did not hesitate to insinuate that the respect with which the
Prince affected to regard her person, and the desire that he expressed
to see her once more at Court, was a mere subterfuge; and that his real
anxiety, as well as that of De Luynes, was to separate her from the
nobles of Anjou, and the friends whom she possessed in her own
government, in order that she might be placed more thoroughly in their
power. The Queen-mother was the more inclined to adopt this belief from
the circumstance that, even while urging her return, Louis had given her
to understand the inexpediency of maintaining so numerous a bodyguard,
when she should be established in the capital, as that by which she had
surrounded herself since her arrival at Angers; and this evident desire
on the part of the King to diminish at once her dignity and her
security, coupled with her suspicions of Conde and De Luynes, rendered
her more than ever averse to abandon the safe position which she then
occupied, and to enter into a new struggle of which she might once more
become the victim.[44]

On his return to Paris, after his interview with the Queen-mother, Louis
bestowed the government of Picardy upon De Luynes, who resigned that of
the Isle of France, which he had previously held, to the Due de
Montbazon his father-in-law. The two brothers of the favourite were
created Marshals of France; Brantes by the title of Duc de
Piney-Luxembourg--the heiress of that princely house having, by command
of the King, bestowed her hand upon him, to the disgust of all the great
nobles, who considered this ill-assorted alliance an insult to
themselves and to their order--while Cadenet, in order that he might in
his turn be enabled to aspire to the promised union with the widowed
Princess of Orange, was created Duc de Chaulnes. The latter marriage was
not, however, destined to be accomplished, Eleonore de Bourbon
rejecting with disdain a proposition by which she felt herself
dishonoured; nor can any doubt exist that her resistance was tacitly
encouraged by Conde: who, once more free, could have little inclination
to ally himself so closely with a family of adventurers, whose
antecedents were at once obscure and equivocal. This mortification was,
however, lessened to the discomfited favourite by the servility of the
Archduke Albert, the sovereign of the Low Countries; who, being anxious
to secure the support of the French king, offered to De Luynes the
heiress of the ancient f