I see quite well that you have been put up to all this pleasantry in order to make me dismiss a servant whom I cannot do without, and who has always served me loyally for five and twenty years.

By God, I will do nothing of the kind, and I declare to you that if I were reduced to such a necessity as to choose between losing one or the other, I could better do without ten mistresses like you than one servant like him." Gabrielle stormed, was disconsolate, wept, threw herself at the king's feet, and, "seeing him more strong-minded than had been supposed by those who had counselled her to this escapade, began to calm herself," says Sully, "and everything was set right again on every side." But Sully was not at the end of his embarrassments or of the sometimes feeble and sometimes sturdy fancies of his king.

On the 10th of April, 1599, Gabrielle d'Estrees died so suddenly that, according to the bias of the times, when, in the highest ranks, crimes were so common that they were always considered possible and almost probable, she was at first supposed to have been poisoned; but there seemed to be no likelihood of this.

The consent of Marguerite de Valois to the annulment of her marriage was obtained; and negotiations were opened at Rome by Arnold d'Ossat, who was made a cardinal, and by Brulart de Sillery, ambassador ad hoc.

But a new difficulty supervened; not for the negotiators, who knew, or appeared to know, nothing about it, but for Sully.