rdingly without any compunction that M. de Conde declared the terms
upon which he would undertake the proposed mission. He was to receive as
recompense for his condescension the sum of fifty thousand crowns, with
the first government which should become vacant, and was authorized to
promise two hundred thousand crowns to the Duc de Guise for the payment
of his debts, as well as several lesser sums to others of the Princes,
on condition that they should return to their allegiance and forego
their personal animosities.

These preliminary arrangements concluded, M. de Conde hastened to
represent to his uncle the necessity of his immediate return to Paris
before the departure of the King for Rheims, whither he was about to
proceed for his coronation; and the Prince de Conti having with
considerable difficulty been induced to comply with his request, the
princely relatives entered the capital with so numerous a retinue of
nobles and gentlemen that it excited general remark.

On the following day the two Princes, similarly attended, and
accompanied by the Duc de Guise and M. de Joinville, proceeded to the
Parliament, where they took their accustomed seats; but neither M. de
Soissons nor the Duc d'Epernon were present, the first pretexting
indisposition and the second declining to adduce any reason for his
absence.[87]

On the 27th the Marquis d'Ancre was admitted into the Council of State,
and took the customary oaths at the Louvre; but he received few
congratulations on this new honour, the arrogance in which he indulged
tending to disgust the higher nobles, and to alarm those who had reason
to deprecate his daily-increasing influence.

Both M. de Bouillon and the Duc de Sully, professing the reformed
religion, were ineligible to officiate at the coronation of the
sovereign, and they accordingly received the royal permission to absent
themselves, by which both hastened to profit, but from very different
motives. Sully, who was well aware that he must either voluntarily
resign his governmental dignities or submit to see them wrenched from
him, proceeded to his estate at Montrond with the firm intention of
never returning to the capital; a resolve which he was, however,
subsequently induced to forego by the entreaty of the Queen that he
would continue to afford to her son the same good service as he had done
to the late King his father, coupled with assurances of her firm
confidence in his zeal and fidelity; while Bouillon