When I arrived at Cateau-Cambresis, I had intelligence sent me that a party of the Huguenot troops had a design to attack me on the frontiers of Flanders and France.  This intelligence I communicated to a few only of my company, and prepared to set off an hour before daybreak.  When I sent for my litters and horses, I found much such a kind of delay from the Chevalier Salviati as I had before experienced at Liege, and suspecting it was done designedly, I left my litter behind, and mounted on horseback, with such of my attendants as were ready to follow me.  By this means, with God’s assistance, I escaped being waylaid by my enemies, and reached Catelet at ten in the morning.  From there I went to my house at La Fere, where I intended to reside until I learned that peace was concluded upon.

At La Fere I found a messenger in waiting from my brother, who had orders to return with all expedition, as soon as I arrived, and inform him of it.  My brother wrote me word, by that messenger, that peace was concluded, and the King returned to Paris; that, as to himself, his situation was rather worse than better; that he and his people were daily receiving some affront or other, and continual quarrels were excited betwixt the King’s favourites and Bussi and my brother’s principal attendants.  This, he added, had made him impatient for my return, that he might come and visit me.

I sent his messenger back, and immediately after, my brother sent Bussi and all his household to Angers, and, taking with him fifteen or twenty attendants, he rode post to me at La Fere.  It was a great satisfaction to me to see one whom I so tenderly loved and greatly honoured, once more.  I considered it amongst the greatest felicities I ever enjoyed, and, accordingly, it became my chief study to make his residence here agreeable to him.  He himself seemed delighted with this change of situation, and would willingly have continued in it longer had not the noble generosity of his mind called him forth to great achievements.  The quiet of our Court, when compared with that he had just left, affected him so powerfully that he could not but express the satisfaction he felt by frequently exclaiming, “Oh, Queen! how happy I am with you.  My God! your society is a paradise wherein I enjoy every delight, and I seem to have lately escaped from hell, with all its furies and tortures!”

LETTER XVII

We passed nearly two months together, which appeared to us only as so many days.  I gave him an account of what I had done for him in Flanders, and the state in which I had left the business.  He approved of the interview with the Comte de Lalain’s brother in order to settle the plan of operations and exchange assurances.  Accordingly, the Comte de Montigny arrived, with four or five other leading men of the county of Hainault.  One of these was charged with a letter from M. d’Ainsi, offering his services