Thus, as we have seen, with the exception of the Baron de Fontenelles, who had drawn down upon himself the terrible expiation of a cruel death, rather by a long succession of crime than by his association in the conspiracy of Biron, all the other criminals already judged had escaped the due punishment of their treason; while the Comte d'Auvergne, after having been detained during a couple of months in the Bastille, was restored to liberty at the intercession of his sister, Madame de Verneuil, who pledged herself to the monarch that he was guilty only in so far as he had been faithful to the trust reposed in him by the Marechal, and had forborne to betray his secret, while he had never actively participated in the conspiracy.

She moreover assured Henry, who was only anxious to find an opportunity of pardoning the Count--an anxiety which the tears and supplications of the Marquise, as well as his own respect for the blood of the Valois inherited by D'Auvergne from his royal father, tended naturally to increase--that the prisoner was prepared, since the death of Biron had freed him from all further necessity for silence, to communicate to his Majesty every particular of which he was cognizant.

The concession was accepted; the Count made the promised revelations; and his liberation was promptly followed by a renewal of the King's favour.
Towards the close of the year, intelligence having reached Henry that the Prince de Joinville, who was serving in the army of the Archduke, had, in his turn, suffered himself to be seduced from his allegiance by the Spaniards, he gave instant orders for his arrest; but the Prince no sooner found himself a prisoner than he declared his readiness to confess everything, provided he were permitted to do so to the King in person and in the presence of Sully.

His terms were complied with; and, as both Henry and his minister had anticipated from the frivolous and inconsequent character of their new captive, it at once became apparent that no idea of treason had been blent with the follies of which he had been guilty, but that they had merely owed their origin to his idle love of notoriety.

A correspondence with Spain had become, as we have shown, the fashion at the French Court; and Joinville had accordingly, in order to increase his importance, resolved to effect in his turn an understanding with that country.