CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library DC 216.B61 1890 Vhe marriages oJ the i^af^ii 3 1924 024 332 094 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024332094 THE MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. \i^ 1 1 , i THE MARRIAGES OF THE BOUEBONS. CAPTAIN THE HON. D. BINGHAM. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. NEW YOEK: SCRIBNER AND WELFORD. 1890. ^0 the gjxmmtrable $&x&. Albert § vneez^. Paris, 16 Sept., 1889. My dear Maud, Allow me to dedicate ' The Marriages of the Bourbons' to you, a portion of the work having been written under your hospitable roof. you will find none of the royal alliances with which i have dealt as happy as your own, and that will console you for not wearing the purple, Your ever affectionate uncle, D. BINGHAM. CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. I. Preliminary Eemarks on Matrimonial Alliances in Early French History ... ... 1 II. Origin of the Bourbons ... ... ... 10 III. Genealogy of the House op Bourbon ... 14 IV. The Second Bourbon Branch, or First Branch op the Montpensiers ... ... ... 37 V. The La Marche and Vend6me Branch ... 47 VI. Scotch Marriages ... ... ... 53 VII. The Younger Branches ... ... ... 67 VIII. The Marriage of Jeanne D'Albret ... 69 IX. Antoine de Bourbon ... ... ... 123 X. Henri IV. ... ... ... ... 158 XI. Death of Gabrielle ... ... ... 246 XII. Divorce ... ... ... ... 292 XIII. Catherine ... ... ... ... 300 XIV. Louis XIII. and Anne op Austria ... ... 309 XV. Henrietta and Charles ... ... ... 338 XVI. Gaston D'Orleans ... ... ... 401 XVII. Thb Mistresses of Louis XIII. ... ... 413 XVIII. Louis XIV 427 XIX. The Beign of Louis XIV. continued ... 490 XX La Grande Demoiselle ... ... ... 525 XXI. The Duke op Orleans ... ... ... 551 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. I. Louis XIV. bids farewell to Marie de Mancini Frontispiece Henry IV. before Paris ... ... ... To face page 209 Henry IV. and La Belle Gabrielle ... ... ,, 212 The Due de Ltjynes carries Louis XIII. to bed ... „ 333 Anne of Austria and Mazarin ... ... ... ,, 424 EBEATA. VOL. I. Page 67, line 9, for geology read genealogy. „ 77, „ 20, „ Jean „ Jeanne. „ 158, „ 3, „ Beran „ Beam. MAEKIAGES OF THE BOUBBONS. CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON MATRIMONIAL ALLIANCES IN EARLY FRENCH HISTORY. There had been a considerable amount of rivalry for more than a century between the kings of France and England, and especially between Philip Augustus and Kichard Coeur de Lion. At last, in the spring of 1200, Eichard being dead, negotiations were opened between King John and the French monarch for the conclusion of peace. Among other articles there was one which set forth that Louis, the son of Philip, should marry Blanche of Castile, daughter of Alphonso VIII. and of Elenora, the sister of the King of England. King John agreed to give his niece, by way of dowry, all his possessions in Berri, and a sum of 20,000 marcs in silver. It is supposed that this dowry was merely a pretext for concessions which it would have been repugnant to the feelings of the British monarch to have made in any other way, and vol. i. B - / 2 ' MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1200- repugnant to the feelings of the British people to have sanctioned. It has been remarked, that the marriage of Blanche de Castile was a strange combination, being the result of a treaty not with Spain, but with England. The ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of Bordeaux, at the rendezvous of the two kings in Normandy, on the 23rd of May, 1200. In 1193 Philip Augustus, his first wife being dead, had demanded the hand of Ingeburge, the sister of the King of Denmark. By way of dowry, the Danes were to help the French against the English. The demand of the French king Was received with favour, and Philip Augustus went as far as Arras to meet the bride. The marriage was celebrated at Amiens. The princess is said to have been lovely and virtuous, but for some reason, which has always remained a mystery, the king, on the day of his wedding, conceived an invincible aversion for his wife, and at once deter- mined upon a separation. A servile assembly of bishops and barons was convoked at Compiegne, and, on the ground of relationship between the two parties, pronounced a divorce. The queen refused to submit to this decision, or to return to Denmark, but retired into a convent in the diocese of Tournai. The King of Denmark appealed to the Court of Eome, and the Pope threatened Philip Augustus with all the thunders of the Church,' in case he carried out his project of espousing Marie de Meran. In spite of bulls and legates the marriage took place. The Pope annulled 1215.] THE GREAT CHARTER. 3 the divorce, and excommunicated the French king, who revenged himself on Ingeburge, had her arrested, and shut up in the castle of Etampes. After a violent and obstinate quarrel, Philip was obliged to give way, to promise that . he would take back Ingeburge, and that he would drive Marie de Meran from the kingdom. "The Church in the middle ages," says Sismondi,. " always showed great indulgence for the tyranny, perfidy, or cruelty of kings ; these she considered as venial sins not to be brought under her jurisdic- tion ; but she constituted herself the strict guardian of marriage. ..." Once reconciled with the Pope the French king made war with England, and one of the results of this war was the Great Charter forced by the barons on King John. In quick succession came other events, such as the battle of Bouvines, the crusade against the Albigeois, and the offer of the crown of England made by the barons to Louis the son of Philip Augustus, an offer which was accepted in spite of the remonstrances of the Pope. Louis landed in England, and was recognized in London and throughout the greater portion of the kingdom, but after the death of King John he soon found himself obliged to conclude a truce with Henry III. The troops of Louis were defeated at Lincoln in May, 1217; a fleet which his wife sent to him met the same fate off Dover in the following June, and in September, in virtue of a treaty, he left our shores. 4 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1226. Here then we see two matrimonial alliances — that contracted by Philip Augustus with the daughter of the King of Denmark, with the view of attacking England, and that contracted by his son Louis with Blanche of Castille, with the view of consolidating peace with England. In 1223 Philip Augustus died, and was succeeded by his son, who reigned in France as Louis VIII. for the space of three years, a debilitated Lion, as he has been called. Louis. VIII. died in 1226, leaving behind him five young children, the eldest of whom was afterwards known as St. Louis. For the moment, Queen Blanche acted as Eegent, and before long she thought of marrying her son, at the time eighteen years of age, to Margaret, the daughter of the Count of Provence. She accordingly sent Giles de Flag^ac to the Count of Toulouse to exhort him not to slacken his persecution of the Albigeois, and secretly commissioned him to visit Provence, and see if Margaret would be a suitable daughter-in-law for the Queen of France. The report of De Flageac was favourable, and Louis and Margaret were married at Sens in May, 1234. The husband was nineteen and the wife thirteen years of age. " The queen mother," says Sismondi, 1 " charged herself with the task of preventing them from living together until they grew stronger by years. Margaret did not have a child until she had been married for six years, and even then the Queen 1 Sismondi, Histoire des Fran$ais, t. 7, p. 136. 1234.] ST. LOUIS AND MARGARET. 5 Blanche kept a close watch upon the domestic life of their majesties. Jealous of her daughter-in-law, jealous of the influence which she might acquire over her husband, Blanche still endeavoured to keep Louis at a distance from his wife." "The harshness which Queen Blanche exhibited towards Queen Margaret," says Joinville, "was such that the Queen Blanche would never permit her son to be in company with his wife except in the evening, when they went to bed. The residence in which the king and the queen preferred to live was at Pontoise, where the king had a room up-stairs, and the queen a room down- stairs, which communicated by a turning staircase, where they could converse together. They ordered the ushers when they saw Queen Blanche approach- ing the chamber of the king her son, to strike the door with their rods, and then the king ran into his room, so that his mother might find him there ; and the ushers did the same thing when Queen Blanche went to see Queen Margaret. Once when the king was with the queen his wife, and when she was in great peril of death, owing to a bad confinement, Queen Blanche came and took her son by the hand, saying, ' Come along ; you have nothing to do here.' When Queen Margaret saw that the king was being taken away by his mother, she cried, ' Alas ! will you not let me see my lord dying or living ? ' and then she fainted, and they supposed that she was dead ; and the king, who thought that she was dying, returned, and it was with great trouble 6 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1234. that she was brought round." The same historian "a*' then adds — " The marriage of Louis seemed to give increased activity to political negotiations having marriages for their object. Since women had been permitted to succeed to large fiefs, and even to most monarchies, few treaties were so important as marriage treaties ; they often carried with them the union of two states — union which could not have been accomplished by twenty years of war or political intrigue, and populations were thus handed over to the lottery of the nuptial couch." Henry III. of England, who was eight years younger than Louis IX., also | thought of marriage. He had successively desired to espouse princesses of Brittany, of Austria, of Bohemia, of Scotland, and of Ponthieu. If one is to believe Filleau de la Chaise, 1 Louis IX., or rather Queen Blanche, constantly interfered with those marriages, causing them to fail one after the other. The treaty with Jeanne de Ponthieu was more advanced than any of the others. Henry III. had already married her by proxy, when, as Gregory IX. attested, a degree of relationship was discovered between the pair, for which he would not accord a dispensation. Henry III. then cast his eyes on Eleanora of Provence, the sister of the French queen. In October, 1235, he despatched his ambassadors to Provence to demand the hand of Eleanora, even without a dowry. Eleanora was brought to England by these ambassadors, was married to Henry III. at 1 Histoire de St. Louis, t. iv. p. 156. 1235.] HENRY III. OF ENGLAND. 7 Canterbury, and the following Sunday was crowned with him at Westminster. 1 " Henry III. in this way became the brother-in-law of the King of France, and this alliance exercised a great influence on the policy of both kingdoms ; but at this epoch the King of England had not renounced the idea of recovering by force of arms the provinces which Philip Augustus had conquered from King John ; and that same year he strengthened by another marriage an alliance which might turn out prejudicial to France. Frederick II., who had • already lost two wives, demanded the hand of his sister, Isabella of England, undertaking to aid him in the war for which he was preparing. In spite of the influence which Queen Blanche exercised over the Court of Eome, Gregory IX. made no difficulty about granting a dispensation for this marriage. The bride left England and passed through the Low Countries ; but between Antwerp and Cologne care 1 Miss Strickland says in her Queens of England, vol. ii. p. 80, that " though Henry's age more than doubled that of the fair maid of Provence, of whose charms and accomplishments he had received such favourable reports, and he was aware that the poverty of the generous count, her father, was almost proverbial, yet the king's constitutional covetousness impelled him to demand the enormous portion of 20,000 marks with this fairest flower of the land of roses and sweet song." No dowry in reality appears to have been exacted. No matter how covetous Henry may have been by nature, he spent enormous sums over his marriage and coronation. " In fact," adds Miss Strickland, vol. ii. p. 87 — " so great was the outlay beyond the king's resources, that Henry expended the portion of his sister Isabella, just married to the Emperor of Germany, for the purpose of defraying them." 8 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1270. was taken that she should be accompanied by a strong escort, lest the French should be tempted to snap her up. She was married to the Emperor Frederick II. at Worms, in July, 1235." In addition to these royal marriages several matri- monial alliances were formed among the great vassals — alliances which led Mathieu Paris to say in his History of England, p. 349 — " Several magnates were indignant that this kingdom of kingdoms, called France, should be governed by a woman ; and those who rose up against this state of affairs were grave and famous men, skilled in the use of arms from their youth, to wit — the King of Navarre, Comte de Campagne, the Comte de la Marche, the Comte de Bretagne, and several other great lords, who are bound together by a federation and by an oath." And, we may add, who were in league with the King of England. In August, 1270, the best of the Capets died in his camp near Carthage, and several of his family were attacked by the disease which had proved fatal to the king. One of his sons, the Comte de Nevers, pre- ceded him to the grave. His brother, the Comte de Toulouse, his son-in-law, the King of Navarre, and many of his chief barons succumbed shortly after- wards, while there was little hope that his eldest son Philip, who now succeeded him, would long survive. Before leaving Carthage Philip made his will. He entered Paris in February, 1271, accompanied by five coffins — those of his father, his brother, his brother- 1256.] THE SONS OF ST. LOUIS. 9 in-law, his wife, and his daughter. A few years later, and we find that of the six sons left by St. Louis only three remained — Philip, Pierre, Due d'Alencon, and Robert, Comte de Clermont. It was from Robert, the sixth son of St. Louis, that the illustrious house of Bourbon derived its royal title. Robert was born in 1256, and at the age of sixteen became Sire de Bourbon, owing to his marriage with Beatrice de Bourbon, heiress of the rich barony of that name. CHAPTER II. ORIGIN OF THE BOURBONS. As for the origin of the Bourbons, it is enveloped in mystery in spite of the volumes which have been devoted to the subject. According to some ancient authors, it is descended from Witikind, who so long defended his oppressed country against the arms of Charlemagne. Other authorities give the Bourbons the kings of Lombardy, the dukes of Bavaria, or a prince of Saxony for ancestors. Desormeaux tells us that this house had for ancestor Robert le Fort, a prince whose lofty origin is lost in the night of centuries. He adds — " But, no matter how illustrious the birth of Robert le Fort, did anything ever approach the splendour and glory of his posterity ? .... It is not only to this country that the race of Robert le Fort has given kings, it has filled, and still fills, the first thrones in Europe. 1 At present one counts among his descendants, including Eudes and Robert, who reigned before Hugh Capet, thirty-five kings of France, twenty-three kings of Portugal, thirteen kings of 1 Desormeaux wrote in 1772. BOURBON BRANCHES. 11 Sicily, eleven kings of Navarre, four kings of Spain and the Indies, four kings of Hungary, Croatia, and Sclavonia, two kings of Poland, one king of Scotland, seven or eight emperors of Constantinople, nearly one hundred dukes of Burgundy, Brittany, Anjou, Lorraine, &c. Several subjects and vassals of the House of France have reigned in England, Castile, Scotland, Armenia, Cyprus, Jerusalem, Naples, and Constantinople : tu, regere imperio populos, o galle memento. Hence that deep veneration on the part of all the people of the universe for the august blood from which sprang so many sovereigns. Is it a ques- tion of marrying Ladislas, King of Hungary and Bohemia ? the barons of the two kingdoms throw their eyes upon Magdeleine of France as the most noble match in the. universe .... Charles V. (of Germany), that monarch so powerful and so enlight- ened, issue himself of so many emperors, counted among his most august titles that of being descended from the first house of the universe through Marie of Burgundy. ' I consider it a great honour,' he said, ' to be descended, on the maternal side, from that fieuron which is worn and upheld by the most celebrated crown in the world.' " But of all the branches of this fruitful tree which has spread its shade over all the thrones of Europe, none has been so fertile in heroes and great kings as that of Bourbon ; it is to the Bourbons that France owes all her splendour, success, and prosperity for the last two centuries." 12 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [861. Desormeaux then gives us a short biographical sketch of some of the most remarkable members of this illustrious family, beginning with Eobert le Fort, Duke of France, and Count of Anjou, Orleans, and Blois. He earned the name of Great and Machabeus for having prevented the Normans from subduing the country. He was proclaimed duke in 861, and was killed in the moment of victory in 866. Robert le Fort married the sister of the Comte de Laon, and had four children — first Eudes, who became King of France, and after having reigned for ten years died without posterity. Eobert, his second son, married the daughter of Pepin I., came to the throne in 922, and was killed the year following in battle. Robert was succeeded by his eldest son Hugues, surnamed the Great ; he married successively Judith, the niece of King Louis the Stutterer, Ethile, the daughter of Edward, King of England, 1 and Avoie of Saxony, daughter of Henry I., King of Germany ; was succeeded by his eldest son, Hugues Capet, who came to the throne in 957, married the daughter of the Due de Guienne, and died in 996. Hugues Capet was suc- ceeded by his eldest son Robert, who reigned for thirty-five years, married the daughter of the Due de Provence, and died in 1031. Robert was succeeded by Hugues, his eldest son, who left no heir ; and was succeeded by his brother, Henri I., who married Agnes de Rouci, and died in 1060. Henri was succeeded by Philippe I. ; then came, in regular 1 This was Edward the Elder, of the Anglo-Saxon line. 1256.] DESCENDANTS OF ROBERT LE FORT. 13 succession, Louis VI., Louis VII., — whose daughter Marguerite married the eldest son of Henry II. of England, 1 — Philippe II., Louis VIII. , the Louis IX. who married Margaret de Provence, and had eleven children — the sixth being Eobert de France, Comte de Clermont, Baron de Bourbon, de Charolois, Lord of Creil, St. Just, and Gournai, born in 1256, died in 1317. 1 Henry II. had married Eleanor, the divorced wife of Louis VII., and his son when only five years of age was betrothed to the daughter of Louis when she was only one year old. CHAPTEB III. GENEALOGY OP THE HOUSE OF BOURBON. After remarking that it was owing to the total extinction of the direct branch, and of all the col- lateral branches, issues of Philip the Bold, that the Princes of Bourbon, issues of St. Louis, came to the throne, Desormeaux gives us the genealogy of the House of Bourbon. We may first of all observe, that Philip the Bold had three sons, and was succeeded by Philip the Handsome, who was the father of the last three kings of the line of Capet — Louis X., Philip V., and Charles IV. When Charles IV. died the French throne was claimed by Edward III., King of England, who had married Isabella, the sister of the three deceased kings. The French parliament, however, founding its decision on the Salic law, gave the throne to Philip of Valois, the cousin-german of Charles IV., and for many a long year the race of Valois ruled in France. It would be too long and too tedious to wade through all the matrimonial alliances of the prolific Bourbon race with its numerous branches, legitimate 1311.] LOUIS I. 15 and illegitimate ; we shall therefore simply give a sketch of some of the most important marriages which tended to raise the House of Bourbon to the position it acquired, commencing with the sixth son of St. Louis. Eobert de France, Comte de Clermont, born in 1256, married Beatrix de Bourgogne, only daughter and heiress of Jean de Bourgogne, Baron of Charolois, and of Agnes, Dame de Bourbon. At an early age Robert de France received a severe blow on the head at a tournament, which affected him both physically and mentally for the remainder of his life. He, however, survived this accident for forty years, and died at the age of sixty-one ; left behind him six children, and was succeeded by his eldest son, who assumed the style and title of Louis L, Due de Bourbon, Sec, &c. " No one," says Desormeaux, " is ignorant of the fact that the posterity of Eobert de France and of Beatrix de Bourgogne took the name of Bourbon." Louis I. was twenty-seven years of age when he married Mary of Hainault in 1311. On this occasion the prince received from his father the gift of all his property. The marriage was celebrated at Pontoise with great magnificence, in presence of the king and all the court. Louis I. greatly distinguished himself in the field and in diplomacy. The Due de Bourbon, in fact, after receiving from the hands of King Philip himself the ducal crown as a reward for his courage in battle, was sent on a very difficult mission to 16 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1341. King Edward III. According to Froissart, the duke, was accompanied by the Bishops of Chartres and Beauvais, by the counts of Harcourt, Tancarville, and Clermont, and by a great number of lords and knights. " Also, as it was a question of the glory and the most delicate interests of the crown, he took with him the most enlightened lawyers. The Duke met in London the reception due to a grandson of France, uncle of the Queen of England, still more illustrious by his virtue than by the splendour of his birth and his rank. This prince, skilled in the arts of pleasing and persuading, triumphed over all obstacles; he obtained from Edward a solemn declaration by which that monarch admitted that he owed allegiance to the King of France in his quality of Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Ponthieu. . . . The success of this difficult negotiation was hailed with universal applause ; it appeared to have removed for ever the clouds of that tempest which threatened both France and England ; the rights of the French monarch and the duties of the King of England were clearly defined, recognized, and confirmed." Like his father, Louis I., Due de Bourbon, died at the age of sixty-one. Eight children were born to him, and he was succeeded by his eldest son, Pierre I., in 1341. The House of Bourbon had now acquired such renown that two kings sued for the hands of two of the duke's daughters. "But," as Desormeaux says, " of all these alliances, which give so high an idea of 1356.] PIERRE 1. 17 the power and wealth of the Due de Bourbon, none pleased him more than that of the Comte de Clermont, his eldest son, with Isabelle de Valois, sister of the king, one of the most accomplished princesses of the century. Perhaps it may not be useless to observe, that the dowry of the sister of the first monarch in Europe was only 25,000 livres; but Charles V., grand-nephew and son-in-law of Isabelle, afterwards loaded her with gifts." Pierre I. married Isabelle de Valois in 1336. It was thought for some time (ten years later) that he had been slain at Crecy, where he was merely wounded. However, he escaped slaughter at that battle merely to fall afterwards at Poitiers at the feet of the king his master, in the forty-fifth year of his age, leaving behind him eight children. "The body of the Due de Bourbon was taken to the Jacobin convent at Poitiers," says Desormeaux, "and there it remained in deposit, as no one dared to render it the last rites. Pierre I., handsome, well-made, brave, and gallant, had carried luxury and magnificence too far ; he died overwhelmed with debts and anathemas. To oblige him to pay his debts, his creditors, according to the custom of the time, had recourse, but in vain, to the thunders of the Church ; he was treated after his death as a person excommunicated. - Perhaps this prince, great- grandson of St. Louis, brother-in-law- of the King Philippe de Valois, of the Emperor Charles IV., of the King of Bohemia, father of the Queens of France VOL. I. 18 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1356. and Castile, who died fighting for his country, would even have been deprived for ever of the honours of sepulture but for the piety of his son. Louis II,, Due de Bourbon, only eighteen years of age, hastened to offer to Innocent VI. all his property, in order to satisfy the creditors of his father. It was at this price alone that he could obtain from the Pontiff the revocation of the anathema launched against the author of his existence. . . ." Jacques de Bourbon, the third son, became Con- stable of France, and founded the branches of Bour- bon la Marche and Bourbon Vendome, from which descended all the branches of the House of France. Beatrix de Bourbon, the third daughter, married Jean de Luxembourg, the blind king of Bohemia, who was killed at the battle of Crecy ; she received from her husband fifteen silver marks a week to sup- port her dignity. Although she married a second time, she preserved the title and honours of queen. Marie de Bourbon, the fourth daughter, married Gui Prince of Galilee, eldest son and heir of the King of Cyprus. Left a widow, she married Robert of Sicily, titular Emperor of Constantinople. Louis II., who succeeded Pierre I., married Anne of Auvergne, a lady who brought immense wealth into the House of Bourbon. He was surnamed the Good, and he died at the age of seventy-three, after having devoted his faculties and courage to the service of. his country. Jeanne de Bourbon, the eldest sister of Louis, 1350.] CHARLES V. ' 19 married Charles V. of France, and is said to have been the most accomplished queen who had existed up to that period. Writing on this subject Desor- meaux observes — < " It was in the midst of so many disasters that Philippe de Valois, whose throne had for support two sons and four grandsons, lighted for the second time the torch of Hymen. Work, incessant care, grief, and reverses had shattered his mind and impaired his body ; but at the sight of Blanche de Navarre, fifteen years of age, he experienced all the flames of love, and kept for himself a princess destined for the Duke of Normandy, his son. If the marriage of this monarch was the work of passion, that of Charles of France, his grandson, with the Princess Jeanne de Bourbon was a masterpiece of wisdom and policy : it gave Dauphiny to France." Jeanne de Bourbon, who was united to the heir presumptive to the throne at the age of fourteen years, is said to have possessed beauty, gentleness, modesty, and other virtues, and to have well deserved the love and constancy of her husband, who as Charles V. became the greatest king of the Valois line. It is related that Humbert, the last Dauphin of the illustrious and ancient family of Tour-du-Piu, sought the hand of Jeanne de Bourbon, but he was fore- stalled by the king, who bestowed the princess upon his grandson. Upon this the Dauphin 1 abdicated 1 The eldest sons of several great families in France tore the title of Dauphin. 20 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1350. in favour of his more fortunate rival, and buried himself in a Jacobin monastery. The Queen Jeanne died at forty years of age, after a confinement, to the great grief of her husband, whose health was seriously affected by her loss. " She shared," says D'Orronville, "not only the bed, the table, and the throne of the king, but the duties of government ; and," adds the historian, " the genius, the talent, and the prudence of this great queen contributed not a little to the splendour of the reign of the most glorious of the Valois." This splendour " fatigued " Charles the Bad, King of Navarre ; he conspired against the life of Charles V. The discovery of his crime cost him dear; the Con- stable on one side and the Due de Bourbon on the other fell upon the vast domains which he possessed in Normandy ; they seized on his towns, on his treasures, and his children, and deprived him of all the property which remained to him in France with the exception of the town of Cherbourg, which he sold to the English. Blanche de Bourbon, the second daughter of Pierre L, celebrated by her beauty, her misfortunes, and her tragic end, became the wife and victim of Peter the Cruel, King of Castile. Peter sent an embassy to the Due de Bourbon to demand the hand of his daughter, and the duke, highly flattered by the proposal, not only consented to the marriage, but gave Blanche an immense dowry. The kino-, cousin-german of the bride, added a considerable 1353.] MARIE PADILLA. 21 sum ; she was married as if she were a princess of the blood. According to Desormeaux the birth and rank of Blanche de Bourbon contributed less to her elevation than her beauty and grace, in which she was superior to all the women of her century. The King of Castile, young, ardent, and intoxicated with passions which the possession of the throne enabled him to satisfy, was madly in love with Marie Padilla. The mother of the king and his guardians thought that Blanche de Bourbon would make him forget his mistress, but in this they were mistaken. The marriage was performed at Valladolid in June, 1353, and is said to have resembled rather a funeral than a nuptial ceremony. Two days afterwards the king returned to the arms of Marie Padilla, and the un- fortunate queen was sent to the castle of Arevallo, and placed under the care of the Bishop of Segovia. The indignation of the Castilians reached such a pitch that Peter considered it prudent to take back his wife, but he soon deserted her once more, and never saw her again. Though still in love with Marie Padilla, the king — whose life, ably recounted by Prosper M^rimee, was one long series of crimes — married Juana de Castro, but only to abandon her almost immediately. This new and adulterous mar- riage raised all the nobility against him, and drew down upon him the excommunication of the Pope. Suffice it to add here, that in 1361 Blanche de Bourbon, one of many noble victims, was poisoned 22 MARRIAGES OF TEE BOURBONS. [1361. by the orders of her husband, and that eight years later Peter was stabbed to death by his natural brother Henry of Transtamare. In the history of Louis II. , Due de Bourbon, 1 we are told that when Henry of Transtamare came to the throne of Castile, he formed the noble project of driving the Moors from Granada, and that he invited the most illustrious kuights of Christendom to aid him ; nor did he forget the Due de Bourbon, whose renown filled all Europe. The duke set out for Castile, and on the road obtained the Papal benediction at Avignon from Gregory XL He was received with great splendour at Burgos, where five hundred knights went out to meet him ; nor were the people ever tired of looking at and admiring the 'worthy brother of the innocent Blanche de Bourbon, over whose misfortunes and death they still wept. Transtamare displayed great magnificence on this occasion, and it is pretended that this prince carried his courtesy so far as to take the Due de Bourbon to the castle of Segovia to show him the children of Peter the Cruel, whom he detained as prisoners. "These are the children," he said, "of the man who put your sister to death, and if you •wish to put them to death I will hand them over to you." The virtuous Bourbon, we are told, declined to visit the sins of the father upon the children — the children, we suppose, of His Majesty and Marie Padilla. . 1 D'Orronville, chap, xxxiii. 1355.] JEAN I. 23 Another daughter of Pierre L, Bonne de Bourbon, married first Godfrey of Brabant, son of the Duke of Brabant, but the marriage was not consummated, and Bonne took for second husband the Count of Savoy, surnamed the Comte Vert, one of the greatest men of his century, and the founder of the Dukes of Savoy, Kings of Sardinia. This marriage was intended to cement a treaty signed in Paris in 1355 settling the frontiers of France and Savoy. In Froissart 1 we find mention made of the mar- riage of Catherine, the fourth daughter of Pierre I., who gave her hand to Jean VI., Comte d'Harcourt and d'Avfmale. This union appears to have been arranged in order to consolidate peace between the Houses of Harcourt and of Normandy, and to have succeeded in its object. Jean I. succeeded Louis II. in the year 1410 ; he married Marie de Berri, daughter of the Due de Berri, who brought as her dowry the duchy of Auvergne and the county of Montpensier. 2 Jean had the misfortune to fall into the hands, of the English at Agincourt, at which battle all the princes of the 1 Chap, xciii. 2 The marriage of the Comte de Clermont "was celebrated in Paris, says d'Orrahville, with the greatest splendour. The Cardinal Turcis, Papal legate, pronounced the nuptial benediction in presence of the Kings of France, Navarre, and Sicily, and of the Emperor of Constantinople, Manuel Paleologar. The emperor, who was in desperate straits, had come to France to solicit aid, and Charles VI. had promised him an army with the Due de BourboH to command it, but the resources of the country could not bear the strain of another crusade. 24 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1433. House of Bourbon capable of bearing arms were present, with the exception of the Comte de la Marche. We find in Monstrelet that "in this year (1415) Jacques de Bourbon, Comte de la Marche, went to Italy, accompanied by a large number of knights and squires, and married Queen Jeanne, the sister of King Lancelot, and was considered by the inhabitants as King of Naples and Sicily." Charles I. succeeded to his father, Jean I., in 1433. He married the daughter of the Duke of Burgundy and of Margaret of Bavaria. He had issue eleven legitimate children. The seventh,. Marie de Bourbon, married the Duke of Calabria and Lorraine ; the eighth, Isabelle de Bourbon, married Charles the Bold, the last Duke of Burgundy; the ninth, Catherine de Bourbon, married Egmont, Duke of Gueldres ; the tenth, Jeanne de Bourbon, married the Prince of Orange ; 1 the eleventh, Marguerite de Bourbon, married Philip II., Duke of Savoy, and bore Louise of Savoy, who became Duchesse de Angouleme, and mother of Francis I. Charles I. had also many natural children. The 1 The principality of Orange was founded by Charlemagne, and successively belonged to the house of Adhemar, Baux, and Chalons before it passed to that of Nassau. Carlyle, in his History of Frederick the Great, Book xi. chap, v., speaks of Orange as being clearly Prussia's, but lying " imbedded deep in the belly of Prance," to which country it was ceded by Prussia in 1713. "We afterwards find that the Parliament of Paris gave it to the Prince de Conti, a Bourbon. In 1714 it appears to have been annexed to Dauphiny, and when France in 1790 was broken up into departments it was included in the Vaucluse. 1.400.] THE COMTE DE CLAREMONT. 25 eldest, Louis de Bourbon, highly distinguished himself, and became Grand Admiral; the second, Renaud de Bourbon, became Archbishop of Narbonne, and left behind him two natural children, Charles and Suzanne. . Charles became Bishop of Clermont, and Suzanne was permitted to bear the arms of Bourbon. The third was Pierre de Bourbon, protonotary of the Holy See, who also left two natural children. Then came four natural daughters — Jeanne, Sidonie, Charlotte, and Catherine de Bourbon. The three first seem to .have married well, and the fourth to have become an abbess. It is related that when Charles I., then Comte de Claremont, was taken prisoner by the Burgundians, he consented to join the enemy in return for his liberty. Upon this Jean-sans-Peur, the better to attach him to his party, broke off his engagement with Catherine de France, who afterwards married Henry V. of England, and obliged him to accept the hand of Agnes his daughter. As soon as possible, however, he sent v his bride back to her father, and embraced the cause of King Charles VI. Desormeaux says that the Duke of Burgundy offered the hand of his daughter to the Comte de Claremont, but that an offer from so terrible a man was as good as an order. He adds, that the Count had been brought up in the hope of marrying Madame Catherine de France, the prettiest princess in Europe, to whom he was engaged, and that he was obliged to renounce ijhis alliance in order to unite himself closely to a 2G MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1454. scoundrel whose audacity he detested. The marriage was celebrated but not consummated, owing to the tender age of the princess. St. Marthe, in his General History of the House of France, says that Charles L, Due de Bourbon, in the matter of wealth was surpassed only by the King and the Duke of Burgundy, and that "he gave 150,000 crowns to his daughter Marie when she married the Duke of Calabria, heir to the crowns of Arragon, Sicily, Anjou, Lorraine, Bar, and Provence. He treated Isabelle, his second daughter, who in 1454 married Charles the Bold, then Comte de Charolois,. and who afterwards became Duke of Burgundy, with no less magnificence. This opulence on the part of a prince burdened with a numerous family gives one a high idea of the manner in which he managed his affairs. This is all the more worthy of notice because the dowry of the ladies of France (id est princesses of the blood) was fixed at 100,000 crowns." Jean II. succeeded Charles I. in 1456. He was surnamed " the Good," and the " Scourge of the English," having helped to drive them out of France. He married first Jeanne de France, daughter of Charles VII. and Marie d' Anjou ; second, Catherine, daughter of the Due dArmagnac ; third, Jeanne de Bourbon, daughter of Jean de Bourbon, Comte de Vend6me. These were brilliant alliances. Strange to say, Jean II. left behind him no legitimate off- spring, but five illegitimate children, the eldest of whom earned the nickname of the Great Bastard r 1480.] LOUIS, XL 27 and died in 1505 "with the reputation of a hero." History relates in detail how disturbed was the kingdom of France in the middle of the 15th century, and how by means of artifice and corruption the astute but unscrupulous monarch Louis XI. won over most of the discontented nobles to his side. Among these was Jean II., Due de Bourbon. According to the chronicles of the time, the king received Bourbon in Paris with honours, caresses, pardon, and gifts ; everything was lavished upon him. " For the last nineteen years the duke had been wedded to Madame Jeanne de France and had no children ; he looked upon the sire de Beaujeu l less as a brother than as a son. The king offered him the hand of his eldest daughter for the' young prince ; but the alliance could not be then concluded, as the princess was only six years, of age. Louis XL then- proposed a match between his eldest legitimized daughter, Marguerite de Valois, and Louis de Bourbon, the natural son of Charles I., Due de Bourbon, and the natural brother of Jean II. The marriage was celebrated in Paris with royal magnificence, and the king heaped honours and wealth on the happy pair. It is said that nothing flattered Jeanne II., who was devoted to Louis de Bourbon, more than this alliance. The widow of the Constable (Jean II.), Jeanne de Bourbon-Vend6me, would have been Queen of France^ says Desormeaux, if beauty and love could have worn 1 His brother Pierre. 28 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1488. the crown, Charles VIII. being so struck by her charms that he wished to marry her. It was even settled that the wedding should take place at Moulins ; but his mother had another match in view of greater utility for the State, and the engagement with Jeanne de Bourbon was broken off. By her marriage with the Comte d'Auvergne Jeanne had two daughters ; the eldest married the Duke of Albania, and the second Laurent de Medicis, Duke of Urbino, and had issue the famous Catherine de Medicis, " who did so much harm to France, and especially to the House of Bourbon." Jean II. was succeeded in 1488 by his brother, Pierre II., to whom we have already referred as the Sire de Beaujeu. Pierre had married in 1474 Anne de France, the daughter of Louis XI. and of Charlotte of Savoy. Pierre had only one male child, who died in his cradle, and one daughter, Suzanne, who married her cousin, Charles de Bourbon. With Pierre II., therefore, the eldest branch of the house of Bourbon came to a close. Desormeaux says with regard to the marriage of Pierre II. with Anne of France, " On his return to court the Comte de Beaujeu 1 was received by the king with the most lively demonstrations of joy and affection ; his misfortunes and his dangers had rendered him still more dear to Louis XL, who regarded him with the feelings of a father ; he adopted him as his son by uniting him with his eldest daughter, Anne de France. 1 The count had suffered imprisonment on behalf of his sovereign. 1474.] THE SIRE DE BEAUJEU. 29 " Beaujeu was all the more affected by his happi- ness, as he had long despaired. We have seen .how, after the treaty of Conflans, Louis XL, standing in need of the support of the Due de Bourbon, had promised him his daughter for his eldest son ; but other times, other interests. The king, who was never ' the slave of his word/ forgot his promises ; he offered his daughter now to the Duke of Burgundy, now to the Duke of Guienne, again to the Duke of Calabria. The Sire de Beaujeu opposed patience and submission to the caprices, to the policy, and to the absolute will of the imperious monarch ; he continued to serve him with the same zeal and the same courage ; he shared all his labours and his perils, and he renounced, by order of His Majesty, the hand of the Princesse Marie d'Orleans. . . . Louis XL had the mortification to see all his schemes for the marriage of his daughter fail. The Duke of Burgundy preferred Margaret of York, the sister of Edward IV., 'King of England ; the Duke of Guienne never thought of any one but the heiress of Brittany ; nor would it have been a crime on the part of the Duke of Calabria to have entertained the same views had he not behaved towards Louis XL like a corsair rather than a prince. He abandoned Anne de France, but kept the large sums which he had received from the king as an advance on her dowry. " On comparing the conduct of all these princes with that of Beaujeu, Louis XL appeared to be touched by his modesty, his reserve, and his wisdom ; 30 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1474. he might have placed madame (Anne de France) upon one of the most brilliant thrones of Europe, but he could not consent to part with this princess whose beauty, grace, wit, and virtue developed themselves every day. He therefore fixed his eyes irrevocably upon the Comte de Beaujeu, whom he destined to become the support of the throne ; it is pretended that the disorder of his domestic affairs contributed not a little to his marriage. The Comte had dissi- pated the greater portion of his patrimony, and was reduced to that state of indigence and distress which Louis XL desired in princes of the blood, so that he might keep them in humble dependence. Besides this, the king, after his usual custom, corrupted his own gift ; he exacted from De Beaujeu, in consideration for so great an alliance, that he should consent to the reunion of all the domains of the House of Bourbon to the Crown if he died without having any male heir by madame. . . . Louis XL, by a trick worthy of him, refrained from being present when the con- tract was signed, to avoid the reproach of having by his presence obliged his son-in-law to sign a clause so detrimental to the fortunes of his house." On the other hand we are told, that the Comte de Beaujeu was too intelligent not to know that it was out of his power to sign away the rights of the Montpensier branch. Also that of all the advantages he reaped from his marriage — gifts, honours, command, &c, nothing flattered him so much as the possession of a yourig, lovely, talented, and virtuous princess. 1483.] ANNE OF BRITTANY. 31 Louis XI. had six children, three of whom survived him — Charles VIII., his successor; Anne, his eldest daughter, who had married Pierre de Bourbon ; Sire de Beaujeu, and Jeanne, who married the Duke of Orleans, grandson of the brother of Charles VI., who afterwards became Louis XII. When Louis XL died, Charles VIII. was thirteen years of age, and had consequently almost attained his majority ; his father, however, thinking him incapable of reigning, confided his son and the government of the kingdom to the care, not of Pierre de Bourbon, but to Anne, who, as Brant6me says, " was as clever and subtle woman as ever lived, and in everything the true image of her father, King Louis XL" Certain it is that the Duchesse de Bour- bon, who continued for some time to act as Eegent, obtained for France the peaceful acquisition of Brit- tany, by bringing about the marriage of her brother Charles VIII. with Anne, the heiress of that duchy, — no very easy task, as the Comte Darie relates in his Histoire de JBretagne. 1 When Anne was but four years old her hand was promised to Edward, Prince of Wales ; but two years afterwards, in 1483,- the unfortunate young prince was assassinated. The number of Anne's suitors rapidly increased. There were Alain, Sire dAlbret, called the " Great," because he was reckoned the richest nobleman in the kingdom ; the Vicomte Jacques de Eohan, and the Archduke Maximilian, who sent the Count of Nassau to Brit- tany, where he married the young princess for his 1 Tome iii. p. 82. 32 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1491. master by proxy. As Guizot says — "This strange mode of celebration could not give the marriage its real indissoluble character ; the anxiety of France, however, was great. The engagement of the young duchess was no secret in Brittany ; she already assumed the title of Queen of the Romans. Charles VIII. loudly protested against this pretended marriage, and in order to give more weight to his protests, sent ambassadors to Henry VlL, who meddled much in the affairs of Brittany, to expose to the English monarch the rights possessed by France to oppose the marriage of the Duchess with the Archduke Maximilian." In the end, what between force and persuasion, Anne consented to marry Charles VIII., and thus Brittany was annexed to France. According to the Venetian ambassador, Contarini, Charles was small, badly made, had an enormous head, large colourless eyes, an aquiline nose, too broad and long, thick lips, which were constantly open, nervous twitches very disagreeable to see, and a slow way of speaking. Neither body nor mind were worth much, thought the ambassador. The sketch furnished by Z. Contarini of Anne of Brittany was not very flattering, as far as her personal appearance was concerned, but he spoke highly of her mental qualities. " The queen," he said, " is also small, thin, and very lame, dark, with a pretty face, and very cunning for her age. . . . She has a cultivated mind, loves the arts, poetry, and ancient literature ; she knows Latin, and a little Greek ; united by proxy to a prince she 1 Tome ii. p. 467. H92.] CHARLES VIII. 33 had never seen, but whom she knew to be tall, well made, and a lover of science, it was repugnant to her feelings to abandon him for a prince without beauty, and, it is said, ignorant to such a point when he ascended the throne that he could not read." When the match was first spoken of Anne of Brittany said, " I am bound by ties of marriage to the Archduke Maximilian ; and the King of France, on his side, is engaged to the Princesse Marguerite of Austria, therefore we are neither of us free." And yet this marriage between Charles and Anne took place in 1492. " The strength of mind and the energy of Anne of Brittany," says Godefroy, in his History of Charles VIII., " were so well known that every one in Europe was persuaded that she would prefer exile and even want to the crown of France presented by hands which she detested. The astonishment was general when it was known that this independent princess, instead of flying away by sea, went almost unattended to Langeais to marry Charles VIII. It must be observed, to the glory of this princess, that, zealous to fulfil all her duties, she conceived as much tenderness for her husband as she had shown aversion before knowing him. The joy of Madame (the Duchesse de Bourbon) may be imagined when she presented the king with the most accomplished princess of Europe, who brought him for dowry Brittany and other vast domains. From Langeais madam e conducted the new queen to St. Denis, where she was crowned with VOL. I. 34 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1492. extraordinary pomp. A short time afterwards she made her solemn entry into the capital, in the midst of the acclamations of an immense crowd, never weary of admiring her beauty and grace. . . Madame, whose genius had triumphed over so many obstacles, rode alongside of the queen, and shared the honours of her triumph. " It was thus that Anne de France, Duchesse de Bourbon, terminated her brilliant administration. She handed over to the king the reins of the State, which she had saved and aggrandised ; should -ever the nation raise statues to the great men who have extended her frontiers, will they forget the princess who united to the Crown a province not less cele- brated for the courage of its inhabitants, than tbeir talent for navigation. . . . ? " Charles VIII. had been married in his infancy to Margaret of Austria, the daughter of Maximilian, who had been brought up at the Court of France with the honours and title of queen ; the age of the wife, who in 1491 was only eleven years old, had fortun- ately retarded the consummation of the marriage ; it was decided to deprive Maximilian of his wife, and to send him back his daughter, and, if necessary, to sacrifice the rich dowry of Margaret, Artois, and Franche-Comte in exchange for Brittany. Writing of the fortunes of the Bourbons at this period, Desormeaux 1 says that the house "was divided into four branches : glory, power, titles, and 1 Vol. ii. p. 41. 1500.] THE CARDINAL DE BOURBON. 35 wealth distinguished the ducal branch, composed of six princes and five princesses, then or afterwards married to sovereigns. These are the names of the princes who all shone with brilliancy on the scene — Jean II. ; Philippe, Lord of Beaujeu, who died just as he was about to wear the crown of Cyprus ; Charles, who was Archbishop of Lyons at the age of nine years, then Cardinal, Legate of Avignon, and chief counsellor of Louis XL ; Pierre, who succeeded Jean II., and was Lieutenant-General of the kingdom under Charles VIII. ; Louis, Bishop of Liege, and Jacques, Knight of the Golden Fleece. Charles I., not wishing his wealth to be shared among too many heirs, consecrated two sons to the Church without consulting their tastes. The Cardinal de Bourbon lived like a warrior prince, voluptuous and magnifi- cent ; he took for his crest a hand surrounded with flames, with this motto, more fit for a soldier than a bishop, " n'espoir, ne peur" Louis de Bourbon carried his distaste for his sacred functions still further than his brother; his passion for arms, for gallantry, for show, and dissipation aroused the indignation of his subjects, and drove them to revolt. Hence those atrocious wars which were terminated only by the destruction of Dinant and of Liege itself. He was assassinated by the hand of a per- fidious friend " — assassinated as described by Walter Scott in Quentin Durward by William de la Mark, the "Wild Boar of the Ardennes." The first branch of the Bourbons consisted, therefore, D 2 36 MARRIAGES OF, THE BOURBONS. [1500. of Eobert de France, Baron de Bourbon, and the dukes Louis L, Pierre I., Louis II., Jean L, Charles L, Jean II., Pierre II. It existed for two hundred and fifty years — from 1256, when Eobert de France was born, until 1503, when Pierre II. died. CHAPTER IV. THE SECOND BOURBON BRANCH, OR FIRST BRANCH OF THE MONTPENSIEKS. With Pierre II. terminated the eldest branch of the House of Bourbon. The second branch was founded by Louis de Bourbon, Comte de Montpensier, third son of Jean I., who, taken prisoner at Agin- court, died in London. Louis, surnamed the Good, had no children by his first wife, the Comtesse de Clermont, and four children by his second wife, Gabrielle de la Tour. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Gilbert de Bourbon, Comte de Montpensier, Dauphin dAuvergne, Archduke of Sessa, Viceroy of the kingdom of Naples, Governor of Paris, &c, who married the daughter of the Duke of Mantua, and who died at the early age of forty-eight, leaving behind him six children. His eldest son died of grief on the tomb of his father, and so the family honours descended to his next brother, known to fame as Charles II. Charles II. married Suzanne de Bourbon, the only daughter of Pierre II. and Anne de France. He had three children, all of whom died in their infancy, o'S MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1515. while he himself was killed at Eome in 1527, at the age of thirty-eight years. With Charles II. the first branch of the Bourbon Montpensiers came to a close, and consequently that of Vend6me became the eldest branch of the House of Bourbon. Guizot, who has dwelt at some length on the career of Charles II., says that " one powerful prince re- mained in France, the last of the quasi - feudal sovereigns, and the chief of the only provincial dynasty descended from the Capets, which raised its head alongside of the royal house. There were no longer any Dukes of Burgundy, Anjou, or Brittany, and no Counts of Provence ; either by good fortune or by skill the French crown had absorbed all these parent and rival states. Charles II., Due de Bourbon, was alone invested with a power and independence which might lead to rivalry. He possessed the Bour- bonnais, Auvergne, Forez, the Marche, and the Beau- jolais, and a great number of domains and castles in various parts of France. Throughout all these posses- sions he levied taxes and troops, convoked local boards, appointed officers of justice, and disposed of nearly all the social forces. . . Born on the 10th February, 1490, four years before Francois I., and head of the younger branch of the Bourbons Mont- pensier, he married in 1515 his cousin Suzanne de Bourbon, the only daughter of Pierre II., chief of the elder Bourbon branch, and of Anne de France, the talented and long time powerful daughter of Louis XL Louis XII. had paid great attention to this 1516.] CHARLES DE BOURBON. 39 marriage, and had stipulated in the contract that — 'man and wife should mutually leave all their property to the survivor.' The young Duke Charles thus inherited all the possessions of the House of Bourbon; and he held at Moulins a princely court, of which he himself was the chief ornament. Brought up from his youth in the exercises of chivalry, he was an accomplished knight before he became an experi- enced warrior, and he no sooner appeared on the field of battle than he acquired the renown not only of a valiant prince, but of an able general. In 1509, at the battle of Agnadel, under the eyes of Louis XII. himself, he showed himself a worthy pupil of Tre- mouille, De la Palice, and of Bayard ; in 1542, at the battle of Bavenna, his reputation was so well estab- lished in the army, that when Gaston de Foix was killed, the troops demanded that Charles de Bourbon, then only twenty- two years of age, should be appointed his successor. Louis XII. rendered full justice to his courage and skill as a warrior; but the reserved character, the haughty independence, and the audacity displayed at moments by the young prince inspired the aged monarch with some uneasiness. ' I wish,' he said, 'that he was more open-hearted, more gay, and less taciturn ; I dread still water.' "In 1516, the year following the death of Louis XII., the Venetian ambassador at Milan wrote to the Council of Ten — ' This Due de Bourbon handles a sword with great dexterity ; he fears God, he is devout, humane, and liberal; he has a revenue of 40 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1517. 120,000 crowns— 20,000 through his mother-in-law, Anne de France, 2000 a month as Constable of France, and, according to M. de Longueville, Governor of Paris, he could dispose of half the king's army for any enterprise he desired to undertake, whether the king wished it or not.' " At first overwhelmed with favours by Franqois I., and after doing the State much service, Charles II. fell into disgrace, was recalled from Italy, and had his pay stopped. He retired to his princely residence of Moulins, where, as the Venetian traveller Andre Navagero said, "the dukes have constructed a mag- nificent palace in the shape of a fortress, with fine gardens, groves, fountains," &c, &c. Guizot adds — " As soon as the Constable went to reside there a large number of nobles flocked thither. A happy domestic incident shortly afterwards occurred ; in 1517 the Duchesse de Bourbon was confined of a sou, a piece of good fortune long despaired of. The Constable, highly delighted, wished the child to be baptized with great splendour ; he begged the king to stand god-father, and the Dowager Duchesse de Bourbon, Anne de France, to be god-mother. Francois I. consented, and repaired to Moulins with his mother, and nearly all his court. The magnificence of the Constable astonished the magnificent king. Five hundred gentlemen all clothed in velvet, and each wearing a chain of gold which went three times round the neck, formed the usual retinue of the duke. . . ." The Constable was present at the " Field of the 1521.] LOUISE OF SAVOY. 41 Cloth of Gold," and it was probably upon that occa- sion that our Bluff King Hal said to the French monarch — " If I had such a subject in my kingdom I would not leave his head long on his shoulders." The son of Charles de Bourbon, whose baptism had been the occasion for such magnificent festivities, died in his infancy, and was soon followed to the grave by his mother. Suzanne de Bourbon died at Chatel- lerault in April, 1521 ; and she was no sooner dead than Francois I., listening to the insidious advice of Bourbon's enemy, the Chancellor Du Pratt, deter- mined to contest the legality of her will. This gave rise to a curious adventure. The king's mother, Louise of Savoy, although forty-five years of age, was still a handsome- as well as seductive and powerful woman. As a nearer relation to Suzanne de Bourbon than the Constable, she claimed a portion of her property ; at the same time she was personally at- tached to Charles II. It was hoped that everything might be arranged by means of a matrimonial alliance, but in spite of all the efforts of Francois I., the Due de Bourbon positively refused to offer his hand to Louisa of Savoy. 1 He contemptuously declared that he would never marry a woman dead to all sense of shame. The consequence was a law-suit. The matter of the famous will was laid before parliament, which, 1 The whole history of Charles de Bourbon leads me to think, says Guizot (vol. iii. p. 46), that the feelings of Louisa of Savoy towards him, hatred or love, played a great part in the decisive incidents of his life. 42 • MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1522. after deliberating for eleven months, decided in favour of the Count. The fall and ruin of the Constable were complete. He made up his mind to leave France, and either offered his services to Charles V., or was offered aid and support by the emperor. However this may be, Charles de Bourbon served the emperor against his king and his country. Guizot says on this subject — " I am inclined to believe that Charles V., active and vigilant, was the first tempter; as soon as he heard that Bourbon was a widower he sent a message to him by Philibert Naturelli, his ambassador in France, who thus addressed him — ' Sir, you are now free to marry ; the emperor my master has a sister concerning whom I am charged to speak to you if you are inclined to listen.' This was the eldest sister of Charles V., Eleanora, widow of Manuel de Fortune, King of Portugal. Nothing came of this overture, but the year following, in 1522, war between Francois I. and Charles V. was declared, the rupture between Francois I. and Bourbon broke out, the Bourbon law-suit commenced, and Anne de France,' the daughter of Louis XL (and mother-in-law of Bourbon), died." Before dying, this extraordinary woman, more anxious about the fate of the House of Bourbon than of her country, said to her son-in-law — " My son, remember that the House of Bourbon when it was allied to the House of Burgundy was always pros- perous. You see in what a position we are with this law-suit, which is brought because we have no 1522.] HENRY VIII. 43 alliances. I beg and command you to seek the alliance of the emperor. Promise to do this with diligence, and I shall die more contented." Anne de France died in November, 1522, leaving all her pro- perty to the Constable, who followed the advice of his mother-in-law, and entered into negotiations, not only with Charles V., but with Henry VIII. of Eng- land, for the purpose of reorganizing France, " and helping the poor." Guizot relates that "in 1523 the Due de Bourbon presented himself one day before the queen when she was dining alone ; she was favour- able to him, and had wished him to marry her sister Eenee, who afterwards became Duchess of Ferrara. She asked him to sit down. Francois I., who was dining in a neighbouring room, entered. Bourbon rose to leave. ' No, stay,' said the king. ' Well, it is then true that you are going to be married ? ' ' No, sire.' ' I know all about it : I am sure of it ; I know of all your goings on with the emperor. Remember what I tell you.' ' Sire, this is a threat ? I have not deserved to be treated thus ! ' After the dinner he returned to his hotel near the Louvre. A number of gentlemen who were in the court-yard accompanied him, forming his escort. He was still a powerful vassal, whom they considered to have been unjustly persecuted." After some little time spent in negotiating by Henry VIII., Charles V., and the Due de Bourbon, who obstinately refused to recognize Henry VIII. as King of France, though willing to draw his sword 44 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1523. against Francois I., a treaty was signed between the emperor and the duke. To his messenger, St. Bonnet, the duke said — " I send you to the emperor, to whom you will say, that I recommend myself humbly to his good will, that I beg he will give me his sister in marriage, and that in doing me this honour he will make me his servant, his good brother, and friend." Bourbon was ill-paid for his treason. When Charles V. saw that he brought merely his sword and renown as a general to his standard, but neither the men nor the provinces he had promised, he altered his conduct. He refused Bourbon the hand of his sister. Desormeaux himself excuses the emperor in this matter, saying — " "Would it have been prudent to have trusted a prince who, born on the steps of the throne, had betrayed his blood and abjured his country ? Charles V. might no doubt have assured himself of his good faith if he had given him in marriage Eleanor, to whom he was affianced, but he could no longer think of binding the destiny of a princess, his sister, to a prince equally degenerate and criminal." It does not come within the province of this work to deal with the consequences of Bourbon's treachery, the defeat of the French king at Pavia by his quon- dam Constable, and his confinement at Madrid. Suffice it to say, that while Francois I. was a prisoner at Madrid he is said to have offered Bourbon the hand 1527.] QUEEN ELEANOR. 45 of his sister, Marguerite de Valois, as a pledge of recon- ciliation. However this may be, the reconciliation never took place, and shortly afterwards Bourbon, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, fell mortally wounded at the siege of Rome. Is it not strange to find the Due de Bourbon refus- ing the hand of the mother of Francois I., to find him offered, and then demanding the hand of the sister of Charles, which princess was afterwards forced upon the French king when a prisoner at Madrid ? Finally we find Francois I. offering the hand of his sister Marguerite to his rebellious subject — Marguerite destined shortly afterwards to become the wife of Henri d'Albret, King of Navarre, also captured at Pa via — Marguerite, the grandmother of Henri IV., King of France and Navarre ! In 1525 Marguerite, who had married the Due d'Alencon, was left a widow. Her husband had been unable to survive the shame of having run away at the battle of Pavia. She obtained, three months after the death of the duke, permission to go to Madrid to try and arrange matters between the emperor and her brother, who had fallen ill. There, says Guizot, she formed a sincere attachment for the Princess Eleanor, whom Charles had promised to the Due de Bourbon, and whose marriage with the king her brother Marguerite then proposed. In January, 1526, Francois I. signed the Treaty of Madrid, which almost set him free. This act accomplished, "the emperor repaired to Madrid to see the king; then 46 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1528. they went in the same litter to see the Queen Eleanor, to whom, by the said treaty, the king was to affiance himself before leaving Spain, which he did. 1 It was not, however, until 1528 that the marriage took place, as many difficulties had been raised con- cerning the execution of a treaty imposed by force — a treaty, many clauses of which were eluded by the French king. Aucto Imperio, Gallo vioto, Superata Italia, Pontifice obsesso, Eoma captS Borbonras hie jacet. Such was the epitaph which the army of Bourbon consecrated to its slaughtered chief — an epitaph which celebrated only the great things the duke had accomplished during the last three years of his life. The first Montpensier branch of the Bourbons was therefore composed of the dukes Louis, Gilbert, Charles II. 1 Memoirs of Martin de Bellay, vol. ii. p. 15. CHAPTER V. THE LA MARCHE AND VEND6ME BRANCH. Desormeaux refers to the Vendome branch as that of Bourbon-la-Marche and Bourbon Vend6me, which became the eldest branch in 1527. The head of this branch was Jacques de Bourbon, surnamed the " flower of chivalry." He was the son of that Louis I. who married Marie of Hainault, and who died in 1341. Jacques and his eldest son were both killed in 1361, at the battle of Brignais, and Jacques was conse- quently succeeded by his second son, Jean, who married Catherine de Vendome, who brought him vast estates, and gave him six children. The sixth child was Charlotte de Bourbon, who married the King of Cyprus, and who is said to have been one of the most accomplished princesses of the age. Monstrelet says of this marriage in his quaint language — " In these days was broken the truce between the kings of France and of England, but only by sea, and there was stirred up a great war by which many merchants of the said kingdoms suffered much damage. The second day of August following, Jean de Lusignan married by proxy Charlotte de 48 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1409. Bourbon, which nuptials were celebrated in the castle of Melun, in presence of the Queen of France, the Due d'Aquitaine, the King of Navarre, the Due de Berry, the Due de Bourbon, the Comtes de la March e and Clermont, Louis of Bavaria, brother of the queen, with several ladies married and unmarried, who in- dulged in very joyful sports, such as Joutes et danses, comme en solennites, boires et mangers, et autres consola- tions." We are then told that the Queen of Cyprus was — " une tres belle dame, bien ornee et conditionnee de toutes nobles et gracieuses mosurs," and that after the fete, accompanied by great lords and notable ladies, she started for Cyprus. Her husband met her at the port of Chermes, and took her to Nicosia, where great fetes were held in her honour. This was in the year 1409. According to St. Marthe, 1 the king, in spite of the necessities of the State, gave his god-daughter the sum of 600,000 crowns in gold. The king was Charles VI. Jacques de Bourbon II. in the due order of things succeeded to Jean de Bourbon I. in 1893 ; he married first Beatrice, daughter of Charles III., King of Navarre, and of Eleonora of Castile, and afterwards Jeanne II., Queen of Naples, and became king of that country. He died in 1438, leaving behind him one daughter, Eleonore, by his first wife. The life of Jacques de Bourbon II. was exceedingly chequered. As the Emperor Charles V. did a century later, three years before his death he became a 1 History of the House of France, t. ii. p. 102. Ui6.] THE HOUSE OF BEAUVAU. 49 monk, and shut himself up in a monastery at Besancon. Louis de Bourbon, Comte de Vend6me, succeeded his brother Jacques in 1438. He married first Blanche de Boucy, and second Jeanne de Laval. By his second wife he left two children, Jean and Gabrielle, who died unmarried. Louis was the founder of the Bourbon- Vend6me branch. Jean de Bourbon II. succeeded his father in 1446. He married Isabelle de Beauvau. With respect to this marriage Desormeaux says — " It will be seen that all the crowned heads of Europe descend by this marriage from the House of Beauvau, one of the most ancient and distinguished in the kingdom " (torn. i. p. 50). And — "the branch of Vendome, called to such high destinies, was ushered in by wisdom, honour, disinterestedness, and worth. People saw the grace, the affability, and the courage of his ancestors revived in the person of Jean II. After having distinguished himself in the wars against the English, this prince married Isabelle de Beauvau, who brought him the rich domains of Roche-sur-Yon and Champigny. It is to this virtuous and fortunate couple that was uniquely reserved the glory of per- petuating the most august race in the universe ; it is from them that descend those generations of kings and heroes whose brilliancy eclipses the splendour of the most famous names in history." Eight children were the fruit of this marriage. The third daughter, Jeanne, celebrated for her beauty, VOL. I. 50 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1477. married first Jean II., Due de Bourbon, the " Scourge of the English ; " second, Jean, first Comte d'Auvergne ; third, to the mortification of her family, Francois Baron de la Garde. This was considered a mesalliance. Francois de Bourbon succeeded his father in 1477 ; he married the eldest daughter and chief heiress of Pierre de Luxembourg, widow of James of Savoy. This princess brought immense wealth into the House of Bourbon, and was accounted one of the most accomplished women of her age. This matrimonial alliance was brought about by the King Charles VIII. , who was the cousin-german of the bride. According to Vignier's History of the House of Luxembourg, " The Princess Marie, grand-daughter of the famous Constable de St. Paul, left a widow in the flower of her age and all the splendour of her beauty, possessed nothing but the property of her house situated in the Low Countries ; the rich domains which the Constable had owned in France had been confiscated and shared among the courtiers ; it is true that Louis XL had promised in an article of the Treaty of Arras to restore these domains to his heirs, but that monarch, who seldom kept his word, did not fulfil his engagements. As soon as Charles VIII. had arranged the marriage between the Comte de Vendome (afterwards Due de Bourbon) and Marie de Luxembourg, he gave up all that remained of the spoils of the Constable." It is very much to the credit of the nobility of the period that most of the nobles who had received portions of the property legally belonging to the H95.] THE DUKES OF GUISES. 51 House of Luxembourg hastened to imitate the example of the French king. As to the few nobles who refused to disgorge, an Act of Parliament very soon deprived them of the gifts they had received from Louis XI. Francois de Bourbon fell in 1495, at the early age of twenty-seven, in Italy, where five other members of his family in the course of thirty years perished before him. He left behind him three sons and two daughters. His wife survived him for fifty-one years, earning by her virtue and charity the title of " the mother and nurse of the poor." His second daughter, Antoinette, married Claude de Lorraine, Due de Guise, from which marriage descended the Dukes of Guise, so famous in French history, and who became the rivals of the Bourbons. Charles de Bourbon, born in 1489, succeeded his father. He married Frangoise dAlengon, daughter of the Due dAlengon and of Marguerite de Lorraine, widow of Frangois d' Orleans. His eldest son, Louis, died at the age of two years ; his second son, Antoine, became King of Navarre, &c. ; his third son, Frangois, considered one of the heroes of the age, was killed by an accident when twenty-six years old ; his fourth son, Louis, died at the age of three years ; his fifth son, Charles, became a cardinal, and was declared king by the members of the League, under the title of Charles X., to the prejudice of his nephew, Henri IV. The cardinal left a natural son, who was very kindly treated by " the lad of Navarre." 52 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1508. The sixth son, Jean, was a warrior like Francois, and fell at the early age of twenty-nine at the battle of St. Quentin; the seventh son, Louis, founded the branches of Conde, Conti, and Soissons. After these seven sons came six daughters — Marie, engaged to James V. of Scotland, and Marguerite, who married the Due de Nevers. The remaining four daughters devoted themselves to religion, and became abbesses. On the death of Charles II., the treasonable Con- stable, in 1527, Charles III. had become head of the House of Bourbon, which soon recovered its wealth and splendour. St. Marthe tells us that the children of Charles III. and his brothers found a father rather than a king in the person of Francois I. His eldest son, Antoine, inherited • at the age of nineteen the pensions and governments of his father ; the Comte d'Enghien, his second son, while still almost a child, was appointed Governor of Hainault, of Luxembourg, &c. ; and when this young prince fell in the midst of his triumphs the king wept for him as he had wept for the Dauphin and for the Duke of Orleans. The king adopted Marie de Bourbon, and wished to place her on the throne of Scotland. He greatly regretted that this marriage did not take place. The brothers of Charles de Bourbon were not less well treated. CHAPTER VI. SCOTCH MARRIAGES. With regard to Marie de Bourbon, who was affianced to James V. of Scotland, Du Bellay says that she was adopted by Francois I., who gave her a dowry as if she had been one of the king's daughters. It was pro- posed to send her over to Scotland as soon as the campaign was over ; the delay was fatal. It having been reported in Scotland, as well as in the rest of Europe, that Charles V. was making formidable pre- parations against France, James Y. raised an army of 16,000 men and sailed to the aid of his ally ; he was three times prevented from landing his troops by contrary winds, but he himself managed to get ashore at Dieppe, and he was hurrying to serve the French king as a knight when he learned the failure of Charles V. He continued his journey to embrace and congratulate Francois. We are then told how deeply the French monarch felt this generous action, and in fact he received the King of Scotland with so much affection that the fickle James, forgetting the Princess de Vend6me, demanded from Francois the hand of Madame 54 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1534. Madeleine de France, whose beauty, grace, and rank flattered him more. The king was both surprised and embarrassed ; it was he who had proposed the marriage with Marie de Bourbon (Princesse de Ven- d6me), to break it off would be to plunge a dagger into the heart of the daughter and of the father who had rendered him such great service ; besides, this sound policy was opposed to a close alliance with the King of Scotland, the natural enemy of Henry VIIL, whom it would have been contrary to the interest of France to offend. " These reasons," says Desormeaux, " should have made Francois hesitate, but that monarch, who was accustomed to act upon his first impulse, could not resist the entreaties of the young King of Scotland ; the Princesse de Vendome was sacrificed ; James V. left the court in triumph, carrying away with him his illustrious conquest. His happiness vanished like a dream ; the young queen died before the year was over. The princess who had been forsaken soon followed her to the tomb — the victim, perhaps, of regret at seeing the throne and the husband destined for her given to another." * We may thus briefly relate the negotiations which took place on the subject of the Scotch alliance. Buchanan in his History of Scotland, Book xiv., says that the Duke of Albany, then Eegent, when he renewed the Ancient League between the Scotch and French at Rouen, had one article inserted, that James 1 How much truth is contained in the above statements 1 1535.] THE THREE MARIES. 55 should marry Francis I.'s eldest daughter. But there were two impediments in the way — " Francois I., de- livered from the Spaniard by Henry VIII. , had entered into a strict alliance with the English, and besides, the eldest daughter of Francois I. was deceased a while before ; and therefore James desired Madeleine his next daughter to wife, and sent ambassadors over for that purpose ; but her father excused the matter, alleging that his daughter was of so weak a constitution that' there were but little hopes of children by her." In fact, Francois I. thought that in the event of his daughter having no children James would be less his friend after than before his marriage. " About the same time," continues Buchanan, " there was an alliance treated of with Charles the emperor by ambassadors ; and at length, the 24th day of April, 1534, the emperor sent Godscalk Erecus (or Errigo) that the matter might be carried with greater secresy, from Toledo in Spain, through Ireland, to James." Drummond in his History of Scotland thus de- scribes what passed — " The emperor by his ambassador expostulating the wrongs of his aunt (Katherine of Arragon, just divorced by Henry VIII. ). ... To make more lasting the emperor's friendship with King James, he (if he pleased) would make him an offer and give him the choice of three ladies — three Maries, all of the Im- perial stem : Mary of Austria, the emperor's sister, the widow of Louis, King of Hungary ; Mary of Por- tugal, the daughter of his sister Eleanora ; Mary of 56 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1535. England, the daughter of Katherine and Henry — and would undertake the performance of this last, either by consent of her father, or by main force . . ." James, in reply, said that " the ladies were every one in the superlative worthy, especially Mary of England," but that " to ravish her out of the hands of her father would be, besides the danger of the enterprise, a breach of divine and human laws." He added that — " It was not safe for Paris that he pre- ferred one of the two goddesses to the other two ; . . that there remained a fourth lady near in blood to the emperor, Isabella, daughter of Christian, King of Denmark, and the emperor's own sister Isabella." As regards this fourth lady, Errigo replied that she had been promised to the Count Palatine. The historian then tells us that — : " King James, not having lost all hopes of his uncle (Henry VIII.) , directeth the Lord Erskine to England to acquaint him with the emperor's and pope's embassages, and to take his counsel about a marriage with the Duke of Venclome's daughter, whom the French king had offered to him, his own daughter being weak and sickly. Buchanan, who doubted the sincerity of Csesar, says that " the same month of August, when Francis had excused his daughter's marriage on account of her health, but withal had offered him any other of the blood royal, the king sent ambassadors into France, James, Earl of Murray, viceroy of the king, and William Stuart, Bishop of Aberdeen (these two went 1535.] MARIE DE BOURBON. 57 by sea), and John Erskine by land, because he had some commands to deliver to Henry of England on the way ; to them he added a fourth person, i. e. Eobert Reid, a good man and of consummate wisdom. There Mary of Bourbon, the daughter of Charles, Duke of Vend6me, a lady of the blood, was offered to them as a fit wife for their king. Other points were easily agreed upon ; but the ambassadors, fearing that this marriage would not please their master, would make no espousal until they had acquainted him with it." In Pinkerton's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 335, we find it stated that — " The ambassadors of James in France concluded a marriage with Marie de Bour- bon, daughter of the Duke of Vend6me, in conse- quence of a power from James, dated at Stirling the 29th of the preceding December (1535). This nuptial treaty was solemnly signed by Francis and by Albany, then on a bed of sickness, and it is believed of death." A note runs thus — "Leagues France and Scotland, MS. Harl. 1244, sub annis. The instrument bears that, as Albany was sick, the notaries had it carried to his house." Buchanan afterwards describes how Henry " troubled the matter which was on the point of concluding," sent James some religious books, offered him his daughter Mary, to leave him king of all Britain after his decease, and for the present to make him Duke of York and Viceroy of England. Having referred these matters to his counsellors 58 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1533. the books were pronounced heretical, and the matri- monial scheme met with many objections. It was urged that Mary would not be marriageable for many years, that Henry did not really wish his daughter to marry, &c. The consequence was, that James, impatient to be married, determined to go to France and see Marie de Bourbon with his own eyes. He set sail on the 26th July, and after being much tossed about and driven back into harbour, did not reach Dieppe until the 10th Sept. He immediately started for Vend6me incognito, where he saw his intended. Drummond, p. 311, says James found Marie de Bourbon "very beautiful and eminent in all princely excellences, but bethinking how he having the choice of three princesses, all daughters of kings, if he should fix his affections on this lady at the first interview, he should be obnoxious to the indignation of the other, he returned to Rouen." Other authorities, such as Buchanan, Pinkerton, Sir Walter Scott, and several French writers, say that James was displeased with the personal appearance of Marie de Bourbon, and Lindsay gives the following description of the visit which His Majesty paid to the lady, without, however, saying why the match was broken off. " But the King of Scotland would not show him- self openly at that time, but disguised himself as he had been a servant, thinking he should not be known, neither to the duke, nor to his wife, or 1535.] KING JAMES. 59 .ike gentlewoman who should have been his spouse ; thinking that he should spy their fairness and be- haviour, and be unknown of her and her father. Yet, notwithstanding, the fair lady took suspicion that the King of Scotland should be in that company ; wherefore she passed to her coffer, and took forth his picture, which she had gotten from Scotland by a secret moyen ; then she knew the king incontinent, where he stood among the rest of the company, and passed pertly to him, and took him by the hand, and said, ' Sir, you stand far aside ; therefore, if it please your grace to talk with my father, or me, as you think for the present, a while for your pleasure, you may if you will.' " The king hearing this was a little ashamed that he had disguised himself to be unknown, and syne was so hastily known by the moyen of that gentle- women, that he passed to the Duke of Vendome, and took him in his arms, and the duke again made him due reverence, who was greatly rejoiced at the king's coming; and so were all the rest of the duke's company. And then the king passed to the duchess, and embraced and kissed her, and so did he to the duchess's daughter, and to all the rest of the ladies ; and syne excused him, why he was so long unknown to them, desiring their pardon therefore. But he was soon forgiven, and brought unto their favour. Then there was nothing but merriness, banqueting, great cheer, music, and playing on instruments, playing melodiously, with galliard, dancing in masks, 60 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1535. and pretty farces and plays — all were made unto the King of Scotland ; and all other pastime, as justing and running of great horse, with all other pleasure that could be devised." James V. once more demanded the hand of the Princess Madeleine, and Francois I., after trying in vain to persuade him to accept her younger sister Margaret, who afterwards married the Duke of Savoy, gave a reluctant consent. The marriage took place on the 25th November in presence of the French king, the King of Navarre, seven cardinals, and a great many dukes and barons. Pinkerton says, that " on the same day James was to have given away the daughter of the Duke of Vend6me, his once intended bride, to the Comte de Beauvais." But in his description of the marriage of James he says never a word of Marie de Bourbon and the Count. Francois I. was right as regards his daughter Made- leine, for she died forty days after landing in Scotland, where she had been received with great enthusiasm. Drummond says that this unfortunate queen " was buried with the greatest mourning that Scotland ever till that time was participant of ; " adding that, " these last honours to the dead queen and funeral pomp finished, the king, desirous of succession, hath yet his thoughts wandering to France. Mary of Bourbon, being frustrate of her Royal hopes, had not only turned religious (gone into a convent), but was dead of displeasure." James could not, there- fore, have gone back to her had he felt so inclined ; 1537.] MARIE OF LORRAINE. 61 he consequently married Marie de Guise, the widow of the Due de Longueville, who in due time gave birth to two sons, who died, and to a daughter, who was destined to lose her head on the block. Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England contains the following curious page on the subject of the matrimonial designs of Henry VIII. before his marriage with Anne of Cleves. "Francis L, when Henry requested to be permitted to choose a lady of the royal blood of France for his queen, replied ' that there was not a damsel of any degree in his dominions who should not be at his disposal.' Henry took this compliment so literally that he required the French monarch to bring the fairest ladies of his Court to Calais for him to take his choice. The gallantry of Francis was shocked at such an idea, and he replied ' that it was impossible to brins; ladies of noble blood to market as horses were trotted out at a fair ! ' " Chatillon, the French ambassador, gave Francois I. a lively account of the pertinacious manner in which Henry insisted on marrying the beautiful Marie of Lorraine, duchess dowager of Longueville, who was betrothed to his nephew, James V. of Scotland, February 11th, 1537. "He is," says his Excellency, "so in love with Madame de Longueville, that he is always recurring to it. I have told him that she is engaged to the King of Scotland, but he does not give credit to it. I asked him if he would marry the wife of another, and he said he knew that she 62 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1537. had not passed her word yet, and that he will do twice as much for you as the King of Scots can. He says your daughter is too young, and as to Made- moiselle Vend6me, he will not take the refusings of that king." . . In the succeeding month he still importuned for Madame Longueville. The ambassador proposed her handsome sister, or Mademoiselle Ven- dome. Henry demanded that they should be brought to Calais for his inspection. Chatillon says that would not be possible, but his Majesty could send some one to look at them. " Pardie," replied Henry, " how can I depend upon any one but myself ? " And yet Henry depended upon others when nego- tiating for an alliance with Anne of Cleves. It is true that be regretted his confidence, and revenged himself on those who abused it. Perhaps his daughter Elizabeth may have remembered this when asked to bestow her hand on the Due d'Anjou. The duke had to come over to the Court of St. James's for inspection. In the year 1536 we find, that of the thirteen children born to Charles de Bourbon and Francoise d'Alencon, only five survived — first, Antoine de Bourbon, King of Navarre ; second, Francjois, Comte d'Enghien ; third, Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon, proclaimed king under the League ; fourth, Jean, killed at the battle of St. Quentin; fifth, Louis, Prince de Conde. The eldest and youngest alone had posterity. From Antoine, Boi de Navarre is descended, " the illustrious race which fills and 1537.] THE DUC BE VENDOME. 