on the 1st of December, he left Chambery with a train
of twelve hundred horse, accompanied by the greater part of his
ministers, his nobles, and the most magnificent members of his
Court.[82] As the French King had issued orders that he should, in every
city through which he passed, be received with regal honours, he did not
reach Fontainebleau until the 14th of the same month, where he arrived
just as his royal host was mounting his horse to meet him. As he
approached Henry he bent his knee, but the King immediately raised and
embraced him with great cordiality; and during the seven days which he
spent at Fontainebleau the Court was one scene of splendour and
dissipation. Balls, jousts, and hunting-parties succeeded each other
without intermission, but the Duke soon perceived that the monarch had
no intention of taking the initiative on the errand which had brought
him to France, a caution from which he justly augured no favourable
result to his expedition;[83] while on his side the subject was never
alluded to by Sully or any of the other ministers without his giving the
most unequivocal proofs of his determination to retain the
marquisate.[84]

[Illustration: Marshal Biron. Paris, Richard Bentley and Son 1890.]

Meanwhile his conduct was governed by the most subtle policy; his
bearing towards the monarch was at once deferential and familiar; his
liberality was unbounded; and his courtesy towards the great nobles and
the officials of the Court untiring and dignified.

On the eighth day after the arrival of the Duke at Fontainebleau the
Court removed to Paris, where Henry had caused apartments to be prepared
for his royal guest in the Louvre; but M. de Savoie, after offering his
acknowledgments for the proffered honour, preferred to take up his abode
in the house of his relative the Duc de Nemours, near the Augustine
convent. The whole of the Christmas festival was spent in a succession
of amusements as splendid as those with which he had been originally
received; and on the 1st of January 1600, when it is customary in France
to exchange presents, the Duke repaid all this magnificence by a
profusion almost unprecedented. To the King, his offering was two large
bowls and vases of crystal so exquisitely worked as to be considered
unrivalled; while he tendered to Madame de Verneuil, who did the honours
of the royal circle, and whom he was anxious to attach to his interests,
a valuable collection of diamonds and other pr