hat her
governess, and the other attendants whom the queen had set to watch her,
had assured her that the Dauphin was married to the daughter of the
emperor; but she, the Princess, had answered it was not true--the Dauphin
could not have two wives, and they well knew that she was his wife: they
told her that story, she said, to make her despair, and agree to give up
her rights; but she would never part with her hopes.

"You may have heard of the storm that broke out between her and her
governess when we went to visit her little sister. She was carried off by
force to her room, that she might not speak with us; and they could neither
pacify her nor keep her still, till the gentleman who escorted us told her
he had the king's commands that she was not to show herself while we were
in the house. You remember the message the same gentleman brought to you
from her, and the charge which was given by the queen.

"Could the king be brought to consent to the marriage, it could be a fair
union of two realms, and to annex Britain to the crown of France would be a
great honour to our Sovereign; the English party desire nothing better; the
pope will be glad of it; the pope fears that, if war break out again,
France will draw closer to England on the terms which the King of England
desires; and he may thus lose the French tribute as he has lost the
English. He therefore will urge the emperor to agree, and the emperor will
assist gladly for the love which he bears to his cousin.

"If the emperor be willing, the King of England can then be informed; and
he can be made to feel that, if he will avoid war, he must not refuse his
consent. The king, in fact, has no wish to disown the Princess, and he
knows well that the marriage with the Dauphin was once agreed on.

"Should he be unwilling, and should his wife's persuasions stil have
influence with him, he will hesitate before he will defy, for her sake, the
King of France and the emperor united. His regard for the queen is less
than it was, and diminishes every day. He has a new fancy,[653] as you are
aware."

The actual conspiracy, in the form which it had so far assumed, was rather
an appeal to fanaticism than a plot which could have laid hold of the
deeper mind of the country; but as an indication of the unrest which was
stealing over the minds of men, it assumed an importance which it would not
have received from its intrinsic character.

The guilt of the principal offenders admit