63 honours the thrones of France, Spain, Naples, and Parma ; the Orleans branch also descends from it. From Louis, Prince de Condd, descend the military- houses of Conde and Conti. "Therefore," observes Desormeaux, " all the princes who to-day bear the name of Bourbon, have for common ancestor Charles, Due de Vendome, surnamed the Magnanimous." And the same author adds, " This prince paid the tribute to human frailty." He left an illegitimate son by a Dutch lady. This son married, and left children, but the posterity was extinct in 1772. The La Marche Vendome branch, therefore, con- sisted of Jacques I., Jean de Bourbon I., Jacques II., Louis, Jean de Bourbon II., Francois, Charles III., Antoine. And this brings us down to King Henri of Navarre, who became Henri IV. of France. With regard to the Scotch marriages, to which we have referred, we may append a few letters taken from the State Papers. The Pbivy Council to Wotton. "May, 1545. " . . His Majestie 1 cannot but think that there is sum what eles in his 2 tarying there . . . and that there is sum speciall amitye be- tween the Emperour and the Scottes ; for, whereas it hath ben sayde there, in hugger mother, that the sayd ambassadour shuld treate a manage between the Princes of Scotlande and one of Kinge Ferdinandes sonnes. His Majestie is informed out of Scotlande that great practise is made between them and the Emperor." The English monarch at this period, just back from Boulogne, entertained serious and well-founded 1 Henry VIII. 2 The Scotch ambassador. 61 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1545. suspicions with regard to the intentions of his dear nephew and ally, Charles V., who made peace with the French at Cressy. Gardtner to Paget. " Bruges, 4th Nov., 1545. " . . . . Chapins told me a gret long communication bytwen hym and thEmperour, and noted unto me howe lusty thEmperour is wowe. . , But tellyng me of his lustyness, he said therewith he had gret communication with Hym of my Lady Mary, and that he made thEmperours mouth water at it. . ." Charles V. had been betrothed to Mary of England when he was twenty-three and when she was six years old ; but when Mary was disinherited 1 the engagement was broken off by Charles V. When the above letter was written the Emperor was forty-five years of age. When he was fifty-three he wrote to Mary saying that he was too old himself, and asking her to marry his son Philip. This marriage took place the following year, that is to say, in 1554. It was in 1545 that Philip lost his first wife, the daughter of the King of Portugal, the most wealthy monarch in Europe. The Privy Council to Gardtner. " Uth Nov., 1545. " . ... Touching the mariages whereunto it semeth that thEmperour and his son for their own persons haue no gret hast, His Majeste is pleased to passe over those two, and yet His Highness doth sum what marvell of there sayeng that the Prince of Spayn is so ill affected to manage, seeing it is in so many wayes reported that they have entred a talke with Fraunce for the mariage of the French Kinges doughter, being a person not so well favord as wer 1 When Henry VIII. divorced Catherine of Arragon. 1545.] QUEEN MARY. 65 necessary for the weake courage of the Prince of Spayn. . . His Majeste would that you shuld fisshe out asmoche as ye may of these doings touching that mariage with Fraunce. And because they seme very desirous and haue used meanos to persude the mariage betwene my Lord Princes Grace (afterwards Edward VI.) and one of the King of the Eomayns Doughters. . . His Majeste who is contented to make her his own doughter lyketh thoffer very well. . . ." Gardyner to King Henry VIII. " Pleaseth it Your Most Excellent Majeste to understand that accordyng to Your Highness pleasour I have laboured to atteyne knowledge and find thEmperour doth neither for himself embrace the mariage of my Lady Mary nor accepte the offre of my Lady Elizabeth for hys son the Prince of Spayn The last day of Nov., 1545." Exactly twenty years before the above date the Emperor, as we have observed, had broken off his early engagement with Mary. Sir John Masonb to Council. "Poissy, 26th August, 1550. ". . . . His Majesty [the French King] expressed his regret and would issue orders for the prevention of such quarrels in future. Confidentially informed him of a design by the Emperor and Lady Regent to send Skipperus to the English coast to carry away the Lady Mary and of the Emperor's hatred of England. . . .' The Lady Regent being the widow of James V. and the Lady Mary, afterwards Queen Mary who was hampered in her devotions as a Catholic. " Greenwich, May 20th, 1551. " 351. . . Instructions from King Edward VI. to the Marquis of Northampton, &c, proceeding to France to invest Henry II. with the Order of the Garter— to demand the Queen of Scots in marriage with the King of England ; and in the event of that being refused, to solicit the hand of the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of the French monarch," &c. VOL. I. F 66 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1551. " 29th May, 1551. " 370. ... If the marriage of the King of England with the French king's daughter goes forward it is thought that the Pope will excommunicate both. . ." Hume in his History of the House of Tudor 1 says, that on peace being concluded with France in 1550, " an agreement was formed for a marriage between Edward and Elizabeth, a daughter of France, and all the articles after a little negotiation were fully settled. But this project never took effect." In fact, Elizabeth de Valois married Philip II. in 1559. 1 Vol. i. p. 330. CHAPTER VII. THE YOUNGER BRANCHES. There were many other branches of the Bourbons. Of the Conors, who descend from Louis de Bourbom the seventh son of Charles III., of the Contis, who descend from Armand de Bourbon, the fifth son of Henri II. , and of the Soissons branch, which descends from the ninth son of Louis de Bourbon I., we shall speak hereafter. Desormeaux, in addition to the above, gives us the geology of the following branches, legitimate and illegitimate — the second Montpensier, Carency, Duisant, Le Preaux, Du Maine, Toulouse, Vend6m,e, Lavedau, Malause, Busset, and Ligny. Concerning these we shall merely here remark, that the second Montpensier branch is descended from Jean de Bourbon and Isabelle de Beauvau ; the Carency branch from the third son of Jean de Bourbon I. ; the Busset branch from Louis de Bourbon, Bishop of Liege (assassinated by the Wild Boar of the Ardennes), who, before taking orders, had a natural son by a princess of the House of Gueldres. Philippe de Bourbon- Busset, who was slain at the battle of St. 68 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1551. Quentin, married Louise, the only daughter of Caesar Borgia. And Louis de Bourbon-Busset, born in 1672, married, says Desormeaux, the daughter of the Marquis de Thoix and Henriette-Mauricette de Pennancoet de Ke'roualle, Comtesse de Pembrock. Henriette-Mauricette, who first married the Earl of Pembroke, was the sister of the celebrated Louise de Querouailles, the mistress of Charles II., who was created Duchess of Portsmouth by the English and Duchesse d'Aubigny by the French monarch. Her name, spelt Querouailles by Macaulay, and Keroualle by Desormeaux, appears in the IAvre de Noblesse as Kerouazle. In England she used to be called Madam Carwell. We may also mention among the illegitimate branches the Malause Bourbons, who appear to have been Calvinists. One of these, known as the Comte de Bourbon, died in London in 1732, a Lt. -General, while Louis de Bourbon-Malause, who served in the bodyguard of "William III., was killed at the battle of the Boyne. Guy Henri served under Turenne, abjured Calvinism in 1678, — ten years later than Turenne did, — and died in 1706. CHAPTER VIII. THE MARRIAGE OF JEANNE D'ALBRET. So important an event as the marriage of Jeanne d'Albret calls for special attention. Mdlle. de Vau- villiers and Theodore Muret in France, and Miss Feer in England, are among the authors who have already written the life of that princess ; while the Baron de Ruble, who has devoted a separate work to her marriage, is now engaged on her history, which it is said will extend over eight in octavo volumes, three of which have been completed. We shall first of all say a few words of Navarre, which its historian, Favin, calls the most ancient kingdom in Christendom. It sprang into existence in the eighth century, when Garcia Ximenes became its ruler, and it acquired goodly proportions. The monarchy appears to have been both elective and hereditary — that is to say, the people elected their sovereign, who was succeeded by the heirs male and female of his body. In default of any direct heir there was an election. The sovereign had to depend for his civil list on voluntary contributions ; taxes were levied by the 70 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1528 Parliament, which could be summoned, but not dissolved, by the sovereign. The last male of the line of De Foix was Francis, or Phoebus, as he was nicknamed, owing to his sunny, or golden hair. When he died the crown went to his only sister Catherine, and she had hardly ascended the throne when . the courts of Paris and Madrid began to indulge in intrigues of every description with the view of obtaining her hand. The kingdom then consisted of Upper and Lower Navarre and the sovereignty of Beam. It stood at once in France and in Spain. Both France and Spain proposed candidates, or husbands. Parliament was summoned to decide this grave matrimonial question. As the object of Spain was to conquer the country, and the object of France to maintain its independence, the propositions of the former were rejected nem con. The successful suitor for the hand of Catherine de Foix was Jean d'Albret, one of the most illustrious nobles in France, allied not only to the royal family of France, but to the ancient kings of Navarre. The marriage was celebrated in 1484, and gave deep offence to Spain. Jean turned oat a weak and incapable sovereign. In 1512 Ferdinand V. of Spain asked the King of Navarre to allow him to march an army through his. states in order to fall upon Guyenne, in conjunction with Henry VIII. of England. He was well aware that this permission would be refused, and that the King and Queen of Navarre, through policy, if 1528.] JEAN D'ALBRET. 71 through nothing else, would remain faithful to the French King, Louis XII. Ferdinand had a powerful ally in the Pope, whose authority had been resisted in Navarre, and who was bent on exacting summary revenge. Favin says, " That the kings of Castile had long watched a favourable moment for seizing on that kingdom, and extending their dominion to the Pyrenees. An opportunity was found by Ferdinand V., who, a Papal bull in his hand which excommuni- cated Jean d'Albret and Catherine de Foix, made himself master of Upper Navarre in the course of a week, and entered Pampeluna in triumph. The King and Queen of Navarre managed with great difficulty to effect their escape. Ferdinand attempted to lay hands on Lower Navarre also, but the resistance offered was too stubborn, and in addition to this the King of France, in whose cause Jean d'Albret and his wife had suffered, interfered. A truce was con- cluded. The King of Navarre kept Lower and the King of Spain Upper Navarre. Jean had to content himself with summoning his powerful enemy to appear before the tribunal of the king of kings to •answer for his misdeeds. Needless to say that Ferdinand, who had acted on the authority of the Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth, disregarded this sum. mons and kept Upper Navarre, which was destined for many a long year to be a terrible bone of conten- tion, and the cause of endless intrigues. Jean died, and was shortly afterwards followed to the grave by Catherine, whose end is said to have 72 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1528. been hastened by the grief she experienced because the emperor refused to restore Upper Navarre as he had promised. She was succeeded by her son, Henri d'Albret, who was born in 1503, and who afterwards married Marguerite of France, the sister of Fraucois I., thus strengthening, or seemingly so, the connection between France and Navarre. We shall pass very rapidly over the early years of Jeanne d'Albret, which do not much concern us here. She was born on the 7th January, 1528, at the castle of Pau, now celebrated as the birth-place of her son. She was the daughter of Henri d'Albret and of Marguerite d'Angouleme, the sister of Fran- cois I. She was reared as a princess of the blood royal of France at Longray, Blois, and Alengon, and was of delicate health, giving much anxiety to her mother. One Nicholas Bourbon, represented as a Latin poet, an obscure and heavy grammarian, but an honest writer, who had frequent quarrels with the Sorbonne, and was more than once thrown into prison, was chosen as her tutor. Nicholas Bourbon seems to have instructed his pupil while amusing her. She is said to have been fond of the games suitable to her age, to have had " a parrot, a squirrel, a dancing-master, and a little girl called Francois to keep her company." She also owned "six turkey- hens and six turkey-cocks, the first seen in France," to which she was much attached. She was of an imperious character, and often beat poor Francois. 1530.] JEAN DALBRET. 73 Clement Marot has described in verse the education of Jeanne d'Albret. Two years after the birth of Jeanne there was a son born to the King and Queen of Navarre, but he died in infancy. The royal pair had no further male issue, and Jeanne was soon looked upon as an heiress whose marriage would have a great political interest, owing not to the size or wealth of Navarre, but to its position between France and Spain. It was what is now termed a "buffer state." In 1512 there was a quarrel between Louis XII. and the Pope. Ferdinand the Catholic pronounced in favour of Jules II., declared war against France, and asked the King of Navarre to give him per- mission to march through his states. Jean d'Albret having refused this request, the Spaniards besieged Pampeluna, drove his Majesty across the Pyrenees, and took forcible possession of the greater portion of his kingdom. Navarre, or rather Upper Navarre, was taken over by the Spaniards in the interest of the Holy League directed against France. Charles V., on succeeding his father, is said to have experienced some qualms of conscience with regard to this act of spoliation ; but he attempted to justify it on the pretence that it had been accomplished in accordance with a papal bull. This papal bull, however, was apocryphal, and of this fact Charles V. was well aware. However this may have been, the emperor determined to compensate Henri d'Albret, the son and successor of Jean, or to 74 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1512. restore Navarre. But there existed a third means of repairing the injustice which had been done. Henri d'Albret had a daughter and Charles V. a son ; the Infant (afterwards Philip II.) might marry the Princess Jeanne, and by this alliance the two crowns would be united. The emperor himself wrote that this would be the best way " to pacify and extinguish the Navarre quarrel," and to prevent a great and costly war. The princes of Bearn, who remained the faithful allies of France, had reaped little but ingratitude from the Valois line. We have seen how the French alliance had cost the province of Pampeluna to Jean d'Albret in 1512. In 1524 Henri d'Albret accompanied Francois I. to Italy, was taken prisoner with that monarch at the battle of Pavia, and with great difficulty made his escape ; and yet in the Treaty of Madrid Francois I. completely abandoned his ally, promised to try and persuade him to renounce his rights to Navarre, and in case of refusal to give him no aid directly nor indirectly against the emperor. There is, however, this much to be said, the French king was a prisoner, and had no intention of observing a treaty wrung from him by force. In 1527 — that is to say, three years after the battle of Pavia — Henri d'Albret married Marguerite of France, the sister of Francois I., and Marguerite did what she could to urge her brother to aid in the recovery of Navarre. But Francois I. had other designs, and then Charles V. held two of his 1527.] THE KING OF NAVARRE. 75 sons hostages at Madrid. In 1530 these two princes were sent back to France ; but even then the French king did nothing for his old comrade of Pavia, who had become his brother-in-law, and the consequence was a considerable amount of coolness between the monarchs. In 1535 troubles arose with regard to the duchy of Milan, and a new war between the French king atid the emperor seemed almost inevitable. At this juncture both parties accepted the mediation of Henri d'Albret, who hoped that, in the event of bringing about a durable peace, he would be recompensed with the restitution of Navarre — an illusion which Charles V. took care not to destroy. In 1537 Francois I. deemed that the hour was propitious for smiting his powerful enemy. The propositions which Henri d'Albret had made on be- half of the emperor were rejected. A week later, however, came a complete change. The King of Navarre was summoned to Chantilly, where he found his brother-in-law much dejected. The Sultan Soli- man had not moved as he had promised ; Florence, where troubles had been carefully fomented, had calmed down, and Henry VIII. had shown himself hostile to France. What passed then is described in these terms by Baron de Euble — " However, Francois I. could not make up his mind in favour of peace ; he put off giving the King of Navarre a definite answer until the next day. He spoke to him in the most friendly 76 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1537. way of their old alliance, and of his desire to cement it afresh by a marriage between Jeanne d'Albret and a French prince. The next day, early in the morn- ing, the king suddenly left Chantilly without seeing the King of Navarre, as if to escape the necessity of giving a reply. A few days afterwards the King of Navarre received at Paris a verbal message from Francois L, with conditions which rendered peace impossible. Much displeased, he wrote directly to the emperor, gave an account of what had happened at Chantilly and Paris, the bad faith of Francois I., and suggested a marriage between his daughter and the Infant Philip. ' If this project be admitted,' he added, ' we may keep it secret, and pretend to be busy over a marriage between the princess and Henri de Foix, Comte de Cominges, related to the House of d'Albret, which would permit her father to take her to Beam,' a precaution which shows that Henri D'Albret was not absolutely free to dispose of the hand of his daughter. " Thus the King of Navarre of himself entered into the projects of the emperor. Charles V., how- ever, disguised his satisfaction. After having dis- cussed these propositions in council he drew up the following instructions — ' Humour the Prince and Princess d'Albret, and pursue negotiations with them ; especially those concerning the projected marriage ; evasively advise them to withdraw their daughter from ■ the hands of the King of France.' " The emperor would no doubt have played a bolder 1538.] TEN YEARS' TRUCE. 77 game had he not still dreaded an alliance between Frangois and Soliman. A good deal of intrigue followed. At one moment Frangois I. almost per- suaded his brother-in-law to assume the command of a force destined to invade Spain, and to aid in the restoration of his lost territory. But just as he was about to accept the offer, he learned that Frangois I. had in reality no idea of undertaking hostilities, and that his sole object was to embroil him with the emperor. At the beginning of 1538 the Pope, Paul III., undertook to play the part of mediator, in which Henri d'Albret had failed the preceding year. The result was that Charles V. and Frangois I. repaired to Nice, where they signed a truce of ten years without seeing each other. An interview, however, took place between the two sovereigns a few days later at Aigues-Mortes, from the 14th to the 17th July ; but the only ques- tion concerning Jean dAlbret which seems to have been discussed at or shortly after this meeting, was brought forward by the Queen of France, Eleanor of Castile, the sister of Charles V. She proposed the marriage of Jeanne with Maximilian, the son of Ferdinand, the King of the Romans and of Hungary, and own nephew of Charles V. This match was by no means to the taste of the French king, or to the House of Albret, who could not of course foresee that Maximilian would inherit the imperial throne in 1564. The Spanish ambassador, when he communicated 78 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1538. this proposition to Lis master, pointed out the preference shown by the King of Navarre for the Infant Philip. Baron de Ruble here remarks, that " Francois I. had foreseen the difficulties which the marriage of his niece would cause to his policy. The Imperial ambassadors often insinuated in their letters that the King and Queen of Navarre were not absolutely free to dispose of the hand of their daughter. The best means of placing this heiress beyond the reach of competition was to marry her ; but at the date of the truce of Nice there was no ' son of France ' whose hand could be disposed of. The Dauphin, whom Marguerite had wished to obtain for her daughter, had died suddenly in 1536, in consequence of drinking a glass of iced water after playing at tennis. The king's second son, afterwards Henri II., had married the Pope's niece, Catherine de Medicis. The third son, who took the name of the Due d'Orleans after the death of his eldest brother, was still free, and the Venetian ambassador, Marino Giustiniano, says that his marriage with Jeanne was much spoken of at Court about 1535 ; but Francois I. then aimed at some higher alliance ; he demanded for his son a daughter of the King of England, or a daughter of the emperor, with the duchy of Milan for dowry. He proposed to the King of Navarre Antoine de Vendome, the eldest son of the Due de Bourbon, and the next heir to the throne after Valois line." This proposition in no way suited their Majesties. 1538.] ANTOINE DE BOURBON. 79 of Navarre. Arttoine de Bourbon, who succeeded his father in 1537, at the age of nineteen, and inherited all the family property, honours, and appointments, had a taste for luxury and dissipation which was not at all in keeping with the staid and frugal character of the little court of Beam. These matrimonial schemes were dragging languidly along when Francois I. was informed of the negotiations going on between Henri d'Albret and Charles V. He at once deter- mined to do all in his power to prevent Jeanne from passing over to the enemy. We must return for a moment to Paul III. and the truce of Nice. The Pope used all the influence of his high position to induce Charles and Francis to con- clude a lasting peace instead of that truce for ten years which was destined to last only four. At an advanced age he left Rome, in order to urge his views personally on the rival monarchs, but without success. According to the State Memoirs of Ribier, the pontiff would have been consoled for the failure of his efforts if, as he ardently desired, he could have " mingled his blood " with that of France. " Struck with the rank, reputation, and grace of the Due de Vendome (after- wards Antoine de Bourbon), who accompanied the French king, he wished to have that prince for his son-in-law, and proposed to Francis that the duke should marry Vittoria Farnesa, his grand-daughter ; these pretentions were authorized by the example of Catherine de Medicis, who had had the honour of marrying the heir to the French crown. Francis, 80 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1538. who thought that he then stood in need of the friend- ship of the venerable pontiff, appeared to favour this alliance at first, but on his return to France he changed his mind ; in place of the Due de Vendome, whom he destined as the husband of his own daughter Marguerite (in default of a crowned head), he offered the Pope first the Comte d'Enghien, Vendome's brother, then the Comte d'Aumale, of the House of Lorraine, who became so celebrated afterwards as the Due de Guise. Paul III. would not consent to the change." And, in fact, all these matrimonial schemes fell through ; the Due de Vendome married neither Vittoria Farnesa nor Marguerite de France ; the Comte d'Enghien died unmarried ; and the Due de Guise married, as we have seen, Antoinette de Bourbon, the aunt of the Due Antoine de Bourbon. It was reserved for Antoine to marry Jeanne d'Albret, and through this marriage to become King of Navarre. Once determined that Jeanne should not pass over to the enemy, the French king acted with vigour. He took her away from the castle of Alencon, and sent her to the old feudal manoir of Plessis les Tours, a strongly fortified place, rendered doubly gloomy by its high walls, its deep ditch, and barred windows, and the memories of that despotic old monarch whose portrait has been so graphically traced by Sir Walter Scott in his Quentin Durward. This arbitrary act was committed without Henri d'Albret, his wife, or Jeanne being consulted on the subject. Jeanne is said to 1537.] THE DUKE OF OLEVES. 81 have been sadly distressed at this change, and to have wept so bitterly as to compromise her position as one of the loveliest princesses of Europe. A very serious matter for the House of Albret was the expense which this sequestration occasioned. The King of Navarre was poor ; it was all he could do to keep up his state on a limited scale in Beam, and now he had to provide for the numerous household of his daughter. Francois I. had promised to bear his share of the expenses, but his prodigalities and his war in Italy had emptied his coffers, and his promises were broken. It is pleasant to reflect that when the French king had taken all these precautions against the marriage of his niece with the Infant, he was the ally if not the friend of Charles, and the emperor was pre- paring to pass through France on his way to Flanders to quell an insurrection of the Gantois. And in fact Charles V. did pass through France shortly after- wards, not liking to go round by Germany, and fearing to go by sea, as he was on bad terms with Henry VIIL, who had married Anne, the daughter of the Duke of Cleves, in 1537, at the instigation of Lord Cromwell, and who was then engaged in pursuing that minister's policy ; of which Mr. Green says in his History of the English People, that had it been carried out it would have anticipated the triumphs of Eichelieu, have secured South Germany for Protest- antism, and have averted the Thirty Years' War. On the 10th December, 1539, Charles V. arrived at VOL. I. 82 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1539. Loches, where Francois I., accompanied by the King of Navarre and a crowd of nobles, met the emperor at the gate of the castle. At the foot of the stair- case stood the queen (the sister of Charles V.), the Queen of Navarre, the Dauphine, Catherine de Medicis, Jeanne d'Albret, and the king's favourite, the Duchesse d'Estampes. It appears that in passing through the duchies of Albret and Guyenne, Charles V. had remarked how well they were administered by the King of Navarre, that he was much struck with the qualities of his Majesty, and that he afterwards declared to his courtiers that he had seen but one man in France, the King of Navarre. At Loches, and during the remainder of the journey to Flanders, the emperor had plenty of opportunity for conversing with Henri d'Albret, as the French king was obliged, owing to ill health, to travel in a litter. Baron de Ruble says that Francois I., through condescension or dissimulation, did not reject the proposed marriage between the Infant of Spain and Jeanne d'Albret, and that Chancellor Poyet went so far as to tell Poggio, the papal nuncio, that the king would consent to the marriage if the Infant would make him a present of Navarre. - It is necessary to mention here another episode in this intricate matrimonial affair. While the emperor was in Paris he had several interviews with the Cardinal, Alexander Farnese, nephew of Paul III. The Farneses claimed the duchy of Milan, and so 1540.] CHARLES V. 83 did the French king. Charles V. had promised to recognize the claims of Francois I., and while in France he was frequently pressed to keep his promise ; it is even said that the French king was strongly- advised not to allow his guest to depart until he had handed over the duchy. On the 20th January, 1540, the king and queen, who had accompanied Charles V. to the frontier, took leave of the emperor, who was escorted as far as Valenciennes by the Dauphin, the Duke of Orleans, the Constable, and the nobles who had met him at Bayonne. A last attempt was then made by the Constable to obtain a favourable answer on the subject of the Milanais ; the emperor, however, would go no further than to promise that he would submit the affair to his council. On reaching Brussels he sum- moned this council, which was composed of his brother Ferdinand, King of the Bomans, and his sister Mary of Austria, Queen of Hungary. He denied having promised the Milanais to Francis ; he had simply engaged to give his daughter Dona Maria to the Duke of Orleans, with an apanage for a dowry, the Milanais or another, but not without being accorded several advantages on his side, and among these the marriage of his son with the heiress of Navarre. The emperor, supposing that Francois I. would offer no opposition to this scheme, or that he would be able to remove his objections, directed his ambassador, Francis de Bonvalot, to demand the hand of Jeanne dAlbret from the French monarch. 84 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1540. The emperor accompanied this demand with a promise of several compensations seductive enough in appearance, but said never a word of the Milanais. He offered the hand of his daughter to the Duke of Orleans, with the investiture of the Low Countries, Gueldres, and Zutphen ; the renunciation of all rights to Burgundy and Charolais ; the abandonment to the king of the " border lands " of Franche-Comte, in return for a compensation of 2,000,000 fi\, and the marriage of Marguerite of France with Prince Maxi- milian. But the Low Countries were strongly opposed to the domination of a French prince ; Gueldres and Zutphen not only did not belong to the emperor, but since the commencement of the century had been in the possession of a German house hostile to Austria and devoted to France. As for Burgundy and Charo- lais, they had long since in reality formed part of France, and with regard to the border lands of Franche-Comte\ they were not worth the money asked for them. The Imperial ambassador made his demand, and received for reply that these marriages had nothing to do with the affairs to be discussed between the two sovereigns, and that seeing the age of the persons concerned, there was no necessity for being in any hurry in the matter. -The King and Queen of Navarre received the over- tures of the emperor in a very different fashion ; they were enchanted at the idea of their daughter occupying the Imperial throne. As Baron du Ruble 15 tO.] HENRI D'ALBRET AND HIS WIFE. 85 observes — " Of the two alliances offered, the one — that of France — would have brought about the ruin of Navarre without any probable compensations, the other — that of Spain — promised to their grand- children the empire of the two hemispheres." After approving of the marriage of Antoine de Bourbon with Jeanne d'Albret, the French king suddenly changed his mind in favour of another scheme. According to Mademoiselle de Vauvilliers, 1 Francois I. already beheld in imagination Charles V. and Henry VIII. dividing France between them. To prevent this catastrophe, he determined to give the hand of Jeanne to the Duke of Cleves. He thought that Jeanne would offer no objection to a union which would put an end to her exile, and he refused to listen to the remonstrances of the King and Queen of Navarre, who claimed the right of disposing of the hand of their only child. The French king refused to pay any heed to these and other objec- tions ; Henri d'Albret and his wife were ordered to join the French court, and to bring Jeanne with them from Plessis-les-Tours, but on arriving at Amboise they did not disguise their repugnance to the contemplated union. The Duke of Cleves was at this time one of the most powerful princes of North Germany. Charles V. refused to recognize his right to Gueldres and Zutphen, although the duke went to plead his cause with the emperor at Ghent. By the Memoirs of 1 Jeanne d'Albret, t. i. p. 7. 86 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1540. Jiidier, 1 we see that the ambassadors thought they would obtain the recognition of his rights together with the hand of the Princesse Christine of Denmark, the emperor's niece. Charles V. proving inflexible, the Duke of CI eves made overtures to Francis I., who recognized his rights, and his ambassador, Herman Creuser, doctor in law, was instructed to demand the hand of Jeanne d'Albret on behalf of his master. He made his demand at the nick of time, when Francis I. was highly irritated with his rival on the subject of the Milanais. Secret negoti- ations were at once commenced, and were rapidly carried on. On the 21st June, 1540, the duke despatched two plenipotentiaries to Blois to join Herman Creuser; they brought with them creden- tials addressed to the King and Queen of Navarre, to the Cardinals du Bellay and Lorraine, to the Constable Montmorency, to Marshal Annebaut, to Longueval, and to the king's mistress, the Duchesse d'Estampes. The great difficulty was to obtain the consent of Henri d'Albret to this marriage. In order to procure this, the French king swore to recover Navarre for him ; he offered to raise a body of 22,000 men in Germany, and a reserve of 7000 Italians or French. The emperor was to be attacked at the same time in Biscay, Boussillon, and Italy. The most minute details of these operations were arranged. According to Herman Creuser, great difficulty was 1 T. i. p. 518. 1540.] HENRY VIII. 87 experienced in persuading Marguerite of Navarre to consent to the sacrifice of her daughter, but all her objections could not of course form a permanent obstacle to the contemplated alliance. On the 3rd July the plenipotentiaries from Cleves arrived in Paris ; the next day they were received by the French king, who promised his niece a dowry of one hundred thousand crowns, on condition that the future couple would renounce their claims on Navarre — a curious stipulation, which was of course rejected. As for the other matrimonial clauses, they were reserved for the consideration of the King and Queen of Navarre. Henry VIII. appears to have done what he could to render these negotiations abortive. On the 6th January the King of England, misled by the unfortunate Cromwell and Doctor Barnes as to the personal charms of Anne of Cleves, reluctantly married that princess, afterwards sending Cromwell to the scaffold, and having the poor doctor burned at Smithfield. A letter written by the plenipoten- tiaries of .the duke on the 14th July, 1540, shows how Henry VIIL, fearing lest the marriage should take place, and his wife obtain the support of Francis I, wrote to the French king, saying — " Qu'il repoussait la sceur du Due de Cleves parcequ'il ne pouvait pas avoir deux femmes a la fois, et qu'apararent il avait promis' fidelite* a une dame Anglaise avec la quelle il avait dormi. A cause de gela il n'avait en aucum rapport avec la sceur du due." 88 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1540. However, all was in vain. The representatives of the King of France and of the Duke of Cleves speedily came to terms ; on the 17th July they signed a defensive treaty at Anet, and the same day the marriage contract was signed in Paris — a contract preserved iu the archives of Pau. By this act husband and wife promised to celebrate their union directly the princess attained a suitable age. The only other clause which we need notice here was one which Francois I. considered would prevent the possibility of any reconciliation between the Duke of Cleves and the emperor, and which was also a sop to the House of Albret. The duke and the future duchesse pledged themselves not to treat on the subject of the quarrel concerning the kingdom of Navarre without the consent of his most Christian Majesty or his successors. When contract and treaty had been signed and ratified the king, who was then at Fontainebleau, sent for Jeanne, and in presence of her mother proposed that she should become Duchesse of Cleves. " She offered several objections," says Mademoiselle Vauvilliers ; " she offered none," says Baron de Kuble, on the strength of a despatch written by the Spanish ambassador Descurra, and the baron was no doubt right. The emperor was not long in learning the events which had passed at Anet, Fontainebleau, and Paris, and the difficulties of his position made him feel all the more the defection of the Duke of Cleves. 1540.] THWARTED SCHEMES. 89 Sedition was smouldering in the Low Countries ; the Lutheran princes threatened the unity of the empire ; the sultan was on the eve of invading Hungary ; both the Pope and the Venetians were wavering in their alliance; the Pope seemed disposed to come to terms with France, and the Venetians to cast- in their lot with Soliman. Charles publicly expressed his indignation to the French ambassador at the conduct of his master, and wishing to learn the full details of what had been accomplished in France, a plot was formed for snapping up the plenipotentiaries of the Duke of Cleves on their way home, and of securing the person of the duke on his road to France. Owing to the precautions adopted by the plenipotentiaries and by the duke both these enter- prises failed ; not that the duke did not delay his journey to Paris. In spite of the point at which matters had arrived • — the signature and ratification of treaty, &c. — we find that the King of Navarre had not given up all hopes of having the Infant of Spain for his son- in-law, but he took good care not to quarrel with the French king until he had come to terms with the emperor. Secret negotiations on this subject were opened up, Descurra acting as intermediary between the King of Navarre and Charles V. Henri d'Albret, who protested that he had signed the marriage con- tract between the Duke of Cleves and his daughter against his will, offered to have her carried off as soon as the matrimonial stipulations with the emperor 90 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1540. were settled. Several months elapsed, during which Henri d'Albret was always pressing for a speedy settlement, and the emperor and his agents con- stantly raising objections, or rather refraining from adopting a final decision, and bringing matters to an issue. The summer passed away, poor Jeanne returned to her prison at Plessis-les-Tours, and Henri d'Albret and his wife to Beam. In the autumn of 1540 the emperor, in a codicil to his will dated 28th October, had no hesitation in recommending the Princess d'Albret as worthy of ascending the throne of Spain. Yet neither did Charles V. accept the proposals of the King of Navarre, nor did the Duke of Cleves repair to France to claim the hand of the youthful princess. It is true that, as regards Charles, Navarre stood in the way. Baron de Ruble says, " Negotiations dragged on for several months. Letters succeeded each other in vain. In principle the emperor accepted the marriage of his son with Jeanne, but he had not even sent his representative in France any instructions to discuss matters with Descurra. In the second draught of a treaty handed to Bouvalot on the 27th December, 1540, the prince renewed his demands ; the most important, that which would admit of no concession, was the resti- tution of the whole of Navarre, with its fortresses, and an indemnity for depossession dating from 1512. This was the clause which most displeased the grand- son of Ferdinand the Catholic. To restore Navarre was to acknowledge a wrong, and if the Prince 1541.] FRANCIS I. AND DUKE OF GLEVES. 91 d'Albret should come to terms with the King of France, it would be to introduce the enemy into the heart of Spain." In the month of February, 1541, we find the emperor putting off any decision in the affair until after the 21st May, when Jeanne would be fourteen years of age. Bouvalot wrote to the emperor that the King of Navarre was of opinion that his Majesty merely wished to gain time, and had no intention of concluding anything. However, Henri d'Albret accepted the adjournment. On his side the French king seemed anxious for the marriage with the Duke of Cleves ; he granted to the children which might be born to the Duke and Duchess of Cleves, although foreigners, the right of possessing property in France, and the duke was invited to come to Fontainebleau. He sent two messengers to the French court, and was preparing to follow them, but for some reason put off his journey, and began to suspect that Francis I. had changed his mind. However, another invitation was sent to the duke asking him to spend Easter at Amboise ; Francis I. pledged his royal word that all difficulties in the way of the marriage would be removed, and he advised him as to the safest road to take. At the same time, two gentlemen were despatched to the King of Navarre to announce the arrival of the duke, and to claim the fulfilment of the engagement signed at Anet. In April the duke, who regarded his marriage 92 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1541. contract as a declaration of war against the emperor, took a bold and unexpected step. He openly announced to his Chamber, that being convinced he could obtain the hand of the emperor's niece, Chris- tine, only on condition of renouncing the Duchy of Gueldres, he had signed a matrimonial convention with the Princess of Navarre, with the consent of the King of France, and that he was going to the French court to marry her. The same day he left Dusseldorf in disguise, followed by three gentlemen ; he thus managed to avoid falling into the clutches of the Imperial agents. He arrived in Paris on the 20th April, and secretly took up his abode in the Abbey of St. Germain, belonging to Cardinal de Tournon. Messengers were despatched by Francois I. and the Duke of Cleves, asking the King of Navarre to repair to Fontainebleau ; the duke excused himself for arriving there first. Henri dAlbret attempted to delay the evil moment ; he replied that his daughter was too young to be married, that she was thin and weak, and that he could not consent to give her a husband before two years. These and other pretexts were found for not carrying out the agreement of Anet, and at length the Duke of Cleves, looking upon them as a refusal, reminded the French king of his engagements. Francois I., wounded in his honour as a gentleman, says Baron de Ruble, sent another message to the • King of Navarre, urging him to come to court. The king found an6ther motive for delay. He must ask the consent of his subjects. The " States 1541.] A PAINFUL POSITION. 93 of Beam " were assembled, and the propositions of the King of France were submitted to them. They protested against the alliance, and Henri d'Albret informed Francois I. that his subjects would gladly see the heiress of Beam, their future queen, marry one of the " sons of France," but that they objected, in the name of their privileges, to a marriage with a German prince. What they wanted was to have a king of their own. These and other reasons, all more or less valid, were urged against the match. The French king was highly indignant, and said to the messenger from Beam—" Tell the King of Navarre, my brother, that he promised the hand of his daughter to the Duke of Cleves, and that promises must be kept ; that should he refuse, the Duke of Cleves, who is an honest man, will have the right of exacting the observance of his promise ; and that, if he forces me, I myself will marry his daughter, not as Princess of Navarre, but as a daughter of the House of D'Albret." The King of Navarre could only remind Francois I., who had the power of disposing of his daughter's hand, of the services he had rendered France, of his imprisonment after Pavia, and how, in all the treaties signed between France and Spain, his interests had been neglected. He even offered to pay the Duke of Cleves 50,000 livres to forego his claim. Henri d'Albret was in the position of a lamb between two wolves ; his protestations and his supplications were alike vain. Francois I. would listen to no excuses ; he was intent on securing the alliance of the Duke of 94 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1541. Cleves, and lie declared that he would force Jeanne to marry in spite of her father. The Kins; of Navarre at lenerth consented to the marriage, but refused to be present. Queen Mar- guerite, who was to go alone to the French court, never ceased weeping over the obstinacy of her brother, and fell ill. Just as she was about to leave Pau there came a gentleman from the Duke of Cleves with a new mission. The duke wrote to say that he was aware of the pressure exercised by the King of France on his sister, and that he did not wish to marry the princess against the will of her father and mother, that he would return home without regret if the King of Navarre would swear to give him his daughter in two years' time. To this honourable proposition Henri d'Albret returned an honourable reply. He said that in refusing the hand of Jeanne to the Duke of Cleves he acted as the friend of the Duchy of Cueldres as well as of Beam ; that seeing the constant state of rivalry which existed between Charles V. and Francois I., it was dangerous for two petty princes to form an indissoluble alliance by means of a marriage ; that the sovereigns of Spain and France might become reconciled, and, in that case, he asked, what would be the fate of the Duchy of Gueldres and of Beam ? In return for some com- pensation in Italy Francois I. would have no scruple about delivering his allies over to the emperor. War was brewing ; the King of France was actively engaged in making preparations ; he would require 1541.] JEANNE AT PLESSIS-LES-TOURS. 95 allies ; he would then pay high for the co-operation of small states ; but neither Gueldres nor Beam would obtain anything if they were already bound to France. 1 Henri d'Albret concluded by once more offering the duke 50,000 livres. The marriage was broken off as far as Henri d'Albret was concerned. On the 9 th May we find that the French court went to Tours, and in the afternoon Francois I., having given Jeanne timely notice of the visit, took the Duke of Cleves to Plessis-les-Tours. He had instructed Jeanne as to what she should reply, and had spoken highly of the duke. Descurra says that Jeanne answered his Majesty with a great deal of cleverness, saying she was sure the king loved his niece too much to give her to the Duke of Cleves, and that she loved the king too much to accept the hand of a German prince, because she would then have no opportunity of seeing the king. His Majesty said, " You told me at Fontainebleau, in presence of your mother, that you would be glad to marry the ;Duke of Cleves. Why do you refuse now ? " Jeanne : " I did not foresee the harm it might do to my father. If you wish to marry me, marry me in France. Bather than wed 1 This letter reminds one of some lines in one of La Fontaine's fables — " LK JAKDINIER ET SON SEIGNEUR. Petits princes, videz vos debats entre vous : De reeourir aux rois vous seriez de grands fous. II ne les faut jamais engager dans vos guerres, !Ni les faire entrer sur vos terres." 96 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1541. the Duke of Cleves, I would prefer to go into a convent." Arid after a long conversation, during which Jeanne remained firm, Francois I. flew in a passion, sent for Madame de Lafayette, the governess of the princess, and accused her of having inspired this resistance. The king then retired, and the Duke of Cleves paid a visit, which lasted a quarter of an hour, but what passed history sayeth not. The Cardinal de Tournon next had an interview with the princess, and gave her a lecture. She said that she was ready to obey the orders of the king, but that she would sooner die than wed the Duke of Cleves, which proves that his Serene Highness had not made a favourable impression. The day following, the Marshal Annebaut, who stood high in the good graces of the king, renewed the charge, but found that Jeanne had in no way changed her mind. Two days after the visit of the king to Plessis- les-Tours, the Spanish ambassador received a letter from Charles V. on the subject of Jeanne's marriage. Descurra set out for Pau to deliver it in person, and met Henri d'Albret, who was already on the road to Amboise, at Bordeaux. This letter, much to the annoyance of the King of Navarre, contained nothing definitive. Descurra endeavoured to ex- plain away the hesitations of his imperial master, and tried to persuade Henri d'Albret to place his daughter beyond the reach of the French king. Descurra went on to Spain to see what could be 1541.] THE KING'S COUNSELLORS. 97 done there, and the King of Navarre continued his journey. It is interesting to find that at this juncture three of the king's intimate counsellors were opposed to the union of Jeanne with the Duke of Cleves. The Cardinal of Lorraine thought it most imprudent, as the duke might become King of Navarre, and form an alliance with the emperor. Then, as a Churchman, he reminded Francois I. that it was not permitted to marry a girl against the consent of her father and mother. The Duchesse d'Estampes and Admiral Annebaut shared the opinions of the cardinal. The king was not to be convinced. He replied, " I must give the duke either my daughter or the Princess of Navarre, for it would not be right to send him away dissatisfied." His three advisers declared in favour of the king giving the duke the hand of his daughter Marguerite, and of keeping Jeanne for one of his sons, for the Dauphin — should Catherine de Medicis die — or for the Duke of Orleans. The King and Queen of Navarre appear to have imagined that Franqois I. would change his mind and follow this advice ; but they were soon undeceived. Unable to resist the authority of the king, they pretended to be resigned to obey him. The contract had stipulated that the marriage should not be con- summated, and that, in the opinion of the ecclesias- tical authorities and of the Spanish ambassador, a marriage performed under such conditions might be .annulled by a simple protestation. VOL. I. 98 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1541. The Duke of Cleves went as far as Poitiers to meet the King and Queen of Navarre, whose arrival was the signal for numerous and magnificent fetes, at all of which Jeanne was present ; but, as Baron de Euble observes, she had not capitulated. The King and Queen of Navarre had consented to an ostensible marriage to a mere ceremony ; but, seeing the youth of the princess, they had been unable to explain this to their daughter, and hence her ob- stinacy. It was not until she had been nearly frightened out of her life, that she had been assured she would be the cause of the ruin of her father and mother and their house, that Marguerite d'Albret was able to obtain the consent of her daughter. On the 13th June Francois I. entered Chatellerault with his Court ; there were illuminations and other festivities. His Majesty had determined that the marriage should take place the next day. There was a grand ball, at which the Duke of Cleves is said to have distinguished himself, but at which the Princess of Navarre was not present. In fact, while the duke was dancing, the princess was engaged in consigning to parchment a protest against her marriage. When the dancing was over, the King and Queen of Navarre and the princess their daughter entered, and Francois I. took the Duke of Cleves and the Princess of Navarre by the hand, and presented them to the Cardinal de Tournon, who affianced them ; after which the king, according to custom in similar 1541.] JEANNE'S MARRIAGE. 99 cases, gave them some slight and amorous taps oh the shoulders, " which greatly rejoice every one," says the Chancellor Olisleger. Bordenave, in his History of Bear?i and Navarre, and who wrote under the eyes of Jeanne, says that the Cardinal de Tournon asked the princess three times if she would consent to marry the duke, and that on the third time she said, " Do not force me to answer." Bordenave adds that he had this from the lips of Jeanne d' Albret herself. On the morning of the marriage Jeanne drew up another protest, "Moi Jehanne de Navarre," &c, in which she complained of being forced to marry by the queen her mother, and by Madame de Lafayette, &c. This protest, like the first, was countersigned by J. D'Arros, by Francisque Navarre, and Anaut Duguesse. Baron de Buble is not at all sure that it was drawn up without the knowledge of Francois I.; and, in fact, his Majesty may have considered it prudent to retain the power of annulling a marriage in the event of his policy requiring such a measure. However this may be, Jeanne wrote her second protest, and such a protest in the eyes of the Catholic Church constitutes a valid reason for annulling a marriage. When Napoleon I. demanded that his marriage with Josephine should be annulled, one of the principal reasons upon which he grounded his plea for a dissolution of the matrimonial tie was non-consent — that he had reluctantly married his first wife. 100 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1541. The marriage took place, and the ceremony was one of no ordinary splendour. The king made his entry at eleven o'clock, followed by the court. The Queen Marguerite led her daughter into the pavilion where the wedding was to be celebrated. The Duke of Cleves was accompanied by the Dauphin and the princes. The ambassadors from Rome, England, Portugal, Venice, Saxony, Ferrara, and Mantua were present. The Spanish ambassador Bouvalot, although he had received a special invitation, was absent, nor would his presence at the ceremony have been ap- proved of by his master, Charles V. The bride wore a crown of gold, and was so covered with jewels, says Brantdme, that she was unable to walk. Another version is that at the last moment she determined to resist, and refused to walk to the altar. However this may be, the king ordered the Constable Mont- morency to carry her, or, as he expressed it, " to take his little niece by the neck ; " and this the Constable did, much to the astonishment of the Court and to his own annoyance, for he considered himself degraded in the performance of such a task. After the ceremony there was a grand banquet, to which the bride and bridegroom, the king, queen, royal family, and court sat down ; and among the guests were the Cardinals of Lorraine and Ferrara, the Duchesse d' Estampes, Diana of Poitiers, &c, &c. A ball and other festivities followed. The marriage, as had been stipulated, was not consummated. What happened is thus described by Bordenave — " Le soir, l'espous 1541.] WEDDING EXPENSES. 101 flit mene" en la chambre et au lict de l'espousee, auquel il mit 1 'un pie* settlement en la presence de l'oncle et des pere et mere de la fille et de tous les grands seigneurs et dames de la cour, qui ne bougerent de la qu'ils n'eurent mis dehors le povre espous pour aller coucher ailleurs; ainsi il n'eut de tout ce marriage que du vent." The day following the marriage there was a grand tournament, and money was squandered in such profusion that Sponde says, "the coronation of Charles V., celebrated mfastes du luxe, cost less than the nuptials of Jeanne d'Albret." In order to pay for all this useless display, a salt tax was raised in the provinces bordering the sea. The people resisted, the revolt was not quelled until oceans of blood had been shed, and the nuptials received from the people the significant name of les noces salees. Negotiations followed all these festivities. The Duke of Cleves wished for a defensive alliance, trembling for Gueldres, &c. The King of France, on the other hand, advocated an offensive alliance, saying that he had not given the Duke of Cleves the hand of his niece for the sole pleasure of protecting his states. What he wanted was an alliance capable of smashing the power of the emperor. No agree- ment could be arrived at between the plenipotenti- aries of the king and the duke, and matters were adjourned. On the 20th June the duke left the French court and his bride ; on the 25 th he reached Orleans, 102 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1541. where he learned that Charles V. had brought the pretended rebellion of his vassal before the Diet. The Diet having lent a favourable ear to the explana- tions of the duke, he at once despatched the good news to the French king, to the Queen of Navarre, and to the Cardinal de Tournon. Seeing how matters were going in the Diet, Charles V. announced his intention of taking the affair into his own hands. After spending a few days in Paris, where he was received with due honour, the duke started for Germany on the 1st July, and on the 3rd, curious to relate, we find him at the Castle of La Fere, belonging to Antoine de Bourbon, Due de Vendome, the future husband of his wife. All he remarked there was an aviary and a menagerie. Much appre- hension was felt when the duke got into the Metz country lest he should fall into the hands of some of the Imperialists, who were scouring the country in search of him ; however, he ultimately reached his own states in safety. Francois I. appears to have suspected that the King of Navarre wished to carry off his daughter, and it was not until after a good deal of hesitation that Jeanne was allowed to return to her old quarters at Plessis-les- Tours. A friendly correspondence ensued between the principal parties concerned, and Jeanne wrote in affectionate terms to her husband, who often expressed his anxiety that she should join him ; she, however, fell dangerously ill, time slipped by, and we once more find the agents of Charles V., Descurra 1542.] INVASION OF NAVARRE. 103 and others, renewing negotiations with the King of Navarre, whose confidence in Frangois I. was once more at a low ebb. Suddenly a complete change took place, the Con- stable Montmorency was disgraced, Cardinal de Tournon and Admiral Annebaut came into power ; war was raging between emperor and king. Francois I. placed two armies in the field : the first, com- manded by the Dauphin, was to invade Navarre ; the second, under the order of the Duke of Orleans, was to succour the Duke of Cleves. Having heard that Charles V. himself was advancing at the head of an army, the French king left Lyons in order to meet his adversary in the field. He was received with delight in Guyenne by Henri d'Albret, who at once broke off negotiations with Spain. The darling project of his life appeared on the point of being realized. Francois I. promised that he would not lay down arms until he had restored Navarre to its rightful owner. Unfortunately the Dauphin, who had laid siege to Perpignan, was obliged to retire from before that place, and with his retreat vanished the prospect of conquering Navarre. Things seemed brighter for the French in the north. The Duke of Cleves, who, by the way, was always demanding his wife, had received money and artillery from the French king, and was up and doing. An army under Antoine de Bourbon crossed the Flemish frontier and took the principal towns, while the force under the Duke of Orleans conquered 104 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1542. Luxembourg and a number of fortified places. After these achievements, however, the Duke of Orleans, thinking that a great battle was about to be fought between his father and the emperor, left his army, which after his departure went to pieces, and lost all its conquests. At the close of 1542 the Duke of Cleves occupied a curious position. His conduct was not now approved of by the Diet, and yet Charles V. treated him with extraordinary forbearance for this reason. Henry VIII. , it was rumoured, having disposed of Catherine Howard, was about to take back Anne of Cleves ; the King of France recommended him to adopt this course, and his ambassador, Marillac, was ordered, on the condition of this scheme being carried out, to promise that the Duke of Orleans should marry a daughter of the English monarch. In the event of this arrangement being agreed to, the emperor would necessarily lose the support of Eng- land, unless he could win over the Duke of Cleves to his side, and, through his sister, Henry VIII. However, the combinations of Francois I. were frus- trated ; the King of England married Catherine Parr, and signed an offensive and defensive treaty with Charles V. In April affairs wore a brighter aspect for the Duke of Cleves, who gained two decisive victories over the Imperialists, for which the Bishop of Paris sang a Te Beum at Notre Dame. Anxious to emulate the successes of the duke, the French king, at the head 1542.] DUEREN CAPTURED. 105 of 35,000 men, entered Hainault and seized upon Landrecies. He was accompanied by Jeanne d'Albret, the Cardinal de Tournon, Admiral Annebaut, the ambassador of the Duke of Cleves, and, in fact, by nearly all the persons who figured at the marriage negotiations. The French king announced his inten- tion of escorting Jeanne to the frontiers of her states. Everything had hitherto gone well with the French and their allies, and it was boldly represented to Francois I. that Charles V. merely pretended to be highly incensed with the Duke of Cleves, in order to conceal his dread of that powerful noble. Charles V. was always late in moving ; it was not until the 20th August that he took the field. Once, however, the campaign opened his blows were rapidly dealt. On the 22nd he appeared before Dueren, and on the 23rd that town was carried by assault and handed' over to pillage; but at the same time his Majesty commanded, on pain of death, that the churches should be spared, and that no woman or child should be touched. The town appears to have caught fire, and, in spite of all the efforts of the conquerors, to have been almost totally destroyed. A portion of the garrison, probably considered as deserters, was executed. 1 On the 27th Charles V. marched against Juliers, which, although as well fortified as Dueren, opened its gates without waiting for an assault. Other places fell in rapid succession, 1 Robertson, in his History of Charles V., t. iii. p. 250, says that all the inhabitants were put to the sword. 106 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURDONS. [1542. and on the 3rd September the emperor, after having received the submission of Gueldres and Cleves, marched to the attack of Venloo, which was the strongest and best armed place in the territory of the duke. The civil element wished to open the gates, the military element to defend the town to the last extremity. The Imperialists were about to open fire on the place, when the coadjutor of the Archbishop of Cologne and other ambassadors arrived in their camp, mediated between the Duke of Cleves and his suzerain, and implored the clemency of the emperor, who consented to receive his vassal. On the 7th September the culprit appeared before him, threw himself upon his knees, and was allowed by the emperor to remain for a long time in that humiliating posture. He signed a treaty by which he abandoned the French alliance, and handed over his states to the emperor, who restored him a portion of them as fiefs of the Holy Empire. AVhile this drama was being enacted, where was the King of France with his army ? Francois I. had been wasting his time in feasting and hunting. He had only reached Sainte Menehould when he learned the capitulation of Dueren, and he was on the frontiers of Luxembourg when informed of the treaty of Vanloo. It might have been supposed, that after the treaty of Vanloo little or nothing more would have been heard of the sham marriage performed at Chatelle- rault. This was not the case. The Duke of Cleves 1542.] JEANNE'S MARRIAGE BROKEN OFF. 107 had hardly affixed his signature to the treaty with Charles V., than he sent an ambassador to Francois I, to explain that he had been obliged to acknowledge the emperor as his rightful suzerain, that he desired to observe faithfully the treaty of Vanloo, that he renounced the French alliance, but not the hand of the Princess of Navarre, whom he had solemnly married. He offered to send a suitable embassy in search of her. As may be easily supposed, this demand greatly incensed the French king. The courtiers accused the duke of treason, entirely for- getting the pressure under which he had acted ; and that Francois, had he shown greater activity, might have saved his quondam ally from falling into the clutches of the emperor. Robertson says that the Duke of Cleves was overwhelmed before the French showed any signs of coming to his aid. The whole of France, with the exception of Jeanne d'Albret, is said to have been deeply afflicted on learning the disastrous tidings mentioned . above. As for Jeanne, who was on the road to join her husband, she now considered herself free. The French court sent a contemptuous reply to the Duke of Cleves, and at the same time a copy of the Papal Bull which accorded to the King of Navarre the right of disposing of the hand of his own daughter. The plea of non-consent and non-consummation was proposed by the Princesse Marguerite dAngoulgnie. The Queen of Navarre rejected the demands of the duke's envoy, and 108 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1543. Jeanne wrote a letter, in which she declared that she had married " Monseigneur de Cleves " against her will. In spite of this embassy to the French court, the Duke of Cleves was himself anxious to recover his freedom. Wishing to cement his new alliance, he asked the emperor to give him the hand of the Infanta Maria, or that of one of his nieces. He pointed out that his marriage with the Princess of Navarre had not been consummated, that it was nothing but a State pageant, and that Jeanne herself, in her letter to his envoy, Drimborn, had given him conge in good and due form and set him free. The King of France took just the opposite view to that adopted by the Duke of Cleves. He wished to hold the duke to his engagements as regarded his alliance with France, and at the same time not to give him his niece. After a sharp struggle, which exhausted both com- batants, the king and the emperor signed a treaty of peace at Crespy in September, 1544. One of the clauses of this act ran thus — " Seeing that the Duke of Cleves has already demanded his wife as having married her legitimately, but that the said princess and her parents protest against this marriage, as contracted against their will ; seeing the protests .she has already made, the king will cause to be handed to the said emperor within six weeks the said pro- test in an authentic form," &c, &c. There were other important clauses in this treaty. 1544.] THE DUKE OF ORLEANS. 109 Both parties were to restore all the conquests they had made since the treaty of Nice. First, the emperor was to give the Duke of Orleans his daughter, or the second daughter of Ferdinand ; second, FranQois I. was to give no aid to the exiled King of Navarre ; third, both monarchs were to make war on the Turk ; fourth, and by a private article, the Protestant heresy was to be stamped out. With respect to the first clause, the emperor within a given period decided in favour of the Duke of Orleans marrying the second daughter of Ferdi- nand, with the Milanais for her dowry, and that marriage was on the point of being celebrated, when the Duke of Orleans died of a pestilential fever. His untimely end destroyed the balance of the treaty of Crespy, and if Francois I. had been a younger man, would have been the signal for a fresh war, for Charles V. kept the Milanais, and refused all com- pensation. As to the second daughter of Ferdinand, she was destined to be given to the Duke of Cleves, " as a proof," says Robertson, " of the sincerity of the emperor's reconciliation." As regards clause number two, we shall shortly see how that was observed by the French king. It was infamous on the part of Francois I. to betray the Sultan, with whom he had formed a close alliance, to the great scandal of Christendom ; it was also in- famous on the part of both monarchs to enter into a secret treaty to root out heresy, after all they had done to gain the Protestant support. 110 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1544. The following despatch relating to the above events is published in the English State Papers — Wotton to Henry VIII. " . . . M. de Granvele sent for me, and sayde that the Frenche king, seeing that thEmperour wold not heere of the mariaige of his eldist doughter, that the Frenche king requyrid his second doughter for Monsr. d'Orleans, and that the Emperour should marye the Frenche kings daughter. Whereunto (he sayde) answer was made that the Emperours second daughter was hestowidde by a crosse mariaige with Portugal ; and that the Emperour, being yn France, had shewidde no cowntenance of enye favour to the Frenche kinges daughter, forbicause she should have no hope thereon ; for, lyke.as He then was not, so is He not yet myndidde to marye ; so they concludid that that matter wold take none effecte ; and therefor al though by mariaiges often tymes peaces were made, yet there wer other wayes yn vouge besydes ; and willed the Frenche menne to open what other charge they had. 'Why,' quod thAdmirall, 'how can thEmperour better bestowe his daughter ? ' — ' He cowde not yn deede,' quod Granvele, ' yf she wer not bestowde al redye.' — 'Well,' quod Annebault, 'make yow then summe overture your selfe.' — ' Marye,' quod Granvele, ' we must entreate upon three thinges ; of the Turke ; of thEm- perours satisfaction, and his frendes, as chieflye the Kinge of England, and also the Duke of Savoye.' — ' As for the Turke,' Annebault sayde, ' the Frenche kinge not onelye renonce his allyance, but also ayde to warre against hym.' " Nicholas Wotton concludes his letter in this quaint fashion — " Written yn greate haste at the desloging of the armye, upon a hedge, this last day of August, 1544." We take it that when Wotton wrote the above despatch he was with the Imperial army in the neighbourhood of Chateau-Thierry, which town Charles V. had reached, and from whence he threatened Paris. 1544.] FRANCE INVADED. Ill As Guizot says — " Champagne and Picardy were simultaneously invaded by the Germans and the English; Henry VIII. took Boulogne; Charles V. advanced to Chateau-Thierry. The terror was great. Frangois I. hastened from Fontainebleau, and rode through the streets, accompanied by the Due de Guise, everywhere saying, ' If I cannot prevent you from being afraid, I can prevent you from suffering any harm.' The population took courage, recovered confidence, and rose in a body ; 40,000 militia-men in arms denied before the king. The army arrived by forced marches, and took up its position between Paris and Chateau-Thierry. Charles V. was not rash ; he fell back to Crespy. Negotiations were opened. Frangois I., fearing lest the emperor should learn that Henry VIII. had captured Boulogne, and would raise his demands, hastened to accept the conditions of Charles V., only a little less hard than those of 1540. Charles V. yielded upon some special points, being, above all, anxious to secure the co- operation of Frangois I. in the two great struggles in which he was engaged against the Turks in Eastern Europe, and against the Protestants in Germany." When blamed for his alliance with the Sultan, the French king, says Guizot, replied to Marino Guisti- niano, the Venetian ambassador — " I cannot deny that I greatly desire to see the Turk very powerful and ready for war, not for his own sake, for he is • an infidel, but in order to weaken the power of the emperor, to put him to great expense, and to protect 112 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1544. all other governments against so redoubtable an enemy." A great deal of difficulty was experienced in getting the religious tie, which united the Duke of Cleves and Jeanne d'Albret, annulled. Ecclesiastical doctors differed on the subject, and much canon law was called into requisition for and against the exist- ence of any just cause for annulling the marriage. However, in the end, the Pope signed a brief, 12th October, 1545, by which the Duke and Jeanne were put asunder on the ground that violence had been used, and that there had been no consummation. We must notice one more curious fact with regard to the Duke of Cleves — he had two sons, who both died without heirs, and the duchy of Cleves went to his daughters. The eldest married Albert Frederick of Brandenburg, and left behind her four daughters, whose husbands squabbled over the succession, and Henri IV., the son of Jeanne d'Albret, was just going to take the field in order to settle this dispute, when he was assassinated. The marriage between the Duke of Cleves and Jeanne d'Albret having been declared null and void, there were three French princes who were in a position to pretend to her hand — the Dukes of Orleans and Vend6me, and the future Duke of Guise. However, Jeanne d'Albret had no sooner recovered her liberty, than the King of Navarre re-opened negotiations with Charles V. for her marriage. Philip had been married at Salamanca to the daughter of 1545.] THE SPANISH ALLIANCE. 113 the King of Portugal, and Henri d'Albret, therefore, offered Jeanne to the second son of Ferdinand, on the usual condition that the emperor would restore Navarre. Charles V. turned a deaf ear to these proposals, and his ambassador was instructed to say- that he did not wish to enter into any negotiations unknown to the French king. In July, 1545, the Infant died. Three months after that event, as we have seen, Jeanne recovered her liberty, thanks to Paul III. Once more the King of Navarre attempted to secure the Spanish alliance. What happened at this juncture is thus described by Baron de Ruble — " The negotiations continued ; other marriages were proposed. The Cardinal de Tournon and Admiral d'Annebaut proposed that the king's daughter Mar- guerite should marry the Duke of Savoy, and that Antoine de Bourbon should marry a daughter of Ferdinand. The Queen of Navarre, whose maternal ambition had been re-aroused by this rupture of the marriage of Chatellerault, aided the efforts of her husband. It was remarked that she was most attentive to the queen, the sister of Charles V., and thence it was concluded that she was negotiating the marriage of her daughter." The Queen of Navarre was about to return to Beam, and took advantage of a serious scandal to say that she wished to remove her daughter from the bad example set by the court, and to take her home ; but Francois I. refused. One day he had a sharp altercation with Henri d'Albret; he still dreaded VOL. I. I 114 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1546. the marriage of the heiress of Navarre with the Infant of Spain, and took no pains to conceal his suspicions. The King of Navarre replied, that had he wished to desert the French alliance there had been plenty of opportunities for so doing. In spite of all these protestations, Frangois I. decided that Jeanne should remain at Plessis-les-Tours. Henri d'Albret and his wife returned to Beam, where their presence soon created considerable alarm in Spain. It was reported that the King of Navarre was making preparations for war, and, in fact, in 1546 he submitted to the French king a plan for suddenly seizing upon Pampeluna ; and the attempt would probably have been made had the Spanish agents not got wind of what w r as brewing. Henri d'Albret was disappointed once more in his darling project of recovering Navarre. " We are both mortal," wrote Henry VIII. to the French king in 1546. In January, 1547, Henry died, and on the 31st March of the same year Frangois I. followed him to the tomb. Shortly before his death Frangois I. had once more taken up the idea of giving the hand of his niece to Antoine de Bourbon, and Henri II. on ascending the throne showed himself favourable to this alliance. He desired it both through friendship and policy. The King of Navarre, dissatisfied with the French king, had long retired from court, while the em- peror was by no means friendly. It was highly desirable to draw closer the links between France 1547.] ANTOINE DE BOURBON. 115 and Bearn. Antoine de Bourbon, if frivolous and weak, was a prince of the blood, and the nearest heir to the throne after the Valois line. He had shown remarkable military capacity under the eyes of Jeanne d'Albret in 1543, at the time of the defection of the Duke of Cleves. Brant6me says — "He was well born, brave, and valiant, for of this Bourbon race there is none otherwise, handsome^ being well made, and much taller than his brothers, with majesty to boot, and fairly eloquent." Henri II. had hardly ascended the throne, when he despatched the Cardinal d'Armagnac, one of the intimate friends of the house of DAlbret, on a secret mission to Beam, and it really seemed as if Jeanne were about to be married at last. At this moment, however, a rival entered the lists in the shape of Francois de Lorraine, the eldest son of the Due de Guise. Strange to say, seven years previously the two princes, Antoine de Bourbon and Francois de Lorraine, had been suitors for the hand of Vittoria Farnese, the niece of Paul III. Henri II. was undecided which suitor to choose. Diana of Poitiers, who exercised great influence over the new king, favoured the pretensions of Frangois de Lorraine. Henri II. at first determined to await the arrivalof Henri dAlbret in Paris for his coronation, but the King of Navarre had the gout, and could not travel ; his Majesty then bethought him of consulting Jeanne herself on this important matter, and Jeanne decided in favour of Antoine de Bourbon. I 2 116 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1547. The King of Navarre objected to both princes, but not daring openly to resist the French, king, he resorted to the same tactics which had succeeded in the case of the Duke of Cleves ; he asked for time, and obtained a respite of six months. He was not allowed to take his daughter away ; she was kept a state prisoner at the court. In the month of December, 1547, Henri II. re- minded the King of Navarre of their agreement. Both the King and Queen of Navarre protested that their life and fortune were all at the service of their sovereign, but unfortunately his Majesty was ill, and could not for the moment repair to the Court of Prance. Henri II., being aware of the weak point of the King of Navarre, offered him 10,000 crowns a yenr to come to terms, but his Majesty resisted even this inducement. Tired of struggling against so many difficulties, Henri TI. thought of bestowing the hand of his sister Marguerite on Antoine de Bourbon by way of com- pensation. She was the most accomplished of prin- cesses, and had earned for herself the nickname of Pallas. Madame Marguerite, however, resisted the wishes of the king, and declared that she would never marry any subject of her brother. It is sup- posed that the real reason for this refusal was the mutual affection which the princess knew to reign between Antoine de Bourbon and Jeanne d'Albret. She must have been aware that the daughter of Charles VII. had married Jean de Bourbon, and that 1517.] FRESH INTRIGUES. 117 the daughter of Louis XL had bestowed her hand upon Pierre de Bourbon, Sire de Beaujeu. The state of affairs in 1547 was therefore this. Antoine and Jeanne were deeply in love with each other ; the King of France desired the union, and the King and Queen of Navarre were both opposed to it. " Towards the end of summer," writes Baron de Ruble, " Descurra was at Madrid, where he was waiting for the Marquis de Mondejar, the former viceroy of the Spanish Navarre, already initiated into the preceding negotiations between the emperor and Henri d'Albret. Full of zeal, he asked Don Tristan d'Olsace, an agent from Beam, for a portrait of Jeanne d'Albret, so as to show it to Philip. Instead of the marquis, two gentlemen from Beam arrived, on the pretence of bringing to the court of Spain news from Germany. They visited the various royal and important persons at Madrid, feeling the ground, asking advice, and declaring everywhere that the King of France alone stood in the way of a mar- riage between Jeanne dAlbret and the Infant. These two gentlemen were suspected of being spies, and were sent home. "Two months afterwards the King of Navarre sent Miguel d'Olite and Jacques de Foix, Bishop of Lescar, his Lieutenant-General, to Madrid. They had three conferences with Descurra, and revealed to him the pressure used by the King of France in favour of the Due de Vend6me, and the secret resistance of their master, who up to that day had been able to 118 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1547. avoid entering into any engagement. The principal object of the commission was to offer to the King of Spain, at the same time, the hand of the heiress of Navarre, the entry into Bayenne, Dax, Bordeaux, and the whole of Guyenne. The great difficulty consisted in getting Jeanne out of France. Her habitual guardian, the Sire de Lavedau, was in favour of the Due de VendSme ; but the Bishop of Lescar, a relative of his, flattered himself that he would be able to get round him. The bishop was to go to court, apparently to discuss the conditions of the marriage demanded by the king, but in reality to encompass the evasion of Jeanne. Before taking action, Henri d'Albret demanded a treaty, guarantee- ing him his actual territory, and the restitution of the Spanish Navarre." Very complicated negotiations ensued between Beam and Madrid, during which time the King of France offered his sister Marguerite to Philip, and his daughter Elizabeth to Don Carlos. Under these circumstances poor Henri d'Albret seems to have offered his daughter's hand to the Prince of Pied- mont ; to this match Henri II. had strong' objections. In the middle of January, 1548, the King of Navarre received a pressing invitation to repair to the French court. He once more pleaded ill-health, but feeling that he would soon be obliged to go to Paris he implored Charles V. to give him a definitive answer. This answer was never received. It appears that both the emperor and his counsellors suspected 1548.] DETERMINATION OF HENRI II. 119 the good faith of Henri d'Albret — suspected that he and the French king were setting a snare for the emperor. It is shown that at this period Charles V. enter- tained for Jeanne d'Albret the highest respect, and considered her well worthy of being his daughter-in- law. In a will which he made on the 18th January, 1548, he pointed her out to his son as a suitable wife, having " personal attractions, being virtuous and well brought up, and he advised his son to marry her under certain conditions, in default of the sister of the King of France, on condition of a renunciation of all claims on Navarre, and provided the princess can be got away from France," &c. But Philip wa,s destined not to marry the Protestant heiress of Navarre, but first the Bloody Queen Mary of England, and then the Princess Elizabeth of France. Matters were allowed to slumber until the autumn, when Henri II., probably made aware of the fresh negotiations with Spain, determined that the mar- riage between Jeanne and the Due de VendSme should at once be celebrated. The ceremony was to have been performed on the return of the court to. St. Germains, at the same time as that between Fran- cois de Lorraine, Due d'Aumale, and a princess of the house of Este. Suddenly Henri II. decided that the wedding should take place at Moulin s; a reluctant assent was wrung from the King of Navarre, and the Queen of Navarre is said to have watered with her tears the contract she was obliged to sign. 120_ MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1548, The Venetian ambassador has left us a description of the old feudal castle which the Dukes of Bourbon had built at Moulins in the fifteenth century. Andrea Navagero wrote that it was " a magnificent palace, built in the guise of a fortress, with fine gardens, forests, fountains, and all kinds of sumptuosities worthy of the dwelling of a prince. The park, which contained a large quantity of birds and beasts, is in part a desert. There remain, however, fraucolins, turkeys, quantities of partridges, and various kinds of parrots. We are told that Henri d'Albret delayed obeying the king's orders as long as possible, and that when he at last set out to join the court, he travelled by easy stages, hoping that the couriers of the emperor would overtake him, and that the marriage with Antoine de Bourbon might yet be averted. He was disappointed ; no couriers were sent after him. When he arrived at Moulins he was still bent on resisting the king, but Henri II. insisted on the marriage in a manner which defied opposition. In order to console his uncle, he promised to recover Navarre for him, but Henri d'Albret had lost all faith in such pro- mises, and instead of the very problematic restoration of Navarre, he ended by accepting an annual sum of 15,000 francs. Henri II., evidently enchanted with this arrangement, wrote at once to the Constable Montmorency, saying — " Quant a se quy me touche jan suis quyte a bon marche : je luy balle seulement quinze mille frans tous les anes pour le couverement 1548.] JEANNE'S SECOND MARRIAGE. 121 de son reaume." This certainly was getting cheaply ont of the affair ; but what is to be thought of Henri d'Albret's sacrifice for such a mess of pottage ? And to think that this annuity was paid only once ! The marriage-contract was duly drawn up and signed, and in this document it was stipulated that the eldest son should inherit the kingdom of Navarre, and the property of both houses, and that he should join to the arms of the house of D'Albret the jieurs de lys of the Bourbons. The marriage was celebrated on the 20th October, 1548, if not with the same pomp and splendour as Jeanne's first marriage, or as if it had been performed as at first intended, at St. Germains, with royal magnificence. Strange as it may appear, authorities differ widely as to the personal charms of the bride. According to one, she had large glands and king's evil. The historiographer of Navarre declares that she was one of the loveliest princesses of Europe, and that she had dark hair. Nicholas Bourbon says she had red hair, and her portraits make out that she had fair hair. There was something firm and penetrating in her glance, and what was worth more, she was endowed with great moral qualities, which made up for any physical defect if such existed. In honour of the marriage Eonsard, then in his youth, wrote an epithalameum, commencing thus — Quand mon prince epousa Jeanne, divine race, 122 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1548. Que le ciel compousa Plus belle qu'nne grace, Les princesses de France, Ceintes de lauriers verts, Toutes d'une cadence Lui chautereutHses vers : Hymen, Hymenee, Hymen, Hymenee. Jeanne appeared delighted with her marriage — delighted, after having so long been made the sport of so many political combinations, to find herself the wife of a man to whom she had given her affections. There was one person who was inconsolable — that ex- cellent princess Marguerite d'Angoul§me. She had been almost deserted by her husband, and now she saw her only daughter wedded to a man in whose character she had little confidence. As for Henri d'Albret, he took a more philosophic view of the matter, and, once the marriage over, pretended to approve of it. We need merely add here, that when Charles V. heard of Jeanne's marriage he assembled the States- General of Navarre at Pampeluna, and had his son proclaimed King of Navarre. The province over which there had been so much squabbling was defini- tively incorporated with Spain ; not that Henri d'Albret was inclined even after this solemn act to give it up for lost. CHAPTER IX. ANTOINE DE BOURBON. In his genealogical history of France, Ste. Marthe says that in 1547 the House of Bourbon was divided into two branches — those of Vendome and Mont- pensier. The first was composed of five princes— Antoine, Due de Vend6me ; Charles, who became a cardinal, and was afterwards recognized as king by the League ; Jean, Comte d'Enghien ; Louis I., Prince de Conde ; and Louis, Cardinal de Bourbon, their paternal uncle. The second branch was composed of the Due de Montpensier and his brother, the Prince de la Koche-sur-Yon. Of all these princes the eldest alone had a fortune worthy of his rank ; there was nothing left for the others but to marry wealthy heiresses. Nor were their hopes vain, says Desor- meaux. The eldest scion of this illustrious house married Jeanne d'Albret, who brought her husband immense wealth [?]