de Valois was driven to distraction; and when tears and
pleadings failed to soften her father's heart, she declared in the
hearing of the Court that she would commit suicide unless her lover was
restored to liberty. In company with her rival, Mademoiselle de
Charolais, she visited the dungeon in the dark night hours, taking flint
and steel, candles and bonbons, to weep with the captive.

She squandered two hundred thousand livres in attempts to bribe his
guards, but all to no purpose: and it was not until after six months of
durance that the Regent at last yielded--moved partly by his daughter's
tears and threats and partly by the pleadings of the Cardinal-Archbishop
of Paris--and the prisoner was released, on condition that the Cardinal
and the Duchesse de Richelieu would be responsible for his custody and
good behaviour.

A few days later we find the irresponsible Richelieu climbing over the
garden-walls of his new "prison" at Conflans, racing through the
darkness to Paris behind swift horses, and making love to the Regent's
own mistresses and his daughter!

But such facilities for dalliance with the Regent's daughter were soon
to be brought to an end. Mademoiselle de Valois, in order to ensure her
lover's freedom, had at last consented to accept the hand of the Duke of
Modena, an alliance which she had long fought against; and before the
Duc had been a free man again many weeks she paid this part of his
ransom by going into exile, and to an odious wedded life, in a far
corner of Italy--much, it may be imagined, to the Regent's relief, for
his daughters and their love affairs were ever a thorn in his side.

It was not long, however, before the new Duchess of Modena began to sigh
for her distant lover, and to bombard him with letters begging him to
come to her. "I cannot live without your love," she wrote. "Come to
me--only, come in disguise, so that no one can recognise you."

This was indeed an adventure after the Lothario Duc's heart--an
adventure with love as its reward and danger as its spur. And thus it
was that, a few weeks after the Duchess had sent her invitation, two
travel-stained pedlars, with packs on their backs, entered the city of
Modena to find customers for their books and phamphlets. At the small
hostelry whose hospitality they sought the hawkers gave their names as
Gasparini and Romano, names which masked the identities of the
knight-errant Duc and his friend, La Fosse, respectively.

The fol