re he will have time and leisure to learn
the respect which he owes to his sovereign."

"It is your Majesty who is wanting in respect to yourself," said the
Duchess haughtily.

"Madame!" exclaimed the King; "do not give me cause to forget that you
are my aunt. I can hear no more until you assume a tone better suited to
our relative positions. You have heard my resolve, and may retire."

Thus abruptly dismissed, Madame de Guise withdrew, and hastened to
apprise her son of the impending peril, upon which he escaped from the
capital before the order issued for his arrest could be put into
execution; while his relatives endeavoured by humility and submission to
obtain his forgiveness. Henry, however, had been too deeply wounded,
alike by the levity of the son and the overbearing haughtiness of the
mother, to yield to their entreaties, and the only concession which he
could be induced to make was a conditional pardon involving the
perpetual exile of the culprit.[362]

Nor was the King, who at once discovered that he had been duped, less
inclined to visit upon Madame de Moret the consequences of her
falsehood, and he openly declared that she should also have been
compelled to quit the country had she not been on the eve of becoming a
mother.[363]

This event shortly afterwards took place, but, although during the
following year Henry legitimated her son,[364] he ever afterwards
treated her with the greatest coldness; nor did the birth of the child
in any way affect her position, as had been the case with the Duchesse
de Beaufort and the Marquise de Verneuil, the King contenting himself by
sending to her a present of money and jewels, but evincing no
disposition to raise her rank.

It would appear, moreover, that the indifference was mutual, as only a
short time subsequently she encouraged the assiduities of the Comte de
Sommerive, from whom, according to Sully, there could be no doubt that
she did actually obtain a written promise of marriage; and the King was
no sooner apprised of the circumstance than he expressed, as he had
previously done in the case of the Prince de Joinville, his perfect
willingness to consent to the alliance, merely desiring M. de
Balagny,[365] a gentleman of his household upon whom he could rely, to
watch the proceedings of the lovers, and to acquaint him with every
particular, should he have cause to suspect that the intentions of the
Count were equivocal. M. de Sommerive, however, who soon di