Whitehall, after which the Queen again pressed upon them the necessity for an alliance between England and France, but said she could not go any further with the marriage until she heard again from Alençon. In vain her plaintive “monkey,” from his abbey of Bourgueil, wrote praying her to make her lovelorn “frog” happy without further delay, in vain Marchaumont pressed in his master’s name that she would not shame him by throwing him over after all that had passed between them. Smiles, sweet words, and vague protestations were all they could get; and Secretary Pinart wrote on the 21st of May to Catharine: “The Queen makes all sorts of demonstrations to us, but we can get no further. At a supper given by Sussex the Queen expressed her satisfaction to La Mothe Fénélon at the approaches the French had made to Leicester, who, she said, had done his best to forward their views and to maintain a friendly understanding between the two countries. La Mothe drily replied that such an understanding would be easy when the marriage was concluded. Oh! said the Queen, as for the marriage, that is in the hands of God, and she could say nothing more about that until she received a reply from Alençon. La Mothe thereupon declined to discuss any other question and the Queen closed the colloquy in a huff. Two days after this, when the envoys had become quite disheartened and perplexed at Marchaumont’s secret dealings with the Queen and Sussex over their heads, Elizabeth suddenly sent de Vray to Alençon with a private autograph letter,[130] in the sealing-wax of which she embedded a diamond; and at the same time Marchaumont wrote urging his master to come over and gain the prize by a _coup-de-main_, on the strength of a document which he had obtained from the committee of the Council containing some favourable expressions towards the match. At the same time Marchaumont was brought to a lodging in the gardens of Whitehall and an elaborate pretence of keeping some important personage concealed there was made, partly to prepare the public mind for the coming of the Duke and partly to still further mystify the envoys. In this the Queen and Marchaumont were entirely successful, and the Queen was looking almost hourly for the arrival of her suitor, with whom she could make her own terms and force France into an alliance. Alençon himself was all eagerness to come, but he had pledged himself solemnly to the States to relieve Cambrai which was beleaguered by Parma, and he dared not abandon his task. Simier, moreover, was away from him, and his sister Margaret’s friend, Fervaques, was ever at his ear urging him to wrath against poor “monkey” and the Queen of England. Fervaques, writing to Marchaumont, says that if Elizabeth succeeds in getting Simier reinstated, “the very day he comes back I will quit the service; car s’il me donnait tout son bien par la teste de Dieu je ne serverais pas une heure. Send us some money or we shall starve. Our master will