It was the first occasion upon which Mademoiselle de Guise and the Duke had met; and we have the authority of the lady for stating that the attraction was mutual.  M. de Bellegarde had long been the avowed lover of la belle Gabrielle; but, inconstant as the fair D’Estrees herself, he at once surrendered his previously-occupied heart to this new goddess.  His prior attachment was not, however, the only reason which should have deterred Mademoiselle de Guise from thus suffering her fancy to overcome her better feelings, as M. de Bellegarde was accused of having been accessory to the assassination of her father; but neither of these considerations appears to have had any weight with the young Princess.  According to her own version of the circumstance, Gabrielle conceived so violent a jealousy that the Duke was compelled to condescend to every imaginable subterfuge in order to conceal the truth; while the King, who soon became aware of the secret intelligence which subsisted between the lovers, ceased to feel any inclination to raise Mademoiselle de Guise to the throne of France; although, as we have seen, he was by no means insensible either to the charm of her wit or the attraction of her beauty.

In order to follow up his great design of pacification, Henry, after having re-established Philip of Nassau in his principality of Orange, also effected his marriage with Eleonore de Bourbon,[304] by which union he secured another desirable ally.[305]

During the development of the late conspiracy the monarch had been indebted for much of the information which he had received relative to the intrigues of the Comte d’Auvergne to the intelligence afforded by the ex-Queen Marguerite, who, having come into possession of many facts which could not otherwise have been known to the King, had assiduously imparted to him every circumstance that she conceived to be of importance; a service for which he had not failed to express his gratitude.  That Marguerite had, however, been in no small degree actuated in this matter by feelings of self-interest, there can be no doubt, D’Auvergne having long enjoyed the proprietorship of the county from whence he derived his title, and which had been bestowed on him by Henri III, as well as several other estates which that monarch had inherited from his mother, Catherine de Medicis, the said territories having formed a portion of her dowry on her union with Henri II.  Marguerite’s memories of her brother, as the reader will readily comprehend, were not sufficiently attaching to induce her to submit patiently to such a substitution, as she was aware that, by the marriage contract, the property in question was settled upon the female offspring of Catherine in default of male issue; and her lavish expenditure and errant adventures having exhausted her means, she resolved to exert every effort to establish her claim.  She had already upon several occasions solicited permission to return to the French capital;