"
Bassompierre understood perfectly the kind of bargain that was in
Henry's mind. As for the Prince de Conde, he appears to have been
less acute, no doubt because his vision was dazzled by the
prospect of a hundred thousand livres a year. So desperately poor
was he that for half that sum he would have taken Lucifer's own
daughter to wife, without stopping to consider the disadvantages
it might entail.
The marriage was quietly celebrated at Chantilly in February of
1609. Trouble followed fast. Not only did Conde perceive at last
precisely what was expected of him, and indignantly rebel against
it, but the Queen, too, was carefully instructed in the matter by
Concino Concini and his wife Leonora Galigai, the ambitious
adventurers who had come from Florence in her train, and who saw
in the King's weakness their own opportunity.
The scandal that ensued was appalling. Never before had the
relations between Henry and his queen been strained so nearly to
breaking-point. And then, whilst the trouble of Henry's own
making was growing about him until it threatened to overwhelm
him, he received a letter from Vaucelas, his ambassador at
Madrid, containing revelations that changed his annoyance into
stark apprehension.
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