ffect, had not the
unfortunate woman succeeded in making her escape through the agency of
two individuals who were about to rejoin the Duc d'Alencon, and who
conducted her safely to Champagne.[11]

One of the first acts of Henry of Navarre on reaching his own dominions
had been to protest against the enforced abjuration to which he was
compelled on the fatal night of St. Bartholomew, and to evince his
sincerity by resuming the practices of the reformed faith, a recantation
which so exasperated the French King that he made Marguerite a close
prisoner in her own apartments, under the pretext that she was leagued
with the enemies of the state against the church and throne of her
ancestors. Nor would he listen to her entreaties that she might be
permitted to follow her husband, declaring that "she should not live
with a heretic"; and thus her days passed on in a gloomy and cheerless
monotony, ill suited to her excitable temperament and splendid tastes.
Meanwhile, the Duc d'Alencon, weary of his voluntary exile, and hopeless
of any successful result to the disaffection in which he had so long
indulged, became anxious to effect a reconciliation with the King; and
for this purpose he addressed himself to Marguerite, to whom he
explained the conditions upon which he was willing to return to his
allegiance, giving her full power to treat in his name. Henri III, who,
on his side, was no less desirous to detach his brother from the
Protestant cause, acceded to all his demands, among which was the
immediate liberation of the Princess; and thus she at length found
herself enabled to quit her regal prison and to rejoin her royal
husband at Bearn.

During the space of five years the ill-assorted couple maintained at
least a semblance of harmony, for each apparently regarded very
philosophically those delicate questions which occasionally conduce to
considerable discord in married life. The personal habits of Henry,
combined with his sense of gratitude to his wife for her refusal to
abandon him to the virulence of her mother's hatred, induced him to
close his eyes to her moral delinquencies, while Marguerite, in her
turn, with equal complacency, affected a like ignorance as regarded the
pursuits of her husband; and thus the little Court of Pau, where they
had established their residence, rendered attractive by the frank
urbanity of the sovereign, and the grace and intellect of the young
Queen, became as brilliant and as dissipated as