. The Comte d'Enghien married the Duchesse d'Estourville, and the Prince de Conde the rich heiress Eleonore de Roye, and afterwards Francoise d'Orleans. The Due de Montpensier married Jacqueline de Longuy, and the Prince de 124 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1548. la Koche-sur-Yon the widow of Marshal Montejean, a woman of great wealth. This prince had desired to marry Claude de Rieux, the heiress of the House of Laval, but the lady preferred Coligny d'Andelot, and hence a duel which made much noise at the time, and might have had serious consequences for Coligny, who had dared to cross swords with a prince of the blood. It was thanks to the influence of his uncle, Marshal Montmorency, that he escaped the punishment due to this crime. Brantdme, who refers at length to this incident in his Discours sur les Duels, blames the prince for having under the circumstances insulted a man of the rank of D'Andelot. By the marriage of the Prince de Conde" with Ele"onore de Roye, the Bourbons became allied with the powerful houses of Montmorency, Coligny, and Larochefoucauld. According to Desormeaux, the bride belonged to one of the most ancient and illustrious houses of the kingdom ; she yielded the palm of beauty, grace, wit, and virtue to none of her sex, and she was their superior in the matter of instruction, courage, and magnanimity ; she was the niece of the Colignys, and like them, she embraced the doctrines of Calvin, and afterwards became one of the heroines of the party of which her husband was declared the leader. We must turn now to Antoine de Bourbon, the successful suitor of Jeanne d'Albret. At the age of nineteen Antoine succeeded his father, inheriting his estates, his honours, and his appointments. He soon 1548.] ANTOINE DE BOURBON. 125 displayed a taste for dissipation and for luxury. He was the intimate friend of the Dauphin, afterwards Henri II. He was of a prepossessing appearance, and though he soon distinguished himself in the field as a soldier, he was nonchalant to a degree. Such was the great noble to whom Jeanne d'Albret gave her heart and her hand. The chief objection which the King of Navarre had to the Due - de Vend6me was the facility with which he squandered money. His Majesty himself was of the most parsimonious dis- position. The duke promised reform, but it is related that his father-in-law, not placing implicit confidence in his word, went to his house the day after the marriage, and drove out a number of the duke's retainers with his cane. The fortune of the Due de Vend6me was anything but large ; the House of Bourbon had been ruined by the confiscations which followed the treason of the Constable in 1523. After the marriage, however, Henri II. behaved in a very liberal manner to the young couple, while the Queen of Navarre abandoned a large sum of money to them. Henri d'Albret had hardly got back to Pau after the marriage than he resumed his negotiations with the emperor, to whom he could no longer offer the hand of his daughter. Charles V. still suspected the sincerity of Henri d'Albret, and he wrote thus to his ambassador, St. Mauris — " As for the communications you have had with the sire D'Albret, you must take great care not to tell him anything which, being 126 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1549. repeated to the king, can rouse his suspicions, for the said sire D'Albrct is hardly less changeable than the said king, and the lady D'Albret is still more dangerous." And the emperor at once began to fortify his frontiers, especially in the direction of Navarre. The presence of the Due de Vendome at Pau soon increased the apprehensions of Charles V. It was naturally supposed that he would espouse the quarrel of his father-in-law, and it was feared that he would induce Henri II. to make a dash across the border. For a whole year the most disquieting rumours poured into Madrid, and the alarm of the emperor was hardly to be appeased by the assurances of so astute a diplomatist as Simon Eenard, who several times declared that there was nothing to dread. We now come to a very curious incident, which is thus related by Baron de Euble l — " In the month of March, 1549, while Henri dAlbret was at Pau, the Bishop of Lescar invited Descurra to Beam. Des- curra, out of employment since the marriage of Jeanne, was living at Pampeluna in the service of the Viceroy of Spanish Navarre. With the authoriz- ation of his master he started for Pau, and arrived on the 11th March at half a league from that town. Introduced secretly the same evening into the castle, he waited until 11 p.m. for an audience, which the king did not grant. The bishop promised that he would arrange a meeting for the next day. Again Descurra was disappointed, and saw only the bishop. 1 Antoine de Bourbon and Jeanne d'Albret, vol. i. p. 19. 1549.] DEATH OF THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE. 127 He confided the most surprising secret to him. The King of Navarre, he said, had been deceived by the King of France in the affair of the marriage of his daughter. As he knew that he would never consent to it, the marriage had been secretly celebrated and consummated three months before his arrival at the court, and therefore he had returned to Beam thirst- ing for vengeance. The Due de Venddme, his son- in-law, jealous of the Montpensiers and the Guises, had promised to take up arms, and obtain the support of a portion of France." It is not said how these overtures were received, but the next day the bishop had another interview with Descurra, and offered him the estates which the Due de Vendome possessed in Flanders, together with 3000 silver ducats in exchange for Spanish Navarre. Negotiations upon this basis were continued for a year, and at last, in March, 1550, the propositions of Henri d'Albret were rejected. The year previous the Queen of Navarre, better known as Marguerite d'Angouleme, and called by Michelet "the^pure elixir of the Valois," died broken- hearted ; she had been deserted by her husband, and had seen her daughter wed a man in whom she had no confidence. The praises of that estimable princess have been written and sung so often that we need hardly allude to her character here further than to quote the few following lines from an oration pro- nounced over her tomb — " Marguerite de Valois, sceur unique du roy Franyois, dtait le soutien et appui de 128 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1550. bonnes lettres, et la defense, le refuge et reconfort des personnes desolees." It is curious to find, that no sooner was the Queen of Navarre dead and buried than matrimonial intrigues similar to those which had so long disturbed the repose of Jeanne d'Albret, and had given so much employment to the sovereigns of France and of Spain, recommenced. Henri d'Albret was hardly free when he began to talk of forming a new alliance. His marriage with Marguerite of France was spoken of at the court, but the sister of Henri II. appears to have refused her uncle's hand. Sir John Masone, writing to the council on the 3rd August, 1550, mentions a report that the Dowager Queen of Scotland was to marry the King of Navarre (she was then expected in France), and also that the Lady Margaret had refused his Majesty. The British ambassador made no further mention of these rumours, which in fact were merely gossip. It appears that in 1550 Charles V. was suffering from the pangs of remorse, or at least he ordered his son, by a secret clause in his will, " to examine and to verify as soon as possible, and sincerely, if, in reason and justice, he ought to restore the kingdom of Navarre, or to furnish compensation for it." This order, given by Charles V. to his successor, Philip II., was duly transmitted by Philip II. to Philip III., and by Philip III. to his successors. " Such was the reparation which the Catholic kings imagined in order to tranquillize their consciences." 1559.] JEANNE DALBRET CONFINED. 129 Great preparations were soon being made for war, which was several times on the point of breaking out, and Antoine de Bourbon at the head of an army was manoeuvring on the Spanish frontier. At this critical juncture fresh negotiations, upon whose initiative is not certain, were opened up between the emperor and Henri dAlbret. The old game was to be played over again. The King of Navarre demanded the hand of the emperor's niece, whom we have already mentioned as Christine of Denmark, who first wedded Maximilian Sforza, Duke of Milan, then the Duke of Lorraine, and who was once more a widow. This princess was to bring as her dowry Spanish Navarre ; if sons were born they were to reign to the detriment of Jeanne ; Henri dAlbret was to aid the emperor to invade France, giving him as a guarantee of his good faith the towns of Sauveterre and Mont-de-Marsan. Charles V. directed his son to pursue this negotiation, but Philip appears to have treated the propositions of the King of Navarre with real Spanish indifference, some- times taking up negotiations, and then allowing them to slumber for months. In September, 1551, Jeanne was brought to bed of a son. Sir John Masone announced this happy event to the Council in a despatch written from Amboise, 29th April. He said — " The Princess of Navarre is with child (meaning child born), to the great rejoicing of the whole house of Venddme. The King of Navarre has settled four hundred francs a year on the bearer who brought the news from his vot. I. k 130 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1551. daughter, and on his heirs for ever. The Duke of Vend6me is still with his father-in-law, not far from the frontier ; and it is thought that if the emperor is not encumbered with the Turk, there shall be some exploit for the recovery of Navarre." But Henri d'Albret was trying to recover the lost territory on other terms, nor would the fact of the emperor not being encumbered by the Turk have been advantageous to him in any case. On the eve of the birth of the child of Antoine de Bourbon and Jeanne d'Albret, who received the title of the Due de Beaumont, the Duchesse d'Anjou, better known as Catherine de Medicis, was brought to bed of a child, who afterwards reigned as Henry III., and was the last of his line. This child, born in September, 1551, had Edward VI. and Antoine de Bourbon for godfathers, and Jeanne d'Albret for godmother. Antoine de Bourbon and Jeanne were now separated for some time, the Duke having gone campaigning. Their letters, recently published by the Marquis de Bochambeau, show that they lived on the most affectionate terms. We may mention here that Sir Richard Morysine, writing to Cecil from Augsburg, 12th May, 1551, said ' — " It is reported that the King of Navarre is dead, and that Mons. Vend6me, husband to the daughter, and heir of Navarre, means to seek possession of the whole kingdom, his father-in-law during his whole life having had only portions of it. The French am- bassador says that he has not heard of the king's 1553.] THE DUO DE BEAUMONT. 131 death ; but if he is, M. de Vend6me has as good a title to the whole kingdom as the emperor has to Flanders. Because the King of Spain has no other title to Navarre except that when the Bishop of Rome had excommunicated the king thereof, the King of Spain as Bex Catholicus, entered upon the realm, which now, by curse of the bishop, is not his that was the right owner, but his that by violence could catch it. Thus the old doctrine serves well, that a realm may be kept from the right owner, and no grudge of conscience in the matter. Cannot see what kind of robbery can carry men to hell if it be lawful for any to steal' kingdoms. This talk may be spread to see what will be said of it, and perhaps, if the king be not dead, things upon occasion may be attempted which now break out in talk." l And, in fact, the King of Navarre was not dead, but had a few more years to live and intrigue. It is well to note the opinion which good Sir Eichard had of the emperor's claims to Navarre, and of predatory practices in general. On the 20th August, 1553, the little Due de Beau- mont,, whose birth had been hailed with such delight, died, to the great grief of his parents, and the in- dignation of his grandfather, Henri dAlbret, who accused his daughter of having neglected her child. As Jeanne was in a fair way to become a mother again, the King of Navarre insisted that she should repair to Beam to be confined, and he threatened to 1 Calendar of State Papers— Edward VI., No. 343. 132 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1554. disinherit his son-in-law should he refuse. On the night of the 13th December, 1553, Jeanne d'Albret was delivered of another son in the middle of a song, which, in obedience to her father, she began to sing when the pains of childbirth seized her. The child is said to have come into the world without uttering a cry. His grandfather wrapped him up in the corner of his dressing-gown, rubbed his lips with garlic, and gave him a few drops of Jurancon wine, which the infant appeared to relish. The Spaniards, when Jeanne was born, had said, in allusion to the coat of arms of the House of D'Albret — " Behold a miracle — the cow has brought forth a sheep." The King of Navarre, remembering his taunt, now retorted in his joy — " See, this sheep has given birth to a lion." On the 6th March, 1554, the young prince was christened by the Cardinal d'Armagnac. He had for godfathers the King of Navarre and the Cardinal de Vendome, and for godmother Isabeau d'Albret, the widow of the Due de Rohan. He received the name of Henri, and, what was more significative, the title of Prince of Viana. This title had long been borne by the heirs of Navarre, but Viana lay in that portion of Navarre which Charles V. had definitively annexed when he heard of Jeanne's marriage. The tortoise- shell cradle of the prince is still to be seen at Pau ; it escaped the fury of the revolutionary mob which shattered the bottle containing the ampoula, or oil with which the French kings were anointed at Rheims on their coronation ; which destroyed the shirt of St. 1554.] HENRI IV. BORN. 133 Louis, the felt hat of Joan of Arc, and other harmless ' relies. No thanks to the mob, for a sham cradle sub- stituted for the real one was smashed to pieces in 1793, and publicly burned. We may further note that the young prince had no less than eight wet nurses one after the other, and that the names of six of these are faithfully preserved in the chronicles of Pau. During this time — that is to say, during 1553 and the beginning of 1554 — the King of Navarre had been actively engaged in negotiating with Spain ; he had a formidable force at his command ; Antoine de Bour- bon was considered a consummate soldier, and Spain was in a state of great exhaustion. "In the spring of 1554," says Baron de Ruble, " Descurra returned to Pau. He found Henri d'Albret of the same mind as regarded the Spanish alliance ; he did not insist so strongly on the restitution of Navarre, but he wished to marry a princess of the Imperial house. He rejected the daughters of Ferdi- nand, King of the Bomans, who were too young and already engaged, and Christine de Lorraine, who had not replied to his proposals. He demanded the hand of the Donna J nana, the daughter of Charles V., the widow, since the month of January, of John King of Portugal. Descurra, in the name of the Spaniards, subscribed to the treaty ; he proposed to keep the marriage clause a secret, but insisted on obtaining the approbation of the Due de Venddme, in as far as the alliance was concerned. On the 19th February, 1555, Jeanne d'Albret gave 134 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1555 birth to another son, who was the victim of a sad and curious accident. A gentleman of the household and his nurse were engaged in passing the infant to each other from one window to another when they let it fall, and a few days afterwards the poor little Comte de Marie expired, to the great grief of his parents, who lost two sons out of three. In 1555 the chequered existence of Henri d'Albret came to a close. All his schemes for the recovery of Navarre proved fruitless. This ruling passion was so strong in death, that a few days before his end he talked of leaving his bed to take the command of an army which was to invade Spain. The deceased monarch was succeeded by Antoine de Bourbon, who soon showed himself intent upon carrying out the policy of his father-in-law, who used to say that a feeble king between two great powers was like a flea between two monkeys — that no sooner had he left one than he was caught by the other. One is tempted to make a few reflections on matri- monial alliances. Of what value are they ? Here was Henri d'Albret, who had married the sister of the King of France, yet he never could depend on the French alliance ; to strengthen that alliance Henri II. had forced him to give his daughter to a French prince. The relations between the two countries were drawn no closer by this second marriage. Both Henri d'Albret and Antoine de Bourbon after him were always ready to betray France on the promise of receiving Navarre as the price of their treason. And the two great and 1555.] DEATH OF HENRI D'ALBEET. 135 rival powers between which the little mutilated king- dom of Navarre enjoyed a precarious existence were united by marriage, Francois I. and Charles V. being brothers-iu-law. Antoine de Bourbon was in France when Henri d'Albret died. The fatal news seems to have reached him at Fontainebleau, whither he had gone to see the French king. Before the new sovereign of Navarre could take possession of his throne the courtiers of Henri II. impressed on the mind of that monarch that it would be dangerous to have so powerful a vassal on his borders, and tbe French king, following the advice of his ministers, proposed to Antoine de Bourbon, that in exchange for Beam, which was always menaced by Spain, he should accept certain domains lying in France. Not daring to refuse openly Antoine returned an evasive reply ; said that he could not dispose of the states without the consent of his wife, and when Jeanne dAlbret was appealed to, she answered that it would be necessary before making the transfer to obtain the consent of their subjects, and to release them from their oath of allegiance. Henri II; consented to this arrangement, and Antoine de Bourbon set out for Pau. Neither Jeanne dAlbret nor her husband seems to have had the slightest intention of consenting to the exchange proposed, and of abdicating the royal title. So far from that, the new king soon showed himself as deter- mined as his predecessor to reconstitute the kingdom of Navarre in its integrity. 136 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1556. The new king and queen were received with trans- ports of joy at Beam, where the Chambers, however, at first refused to take the oath of allegiance to Antoine. Jeanne d'Albret soon persuaded them to alter their decision, representing to the Chambers that the husband is lord and master over the person and property of the wife, and that she herself recognized Antoine d'Bourbon as her lord and master. Ancient privileges were confirmed, no changes were made in the mode of government, nor were the coun- sellors who took part in the schemes for a matrimonial alliance between Henri d'Albret, first with Christine of Lorraine and then with Juana of Portugal, punished, although either alliance would have compromised the chance of Antoine de Bourbon and his wife to the throne. In the middle of November the King and Queen of Navarre with the Prince of Beam set out for Paris, where they were received with all the honours due to their rank. Henri II. was peculiarly gracious, and actually spoke to Antoine de Bourbon of a match between the little Prince de Beam and his daughter Marguerite. But of this anon. • We have mentioned that Antoine de Bourbon con- tinued the policy of his father-in-law in attempting to obtain the restoration of Spanish Navarre. Very tempting propositions were offered by Spain in the course of his negotiations with that country, and at one moment the question of dismembering France was seriously discussed. Antoine de Bourbon was to be 1557.] WILD SCHEMES. 137 declared king of that country, and Spain was to have Gascony, Languedoc province, and some of the forts on the Flemish frontier. When these schemes proved abortive others were suggested, such as a matrimonial alliance between Spain and Navarre, the Prince de Beam to marry the daughter of Philip II. and Mary of England — daughter not born, and not destined to be born. On his side Antoine de Bourbon varied his demands ; now he insisted upon Navarre, and then he would be satisfied with the duchy of Milan or the kingdom of Naples. But there was always some unlucky hitch in the negotiations. The fact is that each negotiator doubted the good faith of the other, and that neither would take the first step. Antoine de Bourbon wished to be put in possession of Milan before performing his part of the contract, while Philip II. and "brother Charles" wished him to hand over his strong places first in the guise of hostages. The Spanish king was afraid too that Antoine might not be able to hold his own in Milan, which might be lost to both Spain and Navarre. On the 13th April, 1557, Philip II. wrote from London pointing out the above contingency, and adding that he had perfect confidence in the good faith of Vendome, and that he wo aid cede him Milan if he would place his two sons and his strong places in his hands directly Milan was handed over to him. A month afterwards Charles V. withdrew this concession, and everything was to be recommenced. New plots and secret negotiations were to be opened between the conspirators. 138 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1558. In March, 1558, we find the King and Queen of Navarre in Paris for the nuptials of the Dauphin and Mary Stuart, the daughter of James V. of Scotland and Marie de Guise of the house of Lorraine. Two memorable incidents occurred during this year. Charles V. and Mary Queen of England died. Philip II. lost both his father and his wife. In the Memoirs of Vieilleville we find that that minister, when he heard of the illness of Mary Tudor, despatched a monk to Philip to propose that he should marry the eldest daughter of Henri II., Elizabeth de Valois. Philip received this overture kindly, and the French King promised his daughter in case "fortune" should happen to the Queen of England. Mary was spared the pain of being made acquainted with these propositions, which had one good effect, they led to the conclusion of a truce between France and Spain at the moment when a collision between two large armies, commanded by renowned captains; was imminent. As was usual, every time that his two powerful neighbours made up their differences, the King of Navarre trembled for his safety. r When peace was concluded between France and Spain, Antoine de Bourbon, who little thought that his descendants would one day reign over both countries, was so indignant that he refused to be present at the marriages by which it was cemented. The daughter of Henri II., Madame Elizabeth, was given in wedlock to the King of Spain — his third wife. 1559.] ROYAL MARRIAGES. 139 She had formerly been betrothed to Philip's son, the unfortunate Don Carlos. The French king's sister, too, Marguerite, was to marry the Duke of Savoy, who had just inflicted so crushing a defeat on the French arms at St. Quentin. This peace was not only a death-blow to the hopes of Antoine de Bourbon as regarded Upper Navarre, he began to tremble for Beam and what remained of his little kingdom, and in 1560 we find him imploring the protection of France, as a short time before he had been imploring the protection of the emperor. He was altogether in a pitiable plight between the devil and the deep sea. What if the two powerful monarchs whom he had alternately offered to betray should turn upon him ? His father- in-law had long sought to secure the alliance of France or of Spain by offers of the hand of his daughter. Antoine de Bourbon resorted to a similar expedient with the little Prince of Beam. In honour of the two royal marriages there were to be great festivities at the French Court. It was in the course of these festivities that Henri II., who was an accomplished knight, met his death from the lance of Montgomery. All attempts to persuade the king not to enter the lists had proved vain, and when Montgomery wished to be excused the honour of breaking a lance with him his Majesty flew in a rage. Yieilleville, remembering the prophecy of Nostradamus, felt full of apprehension as he aided the king to put on his armour. Nostradamus had written — HO MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1559. " Le lion jeune le vieux surmontera En champ bellique par singulier duel ; Dans cage d'or les yeux lui crevera ; Deux playes une, puis mourir mort cruelle." The "young lion" Montgomery was twenty years younger than Henri II., the "golden cage" was his Majesty's helmet, and it was in the eye that the unfortunate monarch was wounded to death. According to Ue Thou, Brant6me, and Estoile, other prophets had foretold the violent death of the king. Everything was done to save the life of the wounded monarch. Four criminals had been decapitated the evening before the accident. What remained of Montgomery's lance was run into the four heads which were afterwards dissected, so that the real nature of the wound might be revealed. The King of Spain sent Andrew Versale from Brussels to try and save the monarch about to be his father-in-law. On the fourth day a violent fever set in, and the king on recovering consciousness sent for the queen, Catherine de Medicis, and ordered her to have the nuptials between his sister Marguerite and the Duke of Savoy celebrated at once. On the 8th July the ceremony was performed by torchlight in the little church of St. Paul. The queen was present, bathed in tears. The king was on the point of death. Never was there a more melancholy wedding. Antoine de Bourbon spent the last months of the reign of Henri II. at Beam. He was so dissatisfied with the peace of Catcau-Cambresis that he sulked 1559.] PROPOSED PROTESTANT ALLIANCE. 141 with the French Court, so wrath with Spain that he allowed Calvinist ministers to preach throughout his kingdom, while he himself on Easter day 1559 received the sacrament in the reformed church of Pau, and two days later in a private house. Jeanne d'Albret followed the example of her husband. They had to complain of the whole Catholic party, of the Pope, of his most Christian Majesty the King of France, of his most Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, and of the Guises who had become all powerful in France. Marguerite d'Augouleme had protected the Calvinists, but Paul IV. said of Jeanne d'Albret that " the daughter is worse than the mother, and has infected the whole house of Vendome." _ After having sought the alliance now of the King of France, now of the King of Spain, Antoine de Bourbon turned to Queen Elizabeth of England, and we shortly afterwards find her Majesty, on the advice of Cecil, writing to the duke, 1 who had several secret interviews with Throckmorton on the subject of a Protestant alliance. In the month of September the new king, Francois II., was crowned at Eheims, and at this ceremony the Duke of Orleans, who was afterwards Charles IX., the Duke of Angouleme who was afterwards Henri III., and the King of Navarre walked abreast. In spite of this we are assured that " both the King of Navarre and the Prince de Conde were regarded like those illustrious prisoners who added splendour to 1 Vide State Papers of the Reign of Elizabeth. 142 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1559. ancient triumphs." Shortly after the coronation the King of Navarre appears to have obtained permission to go and see his sister Marguerite who was dying. Such was the anomalous position of Antoine de Bourbon, who was King of Navarre, who held the first rank in France after the king and his brothers, and who was looked upon in England as so powerful that Queen Elizabeth negotiated with him, hoping with his aid to recover Calais, as he hoped with her aid to recover Navarre. And yet this powerful vassal had to crave permission to visit his sister on her deathbed. The existence of Antoine, too, was extremely varied. He had no sooner recovered from a terrible fright caused by Philip II. offering "his life and an army of 40,000 men in order to quell dissension in France, and to put down heresy," when he was asked to conduct Queen Elizabeth, the sister of the French king, to the Spanish frontier. When expecting Philip at every moment to invade his states and drive him from his throne, at the instigation of Catherine de Medicis he was invited to escort Philip's bride to her new country. For various reasons some delay took place in the departure of Elizabeth. First of all came forty days' mourning for the late king, during which nothing could be done, and then came other causes of delay merely hinted at in diplomatic documents. At last the bride set out. She was met by the King of Navarre at the border of his government in 1559.] ELIZABETH'S MARRIAGE. 143 Angoumois, and was escorted first to Bordeaux and then on to Beam. She reposed for several days at Pau. Everywhere she was received with the greatest splendour, Antoine being desirous of propitiating the King of Spain. The queen left Pau on the 24th of December, 1559, accompanied by the King of Navarre, the Cardinal de Bourbon, the Prince de la Roche-sur-Yon, the young Prince of Beam, and a numerous retinue. After resting for a day at St. Jean-Pied-de-Port the party set out for Roncevaux in the most inclement weather. Antoine de Bourbon, who clung to the idea of recovering Spanish Navarre with the same tenacity as his father-in-law Henri d'Albret had done, ob- jected to Roncevaux, where the Queen Elizabeth was to be handed over to the Spanish commissioners, being styled the Spanish frontier. Roncevaux was in Upper Navarre, and he had never renounced his claim to that province. Of course all he could do was to oblige the Spanish commissioners, much against their will, to make a note of this objection. It appears that during the ceremony at Roncevaux, Elizabeth, who repugnantly married the father of Don Carlos, suddenly remembering the young prince to whom she had at first been destined, fainted in the arms of the Queen of Navarre. We are also assured that the Queen of Spain never forgot the kindness and magnificence with which she had been treated by the King of Navarre, and that she proved her gratitude afterwards by saving the widow Hi MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBON'S. [1559. of Antoine de Bourbon and her so'i from the most tragic destiny. 1 Sad was the fate of this unfortunate princess, who seems to have done nothing to deserve her harsh treatment and violent death. Favin remarks as curious, that " from all time the Infantas of Spain married in France have been well treated by our kings, and on the contrary the French princesses married in Spain have, for the most part, died of poison or bad treatment." And the historian gives a pretty long list of these victims, beginning with Clothe, the daughter of Clovis, who married Amalaric, King of Spain. She sent her handkerchief, covered with blood, to her brother, who invaded Spain to avenge her. Then follow Ingoude, Rigoude, and many other unfortunates, down to Elizabeth, who, according to Favin, was poisoned by her husband, who before she died paid her a visit, already dressed in deep mourning, and condoled with her on her approaching end. Once more the King of Navarre attempted to open negotiations with the King of Spain. He so far humbled himself as to ask his Majesty to permit him to pay him a visit in company with Jeanne d'Albret, in order to kiss his hand. His overtures were received with haughty contempt, and to his great vexation he and Jeanne d'Albret were styled Monsieur and Madame de Vendome, nor would Philip II. ever admit of any other King of Navarre than himself. In a letter from Guido Giannetti to the Queen, 1 During the St. Bartholomew. 1560.] ANTOINE DE BOURBON AND THE POPE. 145 Venice, 21st December, 1560, we find that— "the King of Navarre complained that the services of him- self and his house had been ill requited, and that although he had held certain opinions in matters of religion he nevertheless wished to be Catholic and obedient to the Apostolic See,- and that therefore, as King of Navarre, he sent his ambassador to render public obedience to the Pope. He had, moreover, caused one of his men to be taken by the Lords of Guise as being the promoter of a sect in communion with Geneva. Vargas, the Ambassador of Spain, had objected to the acceptance of the obedience, asserting that the King of Spain is King of Navarre, and not Anthony, Duke of Vendome, nor Jeanne d'Albret his wife ; but the Pope decided to accept the obedience, with the protest that it be without prej udice to the King of Spain. The King of Navarre feared to lose the inheritance of his wife, on the borders of Spain, and his own patrimony adjoining, on account of the hostility of the Guises, and the offer of the aid of the King of Spain, by means of Don Antonio of Toledo, against the rebellious French. Throckmobton to Cecil. " Z\st December, 1560. " 2. The House of Guise does presently bear small rule ; the continuance and hope they have is in the King of Spain, who for religion and other respects will help their credit. The principal managing of affairs is with the Queen-Mother, the King of Navarre, and the Constable." 1 1 Francois II. died in June, 1560. VOL. I. L 146 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1561. We then see that Queen Elizabeth was recom- mended to write kind letters to Catherine de Medicis (Madam Serpent as she used to call her), the King of Navarre, and the Constable Montmorency. The letter of the queen to the queen mother of France was thus drafted — "Condoles on the death of the late king, and congratulate? on the accession of the present king (Charles IX.). Is specially glad to be informed by the English ambassador of the queen's desire to reform abuses in religion at present so rife, and to endeavour to re-unite Christendom, on which heads the ambassador will com- municate with her more fully." The two other letters were to a similar effect. Throckmorton to the Queen op Navarre. "20th January, 1561. " 1. Writes in consequence of a promise be made the last time he saw her. " Queen Elizabeth is well assured of the goodwill of the Queen of Navarre, and has more than once expressed her wish for the continuance of the same. She also congratulates the Queen of Navarre on her affection for the true religion, which she feels assured she will advance at all times. . . . Elizabeth has desired him to remind her of these things." France was for several years torn by religious dissensions ; there were the Bourbons, and the great Protestant party backed up by the Queen of England, then the Guises and the Catholics, who had the sup- port of Spain, and a third party, headed by Catherine de Medicis, which was between the two extremes, equally opposed to the reformed religion and the ambition of the Guises. While Jeanne d'Albret stood boldly up for the Calvinists, the King of Navarre 1561.] CALVIN AND GOLIGNY. 147 rendered himself suspicious to all parties by his wavering conduct. One day he was to be found in a monastery observing Easter, and a few weeks after- wards listening to the sermons of a minister of the Reformed religion. Calvin, in a letter to Coligny, complained bitterly ot his Majesty's inconsistency, and in a letter to the king himself he remonstrated with the king, not only on his defection from the good cause, but on his private life. In fact there was now almost a complete separation between Antoine de Bourbon and his wife. Jeanne d'Albret was forsaken for some of the sirens of the Court of Catherine de Medicis. " Chantonay," says Baron de Ruble, " endeavoured to enliven the gravity of Philip II., by giving him a description of the doings of the King of Navarre." On the 19th June, 1561, he wrote to his Spanish Majesty — " It appears that Vend6me cares little for the absence of his wife, because when they are together she wears the breeches, and he is no longer at liberty to entertain ladies and to pass the night at table as he does at present ; a course of conduct which often makes him ill . . . "And on the 15th August, Chantonay revealed the feelings of Jeanne dAlbret for her truant and profligate husband. He wrote — " How his wife detests him I know, for she makes no secret of it ... We then find Chantonay giving a description of the enthusiasm with which Jeanne dAlbret was hailed in various towns through which she passed during a 148 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1561. journey to Paris. " At Orleans," says that devout Catholic, " she was received by all the heretics, who waited for her as if she had been the Messiah." 1 And Throckmorton, writing to Challoner on the 20th December, 1561, says that — "Twenty-five religious ladies, the beautifullest of sixty, ont jette leur frocquez anx orties, 2 and scaled the high walls of the Monastery of St. Magdalen, near Orleans ; so much do they abhor the superstitions of the cloister, or rather delight in the company of profane persons." After " the Queen of the Reformers " had made her entry into Paris, where she was received by the Court with all the etiquette observed towards foreign sovereigns, and by her husband, she went to St. Germain. On the 4th September, 1561, Chantonay wrote again to Philip II. concerning the Queen of Navarre, saying — " She arrives determined to do all the damage she can to religion, and even to rate her husband because he goes to mass. I am convinced that the queen (Catherine de Medicis) will have much difficulty in living with her." We see by Desormeaux, whose information is derived from Davila, La Popliniere, Castlenau, the memoirs of Conde, and a number of other authors, the various forces set in motion in order to win over the King of Navarre to the Catholic party ; his Majesty's favourites, the Papal legate, the Spanish ambassador, the ladies of the Court, and the King's 1 Vide State Papers. 2 " Throw your frock to the nettles," is to commit a rash act. 1561.] MART STUART. 149 chamberlain, Frangois d'Escars, all intrigued together to attain this end. The latter pointed out to his master that Charles IX. and his two brothers were subject to dangerous illnesses, and would probably die in the flower of their youth as Frangois II. had died ; that then the crown would belong to him, but that France would not willingly obey a heretic monarch. Seeing what happened afterwards in the reign of Henri IV., it must be admitted that the reasoning of Frangois d'Escars was sound. On the other hand, the Papal legate and the Spanish am- bassador promised Antoine the island of Sardinia, from whence he might direct attacks on the kingdoms of Tunis, Algeria, and Tripoli. The historian of the House of Bourbon adds — " Guise and the legate, who were always alarmed lest he should escape them, dared to propose that he should repudiate Jeanne d'Albret in order to marry Mary Stuart. The Papal legate pointed out to him that this marriage would not only bring the throne of Scotland as a dowry, but would give him claims upon England. The Pope, in fact, was ready to dissolve his marriage with Jeanne d'Albret, and to declare the deposition of Elizabeth. According to Desormeaux and some authorities, Antoine de Bourbon could not make up his mind to separate himself from a wife who had borne him two children, and his paternal affection outweighed his ambition. Other authorities say that the objections came from the other side, and that Mary Stuart declined to give her hand to the divorced 150 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1561. husband of Jeanne d'Albret. The King of Navarre may also have been actuated by other and less worthy, motives. At the period in question he had taken for mistress one of the ladies of honour of Catherine de Medicis, the beautiful Eouet de la Berandiere, who in- fluenced all his decisions, and bound him to the Court. In consequence of the desertion of Antoine de Bourbon, the Prince de Conde, his brother, took the- leadership of the Protestant party, while Jeanne d'Albret, who could not be persuaded to hear mass, returned broken-hearted to Navarre. The state of affairs which then reigned in France is vividly described in the pages of Davila, the memoirs of Cond£, the letters of Pasquier, &c., &c. Here was Antoine de Bourbon at the head of his army pursuing his Huguenot brother, and threatening his wife and children. In another part of France the Comte de Sommerive gave battle to his father, the Comte de Zeude. Everywhere the torch of religious discord was kindled, among high and low. It is related that at Bar- sur-Seine the procurator of the king, one Eabet by name, tried his own son, accused of being a heretic, and had him hung before his own eyes. Fighting went on everywhere — in town and country, in the churches, and in private houses. Montaigne regretted that he did not live among savages (!). "They," he said, "fell, and devour their victims; but is it not more barbarous to eat a man living than to eat him dead, to tear to pieces and to torture a body full of feeling, £o roast it by degrees, to have it bitten 1561.] DEATH OF ANTOINE DE BOURBON. 151 and lacerated by dogs and by pigs, as we have not only read but recently seen, not amongst old enemies, but old neighbours — and what worst is, under the pretext of piety and religion ? " And Antoine de Bourbon was one of the triumvirs who encouraged these atrocities. Not for long, for in the civil war which ensued he soon fell, hated by the Protestants whom he had betrayed, and unwept by the Catholics, in whose cause he lost his life. Antoine de Bourbon was mortally wounded at the siege of Rouen. In the fever which set in before he died, he appears to have had pleasant visions of the island of Sardinia, of which he spoke with rapture ; and it was not until he was about to breathe his last that he recognized that he had been deceived by the King of Spain and the Papal legate. While under the impression that he would recover, he indulged in his usual tastes, and had the youngest and prettiest women of the Court to dance before him ; his mistress, Mademoiselle de la Berandiere, never quitted his bed- side. How-ever, when aware that his end was near, he turned his thoughts to more serious matters, and wrote to Jeanne d'Albret to implore her forgiveness, to warn her to keep a sharp look-out upon Lower Navarre and Beam, coveted by Philip II., and to recommend their children to her care. In the matter of religion, the expiring monarch seems not to have known which way to turn. Two doctors attended him — the one a Catholic, Vincent Lauro, skilful, modest, and attached to his religion ; as Desormeaux 152 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1561. says, " he afterwards became Bishop of Mondovi, Car- dinal, and very nearly Pope. The other doctor, named Meziere, was a man of infinite jest, an agreeable companion, and with a fund of good stories at his disposal. Each doctor tried to influence the religious opinions of the dying prince. Vincent Lauro at first had the better of it ; he persuaded the King of Navarre to confess and to receive the viaticum. Upon this came Catherine de Medicis, who, finding the sick man in great suffering, . recommended him the Book of Job, which the Huguenot doctor read aloud to him with much effect, and then proceeded to reproach him for his continual variations in the matter of religion. The king promised that if God spared his life he would adopt the Confession of Augsburg. However, two days later, lamenting the troubled condition of the country, he declared that he would use all his influence in favour of Calvin. . . ." Further on we find, when the hand of death was on the king, that " Meziere read the Holy Scriptures to him, and consoled him in these terrible- moments. Shortly afterwards came a Jacobin in disguise, whom the Cardinal de Bourbon had sent for, and he on his side began to exhort the dying man. . . . Then he expired, leaving those who surrounded him uncertain as to his faith ; he died, then, as he had lived, with- out knowing what to believe. He risked everything in favour of the Huguenots, and never obtained their confidence ; he died in the service of the Catholics, and none of them regretted him." 1561.] STATE PAPERS. 153 So died Antoine de Bourbon, at the early age of forty-four, leaving behind him a widow and two children— Henry IV. and Catherine de Bourbon. We here append a few despatches, culled from, the State Papers, bearing upon the subjects referred to in the foregoing pages. Throckmorton to the Queen. " Augmt 25th, 1559. " Spake to the King of Navarre three leagues from Paris, on the 22nd, about eleven o'clock at night, and delivered her letters, &c. For answer he praised her (Queen Elizabeth) for so great amity, and praised God for her preservation to advance true religion. . . . Perceives by the King of Navarre's discourses that he would have her marry no one of the House of Austria, nor the Earl of Arran ; thinks he will make an offer to her for some of his own friends, for he desires she will be advised by him in her marriage. He said the whole family of Austria were great Papists ; that her marriage was the making or marring of all." Muxdt to Cecil. " 13th May, 1561. "... The King of Navarre lately sent an envoy to the chief Protestant princes to excuse himself from a certain speech which was said to have been made by his order at Eome, by Peter Moreto, in the conclave of the cardinals, which had been much altered from what he desired. He said that he would omit nothing for the spread of true religion, and offered to do all he could to strengthen the friendship existing between France and Germany. ..." Throckmorton to the Queen. " 21s* May, 1561. " The Prince de Cond£, the Admiral, the Duke of Longueville, the Marshal Montmorency, and his brother Damville were not at the coronation, because they would not assist at the Mass. . . . For the temporal peers there assisted at the coronation, the King of Navarre, the Constable, the Dukes of Guise, Nevers, &c.,&c. . . ." 154 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1561. The coronation was that of Charles IX. Throckmorton to Cecil. "13th July, 1561. " Since the despatch of his letters of this date, he doubts the conclusion of this great assembly 1 in daily consultation, as he hears that the King of Navarre does not proceed in the cause of religion, as he made good show ; seeming to think that by this means he may be in case to recover his kingdom of Navarre, or be adjudged by the Pope capable thereof. ..." Navarre had been lost by a Papal bull, might it not be restored by a similar instrument ? and was not Navarre worth a mass ? But what do we find next % Viscount db Gedz to the Queen. " Uth Sept., 1561. " 10. By a private understanding with the Pope, the Venetians, MM. de Savoy, Lorraine, and Guise, the Constable, M. de Nemours, all the French bishops and cardinals, the Sorbonne of Paris, which has chosen him (King of Navarre) as patron, and many others, both in Germany and Italy, the King of Spain designs to be made guardian of the king and his realm. They wish to excommunicate the King of Navarre and his wife, the Prince de Conde, and their adherents ; to declare them heretics and rebels, and to deprive them of their right to the succession to the throne. They think that if the succession should fall to the House of Navarre, they would change religion and deprive the Pope of his authority. . . . The king has a bad constitution, and is not likely to live long. The Duke of Orleans has a bad cough. . . . The Duke of Anjou has been ill for more than a year, and is dying from day to day. The queen-mother, on account of certain predictions, makes much of the King of Navarre, and has promised her daughter to his sen." In fact, Nostradamus had foretold the end of the Valois line. 1 Colloquy of Poissy. 1562.] STATU PAPERS. 155 GUIDO GlARRETTI TO THE QUEEN. " Oct. Uth, 1561. " . . . . The King of Navarre has solicited the Pope to intercede with the King of Spain for the restitution of that realm, the history of the occupation of which by Spain is here narrated. The Pope has promised to send an envoy to Philip on the subject. . . ." And on the same date,, under title of Intelligences from Italy, we find — "The Pope is informed that the queen-mother, having taken the cardinals with her to Divine service, the pulpit was occupied by a Lutheran preacher, who spoke against the Holy Sacrament in such terms that the Cardinal Tournan left the church without making any reverence to the Queen. The Pope was much dis- tressed therewith, and told the ambassador of the King of Navarre that his master was a " traitor and a Lutheran, who should be punished. ..." Throckmorton to the Queen. " 6th March, 1562. " 2. Throckmorton asked what proof the queen could have that the queen-mother was speaking sincerely, seeing that she and the King of Navarre were bent to advance Papistry and overthrow the Protestant religion, not only in France, but in other countries ; for confirmation of which he perceived that the Queen o Navarre, the Prince de Conde, the Admiral and all his house are forced to retire from the Court. ..." " 3. The Admiral said that the King of Navarre hoped to com- pound with the King of Spain for his kingdom of Navarre, but he assured him that the queen-mother was well inclined to advance the true religion, although she is forced to show a good face to the adversary. ..." And on the 21st March, 1562, under heading Advices from Italy, we read—" The King of Spain has told the King of Navarre that he would travail for his satisfaction if he would live a Catholic, and do 156 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1563. his best to bring the queen to do the like, and reduce the Court to the same. In the same despatch he exhorted the queen-mother and the King of Navarre to hasten the bishops forward to the Council (of Trent). Throckmorton to the Queen. " 31st March, 1562. " . . . . M. de Lansac has arrived in France from. Rome. . . . It is thought that he brings the resolution of the recompense which the King of Spain will give the King of Navarre in satisfaction for Navarre. Suspects the matter will be drawn at such length that the King of Navarre will find himself in the end abused. ..." The recompense here referred to was no doubt the island of Sardinia, which Antoine de Bourbon con- sidered a paradise, which he would willingly have accepted, but which he never obtained, as the astute Throckmorton clearly foresaw. Smith to the Queen. " 11th January, 1563. " 2. On the 14th there came a secretary with letters from the Cardinal of Lorraine. They work there 1 marvellously fast, and offer in marriage the Queen of Scotland to Fernando, the Em- peror's son. She serves them for a good ' stale ' ; she has been offered to the King of Spain's son, the Kings of Navarre and Sweden, the emperor's son, and the Cardinal de Bourbon, who is no priest." Advices from Italy. "Rome, 6th April, 1563. " . . . . M. de Sevres, ambassador from the French king, has arrived. He asks that the Cardinal de Bourbon may be permitted to marry, and to govern France in the place of his brother, the late King of Navarre. It is thought that this will be granted. ..." 1 At Poissy. 1563.] STATE PAPERS. 157 Theockmortox to the Queen. " 5th Oct., 1563. ". . . . 17. The Bishop of Koine's ambassador has departed to Rome. It is said that the King of Spain has so prevailed with the Bishop of Eome that the young Prince of Navarre is, by the Council of Trent, declared illegitimate, and the lands of the queen his mother given in prey to him that can conquer them." CHAPTER X. Henri IV. In the middle of the month of November, 1556, the King and Queen of Navarre, followed by the Prince of Beran, set out for Paris on a visit to the Court of Henri II. Great preparations were made by the French king for his reception. All along the road they were treated in a right royal manner, and on the 12th February, 1557, they made their entry into Paris. The interview between Henri II. and Antoine de Bourbon was extremely cordial, and his French Majesty is said to have been particularly struck with the good nature and vivacity of the little Prince of Beam, who was then three years of age. Henri II. took him in his arms, and asked him if he would like to be his son. The child without displaying the least timidity replied, pointing to his father — A quet es lou seigne pai — or, " That is my lord father." The king then proposed that he should be his son-in-law, and to this arrangement the little prince consented. Antoine de Bourbon communicated this anecdote to his sister, 1 and charged one Captain Beauvais to tell 1 Lettres d' Antoine de Bourbon et de Jehanne d'Albret, p. 144. 1557.] MADAME MARGUERITE. 159 her " of the favour which it pleased the king to show me in proposing the marriage of his daughter, Madame Marguerite, with my eldest son, a matter which I con- sider as such a peculiar mark of his good grace, that I feel completely at ease, and satisfied on the subject of my most cherished wishes in this world." The rumour of this marriage circulated at Court, and in the month of September, 1557, Antoine de Noailles passing by Amboise on his way to Guienne conveyed "some good words" on the part of the Princesse Marguerite to her future husband. On this subject Brant6me quotes the following letter written by Jeanne d'Albret to one of her ladies- in-waiting who was ill — a letter in her own hand, which he saw — " I write this, my great friend, to rejoice you, and cause you to recover your health. The king, my husband, has sent me good news, that having had the boldness to ask the king for Madame, his young daughter, for my son, he did him the honour to accord his request. . I will not conceal the pleasure this affords me. ..." There is no date given to this letter, but a note says that it must have been written in 1557 — when Madame was just double the age of her future husband. Twenty years elapsed before this marriage was more seriously spoken of. Henri II. was dead, and so was his eldest son, Francois II., and the throne was occupied by Charles IX. The country was torn by civil and religious strife. Great battles were being continually fought between Catholics and Protestants, 160 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1570, towns were taken and retaken, and acts of atrocity daily committed, especially by the Catholic party. On one side were the king, Catherine de Medicis, his mother, the Pope, the Guises, and the Spaniards, while the Huguenots were headed by the Queen of Navarre, her son the Prince of Beam, Conde" and Coligny, and were backed up by Germany and England. Two very decisive victories over the Pro- testants — those of Jarnac and Montcontour — which led to no consequences as the Huguenots were soon again in the field, at length disgusted the Court with the war, and led to the conclusion of the peace of St. Germain, on the 8th August, 1570. According to Brantome Marshal Tavannes declared that it would be difficult to get rid of the Huguenots by arms, and that the best thing to do would be to play the fox. The Protestants obtained, among other advantages, the possession of four cities of refuge, and thus was brought to a close the third Eeligious War. On the 26th November, 1570, Charles IX. married Elizabeth, the second daughter of the Emperor Maximilian. Anne, the eldest daughter, had already espoused Philip II., and this alliance drew closer still the bonds which united the great Catholic Powers. But even in the eyes of Charles IX., his own mar- riage was not nearly so important as that which he proposed for his sister. By giving the hand of his sister Marguerite to the Prince of Beam, he hoped to deprive the Protestants of their leader, and he naturally concluded that most of the principal Hugue- 1571.] ENGLISH DESPATCHES. 161 nots would follow their chief. Marguerite, though only eighteen years of age, was known at Court to be the mistress of the Due de Guise whom she wished to marry, and the consequence was that she resisted the projects of her brother. Charles IX., in order to remove this impediment, directed Henri d'Angouhlme, Grand Prior of France, an illegitimate son of Henri II., to assassinate the duke. Guise managed to make his escape, and then to appease the wrath of his Majesty by marrying Catherine of Cleves. 1 The following despatches written by Sir Francis Walsing- ham show the interest which this matter excited in England — Walsingham to Lord Burleigh. "Paris, IWi August, 1571. " The marriage between the P. of Navarre and the L. Margaret is not yet thoroughly concluded, Eeligion heing the onely let : the Gentlewoman being most desirous thereof, falleth to reading of the Bible, and to the use of the Prayers used by them of the Eeligion. . . ." Same to the Same. "Blois, IWi Sept.; 1571. "... The marriage between the Prince of Navarre [and the Lady Margaret] is not so forward as Queen Mother was in preparation at Paris, who had provided both Jewels and "Wedding garments. The only impediment as I hear is Eeligion. There departeth towards the concluding of this matter towards the Queen of Navarre, who is now gone to Arragon, to certain Baynes there, for her health, Byron and Beauvoys." The Same to the Same. No date. " Touching the Marriage in Treaty here betwixt the Prince of Navarre and the Lady Margaret, Sir Thomas Smith, Mr. Killegrew 1 Sismoudi, t. 19, p. 98. VOL. I. M 162 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1571. and I, knowing how much the success of the same might further the cause of Religion ; and finding the greatest difficulty to be the manner of the solemnizing of the same, we sent unto the Queen of Navarre a Copy of the Treaty of the marriage betwixt King Edward and the late Queen of Spain, the king's sister here, wherein it was agreed (as your Lordship knoweth) that she should be married according to the form of our Church. This Copy of the Treaty, as the Queen of Navarre her self told Sir Thomas Smith and me, standeth her in very good stead, whom she sent for the 7 of this month to come and speak with her. At our acess she told us that she did not send for us, before she did make the Queen Mother acquainted therewith ; not (saith she) in respect to myself, but in respect of her Majestie towards whom I would be loth to ingender any Jealousie, considering that she is growing to so good Amity with this Crown : For as for my self, I am not afraid to make known to all the world the great good will I bear towards her Magestie, to whom I am as much bound as ever one Prince was to another. And because (saith she) you are ministers to her Magestie here, I thought good to make you acquainted in what state and terms the Treaty of the marriage standeth betwixt their Magesties here and me (saith she) there is no difference, but onely the manner of solemnization. I have alledged the Treaty which you sent me, whereunto they take exceptions, such as are of no great value, and therefore (said she) I cannot tell what to Judge of the matter, because amongst the rest of the exceptions, they say it was no true Copy of the Treaty. I have sent for you Monsieur Smith (saith she) to know, because you were a dealer in the same, whether you will not Justine it to be a true Copy, to whom Sir Tho : Smith that knowing the great good will her Magestie did bear her, and how much she desired the good success of that marriage, as a thing that tended to the advancement of Eeligion, and repose of this Realm, he could not but in duty avow the same, and be willing to do any good office that might advance the said marriage. She made us acquainted with other particularities which I thought good to refer rather to the report of this bearer than to commit them to writing. " The Copy of the Letter which I send unto your Lordship here inclosed, sent unto her from her son, which she delivered unto us secretly to read, may show you how full of jealousis the matter is, and therefore until the same be concluded, I hold it for doubtful." 1572.] ENGLISH DESPATCHES. 163 Same to Same. " Blois, March 29tfi, 1572. "... The matter of the marriage between the Prince of Navar and the Lady Margaret continueth doubtful, wh«reef Sir Thomas Smith and I have more cause so to judge, for that the 4th of this month it pleased the Queen of Navar to send for us to dinner. Immediately upon our coming she showed unto us how, with the consent of the Queen Mother, she had sent for us (as the Ministers and Ambassadors of a Christian Princess she had sundry causes to honor) to confer with us and certain others in whom she reposed great trust, touching certain difficulties that were impeachments to the marriage, which thing she could communicate to us after dinner. She said to us that now she had the "Woolf by the eaTS, for that in concluding or not concluding the marriage, she saw danger every way, and that no matter did so trouble her as this, for that she could not tell how to resolve : amongst divers causes of fear she showed unto us that too chiefly troubled her. " The first that the king would needs have her son and Lady Margaret, the marriage proceeding, to be courtiers, and yet would not yield to grant him any exercise of religion ; the next way to make him become an Atheist, as also thereby no hope to grow of the conversion of the Lady Margaret, for that she would not resort to any sermon. " The second that they would needs condition with the Lady Margaret, remaining constant in the Catholic religion, should have, whensoever she went into the country of Beam, her Mass, a thing which in no wise she can consent to having her country cleansed from all Idolatry. Besides, said she, the Lady Margaret remaining a Catholic whensoever she shall come to remain in the country of Beam, the Papists there will take her part, which will breed division in the country, and make her most unwilling to give ear to the Gospel, having a staff to lean to. " After dinner ended she sent to us into the chamber, where we found a dozen others of certain Gent, of the Religion and their Ministers. She declared briefly what had passed between the king, queen mother, and her touching the marriage, as also what was the cause of the present stay of the same, wherein she desired us to severally say our opinion, and that sincerely as we would answer unto God. The stay stood upon three points — -1st, "Whether she might with a good conscience substitute a Papist for her son's M 2 164 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1572. Proctor for the Fiansals, ■which was generally agreed she might. 2nd, Whether the Proctor going to Mass after the Fiansals, which was expressly forbidden by his latter procuratory, would not breed an offence to the godly. It was agreed that this would be no offence. 3rd, Whether she might consent that the word Fiansal might be pronounced by a Priest in his priestly attire with his Surplice and Stool. This latter point was long debated, and for the ministers concluded, that the same, though it were a thing indifferent, could not but breed a general offence to the godly ; she rjrotested that she would never consent to do that thing whereof there might grow any public scandal, for that she knew, she said, she would so incur God's high displeasure : upon which protestation it was generally concluded that in no case she might yield thereto, her own conscience gainsaying the same, so that now the marriage is held generally for broken. Notwithstanding, I am of a contrary opinion, and do think assuredly that hardly any cause will make them break, so many necessary causes there are why the same should proceed. By the next I shall be able to advertise your lordship of the certainty of this marriage. . . . " The Admiral is to be shortly looked for here, and great hopes are conceived of compounding the discord between him and the house of Guise. For the conclusion of the Navar marriage there is eight chosen, to whom the matter is committed, four for the king and four for the Queen of Navarre. For the king is chosen, Bivage, Count de Retz, Biron, Mulalieur. For the queen, Count Ludowick, Francourt, her chancellor, de la Nove, and her secretary. They are all as it is thought so well affected to the marriage, as there is no doubt made of some good conclusion, and so having nothing else to impart to your honor at present, I most humbly take my leave." In her memoirs Marguerite de Valois gives another version of how matters passed. She relates how- ambassadors were sent by the King of Portugal to demand her hand, and how the queen mother ordered her to receive them. Marguerite declared herself ready to do what her mother wished, but Catherine de Medicis, doubting this, lost her temper, and said she knew that I would sooner marry the nephew of the 1572.] PEACE OF ST. GERMAIN. 165 Cardinal de Lorraine, 1 and, we may add, that the . Cardinal boasted to the Portuguese ambassadors that this marriage would take place. Marguerite de Valois then relates all that she had to suffer on account of the Due de Guise, and how she advised him at once to wed the Princesse Porcian, Catherine of Cleves. The King of Spain having caused the marriage with the King of Portugal to be abandoned, Marguerite says, " Some days afterwards my marriage with the Prince of Navarre, who is now our brave and magnanimous king, was spoken of. The queen, my mother, being at table, spoke for a long while on the subject with Charles de Montmorency. On leaving table he said that the queen wished him to speak to me on the subject. I replied that it was quite super- fluous, as I had no will but hers ; that in truth I wished her to bear in mind that I was a Catholic, and that it would displease me to marry a person not of my religion. The queen afterwards sent for me, and told me that the Montmorencies had proposed this marriage, and wished to know what I thought of it. I said that I had no will but hers, and I begged her to remember that I was a strict Catholic. After some time the Queen of Navarre, his mother, came to Court, . where the marriage was decided upon before her death." . The peace of St. Germain, which had put an end to open, hostilities, by no means quelled the animosity which reigned between Catholics and Protestants, 1 The Due de Guise. 166 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1572. both in Paris and through the country. In the capital the houses of several leading Huguenots were pillaged by the mob, and Charles IX. ordered the Provost of the Merchants, Marcel, who the following year took such a sanguinary part in the St. Bartholo- mew, to disperse the insurgents. This was done ; two or three of the mob were killed by the watch, and the rest took to flight. This and some other acts of vigour for the protection of the Protestants inspired Henri of Navarre, the Prince de Conde, and most of their followers with confidence in the sincerity of the king. Coligny, however, doubted, and so did the Queen of Navarre. However, the king and queen, impatient to obtain their end, brought every possible influence to bear upon the Huguenot chiefs to induce them to come to Court ; and Biron was despatched to propose to the Queen of Navarre, " to better establish and confirm their ancient relationship and the present peace, to give in marriage Margaret, the king's sister, to the Prince of Navarre." 1 It was thus that the Queen of Navarre had been induced to quit her city of refuge, La Rochelle, after having consulted her theological advisers, and to venture to Paris. Alas, Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre, was not destined to see her son's marriage. She died, probably of a natural death, but assassination was so common in those days that her rather sudden end was attributed to poison. But this strong-minded woman had more than one 1 Davila, t. v. p. 252. 1572.] COURT MORALS. 167 reason for dreading the Court. On the 8 th March, 1572, she wrote to her son at Beam a long letter, in which she said — " I write to you privately ; the bearer will tell you how the king emancipates himself. This is a pity. I would not for all the world that you should come here to remain. This is why I wish you to get married, and for you and your wife to withdraw from the corruption of the Court, for although I believed it to be great, I find it still worse than I thought. The men do not solicit the women, but the women the men. If you were here you would escape only by the grace of God." And the Queen of Navarre concluded her letter by saying that she had had a conversation with Madame Mar- guerite, and had hopes that she would change her religion, and, in fact, she declared that she would not have pushed matters so far but for this conviction. " To speak then of the beauty of this rare princess, I believe that the beauty of all other who are, who are to come, and who have been, are ugly compared to her, and are not beauties." And it would be difficult to surpass the terms in which Brantome speaks of the perfections of this princess, whose eyes were made to set the world in a blaze, and whose loveliness so astonished the Polish ambassadors, who came to the French Court to offer the crown to the Due d'Anjou, that they were petrified. Brant6me tells us that when the marriage was agreed upon, Catherine de Medicis on going to bed asked what her daughter thought of it, and that a 168 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1572. very foolish woman, who had not been long at the court, replied — " Why should she not rejoice over such a marriage, when it is possible that she may become Queen of France should the crown descend to the king, her affianced husband ? " Catherine de Medicis called the lady a great fool, and declared that she would sooner die a hundred deaths than see such a silly prophecy accomplished. Another lady remarked — " But should this misfortune happen, you would be glad to see your daughter Queen of France ? " Catherine again declared that she would sooner die a hundred times than see this happen, as great troubles would overwhelm France — "for I believe people would not absolutely obey the King of Navarre as they do my children for many reasons, which I do not mention." And Catherine went on to blame the abolition of the Salic law, as her daughter would be more capable to reign than many kings she knew. Some little time was spent in negotiating this serious affair, when one day the Queen of Navarre, speaking to the king of France concerning the Papal dispens- ation necessary for the marriage of her son, said that the Pope might, on account of his religion, keep him waiting. " No, no," replied the king ; " I honour you, my aunt, more than the Pope, and love my sister more than I fear him. If M. le Pape shows too much obstinacy I will myself take Margot by the hand and lead her to be married in the Protestant church. I am not a Huguenot, but neither am I a fool. 1 1 L'Etoile, t. i. p. 73. 1572.] DEATH OF THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE. 169 According to L'Etoile, Charles IX. at this moment never left the Queen of Navarre, called her his great aunt, his all, his best-beloved, and treated her with so much honour and reverence that every one was astonished. Then on retiring for the night he whis- pered to his mother, Catherine de Medicis — "Well, madame, what think you, have I not played my part well 1 " " Yes ; but you must continue." " Allow me to manage matters," replied the king, "and you will see them all taken in a net." A few days after the above conversation the Queen of Navarre was taken ill, and on the 9th June, 1572, she expired, at the age of forty-four years. D'Aubigny and several other authorities incline to the belief that she was poisoned by a Florentine perfumer called Bene, at the instigation of Catherine de Medicis. De Thou has his doubts on the subject, while in some quarters the death of the queen was attributed to a pulmonary disease aggravated by the excitement consequent on the approaching nuptials of her son. The king is said to have expressed the most acute grief at the death of his aunt, and to have ordered a post-mortem examination to see if she had been poisoned. The body was opened, and, as Pierre Mathieu says in his History of France, the lungs were found much ulcerated, " but there were persons who said that the disease was in the brain," and it was remarked that the surgeons who conducted the post-mortem did not examine the brain. L'Etoile tells us that " Kene was one of the executioners of 170 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1572. the St. Bartholomew — a man impregnated with all sorts of crime and wickedness, who stabbed the Huguenots in the prisons, and lived on murders, thefts, and poisonings, having poisoned among others, just before the St. Bartholomew, the Queen of Navarre, and the day after the massacre a poor jeweller. . . . Therefore was the end of this man and his whole house terrible, a real mirror of the justice of God; for he died shortly afterwards on a dung-hill, con- sumed by vermin ; two of his sons were broken on the wheel, and his wife died in a house of ill-fame." The marriage articles had been signed by the Queen of Navarre on behalf of her son on the 11th April, and Charles IX. had settled his sister's dowry, but the Papal dispensation tarried to arrive. When it did at last come it was not such as had been demanded ; however, both parties agreed to go on with the marriage, and the Cardinal de Bourbon, the uncle of the heretical husband, consented to per- form the ceremony. It was afterwards argued, when an attempt was made to set up a claim to the throne on the part of the cardinal, called by his adherents Charles X., that in the marriage contract passed between the King of Navarre and Marguerite de Valois, having acted as guardian, he had acknow- ledged his nephew as the head of the House of Bourbon. We shall have something more to say of this prelate later on. It had been at first decided that during the pre- parations for the nuptials of the Prince of Navarre 1572.] PAPAL BRIEF. 171 and the sister of the king, a wooden citadel should be built on an island in the Seine, opposite the Louvre, that the command of this citadel should be given to the Duke of Anjou, and a picked body of men, to undergo a siege ; that the Prince of Navarre, Coligny, and other nobles, should attempt to capture this fort, and that both sides should fire blank cartridge ; but when their blood was up, on a certain signal the garrison should load with ball cartridge, and that the murders thus accomplished should be attributed to a sudden quarrel between the parties. The fort was built, but the Huguenot were too sus- picious to fall into the trap, and his Majesty had the construction removed before this suspicion could take deep root. It was at first hoped that the Cardinal of Lorraine, who was then at Rome, would obtain the dispensation from the Pope, as regards both relationship and difference of religion ; but the brief was addressed to the Cardinal de Bourbon because he was to perform the ceremony, and as he was not satisfied with it, he asked for something more precise. Upon this the king threw all the blame of the delay upon him. Making fun of the cardinal, he declared that the objections he raised were naught but superstition and ill-grounded scruples, that he did his Marguerite harm, and that she was much displeased that a matter she looked forward to with such pleasure should be so long delayed. The Prince of Navarre, who assumed the title of 172 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1572. King of Navarre on the death of his mother, arrived some months later at Court, accompanied by eight hundred gentlemen all in mourning. They were received, says Marguerite de Valois in her Memoirs, by the king and the whole Court with great honour, and the nuptials took place a few days later with great " triumph and magnificence " ; the King of Navarre and his followers having changed their mourning for very rich and handsome costumes. All the Court too were splendidly attired, "and I was dressed in royal fashion, with crown and corsage of spotted hermine, which is worn in front of the body, all brilliant with crown jewels, and a large blue mantle with a train four aunes long borne up by three princesses." One remarkable fact about this marriage was noted by Davila, 1 who says that many persons remarked that when the Cardinal de Bourbon asked Marguerite de Valois if she would take the King of Navarre for her husband, she made no reply, whereupon the king, her brother, laid his hand upon her and forced her to bow her head. By this movement she was considered to have given her consent ; but she before and after- wards, on every occasion she could speak with freedom, declared that she neither consented to renounce the Due de Guise, to whom she had previously pledged her troth, nor to take for husband the bitterest enemy of that duke. It had been foretold that should the marriage of 1 Tome v. p. 263. 1572.] CRIMSON NUPTIALS. 173 the King of Navarre and Marguerite de Valois take place the liveries would be of crimson, and in fact these nuptials, so closely followed by the massacre of the St. Bartholomew, received the nickname of les noces vermeilles. If the new Queen of Navarre showed little affection for her husband, the King of Navarre, on the contrary, testified the greatest affection not only for his wife but for his mother-in-law, Catherine de Medicis, and for his brother-in-law, Charles IX. And it was on this account that in the councils of the Court it was resolved that the princes of blood- royal should be spared during the approaching massacre. 1 The question was debated if the King of Navarre and the Prince de Conde" should be excepted. With respect to the King of Navarre there was no difference of opinion — the royal dignity, it was urged, and the alliance he had just contracted with the king, com- manded this. Besides, the decision at which they had just arrived, already odious in itself, would be infinitely more so if they massacred a great king, the near relation of his Majesty, and who had just married his sister, in the palace and in the sight of the king his brother-in-law, and, so to speak, in the arms of the queen his wife. It would be impossible to justify such an action. According to De Thou, Coligny and his friends were convinced that the king really wished for peace, that he regarded it as necessary for the State, and 1 Sismondi, t. xix. p. 151. 174 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1572. that in order to secure it he wished his sister to marry Henri of Navarre, and to carry war into Flanders. But, adds De Thou, the Italian authors have rendered this point problematic by praising the cunning and admirable talent of this great king, who had long premeditated the blow he was about to strike. De Thou goes on to relate how the Queen of Navarre on her way to the Court met Cardinal Alexandrini, who passed by without saluting her. He went straight to Blois, where he was at once admitted to a secret interview, and protested against the league with the Turk and against the king's sister marrying Henri of Navarre instead of the King of Portugal. Charles IX. assured the prelate that the marriage would be most advantageous for the settlement of religious affairs, and that in the end the Pope would be quite satisfied with him. We have little to say here respecting the horrors of the St. Bartholomew, one of the most terrible crimes which has ever reddened the history of any country. Brantome tells us that it was owing to the intercession of Marguerite de Valois that the king was induced to spare the life of her husband. But this is more than doubtful. Marguerite makes no mention of this episode in her Memoirs. What she does tell us is, that on the evening of the massacre her own life was exposed by her mother in order that her husband might suspect nothing. " My mother," she says, " told me to go to bed. As I made my bow my sister took me by the arm and stopped me, and beginning to cry, said — ' My 1572.] THE ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 175 God ! my sister, do not go,' which greatly alarmed me. The queen my mother perceived this, and calling my sister, was very angry with her, and forbade her to say anything. My sister said that it was useless to send me to be sacrificed like that. The queen replied that if it pleased God no harm would befall me, but that I must go, for fear something should be suspected. . . . She told me very roughly to go to bed. My sister burst into tears, said good night, without daring to add anything else, and I went away petrified and bewildered, being unable to imagine what I had to fear." Nothing happened to the King or Queen of Navarre on that terrible night. At break of day Charles IX. sent for Henri de Navarre and the Prince de Condd, and accused them and the Huguenots of being a source of continual trouble in the State. They both protested, and their lives were spared. A few days afterwards Charles IX. was with difficulty prevented by his wife, Elizabeth of Austria, from slaying Conde* with his own hand ; he, however, contented himself with entering his room and crying, " Mass, Death, or Bastille." The King of Navarre and his sister Catherine, the Prince de Conde and his wife and others abjured. The King of Navarre, in fact, to show the sincerity of his conversion, issued an edict prohibiting the exercise of the reformed religion in Beam, and restoring the property of the Catholic Church. He also expressed extreme grief that he had imbibed false doctrines in his childhood. Both 176 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1572. the King of Navarre and the Prince de Conde" wrote letters to the Pope announcing their conversion, and asking for the Papal benediction. On the 1st November, 1572, his Holiness sent a favourable reply. How could it have been otherwise, seeing the intense delight which the news of the massacre in Paris had caused at Rome. What it behoves us to remark in these two letters is, that the Pope confirmed the marriages contracted before the arrival of his dispensation — the marriage of Henri de Navarre with Marguerite de Valois, and of the Prince de Conde" with Mary of Cleves. The marriage of the King of Navarre and the massacre by which it was followed by no means appeased the troubles which disturbed the state. A large number of Catholics, disgusted with the atrocities which had been committed in Paris and a number of other places, joined the Huguenots, and in a short time the fourth civil war was raging through the country. The King of Navarre, then twenty years old, was detained a prisoner at Court, where he amused himself in company with Charles IX., aged twenty-three, and Henri, King of Poland (his brother, who afterwards reigned as Henri III. of France), aged twenty-two. The youngest brother of Charles IX., the Due d'Alencon, was not allowed to share in the orgies of the three young monarchs, being suspected by Charles of wishing to dethrone him. But if the conduct of the King of Navarre was reprehensible at this period, so was that of his wife, who not only 1572.] MADAME DE SAUVE. 177 kept up her intrigue with, the Duke of Guise, but had other lovers. The King of Navarre fell an easy- victim to the wiles of Madame de Sauve, a woman of the most wanton character, who served in the celebrated flying squadron of Catherine de Medicis. Mezaray tells us that this beautiful woman employed her attractions as well on her own account as in the interests of the queen-mother, "trifling with and exer- cising an absolute empire over all those persons who were dying in love with her (les mourants), never losirjg one, but often acquiring more." Catherine de Medicis employed her at this moment to sow dis- sension not only between Henri de Navarre and his wife, with the view of bringing about a divorce, but between Henri and the Due d'Alengon, who was also a State prisoner. Madame de Sauve seems to have had no objection to becoming the mistress of both princes, and if we are to believe Bassompierre, of Charles IX. as well. Nothing but the flight of the two princes from Court prevented them from cutting each other's throats over this dangerous syren. Marguerite de Valois in her Memoirs complains bitterly of these abominable designs, which were the source and origin of so many troubles, and would have us believe that at this period she was deeply attached both to the Due d'Alengon, her brother, and to her husband. She was no doubt terribly vexed at the influence exercised by that Circe, as she called Madame de Sauve, over both princes. In a letter which the King of Navarre wrote to the Governor of Beam, he said — " This VOL. I. 178 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1572. Court is the most strange I ever saw; we are- always ready to cut each other's throats ; we carry daggers, and very often a breastplate beneath the cloak. The king is as much menaced as I am ; he likes me more and more ... I brave every one. The League, as you know, wishes my death, and for the third time has forbidden my mistress (Madame de Sauve) to speak to me. It keeps such a close watch upon her that she does not dare to look at me. ..." One of the lovers attributed to Marguerite de Valdis was La Mole. La Mole and Cocconas — the first a Provencal, the second a Piedmontais — were in the service of the Due d'Alencon, and were afterwards engaged in a plot having for effect to unite the Politicians and the Huguenots together, and to wage war against the Court. At the last moment La Mole and Cocconas revealed the conspiracy, but this did not prevent them from being put to the torture and executed. La Mole was not alone a favourite of the Due d'Alencon, but was " well treated" by the Queen of Navarre ; while Cocconas on his side was " well treated" by the Duchesse de Nevers. When the conspirators were beheaded, the queen and the duchesse openly displayed their grief by themselves taking the heads of the victims to the chapel of St, Martin, near Montmartre, and burying them with their own hands. The violent death of these favourites was a piece of retributive justice, as during the St. Bartholomew they had behaved with marked atrocity. 1575.] THE KING OF NAVARRE FLIES. 179 La Mole was not an unfavourable specimen of the courtier of that day ; he devoted most of his time to gallantry, but he never neglected going to mass, not only once, as L'Etoile tells us, but three or four or even five or six times a- day, even when he was campaigning, which was rare with the profession ; and he was heard to say that had he missed once his opinion was that he would be damned. He was persuaded that mass devoutly listened to expiated all sins and adulteries he might commit ; the late . king being told of this, said that one might keep a register of the debauches of La Mole by counting the times he went to mass. His last words on the scaffold were, " God have mercy on my soul and the Blessed Virgin. Remember me to the good graces of the Queen of Navarre and the ladies." The Luc d'Alengon was the first to make his , escape from the Court and the charms of Madame de Sauve, who favoured his rival, Henri de Navarre. He fled in September, 1575, and did not draw rein until he reached Dreux, where he found a number of gentlemen waiting for him. Although he had taken no steps to prevent the execution of La Mole, .he showed his adherents the pourpoint which he had worn on the day that he was beheaded, and declared that he would continue to wear it "as a pledge of great vengeance." On the 20th February, 1576, the Court was thrown into consternation on learning that the King of Navarre had managed to make good his escape. N 2 180 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1575. There were already three armies hostile to the Court in the field— one commanded by Conde" occupied Burgundy, that of D'Alencon was in Poitou, and that of Damville, a son of the Constable Montmorency, in Languedoc. The flight of the King of Navarre was therefore a great blow for Henri III. and Catherine de Medicis ; the first had surrounded him with guards, the second with maids of honour, who appear to have betrayed the trust of their mistress, to have revealed to their lover the intrigues of the Court, and to have aided him in his escape. In fact, in addition to Madame de Sauve, the King of Navarre, who took little notice of the immorality of his wife, was carrying on intrigues with Madame Dayelle and with Madame de Carnavalet. Marguerite de Valois tells us how, on the departure of her brother, she wept so abundantly that she caught a feverish cold which confined her to bed, and that while she was ill the king her husband never came near her, "being either busy concerning his own escape, or wishing to devote the short time which remained to the voluptuousness of enjoying the presence of his mistress, Madame de Sauve." And, in fact, the King of Navarre fled without even saying adieu to his wife, and yet it is stated that he no sooner found himself at a safe distance from the Court than he said, "There are only two things which I regret — mass and my wife, and I shall be able to get on without the former." The King and Queen of Navarre were hardly separated before they seemed 1576.] A RECONCILIATION. 