greatest ambition was for the honor of an alliance with the royal
family of France. The hand of her second daughter (afterwards Duchesse
d'Aumale) was offered on her behalf to the Vidame de Chartres, who was
kept poor by the far-sighted policy of Francois I. In fact, when the
Vidame de Chartres and the Prince de Conde first came to court,
Francois I. gave them--what? The office of chamberlain, with a paltry
salary of twelve hundred crowns a year, the same that he gave to the
simplest gentlemen. Though Diane de Poitiers offered an immense dowry,
a fine office under the crown, and the favor of the king, the vidame
refused. After which, this Bourbon, already factious, married Jeanne,
daughter of the Baron d'Estissac, by whom he had no children. This act
of pride naturally commended him to Catherine, who greeted him after
that with marked favor and made a devoted friend of him.

Historians have compared the last Duc de Montmorency, beheaded at
Toulouse, to the Vidame de Chartres, in the art of pleasing, in
attainments, accomplishments, and talent. Henri II. showed no
jealousy; he seemed not even to suppose that a queen of France could
fail in her duty, or a Medici forget the honor done to her by a
Valois. But during this time when the queen was, it is said,
coquetting with the Vidame de Chartres, the king, after the birth of
her last child, had virtually abandoned her. This attempt at making
him jealous was to no purpose, for Henri died wearing the colors of
Diane de Poitiers.

At the time of the king's death Catherine was, therefore, on terms of
gallantry with the vidame,--a situation which was quite in conformity
with the manners and morals of a time when love was both so chivalrous
and so licentious that the noblest actions were as natural as the most
blamable; although historians, as usual, have committed the mistake in