And every day the Duchess of Angouleme, sister of the Constable, brought
her fair niece to visit and converse with the royal invalid. But for the
dark and tragic clouds which were gradually closing around that eventful
and heroic existence there would be something almost comic in the
spectacle of the sufferer making the palace and all France ring with the
howlings of his grotesque passion for a child of fifteen as he lay
helpless and crippled with the gout.

One day as the Duchess of Angouleme led her niece away from their morning
visit to the King, Margaret as she passed by Bassompierre shrugged her
shoulders with a scornful glance. Stung by this expression of contempt,
the lover who had renounced her sprang from the dice table, buried his
face in his hat, pretending that his nose was bleeding, and rushed
frantically from the palace.

Two days long he spent in solitude, unable to eat, drink, or sleep,
abandoned to despair and bewailing his wretched fate, and it was long
before he could recover sufficient equanimity to face his lost Margaret
and resume his place at the King's dicing table. When he made his
appearance, he was according to his own account so pale, changed, and
emaciated that his friends could not recognise him.

The marriage with Conde, first prince of the blood, took place early in
the spring. The bride received magnificent presents, and the husband a,
pension of 100,000 livres a year. The attentions of the King became soon
outrageous and the reigning scandal of the hour. Henry, discarding the
grey jacket and simple costume on which he was wont to pride himself,
paraded himself about in perfumed ruffs and glittering doublet, an
ancient fop, very little heroic, and much ridiculed. The Princess made