and enforcing its submission to her own delegated supremacy; never to suffer herself to be misled by her passions or prejudices, but to weigh all her measures maturely before she insisted upon their enforcement; to protect the Jesuits, but at the same time to be careful not to allow them to increase their numbers, or to form establishments upon the frontiers; to attach the nobility by favours which could not endanger the interests of the throne, but to be cautious in her concessions where they might tend to any undue aggrandizement of their former power and influence; and, above all, not rashly to undertake any war against the Huguenots until she had received full assurance of being enabled to terminate it successfully.  As regarded the Dauphin, he declared that his greatest desire was to see him the husband of Mademoiselle de Lorraine, provided the Duke should not have other children; as, in such case, the French nation would be aggrandized by the territories of a state from which it had received much and grievous injury.  He expressed, moreover, the greatest repugnance to the proposed marriage between Madame Elisabeth and the Infant of Spain, alleging as his reason the perpetual rivalry of the two powers, and the circumstance that the prosperity of the one must necessarily involve the abasement of the other; and finally he declared that were he compelled to give the hand of his daughter to a Spanish Prince, it should be to a younger brother who might be declared Duke of Flanders, and not to the heir to the throne.[13]

The Queen, while listening to these counsels, did not cease her entreaties that he would abandon his intention of quitting the kingdom, and leave the conduct of the campaign to his generals.  She represented her own inexperience in state affairs, the extreme youth of the Dauphin, and the long life which he himself might still enjoy if he did not voluntarily place himself in situations of peril, which was the less required of him as he had already established his fame as a soldier throughout the whole of Europe.  Henry answered only by a jest.  Love and ambition alike lured him on; and beneath their baneful influence prudence and reason were silenced.[14]

On the morning succeeding the coronation of his royal consort, the King attended mass at the church of the Feuillants, where he was accompanied by the Duc de Guise and M. de Bassompierre; and as he was still in the same exuberant spirits as on the preceding day, a great deal of light and desultory conversation took place during their return to the palace; which was, however, abruptly terminated by Henry, whose countenance became suddenly overcast as he said in reply to a gay remark made by M. de Guise—­

“Even you do not understand me now; but one of these days, when I am dead, you will learn my value.”