A GALLANT OF LORRAINE
VOL. I.

“C’étoit un homme de grande qualité, beau, bien fait, quoique d’une taille un peu épaisse. Il avoit bien de l’esprit et d’un caractère fort galant. Il avoit du courage, de l’ambition et l’âme du grand roi.”

Bussy-Rabutin to Madame de Scudéry,
August 16, 1671.

A GALLANT
OF LORRAINE

FRANÇOIS, SEIGNEUR DE BASSOMPIERRE,
MARQUIS D’HAROUEL, MARÉCHAL
DE FRANCE (1579-1646) :: ::

BY
H. NOEL WILLIAMS
AUTHOR OF “FIVE FAIR SISTERS,” “A PRINCESS OF INTRIGUE,”
“THE BROOD OF FALSE LORRAINE,” ETC.
IN TWO VOLUMES
With 16 Illustrations
VOL. I
LONDON : HURST & BLACKETT, LTD.
:: PATERNOSTER HOUSE, E.C. ::

PREFATORY NOTE

Although the Mémoires of the Maréchal de Bassompierre are acknowledged to be one of the chief authorities for the history of France during the early part of the seventeenth century, they have never been translated into English, nor, if we except the charming but all too brief sketch of the marshal by Comte Boudet de Puymaigre in his Poètes et Romanciers de la Lorraine (Paris, 1848), has any biography of their author yet been attempted. That such should be the case is certainly very surprising, since seldom can a man have led so eventful a life, or played so many different parts with distinction, as did François de Bassompierre. Soldier, courtier, diplomatist, gallant and wit, he was to the Courts of Henri IV and Louis XIII very much what the celebrated Maréchal de Richelieu was to that of Louis XV, and when on that fatal February day in 1631 the gates of the Bastille closed upon him, not to reopen for twelve long years, one of the most interesting careers in French history practically terminated. In my endeavour to give a full and authentic account of this career, I have naturally found my chief source of information in Bassompierre’s own Mémoires, which he wrote, or rather arranged and revised, during his imprisonment in the Bastille; but I have also consulted a large number of other works, both contemporary and modern. Most of these are mentioned either in the text or the footnotes, but I desire to take this opportunity of acknowledging my great indebtedness to the admirable notes of the Marquis de Chantérac, who so ably edited the edition of the marshal’s Mémoires published by the Société de l’Histoire de France.

H. NOEL WILLIAMS.

London, May, 1921.

CONTENTS
VOL. I

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOL. I

A Gallant of Lorraine

CHAPTER I

Birth of François de Bassompierre—Origin of the Bassompierre family—A romantic legend—His grandfather—His father—His early years—He and his younger brother Jean are sent to the University of Pont-à-Mousson, and afterwards to that of Ingoldstadt—Their studies at Ingoldstadt—Death of their father, Christophe de Bassompierre—Journey of the two brothers through Italy—Their return to Lorraine.

François de Bassompierre was born at the Château of Harouel, in Lorraine, on Palm Sunday, April 12, 1579, “at four o’clock in the morning.” His family, which was one of the most ancient and illustrious of Lorraine, appears to have owed its name to the village of Betstein, or Bassompierre,[1] near Sancy, which formed part of its possessions until 1793, when it was confiscated and sold by the Government of Revolutionary France, with the rest of the Bassompierre property. If we are to believe the very confusing documents which François de Bassompierre collected about his family, it descended from the German House of Ravensberg, but, according to the learned genealogist, Père Anselme, its origin can be traced to the latter part of the thirteenth century, to one Olry de Dompierre, who became possessed of the fief of Bassompierre by marriage, and whose son, Simon, adopted the name, which became that of his descendants.

However that may be, it was undoubtedly a very old family indeed, as well as a distinguished one, and, like most old families, had its mysterious traditions; but, at any rate, the legend of the Bassompierres had nothing sinister about it.

The story goes that during the transitory reign of that Adolph of Nassau who lost his Imperial crown and his life at the Battle of Spire, there lived a certain Comte d’Angerveiller, or d’Orgeveiller. This nobleman, as he was returning home one evening from hunting—it was a Monday—stopped to rest at a summer-house situated in a wood a little distance from his château. There, to his astonishment, he found a young and beautiful woman—a fairy, it is said—(She must surely have been the last of the race!)—apparently awaiting his arrival. And the pair were so well pleased with one another at this first interview, that for two whole years they failed not to meet every Monday at the same rendezvous, “the count pretending to his wife that he had gone to shoot in the wood.”

However, as time went on, the countess began to conceive suspicions, “and one morning entered the summer-house, where she found her husband with a woman of perfect beauty, and both asleep. And being unwilling to awaken them, she merely spread over their feet a kerchief which she was wearing on her head, which, being perceived by the fairy, she uttered a piercing cry and began to lament, saying that she must see her lover no more, nor even be within a hundred leagues of him; and so left him, having first bestowed upon him these three gifts—a spoon, a goblet and a ring, for his three daughters, which, said she, they must carefully preserve, as, if they did this, they would bring good fortune to their families and descendants.”

Well, a lord of Bassompierre, an ancestor of the marshal, married one of the three daughters of the Comte Orgeveiller, who brought him as her dowry, together with certain fat lands, the spoon; and, in memory of this tradition, the town of Épinal, of which he had been burgrave, was obliged to offer to him and his descendants, on a certain day each year, by way of quit-rent, a spoonful from every measure of corn sold within its walls.

The ancestors of Bassompierre had served in turn the Emperors and great princes of Germany, the Dukes of Burgundy, the Kings of France and the Dukes of Lorraine, and had ended by occupying the highest offices at the Court of Nancy. To go no further back than two generations, we find the marshal’s grandfather, François de Bassompierre, high in the favour of the Emperor Charles V, to whom he was successively page of honour, gentleman of the Chamber, and Captain of the German Guard. In 1556 he accompanied his Imperial master to the gates of the Monastery of Yuste, where he witnessed Charles’s last adieu to the world, and received from his hand a valuable diamond ring, which was ever afterwards religiously preserved in the Bassompierre family.

In 1552 Henri II, King of France, invaded Lorraine and established a protectorate over the duchy; and François de Bassompierre, who, some years before, had been sent by Charles V as Ambassador Extraordinary to Nancy to assist in the government of Lorraine, during the minority of its youthful sovereign, Charles III, was required to send his youngest son, Christophe, to the French Court, as a hostage for his good behaviour. The little boy—then about five years old—was brought up with the Duc d’Orléans, afterwards Charles IX, who “either on account of the conformity in their ages or some other reason, conceived a great affection for him,” and admitted him to the closest intimacy. In consequence, when the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis left Christophe at liberty to return to Lorraine, he preferred to remain in France, until, in 1564, when barely seventeen, he set off for Hungary to serve under one of his uncles, Colonel de Harouel, against the Turks. Here he made the acquaintance of Henri de Lorraine, Duc de Guise, who had also gone crusading on the Danube, and a warm friendship sprang up between the two lads, which lasted until Guise’s tragic death in 1589. “My father,” writes Bassompierre, “always preserved for him (Guise) his devotion and his service, and the said Sieur de Guise esteemed him above all his other servants and intimates, calling him ‘l’amy du cœur.’ ”[2]

Returning to France, after two years’ service in Hungary, Christophe de Bassompierre was entrusted by Charles IX with the command of 1,500 reiters, at the head of whom he distinguished himself at the Battles of Jarnac and Montcontour, in both of which he was wounded. In 1568 he was sent by the King with a body of reiters to the Netherlands, to the assistance of Alva, and took part in the Battle of Gemmingen, in which Alva defeated the Duke of Nassau. On his return to the French Court after the Peace of Saint-Germain, Charles IX proposed to reward his military services by marrying him to one of the two daughters of the late Maréchal de Brissac. Christophe, however, who was poor and a cadet of his House, represented to his Majesty that these damsels, who had little money and great pretensions, were ill suited to him who had none, and who needed it; “but that if he would do him the favour of marrying him to the niece of the said marshal Louise le Picart de Radeval,[3] who was an heiress, and whose aunt, Madame de Moreuil, intended to give her 100,000 crowns, it would do him much more good and make his fortune. And this the King did, in spite of her relations and in spite of the girl herself, who did not like him, because he was poor, a foreigner and a German.”

Of this union, so inauspiciously begun, five children were born—three sons, of whom François was the eldest, and two daughters.[4]

Almost immediately after his marriage, Christophe was obliged to leave his bride, to take part in the siege of La Rochelle, which was interrupted by the news that the Duc d’Anjou (afterwards Henri III), who commanded the Catholic army, had been elected to the throne of Poland. Christophe was one of those chosen to accompany the prince to his kingdom, and set out for Poland, “with a great and noble retinue”; but, on reaching Vienna, he received orders from Charles IX to raise a levy of reiters for service against the Huguenots and “Politiques” and return to France with all speed. He performed a like service for Henri III in 1575, at the time of the revolt of Alençon, but in 1585 resigned his pensions and offices and threw in his lot with the Duc de Guise and the League, to whom his skill in recruiting mercenaries from Germany and Switzerland proved of great assistance.

After the King’s surrender to the demands of the League, at the Peace of Nemours, in July of that year, Christophe’s pensions and offices were restored to him, and in 1587, when the great army of reiters under Dohna and Bouillon invaded France, we find him commissioned by Henri III to raise a new levy of 1,500 horse. These troops were stationed with the main army, commanded by Henri III in person on the Loire, but Christophe himself preferred to serve under Guise on the Lorraine frontier. Here he was seized with a serious illness, which necessitated his return home and prevented him taking part in Guise’s victories at Vimory and Auneau.

Christophe was at Blois at the time of the assassination of Guise in December, 1588, but, warned in time, he succeeded in effecting his escape from the town before the principal adherents of the duke were arrested, and, exasperated by the fate of his friend and patron, raised large levies in Germany for the service of the Leaguer princes. He fought under Mayenne against Henri IV at Arques and Ivry, in which latter engagement he was twice wounded and obliged to return to Lorraine. He returned to France in 1593, to assist, as representative of Duke Charles III, at the Estates of the League, where he offered very effective opposition to the proposal of the ultra-Catholic party to confer the crown of France on the Infanta Clara Eugenia. The conversion of Henri IV having caused him to abandon any projects which he might have had in France, he now devoted himself to re-establishing the affairs of the Duke of Lorraine, which were in sad disorder, and was appointed by that prince Grand Master of his Household and Superintendent of Finance. In July, 1534, he signed, on behalf of the duke, in Henri IV’s camp before Laon, a treaty by which Charles III undertook to observe complete neutrality between France and Spain.

This gallant old warrior was an excellent father and spared no expense to give his sons the most thorough education which it was possible for them to obtain. François de Bassompierre’s early years were passed at the Château of Harouel.

“I was brought up in this house,” he writes, “until October, 1584, when I first remember seeing Henri, Duc de Guise, who was concealed at Harouel, for the purpose of treating with several colonels of landsknechts and reiters for the levies of the League. At this time I began to learn to read and write, and afterwards the rudiments. My tutor was a Norman priest, named Nicolas Ciret.”

In the autumn of 1587, on the approach of the invading army of Dohna and Bouillon, Madame de Bassompierre and her children had to leave Harouel and take refuge at Nancy. The invaders burned the town of Harouel, but appear to have left the château untouched.

On the return of the family to Harouel, François and his younger brother Jean, who now shared his studies, were given another tutor, named Gravet, “and two young men, called Clinchamp and La Motte, the one to teach us to write, the other to dance, play the lute and music.” They passed the next four years partly at Harouel and partly at Nancy, where, in the autumn of 1591, François saw for the first time Charles de Lorraine, Duc de Guise, who had recently effected his romantic escape from the Château of Blois,[5] and with whom he was to be on such intimate terms in later years.

In October, 1591, the two boys went, accompanied by their masters, to study at Freiburg, but only remained there five months, “because Gravet, our tutor, killed La Motte, who taught us to dance.” In consequence of this unfortunate affair, they returned to Harouel, but towards the end of 1592 were sent to continue their studies at the University of Pont-à-Mousson, founded by Duke Charles III and his uncle the Cardinal de Lorraine, and early in the following year reached the first class. They passed the Carnival of 1593 at Nancy, where they took part in a tournament, “dressed à la Suisse.” At its conclusion they returned to Pont-à-Mousson, where, shortly afterwards, their father brought them a German tutor, George von Springesfeld, in place of the homicidal Gravet. At the Carnival of 1594 they again went to Nancy, to assist at the marriage of William II, Duke of Bavaria, and Marie Élisabeth, younger daughter of the Duke of Lorraine, when it was decided that they should accompany the bridal pair back to Bavaria, and keep their terms at the University of Ingoldstadt. They travelled in the duke’s suite by way of Heidelberg, Spire, Neustadt, Donauworth and Landshut, the party being splendidly entertained by the various nobles at whose houses they stopped; but the journey did not end without a tragic incident, in which François de Bassompierre had a narrow escape of his life.

At Donauworth, where they were delayed for two or three days by the swollen condition of the Danube, he went out in a boat with the duke and some of his attendants, to reconnoitre the passage of the river. As they were nearing the castle in which the duchess was lodged, William II ordered one of his pages to load and fire a pistol, in order to announce their approach to his consort. The pistol missed fire, and, while the page was examining the priming, it suddenly went off and killed an old nobleman of the prince’s suite, who was sitting close to Bassompierre.

At Ingoldstadt the two brothers, and the elder in particular, would certainly not appear to have wasted much time:—

“We went on with rhetoric for a little while, and then proceeded to logic, which we studied in an abridged form, and in three months passed on to physics and occasionally studied the sphere. In the month of August we went to Munich, whither the duke had invited us to spend the stag-hunting season, which they call Hirschfeiste, with him. At the end of the hunting-season, which lasted a month, we returned to Ingoldstadt, and continued our studies until October, when we quitted physics, having got to the books De Animâ. And, as we had still seven months to remain, I set myself to study the institutes of law, in which I employed an hour; another hour I spent in cases of conscience; an hour in the aphorisms of Hippocrates; and an hour in the ethics and politics of Aristotle, upon which studies I was so intent that my tutor was obliged, from time to time, to draw me away from them, in order to divert my mind. I continued my studies during the rest of that year and the early part of 1596.”

But what contributed a good deal more than this bizarre erudition to give to the future marshal that perfect aplomb, those graceful accomplishments and charming manners to which he owed his fortune, was the journey through Italy which he and his brother undertook after they had completed their course at Ingoldstadt and returned to Harouel, which was then a house of mourning, as their father, Christophe de Bassompierre, had died just before they left Bavaria.

In the autumn of 1596 they set out for the South, accompanied by the Sieur de Malleville, an old gentleman, who acted as their gouverneur, Springesfeld, their German tutor, and one of their late father’s gentlemen, and travelled by way of Strasbourg, Ulm, Augsburg, Munich, Innsbrück and Trent to Verona, where they were the guests of the Counts Ciro and Alberto Canossa, the latter of whom had once been page to William II of Bavaria. From Verona they proceeded to Mantua and Bologna, and then, crossing the Apennines, arrived at Florence.

Here they received a gracious message from Ferdinand I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who had married Christine of Lorraine, daughter of Charles III, inviting them to visit him at his country-seat at Lambrogiano, to which one of the prince’s carriages would be sent to convey them. On the day following their arrival at Lambrogiano, the Grand Duchess invited the elder brother to walk with her in the gardens, where they met her niece Marie de’ Medici, to whom she presented him. Bassompierre little imagined as he made his reverence that the young princess whom he was saluting was the future Queen of France. In the evening they left Lambrogiano and returned to Florence, where they remained for a few days and then set out for Rome, by way of Sienna and Viterbo.

At Rome they stayed a week, in order to perform the various devotions customary for good Catholics who visited the Eternal City, and waited upon several of the cardinals to whom they had letters of introduction, and also upon the Spanish Ambassador, the Duke of Sessa, who had been a friend of their father, and whose acquaintance they had made some years before when he passed through Lorraine on his way to France. The Ambassador provided them with passports and with letters of recommendation to the Viceroy of Naples, and they set out for that city, stopping on the road at Gaëta, Capua, and Aversa.

On their arrival at Naples, they lost no time in presenting the letters which the Duke of Sessa had given them to the Viceroy, Don Henriques de Guzman, Count of Olivares, “who, on opening them, inquired if we were the sons of that M. de Bassompierre, colonel of reiters, who had come to the succour of the Duke of Alva in Flanders, by orders of the late King Charles. And when we told him that we were, he embraced us most affectionately, assuring us that he had loved our father as his own brother, and that he was the most noble and generous cavalier whom he had ever known; adding that he would treat us, not only as persons of quality, but as his own children, which, indeed, he did, giving us all the proofs of affection and good-will possible to imagine.”

At Naples, the brothers passed a considerable part of their time in practising equitation, under the guidance of two celebrated Italian riding-masters; but at the beginning of 1597 their course of instruction was interrupted by an attack of small-pox. On their recovery, they returned to Rome, where they remained until after Easter, the only incident of importance which marked their second visit to the Papal city being their rescue of a French gentleman named Saint-Offange, who had killed another in a duel, from the pursuit of the law.

From Rome they went to Florence, where they resumed the riding-lessons which the small-pox had interrupted at Naples.

“As for our other exercises,” writes Bassompierre, “we had Messire Agostino for dancing, Messire Marquino for fencing, Guilio Parigi for fortification, in which Bernardo della Girandolla also sometimes assisted. We continued these lessons all the summer, and also witnessed the festivities of Florence, such as the calcio and the palio, the plays and some marriages within and without the palace.”

While at Florence, they paid short visits to Pisa, Lucca, and Leghorn, and early in November left the Tuscan city and took the road to Bologna, whence they travelled by way of Faenza, Forli, and Ancona to Loretto. At Loretto, where they arrived on Christmas Eve, they were invited by Cardinal Gallio to stay at the Palazzo Santa-Casa. They spent the night in devotions in the chapel, and on Christmas Day the cardinal appointed the elder Bassompierre one of the witnesses to the opening of the alms-boxes, “which amounted to six thousand crowns for the last quarter of the year.”

