was at cards in
his cabinet with Bassompierre and others when d'Elbene entered and made a
private communication to him. "Bassompierre, my friend," whispered the
King immediately in that courtier's ear, "I am lost. This man has carried
his wife off into a wood. I don't know if it is to kill her or to take
her out of France. Take care of my money and keep up the game."

Bassompierre followed the king shortly afterwards and brought him his
money. He said that he had never seen a man so desperate, so transported.

The matter was indeed one of deepest and universal import. The reader has
seen by the preceding narrative how absurd is the legend often believed
in even to our own days that war was made by France upon the Archdukes
and upon Spain to recover the Princess of Conde from captivity in
Brussels.

From contemporary sources both printed and unpublished; from most
confidential conversations and revelations, we have seen how broad,
deliberate, and deeply considered were the warlike and political
combinations in the King's ever restless brain. But although the
abduction of the new Helen by her own Menelaus was not the cause of the
impending, Iliad, there is no doubt whatever that the incident had much
to do with the crisis, was the turning point in a great tragedy, and that
but for the vehement passion of the King for this youthful princess
events might have developed themselves on a far different scale from that
which they were destined to assume. For this reason a court intrigue,
which history under other conditions might justly disdain, assumes vast
proportions and is taken quite away from the scandalous chronicle which
rarely busies itself with grave affairs of state.

"The flight of Conde," wrote Aerssens, "is the catastrophe to the comedy
which has been long enacting. 'Tis to be hoped that the sequel may not
prove tragical."

"The Prince," for simply by that title he was usually called to
distinguish him from all other princes in France, was next of blood. Had
Henry no sons, he would have succeeded him on the throne. It was a
favourite scheme of the Spanish party to invalidate Henry's divorce from
Margaret of Valois, and thus to cast doubts on the legitimacy of the
Dauphin and the other children of Mary de' Medici.

The Prince in the hands of the Spanish government might prove a docile
and most dangerous instrument to the internal repose of France not only
after Henry's death but in his life-time. Conde's char