The infatuation of the King for his new favourite decided M. de Sully to hasten by every means in his power the marriage of the sovereign with some European princess worthy to share his throne; and he accordingly instructed the royal agents at Rome to demand forthwith the hand of Marie de Medicis for the French monarch; while Henry, absorbed in his passion, permitted him to act as he saw fit, offering neither assistance nor impediment to a negociation on which his domestic happiness was in future to depend; nor was it until the duke urged upon him the necessity of selecting such of his nobility as it was his pleasure to entrust with the management of the affairs in conjunction with the ambassador whom the Grand-Duke, her uncle, was about to dispatch to Paris, that, by dint of importunity, he was induced to name M. de Sully himself, the Constable, the Chancellor, and the Sieur de Villeroy, whose son, M. d'Alincourt, had previously been sent to Rome to offer the acknowledgments of Henry to his Holiness for the dissolution of his marriage with Queen Marguerite, and to apprize him of that which he was desirous to contract with Marie de Medicis.