Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/569

Rh while kept a profound silence; but left Paris the next morning, frequently repeating as she went, that there had never been two princesses so unfortunate as herself and the queen of Scots. On the journey she was stopped by an insolent captain of the guards, who obliged her to unmask; it was then the custom for ladies to travel in masks, which were tied to a ribbon round their waist, and hung down when they entered a town. He also interrogated the ladies with her, and look down their answers in writing. Henry IV. when he knew the truth, resented the unworthy treatment she experienced from her brother. He received her at Nerac; but could not dissimulate the disgust her conduct occasioned. She was engaged in new intrigues there, and the breach grew daily wider between them; when, on his being excommunicated, she left him, and went to Agen, then from place to place, and experienced many dangers, difficulties, and much inquietude. Her charms made a conquest of the marquis de Carnillac, who had taken her prisoner; but though he insured her a place of refuge in the castle of Usson, she had daily the misery of seeing her friends cut to pieces in the plains below; and, though the fortress was impregnable, was assailed by famine, forced to sell her jewels, and even then, had it not been for the aid of her sister-in-law, Eleanor of Austria, she must have perished. The duke of Anjou was dead, who would have protected her; and though she might have returned, after the accession of her husband to the throne of France, on condition of consenting to a divorce, she would never do so during the life of Gabrielle d'Estrees. After her death, tired of the retreat she lived in, she herself solicited Clement VIII. to forward it, which he did, and Henry was married