At Loretto our young travellers, inspired doubtless by their visit to that famous shrine with the desire to do and dare something for the sake of Holy Church, embarked in a strange adventure:—

“There were a great many other French gentlemen at Loretto, besides ourselves, and we all took the resolution to go together into Hungary to the wars before we returned home. Having mutually promised this, on the day after Christmas we all set out in a body, to wit: MM. de Bourlemont and d’Amolis, brothers; MM. de Foncaude and de Chasneuil, brothers; the Baron de Crapados and my brother and I. But, since the nature of Frenchmen is fickle, at the end of three days’ journey some of us, who had not our purses sufficiently well-lined for a long journey or who had a stronger desire to return to our homes than the rest, began to say that it was useless to go so far in search of fighting when we had it near at hand; that we were in the midst of the Papal army, marching to the conquest of Ferrara, which had devolved on the Pope by the death of Duke Alphonso; that Don Cesare d’Este retained possession of it, contrary to all right;[6] that this was not less just and holy a war than that of Hungary, and that in a week we should be face to face with the enemy; whereas, if we went to Hungary, the armies would not take the field for four months.

“These persuasions prevailed on our minds, and we resolved that we would all go next day to Forli, to offer our services to Cardinal Aldobrandini,[7] legate of the army, and that I should speak in the name of us all, which I did, to the best of my ability. But the legate received us so coolly, and gave us so poor a welcome, that in the evening, at our lodging, we did not know how sufficiently to express the resentment and anger with which his indifference had inspired us.

“Then my brother began to say that in truth we had only got what we deserved; that, not being subjects of the Pope, nor in any way concerned in this war, we had gone inconsiderately to attack a prince of the House of Este, to which France had so many obligations, which had ever been so courteous to foreigners and particularly to Frenchmen, and which was so nearly allied, not only to the Kings of France, from whom that family was descended in the female line, but also to the families of Nemours and Guise; and that, if we were good for anything, we should go and offer our services to this poor prince whom the Pope wanted unjustly to despoil of a State possessed by so long a line of his ancestors.

“So soon as he had said these words, all the company expressed, not only their appreciation, but also their firm resolve to proceed on the morrow straight to Ferrara, to throw themselves into the town. I have related all this, first, to make known the volatile and inconstant character of Frenchmen, and, secondly, to show that Fortune is generally mistress and director of our actions, since we, who had intended to bear arms against the Turks, did, in point of fact, take them up against the Pope.”

Travelling by way of Bologna, where their company was reinforced by the Comte de Sommerive, younger son of the famous Duc de Mayenne, of the League, the Chevalier de Verdelli, a friend of the Bassompierres, and several other adventurous young gentlemen, they arrived on January 3 at Ferrara. The duke received them with great honours and cordiality, but he was very irresolute on the question of the war, alleging that his coffers were well-nigh empty; that the King of Spain had declared for the Pope, and that the Venetians, who had encouraged him to resist the Pontiff, refused to assist him openly, and that the support that they were prepared to give him secretly was of very little account. In this state of mind he went, on the Feast of Kings, to hear Mass at a church near the palace, accompanied by a great retinue of lords and gentlemen, when the priests immediately quitted the altars, without finishing the masses they had begun, and retreated from them as excommunicated persons. This incident decided Don Cesare to send the Duchess of Urbino, sister of the late Duke Alphonso, to treat with the Legate;[8] and, accordingly, next day the band of young Frenchmen who had come to offer him their services took leave of him and went their several ways.

The Bassompierres went to Rovigo and thence to Padua, when Johann Tserclas, Count von Tilly, elder brother of the famous captain of the Thirty Years’ War, who was then studying at the University of Padua, invited them to dinner, and the following day accompanied them on a visit to Venice, where they remained a week. On leaving Venice, they returned to Padua, and, after a short stay there, set out for Genoa, stopping on the way at Mantua. At Genoa they lodged at the house of the German consul, and “my brother and I both fell in love with the consul’s daughter, whose name was Philippina, to such a degree that for some days we did not speak to one another.” Which of the two brothers Philippina preferred, Bassompierre does not tell us.

Among the distinguished persons whose acquaintance they made at Genoa were the two brothers Ambrosio and Frederico Spinola, the former of whom, afterwards Duke of San Severino and Marquis of los Balbazes, was to earn such renown as a general in the service of Spain. Frederico, who also entered the Spanish service, was killed in a naval combat off Ostend in May, 1603.

From Genoa our travellers proceeded to Tortona, and thence to Milan, where they stayed for some days and were very hospitably entertained by the Spanish governor at the citadel. They then set out on their homeward journey, accompanied by the Chevalier de Verdelli and Don Alfonso Casale, Spanish Ambassador to Switzerland. They travelled by way of the St. Gotthard, stopping at Como, Lugano, Lucerne and Basle, and in the early summer arrived safely at Harouel, after an absence of more than a year and a half.

CHAPTER II

Visit of the Bassompierre family to Paris—François dances in a ballet before Henri IV at Monceaux—He is presented to the King, who receives him very graciously—He decides to enter the service of Henri IV—He escorts his Majesty’s mistress, Gabrielle d’Estrées, Duchesse de Beaufort, to Paris—Sudden illness and death of the duchess—Extravagant grief of Henri IV, who, however, soon finds consolation in the society of Henriette d’Entragues—Affray between the Prince de Joinville and the Grand Equerry Bellegarde at Zamet’s house, where the King is staying—Visit of Bassompierre to Lorraine—He returns to Paris.

In September, 1598, the Archduke Albert, son of the Emperor Maximilian II, passed through Lorraine on his way to Italy, there to take ship for Spain to marry the Infanta Clara Eugenia, Philip II’s daughter, by Élisabeth of France, and become through her the sovereign of the Netherlands.[9] The Comte de Vaudemont, younger son of Charles III of Lorraine, went to meet the archduke at Vaudrevange, and invited the brothers Bassompierre to accompany him. They were duly presented to the prince, who received them very cordially and “told them their name was very dear to all his House.”

On their return from this little journey, the whole Bassompierre family began to prepare for a visit to France, Madame de Bassompierre, like a loyal Frenchwoman, being anxious that her sons should be presented to Henri IV, in the hope that they might decide to enter his service. She was, however, at pains to conceal the real object of her journey from the Count von Mansfeld,[10] whom her late husband had associated with her in the guardianship of his children, and whose consent was required before they could leave Lorraine.

“The Count von Mansfeld,” writes Bassompierre, “gave his consent very unwillingly, because he wished us to enter the service of the Catholic King [Philip III of Spain]; and it was only on condition that, after we had been some time at the Court of France and in Normandy (where my mother made him believe that we had some business affairs to transact), we should proceed from there to the Court of Spain, and should not commit ourselves until our return from both. He made us promise further that, when we wished to make our choice, we should follow the advice that might be given us in the matter by our principal friends and relatives.”

At the beginning of October, the Bassompierres left Harouel and on the 12th of that month arrived in Paris, where they took up their quarters at the Hôtel de Montlor, in the Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre.

Henri IV was then lying ill at the Château of Monceaux, near Meaux, which he had presented to his beloved Gabrielle d’Estrées, Duchesse de Beaufort, in 1595, and reported to be in considerable danger. The only courtier of Madame de Bassompierre’s acquaintance who was with him at the time was Gaspard de Schomberg, father of the marshal, to whom she wrote to inquire when her sons could be presented to his Majesty. Schomberg replied that it was impossible to think of such matters as presentations in the condition the King was in, and advised her to remain in Paris until Henri IV was sufficiently recovered to return to the capital. This she decided to do, and meantime sent her sons to pay their court to Catherine de Bourbon, the King’s sister, who was about to marry the Duke of Bar, eldest son of Charles III of Lorraine. The princess was very gracious to the young men, and, says Bassompierre, “had the intention of marrying me to Mlle. Catherine de Rohan,[11] in order to keep her near her when she went to Lorraine, but I had at that time no inclination towards marriage.”

Several of Madame de Bassompierre’s relatives and friends of her late husband came to visit the Bassompierres at the Hôtel de Montlor, amongst them being Charles de Balsac, Seigneur de Dunes—“le bel Entraguet”—the hero of the famous Duel of the Mignons; Jacques de Harlay, Seigneur de Chanvallon, a former lover of Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre; Charles de Cossé, Maréchal de Brissac, and the Comte (afterwards) Duc de Gramont. One day, when Henri IV’s health was beginning to mend, the Duc de Bellegarde, First Gentleman of the Chamber and Grand Equerry to the King—Monsieur le Grand, as he was commonly styled—arrived in Paris on a short visit, and Gramont presented François de Bassompierre to him. Bellegarde received the lad very cordially, and pressed him to dine with him, saying that he had invited some of the most brilliant gentlemen of the Court. During dinner a suggestion was made to organise a ballet to amuse their convalescent sovereign and to go to Monceaux to dance it, and was received with acclamation.

“They said,” continues Bassompierre, “that I must be one of the party, but, thought I declared that I should be most delighted, I added that it appeared to me that, as I had not yet been presented to the King, I ought not to take part in the ballet. M. de Joinville[12] then said: ‘That need not stand in your way; for we shall arrive at Monceaux early in the day, when you can be presented to the King, and in the evening we shall dance the ballet.’ So I learned it with the others, who were MM. d’Auvergne,[13] de Sommerive, le Grand,[14] de Gramont, de Termes,[15] the young Schomberg,[16] Saint-Luc, Pompignan, Messillac and Maugiron, whose names I have decided to set down, since they represented a select band of persons so handsome and so well-made that it was impossible to find their superiors. At my suggestion, they made up as barbers, in order to poke fun at the King, who had placed himself in the hands of persons of that trade for the cure of a wart which he had.”

After this aristocratic troupe had rehearsed the ballet to their satisfaction, they set out for Monceaux, but were met on the way by a messenger from the King, who expressed his regret that he was unable to lodge them at the château, where at that time there was but little accommodation, and desired them to stop at Meaux, to which he would send coaches that evening to bring them and their “props” to Meaux. Bassompierre was thus disappointed in his expectation of being presented to the King before the ballet. However, it was decided that he should take part in it all the same.

The party accordingly proceeded to Meaux, where they dressed for the ballet, and then bestowed themselves, with their pages, the musicians, and all their paraphernalia in six of the royal coaches, and set off for Monceaux, where they danced their ballet, which appears to have caused the good-natured monarch, who took the jest at his expense in excellent part, much amusement.

“After which,” says Bassompierre, “as we were removing our masks, the King rose and came amongst us, and inquired where Bassompierre was. Then all the princes and nobles presented me to him to embrace his knees; and he received me most affectionately, and I should never have believed that so great a King would have shown so much kindness and familiarity towards a young man of my condition. Afterwards, he took me by the hand and presented me to the Duchesse de Beaufort, his mistress, whose gown I kissed; and the King, in order to give me the opportunity of saluting and kissing her, stepped aside.”

Humility was certainly not a fault of this young gentleman from Lorraine, who had a nice appreciation of his own attractions. And he proceeds to relate with complacency how, a few days later, they danced again the same ballet at the Tuileries, for the diversion of Catherine de Bourbon and Gabrielle d’Estrées, who, by permission of her royal lover, had come to Paris expressly to witness it again, and that “when the twenty-four men and women came forward to perform the dances, all the spectators were delighted to behold a selection of such handsome persons. So that, when the dances were over, they insisted on their being performed again, an incident which I have never seen happen since.”

Undoubtedly, if we are to judge from his portraits, which belong, however, to the time of Louis XIII, that is to say, to a period when he had already passed the brilliant years of his youth, Bassompierre may be pardoned his satisfaction at his personal appearance. These depict him as of middle height and very well made, though his figure is a little inclined to embonpoint. The face is of an almost perfect oval, framed in long blond curls which descend to the richly-embroidered lace which covers his shoulders. The nose, which sinks a little in joining the forehead, dominates two small moustaches, separated above the mouth and ending in carefully-pomaded points. A “royale”—or, as it has been called since the time of the Second Empire, an “impériale”—extends from immediately under the lower lip to the extremity of the chin, and imparts to the whole physiognomy that intelligent expression which is to be observed in all the portraits of the time of Louis XIII. However, if Bassompierre had arranged his beard in quite a different manner, his features would not have been less intelligent or less pleasing; his agreeable smile and bright brown eyes would have always sufficed to animate his countenance and to denote a man made for successes of all kinds.

In December, Henri IV, being sufficiently recovered to leave Monceaux, removed for change of air to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where he lodged at the Deanery, as did Gabrielle, and where he had his last natural son by the duchess—Alexandre de Vendôme, afterwards Grand Prior of France—baptised.[17] In the evening there was a grand ballet, in which Bassompierre took part, “dressed as an Indian.”

The Court remained at Saint-Germain until after the marriage of Catherine de Bourbon with the Duke of Bar, which was celebrated on January 30, 1599, when it returned to Paris; but at the beginning of Lent the King set out for Fontainebleau. Bassompierre, however, remained for a few days longer in Paris, and was the last to bid farewell to that singular personage the Maréchal de Joyeuse, whom Voltaire has so well described in these two lines:

“Vicieux, pénitent, courtisan, solitaire,
Il prit, quitta, reprit la cuirasse et la haire,”

before he finally quitted the world for the convent.

“My cousin,” Henri IV had remarked to Joyeuse a little while before, as they were standing one day on a balcony, beneath which a crowd had gathered, “those people down there do not appear very well pleased at seeing an apostate King and an unfrocked monk together.” This pleasantry struck Joyeuse to the quick and this time he resumed the hair-shirt, not to put it off again. And as in those days people obeyed their religious convictions without deeming it necessary to advertise the fact to the public, Joyeuse, having spent the evening in the midst of the gayest company in Paris, withdrew to the convent where he had resolved to spend the remainder of his days, without saying a word of his intention to anyone.

“After we had supped together at the Hôtel de Retz,” writes Bassompierre, “at midnight I bade him good night at the postern-door of his lodging, the threshold of which he merely crossed, and then repaired to the Capuchins, where he ended his days piously.”

Bassompierre was by this time firmly established in the good graces of the King, for whom he had already conceived so warm an admiration and affection that he had decided to enter his service. We will allow him to speak himself on this occasion, inasmuch as he does so with a sensibility and gratitude very unusual with him, and which one does not find in his Mémoires, except when Henri IV is in question:

“Two days later I went to Fontainebleau, and, one day, as someone had told the King that I had some beautiful Portuguese pieces and other gold coins, he asked me if I would play for them against his mistress. On my agreeing to do this, he made me stay and play with her while he was at the chase, and in the evening he played too. This put me on terms of great familiarity with the King and the duchess, and when we were talking one day about the reason which led me to come to France, I told him [the King] frankly that I did not come with any intention of engaging in his service, but merely to pass some time there, and then to do the same at the Court of Spain, before I came to any determination as to the conduct of my future life; but that he had so charmed me, that, if he would accept my service, I would go no further to seek a master, but would devote myself to him until death. He embraced me and assured me that I should not find a better master than he would be to me, or one who would love me more or contribute more to my fortune or advancement. This was on a Tuesday, March 12 [1599]. Henceforth, I looked upon myself as a Frenchman; and I can say that, from that time, I experienced from him so much kindness, so much affability, and such proofs of good-will, that his memory will be deeply graven in my heart during the remainder of my days.”

On the approach of Holy Week, Bassompierre requested the King’s permission to go to Paris to perform his Easter devotions, when Henri IV informed him that he should go with him on the Tuesday to Melun, whither he proposed to escort the Duchesse de Beaufort, who also wished to perform her devotions in the capital, and next day continue his journey to Paris.

We must here explain that it had been for some months generally known that the Very Christian King, notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of his great Minister Sully and his faithful adviser Duplessis-Mornay, fully intended to marry his Gabrielle, as soon as he could obtain the dissolution of his marriage with Marguerite de Valois. Such a resolution aroused universal alarm. The duchess had many friends and few enemies, but not even her most devoted partisans could maintain that her birth and previous life fitted her to be the Queen of France, while it was obvious that the claims of her legitimated sons, and of those who might be born in wedlock, would add another element of discord to those already existing. After considerable difficulty, on February 7, 1599, Marguerite, who had declared that it was “repugnant to her to put in her place a woman of such low extraction, and of so impure a life as the one about whom rumour speaks,”[18] was at length persuaded to sign the necessary procuration, which Henri IV lost no time in sending to Rome. But Clement VIII disapproved of his Majesty’s choice, less probably on account of Gabrielle’s obvious unsuitability to share a throne than because she was the intimate friend of Catherine de Bourbon, Duchess of Bar, and Louise de Coligny, Princess of Orange. These two ladies were amongst the most stubborn heretics in Europe, and his Holiness did not doubt that, urged by them, Gabrielle would use all her influence with the King in favour of their co-religionists. He, therefore, refused to dissolve the marriage, sheltering himself behind the difficulties regarding the succession in which the new union which the King was contemplating would involve France. This paternal solicitude for his kingdom did not deceive Henri IV, who, impatient at the delay, instructed his representative at the Vatican to hint that, if the Holy Father continued contumacious, the eldest son of the Church might be tempted to behave in an exceedingly unfilial manner, and follow the example of his last namesake on the throne of England. Whether, with this threat hanging over him, Clement would eventually have yielded is a matter of opinion; but an unexpected event came to relieve the tension.

Bassompierre duly accompanied the King and the duchess to Melun, Gabrielle, who was in an advanced state of pregnancy, being carried in a litter. At supper Henri IV said to him: “Bassompierre, my mistress wishes to take you with her in her barge to-morrow to Paris. You will play cards together by the way.” That night they slept at Savigny, about midway between Fontainebleau and the capital, and the following morning (April 6) the King accompanied the duchess to the bank of the Seine, where her barge was awaiting her, in which she embarked with Bassompierre, the Duc de Montbazon, Captain of the Guards, the Marquis de la Varenne and her waiting-women.

At the moment of parting from her royal lover, Gabrielle broke down and began to sob bitterly, declaring that she had a presentiment that she should never see him again. The King, after vainly endeavouring to console her, was on the point of yielding and taking her back to Fontainebleau. But, in view of their intended marriage, he attached great importance to the duchess performing her Easter devotions in the capital, and, after repeated embraces, he freed himself from her detaining arms and gave the signal for the barge to start.

