the prince of Conde, more impatient than his brother, complained aloud, but to no purpose: he was removed from court, under pretence of being sent to Flanders to sign the ratification of the peace. They shewed the king of Navarre a forged letter from the king of Spain, which charged him with a design of seizing that king's fortresses; they put him in fear for his dominions, and made him take a resolution to go to Bearn; the queen furnished him with an opportunity, by appointing him to conduct madam Elizabeth, and obliged him to set out before her; so that there remained nobody at court that could balance the power of the house of Guise.
Though it was a mortifying circumstance for monsieur de Cleves not to conduct madam Elizabeth; yet he could not complain of it, by reason of the greatness of the person preferred before him; he regretted the loss of this employment not so much on account of the honour he should have received from it, as because it would have given him an opportunity of removing his wife from court, without the appearance of design in it.
A few days after the king's death, it was resolved the new king should go to Rheims to be crowned. As soon as this journey was talked of, madam de Cleves, who had stayed at home all this while under pretence of illness, entreated her husband to dispense with her following the court, and to give her leave to go to take the air at Colomiers for her health: he answered, That whether her health was the reason or not of her desire, however, he consented to it: nor was it very difficult for him to consent to a thing he had resolved upon before: as good an opinion as he had of his wife's virtue, he thought it imprudent to expose her any longer to the sight of a man she was in love with.
The duke de Nemours was soon informed that madam de Cleves was not to go along with the court; he could not find in his heart to set out without seeing her, and therefore, the night before his journey, he went to
