a secret promise, in which the Infanta joined, that the Princess should not be allowed to leave Brussels without her husband’s permission, and resolutely declined separating the pair except with the full consent of both.  In order to protect himself from the King’s threats, he suggested sending Conde to some neutral place for six or eight months, to Prague, to Breda, or anywhere else; but Henry knew that Conde would never allow this unless he had the means by Spanish gold of bribing the garrison there, and so of holding the place in pretended neutrality, but in reality at the devotion of the King of Spain.

Meantime Henry had despatched the Marquis de Coeuvres, brother of the beautiful Gabrielle, Duchess de Beaufort, and one of the most audacious and unscrupulous of courtiers, on a special mission to Brussels.  De Coeuvres saw Conde before presenting his credentials to the Archduke, and found him quite impracticable.  Acting under the advice of the Prince of Orange, he expressed his willingness to retire to some neutral city of Germany or Italy, drawing meanwhile from Henry a pension of 40,000 crowns a year.  But de Coeuvres firmly replied that the King would make no terms with his vassal nor allow Conde to prescribe conditions to him.  To leave him in Germany or Italy, he said, was to leave him in the dependence of Spain.  The King would not have this constant apprehension of her intrigues while, living, nor leave such matter in dying for turbulence in his kingdom.  If it appeared that the Spaniards wished to make use of the Prince for such purposes, he would be beforehand with them, and show them how much more injury he could inflict on Spain than they on France.  Obviously committed to Spain, Conde replied to the entreaties of the emissary that if the King would give him half his kingdom he would not accept the offer nor return to France; at least before the 8th of February, by which date he expected advices from Spain.  He had given his word, he said, to lend his ear to no overtures before that time.  He made use of many threats, and swore that he would throw himself entirely into the arms of the Spanish king if Henry would not accord him the terms which he had proposed.

To do this was an impossibility.  To grant him places of security would, as the King said, be to plant a standard for all the malcontents of France to rally around.  Conde had evidently renounced all hopes of a reconciliation, however painfully his host the Archduke might intercede for it.  He meant to go to Spain.  Spinola was urging this daily and hourly, said Henry, for he had fallen in love with the Princess, who complained of all these persecutions in her letters to her father, and said that she would rather die than go to Spain.

The King’s advices from de Coeuvres were however to the effect that the step would probably be taken, that the arrangements were making, and that Spinola had been shut up with Conde six hours long with nobody present but Rochefort and a certain counsellor of the Prince of Orange named Keeremans.