About three o’clock in the afternoon, Gabrielle reached Paris, and disembarked on the quay near the Arsenal, where her brother-in-law, the Maréchal de Balagny, her brother the Marquis de Cœuvres, Madame de Retz, and the duchesse and Mlle. de Guise were awaiting her. She rested for a while at her sister’s house, where a number of distinguished persons called upon her, and then went to sup at the house of Sebastian Zamet,—“the lord of the 1,800,000 crowns”—an Italian financier, who had risen from a very humble position to great wealth and the personal friendship of Henri IV. After supper she attended the Tenebræ at the Couvent du Petit Saint-Antoine, then renowned for its fine music. During the service she was taken ill and was carried to Zamet’s house, where she recovered sufficiently to go to the apartments of her aunt Madame de Sourdes, at the Deanery of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, where she always stayed when paying a short visit to Paris, as she did not make use of her own house in the Rue Fromenteau, which communicated with the Louvre, except when the Court happened to be in residence. Next day, though still feeling far from well, she attended Mass at her parish church, Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois. She was borne in a litter, by the side of which walked the Duc de Montbazon, in virtue of his position as Captain of the Guards, and escorted by archers; while the Lorraine princesses and a number of ladies of high rank followed in coaches. In the church she was again taken ill, and, on returning to the deanery, fell into violent convulsions. On the 9th—Good Friday—she gave birth to a still-born child, after which the surgeons who attended

her proceeded to bleed the unfortunate woman four times. The consequence was that poor Gabrielle died the following morning (April 10); the only wonder is that she did not die before! The public, learning that she had been taken ill shortly after supping with Zamet, persisted in the belief that she had been poisoned—Italians bore a sinister reputation in those days, and, indeed, down to a much later period—but this theory is now generally discredited.[19]

“On Good Friday,” writes Bassompierre, “while we were at the sermon on the Passion at Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, La Varenne came to tell the Maréchal d’Ornano[20] that the duchess had just died,[21] and that we ought to prevent the King, who was travelling post to Paris, from coming there; and he begged him to go and meet him, in order to stop him. I was with the marshal at the sermon, and he asked me to accompany him, which I did. We met the King beyond La Saussaye, near Villejuif, travelling at the top speed of his horses. When he saw the marshal, he suspected that he was the bearer of bad news, which caused him to weep bitterly. Finally, they made him alight at the Abbey of La Saussaye, where they laid him on a bed. He gave vent to every excess of grief which it is possible to describe. At length, a coach having arrived from Paris, they placed him in it to return to Fontainebleau, whither all the princes and nobles had hastened to find him. We went with him to Fontainebleau, and when he had mounted to the great Salle de la Cheminée, he begged all the company to return to Paris to pray God for his consolation. He kept with him Monsieur le Grand, the Comte du Lude, Termes, Castelnau de Charosse, Montglat, and Frontenac; and, as I was taking my leave with all those whom he had dismissed, he said to me: ‘Bassompierre, you were the last who was with my mistress; stay with me to talk to me of her.’ So I remained also, and we were eight or ten days without the company being augmented, if one excepts certain of the Ambassadors, who came to condole with him[22] and then returned to Paris immediately.”

During this time the King remained prostrated with grief. “My affliction,” he wrote to his sister Catherine, “is incomparable, like the person who is the cause of it. Regrets and tears will accompany me to the tomb. The root of my love is dead and will never put forth another branch.”

But alas! how changeable are the affections of kings! Scarcely two months had passed[23] before his Majesty had embarked in a new love-affair, with Henriette d’Entragues, whom he created Marquise de Verneuil, that ambitious, greedy, intriguing woman, who, later, was to conspire with the enemies of France against her royal lover. Nor did this attachment prevent him from seeking amusement in other directions and honouring with his fugitive attentions, not only divers beauties of the Court, whose names Bassompierre does not hesitate to hand down to fame, but even that vulgar class which the chronicler qualifies with a word so explicit that we dare not repeat it.

The following scene described by Bassompierre is too typical of the life of Henri IV and his immediate entourage to be omitted. It occurred during a flying visit to Paris which the King and a few of his favourites paid in July, 1599, while the Court was in residence at Blois:—

“The King had no retinue on this journey, and dined with a president and supped with a prince or noble as the humour took him. Mlle. d’Entragues was not yet his mistress,[24] and he used sometimes to pass the night with a pretty wench called la Glaude. It happened one evening that, after he had been supping with M. d’Elbeuf[25], the King came to pass the night with this girl at Zamet’s house, and when, after we had undressed him, we were about to enter the King’s coach, which was to take us back to our lodging, M. de Joinville and Monsieur le Grand quarrelled, touching something which the former pretended that Monsieur le Grand had told the King about him and Mlle. d’Entragues.[26] In consequence, Monsieur le Grand was wounded in the buttock, the Vidame de Mans received a thrust through the body, and La Rivière one in the stomach. After M. de Praslin had caused the doors of the house to be shut, and M. de Chevreuse [Joinville] had taken his departure, they asked me to go to the King and tell him what had occurred. The King rose, put on his dressing-gown and, taking up his sword, came on to the stairs, where the others were standing, while I preceded him, carrying a taper. He was intensely annoyed, and sent the same night to the First President[27] to command him to come to him on the morrow with the Court of the Parlement, when he directed them to investigate the affair and to show no favour to anyone. This they did, and proceeded to summon before them the Comte de Cramail, Chasseron, and myself to give evidence. And the King bade us go and answer the questions which the commissioners might put to us, which we did; and proceedings were instituted against the offender. But, by reason of the pressing entreaties which Monsieur, Madame, and Mlle. de Guise[28] addressed to the King, the affair went no further, and two months later the Constable[29] brought about a reconciliation at Conflans.”

In November, Bassompierre obtained permission from the King to go to Lorraine, to persuade Charles IV to free him from the security which his late father had given for some 50,000 crowns which the duke had borrowed at the time of the marriage of his elder daughter to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, an obligation which had been causing him considerable uneasiness. In Lorraine he remained for some six weeks, “more for the love which I bore Mlle. de Bourbonne[30] than for the other affair.”

Early in the New Year he returned to Paris, where the charms of Mlle. de Bourbonne were soon forgotten for those of a lady whom he calls la Raverie and who was presumably a star of the demi-monde. The courtiers of Henri IV were, however, quite capable of losing their hearts to two or more ladies at the same time, following the example of their royal master, who “fell in love that winter with Madame de Boinville and Mlle. Clin.”[31] In addition to love-making, he danced in several ballets, one of which was appropriately called le Ballet des Amoureux.

CHAPTER III

Bassompierre accompanies Henri IV in his campaign against Charles Emmanuel of Savoy—His narrow escape at the taking of Montmélian—He goes with the King to visit Henriette d’Entragues, Madame de Verneuil, at La Côte-Saint-André, and reconciles Henri IV with his mistress—Marriage of the King to Marie de’ Medici—Presentation of Madame de Verneuil to the Queen—Visit of Bassompierre to Lorraine—He returns to find the royal ménage in a very troubled state, owing to the jealousy of the wife and the mistress—He assists at a conference, in which the Chancellor recommends the King to get rid of Madame de Verneuil at any cost—He accompanies the Maréchal de Biron on a visit to England—He is present at the arrest of Biron at Fontainebleau, in June, 1602—Condemnation and execution of the marshal.

In February, 1600, Charles Emmanuel of Savoy paid a visit to the Court to negotiate personally with the King about the matter of the marquisate of Saluzzo, which, in 1588, the Duke, taking advantage of the internal troubles of France, had invaded and annexed, and the restoration of which Henri IV was now demanding. Charles Emmanuel offered to enter into an alliance with France against Spain, and assist her to conquer the Milanese, if only Henri IV would forgo his claims on Saluzzo, and lavished costly gifts and large sums of money upon the Ministers and the mistress in order to gain their support. But the King was adamant on the question of Saluzzo, and on February 27 the Duke was obliged to sign a treaty, whereby he engaged within three months either to surrender the marquisate, or, as compensation, the county of Bresse, the valley of Barcellonnette, the valley of the Stura, Pérousse, and Pinerolo.

Towards the middle of May, as Charles Emmanuel had as yet taken no steps to carry out his engagements, Henri IV began moving troops towards the frontier of Savoy, and he himself, accompanied by a few of his intimates, amongst whom was Bassompierre, set out for Lyons, having sent the rest of the Court on in advance to await him at Moulins. At Moulins, where he was the guest of Queen Louise, widow of the late King, he stayed for some little time “principally on account of la Bourdaisière, with whom he was in love”[32]; and it was not until the beginning of July that he arrived at Lyons. Here he remained three weeks, to see what action Charles Emmanuel proposed to take. That prince, however, had signed the treaty of February merely for the purpose of gaining time; and the promises of Spain, which feared, above all things, to see France once more in possession of Saluzzo, decided him to break his word. At the expiration of the three months he solicited a further delay or an amelioration of the conditions of the treaty, hoping that the expected rebellion of the Maréchal de Biron and the Comte d’Auvergne, whom, by specious promises, he had succeeded in seducing from their allegiance to their sovereign, would break out before Henri IV was ready to take the field.

Henri IV, however, was not deceived, and summoned the Duke to declare immediately what his intentions were. The latter, after many tergiversations, announced that he was prepared to surrender Saluzzo. But when the King despatched officers to take possession of the chief places in the marquisate, he refused to surrender them; and on August 11, Henri IV, at the end of his patience, declared war at Lyons.

Bassompierre has left us an interesting account of the campaign which followed—a campaign of invasion undertaken by an army scarcely more numerous than a brigade to-day; but which, thanks to the improvements in the artillery which Sully had introduced and the valour of the troops, proved entirely successful. He himself underwent his “baptism of fire” at the taking of the town of Montmélian, where he served with the regiment of the Sire (afterwards the Maréchal) de Créquy. His military career came very near to ending as well as beginning at Montmélian, for, in the darkness, he lost his way and was cut off from his comrades, “so that I was for more than an hour at the mercy of the fire from the citadel, at twenty paces from the ditch.” By what seems like a miracle, however, he was not hit, and, at length a sergeant, whom Créquy had sent to find him, arrived and guided him to a place of safety.

Charles Emmanuel, for once entirely wrong in his calculations, was unable to offer any effective resistance to the invaders of his realm; France remained tranquil; Biron, traitor though he was, in spite of himself, mastered Bresse; Chambéry, the capital of Savoy, surrendered to Henri IV after but a show of resistance; the citadel of Montmélian, fondly deemed impregnable, fell before Sully’s new siege-guns; and the Duke, seeing himself beaten, sued for peace, and, on New Year’s Day, 1601, signed a treaty with France, by which he retained Saluzzo, in exchange for the cession of Bresse, Bugey, Valromey and Gex.

Whilst engaged in the conquest of Savoy, Henri IV went to visit Madame de Verneuil at Grenoble, as he had hastened at the peril of his life to throw himself at the feet of the Comtesse de Gramont (“la belle Corisande”) after the Battle of Coutras. The years had not changed him and he made these journeys as eagerly as a gallant of half his age.

“I had intended,” writes Bassompierre, “to go with M. Lesdiguières to the valley of Marenne, which he was going to subdue, but the King ordered me to follow him. He went to sleep at La Rochette, and on the morrow dined at Grenoble. And having there learned that Madame de Verneuil was about to arrive at Saint-André de la Costé,[33] he set out to go to her and lent me one of his own horses to follow him. I rode the whole way at a trot, and was so tired that, when I arrived, I could scarcely stand. The King and Madame de Verneuil had a quarrel on meeting,[34] so that the King was going back in anger, and said to me: ‘Bassompierre, order our horses to be saddled for us to return.’ I told him that I would willingly order his to be saddled, but that, as for mine, I should declare myself on Madame de Verneuil’s side and should stay with her. And, after going to and fro several times, in order to reconcile two persons who were well inclined to it, I made peace between them and we slept at Saint-André. The next day the King went to Grenoble and took Madame de Verneuil with him.”

“No one,” writes Boudet de Puymaigre, “makes us understand better than does Bassompierre the character of Henri IV, that extraordinary man, great on the field of battle, where his inspired language, in accord with his deeds, elevates him often to the sublimity of the epopee; skilful and even adroit in the government of his realm, causing at need acts which were merely the outcome of political necessity to be attributed to his clemency; in his private life, despotic and good-humoured at the same time, often duped by his mistresses and blinded by his passions. Such as he was, he remains the type of the popular king, and posterity has done honour even to his faults, for it has enshrined the name of ‘la belle Gabrielle’ amidst the trophies of the Battle of Ivry. ‘His tragic end,’ remarks Chateaubriand, ‘has contributed not a little to his renown; to disappear appropriately from life is a condition of glory.’ ”

Just a month before peace was signed with the Duke of Savoy, Marie de’ Medici, whom the Duc de Bellegarde, acting as proxy for his master, had married at Florence on Oct. 6, 1600, arrived at Lyons. Henri IV joined her there a few days later, and on December 17 the marriage was celebrated with great splendour. On the arrival of the royal bride at Nemours, the King caused Madame de Verneuil to be presented to her. As the sultana came forward, he explained who she was: “This young lady is my mistress; she will be your obedient and humble servant!” Then, as the scant curtsey which was all the salutation which Henriette vouchsafed the Queen appeared to hold out little hope of the fulfilment of this promise, he placed his hand on her head and bent it down, until she kissed the hem of her rival’s dress.

It must be acknowledged that his Majesty could hardly have contrived an introduction better calculated to exasperate the temper of both women. Nevertheless, on this occasion, the Queen contrived to dissimulate her feelings, and, according to Bassompierre, gave Madame de Verneuil a very good reception—“bonne chère,” as they said then.

In January, 1601, Bassompierre again went to Lorraine, to visit his mother, who was ill, and remained there three months. He returned in company with the Duchess of Bar and her father-in-law, Charles III of Lorraine, who were on their way to pay a visit to the Court, which was then in residence at Monceaux. The Château of Monceaux, so closely associated with memories of “la belle Gabrielle,” had just been presented to the Queen by Henri IV, and Marie de’ Medici entertained her distinguished guests with lavish hospitality. The royal ménage was, however, in a very troubled state, for the wife and the mistress were already at daggers drawn, and between them the Very Christian King was having a decidedly unpleasant time of it. Matters, indeed, had come to such a pass that Henri IV was contemplating the advisability of marrying Madame de Verneuil, with a rich dowry, to some needy foreign prince, and thus removing her from his Court; and Bassompierre was called upon to assist at a sort of council between the King, Sully, and the Chancellor, Pomponne de Bellièvre, the last of whom strongly urged his Majesty to get rid of the lady at any cost:—

“The King inquired if he should give something to Madame de Verneuil in order to marry her to a prince, who she declared, was willing to espouse her, if she had 100,000 crowns. M. de Bellièvre (the Chancellor) said: ‘Sire, I am of opinion that you should give 100,000 crowns to this young lady to procure a suitable husband.’ And when M. de Sully made answer that it was very easy to speak of 100,000 crowns, but very difficult to find them, the Chancellor, without looking at him, rejoined: ‘Sire, I am of opinion that you should take 200,000 crowns and give it to this young lady to marry her, and even 300,000, if you cannot do it for less. And that is my advice.’ The King repented afterwards of not having approved and followed this counsel.”

In September, 1601, Henri IV was at Calais, and Queen Elizabeth came to Dover, partly in the hope that her old ally would visit her to discuss the advisability of joint action against Spain. The King, however, was unwilling to alarm the Catholics or to do anything which might precipitate a renewal of the war with Spain, and he also perhaps feared that Elizabeth might seize the opportunity to demand the repayment of certain advances of money which she had made him during his struggle against the League, and which it would be highly inconvenient to refund just then. Accordingly, he dispatched the Maréchal de Biron to offer his excuses and regrets to the Queen; and Biron persuaded Bassompierre, who had just arrived at Calais from a journey to Verneuil upon which the King had sent him, to accompany him to England.

“We did not find the Queen in London,” writes Bassompierre. “She was making a progress, and was at a country-house called Basin,[35] forty leagues distant, which belonged to the Marquis of Vincester.[36] The Queen notified her intention of receiving us at another country-house, called The Vine, a league from Basin, whither M. de Biron was conducted. He was very honourably received by the Queen, who went a-hunting next day with fifty ladies on hackneys and sent for M. de Biron to join the hunt. On the morrow, he took leave of the Queen and returned to London, where, after remaining three days, he repassed the sea.”

The first news which greeted Bassompierre and the marshal on their arrival at Boulogne, near which contrary winds had obliged them to land, was the birth of the Dauphin (afterwards Louis XIII), which had taken place on September 27, 1601.[37]

Bassompierre was present at Fontainebleau that evening in the following June, when Biron, after refusing Henri IV’s magnanimous offer of pardon on condition that he would confess the truth concerning his treasonable dealings with the Duke of Savoy, was arrested by the Marquis de Vitry, Captain of the Château of Fontainebleau, as he was passing from the King’s cabinet into the Chambre de Saint-Louis, and requested to give up his sword.

“I was in the Chamber,” he writes, “having withdrawn to the window with M. de Montbazon and La Guesle.[38] We approached the marshal, who asked M. de Montbazon to go and beg the King that he might be allowed to retain his sword, adding: ‘What treatment, Messieurs, for a man who has served as I have!’ M. de Montbazon went to the King and returned to say that the King desired him to give up his sword, upon which he permitted them to take it away.”

Biron was conducted to the Bastille, where his captivity was shared by the Comte d’Auvergne, who had been arrested at the same time.[39] Later that evening, Henri IV sent for Bassompierre and other nobles, and placed before them the letters which La Fin, the instigator of the conspiracy, who had subsequently turned informer, had given him. They were all written in Biron’s own hand.

