illegitimately born Dauphin or himself.

The King sent for the first president of Parliament, Harlay, and
consulted with him as to the proper means of reviving the suppressed
process against the Dowager and of publicly degrading Conde from his
position of first prince of the blood which he had been permitted to
usurp. He likewise procured a decree accusing him of high-treason and
ordering him to be punished at his Majesty's pleasure, to be prepared
by the Parliament of Paris; going down to the court himself in his
impatience and seating himself in everyday costume on the bench of
judges to see that it was immediately proclaimed.

Instead of at once attacking the Archdukes in force as he intended in
the first ebullition of his wrath, he resolved to send de Boutteville-
Montmorency, a relative of the Constable, on special and urgent mission
to Brussels. He was to propose that Conde and his wife should return
with the Prince and Princess of Orange to Breda, the King pledging
himself that for three or four months nothing should be undertaken
against him. Here was a sudden change of determination fit to surprise
the States-General, but the King's resolution veered and whirled about
hourly in the tempests of his wrath and love.

That excellent old couple, the Constable and the Duchess of Angouleme,
did their best to assist their sovereign in his fierce attempts to get
their daughter and niece into his power.

The Constable procured a piteous letter to be written to Archduke Albert,
signed "Montmorency his mark," imploring him not to "suffer that his
daughter, since the Prince refused to return to France, should leave
Brussels to be a wanderer about the world following a young prince who