spire him only with disgust for the
woman who had thus emancipated herself from every observance of respect
towards his own person and decency towards the Queen, it is nevertheless
certain that his very anger was mingled with admiration; and that not
even his sense of what was due to him both as a monarch and as a man
could overcome the attraction of Madame de Verneuil. Their temporary
separation, during which he had failed to find any equivalent for her
wit and vivacity, gave an added charm to every word she uttered; he
yearned to see her once more brilliant and happy, devoting her intellect
and her fascinations to his amusement; and even while complaining to
Sully of her impertinent and uncompromising boldness, he could not
forbear uttering a panegyric upon her better qualities, which convinced
the minister that their misunderstanding was not destined to be of long
duration, an opinion in which he was confirmed when the weak and
vacillating Henry, at the close of this enthusiastic apostrophe,
proceeded to institute a comparison between the Marquise and the Queen,
in which the latter suffered on every point. The earnest wish to please
of the favourite was contrasted with the coldness of Marie de Medicis,
the wit of the one with the haughty superciliousness of the other; in
short, the longer that the King discoursed upon the subject, the more
perfect became the conviction of his listener that the late meeting,
tempestuous as it was, had sufficed to restore to Madame de Verneuil at
least a portion of her former power.

"I have no society in my wife," pursued the monarch; "she neither amuses
nor interests me. She is harsh and unyielding, alike in manner and in
speech, and makes no concession either to my humour or my tastes. When I
would fain meet her with warmth she receives me coldly, and I am glad to
escape from her apartments to seek for amusement elsewhere. My poor
cousin De Guise is my only refuge; and although she occasionally tells
me some home-truths, yet she does it with so much good humour that I
cannot take offence, and only laugh at her sallies." [236]

It was sufficiently evident at that moment that even the "poor cousin"
of the monarch, beautiful and accomplished though she was, faded into
insignificance before the pampered and presuming favourite.

"Perhaps," says Sully, with a calm sententiousness better suited to some
question of finance, "the Queen had only herself to blame for not having
released him