Better a Guise than a Bourbon, the son
of Jeanne d'Albret. But our Henri might be useful to her as an
instrument to check the Duke of Guise in any attempted usurpation
during the life of her son. Therefore, Henri was to be cajoled while he
was being restrained. But he was not fooled into disadvantageous
compacts or concessions. All that he lost was a single town, which
Catherine caused to be attacked while he was at a fete; but he learned
of this at the fete, and retaliated by taking a town of the French
King's on the same night.
I was presented to Catherine while she was at Nerac. No allusion was made
to the circumstances which had caused my flight from Paris, or, indeed,
to my having ever been in Paris. Yet, from her scrutiny of my features, I
knew that she recalled those circumstances with my name. But Nerac was
not the place where it would serve her to concern herself about me. I
learned from one of Catherine's gentlemen that Mlle. d'Arency, who had
not come with her to Nerac, had wedded the Marquis de Pirillaume, who was
jealous and kept her on his estate in Dauphiny, away from the court. I
wished him joy of her.
When Catherine and her troop went back to the French court, leaving
Marguerite at Nerac, they could boast of a few Huguenot gentlemen won
over to their designs, but I was not one of the few. I do not say that I
did not amuse myself where charming women abounded, but I kept my heart
to myself.
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