my visiting the Vatican. Allow me,
madame, to have charge of your interests. Do not have the slightest fear
but that I shall protect them zealously and intelligently, killing thus
two birds with one stone."

"Pray accept my humble thanks," I replied to the Bishop. "The reigning
Sovereign Pontiff has never shown me any favour whatever, and is in
nowise one of my friends. What you desire to do for me at Rome deserves
some signal mark of gratitude in return, but I cannot get you a
cardinal's hat, for a thousand reasons.

"Mademoiselle de Nemours, when leaving us, promised to hate me as long as
she lived, and to have me burnt at an 'auto da fe' whenever she got the
chance. Do not let her know that you have any regard for me, or you
might lose her affection.

"I hope that the weak side of her husband, the King, may get stronger,
and that you will not help to put the young monarch in a convent of
monks.

"In any case, my lord Bishop, do not breathe it to a living soul that you
have told me of such strange resolutions as these; for my own part, I
will safely keep your secret, and pray God to have you in his holy
keeping."

The Bishop of Laon was not a man to be rebuffed by pleasantry such as
this. He declared the King of Portugal to be impotent, after what the
Queen had expressly stated. The Pope annulled the marriage, and the
Queen courageously wedded her husband's brother, who had no congenital
weakness of any sort, and who was, as every one knew, of dark complexion.

At the request of the Queen, the Bishop of Laon was afterwards presented
with the hat, and is, today, my lord Cardinal d'Estrees.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Mademoiselle de Valois.--Mademoiselle d'Orleans.--Mademoiselle
d'Alencon.--M. de Savoie.--His Love-letters.--His Marriage with
Mademoiselle de Valois.--M. de Guise and Mademoiselle d'Alencon.--Their
Marriage Ceremony.--Madame de Montespan's Dog.--Mademoiselle
d'Orleans.--Her Marriage with the Duke of Tuscany.--The Bishop de Bonzy.

By his second wife, Marguerite de Lorraine, Gaston de France had three
daughters, and being devoid of energy, ability, or greatness of
character, they did not object when the King married them to sovereigns
of the third-rate order.

Upon these three marriages I should like to make some remarks, on account
of certain singular details connected therewith, and because of the
joking to which they gave rise.

Mademoiselle de Montpensier had flatly refused the Duc de