neither case, however, was he destined to be successful, both these
ladies possessing too much self-respect to accord any attention to his
illicit gallantries; and this failure, especially with the latter, of
whom he had become seriously enamoured, only tended to re-engage him
with Madame de Verneuil. Throughout all the period occupied by the
christening festivities, Madame de Nevers[354] had been the object of
his special pursuit; but so carefully did she avoid all occasions of
private conversation, that the King, unaccustomed to so decided a
resistance, became irritated to a degree which induced her to escape
from the Court as soon as the found it practicable; and accordingly, on
the very day after the festivities, she left Fontainebleau without any
previous intimation of such a design, resisting all the efforts made by
the sovereign to detain her. Nor did she yield to his subsequent
endeavours for her recall, but on the appointment of her husband during
the following year to the embassy at Rome, she accompanied him thither;
and several months elapsed ere she reappeared in France, where her duty
having compelled her to pay her respects to the Queen on her return,
Henry was so little master of himself as to display his mortification
by inquiring who she was, and on her name being announced, to exclaim
loud enough for her to hear his reply: "Ha! Madame la Duchesse de
Nevers! She is terribly altered."

The shaft fell harmless. The lady evinced the most perfect composure
under the royal criticism, and having fulfilled her duties as a subject
towards her sovereigns, she once more withdrew from the Court, and
terminated her life as she had commenced it, without scandal or
reproach.[355]

FOOTNOTES:

[312] Mamanga was the name given in playfulness by the Dauphin to Madame
de Montglat.

[313] Madame de Drou was the governess of the infant Princess.

[314] Mademoiselle de Piolant, femme-de-chambre to the royal children.

[315] Sully, _Mem_. vol. vi. pp. 151-161.

[316] Bassompierre, _Mem_. p. 45.

[317] Madame Christine de France, who subsequently became Duchess of
Savoy.

[318] L'Etoile, vol. iii. p. 36;

[319] _Memoires_, p. 46.

[320] Charles Emmanuel de Lorraine, Comte de Sommerive, second son of
the Duc de Mayenne, who restored the city of Laon to the King in 1594,
and died at Naples in 1609.

[321] Charles de Gonzaga de Cleves, Duc de Nevers, was the son of Louis
de Gonzaga, Prince of Mantua, Duc de Never