whom the step had unquestionably been taken--was of gravest political
importance.

Henry had heard the intelligence but an hour before. He was at cards in
his cabinet with Bassompierre and others when d'Elbene entered and made a
private communication to him. "Bassompierre, my friend," whispered the
King immediately in that courtier's ear, "I am lost. This man has
carried his wife off into a wood. I don't know if it is to kill her or
to take her out of France. Take care of my money and keep up the game."

Bassompierre followed the king shortly afterwards and brought him his
money. He said that he had never seen a man so desperate, so
transported.

The matter was indeed one of deepest and universal import. The reader
has seen by the preceding narrative how absurd is the legend often
believed in even to our own days that war was made by France upon the
Archdukes and upon Spain to recover the Princess of Conde from captivity
in Brussels.

From contemporary sources both printed and unpublished; from most
confidential conversations and revelations, we have seen how broad,
deliberate, and deeply considered were the warlike and political
combinations in the King's ever restless brain. But although the
abduction of the new Helen by her own Menelaus was not the cause of the
impending, Iliad, there is no doubt whatever that the incident had much
to do with the crisis, was the turning point in a great tragedy, and that
but for the vehement passion of the King for this youthful princess
events might have developed themselves on a far different scale from that
which they were destined to assume. For this reason a court intrigue,