to live at ease; that the finances and the command of the Army
were disposed of, and that when he had occasion for his advice,
he would send for him to Court. The Queen received him in a yet
colder manner than the King, and she even reproached him for
having told the late King, that his children by her did not
resemble him. The King of Navarre arrived, and was no better
received; 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 showed 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