The marshal was arraigned for high treason before the Parlement of Paris, the peers of the realm being summoned to take their places amongst the judges, as was the custom when one of their number was on his trial. The evidence of the accused’s guilt was overwhelming, and he was unanimously sentenced to death. On July 31, 1602, he was beheaded in the courtyard of the Bastille, it having been decided to spare him the ignominy of a public execution in the Place de Grève. The pusillanimous Comte d’Auvergne was pardoned and set at liberty in the following October, thanks to the intercession of his half-sister, Madame de Verneuil.

CHAPTER IV

Bassompierre sets out for Hungary to serve as a volunteer in the Imperial Army against the Turks—His journey to Vienna—He learns that the commander-in-chief of the army is General von Rossworm, a mortal enemy of the Bassompierre family—He is advised by his friends in Vienna to take service in the Army of Transylvania, instead of in that of Hungary, but declines to change his plans—He sups more well than wisely at Gran—His arrival at the Imperialist camp before Buda—Position of the hostile armies—Bassompierre is presented to Rossworm—He narrowly escapes being killed or taken prisoner by the Turks—He takes part in a fierce combat in the Isle of Adon, and has another narrow escape—He is reconciled with Rossworm—Massacre of eight hundred Turkish prisoners—Failure of a night-attack planned by the Imperialist general—Gallant but foolhardy enterprise of the Hungarians—The Turks bombard the Imperialist headquarters—Termination of the campaign—Bassompierre returns with Rossworm to Vienna.

Peace having been concluded between France and Savoy, tranquillity reigned for the moment in Europe, except in Hungary, where the eternal conflict between the Cross and the Crescent continued to be waged as bitterly as ever. In those days, war, with very few exceptions, was the only road which led to honour and renown, and when Christians were at peace with one another, the Turks became the objective of all adventurous spirits, who went to fight the Infidel in Hungary, Crete, or Malta as their ancestors flocked to the Crusades. Moreover, it was not without mortification that the German relatives of Bassompierre, who had seen all his family entirely devoted to the profession of arms, beheld him passing his youth at the Court of France in voluptuous idleness, and, to wean him from it, they obtained for him the offer of the command of a regiment of 3,000 men which the Circle of Bavaria had agreed to contribute to the Imperial Army in Hungary for the campaign of 1603. Bassompierre, however, though willing enough to go to Hungary, had the good sense to decline this post, “not deeming it fitting,” he writes, “that, without any knowledge of the country, I should straightway take command of 3,000 men,” and decided to serve as a simple volunteer.

Accordingly, about the middle of August, 1603, having obtained leave of absence from the King, he left Paris, and travelled by way of Nancy and Strasbourg to Ulm, where his attendants, whom he had sent on in advance, had procured two large boats for his passage down the Danube. In these he and his suite, which appears to have been quite an imposing one, as befitted a gentleman of such ancient lineage and one of the favourites of the King of France, embarked and proceeded to Neuburg, where he was very hospitably entertained by Duke William II, who, a few years before, had abdicated his throne in favour of his son, now Maximilian I. Continuing his journey, with stoppages at Ingoldstadt, Ratisbon, and Linz, at the beginning of the second week in September he arrived in Vienna, where he found the Prince de Joinville, who had been temporarily banished from France,[40] Frederick, Count von Salm, and several other gentlemen of his acquaintance, both French and German, most of whom were, like himself, on their way to win honour and glory, or peradventure to find a soldier’s grave, on the plains of Hungary.

Some of these modern Crusaders came to dine with Bassompierre on the day following his arrival in Vienna, and from them he learned a most unwelcome piece of intelligence, namely, that the commander-in-chief of the Imperial forces in Hungary under whom he was about to take service was none other than General von Rossworm, a mortal enemy of the Bassompierre family.

It appears that some fifteen years before, in the time of the League, Rossworm had served in France under Bassompierre’s father, by whom he had been placed in charge of the town of Blancmesnil. Rossworm had taken advantage of his position to abduct a young lady of noble birth who had taken refuge at Blancmesnil with her mother, and whom he promised to marry, but subsequently discarded, after subjecting the poor girl to the most abominable treatment. On ascertaining the facts of the case, Christophe de Bassompierre, burning with righteous indignation, vowed that the German should pay for his villainy with his head; but the latter, warned in time, fled from Blancmesnil and for some little while succeeded in evading pursuit. Eventually, however, he was run to earth at Amiens, and would undoubtedly have been executed, had not the Sieur de Vitry, who commanded the light cavalry of the League, and who happened to be under some personal obligation to Rossworm, found means to enable him to escape. Rossworm subsequently returned to Germany and entered the Imperial service, and being, though a pretty bad scoundrel, even for a German soldier of fortune of those times, a very brave man and a most capable officer, rose step by step, until at length he was appointed to the command of the Imperial army in Hungary.[41] He had cherished the most implacable resentment against Christophe de Bassompierre, and while the two young Bassompierres were studying at Ingoldstadt, they received warning that Rossworm, in order to avenge himself upon the father, had actually planned to have the sons assassinated. On being informed of this, Christophe complained to the Duke of Bavaria, who had just appointed Rossworm to the command of the regiment of foot which Bavaria was about to send to Hungary. The Duke promptly deprived Rossworm of that post, a step which had served to incense that worthy still further against the Bassompierres.

Bassompierre’s friends in Vienna, on being informed by him how matters stood, did not fail to represent to him the danger of placing himself in the power of so unscrupulous and vindictive a man as Rossworm had proved himself to be, and endeavoured to persuade him to renounce his intention of going to Hungary and take service instead in the Army of Transylvania, under its distinguished leader, George Basta. Finding, however, that the young Lorrainer, though he quite appreciated the risk he would be incurring, was indisposed to change his plans, they invited to meet him at dinner Siegfried Colowitz, an Hungarian colonel, who had just arrived in Vienna on a brief furlough, and laid the matter before him.

Colowitz, who had taken so great a fancy to Bassompierre that he had insisted on making brudershaft with him, expressed the opinion that Rossworm was too unpopular in the army to attempt any open violence against his new friend, and that, if he were so imprudent as to do so, he himself had 1,200 Hungarian cavalry under his command, and his brother Ferdinand 1,500 landsknechts, who would obey their orders without question. However, as it was possible that Rossworm might have recourse to some other means of injuring Bassompierre, he proposed that the latter should take up his quarters in his own part of the camp, where he would guarantee his safety.

Towards the end of September, Bassompierre having spent the interval in purchasing the tents, carts, horses, and other things which he required, left Vienna, in company with the Prince de Joinville, and continued his journey down the Danube. At Gran, the governor, Count Althann, came to meet them, bringing with him horses for them to ride to the citadel, where he informed them that he was expecting two other distinguished guests, in the persons of the Bishop of Erlau and Count Illischezki, one of the chief nobles of Hungary, whom the Emperor had appointed as deputies to treat, in conjunction with himself, for peace. At the citadel, the two young gentlemen appear to have supped more well than wisely:—

“He [Count Althann],” writes Bassompierre, “entertained M. de Joinville and myself to a most excellent supper, at which we drank in moderation. But, unhappily, the deputies having arrived, orders were given to serve it up again, and we remained at table until midnight; by which time we were so drunk that we lost all consciousness and had to be carried back to our boats.”

On September 27th they arrived at Waitzen, on the left bank of the Danube, where they were met by Ferdinand Colowitz, who handed Bassompierre a letter from his brother Siegfried, in which he informed him that, at his request, the Count von Tilly, who, in his younger days, had served under Christophe de Bassompierre and was now a major-general in the Imperial Army, had broken the news of the coming of Christophe’s son to the commander-in-chief, who had emphatically disclaimed any evil intentions towards the young man, although he would prefer to have no intercourse with him. Colowitz added that should Rossworm, despite what he had said, attempt any violence, half the army would rise against him.

Bassompierre was naturally much relieved at this news, and that afternoon he went with Joinville to Rossworm’s head-quarters, where he was duly presented to the general and courteously, if somewhat coldly, received. Afterwards, he proceeded to the Isle of Adon, where Siegfried Colowitz’s cavalry were posted, and where his servants had already put up his tent at a little distance from that of the Hungarian colonel.

It may be as well here to explain the situation of affairs at the moment when Bassompierre joined the army.

In the campaign of the preceding year, the Christians had captured Pesth and the lower town of Buda, situated on the opposite bank of the Danube. This year their army, which was composed of some 30,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry, to which, as in the time of the Crusades, almost every country in Europe had contributed its quota, was encamped on the left bank of the Danube, covering Pesth and threatening Buda. The Turks were encamped on the right bank of the river, and their objective was the revictualling of Buda and the recovery of Pesth or Gran. Rossworm had strongly occupied the Isle of Adon, situated between the hostile camps, and it was in this island that most of the fighting took place. The Turks had occupied a small island, about 1,500 paces in circumference, which lay between the Isle of Adon and their own camp, and had built a bridge of boats from this island to the right bank. They had also made several attempts to construct another bridge from the little island to the left bank, but this was constantly broken by the fire of the Imperialist artillery. They, however, occasionally succeeding in crossing over to the Isle of Adon, and even to the Imperialists’ side of the river, in caiques and on rafts, under cover of darkness, but had never yet succeeded in securing a footing there.

Hardly had Bassompierre finished supper that evening than a message arrived from Siegfried Colowitz to inform him that a reconnoitring party of the enemy had just landed on the island, and to request him, if he were in the mood for a little fighting, to put on his armour and have a horse saddled, as he was about to attack them. Shortly afterwards, Colowitz himself rode up, accompanied by a hundred or so of his Hungarians, one of whom he ordered to dismount and give his horse to Bassompierre, whose own charger he considered too heavy an animal for the work before them. They then galloped away, and, having come upon the Turks, charged them vigorously and forced them to beat a hasty retreat to their caiques and return to their own side of the river.

The following night, however, the Turks succeeded in landing on the island in considerable force from caiques and pontoons, on the same spot which they had just reconnoitred and began hurriedly constructing entrenchments, with the object of holding the Imperialists at bay long enough to enable the rest of the Ottoman army to be brought across. They were so fiercely attacked, however, that they were soon obliged to retreat.

A few days later, Bassompierre had a narrow escape of being killed or taken prisoner.

“At daybreak on September 29,” he writes, “we issued from our great entrenchment with 200 Hungarian horse to reconnoitre the enemy; but we had not gone three hundred paces, when we perceived some hundred horsemen in front of us. The Hungarians, according to their custom, were dispersed in all directions, and we had not more than thirty with us, all of whom took to flight so soon as the enemy appeared. But I, who could not imagine that the Turks had advanced so far, and who could not distinguish them from the Hungarians, thought that they belonged to us, until an Hungarian fugitive called out to me: ‘Heu, domine, adsunt Turcae!’ which caused me to retreat also.”

At the beginning of October the Turks resolved upon a great effort to drive the Imperialists from the Isle of Adon. Rossworm, however, had received warning of the enemy’s intention, and of the day and hour when the attempt would be made; and, though he might easily have prevented the Turks from reaching the island, he decided to allow them to pass the river and then to fall suddenly upon them. With this purpose, he brought, under cover of night, the greater part of his army over to the island, and placed in ambush a body of 4,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry, the latter including the regiment of Siegfried Colowitz, to which Bassompierre and Joinville were attached. These troops swooped down upon the Turks before they had had time to form in order of battle after effecting their landing, and routed them with terrible slaughter, great numbers being cut down, while many more were drowned in the Danube, into which they had thrown themselves to escape the lances and sabres of the pursuing cavalry.

In this engagement Bassompierre again had a narrow escape. He was mounted that day on a magnificent Spanish stallion, for which he had given a thousand crowns; but he was a very mettlesome animal and by no means easy to ride, and, having been wounded below the eye by a javelin in the first charge, while, at the same time, his curb-chain broke, he became quite unmanageable and bolted after the flying enemy at breakneck speed. Bassompierre endeavoured in vain to stop him, and then, seeing that he had far outstripped his comrades and was alone in the midst of the fugitives, he bore hard on the left rein and succeeded in turning him in that direction. But he had only diverted the maddened animal’s course, without checking his speed, and found himself being carried towards a body of some thousand Turks who had not yet been engaged and were retreating in good order. A few seconds more and he would have been in the middle of them, when, happily for him, his equerry Des Essans, who had been riding hard to overtake his master, came up and, seizing the runaway’s bridle, managed to hold him long enough to enable Bassompierre to throw himself out of the saddle, within twenty paces of the Turks. The latter, though very reluctant to forgo the chance of killing and despoiling so magnificent a cavalier—for Bassompierre tells us that he was arrayed that day “in a suit of gilded armour, very beautifully chased, with a number of plumes and scarves upon himself and his horse”—were too hard pressed by their pursuers to turn aside, and continued their retreat, leaving him and Des Essans unmolested. The faithful equerry had, however, not escaped unscathed, as, in seizing the bridle of his master’s horse, he had been somewhat badly wounded in the leg by Bassompierre’s sword, which was suspended from his wrist.

Having procured another horse, Bassompierre continued the pursuit of the enemy to the bank of the river, and then, accompanied by Joinville, made his way to the spot where Rossworm and his staff were gathered, “seated on some dead Turks.” On seeing Bassompierre, the general rose and announced that he wished to say a few words.

“And, after having praised me for what he had just seen me do, and observed that I should not be a member of the family to which I belonged if I were not valiant, he continued: ‘The late M. de Bassompierre, your father, was my master, but he wished to put me to death unjustly. I desire to forget that outrage and to remember only the obligations under which he had previously placed me, and to be henceforth, if you wish it, your friend and your servant.’ Then I dismounted from my horse and advanced to salute him and thank him in the most suitable terms that I could think of. Upon which, turning towards the two princes, the Prince de Joinville and the Landgrave of Hesse, and the colonels and other officers who were with him, he said: ‘Gentlemen, I could not effect this reconciliation or offer these assurances of friendship to M. de Bassompierre in a better place, after a better action, or before more noble witnesses. I invite you to dine with me to-morrow, and him also, to confirm again what has just occurred.’ And this we all promised to do.”

After this victory the Imperialists returned to their camp on the left bank of the river, where Rossworm ordered all the Turkish prisoners taken in the battle to be put to death, “because they embarrassed the army.” “It was a very cruel thing,” adds Bassompierre, “to see more than 800 men who had surrendered slaughtered in cold blood.” Nevertheless, the butchery of prisoners appears to have been an only too common practice in the wars between the Cross and the Crescent, which were conducted on both sides with the most pitiless ferocity.

Next day Bassompierre dined with the commander-in-chief and his staff, when they confirmed “with the bottle and a thousand protestations of friendship, the reconciliation which had been effected on the field of battle.” To do Rossworm justice, he was perfectly sincere in his desire to terminate his feud with the Bassompierre family, and he and the young volunteer soon became firm friends.

The Turks still held the little island, and had preserved intact the bridge of boats by which communication with their army on the right bank of the Danube was maintained. They had mounted on this island six pieces of cannon, which completely commanded the approach from the left bank of the river, so that any attempt to capture it by day would have been out of the question, even if the bridge of boats had not enabled the enemy to hurry reinforcements across at the first alarm. Rossworm, however, considered that, if the communications of the garrison of the island with their army could be temporarily interrupted by the destruction of this bridge, a night attack might very well prove successful.

On the night of October 8-9 he determined to make the attempt, and accordingly dispatched engineers to blow up the bridge, while a large force was brought into the Isle of Adon, and boats and rafts collected to ferry them across. The engineers duly succeeded in destroying the bridge, but the Hungarians, who formed the advance-guard of the attacking force, remained inactive in their boats in the middle of the river, awaiting the arrival of a body of pikemen whom they had demanded as supports, in case there should be cavalry on the island. The consequence was that the Turks were given time to send over reinforcements, and the opportunity was lost.

Rossworm returned to his camp in great wrath, anathematizing the Hungarians, whom he accused of cowardice. The Hungarian chiefs indignantly repudiated such an aspersion, and, to redeem their reputation, volunteered to cross the river and construct a fort in the plain between Buda and the Turkish camp. Rossworm accepted this offer, though it is difficult to understand how he could have countenanced an undertaking which could have no other result than the useless sacrifice of gallant lives; and on the night of October 10-11, some 1,300 Hungarians landed on the right bank, unperceived by the enemy, and began to entrench themselves.

They worked desperately all night, but when morning dawned, a Turkish flotilla appeared upon the scene, and bombarded their hastily-constructed fort from the river; while the enemy in great force assailed it from the land side. After an heroic resistance, the Hungarians were obliged to abandon it, with the loss of some 300 men, and retreat to the caiques which were waiting to take them off. So fierce was the pursuit that some of the Turkish cavalry spurred their horses into the water to attack the caiques, and two were made prisoners with their steeds.

Rossworm had placed a number of cannon in the Isle of Adon to cover the retreat of the Hungarians, but only two of these pieces appear to have come into action, which Bassompierre tells us the general ascribed to the fact that, the day being a Sunday, most of the artillerymen were drunk.

Shortly after this, the Turks brought up some twenty guns to a height overlooking the Imperialist headquarters, which they bombarded heavily and persistently. One day, whilst Bassompierre was playing cards with the general and two other officers, a shot passed right through the tent, whilst on another, when visiting Annibal de Schomberg, a shot struck the tent-pole and brought the whole tent down upon the heads of its occupants. Finally, after this unpleasant state of things had lasted for five days, Rossworm decided to remove his headquarters to a valley where cannon-shot could not reach him, upon which the bombardment ceased.

Towards the middle of November, the Turks, having succeeded in their main objective, that of revictualling Buda, struck their camp and marched back to Belgrade, where their army was disbanded. Rossworm, after leading a flying column along the river and capturing one or two not very important places, with the idea of showing that the campaign had not been wholly without results on the Imperialists’ side, disbanded his troops likewise, and set out for Vienna, accompanied by Bassompierre.

