aced by his imprudence, than he hastened
to Lyons, where the King was then sojourning; and having obtained an
audience, he confessed with a seeming frankness irresistible to so
generous and unsuspicious a nature as that of Henry, that he had been
sufficiently misled by his ambition secretly to demand from the Duke of
Savoy the hand of his younger daughter; and that, moreover, in the
excess of his mortification at the refusal of his Majesty to appoint a
governor of his own selection at Bourg, he had even been induced to plot
against the state, for both which crimes he humbly solicited the
royal pardon.

Full well did Henry and his minister remember this occurrence; nor could
the King forget that although he had urged the Marechal to reveal to him
the whole extent of the intrigue, he had dexterously evaded his most
searching inquiries, and constantly recurred to his contrition. Henry
owed much to Biron, whom he had long loved; and with a magnanimity
worthy of his noble nature, after a few expostulations and reproaches,
he not only pardoned him for what he believed to have been a mere
temporary abandonment of his duties, but even assured him of his future
favour, and bade him return in all security to his post.

Unhappily, however, the demon of ambition by which the Duke was
possessed proved too powerful for the generous clemency of the King, and
he resumed his treasonable practices; but a misunderstanding having
ensued between himself and the false friend by whom he was now betrayed,
all the private documents which had been exchanged between himself and
the foreign princes through whose aid he trusted to obtain the honours
of sovereignty, were communicated on this occasion to the monarch whose
dignity and whose confidence he had alike outraged.

A free pardon was accorded to the traitor through whose means Henry was
made acquainted with the extent of the intrigue, on condition that he
should reside within the precincts of the Court and lend his assistance
to convict the Duke of his crime, terms to which the perfidious
confidant readily consented; while with a tact worthy of his falsehood,
he soon succeeded in reinstating himself in the good graces of the Duke,
by professing to be earnestly engaged in France in furthering his
interests, and by giving him reason to believe that he was still devoted
to his cause.

To this deception, and to his own obstinacy, Biron owed his fate.[179]

The alarming facts which had thus b