summoned up valour enough to resist her blandishments, and had refused a
second entertainment.

It was not, therefore, the disappointment at losing her ball that now
made the Princess sad. She and her companions saw that there had been
a catastrophe; a plot discovered. There was bitter disappointment and
deep dismay upon their faces. The plot had been an excellent one. De
Coeuvres had arranged it all, especially instigated thereto by the father
of the Princess acting in concurrence with the King. That night when all
was expected to be in accustomed quiet, the Princess, wrapped in her
mantilla, was to have stolen down into the garden, accompanied only by
her maid the adventurous and faithful Philipotte, to have gone through a
breach which led through a garden wall to the city ramparts, thence
across the foss to the counterscarp, where a number of horsemen under
trustworthy commanders were waiting. Mounting on the crupper behind one
of the officers of the escort, she was then to fly to the frontier,
relays of horses having been provided at every stage until she should
reach Rocroy, the first pausing place within French territory; a perilous
adventure for the young and delicate Princess in a winter of almost
unexampled severity.

On the very morning of the day assigned for the adventure, despatches
brought by special couriers from the Nuncius and the Spanish ambassador
at Paris gave notice of the plot to the Archdukes and to Conde, although
up to that moment none knew of it in Brussels. Albert, having been
apprised that many Frenchmen had been arriving during the past few days,
and swarming about the hostelries of the city and suburbs, was at once
disposed to believe in the story. When Conde came to him, therefore,
with confirmation from his own letters, and demanding a detachment of the
body-guard in addition to the burgher militiamen already granted by the