ble an end
without betraying her own agency.

During the lifetime of _la belle Gabrielle_, her sister, Juliette
Hippolyte d'Estrees, Marquise de Cerisay, who in 1597 became the wife of
Georges de Brancas, Duc de Villars, had attracted the attention of the
King, whose dissipated tastes were always flattered by novelty; although
if we are to credit the statements of the Princesse de Conti, this lady,
so far from rivalling the beauty of her younger sister, had no personal
charms to recommend her beyond _her youth and her hair_.[161] Being as
unscrupulous as the Duchesse de Beaufort herself, Juliette exulted in
the idea of captivating the King, and left no effort untried to secure
her supposed conquest; but this caprice on the part of Henry was only
momentary, and in his passion for Henriette d'Entragues, he soon forgot
his passing fancy for Madame de Villars. The Duchess herself, however,
was far from being equally oblivious; and listening to the dictates of
her ambition and self-love, she became persuaded that she was indebted
to the Marquise alone for the sudden coldness of the King; and
accordingly she vowed an eternal hatred to the woman whom she considered
in the light of a successful rival. Up to the present period, anxious as
she was to avenge her wounded vanity, she had been unable to secure an
opportunity of revenge; but having at this particular moment won the
affection of the Prince de Joinville,[162] who had been a former lover
of Madame de Verneuil, and with whom, as she was well aware, he had
maintained an active correspondence, she made his surrender of the
letters of that lady the price of her own honour. For a time the Prince
hesitated; he felt all the disloyalty of such a concession; but those
were not times in which principles waged an equal war against passion;
and the letters were ultimately placed in the possession of Madame
de Villars.

The Duchess was fully cognizant of the fact that it was from an impulse
of self-preservation alone that M. de Joinville had been induced to
forego his suit to the favourite, and to absent himself from the Court,
a consideration which should have aroused her delicacy as a woman; but
she was by no means disposed to yield to so inconvenient a weakness; and
she had consequently no sooner secured the coveted documents than she
prepared to profit by her good fortune.

Henriette d'Entragues had really loved the Prince--if indeed so venal
and vicious a woman can be suppose