Qu’en un bois
Il y a de feuilles vertes.”
With the exception of Du Fresne, who passed for her amant de cœur, it is doubtful if any of the gentlemen we have named ever saw his hopes materialize, for the fair Isabelle was exceedingly fastidious. Moreover, she appears to have been one of those sirens who have a nice appreciation of the commercial value of their charms, and who not only set an exalted price upon their favours, but do not scruple to discount it in advance and subsequently decline to meet their obligations. “Monseigneur,” writes she to the Duc d’Aumale, in a letter appealing to his benevolence, “if you have not discovered how much I desired to do the thing which was agreeable to you, it was not because you had not the means, but the will.”[31]
Isabelle lent herself the more readily to Catherine’s plans, since the mission confided to her was one in which her inclination happened to harmonize with her interests. For she seems to have been attracted from the first by this good-humoured little man, with his pleasant face and his laughing eyes, who danced so gracefully, paid such pretty compliments to the ladies, and, notwithstanding his lack of inches, could hold his own in manly exercises with any gentleman at the Court. And, besides, he was a Prince of the Blood and one of the bravest captains in France; and his narrow escape from the scaffold three years before, his exploits in the field, and his recent captivity, all of which naturally made a powerful appeal to ladies of a romantic disposition, had greatly enhanced the favour with which he had always been regarded by the opposite sex, many of whom would have been only too willing to accept him as a “serviteur.”
As for Condé, flattered by the preference of a young beauty for whom some of the most fascinating gallants of the Court had sighed in vain, he never paused to consider how far this bonne fortune was due to his own attractions, but plunged into it with the same impetuosity with which on the battlefield he threw himself into the thick of the enemy’s squadrons. He promised himself merely an agreeable adventure; he found one of those entanglements from which it is a difficult matter to escape.
Isabelle de Limeuil was very soon afforded an opportunity of putting the devotion which her royal admirer professed for her to the test.
Coligny and the Huguenot stalwarts had not been the only allies whom Condé had offended in accepting the conditions imposed by the Court in the Peace of Amboise. It will be remembered that an article in the Treaty of Hampton Court had stipulated that the English were to retain possession of Le Havre and Dieppe until Calais had been restored to them. Now, Condé had never officially ratified the engagements that the Vidame de Chartres had undertaken in his name; indeed, he pretended to be unaware of their full import; and had he ever been so desirous of it, it would have been impossible for him to have made the immediate restoration of Calais, or the continued retention of Le Havre by the English as a lien upon that town, a condition of peace. As an English historian very justly remarks, such a proposal would have “enlisted the pride of France against himself and his cause and have identified religious freedom with national degradation.”[32] When, therefore, on his return to Orléans after the conference on the Île-aux-Bœufs, he wrote to inform Elizabeth of what was taking place, he said not a word about Calais, but boldly assumed that her Majesty’s motives in coming to the assistance of the Huguenots had been entirely disinterested, and that, since liberty of conscience was on the point of being secured, there was no longer any occasion for continuing the war. “Now, Madame,” he wrote, “you will let it be known that none other reason than simply your zeal for the protection of the faithful who desire the preaching of the pure Gospel induced you to favour our cause.”[33]
Elizabeth, however, cared very little for the protection of the faithful in comparison with Calais, and she wrote the prince a very angry letter, in which she called upon him to fulfil his promise and bade him beware “how he set an example of perfidy to the world.” Her remonstrances, however, produced no effect, and immediately after the signing of the Peace, in accordance with an article which stipulated that the foreign auxiliaries on both sides should be sent home, the Earl of Warwick received notice that he was expected to withdraw from Le Havre.
This, however, Elizabeth firmly declined to allow him to do. In vain, Condé wrote, offering her, in the name of himself, the Regent, and the entire nobility of France, to renew formally and solemnly the clause in the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis for the restoration of Calais in 1567, to repay the money which she had advanced the Huguenots, and to remove all restrictions upon English trade with France. In vain, he despatched envoys to explain his position and to reason with her. In vain, the young King wrote himself, offering the ratification of the treaty, with “hostages at her choice” for its fulfilment from the noblest families in France. Bitterly mortified at having been outwitted in a transaction from which she had intended to reap all the advantage, she would listen to no terms. The Prince de Condé, she declared, was “a treacherous, inconstant, perjured villain,” with whom she desired to have no dealings; she required Calais delivered over to her and her money paid down, and until she had obtained both, Le Havre should remain in her hands.