spacious gardens which swept
down to the bank of the river opposite the Louvre.

Here it was, under the very shadow of the palace which should have been
her home, that Marguerite held her little court; passing from her
oratory to scenes of vice and voluptuousness which, happily, are
unparalleled in these times; one day doing penance with bare feet and a
robe of serge, and the next reposing upon velvet cushions and pillowed
on down--now fasting like an anchorite, and now feasting like a
bacchante; one hour dispensing charity so lavishly as to call down the
blessings of hundreds on her head, and the next causing her lacqueys to
chase with ignominious words and blows from beneath her roof the honest
creditors who claimed their hard-earned gains. Extreme in everything,
she gave a tithe of all that she possessed to the monks, although she
did not shrink from confessing that her favourites cost her a still
larger annual sum; and while she encouraged and appreciated the society
of men of letters, and profited largely by their companionship, she
condescended to the most frivolous follies, and abandoned herself to the
most licentious pleasures.[327]

The insipidity of Madame de Moret soon counteracted the spell of her
beauty; and although on his return from Sedan the King had appeared to
be more fascinated by her extraordinary loveliness than even at the
first period of their acquaintance, it was not long ere he listened with
a patience very unusual to him to the indignant remonstrances of the
Queen on this new infidelity, and even assured her that her reproaches
were misplaced. Marie, who perceived the prodigality with which the King
lavished upon the frail fair one the most costly gifts, and who saw her,
through the mock marriage which she had contracted, assume a place at
Court which occasionally even brought her into contact with herself,
could not so readily lay aside her suspicions; and although she had at
first rejoiced to find that the fancy of the monarch could be diverted
from Madame de Verneuil, she had never anticipated that the _liaison_
would have endured so long. Henry, however, profited by this mistake;
and while the Queen was still jealously watching the proceedings of
Madame de Moret, he renewed with less secrecy his commerce with the
witty and seductive Marquise, unconscious that she was at that period
encouraging the addresses of the Due de Guise. Nor did this partial
desertion tend to wound the vanity of M