Tuscan princess, whose gestures and language were, as she
declared, the jest of the whole Court. The King, outraged by so gross an
impertinence, imperatively commanded her silence upon all that regarded
the dignity or pleasure of his royal consort, a display of firmness
which more and more exasperated the favourite, who retorted by observing
that since the monarch had seen fit to retract a solemn engagement, and
thus to brand herself and her children with disgrace, it only remained
for her to reiterate her demand for permission to leave the country,
with her son and daughter, and her father and brother, both of whom were
prepared to share her fortunes, gloomy as they might be, the fear of God
not permitting her to recur to the past without the most profound
repentance.

To this persistence Henry coldly answered that in his turn he
reiterated his declaration that she was at liberty to retire to England
whenever she thought proper to do so, and to place herself under the
protection of her kinsman, the Earl of Lennox, but that he would not
suffer any other member of her family to share her exile; nor should she
herself be permitted to reside either in Spain or the Low Countries,
where the treasonable practices of the Comte d'Auvergne and the party of
the discontented nobles with whom she had recently allied herself, had
already given him just cause for displeasure.

Madame de Verneuil, perfectly unabashed by this reproach, assured the
King, with a smile of haughty defiance, that she could be as firm as
himself where her own honour and that of her children was involved, and
added that should he persist in demanding the restoration of the written
promise by which he had triumphed over her virtue, he might seek it
where it was to be obtained, as he should never receive it from her
hands; while as regarded her estrangement from himself, it had ceased to
be a subject of regret, as since he had become old he had also become
distrustful and suspicious, and his affected favour only tended to
render her an object of public jealousy and indignation.

Outraged by this last insult, the King rose angrily from his seat, and
without vouchsafing another word to the imperious Marquise quitted the
room. It was not, however, in the nature of Henri IV to find himself
once more in the presence of his mistress unmoved, and although the
indignity to which he had been subjected throughout the interview just
described should have sufficed to in