ic
differences by which the whole Court is convulsed."

"Your advice may be good," was the evasive reply of the King, "but you
do not yet understand me, or you would be aware that I cannot bring
myself to exercise severity against persons with whom I am in habits of
familiar intercourse, and especially against a woman."

"In that case, Sire," said Sully, "you have but one alternative. Exile
your mistress from the Court, and make the required concessions to
the Queen."

"I am prepared to do so," said Henry hastily, "if, in return for this
sacrifice on my part, she will pledge herself no longer to annoy me by
her jealousy and violence, and to meet me in the same spirit; but I have
little hope of such a result: she is perfectly unable to exercise the
necessary self-command, and is perpetually mistaking the impulse of
temper for that of reason. Her intolerance and rancour forbid all
prospect of sincere harmony between us. She is perpetually threatening
with her vengeance every woman upon whom I chance to turn my eyes; and
even the children of Gabrielle, who were in being before her arrival in
the kingdom, are as hateful to her as though she had been personally
injured by their birth; nor have I the least reason to anticipate that
she will ever overcome so irrational an antipathy. Nor can she be won by
kindness and indulgence. Not only have I ever treated her with the
respect and deference due to the Queen of a great nation, but even in
moments of pecuniary pressure I have been careful, not merely to supply
her wants, but also to satisfy her caprices; and that too when I was
aware that the sums thus bestowed were to be squandered upon the Italian
rabble whose incessant study it has been to poison her mind against both
myself and her adopted country. Would to Heaven, Rosny, that I had
followed your advice on her arrival, and compelled the mischievous cabal
to recross the Alps; but it is now too late for such regrets; and if you
can indeed succeed in inducing the Queen to become more amenable to my
wishes, and more indulgent to my errors, Ventre Saint-Gris! you will
effect a good work, in which I shall be ready to second you. But mark,
you must do this apparently upon your own responsibility, and be careful
not to let her learn that I have authorized such a measure, or you will
only defeat your own purpose, and render her more impracticable than
ever." [237]

Such was the unsatisfactory result of the effort made by the min