ude towards her,
which swung constantly between confidence and diffidence, esteem and
indifference, affection and coldness; at times he inclined to put her
from him entirely; at others he opined that no one on his Council was
more capable of the administration of affairs. Even in the indignation
aroused by the proof he held of her disloyalty, he was too just not
to admit the provocation he had given her. So he submitted to a
reconciliation on her own terms, and pledged himself to renounce
Charlotte. We have no right to assume from the sequel that he was not
sincere in the intention.

By the following May events proved the accuracy of Sully's judgment. The
court was at Fontainebleau when the last bulwark of Henry's prudence was
battered down by the vanity of that lovely fool, Charlotte, who must be
encouraging her royal lover to resume his flattering homage. But both
appear to have reckoned without the lady's husband.

Henry presented Charlotte with jewels to the value of eighteen thousand
livres, purchased from Messier, the jeweller of the Pont au Change; and
you conceive what the charitable ladies of the Court had to say about
it. At the first hint of scandal Monsieur de Conde put himself into
a fine heat, and said things which pained and annoyed the King
exceedingly. Henry had amassed a considerable and varied experience
of jealous husbands in his time; but he had never met one quite so
intolerable as this nephew of his. He complained of it in a letter to
Sully.

"My friend,--Monsieur the Prince is here, but he acts like a man
possessed. You will be angry and ashamed at the things he says of me. I
shall end by losing all patience with him. In the meanwhile I am obliged
to taut to him with severity."

More severe than any talk was Henry's instruction to Sully to withhold
payment of the last quarter of the prince's allowance, and to give
refusals to his creditors and purveyors. Thus he intended also, no
doubt, to make it clear to Conde that he did not receive a pension of a
hundred thousand livres a year for nothing.

"If this does not keep him in bounds," Henry concluded, "we must think
of some other method, for he says the most injurious things of me."

So little did it keep the prince in bounds--as Henry understood the
phrase--that he immediately packed his belongings, and carried his wife
off to his country house. It was quite in vain that Henry wrote to him
representing that this conduct was dishonouring to