement ... let Monseigneur soon approach your charms. This is the daily prayer of your monkey who, with all humility, kisses the shadow of your footsteps.” Alençon’s letters, although somewhat less hyperbolical, are yet very loving, and press the Queen urgently to allow commissioners to come to finally settle the marriage conditions, and in this request he was seconded by his mother and brother. To all these letters answers were sent after much delay, “containing many sweet words but no decision;” and the Spanish ambassador writing an account of matters to his master on the 21st of May,[119] says that the French were threatening the Queen with Alençon’s resentment if she did not marry him now the matter was so far advanced. “In this way both parties are weaving a Penelope’s web simply to cover the designs which I have already explained to your Majesty.” These designs were, on Alençon’s part, to force Elizabeth into a marriage, or into supporting him in Flanders as the price of throwing him over; on Elizabeth’s part that if he went into Flanders at all he should do so only as her tool and that of the Huguenots; or otherwise to bring about a close alliance between England and France, or a rupture between the latter and Spain: and on the part of Henry III.