n Isabeau de Limueil to entrap his
younger brother. Nor did Catharine's device prove unsuccessful. Conde
became involved in an amorous intrigue that shook the confidence of his
Huguenot friends in his steadfastness and sincerity; while the silly girl
whom the queen had encouraged in a course that led to ruin, as soon as her
shame became notorious, was ignominiously banished from court--for no one
could surpass Catharine in the personation of offended modesty.[308] Yet,
notwithstanding a disgraceful fall which proved to the satisfaction of a
world, always sufficiently sceptical of the depth of religious
convictions, that ambition had much more to do with the prince's conduct
than any sense of duty, Conde was not wholly lost to right feelings. The
tears and remonstrances of his wife--the true-hearted Eleonore de
Roye--dying of grief at his inconstancy, are said to have wrought a marked
change in his character.[309] From that time Catharine's power was gone.
In vain did she or the Guises strive to gain him over to the papal party
by offering him, in second marriage, the widow of Marshal Saint Andre,
with an ample dower that might well dazzle a prince of the blood with but
a beggarly appanage;[310] or even by proposing to confer upon him the hand
of the yet blooming Queen of Scots,[311] the Prince of Conde remained true
to the cause he had espoused till his blood stained the fatal field of
Jarnac.

[Sidenote: Huguenot progress.]

But while the queen mother was plying the great with her seductions, while
the Roman Catholic leaders were artfully instilling into the minds of the
people the idea that the Edict of Amboise was only a temporary
expedient,[312] while royal governors, or their lieutenants, like
Damville--the constable's younger son--at Pamiers, were cruelly abusing
the Protestants whom they ought to have protected,[313] there was much in
the tidings that came especially from southern France to encourage the
reformers. In the midst of the confusion and carnage of war the leaven had
yet been working. There were even to be found places where the progress of
Protestantism had rendered the application of the provisions of the edict
nearly, if not quite impossible. The little city of Milhau, in
Rouergue,[314] is a striking and very interesting instance.

[Sidenote: Milhau-en-Rouergue.]

The edict had expressly directed that all churches should be restored to
the Roman Catholics, and that the Protestants should resort f