Their alarm was shared by Catherine de’ Medici, to whom the prospect of so intimate a rapprochement between the Houses of Bourbon and Lorraine was anything but pleasing. Fully sensible though her Majesty was of the importance of detaching the first Prince of the Blood from the Protestant cause, she judged that this advantage would be too dearly purchased by the subordination of the Crown to two ambitious families, which would be the inevitable consequence of their alliance; and she was determined to use every means in her power to avert such a calamity. It was, of course, the King’s prerogative to refuse to sanction a marriage of which he might happen to disapprove, but arbitrary measures seldom commended themselves to Catherine, who always preferred to gain her ends by indirect means, and shift the odium which she would otherwise incur upon the shoulders of her agents. She therefore bethought herself of Isabelle de Limeuil, who had lately been transferred from Vienne to the Château of Tournon. Here, ready to her hand, was a woman, who, as their intercepted correspondence had shown her, had contrived, notwithstanding the infidelities of Condé, to preserve all her power over him—a woman who knew better than any other how to govern that emotional and fickle heart, by associating the most incredible expressions of tenderness with the most exaggerated flatteries. If Isabelle and her prince were brought together again, if matters could be so arranged that the latter should be compelled to offer his mistress the shelter of one of his own residences, was it not probable that, in the joy of this reunion, the question of his second marriage would be relegated, for a time at least, to the background? And was it not probable, too, that the open scandal would provoke remonstrances from his co-religionists which would irritate Condé and widen the breach which existed between him and his party?
Interesting indeed must have been the letters which passed at this time between the captive of Tournon and the enamoured prince, as the result of which Isabelle was not only rescued from her prison, but conducted to her lover at Valery, the château presented to Condé by her rival—a piquant revenge, in good truth, upon the Maréchale de Saint-André for the advantage which she had taken of Isabelle’s enforced absence from the field! Unfortunately, the correspondence has not been preserved, and the only light cast upon the situation is a passage in a despatch from Smith to Cecil, dated 10 April, 1565: “The Prince de Condé has by a certain gentleman stolen Mademoiselle de Lymoel (sic) from Tournon, where she was kept, and has her with him.”[72]
And has her with him! Yes, under the same roof! “Grand Dieu! it was enough to make Calvin rise from his grave!”[73] cried the Huguenot pastors, holding up their hands in righteous horror. “Had the prince taken leave of his senses that he should choose to create a public scandal and make ‘the Religion’ a by-word in the mouths of the forward, at the very moment when Catherine and Philip of Spain were believed to be plotting its destruction? Had not the way of salvation been made sufficiently plain to him? Had not Bèze and Pérussel and l’Espine and Laboissière spread the choicest flowers of their eloquence before him, and in sermons two hours long insisted on the necessity of the leaders of the faithful leading lives that should be beyond reproach. And this was the result! Out upon him for an evil-liver and an apostate!”
The politicians of the party were scarcely less indignant than the divines, and the reappearance of Isabelle upon the scene was the signal for a very pretty quarrel between them and the prince, of which a piquant account is given in an anonymous letter in Italian in the Simancas Collection:
“I have seen a letter of Madame de Chelles,[74] from which she appears to entertain great hopes of friendship between her brother and the cardinal [de Lorraine]. My friend and I think that nothing can be founded upon the words or the acts of so frivolous a man as Condé shows himself to be, who is at present more than ever enamoured of his Limeuil. Paroceli[75] has been here four or five days, and has preached in private to his Huguenots. Languet learned from him that dissension has arisen, on the subject of la Limeuil, between Condé and Châtillon [Coligny], and subsequently between the aforesaid Condé and his followers, in such manner that Châtillon has parted from him, has come to Paris, and has withdrawn, some say to Châtillon, others to an abbey belonging to him, and that Condé’s followers have almost all abandoned him.
“The occasion of this was that a certain letter was written to Condé from Paris, at the close of which was written: ‘The young lady has come.’ Châtillon, who was standing over Condé as he read the letter, saw these words, and, guessing what they meant, said to Condé: ‘I can tell what young lady it is that has come to Paris.’ To which Condé replied in certain words which showed that Châtillon’s speech was not agreeable to him; but the matter did not go any further for the time being.
“After la Limeuil had arrived at the place to which Condé had ordered her to be conducted, and they had been seen together, certain Huguenot gentlemen went and found Condé, and began to admonish him, and, so to speak, to reprove him on the subject of his mistress. Upon which, Condé, supposing that his secret had been revealed to them by Châtillon, and that it was at his instigation that they had come to reprove him, grew angry and said many things against them, designating them spies, and then adding that it was Châtillon who had told them this, and had sent them to talk to him; and with such indignation that he went on to say much evil of Châtillon and his whole House ... accusing them of arrogance, of presumption, and of not only wishing to put themselves on a level with princes, when they were naught but gentlemen of humble rank, but even of daring to insult him; and that it was not in his nature to suffer this any longer. Through these and such-like words, and even worse, it came about that Châtillon separated himself from Condé. The greater part of the Huguenots have done likewise, so that he finds himself now almost alone.”
However, a little reflection sufficed to convince the Huguenot leaders that the discredit which it was bringing upon their Faith was not the most serious aspect of Condé’s infatuation for Isabelle; in other words, that Catherine was at the bottom of the affair, and had deliberately thrown the two together again, “with a view to the prince becoming what his brother had already become by means of la Rouet.” “Suspecting which,” continues the writer of the letter already cited, “the gentlemen of Condé’s party took counsel together to find a remedy for so great an evil, and resolved upon three courses: first, that the ministers should speak out roundly to him, representing the personal danger and disgrace of the affair, and the scandal common to the whole Religion, since he was its chief, and persuade him, if he could not keep continent, to take a wife. The second remedy, if the first did not succeed, was for the principal gentleman of the Religion, acting in common accord, and his own intimate friends, to wait upon him and address to him the same remonstrances, making him understand that, if he did not separate himself from la Limeuil, they would leave him alone; and, in effect, if he declined to do so, they would leave him. The third remedy, in the event of the first two not succeeding, was that la Limeuil should be excommunicated, anathematized, and delivered into the power of Satan.”
In accordance with these resolutions, a deputation selected from the most prominent Huguenot divines waited upon the backsliding prince at Valery and endeavoured to awaken him to a sense of the error of his ways. Condé received his reverend friends courteously enough, but declared that he “could not keep continent and could not take a wife, since it was difficult to find a person of his own rank belonging to the same religion, and impossible to find one of another religion.”
Sadly the ministers withdrew, and the lay deputation advanced to the attack. It met with anything but a cordial reception: indeed, his Highness expressed his opinion of its interference with his private affairs in such exceedingly plain language that it was obliged to beat a precipitate retreat. Whence, we are told, “the Religion found itself in great trouble and knew not what further to do, since it feared to make matters worse by excommunicating la Limeuil, Condé being of a nature so inclined to women that there was great danger lest la Limeuil should have more power over him than the Religion.”