181 anxious to resume those matrimonial bonds which sat so lightly on both of them. Suspected for a time of having favoured the escape of her husband, Marguerite de Valois fell into such disgrace at Court that no one but the brave Crillon ventured to visit her, and in fact she was placed under arrest. When the King of Navarre " had arrived in his government," says Marguerite in her Memoirs, " his friends remonstrated" with him for not having said adieu to me, representing that I had the power of serving him, that he must regain me, and that he could derive great utility from my friendship. It was easy to persuade him of this, as being removed from his Circe, Madame de Sauve, her charms had lost their force by absence." She adds how the King of Navarre wrote her a very kind letter, begging her to forget what had passed between them, to believe that he wished to love her, and show this more than he had ever done. When the queen-mother took her away from the Court to go and find her husband in Gascony, all the courtiers regretted her departure as if a great calamity had fallen on their heads. Some said, " The Court is widowed of its beauty;" others, "The Court is dark — it has lost its sun ; " others, " The Court is obscure, and there are no torches." And, according to Brant6me, several courtiers wished to slav M. de Duras. The escape of the King of Navarre, and the for- midable proportions now assumed by the allied forces, 182 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1576. Huguenots and moderate Catholics, who were march- ing on the capital 30,000 strong, brought the Court to its senses. Negotiations were opened under the auspices of Catherine de Medicis, who acted at this critical juncture with her usual skill and good fortune. What was called the peace of Chastenoy or the peace of Monsieur, 1 was concluded on the 6th May, 1576, and the king held a bed of justice on the 14th to have it registered by the Parliament of Paris. This peace, if it suited the purposes of Catherine de Medicis, whose great object was to detach Monsieur from the coalition, was considered so humiliating by the Parisians, that they would not permit a Te Deum to be sung in its honour. The Huguenots demanded and obtained very con- siderable concessions, while the King of Navarre made several personal claims, and among these — that he should be allowed to go to Beam with his wife, in order to settle the affairs of that State ; . . . that he should receive the 200,000 francs constituting the dowry of his- wife, with interest, &c. 2 And thus ended what was called the fifth pacification. After waiting for three months the King of Navarre once more embraced the Protestant religion, declaring that he had never abjured in his heart the faith in which he had been brought up by his 1 The Due d'Alengon, being now the next heir to the throne, was styled Monsieur, in accordance with the usual custom. After the peace of Chastenoy he took the title of Due d'Anjou. 2 De Thou, t. vii. pp. 414, 415. 1576.] WAR CONTEMPLATED. 183 mother. He demanded Henri III. to send him back his wife and sister Catherine, and he despatched Duras to the Court to fetch them. The French kins; refused to part with his sister, for reasons thus given by Marguerite de Valois herself — " He said that it was owing to the friendship which he bore me, and because I was an ornament to the Court, that he wished to detain me as long as possible. He delayed openly refusing me leave to go until he had every- thing ready for declaring war, as he meant to do, against the Huguenots, and consequently against the king, my husband. And in order to find a pretext, he caused the report to be circulated that the Catholics complained of the advantageous terms conceded to the Huguenots." Marguerite de Valois then relates how her brother dismissed the messenger sent by her husband — " with harsh words, full of menace, saying that he had given his sister to a Catholic and not to a Huguenot, and that if the king my husband wished for me, he must become Catholic." And consequently Duras returned to the King of Navarre with Catherine de Bourbon only. In August, 1576, it was announced that Cathe- rine de Medicis was about to repair to Nerac with her daughter, the Queen Marguerite, in order to restore her to her husband, and to have a con- ference with him ; but this voyage did not take place, and possibly was not intended. In vain did Marguerite protest that she had not married for her 184 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. . [1576. own pleasure, but in obedience to King Charles, to the queen-mother, and to himself, and that she ought to be allowed to share the fortunes of her husband. Henri III. refused to listen to her, and declared it to be his determination to exterminate the Huguenots, and Marguerite on her side threatened to make her escape. In spite of the protestations of affection for her husband to be found in the Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, this did not hinder her from trying to ruin the party to which he was attached. Her affection for her brother Monsieur was extravagant, and Catherine de Medicis employed her to bring him back to the Court, and this task she accomplished through the agency of her former lover, Bussy d'Amboise, who was then one of the favourites of Monsieur} According to Marguerite de Valois, the queen at this moment hated her husband beyond everything. She, however, wishing to join him, feigned to be ill, and obtained permission to go to Spa to drink the waters, her idea being to make her escape from that place. She started on her journey, as she tells us, in a litter, the pillars of which were covered with scarlet velvet of Spain embroidered with gold, and looped up with knots of silk. This litter had glasses, and the windows and linings were covered devices — forty different devices in Spanish and Italian — concerning the sun and its effects. " My litter was 1 Sismondi, t. xix. p. 380. 1577.] PEACE OF BERGERAG. 185 followed by that of Madame de la Roche-sur-Yon and that of Madame de Tournon, my lady of honour, and ten maids of honour on horseback with their governess, and six carriages or chariots." Marguerite de Valois did not effect her purpose, and after a short stay at Spa returned to the Court. Towards the end of the year 1577, the peace of Bergerac was signed between the rival parties, but it was not until December, 1578, that Marguerite was allowed to leave the Court, that is to say, not until several months after the King of Navarre had sent Miaussans to Paris to demand the restitution of his wife. This is one version. The Vicomte de Turenne on his side declares that the King of Navarre would not consent to receive his wife until certain evil reports respecting her conduct at Court had been cleared up — that the king her brother did not love her, but considered it humiliating for him that his sister should be repudiated by the King of Navarre ; also that her return would have an evil effect on the King of Navarre, and would provoke corruption. 1 To believe Marguerite de Valois herself, she never ceased imploring the king to allow her to rejoin her husband, and he, seeing that he could no longer refuse, determined that they should separate good friends. He paid her a visit every morning, assured her that not only should her dowry be paid, but that he would give her money from the privy purse. He impressed upon her that his friendship would be of 1 Sismondi, t. xix. p. 504. 186 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1578. the greatest utility to her, and that of Monsieur baneful — Monsieur, who just made his escape once more from Court, thanks to the aid of Marguerite. After reading the above it is pleasant to read in the Journal d' Henri III., October, 1578, how his Majesty called upon the clergy to furnish him with money to pay for the expense of sending his sister back to her husband, and how the clergy murmured and were discontented, turned a deaf ear, refusing flatly to aid the king, who they said " had shown sufficiently by his misconduct that he bore little, affection for the Church." At last, on the 2nd August, 1578, Marguerite de Valois set out for Gascony to rejoin her husband. She was accompanied by the queen- mother, the Cardinal de Bourbon, the Due de Montpensier, &c. ; and Catherine de Medicis, one of whose objects it was to corrupt the Court of the King of Navarre, was of course accompanied by her flying squadron. After spending a few days with Henri III. at Olinville, the two queens, with their numerous retinue, pro- ceeded on their journey. In spite of what Marguerite de Valois proclaims in her Memoirs, it is very doubtful whether she really wished to return to her husband. That she bore him any affection is out of the question, considering their mutual infidelities, and the fact that in the "flying squadron" were two ladies who had openly shared the favour of the King of Navarre — Victoire Dayelle and Madame de Sauve. In his Journal d 1 Henri III, L'Etoile chronicled 1579.] THE MEETING AT LA REOLLE. 187 the fact of Marguerite having left Paris to return to her husband the king — a son grand regret et corps defendant, selon la bruit tout commun ; but these words, says the editor, were afterwards effaced. It was not at all so certain at first that the Kinof of Navarre would receive Catherine de Medicis, but oh. learning how she was escorted, he wrote, " Tell her that she can come, and that if her daughter behaves well the past will be forgiven." The first meeting between the King of Navarre and the two queens took place at La Eeolle, to which place his Majesty repaired with five hundred gentle- men on horseback, " some of the religion of Gascony, others Catholics." According to Marguerite, matters passed off very quietly. Nevertheless, Marguerite, when the meeting was over, remained with her mother, while the king and his escort returned to Nerac, there being a good many points to settle before a thorough reconciliation could be effected. In fact, we find that it was not until the beginning of 1579 that Marguerite and her mother made their appearance at Nerac, accompanied by a brilliant court, which soon succeeded, as the Protestant pastors had feared, in banishing all that austerity they had been so industriously inculcating. Festivities succeeded each other rapidly ; the Queen of Navarre encouraged the gallantries of her husband, became the conjidente of his illicit love, received his mistresses with favour, and asked him to accord a similar indulgence to her lovers. And in the midst of this 188 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1579. unbridled license one finds the Cardinal de Bourbon trying to induce his nephew to embrace the Catholic religion once more, and the nephew saying — "My uncle, it is said that some persons wish to make you king ; tell them to make you Pope." And Catherine de Medicis too, who had little confidence in the sincerity of her son-in-law's Protestantism, seconded the efforts of the cardinal. The fact is, that the end of the Valois line was foreseen. Francis II. and Charles IX. had died without issue ; Henri III. had no children, and was not likely to have any, and it was the same with Monsieur, who was rapidly waning away. In the eyes of the ultra-Catholic party, it would be better to look upon the Cardinal de Bourbon, at this epoch fifty-five years of age, as then heir to the throne than upon a heretic king. The Court, or rather Courts, had not been long at Nerac before Marguerite de Valois had reason to complain ; she was hampered in the exercise of her religious duties, and to render her position more disagreeable, " since Dayelle had gone away the king my husband has begun to run after Eebours," a creature full of malice, who did her all the harm she could. " Under these circumstances," says Mar- guerite, who always writes like a saint, " putting my trust in God, He took pity on my tears, and allowed us to leave that little Geneva of Pau, where, for- tunately for me, Rebours remained ill ; and the king my husband, losing sight of her, lost all his affection 1579.] DEVOTION OF MARGUERITE. 189 too, and began to flirt with Fosseuse, who was very pretty, quite a child, and very virtuous." During their journey the King of Navarre fell ill, and Marguerite tells us bow she nursed him for seven- teen days and nights without undressing ; and in this task she was aided by the Comte de Turenne, after- wards Due de Bouillon. Her peace of mind, relative as it was, was soon disturbed once more. Troubles broke out in G-uienne between the Catholics and the King of Navarre, and who should appear on the scene as a peacemaker but the Due d'Alengon, who soon managed to conclude a peace which was afterwards ratified by Henri III. The duke, unfortunately for all parties, fell in love with Fosseuse. Knowing that the King of Navarre, would suspect her of furthering the suit of the duke, her brother, Marguerite relates how she implored him to take his departure, and Fosseuse, seeing his Majesty, whom she loved, exceed- ing jealous, consented to become his mistress. What followed appears almost incredible. Fosseuse, when about to become a mother, gained complete ascendancy over the king, who not only neglected his wife, but wished to oblige her to accompany him and his mis- tress to Aigues Chaudes. Marguerite resisted, and in the end her husband and Fosseuse set out for the baths accompanied by Villesavin and Rebours ! Mar- guerite shortly afterwards learned that the king had promised to marry Fosseuse if she were confined of a son ; however, she " had confidence in the good- ness of God, and that of my husband," which did not 190 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1581. prevent her from bewailing " the four or five happy- years I spent with my husband in Gascony, while Fosseuse governed there with honour." When the Court returned to Nerac in 1581, we find Marguerite so far humiliating herself as to try and induce Fosseuse to go to a quiet country house to be confined. Marguerite promised to behave to her like a mother, and pointed out that by this arrange- ment the honour of both might be saved — that of the mistress and that of the injured queen. Fosseuse refused the offer of Marguerite in an arrogant manner, evidently doubting her sincerity ; and not long after- wards, " one morning at daybreak she was taken with pains, and sent for my doctor, and asked him to warn the king, which he did. We occupied the same , room, but different beds." His Majesty after some hesitation, not wishing the confinement of Fosseuse to be known, and yet wishing her to receive proper care, at last drew aside the curtain of his wife's bed, and asked her to go to the assistance of Fosseuse. " ' She is very ill,' he said ; ' and I am sure that, seeing her in this state, you will forget what has passed. You know how much I love her ; I beg you will oblige me in this.' I replied that I had too much honour for him to be offended at anything that he did, that I would take care of her as if she were my daughter. . . . ." And thus was Fosseuse delivered, not of a son as she fondly hoped, but of a still-born daughter. Marguerite carefully avoids mentioning how M. de Turenne fell in love with her, how she did not turn a 1581.] WAR OF THE LOVERS. 191 deaf ear to his advances, and how this fact was com- municated to Henri III., who hastened to inform the King of Navarre that his wife was unfaithful, and that Turenne was the favoured lover. Henri III. was delighted to be able .to indulge in this little piece of perfidy, even at the expense of his own sister. Philippe Strozzi was the bearer of this precious docu- ment, for, being in love with Turenne's sister, he was starting for Nerac in order to demand her hand. He believed that the letter which he carried was a recommendation in his favour on the part of the king. The King of Navarre showed this denunciation to the two accused parties, who denied the charge. So great was the anger aroused in the minds of Marguerite and her friends by this bit of treachery on the part of Henri III., that De Thou and other historians declare it to have been one of the principal causes of the War of the Lovers, which immediately followed. In this war we may mention that Henri IV. captured Cahors, which bad been promised to him as part of his wife's dowry. Marguerite de Valois then relates how the king, her brother, and Catherine de Medicis, her mother, pressed her to pay them a visit, and how .she had great difficulty in getting her husband to consent to this trip, and to allow her to take Fosseuse with her. She knew, she said, that once out of sight, her fickle spouse would soon forget his mistress. At this point the Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois come to a close, but we have a good many letters 192 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1582. which she wrote to her husband during their separa- tion. She left Nerac in the beginning of 1582, and in March she wrote a long epistle to the King of Navarre, in which she complained of the dissimulation which reigned at Court, and the difficulty of finding out the real intentions of her brother. In this letter she alluded to the " little trips " which Henri III. made to his castle of Olinville, where he used to have masses celebrated in the hope of continuing the Valois line. In the way of gossip Marguerite, related how La Vern^e and Satanaie had lost their lovers ; the first loving only his wife, and the second Madame de Sauve. The two ladies above-mentioned were maids of honour to Catherine de Medicis ; no doubt recruits in the flying squadron. Marguerite concluded her letter by expressing her regret that her husband was ill, and sending him a prescription in Latin, which he was not to let any one see, and was to burn. A few days afterwards Marguerite wrote another letter, in which she said — " My brother (Monsieur) has sent Laquevile to England to declare for certain that he will go there in a short time to marry the queen, in consequence of which I have let off fire- works." Now all idea of this marriage, never seri- ously entertained by Elizabeth, had been given up more than a year before. Marguerite remained for eighteen months at the French Court, and during that time her conduct appears to have been most reprehensible. Brant6me speaks of the transports which her amiability and her 1583.] TREATMENT OF MARGUERITE. 193 beauty excited, and she seems, in the midst of the enthusiasm she had created, to have given full rein to her evil passions. Her conduct at last was such as to draw down upon her the reproaches of the king. In the presence of the whole Court he over- whelmed her with a thousand insults, named all the lovers she had favoured since her marriage, and those actually in favour, and ended by ordering her to quit Paris. According to L'Etoile, on the 8th of August, 1583, the Queen of Navarre, by order of Henri III. several times reiterated, left Paris to return to her husband, where his Majesty told her that she might live more honestly. She first went to Palaiseau, whither the king had her followed by sixty archers of the Guard, under the command of Larchant, who arrested Madame de Duras and Mademoiselle de Bethune, her friends, also her secretary, her doctor, and other members of her household. Not only did the Captain of the Guards tear the mask which Marguerite de Valois wore from her face, and search her litter, but he several times struck Madame de Duras and Mademoi- selle de Bethune, who were accused of unnatural crimes. These prisoners, ten in all, were conveyed to Montargis, where they were examined by the king himself, as to the ill conduct of his sister and the supposed birth of a child, of which the young Chan- vallon was said to be the father. His Majesty having failed to elicit anything, set the prisoners free, allowed his sister to continue her journey, and wrote an VOL. I. 194 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1583. account of what had happened to the King of Navarre. After the first letter he wrote others, asking the King of Navarre to take back his wife, as he had discovered that what he had written was false. The King of Navarre, who cared little for the misconduct of Marguerite, was fully convinced that the first version was the true one, but as he could not pass over the insults offered to his wife, he sent Duplessis Mornay on a mission to Henri III., who addressed his Majesty in these terms: — "If the queen, your sister, his wife, deserved this affront, the King of Navarre demands that full justice be done ; if not, Sire, he is assured that, even in the interest of your house, you will punish the authors of this scandal." Henri III. at first endeavoured to palliate and disguise the insult, but Duplessis Mornay declared that an insult offered at midday on the high road, and which was known to every one, could not be disguised, and that his Majesty had done too much if his sister was not guilty, and too little if she was guilty. The king, however, refused to send any cate- gorical reply until he had been able to consult his mother and his brother, and while this affair was pending, Henri de Navarre refused to receive Mar- guerite, who had been thus bespattered with mud by her brother. After waiting for some months for the promised answer, the King of Navarre had the mortification to receive a letter, in which Henri III., after asking him to restore his wife to favour, went on to say — " Kings are liable to be deceived, and the & 1583.] FORGE EMPLOYED. 195 most virtuous princesses are not always exempt from calumny. You know what was said about the late queen, your mother, and how ill she was spoken of." In presence of all his courtiers Henri de Navarre exclaimed — " The king does me much honour ; in his first letter he called me a cuckold, and now tells me that I am the son of a harlot." The reply of Henri III. had been conveyed to the Court of Nerac by M. de Bellievre, who was backed up by Marshal Matignon, at the head of a consider- able force in the vicinity. The King. of Navarre, understanding that he was to be intimidated into taking back his wife, resented this pressure, and took possession of Mont-de-Marsan. In January, 1584, he sent M. de Clervant to Henri III. to represent to him that he could not, yielding to force, consent to receive his wife back, for it would be honourable neither to her nor to himself to do through fear what should depend upon friendship and reason. But in case his Majesty would withdraw his troops from certain positions, then he would consent to take his wife back. The question of appearances having been settled, Marguerite once more returned to her lord ; but not long afterwards, as L'Etoile has duly chronicled, there arrived a gentleman on the part of the King of Navarre, complaining that a person called Ferraud, who had been recommended to ■ him by his wife as a secretary, had tried to poison him-, by the advice and orders of his mistress. Marguerite in fact was highly O 2 196 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1584. discontented with her husband, who ever since she had been insulted by her brother, had refused to treat her as his wife. She also found herself the object of universal contempt on the part of the whole Court. A few months later, having probably been able to obtain no satisfaction, Marguerite de Valois declared herself in favour of the Holy League, left her husband, and threw herself into Agen, raising the standard of revolt against both Henri III. and her husband. At Agen, which was in her appanage, she was received by the Catholic population with open arms. It was supposed that she had fled from her husband, owing to his religion, and because he had just been excommunicated by Sextus V. Soon obliged to fly from Age"n, where she had made herself unpopular, after hurrying from one place to another she was captured by one of the king's generals, the Marquis de Canillac, and imprisoned in the castle of Usson, where she soon managed to captivate her gaoler. On the 10th of June, 1584, Monsieur died. A few days before this event took place Henri III., aware that his brother had only a few days to live, wrote a pressing appeal to Henri de Navarre to repair to Court and hear mass, as he would soon be heir to the throne. It was even said, observes L'Etoile, that the bearer of the royal letter took with him 200,000 crowns, to arrange some great marriage for his Majesty; but this was a simple rumour. That Monsieur should have died young is not 1584.] DEATH OF MONSIEUR. 197 astonishing. His life had been one long scene of debauchery. A few months before his end came he had made up one of his frequent quarrels with the king his brother, and this worthy pair, it being Carnival, disguised now as priests, now as lawyers, &c. &c, galloped through the streets, knocking down some persons and beating others, and carrying on their pranks all night, and until ten o'clock the next day. There was a report that on returning to Chateau Thierry, the king made Monsieur a present of 100,000 crowns, which did him more good than the collations of Paris and of Madame de Sauve. When dying, the duke is said to have remarked that he had been ill ever since he went to see his brother in Paris, which observation, L'Etoile tells us, made people talk ! However Monsieur may have come by his end, his death had a serious effect on the position of Henri de Navarre, and it was on this account that his faithful and virtuous servant Duplessis Mornay and two colleagues addressed him in the following terms — " Pardon us another word, Sire ; these love affairs, to which you devote so much attention, appear no longer in season. It is time, Sire, that you should give your love to Christendom, and particularly to France. ..." At this period Henri III., after remaining for some time neutral between the League and the Eeform, signed a treaty with the Catholic party at Nemours on the 7th July, and hence arose a fresh civil war 198 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1584. known as the War of the Three Henries — between Henri III. who represented the moderate party, Henri de Guise who represented the extreme Catholics and the League, and Henri de Navarre, who, together with Henri de Conde" and Henri de Turenne, repre- sented the Huguenots. It was during this period that the King of Navarre made the conquest of the Comtesse Diana de Guiche, the widow of Philibert de Gramont, who had fallen in the service of his Majesty. The countess, who went by the name of La belle Corisande, appears to have held a sort of court of love at her castle of Louvigny. The inflammable Henri de Navarre had no sooner seen this lady than he became violently enamoured of her, and aware of the scandalous life which his wife was leading in Auvergne, proposed to marry her. He is said even to have signed a promise to this effect with his blood, and to have consulted his advisers as to the expediency of divorcing Marguerite de Valois and marrying his new love. La belle Corisande had given Henri de Navarre very solid proofs of her affection for himself and his cause ; she had pawned her broad lands and sold her jewels to enable him to pay his army. Henri at this moment, remarks Cape- figue, despaired of ever becoming King of France, and seriously thought of founding a new kingdom composed of Aquitaine and Gascony. Now the house of Gramont-Guiche was descended in direct line from the Dukes of Gascony, and what could he do better than marry La belle Corisande, and share with her his new 1584.] A FICKLE MONARCH. 199 throne ? The King of Navarre consulted d'Aubigne on the subject, saying that several princes had married subjects. D'Aubigne took a very different view of the situation. He replied — " The princes to whom you refer, sire, reigned over their estates in tran- quillity, while you are fighting for yours. The Due d'Alencon is dead, and you have only one more step to mount in order to reach the throne. But if you marry your mistress you will block the road for ever. You owe to the French great virtues and good actions. ..." Whether it was owing to this advice, because La belle Corisande soon lost her beauty and became fat and red in the face, or because the fickle monarch fell in love with the Marquise de Guercheville, the proposed marriage was not carried out. Whatever may have been the intentions of the wily King of Navarre, it is certain that he treated the Comtesse de Guiche more with the respect of a wife than the freedom of a mistress. His letters attest this. It has been found strange that he should in his letters to La belle Corisande have entered into military details. But had she not furnished her lover with the sinews of war, and, according to Sully, raised at her own expense 20,000 Gascons who changed the fortune of a campaign ? Several of these letters of the king to his mistress have been published. Voltaire has published several after his History of Henri LV. S te Beuve, in his Causeries de Lundi, 1 has dwelt at some length on 1 T. xi. 200 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1584. Henri IV. ecrivain. None of the king's letters to Corisande are dated, but the first seems to have been written in 1555, after the conclusion of the treaty of Nemours. Henri is in the field watching the enemy ; as soon as he can make out what his intentions are he will fly to Corisande on the wings of love. Concerning one long epistle addressed by the king to Corisande, that eminent critic S te Beuve remarks — " This in my opinion is the pearl of love-letters written by Henri IV. Gabrielle herself, with that galante letter dated from before her portrait, obtained nothing so perfect and so charming. What a fresh and smiling landscape, ^enlivened with gleams of light ! . . ." In fact it was tender, it was pastoral, it was French, it was natural, and all that S te Beuve could desire. Withal it was respectful, and hardly the effusion one would have expected from the pen of a rough young warrior. We have referred to certain suspicions which the sudden death of Monsieur gave rise to. In one of his letters to Corisande we find Henri de Navarre writing about the death of his friend the Prince de Cond6 as follows — " One of the greatest misfortunes I had to fear has happened, which is the sudden death of M. le Prince. I am sorry for him, such as he should have been to me ; not such as he was to me. At present I am the mark at which all the perfidies of the mass are aimed. They poisoned him, the traitors. Will God remain master, and shall I have the favour of being His executioner ? This poor prince after having tilted at 1584.] DEATH OF GONDE 201 the/ring on Thursday, supped and felt quite well ; at midnight he was taken with violent vomiting which lasted until morning ; all Friday he remained in bed ; in the evening he supped, and having slept well got up on Saturday morning, had his dinner, and played at chess ; he then walked about his room talking with his friends ; suddenly he said, ' Give me a chair, I feel faint.' He was hardly seated before- he became speech- less, and he drew his last breath sitting down. The traces of poison were quickly visible. The astonish- ment which his death has created in this country exceeds belief. ... I foresee a great deal of trouble ; pray God boldly for me ; if I escape, He it is who will have protected me to the tomb, to which I am closer perhaps than you expect. I remain your faithful slave. Good-night, my soul. I kiss your hands a million of times." Brillaud, the controller of the Prince de Conde's household, was put to the torture, and declared that he was guilty, but that he had acted at the instiga- tion of the Princesse de Conde\ The princess would have been executed had she not been enceinte. As it was she remained for six years in prison, when the Parliament of Paris recognized her innocence, and restored her to liberty. It is difficult to see why the princess should have been suspected, for she was a Protestant. In another letter written shortly after the one above-quoted, the King of Navarre said— " I have discovered a man told off to assassinate me." In a note Voltaire tells us that this was a Lorrainer sent 202 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1589. by the priests of the League, and that this was the fifth attempt on the life of the good king. In another letter, supposed to have been written in April, 1589, when his Majesty was at Blois with Henri III., he thus addressed Corisande — " My soul, I write to you from Blois, where five months ago I was con- demned as a heretic, and unworthy to succeed to the crown of which I am to-day the principal pillar. See the works of God towards them who put their trust in Him. . . . My health is good, thank God, and I swear ■ with truth that I neither love nor honour any- thing in the world like you. I will remain faithful to you to the tomb. ... I hope to be able to send shortly for my sister ; make up your mind to come with her. The king has spoken to me about the lady of Auvergne. I think that I shall make her skip. Good day, my heart ; I kiss you a million times. This 18th May; he who' is bound to you by the most indissoluble tie." We shall have to refer to two more letters to Cori- sande further on in connection with the King of Navarre's sister, Catherine de Bourbon. Suffice it to say that at this moment Corisande was terribly jealous, and continued to load the King of Navarre with reproaches in spite of all his protestations of fidelity. It was not until March, 1591, that the rupture came, and that Henri IV. wrote his quondam mistress a letter which brought their liaison to a close. In a fit of jealousy she had presumed to revenge her- self by meddling with the family affairs of his Majesty. 1586.] FRESH NEGOTIATIONS. 203 We must return for a while to 1586. The war of the " Three Henries " was desolating the country. Henri III., who always preferred his brother-in-law of Navarre to the Due de Guise, kept up negotiations with him in spite of the threats of the League and the wrath of the Parisians. In April he sent the Cardinal de Lenoncourt to Nerac with a message of peace, and then the Due de Nevers. There were two obstacles in the way of a complete reconciliation. Unless the King of Navarre would consent to change his religion he could not recognize him as his successor. Then there was the quarrel between Marguerite and her husband. As regards the latter, Henri III. admitted that the scandalous life which his sister had led in Auvergne, since she ran away from her husband, rendered a reconciliation with the King of Navarre out of the question. He therefore proposed to take advantage of the irregularity of the papal dispensation to declare the marriage of Henri de Navarre and Marguerite null, and to give him for wife his niece Christine, a daughter of his deceased sister the Duchesse de Lorraine. Catherine de Medicis under- took to play the part of negotiator in chief, and after a conference between the Due de Nevers and the King of Navarre she met his Majesty at the castle of Saint Bris near Cognac. Three interviews took place, but although Catherine de Medicis was accompanied as usual by her " flying squadron," she failed to effect her purpose. Desor- meaux says that Catherine " did not forget her 204 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1586. brilliant squadron of beauties, all themselves anxious to show themselves to a prince so renowned for his gallantry, his wit, and his personal appearance ; how- ever, she counted less upon the charms and entice- ments of her maids of honour than upon the simple grace and budding beauty of the Princesse Christine de Lorraine, her granddaughter, whose rare qualities were in perfect harmony with the external gifts which she had received from nature ; she proposed to offer her to him for wife, as more worthy than the despicable Marguerite to be the companion of a hero." l However, the King of Navarre had been too often deceived by the Court, and both he and Conde" refused to listen to the charmer, charmed she never so wisely. The King of Navarre, in fact, is said, when the maids of honour were presented — " Madame, there is nothing here that I want." Catherine de Medicis remained for some months at Cognac, and there was plenty of dancing and feast- ing, but in the end the queen-mother had to return to Paris without having persuaded the King of Navarre once more to embrace the Catholic religion, or to marry the Princesse Christine of Lorraine. Negotiations having broken down the war was resumed, and the Due de Joyeuse marched against the Huguenot army. On taking leave of Henri III. he promised to bring him back the head of the King of Navarre and that of the Prince de Conde. The King of Navarre had thrown himself into La 1 Histoire de la Maison de Bourbon, t. v. p. 437. 1586.] BATTLE OF GONTRAS. 205 Rochelle, where the following incident took place. His Majesty fell in love with the daughter of a magistrate of that cit}'', and seduced her. The scandal was public, and greatly afflicted the austere Hugue- nots, and the ministers of the gospel remonstrated in strong terms, exhorting Henri de Bourbon to turn from the wickedness of his ways, to repent, and to make an amende honorable. The King of Navarre acknowledged his sin, but would not consent to humiliate himself in public. However, Duplessis Mornay represented to him in private that the Due de Joyeuse was approaching, and that on the eve of battle he could not refuse to fall at the feet of the Supreme Being, the sole arbitrator of victory. What reproaches would he not address to himself should his impenitence draw down upon his troops the malediction of the Almighty. The King of Navarre upon this consented humbly to confess his fault in the church of Pons, in presence of the chiefs of his army. The minister Chaudieu preached, and consented to pardon his Majesty on condition of his renewing his public penitence at La Rochelle, where the fault had been committed. Much to the irritation of the young nobles who surrounded him, Henri de Bourbon submitted to this second humilia- tion. A few days afterwards was fought the battle of Contras, orders having been given by the Due de Joyeuse to grant no quarter, and to slay any one wishing to spare a Huguenot, even the King of Navarre. After singing the 118th Psalm, translated 206 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1586. by CMment Marot, the Protestant army moved forward to the attack, and after a sanguinary conflict the Catholics were totally routed, and instead of the heads of the King of Navarre and the Prince de Conde being sent as trophies to Paris, the dead bodies of Joyeuse and his brother were despatched to Henri III., together with a noble and conciliatory letter on the part of his brother-in-law. Immediately after the battle the King of Navarre hastened to Beam to lay the standard he had captured at the feet of the Belle Corisande. For this he has been severely blamed in the Economies Royales of Sully and by D'Aubignd, who says in his Memoirs — "Thus he threw all his promises to the winds and his victory to love." It appears, however, that the great majority of the nobles in the Huguenot force were in favour of breaking up the army for a while on the ground that it needed repose, that the troops were exhausted with long marches, and were overburdened with plunder. And, according to Desormeaux, the king was unwilling to oppose the wishes of nobles who served him at their own expense. Contras had not long been fought and won, when a sad misfortune plunged the whole Huguenot party into grief and consternation- — the Prince de Conde was poisoned. His wife accused Brillaud, Controller of the Household, of this crime ; he was put to the torture, and in his agony in his turn, while confessing his guilt, declared that he had been instigated to 1586.] CHARLOTTE DE TREMOUILLE. 207 commit the crime by the Princesse de Conde. The princess was arrested by order of the King of Navarre and tried. The king evidently entertained serious suspicions of the guilt of her, for in a letter to Corisande of the 13th March he said, "Kemember what I told you before ; I am seldom wrong in my judgment — a bad woman is a dangerous animal. All these poisoners are Papists. My soul, I am well enough in body, but much afflicted in spirit. Love me, and show me your love ; that will be some consolation. As for me, I shall never fail in the fidelity I have sworn to you ; in truth of which I kiss your hands a million times." The judges ordered her to be put to the question, but as she was about to become a mother, it was decided that she should not be tortured until forty days after her confinement. Fortunately, before that date arrived the judges repented of their precipitation, and the King of Navarre ordered the proceedings to be discontinued. In spite of this, the princess was detained in prison for six years, when the Parliament of Paris rehabili- tated her, and declared her to be innocent. Desor- meaux is at a loss to know how the judges could have paid any attention to the accusation brought against the princess by Brillaud when half out of his mind with pain. Charlotte de Tremouille was a Protestant ; she had married Conde against the wishes of her family. It was a marriage of affection ; there was nothing to show that husband and wife were on bad terms. The Princesse de Conde - had 208 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1588. a fair chance, her husband alive, of sharing with him the throne of France. Henri III. was impotent ; the King of Navarre had no children, was separated from his wife, and was constantly in danger. The King of Navarre dead, the Prince de Conde was heir to the throne. Then it is by no means certain that the Prince de Conde was poisoned. The Due d'Aumale, in his Histoire des Princes de Conde, says that the prince had been ill for some time before his decease, and that the doctors were not unanimous with regard to the cause of death. In 1588 two important events happened — the Guises were assassinated, and Catherine de Medicis died, carrying to her grave, says Desormeaux, the suspicions of the League, the hatred of the Huguenots, and the contempt of her son, whom she had ill served and often betrayed. Catherine appears to have strongly recommended her son, when dying, to put his trust in the King of Navarre. As for Marguerite, who had been obliged to sell her jewels to the Venetians, and to send her plate to the melting-pot, she disinherited her at the instigation of Henri III., depriving her of the country of Auvergne. What the King of Navarre thought of his mother- in-law we may gather from a letter which he wrote to Corisande at this period. He said — " I expect every hour to hear that orders have been sent to strangle the Queen of Navarre ; that, and the death of her mother, would make me sing the song of Simeon." After the death of Catherine de Medicis a reconcili- * :* Henri IV. before P. 1590.] NEW MISTRESSES. 209 ation took place between Henri III. and the King of Navarre, and both monarchs attacked the League, laying siege to Paris. During these operations the King of Navarre found time to fall in love first with Charlotte des Essarts, 1 then with the noble Marquise de Guercheville, Madame de Eocheguion, and next with the Abbesse de Montmartre. The first appears to have offered no resistance to the advances of his Majesty, but it was a different affair with the Mar- quise de Guercheville, whose scruples the King of Navarre could not overcome ; she told him that, owing to her position, she could not be his wife, but that that position could not permit of her being his mistress. And we are told that Henri IV. afterwards rewarded this exemplary lady by appointing her a lady of honour to Marie de Medicis, remarking to the Abbesse de Montmartre — " because she has really been a lady of honour." So says Mongery. The Lettres Missives oVHenri IV. contain one letter which his Majesty wrote to this virtuous lady — a letter to which L'Etoile thus refers. Friday, the last day of August, 1590, the king wrote with his own hand to Madame de la Rocheguion the letter which follows — " My mistress, I write to you on the eve of a battle. The issue is in the hands of God, who has already ordered what shall happen, and what He knows to be expedient for the glory and safety of my people. If I lose it you will never see me, for I am not a man to fly or retreat. I can assure you that, should I die, my penultimate thought will be for you, and my last shall be for God, to whom I 1 Charlotte des Essarts, who l}ad six children by the King of Navarre, was created Comtesse de Eomantin. VOL. i. p 210 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1590. recommend you and myself also. This last of August, 1590, from the hand which kisses yours, and which is your servant (sic). 1 " Henry." As it happened, the battle did not come off, for on the approach of Henri IV. and the Duke of Parma, the Hespagnols, as L'Etoile calls them, retreated, and finally recrossed the frontier. As for the Abbesse de Montmartre, Mademoiselle de Beauvilliers, who was assailed by the King of Navarre in prose and verse, the chroniclers differ. Some represent her as being as ' virtuous as the Marquise de Guercheville, others with forgetting her vows, and lending a too willing ear to her royal suitor. This, however, is a matter of no great im- portance in the history of the King of Navarre, as only three of his mistresses exercised any serious influence on his career. The fugitive attachments of the King of Navarre did not prevent him frqm continuing his correspond- ence with Corisande, whom he constantly assured of his unalterable fidelity ; he wrote to her from the trenches at Arques, after the death of Henry III., 1 With regard to this letter, Henri Martin observes that the woman to whom Henri IV. addressed this noble language was worthy of listening to it, and was all the more worthy of the monarch's love because she did not yield to him. Henri had offered her a promise of marriage signed with his blood. . . What characterized Henri IV. is, that while he was professing this chivalrous passion for the handsome widow of La Eocheguion, he had for mistress at the same time the Abbesse of Montmartre and of Poissy, who did not scruple to accept his heretic homage, and help him to support the ennuis of the siege of Paris. 1591.] CORISANDE FORSAKEN. 211 and when lie had become King of France, and this correspondence did not cease until 1591, or nearly two years after the monarch had fallen in love with La Belle Gabrielle. It was brought to a close because Corisande, who had lost all her personal charms, and had become coarse and corpulent, vexed at the con- duct of her lover, determined to revenge herself. For this purpose, contrary to the wishes of the king, she did what she could to favour the marriage of his Majesty's sister, Catherine de Bourbon, with the Comte de Soisson. She even persuaded them to get married secretly, in the absence of the king, who was campaigning, in company with Gabrielle d'Estrees. Henri IV., greatly irritated at this inter- ference in his domestic policy, seized the opportunity to break off all further relations with Corisande. In March, 1591, he wrote to her — "Madame, I charged Lareine to speak to you on the subject of what, to my great regret, passed between my sister and myself. It appears that you have done nothing but blame me, and 'foment' my sister to do what she should not do. I should not have thought this of you, to whom I will only say this word — that I will never pardon any one who tries to come between my sister and myself." According to Sully, the Comtesse de Guiche was irritated not only because the king, having loved her, loved others, but because, when she had lost her attractions, he was ashamed of ever having loved her. P 2 212 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1591. It was in 1590 that the amorous Henri IV. made the acquaintance of La Belle Gabrielle, or Gabrielle d'Estr^es, a lady whose virtue was not irreproachable, but whose faults have in all probability been greatly exaggerated by the chroniclers of the period. When Henri IV. met her she was the mistress of Bellegarde, one of the king's most distinguished captains. She appears, indeed, to have been passionately in love with him, and to have retained her affection for him even after she became the mistress of Henri IV., who bitterly complained of her infidelity in a letter which we shall presently quote. A great many stories are told about Bellegarde and Gabrielle. One that Henri IV., who was aware that Bellegarde was in G-abrielle's room, sent Praslin, the captain of the guard, to kill him. Praslin, who had no idea of committing an assassination, made such a noise, and took so long executing the order, or the first part of it, that the lover had ample time to escape, and the captain had the satisfaction of inform- ing his Majesty that there were no grounds for his suspicions. Declozeaux tells the following curious story in La Revue Historique — " The present pro- prietor of the castle of Coeuvres told us that he had recently removed an inscription, placed on one of the exterior doors of the pavilion of Gabrielle, which gave credence to the anecdote of Henri IV. suddenly arriving while Gabrielle was supping tete-a-tete with Bellegarde; who hid himself under the bed. The king took his place at table, and during the repast Henry IV. and la Belle Gabrielle. 1593.] LA BELLE GABRIELLE. 213 handed the unfortunate lover the wing of a partridge, saying, ' After all, every one must live.' Forty years before the birth of Henri IV. this same story was told of Francois I. In the Lettres Missives d' Henri IV., the first letter we find addressed to Gabrielle d'Estr^es is dated 4th February, 1593, and to this is appended a note which informs us that she was the daughter of Antoine d'Estrdes, Marquis de Cceuvres, that she saw Henri IV. for the first time in November, 1590, and that the year afterwards she married Nicolas d'Amerval, Lord of Liencourt — a marriage. of pure form, which was never consummated, and which was annulled in 1594 on the ground of impotency on the part of the husband, who had eleven children by his first marriage. At Court the lady never went by the name of her husband, but was called Madame Gabrielle until 1595, when she was created Mar- quise de Monceaux, before becoming Duchesse de Beaufort. The fact is, that after the liaison with Gabrielle had been going on for some time, Henri IV., deeming it more convenient to have to deal with a complacent husband than with a father, persuaded the above- named Nicolas d'Amerval to marry Gabrielle. No doubt, the husband had his reward ; as for the father, L'Etoile tells us how, "in August, 1591, the king took the town of Noyon, in order, it was said, to give the governorship to Antoine d'Estrfes, who, in fact, shortly after the capture of that place, was 214 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1593. named governor. A great many lives were lost on both sides." 1 At the commencement of his liaison with Gabrielle d'Estre*es, Henri IV. could have had little time to devote to his mistress. The .Guises were dead and gone, so was Catherine de Medicis. Henri III. had been assassinated, and not long afterwards the Cardinal de Bourbon, who had been hailed as Charles X. by the League, was removed from the scene. Still the civil war continued to rage ; nor did it burn less fiercely when the king consented once more to become a Eoman Catholic, and was received into the giron of the Church of Rome, first at St. Denis, and then at Chartres. Giving ear to the angry protests of the League and the Spaniards, the Pope for a long time withheld his absolution. During this troubled period we find Henri IV. seriously contemplating a divorce, and forming another matrimonial alliance. The hand of Elizabeth, we know, had been successively sought by Charles IX., Henri III., and the Due dAlencon, and in 1589 Henri IV, "the most cunning diplomatist of his time, knowing her weakness, and wishing to obtain a subsidy, pretended to be inspired with a tender feeling towards her Majesty, then fifty-seven years of age." M. de Beauvoir, the French ambas- sador, who had received instructions, and who spoke to her Majesty on this delicate subject, relates that 1 The town was recaptured by the Due de Mayerme in 1593, with a loss of 3000 men, and the duke made his son governor. 1593.] HENRI IV. AND QUEEN ELIZABETH. 215 on leaving the audience chamber the queen took him into her bed-room and showed him a fine portrait of the king, with gestures so expressive and so lively a demonstration, that it seemed to him that she would better like the original ; and writing to Henri IV., he added — " She was not too angry, Sire, when I told her that you loved her." 1 The Comte de la Ferriere, in relating the above, appears to have mixed up two different proposals addressed by Henri IV. to Elizabeth — the first in 1589, when M. de Beauvoir was sent to England, a fortnight after the assassination of Henri III., the second in 1598, after the peace of Vervins. With regard to the first proposal, we find the following despatch in Les Lettres ct Henri IV- — " A Monsb. lb Grand Tresobier de la Eetne dAngleterre, Madame et Bonne Sceur. " M. de Beauvoir, a member of my Council of State, and captain of fifty men-at-arms of my artillery, whom I send to the queen my good sister, will tell you the commission I have confided to him ; which tends to a good continuation of the friendship and sincere intelligence between us. I feel assured from the prudence and good- will which you have shown me in the past, that you will gladly do what you can to further the same, as I beg you, and to believe that I am so much inclined to do all she may judge necessary for the common welfare of our affairs, that I shall have no other will than hers, as the said Sire de Beauvoir will tell you more particularly on my part, &c. "Written from Fresne-Lesguillon, this 19th August, 1589." On the same day his Majesty addressed a very similar letter to Wals'ingham, taking care not to 1 Projets de Manage de la Reine Elizabeth, by the Comte de la Ferriere, p. 4. 216 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1594. mention the precise nature of the instructions given to his ambassador. In 1594 the wily Bearnais made another appeal to the heart and vanity of the maiden queen, writing to her as follows — To the Queen op England. " Madame, I do not know whether I should excuse myself and ask pardon for a sin committed against your will — that of having detained a handsome portrait, said to have been intended for my sister, or thank you for a peculiar favour destined for me in your heart. If I have committed a fault, you are the principal cause, for the representation of such great heauty is too strong a temptation for one who loves and reveres the original. . ." Henri IV. had declared war with Spain, and required aid from Elizabeth, which she was little inclined to grant. " To subdue her obstinacy," says a note in Lingard, 1 "Henri made a singular appeal to her vanity. Unton, the ambassador (probably the farce was concerted between them), wrote to her that the king had one day asked him how he liked his mistress, La Belle Gabrielle. ' I answered,' says Unton, ' sparingly in her praise, and told him that, if without offence I might speak it, I had a picture of a far more excellent mistress, and yet did her picture come far short of her perfection of beauty.' Unton, who showed it to the king, then wrote — ' He beheld it with passion and admiration, protesting that he had never seen the like. He kissed it, took it from me, vowing that he would not forego it for any treasure, and that to possess the favour of the lively picture he would 1 Tome viii. p. 327, 1594.] ELIZABETH'S PORTRAIT. 217 forsake all the world.' Unton added ' that the dumb picture did draw on more speech and affection from him than all my best arguments and eloquence.' " In fact, we find in The Life of Egerton (p. 415) a letter signed Douglas Sheffelde, in which he tells M. de Beauvoir, the French ambassador, that the vice- chamberlain has been commanded by her Majesty to send him her portrait, to be forwarded to Madame la Princesse, the sister of the king. But, he adds, "you will give greater pleasure by retaining it and sending it to the king, informing her Majesty that you had not the power to allow so handsome a portrait to escape the hands of your master, which will be so agreeable to him ; or otherwise as it may please you to write to the vice-chamberlain ; but above all keep the portrait, and send it to the king. . . Excuse me, if you please, my hardiness, and bad writing, which is unlearned since I came to England. (Excuses-moi cy vous plait, ma hardies, et movez escritur qui est desaprins, depuis que je suis en Engleterre.") There is no date to this letter. The other proposal to which we refer was made under the following circumstances. Henri IV. had been forced, much against his will, to conclude the treaty of Vervins, which Hume acknowledges was extorted from him by necessity. Spain would not deal with the Netherlands as a free state, and Eliza- beth would not desert the Dutch. It was under these circumstances that the French king, in his distress, made peace. He was no longer in a con- 218 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1596. dition to go on with a civil and a foreign war. We are told that he was most anxious to give Elizabeth satisfaction, and to atone and apologize for his breach of treaty, and that he even sent Harlay to England to sound her Majesty as to the possibility of a marriage which would unite the two crowns. The ambassador was to eutreat Elizabeth to listen to the proposals of his master. After hearing what Harlay had to say, Elizabeth is reported to have replied that the French king must not dream of such a thing. " My gendarme is not made for me, nor I for him ; yet I could still afford pleasure to a husband — but there are other reasons." And we are told that her Majesty raised her petticoats, upon which Harlay stooped down and kissed the royal calf. The queen was vexed at this liberty, until the ambassador demanded pardon, declaring that his master would have done the same. 1 Now the only mention we find of a mission in- trusted to Harlay is in the following letter, written two years before the peace of Vervins — To Monsieur Bacon. " Traversy, 11th April, 1596. "I have always had a high opinion of your affections for my service, and the manner in which you conduct public affairs ; this is why I have charged the Sieur de Sancy (Harlay de) with this letter, to communicate to you my intentions, so that you may give him. the aid of your credit with my cousin the Count of Essex. I beg you will employ yourself in this matter, and I will recognize the service you render me on the first opportunity. Praying that God, Monsieur Bacon, may have you in his keeping. — Henry." 1 Fontanieu collection. Henri IV. portfeuille, 1598 — 1603. 1593.] HENRI IV. AND THE INFANTA. 219 Henri IV. wanted the English, fleet to succour Calais, which was hotly pressed by the Spaniards, while Essex was cruising in the Channel. Elizabeth, however, would not consent at that moment, unless promised Calais as the price of her assistance. Henri IV. was deeply mortified, and roundly swore that he would rather be bitten by a lion than by a lioness. To return to our subject, in the beginning of 1593 the hand of the Infanta of Spain appears to have been offered to the young Due de Guise; but soon it was discovered that the affairs of the League were going from bad to worse, and the Huguenots, to their great consternation, learned that there was a question of Henri IV. marrying the Infanta. The Huguenots were already complaining of the harsh conduct of the king, but what if he should marry the daughter of their most implacable foe ? Duplessis-Mornay, who still remained the trusted friend of the king, openly expressed his alarm. According to Sully, negotiations for this alliance were actually opened by au emissary of Bernardin de Mendoza, who was introduced by Sully to Henri IV., who took care to make him go down on his knees, and who held both his hands, lest he should stab his Majesty ! The king, in his turn, sent a person called La Varenne to Madrid to treat this matter, but he behaved in so arrogant a manner at the Spanish Court that he was sent home, and the scheme was dropped. Such a marriage might have saved France a costly and sanguinary war, but 220 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1593. it would, in all probability, have been disastrous for the Protestant powers. It must be borne in mind, that at this period the Spaniards were still powerful in France, and that the States- General convoked by the Due de Mayenne at the desire of Philip II. had assembled in Paris for the purpose of electing a king. Philip pretended that his daughter Isabella, as niece of the three last kings of the Valois line, should be called to the throne of France, and the Salic law abolished. In order the better to attain his purpose, Philip declared that if the Infanta were proclaimed queen, he would select a French noble for her husband ; and furthermore, he promised to back up the decisions of the States- General with the ultima ratio regum in the shape of 14,000 well-disciplined troops, and also to furnish money for the maintenance of a French army, and the payment of deputies. The Due de Nemours and the Due de Guise allowed themselves to be taken by this brilliant bait. Fortunately for Henri IV., the Parliament boldly opposed the proposition of Philip, and protested against any interference with .Salic law, and against any foreign House being called to the throne ; and for purposes of his own the Due de Mayenne sided with the Parliament. In a letter written by Duplessis Mornay to the Due de Bouillon, due mention is made of this Spanish marriage, which was to induce the Pope to grant the needed absolution. 1 In this letter, dated 18th Sept., 1 One reason why the Pope delayed sending an absolution to 1593.] LA VARENNE'S MISSION. 221 1593, Duplessis says that "what was guess-work before has become history, for La Varenne is going to embark at La Rochelle on his way to Spain, con- ducted by one of Bernardin de Mendoza's gentlemen, who made this overture. He has been instructed to bring back the portrait of the Infanta, to see her on the part of the king, and to propose that a grandee shall be sent here, should the King of Spain approve. . ." In the event of an arrangement, England and the Low Countries were to be included in the peace that was to follow. It is very doubtful, however, whether Henri IV. was more in earnest in. his negotiations concerning the Infanta than in those concerning the Good Queen Bess. The first letter to Gabrielle in the Lettres Missives d' Henri IV. is dated 4th February, 1593. In this Henri IV. styles her Mon bel ange. He said that he was clothed in sable and a widower, as far as joy Henri IV. was that the young Prince de Conde" (whose father's death we have mentioned) was next heir to the throne ; he had been brought Tip by his mother at St. Jean d'Angely in the Protestant religion. His Holiness consequently declared that as long as he saw this young prince brought up in heresy he must withhold his absolu- tion, for in the event of anything happening to Henri IV., France would fall again into the hands of a Huguenot king. What happened then was curious enough. Charlotte de Conde was ordered up to Paris, and on condition of turning Eoman Catholic, and bringing up her son as a Papist, was declared innocent of the crime of having poisoned her husband. As to the young Henri de Conde, who was taken to mass for the first time on the 24th January, grave doubts exist as to his having been the son of the unfortunate Prince de Conde". 222 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1593, went ; that never yet had been seen fidelity as pure as his. As soon as he had seen his sister he would send La Varenne to her. 1 " His sister " had been ordered to join her brother after the ineffectual attempt to marry the Comte de Soissons at Pau. Other letters followed in rapid succession. On the 17th February he wrote to his good angel these charming assurances — "My love renders me as jealous of duty as of your good grace, which is my sole treasure. Believe me, my dear angel, that I value the possession of it as much as the honour of a dozen victories. Be proud of having conquered one who was never quite conquered but by you, whose feet I kiss a million times." After each hurried visit which the amorous monarch was able to pay to his good angel his letters became more passionate. One written on the 23rd July de- serves, however, some special notice, because Gabrielle d'Estrees is supposed to have exerted her influence, and not in vain, in persuading her royal lover to abjure. She thought, at that early period of their liaison, that should the king once more embrace the Catholic religion, he would easily obtain a divorce from the Court of Borne, and that he would marry her. In the letter in question Henri IV. wrote — - " The hope of seeing you to-morrow makes me with- hold my hand. It is on Sunday that I shall take the dangerous jump. . . Good-bye, my heart ; come early 1 The La Varenne afterwards sent to Madrid to arrange a match with the Infanta. 1593.] HENRI GOES TO MASS. 223 to-morrow, for it seems already as if a year had passed since I saw you. I kiss a million times the pretty hands of my angel, and the lips of my dear mistress." And on Sunday, the 25th, Henri IV. went to mass, but not before he had obliged the prelates, " in whose hands he had placed his soul," to simplify the form of his abjuration, and not without having shed abundant tears. Queen Elizabeth had sent over Sir Thomas Wilkes to try and persuade Henri IV. not to abjure, but Sir Thomas did not arrive at St. Denis until the ceremony had commenced. 1 Henri IV. now began to move once more in the matter of a divorce. His friend and adviser, Duplessis Mornay, exposed to him the dangers which his body, his soul, and his reputation all ran from the frivolous attachments in which he indulged. And with the view to a second marriage, Duplessis received permission from his Majesty to open up negotiations with Mar- guerite de Valois for annulling their union. This being the case, Duplessis at once sent for M. Erard, who was in the service of the Queen of Navarre, and told him that the king had made up his mind to marry again. In the Vie de Mornay we find — "It displeased Duplessis to see the debaucheries of this prince. On the other hand, he considered how important it was for the king and for the State that Henri IV. should have children. As for a reconciliation between him and Marguerite de Valois, there was no appearance of that. Taking advantage of an illness with which he was attacked 1 Lettres Missives d 'Henri IV., t. iv. p. li note. 224 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1593. after a debauch, he accosted him in a familiar manner, saying — ' What, Sire, shall we never see an end to these amours ? ' Th e king said — ' Why don't they think of marrying me!' M. du Plessis replied — ' Of a truth, Sire, to marry you no one dares think ; there is double difficulty, because you must first be unmarried. But if you are serious (and I believe that you are, for you know what is required to strengthen the State) I will dare, on your order, to attempt the affair.' " After the above conversation we are told that Henri IV. was very "difficult" on the subject, as it was against his conscience to ask for a dissolution of his marriage from the Pope, and he was not sure whether it would meet the approval of the Reformed Church. It was therefore agreed that M. Erard should be called in, and that he should be despatched to Usson to inform Marguerite de Valois that the king was determined to marry ; that the condition of the kingdom and his own private affairs demanded " this ; that the prayers of his subjects induced him to take this course ; that she could not ignore the causes of their separation, and consequently of their divorce ; that she would do well not to drive him to extremi- ties. M. Erard was to point out to the queen that she would be well treated and also honoured by posterity should she consent to forward her procura- tion in blank, declaring before an Official that she never gave her consent to the marriage, knowing in her conscience that it was contrary to the canons of the Church that she should marry a person so nearly 1593.] ERARD'S MISSION. 225 related to her, and demanding that the said marriage should be declared null and void. By this means, without making submission to the Pope, the king would become free and would be able to marry. M. Erard set out on his voyage, and three months afterwards returned with the consent of the queen subject to certain conditions, with affectionate letters for M. Duplessis, and letters for the king himself, "full of submission not hoped for." In September, 1593, we find the king writing to his wife, addressing her as M'amye, expressing his satisfaction, and declaring his intention of acting towards her in the most affectionate manner. One of the conditions upon which Marguerite de Valois insisted before consenting to a divorce was that she should receive money to pay her debts, for she was being sorely pressed by her creditors. On the 27th December Henri IV. wrote again to M'amye, saying that he had taken steps to have her pension duly paid, also 250,000 crowns for the settlement of debts. He then added — "I pray you, M'amye, as soon as you can to send me the procuration you know of, and to add the words which I have charged Erard to tell you, because they are necessary for the pursuit of what you know." On the 23rd March, 1594, Henri IV. wrote an impatient letter to Duplessis to bring matters to a close as he was "determined." He added — "You know that yesterday my good city of Paris sub- mitted. . . ." VOL. I. Q 226 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1593. On the 14th September the king wrote again to his wife, thanking her for her conduct, and promising to look after her interests ; and on the 24th a further letter, saying — -" I have received yours by Erard, and learn with extreme satisfaction that you have sent him your procuration." But his Majesty had then to apologize that, owing to bad times, not to ill-will on his part, some of his engagements had not been kept. But all this was to be rectified. Marguerite de Valois had not only signed the procuration demanded, but had declared that other causes for a dissolution existed in addition to those mentioned. For example, there was the just fear she entertained of the late King Charles, ber brother, whose violent disposition she dreaded. Then there was disparity of religion, and sundry formalities which had been neglected. With the procuration in his possession, the next thing for the king to do was to ascertain the value of the instrument, and to see if the dissolution could be pronounced without an appeal to the Court of Rome. To examine this serious question the king summoned a council composed of the Due de Nevers, Cardinal Gondi, recently returned from Rome, Chan- cellor de Chiverny, Schomberg, De Villeroy, Harlay, Seguier, &c. The queen was duly represented, and M. du Plessis and M. Erard were also present. " The wisest men in the council, we are told, were in favour of Cardinal de Gondi, as Bishop of Paris, judging the dissolution, but he feared the anger of the Pope. . . . 1593.] ABSOLUTION AND DISSOLUTION. 227 Although some gnashed their teeth, the majority voted for a dissolution without the Pope." At this juncture the Pontiff was very anxious to aid Hungary against the Turk. Cardinal Gondi thought, therefore, that before going further it would be well to ask the Holy Father, who stood in need of France, to grant Henri IV. an absolution, without mentioning anything about a dissolution. Cardinal d'Ossat was to arrange this matter with the Pope, and if his Holiness refused the absolution his sanction was to be dispensed with. That the dissolution of the king's marriage should have fallen into the background was due to the fact of it having become evident that his Majesty wished to marry La Belle Gabrielle. 1 Gregory XIII. still sat upon the Pontifical throne. He was decidedly hostile to Henri IV., and in favour of the League ; he refused to believe in the sincerity of the abjuration pronounced by the French king on the 25th July, 1593, and he censured the prelates who had accepted it on the part of a lapsarian monarch. It was beyond doubt that the Pope would decline to grant the absolution. Mayenne and his colleagues were fully aware that once Henri IV. admitted into the giron of the Catholic Church their occupation would be gone, and their influence was all- powerful at Eome. The council was therefore per- fectly justified in coming to the conclusion that the Pontiff would refuse to annul the marriage of an 1 Vie de Mornay, 217. Q 2 228 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1594. excommunicated sovereign, and in advising their master not to appeal to him. The consequence was, that Henri IV. could obtain no relief from the Court of Some or from the ecclesi- astical tribunals in Paris, who secretly sympathized with the League, and were afraid to incur the dis- pleasure of the Pontiff. Neither Gregory XIII. nor the officiality of Paris would sever the matrimonial bonds which linked Henri IV. and Marguerite de Valois more or less together. Henri IV. had after a fashion played the part of the Vicar of Bray ; he could hardly turn round again and play that of Henry VIII. For this he would have required a Cranmer instead of a Gondi to aid him. There is no name in French history more honoured perhaps than that of Sully ; but more than one modern writer has proved beyond a doubt that this great minister was after all no better than Bacon — the greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind — and that he could condescend to the forgery of documents. Bazin, 1 Jung, 2 Loiseleur, 3 and Desclozeaux * have given many proofs of this criminal conduct taken from the pages of the Economies Royales, composed by Sully and his secretaries long after the death of Henri IV. In all that concerns Gabrielle d'Estrees and the divorce of Henri IV., no one has done more to pervert the truth than Sully, through hatred of the king's mistress, and 1 Histoire de Louis XIII. 2 Henri I V. ecrivain. 3 Monographe du Chateau de Sidlij. 4 Revue Historique Mars et Avril, 1887. 1594.] SULLY'S FORGERIES. 229 a morbid anxiety to show that he played a leading part in all the acts of Henri IV. Sully made out by means of forged letters that he was charged by the king to negotiate his divorce with Marguerite de Valois, who would not consent as long as she feared that the king would marry Gabrielle d'Estrees. As a specimen of the manner in which Sully proceeded, we may quote a letter which is to be. found in his Economies Royales, dated 13th April, 1598, addressed to Marguerite de Valois. In this he informs his " dear queen " that France stands in need of a legitimate successor to the throne, hints that she should make overtures, and that she and the king should live together like brother and sister. As M. Desclozeaux properly remarks, had Marguerite de Valois received such a letter she would have been greatly astonished. She would have replied — " I don't understand you. You say that it will be easy for the king and myself to live like brother and sister. When you speak of overtures, do you mean for my ' un-marriage ' ? But that is an old affair, which was commenced in 1593, and my personal desires have had nothing to say to the failure of the negotiations up to the present. I cannot explain your ignorance of the fact that I furnished a first procuration in 1594, and that if the negotiations did not then succeed, that must be attributed to quarrels with Rome, to the expulsion of the Jesuits, to the refusal to grant the king an absolution, and to the late wars. Negotiations have recently been recom- 230 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1559. menced with a fair chance of success. M. Erard was the first person who made overtures to me on the part of Duplessis Mornay acting on behalf of the king. For many years past an active correspondence has been carried on between Duplessis Mornay, the king, and myself on the subject. I have even written to his mistress, Gabrielle d'Estr^es, with whom I am on good terms, and who is also interested in the matter." 1 It is evident that Sully, in concocting and altering letters referring to the divorce of Henri IV., wished to make posterity believe that he was the prime mover in the whole affair. Yet several historians of repute have taken for gospel all that Sully has written concerning Gabrielle d'Estrees, whom he thoroughly hated. D'Aubigne was an austere man, much too austere for a character like that of Henri de Navarre ; but in what different colours has he portrayed the king's mistress to those employed by Sully ! D'Aubigne speaks of her in this manner — " The Duchesse de Beaufort made a modest use of the power she had over the king, but her relations were not so moderate. . . . We have seldom seen favourites of our kings who did not draw down upon themselves the hatred of the great by making them. 1 In a letter dated Usson, 24th January, 1595, Marguerite writing to the king speaks of the Marquise de Monceau (Gabrielle) as that honest woman she would always love. In February, 1597, she wrote to the marquise, asking her protection, and vowing her an eternal affection due to her merit. She was very anxious that her affairs should be settled. 1594.] D'AUBIGNE'S IDEA OF GABRIELLE. 231 lose what they desired, and by espousing the interests, the debts, and the vengeances of their relations. It is really marvellous how this woman, whose extreme beauty has ' nothing of thirst about it,' has been able to live rather as a queen than as a concubine for so many years and with so few enemies. State necessi- ties were her only enemies. . . ," 1 And D'Aubigne" was a man who said, when Chastel attempted to assassinate the king — " God has smitten you in the mouth because you have denied Him with the mouth. Take care that He does not smite you in the heart, should you deny Him in the heart " — a man of plain speech, and who was quite as alive as was Sully to the ills which might befall their common country should Henri IV. marry La Belle Gabrielle. Sully, on the contrary, did all he could to blacken the character of Gabrielle in the eyes of posterity, even expressing doubts as to Henri IV. being the father of her children. It is perfectly clear, as regards the divorce, that Marguerite de Valois was quite as anxious as her husband for a settlement. She knew that she could never resume her position as the wife of Henri IV. ; she was deeply in debt, she was tired of living a secluded life among the mountains of Auvergne, and was anxious to return to Paris. M. Erard had been instructed to tell the queen that Henri IV. hoped she would not drive him to extremities. What did this mean ? That Marguerite might be prosecuted for 1 D'Aubign^, Hist. Universelle, t. iii. p. 462. 232 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1594. having given birth, probably to three, certainly to one child, since her separation from the king ? Such an impeachment would have been a great scandal, and could only have ended for Marguerite de Valois in perpetual imprisonment or in capital punishment. " Our ambassadors had not allowed the Court of Eome to remain in ignorance of this eventuality, and had quoted an example drawn from our own national history." 1 To wit, we may suppose, the example of Louis X., who, like Henri IV., was King of Navarre before being King of France, and who caused his wife, Marguerite de Bourgogne, — who, like Marguerite de Valois, was residing in a lonely castle, Chateau- Gaillard, — to be strangled. 2 What did Henri IV. offer her in return for her procuration ? The payment of her debts, a princely allowance, and the authorization to reside in Paris, to appear at Court, and to keep her title of queen. It is easy to understand how eagerly she accepted these propositions, which would release her from her pecuniary embarrassments, allow her to escape from what was little better than a prison, and to avoid all chance of sharing the fate of the dissolute wife of Louis le Hutin. 1 Desclozeaux, Revue Historique. 2 A note in the Memoirs de Marguerite de Valois (p. 445) says that the beau Chauvallon was one of the lovers of the queen ; that the liaison probably commenced in 1580, and that the result was a son, who became a Capucin monk under the name of Father Ange. A number of letters which Marguerite wrote to Chauvallon are published in the Memoirs. 1598.] SULLY AND HENRI IV. 233 If we are to believe the Economies Royales, in the first days of April, 1598, Henri IV., who wished to marry Gabrielle, but who did not like to say so openly, had a conversation with Sully at Eennes, which lasted for three hours. The king, after dwelling on the necessity of having legitimate heirs to succeed to the throne, passed in review all the marriageable princesses in France and abroad, having some objection to find to each — objections to Mademoiselle de Guise, Mademoiselle de Rohan, and Mademoiselle de Conti, to the Infanta, to Arabella Stuart, the innocent victim of both Elizabeth and James I. ; and these objections to Marie de Medicis — that the family to which she belonged had not enjoyed the title of prince for more than from sixty to eighty years, and that she was of the same race as Catherine de Medicis, who had done so much harm both to France and to himself. After endeavouring in vain to get Sully to suggest his marriage with Gabrielle, Henri IV. at last acknow- ledged his intention to espouse his mistress. Upon this Sully represented all the inconveniences of such an alliance ; that it would be generally blamed, and that it would inevitably lead to intrigues and pretensions in consequence of his Majesty's children having been born under such diverse circumstances. The eldest, Cesar, was the issue of a double adultery, the younger son, Alexandre, of a single adultery, and should the king have children after his marriage, would they recognize the right of their brothers to reign before them % Sully also reminded the king of 234 . MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1598. the report that the children were not his — " the first of ) r our children (since you call him so) . . ." It is now argued by the critics of Sully, that he would never have dared to address the king in such language at such a moment. His Majesty was so deeply attached to Gabrielle that he contemplated marrying her ; there can be no doubt as to his affection for his children, whom he spoke of as his ouvrages charnels ; he had just made the little Cesar governor of Brittany, had bestowed upon him the duchy of Vend6me, had legitimized him, and had affianced him, although he was only four years of age, to Louise le Lorraine, and this with royal pomp. His children, Catherine and Alexandre Monsieur, had been christened with royal splendour. At Court Gabrielle received the same honours as if she were already queen. Although not actually installed in the Louvre, her residence communicated with the palace, and at night she slept in the bed-room of the queens. When she rose in the morning the royal etiquette was observed — one of her relations handed her her chemise. When she dined she had two archers standing behind her. The Princesses of Lorraine waited upon her at table, and when necessary performed the office of lady's maids. 1 • Is it probable that Sully would have ventured to speak thus to the king of his mistress and his children, and that Henri IV. should neither have replied to or resented such bold language ? It was finally agreed 1 Desolozeaux, Revue Historique, January, 1887, p. 278. 1598.] SULLY'S EMBELLISHMENTS. 235 that his Majesty should say nothing about his intention of marrying the Duchesse de Beaufort until all the formalities relative to the divorce had been' accomplished, lest the Queen Marguerite, the Pope, or some one else should interfere with the negotiations. So wrote Sully. On the authority of Sully we have it that shortly afterwards, in a discussion which took place be- tween Gabrielle and himself in presence of Henri IV. on the subject of the baptism of Alexandre, his Majesty turned round suddenly and said to the duchess, " If forced to choose, I could do better without ten mistresses like you than one servant like him." And his Majesty proceeded, in the presence of Gabrielle, to load him with praises. The critics point out that Sully, in commencing his report of this con- versation, says that he took the king to the residence of the duchess in his own carriage. But Sully had no carriage &t that time, nor was a carriage required, since the hotel of the duchess communicated with the Louvre. It is also pointed out that when this scene is repre- sented to have taken place, Gabrielle, who was all- powerful, was about to become a mother for the fourth time ; also that a very short time before Sully had, on the death of St. Luc, asked' Henri IV. to make him Grand Master of Artillery, but Gabrielle had inter- fered, and had obtained the post for her own father, whose services' could not be weighed in the same balance with those of Sully — a fact which displays her 236 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1598. influence. According to Sully, the king acknow- ledged that he had been unable to resist the tears and entreaties of Gabrielle, but that he should certainly have the post after D'Estrees ; and, as a matter of fact, as soon as Gabrielle died her father was removed, and Sully was named to succeed him, all of which is an additional proof of the influence exercised over the king by his mistress. It is very plainly shown that, in addition to letters already mentioned, Sully in his old age fabricated several others in connection with the divorce of his master. In 1593 the queen had given her pro- curation in accordance with the wishes of the king, but this had fallen out of date, and another was neces- sary. The second procuration was signed at Usson, the 3rd February, 1598, and this was received at the Louvre on the 9th of the same month ; and yet Sully makes out that in March, 1599, he was asked by the king to write to Marguerite de Valois for the procuration, and the letter he wrote to the queen is published in the Economies Royales. He also makes Marguerite de Valois write a conditional agreement to accede to the wishes of Henri IV., dated Usson, 29th July, 1599, that is to say, after the death of Gabrielle. To believe Sully, therefore, the queen consented, upon certain conditions, to do in July, 1599, what she had legally consented to do on the 3rd February. Let us pause for a moment to consider the march of events, leaving for the moment Sully and his 1598.] RETROSPECT. 