CHAPTER V

Bassompierre goes to Prague, where the Imperial Court is in residence—He is presented by Rossworm to the lords of the Council—He dines at the house of Prestowitz, Burgrave of Karlstein, and falls in love with his widowed daughter, “Madame Esther”—Bassompierre and Rossworm engage in an amorous adventure, from which they narrowly escape with their lives—Bassompierre plays tennis with Wallenstein, with the Emperor Maximilian an interested spectator—He is presented to the Emperor, who receives him very graciously and commissions him to raise troops in Lorraine for service against the Turks. Bassompierre, Rossworm and other nobles parade the streets masked and have an affray with the police—Singular sequel to this affair—Bassompierre spends the Carnival with the Prestowitz family at Karlstein—Amorous escapade with “Madame Esther”—Bassompierre sets out for Lorraine—He engages in a drinking-bout with the canons of Saverne, which very nearly has a fatal termination—Death of his brother Jean, Seigneur de Removille, at the siege of Ostend—Grievances of Bassompierre against the French Government—Henri IV promises that “justice shall be done him” and invites him to return to his Court—Bassompierre renounces his intention of entering the Imperial service and sets out for France.

In Vienna, Bassompierre remained for six weeks, where he “passed his time extremely well,” and about the middle of January, 1604, set out for Prague, where the Imperial Court was then in residence.

“At Prague,” he writes, “I found Rossworm, who since our reconciliation had been on terms of the closest friendship with me. He came, the following morning, to my lodging in his coach to take me to the hall of the Palace of Prague,[42] where we walked up and down until the Council rose, when the lords of the Council came to salute Rossworm, whom they held in great respect, on account of his being commander-in-chief of the Army. He then presented me to them, begging them to honour me with their friendship and saying many kind things concerning me.”

On leaving the Palace, Rossworm took Bassompierre to dine with an old Bohemian noble named Prestowitz, who occupied the post of burgrave of Karlstein, the fortress in which the Imperial regalia and all the charters of Bohemia were preserved. The burgrave had two sons, the elder of whom was Grand Falconer of the Empire, while the younger, Wolf von Prestowitz, had served with Bassompierre in the recent campaign, and aspired to the command of the cavalry regiment which Bohemia was to send to Hungary that year. For which reason the family were exceedingly civil to the great Rossworm, who could do much to obtain this post for the young man. The burgrave also possessed four young and pretty daughters. Rossworm, it appeared, was in love with the youngest girl, Sibylla; while Bassompierre promptly lost his heart to the third daughter, named Esther, “a young lady of excellent beauty, eighteen years of age, widow since six months of a gentleman called Briczner, to whom she had been married a year.”

“We were nobly received and entertained at Prestowitz’s house,” he continues, “and after dinner there was dancing, when I began to fall in love with Madame Esther, who made me understand that she was not displeased with my design, which I revealed to her as I was leaving the house. For she responded in such a way as to afford me the means to write to her, and to tell me the places which she visited, so that I might go there. I went also to see her sometimes at her house, under cover of the friendship which had sprung up between her younger brother and myself, when we were in Hungary.”

His new-born passion for “Madame Esther” did not, however, prevent our gentleman from indulging in other amorous adventures of a much less excusable character:

“On our return from dining with the Prestowitz family, Rossworm, thinking to oblige me, engaged me in a rather unfortunate affair. He had bargained with an innkeeper of the New Town that, for two hundred ducats, he should surrender to him his two daughters, who were very beautiful. I am of opinion, as will appear from the sequel, that he had taken advantage of this poor man when he was drunk to obtain such a promise from him. When we had arrived within some two hundred paces of this inn, we alighted from our coach, which we ordered to turn round and await our return; and Rossworm and I, with a page of his, who was to act as interpreter, went the rest of the way on foot.

“We found the father in the room where the stove stood, and with him his two daughters, who were going about their work. He was very astonished to see us, and still more so when Rossworm made him understand that each of us had brought him a hundred ducats for what the innkeeper had promised him. Thereupon the man cried out that he had never promised any such thing, and, opening the window, shouted twice: ‘Mortriau! Mortriau!’ that is to say, ‘Murder!’ Then Rossworm held his poniard to the innkeeper’s throat, and directed the page to tell him that if he spoke to the neighbours or did not order his daughters to do our will, he was a dead man, and told me to take away one of the girls.... But I, who had been at first under the impression that I was engaged in an affair in which all the parties were in accord, answered that I did not intend to touch the girls. Rossworm then said that, if I did not wish to do so, I must come and hold my poniard to the father’s throat, and that he would take one of the girls away.... This I did very reluctantly; and the poor girls wept.”

The odious Rossworm had already seized upon one of the unfortunate girls to drag her away, when a great shouting reached their ears, and looking out of the window, he saw a large and threatening crowd, which had come in response to the innkeeper’s cries for help, gathered before the house. Thereupon he let his intended victim go, and told Bassompierre that they were in grave danger, and would need all their courage and presence of mind if they wanted to leave that house alive. Then, turning to the innkeeper, he told him—or rather made the page do so—that he would kill him, if he did not contrive their escape from the mob. Now, the innkeeper was wearing a long smock, under which Rossworm placed his poniard, pressing the point against the man’s flesh, and told Bassompierre to give his dagger to the page, that he might do likewise. In this fashion they went out of the room and along the passage to the door of the inn, where the trembling Boniface gave some apparently satisfactory explanation to his neighbours, for the latter, who, of course, could not see the poniards pressed against his back, began to disperse.

Then Rossworm and the page, imagining that the danger was over, sheathed their poniards, and they and Bassompierre began to walk away in the direction of their coach. But they had gone but a few paces, when the innkeeper, recovering from his alarm, began to shout: “Murder! Murder!” again with all the strength of his lungs. They took to their heels and ran for their lives, pursued by an infuriated mob, who pelted them with volleys of stones, which they had apparently collected at the first alarm.

“Then Rossworm cried out to me: ‘Brother, sauve qui peut! If you fall, do not expect me to pick you up, for each of us must look to his own safety.’ We ran pretty fast, but the rain of stones incommoded us greatly, and one of them, striking Rossworm in the back, brought him to the ground. I, who did not wish to treat him in the manner in which he had just announced his intention of treating me, raised him up and helped him along for some twenty paces, when, happily, we reached our coach. Into this we threw ourselves, and were soon in safety in the Old Town, having escaped from the paws of more than four hundred people.”

Next day, Rossworm, presumably out of gratitude to Bassompierre for having saved his life at the risk of his own, secured for him the high privilege of admission to the Emperor’s ante-chamber, which was usually only accorded to princes and very great nobles. Here he appears to have met the Count von Wallenstein, the great captain of the Thirty Years’ War, then a youth of twenty, who, a few days later, challenged him to a match at tennis. During the game the Emperor appeared at a window of the palace which overlooked the tennis-court, and remained there for some time, an interested spectator. The following morning his Majesty gave orders that Bassompierre should be presented to him, and received him very graciously indeed, observing that his family had always been faithful servants of the Imperial House, and that he had heard that he had conducted himself very well in Hungary. He added that, if he wished to enter his service and would inform him of what post he desired, he would be very pleased to appoint him to it. Maximilian spoke in Spanish and requested Bassompierre to reply in the same language.

Shortly after this, the Emperor sent the Count von Fürstenberg to inform Bassompierre that he proposed making certain changes in the cavalry of the Imperial Army, and that if he were willing to go to Lorraine and raise three new companies of light horse and three of musketeers for service in Hungary, he would appoint him colonel of a thousand horse. This offer Bassompierre accepted, “foreseeing,” says he, “that France would remain at peace for a long while, and urged thereto by the intense love with which Madame Esther had inspired me.”

His attachment to this young lady, however, made him far from anxious to hasten his departure for Lorraine, and he therefore decided to postpone it until after the Carnival, which “Madame Esther,” who had returned to Karlstein, intended to pass at Prague. But, to his great disappointment, her father, the burgrave, fell ill and she was obliged to remain at Karlstein. However, notwithstanding the absence of his inamorata, he contrived to spend a very pleasant time, “with continual feasts and festivities and very high play at prime between five or six of us, to wit, Count von Stahrenberg, President of the Kingdom of Bohemia, Adam Galpopel, Grand Prior of Bohemia, Kinsky, Rossworm and myself. And there was not an evening in which I did not win or lose two or three thousand thalers.”

On the occasion of the marriage of the Emperor’s Grand Equerry, which took place during the Carnival, and the festivities in connection with which lasted several days, Bassompierre arranged with Rossworm and six other nobles to parade the town on horseback, masked and splendidly dressed. As they were passing the Town Hall, some constables came up to Bassompierre and Rossworm, who, preceded by their pages bearing their swords aloft, were riding at the head of the party, and informed them that the Emperor had forbidden anyone to pass through the town masked. They, however, pretended that they did not understand Sclavonic, and rode on. No attempt was made to stop them, but, on their return, they found chains stretched across all the streets leading to the square in which the Town Hall stood, except the one by which they entered, and, so soon as they had passed, chains were stretched across that also. Then a whole company of constables appeared upon the scene, and, beginning with the hindmost of the party, seized their companions, who, not having brought their swords with them, were unable to offer any resistance, and haled them off to prison. Meanwhile, Bassompierre and Rossworm had taken their swords from their pages, but they did not draw them. However, when one of the constables attempted to seize the bridle of Bassompierre’s horse, Rossworm struck him on the hand with his sheathed sword, and, the blade, breaking through the scabbard, wounded the man somewhat severely. They were immediately surrounded by more than two hundred police, but, drawing their swords, they contrived to prevent them from closing with them and dragging them off their horses, though not without receiving a volley of blows on their backs and arms.

“This went on for some time,” continues Bassompierre, “until a chief justice came out of the Town Hall and raised his bâton (which they call regimentstock). Upon this, all the constables laid their halberds on the ground; and Rossworm (who knew the custom) threw down his sword and called out to me to do the same instantly. I did so, otherwise I should have been declared a rebel to the Emperor and punished as such. Rossworm asked me to answer when the judge began to question us, as he did not wish to be recognised. The judge inquired who I was, and I told him without disguising anything. He then asked the name of my companion, and I answered that it was Rossworm, whereupon he offered us the most profuse apologies. Rossworm, annoyed that I had given his name, when he saw that it was useless to deny it, fell into a rage and threatened the judge and the constables that he would complain to the Emperor and the Chancellor and have them severely punished. They tried every means to appease him, but he, as well as myself, had been too well beaten to be satisfied with words. They delivered up to us our six companions, who were more fortunate than ourselves, since they had suffered nothing worse than a fright, and we rode away. In the evening we attended the wedding festivities as though nothing had happened. But, next morning, Rossworm went to the Chancellor, to whom he spoke very arrogantly, and the Chancellor, to satisfy us, threw more than 150 constables into prison. Their wives were every day at my door to obtain a pardon for them, and I solicited Rossworm very earnestly to grant it. But he was inexorable, and made them lie a fortnight in prison during the rigour of winter, from the effects of which two of them died. Finally, with great difficulty, I contrived to get the rest set at liberty.”

The imprisonment of these unfortunate constables, who had only done their duty, was indeed a singular way for a Government to encourage the faithful execution of its orders!

In the town of Prague the New Calendar was in use, but among the Hussites, in the country districts of Bohemia, it was not observed. In consequence, after the Carnival was over at Prague, it lasted another ten days in the country, and the Burgrave Prestowitz invited Bassompierre, Rossworm, and two Bohemian nobles named Stavata and Colwrat to come and spend a second Carnival at Karlstein, at which a large party of nobles and ladies were to assemble. Colwrat was a great admirer of the Countess Millessimo, the eldest sister of Bassompierre’s inamorata, while Stavata was just embarking in a romance with her second sister, the not-too-devoted wife of a gentleman named Colowitz; and “on Ash Wednesday the four lovers of the four daughters of the burgrave travelled to Karlstein in the same coach.”

At Karlstein Bassompierre appears to have spent an even more agreeable time than during the Carnival at Prague:

“We found there more than twenty ladies, including several who were very beautiful, and it is needless to say we were made welcome by the daughters of the house, but principally by my lady, who was enraptured to see me, as I was to see her. For I was desperately in love with her, and I can say that never in my life did I pass ten days more agreeably or better employed than those I passed there, being always at table, at the ball, in the sleigh, or engaged in another and better occupation. At length, the Carnival being over, we returned to Prague, with great regret on their part and ours, but very satisfied with our little journey.”

Before leaving Karlstein, Bassompierre had extracted a promise from “Madame Esther” that she would take an early opportunity of coming to Prague; but, as the worthy burgrave fell ill again, very probably in consequence of the quantity of rich food and strong wine which he had consumed during the Carnival, she was unable to do this. However, she hastened to atone to her lover for his disappointment, for “she made him come in disguise to Karlstein, where he spent five days and six nights concealed in a chamber near her own.”

On his return from this amorous escapade, Bassompierre prepared to set out for Lorraine, and, having received his despatches and an order on the Lorraine treasury for the payment of the troops which he had undertaken to raise in the duchy,[43] he left Prague on Palm Sunday, accompanied alone by Cominges-Guitaut, Seigneur de Fléac, a French gentleman who had served with him in Hungary, and a German valet de chambre.

He spent the first night of his journey at Karlstein, ostensibly to bid adieu to the burgrave and his family, but, in reality, to take farewell of “Madame Esther,” who was, of course, very disconsolate at the departure of her lover, though Bassompierre promised that, so soon as he had raised his levy, he would return to her side for a little while, before leading his horsemen into Hungary. As he was still “éperdument amoureux,” and to such a degree that he assures us that the charms of some very beautiful ladies whom he met at a country-house at which he stopped on the following day, and where, sad to relate, both he and his friend Guitaut got very drunk, were powerless to make the smallest impression upon him, he no doubt fully intended to keep his word; but, as events turned out, poor “Madame Esther” was never to see him again.

Travelling by way of Pilsen and Ratisbon, he arrived at Munich, where his friend William II. of Bavaria entertained him very hospitably and “offered him the command of the regiment of foot which Bavaria maintained in Hungary, in any year that he cared to accept it, provided he would notify him before Easter.” The Duke also lent him one of his own coaches, which brought him to Augsburg, where he took horse to Strasbourg, and a few days after Easter reached Saverne, and put up at an inn, with the intention of continuing his journey early on the morrow.

At Saverne an adventure befell him which might very well have had a fatal termination:—

“I sat down to table to sup, before going to visit the canons at the castle; but, as I was about to begin, they arrived to take me to the château and lodge me there. They were the Dean of the Chapter, François de Crehange, the Count von Kayl, and the two brothers von Salm-Reifferscheid. They had already supped and were half-drunk. I begged them, since they had found me at table, to sit down with me, instead of taking me to sup at the castle. This they did, and in a short time Guitaut and I had contrived to make them so drunk, that we were obliged to have them carried back to the castle. I remained at my inn, and, at daybreak on the morrow, I mounted my horse, thinking to depart; but they had, the previous night, given orders that I was not to be allowed to pass, for they wished to have their revenge on me for having made them drunk. I was, therefore, compelled to remain and dine with them, which I had great cause to regret. For, in order to intoxicate me, they put brandy in my wine; at least, that is my opinion, though they afterwards assured me that they had not done so, and that it was only a wine of Leiperg, very strong and heady. Anyway, I had scarcely drunk ten or twelve glasses before I lost all consciousness and fell into such a lethargy that it was necessary to bleed me several times, to cup me and to bind my arms and legs with garters. I remained at Saverne five days in this condition, and lost to such a degree the taste for wine, that for two years I was not only unable to drink it, but even to smell it, without disgust.”

So perhaps, after all, this very painful experience may have proved to be a blessing in disguise.

On his recovery, Bassompierre proceeded to Harouel, but learning that his mother was at Toul, set out thither, stopping for a few days on his way at the Abbey of Épinal, of which an aunt of his, Yolande de Bassompierre, was the Superior. Here he met again his cousin Yolande de Livron, with whom he had fallen in love two years before, and who happened also to be a guest of the abbess. This damsel had lately married the Comte des Cars, but this did not prevent her from being exceedingly agreeable to her handsome kinsman, and “the fires of their old passion blazed up again.” However, perhaps fortunately for the young countess, Bassompierre was soon obliged to continue his journey to Toul, whence he returned with his mother to Harouel.

Their home-coming was a sad one, for, while at Toul, Madame de Bassompierre had learned that her second son, Jean, Seigneur de Removille, who towards the end of the previous year had quitted the service of France for that of Spain, had died from the effects of a wound which he had received at the siege of Ostend, and, the day after their arrival at Harouel, the poor young man’s body was brought there for burial. Bassompierre was genuinely grieved at the death of his brother, to whom he had been much attached, and whom he describes as “a man of high courage and good sense, which, joined to a handsome presence, would have assured his fortune”; and he was greatly incensed against Henri IV, or, rather, against Sully, whom he regarded as indirectly responsible for the sad event.

This requires some explanation.

It appears that, during the Wars of Religion, the French Government had become indebted to Christophe de Bassompierre for various large sums, amounting in all to about 140,000 crowns, which Christophe had paid the troops whom he had raised for their service. As it was not convenient for the Treasury to discharge the debt, it was decided that certain estates belonging to the Crown in Normandy—Saint Sauveur-le-Vicomte, Saint-Sauveur-Landelin, and the barony of Nehou, should be mortgaged to Christophe, the estates to be administered by persons appointed by him. It was anticipated that the revenues of these lands would be sufficient to pay the interest on the money which he had advanced; but this did not prove to be the case, and the arrears of interest continued to mount up, until at the time of his death they had reached a very large sum. However, being on the whole satisfied with the arrangement which had been made, Christophe does not appear to have taken any steps to press his claims upon the French Government, nor did his family do so after his death. But, in the autumn of 1601, Sully, seeing an opportunity of mortgaging these lands on more favourable terms, persuaded Henri IV to issue a decree which provided that the money advanced by Christophe should be refunded to his heirs, with the addition of a sum which represented less than half of the accumulated interest due to them. The King—or rather his Minister—defended this decision on the ground that of late years the Saint-Sauveur lands had become much more valuable, and had—or ought to have—produced a revenue in excess of the interest due.

Bassompierre protested warmly to the King against the injustice of this decree, and asked that it should be annulled; and Henri IV, a little ashamed of the shabby manner in which he had allowed his favourite to be treated, promised him, shortly before Bassompierre’s departure for Hungary, that “within two months he should be satisfied.”

