again.




LETTER IX.

Fresh Intrigues.--Marriage of Henri III.--Bussi Arrives at Court and
Narrowly Escapes Assassination.


After staying some time at Lyons, we went to Avignon. Le Guast, not
daring to hazard any fresh imposture, and finding that my conduct
afforded no ground for jealousy on the part of my husband, plainly
perceived that he could not, by that means, bring about a
misunderstanding betwixt my brother and the King my husband. He
therefore resolved to try what he could effect through Madame de Sauves.
In order to do this, he obtained such an influence over her that she
acted entirely as he directed; insomuch that, by his artful instructions,
the passion which these young men had conceived, hitherto wavering and
cold, as is generally the case at their time of life, became of a sudden
so violent that ambition and every obligation of duty were at once
absorbed by their attentions to this woman.

This occasioned such a jealousy betwixt them that, though her favours
were divided with M. de Guise, Le Guast, De Souvray, and others, any one
of whom she preferred to the brothers-in-law, such was the infatuation of
these last, that each considered the other as his only rival.

To carry on De Guast's sinister designs, this woman persuaded the King my