The king received him with emotional satisfaction, calling him my father, and saying to him, "Now we have you, and you shall not escape us when you wish to." Jeanne d'Albret, more distrustful, or, one ought rather to say, more clear-sighted, refused to leave La Rochelle, and continued to negotiate vaguely and from a distance.

Catherine de' Medici insisted.

"Satisfy," she wrote to her, "the extreme desire we have to see you in this company; you will be loved and honored therein as accords with reason and with what you are." Jeanne still waited.

It was only in the following year, at the end of January, that, having earnestly exhorted her son "to remain Bearn-wards whilst she was at the court of France," she set out for Blois, where Charles IX.

received her most affectionately, calling her my good aunt, my dear aunt, and lavishing upon her promises as well as endearments.