237 forgeries. In 1591 Henri IV. fell in love with Gabrielle d'Estr^es. In 1593 Henri IV. was pressed by his ministers to marry again, and commenced the steps necessary to obtain a divorce. At that moment he did not contemplate marrying Gabrielle d'Estrfes ; he received the portraits of the Infanta of Spain and of Marie de Medicis, which he confided to the keeping of DAubigne. Gabrielle employed her influence to induce her royal lover to embrace the Catholic religion for the second time. The Court of Rome refused to grant an absolution. In 1594 the king entered Paris in state ; he was preceded by Gabrielle, who, carried in a litter, was covered with diamonds and other precious stones. Negotiations were carried on with Queen Mar- guerite to obtain her consent to a divorce ; matters were amicably settled between the queen and himself. C^sar was born. In 1595 Cesar was declared legitimate, 1 and the marriage of Gabrielle with M. de Liencourt was annulled by the Officiality of Amiens for empechements dirimants — marriage contracted solely with the view 1 The lettres-patentes by which Cesar was legitimized are worth noticing. Henri IV. commenced by enumerating the services which he himself had rendered to the State, which he found on the brink of ruin. He then expressed his regret that he had no legiti- mate heirs, having been separated from his wife for ten years. Waiting until it should please God to give him legitimate, he had looked elsewhere, and " having recognized the great graces and per- fections, both mental and physical, found in the person of our very dear and well-beloved lady, Gabrielle d'Estrees, we have for some years past sought her as the subject the most worthy of our love." Henri IV. went on to say that his conscience was quite free from reproach, as he knew the marriage contracted with M. de Liencourt to be null — in fact, that it was a sham. 238 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1598. of rendering Gabrielle independent of her family. She was now created Marquise de Monceaux. In September, 1595, Clement VIII. granted the absolu- tion, and the French king was received into the bosom of the Church of Kome by the new Pontiff, who thus reversed the policy of Gregory XIII. and Innocent IX. As the affection of Henri IV. for his mistress increased, so his anxiety to obtain a divorce diminished ; negoti- ations with Marguerite de Valois were, if not broken off, suspended, and the conditions upon which the queen had signed her procuration were only half carried out, in spite of her constant appeals. In this same year (1595) Gabrielle gave birth to Catherine Henriette, who was born in the monastery of St. Ouen, at Rouen, where the king and all his Court were residing. In 1597 Gabrielle, at the height of her power, was created Duchesse de Beaufort. Ce*sar was created Due de Vend6me, and was affianced to Louise de Lorraine, a wealthy heiress. The next year the duchess gave birth to Alexandre, Monsieur} 1 It may be convenient to bear in mind that three children were the fruit of the liaison between Henri IV. and La Belle Gabrielle — Cesar, horn at Coney in 1594 ; Catherine Henriette, born at Rouen in 1596 ; and Alexandre, born in 1598. When Cesar was horn the marriage tie which Henri IV. had forced upon Gabrielle still existed, but when the second child was born the situation had become entirely changed. Gabrielle was the declared mistress of the king, and her marriage with the Sieur de Lien court had been annulled by the Officiality of Amiens. It is curious to read with what pomp this child was baptized ; how, after pages bearing torches, came guards, Swiss, drums, trumpets, and violins ; then, 1598.] GABRIELLE 1 S POSITION. 239 It will be remembered that nothing was to be said about the discussion between the king and Sully. According to the latter, his Majesty gave him to understand that he had gone a long way for the first time, but that he would not say 'anything to Gabrielle, lest she should fall out with him. However, in November, 1598, this pretended secret was known to every one. G-abrielle was treated as a queen by the whole Court, awaiting the moment when Clement VIII. , after having granted his absolution, should grant a divorce. In this same month of November, 1598, we find Marguerite de Valois, in presence of Mathurin and Portail, notaries of Usson, making Gabrielle a present of the duchy of Etampes, which was duly accepted by the said G-abrielle as a marriage gift, in presence of Claude de Figues and Pierre de Briquet, notaries of the king, at the Chatelet of Paris. There were several reasons in favour of the marriage in question — there was peace in the land, the Edict of Nantes and the treaty of Vervins had brought a long series of religious wars to a close. Then Henri IV. was forty-five years of age, and his robust constitution had been sorely tried by the fatigues of war, and by excesses of various kinds. He was afflicted with the Marshal Matignon bearing a taper, Marshal de Eatz a great covered salt-cellar, the Due d'Eperon a basin (silver-gilt), the Due de Severs a vase, the Due de Nemours a towel, the Due de Montpensier the cradle, the Prince de Conti the infant wrapped up in a silver cloth lined with ermine, the train being six yards long and borne by Mademoiselle de Guise. 240 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1598. gout, was subject to fever, could not sleep, and had fits of melancholy which lasted for weeks, and from which no one could arouse him but his charming Gabrielle. What annoyed the sick warrior more than all was a disease which made it painful for him to ride on horseback, and would prevent him from having any more children unless he submitted to an operation. If he could raise up no more seed and beget no heirs male of his body, why should he dream of marrying an ugly Spanish Infanta or a coarse Florentine princess of the hated Medicis family ? La Riviere, his doctor in chief, gained over, it is said, by Gabrielle, persuaded the monarch that an operation would be extremely dangerous. Then why not marry Gabrielle and declare Cesar his heir ? In the month of September, the doctors having, persuaded the king of the absolute necessity of taking care of himself, he made up his mind to pass the remainder of the autumn with Gabrielle at her castle of Monceaux, near Mantes. There, surrounded by his children and a few youthful friends, he determined upon leading a domestic life, and drawing up a plan of reform with the view of relieving the distress into which the country had been plunged by bad administration and years of civil and religious wars. There can be little doubt that Henri IV., fickle as he often showed himself, was sincerely attached to Gabrielle d'Estrees. We have already seen in what terms the austere D'Aubigne" spoke of her. Cheverny said of her in 1598 — " The king grants no favour and 1598.] GABRIELLE NO BIGOT. 241 makes no appointment unless on the demand of the duchess ; he wishes her to be thanked for all favours accorded, and to reap all the gratitude." 1 And the Princesse de Conti observed of Gabrielle that, " enjoy- ing this dignity, and having such great expectations, she behaved with such courtesy and attention that those who did not wish to love her could not hate her. She commanded the whole Court with the greatest gentleness, and obliged the most people possible." 2 On all sides it was acknowledged that she was the most amiable of women. De Thou tells us 3 that when the Due de Mayenne saw there was nothing more to be hoped for from the Spaniards, and that the absolution of the king had killed the League, he instructed President Jeannin to persuade Gabrielle to intercede with Henri IV. in favour of himself and the princes of the Catholic party, represent- ing that she would thus gain the affection of all good Catholics, and deserve well of the Pope. As De Thou remarks, " It was necessary to pay court to this powerful mistress in order to obtain the good graces of the king." It is needless to say that Gabrielle did not intercede in vain. If she persuaded Henri IV. to return to the Catholic religion she was far from being a bigot ; if she interceded on behalf of Mayenne, who promised to support the claims of her children to the throne 1 Memoirs of Cheverny, t. xxxvi. (Petitot), p. 382. 2 Histoire des Amours du Grand Alcandre. 3 Memoirs, t. xii. p. 425. VOL. I. E 242 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1598. of France, she afterwards supported the demands of the Calvinists. Catherine de Bourbon, who declined to change her religion, like her brother and the Princess of Orange, 1 easily won over the favourite, who was naturally flattered by the adula- tion of the two princesses. Madame Catherine gave Gabrielle her portrait, which she had mounted in a frame of gold, and Cheverny tells us that " the skilful seduction exercised upon a powerful woman better served the Calvinist cause, and did more towards obtaining the Edict of Nantes, than all the science of the great diplomatists of the party." Strange that the Edict of Nantes should owe its origin to the mistress of Henri IV., and its revocation, at all events, in some measure to the mistress of Jiis grand- son, Louis XIV. — that mistress being Madame de Maintenon, the grand-daughter of D'Aubigne. With one class, however, Gabrielle does not appear to have been popular. The Parisians, whose suffer- ings in those days were severe, felt insulted by the magnificence she displayed, which seemed to mock their misery. Nothing was too costly for Gabrielle, and the Italian financier, Zamet, was at hand to furnish money at high interest for any caprices in which the king or his mistress might indulge. In the letters of Henri IV. we find but one which betokens any dissatisfaction with Gabrielle. It is true that in this she is accused of having twice been faithless, Bellegarde being his Majesty's " competitor." 1 The daughter of Coligny. 1598.] A LOVE-LETTER. 243 After many bitter reproaches, however, the king thus concluded — " So great is my desire to see you that I would give four years of my life to be with you as soon as this letter, which I terminate by kissing your hands a million times. Well ! you do not deem me worthy of your portrait." It is true that, judging from the body of the letter, Gabrielle must have denied ' the soft impeachment. The king says — " You complain of my suspicions. You write to me that you will keep the promises you made me lately. As the Old Testament was abolished by the coming of our Lord, so have our promises been by the letter you wrote from Compiegne. You must not write I will, but I do. Make up your mind then, my mistress, to have but one lover. You can change me or keep me. You are wrong to think that any one in the world can love you as I do. Nothing can equal my fidelity. If I have committed any infidelities, what follies will not jealousy drive one to commit] . . ." The probability is that there were mutual recrimin- ations, which appear to have received a satisfactory solution, for Gabrielle sent the king her portrait, which the amorous monarch acknowledged in the following letter, which, if brief, is considered a model of its kind — " Je vous escris, mes chers amours, des pieds de votre peinture, que j'adore seulement pour ce qu'elle est faicte pour vous, non qu'elle vous ressemble. J'en puis estre juge competent, vous ayant peinte en toute perfection, dans mon ame, dans mon cceur, dans mes yeux. " Mes cheres amours, II faut dire vrai, nous nous aimous bien ; certes pour femme il n'en est point de pareille a vous ; pour homme, nul ne m'egale a scavoir bien aimer. Ma passion est toute telle que quand je commencois a vous aimer ; mon desir de Vous revoir, 244 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1598. encore plus violent que alors ; href je vous cheris, adore et honore miraculeusement. . . Bonsoir, mon coeur, je vous baise un million de fois les mains. Ce xxii Octobre d' Amiens." l In a letter supposed to have been written 21st May, 1598, Henri IV. said— " These verses will represent my condition better and more agree- ably than prose can do. I dictated, but did not arrange them. This evening we caught a number of rabbits in the park. I go out walking to see places specially worthy of wishing you there — I say specially, for in general I wish for you everywhere where duty or destiny leads me. v, I beg that you will return to-morrow, and believe me that I shall eat the rabbits you bring from Bene with much more appetite than those of this place. . . Love your subject who, I swear to you, my dear love, will never adore any one but you. . . Keep your promises, and you will be the happiest woman in the world. I kiss your fine eyes a million times." The verses which accompanied this letter are still popular in France, and are often sung. The first verse runs thus — " Charmante Gabrielle, Perce" de mille dards, Quand la gloire m'appelle Sous les drapeaux de Mars Cruelle departye, Malheureux jour ! Que ne suis-je sans vie Ou sans amour ! " And the last verse which shows Henri IV. deter- mined to marry his mistress runs thus — " Partag^s ma couronne, Le prix de ma valeur ; 1 Voltaire mentions that it was Gabrielle who advanced her royal lover the money necessary to recapture Amiens from the Spaniards under Porto Carrero, who fell during the siege of that place. 1598.] ANOTHER LOVE-LETTER. 245 Je la tiens de Bellone Tenes-la de mon coeur Cruelle departye," &c. " Fontainebleau, \Wi Sept., 1598. " Mes belles amours. Two hours after the arrival of the bearer you will see a cavalier who loves you greatly, who is called the King of France and Navarre, title certainly honourable, but very hard to bear. That of your subject is much more delicious. . . . I see by your letter that you are in a hurry to go to St. Germain. I am glad that you like my sister ; it is one of the most certain proofs that you can give me of your affection, which I cherish more than my life, although I am very fond of myself. ..." Two more letters" of no importance close the corre- spondence of the king with Gabrielle d'Estrees, in Les Lettres Missives d' Henri IV. We shall merely remark that the last is dated October, 1598, and that the first letter to Henriette d'Entragues, G-abrielle's successor in the affections of his Majesty, is dated October, 1599. CHAPTEE XL DEATH OF GABRIELLE. During the stay of Henri IV. at Monceaux he was taken so seriously ill that several of the most eminent physicians of Paris were sent for. They soon re-estab- lished his general health, and that being the case, the king consulted them as to the carnosity from which he was suffering. They differed in opinion from La Riviere, and decided in favour of an operation, which was skilfully and successfully performed. One of the results of this operation was that Gabrielle became once more enceinte ; but this fact did not, as she feared it might, induce her royal lover to renounce his intention of marrying her. The wedding dresses were bought and so was the ring, and the nuptials would undoubtedly have taken place, had not the King of Terrors stepped in to forbid the banns. The cause of Gabrielle's death at such a moment, when she was about to assume the crown and become Queen of France and Navarre, is shrouded in mystery. We find the modern critics again differing from Sully, and accusing him of further fabrications, with the view of proving that Gabrielle died by poison. Why 1599.] GABRIELLE'S DEATH. 247 should Sully, long years after the event, have wished to prove this ? — to let posterity assume that he was not foreign to an act which in all probability saved France from the calamities of a disputed succession. He knew that neither the Prince de Conde" nor his uncles, the Prince de Conti and the Comte de Soissons, would acknowledge Cdsar de Vend6me as a rightful sovereign, and that civil war would once more rend the kingdom on the death of Henri IV. What if he could make posterity believe that he had saved the country from this catastrophe even at the expense of a crime ? Matters appear to have passed in this wise. On the approach of Easter Henri IV., on the advice of his confessor, Rene Benoist, the same who had been the confessor of Marie Stuart, consented to separate him- self from his mistress, and he sent her to Paris to perform her devotions publicly. Gabrielle left Fon- tainebleau on the 5th April, 1599, supped at Melun, and slept at Savigny-le-Temple, about a couple of miles from the Seine, upon which she was to embark in order to reach the capital. The king saw her on board her barge, and by all accounts Gabrielle was deeply affected on parting with her lover. Her mind seemed to be filled with strange misgivings. At Paris she landed close to the Arsenal, where her brother-in- law, Marshal Balagny, and the Marquis de Cceuvres were waiting for her. They took her to an apart- ment adjoining the Arsenal, where her sister Diane de Balagny was living. There they found Made- moiselle de Guise, the wife of Marshal de Retz, her 248 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1599. daughters, and some other ladies. Bassompierre, who had accompanied Gabrielle on her voyage down the Seine, to play at cards with her, took his leave and returned to his master. On the 7th April Gabrielle went to vespers in great state, her litter was followed by several carriages, and was escorted by a detachment of archers of the guard commanded by M. de Montbazon. During service Gabrielle felt overpowered by the heat, and instead of going to sup with Zamet, as she had pro- mised, returned home and slept without feeling any pain. The next morning she went to mass at St. Germain l'Auxerrois, where she performed her Easter devotions ; at two o'clock, however, she was obliged to go to bed, and at four o'clock she began to feel the pains of child-birth — pains which lasted until eight o'clock in the evening, and which recommenced on Friday morning, when she appears to have been seized with convulsions, and to have been delivered of a still-born child. She suffered the most intense agony all day, and expired at five a.m. on Saturday the 10th April. This is the substance of the plain unvarnished tale told by most writers on the subject of the death of Gabrielle d'Estrees, not to mention Marbault, who was the first writer to expose the fabrications of Sully. In the Economies Royales it is clearly hinted that Gabrielle did not die a natural death, and several French historians, like Michelet, Henri Martin, Mezerai, Sismondi, and Guizot, have repeated the story of how 1599.] GABRIELLE'S DEATH. 249 the unfortunate woman was poisoned by a lemon which, she ate at the house of Zamet. The way in which the story is told by Sully is very characteristic. It is inserted in the Economies in the form of a letter written to him by La Varenne. This real or supposed letter commenced Monseigneur. Now in 1599 Sully had no right to be styled Monseigneur. He had not yet been made a duke, and was still the Marquis de Eosny. This changing the commencement of letters was a trick constantly indulged in by Sully. Thus all the letters addressed to him by Henri IV. which are quoted in the Economies begin, Mon ami, whereas all the authentic letters of Henri IV. to his minister open with M. de Mosny, and after Sully was made a duke with mon cousin, in accordance "with etiquette. Henri IV. never addressed any of his friends as mon ami. He addressed them all by name. To return to the letter of La Varenne, it is written in the style which makes the Economies such painful reading with its interminable paragraphs. The style of La Varenne, to judge by a letter in the Revue Historique, was totally different. The document in question contains words which Sully was in the habit of using constantly. It began with a compliment to Sulty. La Varenne assured him that the duchess loved him, and esteemed him more than any noble- man in France. In the body of the letter La Varenne himself pays Sully a compliment on his prudence, and he winds up by imploring Sully to repair to the king, as he had often heard him say that none of his 250 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1599. servants could so powerfully console him in his affliction. La Varenne also refers to the fact of his " holding the poor woman nearly dead in my arms." Is this probable, when Gabrielle's sister and several other ladies were present ? The letter does not actually say that Gabrielle was poisoned, but it attributes her death to apoplexy and convulsions, and says not a word about her accouchement, the details of which must have been well known to Sully. When the funeral took place there were two coffins — one for the infant. The consequence is that our modern critics regard the Varenne letter as a forgery, and M. Desclozeaux observes in the Bevue Historique, that out of eleven historians who wrote before Sully, only one, DAubigne*, believed that G-abrielle was poisoned. The authors who say nothing about poison are Cheverny, 1599 ; Palma Cayet, 1605; Claude Groulard, 1607 ; Legrain, 1614 ; Dupleix and L'Etoile, 1621 ; Pierre Mathew, Bassompierre, and Mademoiselle Guise, 1631. DAu- bigne wrote as follows — " The doctor, La Eiviere, when he saw Gabrielle exclaimed, Hie est manus Domini} It is to be noted that when she was on the point of giving the king a fourth child she took leave of him as if she were about to die, recommending her children and her servants to him, and asking him to finish Mon- ceaux. On being asked whence these gloomy ideas, she replied that an enchanter had threatened her that a child would hinder her from reaching the point to which she aspired. She had been seized with this 1 Evidently meaning that she had been poisoned. 1599.] GABRIELLE'S DEATH. 251 apprehension when the first treaty of marriage with Florence was spoken of; but she had no fears with regard to that of Spain, which was treated at the same time. I remember that the king, having given me the two first portraits he received from these princesses, allowed me to show them to the duchess, and told me to observe what she said, which was — ' I have no fear of the black one, but I am afraid of the other.'" 1 In support of the opinion that Gabrielle died a natural death Loiseleur brings forward a very import- ant piece of evidence in the shape of a letter written by President Jean de Vernhyes, member of the Council of Navarre, to the Due de Ventadour, dated 16th April, 159], that is to say, less than a week after the event he describes. The president, who, by the way, had been charged by the king to settle poor Gabrielle's debts, enters into minute details of the sufferings of Gabrielle — details which are painful to read — but does not breathe a suspicion of poison having been employed. If La Varenne omitted all mention of a still-born child, such is not the case in the letter of President de Vernhyes, which seems to have been only recently brought to light. The doctors do not appear to have discovered any symptoms of poison ; the convulsions were not re- garded as anything uncommon, but as peculiar to certain conditions well known to the faculty. Henri IV. set out for Paris when he heard of Gabrielle's 1 D'Aubigne, Hist. Universelle, Book V. p. 463. 252 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1599. illness, but she was dead before he could arrive, and his friends advised him not to see the remains, as the features of poor Gabrielle were so terribly distorted. But it evidently never entered the king's mind that there had been foul play, or else he would have ordered an inquiry ; nor could he have entertained any suspicion of Zamet, in whose house the fatal lemon was said to have been eaten. His Majesty continued on good terms with Zamet, who had recently given a touching proof of his devotion both to his sovereign and to Gabrielle ; he had just married his mistress by way of setting the king a good example ! Zamet was one of those needy Italian adventurers who probably came to France in the train of Catherine de Medici s. He was the son of a shoemaker at Lucca. He became valet to Henri III., the financial agent of the League, and the friend of the Due de Mayenne, and afterwards the confidant of Henri IV. He made a colossal fortune, a fortune which surpassed anything dreamed of in France ; but he joined to the luxury of the parvenu the taste for fine arts of an Italian, and the free and easy manners of a great nobleman. He became the favourite of Henri IV., to whom he advanced money for war and for gambling, and he lent him his splendid house near the Arsenal to meet mistresses which he provided for his Majesty, and who were forgotten almost as soon as they were known. Voltaire has thus sketched the portrait of another actor in the drama, La Varenne — " The Pope exacted as the price of the absolution of Henri IV., and a 1599.] LA VARENNE. 253 dispensation enabling the son of the Due de Lorraine to marry Catherine de Bourbon, a Protestant, that the Council of Trent should be received in France and the Jesuits recalled. There were eighty articles in the Council of Trent which shocked the rights of all sovereigns, and especially the laws of France. The king did not dare to propose to the parliament ' so re- volting an acceptation.' As for the re- establishment of the Jesuits, his Majesty thought that he owed this condescension to the Pope. The better to succeed, the Jesuits addressed themselves to La Varenne, who had been head cook of the king's sister — . ' born in a garret, in the kitchen bred,' and had afterwards served his Majesty as courier when he wrote to his mistresses. This new office brought him wealth and credit. The Jesuits gained him over. He was made governor of the castle of La Fleche . . . He established a Jesuit school in the town. . . ." This was the worthy who wrote the long letter on Gabrielle's death, with three compliments, &c, to Sully, while the king's courier was waiting for the despatch ! Henri IV. was now perfectly free ; Gabrielle d'Estreds was dead and gone, and the Court of Rome had pronounced the nullity of his marriage with the dissolute Marguerite de Valois. He was therefore at liberty to act up to the line of conduct embodied in his letter of the 15th April to his sister Catherine — to employ the remainder of his days in promoting 254 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1599. the welfare of his country. Now what France most required was to be relieved from the dread of a dis- puted succession ; what the interest of the country demanded was that Henri IV. should marry, and should beget an heir to the throne. His friends and advisers strongly urged him to marry at once, to wed either the Infanta of Spain or the Princess of Tuscany. But hardly was Gabrielle d'Estrdes in the grave than Henri IV. fell passionately in love with Henriette d'Entragues, a woman of designing character, and the daughter of designing parents — of Francois de Balzac d'Entragues and of Marie Touchet, the quondam mis- tress of Charles IX. — a woman as different as can possibly be imagined to the woman whom the king told Sully that he would like for a wife. He wanted a woman of an amiable disposition gifted with the five p's set forth in the following line- Sit Pia, sit Prudens, Pulchra, Pudica, Potens, and he fell in love with a vixen. The memoirs of Bassompierre contain some curious details concerning Henri IV. and his amours at this epoch. He had accompanied Gabrielle on her last trip down the Seine, and when the king heard of the death of his mistress, he sent for him and said — " ' Bassompierre, as you were the last person who saw my mistress, remain with me to talk about her ; ' so we remained alone for five or six days, except when some ambassador came to condole with him. But not many days had passed when he began to pay his attentions to 1599.] HENRIETTE D'ENTRAGUES. 255 Mademoiselle d'Entragues, with whom he fell violently in love ; " and Bassompierre then relates how, before his Majesty had succeeded in that quarter, he consoled himself with a belle garce (fine lass) named La Gland^e, whom he met at the house of Zamet ! Next, that after passing a few days in Paris, in pursuit of Mademoiselle d'Entragues, he returned to Blois, going thence to Chenonceaux to see the Queen Louise. There he fell slightly in love with one of her Majesty's maids of honour, named La Bourdaisiere. He returned to Fontainebleau to pass the summer, frequently going to Malesherbes to see Mademoiselle d'Entragues. After a short resistance on her own part and on that of her parents, Mademoiselle d'Entragues became the mistress of the king, but not before his Majesty had paid down 100,000 crowns, and had also signed an agreement to marry Henriette should she give birth to a son within a certain time. Henri Martin observes that Henri IV. could not have fallen into worse hands than those of this attractive but dangerous woman, who from her childhood had been trained in all the arts of intrigue. The amorous monarch showed Sully the written agreement which he was about to send. Sully tore it up ; but this was useless, for his Majesty wrote a second, which he handed to M. d'Entragues himself. Henriette appears to have assured the king that she would never insist upon the fulfilment of this undertaking, which she had de- manded simply to satisfy the scruples of her parents, but when she found herself enceinte she changed her 256 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1599. tone, and placed her lover in a very awkward predica- ment, as we shall see. The first reference which we find in the Letters of Henri IV. to his new liaison occurs in a letter addressed to Sully dated 7th June, 1594, in which he says — "Remember the orders which I gave you at once to pay my nephew, the Comte d'Auvergne, a quarter of the pension which I allow him in order that he may live." The Comte d'Auvergne was a son of Charles IX. and Marie Touchet, and consequently an illegitimate half-brother of Mademoiselle d'Entragues. We shall see how the count repaid this generosity. On the 11th August the Chancellor was ordered to erect the domain of Verneuil into a marquisate in favour of Mademoiselle d'Entragues. This was to be done without delay. And on the 1st October the Constable Montmorency was reminded of the gray bitch which he had promised to Mademoiselle d'En- tragues ; but the first letter which we find addressed to the new mistress is dated the 6th October, and runs thus — " My dear loves, La Varenne and the laquais, arrived at the same time. You ask me to overcome, if I love you, all the difficulties which may he placed in the way of our satisfaction. I have already sufficiently shown the force of my love hy the propositions which I have made, to expect that yours (sic) will not raise any more obstacles. What I said before you I will perform, but nothing more. ... I shall be glad to see M. d'Entragues, and I shall not allow him to rest until our affair is decided one way or the other. ..." In a note we find the following observations : — Henri IV. no doubt alludes here to the conditional 1599.] MARIE DE MEDICIS. 257 promise of marriage which he had written on the 1st of this month, and which M. d'Entragues received in exchange for his daughter. It would appear that D'Entragues demanded still more, and that his daughter, while secretly agreeing with him, and pre- tending to share the impatience and the desire of the king, kept throwing obstacles in the way by which the violence of the passion of this too weak-hearted prince was augmented. It was therefore not until the middle of October, 1599, that Mademoiselle d'Entragues was handed over to the king. It appears that shortly after the death of Henri III., or towards the end of 1592, Henri IV. sought the alliance of Ferdinand, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who before he ascended the throne was a cardinal. He obtained considerable sums of money from the Grand Duke, promising him that he would marry his niece, Marie de Medicis. This princess was born on the 26th August, 1573. When between nineteen and twenty years of age her portrait was brought to the king by Jerome de Gondi, and, as we have seen, con- fided by him to D'Aubigne - . She seems to have been very beautiful at that period. The negotiations with the Grand Duke were dropped for many years, but when Sillery was sent to Rome to re-open the question of a divorce he was ordered to renew them. On his side Villeroy, who was Secretary of State, treated the matter of the dowry with the envoy of the Grand Duke, who had held to the French king when he VOL. I. 258 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1599. could find no other ally among the Catholic princes. At present Henri IV. owed him 2,000,000 gold crowns. Aware that he was still immensely rich, Villeroy asked for 1,500,000 crowns, while Ferdinand offered only 500,000. After some little haggling the dowry was settled at 600,000 crowns. On the 9th March Henri IV. wrote to the Grand Duke to express his satisfaction that everything had been arranged ; the contract was signed at Florence on the 25th April, and the marriage was celebrated by proxy in the same city on the 5th October. That such a length of time was allowed to elapse between the signing of the cod tract and the marriage by proxy at Florence is accounted for by the fact that Henri IV. had felt himself obliged to go to war with the Duke of Savoy, and, in fact, he left Paris for Moulins towards the end of June, got to Lyons on the 9th July, and then went on to Grenoble, after- wards to Chambery, and then took the command of his troops in the field. We have little to say here on the subject of this war, which did not last more than a few months. Suffice it to say, that before braving the French king the Duke of Savoy obtained promises of support not only from the King of Spain, but from several powerful French nobles who had formerly been the ruling spirits of the League. Among the conspirators we may name the marshal Due de Biron, to whom the Duke of Savoy promised his daughter, with an enormous dowry, giving him to understand that the 1600.] A CONSPIRACY. 259 King of Spain would secure him the sovereignty of Burgundy. By this match Biron would have become the cousin of the emperor and the nephew of the King of Spain. The Marshal had no difficulty in persuading the Comte d'Auvergne and other restless and ambitious spirits in joining this conspiracy. The count is said to have been offended that Henri IV. had not married his half sister, instead of making her his mistress. As we have already observed, Henri IV. was placed in an awkward position when he found that Mademoiselle d'Entragues intended to keep him to his written promise. He was negotiating for the hand of Marie de Medicis, and he did not dare to cancel the powers which he had given to his agents. It is clear that Madame de Verneuil, as we shall in future call her, had something to say to this con- spiracy. She was enceinte at this moment, but she had probably heard of the negotiations with Florence. However this may be, in the Lettres d'Henri IV. we find his Majesty writing thus to his mistress — " Mademoiselle, the love, the honour, and the favour which you have received would have restrained the lightest mind in the world hut for an evil disposition like yours. I will not wound your feelings any more, although I might and ought to do so, as you well know. I heg that you will send me hack the promise you wot of, and not put me to the trouble of procuring it in another manner. Eeturn also the ring which I gave you the other day. Here is the subject of this letter, to which I hope to have an answer to-night, "Henry. " Friday Morning, 21st April, 1600. FONTAINEBLEAU." S 2 260 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1600. On the same day his Majesty sent a rougher letter by messenger to M. d'Entragues, demanding the promise, which, however, he refused to part with. In this second letter his Majesty declared that he was influenced by domestic and not by State reasons. The famous promise ran thus — ""We, Henri IV., by the Grace of God, King of France and of Navarre, promise and swear before God, on the faith and word of a king, to M. Francois de Balzac, sire d'Entragues, knight of our orders, that, giving us for companion demoiselle Henriette, Catherine de Balzac, his daughter, in case within six months from the present date she becomes enceinte, and if she be delivered of a son, upon that instant we will take her as wife and legitimate spouse, and will solemnize the marriage publicly in face of our Holy Church, according to the required and accustomed rites. For the greater security of the present promise, we promise and swear as above, to ratify and renew it under our seal as soon as we shall have obtained from.' Our Holy Father the Pope the dissolution of the marriage between us and the Lady Marguerite of France, with permission to marry where (sic) it seemeth good to us. In testimony of which we have written and signed the present. " Henry. "Malesherbes, 1st Oct., 1699." The quarrel between the king and his mistress seems to have been made, up before his Majesty left Paris ; but while he was waiting at Lyons to see what turn events would take, he heard of the pre- mature confinement of the Marquise de Verneuil, who, alarmed by a flash of lightning, had given birth to a still-born son. Thus for the third time Henri IV. found himself released from a matrimonial engage- ment by a miscarriage. It was so in the case of Mademoiselle Fosseuse, then with Gabrielle d'Estrees, and now with the Marquise de Verneuil. 1600.] LOVE-LETTERS. 261 As we have said, Henri IV. set out on his way to the front in the month of June, 1600. We are told by Bassompierre, that on his road to Lyons he tarried for a fortnight at Moulins, ostensibly to pay a visit to Queen Louise, the widow of Henri III., but in reality to renew his intercourse with La Bourdaisiere. It is true that he assured Sully, who was busy getting up guns and ammunition to the army and raising money, that this delay in no way interfered with his military movements. Before his departure for the seat of war Henri IV. entered into correspondence with Marie de Medicis. The first letter he addressed to her is dated Paris, 24th May, 1600. In it he said— " The virtues and perfections which shine out in you, and cause you to he admired hy every one, long ago kindled in me the desire to honour and serve you as you deserve. This desire has heen increased by what Halincourt has brought me. 1 . . ." Henri IV. then apologized to his future bride for not being able to assure her of his inviolable affection himself ; he sent her his faithful servant Frontenac to perform that office. " He will present you the duty of one," concluded his Majesty, " whom heaven has dedicated to you, and caused to be born for you alone." Two days after the date of this letter we find his Majesty writing to Sully from Verneuil, the residence of his mistress, and saying — " God aiding, I shall be 1 A portrait set in brilliants. 262 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1600. in Paris to-morrow, and shall go and dine at Zamet's, where I invite you." On the 11th July, Frontenac having returned, the king, who was still at Moulins, where " Pleasure lay carelessly smiling at fame," wrote again to Marie de Medicis. He said — ■ " Frontenac has depicted you in such a manner, that I love you not only as a husband should love his wife, hut as a passionate lover his mistress. This is the title I shall give you until you arrive at Marseilles, where you shall exchange it for one more honourable. . . ." And again on the 24th the king wrote another letter, commencing, " My Mistress," in which he said — " I have just taken the waters of Pongues, which have done me good. As you wish me good health, I also recommend you to take care of yours, so that on your arrival we may get a fine child, who will make all our friends laugh and all our enemies cry. Prontenac tells me that you would like a model of the manner in which ladies dress in Prance. I send you some dolls [no doubt dressed in the last Paris fashions], and I will send you a good tailor with M. le Grand. ..." And in conclusion he asked his lovely mistress to work him a favour which he might wear during the war. The above letter was written from Lyons. On the 31st July the king wrote to the Constable Montmorency, advising him to try the waters of Pongues, adding — " Perhaps I shall be able to run over there. I have written to the Marquise de Yerneuil to go there [having recovered from her confinement], and I shall go there to see her. . . ." During this period Henri IV. frequently wrote to Marie de Medicis with all the fervour of a youthful admirer, imploring her to hasten her voyage, and on 1600.] LOVERS QUARRELS. 263 the 30th September, although he was not married even by proxy until the 5th October, for the first time he addressed Marie de Medicis as " my wife," and concluded by kissing her pretty lips a hundred thousand times. The letter in question was one recom- mending to her the Marquise de Guercheville, the lady who had formerly resisted not only the improper advances of the king, but more serious offers. On the 1 1th October, not a week after his marriage at Florence, we find Henri IV. writing two passionate letters the same day to mon menon and mon cher cceur, as he styled the Marquise de Verneuil. Bassompierre tells us that Henri IV. and his mistress met at a place called St. Andre, whither he was summoned. He had hardly arrived, worn out with fatigue, when the king in a towering passion called him, and told him to saddle the horses as soon as possible. Bassompierre being, as we have said, dead tired, and knowing the short duration of lovers' quarrels, and that both were anxious to make peace, delayed preparing for the road, and when the steeds were at last ready, the storm had blown over. Henri IV. often visited his mistress at this epoch, but she seems to have returned to Paris when, at the close of November, he left his quarters at Chambery in order to lay siege to fort Sainte Catherine. After writing many letters to Marie de Medicis, in which he deplored being prevented from joining her at Lyons, at last, on the 6 th December, he was able to write to " The Queen my Wife." 264 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1600. " My wife, by the grace of God we have arranged the capitulation for the 17th of this month. The garrison will be allowed to march out. I leave my cousin, the Comte de Soissons, and Marshal de Biron, with my army. To-morrow I shall pass the day settling about the command ; I shall leave on Thursday, and I shall be with you on Saturday. I have had two attacks of fever, which obliged me to take medicine at night. I have hardly recovered, but your sight will cure me." And the next day he wrote — " My wife, I have arrived at Seyssel, where I was unable to find a boat. I shall start at daybreak, so as to arrive on Sunday morn- ing, which is all the diligence I can employ. I am impelled by my ardent desire to see you. The bearer of this will tell you all the news. I terminate kissing you a hundred thousand times." It was on the 25th April, 1600, that the marriage contract between the French king and Marie de Medicis was signed at Florence, at the Pitti Palace, after which Te Deums were sung, and the new queen dined in public, the Duke of Bracciano presenting her with water to wash her hands, and Sillery with a napkin. Strange to say, the person selected by Henri IV. to convey his procuration to Florence was none other than Bellegarde, his quondam rival in the affections of La Belle Gabrielle and other mistresses. Only the year before a strange incident is said to have occurred. Mademoiselle d'Entragues had to com- plain of Bellegarde, who had tried to cajole her; she thought, too, that Henri IV. would never have consented to marry Marie de Medicis had he not suspected Bellegarde of being her lover, hide irce. She therefore persuaded the Prince de Joinville, who 1600.] MARRIAGE BY PROXY. 265 was violently in love with her, to assassinate him. The prince attacked the duke in front of Zamet's house when he was unarmed, wounded him in the hinder parts, and would doubtless have slain him altogether but for the arrival of some of Bellegarde's retainers, who came to the rescue. In this affair the Vidame of Mans was run through the body, and La Eiviere received a sword-thrust in the loins. Heuri IV., who had rushed out in his nightshirt to see what all the noise was about, was exceedingly angry with the Prince de Joinville ; but in the end he appears to have made peace between him and Bellegarde. Bellegarde was despatched with the procuration, and disembarked at Leghorn on the 20th September. On the 27th, accompanied by forty French nobles and Antonio de Medicis, and an escort of Florentine knights, who had come out to meet him, he entered Florence. The next day he presented his credentials to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. On the 4th October the Cardinal Aldobrandini, nephew and legate of the Pope, also arrived, and was received with great pomp. The following day there was high mass performed in presence of the whole Court, Bellegarde occupying a prominent place, and leading Marie de Medicis to the right hand of the cardinal. The Grand Duke placed himself on the left hand of his Eminence, and pre- sented the proxy by which Henri IV. authorized him to marry his niece in his name. The proxy was read aloud, as also a Papal brief authorizing the marriage. After the performance of the nuptial ceremony there 266 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. • [1600. was a grand banquet and other festivities, which lasted for several days. As the French king was still at war with the Duke of Savoy, Marie de Medicis was in no haste to leave Florence. However, she set out for her new kingdom on the 13th October, accompanied -by the Grand Duchess, her aunt, the Duchess of Mantua, her sister, Don Antonio, her brother, the Duke of Bracciano, and the French ambassador. On the 17th she reached Leghorn, where she met with a splendid reception, and the next day she embarked on board a state galley, which is represented as being one of the most splendid vessels which ever floated on the blue waves of the Mediterranean — poop inlaid with lapis lazuli, mother- of-pearl, ivory, and ebony, ornamented with emeralds and other precious stones — chief cabin rich with hang- ings, and devices in diamonds, rubies, and sapphires. This state galley was escorted by five other galleys furnished by the Pope, and six by the Grand Duke.- Alas, the voyage was hardly a prosperous one ; Malta was reached in comfort, but on arriving at Pontofino the squadron, owing to bad weather, was compelled to come to anchor, and to remain there for several days. On the 28 th the galleys were able to continue their voyage, and a few days afterwards the queen dis- embarked at Toulon, where she remained for a couple of days to repose herself, sailing thence to Mar- seilles, where she disembarked on the 3rd November. On landing at the great southern port she was re- ceived by the Chancellor de Sillery, by the Constable 1600.] AN ENTHUSIASTIC RECEPTION. 267 Montmorency, the Dukes of Nemours and Ventadour, and the civic authorities, who went on their knees to present her Majesty with the keys of the city in gold. All along the road to Lyons the queen was welcomed with enthusiasm and splendour, especially at the old Papal city of Avignon, where she was harangued by the celebrated Spanish scholar and theologian, Francisco Quarez, who expressed the hope that she would give a dauphin to France. It was not until the 4th December that her Majesty entered Lyons, where she was received with extraordinary pomp and numerous signs of affection. The king was not there, but he sent his trusty friend, Antoine de Roquelaure, to welcome her in his name, and to announce his speedy arrival. As we have seen, Henri IV., in his letter of the 7th. December, said that it would require all his diligence to get to Lyons on the 10th. As a matter of fact, he reached that city on the night of the 9th, and at once repaired to the hotel where Marie de Medicis was lodged. It was eleven o'clock, the cold was excessive, and, as no one expected him, he was kept waiting an hour and a half at the door. At length he gained admittance, and at once rushed to the room of his wife, who was just going to bed. She threw herself at his feet, he raised her up, excused himself for having kept her waiting, kissed her, and asked permission to share her couch. Marie de Medicis no longer resembled the portrait sent to Henri IV. when the question of their marriage 268 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1600. first arose. She was now twenty-seven years old, she had grown stout, her eyes were large, but round and devoid of expression, and according to Capefigue the next day the king expressed his dissatisfaction sous plus d'un rapport, to some of his courtiers. 1 There was nothing affectionate in her manner ; she was neither lively nor witty ; she had no taste for the king, and took no pains to conceal her indifference ; she made no effort to please or to amuse him ; her character was crabbed and obstinate ; she had re- ceived a Spanish education. Her husband appeared to her to be old and disagreable, and she suspected him of being at heart a heretic. In fact, both parties were sadly disappointed — Henri IV. as much so as our Henry VIII. with Anne of Cleves ; but the French king did not have Frontenac decapitated, as the English king served Lord Cromwell and Dr. Barnes. On the 17th the royal pair were married at the church of St. John, the Papal Legate being assisted at the ceremony by the three cardinals, Joyeuse, Gondi, and Sourdis. The royal bride appears to have retained her Tuscan attire, in spite of the dolls sent by Henri IV. to Florence — an attire overlaid with those splendid jewels which formed a considerable portion of her dowry, and were destined to create such a sensation in Paris. The display in the church was altogether magnificent, and worthy of so important an occasion, for the ceremony there 1 Capefigue, Hist, de la Reforme, t. viii. p. 174. 1601.] DEPARTURE OF THE KING. 269 performed was to give peace, if to neither of the principal parties concerned, to France and indeed to Europe. The day after the wedding, peace having been signed with the Duke of Savoy, the king, anxious to return to his old and his wicked ways, set out by post for Paris, leaving the queen to follow at her leisure. Marie de Medicis is said to have been deeply offended at this abrupt departure, and this was only natural, no matter in what light she regarded her royal husband. That she herself was without sin may have been doubtful, but she was of a proud, hot-tempered, and jealous disposition, and such a slight must have stung her to the quick. 1 In the beginning of January, 1601, Henri IV. wrote several letters to the Grand Duke of Tuscany expressing his satisfaction with his niece, but we find no letter to the queen herself until the 22nd, when he sent her a few lines to announce his arrival at Briare. On the 23rd he despatched two notes, on the 24th another, on the 27th a longer and more affectionate one, in which he said — 1 Sismondi, Histoire des Franqais, t. xxii. p. 58, in speaking of some of the nobles who accompanied Marie de Medicis to the French Court, says — " If it be true that her uncle on taking leave of her told her that her power would not be assured until she had a son, and that she should have one at no matter what price, the cortege which accompanied her seemed destined to realize this desire." Paul Giordino Orsini was one of the nobles in the train of the new queen, and he is said to have inspired her with a feel- ing stronger than friendship. Concino Concini also accompanied her Majesty. 270 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1601. " My heart . . . For God's sake take care of yourself, for you, for me, and for the whole kingdom. Write and let me know what day you will arrive at Nemours, and I will go there. The snow continues, and is more than a foot deep in the wood. This pre- vents me from hunting the stag to-day, but to-morrow, should the snow melt, I shall he able to get out. On Monday I shall go and see my children. . . . Do not doubt my love for you, do every- thing that I wish ; that is the real way to govern me, therefore I wish never to be governed by any one else but you. . . ." On the 28th his Majesty wrote a letter to President de Charmeaux from Verneuil, giving some instruc- tions concerning the reception of the queen in Paris. On the 30th Henri IV. wrote again to the queen ; he had captured a stag, he was going to play at tennis ; would she kiss his son Venddme for him ? On the 4th February the king left for Nemours, " running with sixty post-horses," says Bassompierre, to meet the queen to take her to Fontainebleau, and then to Paris, where she lodged first at the house of Gondi, then at that of Zamet, because the Louvre was not ready. It was on the 9th that Henri IV. and his bride reached the capital, and the day before that he wrote a letter to the Constable Montmorency, in which he said — "I send you good news, which gives me great satisfaction, and will, I am sure, be agreeable to you, which is that my wife is enceinte." But what had the king been doing while Marie de Medicis was leisurely travelling from Lyons to Nemours ? Bassompierre, who was in attendance, tells us that his conduct was highly improper — that on his road to Paris he spent three days with the 1601.] HENRI IV. AND HIS NEW BRIDE. 271 Marquise de Verneuil, and on his arrival in the capital, in company with several of his courtiers, indulged his sensual passions ; and no doubt he would have paid another visit to Moulins but for the death of Queen Louise. The royal couple had no sooner arrived in Paris than the king insisted upon the Duchesse de Nemours, Mistress of the Household, presenting the marquise to the queen, and in spite of all her objections she was forced to obey. It is hard to suppose that Marie de Medicis received her rival as graciously as Bassom- pierre would have us believe. However this may be, two or three days later the marquise was installed at the Louvre, and this near neighbourhood appears to have given rise to frequent quarrels between the king, his wife, and his mistress, nor could Henri IV., with all his authority, keep the peace between his wife and his favourite. Sometimes he appears to have been on good terms with one, sometimes with the other ; and at one moment the queen and the Marquise de Verneuil determined to live in good fellowship. In return for certain concessions, her Majesty consented to receive the favourite. We may add, that at this period both ladies were enceinte. On the 13th March the king, who had left Paris for a few days' hunting, wrote to the queen, saying— " .... I took a long walk to-day, and my stomach is in better order. To-morrow I shall hunt the deer, which will entirely cure me. You have forgotten to write to me in Italian, and to call me 272 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1601. ' your heart.' I shall be at St. Germain on Sunday. This is the best news I can give you after the assurance that I love you better than anything in the 'world. . . . " ■ On the 9th May the king wrote to M. de la Force, regretting that the deputies from Beam could not arrive before the 15th September to recognize the queen, as her Majesty would probably be brought to bed about that date. On the 11th July his Majesty wrote to the con- stable announcing his intention of paying a visit to Languedoc. In this letter he said — " My wife wishes to follow me, and thinks that she will suffer more separated from me than along the roads, for we can have her carried by men, and can travel by easy stages. . . . " On the 22nd, however, the king, in a further letter to the constable, said that the doctors would not allow the queen to take the contemplated journey, and that he should go to Fontainebleau for her confinement. On the 27th August the fickle monarch wrote from Verneuil to Sully, saying — " I send you a letter which I have written to my wife ; you must take it to her yourself. Furnish yourself with all sorts of good reasons to prevent her from being angry at this trip, and from being dull. ..." The next epistle, published in the Lettres d' Henri IV., is dated from Montreuil, 31st August, and runs thus — " You will not accuse me of idleness, my heart, for I write to you every day. ... I am going to dine at Boulogne, and to-morrow I shall be at Calais. I begin to feel dull without you. Believe me, that I shall hasten my return as much as possible. . . ." 1601.] LETTER TO THE QUEEN. 273 And on the 3rd September- — " I write to you at sea, having wished to take a sail during this fine weather. Thank God ! you could have written me no more agreeahle news than that you find pleasure in reading. I always find something new to admire in Plutarch ; to love him is to love me, for he was my tutor in my youth. My good mother, to whom I owe everything, and who watched with such affection over my good behaviour, and who did not wish, she said, to see her own son an illustrious ignoramus, put the book into my hands when I was hardly more than an infant at the breast. He has been to me, as it were, my conscience ; he has whispered into my ear a great number of honest truths and excellent maxims for my guidance and the management of my affairs." The above charming letter was written from Calais, whither Henri IV. had gone in order to be close to Ostende, then being besieged by the Archduke Albert. Queen Elizabeth went to Dover for the same purpose, and invited her quondam admirer to cross the Channel, but he felt obliged to decline, lest he should give offence to. the Catholic party in his own country. He sent Biron over to England in his place, for Biron had confessed the treason he had contemplated during the war with the Duke of Savoy, and had been pardoned. The king wrote constantly to his wife from Calais, and on the 16th returned to Fontainebleau, " for," as he wrote to the constable on the 19th, " I was afraid of failing in my duty as a good husband, and not being present when the queen was confined." On the same day his Majesty wrote to Madame de Monglat, saying that he had selected her to take care of his son, which son was not born until a week later. VOL. i. t 274 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBON'S. [1601. The king had great confidence in that lady, who had reared the children of Gabrielle d'Estrdes, and was destined to rear those of the Marquise de Verneuil and of other mistresses. On the 27th September the king announced the birth of a son to several high dignitaries — to Sully, to M. de Montigny, " Governor of my good city of Paris," to Constable Montmorency, to M. des Dignieres of the parliament of Dauphiny, and to the Cardinal d'Ossat. His Majesty also drew out a " Circular on the birth of the Dauphin," in which that event was referred to as " another miraculous proof of Divine favour since our advent to the crown." Henri IV. was delighted with an event which not only secured the succession, but which greatly added to his own security on the throne. He treated his wife with the greatest affection for the moment. On the 29th September, he wrote in great glee to Sully — " It is impossible to believe how well my wife is, seeing how she suffered. She does her own hair, and already speaks of getting up. She has a constitution terribly robust and strong. My son is quite well. You know how my wife has won Monceaux since she has presented me with a son. ..." So the Vert Galant and his wife must have had a bet on the event, his Majesty losing the Monceaux estate, which he had to purchase from the children of Gabrielle d'Estr^es, to whom it belonged, and which was handed over to the queen. Henri IV. kept up a correspondence both with the queen and with the favourite when away hunting. 1601.] ROYAL SQUABBLES. 275 Thus, on the 13th November, he wrote to the Marquise de Verneuil, who had been confined in October — " . . . . Love me always, and rest assured that you will always . be the only woman who will possess my love. After this verity, I kiss and re-kiss the little man a million of times." And on the 27th — " On Friday I shall go and see our son. I hope to see you on Sunday. Good-night, my heart ; I kiss you a hundred thousand times." To Madame de Monglat the king frequently wrote, desiring to have news of his son, and great was the satisfaction this rugged warrior and universal lover expressed on hearing that he had cut his first tooth. On the 27th October, we learn from L'Moile, the dauphin made his first entry into Paris, carried in an open litter ; the municipal authorities went out to meet him, and Madame de Monglat replied to their address. Passing through the city the nurse held him to her breast, so that all the people might see him. He was received with enthusiasm. We have no intention of going into all the unseemly squabbles in which the royal pair, the favourite, and other ladies were mixed up. Sully tells us that on one occasion, just before the birth of the dauphin, words ran so high between the king and his wife that the queen flew at his Majesty, and would have struck him had he not seized her by the arm, and that there was some talk of Marie de Medicis going back to Tuscany. There were also two serious quarrels with the T 2 276 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1602. Marquise de Verneuil which deserve attention. The Prince de Joinville wished to possess Mademoiselle de Villars, and that lady, prompted by the queen, asked the prince, as the price of her virtue, to hand her over the letters which he had received from the favourite. The prince consented, and these letters, anything but flattering for the king and the queen, were shown to his Majesty by Mademoiselle de Villars. Henri IV. was furious, and for the moment Marie de Medicis thought that her rival was ruined. However, at the suggestion of some of her friends, the Marquise de Verneuil declared that the letters in question had been forged by the secretary of the Due de Guise, and in the end she was pardoned by her too willing dupe, while Mademoiselle de Villars was driven from Court, and the unfortunate secretary thrown into prison. In 1602 Biron, who had been pardoned the year before, entered into another conspiracy in connection with the King of Spain, the Comte d'Auvergne, and the tail of the League, and the probability is that the Marquise de Verneuil was at least cognizant of the designs of the conspirators. She considered that she should be regarded as the lawful wife of Henri IV. She had become enceinte within the period named, and if her first son had been still-born, she had given birth to a second son, who was alive and well. How- ever this may have been, Biron alone suffered ; he was beheaded in the Bastille on the 2nd December, the king sparing him the ignominy of a public execu- tion. As for the Comte d'Auvergne, he was pardoned, 1602.] PLOT AGAINST THE KING. 277 thanks to the influence of his sister and to the ex- aggerated respect which Henri IV. had for even an illegitimate descendant of the Valois line. Whatever doubt may exist as to the part played by the favourite in 1602, there can be none with regard to her conduct in 1604. In that year there was a conspiracy hatched, having for object to place the son of the Marquise de Verneuil on the throne. Henri IV. was to be kidnapped while paying court to Mademoiselle d'Entragues, the youngest sister of the favourite, who had attracted his attention, and this part of the plan was on the point of succeeding. The king was attacked in a lonely wood^ one night when going to a rendezvous, but, thanks to his courage t and presence of mind, he escaped from his assailants. In this plot were mixed up the dukes of Bouillon, Epernon, the Comte d'Entragues, a priest called Morgan, who had been confessor to Mary Stuart, and, as usual, the Comte d'Auvergne. The con- spirators counted upon the support of the Spanish general Spinola and of the Duke' of Savoy. Their designs, however, were discovered in time, and when Morgan was arrested the Marquise de Verneuil got frightened, and parted with the promise of marriage for 20,000 gold crowns. The affair was brought before parliament, and the result was that the counts D'Auvergne and D'Entragues were sentenced to death, and the Marquise de Verneuil condemned to be con- fined in a convent for life. The favourite loudly protested her innocence, demanding pity for her 278 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1604. father, a rope for her brother, and justice for herself. The reason why she wished to see the Comte d'Auvergne hanged was because he had behaved as a coward, and had turned king's evidence. He had not only revealed everything, but had offered to play the spy. The wrath of the king soon evaporated. The Comte d'Auvergne, instead of losing his head on the block like Biron, was committed to the Bastille for life, and he did remain there for twelve years. The Comte d'Entragues was detained for a while a prisoner in his own house, and Madame de Verneuil, after re- maining for a brief period in disgrace at Verneuil, and not in a convent, recovered more than her ancient power over her infatuated lover, who pretended to believe her innocent. In a letter to M.de Beaumont, 2nd July, 1604, he wrote that Morgan, Auvergne, and Entragues had confessed their guilt, but that the favourite was not aware of what had been going on. And yet the most compromising letters from Philip of Spain had been found in her house, and a short time before the conspiracy broke out she had pretended to be afflicted with religious scruples, and had asked permission to retire from Court and to live in chastity. And Henri IV. had consented, thinking that she intended retiring to Scotland, as her sister was married to the Duke of Lenox. After Madame de Verneuil had been restored to favour we find, judging from his letters, that Henri IV., in spite of other infidelities, fell more completely 1604.] LETTERS TO THE FAVOURITE. 279 than ever under the yoke of his arrogant and exacting mistress, and this recrudescence lasted with more or less intensity until the end of 1608, when another divinity appeared on the scene. In April, 1604, the king wrote thus to his mistress — " If actions followed your words I should not be so dissatisfied with you as I am. Your letters speak only of affection ; your acts towards me only ingratitude. For more than five years you have continued to live like this, and every one finds it strange. Judge then what it must be to me whom it so nearly concerns. It is advantageous to you that people should think that I love you, and degrading for me that they should see how I suffer because yoti do not love me. ... If you will treat me as you ought to do I shall be more to you than ever ; if not keep this letter as the last that you will ever receive from me, who kiss your hands a million of times." The submission of Henri IV. was complete. Life was a burden .to him without his mistress. At the end of the year he wrote to her thus — • " My dear heart, I have received three of your letters, to which I will make one answer. I allow you to go to Boisgency, and also to see your father, whose guards have been withdrawn. I approve of your going to St. Germain to see our children. I will send La Guesle for you, for I wish you also to see the father who loves and cherishes you so much. 1 Nothing is known about your voyage. 1 Nothing was more true than this excessive love for an un- worthy person. It was the most disastrous of the weaknesses of Henri IV., for while the son of Charles IX. was undergoing perpetual imprisonment, a man so notoriously perverse and guilty as d'Entragues was set at liberty. This produced the worst possible effect both in the parliament and with the public. The queen was further estranged by Madame de Verneuil, as guilty as her father, being restored to favour [note in Lettres d' Henri IV.]. 280 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1605. Love me, my menon, for I swear to you that all the rest of the world is nothing in comparison to you. I kiss and re-kiss you a million times." The above letter is the last published in the Lettres d' Henri IV. for 1604. The first letter published for 1605, addressed to Sully, runs thus — " I write this word to tell you to give, out of my savings, 30,000 livres to my wife, 9000 to the Comtesse de Moret, 1500 to my wife's ladies '-maids, and 1500 to Mademoiselle de Monglat to distribute to the_ nurse of my son, my daughter, and my other children." On the 22nd September, 1605, Henri IV. informed Sully that d'Entragues had been found conspiring to effect the escape of the Comte d'Auvergne from the Bastille, " by means of ropes and pulleys." But we see by another letter addressed to the constable, that the king had taken this affair into his own hands, and consequently nothing was done to the culprit. During the time that the Marquise de Verneuil was under a cloud Henri IV. worshipped other gods, or rather goddesses. There was Jacqueline de Beuil, whom he created Comtesse de Moret ; Charlotte des Essarts, created Comtesse . de Bomorantin ; and Mademoiselle de Sourdis, created Comtesse d'Etanges. The first- named was married to Philippe de Harlai, much on the same terms as Gabrielle d'Estre"es had been married to M. de Liencourt, and shortly after giving birth to a son the sham marriage was annulled, and the comtesse gave her hand to the Marquis de Vardes. As for Charlotte des Essarts, she appears, before becoming the king's mistress, to have had six children 1606.] CHARLOTTE DES ESSARTS. 281 by Louis, Cardinal de Guise, Archbishop of Eheims. Some authorities say that there was a marriage, the Cardinal having obtained a dispensation from the Pope. By Henri IV. this lady had two daughters ; but she did not long remain in favour. We are told that she was a woman of the most dissolute character. In the Lettres d' Henri IV. we find his Majesty writing to Sully on the 9th April, 1608, begging him to deliver him from that woman, and to get her into a convent. In 1630 Charlotte des Essarts married Marshal l'Hopital, and died in 1651. In the memoirs of Bassompierre we find the following curious information. The writer says — " The king told me to go and see the Queen Mar- guerite on his behalf. She had just lost Saint Sul- liendat, her galant, killed by a gentleman called Charmond, whom the king caused to be beheaded shortly afterwards. He also gave me letters to take to Madame de Verneuil and to the Comtesse de Moret." And Bassompierre adds, that as he was very much in love with Mademoiselle d'Entragues, he could not refuse her request to show the letter intended for the Comtesse de Moret to the Marquise de Verneuil, a proceeding which naturally had the same effect as throwing oil on the fire. As for Mademoiselle d'Entragues, she preferred Bassompierre to the king and her other admirers, and he informs us how he gave her a promise of marriage similar to that exacted by her sister from 282 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1607. Henri IV., after having consulted three eminent lawyers and finding that it was worthless. Such was the morality of the epoch. A good many of the letters addressed by the king to his mistress at this period are hardly fit for pub- lication. His passions seemed to become more un- governable with age. In 1607 we find his Majesty once more jealous of the Prince de Joinville, and writing the following strange letter to Sully, dated 25th October — "Although I quitted Madame de Verneuil on bad terms, I am nevertheless curious to know if there is any truth in the report, current here, that she sees the Prince de Joinville. Inquire into the truth and write me a note, which I will burn, as you must do with this. Tou must try and find out if it is for want of money." This quarrel was of no long duration. On the 13th December we find his Majesty writing to his mistress — " My heart, I am extremely happy to think that I shall see you on Saturday. . . Make up your mind to receive me well, and to pet me, for I am fifty-four years old. I am going to bed now. I have lost my money. Good-night, my heart. I kiss you a million times." It was in February, 1609, that Charlotte, the third daughter of the Constable Montmorency, made her apparition at Court, and the king, though fifty-six years of age, at once conceived the most violent passion for her. In fact, at this moment there was a vacancy in the affections of the monarch, for the Marquise de Verneuil had announced her intention of uniting herself to the Due de Guise, from whom 1609.] BASSOMPIERRE AND THE KING. 283 she had received a written promise of marriage. She may have considered it preferable to be the wife of the duke than to remain the mistress of the king ; she may have considered that Henri IV., sooner than lose her, would seek a second divorce and redeem his former pledges. As it turned out, she made a mis- calculation. She never became Duchesse de Guise, and she lost her royal lover, thanks to Charlotte de Montmorency. Bassompierre gives us the following curious descrip- tion of the last love-affair of the Vert-Galant — "While the king was suffering from the gout he ordered M. le Grand to pass one night with him, M. de Grammont another, and myself another; we thus relieved each other every third night, during which we read Astree to him, which was then in vogue, and talked to him when he was not prevented from sleeping by pain." His Majesty having first proposed to give Bassompierre the hand of his niece, the Duchesse d'Angouleme, and then that of the Duchesse d'Aumale, the marshal asked the king if he wished him to take two wives. " Then he answered with a deep sigh, ' Bassompierre, I wish to speak to you as a friend. ' I am not only in love, but I am distracted about Mademoiselle de Mont- morency. Should you marry her, and should she love you, I should hate you ; and should she love me, you would hate me. It would be better not to allow this matter to interfere with our friendship, for I am very fond of you. I have made up my mind to 284 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1609. marry her to my nephew, the Prince de Conde\ and to keep her in my family. This will be the con- solation and support of the old age into which I am going to enter. I shall give my nephew, who is young, and who prefers hunting a hundred thousand times to ladies, 100,000 francs a year to amuse himself with, and I desire no other favour from her beyond her affection, without pretending to anything more.' "As he was saying this, I reflected that if I replied that 1 would not relinquish my pursuit, it would be a useless piece of imprudence, as he was all-powerful. I made up my mind, therefore, to yield with good grace, and replied, — : Sire, I have always ardently desired an opportunity of showing you my devotion. . . I withdraw, and I hope that this new love will give your Majesty as much joy as the loss would cause me pain, but for my consideration for your Majesty.' "Then the king embraced me and wept, assuring me that he would do as much for my fortune as if I were one of his natural children, that he loved me dearly, &c. The king having spoken to me again of Mademoiselle d'Aumale, I said that he could prevent me from marrying, but not oblige me to marry, and there our dialogue finished. " I went to dine with the Due d'Epernon, and told him what the king had said to me, upon which he remarked — ' It is a fancy which will pass as it came. You need not alarm yourself, for the Prince de Conde, who well knows the designs of his Majesty, 1609.] BASSOMPIERRE S DISAPPOINTMENT. 285 will not accept.' I endeavoured to persuade myself that it would turn out as I desired." After dinner Bassompierre returned to see the king, and he adds in his Memoirs — " As Mademoiselle de Montmorency was retiring, and I was looking at her, she shrugged her shoulders, in order to show me that the king had told her what had passed. I do not lie in what I am going to say : this action of itself pierced my heart and wounded my feelings to such an ex- tent that I could not continue playing cards. I pre- tended that my nose was bleeding, and left the room." Poor Bassompierre went home and remained shut up for forty-eight hours without eating, drinking, or sleeping, and would have died but for his valet, who fetched M. de Paslin, who took Bassompierre back to Court, where every one was astonished to see him looking so pale and changed — " Two or three days afterwards," he continues, "the Prince de Conde declared that he was willing to marry Mademoiselle de Montmorency, and meeting me he said — ' M. Bassompierre, I beg you will accompany me this evening to the house of Madame d'Angouleme, where I wish to pay my duty to Mademoiselle de Mont- morency.' I made a low bow, but I did not go. However, not to remain idle, and to console myself for my loss, I amused myself by making it up with three ladies whom I had entirely deserted, thinking that I was going to be married; one of these was Entragues. . ." The marriage between the prince and Mademoiselle 286 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1609. de Montmorency took place, and the king obliged Bassompierre to be present, and leaned on his shoulder during the ceremony to prevent him from making his escape. " Two days afterwards," says the unfortunate lover, " I fell ill of a tertian fever ; and after I had had four attacks, one morning after having taken medicine, a Gascon gentleman named Noe came to see me while 1 was in bed, and said that he wished to fight me when I had recovered." Bassompierre, who immediately jumped out of bed and repaired to the field of honour, does not say what the duel was about, merely that " they went to Bicetre by an extreme fog, and with two feet of snow on the ground." The duel was prevented by the watch, but not before Bassompierre had nearly killed one of the seconds, whom he mistook for Noe, so dense was the fog. With regard to " Entragues," our hero got into a good deal of difficulty, as he had promised marriage in the event of a son being born, and failed to keep his word. Picot, in his history of the States-General, says, in a note apropos to a law passed against influencing judges — " At the time the famous action brought by Marie d'Entragues against Marshal Bas- sompierre was pending in Normandy, the two adver- saries paraded Kouen with bands of gentlemen. Bassompierre visited the presidents and counsellors with one little army, and counter visits were made by another army, having at its head Marie, her mother, and all the Entragues. . . ." 1609.] FLIGHT OF PRINCE DE CONDE. 287 Both the queen and the Marquise de Verneuil seem to have been extremely jealous of Charlotte de Mont- morency, and no wonder, if there be truth in what both Tallemant des E,e"aux and L'Etoile assert, that the king was half-inclined to ask to be unmarried once more. Not only did Marie de Medicis believe this, but for some time she suspected that her husband intended to poison her, and refused to taste the dishes he offered her. On her side the Marquise de Verneuil upbraided her lover, and asked him if he was not ashamed of wishing to seduce the wife of his own son. It is even said that when the constable saw how matters stood he made the king sign a promise in favour of his daughter. The Prince de Conde and Charlotte de Mont- morency were married in March, 1609 ; and after passing a short time at Court, the prince thought it prudent to take his wife into the country, but the king soon found out their retreat. They fled to Picardy, and after that to Landrecies,. in the Low Countries. Henri IV. was furious at this evasion. " Ah ! " he exclaimed to Bassompierre, " that man has carried away his wife into a wood, either to strangle her or to take her out of France." There was riding in hot haste in pursuit of the fugitives, but they had made good their escape, and were soon beyond the reach of the Vert-Galant, whose conduct in this affair, by the way, was severely condemned by the Parisians, who were not very strict censors in matters of morality. 288 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1609. In his anger the king hurried down to the Parlia- ment, without pomp or ceremony, took his seat on the lower benches, — the House being guarded merely by the ordinary ushers, — and , had a decree voted by which the Prince de Conde - was condemned to suffer any punishment which it might please his Majesty to order. Voltaire, who tells this story in his History of the Parliament of Paris, adds — " The Parliament was no doubt sure that the king would order none. But by the terms of the edict he might have ordered the penalty of death." And Voltaire condemned the Parliament for confiding such a power even to Henri IV., who was not a vindictive monarch. The first letter written by the king after the flight of the Prince de Conde" was addressed to M. du Pesehd, governor of the Duchy of Guise, and is dated 29th November, 1609. The governor was to employ his garrison, and to use every means in his power to arrest the fugitives, but was to do them no bodily harm. In a postscript his Majesty added — " If they have already reached the Low Countries, and you cannot execute my orders, keep them secret." Which seems as if the conscience of his Majesty was slightly troubled. The next day the king wrote a letter to " his brother," the Archduke of Austria, governor of the Low Countries, which he sent by Praslin, captain of his Guards, who was to explain matters. Praslin was to tell the archduke that if he afforded an asylum to the runaways, Henri IV. would look upon this as an act 1609.] . FLIGHT OF PRINCE DE CONDE. 289 of hostility towards France. His Majesty also wrote at the same time to " his good sister and niece," the archduchess, asking her aid in this matter. Then on the 5th December he wrote page after page to his • ambassador at the Court of Spain, M. de Vaucellas. He said — " You know how I cherished and loved my nephew, the Prince de Conde, and all the favours he has received from me from his youth up. Now I find myself deceived, having counted upon his grati- tude as well for my own satisfaction as for that of the State. For the last two years he has desired to travel abroad — that is why I determined to marry him to keep him at home ; but he was no sooner married than he was again seized with a desire for travelling, which neither remonstrances nor threats could restrain. He promised my wife that he would come to see us as soon as my wife was confined. 1 Instead of that he left his home at Muret accompanied by his wife, followed by ten women and. eight horses, and took the road to the Low Countries without any warn- ing or taking leave of me, journeyed all night in ' fright and discord,' so as to arrive at Landrecies the next morning at seven o'clock in very bad weather, and worse roads. He found the city shut, and had to remain in the outskirts until ten o'clock." His Majesty afterwards related how he had sent Praslin to the Archduke Albert in the hope that he would be allowed to bring back the fugitives, but he was not aware of the archduke's decision. On the 1 Henriette, afterwards Queen of England, was born on the 27th November. vol. i. u 290 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS: [1610. 9th December the king forwarded a similar despatch to his ambassador at Rome, endeavouring to show, as in that sent to Madrid, that the Prince de Conde" had made his escape from France for political reasons. The archduke was afraid to accord hospitality to Cond^, who consequently fled to Italy, and placed him- self under the protection of the King of Spain. As for the Princesse de Conde\ she was allowed to remain at Brussels, and while there Henri IV. despatched Annibale d'Estrdes, Marquis de Coeuvres, the brother of his former mistress, to carry her off. It is supposed that this design would have met with success had not his Majesty imprudently boasted of the matter in pre- sence of the queen, who warned the Spanish ambas- sador, who in his turn informed the archduke of the intentions of the French king. We are told that the day had even been fixed for the abduction, the 13th February, 1610, but everything was discovered in time, the schemes of Henri IV. were frustrated, and when the Spanish ministers complained everything was denied. We are given to understand by Sully that the infatuated king after this failure made up his mind to go himself to Brussels in quest of the princess, and to wage war with Spain and the empire. However, Voltaire says — " It is most false that this great monarch added to . his weakness the desire, at his age, of going to war to tear a young wife away from her husband. He was incapable of anything so unjust or so ridiculous." a 1 History of the Parliament of Paris, eh. xlv. 1610.] ASSASSINATION OF HENRI IV. 291 It is true that a war with the House of Austria had for some time been brewing, but not the less true, judging by the letters of Henri IV., that that monarch was capable of going to any lengths in order to gratify his lust. However, just as the storm was about to burst, the king, to the intense grief of the nation, was assassin- ated by that gloomy fanatic Eavaillac, who was con- vinced that Henri IV., still a Huguenot at heart, was bent on declaring war against the Pope. The following is a list of the legitimate and legitimized children of the deceased monarch : — Henri IV. and Marie de Medicis. 1. Louis, born 27th September, 1601. 2. Son who died when four years of age. 3. Gaston, Duke of Orleans, &c, born 25th April, 1608. 4. Elizabeth, born 22nd November, 1602, married Philip IV., King of Spain. 5. Christine, born 1606, married Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy. 6. Henrietta Maria, born 1609, married Charles I. of England. Natural Children by Gabrielle d'Estrees, Duohesse de Beaufort. 1. C6sar, Due de Vendfime. 2. Alexandre, Grand Prior of France. 3. Catherine, who married the Puc d'Elbceuf. By Henriette d'Entragues, Marquise de Verneuil. 1. Henry, Bishop of Metz (made bishop when in arms), afterwards created Due de Verneuil, and married the widow of Francois de Bethune, Due de Sully. 2. Gabrielle Angelique, who married the Due d'Epernon. By Jacqueline de Beuil, Comtesse de Moret. 1. Antoine, Comte de Moret. By Charlotte des Essarts, Comtesse de Kosiorantin. 1. Jeanne, Abbesse of Fontevrault. 2. Marie, Abbesse of Chelles. u 2 CHAPTER XII. DIVORCE. We have already mentioned sundry efforts on the part of Henri IV. to obtain a divorce, which, the Court of Rome for divers reasons had refused to grant, and which he himself had not pressed for while fighting for his kingdom. Why think of begetting legitimate heirs to a crown before setting it firmly on his head % However, shortly before the death of Gabrielle d'Estrees, having made up his mind to marry her, he once more opened negotiations with Rome. He had long obtained his absolution, and he was now in a position to command, having trodden all his enemies under his feet. On the 26th September, 1598, the king arrived at Monceaux, in order to show his mistress a letter which he had written to Marguerite de Valois on the subject of their separation. At the same time his Majesty decided that Sillery, Councillor of State, President of the Parliament, a man skilled and accustomed to delicate negotiations, should be de- spatched to Rome. Sillery was to hurry on matters 1599.] SILLEETS MISSION. 293 with a Court proverbially dilatory. He was devoted to Gabrielle, who had promised him the Seals in the event of succeeding promptly, and to her satisfaction. The king himself ordered Sully to see that the councillor was supplied with everything necessary for his voyage. However, matters did not march so rapidly as was desired, and it was not until the end of January, 1599, that Sillery started on his mission. It was necessary for the success of the negotiations with the Court of Rome that Marguerite de Valois should give a new procuration, the old one having lapsed. This required some little time, in conse- quence of the excessive demands of the queen. However, everything was settled in the month of -February, and on the 3rd of that month Marguerite de Valois wrote to the Pope, begging him to annul the marriage of 1572, into which she had been forced through fear of her brother, Charles IX. As regards divorce, we may state that two kinds of " hindrances " are recognized — those which render a marriage null, and which are termed dirimants, or irritating conditions, and those called prohibitive. The first, which alone concern us, are founded, some on natural, some on civil, and others on ecclesiastical laws. Among the first are reckoned violence and impotency, and the civil law agrees with the natural law in recognizing these as causes for annulling marriage. Difference of religion and consanguinity 294 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1599. are among the " hindrances " dirimants established by ecclesiastical law. When the Church pronounces a marriage null, in consequence of a" hindrance " dirimant, the marriage is supposed never to have been contracted. Not only this, but the children of a man and those of a woman whose marriage has been thus annulled are not regarded as being born in adultery, but only in concubinage. Now, as the marriage of Gabrielle d'Estre'es with M. de Liencourt was annulled by the officiality of Amiens for "hindrances" dirimants, the illegitimate children to whom Gabrielle gave birth were not adulterous. It was the same in the case of Henri IV. and of Marguerite de Valois. Neither Ce"sar, nor Alexander Vend6me, nor Catherine, nor brother Ange were born in adultery. The conse- quence was, that a subsequent marriage between father and mother could legitimize these children. It must be added at the same time, that if bride or bridegroom get married without being aware that' there existed a cause of nullity, the children, in spite of the marriage being annulled, are reputed to be legitimate. Neither Henri IV. and Marguerite de Valois, nor M. de Liencourt and Gabrielle d'Estr^es had children born under these circumstances, but we shall find this " exception " applied in the nineteenth century to the children of the Due de Bern and Madame Brown. Henri IV. himself was convinced that in the event 1599.] A PAINFUL CONCESSION. 