However, as time went on, without anything being done, Removille, with whom his brother had left full authority to settle the matter with the Government, took upon himself to remind the King of his promise. Henri IV returned an evasive answer, upon which Removille, who was far less tactful than his elder brother, spoke to his Majesty “without that respect or restraint that he ought to have employed.” This brought upon him a severe reprimand from the King, and, burning with resentment, the young man promptly quitted Henri IV’s service and entered that of Spain, in which he met an untimely death.

Nor was this all, for, shortly before Removille’s death, Henri IV, learning that he had been raising a regiment of foot in Lorraine to serve in Flanders, and that Bassompierre was raising a body of horse, concluded, not unnaturally, that the troops which the latter was recruiting were also destined for Flanders, and that he too had quitted his service for that of Philip III. Thereupon he seized the Château of Saint-Sauveur and ejected Bassompierre’s servants.

This news, which reached him almost simultaneously with that of his brother’s death, served to incense Bassompierre still further against Henri IV and his advisers, and it is very probable that the Court of France would have seen him no more, had not the King, ascertaining that the elder brother’s levy was intended for service against the Turks in Hungary and that the younger was dead, hastened to make amends for his high-handed action, and directed Zamet to write Bassompierre a letter of explanation. In this letter Bassompierre was informed that his Majesty was greatly surprised and pained that he should desire to quit his service without cause; that he had not yet allowed the decree of the Council to be executed, and had only taken possession of the Château of Saint-Sauveur because Removille had become a Spanish subject and the château was Crown property; and that he fully intended to make an arrangement which would be satisfactory to him.

Bassompierre replied that nothing was further from his desire than to leave the King’s service, but, unless the decree were annulled, he would be so impoverished that it would be no longer possible to live as befitted his rank at his Majesty’s Court. This letter had the desired effect, for Henri IV was really much attached to the gay and lively Lorrainer, who was a man after his own heart; and, shortly afterwards, Bassompierre received a letter in the King’s own hand inviting him to return to the Court, when “he would soon see how good a master he was.”

Bassompierre, feeling sure that the King would keep his word, however much Sully might protest, decided to return to France forthwith, and accordingly sent a messenger to Vienna to inform the Emperor that he was summoned to France by private affairs of the highest importance, and that it would therefore be impossible for him to raise the troops which he had intended to recruit for his Imperial Majesty’s service. At the same time, he returned in full the money which he had received for that purpose, although he had already disbursed a portion of it. This very honourable action served to mollify any resentment which the Emperor might otherwise have felt; and he replied, through Rossworm, that he should not appoint a colonel of his foreign cavalry for the present, but would keep the post open for Bassompierre, in case he desired to return to Hungary the following year.

CHAPTER VI

Bassompierre arrives at Fontainebleau and is most graciously received by Henri IV—He falls in love with Marie d’Entragues, sister of the King’s mistress—The conspiracy of the d’Entragues—The Sieur d’Entragues and the Comte d’Auvergne are arrested and conveyed to the Bastille, and Madame de Verneuil kept a prisoner in her own house—Jacqueline de Bueil temporarily replaces Madame de Verneuil in the royal affections—The King, unable to do without the latter, sets her and her father at liberty—Bassompierre becomes the lover of Marie d’Entragues—He is dangerously wounded by the Duc de Guise in a tournament, and his life is at first despaired of—He recovers—Attentions which he receives during his illness from the ladies of the Court.

Towards the end of August, 1604, Bassompierre arrived in Paris, where his numerous friends, he tells us, were so delighted to see him that it was three days before they would permit him to continue his journey to Fontainebleau, whither the Court had recently removed; and when he at last contrived to get away, so many of them desired to accompany him, that it required no less than forty post-horses to convey them.

At Fontainebleau he met with so warm a welcome both from the King and the ladies of the Court, that he thought no more of returning to Germany:

“The King was on the great terrace before the Cour du Cheval Blanc when we arrived, and awaited us there, receiving me with a thousand embraces. He then led me into the apartment of the Queen, his wife, who lodged in the apartment above his own, and I was well received by the ladies, who thought me not ill-looking for an inveterate German who had spent a year in his own country. On the morrow the King lent me his own horses to hunt the stag. It was St. Bartholomew’s Day, August 24; and he himself would not hunt on a day whereon he had once been in such great danger. On my return from the chase I joined him in the Salle des Étuves, where we played lansquenet.”

Henri IV lost no time in annulling the obnoxious decree concerning the Saint-Sauveur property and restoring it to Bassompierre, who was thus enabled to live “a most delightful life” at the Court, and indulge to the full his inclination for lavish display, gambling, and love-making:

“I then fell in love with Antragues, and was also in love with another handsome woman. I was in the flower of my youth, rather well-made and very gay.”

The lady whom Bassompierre invariably refers to in his Memoirs as “Antragues,” without any prefix, was Marie de Balsac d’Entragues, younger sister of Madame de Verneuil. Marie was quite as pretty as Henriette—indeed, by not a few she was considered the prettiest woman at the Court—and if she lacked something of the wit and vivacity which made the reigning sultana so attractive, she was not without intelligence. As one might expect in a child of Marie Touchet, she was wholly devoid of moral sense. But she was neither mercenary nor ambitious, or, at any rate, far less so than her sister; and several exalted personages appear to have sighed for her in vain, including Henri IV, who, like Louis XV, in later times, had not the smallest objection to the presence of two or more members of the same family in his seraglio.

At the time, however, when his Majesty appears to have made advances to the younger sister, his relations with the elder had been temporarily interrupted by the episode which is known as the Conspiracy of the d’Entragues.

In the summer of 1604, acting upon a warning received from James I of England, the French Government had caused one Morgan, an agent of Spain, to be arrested in Paris, and documents found upon this person indicated that he had relations of a highly suspicious character with François d’Entragues, his daughter, Madame de Verneuil, and his stepson, the Comte d’Auvergne. One fine morning, a party of the King’s guards arrived at the Château of Malesherbes, where three moats and draw-bridges always raised protected its lord, as he fondly imagined, from surprise. Four of the soldiers, however, succeeded in gaining admission to the château, disguised as peasant-women with butter and eggs to dispose of, overpowered the sentries and admitted their comrades. D’Entragues was arrested and carried off to the Bastille, and with him a voluminous correspondence between the conspirators and the Court of Madrid, containing proposals for the assassination of Henri IV, and a promise signed by Philip III to recognise Henriette’s son as heir to the French throne, in the event of the King’s death. The Comte d’Auvergne once more found himself in the Bastille, while Madame de Verneuil was confined to her own house and strictly guarded. D’Entragues and his step-son were arraigned for high treason, convicted and sentenced to death; and Henriette was remanded until further evidence could be procured. The King’s advisers were urgent that the law should be allowed to take its course; but Henri IV, though he had made a valiant attempt to overcome his infatuation for Madame de Verneuil, and with the idea of driving out fire by fire, had taken unto himself a new sultana, in the person of Jacqueline de Bueil,[44] felt that he must have his Henriette back, and all the more because she affected to scorn him and refused to sue for his pardon. Dead though he might be to all sense of decency where his passions were concerned, he felt that, if he cut off her father’s head, he could scarcely again be her lover, and that d’Entragues’ life must therefore be spared. And if d’Entragues were spared, he could not well send his fellow-conspirator—the last scion of the House of Valois—to the scaffold, though, as this was Auvergne’s second experiment in high treason, he was even more deserving of death. And so d’Entragues and his daughter were set at liberty; while Auvergne remained in the Bastille, nor did he emerge from it until more than ten years later.

Early in 1605 we find the King again in amorous correspondence with the woman who had been conspiring against him, entreating her to love him to whom all the rest of this world compared with her was as nothing; and, after keeping him at a distance for a little while, Henriette graciously consented to accord him her favours once more. Henceforth, Jacqueline de Beuil was merely retained as a refuge when the marchioness happened to be spiteful and the Queen sulky.

In those days rough horseplay was much in vogue, and during the Carnival of 1605, bands of young nobles rode through the streets of Paris, masked and arrayed in glittering armour. When two of these bands met, they charged vigorously and strove to unhorse one another, and though the points of the lances they carried were carefully padded, and they wielded heavy cudgels gaily decorated with crimson ribbons, instead of swords, very shrewd blows and thrusts were exchanged. On one occasion, Bassompierre, who was accompanied by his brother-in-law Saint-Luc, and two of their friends, met another party, headed by the Duc de Nemours and the Comte de Sommerive, who challenged him to a mimic combat later in the day in the Place de Cimetière Saint-Jean, it being agreed that both sides might bring as many supporters as they could get together. Both parties repaired to the field of battle in considerable force, but that of Nemours and Sommerive had the advantage in numbers. Nevertheless, victory rested with Bassompierre and his friends, who drove their opponents through the streets in disorder, and “he had the satisfaction of seeing one of his rivals in the affections of Mlle. d’Entragues soundly beaten before the eyes of that lady, who was watching them from one of the windows of her house.” Nor was this all, for a day or two later Mlle. d’Entragues gave the victor a rendezvous.

This bonne fortune of Bassompierre, however, came very near to costing him his life:

“The Tuesday following, which was the first day of March, in the morning, the King being at the Tuileries, said to M. de Guise: ‘Ah! Guisard, d’Entragues despises us all and dotes on Bassompierre. I don’t speak without certainty.’ ‘Sire,’ replied M. de Guise, ‘you have means enough to avenge yourself. As for me, I have none other than that of a knight-errant. I will therefore break three lances with him this afternoon in open field, in whatever place you shall be pleased to appoint.’ The King gave us permission, and said that it should be in the Louvre, and that he would have the court sanded. He [Guise] chose his brother M. de Joinville for his second and M. de Termes for third; while I chose M. de Saint-Luc and the Comte de Sault. We all six went to dine and arm ourselves at Saint-Luc’s lodging; and, as we always kept armour and caparisons ready for all occasions, my friends and I wore silver armour, with silver and white plumes and silk stockings of the same colours. M. de Guise and his supporters wore black and gold, on account of the imprisonment of the Marquise de Verneuil, with whom he was at that time secretly in love. Then we repaired to the Louvre, preceded by our horses and attendants.

“My friends and I, who were the first to enter the lists, placed ourselves by the side of the old building; M. de Guise and his seconds took up their station beneath the windows of the Queen’s apartment. Our course was the length of the Salle des Suisses. It happened that M. de Guise was mounted on a little horse called Lesparne, while I was riding a big charger which the Comte de Fiesque had given me. He took the lower ground, while I was on the wall side, so that I towered over him, and, instead of breaking his lance while raising it, he broke it while lowering it, in such a way that, after splintering it for the first time against my casque, he splintered it the second against my tasset; and the lance penetrated my stomach and lodged in that great bone which connects the hip and the loins. And there the lance broke again, and a stump longer than a man’s arm remained attached to the thigh bone. I broke my lance against his breastplate, and, though I felt that I was mortally wounded, I finished my course, and they helped me to dismount near the King’s private staircase, and Monsieur le Grand and the elder Guitaut aided me to ascend to M. de Vendôme’s apartment, below the King’s chamber.”

Here someone, without awaiting the arrival of the surgeons, was so ill-advised as to pull the broken stump of the lance from the wound, with the result that part of the entrails came out with it; and, though the surgeons when they came contrived to replace them, Bassompierre seemed in desperate case:—

“The King, the Constable, and all the chief personages of the Court stood around, many weeping, as they thought that I should not live an hour. Nevertheless, I did not appear cast down, nor did I think I should die. Many ladies were there and helped to dress my wound, and, as I insisted on returning to my lodging, the Queen sent me the chair in which she was carried about, for she was then pregnant. The people followed me with many marks of sorrow. When I arrived at my lodging, I lost my sight, which made me think I was very ill, so that they made me confess and bled me at the same time. Yet I did not believe I should die, and laughed all the time.

“So soon as I received my wound, the King ordered the tournament to stop, and never permitted one afterwards. This was the only one in open field which had taken place in France for one hundred years, and they were never renewed.”

Youth and a splendid constitution saved him, and the attentions he received from the ladies of the Court appear to have consoled him for the pain which he had to endure:

“I cannot say how much I was visited during my illness, and particularly by ladies. All the princesses were there, and the Queen sent on three occasions her maids-of-honour, who were brought by Mlle. de Guise to pass whole afternoons. This lady, who considered herself obliged to assist in nursing me, as it was her brother who had given me my wound, was there most of the time. My sister, Madame de Saint-Luc, who, so long as I was in danger, always slept at the foot of my bed, received the ladies, and, with the exception of the day after I was wounded, the King came every afternoon to see me, and partly also to see my pretty companions.”

After being obliged to keep his bed for about a fortnight, he was allowed to get up and take the air in a chair, an object of sympathetic interest to all the ladies of the Court and town. His wound healed rapidly, and by Easter, though still somewhat lame, he felt sufficiently recovered to challenge the Marquis de Cœuvres, brother of Gabrielle d’Estrées, to a duel.

CHAPTER VII

Quarrel between Bassompierre and the Marquis de Cœuvres—Bassompierre sends his cousin the Sieur de Créquy to challenge the marquis to a duel—The King sends for the two nobles and orders them to be reconciled in his presence—Bassompierre and Créquy are forbidden to appear at Court, but are soon pardoned—Visit of Bassompierre to Plombières—He returns to Paris, and “breaks entirely” with Marie d’Entragues—The Chancellor, Pomponne de Bellièvre, ordered to resign the Seals—His conversation with Bassompierre at Artenay—Bassompierre wins more than 100,000 francs at play—He is reconciled with Marie d’Entragues—He joins Henri IV at Sedan—The adventure of the King’s love-letter—Henri IV gives orders that a watch shall be kept on Marie d’Entragues’s house to ascertain if Bassompierre is secretly visiting that lady—A comedy of errors—Madame d’Entragues surprises her daughter and Bassompierre.

One day, in the King’s cabinet, Bassompierre, in taking his handkerchief from his pocket, drew out with it a billet-doux he had just received from Marie d’Entragues, which fell to the ground and lay there unperceived by him. An Italian banker named Sardini picked it up, and the Marquis de Cœuvres having told him that it was his, he gave it him. Cœuvres read the letter and then sent a message to Bassompierre, asking him to meet him that night before the Hôtel de Soissons and to come alone, as he had something of importance to communicate to him. Bassompierre, not a little surprised, since he and the marquis were on far from good terms with one another, kept the appointment and found Cœuvres awaiting him, in company with a friend of his, the Comte de Cramail, although in his letter he had given him to understand that there was to be no witness to their meeting.

The marquis began by reproaching Bassompierre with “certain bad offices which he asserted that he had rendered him,” and then went on to say that, notwithstanding this, he esteemed him too much not to desire his friendship, and aspired to serve, rather than injure, him, in proof of which, although that morning a letter written to him by Mlle. d’Entragues had fallen into his hands, he had made no use of it, but sent it at once to the fair writer by the hand of Sardini. Bassompierre, believing that he was speaking the truth, “made him a thousand protestations of service and affection,” after which Cœuvres informed him that the King was aware that he had found a letter written by some lady to him and had demanded to see it, and asked Bassompierre to send him as soon as possible one which he had received from another woman, to enable him to satisfy his Majesty’s curiosity. Bassompierre complied with this request, which was an easy matter enough, as, like his royal master, he generally had more than one love-affair on hand, and, besides, was in the habit of carefully preserving all the epistles which he received from the fair. At the same time, he sent a message to Mlle. d’Entragues to apprise her of the mishap which had befallen her letter and to inquire if she had received it from Cœuvres.

“But, as she wrote that she had seen no one sent by the marquis, furious with anger and transported with resentment, I went straight to the marquis’s house to recover the letter, or to punish him. On the way, however, I met M. d’Aiguillon[45] and M. de Créquy, who stopped me to inquire whither I was bound. ‘I am going,’ I replied, ‘to the Marquis de Cœuvres’ house, to get back from him a letter which Antragues wrote me and which he has found. And, if he does not give it up, I am resolved to kill him!’ They remonstrated with me, pointing out that, in going to kill a man in his own house, amongst all his servants, I was running a great danger, without the means of escaping it; that he [Cœuvres] would be very cowardly if he surrendered the letter to me when I went to him in this manner; and that it would be better to send one of my friends. And Créquy offered to go.”

Bassompierre reluctantly consented, and Créquy accordingly proceeded to Cœuvres’s house. The marquis, at first, flatly refused to give up the letter, declaring that Fortune had brought it to him to enable him to avenge himself on Bassompierre for the ill that he had done him. Créquy pointed out that, if he were so imprudent as to do this, Bassompierre would certainly call him out, in which case one of them would probably be killed, while the victor would be sure to incur the severe displeasure of the King. Cœuvres thereupon began to waver, and finally told him to come back early on the following morning, when he would let him know his decision. When Créquy returned, the marquis, who, Bassompierre believes, had, in the meantime, sent La Varenne with the letter to the King and received it back again, told him that he would himself take the letter to Mlle. d’Entragues, if this would satisfy the lady’s admirer.

“To this I agreed,” writes Bassompierre, “resolved, nevertheless, to fight with this trickster, though I was anxious first to get Antragues out of the affair.”

The marquis took the letter to the lady, and, shortly afterwards, Bassompierre received a message from his mistress, informing him that it was her good pleasure that he should be reconciled to Cœuvres, for which purpose he was to come to her house that afternoon at five o’clock, where he would find the marquis waiting to embrace him. Much against his will, he obeyed, and a formal reconciliation took place between the two gentlemen, who then separated, secretly hating one another more bitterly than ever. In the evening, as Bassompierre was leaving his lodging to go to the Louvre, the Grand Equerry, the Duc de Bellegarde, arrived and told him that the King, having learned that he had quarrelled with the Marquis de Cœuvres, forbade him, on pain of death, to call the latter out. Bassompierre replied, laughing, that it would be easy to obey his Majesty, as he and the marquis were now the best of friends.

