art and was ready to
faint away.

The lady was just fifteen years of age. The King was turned of
fifty-five. The disparity of age seemed to make the royal passion
ridiculous. To Henry the situation seemed poetical and pathetic. After
this first interview he never missed a single rehearsal. In the intervals
he called perpetually for the services of the court poet Malherbe, who
certainly contrived to perpetrate in his behalf some of the most
detestable verses that even he had ever composed.

The nymph was Marguerite de Montmorency, daughter of the Constable of
France, and destined one day to become the mother of the great Conde,
hero of Rocroy. There can be no doubt that she was exquisitely beautiful.
Fair-haired, with a complexion of dazzling purity, large expressive eyes,
delicate but commanding features, she had a singular fascination of look
and gesture, and a winning, almost childlike, simplicity of manner.
Without feminine artifice or commonplace coquetry, she seemed to bewitch
and subdue at a glance men of all ranks, ages, and pursuits; kings and
cardinals, great generals, ambassadors and statesmen, as well as humbler
mortals whether Spanish, Italian, French, or Flemish. The Constable, an
ignorant man who, as the King averred, could neither write nor read,
understood as well as more learned sages the manners and humours of the
court. He had destined his daughter for the young and brilliant
Bassompierre, the most dazzling of all the cavaliers of the day. The two
were betrothed.

But the love-stricken Henry, then confined to his bed with the gout, sent
for the chosen husband of the beautiful Margaret.

"Bassompierre, my friend," said the aged king, as the youthful lover
knelt before him at the bedside, "I have become not in love, but mad, out
of my senses, furious for Mademoiselle de Montmorency. If she should love
you, I should hate you. If she should love me, you would hate me. 'Tis
better that this should not be the cause of breaking up our good
intelligence, for I love you with affection and inclination. I am
resolved to marry her to my nephew the Prince of Conde, and to keep her
near my family. She will be the consolation and support of my old age
into which I am now about to enter. I shall give my nephew, who loves the
chase a thousand times better than he does ladies, 100,000 livres a year,
and I wish no other favour from her than her affection without making
further pretensions."

It was eight o'clock o