nce himself. Why had he not written? she asked again and again.
Why had she never {p.138} received one courteous word from him? If
she heard of merchants or sailors arriving from Spain, she would send
for them and question them; and some would tell her that the prince
was said to have little heart for his business in England; others
terrified her with tales of fearful fights upon the seas; and others
brought her news of the French squadrons that were on the watch in the
Channel.[328] She would start out of her sleep at night, picturing a
thousand terrors, and among them one to which all else were
insignificant, that her prince, who had taken such wild possession of
her imagination, had no answering feeling for herself--that, with her
growing years and wasted figure, she could never win him to love
her.[329]

[Footnote 328: Le doubte luy est souvent augmentee
par plusieurs marchants mariniers et aultres
malcontens de son marriage qui venans de France et
Espaign luy desguisent et luy controuvent un
infinite de nouvelles estranges, les ungs du peu de
volunte que le prince a de venir par deca, les
aultres d'avoir ouy et entendus combats sur la mer,
et plusieurs d'avoir descouvert grand nombre de
voisles Francoises avec grand appareil.--Noailles
to the King of France: _Ambassades_, vol. iii. p.
253.]

[Footnote 329: L'on m'a dict que quelques heures de
la nuict elle entre en telle resverie de ses amours
et passions que bien souvent elle se met hors de
soy, et croy que la plus grande occasion de sa
douleur vient du desplaisir qu'elle a de veoir sa
personne si diminuee et ses ans multiplier en telle
nombre qu'ilz luy courent tous les jours a grande
interest.--Noailles to the King of France:
_Ambassades_, vol. iii. p. 252.]

"The unfortunate queen," wrote Henry of France, "will learn the truth
at last. She will wake too late, in misery and remorse, to know that
she has filled the realm with blood for an object which, when she has
gained it, will bring nothing but affliction to herself or to her
people."[330]

[Footnote 330: Ibid. p