Paris  Archives,  [EXTRACT.]

Biron  has  assured  some  of  his  friends  that  the  King  is  hatching
a. secret  plot  which  no  one  has  been  able  to  fathom,  although,  he
says,  it  must  come  out  within  the  next  six  months,  as  things
cannot  last  as  they  are,  with  the  putting  of  an  army  on  a  war
footing  after  treating  for  peace.  When  his  (the  King's)  mother
pressed  him  the  other  day  about  the  marriage  of  the  princess  of
Lorraine,  he  told  her  not  to  trouble  herself  fiirther  in  the  matter,
as  he  had  obtained  what  he  wanted,  and  would  now  very  shortly
be  able  to  overthrow  some  of  his  enemies  and  avenge  himself  upon
others.*  There  is  indeed  no  person  of  judgment  who  doubts  that
the  King  is  plotting  something  with  Secretary  Villeroy,  and  that
Belifevre  is  in  league  with  them.  The  Grand  Chancellor  and  other
Ministers  complain  also  that  for  the  last  two  months  the  King  will
not  listen  to  business  of  any  sort,  and  although  he  sits  up  nearly

•  This  doubtless  refers  to  the  intrigues  now  known  to  have  been  in  progress  at  the
time  between  Henry  III.  and  the  king  of  Navarre,  who  was  at  the  head  of  a  Huxoenot
lumy  against  the  League  and  the  Guises.  It  was  proposed  that  Navarre  should  openly
profess  himself  a  Catholic ;  and  the  expressions  employed  in  the  present  letter  would
soem  to  point  to  an  intention  on  the  part  of  Henry  III.  even  thus  early  to  avenge
himself  personally  upon  the  duke  of  Guise  as  soon  as  he  should  have  strengthened  his
position  by  gaining  over  the  Huguenots.  The  whole  intrigue  fell  through  later  in  the
J  ear,  when  at  an  interview  between  the  Queen-mother  and  Navarre  at  the  oaitU  o(
St.  Bris  near  Cognac,  Henry  de  Bourbon  refused  to  change  his  teligioD.
