would grant her an audience.  She had no sooner received this permission than she hastened, accompanied by the Duchesse d’Angouleme her sister, to throw herself at the feet of the young sovereign; where, bathed in tears, she sobbed out her acknowledgment of the indulgence extended to her, and implored him to extend his clemency to the Prince her husband.  “But should you unhappily consider it expedient to detain him in the Bastille, Sire,” she concluded with deep emotion, “I entreat of your Majesty to allow me to share his prison.”

“Madame,” replied Louis, “it was already my intention so to do.  I am sincerely attached to M. de Conde, and to all his house; and every attention shall be paid to him until my government is perfectly established.  I greatly regret that at the present moment I am prevented by circumstances from restoring him to liberty; but assure him from me that I will cause his liberation at the earliest opportunity.”

Again and again did the delighted Princess utter her thanks; and after having been graciously dismissed by the King, she lost not a moment in proceeding, armed with the royal authority, to the Bastille, where, having constituted herself a prisoner, she hastened to impart her hopeful tidings to the Prince.

Despite the assurances which she had received, however, from the lips of Louis himself, four more weary months were passed by M. and Madame de Conde in the fortress, in that daily and hourly fever of expectation which is more agonizing than utter despair; and even at the close of that dreary time, instead of the liberty for which the husband and wife alike panted, an order arrived at the Bastille for the transfer of the deluded and unhappy couple to the Castle of Vincennes, which was communicated to them as a signal mark of the royal clemency; and in that citadel they were detained until the autumn of 1619.[310] The result of Madame de Conde’s admirable self-abnegation was, however, a source of triumph for her woman-heart, as the Prince was not proof against so unequivocal a demonstration of attachment, and thenceforward evinced towards her a tenderness which amply repaid her sacrifice.

Shortly after the transfer of Madame d’Ancre to the Conciergerie she was put upon her trial; but as her mental hallucination, together with her estrangement from her husband, rendered it probable that sufficient proof of political delinquency could not be adduced against her to justify an extreme sentence, and as her escape from the scaffold must necessarily tend to render his tenure of the confiscated property of Concini (of which he had already obtained the reversion) difficult, if not impossible, De Luynes did not hesitate to tamper with her judges, and to induce them, alike by bribes and threats, to accomplish her death.  For this purpose a second charge was coupled with that of lese-majeste, which was brought conjointly against herself and her murdered husband.  She was accused of sorcery as well as of conspiring against