merry with the antics of her royal adorer, while her vanity at least, if
not her affection, was really touched, and there was one great round of
court festivities in her honour, at which the King and herself were ever
the central figures. But Conde was not at all amused. Not liking the
part assigned to him in the comedy thus skilfully arranged by his cousin
king, never much enamoured of his bride, while highly appreciating the
100,000 livres of pension, he remonstrated violently with his wife,
bitterly reproached the King, and made himself generally offensive.
"The Prince is here," wrote Henry to Sully, "and is playing the very
devil. You would be in a rage and be ashamed of the things he says of
me. But at last I am losing patience, and am resolved to give him a bit
of my mind." He wrote in the same terms to Montmorency. The Constable,
whose conduct throughout the affair was odious and pitiable, promised to
do his best to induce the Prince, instead of playing the devil, to listen
to reason, as he and the Duchess of Angouleme understood reason.

Henry had even the ineffable folly to appeal to the Queen to use her
influence with the refractory Conde. Mary de' Medici replied that there
were already thirty go-betweens at work, and she had no idea of being the
thirty-first--[Henrard, 30].

Conde, surrounded by a conspiracy against his honour and happiness,
suddenly carried off his wife to the country, much to the amazement and
rage of Henry.

In the autumn he entertained a hunting party at a seat of his, the Abbey
of Verneuille, on the borders of Picardy. De Traigny, governor of
Amiens, invited the Prince, Princess, and the Dowager-Princess to a
banquet at his chateau not far from the Abbey. On their road thither
they passed a group of huntsmen and grooms in the royal livery. Among