Henry had heard the intelligence but an hour before.  He was at cards in his cabinet with Bassompierre and others when d’Elbene entered and made a private communication to him.  “Bassompierre, my friend,” whispered the King immediately in that courtier’s ear, “I am lost.  This man has carried his wife off into a wood.  I don’t know if it is to kill her or to take her out of France.  Take care of my money and keep up the game.”

Bassompierre followed the king shortly afterwards and brought him his money.  He said that he had never seen a man so desperate, so transported.

The matter was indeed one of deepest and universal import.  The reader has seen by the preceding narrative how absurd is the legend often believed in even to our own days that war was made by France upon the Archdukes and upon Spain to recover the Princess of Conde from captivity in Brussels.

From contemporary sources both printed and unpublished; from most confidential conversations and revelations, we have seen how broad, deliberate, and deeply considered were the warlike and political combinations in the King’s ever restless brain.  But although the abduction of the new Helen by her own Menelaus was not the cause of the impending, Iliad, there is no doubt whatever that the incident had much to do with the crisis, was the turning point in a great tragedy, and that but for the vehement passion of the King for this youthful princess events might have developed themselves on a far different scale from that which they were destined to assume.  For this reason a court intrigue, which history under other conditions might justly disdain, assumes vast proportions and is taken quite away from the scandalous chronicle which rarely busies itself with grave affairs of state.

“The flight of Conde,” wrote Aerssens, “is the catastrophe to the comedy which has been long enacting.  ’Tis to be hoped that the sequel may not prove tragical.”

“The Prince,” for simply by that title he was usually called to distinguish him from all other princes in France, was next of blood.  Had Henry no sons, he would have succeeded him on the throne.  It was a favourite scheme of the Spanish party to invalidate Henry’s divorce from Margaret of Valois, and thus to cast doubts on the legitimacy of the Dauphin and the other children of Mary de’ Medici.

The Prince in the hands of the Spanish government might prove a docile and most dangerous instrument to the internal repose of France not only after Henry’s death but in his life-time.  Conde’s character was frivolous, unstable, excitable, weak, easy to be played upon by designing politicians, and he had now the deepest cause for anger and for indulging in ambitious dreams.

He had been wont during this unhappy first year of his marriage to loudly accuse Henry of tyranny, and was now likely by public declaration to assign that as the motive of his flight.  Henry had protested in reply that he had never been guilty of tyranny but once in his life, and that was when he allowed this youth to take the name and title of Conde?