Notwithstanding the royal command, Bassompierre was determined to fight the purloiner of his love-letter, though, as he did not wish Mlle. d’Entragues’s name to be mixed up in the affair, he had decided to allow two or three days to pass and then to quarrel with him on some other matter. A pretext was easily found, and Créquy, who, now that the letter had been recovered, had altered his views on the question of a duel between them, repaired to Cœuvres’s house as the bearer of a formal challenge. The marquis, however, had no desire to oblige the fire-eating Lorrainer; possibly, he thought that he might get the worst of the encounter, but, more probably, since he appears to have been brave enough, he feared the displeasure of the King. Anyway, he refused to see Créquy, although the latter called on two or three occasions; and, meanwhile, Henri IV, having been warned of Bassompierre’s bellicose intentions, again interfered, and, sending for him and Cœuvres, ordered them to be reconciled in his presence. He then told Bassompierre that he had gravely offended him by daring to call out the marquis in the face of his express command, and forbade him to come to the Louvre or to any place where the Court might be. His anger extended to Créquy, and, not only did he forbid him the Court, but even talked of depriving him of the command of the regiment of guards to which he had just been appointed. However, thanks to the solicitations of the ladies of the Court, the Queen interceded with the King on behalf of the offenders, and Henri IV, who had reasons of his own for wishing to keep his consort in a good humour, relented so far as to allow them to return. For some little time he pretended to ignore their presence, but he soon grew tired of this, and admitted them once more to his favour.

In May, Bassompierre went to Plombières, the baths of which had been recommended by the doctor, as his thigh was still causing him a good deal of pain. He travelled thither accompanied by several of his friends from the Court, and an imposing suite, which included a band of musicians whose services he had engaged, and remained there three months, enjoying “all the amusements which a young man, rich, debauched, and extravagant, could desire.” His mother, his sister, Madame de Saint-Luc, his younger brother, who had assumed Jean de Bassompierre’s title of Seigneur de Removille, and a number of friends from Lorraine joined him there, and he appears to have passed a very agreeable time, to which a love-affair with a Burgundian lady, named Madame de Fussé, contributed not a little.

About the middle of August, by which time he was completely cured, learning that Henri IV had set out at the head of a small army for the Limousin, where the friends of that incorrigible intriguer the Duc de Bouillon were threatening to cause trouble, and that there was a chance of seeing a little fighting, he returned to Paris to prepare to follow the King. On his arrival, he had a violent quarrel with Marie d’Entragues, and “broke with her entirely.” What was the cause of the rupture he does not tell us; possibly, the lady may have been seeking consolation for his absence in the devotion of some rival admirer; possibly, she may have heard of the attentions which he had been paying to Madame de Fussé at Plombières and had taken umbrage. Anyway, complete as it may have been at the time, it was soon healed.

After spending a couple of days with a merry party at the Comtesse de Sault’s château at Savigny, amongst whom he doubtless contrived to dissipate any inclination to melancholy which his breach with Mlle. d’Entragues may have caused him, Bassompierre set out for the South. At Artenay, he met the aged Chancellor, Bellièvre, who, to his profound mortification, had just been directed by the King to surrender the Seals to Nicolas Brulart, afterwards Marquis de Sillery, though Bellièvre was to remain Chancellor and head of the Council.

“I found him,” writes Bassompierre, “walking in a garden with certain maîtres des requêtes, who were returning with him to Paris. He said to me: ‘Monsieur, you behold in me a man who goes to seek a grave in Paris. I have served the Kings to the best of my ability, and when they saw that I was no longer capable, they sent me to take repose and to attend to the safety of my soul, of which their affairs had prevented me from thinking.’ And when, a little later, I told him that he would continue to serve them and to preside at the Council as Chancellor, he replied: ‘My friend, a Chancellor without seals is an apothecary without sugar.”

Leaving the mortified Chancellor to continue his journey to Paris, where he died a year later, Bassompierre took the road to Orléans, where he found the Queen, whose pregnancy had prevented her following her husband to the Limousin, and Mlle. de Guise, who, while he was at Plombières, had married the Prince de Conti. From Orléans he proceeded to Limoges, which Henri IV had made his headquarters, and, though he was disappointed in his hope of seeing some fighting, since the rebels submitted without any attempt at resistance, he had no reason to regret his journey to the South, as he won at play more than 100,000 francs.

In November, he returned with the King to Fontainebleau, whither the Queen and the ladies of the Court had proceeded, and, shortly afterwards, followed their Majesties to Paris, where he and Mlle. d’Entragues appear to have taken an early opportunity of making up their quarrel.

In the early spring, Henri IV, with a small army and a powerful battering-train, set out for Sedan, to teach the Duc de Bouillon a much-needed lesson. That troublesome nobleman, however, finding that neither the French Protestants nor Spain were disposed to move a finger to assist him, prudently decided to sue for pardon, and surrendered his impregnable fortress before a shot had been fired against it. The terms he obtained from the sovereign whose authority he had so long defied were favourable in the extreme, no punishment being inflicted upon him beyond the occupation of Sedan for five years by a body of the royal troops under a Huguenot commander.

Having settled with the Duc de Bouillon, Henri IV wrote to Bassompierre, Guise, and Bellegarde, ordering them to join him. On their arrival they found the King making preparations for his formal entry into Sedan, which took place the following day. In the morning Bouillon presented himself before his Majesty, who read to him his abolition, to which the duke listened with becoming humility. But the moment it was handed to him his manner changed, and he became as haughty and arrogant as ever, and even had the presumption to alter the order in which the King had marshalled his troops for the procession through the town.

After remaining a few days longer at Sedan, Henri IV went to Busancy, whence he despatched Bassompierre to Paris, to inquire, on his behalf, after the health of his former consort, Queen Margot, “who had lost Saint-Julian Date, her gallant, slain by a gentleman named Charmont [sic], whose head the King had caused to be cut off in consequence,”[46] and to carry letters to his two chief sultanas, Madame de Verneuil and the Comtesse de Moret.[47]

Bassompierre, impatient to see Marie d’Entragues, went first to the house of her sister, Madame de Verneuil, where he hoped to find her, and was not disappointed. Having saluted the ladies and executed his commission, he had the imprudence to mention that he was going to call upon Madame de Moret, for whom he had also a letter from the King. That was quite enough to pique the curiosity of the marchioness, who at once determined to see the correspondence which the Béarnais was carrying on with her rival, and asked Bassompierre to give her the letter. That gentleman naturally objected, but Marie d’Entragues joined her commands to the request of her sister, and he weakly allowed himself to be persuaded. Madame de Verneuil broke the seal, and having read the amorous epistle, handed it back to Bassompierre—presumably, it contained nothing of much importance, otherwise, she would have been quite capable of retaining

or destroying it—observing that in an hour he could get a seal made similar to that with which the letter was fastened, and that, when he had sealed it again, no one would suspect that it had ever been tampered with. Bassompierre, relying on this assurance, sent his valet de chambre with the letter into the town to get a replica of the seal made; but, as ill luck would have it, the man went to an engraver named Turpin, who happened to be the very same person who had made the original for the King. Turpin, recognising his handiwork and suspecting that something was wrong, seized the valet by the collar, with the intention of handing him over to the police. But the latter, who was a strong and active fellow, contrived to wrench himself free and hurried off to warn his master, leaving his hat and cloak, together with the King’s letter, in the hands of the engraver.

Bassompierre, much disturbed by this misadventure, hid his valet, who, he tells us, would have been hanged within two hours if he had been caught, and then went to call on Madame de Moret. Having decided that his best plan was to brazen it out, he told the countess that having been entrusted by the King with a letter for her, he had unfortunately opened it, in mistake for a poulet which a lady had sent him; that, through fear of being suspected of having acted intentionally, he had, instead of coming to her at once to offer his apologies, as he, of course, should have done, been so imprudent as to try and get a similar seal made, and that his servant, having by ill chance gone to the King’s engraver, the latter, his suspicions aroused, had retained the letter. If Madame de Moret wished to have it, she had only to send someone to explain the matter to Turpin, and no doubt the engraver would give it up. The countess believed, or pretended to believe, this not very probable story, and sent one of her servants to Turpin to claim her letter; but was informed that it was no longer in his hands, but in those of Séguier, President of the Tournelle, or criminal court of the Parlement of Paris, to whom the honest engraver had deemed it his duty to transmit it without delay.

Here was a fresh complication and one which caused Bassompierre no little disquietude, as he did not know Séguier personally, and the latter had the reputation of being a most austere magistrate, who would be certain to sift the matter to the very bottom. Resourceful though he was, he was for the moment at a loss how to act, but, finally, resolved to go and see Madame de Loménie, wife of Antoine de Loménie, one of the Secretaries of State, with whom he was on very friendly terms, and beg her to intervene in order to hush up this unfortunate affair, either by persuading Séguier to surrender the letter, or by writing to her husband, who was on his way to Paris with the King, to ask him to give some plausible explanation to his Majesty.

This time Fortune was on his side. He found the Minister’s wife seated at her writing-desk and apparently very busy. She was engaged, she told him, in drafting a very important letter to her husband concerning a singular adventure. Bassompierre, having an idea that this singular adventure might well have some relation to his own, pressed her to tell him more, upon which the lady explained that an attempt had been made that morning to counterfeit the King’s seal; that the man who had been sent to the engraver had unfortunately succeeded in effecting his escape, but that the letter of which he was the bearer had been seized, and that the President Séguier had just sent it to her, with the request that she would forward it to her husband, in order that he might lay it before the King, when perhaps they would be able to get to the bottom of the matter. And Madame de Loménie added that she would willingly give 2,000 crowns to solve this imbroglio.

Bassompierre, with a sigh of relief, offered to enlighten her for nothing, and proceeded to furnish her with the same explanation of the affair which he had already given Madame de Moret. Madame de Loménie accepted it, and, after having given him a good lecture, promised to smooth things over for him, on condition that he would go on the morrow to Villers-Cotterets, where the King and her husband had just arrived, and take with him a report of the matter which she would draw up. Bassompierre agreed readily enough, as may be imagined, and, having called again upon Madame de Verneuil to obtain her answer to the King’s letter, and also upon Madame de Moret, who wrote likewise to thank his Majesty, although she had not received the one intended for her, set out for Villers-Cotterets, where Henri IV laughed heartily over the adventure, of which he does not appear to have suspected the true explanation.

A few days later, Henri IV, in celebration of his bloodless victory over the Duc de Bouillon, made a sort of triumphal entry into Paris, where he was received with salvoes of artillery and loud acclamations from the populace. The effect of this ceremony, however, appears to have been somewhat spoiled by the extraordinary attitude assumed by the rebellious vassal whom he had just brought to heel, and who rode along bowing and smiling to the people who thronged the streets and the windows and roofs of the houses, for all the world as if he himself were the hero of the day and the object of all the acclamations.

“He [the King],” writes Bassompierre, “desired M. de Bouillon to march immediately before him, and this he did, but with such assurance and audacity, that it was impossible to decide whether it was the King who was leading him in triumph or he the King.”

Henri IV only remained a few days in Paris, and then went to Fontainebleau; but Bassompierre did not accompany him, being desirous of enjoying the society of Marie d’Entragues, of whom, since their reconciliation, he was more enamoured than ever.

Bassompierre’s conquest of Mlle. d’Entragues had naturally aroused a good deal of jealousy amongst the less fortunate admirers of that young lady, who were numerous and distinguished, and included both the King and the Duc de Guise. As yet, however, they had no actual proof of his bonne fortune, as the intrigue was conducted with unusual discretion. It was his habit, he tells us, to enter the house in the Rue de la Coutellière, where Marie lived with her mother, late at night, by a back entrance, “whereby I ascended to the third floor, which Madame d’Entragues had not furnished, and her daughter, by a secret staircase leading from her wardrobe, came to join me there, when her mother had fallen asleep.”

Henri IV, piqued by the assurances of several of Bassompierre’s rivals, and principally by Guise, that Marie d’Entragues made game of them all and preferred the handsome Lorrainer, gave orders, just before his departure for Fontainebleau, to have the house watched.

“As he was in love with Antragues, M. de Guise and several others also, who were all jealous of me, because they believed me to be on better terms with her than themselves, plotted together to have me spied upon, in order to discover if I entered her house, and if I saw her privately; and the King commanded those whom he had charged to watch it, to take their orders from M. de Guise and to report to him if they saw anything.”

The sequel was a most amusing comedy of errors.

A day or two later, Bassompierre, who had an assignation with his inamorata that night, happened to sup with the Grand Equerry, the Duc de Bellegarde. During the meal it came on to rain heavily, and, as he had come unprovided with a cloak, he borrowed one from his host, and, wrapped in this, made his way, at about eleven o’clock, to the Rue de la Coutellière, without noticing that the Cross of the Ordre du Saint-Esprit, of which none but Princes of the Blood, very great nobles, and Ministers of State, were members, was attached to the cloak. The spies posted around Madame d’Entragues’s house were more observant, and one of them at once hurried off to inform the Duc de Guise that they had just seen a young Knight of the Ordre du Saint-Esprit enter the house by a back door. Guise immediately sent two of his valets de chambre to identify the gentleman when he left, which did not happen until four o’clock in the morning. But Bassompierre caught sight of them before they saw him, and, recognising them as the duke’s servants, pulled his cloak over his face, though he had little hope of escaping detection, since he was well known to them both. The valets, however, deceived by the Cross of the Saint-Esprit, reported to their master that Mlle. d’Entragues’ midnight visitor was the Grand Equerry, since they were aware that there was no other Knight of the Order in Paris at the time in the least likely to have such a bonne fortune.

In the morning, Bassompierre wrote to Mlle. d’Entragues to inform her of the espionage of which he had been the object, and to urge her to be on her guard. On his side, the Duc de Guise went between nine and ten o’clock to the Grand Equerry’s house, but was told that Bellegarde had given directions that he could see no one until the evening, as he had been kept awake all night by violent toothache. This seemed to confirm his suspicions in regard to the Grand Equerry, since a man who had not returned from an assignation until four o’clock in the morning would naturally desire to sleep until late in the day; and chuckling at the thought of Bassompierre’s mortification when he learned that he had a successful rival, he made his way to that gentleman’s lodging.

Bassompierre, like Bellegarde, was still in bed when the duke arrived, but, having told the servants that he had come to see their master on a matter of urgency, he was conducted to his room.

“I beg you to put on your dressing-gown,” said he so soon as he entered; “I have a word to say to you.”

“I felt quite sure,” writes Bassompierre, “that he intended to tell me that I had been seen leaving Antragues’s house, and determined to deny it positively. But, on the contrary, he continued: ‘What would you say if the Grand Equerry were preferred by Antragues to you and everyone, and she were in the habit of receiving him at night?’ I told him that I should decline to believe it, as neither he nor she had any inclination for the other. ‘Mon Dieu,’ said he, ‘how easy to deceive are lovers! I thought as you do; nevertheless, it is true that he went to her house last night, and did not leave until four o’clock this morning. He was seen to go in, and my valets de chambre themselves saw him come out, with so little care that he had not even troubled to wear a cloak without the cross of the Order, to disguise himself.’

“Thereupon, he called one of the valets, D’Urbal by name, and inquired whether he had not seen Monsieur le Grand leave Antragues’s house. ‘Yes, Monseigneur,’ the man answered, ‘as plainly as I see M. de Bassompierre there.’ I dared not look in the face of this valet, who had seen me that same morning leaving the house, and believed that it was a trick to make game of me; but, as I turned away, I perceived on a chair Monsieur le Grand’s cloak, which my valet had folded in such a way that the cross of the Order was visible, and ought to have been easily seen by M. de Guise, if he had not been so much occupied just then. I sat down upon it, fearing lest M. de Guise should catch sight of the cross, and pretending to be disconsolate as he was, I complained bitterly of the fickleness of Antragues. I refused to rise from my seat on the cloak, although M. de Guise invited me to go for a walk with him, until I had told my valet to take it away, when M. de Guise should be looking in another direction, and hide it in a wardrobe.”

So soon as the duke had taken his departure, Bassompierre wrote to his mistress to inform her of this new incident. Marie d’Entragues had the caustic spirit of her family, and it pleased her, in order to perpetuate this comedy of errors and avert suspicion from Bassompierre, to show herself exceedingly gracious to the Grand Equerry when she met him that afternoon, so that Bellegarde, who was not without vanity, was himself deceived, and began to think he had made an impression upon the lady. The consequence was that when, on the morrow, Guise, who could not keep silent, although he and Bassompierre had agreed to say nothing to the Grand Equerry about it, began to rally that gentleman upon his supposed bonne fortune, the latter defended himself so feebly, that all the jealousy of Guise and of the King, when he heard of the affair, was turned in his direction, and the real gallant was able to continue his nocturnal visits to the Rue de la Coutillière with but few precautions.

However, they had warned Madame d’Entragues to take better care of her daughter—it was certainly high time that she did—and one fine June morning, happening to awake very early, she drew aside the curtain of her bed, and saw, to her astonishment, that that of Marie, who slept in the same room, was empty. She rose at once and went into her wardrobe, where she found the door leading to the secret staircase, which was always kept locked, open.

“She began to scream,” relates Bassompierre, “and, at the sound of her voice, her daughter rose in haste and went to her. I, meanwhile, shut the door and took my departure, very troubled about what might come of this affair, which was that her mother chastised her, and caused the door of the room where we were that night to be broken open, so that she might enter, and was very amazed to find this apartment furnished with splendid furniture purchased from Zamet. Then all intercourse was broken off; but I made my peace with the mother through the intervention of Mlle. d’Asy, at whose house I saw her, when I asked her pardon so many times, coupled with the assurance that we had not gone beyond kissing, that she pretended to believe me. She went to Fontainebleau, and I went also, but I did not venture to speak to Antragues except secretly, because the King did not approve of it.[48] However, lovers are resourceful enough to find opportunities for occasional meetings.”

CHAPTER VIII

A strange adventure—Bassompierre sent as Ambassador Extraordinary to Lorraine to represent Henri IV at the marriage of the Duke of Bar and Margherita di Gonzaga—He returns to Paris and orders a gorgeous suit, which is to cost fourteen thousand crowns, for the baptism of the Dauphin and Madame Élisabeth, though he has only seven hundred in his purse—He wins enough at play to pay for it—Charles III of Lorraine writes to request his presence at the Estates of Lorraine—Henri IV refuses him permission to leave France, but he sets out notwithstanding this—He is arrested by the King’s orders at Meaux, but set at liberty on his promising to return to Court—He is allowed to leave for Lorraine a few days later—Affair of the Prince de Joinville and Madame de Moret.

