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400 the French King; questions supposed to be closed were once more admitted to debate in a manner which seemed to show that their resolution was wavering; and one day, at the close of a long argument, the following curious conversation took place between some person (Sir Gregory Cassalis, apparently), who reported it to Henry, and Clement himself. 'I had desired a private interview with his Holiness,' says the writer, 'intending to use all my endeavours to persuade him to satisfy your Majesty. But although I did my best, I could obtain nothing from him; he had an answer for everything which I advanced, and it was in vain that I laboured to remove his difficulties. At length, however, in reply to something which I had proposed, he said shortly,—Multo minus scandalosum fuisset dispensare cum majestate vestrâ super duabus uxoribus, quam ea cedere quæ ego petebam, It would have created less scandal to have granted your Majesty a dispensation to have two wives than to concede what I was then demanding. As I did not know how far this alternative would be pleasing to your Majesty, I endeavoured to divert him from it, and to lead him back to what I had been previously saying. He was silent for a while, and then, paying no regard to my interruption, he continued to speak of the "two wives," admitting however that there were difficulties in the way of such an arrangement, principally it seemed because the Emperor would refuse his consent from the possible injury which it might create to his cousin's prospects of the succession. I replied, that as to the succession, I could not see what right the Emperor had