This woman, who still remained in her service, had repeatedly assured her that she need be under no apprehension of bearing daughters, as she was predestined by Heaven to become the mother of three princes only; and after having, with her usual superstition, placed implicit faith in the flattering prophecy, Marie no sooner discovered its fallacy than she abandoned herself to the most violent grief, refusing to listen to the consolations of her attendants, and bewailing herself that she should have been so cruelly deceived, until the King, although he in some measure participated in her annoyance, succeeded in restoring her to composure by bidding her remember that had she not been of the same sex as the child of which she had just made him the father, she could not have herself realised the previous prediction of Soeur Ange; an argument which, coupled with the probability that the august infant beside her might in its turn ascend a European throne, was in all likelihood the most efficacious one which could have been adopted to reconcile her to its present comparative insignificance.
FOOTNOTES: [158] Cesar de Vendome was the son of Henri IV and _la belle Gabrielle._ He became Governor of Brittany, and superintendent-in-chief of the national navigation.

Henry also bestowed on him as an appanage the duchy of Vendome.

He married the daughter of Philip Emmanuel of Lorraine, Duc de Mercoeur, by whom he had three children: Isabelle, who became the wife of Charles Amedee, Duc de Nemours; Louis, who died single; and Francois, Duc de Beaufort.
[159] Jean de Berthault (or Bertaut) was born at Caen in 1552.

He was first-almoner of Catherine de Medicis, Abbot of Aulnai, and subsequently Bishop of Seez.

He was a pupil of Ronsard, and a friend of Desportes.