ntiment of their impending and tragic destiny?

At the same period, the Queen of Navarre, Jeanne d'Albret, obtained for
her young nephew, Henry de Bourbon, Prince of Conde, son of the hero of
Jarnac, and companion of Henry of Navarre, the hand of his cousin, Mary
of Cleves; and there was still going on in London, on behalf of one of
Charles IX.'s brothers,--at one time the Duke of Anjou and at another the
Duke of Alencon,--the negotiation which was a vain attempt to make Queen
Elizabeth espouse a French prince.

Coincidently with all these marriages or projects of marriage amongst
princes and great lords came the most important of all, that which was to
unite Henry of Navarre and Charles IX.'s sister, Marguerite de Valois.
There had already, thirteen or fourteen years previously, been some talk
about it, in the reign of King Henry II., when Henry of Navarre and
Margaret de Valois, each born in 1553, were both of them mere babies.
This union between the two branches of the royal house, one Catholic and
the other Protestant, ought to have been the most striking sign and the
surest pledge of peace between Catholicism and Protestantism. The
political expediency of such a step appeared the more evident and the
more urgent in proportion as the religious war had become more direful
and the desire for peace more general. Charles IX. embraced the idea
passionately. At the outset he encountered an obstacle. The young Duke
of Guise had already paid court to Marguerite, and had obtained such
marked favor with her that the ambassador of Spain wrote to the king,
"There is no public topic in France just now save the marriage of my Lady
Marguerite with the Duke of Guise." People even talked of a tender
correspondence between the princess and the duke, which was carried on
through one of the queen's ladies, the Countess of Mirandola, who was
devoted to the Guises and a favorite with Marguerite. "If it be so,"
said Charles IX., savagely, "we will kill him;" and he gave such
peremptory orders on this subject, that Henry de Guise, somewhat
disquieted, avoided for a while taking part in the royal hunts, and
thought it well that there should be resumed on his behalf a project of
marriage with Catherine of Cleves, widow of the Prince of Portien (Le
Porcien) and the wealthy heiress to some great domains, especially the
countship of Eu. So long as he had some hope of marrying Marguerite de
Valois, the Duke of Guise had repudiated, not wi