of the Comtesse de Beaumont-Harlay, had accompanied her mistress to England, whither M. de Beaumont-Harlay[368] had been accredited as ambassador; and on the return of her patroness to France she appeared in her suite at Court, where she instantly attracted the attention of the dissolute King.  Her reign was happily a short one, and at the close of two years she retired with the title of Comtesse de Romorantin, having previously been privately married to the Archbishop of Rheims.[369]

We shall pass over in silence the other liaisons of the monarch, as they were too transitory greatly to affect the tranquillity of the Queen, until we are once more compelled to return to them in order to record his unhappy passion for the beautiful Princesse de Conde—­a passion which at one period threatened to involve a European war.

On the 6th of April Marie de Medicis gave birth to her second son, who received the title of Duc d’Orleans, that duchy having always since the time of Philip VI been the appanage of a Prince of the Blood, or one of the first nobles of the kingdom.  The public rejoicings were universal, and the satisfaction of the King without bounds.  The little Prince was privately baptized by the Cardinal de Gondy, until the state ceremonies of his christening could take place; and on the 22d of the month he was invested by the sovereign with the insignia of St. Michael and the Holy Ghost, in the presence of the Cardinals, and the Commanders and Knights of those Orders, with great pomp; after which a banquet was given by the King in the great hall at Fontainebleau, and at nightfall the park was illuminated in all directions by immense bonfires, and a pyrotechnic display, which was witnessed by admiring and exulting thousands.

The intelligence which reached Paris on the following day that peace had been restored between the Pope and the Venetians, through the intervention of the French monarch; that the Papal excommunication which had been fulminated against that republic had been repealed, and a general absolution accorded, excited the enthusiasm of the French people to its greatest height.  They augured from this fact a brilliant future for the little Prince, who had come into the world at the very moment when the great work had been achieved; and this feeling was shared by the august parents of the royal infant.  So little can human foresight fathom the designs of the Almighty Disposer of all things!  Men congratulated each other in the public street; and, forgetting the Huguenot origin of Henry, considered him only as the champion of the Romish faith; while they coupled his name and that of the Queen with every endearing epithet of which they were susceptible.

The remainder of the summer was occupied by the monarch in the embellishment of the capital, in high play,[370] and in his rapidly-waning passion for Madame de Verneuil; while the Court resided alternately at Fontainebleau and St. Germain; the Queen confining herself more and more to the society of her children and her immediate favourites, listening with jealous avidity to every rumour of infidelity on the part of her royal consort, and occasionally renewing those unhappy differences by which the whole of their married life had been embittered.