ervile proceeding produced no
adequate result, as his envoy received only ambiguous answers, and all
he could accomplish was to extort a promise from Henri III that on his
return to Paris he would discuss the affair with the Queen-mother and
the Duc d'Alencon.

Unaware of the negotiation which was thus opened, Marguerite had, as we
have said, lost all confidence in her own influence over her husband;
and accordingly, without giving any intimation of her design, she left
Nerac and retired to Agen, one of her dower-cities, where she
established herself in the castle; but her unbridled depravity of
conduct, combined with the extortions of Madame de Duras, her friend and
_confidante_, by whom she had been rejoined, soon rendered her odious to
the inhabitants.

In vain did she declare that the bull of excommunication which Sixtus V
had recently fulminated against the King of Navarre had been the cause
of her retiring from his Court, her conscience not permitting her to
share the roof of a prince under the ban of the Church.[21] The Agenese,
although Catholics and leagued against her husband, evinced towards
herself a disaffection so threatening that her position was rapidly
becoming untenable, when the city was stormed and taken by the Marechal
de Matignon[22] in the name of Henri III.[23]

Convinced that the capture of her own person was the sole motive of
this unprovoked assault, the fugitive Queen had once more recourse to
flight; and her eagerness to escape the power of the French King was so
great that she left the city seated on a pillion behind a gentleman of
her suite named Lignerac, while Madame de Duras followed in like manner;
and thus she travelled four-and-twenty leagues in the short space of two
days, attended by such of the members of her little household as were
enabled to keep pace with her.

The fortress of Carlat in the mountains of Auvergne offered to her, as
she believed, a safe asylum; but although the Governor, who was the
brother of M. de Lignerac, received her with respect, and promised her
his protection, the enmity of Henri III pursued her even to this obscure
place of exile.

At this period even the high spirit of Marguerite de Valois was nearly
subdued, for she no longer knew in what direction to turn for safety.
She had become contemptible in the eyes of her husband, she was deserted
by her mother, hated by her brother, despised by her co-religionists
from the licentiousness of her life, a