Not satisfied with this precaution, moreover, M. de Montmorency also demanded an audience of the King, in which he laid before him the apprehensions that he entertained; and finally he entreated his Majesty’s permission to compel his daughter to return to France, and to take up her residence with the Duchesse d’Angouleme, her aunt.

Henry made a ready and gracious reply to this request, and before he finally retired from the royal closet, the Connetable asked and obtained the royal sanction to authorize the Marquis de Coeuvres to concert with him some scheme for carrying off the Princess.

M. de Coeuvres had no sooner received these instructions than he admitted to his confidence Madame de Berny, the wife of the French Ambassador at the Flemish Court (who from political reasons was himself kept in ignorance of the plot), and M. de Chateauneuf,[413] who was at that period residing in Brussels on a special mission from his Government; and the quasi-conspirators were not long ere they flattered themselves that their success was certain.

Near the palace of the Prince of Orange, in which Madame de Conde had taken up her residence, was a breach in the city wall by which it was easy to descend into the moat; and it was decided that the Princess should effect her escape from this point during the night.  Saddled horses were to be prepared for herself and her retinue near the outer bank of the ditch, and nothing remained undecided save the moment of her evasion.  She was to proceed at all speed to Pontarme, where a relay of fresh horses and an armed escort were to await her arrival, and similar arrangements were to be made throughout the whole of the route to Rocroy.  Finally, the precise night of her flight was decided on; and this had no sooner been determined than M. de Coeuvres despatched a courier to the Connetable, informing him that there now remained no doubt of the immediate return of the Princess to his protection.

This intelligence reached Paris on the Wednesday, and the following Saturday was the period fixed for the projected evasion, a fact which M. de Montmorency had no sooner ascertained than he hastened to communicate the success of M. de Coeuvres to the King.  Henry was overjoyed, and in the fulness of his satisfaction was guilty of an indiscretion which was fated to overthrow his hopes; for, believing that in so short a time no effectual measures could be taken to frustrate the plot, he was incautious enough to confide the whole conspiracy to the Queen, who was still an invalid, not having yet recovered from the birth of her third daughter.[414] Agitated and alarmed, Marie listened to the narrative with an earnest attention, which only tended to render her royal consort more communicative than he might otherwise have been; and, in the excess of his self-gratulation, he moreover exhibited such unequivocal proofs of the interest which he personally felt in the result of the evasion, that she at once