295 of marrying Gabrielle there would be no difficulty in legitimizing their children. He said to the Chancellor Cheverny that " he wished to deliver himself from the constraint and persecution which Henri III. had suffered from the princes of the blood, because he had no children." 1 We may observe here, that in 1640 the Due d'Elboeuf, who had married Catherine, the daughter of Henri IV. and Gabrielle d'Estrees, brought an action against his brother-in-law, Cesar Vendome, to recover the totality of the family property, on the ground that C^sar was born in adultery, before his mother's marriage had been annulled by the officiality of Amiens, and that consequently he could not inherit from his parents. The case was given against the Due d'Elboeuf, the Court deciding that Gabrielle had not committed adultery. In spite of the demands addressed to the Pope by both Henri IV. and Marguerite de Valois, his Holiness was at first inclined to refuse to annul their marriage. He was wrath with Henri IV. for having granted the Edict of Nantes, and was with difficulty appeased by Cardinal d'Ossat, who pointed out that the Catholic religion would now be re- established in Beam, where, thirty years previously, Jeanne d'Albret had destroyed the last Catholic altar. This was one of the concessions which the most 1 Here again, are we furnished with, a point of comparison between Queen Elizabeth and Henri IV. 296 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1599. affected Henri IV., for Beam had been regarded, even more than Nismes and La Eochelle, as a great Protestant stronghold. Clement VIII. was also annoyed at the opposition raised to the publication of the decisions of the Council of Trent. This publication was opposed by both Protestants and Catholics, the latter declaring these decisions to be contrary to the liberties of the Gallican Church. Nor had the Jesuits been allowed to return to France. Henri IV. was much perplexed concerning their recall ; however, in the end he consented to allow Lorenzo Maggio, one of the Jesuit Fathers, to come to France, in order to plead the cause of the Order. Maggio is represented to have been not only a good man of business, but a man of wit, and in this matter able to hold his own with Henri IV. The fact of Sillery arriving in Eome with a passport for Maggio insured him a welcome, and Maggio was not long in setting out for France, armed with instructions from Acquaviva, the General of his Order. Personally Henri IV. wished to yield to all the demands of the Papal Court, so as to be able to marry Gabrielle, but poor Gabrielle died before the divorce was pronounced. Maggio could not obtain all he wanted. The king would only consent to the Jesuits being admitted to certain portions of France on trial ; they were to be judged by their works. This policy was exceedingly subtle. By 1599.] THE PAPAL DELEGATES. 297 keeping matters thus in suspense the Society of Jesus was obliged to be on its good behaviour. We may add here, that when Henri IV. was assassinated in 1610, the Protestants were still in the enjoyment of all the liberties acquired by the Edict of Nantes, and the Council of Trent had not been published, although in the meantime the French king had married the Catholic princess, Marie de Medicis. However, on the 24th September, 1599, the Pope appointed three delegates, who were to examine into the affair, and to report if there were any just grounds for pronouncing a divorce. The three delegates, as Voltaire sarcastically remarks, were Italians — the Cardinal Joyeuse, the Bishop of Aries, and the Papal nuncio, adding that the King of France was not allowed to have a successor to the throne without the permission of the Pope, and that in the case in question the ancient prohibition against marrying the daughter of one's godfather was revived. It might have been supposed that Henri IV. would have urged the sterility and the infidelity of his wife as reasons for himself and Marguerite de Valois being put asunder ; but canon law does not consider either of these as constituting a claim for annulling a marriage. According to the opinion of the Gallican party, the French bishops might have pronounced the divorce, but Henri IV. wished that act to be accom- 298 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1599. plished in such a manner that no one would be able to dispute its validity. When the question of consanguinity came to be argued, it was urged, that as Henri IV. and Mar- guerite de Valois were the issue of German cousins, the marriage was not lawful. To this it was replied that Gregory XIII. had accorded a dispensation in this matter. This difficulty, however, was overcome by the delegates declaring that when Gregory XIII. gave the dispensation, he was not acquainted with the whole facts of the case, such as Henri IV., in spite of having abjured the first time, remaining at heart a Protestant. But what had this to do with consanguinity ? However, the nullity of the marriage was pro- nounced on the 17th December, 1599, and Henri IV., on hearing of the success of his appeal to the spiritual powers, wrote an affectionate letter to Marguerite de Valois, couched in these terms — " My Sister, 1 — The delegates of our Holy Father the Pope, charged to decide upon the nullity of our marriage, have at last ■ pronounced their verdict, in accordance with our mutual desire. ' I can no longer refrain from visiting you (by proxy) to renew my assurances of friendship. I send you M. de Beaumont express to perform this office, and I have commanded him to tell you, my sister, that if God has permitted the tie of our union to be dis- solved, His divine justice has done this as much for our personal repose as for the welfare of the kingdom " 1 Marguerite de Valois after the divorce always addressed Henri IV. as "my brother." 1599.] BROTHER AND SISTER. 299 And his Majesty assured Marguerite de Valois that he would in future treat her with most fraternal affection, and thanked her for the ingenuousness and candour of her proceedings. And Marguerite de Valois in reply thanked her brother for behaving towards her like one of the gods, not only over- whelming her with favours, but consoling her in her affliction. CHAPTER XIII. CATHERINE. On the 31st January, 1599, was celebrated the marriage of Madame, the only sister of the king, with the Due de Bar, Prince of Lorraine, in the study of the king, by the Archbishop of Rouen, the natural brother of his Majesty. The king, having perceived that Madame his sister wished to be married by a minister of her religion, and that the Due de Bar, on the contrary, desired a Catholic archbishop, to remove the difficulty, called the two contracting parties and the Archbishop of Rouen into his study, and ordered him to marry them in his presence, saying that his study was sacred, and that his presence was worth any other solemnization. This princess was forty years of age. Several great princes desired to have her for wife, but the differ- ence of religion and of policy proved an obstacle. In her infancy Henri II., King of France, and Antoine I., King of Navarre, destined her for Francois Monsieur, who became Due d'Alencon and Comte de Flandres. Henri III. on his return from Poland would have married her, but for the obstacles thrown in his way 1583.] AN UNFORTUNATE PRINCESS. 301 by Catherine de Medicis, his mother. The Due de Lorraine, the father of the Due de Bar, demanded her hand, and so did the Prince de Conde\ In 1583 Charles, Duke of Savoy, sent an agent for the same object, and three years afterwards Queen Elizabeth tried to persuade James, King of Scotland, to marry her, and told Catherine that she would one day be Queen of England. 1 During the last siege of Eouen the Prince of Hainault demanded her in marriage, so did the Comte de Soissons and the Due de Montpensier. The above is what D'Etoile has to tell us on the subject of this unfortunate princess, who was made the sport of State affairs, and condemned to a long term of single blessedness owing to the rigid manner in which she adhered to the Protestant faith. She obstinately declined to follow the example set both by her father and by her brother. Early in life Catherine de Bourbon appears to have fallen in love with her cousin, the Comte de Soissons, who returned her affection, and wished to marry her. Henri IV. was, however, persuaded that his life would be in danger should such an alliance be concluded ; he spoke with great violence on the subject, and Sully quietly relates how, by means of deceiving both parties in the grossest manner, he got hold of the 1 Kobertson, in giving an account of the marriage of James with, the Princess Anne of Denmark in 1589, says that Elizabeth tried to divert him from this by recommending Catherine, the King of Navarre's sister, as a more advantageous match. — History of Scotland, t. xi. p. 200. 302 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1583. written promises of marriage they had mutually exchanged — a piece of treachery which neither party ever forgave, and over which Sully seemed to gloat with great satisfaction. That Henri IV. should have feared for his life, as Sully would have us believe, is not likely. He no doubt considered that the position of the Comte de Soissons in the State was already sufficiently power- ful, and that his marriage with Catherine de Bourbon would have rendered him more powerful still. Or, what is more probable, he may have had other matri- monial alliances in view from a very early date. As regards what D'Etoile says concerning the King of Scotland, we know that Henri IV. long entertained the idea of uniting his sister and that monarch in holy wedlock. He first opened negotiations in this affair in 1583, when Catherine was twenty-five years of age, and when he himself was only King of Navarre. Duplessis Mornay in his Memoirs gives us a curious document in reference to this matter. It is thus entitled — " Instruction of the King of Navarre LI. " To treat with the Queen of England and other foreign Protest- ant princes, given by the King of Navarre to the Sire de Segur, going there on his behalf in July, 1583 ; drawn up and minuted by M. Duplessis. " This document opens by telling M. de Se"gur to represent to the Queen of England the condition of France, and especially of the reformed Church. It afterwards draws attention to the designs of the King 1583.] MATRIMONIAL PROJECTS, 303 of Spain, who " was conceived, born, and brought up in the Inquisition, who is the gehenna of the Papacy, whose chief agent he has been up to the present. . . Now the same judgment applies to the emperor being of the same house, nourishment, and supersti- tion. . ." After pointing out all the dangers to be appre- hended from the union of the great Catholic powers, and how France and Spain had proposed several marriages to the King of Scotland, so as to detach him from the religion and the friendship of England, the " instructions " make this curious remark — " that princes dislike to be kept waiting ; that the King of Scotland, being sought after so young, is less likely to wait than another ; that they will give him a daughter of Spain, of Lorraine, or of Florence, all enemies of England, and this for State or for religious reasons." And then — " The best marriage appears to be that of the King of Scotland with Madame la Princesse de Navarre, princess born and nurtured in the true religion, sister of a prince whom the churches of France have chosen and recognized as a protector against the tyranny of the Pope and his adherents ; also for the love which the Queen of England bore • the late queen her mother. . . ." It is then shown how such an alliance, strengthen- ing the bonds between France and England, would thwart the designs of France and Spain. And with the view no doubt of obtaining a favourable and 304 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1583. speedy decision, M. de Segur was to mention that the hand of Catherine had long been sought by the Duke of Savoy, and even by the Due d'Anjou (?) and the King of Spain. But the King of Navarre, having only the glory of God at heart, had rejected these alliances. The only traces of this first overture which we can discover in the Letters of Henri/ IV. are to be found in a letter addressed at the close of 1583 to Lord Burleigh, thanking him for his kindness to M. de S^gur, and another written at the same time to M. de Se"gur . himself, commencing thus — " I praise God for having given so favourable a commencement to your negotiation, and having blessed your labours. . . " (Signed) Your very affectionate master and perfect friend, "Hbnbt." M. de Segur's mission did not succeed, nor did another attempt made three years later, and Hume tells us why. He says 1 — ■ "Elizabeth's usual jealousies with regard to her heirs now began to be levelled against James ; and as that prince had attained the years proper for marriage, she was apprehensive lest, being strengthened by children and alliances, he should acquire greater interest and authority with her English subjects," and consequently Wotton was ordered, in secret concert with some Scotch nobles, to obtain from them a promise that James would not be permitted to marry for three years. These nobles endeavoured to embroil 1 Tome v. p. 365. 1586.] A MALIGNANT POLICY. 305 him with the King of Denmark, and it was even pro- posed that James should be kidnapped and delivered into the hands of Elizabeth. However, the conspiracy was discovered, Wotton fled the country, and James soon forgave and forgot this traitorous conduct. And after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1559, the English historian tells us, that as the queen was now well advanced in years, and enjoyed the most uncontrolled authority over her subjects, it was not likely that the King of Scots, who was of an indolent, unambitious temper, would seek to disturb her posses- sion of the throne, yet she could not shake off her timorous suspicions. And so far from satisfying, the nation by a settlement of the succession or a declar- ation of James's title, she was as anxious to prevent any incident which might raise his credit in England as if he had been her immediate rival and competitor. She obliged his ministers, who were her pensioners, to throw obstacles in the way of his marriage, and during some years she succeeded in this malignant policy. He had fixed on the eldest daughter of the King of Denmark, thinking this alliance could give no umbrage, but Elizabeth " crossed " this negotiation, and the Danish monarch married his daughter to the Duke of Brunswick. James then proposed for her younger sister, but fresh obstacles were thrown in his way, and Elizabeth, merely to gain time, proposed to him the sister of the King of Navarre, a princess much older than himself, and entirely destitute of fortune. James put an end to all these, machinations VOL. i. . x 306 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1588. by going to Denmark, marrying the king's daughter, and bringing her home. And the eldest surviving son of James afterwards married the niece of Catherine de Bourbon. 1 While Henri IV. was in great difficulty (deserted by numerous friends), James Stuart, King of Scotland, wrote to him, that if he would give him his sister in marriage he would cross over to La Eochelle at the head of his chief forces to aid him during the war. Queen Elizabeth on her side wrote to Catherine de Bourbon, whom she treated like a sister, that she would take steps during her lifetime so that the crown of England should descend after her to James Stuart. Never before did this haughty and suspicious princess speak so plainly concerning an heir to the throne ; but Catherine had no desire for a throne unless she could share it with the Comte de Soissons. Such was her repugnance for the King of Scotland that her brother did not like to press her on the subject. 2 In a letter addressed to the Comtesse de Gramont, 3 30th Nov., 1588, Henri IV. said — "... My soul, I have a great desire to see you. There is a man here who has brought letters to my sister from the King of Scotland. He presses me more than ever on the subject of the marriage. He offers to come himself and serve me, and to bring •with him 6000 men at his own expense. He will infallibly become King of England. Prepare my sister, and ask her to be gracious to 1 Marie de Lorraine, the mother of Mary Queen of Scots. 2 Maison de Bourbon, t. v. p. 526. 3 La Belle Corisande. 1591.] CATHERINE AND HER BROTHER. 307 him, showing her the position in which we stand and the greatness and virtue of this prince. I have not written to her upon this sub- ject. Speak to her only in an off-hand manner, saying that it is time she should get married, and that there is no other match." Voltaire quotes this letter in an addition to his Henri IV., appending the following note — "Here is a singular anecdote, of which all the historians were ignorant. . . It was this same king (James VI.) whom Henri IV. always called afterwards Maitre Jacques" (Jack of all trades). It is rather strange, after perusing the above letter, to reflect that the interference of La belle Corisande in the matrimonial projects of Henri IV. should have produced a rupture between them. The Comtesse de Gramont, it may be remembered, encouraged Catherine to resist the authority of her brother, and to marry the Comte de Soissons, and the king wrote to her — " I did not expect this from you. I have hut one word to add. I will never pardon any one who attempts to set my sister and my- self by the ears." (March, 1591.) At last poor Catherine, despairing of ever being allowed to marry, wrote as follows to her brother — " I recognize clearly, sir, that your intention is never to marry me, as you offer me only those persons whom I can never love. "Well ! if you require this last proof of my obedience I will no longer ask you for a husband, and will no longer speak of my marriage, which seems so disagreeable to you ; but I beg you with clasped hands and with all my heart to permit me to retire from the Court to any residence which you may select. . . ." This letter is not dated, but it is supposed to have been written in 1595, and it probably had some X 2 308 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1595. effect on his Majesty, for Catherine was eventually allowed to marry the Due de Bar, her royal brother getting Eoquelaure, the boon companion of the Archbishop of Rouen, to perform the ceremony. The marriage was not a happy one. Henri IV. thought that the Pope would have easily granted a dispensation, but this was not the case. His Holiness refused, and the consequence was that the duke through religious scruples was afraid to live with his wife. However, he repaired to Rome, pleaded his own cause, the Pope yielded, and he returned to Catherine, who was devotedly attached to him. Several attempts were made to induce her to change her religion after her marriage, but she persistently refused, and in 1602 she told the king that if her conduct was prejudicial to the Due de Bar she would .return to Beam. Two years later she died, supposed, says L'Etoile, to have died from taking drugs and " red silk " in the hope of becoming a mother. The king, -who was passionately fond of his sister, was greatly grieved. He was seldom known to have shed a tear, but when he heard of Catherine's death he flung himself on his bed and wept bitterly — wept for her as Frederick the Great wept for Wilhelmina, Margravine of Baireuth. CHAPTER XIV. LOUIS XIII. AND ANNE OF AUSTEIA. Henri IV. had not been many weeks in the grave when Marie de Medicis determined to reverse his policy, and to reconcile France and Spain by means of a double marriage, between Louis XIII. and the Infanta, and between the Prince of Asturia and Madame Elizabeth. Henri IV. had promised to give his eldest daughter to the Duke of Savoy, who evinced the greatest desire to obtain her hand. Sully was in favour of this match, and retired from Court when Marie de Medicis expressed her determination that her eldest daughter should be Queen of Spain. He must also have heartily disapproved of the Infanta, better known now as Anne of Austria, marrying the son of his old master, as her grand- father had been the most terrible enemy of France. Then Sully was a staunch Protestant, and naturally viewed with alarm and distrust this Catholic alliance. England, the Netherlands, and the Protestant princes of Germany were all opposed to the match, and it was deemed expedient -to despatch the Due de Bouillon — a • Protestant — to England to appease King 310 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1610. James, and to endeavour to remove his apprehensions. The mission of the duke was not successful, nor did the French envoy sent to the Hague, nor Marshal Schomberg, who visited Germany in the hopes of arranging matters there, allay hostility. " The treaty between Henri IV. with the Duke of Savoy," says Henri Martin, 1 " was torn up ; the least which the dignity of France required was to arrange an honour- able settlement for Charles Emmanuel with Spain, which had been irritated by his defection. Nothing was done, and France basely permitted that prince, in order to save his country from a Spanish invasion, to be forced into sending his son to Madrid to ask, on his knees, pardon from the King of Spain for having wished the French alliance." In spite of all the opposition raised against the double marriage, Marie de Medicis and her ministers pursued the policy they had marked out, and on the 30th April, 1611, the preliminaries for the marriages were signed at Fontainebleau by Villeroi and the Spanish ambassador, Inigo de Cardenas. It was there stipulated that Louis XIII. should marry the Infanta, and that Prince Philip of Spain should marry Madame Elizabeth of France, and that the Pope and the Grand Duke of Tuscany should arbitrate as to the conditions of this double marriage. The French and Spanish Courts concluded a defensive alliance ; there was also signed a reciprocal extradi- tion treaty concerning criminals guilty of lese majeste. 1 Histoire de France, t. xi. p. 17. 1611.] FRANCO-SPANISH ALLIANCE. 311 These matters were kept secret for a time, but in January 1612, Marie de Medicis, feeling more con- fidence in her position, convoked an extraordinary council of princes, cardinals, dukes, prelates, and great officers of the Crown present in Paris, and announced to them the state in which the negotia- tions stood. At first the double marriages were approved of, not only by Conde, Soissons, Guise, the Lorraine princes, and the heretic Due de Bouillon who reigned at Sedan, but by several of the most trusted friends of the late monarch, such as the old Huguenot chief, Lesdiguieres, and not a single voice was raised in the assembly in favour of the policy of Henri IV. It is true that a few weeks later both Conde and Soissons changed their minds, probably because their approval had not been sufficiently remunerated. However this may be, they left the Court by way of protesting against the matrimonial alliance with Spain. No notice was taken of the action of the princes, who were soon induced to return. The Court threw off its mourning, and the publication of the royal be- trothal was celebrated with great magnificence, the festivities lasting for three days, and costing vast sums of money. Bassompierre spent on his own account 5000 gold crowns, and some other great nobles a similar sum. In August 1612 the Due de Mayenne was sent as an extraordinary ambassador to Madrid to demand the hand of the Infanta in the name of the King 312 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1612. of France, while the Duke of Pastrana was sent to Paris to demand the hand of Madame Elizabeth on the part of the Prince of Asturia. The two marriage contracts were signed at Madrid on the 22nd, and at Paris on the 25th August. A dowry of 500,000 crowns was assigned to both the princesses. The contract of Louis XIII. , by the way, contained a clause of great importance, to wit, the renunciation, on the part of the Infanta, express and absolute, of the inheritance of her parents, so that no portion of the Spanish succession could ever pass to the House of Bourbon. We shall see hereafter how this re- nunciation, signed by the hand of the Infanta, was observed. The contracts having been signed, sealed, and delivered, it was. agreed that the exchange of the two princesses should not take place until they were twelve years of age. 1 In 1614 Conde and Bouillon again left the Court, with Mayenne, Vend6me, and other great nobles, and took up arms against the queen regent. They com- plained that her Majesty was surrounded by persons who wished to reign in confusion, who spent large sums of money, and were guilty of malversation ; that France had lost her reputation in the eyes of foreigners, that the policy of the late king was not carried out, that the marriage with the Duke of Savoy had been broken off, and the double marriages concluded with Spain without the three orders of the 1 Anne of Austria was born 22nd Sept., 1601, a few days after Louis XIII. 1614.] THE STATES-GENERAL. 313 kingdom having been consulted, &c, &c. ; and Conde concluded his letter, in which all the grievances of his party were set forth, by demanding that the States- General should be summoned within three months, and that the Spanish marriages should be suspended until their opinion had been learned. A copy of this manifesto was addressed to the Parlia- ment, which forwarded it to the queen, and the queen, taking alarm, and refusing to follow the vigorous advice of Villeroi and Jeannin, negotiated. She made no difficulty about promising to assemble the States-General, and to defer the Spanish marriages until the king had attained his majority, that is to say, for five months. The consequence of these concessions was, that on the 15th May peace was signed between the rebel princes and the Court at St. Menehould, a peace which was not of long duration. Louis XIII. came of age in September 1614, and in October the States-General assembled in Paris in the vast hall of the convent of the Augustins. The three orders appeared in force. The clergy counted 140 members, 5 cardinals, 7 archbishops, 47 bishops, &c. ; the nobles numbered 132, and the third estate 192 representatives. Among the clergy came one representative, twenty-nine years of age, originally destined for the career of arms, but in 1614 made Bishop of Lucon, one of the poorest and most dis- agreeable sees of France. The name of the young prelate was Armand Jean du Plessis de Kichelieu. The question of the double marriages was never 314 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1614. thoroughly discussed by the States-General, and it was not until the 12th December that the matter was brought forward at all. Then we find that the clergy, "seized by a sudden fit of enthusiasm," asked the king to accomplish as soon as possible his sacred marriage with the Infanta of Spain, which would benefit religion, and would secure the blessings of peace for two powerful nations. The Bishop of LuQon, who little foresaw all the trouble that this same Spanish alliance would one day cause him, acted as the orator of his order, immediately revealing a talent and an eloquence which astonished all who heard him. The nobles followed in the wake of the clergy, thus sacrificing the popularity they had ac- quired by contending against the League. The third estate, finding itself alone, and considering that resist- ance upon its part might lead to civil strife and war with Spain, hesitated. At first it was determined to protest by silence, but in the end it was decided to thank the queen -mother for having preserved peace, and for having concluded marriages and alliances to that end. There was no mention made of Spain, nor was any comment added to this surly consent. In 1615 came fresh troubles ; no sooner had the States-General terminated their sittings, than the Parliament of Paris met in a somewhat irregular manner. The king forbade the Parliament to deliber- ate upon State affairs, and the Parliament was con- sequently driven to remonstrate. Its remonstrances, rejected at first, were afterwards listened to by the 1615.] REMONSTRANCES. 315 king ; they in many respects resembled the Conde manifesto. The youthful monarch was asked to keep up the alliances formed by his father, &c. The remon- strances were considered by the Court as calumnious, and the Parliament was again ordered not to meddle with the affairs of the State ; but the Parliament resisted with obstinacy, and the king consented to receive a second deputation. The fact is that behind the Parliament were the disaffected princes, and behind the princes the Huguenots, with Condd, Bouillon, Mayenne, and Longueville. The Huguenots were about to hold their triennial parliament at Grenoble, and it was supposed that they intended to protest against the Spanish marriages, against the conclusion of which the English ambassador had again raised his voice. But the queen-mother was not to be moved from her purpose. The date was approaching upon which it had been agreed that the exchange of the two princesses should be effected, and Marie de Medicis was preparing to start with the king to meet the new queen. Every effort was made to induce Conde* to cease his opposition, and to accompany the king to Guienne, but in vain. He inveighed against the corruption of the Court, and demanded, among other things, that the marriages should be put off until the king had really attained the age of manhood. Conde* wrote to the Pope to justify his action in taking up arms, and at the same time to the Protestant Assembly at Grenoble and to the city of La Kochelle 316 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1615. for aid. The Pope called upon Conde* to submit to the royal authority, aud not only advised Marie de Medici s to carry out the marriages, but, according to Cardenas, offered to go to France to arrange matters. Concini and his wife, together with Villeroi and Jeannin, advised the queen-mother to put off her voyage, but she would hear of no delay, and she took the king to Bastille to draw out the 1,200,000 livres necessary for the expenses of the journey. Military measures were adopted for the protection of Paris and other cities and towns against Conde", the princes, and their adherents, and on the 17th August the queen-mother, the king, and the Court took the road to Bordeaux. The royal escort was composed of 8000 foot-soldiers and 2000 horse, under the orders of the Due de Guise and Epernon — a force considered necessary to thwart the evil designs of the disaffected princes and the Huguenots. The old Marshal Bois-Dauphin was in- trusted with the protection of the capital, and the royal children were sent for safety to Vincennes. The Spanish ambassador, too, recommended his master to send not less than 6000 infantry and 1000 cavalry into France, because England had furnished the malcontents with 40,000 crowns. It was 5 a.m. on the 17th August when the king, after hearing mass at the Bourbon chapel, left Paris. The queen, carried in a litter and followed by a number of princesses and ladies, started from the Louvre at 10 a.m. As for Madame Elizabeth, the 1615.] THE ROYAL CORTEGE. 317 .municipal authorities, clothed in their rich liveries and all on horseback, went to fetch her at the Louvre, and " carried her in a soft litter open on all sides and sparkling with gold embroideries and silver on red velvet." They accompanied her as far as Bourg-le- Reine, paying her great honours and congratulations. Before this strange wedding-party left the capital, we must mention that Le Jay, the president of the Parliament, was suddenly arrested by the archers of the guard and sent off to the castle of Amboise, for the Court had little confidence in the Parliament of Paris. The royal cortege arrived safely at Tours, and from Tours proceeded to Poitiers, " 12,000 horsemen," we are told,'" being distributed on the flanks and wings ; the whole regiment of the guards was at its full strength of 3000 arquebuses, and the gallant Swiss, helmet on head and pistol in hand, resolved to pass over the bodies of those who should attempt to oppose the passage of the rivers of Aquitaine." It seems that this force, ill-fed, suffered greatly during the march from fever, dropsy, pleurisy, &c, and " filled the hospitals and the taverns." There was a good deal of marching and counter- marching up-hill and down again on the part of the royal troops and those of Conde and de Eohan, but the two parties did not come to blows, and the king reached Bordeaux in safety on the 7th October, 1615. The royal standard was hoisted over the castle of Ha, where Marie de Medicis, Louis XIII. , and Madame 318 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1615. Elizabeth shut themselves up while the preparations for the double marriages were being pursued amid the threats of the feudal nobility. Fortunately for the Court, the people sided with the king, and declared themselves in favour of the Catholic alliance. On the 18th October, according to treaty, the marriages by procuration took place at Burgos and Bordeaux, the Due de Guise marrying the Infanta in the name of Louis XIII., and the Duke of Lerma marrying Madame Elizabeth for the Spanish prince. Naturally the greatest magnificence was displayed during these ceremonies, the two Courts vying with each other in splendour. After the marriage by procuration came the ex- change of the two princesses on the Bidassoa where the river was a hundred and fifty paces wide. Gorgeous pavilions were erected on either bank to receive the princesses on alighting from their litters. It was greatly feared that the Due de Eohan would have attacked the king between Bordeaux and Bayonne, but the Bidassoa was safely reached. There some slight delay occurred which greatly annoyed Madame Elizabeth, who, "red with anger, took off her gloves and flung them in the fire, asking when the ceremonies would be all finished." But, as Capefigue remarks, Philip III. in giving his daughter to the King of France had certain precautions to take, adding — "There exists in the convent of the Augustins at Burgos a series of documents relative to the formalities which were imposed on the Infanta." 1615.] THE RENUNCIATION. 319 The first of these documents was the renunciation by the princess of her legitimate rights to the crown of Spain, entirely in her own handwriting, containing the most minute precautions which could be devised by the Spanish chancellery. It ran thus — " I, Dona Ana, Infanta of Spain, and, by the grace of God, promised and future Queen of France, eldest daughter of the very high, very excellent, and very powerful prince, Philip III., by the same grace of God, king Catholic," &c. Then followed the renunciation in due and legal form, the Infanta also expressing herself satisfied with her dowry, larger than that ever before granted to a Spanish princess. And laying hand on the holy Gospels, she swore to observe all she had written, in spite of all persuasion, seduction, or reasons advanced by the king her husband. The household of the Infanta was entirely Spanish — the confessor, the first almoner, the ordinary con- fessor, the doctors, apothecaries, head cook, under cooks, cup-bearers, keepers of the birds, keeper of the keys, head falconer, footman, sweeper of the chambers, &c. The Comtesse de la Torre lady of honour, with mistress of the robes, maids of honour, ladies'-maids, &c. In all over one hundred persons, costing 180,000 reals a month. It was with this cortege that the Infanta reached the banks of the Bidassoa. There was a military display on either side, and a quarter of an hour before the princesses made their appearance, two Secretaries of State, one French the 320 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1615. other Spanish, with a number of councillors, met on the pavilions moored in the centre of the river, and read over the marriage acts, Sec. Then came the princesses, who embarked at the same moment in their barges, each attended by a number of nobles ; they met on board the pavilion, the Due de Guise giving his hand to Madame, and the Due d'Usseda his hand to the Infanta. After the Spanish nobles had saluted Madame, and the French nobles had saluted the Infanta, the two youthful queens ad- vanced towards each other slowly, kissed each other, and remained talking for some time. Then the Due de Guise led away the Infanta, and the Due d'Usseda Madame Elizabeth, and the exchange was completed. The Infanta at once started for Bordeaux, strongly escorted, the Huguenots incessantly pranc- ing round the royal army. There was an engagement with pistols at Casteljaloux, and some musket shots were exchanged as the bride entered Bazas ; but at last Bordeaux was reached in safety. A magnificent reception was given to the Infanta, and on the 25th November the royal pair were united in the Cathedral of Bordeaux by the Bishop of Saintes, the natural son of Bassompierre and Mademoiselle d'Entragues. The Archbishop of Bordeaux, the Cardinal de Sourdis, was to have performed the ceremony, but he had been suddenly obliged to leave the city. He had had the audacity, while the king was in Bordeaux, to force open the doors of the gaol and to allow a man 1615.] THE MARRIAGE. 321 condemned to death to make his escape ; in defending his post the gaoler was killed. In an account of the ceremony given by the Mercure de France, we read that "the king often looked at the queen and smiled ; she, although sinking under the weight of her robes and jewels, perspiring big drops, could not help smiling at him with marvellous grace and majesty." This was very different to the marriage at Lyons. Unlike Henri IV. and Marie de Medicis, who were not in the bloom of youth it is true, Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria seemed delighted with each other. Grave historians say' that, seeing the extreme youth of bride and bridegroom, it was thought better that they should remain apart, husband and wife only in name, for some years ; but if we are to believe Dr. Herouard, 1 the royal physician, such was not the case. 1 Herouard kept a diary, in which he noted down all the doings of Louis XIII. from his infancy. Thus we find that the little prince in his — " 2nd year — Ate meat for the first time. It was duck. " 3rd year. — M. le Dauphin was whipped for the first time for being obstinate. " The Venetian ambassador came to see him. " He slobbers and gets angry because he cannot speak. " 4th year (2nd March, 1605). — The king amused himself a great deal with him. . . . The king said to him, ' I wish you to make a little child with the Infanta; I wish you to make her a little dauphin like yourself.' — ' Hwoo, non, papa.' " 28th April. — Eeceived the ambassadors of the Count Palatine and the Marquis de Brandebourg. " 11th June. — Eeceived the Comte de Saure on his return from Spain, who presented him with the compliments of the Infanta (a week older than himself). VOL. i. y 322 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1615. However this may be, it was many a long year before a successor to the crown was born. By this alliance one of the chief objects of the League was accomplished. It was thought that Conde and his friends, once the nuptial benediction pro- nounced, would lay down their arms and submit to the inevitable. Marie de Medicis did what she could to effect an arrangement with the princes, wishing to avoid a battle on the road to Paris ; but her efforts were of no avail until the Due de Nevers and the English ambassador offered to mediate. Just then negotiations, we may mention, had been opened for the marriage of the Prince of Wales with the second daughter of Henri IV. This proposal was accepted, and a truce was signed on the 20 th January. On the 17th December the Court left Bordeaux, escorted by the Due d'Epernon, and protected by two army corps assembled in Poitou, and Tours was reached on the 25th January. If the troops had suffered from heat during the march to Bordeaux, their sufferings were still greater from cold during the march back ; snow, rain, and frost killing several thousand men. At Tours a halt was called, and it was not until the Court had made numerous concessions to the feudal party that it ventured to continue its journey to the capital. Before reaching his good city of " 15th Sept. — Eeoeived Lord North and Lord Norris. " 2nd Oct. — The Queen Marguerite (the first wife of Henri IV.) comes to see him. " In his 6th year. — M. le Dauphin void remuer M. d'Orleans." 1616.] LOUIS XIII. ENTERS PARIS. 323 Paris, the king wrote to the municipal authorities forbidding all fetes and all expression of public joy- on his arrival " with the queen, our very dear spouse and companion," such as had been manifested in 1614 when he returned from Brittany. It was felt that the royalty had been humiliated by the last treaty, and that it was a time rather for sackcloth and ashes than for piping and feasting. By the treaty of Loudun the Court had merely bought off the hostility of the princes. In the way of other concessions it had promised to inquire further into the assassination of Henri IV., to annul a recent decree to the effect that a monarch could be deposed for heresy by the spiritual powers, to disavow the reception of the Council of Trent, to declare that the oath concerning the extirpation of heretics did not concern the subjects of the King of France, and to confirm the Calvinists in all their rights. A curious sequel to a Catholic marriage. According to Richelieu, the Spanish marriages cost the country some 20,000,000 livres — an enormous sum for the epoch — and, though no battles were fought, cost blood as well as treasure. In spite of the commands of the kiDg, there was a certain amount of rejoicing when he entered Paris on the 16th May, 1616, at 5 p.m. Sixteen colonels turned out to greet their majesties, each colonel at the head of 500 men, "well covered and armed." There were to have been only 8000 men, but 12,000 assembled. Twelve large tents were pitched between Montronge T 2 324 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1615. and Paris. The king arrived on horseback, the queen being in a litter, in which one could perceive only precious stones and gold and silver embroidery. The • queen's mules got frightened when a salute was fired, and she was taken out and put into a carriage, and at last the Louvre was reached. The Parisians, who had been told that the queen was plain, were delighted with her personal appearance, and manifested their satisfaction. They found that in features the king and his wife greatly resembled each other. Alas, in features only. On the subj ect of the indifference with which Louis XIII. treated Anne of Austria after their marriage, M. Armand Baschet wrote an interesting volume entitled Le roi chez la reine. Let it be remembered that the king and the queen were born within a week of each other in 1601, and that they were conse- quently mere children when they were married. In spite of this fact, which should have inspired patience, M. Armand Baschet observes that " the inconceivable attitude of Louis XIII. turned the matter into a question of state. The abstention was public. The House of Spain saw in this coolness on the part of the king a mark of contempt, and almost an insult." And we shall see to what an extent this delicate affair engaged the attention of the Papal Nuncio, the king's confessor, the Due de Luynes, and the Spanish and Venetian ambassadors. That Louis XIII. was still a child, and thought as a child, was sufficiently clear from the manner in 1615.] THE NUPTIAL NIGHT. 325 which he is represented to have passed his time while awaiting the arrival of his wife at Bordeaux. In addition to hawking and farces, we find him amusing himself with little silver soldiers, singing hymns, and plundering the sweetmeats of Cardinal Sourdis. In a document which is entitled, Ce qui s' est passe lors de la consommation du mariage du Hoi, supposed to have been drawn up by the queen-mother, referring to what passed after the marriage ceremony, we find it stated that — " As soon as supper was over the king went to bed in his own room, according to his usual custom. The queen-mother, who had up to that time remained in the chamber of the little queen, came to find him at about 8 o'clock passing through the hall, from which she made the guards and every one else retire ; and finding the king in his bed, addressed these words to him — 'My son, it is not sufficient to be married; you must come and see the queen your wife, who is waiting for you.' " The king answered — ' Madam, I was only awaiting your orders. If you like I will go and find, her with you.' " At the same time they gave him a dressing-gown and slippers lined with fur, and thus he went with the queen-mother by the said hall into the chamber of the little queen, into which entered with their Majesties two nurses, De Souvray, governor, Herouard, first doctor, the Marquis de Eambouillet, master of the robes, carrying the king's sword, and Belingham, 326 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1617. first valet-de-chambre, with the candlestick. As the queen approached the bed she said to the little queen — ' My daughter, here is your husband, whom I bring to you ; receive him and love him well, I beg of you.' To which she replied in Spanish that it was her intention to obey and to please him. . . . And the king having gone to bed, the queen-mother directed every one to leave the room, with the exception of the two nurses. Two hours afterwards the king- returned to his own bed." We cannot enter into all the details given by what is regarded as an official document — details moreover founded upon fiction, invented for political purposes, and to keep the tongues of the wits from wagging too freely. What seems to be perfectly true is, that for four years longer these children lived apart, and not as husband and wife. Three years after the marriage we learn that the Papal Nuncio and the Spanish ambassador tried to persuade the king not to leave the young' queen in this abandon conjugal, con- trary to the law of nature and to social law. To all advice upon this subject the king replied that there was no reason to be in a hurry, and that he could not take too much care of his health. In July, 1617, there was great commotion at the Court, caused by the rumour that the king had fallen in love with Mile, de Montgiron, one of the queen's maids of honour. It was said that his Majesty had remained shut up with her all night. Upon this Guido Bentivoglio, the Papal Nuncio, at 1617.] A DELICATE MATTER. 327 once wrote off to Cardinal Scipio Borghese, saying — " Not only has this report not been confirmed, but it is known that up to the present the king has not mani- fested the slightest inclination for women in materia di donne. The same rumour made the queen indulge in a fit of jealousy. De Luynes has behaved very well in this matter, endeavouring to influence the king in favour of the queen, and trying to persuade him to sleep with her. But the king will not come to a decision . . . ." However this may be, the Nuncio reported that Mile, de Montgiron had been removed from the Court, and was to be married. Ten days later, 19 th July, 1617, the Nuncio wrote another despatch on this subject, saying that De Luynes was doing what he could to hasten the marriage of Mile, de Montgiron, being evidently afraid lest she should come between Louis XIII. and his wife. " The king," added the Nuncio, " always puts off sleeping with the queen to some future date." On the 5th December the Nuncio wrote — "Father Arnoux has told me in the greatest confidence that the last time the king confessed he did all he could on behalf of the queen, trying to persuade the king to show some inclination for her, to love her, and to be a good husband. The said father also assured me that De Luynes had done the same, knowing that it is the king's interest to be on good terms with Spain." But all the efforts of the Cardinal Guido Benti- voglio, of the Duke of Monteleone, the Spanish 328 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1618. ambassador, of Father Arnoux, the king's confessor, and of the Due de Luynes to excite a tender passion in the breast of the king were vain. It is amusing to find the Nuncio writing to Cardinal Scipio Borghese, saying — " The subject is rather delicate, and that is why I prefer writing separately to your illustrious lordship. You can communicate the matter to the Pope or not, as you wish." And certainly the despatch which the Nuncio wrote upon the 17th January, 1618, was hardly fit for the eyes of the Pontiff. In it Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio revealed to Cardinal Scipio Borghese that he had given certain advice to the king, but that his confessor had persuaded him not to commit such a sin. The Pope's nephew seems to have replied to the effect that the Court of Eome greatly regretted the coldness which reigned between the king and the queen ; reminded the Nuncio how ardently the Pontifical Court had encouraged the marriage ; and pointed out what a blow it would be to the Catholic religion should his most Christian Majesty leave no direct heir to the throne. He was strongly recom- mended to keep his ears and his eyes open, but we do not find that Cardinal Scipio encouraged Cardinal Guido to carry matters to the extremity he proposed. On the 10th February the Nuncio in a despatch complained of Louis XIII. still indulging in childish amusements, and being inclined to keep bad company. He spoke to Father Arnoux on the subject, and begged him to appeal to the royal conscience. He 1618.] A DELICATE MATTER. 329 added — "The last time the king confessed, the day of the Purification of the Holy Virgin, the said father acquitted himself of this duty with so much efficacy that the following days the fruits were remarked. . . . Altogether, seeing the age of his Majesty, we must be indulgent ; besides, he has some royal qualities strongly pronounced, such as piety, justice, dissimu- lation, silence, the patience with which he allows him- self to be advised, and the firmness with which he follows good counsel." And on the 14th April, in another despatch, the Nuncio expressed his opinion that the Court of Spain and all the other courts would find it strange that the king, now eighteen years of age, did not assume the attitude of a husband. He had reported to the Duke of Monteleone and to the Countess de la Torre, the first Spanish lady-in-waiting on the queen, that Father Arnoux had done all he could to get the king to consummate his marriage with the queen. He felt deeply that the Huguenots were talking of the matter and interpreting it to suit their ends. He had spoken again to Father Arnoux, who had told him that the king was very modest, and had no inclination for any woman. The cardinal added — " His father (Henri IV.) began late, but he made up for lost time by far too many excesses. God grant that if his son imitates him up to the present he may not follow his example at a more mature age." A short time after this his Majesty appears to have made a strange reply to Father Arnoux during 330 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1618. confession. The good father, according to the Nuncio, had said everything he could reasonably ■say to the king, who had assured his confessor that he loved the queen, but after having duly considered the matter, he had come to the determination not to injure his health by a precipitation little in accord with his age. The Nuncio related how he had com- municated the above facts to the Spanish ambassador, who appeared to be somewhat consoled, merely remarking that King Philip his master was dying to have grandchildren by the queen, his daughter, whom he loved tenderly. On the 9th May the Nuncio wrote that the Duke of Monteleone had confided to him that matters had taken a turn for the better. " Of a truth," he added, " one perceives more lively marks of affection on the part of the king, and both show symptoms of tender- ness. The queen especially appears to be deeply in love with the king, and does all she can to make herself look as attractive as possible, but bashfulness restrains her. ..." During this time the Court was not free from intrigue and squabbles. If the Spanish party con- demned the conduct of the king, there was a French party which approved of it, fearing that once Louis XIII. captivated by the charms of his wife, Spanish influence would reign supreme. As a general rule, the king was exceedingly kind and attentive to the queen, but on one occasion the Nuncio reports a tiff, during which his Majesty remained three days with- 1618.] THE SPANISH LADIES. 331 out seeing his wife. Louis XIII. had always allowed his antipathy for the Spaniards to be seen, at the same time expressing his admiration for Spanish ladies. Suddenly, however, he conceived a violent aversion to the Spanish ladies attached to the queen, more especially to the Countess de la Torre and to "the widows who were dressed like nuns." The Nuncio reported that the countess despoiled her Majesty in the most terrible way, and that he was very much alarmed lest the matter should assume serious proportions ; he had not dared to speak to the Spanish ambassador on so delicate a subject. The Duke of Monteleone became very soon acquainted with the position of affairs, and did what he could to smooth matters over, but the kins: would hear of nothing but the departure of all the Spanish ladies ; and, in fact, they were obliged to leave France on very short notice — they were bundled out of the country just as Charles I. afterwards bundled the French ladies out of England. They received presents and gratifications, and Louis XIII. went so far as to give them a letter of recommendation to his father-in-law, the King of Spain ! The Duke of Monteleone, who was about to leave Paris, before setting out for Spain implored Father Arnoux to assure him that the marriage would be consummated before he departed. The Nuncio duly reported that the confessor had held out great hopes to the ambassador, but could not do violence to the nature of the king. He very much feared, he added, 332 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1619. that poor Monteleone would return to Madrid with nothing better than hopes. The duke left France, in fact, without obtaining the satisfaction he desired, and was succeeded by a far more stately grandee, Don Fernando de Gyron. His first business was to complain of the treatment of the Spanish ladies-in-waiting, who had not yet left Paris, and the Due de Luynes appears to have made matters pleasant by assuring him that as soon as they had gone the marriage would be consummated. It may be remarked that the Court of Spain took very little notice of this expulsion. It seems to have been well known at Madrid that the conduct of the victims had left much to be desired, and that they had done the queen more harm than good. We must mention that two marriages took place at this epoch — that of the sister of Louis XIII., the Princesse Christine, with the Prince of Piedmont, and that of Mile. Vendome with the Due d'Elbceuf. Up to this time the Nuncio had not personally interfered in the matter of the king's marriage, having left the subject in the hands of his Majesty's confessor. He now determined to alter his tactics. On the 16th January, 1619, he wrote to the Cardinal Scipio Borghese, saying — "It was considered certain that the marriage would have been consummated after the departure of the Spanish ladies, as I told you before, adding that De Luynes had given positive assurances to the Spanish ambassador on this subject. Now that affairs do not appear to be any further advanced as regards this congiungi- The Due de Luynes carries Louis XIII. to 1619.] THE CONSUMMATION. 333 mento, the ambassador has; begun to renew his complaints. I do not fail to offer my 'good offices,' and my- private opinion is that things will not be much longer delayed. Yesterday, during an audience with 'his Majesty, addressing the- king on the subject of the marriage of his sister, I said to him, ' Sire, I do not think that you would like to undergo the shame of your sister having a son before your Majesty has a dauphin.' The king blushed a little, — ■ sign of bashf ulness, — and replied that really he did not count upon experiencing this; shame. Besides, his Majesty treats the queen very kindly, pays her all kinds of attentions, and shows that her company gives him pleasure." The audience above alluded to took place on the 15th January. On the 19th the marriage contract between the Due d'Elbceuf and Mile, de Vend6me 1 was signed, and on the next day the marriage took place. Herouard, in his journal, says — "The 20th, Sunday; — The king went to the chapel of the tower where Mademoiselle de Vend6me married the , Due d'Elbceuf. After supper he went first to see the queen, and then to the house of Mademoiselle de Venddme pour lui /aire la guerre. "The 25th, Friday.— Went to bed. Prayed to GqcL About eleven o'clock, without expecting it, M. v de Luynes came to persuade him to sleep with the queen. He resisted 'strong and firm,' struggling even to tears ; is carried there, put to bed. ... At 2 a.m. comes back, undressed, put to bed, falls asleep until nine o'clock. " There was great joy at the Louvre when this event became known. The king himself, we are told, wish- ing to confirm the news, despatched his master of 1 The daughter of Henri IV. and La Belle Gabrielle. 334 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1619. the ceremonies, M. de Boueuil, to announce what had happened to the Nuncio, and the Spanish ambassador, and Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, at once wrote off, saying — " The king has at last made up his mind to congimgersi cotta Regina, to the great satisfaction of their Majesties and the no less delight of the Court, because by this event the marriage is definitively established, and one may expect that much good will result to France and to all Christendom. . . ." Then it is said that the king and the queen con- tinued to live as husband and wife, and that in consideration of the health of his Majesty it was thought best that he should see the queen only at intervals. The Nuncio went on to observe — " The success of the definitive union of the kins and the queen is a matter of great importance for reasons which your Illustrious Lordship will justly appreciate, for the Huguenots and other evil-minded persons have been stunned by it. Your Lordship knows the different services which I have rendered in this matter. I recently renewed my efforts with Father Arnoux and Cardinal de Retz, and I even spoke to the king in a jocular fashion. I have nevertheless learned that my words, though spoken in fun, did good service ; they made the king per- ceive that it was no longer possible to differ. . . All the other services which I have rendered have been no less fortunate, and really Father Arnoux has be- haved with great efficacy with the king and De Luynes. And as the words which I spoke to his 1619.] ANGELO CONTAMNrS DESPATCH. 335 Majesty have been spread abroad, the Holy Father has reaped great honour, as it is a mark of the con- sideration in which the counsels of his ambassadors are held. I have learned also that the Huguenots and other authors of wicked projects are greatly mortified. In fact, the delay was simply due to the bashfulness of the king. ..." The cardinal then enters into details which can hardly be considered fit for publication, adding — "Yesterday at my audience I teased their Majesties a little on this subject, and they did not take it ill. I afterwards assured them seriously of the great pleasure which his Holiness would experience on learning the completion of this marriage, and that thanks would be offered up to the Almighty." Cardinal Scipio Borghese replied on the 21st Feb., highly approving of what the Nuncio had said to Louis XIII. on the subject of the shame he would feel should his sister Christine have a son before the birth of a dauphin. Cardinal Bentivoglio's trait also met with the approval of the Pontiff. Naturally Rome and Madrid were not the only courts which received official intelligence of the event of the day. M. Armand Baschet makes due note of this, and even ventures to publish the despatch in which Angelo Contarini, the Venetian ambassador, on the 27th January, 1619, described to the Doge all that took place on the occasion. He also explained what happened when Mile, de Vendome married the Due d'Elbceuf, and when Louis XIII. went to see the 336 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1619. newly-married couple after supper pour /aire la guerre a Mile, de Vend6me. 1 1 The fact of the consummation of the marriage was thus announced to the Doge by the Venetian ambassador — " Vendredi notti passata, fii a '25 del corrente, questo H.6 Christianissimo ha dormito et consumato il matrimonio con la Eegina ; il sabbato sera ha mandate a dar questa nova a Monsr. Nontio et all' Ambr. di Spagna : che infinito contento ne riee- verono ; e cosi la Maesta Sua ha adempito le promesse fiitte ; che doppo la partenza delle Spagnole, si sarebbe contentato di cententar la Eegina. " II Mercordi avanti, il Duca d'Abuf dormi con la sua sposa Madamosella di Vandomo ; et il Be, buona parte di quella notte, ha voluto star presente su'J proprio letto di questi doi sposi, per vedere a consumare il matrimonio ; il que piii d'un volta fix re iterato, con grand' applauso e gusto particolare de Be : onde si crede, que quest' essempio habbia havuto gran forza ad eccitar la Maesta Sua a far lo stesso ; a che 'anco la sorella sua naturale Madamosella di Yandomo, viene detto, l'invitasse con parole, et li dicesse : Sire, fate voi anco cosi con la Eegina, che farete bene. " S'intende chi il Be (e cosi egli si vanta) sio state valoroso campione in questo fatto ; li medici pero gli hanno prohibito d'attacar la zuffa cosi spesso. " Promesse grandi poi d'amore, e di fedelta fece il Be alia Eegina in quella notte ; con dirle, che sarebbe stato tutto suo ; ne mai havrebbe toccato altra donna, che lei ; volendo egli in ogni maniera far des en/ans. " Che notte giocondissima, et serenissima sia stata quella alia Eegina, et molto piu a' Spagnoli, non e difficile il poterselo per- suadere ; onde subito covrieri in Spagna et a Boma si sono espediti ; et io ancora a Vostra Serenita riveretemente scrivo il successo capitato alia mia notitia, non perche il Be me lo habbia fatto sapere, ma perche la nuova di gia e per tutto divulgata. Faccia Dio, che ci6 sia per il ben commune. " A Monsr. di Louines (Luynes) e nata hieri sera una femina, et a Monsiu di Pisiurs (Puysieulx) un figlio maschio ; da che il Cancelliere in particolare, padre di Pisiurs, ha sentito infinita e straordinaria consolatione. " Hon ho io mancato di mandar il mio Secretario a rallegrarsi 1619.] FRANCE, SPAIN, AND ENGLAND. 337 There was great delight at Madrid when the news became known, and we see that the poor Duke of Monteleone was very joyful that "the assurances which had been given had been followed by effect." The expulsion of the Spanish ladies was pardonable, since it had led to so happy a result. The French ambassador at the Court of Philip, the Sieur Grenelle, wrote a long despatch on this matter, and augured that God would give " our king and France a dauphin before a year. It is impossible to describe the satisfaction of his most Catholic Majesty and all this Court. . . ." From the marriages which were to have united France and Spain in the bonds of amity we may return to England, and see what passed between James I., Marie de Medicis, and the King of Spain at the same epoch. per mio nome con questi Sigri. ; e Monsiu di Pisiiirs gli ha detto que mi dia questa buona nuova della copula del Be coil la Eegina ; che e stata della buona ; per consolar tutto il mondo, che queste furono le proprie parole appunto di questo Ministro, &c. "ASTZELO COSTARINI. " Parigi li 27 Gennaro, 1619." VOL. I. CHAPTER XV. HENRIETTA AND CHARLES. Guizot, in his Projet de Mariage Roj/al, says that James I. had no sooner ascended the throne than the question of a French or a Spanish marriage was debated in London, Paris, and Madrid, and that the two negotiations were secretly carried on until the death of Henri IV. produced a crisis, and obliged the irresolute James to come to a decision on the subject. In London it was first proposed that the dauphin (afterwards Louis XIII.) should marry Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of King James, and that the Prince of Wales should marry Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Henri IV. Sully relates that he was sent over to England to sound James upon this matter, and that he dined with his Majesty at Greenwich, and found him delighted with the proposed alliance. In his instructions Sully wa.s to insist that this scheme for a double marriage was to remain secret until both monarchs were ready to go to war with Spain. 1 Of the dinner with King James, Sully says — "After having asked for some wine, in which he never puts 1 Economies Royales—Petitot, t. iv. p. 279. 1603.] KING JAMES AND SULLY. 339 any water, the king began by saying that he wished to drink to your health, which was clone reciprocally by him and me, without forgetting the queens, your wives, and your mutual children, speaking of whom he whispered to me that he was going to drink to the double alliance about to be made, at which I was astonished, as this was the only time he seemed to think of it. . . I told him that your Majesty, being importuned by Spain for the dauphin, would know how to choose well, and to make a difference between the alliance of a good brother and assured friend, with whom he would never have cause to quarrel, and one from whom, up to the present time, he had received nothing but insults. Then he told me that it was the same with him, the Spaniards having asked for his son, and that they offered this Infanta to every one merely to take advantage of princes." * And Sully informed his master that he had much pleasure in conversing with King James, who knew a great deal about all sorts of sciences, and who spoke well. But Sully found that he "spoke different languages, with the view of not revealing his chief design." Sully, in fact, knew that King James was waiting to see what the King of Spain, whose ambassadors were on their way to London, would offer. Henri IV. replied to Sully — " I must tell you that the King of England has been depicted to me as a prince so irresolute, timid, and dissimulating, that I much fear that no effects will follow the promises 1 Sully to Henri IV., 6th July, 1603. 340 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1604. and hopes he has given, and that we shall remain uncertain as to his intentions, and what we may depend upon for the defence of the common cause." Such was the opinion formed by Henri IV. of the first of the Stuarts, clubbed by him on another occasion, the wisest fool in Christendom. Before leaving England in July, 1603, Sully got James to sign a defensive treaty with France, which might become offensive if necessary. A few months later came ambassadors from Spain — the Count of Villa Mediana and Don Alonzo of Velasco, Duke of Frias and Constable of Castile. On the 18th August, 1624, these ambassadors signed a treaty with King James, which not only re-estab- lished peace between the two kingdoms, " but opened up other perspectives," as would appear from a note drawn up by a certain Jesuit father for Philip III., in which the marriage question was fully discussed. 1 According to the Jesuit father the king and the Scotch leaned to the side of France, in consequence of the friendship which had formerly existed between that country and Scotland, and also because the king thought that he would be able to obtain easier terms as regards religion. On the other hand, the queen and the majority of the council and of the nation, heretics as well as Catholics, desired, although for different motives, that the prince should marry a Spanish princess — the heretics, lest the French and the Scotch should unite against England ; the 1 Archives of Simancas. 1604.] THE CONSTABLE OF CASTILE. 341 Catholics in the hope, not only that persecution would cease, but that in the long run the whole of England, and all the countries depending upon her, would be won over to the true faith. After leaving England the Constable of Castile paid a visit to Henri IV., and proposed a double marriage between France and Spain. The king asked Sully's advice, and Sully said that " something might be done if the Spaniards in matters of honour had become white as angels, and had not remained as sunburnt as all the devils in perfidy." Sully saw through the real designs of the Spaniards, and refused to listen to their proposals. " Both Henri IV. and his minister," remarks Guizot, " were too firm and too high-minded to seek at the same time the English and the Spanish alliance, and to embrace at once two causes opposed to each other." The Jesuit father erred in supposing that James, at least at first, leaned towards the French alliance. The alliance with Spain in 1604 was far more brilliant and tempting ; the Infant, who afterwards reigned as Philip IV., had not been born, and the Infanta Anne was therefore heiress to the crown. But it was another matter when he came to enter into details, and when the constable informed him that his master would consent to the match only on the condition of the Prince of Wales being sent to Spain to be educated as a Catholic. With all his leaning towards Rome in purely spiritual matters, this was more than James could stand. 344 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1612. to ask the meaning of the phrase, always reported when a marriage was spoken of — " Provided that the religious question can be arranged." Two months afterwards the duke, having had time to consult with the Pope, returned an answer to the effect, that to obtain the hand of the Infanta Maria the Prince of Wales would have to turn Roman Catholic. Sir John at once indignantly declared that his master would never listen to such a condition, even if the princess offered were the sole heiress to the universal monarchy. Rushworth mentions the conclusion of a treaty for the union of Prince Henry with the Infanta Maria, which was all sham on the part of Spain. He adds that when Lord Salisbury drove matters to a point the Duke of Lerma denied the existence of this treaty ; but the Spanish ambassador, to clear his own honour, produced his instructions written in the duke's own hand. 1 In the spring of 1612 we find the Due de Bouillon in England, suggesting to King James the advisability of entering into a close alliance with France. He even hinted that it was not impossible that the double marriage arranged between Spain and France might come to nothing, in which case the regent would gladly bestow the hand of her eldest daughter on the Prince of Wales. If, however, Louis XIII. married the Infanta Anne, and Philip married the Princess Elizabeth of France, then the Prince of Wales would have no difficulty in obtaining the hand of the Princess 1 Tome i. p. 1. 1612.] THE PRINCESS CHRISTINE. 345 Christine. 1 James on making inquiries found that Bouillon had no authority to hold out hopes of the elder princess, and at first he was not inclined to treat the question of a marriage with the Princess Christine, who was only in her seventh year. However, the fact of such an overture coming from France showed that the regent was not disposed to place herself un- reservedly in the hands of Spain, and this reflection caused James to change his mind. He consequently ordered Edmondes, his ambassador in Paris, to discuss the matter in an unofficial manner with the French minister, Villeroi, and to sound him as to the con- ditions upon which the match could be concluded. Edmondes obeyed his instructions and proposed the marriage, expressing the hope that in the event of it being agreed to, the regent would allow her daughter to be educated in England, where she might no doubt be induced to adopt the religion of her husband. After a little pressure Marie de Medicis consented to the proposed conditions. According to Winwood, the voyage of Bouillon was delayed by a curious incident. He was to return the Order of the Garter worn by Henri IV., but it could nowhere be found, and a new one had to be made. However, the most important duty which Bouillon had to perform was to tiy and allay the anger which had been kindled in the breast of King James by the double marriages. 1 The second daughter of Henri IV. and Marie de Medicis, born in 1606. 346 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1612. When negotiations for the hand of the Princess Christine had reached a satisfactory point, Prince Henry was asked for his opinion on the subject. He was decidedly lukewarm. He was of a military turn of mind, and was little versed in love-making and politics. On the question of religion he, however, expressed himself firmly. If in course of time he was to marry the Princess Christine, he desired that she might be sent over at the expiration of a year, so that there might be a reasonable, prospect of her conversion ; he said that two religions should never lie in his bed. In fact, he doubted a conversion, and his desire was to go to Germany and to select a wife for himself. We may note here that Ealeigh was strongly in favour of the French match, preferring it even to a Protestant alliance for reasons of state which he set forth in a pamphlet. Alas, while these negotiations were going on, without much chance of success, Prince Henry, on the 6th November, 1612, to the intense grief of the nation, died. So severely was his loss felt that many persons attributed his death to poison, and even King James himself was suspected of having participated in the crime. There was of course nothing to justify this terrible suspicion. However, nine days after the death of Prince Henry fresh negotiations were opened up with France, and Sir Thomas Edmondes, the English ambassador in Paris, received instructions to demand the hand of the Princess Christine for Prince Charles. All the 1613.] COUNT GONDOMAR. 347 conditions were promptly discussed — the amount of the dowry, the date of the nuptials, and the religious question; and in 1613 the negotiations were so far advanced that the match was considered as good as concluded. However, when Sir Thomas Edmondes came to ask Villeroi for a definite answer, difficulties were raised, and before long it became apparent that both Marie de Medicis and the States-General had another alliance in view. On the 14th June, 1614, the King of Spain wrote the following note — " In the year 1611 the English ambassador who came here spoke of a marriage between the Infanta Dona Anna and the Prince of Wales. An answer was given to him that the negotiation with Prance was far advanced. . . . Nothing more was said of the affair. Now Don Diego Sarmiento de AcuSa ] writes to me from London that it would be well not to let the King of England lose all hope, and that therefore negotiations for the marriage of the Prince of Wales wibh my daughter Dona Maria should be actively carried on, her age leaving us sufficient time to consider what it will be best to do before coming to a definite conclusion." The document goes on to show that his Majesty considered this affair as of much importance in consequence of the great good or great evil which would result to the Catholic religion in England. He was therefore determined before venturing any further to place the matter in the hands of the Pope. On the 14th July the Spanish ambassador at Rome reported that he had laid the matter before the Pope, who said he had a great aversion to the negotiation in question ; he did not, however, give 1 Better known to us as Count Gondomar. 348 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1614. any definite reply, but said that lie would seek inspiration from on high. His Holiness promised to keep the matter secret. We may note, that one of the chief objections which the Pope had to this marriage was that the law of divorce existed in England, and could be put in practice when a king's wife had no children. Then followed a series of political and religious consultations and hesitations, which revealed the incapacity and weakness into which the Spanish Government had fallen in the hands of Philip III. ; deliberations on the part of theologians presided over by the Archbishop of Toledo, the king's confessor, of monks of high repute, diplomatists, &c. Opinion was, as a general rule, favourable to the English marriage, but it was impossible to come to any decision, and King James could get no answer one way or the other. In the meanwhile the Infanta Anne was married to Louis XIII. Naturally during the negotiations with France Gondomar was not idle, and in his efforts to thwart the match he was aided by the queen, her intimate friends, the Earl of Somerset, and other persons of influence. King James began to waver. He went so far as to ask Gondomar if, in the event of renewing negotiations with Spain, the conditions of a marriage would be so modified as to render his consent possible. At this moment, however, James learned with delight that the. celebrated work of the Jesuit father, Francisco Suarez — Defensio Catholicce Fidei contra 1615.] NEW PROPOSALS. 349 Anglican® Secta Urrores — had been publicly burned by the common executioner in Paris, as it had been burned in London. This work, written by the order of Paul V., had attacked the favourite dogma of James in the matter of the oath of allegiance, and its con- demnation by the French Court was a source of infinite satisfaction to him. He marked his satis- faction by sending Sir Thomas Edmondes back to his post with instructions to offer counter-propositions. But all was vain, his ambassador could obtain no satisfactory answer; and in May, 1615, James was reluctantly obliged to admit that the last reply of Marie de Medicis was equivalent to a refusal. There was nothing to be done but to turn once more to Spain. James now for the first time seems to have had the Spanish proposals laid before him in writing. He found them very terrible, and sent to Gondomar requesting that they might be modified. He said that he had given orders for the marriage treaty with France to be broken off, and that if Gondomar received a commission from the King of Spain to treat the affair, he would give a similar commission to the Earl of Somerset. In the month of December James once more sent to Gondomar to say that, although the negotiations had been interrupted, owing to Somerset's disgrace, he was resolved to proceed. In 1616 Sir John Digby returned from Madrid, and at an audience with the king gave his Majesty an account of Somerset's dealings with Spain, and several details respecting the Spanish Court, which 350 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1616. must have sadly perplexed the royal mind. He assured his master that Philip could not give his daughter away without the consent of the Pope ; and what chance had James after the Suarez business of obtaining that consent % Spain was, and perhaps is still, what was called in France a pays soumis — always ready to bow to the decisions of the Pontiff. It was not likely that Philip III. would depart from this line of conduct, even to prevent a rather improbable alliance between France and England. Sir John Digby did what he could to persuade King James to renounce the Spanish match, and to seek a wife for Charles in Germany. His Majesty had no idea of abandoning his favourite project, but at the same time he was so pleased with the frankness and sagacity of his young ambassador, that he not only made him a member of his Privy Council, but appointed him Vice-Chamberlain, in order that he might approach the royal person with facility. In the month of April King James appears to have announced to his Council that the French match had been broken off, and to have explained his reasons for taking this step. He first of all determined, however, to put Marie de Medicis to the test, or rather to force her to show her hand. For this reason it was decided to send Lord Hay on a mission to Paris. Lord Hay was a Scotchman -who had formerly served in France, and he was sure to be well received. But there was no money in the Exchequer, and to raise a sufficient sum James was obliged to resort to the sale of titles. 1616.] LORD HATS MISSION. 351 Sir John Roper paid him £10,000 to be created Baron Teynham, and Sir John Holies a like amount to be created Baron Houghton. Half this sum was given to Lord Hay. A good deal of obscurity reigns as to the real object of this mission. According to Gardiner, 1 Lord Hay was to make three demands — that if the Princess Christine died without children, the dowry should not be returned ; that the marriage ceremony should be performed according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church in France, and in England according to the rites of the Protestant Church ; that the Prin- cess Christine should not be called upon to renounce her claims on Navarre and Beam. And then we are told that both Lord Hay and Sir Thomas Edmondes were well aware that James only wanted an excuse for breaking off with France, but wished the rupture to come from the other side. Guizot and other French writers have put a different construction on the affair. Some say that Lord Hay arrived in Paris, ostensibly to congratulate Louis XIII. on his marriage, but in reality to press for the hand of the Princess Christine, King James being desirous to neutralize the effect of the double union with Spain. Others say that the real object of the mission was to force Spain to come to a speedy settlement. We are also told that it was felt in France that some concession should be made to the Protestant party, and that an English alliance would 1 Tome ii. p. 391. 352 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1616. counterbalance the ill effects of that with Spain. The consequence was that the British ambassador was received in the French capital with royal honours. The king sent the Prince de Joinville out to St. Denis to meet him ; he dined there in company with force noblesse, and made his entry into Paris at 7 p.m., 1st August, in this order. Four French trumpeters, a number of French nobles, English gentlemen between French gentlemen, the six trumpeters of the am- bassador with caps of violet -coloured velvet, with yellow silk tassels. The sound of the trumpets, we are told, caused great delight. Next came English nobles of quality between two French nobles, the footmen with velvet cloaks, all marching in capital order ; then the ambassador, magnificently and very richly attired, riding on horseback, horse shod with silver, and losing his shoes, for which the people scrambled. He was escorted by the Prince de Join- ville, followed by a number of French and English gentlemen. The carriages were drawn by six horses. The king, wishing to see the ambassador pass without being himself seen, occupied a window near St. Germain l'Auxerrois. The King of Spain, when he heard of the proposed marriage between the Prince of Wales and the Princess Christine, reproached his ambassador with not having informed him sooner of this matter, upon which the ambassador replied — " I have written on four different occasions to your Majesty that this marriage is not concluded, but is being discussed. 1616.] DOCTOR TURQUET. 353 Nothing more has yet been done." He went on to say that he had been ill for four months, and had lately received the extreme unction ; that he thought the marriage would be settled ; that the English were endeavouring to improve their relations with the French Government ; and that there was great excite- ment among the Huguenot assemblies, which had been stirred up by the doctor of the King of England, — one Turquet by name, if we mistake not. Lord Hay, before making his formal demand for the Princess Christine, was to inquire into the state of parties to learn if peace had been made between the Court and the princes of the blood, and to see if concord had really been re-established in the country. He found discord everywhere, and in the audiences he obtained made no demand for the hand of the king's sister. The British ambassador found Conde all powerful, and it is said that it w r as at a banquet given by the prince to Lord Hay that the treasonable cry of Barre-a-bas, or down with the bar, which alone distinguished the arms of Conde from those of the king, was first uttered. Shortly after this Conde was arrested and thrown into the Bastille ; the other disaffected princes left Paris, and the country was on the verge of another civil war. We must here note a remarkable event, to wit, the entry of Cardinal Richelieu into the ministry on the 30th November, 1616. The Spanish ambassador, the Duke of Monteleone, was delighted, and thus ex- pressed his satisfaction in a letter which he wrote to VOL. I. 354 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1616. Madrid — "There is no better man in France for the service of God, of the crown of Spain, and of the public weal." Now Henri Martin says of Richelieu in his history, 1 that he was anti-Spanish ; that in 1614, at the meeting of the States-General, he was the man of the clergy, but that in 1616 he was the man of France. And on assuming office, one of the first things he did was to assure the Protestant powers that the Spanish marriages would not induce the king to embrace either the interests of Rome or those of Spain, to the prejudice of ancient alliances, "that is to say, with those who profess the so-called reformed religion in France, or with those who, hating Spain, pride themselves on being good Frenchmen. . . The king wishes to treat his subjects equally, no matter what their religion. No Catholic is so blind as to prefer a Spaniard to a French Huguenot. ..." The satisfaction of the Duke de Monteleone was premature. The negotiations for the marriage of a French princess with the Prince of Wales were not then continued ; but that, adds Henri Martin, was not the fault of Richelieu. In fact, the cardinal already con- templated undoing the mischief which he clearly comprehended would arise from the Spanish alliance, and was preparing to enter on that struggle which formed the basis of his whole ulterior policy abroad. One of the objects which James is presumed to have had in view in sending Lord Hay to Paris was attained, for no sooner was the Duke of Lerma aware 1 Tome xi. p. 106. 1617.] THE SPANISH MATCH 355 of what was going on, than fresh overtures were made to James. The Spanish ministers had no intention of quarrelling with the King of England, and throwing him into the arms of France. Gondomar, in conse- quence, received instructions to re-open negotiations with James, and he set about his task in his usual able manner. Not only was his expenditure lavish, but he went so far as to address James in bad Latin, in order to afford that pedant the pleasure of cor- recting him. Before listening to G-ondomar, however, King James consulted a committee of his Privy Council, composed of Bacon, Digby, Villiers, Wotton, Lennox, &c. The committee was asked if it con- sidered Spain sufficiently in earnest to justify the king proceeding with the treaty. The reply was that there was a fair prospect of success, but that it might fail on the point of religion, in which case failure would redound to the honour of his Majesty at home and abroad. Digby was sent back to Madrid, and Sarmiento, as a reward for his exertions, was created Count Gondomar. What King James insisted upon was that the dowry of the Infanta should not be less than £500,000, and that it should not revert to the Infanta should she be left a widow. What King Philip wanted was that both James and Charles should promise to use neither force nor persuasion to obtain the conversion of the Infanta ; that the marriage treaty should be confirmed by Act of Parliament ; that a large Catholic chapel should be erected in London, which should be open, not only to the 354 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1616. Madrid — "There is no better man in France for the service of God, of the crown of Spain, and of the public weal." Now Henri Martin says of Richelieu in his history, 1 that he was anti-Spanish ; that in 1614, at the meeting of the States-General, he was the man of the clergy, but that in 1616 he was the man of France. And on assuming office, one of the first things he did was to assure the Protestant powers that the Spanish marriages would not induce the king to embrace either the interests of Rome or those of Spain, to the prejudice of ancient alliances, "that is to say, with those who profess the so-called reformed religion in France, or with those who, hating Spain, pride themselves on being good Frenchmen. . . The king wishes to treat his subjects equally, no matter what their religion. No Catholic is so blind as to prefer a Spaniard to a French Huguenot. ..." The satisfaction of the Duke de Monteleone was premature. The negotiations for the marriage of a French princess with the Prince of Wales were not then continued ; but that, adds Henri Martin", was not the fault of Richelieu. In fact, the cardinal already con- templated undoing the mischief which he clearly comprehended would arise from the Spanish alliance, and was preparing to enter on that struggle which formed the basis of his whole ulterior policy abroad. One of the objects which James is presumed to have had in view in sending Lord Hay to Paris was attained, for no sooner was the Duke of Lerma aware 1 Tome xi. p. 106. 