cesse Marie
de Medicis, his kinswoman (although at this period Henry evinced no
inclination towards such an alliance), but even when he discovered that
his Holiness remained unmoved by this prospect of family aggrandizement,
he ventured so far as to hint, in conjunction with the Cardinal d'Ossat,
that it was probable, should the Pontiff continue to withhold his
consent to the annullation of the King's present marriage, he would
dispense with it altogether, and make the Duchesse de Beaufort Queen of
France: a threat which so alarmed the sovereign-prelate that,
immediately declaring that he placed the whole affair in the hands of
God, he commanded a general fast throughout Rome, and shut himself up in
his oratory, where he continued for a considerable time in fervent
prayer. On his reappearance he was calm,[51] and simply remarked: "God
has provided for it."

A few days subsequently a courier arrived at Rome with intelligence of
the death of the Duchess.

Meanwhile Gabrielle, by her unbridled vanity, had counteracted all the
exertions of her partisans. Aware of her power over the King, and
believing that this divorce from Marguerite once obtained, she should
find little difficulty in overcoming all other obstacles, she was
unguarded enough prematurely to assume the state and pretensions of the
regality to which she aspired, affecting airs of patronage towards the
greatest ladies of the Court, and lavishing the most profuse promises
upon the sycophants and flatterers by whom she was surrounded. The
infatuation of the King, whose passion for his arrogant mistress
appeared to increase with time, tended, as a natural consequence, to
encourage these unseemly demonstrations; nor did the friends of the
exiled Queen fail to render her cognizant of every extravagance
committed by the woman who aspired to become her successor; upon which
Marguerite, who, morally fallen as she was in her own person, had never
forgotten that she was alike the daughter and the consort of a king,
suddenly withdrew her consent to the proposed divorce; declaring, in
terms more forcible than delicate, that no woman of blighted character
should ever, through her agency, usurp her place.

The sudden and frightful death of the Duchess, which shortly afterwards
supervened, having, however, removed her only objection to the proposed
measure, her marriage with the King was, at length, finally declared
null and void, to the equal satisfaction of both parties.