lasted all their lives.

Mlle. de Mezieres, urged by her parents to marry the Prince,
realised that it was impossible for her to marry the Duc de
Guise, and that if she married his brother, the Duc de Maine, she
would be in the dangerous position of having as a brother-in-law
a man whom she wished was her husband; so she agreed finally to
marry the Prince and begged the Duc de Guise not to continue to
place any obstacle in the way.

The marriage having taken place, the Prince de Montpensier took
her off to his estate of Champigny, which was where Princes of
his family usually lived, in order to remove her from Paris,
where it seemed that an outbreak of fighting was imminent: this
great city being under threat of siege by a Huguenot army led by
the Prince de Conde, who had once more declared war on the King.

The Prince de Montpensier had, when a very young man, formed a
close friendship with the Comte de Chabannes, a man considerably
older than himself and of exemplary character. The Comte in turn
had been so much influenced by the esteem and friendship of the
Prince that he had broken off influential connections which he
had with the Prince de Condee and had declared for the Catholics;
a change of sides which, having no other foundation, was regarded
with suspicion: so much so that the Queen Mother, Catherine de
Medici, on the declaration of war by the Huguenots, proposed to
have him imprisoned. The Prince de Montpensier prevented this and
carried him away to Champigny when he went there with his wife.
The Comte being a very pleasant, amiable man soon gained the
approbation of the Princess and before long she regarded him with