1617.] THE SPANISH MATCH. 355 of what was going on, than fresh overtures were made to James. The Spanish ministers had no intention of quarrelling with the King of England, and throwing him into the arms of France. Gondomar, in conse- quence, received instructions to re-open negotiations with James, and he set about his task in his usual able manner. Not only was his expenditure lavish, but he went so far as to address James in bad Latin, in order to afford that pedant the pleasure of cor- recting him. Before listening to Gondomar, however, King James consulted a committee of his Privy Council, composed of Bacon, Digby, Villiers, Wotton, Lennox, &c. The committee was asked if it con- sidered Spain sufficiently in earnest to justify the king proceeding with the treaty. The reply was that there was a fair prospect of success, but that it might fail on the point of religion, in which case failure would redound to the honour of his Majesty at home and abroad. Digby was sent back to Madrid, and Sarmiento, as a reward for his exertions, was created Count Gondomar. What King James insisted upon was that the dowry of the Infanta should not be less than £500,000, and that it should not revert to the Infanta should she be left a widow. What King Philip wanted was that both James and Charles should promise to use neither force nor persuasion to obtain the conversion of the Infanta ; that the marriage treaty should be confirmed by Act of Parliament ; that a large Catholic chapel should be erected in London, which should be open, not only to the A A 2 356 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1618. household of the Infanta, but to every one'; that insults to Catholics should be punished ; that priests should be amply protected ; that they should be allowed to walk about the streets in their ecclesiastical garb ; and that no money should be paid until these stipulations had been carried out. Gondomar, we find, had at first some hopes of converting Charles, but he was soon obliged to report that there was no chance of the prince turning Catholic ; that he had been badly brought up, and was a confirmed heretic ; and yet he declared that he would sooner trust Charles than James. Upon the above-named basis negotiations were re-opened. Spain would make no difficulty about the dowry, which was to be £600,000. The theologians wanted to impose several additional clauses on England — that any number of Catholic churches should be opened, and that Catholic professors should be allowed to teach in the universities. James, on his side, insisted that he had no power to revoke the penal laws against the Catholics. However, there seemed to be a fair prospect of success, and matters were apparently going on in a satisfactory manner, when the Bohemians revolted against the intolerance of the Imperial [Government. This revolt threatened to set the whole continent in a blaze ; it involved the Protestant and Catholic princes of Germany in deadly strife, and threatened to draw both England and Spain into the conflict. The German Catholics and Protestants were soon in arms and engaged in active hostilities. What was Spain to do ? Her exchequer 1618.] LAFUENTE'S PROPOSALS. 357 was in a most deplorable condition, thanks to the rapacity of the Spanish courtiers, to a general system of corruption, and to bribery carried on upon an extensive scale abroad. Both the religious feelings and the sympathies of Phihp were naturally on the side of the emperor, but Spain was not, financially speaking, in condition to maintain a large army in Flanders and on the Rhine, and at the same . time to engage in a naval war with England. What was to be done ? England must be conciliated and kept out of the struggle. Sir Francis Cottington, who at this moment was acting as ambassador at Madrid in the absence of Digby, was asked to inform James that his mediation in Germany would be accepted by Philip, and Lafuente, Gondomar's confessor (Gon do- mar himself beiug at home), was despatched to London both to persuade James to offer his mediation, and to say that his master was quite prepared to go on with the marriage treaty. King James was delighted with the proposals of Lafuente, as may be readily supposed. In a letter to Philip, his ambassador said at his first audience James was in such good-humour, and so anxious to see the marriage accomplished, that he was not ashamed to season his conversation with indecent jests. He promised to mediate in Germany, and he would have adopted bolder measures but for the enmity which reigned between Calvinists and Lutherans — an enmity which it is supposed that James might have allayed had he thrown his sword into the scale, as he was 358 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1618. implored to do by the Protestant party in England. James, however, had no stomach for the fight. All he could do was to send his son-in-law a few thousand men. But what a good stroke of diplomacy it would be if he could now procure the hand of the Infanta Maria for Charles, and persuade Philip to break with the House of Austria, and to set up his dethroned son- in-law once more. The attempt to induce the King of Spain to desert the Catholic League, to join the Angelic Union, to declare war with the Emperor Fer- dinand II., and to re-establish a Protestant monarch in Germany ought to have appeared hopeless. But James at once despatched Digby (now Lord Digby of Sherbourne) and Sir Walter Aston to Madrid to effect these objects, instructing his ambassadors at the same time, with his usual caution, on no account to get him into trouble or to compromise the peace of Europe. War James dreaded above all things. Gon- domar at once announced to his Court the approach- ing arrival of Lord Digby and Sir Walter, who soon afterwards reached Madrid, armed, it was said, not with carnal but with spiritual weapons. Father Frederico and Father Francisco, two Spanish monks, had in fact given it as their opinion that there was no objection to the proposed marriage between the Prince of Wales and the Infanta, and it was with this instrument that the English ambassadors approached his Spanish Majesty. Philip was greatly perplexed ; more lay and ecclesiastical councils were summoned, and their deliberations were referred to Paul V. All 1618.] RALEIGH SACRIFICED. 359 this took time, especially as Lord Digby and Count Gondomar had frequently to travel backwards and forwards between London and Madrid in search of further instructions from their respective courts. Everything was done by King James to propitiate Spain. He not only disregarded the feeling of the nation, which was entirely opposed to the Spanish alliance, and quarrelled with France, but he sent Sir Walter Ealeigh to the scaffold. As Gondomar said, the King of Spain could not expect less than this from the friendship of James. 1 The sacrifice of Sir Walter Ealeigh was perhaps the worst act committed by James, and it was com- mitted in vain. Hume has censured it in the severest manner, and what he wrote deserves attention for more than one reason. He said — " To sacrifice to a concealed enemy of England the life of the only man in the nation who had a high reputation for valour and military experience was regarded as meanness and indiscretion. And the intimate connection into which the king was now entering with Spain being universally distasteful to the nation, rendered this proof of his complaisance still more odious and unpopular." 2 As a further proof of his sincerity, kames had the Popish recusants released from prison, to the great dismay and irritation of the people. The bait offered to James was certainly tempting. The dowry of the Infanta was to be two million pieces of eight, equal to £600,000, a sum nearly as large, 1 Guizot, p. 66, Archives of Simancas. 2 Tome vi. p. 39. 360 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1619. says Kushworth, as all the money granted to the king by the Parliament during the whole course of his reign. Every attempt to induce James to break with Spain was unavailing. At this moment Gondo- mar was asked for his opinion as to the resources of England. He reported that the country was very rich, that in a few weeks it could fit out a powerful fleet and cover the ocean with privateers, and that a war might be attended with awful disasters both to the Church and the monarchy. The year 1619 was fruitful in events. In January King James learned that his dear friends the Spaniards were arming to take the sea, and that from Cadiz to Barcelona their dockyards were busy. Cottington was assured that this fleet was being prepared in order to attack Algiers, but in England it was soon understood that the real object of Spain was to seize upon Venice as a basis of operations against Bohemia. The very idea of such a violation of public law kindled the wrath of James, and roused him into activity for the moment. Cottington was at once instructed to demand explanations, and in the mean time six ships of the royal navy were ordered for immediate service, more vessels were to be equipped by the merchants, ship-money to be levied, train bands and all the beacons along the coast to be inspected. This energetic action at once had the desired effect. The naval armaments of Spain were suspended, and no more was heard of Algiers and pirates. It is supposed that the vigorous policy adopted by James 1619.] LORD DON CASTER'S MISSION. 361 in this instance had some connection with his pet matrimonial scheme ; 1 that he was annoyed with the little interest which Spain had shown on the subject. For some time he-had been complaining that Philip had taken no steps to discover whether the Pope was satisfied with his concessions, and if the dispensation was forthcoming. Before the end of the month a courier arrived from Berlin to say that an agent had been despatched to Eome to ask for the dispensation, and the consequence was that King James determined to send Viscount Doncaster (who as Lord Hay had broken off the French marriage treaty in 1616) to Germany. But the departure of Lord Doncaster was delayed by the death of the Emperor Matthias, who was suc- ceeded by Ferdinand II. It was not until the 12th May that he set out on his errand of peace, and he had hardly arrived on the scene of action when he learned that the men and money furnished for the war in Bohemia came from Spain ! The Spanish ambassador, Onate, told him that mediation was out of the question, and that if the Bohemians did not submit, the sword would have to decide the quarrel. And it was the master of Onate who had lured James into playing the part of mediator. On the Bohemian side the mediation of King James met with no better success. What the Bohemians wanted were men and money, and not an ambassador. Under the circum- stances Lord Doncaster thought that the best thing 1 Gardiner, t. iii. p. 289. 362 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1619. he could do would be to go to Spa to drink the waters and wait for further orders. On the 16th August, 1619, the Bohemian Estates, rejecting the election of the Emperor Ferdiuand, set up the Elector Palatine as King of Bohemia, and after some little hesitation the son-in-law of King James rashly accepted the crown, and thus added another thorn to that of the would-be mediator or Peace-maker. Every possible effort was made at this time to persuade the English monarch to renounce his idea of a matrimonial alliance with Spain. The Duke of Savoy offered him his daughter ; the Dutch Commis- sioners over in England proposed a German princess ; they said that if Charles were to marry the daughter of Prince Maurice of Hesse-Cassel they would see that she had a dowry large enough to pay off the debts of her father-in-law. The Princess Christine was on the eve of being married, but James was given to understand that Louis XIII. would gladly give the hand of the Princesse Henriette to his son. On their side the adversaries of Spain at home assured him that if he would drop the Spanish match, the Parlia- ment would grant him as large a sum as £800,000. At this juncture the queen died of dropsy. Although brought up a Protestant, she had recently turned Boman Catholic, and had been a warm partisan of the Spanish match. Spanish affairs in London were at this moment in the hands of Sanchez and Lafuente, the former Gondomar's secretary, the latter 1620.] JAMES HUMILIATES HIMSELF. 363 his confessor, and neither one or the other possessed much influence with James. In spite of all these offers, though the queen was dead, and Gondomar with his oily tongue and his thorough knowledge of how to manage the king, was away, James clung with obstinacy to the Spanish alliance. The single excuse which he had for acting as he did was that he entirely disapproved of the conduct of the Elector Palatine in accepting the crown of Bohemia ; and in this matter James by no means stood alone. His opinion was shared by several of the Protestant princes of Germany. He went a step further, and humiliated himself so far as to assure the Emperor Eerdinand and King Philip that he had had nothing to do with the election of his son-in-law, and he attempted to induce him to retire from Bohemia, in which case he would persuade Philip to withdraw his troops. In 1620 James seemed on the point of rendering all necessary aid to the Protestant cause. Sir Andrew Gray, a Scotch officer in the service of Bohemia, ob- tained permission to levy 1000 men in England, and a similar force in Scotland. But on the 5th March Gondomar landed at Dover. He was conducted to London in state, and the first thing he heard on entering the capital was the sound of Sir Andrew Gray's drums beating up volunteers. Gondomar had a difficult game to play, but he set about his task with his usual craft and audacity. And he had his reward. At his first audience James took him by 364 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1620. the hand, and assured him as a king, a gentleman, a Christian, and an honest man, that he had no wish to marry his son to any one but his master's daughter, and that he desired no alliance but that of Spain. "At these words," says Gardiner, 1 "he took off his hat as if exhausted by the effort, and wiped his heated forehead with his handkerchief." James after this began once more to blow hot and cold. He allowed himself to be persuaded that no attack would be made on the Palatinate, and he communicated this impression to the Princes of the Union. Shortly afterwards he consented to allow those princes to levy volunteers, as long as his name was kept in the background ; and then he threw obstacles in the way of a loan being raised by the King of Bohemia in the city, and afterwards he asked the aldermen to raise a voluntary fund in defence of the Palatinate. But while James was veering: round to every point of the compass, while the people were vainly asking for a parliament, and while the clergy were talking about raising subscriptions to rebuild the walls of Zion, the Spanish troops were on the march. While James was allowing himself to be still further gulled by Gondomar on the subject of the marriage treaty, and was engaged in an infamous plot against the Dutch, in concert with Spain ; while he was one day promising the Princes of the Union to aid them with 20,000 or 30,000 men in case they were attacked, and was lecturing them the day after ; while he was 1 Tome iii. p. 338. 1620.] THE PALATINATE INVADED. 365 declaring that if Spinola touched the Palatinate he should consider Gondomar as a man without faith and without God, the Spaniards were on the march. The blow was not long in coming. At the end of August, Spinola, at the head of an army of 24,000 men, invaded the Palatinate. James is said to have burst into tears of impotent rage when he heard the news, and to have talked wildly of demanding Spinola's head, while he wished that that of Ealeigh was again on his shoulders. He offered his uncon- ditional support to the Union, promised to aid his son- in-law if he would renounce the crown of Bohemia, half consented to summon Parliament, and prepared . to send a powerful fleet to sea, to the consternation of the Spaniards. At first Gondomar, with all his skill, could make little headway against the storm, but after a while he succeeded in calming King James, and once more dangled the marriage treaty before his eyes. In September he received a letter from Madrid written in Philip's name, containing assurances that a speedy reply would be sent to the matrimonial overtures of the King of England. This letter Gondomar was to throw in his Majesty's way. At the same time the ambassador received a private note, saying that the English proposals were alto- gether inadmissible ; in fact, when- these letters were written, Philip was listening with a willing ear to the proposals that the Infanta should marry the emperor's eldest surviving son. The Prince of Wales might be consoled with the hand of an archduchess. 366 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1620. No doubt the Pope would take the blame of this change on his shoulders, or the Infanta might be told to say that she would rather go into a convent than marry a heretic. 1 It appears that Gondomar thought matters too serious for throwing the letter in the way of King James as he had been ordered, and that the only thing to be done was to despatch Lafuente at once to Rome in quest of the dispensation. This show of sincerity appeared to convince James of the good faith of the Spaniards, but for all that he at length determined to summon Parliament, which, by a proclamation dated the 6th Nov., 1620, was called upon to meet on the 16th Jan. Long before the Parliament met another thunder- bolt fell. The Prince Palatine experienced an irre- trievable defeat under the walk of Prague, and was obliged to fly for his life. The news of this event caused the wildest excitement in London. Gondo- mar's life seems to have been threatened, and he had to apply to the Council for protection. 2 James, generally accused by the nation of having been the cause of this untoward event, was at first stupefied by the news, but he soon recovered his equanimity. He 1 Gardiner, torn. iii. p. 377. 2 Gondomar appears to have complained to the Lord Mayor, the offence having been committed in the City, but being unable to obtain redress he appealed to the king, who went to the Guildhall in person, threatened to place a garrison in the City, and to seize upon its charter. The consequence was that the apprentices who had insulted the ambassador were whipped through the streets, and one of them died under the lash. 1620.] PARLIAMENT MEETS. - 367 sent £30,000 to Worms, promised to aid in the de- fence and recovery of the Palatinate, and summoned a council of war, which adopted the most vigorous decisions. All this fine frenzy soon evaporated ; an offer of a French alliance was rejected, and Gondomar, in- comprehensible as it may seem, soon recovered his ascendancy over the royal mind. On the 30th Jan., 1621, the Parliament met, and would have assembled on the 16th but for pressure of business caused by the arrival of Marshal Cadenet with further proposals from France, to which we intend presently to allude. The king went down to the House, and after treating it to a long disquisition on Lis constitutional theories, said it had been rumoured that the marriage treaty with Spain would be followed by a grant of toleration to the Catholics ; but he assured his faithful commons that he would do nothing dis- honourable or contrary to the interests of religion. The House accepted the assurance of the king, and in the hope that he would adopt an energetic line of policy, voted him a sum of £160,000 — not for the defence of the Palatinate ; that, according to the council of war, would require an army of 30,000 men, and an expenditure of £140,000 down, and £900,000 a year. The £160,000, in fact, was voted as a testimony of devotion towards the king. " The Commons," says Mr. Green, " answered the king's appeal by a unanimous vote, lifting their hats as high as they could hold them, and declaring that 368 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1621. for the recovery of the Palatinate they would adven- ture their fortunes, their estates, and their lives. But all this was merely a flash in the pan. James re- turned to his old irresolute policy, and did nothing. While these negotiations were still dragging on another sudden change came over the scene. In 1621 both Philip III. and Paul V. died. The first was succeeded by Philip IV., the second by Gregory XV., and it was fondly hoped by James that the new monarch and the new Pontiff would lend a more willing ear to his proposals than their predecessors. Lord Digby, who was in London at the time that this double event occurred, was at once sent back to Madrid to congratulate the new king, while George Gage was sent on a similar errand to Eome. Lord Digby was successful to a certain degree, or seem- ingly successful, in carrying out his instructions. Philip IV. wrote to Gregory XV., asking him to accord the necessary dispensation for the projected marriage, and wrote to Ferdinand II. in favour of the Prince Palatine. He even promised James to reinstate his son-in-law vi et armis, should the emperor refuse. Everything now seemed settled, and it certainly looked as if the mischief done by the battle of Prague was about to be repaired,- and as if James was going to succeed in his desperate attempt to obtain the hand of the Infanta for his son, and to set the two kindred branches of Spain and Austria by the ears, in order to re-establish the King of 1621.] ANOTHER DISAPPOINTMENT. 369 Bohemia. The date of the betrothal of Charles and Maria was discussed, the dowry settled, and Lord Digby was rewarded for the success of his efforts by being created Earl of Bristol ; but the papal chair stopped the way. His Holiness was always demand- ing further concessions for the Catholics in England. Nothing seemed to satisfy him, and until he was satisfied there was no dispensation to be had, and no marriage could take place. King James at last lost patience, blustered and threatened, and sent an ultimatum to Madrid ; but all this was of no avail — James was a dupe. The fact is, as Guizot remarks, that it had long been determined at Madrid that Ferdinand II., and not the Prince of Wales, should wed the Infanta Maria, and this marriage did take place two years later. In November, 1622, Philip IV. wrote a letter to his dear friend and minister, the Count Olivarez, in which he declared that his father never had any intention of according the hand of the Infanta to Charles. And we are told that when dying Philip III. expressed his regret to his daughter, that he should not live to see her married, but that her brother would not abandon her until she became an empress. James showed little perspicacity in this affair. If we turn to Bushworth's Historical Collections, we find that in 1621 Gondomar was "reviled and assaulted in the streets of London, the people being persuaded that he was abusing the king and the State in favour of Spain." And the next year even the Earl of 370 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1622, Bristol must have doubted the sincerity of his Spanish friends, for he declared to James that "if they intend not the match they are falser than are the devils in hell, for deeper oaths and protestations of sincerity could not be made." This seems to us an apology inspired by doubt. And yet King James had made great concessions. In addition to those we have already mentioned were others which were not known at the time. In 1623 there was a treaty signed between the two high contracting powers which was intended for the public eye. To this treaty James thought that Parliament would offer no insuperable objections. But he swore privately to an article to which he knew that neither Lords nor Commons would consent — an article re- specting the education of any children which might be born. In the Clarendon Papers we find several letters bearing upon this subject — Secretary Calvert to Bristol. UtJi October, 1622. " Only seven years are mentioned in the public treaty, but his Majesty will oblige himself privately in a letter to the King of Spain, that they shall be brought up sub regimine matris for two years longer." That is to say, that King James consented to his grandchildren being brought up as Boman Catholics until they were nine years old. But this was evidently not considered sufficient, for on the 24th November his Majesty himself wrote to the Earl of Bristol, that he would not stick at nine years if the 1623.] THE DISPENSATION. 371 King of Spain was not satisfied. On the 5tk January, 1623, Secretary Calvert wrote to Mr. Gage, informing him that the king and the prince would subscribe to all the articles as sent by the Earl of Bristol. This being the case, a few months later (24th April) Mr. Gage was able to write to the king, that in a congregation held on the 22nd March, stilo novo, the dispensation had finally been resolved upon. At this critical juncture another accident happened. Gregory XV. died, and was succeeded by Urban VIII., and the Papal Nuncio at Madrid refused to deliver the dispensation until it had been approved of by the new Pontiff, and the new Pontiff on his side determined to delay matters as much as possible in the hope of Charles becoming a Eoman Catholic. The question of the dispensation must therefore be reconsidered. The congregation of four cardinals, to whom the Pope submitted the affair, insisted that King James should accord complete liberty of worship to the Catholics in England. . They were bent upon bring- ing the wiiole of England once more under the domination of Rome, and there was some excuse for their arrogance after what had happened in France. Gage was summoned before this ecclesiastical court to receive instructions, and as a Catholic he felt no humiliation in obeying this summons. Cardinal Bandino, addressing him on behalf of his colleagues, said that the King of England, having read many Catholic works, must be aware that the Pope could B B 2 372 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1623. not grant a dispensation unless some great good accrued to the Church. He added that his Majesty- was too well versed in theology not to know that there was no salvation beyond the pale of the Catholic faith. Why should he not follow the example of Henri IV. 1 The Almighty would protect him. The matter might be kept secret. If he would pay a visit to Eome, the Pope would send a legate to Flanders to meet him Should the king refuse con- version himself, he might allow the Prince of Wales to be saved. 1 This was what King James laid himself open to. The congregation could not accord a dispensation on the terms offered. Gage must go back to London with the articles to which the king and Charles had subscribed. He returned to England on the 25th August, and had an interview with the king. The next month James, in a letter to Bristol, " poured out his distress." He was placed in a lamentable position ; even his pedantry had been turned into a weapon against him. The cardinals were evidently aware of his belief in his divine right, and thought that he could do what he liked with the Parliament and the nation. The articles as they were returned to Gage con- tained several important alterations. All the Infanta's servants were of necessity to be Catholics. Her church was to be open to all who chose to enter, and not merely to her household. The priests, twenty- 1 Gardiner, t. iv. p. 351. 1623.] BABY CHARLES AND DOG STEENIE. 373 four in number, were to be under the control of a bishop, and were to be freed from all subjection to the laws, except those which were imposed by their ecclesiastical superiors. The Infanta must have the education of her children; of the girls till the age of twelve, of the boys till the age of fourteen. It was now asserted that everything would be speedily settled were Charles to go to Madrid to pay his court to the Infanta. A hint to this effect had long ago been thrown out by the plausible Gondomar, who was said to have declared that if Charles really wished to marry the Infanta, he would have to go to Spain. Why not imitate his great grandfather, who had gone to France in quest of a bride ; his father, who had undertaken the voyage to Copenhagen ; the Due d'Anjou, who had crossed the Channel to pay bis addresses to Queen Elizabeth ; and Gustavus Adolphus, who had ventured to Berlin to see the Princess Eleanor ? James appears to have had some doubts as to the policy of this trip. Hume tells us that he consulted Sir Francis Cottington on the subject — an honest man who knew Spain. " Cottington," said his Majesty, " here are baby Charles and dog Steenie, who have a great mind to go post to Madrid, and fetch home the Infanta. What think you of that % " Sir Francis raised several objections; the king threw himself on his bed and wept, swearing that he should lose baby Charles. However, after a short display of grief and resistance his Majesty yielded, the trip 374 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1623. to Spain was decided upon, and on the 27th February, 1623, John and Thomas Smith, under which names the prince and the duke travelled, left London in disguise for Dover, where they were joined by Sir James Cottington and Mr. Porter. On this occasion his Majesty broke into verse. He wrote a poem on the expedition, a copy of which is preserved in the Bodleian Library — " What sudden change hath darked of late The glory of the Arcadian state ! The fleecy flocks refuse to feed, The lambs to play, the ewes to breed ; The altars smoke, the offerings burn, Till Jack and Tom do safe return." The royal poet would perhaps have found it difficult to say where the lambs were to come from if the ewes did not breed. But one must not be hyper- critical when a monarch condescends to write verse, and to style himself " Pan." We have no intention of following Charles and Buckingham through the various episodes of their voyage to Madrid and back, but a brief account of their adventurous trip is necessary to our story. The pair got safely to their journey's end, and while passing through Paris Charles got a glimpse of his future bride, Henrietta Maria, and was not much impressed with her personal attractions. As they were not expected at Madrid, they were not received with any State ceremonies. The following letter gives an account of the ar- rival — 1623.] THE TRIP TO MADRID. 375 "Madrid, 10th March, 1623. * "... The next morning we sent for Gondomar, who went presently to the Conde of Olivarez, and as speedily got your dog Steenie a private audience of the king. . . . The next day we had a private visit of the king, the queen, the Infanta, Don Carlos, and the cardinal, in sight of all the world, . . for there was the Pope's Nuncio, the emperor's ambassador, the French, and v all the streets filled with guards and other people. . . . Olivarez took me in his coach to go to the king ; we found him walking in the streets, with his cloak thrown over his face, and a sword and buckler by his side ; he leaped into the coach, and away he came to find the wooer in another place, where there passed much kindness and compliment one to another. You may judge by this how sensible this king is of your son's journey, and if we can either judge by outward shows or general speeches, we have reason to condemn your ambassadors for rather writing too sparingly than too much. . . ." . And this letter, signed by both Charles and Steenie, went on to relate how Olivarez had declared that if the Pope refused to grant a dispensation for a wife, they would give the Infanta to Baby as his wench ; and that he had written to Cardinal Lodovicio, the Pope's nephew, that his master could refuse nothing to the King of England. In spite of interviews with the king, with the Infanta, and with Olivarez; in spite of concessions carried to an extent that the Spanish Government seriously doubted their sincerity, it soon became clear to both the prince and the duke that their visit would end in failure. At home King James was becoming exceedingly anxious. He was afraid that Charles would be unable to stand the heat of Madrid during the summer ; he dreaded lest his " sweet boys " 1 Hardwicke State Papers, t. i. p. 401. 376 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1623. should be detained as hostages — fears started by the " sweet boys " themselves. This accounts for the concessions. On the 7th July Charles asked for an audience of the king, ostensibly to take leave, as he could no longer wait for the arrival of the Papal dispensation. At this audience he consented to agree to all the demands made by Philip, and Philip em- braced him as his brother. Madrid was illuminated for three consecutive nights, and Lord Andover was despatched to England with the glad tidings. James was very unwilling to sanction the conces- sions accepted by Charles, but he trembled for the safety of Baby, and summoned a Council, which, seeing the condition of the royal mind, assented to the articles. On the 20th July, 1623, the king swore to three articles at Whitehall chapel, in presence of the Spanish ambassadors Inojos and Coloma, the articles being read out by Mr. Secretary Calvert, and his Majesty solemnly declaring that he would use his utmost endeavours to induce Parliament to sanction them. The following extracts show how uneasy James was, and to what lengths he was inclined to go — King Jambs to the Pkince and Duke. "Newmarket, lUh March, 1623. "... As to my Baby's own business, I find by Bristol's letter two points likely to be stucken at, that ye must labour to help by all the means ye can . . ." The first point related to the long delay in finishing the marriage, James being very much afraid lest 1623.] JAMES'S LETTERS. 377 Charles should succumb to the heat of a Spanish summer. The second point concerned the dowry. He said that it was proposed to protract term for payment, " which were a base thing, and a breach of their promise made many years ago ! " King James to Prince. " 11th March, 1623. "... I have sent yon, my Baby, two of your chaplains, Mawe and Wrenn, with all the stuff and ornaments fit for the service of God. I have fully instructed them, so as all their behaviour and service shall, I hope, prove decent and agreeable to the purity of the primitive Church, and yet as near the Eoman form as can be lawfully done, for it hath ever been my way to go with the Church of Rome usque ad aras." " 2,5th March, 1623. "... I know not what ye mean by my acknowledging the Pope's spiritual supremacy; I am sure you would not have me renounce my religion for all the world ; . . this may be an allusion to a passage in my book against Bellarmine, where I offered, if the Pope would quit his godhead and usurping over kings, to acknow- ledge him a chief bishop." King James to Prince and Duke. "Whitehall, 2lst July, 1623. "My Sweet Boys, " Even as I was going yesterday evening to the ambassadors to take my private oath, having taken the public, before noon, with great solemnity, Andover came stepping in at the door like a ghost, and delivered me your letters. . . ." The king, after complaining of the expense of sending two fleets to Spain, one^ to bring home Charles, and a second to bring over the Infanta in March, added — " Let them, in God's name, send her by their own fleet," and — "Sweet Baby, go on with 378 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1623. the contract, and the best assurance ye can have of getting her next year ; but, upon my blessing, lie not with her in Spain, except ye be sure to bring her with you, and forget not to make them to keep their former conditions anent the portion, otherwise both my Baby and I are bankrupts for ever." The Infanta herself was strongly opposed to the idea of marrying a Protestant. Her confessor had told her that she might as well wed the evil one as a heretic, and added — " What a nice bedfellow you will have." Even when she was at last induced to consent to a marriage (if she ever did consent), the theo- logians declared that she would have to remain in Spain for a year after her wedding, in order to see if King James would carry out his promises ; at the same time Charles was informed that he might remain with his bride. It was no doubt supposed that in the event of Charles consenting to this arrangement, his conversion would be accomplished. Among other demands made by Olivarez in favour of English Catholics was one which raises a smile of incredulity, and which we believe was never pressed. It was that they should have several fortified towns accorded to them as places of refuge ; and yet such a concession had been made to the Huguenots in France. Charles must also have deeply felt the situation in which he had placed himself when, after vainly waiting for the Papal dispensation, Olivarez coolly showed him the letter which he had received from 1623.] CHARLES LEAVES SPAIN. 379 Philip on the subject of the union — a letter to which we have already referred. It appears to have been couched in these terms — " My father declared his mind at his death-bed concerning the match with England, which was, never to make it ; and your uncle's intention, according to that, was ever to delay it ; and you know likewise how averse my sister is to it. I think it now time that I should find a way out of it. . ." " This letter," says Gardiner in a note, " is known only from an English translation. It was afterwards shown to the Prince of Wales by Olivarez ; but he was not allowed to take a copy of it." It seems, however, that Charles on leaving Olivarez immediately wrote out the letter from memory. When Ashton heard of this document he threw up his arms in astonishment, remembering as he did the assurances which he himself had so often received from the lips of Philip III. James now ordered his fleet to Spain to bring home the wanderers. In the meantime the marriage con- tract, on the 25th July, was signed by both Charles and Philip. The Infanta was not to go to England before the spring of 1624, but the marriage could take place as soon as it was known that James had sworn to the articles, and as soon as the Papal dispensation had arrived. A few days afterwards Charles swore to observe this contract, and then pre- pared to take his departure, leaving behind him his proxy for the marriage. On the 30th August the Prince of Wales and the 380 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1623. Duke of Buckingham, as the following letter shows, started on their road home. Prince Charles and the Duke to King James. " Dear Dad and Gossip, " This day we take our leave ; to-morrow we begin our journey; we leave our business thus. This Pope being sick (as they say here) hath not yet given power for the delivery of the dis- pensation, upon the capitulations agreed upon, wherefore they not being able (though many divines say to the contrary) to contract me your Baby, until that power come from Rome, and they not having used us with those realities as to encourage us to rely longer upon uncertainties, I, your Baby, have thought fit to leave my promise to the king in my lord of Bristol's hands, to deliver it when that power comes from Rome. . . . " Madrid, 29th August, 1623." Philip and Charles seem to have parted on good terms, the king accompanying the prince a short distance out of Madrid, and having a pillar set up to mark the spot where they took leave of each other. According to Eushworth, Charles had no sooner got safely on board ship than he declared the Spaniards to have been guilty of folly and weakness in letting him go after having treated him so badly, and that he so little expected to be allowed to leave Spain, that he was said to have written to King James to forget that he ever had a son. This will account for his subsequent conduct. Great were the demonstrations of joy when Charles returned home without his Infanta. There was nothing but music, the firing of cannons, the blowing of trumpets, and the blazing of bonfires in London and in all the great towns. This display of enthusiasm 1623.] RETALIATION. 381 over the defeat of his darling project must have been rather galling to James, and at the same time have convinced him of the thorough unpopularity of the Spanish alliance. On the 12th November the Papal dispensation at length arrived at Madrid, and it was now the turn of Spain to rejoice. At least Rush worth tells us that when the ratification came from Rome, bonfires were lighted throughout the country, and " great ordnance thundered out reports of joy." King Philip at once sent for the Earl of Bristol, and insisted that the marriage by proxy should be fixed for the 29th November. Bristol applied for instructions. He received them on the 26th. The marriage was to be prevented, the proxy was not to be delivered until the Palatinate had been restored and until Philip had agreed to pay the dowry in ready money down. As the Court of Madrid had continued raising its demands while Charles was in Spain, King James and his son now retaliated. We shall add but a few words. The Spanish match was now virtually broken off. Bristol was recalled, for a while confined in the Tower for having mis- informed the king. The Infanta Maria ceased to take lessons in English. The betrothal presents, consisting of costly jewels, were sent back, and James considered it necessary to summon another Parliament. Mr. Green has put tersely in the History of the English People what followed. He says, " The king was forced to summon a Parliament and to concede 382 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1624. the point upon which he had broken with the last, by laying before it the whole question of the Spanish negotiations. Buckingham and the prince personally joined the Parliament in its demand for a rupture of the treaties and a declaration of war. A subsidy was eagerly voted ; the persecution of the Catholics, which had long been suspended out of deference to Spanish intervention, recommenced with vigour. The head of the Spanish party in the Ministry, Cranfleld, Earl of Middlesex, the Lord Treasurer, was impeached on a charge of corruption and dismissed from office. James was swept along helplessly with the tide. . . . The Spanish ambassador quitted the realm ; a treaty of alliance was concluded with Holland ; negotiations were begun with the Lutheran princes of North Germany, who had looked coolly on at the ruin of the Calvinistic Elector Palatine ; and the marriage of Charles with Henrietta, a daughter of Henri IV. of France, and sister of its king, promised a renewal of the system of Elizabeth." The Parliament, in fact, voted that the king could not, with security to his honour or respect for the religion of the State, pursue negotiations for the marriage of the Prince of Wales with the Infanta Maria, nor rely on such negotiations for the re-estab- lishment of the Elector Palatine. His Majesty declared that he would follow the advice of his faithful Com- mons and would denounce the treaties, and when this decision was known there were great demonstra- tions of delight both in the' streets and the churches. 1620.] DU BUISSOlSrS MISSION. 383 While the negotiations with Spain were going on, we know that the French Court did not renounce the hope of an English alliance. After Marshal d'Ancre had been assassinated and Marie de Medicis driven from the Court, the Due de Luynes, at once the favourite and the minister of Louis XIIL, proceeded to reverse the policy of the queen-mother and to return to that of Henri I V. This policy consisted in supporting the Protestants abroad against the House of Austria, and in seeking the friendship of England rather than that of Spain. In August 1620 a somewhat obscure agent called Du Buisson was sent to England on the pretence of purchasing horses for the Prince de Conde, but really to sound the English Court on the subject of a matrimonial alliance, and was presented by the French ambassador, M. de Tillieres, to King James. Du Buisson, much to the astonishment of his Majesty, had hardly been introduced when he blurted out the propositions with which he had been charged — pro- positions all the more strange coming at a moment when there were Spanish ambassadors in London treating for the marriage with the Infanta. The king replied that he was engaged already with Spain, but thanked the French king for the honour he did him in offering the alliance. The Comte de Tillieres, when informed by King James of what had happened, disavowed Du Buisson, and rather haughtily declared that the daughters of France were not accustomed to ask for husbands ; he even went so far as to assure 384 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1621. his Majesty that Du Buisson's liver must have been out of order when he made his demand. The Due de Luynes naturally approved of the conduct of the Comte de Tillieres, and threw over poor Du Buisson. In spite of this little mishap, and perhaps being persuaded that the Spanish match would never come off, the Due de Luynes, nothing daunted, returned to the charge a few months later. He had serious motives for attempting to conciliate England, for he was about to undertake a campaign against the Protestant party in France, which, in spite of the faithful observance of the edict of Nantes, under the Bouillons, the Bohans, and the Soubises, was giving fresh trouble. In the month of December, therefore, the duke sent over, not an obscure Du Buisson, but his own brother, the Marshal de Cadenet, who disembarked at Calais on the 1st January, 1621, with a retinue of fifty gentlemen and three hundred servants. The marshal was received with great honour, and was flattered to the top of his bent, but his mission met with no greater success than that of Du Buisson. Any hopes which James held out were illusory, and were intended, as De Tillieres (who spoke of his Majesty as a cunning tom-cat) soon perceived, only to advance his own affairs and to arouse the jealousy of the Spaniards. It seems that the marshal showed himself a very poor diplomatist in this affair. " What think you of the new French ambassador ? " asked the king of Bacon. " He is a tall, fine-looking man, 1621.] RICHELIEU SUCCEEDS BE LUYNES. 385 sir," was the reply. " But what do you think of his head % " insisted the king. " Sir," answered Bacon, "tall men are often like houses four or five stories high, where the highest story is generally the worst furnished." Every time that the marshal attempted to speak of a marriage with the Princesse Henriette, the king said he was engaged in negotiations with Spain, and changed the conversation, and in due time the extraordinary embassy returned home, having during its sojourn in England cost this country £200 a day. On two previous occasions the ambassadors of King James had received replies similar to that which he now gave to the marshal — when he demanded the hand of the Infanta Anne for Prince Henry, and that of the Princess Christine for Prince Charles ; the honour was declined owing to previous engagements. Richelieu in his memoirs thus mentions this mission — " The Due de Luynes sent his brother Cadenet to England to try and persuade Prince Charles to ask for the hand of the Princesse Henriette, so as to pre- vent King James from aiding the Protestants. But he was engaged to Spain." After which the cardinal piously ejaculates — " God, who makes marriages in heaven, destined other times and other persons for bringing this match about." In fact, destined Car- dinal Richelieu to conclude the marriage. The matter of the French alliance was allowed to remain dormant for nearly three years, in the course of which the Due de Luynes died, and was succeeded by Richelieu. A considerable amount of anxiety VOL. i. cc 386 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1623. appears to have reigned in Paris on the subject of the Spanish match — anxiety which was diminished rather than increased when it was known that Jack and Tom Smith had gone to Madrid on their romantic expedition. It was considered in France that affairs were desperate when such a step was decided upon. When Charles and Buckingham returned from Spain negotiations were re-opened in an informal manner. The French king sent James a present of six couple of falcons, and we learn that the magnificent cortege which accompanied these birds entered London by torchlight, and received a hearty reception. James, highly flattered by this indirect overture on the part of Louis XIII., at once summoned his Council to deliberate what should be done. It appears that five councillors were still in favour of the Spanish match, four were neutral, and three, including Prince Charles, were opposed to it. The neutrals afterwards sided with the prince, and the consequence was that Lord Kensington was despatched to Paris to sound the king and Marie de Medicis on this important question. Spain at once endeavoured to thwart the match, both Philip and the Pope offering to make concessions. When the King of Spain learned that the British Parliament was strenuously opposed to the union with the Infanta, he declared that it little mattered what the Parliament thought, the Prince of Wales was engaged to his sister, and would not break his word. When the French ambassador became aware that both the king and the Parliament were opposed to 1623.] SPANISH HAGGLING. 387 the Spanish, match, he wrote to his Court, saying, that he considered war between Spain and England imminent. The Earl of Carlisle, who as Lord Hay in 1616 had gone to Paris to demand the hand of the Princess Christine, was now sent back to France to demand the hand of the Princess Henrietta. He arrived in the French capital in April 1624, and had Cardinal Richelieu to deal with. Some dislike, and perhaps apprehension, filled the English mind at the idea of having to negotiate with his Eminence, but the cardinal was moderate in his demands, and acted with the celerity of a man who was in earnest, and knew what he wanted. The Spaniards had been haggling over the affair for seven years. " In less than nine moons," wrote James Howell, " the affair was terminated, whereas we might have negotiated with Spain for nine years, and have arrived at no result." The question of the marriage was referred to Cardinal Richelieu and four commissioners, two of whom were English — the Earls of Carlisle and Holland. 1 A few difficulties arose respecting matters of etiquette— whether the cardinal should give the ambassadors his right or his left hand, and how far he should accompany them when they took leave ; it became necessary to refer to London for instructions. However, so as not to waste time, it was agreed that the cardinal should feign sickness, and that the ambassadors should visit him in bed, and it was 1 Lord Kensington had been created Earl of Holland. c c 2 388 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1623. under these conditions that the matrimonial alliance between two great countries was discussed. The Court of Eome was naturally opposed to the English match, and threw obstacles in its way. Mon- signor Spada, the Papal Nuncio in Paris, represented that it would hardly be honourable for France to purchase an alliance with England, on condition of reconquering the Palatinate for the son-in-law of King James, and driving out a Catholic prince. France, by the way, had no such intention. He also brought two briefs from Urban VIII. , one addressed to Louis .XI II., the other to Marie de Medicis. The Pontiff declared that if they would only throw England over, the King of Spain would demand the hand of Henrietta for his brother Don Carlos. Louis XIII. , however, refused to listen to this proposal, and replied, that he was as zealous a Catholic as the King of Spain, and that it was on this account that the marriage of his sister encountered delay. When told that Olivarez had declared that in the event of the Pope granting a dispensation, the King of Spain would march upon Eome and sack the city, Marie de Medicis replied, " We shall know how to hinder him." The Pope after this seems to have become more reasonable, and to have confined his efforts to endeavouring, in conjunction with France, to obtain the best possible terms for the English Catholics. This was the great bone of contention. James, during the negotiation with Spain, had become painfully 1623.] THE SECRET ESGRIT. 389 aware of the amount of irritation with which the country had regarded the concessions made to Philip. He was himself willing to accord full spiritual liberty to the Catholics ; he would pledge his royal word to this, but neither the cardinal nor the Pope would accept a verbal promise, and the consequence was that James, to the great delight of Richelieu, yielded. He consented to give a written engagement, which, in the negotiations which followed, was always spoken of both by French and English negotiators as the secret escrit. At this juncture we find that the cardinal recalled the Comte de Tillieres from London, in consequence of the ambassador not being sufficiently active in the matter of the marriage. The count was replaced by the Marquis d'Effiat, who had a very delicate affair to treat with the British monarch. James had under- taken to give an agreement in writing, but he wished this document to be kept secret. The Erench negotiators, on the other hand, insisted that it should be inserted in the marriage contract, which would have to be submitted to Parliament. The English negotiators refused to hear of this, being well aware that Parliament would never agree to it. In consequence of this difference of opinion some delay occurred, and it was not until James had put on the screw, and allowed a fresh persecution of Catholics, that negotiations were continued. Louis XIII. having remonstrated, the persecutions ceased, and the French king, on the advice of the cardinal, 390 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1623. consented to give way in the matter of publicity. The secret article was signed, sealed, and delivered on the 7th September, 1624. Both sides appeared satisfied, and the Marquis d'Effiat wrote home that King James had not only given him a seat in his carriage, but had invited him to dine with him in his bedroom, which was a more exceptional favour. In fact, the marquis found his Majesty so affable, that after dinner he endeavoured to persuade him to con- sent to two further articles, but in this the French ambassador was forced to admit that he was not successful. The next step on the part of Cardinal Richelieu was to send Pere Berulle to Rome to aid in obtaining the dispensation, and to seek counsel of the Pontiff. The good father was a man of wit and learning, and what was more rare among gentlemen of his cloth who dabbled in diplomacy, entirely devoid of all worldly ambition. He looked for his reward in another life, and this was no doubt a relief and a guarantee to those who enlisted his services. He was to act in concert with the French ambassador, the Comte de Bethune, a Protestant, and a grandson of Sully. The count was to work upon the fears of the Pontiff, and was to endeavour to frighten him into acquiescence with the French demands. He was to be an agent of intimida- tion. On the other hand, the Pere Bdrulle was to allay the apprehensions of his Holiness, and was to endeavour to get round him, and to overcome his scruples by means of persuasion. He was to appeal 1624.] PEES BEEULLE'S PUNS. 391 to his equity and all the loftier feelings, and was to set forth the benefit which would result to the Catholic religion from a speedy settlement of the question in dispute. The Pontiff was to be submitted to a kind of double action. He was to be rubbed up and down ; with and against the grain ; probably with a view of seeing which process was most likely to succeed. At his first audience with Urban VIII. , Pere Berulle read out a long discourse in Latin, in which, together with much that was pregnant and sensible, he did not disdain to indulge in puns. Thus he warned the Pope that the inclemency of the last century had driven England into heresy, and he then expressed the hope that the " urbanity which reigns in your heart and your actions will remedy the evil." In reply the Pope expressed himself in favour of an alliance which was to restore England to the giron of the Church. He declared, however, that the question must be submitted to the College of Cardinals, but he promised that he would select cardinals favourable to France. He also insisted that it would be necessary for the Catholic clergy of England to petition him in favour of the match, so that they might not afterwards turn round and blame him when the dispensation had been accorded. The Spanish cardinals at Rome now intrigued with such success that the Pope hesitated. Knowing nothing of the secret eserit, they pointed out to him that England had accorded more * advantages to the Catholics when she was treating for the hand 392 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1624. of the Infanta Maria than she now offered to France. Pere B&ulle very forcibly explained to the Pontiff that when Spain saw that there was no chance of settling matters with England, or possibly to prevent any settlement, she exacted conditions to which she must have known that England would never consent. If England accepted those conditions at the moment, it was simply with a view of getting Baby Charles and Steenie safely away from Madrid. There is no knowing what effect the arguments of Pere Berulle would have had on the mind of his Holiness had they not been backed up by the other negotiator. The Comte de Bethune now considered it high time to speak out boldly. He declined to argue the matter any longer, and informed the Pope that he had orders to send no more couriers to France until he could forward the dispensation. He was perfectly well aware, he said, that unless he adopted this course the Court of Eome would go on demanding one con- cession after another, and that the affair would never end. On top of the language used by the Comte de Bethune, the Pope was informed that it had been determined to sign the marriage contract in Paris without waiting for the dispensation, and in fact the contract was signed on the 24th November, 1624. When the news of this event reached Eome, the cardinals, to whom the matter had been referred, at once met and accorded the dispensation. It was only in the natural order of things that there should be still some vexatious delay while the 1624.] THE TREATY RATIFIED. 393 much-debated document was being drawn out, and when this task was accomplished other difficulties cropped up. The Pope wished both Louis XIII. and James to sign the document. This, James, who appears to have been horrified with the Latin, stoutly refused. He declared, and very properly, that he had not treated with the Pope, and that the whole affair was one between the French king and his Holiness. The consequence was that his most Christian Majesty alone attached his signature to the dispensation. All further delay was now cut short by Cardinal Richelieu, who declared that in order to avoid a rupture with England, he had promised that the marriage should take place in a month. Matters did not march quite so rapidly as the cardinal desired. However, in the month of December, 1624, the marriage treaty was ratified at Cambridge by King James and Prince Charles with the secret escrit. It had previously been signed by Lords Carlisle and Holland in Paris. Up to the last moment the success of the treaty hung upon a thread, and it was with the greatest difficulty that Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham could induce the king to consent to the match, especially as, when the dispensation arrived from Rome, it was found to be conditional, and that the Pope insisted upon publicity. In his wrath James actually wrote to Gondomar, and wished to re- open negotiations for the Infanta ! We are assured that there was great alarm felt in England, lest that wily diplo- 394 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1624. matist should again return to exercise his baneful influence on the mind of the king. However, in the end the marriage with France was settled, and when this was known there were great rejoicings in London and throughout the country. Of course people knew nothing of the conditions imposed by the secret escrit, by which father and son stood pledged to grant to the Catholics the same amount of liberty as Philip had pressed for, and as James and Charles had consented to. Fate was cruel to James ; all his reign through he had been scheming to marry his sons— Henry to Elizabeth of France, then to the Infanta Anne, then to the Princess Christine ; and, when Henry died, Charles to Christine, then to the Infanta Maria, and then to the Princesse Henriette. And when at last land was in sight he died — died on the 6th April, 1625. Three days after the death of his father, King Charles ratified the treaty which he had signed as Prince of Wales, and orders were sent to Paris to accomplish 'the necessary preliminaries for his marriage. It was arranged that the ceremony should be performed on the same lines as when the Pro- testant King of Navarre married Marguerite de Valois. The Due de Chevreuse, who was related to Charles through Marie de Lorraine, was to be proxy for the King of England. The contract was duly signed at the Louvre on the 8th of May, and the marriage was celebrated on the 11th at Notre Dame 1625.] MARRIAGE BY PROXY. 395 by the Cardinal de la Kochefoucauld. The church was hung with tapestry, that in the choir representing the Acts of the Apostles, and that in the nave the triumph of Scipio over the Carthaginians. As King Charles was in mourning, his proxy, the Due de Chevreuse, was dressed in a suit of black set off with diamonds. Louis XIII. was present, and when mass was performed the two English ambassadors and the Due de Chevreuse, who played the part of a Protestant all through, retired. Shortly after the marriage by proxy, the Duke of Buckingham arrived in great state to escort the queen to England. We see by Hardwicke's State Papers that he took with him twenty-seven suits ; one suit was worth £22,000 ; but the most gorgeous of all, that for entering Paris, was covered with diamonds to the value of £80,000. He was accompanied by the Marquis of Hamilton, the Earls of Dorset, Denbigh, Montgomery, Warwick, Anglesea, and Salisbury, and Lord Walden. In all his train consisted of between 600 and 700 persons. On the 2nd June the new Queen of England left Paris, and was accompanied by Marie de Medicis and by her sister-in-law as far as Amiens, where a halt took place, either because it was reported that there was a storm in the Channel, because the queen-mother fell ill, because the Pope insisted on Henrietta Maria (as we shall now call her) doing penance, or because Buckingham wished to make love to Anne of Austria. However this may be, the young queen embarked on 396 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1625. the 22nd June, and after a passage of seven hours landed safely at Dover. The king, who was awaiting her arrival at Canterbury, was no sooner informed that she had landed than he went to meet her. He arrived unexpectedly as his bride was at breakfast. She wished to throw herself at his feet ; he caught her in his arms, and as she burst into tears he kissed them away, and assured her that she was among friends and not enemies. The king found his wife taller than he expected, and was evidently pleased both with her personal appearance and her vivacity. Guizot says of the marriage between Henrietta and Charles, negotiated and concluded by a cardinal, that it was a declaration that religion was not the supreme law in State policy, and that the interests of nations were not to be made subservient to the religious belief of those who governed them. This policy, however, was destined to cost the royal family of England dear. It revived and envenomed the quarrel between Protestants and Catholics. " What," asks G-uizot, " would Eichelieu have said, if, while applauding this alliance, the future had been revealed to his eyes ; if he had seen the civil war in England, the Republic replacing the monarchy, Charles I. on the scaffold, Henrietta wandering in exile, and after a Royalist restoration, James II. expelled, and the last of the race dying at Rome, without any other asylum than the hospitality of the Pope, and without any other fortune than the hat of a cardinal ? " The new queen had hardly landed in England 1625.] CATHOLIC INTOLERANCE. 397 before it became apparent that the marriage contract and secret escrit would not work. The pretensions of the Catholics soon became intolerable, and threat- ened the peace of the realm. The queen dismissed all her English attendants who were not Catholics, and this raised such an outcry that Charles felt obliged to forbid any English Catholics to serve the queen, or to be present at her mass. At the same time the members of the French household were continually quarrelling among themselves, and the consequence was that they received orders to leave the kingdom. The queen, naturally acting under advice, refused to be crowned with her husband, or even to be present at the ceremony, and not only embroiled her husband with her brother, but also with his people, and thus rendered herself most unpopular with the nation which had accorded her so hearty a welcome. As for the Eoman Catholic bishop and the priests attached to her Majesty, they exhibited an almost inconceivable amount of bigotry even for that age. And we are told that " on the queen they had inflicted the most degrading and ridiculous penances and mortifications. Her Majesty was seen walking barefoot, or spinning at certain hours, and performing menial offices. She even waited on her own domestics ; but the most notorious penance was her Majesty's pilgrimage to Tyburn, to pray under the gallows of those Jesuits who, executed as traitors to Elizabeth and to James, were by the -Catholics held as martyrs 398 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1625. to faith." Bassompierre denies the truth of this story, declaring that those persons who circulated it did not believe it. The matter was brought before the Privy Council, and there Bassompierre so ener- getically defended the queen from having " com- mitted this absurdity," that he lost his voice for several days. Mr. Disraeli replies to this, — "The fact, however, is not doubtful ; I find it confirmed by private accounts of the times, and afterwards sanctioned by a State paper." 1 And a manuscript letter 2 of the times mentions that the priests made the queen dabble in the dirt of a foul morning from Somerset House to St. James's, her Luciferian con- fessor riding along by her in his coach. . . . And if they dare thus insult over the daughter, sister, and wife of so great kings, what slavery would they not make us, the people, undergo ! There appears to have been much difficulty in getting rid of the Monsieurs and Madames, who, before leaving, laid hands on all they could, even to the queen's jewels and wardrobe. They did not leave her Majesty even a change of linen. They brought in false accounts, and the bishop made an extravagant charge for " unholy water." As they had been dis- missed by the king on the 1st July, and had not taken their departure on the 7th August, the king wrote the following indignant letter to the Duke of Buckingham : — 1 Disraeli's Reign of Charles L, t. ii, p. 210. * Harl. MSS., No. 383. 1625.] FRENCH RAPACITY. 399 " Stebnib, "I have received your letter by Die Graame. This is my answer. I cummand you to send all the French away tomorrow out of the towne, if you can by fair means (but strike not long in disputing), otherways force them away, dryving them away lyke so manie wyldl beastes, until ye have shipped them, and so the devil goe with them. Let me heare no answer, but of the performance of my command. So I rest & C. E." 1 In fact, what had happened in France with the Concinis and the other Italians imported by Marie de Medicis, was being repeated in England ; but the English monarch showed less patience than did Henri IV. In a second letter his Majesty again referred in bitter terms to the conduct of the Monsieurs who interfered with his domestic felicity : — King Chables to the Duke op Buckingham. 2 "Hampton Court, 20th Nov., 1625. " Steenie, " I writ to you by Ned Clarke that I thought I would have cause enough in a short time to put away the Monsieurs, either for attempting to steal away my wife, or by making plots with my own subjects " His Majesty added that he did not wish to act harshly, but that he could no longer tolerate "the maliciousness of the Monsieurs," who were always trying to make his wife discontented. In another letter, presumed to have been written early in 1626, the king writes to the duke 3 — "As for news, my wife begins to mend her manners. I know not how long it will continue, for they say it is by 1 Disraeli's Reign of Charles I., t. ii. p. 221. 2 Hardwicke State Papers, t. ii. p. 2. 3 Ibid. p. 12. 400 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1625. ad vice ; but the best of all is, they say the Monsieurs desire to return home." The good manners did last for some time, for on 13th Aug., 1627, his Majesty informed the duke 1 that he and his wife were never better together ; she being so loving and discreet " that it makes us all wonder and esteem her." It was too bad to have to pay £240 a day to be kept in a state of perpetual turmoil, but in the end this element of discord disappeared. The juvenile French bishop is said to have protested to the last with singular vehemence against this forcible expul- sion, but he had to go with the rest of the household ladies and gentlemen. It took forty coaches to convey them to Dover, and what with pensions and travelling expenses, the king had to disburse a sum of no less than £50,000. Bassompierre was sent over to remon- strate against this breach of treaty, but Charles had had enough of the French, and absolutely refused to tolerate even a French physician. He went so far as to express irritation when the French ambassador asked that the doctor might be admitted to kiss the queen's hand, and to carry the news of her delivery to France. It must have soon been clear to the French Court, to the Pope, and to the Spaniards, that the marriage of Charles to a Catholic princess was not sufficient to bring England once more under the dominion of Eome. We must now return to France. 1 Hardwicke State Papers, t. ii. p. 14. CHAPTER XVI. GASTON D'ORLEANS. " The great nobles disliked the king as much as his minister, looking with contempt and aversion on this stammering, morose, sickly, and ungenerous monarch ; they hoped that his career would not be a long one ; they surrounded his young brother, who had ■ a far more lively and cultivated mind, more agreeable manners, and who already possessed vices both plea- sant and profitable to the courtiers. Louis XIII. had nothing of his father but his courage, Gaston nothing but his licentiousness : this was all that the two brothers inherited from Henri IV." Such is the sketch given by Henri Martin of Louis XIII. and Monsieur his brother, also known as Gaston d'Orleans. In order to understand the situation, it must be remembered that Richelieu at this moment was at the helm of the State. He was hated by the queen, because he was the adversary of her brother the King of Soain, and of her admirer the Duke of Buckingham. The Duchesse de Chevreuse, then the mistress of Lord Holland, and the Princesse de Conde were also among the enemies of the cardinal. vol. i. D D 402 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1626. Marie de Medicis wished Gaston to marry the most wealthy heiress in the kingdom, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, so that there might be heirs to the crown, the king being childless. Richelieu approved of this scheme, which was immediately opposed by the ladies of the Court. It was repugnant to Anne of Austria, who felt that if her brother-in-law had chil- dren, her own importance would be diminished. The Princesse de Conde" was opposed to the marriage, thinking that the crown might descend to her family. If Gaston must take a wife, why should he not marry her daughter ? Gaston himself seems to have been in love with Mademoiselle de Montpensier, and the first thing the conspirators had to do was to get Gaston to refuse his consent to the union. Gaston had for governor Marshal Ornano, who was under great obligations to Richelieu ; but on the other hand, in spite of his fifty years, he was passionately in love with the Princesse de Conde, and was consequently easily won over. On her side, Madame de Chevreuse induced the young Comte de Chalais to join the coalition. The count belonged to the house of Talleyrand- Perigord, was Master of the Robes, and stood high in favour with Louis XIII. Several ambassadors also entered into the conspiracy, and Spain, England, Savoy, and Holland were all mixed up in it. The first step to be taken was to demand that Gaston and Ornano should enter the king's Council, where they would be able to obtain the disgrace of Richelieu ; if 1626.] INFAMOUS PLOT. 403 they failed in this, they were to have recourse to violence ; they were to get Monsieur to leave the Court, they were to take up arms, to call in foreign aid, and to appeal to the Huguenots. The most daring among the conspirators, the Abbe" Scaglia, ambassador to the Duke of Savoy, and others wished to commence operations by assassinating the cardinal. As to the king, he was to be shut up in a convent ; and in the event of his death, Gaston was to marry his brother's widow. Some historians have pretended that this plot was merely imaginary, got up to work upon the fears of Louis XIII., and indispose him towards Monsieur. Others are convinced that it was really intended to assassinate the cardinal, and that the question of Gaston marrying Anne of Austria was often discussed in the boudoir of the queen. 1 Several of the conspir- ators were severely punished. Ornano was arrested, and sent a prisoner to the fort of Vincennes. Monsieur was forced to humiliate himself before the cardinal, and to swear fidelity to his brother on the Gospels. The two Vend6mes (the natural sons of Henri IV.) were flung into the Chateau of Amboise, and justice was meted out to other delinquents. As for the Comte de Chalais, he was pardoned for having in a moment of alarm revealed to Richelieu that his life was in danger, and having sworn obedience to the cardinal for the future. But hardly had this conspiracy been disposed of, 1 Henri Martin, t. xi. p. 233. D D 2 404 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1626. than another was hatched. Both Monsieur and De Chalais violated their oaths ; the latter, who had re- placed Lord Holland in the affections of the Duchesse de Chevreuse, being unable to resist the fatal influence of that restless woman. Before this fresh conspiracy had gained head, De Chalais was betrayed by a friend with whom he had quarrelled, and was at once arrested. Monsieur be- haved as usual in the most cowardly manner, deserting and betraying his friends, and accepting a reward for his infamy. He was granted large estates, appointed to several lucrative offices, and accorded a pension of 100,000 livres. And on the 5th August, in spite of the earnest remonstrances of the queen and the Duchesse de Chevreuse, he married the wealthy Mademoiselle de Montpensier, the cardinal himself pronouncing the nuptial benediction. On the day that the marriage was celebrated, De Chalais was brought to the bar. On the 18th August he was sentenced to death. Monsieur seems to have made some efforts to save his accomplice, but in vain, and the friends of the condemned man bribed the executioner to hide himself. This had merely the effect of rendering the punishment of De Chalais more terrible. A prisoner who was lying under sentence of death was offered his life on condition of replacing the executioner, and he performed his task in so clumsy a manner, that the head of De Chalais did not fall until he had received over thirty blows with sword and axe. 1627.] THE DEATH OF MADAME. 405 Monsieur is said to have been playing at cards when the news reached him that his friend had been executed, but so little effect did the intelligence create, that he did not rise from table. On the other hand, the fate which overtook De Chalais is said to have caused the death of Marshal Ornano. In the month of October it was announced that Madame was enceinte, and she showed herself in the Louvre. She was confident that she would bring forth a son, who would sit upon the throne of France. However, in due time she was delivered of a daughter, and three days later she died. This death, as Bassompierre remarks, created a great change at Court, and was the cause of several mis- fortunes which afterwards happened. Madame was buried with royal honours, the king sprinkling the coffin with holy water. To console Monsieur he was created Lieutenant-General of the kingdom. In 1627 came the war with France, forced on by Buckingham. Louis XIII. determined to place him- self at the head of the army, and left Paris on the 28th June, 1627, for that purpose ; but he fell ill on his way to La Bochelle, and had to take to bed at Villeroi. It was much feared that his Majesty would succumb, and the King of Spain wrote to his am- bassador to prepare the way for the re-marriage of the Queen Anne with the heir of Louis XIII., with Gaston, who had just lost his wife. 1 This time the wrath of king and cardinal fell on 1 Capefigue, Riclielieu and Mazarin, t. v. p. 225. 406 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1630. the queen as well as on other accomplices. In presence of the queen-mother and the cardinal, the king bitterly reproached Anne of Austria with having calculated on his death, and with desiring to have two husbands at the same time. To this the queen haughtily replied, that there would be too little to gain to go from Louis to Gaston. She was forbidden to receive any men except in the presence of the king. The king returned to Paris, speedily recovered, and started once more for La Eoehelle on the 13th September. In 1630 Louis XIII. again went campaigning, and fell ill at Lyons ; he was seized with fever and dysentery, was bled seven times in one week, was considered in extremis, and was advised by the doctors to " think about his conscience." He consequently received extreme unction, bid farewell to his wife, to his mother, and to the cardinal, and turned his face to the wall to die. Marie de Medicis reflected how she could best revenge herself on "her ungrateful servant" the cardinal, while Anne of Austria is said to have al- lowed one of her ladies-in-waiting, the Comtesse de Pargis, to write to Gaston reminding him of the scheme for their union, more than once debated, and offering her hand to her brother-in-law. As for Monsieur, who already considered himself king, he received these overtures with reserve, and hurried to Paris so as to be ready to assume the crown directly the breath was out of his brother's body. 1632.] GASTON'S SECRET MARRIAGE. 407 One can easily conceive the anxiety of Bichelieu sur- rounded by deadly enemies already plotting his death round the royal couch. Was all his power thus to vanish, and his lifedong labour to be undone % But, as in 1627, his Majesty suddenly grew better, and was soon out of danger. During the indirect war with the House of Austria, which occurred in 1631, Gaston, who was in a state of rebellion, took refuge in Lorraine, and wished to marry the duke's daughter; but on the 6th Jan., 1632, the duke was obliged to sue for peace with France, and this peace was accorded on the following terms. He was to cease all relations with the em- peror and with Spain ; he was to contract no alliance without the consent of the French king ; he was no longer to receive the queen-mother and Monsieur. And at the same time Louis XIII. warned the duke that he would never sanction the contemplated mar- riage between- Marguerite of Lorraine and the Duke of Orleans (Monsieur). The Duke Charles assured Louis XIII. that this marriage should never take place, but at the moment that he made this declaration the union had been secretly celebrated at Nancy with the permission of the Cardinal of Lorraine. The king offered to forget everything that had passed if Gaston would only return to France ; but this he refused to do, prefer- ring to join his mother, also an exile, at Brussels. It appears that both Gaston and his mother derived much comfort at this moment from the astrologers, 408 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1633. who declared that Louis XIII. could not survive the Pentecost. They were also encouraged by the pro- spect of the Marshal Due de Montmorency, the greatest noble in France, joining in the rebellion, and siding with Spaniards and Austrians against his own countrymen. In an evil moment Montmorency, • irritated with Richelieu, raised Languedoc against the king. The Duke of Lorraine too had violated his engagements, but he was soon brought to reason by the Marshals La Force and Schomberg, and had to pay dearly for the safety of his capital. In September was fought the battle of Castelnaudary, in which the forces of Monsieur and Montmorency were entirely routed by the royal troops. Montmorency expiated his crime on the scaffold, and Gaston, having heard that before dying the marshal had revealed his mar- riage with Marguerite de Lorraine, fled to Brussels, where he was shortly afterwards joined by his wife, whom Marie de Medicis received with open arms, and acknowledged as her daughter-in-law. The Duke of Lorraine continuing to plot against France, in August, 1633, Louis XIII. and Richelieu marched upon Lorraine. .The duke, alarmed at his isolation, sent his brother the Cardinal Nicholas to meet the king with offers to break the marriage of their sister with Monsieur. As the duke had already violated two treaties, Louis XIII. refused to listen to him until he had delivered Nancy into his hands. It was all in vain that he offered three other towns, to give up his sister, and even to abdicate. The king 1634.] LORRAINE ANNEXED.. 409 insisted on having Nancy as well as Marguerite, but in the end it was agreed that Nancy should be sur- rendered to the French, but restored in the event of Marguerite being handed over to Louis XIII. within three months. On the 24th Sept., 1633, the king and the cardinal entered Nancy, and thus did the secret marriage of the turbulent Gaston bring about the temporary annexation of Lorraine, for Marguerite, having fled to Brussels, could not be delivered up to the French king. At Brussels Monsieur had his marriage confirmed by the Archbishop of Malines, and in reply to this bravado, Louis XIII. proceeded to attack the validity of the union. At first it was proposed to ask the Pope to appoint a court of French prelates to judge the affair, but when it was found that his Holiness desired the affair to be tried at Borne, to avoid inter- minable delay it was decided to submit the matter to the Parliament of Paris, and to accuse the Duke of Lorraine of having carried off Monsieur in order to make him marry his sister secretly against the will of the king. Upon this the Duke Charles abdicated in favour of his brother the Cardinal Nicholas. Now, the Salic law not being in force in Lorraine, Claude, the niece of the cardinal, had a claim to the suc- cession, and lest Bichelieu should get hold of her and contest the rights of Cardinal Nicholas, he determined to marry her. As Bishop of Toul he accorded himself the necessary dispensation, and the marriage was duly celebrated the same evening at Luneville. This 410 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1634. did not save Lorraine. The Duke Nicholas (as he now styled himself) and his wife were speedily driven out of the country, and not only did the French now occupy the whole of Lorraine, but they crossed the Vosges and established themselves in Alsace. Many attempts were made to induce Gaston to come to terms, but in vain. On the 5th Sept. the Parliament declared the invalidity of his marriage ; but this disposed of the civil part of the case only. In October fresh overtures were made to Monsieur, and these led to an interview with the king and the cardinal, during which a sort of reconciliation was effected. Monsieur then retired to Orleans, and con- sented to abide by the decision of the canon law. As Urban VIII. continued to refuse to annul the religious contract, the question, to the great joy of the Gallicans, was referred to the French clergy, who met in Paris and declared the marriage null and void. Monsieur submitted to this decree in writing, but his submission was not sincere. Voltaire 1 remarks on this subject, that if Gaston married without the consent of the king, there was no law which rendered his marriage null. Louis XL, when dauphin, married the daughter of the Duke of Savoy, in spite of the king his father, and fled from the realm, and yet Charles VII. did not consider this union illegitimate. And on the danger of resorting to violent measures, Voltaire points out that to annul a solemn contract was to open the door to the most 1 Histoire du Parlement de Paris, ch. li. 1638.] GASTON'S DEATH. 