"I can never forget that she made the happiness of my dear Henri. I am
ashamed to accept her gift; I wish to give her a domain in place of
it, and I shall offer her that of Chaumont-sur-Loire."

Accordingly, the deed of exchange was signed at Blois in 1559. Diane,
whose sons-in-law were the Duc d'Aumale and the Duc de Bouillon (then
a sovereign prince), kept her wealth, and died in 1566 aged sixty-six.
She was therefore nineteen years older than Henri II. These dates,
taken from her epitaph which was copied from her tomb by the historian
who concerned himself so much about her at the close of the last
century, clear up quite a number of historical difficulties. Some
historians have declared she was forty, others that she was sixteen at
the time of her father's condemnation in 1523; in point of fact she
was then twenty-four. After reading everything for and against her
conduct towards Francois I. we are unable to affirm or to deny
anything. This is one of the passages of history that will ever remain
obscure. We may see by what happens in our own day how history is
falsified at the very moment when events happen.

Catherine, who had founded great hopes on the age of her rival, tried
more than once to overthrow her. It was a dumb, underhand, terrible
struggle. The day came when Catherine believed herself for a moment on
the verge of success. In 1554, Diane, who was ill, begged the king to
go to Saint-Germain and leave her for a short time until she
recovered. This stately coquette did not choose to be seen in the
midst of medical appliances and without the splendors of apparel.
Catherine arranged, as a welcome to her husband, a magnificent ballet,
in which six beautiful young girls were to recite a poem in his honor.
She chose for this function Miss Fleming, a relation of her uncle the
Duke of Albany, the handsomest young woman, some say, that was ever