uccession of brilliant festivals in honour of
the Princess. The Spanish party was radiant with triumph, the French
maddened with rage. Henry in Paris was chafing like a lion at bay. A
petty sovereign whom he could crush at one vigorous bound was protecting
the lady for whose love he was dying. He had secured Conde's exclusion
from Holland, but here were the fugitives splendidly established in
Brussels; the Princess surrounded by most formidable suitors, the Prince
encouraged in his rebellious and dangerous schemes by the power which the
King most hated on earth, and whose eternal downfall he had long since
sworn to accomplish.

For the weak and frivolous Conde began to prattle publicly of his deep
projects of revenge. Aided by Spanish money and Spanish troops he would
show one day who was the real heir to the throne of France--the
illegitimately born Dauphin or himself.

The King sent for the first president of Parliament, Harlay, and
consulted with him as to the proper means of reviving the suppressed
process against the Dowager and of publicly degrading Conde from his
position of first prince of the blood which he had been permitted to
usurp. He likewise procured a decree accusing him of high-treason and
ordering him to be punished at his Majesty's pleasure, to be prepared by
the Parliament of Paris; going down to the court himself in his
impatience and seating himself in everyday costume on the bench of judges
to see that it was immediately proclaimed.

Instead of at once attacking the Archdukes in force as he intended
in the first ebullition of his wrath, he resolved to send
de Boutteville-Montmorency, a relative of the Constable, on special and
urgent mission to Brussels. He was to propose that Conde and his wife
should return with the Prince and Princess of Orange to Breda, the King
pledging himself that for three or four months nothing should be
undertaken against him. Here was a sudden change of determination fit to
surprise the States-General, but the King's resolution veered and whirled
about hourly in the tempests of his wrath and love.

That excellent old couple, the Constable and the Duchess of Angouleme,
did their best to assist their sovereign in his fierce attempts to get
their daughter and niece into his power.

The Constable procured a piteous letter to be written to Archduke Albert,
signed "Montmorency his mark," imploring him not to "suffer that his
daughter, since the Prince refused to return t