About the middle of June of that year, Henri IV despatched Bassompierre as Ambassador Extraordinary to Lorraine, to represent him at the marriage of the Duke of Bar (whose first wife, Catherine de Bourbon, had died in 1604) to Margherita di Gonzaga, daughter of Vincenzo I, Duke of Mantua, and Eleanor de’ Medici, sister of the Queen; and, at the same time to request the Duchess of Mantua to become godmother to the dauphin, and the Duke of Lorraine godfather to Madame Élisabeth, eldest daughter of the King.

Bassompierre accordingly left Fontainebleau for Paris, where he met with another love-adventure, which delayed his departure for Lorraine for several days, and which we shall allow him to relate himself, since—to borrow his own words—“though it was not of great consequence, it was, nevertheless, extravagant”:

“For the past four or five months, every time I passed over the Petit-Pont—for in those days the Pont-Neuf was not built—a handsome woman, a sempstress at the sign of the Two Angels, made me deep courtesies and followed me with her eyes so far as she could. And, when I remarked her behaviour, I looked at her also and saluted her with greater care. It happened that, when I arrived in Paris from Fontainebleau, and was crossing the Petit-Pont, so soon as she saw me approaching, she placed herself at the door of her shop, and said to me as I passed: ‘Monsieur, I am your very humble servant.’ I returned her greeting and, turning round from time to time, I perceived that she followed me with her eyes so long as she was able. I had travelled post from Fontainebleau, and had brought one of my lackeys with me, intending to send him back to Fontainebleau the same evening with letters for Antragues and for another lady there. I made him alight and give his horse to the postilion to lead, and sent him to tell the young woman that, perceiving the care that she had to see me and salute me, if she desired a more private view of me, I was willing to meet her in whatever place she might choose to appoint. She told the lackey that this was the best news that one could have brought her and that she would go wherever I wished.

“I accepted this proposal and asked my lackey if he knew of some place to take her, which he did, saying that he knew a woman named Noiret, to whose house he would conduct her.... And in the evening I went there, and found a very beautiful woman, twenty years of age, who had her head dressed for the night, wearing naught but a very fine shift, and a short petticoat of green flannel and a peignoir over her. She pleased me mightily, and I can say that never had I seen a prettier woman....

“I asked her if I could not see her again, and said that I should not leave Paris until Sunday, this being Thursday night. She answered that she desired it more ardently than I did, but that it would not be possible, unless I stayed the whole of Sunday, in which case she would see me on Sunday night.... I was easy to persuade, and told her that I would remain all Sunday and meet her at night in the same place. Then she rejoined: ‘Monsieur, I know well that I am in a house of ill-fame, to which, however, I came willingly, in order to see you, with whom I am so deeply in love.... Well, once is not habit, and though, urged by passion, I have come once to this house, I should be a public wanton if I were to return a second time. I have never surrendered myself to any man but my husband and yourself—may I die in misery if I speak not the truth!—and I have no intention of surrendering myself to another. But what would one not do for a man whom one loves, and for a Bassompierre? That is why I came to this house, but it was to be with a man who has rendered it honourable by his presence. If you wish to see me again, it must be at the house of one of my aunts, who lives in the Rue du Bourg-l’Abbé, next to the Rue aux Ours, the third door on the side of the Rue Saint-Martin. I will await you there from ten o’clock until midnight, and later still, and will leave the door open. At the entrance there is a little passage, through which you must go quickly, for the door of my aunt’s room opens on to it, and you will find a stair, which will bring you to the second floor.’

“I agreed to this proposal, and, having despatched the rest of my suite on their journey towards Lorraine, I came at ten o’clock to the door which she had indicated, and saw a great light, not only on the second floor, but on the third and first as well; but the door was closed. I knocked to announce my arrival, but I heard a man’s voice asking who I was. I went back to the Rue aux Ours, and having returned for the second time, finding the door open, I entered and mounted to the second floor, where I found that the light which I had seen proceeded from the straw of the beds which they were burning, and two naked bodies lying upon the table in the room. Thereupon, I withdrew, greatly amazed, and, in going out, I met some ‘crows,’[49] who asked me what I sought, and I, to make them give way, drew my sword, and so passed out and returned to my lodging, somewhat disturbed by the unexpected sight which I had beheld. I drank three or four glasses of neat wine, which is a German remedy against the plague, and then went to bed, as I intended to leave for Lorraine the following morning, which I did. And, although I afterwards sought as diligently as possible to learn what had become of this woman, I was never able to discover anything. I even went to the Two Angels, where she lodged, to inquire who she was, but the tenants of the house told me nothing, save that they knew that she was the former tenant. I have decided to relate this adventure, because, although she was a person of humble condition, she was so pretty that I have regretted her, and would have given much to see her again.”[50]

At Nancy, Bassompierre, as the representative of the King of France and a personal friend of Charles III of Lorraine, was received with great honour and very sumptuously lodged and entertained. At the marriage ceremony and the fêtes which followed it he appeared in great magnificence, and this, in conjunction with his handsome face and ingratiating manners, without doubt made a deep impression upon the ladies of the Court. However, owing presumably to the official position which he occupied, he appears to have refrained from making any fresh conquests—at any rate, he does not record any; and, after having obtained the consent of the Duchess of Mantua and the Duke of Lorraine to stand godmother and godfather to Henri IV’s children, he set out for Paris.

On his arrival, he found himself in sore distress of mind. The baptism of the Dauphin and Madame Élisabeth was fast approaching, and having imprudently worn all the new suits which he possessed at the marriage fêtes at Nancy, he had none in which to appear at it, or, at least, none which he considered worthy of so great an event. To appear in one which he had donned on some previous occasion was not to be thought of for a moment; his reputation as the most elegant and most recklessly extravagant gentleman of the Court would infallibly be lost. As well ask a modern professional beauty to wear the same toilette twice in a season! To add to his distress, he had spent so much money on his mission to Lorraine, for the post of Ambassador Extraordinary, in those days, though very gratifying to the vanity, was ruinously expensive to the pocket, that he had only a few hundred crowns in his purse, and the acolytes of Fashion were so overwhelmed with orders for the ceremony that they were actually impertinent enough to insist upon money down. Finally, they were reported to be so busy that, even if the financial difficulty were overcome, it was very improbable that he could get a costume of sufficient magnificence completed in time. Was ever so splendid a gallant in so sad a case?

However, Fortune once more came to his aid.

“Just as my sister (Madame de Saint-Luc), Madame de Verderonne,[51] and la Patière,[52] who had come to greet me on my arrival, had informed me that all the tailors and embroiderers were so busy that it was impossible to get a suit made, in came my own tailor, Tallot by name, and my embroiderer with him, to tell me that, on the rumours of the magnificence of the baptism, a merchant of Antwerp had brought a horse-load of pearls that are sold by weight, and that with these they could make me a suit which would surpass anything at the baptism; and my embroiderer offered to undertake it, if I paid him six hundred crowns for his work alone. The ladies and I fixed upon the suit, which required not less than fifty pounds’ weight of pearls; and I decided that it should be of violet cloth-of-gold, with palm-branches interlacing. In short, before the tailor and embroiderer withdrew, I, who had only seven hundred crowns in my purse, had ordered them to undertake a suit which was to cost me fourteen thousand. At the same time, I sent for the merchant, who brought me samples of his pearls, and with whom I settled the price by weight. He demanded four thousand crowns earnest money, but for this I put him off till the morrow. M. d’Épernon[53] passed before my lodging, and, knowing that I had arrived, came to see me and told me that he had some good company coming to sup at his house and play afterwards, and asked me to be of the party. I took my seven hundred crowns and with them won five thousand. The next day the merchant came, and I paid him his four thousand crowns earnest money. I also gave something to the embroiderer, and went on to win at play, not only enough to pay for the suit and a diamond sword, which cost five thousand crowns, but had five or six thousand left wherewith to amuse myself.”

Bassompierre accompanied the King to Villers-Cotterets to meet the Duke of Lorraine and the Duchess of Mantua. On the way the King turned aside to pay a visit to his former mistress, Charlotte de Essars, Comtesse de Romorantin, who was staying at the Abbey of Sainte-Perrinne, the superior of which was her aunt. Time seems to have dealt leniently with the fair Charlotte, who appeared, according to Bassompierre, more beautiful than ever.

The King conducted his distinguished guests to Paris, where they were magnificently entertained. But, as the plague was increasing in the capital, it was decided that the baptism should take place at Fontainebleau. So the Parisians were deprived of the opportunity of admiring Bassompierre’s fourteen-thousand-crown suit and diamond scabbard, and he had to rest content with the sensation which they doubtless created at the Court.

In February, 1607, Charles III of Lorraine wrote to Bassompierre begging him, as a personal favour, to assist at the approaching meeting of the Estates of Lorraine, where his influence with the nobility of the duchy might serve to remove some of the difficulties which he feared that he might have with that body. Bassompierre, accordingly, requested leave of absence of Henri IV, but his Majesty was unwilling to let him go, because, he explains, he had been winning his money at play and he wanted to have his revenge, and put him off on two or three occasions. At last, in despair of obtaining permission, he determined to go without it, and one day, when the Court was at Chantilly, he slipped away unperceived and set out for Paris. On the road he met the Ducs d’Aiguillon and de Bouillon, and begged them not to tell the King that they had seen him; but the two dukes, probably supposing that he was bound on some amorous adventure which he wished to keep from his Majesty’s knowledge, denounced him so soon as they arrived at Chantilly. The consequence was that when Bassompierre reached Meaux, he found the provost of that town and two exempts of the King’s guards, whom his Majesty had sent to head him off, waiting to arrest him. In great indignation, he despatched one of his suite to Chantilly, with letters for the King and Villeroy, one of the Secretaries of State, protesting against the indignity to which he was being subjected; and the following day the provost came to inform him that he had received orders to set him at liberty, provided he would give his word to return to the Court. On his arrival at Chantilly he was sent for by the King, who laughed heartily at his crestfallen demeanour, telling him that he had now had an opportunity of seeing the good order that he maintained in his realm, which no one could leave without his consent; but that he only wanted him to remain ten days longer, when he would give him permission to go to Lorraine. He added that his stay would not be unprofitable; and he was as good as his word, for during this time the vexed question of the Saint-Sauveur lands was finally settled, to Bassompierre’s entire satisfaction.

Before leaving for Lorraine, Bassompierre endeavoured to do a good turn to his friend the Prince de Joinville and Madame de Moret, who had been so imprudent as to fall in love with one another, and warned them that the King intended to surprise them together, in which event he had vowed to make a public example both of the presumptuous noble who had dared to violate the sanctity of the royal seraglio and of his faithless sultana. The lovers, however, did not profit by his warnings, and, while on his way to Nancy, he learned that, though the King had not succeeded in surprising them, he had discovered enough to confirm his suspicions, and had banished Joinville from the Court for the second time. Bassompierre at once turned back and came to Paris incognito, “in order to see Madame de Moret and offer to serve her in her affliction”; but his presence was discovered and reported to Madame d’Entragues, who, suspecting that he had returned with the object of paying surreptitious visits to her daughter, promptly locked that flighty young lady up until he had taken his departure.

CHAPTER IX

Amusements of Bassompierre during the winter of 1608—His gambling-parties—Embarrassment which the fact of having several love-affairs on his hands simultaneously sometimes occasions him—Death of Charles III of Lorraine—Bassompierre goes to Nancy to attend the Duke’s funeral—Gratifying testimony which he receives during his absence of the esteem in which he is held by the ladies of the Court of France—“The star of Venus is very much in the ascendant over him”—Marriage arranged between Marie d’Entragues and the Comte d’Aché, of Auvergne—The affair is broken off—Frenzied gambling at the Court: gains of Bassompierre—Secret visits paid by him and the Duc de Guise to Madame de Verneuil and Marie d’Entragues at Conflans—Visit of the Duke of Mantua to the Court of France.

Bassompierre begins his journal for the year 1608 in the following strain:—

“In the year 1608 I embarked in an affair with a blonde lady. I won a great deal at play that year, and gave away much at the Foire. We danced a number of ballets.... I had more mistresses at the Court, and was on excellent terms with Antragues. M. de Vendôme also danced a ballet, in which the King would have Cramail, Termes, and myself, who were called les dangereux, assist. We went to dance it at M. de Montpensier’s, who rose to see it, though he was dying.”[54]

After Easter the King went to Fontainebleau, where on April 25 the Queen gave birth to her third son, Gaston, Duc d’Anjou, afterwards Duc d’Orléans. Bassompierre, however, excused himself from accompanying his Majesty, apparently on the plea of illness, and remained in Paris, where, he tells us, he passed his time very agreeably.

“I pretended to be suffering from a weakness of the lungs, so that no one saw me until midday, when all the Court came to my lodging to pass the time until nine o’clock in the evening, when I made believe to retire, on account of my delicate state of health; but it was to pass the night in good company.”

The “good company” he speaks of was a little coterie of gamblers, “eight or ten worthy men of the town, and of the Court, M. de Guise, Créquy, and myself,” who played for tremendously high stakes, since Bassompierre had considerately introduced amongst them a Portuguese merchant named Fernandez, who came prepared to make good the losses of those upon whom Fortune happened to frown, in return for approved security. This kind of arrangement was so convenient that, when the King returned from Fontainebleau, he wished to be of the party, which met every day either at the Louvre, Zamet’s, or the Marquis de Roquelaure’s; and doubtless the organiser of these séances, who appears to have been one of the luckiest gamblers who ever turned a card or rattled a dice-box, and the accommodating Fernandez, derived substantial benefits from them.

In July, Queen Marguerite gave a grand fête at the Arsenal, the principal feature of which was the then fashionable pastime of tilting at the ring. Bassompierre, of course, attended it, very splendidly arrayed, but also very reluctantly, since, as he naïvely explains, those gentlemen who, like himself, had several love-affairs on their hands simultaneously were often sadly embarrassed at these great assemblies, since all the ladies whom they professed to adore were sure to be present, and it was practically impossible to pay sufficient attention to one without giving umbrage to the others.

“I thought,” he continues, “that I should experience great difficulty there; but Fortune came to my aid in such fashion that, without neglecting anyone, I contented all. For, in short, having stationed myself unintentionally beneath the Queen’s stand, where Mlle. de Montmorency[55] was sitting, Pérault,[56] who had served with me in Hungary, insisted on my taking his place; and then, for the first time, I spoke to her and strove to insinuate myself into her good graces, little imagining what was to happen later. After the fête was over, I was delighted to see that I had contented all the ladies with whom I was on good terms, and that not one of them had had reason to be jealous of another, a thing which very rarely happened on such occasions.”

On May 14, 1608, Charles III of Lorraine, who had been in bad health for some time past, died. Bassompierre went to Nancy to attend his funeral, and was away three weeks, during which, he tells us, he received the most gratifying testimony to the esteem in which he was held by the ladies of the Court of France:—

“It is impossible to describe how much care the ladies took to send me frequently news of themselves and to despatch couriers to me with letters and presents. The star of Venus was very much in the ascendant over me. I returned to Paris, and four ladies in a coach came beyond Pantin to meet me, making believe that they were merely taking a drive. They placed me in their coach and brought me to the Porte de Saint-Honoré, where I remounted my horse to enter Paris.”

On his arrival in the capital, he learned that Marie d’Entragues had gone, with her mother and Madame de Verneuil, to Malesherbes, to marry a certain Comte d’Aché, of Auvergne; but, as may be supposed, his other lady-loves made every effort to console him for his loss, which, in point of fact, proved to be only a temporary one, since the parties were unable to agree about the marriage-articles, and the affair was broken off. In after years Bassompierre had good reason to regret that the projected marriage had not taken place, in which event he would have been spared great trouble and expense.

The King, learning that he had returned, wrote telling him to come at once to Fontainebleau, where the Court was then in residence, and informing him that, although he had until then been the greatest gambler in his circle of friends, since his absence in Lorraine a Portuguese gentleman named Pimentel had appeared upon the scene, who played much higher than even he did. He must lose no time in redeeming his lost reputation.

Bassompierre hastened to obey, and plunged once more into this ruinous amusement—ruinous, that is to say, to others, for, as we know, he was well able to take care of himself—with all the zest begotten of a three weeks’ abstinence from the card-table. For, though he had probably gambled at Nancy, the stakes in vogue there must have seemed a mere bagatelle compared with those for which Henri IV and his intimates played.

“We remained some days at Fontainebleau,” he says, “playing the most frenzied game that I have ever heard of. Not a day passed on which there were not gains or losses of 20,000 pistoles. The counters of the least value which were used were for 50 pistoles. The highest were worth 500 pistoles; so that it was possible to hold in one’s hand at one time counters to the value of 50,000 pistoles. I won that year there more than 500,000 francs at play, notwithstanding that I was distracted by a thousand follies of youth and love. The King returned to Paris, and from there went to Saint-Germain. Play on the same scale continued, and Pimentel won more than 200,000 crowns.”

In July, Madame d’Entragues and her two daughters returned from Malesherbes, and went to stay at Conflans, Madame de Verneuil in one house, and Madame d’Entragues and Marie in another. Marie, however, frequently found a pretext for spending the night with her elder sister, and on these occasions, says Bassompierre, “M. de Guise and I played the part of knights-errant and went to visit them.” After a short stay at Conflans, the d’Entragues returned to Paris, where Marie and Bassompierre had another quarrel—for what reason he does not tell us—and “he broke entirely with her.” Like the last, however, it would not appear to have been of long duration.

At the beginning of August, the Duke of Mantua came to the French Court, where, as the husband of the Queen’s sister, he was magnificently entertained. His Highness, however, seems to have spent a considerable part of his visit at the card-tables, for, “being a great gambler, he was delighted to take part in the high play which went on, which was to him extraordinary.” When the Duke took his departure, Bassompierre, who spoke Italian fluently, was deputed to accompany him on his homeward journey so far as Montargis.