malicious adroitness in turning the tables upon
the Prince and treating him as a rebel and a traitor because, to save his
own and his wife's honour, he had fled from a kingdom where he had but
too good reason to suppose that neither was safe. The Prince, with
infinite want of tact, had played into the King's hands. He had bragged
of his connection with Spain and of his deep designs, and had shown to
all the world that he was thenceforth but an instrument in the hands of
the Spanish cabinet, while all the world knew the single reason for which
he had fled.

The King, hopeless now of compelling the return of Conde, had become most
anxious to separate him from his wife. Already the subject of divorce
between the two had been broached, and it being obvious that the Prince
would immediately betake himself into the Spanish dominions, the King was
determined that the Princess should not follow him thither.

He had the incredible effrontery and folly to request the Queen to
address a letter to her at Brussels, urging her to return to France. But
Mary de' Medici assured her husband that she had no intention of becoming
his assistant, using, to express her thought, the plainest and most
vigorous word that the Italian language could supply. Henry had then
recourse once more to the father and aunt.

That venerable couple being about to wait upon the Archduke's envoy, in
compliance with the royal request, Pecquius, out of respect to their
advanced age, went to the Constable's residence. Here both the Duchess
and Constable, with tears in their eyes, besought that diplomatist to do
his utmost to prevent the Princess from the sad fate of any longer
sharing her husband's fortunes.

The father protested that he would never have consented to her marriage,
preferring infinitely that she should have espoused any honest gentleman
with 2000 crowns a year than this first prince of the blood, with a
character such as it had proved to be; but that he had not dared to
disobey the King.

He spoke of the indignities and cruelties to which she was subjected,
said that Rochefort, whom Conde had employed to assist him in their
flight from France, and on the crupper of whose horse the Princess had
performed the journey, was constantly guilty of acts of rudeness and
incivility towards her; that but a few days past he had fired off pistols
in her apartment where she was sitting alone with the Princess of Orange,
exclaiming that this was the way he w