The summons was obeyed.  The ambassadors, who duly arrived, were magnificently received; Henri d’Anjou was declared King of Poland; and, finally, he found himself compelled to depart for his own kingdom.  Unfortunately for Marguerite, she had not sufficient self-control to conceal the joy with which she saw the immediate succession to the French throne thus transferred to her favourite brother; and her evident delight so exasperated the Queen-mother, that she communicated to Charles the suspicions which she herself entertained of the treachery of the Princess; but the King, worn down by both physical and mental suffering, treated her warnings with indifference, and she was consequently compelled to await with patience the progress of events.

The death of the French monarch, which shortly afterwards took place, and the accession of Henri d’Anjou, whom a timely warning had enabled to abandon the crown of Poland for that of France, for a time diverted the attention of Catherine from the suspected machinations of her daughter, when, as if to convince her of her injustice, she suddenly received secret intelligence from the young Queen of Navarre, that the Duc d’Alencon had entered into a new league with the Bourbon Princes.  It is difficult to account for the motive which led Marguerite to make this revelation, when her extraordinary affection for her brother, and the anxiety which she had universally exhibited for the safety of her husband, are remembered; thus much, however, is certain, that she did not betray the conspiracy (which had been revealed to her by a Lutheran gentleman whom she had saved during the massacre of St. Bartholomew) until she had exacted a pledge that the lives of all who were involved in it should be spared.  In her anxiety to secure the secret, the Queen-mother, on her side, gave a solemn promise to that effect, and she redeemed her word; while from the immediate precautions which she caused to be taken the plot was necessarily annihilated.

The Princess had, however, by the knowledge which she thus displayed of the movements of the Huguenot party, only increased the suspicions both of the Queen-mother and her son; and the Court of France became ere long so distasteful to Henry of Navarre, from the constant affronts to which he was subjected, and the undisguised surveillance which fettered all his movements, that he resolved to effect his escape from Paris, an example in which he was imitated by the Duc d’Alencon and the Prince de Conde, the former of whom retired to Champagne, and the latter to one of his estates, and with both of whom he shortly afterwards entered into a formidable league.