411 baneful civil wars ; for if a son was the fruit of the marriage of Gaston, the king having no children, that son would be considered legitimate by the Pope, by all the nations of Europe, and by half of France. The other half of France would consider him as a bastard. The Bishop of Montpellier was sent to Borne to try and persuade the Pope to alter his decision, but this Urban VIII. refused to do. "Fortunately," adds Voltaire, "in the end the king approved of his brother's marriage. But the law which forbids princes of the blood leaving posterity without the consent of the king has always subsisted since those days, as also the decision of Borne which holds those marriages valid." The reconciliation between Louis and Gaston took place in 1638 ; and the following year Anne of Austria, on the 5th September, the birthday of the cardinal, to the great joy of the nation, gave birth to a son. The birth of a dauphin naturally diminished the importance of Monsieur, and we need follow his career no further. Suffice it to say that he was con- tinually indulging in fresh conspiracies, and that he died in 1660, unwept, unhonoured, and unsung, leaving behind him one daughter by his first wife, known afterwards as La Grande Mademoiselle, concern- ing whose chequered existence wd shall have something to say, and three daughters by his second wife, who married — the eldest the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the second the Due de Guise, and the third the Duke of Savoy. We have seen how at one moment Monsieur 412 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1660. was so anxious for a son by his first wife. In 1652 his second wife presented him with an heir-male to his body, the Due de Valois, but this child died when two years old. The death of Monsieur is thus chronicled : — " The same day that the Prince de Conde* took his departure, the Court learned that the Duke of Orleans had been attacked at Blois with a serious illness, and shortly afterwards that he had died on the 2nd February at the age of fifty-two years. This prince, who could never live without favourites, never loved any one, and no one regretted him." CHAPTER XVII. THE MISTRESSES OF LOUIS XIII. Although the union of Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria was a most unhappy one, yet the French king did not seek the same sort of consolation that his father had done ; he was too cold and too pious for that. Though living entirely estranged from his wife, after the episode to which we have referred, he had no mistresses in the ordinary acceptation of the word, but merely indulged in platonic affections, to which Moliere made a pleasant allusion in Les Femmes Savantes, 1 where Ariste asks Belize if Dorante, Damis, Cldonte, and Lycidas love her. She replies that they love her with all their strength, but that they had never taken the liberty of telling her so, and had too much respect for her. " Women," remarks G-uizot in his History of France, " occupied but a small place in the life of Louis XIII. Twice, however, in the interval of ten years which separated the conspiracy of Montmorency from that of Cinq-Mars, Richelieu considered himself menaced by feminine influences, and twice he employed artifice 1 Act II. scene iii. 414 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1630. to deprive two maids of honour, Marie d'Hautefort and Louise de Lafayette, of the affection and con- fidence of the monarch." It was in 1630, at Lyons, during mass," that the king remarked Mile. d'Hautefort, who was at that time but fourteen years of age. The first mark of attention paid by his most Christian Majesty to the young beauty, was to send her the red velvet cushion upon which he was kneeling for her to sit upon. Mile. d'Hautefort refused the royal offer, and remained with her companions seated on the ground. However, a platonic liaison ensued between his phlegmatic Majesty and his lively companion, who seems soon to have grown rather weary of an admirer who never spoke to her of any- thing but his hounds and his falcons. It seems that this strange pair were constantly disputing and making it up again. The king was jealous of the affection which Mile. d'Hautefort bore his wife ! He said to her one day — -"You love an ungrateful woman, and you will see how she will repay your services." After each quarrel it appears that the king used to retire to his study and write out a detailed account of what had passed, and at his death a box was found which was filled with " these curious reports of the most innocent, the most stormy, and the most restless affection." As Mile. d'Hautefort refused to act as an instrument in the hands of the cardinal for the persecution of Anne of Austria, a Court cabal was formed in order to find another " mistress " for his Majesty. It is curious 1637.] MLLE. DE LAFAYETTE. 415 to observe that the three principal members of this cabal were churchmen — Cardinal Richelieu, the Bishop of Limoges, and the Jesuit father Caussin, the king's confessor — and that the lady selected to replace Mile. d'Hautefort was Mile, de Lafayette, the niece of the bishop, and a relation of the celebrated Pere Joseph, the time damnee of the cardinal. It is true that the members of this cabal were perfectly certain that Mile. Lafayette's virtue would run no danger. Voltaire relates this affair in his usual pleasant manner. 1 He says that the king fell in love with Mile. Lafayette as deeply as a weak-minded, scrupulous, and unvoluptuous person could fall in love. Mile. Lafayette, after accepting the love of the king, sided with the two queens (Marie de Medicis and Anne of Austria) against the cardinal, and the consequence was that she did not long retain her post. The minister gained the day over the mistress and the confessor, who played Eichelieu false and endeavoured to take his place, as he had gained it over the two queens. Mile. Lafayette, intimidated, was obliged to enter a convent, and shortly afterwards the little Father Caussin was arrested and sent to Lower Brittany. This same Jesuit Caussin had recommended Louis XIII. to place France under the protection of the Virgin, in order to sanctify the loves of the king and Mile. Lafayette, which was looked upon as a liaison of the heart and not the senses. This advice was adopted, and was carried out the following year by Richelieu, while 1 Essai sur les Mceurs, ch. clxxvi. 416 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1637. Caussin was celebrating in bad verses, at Quimer- corantin, the special attachment of the Virgin for the kingdom of France. The cardinal was certainly unfortunate in his choice. Mile. Lafayette spoke to the king not only in favour of his mother, his wife, his brother, but of all the other victims of "that terrible man " who got the king into trouble with all his relations, who was alone opposed to a general peace, and who sided with heretics against Catholics. It was absolutely necessary to get rid of her. On the 19th May, 1637, she entered the convent of the Visitation, in the Eue St. Antoine, now a Protestant church, and to the great grief of his Majesty. However, the cardinal did not gain much by this retreat, for the king paid long visits to " Sister Louise" at her convent, and there she spoke with more freedom and violence than ever against the tyranny of Richelieu. It was returning from one of these visits that a memorable event occurred. The king, surprised by a storm and unable to get back to Grosbois, where he had been hunting, was obliged, much against his will, to ask the queen to give him an asylum for the night. At the Louvre there was neither table nor bed, so the queen invited her husband to supper and to share her couch, and it was owing to this fortuitous circumstance that Louis XIV. was born, 1 twenty-two years after the Spanish marriages 1 Louis XIV. was "born 3rd September, 1638. 1637.] SISTER LOUISE. 417 After the exile of the unfortunate Jesuit Caussin, who was appointed to one of the poorest livings in Brittany, the king renounced " Sister Louise," and returned for a while to Mile. d'Hautefort, who, again refusing to second the policy of the cardinal, had once more to retire from Court. Eeferring to the epoch, La Eochefoucauld says — " At this moment the queen was accused of being in communication with the Marquis de Mirabel, the Spanish ambassador. This was imputed to her as a State crime, and she found herself exposed to a kind of persecution which she had not before experienced. Several of her servants were arrested ; her caskets were taken from her ; the chancellor examined her like a prisoner ; it was proposed to send her to prison at Havre, to break her marriage, and to repudiate her. In this extremity, abandoned by every one, and not daring to confide in any one but Mile. d'Hautefort and myself, she proposed that I should elope with them both and take them to Brussels. Dangerous and difficult as this plan appeared to be, I must say that it filled me with joy. I was of an age when one likes to undertake extraordinary and startling adventures, and I found that nothing; could be more so than to carry off at the same time the queen from the king her husband, and from Cardinal Richelieu, who was jealous of her, and to snatch Mile. d'Hautefort from his Majesty, who was in love with her." x La Eochefoucauld then explains that this elopement was 1 Memoirs de La Rochefoucauld (1637). VOL. I. e B 418 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1642. found unnecessary, as the accusations brought against the queen were not substantiated. As in the first instance Mile. d'Hautefort had been preceded as favourite by the Due de St. Simon, so now she was succeeded by the brilliant young Henri Effiat, Marquis de Cinq-Mars, who died on the scaffold four years later for having conspired with Monsieur against the cardinal in conjunction with the Spaniards. On the 21st September, 1640, the queen gave birth to a second son, with "a fair skin, black hair, and limbs extremely well made, who received the title of Due d'Anjou." It was remarked upon this occasion that all the great personages of the time were born in September— the king, the queen, the dauphin, and Cardinal Eichelieu ; and there were not wanting flatterers to remark, in connection with this coin- cidence, that in the opinion of the Hebrews of old the creation of the world also dated from the same month. In 1642 two of the principal characters mentioned in these pages disappeared from the scene, — Cardinal Eichelieu, who had brought about the English match, and had persecuted Marie de Medicis and Anne of Austria, and had done his best to break the power of the Empire and of Spain. Marie de Medicis, too, died — died as she had lived. Up to the last we find her conspiring, speculating on the death of her son Louis XIII. , and preparing to dispute the regency and the guardianship of the Dauphin with Monsieur 1643.] DEATH OF MARIE DE MEDIGIS. 419 and with Anne of Austria. Nothing would induce her to return to Florence, where her dowry would have been paid to her. She preferred to cast her lot in with the enemies of France and to reside in Germany. When she fell dangerously ill, Louis XIII. ordered her doctor, Vautrin, to be released from the Bastille and to repair to Cologne to attend his mother ; but in July the career of this restless woman was brought to a close, and she ended her days in exile and in comparative, but not in absolute, want, as the enemies of Eichelieu would have us believe. In 1643 Louis XIII. departed this life, leaving Anne of Austria what may be called a hampered regency ; but two days after his death the Parliament set aside bis will, and declared Anne of Austria to be regent, and to this Monsieur appears to have given his consent. We have nothing to do here with the troubles which disturbed the kingdom during her tenure of office ; she had received a very indifferent education, she was indolent to a degree, by no means devoid of sagacity, and fond of admiration. If on more than one occasion she gave cause for scandal, it must be remembered to what an unsympathetic husband she was married, and that as a king's daughter she had nothing to say to the choice of a husband. Win wood tells 1 us that when asked which she would have, the French or the English prince, she replied, Both ! Probably meaning that it was a 1 Memorials, t. ii. p. 398. 420 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1643-55. matter of equal indifference whether she wedded one or the other. It is well known that Louis XIII. never had any confidence in his wife, even after the birth of her two children, and that this feeling of distrust, which was kept alive in the breast of the monarch by Cardinal Richelieu for his own political purposes, lasted through life. It is related, in fact, that when King Louis was on his death-bed, M. de Chavigny assured him, on the part of Anne of Austria, that she never took part in the De Chalais conspiracy, to which we have already alluded, and that it never entered into her mind to marry Monsieur in the event of being left a widow. To this Louis XIII. replied — " In my present con- dition I am obliged to pardon her, but not to believe her." 1 A great deal has been said and written on the subject of her attachment to the Duke of Bucking- ham, and the interview at Amiens, which so irritated the cardinal, then himself an admirer of the queen. There can be no doubt that her Majesty had a very strong regard for the duke, but it is questionable whether this feeling ever made her forget her marriage vow. She denied the soft impeachment herself, but admitted to Madame de Motteville, that if an honest woman could love any one else but her husband, it was Buckingham who would have pleased her. 2 1 Mem. de La Rochefoucauld, t. li. p. 369. 2 Memoirs, t. i. p. 15. 1643-55.] THE POET VOITURE. 421 In a letter written by Lord Holland to the Duke of Buckingham, shortly after the marriage of Charles L, the former, who had returned to France to con- tinue his devotion to the Duchesse de Chevreuse, said — " The " (here a sketch of a fleur de lys, meaning the king) " continues to be suspicious." And then his Grace is given to understand that it would be dangerous for him to return to France, as he wished to do, and that the cardinal had declared that no good Frenchman would allow (here a picture of an anchor, meaning the Grand Admiral Buckingham) to return. Afterwards Lord Holland endeavours to con- sole his amorous friend and patron by telling him — " You are at the same time the most fortunate and unfortunate of men, for" (here a picture of a heart, meaning Anne of Austria) " is for you beyond all imagination." Many years afterwards, when both Louis XIII. and the cardinal were dead, and when Anne of Austria was regent, and was living at Ruel, she one day perceived Voiture walking dreamily up and down an alley in the garden. On asking the poet what he was thinking of, he replied — " Je pensais que la destinee, Apres tant d'injustes malheurs, Vous a justement courormie De gloire, d' eclat et d'honneurs ; Mais que vous etiez plus heureuse Lorsque vous etiez autrefois, Je ne veux par dire amoureuse ; La rime le veut toutefois. 422 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1643-55. Je pensois a la plus aimable Qu'on puisse trouver sous les cieux, A l'ame la plus adorable Que formerent jamais les dieux ; A la ravissante nierveille D'une bouche ici sans pareille, La plus belle qu'on vit jamais ; A deux pieds gentils et bien faits. Ou le temple d' Amour se fonde ; A deux incomparables mains A qui le ciel efc les destins Ont promis le sceptre du monde ; A cent appas, a cents attraits A cent mille charmes secrets, A deux beaux yeux remplis de flamme Qui rangent tout dessous leurs lois. Devinez sur cela, madame Et dites a quoi je pensois." And the verses went on to say, that if her Majesty were to see Buckingham approach, she would prefer him to Father Vincent, her confessor. And, says Madame de Motteville in her memoirs, 1 the queen was so pleased with these lines that she kept them for a long time, and then made them a present to her. Another question has occupied the attention of the historian and the critic. Did Anne of Austria marry a second time 1 Was she the mistress or the wife of Cardinal Mazarin ? M. Loiseleur has closely examined this subject in his Problemes Historiques. He points out that when Anne of Austria was free, and Mazarin her favourite minister, " she was Spanish, he was Italian, she was 1 Tome i. p. 182. 1643-55.] ANNE OF AUSTRIA' AND MAZARIN 423 galante, he was seductive ; " and his conclusion is that they loved each other without the sanction of the Church. To the argument that Anne of Austria was deeply religious, and observed all the duties imposed by the Church, it is replied, so did Henri IV., and Louis XIV., and Louis XV. Those monarchs while living in adultery all went to mass. Anne of Austria herself denied that her feeling for Mazarin went beyond friendship. This was certainly not the general opinion in Paris. In 1649 a man called Claude Morlot wrote a pamphlet called La Custode de la Beyne, 1 a most indecent libel on the queen. and the cardinal. The queen was very anxious that he should not be allowed to escape, and, in fact, he was condemned to be hung. However, when he was being taken to the gallows, the people made a rush on the cart, put the archers and the executioners to flight, pulled down the gibbet, and the culprit made good his escape. So much for popular feeling. Now M. de Brienne 2 tells us that one evening, after praying together, Madame de Brienne, her Majesty's intimate friend, told the queen of all the dreadful things people said about her, making her Majesty more than once blush up to the eyes. After a time Anne of Austria made the following confession — " I acknowledge that I like him (que je Vaime), and I may even say tenderly; but 1 Bed-curtain. 2 Memoires de Brienne le Jeune, t. xi. p. 41. 424 • MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1643-55/ the affection which 1 bear him does not go as far as love, or if it does it is without me knowing it. My senses have no share in this feeling; my mind alone is charmed by the beauty of his mind. Is that criminal % Do not natter me ; if there be in this love a shadow of sin, I will renounce it before God and the saints whose relics are in this oratory. I will. never speak to him again except about the affairs of State, and I will break off the conversation as soon as he speaks to me of anything else? This naturally leads one to conclude that something else had been spoken about. M. de Brienne a few pages/further on doubts if Mazarin loved Anne of Austria. He says that he often heard the cardinal speak ill-naturedly of the queen, adding — " Could a lover say of the woman he adored that she had no talent ; that without him she would never have been able to steer the vessel of State ; that she had more affection for the House of Austria than for that into which she had entered ; that the king her husband had good cause to hate and to distrust her ; that she was devout only by necessity, and that she cared for nothing but good living ? " Now when Mazarin spoke in this way, it is argued that he had become tired of the queen, who was too exacting, and that he would not have thus spoken at an earlier date. Among the historians who suppose that there was Anne of Austria and Mazarin. 1643-55.] MAZARIN 1 S LETTERS. 425 a private marriage ceremony is Michelet, who does not think that the fact of Mazarin being a cardinal would have stood in the way. He says that Mazarin was only a lay cardinal, and not a priest, but this is an error ; also that other cardinals had been un- cardinalized and had married, among these Cardinal Jean Casimir, when he was elected King of Poland. He might have mentioned the case of the Cardinal Lorraine who was a priest, who gave himself the necessary dispensation to marry, which dispensation was afterwards ratified by the Pope. But in both the above cases the cardinals on their marriage laid down the purple. It cannot be admitted that the Pope gave his consent to the marriage of Mazarin, and at the same time allowed him to remain a cardinal, and it is certain that up to the last, and when in articulo mortis, Mazarin was looked upon as a cardinal. Judged, by his correspondence, Mazarin must have been on very intimate terms with the queen; one of his letters to Anne of Austria contains such inflam- matory expressions as these. The epistle is dated from Brlihl, 11th May, 1651, and commences thus — " My God ! how happy and contented I should be if you could see my heart, or if I could write only the half of what I feel ! . . . I never thought that my friendship would go so far as to deprive me of all pleasure when I am not thinking of you. . . My hatred for those who try and make you forget me, and who would hinder us from meeting again, is in proportion to the affection which I bear you. They are mistaken if they hope to see in us the effects of absence. . '. If my misfortunes do not quickly finish, I cannot 426 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1651. answer for being wise to the end, for this great prudence ill suits a passion like mine. . . "Write to me, I beg of you, and say if I shall see you soon, for this state of things cannot last, even should I perish. . . Ah ! how unjust I am when I say that your affection is not comparable to mine ! . . . I sometimes think that it would be better for my peace of mind were you not to write to me, or to write coldly. . . But do not act thusl I pray God to send me death rather than such a misfortune, which would give it a thousand times a day. . ." When Mazarin wrote tlms he was in exile. CHAPTER XVIII. LOUIS XIV. It is said that when Louis XIII. was dying he sent for the dauphin, who had just been christened, and asked him what his name was. The child, under five years of age, replied, "Louis XIV." "Not yet, not yet," languidly exclaimed the expiring monarch. The dauphin, however, had not long to wait. We see that on the 9th May the queen sent word to the Advocate-General, Omar Talon, by her chaplain, to tell him to hold himself in readiness, because " as soon as God had disposed of the king, she had made up her mind to come to Paris to present the dauphin to the Parliament, in order to hold a bed of justice." And in fact, on the 14th May, directly the breath was out of the body of Louis XIII. , Anne of Austria left St. Germain, where the body was lying, and took her two sons to the Louvre. On the 18th her Majesty presented herself before the Parliament with the dauphin, who was clothed in a violet robe, and was carried by his Grand Chamberlain and a captain of the Guard, and placed upon the throne. The Duke of Orleans {Monsieur no longer), the Princes 428 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1643. of Conde" and Conti, of the blood royal, seven dukes and peers, and five marshals, formed the cortege of the youthful monarch, who pronounced a little speech, to the effect that he had come to show his good-will to the assembled company, and that his chancellor would say the rest. However, it was not the chancellor who spoke next, but the queen, who declared that, overwhelmed with grief, she was incapable for the moment of attending to business, and hoped that the Parliament would aid her with its counsels. Then both the Duke of Orleans and the Prince de Conde" promised their assistance, and declared that they would claim no other part in the affairs of the State beyond what the regent would give them. The other members of the Council of Regency, instituted by the late king, remained silent, and claimed no guarantees, as Sismondi bitterly remarks, 1 either for themselves or for the nation, against the absolute will of a woman who had so recently conspired with the enemies of the State, and who_ had always shown herself more Spanish than French. There is something to be said upon this subject. There can be little doubt of the queen having carried on a secret correspondence with the Court of Madrid, and having joined in several conspiracies ; but all these conspiracies were directed rather against Car- dinal Richelieu than against France. The Spanish marriages had been contracted in 1 Histoire des Frangais, t. xxiv. p. 15. 1648.] ANNE OF AUSTRIA'S CONDUCT. 429 order to secure peace and amity between the Courts of Paris and Madrid, but neither Elizabeth in Spain nor Anne of Austria in France exercised any influ- ence on the march of events. Spain, in fact, was governed by Olivarez, and France by Richelieu, and Philip IV. and Louis XIII. , though brothers-in-law twice over, were engaged in Constant warfare. Now, when Louis XIII. died France was at war all round ; there were hostile forces on all her frontiers, and when Anne of Austria assumed the regency, her advent to power did not bring peace. Could she have ever been a traitor to the country of her adoption, as Sismondi would have us believe ? If we take a glance at the events which succeeded each other between the death of Louis XIII. and the marriage of Louis XIV. (a space of twenty years), what do we find ? War carried on more vigorously than ever ; battles of Eocroi, Nordlingen, and Lens ; and then that terrible fighting at and round Fribourg, with Conde and Turenne on one side, and Mercy on the other ; Thionville, Spiers, Philipsbourg, Treves, Ypres, Dunkirk, Mayence, Landau, Manheim, and Gravelines captured by the French, and several of these places recaptured by the Spaniards ; Turenne's army surprised and cut to pieces at Mariendal ; and Conde\ after much bombast, repulsed at Lerida, both himself and his fiddlers. The victory of Lens brought the emperor to his knees, and led to the conclusion of the peace of Westphalia in 1648, but in this arrangement Spain refused to join. And during these 430 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. '[1651. days of foreign war there was domestic trouble fomented by Spain — civil war, a Fronde and a Little Fronde, during which one finds Turenne, to please the beautiful Duchesse de Longueville, after attempt- ing in vain to turn his army against Anne of Austria, quitting his command as a fugitive, and joining the Spaniards. And when he returned to his allegiance, the great Conde" in his turn went over to the enemy. During all these stirring events how did Anne of Austria betray France ? On the 8th September, 1651, Louis XIV. went down for a second time to the Parliament — went to announce his majority, and to hold another bed of justice. The ceremony was accomplished with great pomp, and in the cortege were to be remarked the king's brother, Philippe, Due d'Anjou, the Due d'Orleans, his Majesty's uncle, the Prince de Conti, &c, but the great Conde was absent — gone over to the Spaniards. Having ascended the throne, Louis XIV. said — " Gentlemen, I have come down to my Parliament to declare that, according to the law of my State, I wish to assume the government myself, and I hope, with the grace of God, to rule with piety and justice." The queen regent then declared that she had great satisfaction in handing over to the king the power she had exercised in his name. His Majesty then embraced his mother, and expressed the hope that she would be the chief of his council after himself. And thus were accomplished the two first acts of a very long and eventful reign. 1652.] LOUIS XIV. AND THE PARLIAMENT. 431 The next time that the king went to visit the Parliament he showed to the astonished members the stuff of which he was made — enough, as Mazarin said, for the making of four kings and an honest man. On his return to Paris, in 1652, he had caused to be enregistered, on his own authority, a declaration forbidding " the Parliament people from taking into consideration the general affairs of the State, and from interfering in financial matters." Two years afterwards, the Parliament having assembled without being summoned, in order to examine certain edicts and to draw up remonstrances, the king, who had been out hunting at Vincennes, suddenly made his appearance in the chamber, booted and spurred, and whip in hand, and said, " Gentlemen, it is well known what evils have been produced by your meetings ; I order you to put an end to your deliberations con- cerning my edicts. Mr. Speaker, I forbid you to permit these assemblies, and I forbid any of you to demand them." Such was the haughty manner in which Louis XIV. treated the Parliament of Paris two years before Charles I., the son-in-law of Henri IV., lost his head on the scaffold. He was now sixteen years of age, and had already joined the army in the field. The chief event of the campaign of 1654 was the defeat of the Spaniards at Arras, which was celebrated at the Court with great splendour. It was during the fetes given upon this occasion, and after the king 432 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1654. had recovered from an illness contracted during the campaign, that the admiration of the young sovereign for Olympe Mancini, one of Mazarin's nieces, was first remarked. The young lady is said to have been no beauty — Capefigue says that none of the mistresses of Louis XIV. were ; she had dark hair, a long face, a pointed chin, small but expressive eyes, was stout for her eighteen years, had fine arms, pretty hands, and dressed with taste. Anne of Austria seems to have regarded this youthful attachment without displeasure, but Mme. de Motteville assures us that she could not bear hearing any one, even in jest, to talk of this affair as one which might become legitimate — " The greatness of her mind had a perfect horror of such degradation ! " Finding that she had no chance of wearing a crown, Olympe de Mancini gave her hand to the Comte de Soissons, and shortly afterwards the cardinal withdrew Marie de Mancini from her convent, and presented her at Court. Mme. de Motteville says that when she made her appearance she was decidedly ugly. The king paid no attention to her, the fact being that a short time before he had been captivated by one of the maids of honour to the queen, Mile, de la Motte d'Argencourt, who resisted all his offers. His Majesty wished to establish her at Court, in spite of the queen and the cardinal. It appears that Anne of Austria, in order to induce the king to consent to a separation, appealed to his religious sentiments, and made him promise at the foot of the altar to renounce 1654.] EARLY LOVES. 433 his guilty or perhaps honourable intentions. His Majesty then went to confession, and afterwards took the sacrament, but at his first dance all his promises were forgotten. The consequence was that the young lady was driven from Court, and shut up in the con- vent of Chaillot. Anquetil 1 tells us that his Majesty next paid his addresses to La Beauvais, the first lady in waiting to the queen, " a woman of experience," and nicknamed by Anne of Austria La Borgnesse? She was dismissed the service, but was soon afterwards reinstated, her Majesty being unable to get on without her. This matter would hardly deserve remark, but for the fact of St. Simon having seen her at the toilette of Madame la DaupMne when she was old, " was minus one eye, and wept with the other," and yet " accomplished marvels at Court, because from time to time she went to Versailles and saw the king, who spoke with her in private, and treated her with the greatest considera- tion. Her daughter," adds Anquetil, " was quite the contrary to her mother — she was exceedingly graceful and virtuous, and afterwards became Duchesse de Richelieu." His Majesty then seems to have had liaisons first with a gardener's daughter, then with the lovely Duchesse de Chatillon, but not to have been so fortunate with a marvellous young beauty named Elizabeth de Tarneau. After this the king conceived a violent passion for 1 Histoire de Louis XIV., Sa Cow, &c, t. i. p. 9. 2 The one-eyed. VOL. I. F F 434 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1658. Marie Mancini, which seems to have alarmed both Anne of Austria and the cardinal, who wished him to marry Maria Theresa of Spain, or, if this were not possible, Henrietta of England or Margaret of Savoy. It is probable that this same passion on the part of the king hastened events. The charge has often been brought against Mazarin, that he wished to see Marie Mancini ascend the throne, and that he even sounded Anne of Austria on the subject. The idea may have, flashed across his mind for a moment, when he saw the king's devotion to his niece ; but if this were the case it was immediately discarded, and the political instincts of the cardinal triumphed, backed no doubt by the warm remonstrances of the queen, who hated bis niece, and was prepared to make any sacrifice rather than tolerate a mesalliance. The fact is, that the cardinal, whose faith was strong in the infallibility of his favourite political maxim, to which everything ceded — Time and I — had pursued the Spanish matri- monial scheme for fifteen years, and through many strange vicissitudes. He may therefore be pardoned for a moment of weakness or ambition, especially as Louis had begun to speak like a master, and to emancipate himself from the maternal yoke. It is certain that as early as 1645 he wrote to the French plenipotentiaries at the Congress of Westphalia — " If his most Christian Majesty should marry the Infanta, then might we aspire to the succession in Spain, in spite of any renunciation on the part of the Infanta, and we should not have long to wait. . ." This proves that Mazarin 1659.] THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA. 435 not alone conceived the idea of the marriage fifteen years before it was finally arranged ; but at that early date he had made up his mind to frame the contract in such a manner that there would be no difficulty in successfully contesting its validity. As for the succes- sion, France had longer to wait than Mazarin an- ticipated, because Philippe IV., having lost his wife, Elizabeth of France, married again, and had two sons, one of whom succeeded him as Charles II., and mar- ried the daughter of the Duke of Orleans and Henrietta of England. After 1645, when the peace of Westphalia was con- cluded with the emperor, more than one attempt had been made to conclude peace, on the basis of another Franco-Spanish marriage, especially in 1656 ; but these negotiations had broken down, because the Infanta Maria Theresa was heiress to the throne of Spain, and the Spaniards would never have permitted the Princess of Castile to carry with her to France the right of succession to their throne. Now, how- ever, there seemed a fair opportunity of negotiating with success. Philip IV., as we have said, had re- married ; he had two sons. Again both countries were tired of war — France in spite of many triumphs, and Spain in consequence of repeated disaster and an impoverished treasury. Indirect negotiations were opened up, which gave Spain another chance of dis- playing her dilatory and aggravating propensities. In order to force the Court of Madrid to treat seriously and quickly, Mazarin made, or reopened overtures to 436 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1658. the Duchess of Savoy 1 for the hand of her daughter Margaret, and these overtures were carried so far that a meeting between the two Courts at Lyons was agreed upon. Sismondi has branded this scheme as a projet deloyal, Men digne d'un joretre astucieuso et d'une femme galante. Mazarin had more reasons than one for nego- tiating with the duchess ; he wished to nip in the bud other matrimonial schemes, of which he highly disapproved — schemes for marrying Louis to the Princess Henrietta of England, which might have got France into difficulties with Cromwell ; for marry- ing him to Mile. d'Orleans, the second daughter of Gaston, a princess of rare beauty ; for marrying him to the Princess of Portugal, who afterwards married our Charles II., and whose mother offered the cardinal great treasures to make her daughter Queen of France. This last match would have precluded all chance of peace with Spain. The Court consequently decided upon the journey to Lyons ; being, however, in no hurry to reach that city, in order that Philip IV. might have due notice of what was going on, and time for reflection. Con- siderable' delay took place before a start was effected, either because Anne of Austria was ill, or feigned to be ill ; and it is very probable that without this delay Philip would not have had time to stop the negotia- tions with the Duchess of Savoy. When the queen had recovered, and the Court finally left Paris on the 1 Formerly Princesse Christine of France. 1658.] ANTONIO PIMENTEL. 437 25th October, it travelled by very easy stages to the rendezvous ; and with the Court went Marie Mancini, with whom the king was more infatuated than ever, also the Comtesse de Soissons, Hortense and Marie Anne Mancini, and the Grande Demoiselle. Lyons was reached on the 23rd November, and five days later the Court of Savoy made its appearance, the queen mother, the king, and the chief citizens of Lyons going out to meet the duchess and her daughter. Louis XIV. is said to have found the Princess Margaret, whose hand had already been refused by the Duke of Bavaria owing to her plainness, much better looking than she had been represented ; he also admired her queen-like figure, and the intelligence she displayed. The Duchess of Savoy appears to have had much difficulty in inducing Margaret to go to Lyons, the princess being aware that she was deficient in personal charms ; but Louis for a while treated her with so much attention that she began to entertain hopes of being Queen of France. How- ever, Marie Mancini was there, and affected to be jealous, and her power over the young monarch was quite sufficient to lure him away from Margaret of Savoy. But while these two ladies were disputing the heart and hand of King Louis, there arrived at Lyons one Antonio Pimentel, who had been despatched in hot haste by Philip directly he heard what was brewing. Don Antonio had not even waited for a passport, though the two countries were still at war, and 438 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1659. Turenne was campaigning in the Netherlands, but had risked the journey in disguise. In fact, there was no time to be lost, and the Due de Gramont says in his Memoirs, that had there been any delay Pimentel would have found the king married before he reached Lyons. Anne of Austria and Mazarin were delighted when they learned the arrival of the envoy, who had the power to settle preliminaries. It was of course a painful and a delicate matter to announce to the Duchess of Savoy and her daughter that the King of Spain had offered Louis the hand of the Infanta, and that this offer, in the interests of the peace of Europe, could not be rejected. All that Anne of Austria could do was to assure the duchess, that in the event of the negotiations with Spain not succeed- ing, Louis would marry the Princess Margaret ; and Louis himself gave a written promise to this effect. And upon this undertaking the two Courts separated, not on the best of terms ; that of France returning at once to Paris, which was reached at the end of January, 1659, when the French ministers and Don Antonio Pimentel set to work to clear the way for a regular treaty. Not only had the Princess Margaret been cruelly treated in this affair, but so had her mother, who, in spite of all the brilliant promises held out by Spain, had constantly refused to turn her arms against her nephew. This conduct would have merited little praise but for one circumstance. The French were • endeavouring to conquer the Milanais, and in the 1659.] THE DUCHESS OF SAVOY CONSOLED. 439 event of success, the independence of Savoy would he seriously menaced. Mazarin employed all his skill to prevent the duchess from listening to the pro- posals of Spain, and Christine at last declared that she would only side with France on condition of the marriage of King Louis with her daughter—" a marriage which the cardinal had been promising for some years, but had always eluded." Up to that time she had simply refused to allow French troops to march through her territory ; but as this passage was necessary for the conquests contemplated by France, the project of a marriage was accepted, and the Duchess of Savoy and her daughter were invited to Lyons. No wonder the poor Duchess turned " as pale as death, and showed symptoms of fainting," when Mazarin announced the evil tidings to her. However, she was soon consoled by the promises and caresses of the wily cardinal, and dried her tears when he presented her with a splendid diamond necklace and a quantity of other jewels. Both Anne of Austria and Marie Mancini had been terribly alarmed lest Louis XIV. should insist upon marrying the Princess Margaret. The queen had gone so far as to order her confessor to have prayers offered up in all the churches of Lyons for the success of her wishes ; and when the Court of Savoy took its departure, she petulantly expressed her delight on being delivered from those people {tout ce monde- la). But the delight of Anne of Austria was nothing compared to that of Marie Mancini, who now set to 440 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1659. work to get rid of the Infanta ; nor did she in the least despair of accomplishing this task. After having allowed himself to be captivated for a moment by the wit of Margaret of Savoy, Louis XIV. appeared to be more enamoured than ever of Marie Mancini, in whose society he passed most of his time. Chautelauze, referring to this passion, exclaims — " How could the young king, who had up till that time known nothing but the fugitive intoxication of the senses, resist the intercourse of this Italian, so full of poetry and flame?" And we are told that "Marie Mancini placed in his hands all the books she admired, and taught him to appreciate them. She gave him lessons in Italian, which allowed him to understand the beauties of Ariosto and Tasso ; she inspired him, if not with a taste, with a passion for the fine arts, to which he remained faithful. Her conversation was brilliant, varied, and interesting, and charmed the most eminent courtiers, such as Lyonne, St. Evre- mond, and La Eochefoucauld, who did not disdain to discuss with her on politics, history, and morals. In these conversations the king would take part, and he always showed himself proud of the success of his friend. Marie, too, would read out the fashionable novels and tragedies of the day with great feeling, and her Italian accent is said to have lent a strange charm to her diction. In fact, it was Marie Mancini who undertook the literary education of a prince who became the Mecsenas of his age. She inspired him with a love of power and glory, and made him 1659.] MARIE MANCINI. 441 remember that lie was a king." 1 To a certain extent Marie Mancini resembled Agnes Sorel, who, when Charles VII. "lay carelessly smiling at fame" at Chinon, murmuring " Plaisir, amour," replied, " Gloire, devoir" and persuaded her royal lover to shake off his indolence and buckle on his sword. The only explanation given by the apparent willing- ness of Louis XIV. to marry Margaret of Savoy, in spite of his attachment to Marie Mancini, is this — the king was not aware of Marie's pretensions, and had contented himself with loving her without dreaming of making her queen. The chief object he had in view in proposing to marry Margaret of Savoy was his emancipation. But when he found that Marie Mancini was either " too proud or too knowing " to become his mistress, his Majesty had. to alter his plans. Marie Mancini herself has left a glowing account of the pleasure she enjoyed between the rupture of the Savoy marriage and the marriage of King Louis with the Infanta ; she even wished for the appearance of a little cloud, in order that, by contrast, she might the better appreciate her happiness. "We thought of nothing but amusing ourselves," she says in her memoirs ; " there was not a day, or rather not a moment, which was not devoted to pleasure. . . . It would require a volume to relate all the adventures of these f&tes galantes." And Marie Mancini goes on to relate how the king, while they were walking 1 Chautelauze, Louis XIV. et Marie Mancini. 442 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1659. together in an alley of trees at Bois-le-Vicomte, in taking her hand knocked it gently against the handle of his sword, and " in a rage, which was charming, drew the sword from its sheath, and flung it away in a manner impossible to describe." 1 It appears certain that at this epoch Louis XIV. and Marie Mancini hardly ever left each other, and Anne of Austria was highly irritated, because she never saw the king unac- companied by the cardinal's niece. In the mean time Pimentel and the French ministers were discussing the principal bases of a treaty which Mazarin pretended to be in no hurry to conclude. He gave out that the Spanish alliance filled him with alarm, as the Infanta would probably endeavour to thwart his policy, and would turn against him, as Anne of Austria had turned against Richelieu. He even held out hopes to the Duchess of Savoy that the king might still marry her daughter. The effect desired by the cardinal was obtained. Spain took a step in advance, and sent Don Juan of Austria, the natural son of Philip IV., who was commanding in Flanders, to see the French queen. This greatly alarmed Marie Mancini, who had already been rendered uneasy by the negotiations of Don Antonio Pimentel ; and she did what she could to turn Don Juan into ridicule, and to wean the king from all idea of espousing the Infanta. Events now marched rapidly. After an interview with Don Juan the cardinal, in the name of the king, 1 Apologie de Marie Mancini, p. 25. 1659.] THE LOVERS PARTED. 443 ordered that all hostilities should cease on the Spanish frontier ; on the 8th May an armistice was signed, and on the 8 th June the preliminaries of peace were agreed to. Mazarin now prepared to start for St. Jean-de-Luz, in order to meet Don Louis de Haro ; but as it was feared by the queen and himself that at any moment Louis might break off with the Infanta, and insist on marrying Marie Mancini, it was considered desirable that the lovers should be separated. The consequence was that the cardinal, before taking his departure, or- dered Madame de Venel, the governess of his nieces, to take them to the citadel of Brouage, near La Eochelle. 1 The evening before they left the king, overwhelmed with grief, had a touching interview with his mother, which lasted about an hour; but no matter how ardently he pleaded in favour of Marie Mancini, the queen succeeded in persuading him to sacrifice his inclinations on the altar of duty. Anne of Austria said to Madame de Motteville, after this painful inter- view : " I really pity the king ; he was at once tender and reasonable, but I have just told him that he would one day thank me for the pain I caused him, and from what I see of him I have little doubt on -the 1 Mazarin no doubt remembered what had happened in his hot youth, when he was sent to Madrid as gentleman of the bedchamber to Jerome Colonna, and fell in love with the daughter of the wealthy- Spanish notary, Nodaro by name. Don Jerome at once packed him off to Eome with important despatches for the constable, who sternly told the future arbiter of Europe no longer to think of so foolish a marriage ; and absence and hard work soon cured him of his passion. 444 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1659. subject." However, Louis did not renounce Marie Mancini without another effort. Madame de Motte- ville describes in her Memoirs how the king next appealed to the cardinal, and how stoutly the cardinal resisted all his entreaties, telling him that he could not take advantage of the honour which he wished to do him in a moment of violent passion — an honour of which he would repent, and would reproach him with having accepted, when he saw the kingdom revolting in order to prevent him from dishonouring himself by a n unworthy marriage. Mazarin further said, that he had been chosen by the late king, and since then by the queen, to aid them with his counsel, and that having up to that time served them with inviolable fidelity, he would not now abuse their confidence ; that he was the master of his niece, and that he would sooner stab her to the heart than elevate her to the throne by committing high treason. The separation between the two lovers was exceed- ingly affecting. It was on the 22nd June that Marie Mancini, with her two sisters, Hortense and Marie Anne, started for Brouage. The king accompanied them to their carriage, thus showing his grief in public, and it was on this occasion that Marie addressed to her royal lover those words of tender reproach — " You weep, and you are master ; " or, according to another version — "You weep, you are king, and I leave." Louis allowed her to take her departure, but pro- mised her that he would not abandon the idea of 1659.] MAZARIN'S JOURNEY. 445 marrying her, and that he would never consent to wed the Infanta. 1 He then took leave of the queen, and rushed off to Chantilly to bury his grief in solitude. Three days after the departure of his nieces the cardinal set out for the frontier, troubled both in body and mind, suffering from the gout, and evidently dreading a fresh outburst of passion on the part of the king before he could terminate his treaty with Don Louis de Haro. The letters he wrote on his way to the south throw an interesting light on passing events, and on the anxieties to which he was a prey. They also show that if he ever dreamt for a moment of aiding his niece to ascend the throne, which we consider ex- ceedingly doubtful, that idea was speedily abandoned. On 29th June, 1659, Mazarin, having joined his nieces at Notre-Dame de Cldry, wrote to the king from that place, saying — " My niece has had a slight attack of fever, as she was unable to sleep, but now she is perfectly well, and quite overcome by the honour you do her. . ." The cardinal went on to express his affection for Marie, and to praise her resignation. On the same day he also wrote a letter to the queen, in which he said of Marie — " She is afflicted beyond all I can describe, but entirely resigned to my will." Strange to say, Mazarin offered no objection to the king and his niece corresponding ; he thought that their love would die a natural death, and be replaced 1 Ghavtelauze, p. 76. 446 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1659. by friendship. Thus on the 1st July he wrote to his Majesty from Amboise — " The letter of my niece and my own will have informed you that she is quite well. I am consoled for not sending back the musketeer with all the diligence you ordered, because the musketeer was able to see her, and he will be able to confirm what I say. . . ." The said musketeer appears to have brought to Marie Mancini no less than five very long and tender letters, and he was followed incessantly by other couriers. 1 A few days later the cardinal received the most alarming news from the queen with regard to the state of the king's mind— news which tormented him all the more because he had just received from Spain the ratification of all that had been agreed to in Paris with Don Juan and Don Antonio Pimentel. He much feared that if the Court of Madrid got wind of the passion of the king that the negotiations would be broken off, or at all events retarded. On the 6 th July he wrote to the king from Poitiers, saying — "The confidente (the queen) has written to me concerning the state in which she found you, and I am in despair, for it is abso- lutely necessary to remedy this state of affairs, unless you wish to be unhappy, and to be the death of all your faithful servants. The manner in which you go to work is not calculated to cure you, and unless you make up your mind to change your conduct entirely your disorder will become worse and worse. I implore you for your honour, your glory, the service of God, the welfare of your country, and for all you hold most dear, to make a generous effort to conquer yourself, so as to be able to undertake the voyage to Bayonne [to meet the Infanta] without displeasure. . . ." 1 Apologie, or Memoires de Marie Mancini, p. 27. 1659.] APPEALS TO LOUIS. 447 After other letters in the same strain Mazarin wrote to the king from De Cadillac on the 16th July, saying — " I much, regret to learn from all sides the way in which people speak about you at the very moment you did me the honour to declare your determination to apply yourself to business, and to do all in your power to become the greatest king in the world. Letters from Paris, from Flanders, and elsewhere say that you are not recognizable since my departure ; not on account of me, but of something which belongs to me, that you have entered into en- gagements which will hinder you from bestowing peace upon Christendom, and rendering your State and your subjects happy by marriage. . . . " I see- that my consent to an interchange of news with that person has led to a continual commerce of long letters, that you write every day and receive a reply. 1 . . God established kings to watch over the welfare, security, and repose of their subjects, and not to sacrifice that welfare and repose to their private passions. . . Al- though, in a certain sense, you are master to do what you like, you owe an account of your actions to God. . . ." Mazarin went on to say that Pimentel had told him more than once that he (Louis XIV.) was too much in love to think of getting married, and that Spain would probably break off the match. He im- plored the king to reassure him, so as to enable him to negotiate with Don Louis de Haro, adding — "You would never choose the most faithful of your servants to assure the King of Spain of your intention to do what you really never mean to perform." Mazarin even went so far as to declare that if the king refused to listen to his advice, as a last mark of fidelity and zeal, he would restore all that the late 1 Not a trace remains of this voluminous correspondence. 448 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1659. king and the queen had bestowed on him, would take ship, and would retire with his family to some remote part of Italy. "We next see by a letter dated from St. Jean de Luz, 29th July, that the king had managed to get round his mother to a certain extent, for the cardinal wrote — " I implore you not to write any more to La Kochelle, and you reply that that would be too pain- ful, and that the confidente approved of your conduct." And after lecturing his Majesty on his duty, Mazarin continued — "I am ambitious, as an honest man ought to be, and perhaps I exceed the limits in certain things. I love ray niece very much, but I love you still more, and I take a greater interest in your glory, and in the security of your State, than in anything else in the world. This is why I can only repeat what I had the honour to write to you from De Cadillac. . . Lastly, I tell you that all Europe is talking of your passion, and that with a freedom which is most prejudicial to you. . . I must again complain that you take great care to communicate to La Eochelle all that I write. . . ." On the same day the cardinal wrote to the queen, blaming her for not having exhibited greater firmness, and for having yielded to the confident (the king) in the matter of continuing his correspondence with Marie Mancini. He also said that he hoped the confident would not go to Brouage to see his nieces, as that would cause a great scandal. " But if you are unfortunately unable to obtain so just a demand," he added, " and if your good offices cannot prevail against the strength of his passion, I implore you rather to get Mme. de Venel to take my nieces to 1659.] THE LOVERS MEET. 449 Anjouleme ; . . . but, in the name of God, do all you can to prevent this meeting, which must have a bad effect. . . ." It was found impossible to prevent the interview upon which the king had set his heart, and it was consequently arranged that he should meet the cardinal's nieces at St. Jean d'Angely when on his road to Bordeaux. It is easy to imagine how tender that interview must have been after a separation of six weeks — an interview which appears to have heightened rather than have calmed the passion of Louis. However, Mme. de Motteville tells us that if tears were shed on both sides, that did not prevent the king from continuing his journey, nor Marie Mancini from returning to her place of exile. 1 The cardinal was very anxious to learn all the par- ticulars of the meeting, and wrote to Mme. de Venel for information. He said — " I shall be delighted to know what Marie thinks, and if, in spite of the flatteries of the drawers of horoscopes, she does not understand that she is going the right way to make herself the most unhappy person of her age. She will perceive, when too late, that I am not wrong in my calculation, and that all the follies she has got into her mind will render her miserable." In fact, the cardinal, who shared all the superstitions of the day, had also drawn his niece's horoscope. Again did the amorous Louis appeal to Mazarin 1 Strange to say, Marie Mancini says not a word of this inter- view in the Apologie. VOL. I. O G 450 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1659. to allow him to keep up his intimacy with Marie, to show himself more indulgent and less of a scold. On the reception of the king's letter the poor cardinal, who was suffering from a " furious attack of the gout," seems to have lost his temper. With the view of cutting short the passion of the young monarch, he set to work to demolish his niece. On the 28 th August, 1659, he wrote a letter to his Majesty from St. Jean de Luz, in which he said — " The person of whom you wot does not like me ; in fact, she regards me with aversion because I do not flatter her follies, and but for your passion you would agree with me. She has an un- bounded ambition, a bad temper, a contempt for every one, no control over her actions ; she is ready to commit every kind of extravagance, and she has been more unreasonable since she had the honour of seeing you at St. Jean d'Angely, and since, instead of receiving your letters twice a week, she receives them every day; you will see that she has a thousand defects, and not one quality to render her worthy of the honour of your kindness. . . Can you believe that I am so penetrating and skilful in great affairs, and that I cannot see clear into those of my family, and that I can have any doubt as to the intention of this person as regards myself? seeing that she always does the contrary to what I tell her, turns my counsels into ridicule, and through her obstinacy and folly runs the risk of becoming the laughing-stock of the world. . . ." And the cardinal, after threatening once more to leave France with his nieces if this sort of thing con- tinued, added, that Marie was more assured than ever that she could dispose of the affection of the king since the promises he had made her at St. Jean dAngely ; " and I know," continued the cardinal, " that if you are obliged to marry, her intention is to render the princess you wed unhappy all her life. 1659.] FURTHER REMONSTRANCES. 451 Since your last visit you have recommenced writing to her, not letters, but volumes, and you labour to render yourself the most unhappy of men. . . ." Mazarin next informed the king that he would never dishonour himself, or " render himself in- famous," by consenting to see Marie become his mistress. As for taking Marie to wife, he reminded his Majesty how strongly he had condemned mes- alliances when the Due de Richelieu married the daughter of Madame de Beauvais (La Borgnesse). " You must not alledge, as you have several times done in the presence of the queen," continued the cardinal, " that the principal motive which induced you to think of marrying the said person was to show, in sight of the whole world, that being unable to reward my services sufficiently in any other way, you had chosen this. . . ." 1 This letter certainly tells in favour of the argument that Mazarin never wished to see Marie Mancini on the throne, being aware of her character, and convinced that she would be his deadly enemy. The portrait which the cardinal drew of his niece may have been dictated by passion, but, as Chautelauze remarks, it was perfectly justified by her after life. After having written this spirited appeal to the king, the cardinal seems to have been somewhat alarmed' at his boldness. He awaited a reply with great anxiety. An answer arrived on the 1st September, 1 This letter, from which, we have given a few extracts, extends over more than twelve in 8vo. pages. G G a 452 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1659. and filled him with consternation. The contents of the document are not known ; there is no trace of it in the State Papers, and the inference is that it was so galling to the pride of the cardinal, that he de- stroyed it. That it contained a sharp rebuke is clear from the next letter which Mazarin wrote to his Majesty; he protested that in what he had said and done he had been actuated solely by a stern sense of duty ; he was exceedingly sorry that the king was angry with him ; he was ready to resign his post, and to retire into private life ; he felt sure that his master would one day appreciate the motives which had induced him to speak his mind so plainly. Mazarin also wrote in a piteous strain to Anne of Austria, begging her to intercede in his favour, and sending her eighteen fans and four pairs of gloves, which his sister had sent to him from Eome. He was careful to explain that he would have sent the half- dozen, but Don Antonio Pimentel was present when he opened the box, and he felt obliged to offer him two pairs— one pair for himself and one for Don Louis de Haro. Matters were in this somewhat unsatisfactory posi- tion, when suddenly there came a ray of light as unexpected as it was welcome. Marie Mancini had been for some time pestering her uncle with letters filled with reproaches and supplications, and at last the cardinal had ordered her cease importuning him. Now, however, came a letter which filled his heart with delight — a letter which announced that his way- 1659.] THE RUPTURE. 453 ward niece had made up her mind to listen to his counsels, and to cease all communications with the king. She seems to have been aware that the mar- riage clauses of the treaty with Spain had been signed, and we are assured that her pride got the better alike of her love and her grief. No more volumes were addressed to Louis. Mazarin expressed all his joy in a letter to Madame de Venel. It was a tremendous load removed from his shoulders. He could now treat with Don Louis de Haro with the certainty of carrying his negotiations to a successful issue. His ideas concerning his niece underwent a complete change. She was now painted in very different colours to those employed in the portrait sent to the king. The cardinalwent so far as to prescribe for her grief. He recommended hunting, walking, fishing, good dinners, and other diversions, also a course of Seneca (probably de consolatione). Pious minds, be it remarked, considered that the cardinal, as a dignitary of the Church, instead of the writings of the Roman philosopher, whose reputation was not of the best, should have recommended the Gospels or the " Imitation of Jesus Christ." The king seems to have been much vexed at the conduct of Marie Mancini, one result of which was that Mazarin was restored to the royal favour. In his calmer moments his Majesty owned that the cardinal, in thwarting his passion, had acted with courage and discretion. In spite of his bodily sufferings, Mazarin now wrote the most jubilant 454 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1659. letters to the king and to Anne of Austria. He could not contain his delight. In a letter to the queen, he said that if she intended coming to see him, then he would have to suffer still longer, as the gout, on learning that she was expected, would certainly remain to see so gracious a princess ! It is terrible to think that even after this pretty- compliment the cardinal should have had one more fright on the subject of his niece. Just as the treaty of the Pyrenees was going to be signed, the king said that he should like to write to Marie, and send her a present. Experience had taught the minister the danger of allowing any intercourse between Marie and the king. He remonstrated, and not in vain. And this was the last phase in the loves of Mazarin's niece and Louis XIV. Mazarin, however, continued to act with vigilance, and by means of providing amusements for both parties to keep them from indulging in any new- escapade. While hurrying on the negotiations with Spain upon one hand, he despatched Ondedei, Bishop of Frdjus, to Brouage, to ask Marie to give her hand to the Constable Colonna. The bishop failed in his mission. Marie for the moment had no desire to marry ; she regarded men in general with con- tempt, and she declared that her uncle had promised never to force her to marry. 1 Mazarin was some- 1 Marie Mancini afterwards became Duchess of Colonna. The marriage contract was signed in March 1661, just before the cardinal died, and the betrothal took place in the king's cabinet in April. 1659.] VOLTAIRE'S OPINION. 455 what put out by thi8 refusal, but as the king was at Bordeaux, he released Marie and her sisters from prison, and allowed them to return to Paris to enjoy themselves under the eye of Madame de Venel. We have dwelt at some length on the early loves of the Grand Monarque, because, as Voltaire says, " such was the splendour of the reign of Louis XIV., that the smallest details of his life seem to interest posterity, and this is why most historians have published the first predilections of the king for the Baroness de Beauvais, for Mademoiselle d'Argencourt, for the niece of Cardinal Mazarin, who married the Comte de Soissons, the father of Prince Eugene, especially for Marie Mancini, who afterwards married the Constable Colonna. . . His attachment for Marie Mancini was an important matter, because he loved her sufficiently to wish to marry her, and because he was sufficiently master of himself to consent to a separation. This victory gained over his passion was the first act which displayed the greatness of his character (Siecle de Louis XIV., ch. xxv.). On the 8th of May, 1659, the preliminaries having been signed, an armistice ' was agreed to which was to last till the end of July. It was thought that peace would have been concluded before that date, but matters did not progress as fast as had been anticipated, because the Spaniards generously insisted that the Prince of Conde" should receive a full pardon, and be reinstated in his governorship and other offices. For a long time Mazarin resisted, 456 MARRIAGES .OF THE BOURBONS. [1659. but sooner than break off negotiations, he yielded at last. The consequence of this delay was that the armistice had to be renewed, and it was not until the 13 th August that the conferences were opened on the little Isle of Pheasants, in the middle of the Bidassoa, half of which was French and half Spanish territory. On this island a pavilion had been con- structed for the negotiators, and the conference hall was so arranged that the arm-chair of Cardinal Mazarin was on French, while that of Don Louis de Haro was on Spanish soil. There was a door too on either side, so that the two negotiators could enter at the same time, and other contrivances to allay friction as regarded precedence. It was much feared that the rivalry which existed between the two countries would lead to disputes, such as those which took place when Louis XL met Henry IV. of Castile, and when the exchange was made of Anne of Austria and Elizabeth of France, near the same spot. On those occasions the Spaniards had turned the French into ridicule owing to the meanness of their costumes, and high words and blows had been exchanged. Mazarin, however, was determined that in 1659 there should be no laughing on the part of the Spaniards, and it was for this reason that he set out from St. Jean de Luz to the place of conference with thirty carriages drawn by six horses each, and a splendid retinue. In one of his letters he boasts that he had a larger cortege than Don Louis de Haro in every way — more gentle- 1659.] THE TREATIES SIGNED. 457 men in his train, more domestics, and more guards. Again, the French wore much more magnificent costumes than the Spaniards ; and, in fact, if the Spaniards in 1463 had some reason to laugh at the close-fitting and scanty jackets of the French, the French in their turn might have returned the laugh in 1659 ; but they refrained from so doing, and behaved in the most becoming manner. ■Notwithstanding the gravity of the matters dis- cussed at the conference, and the number of articles which had to be settled, one hundred and twenty - four in all, the negotiators got through their business early in September, and in November the two treaties — that for the marriage and that for the conclusion of peace — were signed. "In less than six weeks," says Larrey, "two men terminated the most im- portant affair ever dealt with, settled the marriage of the two greatest parties in the world — of the Infanta, the daughter of one of the most powerful monarchs of Europe, with the first King of Christen- dom ; terminated a war which had lasted for twenty- five years (in spite of the marriage of Anne of Austria with Louis XIII.), and restored peace, joy, abundance, and general felicity. . . . The treaty of marriage deserved their first attention, and it was also the first concluded." In fact, after tbe first six meetings, matters were considered so far advanced that the Due de Gramont was despatched to Madrid to demand the hand of the Infanta on the part of his master. The principal clauses of the treaty of the Pyrenees, 458 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1659. and those which gave rise to the most lively dis- cussion, were these. First, the marriage clause, including the dowry and the renunciation. It was settled that the dowry should consist of 500,000 gold crowns, which was to be paid in three instalments. Mazarin is said to have insisted upon this stipulation, knowing that Spain was not in a position to pay the money, and that therefore he would be able, if desirable, to declare that portion of the treaty dependent on the payment of the dowry invalid. However, Mazarin hoped for some- thing more than the gold crowns of the sun. "The cardinal," says Voltaire, "evidently made a mistake in believing that the Low Countries and Franche Comfe* would form part of the portion of the Infanta. Not a single town was included in the dowry, but, on the contrary, several places of considerable importance which had been captured by the French were restored to the Spanish monarchy, such as St. Omer, Ypres, Menin, Oudenarde, and others. A few were kept." As for the 500,000 gold crowns, over which there was a good deal of unseemly haggling, they represented a sum of 1,500,000 francs, less than the amount which it cost ' the French Court to go to the frontier ; and, in fact, France never received more than 100,000 francs, or say £4000, instead of £60,000, as stipulated. With regard to the renunciation, the Infanta was to give up all possible and eventual rights to the Spanish throne. When the conferences opened 1659.] THE RENUNCIATION. 459 Philip IV. had two sons by his second marriage — both infants. Just when all was settled the younger boy died, and the Due de Gramont tells us that it was greatly feared lest the negotiations should be abruptly broken off in consequence. However, notwithstanding the apprehensions of Spain with regard to the succes- sion, Philip IV. determined to go on with the treaty. On this subject Voltaire remarks, that "the cardinal was not wrong in believing that the renunciation would one day be useless, but those who give him credit for predicting this (in 1645) make him foresee that the Prince don Balthazar 1 would die in 1649; that afterwards three children by the second marriage would die in the cradle ; that Charles, the fifth male child, would die without posterity ; and that this Austrian king 2 would one day make a will in favour of the grandson of Louis XIV." This Voltaire thinks was going a little too far. The renunciation by Maria Theresa was ratified in the most solemn way by Louis XIV., and was afterwards enregistered by the Parliament of Paris ; but for some reason it was never, like that of Anne of Austria, laid before the States of Castile and Arragon ; and this was one of the chief reasons which induced Charles II. to decide, half a century later, that the descendants of Maria Theresa could be legally considered the legitimate heirs to the crown of Spain — a decision which led to the War of Succes- sion, the establishment of the Bourbon dynasty in 1 Son of Elizabeth, of France. 2 Charles II. of Spain. 460 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1659. the Peninsular, and finally the peace of Utrecht, by which the Spanish monarchy was shorn of many of its numerous possessions. But to this we shall have to refer hereafter. Another important clause was that which concerned Portugal. Don Louis de Haro insisted that that country, the faithful ally of France, should be handed over to the tender mercies of his master. The Portuguese were rebels, they had re-established an independent monarchy, they had beaten the Spanish troops in several engagements, and had forced them to raise the siege of Elvas. Spain could neither forget nor forgive so deep an offence to her dignity. Mazarin, no matter how he twisted and turned, was unable to elude giving Spain the satisfaction she demanded on this point ; he promised neutrality. 1 1 The view taken by Clarendon on this subject is worth, noting. He says, " There could not be a greater engagement than France had made to Portugal, never to desert it nor to make peace without providing that that king should quietly enjoy his government to him and his posterity without being in the least degree subject to the yoke of Spain. And Spain was principally induced to buy a peace upon hard terms, that it might be at liberty to take revenge of Portugal ; which they always reckoned they should be able to do within one year, if they had no other enemy upon them ; and they would never value any other peace if that were not entirely left to them and disclaimed by France." — Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, t. iii. p. 531. Of Portugal no other care was taken in the treaty, than that after the French king had pompously declared, " he would have given up all his conquests by the war, provided the King of Spain would have consented that all things should remain in Portugal as they were at that present," now, the most Christian king was to be al- lowed three months wherein he might try to dispose the Portuguese to satisfy his Catholic Majesty (p. 585). 1659.] THE PORTUGUESE CLAUSE. 461 Larrey assures us that, " as it was impossible to obtain peace except at this price, the cardinal con- sidered the sacrifice necessary, and that the repose of Christendom ought to outweigh any particular interest." " Besides, he was well assured," says the historian of Venice, " of being able to find a pretext for avoiding his promise." He afterwards tells us that Don Louis de Haro was a relation of the Queen of Portugal, and that he implored the cardinal to write to Louis XIV., to impress upon his allies the necessity of coming to terms with his Most Catholic Majesty, for, once peace concluded with France, Philip IV. was determined to invade Portugal with his whole army. We are then informed how the astute cardinal profited by " this moment of tenderness to obtain for the King of Portugal an extension of the armistice, so as to give him time to seek the aid of England and of Holland in default of that of France, whose hands were tied." This Portuguese clause is possessed of peculiar interest for us, seeing what came to pass, and the part we played in establishing the House of Braganza on the throne. Among other persons who flocked to the scene of the Conference was Lockhart, the am- bassador of the Commonwealth, who, though Oliver Cromwell was dead, still inspired respect. 1 There also 1 The cardinal went so far as to ask Lord Loekart, as the French historians delight to call him, if he would like England to be in- cluded in the peace, upon which the ambassador to the republic said that his country was strong enough to make peace of itself when required. " But," replied Mazarin, " Monk and Lambert 462 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1659. appeared first an envoy of Charles II., and then the banished monarch himself. Voltaire says that neither Mazarin nor Don Louis would receive Charles for fear of giving offence to Lockhart ; but Hume is probably right in saying that although Mazarin, who had entered into an alliance with the Protector, declined to see the king, " Don Louis received him with that generous civility peculiar to his nation, and expressed great inclination, had the low condition of Spain allowed him, to give assistance to the distressed monarch." x Larrey says that both Spain and France dreaded England, and agreed that if the war between Spain are in arms ; whose ambassador are you 1 " Lockhart answered, "I am the humble servant of events." — Montglat, p. 29. 1 According to Clarendon, the death of Cromwell frightened and perplexed Mazarin, and moved him to make peace for fear of an alliance between Spain, England, Conde, and the Huguenots. Charles, he says, wished to go to Fontarabia ; and Don Louis de Haro said that he might come incognito with a small train, and that he would do what he could for him with the cardinal. Charles got his mother to sound Mazarin, who at first objected to his presence, and then promised to look after his interests as soon as the treaty was safe. Charles set out from Brittany with Dan O'JSTeil, Marquis of Ormond, and the Earl of Bristol, and after many adventures reached Saragossa. Don Louis was much alarmed lest they should go on to Madrid, and that all the money saved and borrowed for the marriage and delivery of the Infanta would be spent on the King of England's entry and entertainment at Madrid. However, Charles and his friends were unable to get to the Spanish capital for want of funds, and at last turned up at Fontarabia, where Don Louis gave them 7000 gold pistoles for- their journey to Brussels, apologizing for the smallness of the sum on the ground of the heavy expenses to which the country had just been put. 1659.] CHARLES II. AND HORTENSE MANCINI. 463 and England should continue, then France would observe a strict neutrality, and that Spain should do the same if England went to war with France. He also says that Mazarin, while refusing to see Charles II., had it privately conveyed to him that although obliged to act as he had done, he would see after his interests, and offered him the hand of his niece, Hortense Mancini. Now the fact appears to be that it was Charles II. himself who asked for the hand of Hortense, and that the cardinal, having little hope that he would ever recover the crown of his father, refused him. Mademoiselle de Montpensier, in her Memoirs, says that the day after the cardinal arrived at St. Jean de Luz, having signed the peace, he came to pay her a visit, and said, " ' The King of England has proposed to marry my niece Hortense. I replied that he did me too much honour, but that as long as there were first cousins of the king to marry ' (meaning Mademoiselle de Montpensier) ' I must decline.' I thanked him, and strongly advised him to give Hortense to the king. . . I learned that on the death of Cromwell, the Queen of England (the widow of Charles I., Henrietta Maria) had made the same proposal to the cardinal, who had rejected it. The last time it was M. de Turenne who made it. He took a great interest in all that concerned the King of England." The fact is, as Voltaire remarks, that none of the crowned heads considered the re-establishment of Charles possible ; it was thought that the people of 464 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [ 1659 - England would never recognize another king ; and yet two months later Charles was recalled without a single potentate of Europe having stirred to hinder the murder of the father, or to aid in the re-establish- ment of the son. . . This change took less time than was necessary to conclude the treaty of the Pyrenees, and Charles II. was already in peaceful possession of England before Louis XIV. was married by procur- ation." But can Mazarin be accused of want of per- spicacity in this matter ? Not if we are to judge by the astonishment caused by the Restoration in other quarters. Clarendon says that " men were confounded by such a prodigious act of Providence as God has scarce vouchsafed to any nation since He led His own chosen people through the Red Sea." 1 Charles II. appears to have been a passionate admirer of the beautiful Hortense Mancini, and had Mazarin not rejected his offers, it is quite possible that the House of Braganza would never have reigned. When Charles was seated on his throne it was Mazarin's turn to offer the hand of his niece, but the King of England declined, though his mother was in favour of the match, and he himself was sadly in want of the lady's millions. Eventually he married Catherine of Portugal, who brought him £500,000 ready money, Tangiers, Bombay, and other advantages. And this match was favoured by France and opposed by Spain. Well had it been for the latter country had Don Louis not insisted upon France deserting Portugal, and if 1 Tome iii. p. 540. 1659.] CONDE PARDONED. 465 Philip IV. had not tried to reconquer that country. England and Portugal became fast allies, and Spain, after experiencing several great military disasters, was obliged to acknowledge the independence of its little neighbour after a struggle of twenty-five years. This was one of the episodes of the treaty of the Pyrenees and the Franco-Spanish matrimonial alliance. With the other clauses referring to territorial changes we have nothing to do here. Suffice it to say that by Art. 61 Spain renounced all her claims to Alsace ; that Art. 62 to Art. 79 dealt with Lorraine, which was not entirely to escape from French clutches for more than two centuries ; and that Art. 89 confirmed the rights of the King of France to Navarre as laid down in the treaty of Vervins concluded between Henri IV. and Philip II. in 1598. The great advantages secured by the treaty of the Pyrenees were a short respite from foreign war and internal discord, as far as France was concerned. The great Conde, after being received by Mazarin, was taken by the cardinal to see the king, and bowed the knee to his lawful sovereign, asking pardon for his treason. Louis XIV. replied stiffly, " My cousin, after the great services which you have rendered to my crown, I have no wish to remember a bad action which hurt no one but yourself." We have already said that after the sixth conference the Due de Gramont was despatched to Madrid with a formal demand for the hand of the Infanta. One VOL. I. h H 466 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1659. of the officers on the staff of the duke has left the following account of this mission — " We set out for Burgos on the 8th October, 1659, and reached Madrid on Sunday, where we had much difficulty in finding even a bad inn, after searching for more than two hours. We stayed there all Monday, and then set out to meet the marshal at three leagues from here. He arrived on Friday, and the next day was visited, on the part of the king, by Don Cristoval de Gavina, knight of the Order of St. James, and lieutenant in the Spanish Guard, and the conductor of ambassadors. At noon the Marquis de Malpicer, Majordomo of his Majesty, sent him a very handsome present of eight beautiful caskets filled with pastilles for burning and pastilles for eating, gloves of perfumed skin, a number of vases enriched with gold and silver, cups of leather, and other gallanteries brought from India. . . . On Thursday he started for Madrid, and when half a league from the city pre- pared his entry ; it was there that the fine dresses were unpacked for the forty-two gentlemen in attend- ance. The post-horses destined for the entry were, brought to this place ; eight had embroidered saddles. After dinner a move was made, but having no watch we arrived too soon, and had to wait for an hour at the gate, until an order came from the king. The march was formed as follows — at the head eight postilions, with rose-coloured caps of velvet, orna- mented with silver lace — each had his cornet ; they were followed by six Masters of the Post in Spanish 1659.] THE DUC DE GRAMONT ENTERS MADRID. 467 costumes ; behind them the Lieutenant of the Courier, Major Don Andres de Bustillos ; and ten paces behind came the marshal, and at a similar distance behind him followed the nobles. We entered Madrid in this order at a gallop, and arrived at the palace like real couriers. 1 I cannot tell you how astonished the people were to see couriers so richly dressed, for our entry took them all by surprise, and some said that the King of France had done this to brave them, and that this display could hardly be sincere, after twenty- five years of war. " On reaching the palace, the Admiral of Castile, with a number of Spanish nobles, received the marshal. After many compliments they ascended to the apart- ments of the king, who was waiting for them in a gilded saloon filled with pictures, and where there was a great number of people. The king was under a dais of inestimable price, leaning on a table, with a seat near him ; the marshal and the admiral entered together, and made a great reverence to the king, who took off his hat and lowered it to his belt. At the second rever- ence the admiral moved away, and left the marshal, who approached the king. His Majesty received him without taking off his hat a second time, and made him cover himself. Then the marshal commenced his discourse, which no one could hear. Next he placed himself alongside of the table upon which the king was leaning, and we approached to salute his Majesty." 1 The galloping was to symbolize the eagerness of Louis XIV. to ■win the Infanta. H H 2 468 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1659. The names of all the Frenchmen and Spaniards present are duly given, and we are told that the grandees kept their hats on before the king, such being the custom in Spain. " Thence the marshal went into the queen's apartment, where we followed him ; she was accompanied by the two infantas, Maria Theresa and Margaret. After having harangued them the marshal withdrew, and we followed him, after having saluted. Here I may tell you that we were somewhat surprised to find the Infanta prettier than she is made in her portraits ; she has the air of a queen, I mean like ours ; she seemed to us tall enough ; she has a broad forehead indicating intelligence, very fine blue eyes, a full face, a nose rather large, a pretty vermilion mouth, a neck of great whiteness, fair hair ; and if I may be permitted to speak of our future queen in these terms, I may say that she will be una bona Boba, and that our king will have no reason to complain of the necessity imposed upon kings to marry crowned heads." Then came visits, received and returned, and banquets, and superb presents on both sides, after which the marshal and his suite returned to France. As for a grand feast, given by the Admiral de Castile, the Due de Gramont says in his Memoirs* that " it was meant more for the eyes than the palate. There were seven hundred dishes served with the admiral's arms. All the meats in them were saffroned and gilded, and were removed as they came ; no one 1 Tome ii. p. 61. 1659.] FESTIVITIES. 469 tasted them, although the dinner lasted four hours." The gallant marshal goes on to say, that this was very different to the banquet given to him a few- years before by the Comte de Furstemberg, at which the Electors of Mayence and Cologne were present — " The dinner lasted from noon till nine at night, to the sound of timbrels and trumpets. From two to three thousand toasts were drunk. The table had to be propped up ; the electors and the other guests danced upon it, and I, lame as I am, led the revels, and we all got drunk." l At the end of the time devoted to festivities, the king sent the Due de Gramont a letter, according the hand of the Infanta to his master, and telling him that he would explain his views concerning the nuptials when he came to take leave. At this audience Philip IV. appears to have pronounced a touching discourse on the curse of war and the blessings of peace. The same evening the duke was taken to the theatre at Buen-Eetiro, where he was placed so as to be able to examine the personal appearance of the Infanta at his leisure. The king, who on this occasion was attended by a dwarf, never moved hand or foot during the performance, and only once turned his head to make a remark to the queen ; he satisfied himself with now 1 A few years later Sir William Temple was sent on a mission to Munster, but Macaulay says that he was placed in a situation where the eminent diplomatic talents he possessed appeared to little advantage, as he was unable to accommodate himself to the habits of the people. "He could not bear much wine; and none but a hard drinker had any chance of success in Westphalian society." 470 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1659. and then rolling his eyes from side to side. The humour of the play consisted in the Archbishop of Toledo, in command of an army, appearing on the stage in his mitre and other canonicals, with a sword at his side, and booted and spurred. It was considered strange that such a piece should have been placed on the stage, as the king's brother, the Cardinal Infant, had been Archbishop of Toledo, and one of the most successful generals during the late war. " It was little to the taste or credit of the Spanish Court," says Dunlop, " if it intended to flatter French vanity by showing disrespect to a commander who had invaded their territory, and had made Paris tremble." 1 If the marshal had but a poor idea of the dramatic performance, he evidently admired the Infanta, for he wrote to Mazarin, saying — " I thank God that I can in truth assure you, that no princess can be more beautiful or agreeable than the Infanta. ... To the number of important services which you have rendered to the State, you may add the gratification of having obtained for his Majesty the most amiable and lovely woman in Christendom." When the treaty of peace was signed, it was too late in the season for Philip IV. to pass the Pyrenees ; in fact, it was not ratified at Madrid until the 10th December. It was at first proposed that the French Court, instead of awaiting the arrival of the Infanta 1 A number of Churchmen took part in the Thirty Years' "War, in addition to the Cardinal Infant — for instance, Cardinals Eichelieu, de la Valette, de Sourdis, Maurice of Saxony, and Theodore Trivulce, who commanded the Spanish cavalry. 1660.] ORANGE. 471 in the south, should return to Paris ; but religious troubles having broken out at Aix and Marseilles, the. king determined upon passing the next seven months in " the depths of the provinces." The rebellion was very speedily quelled, and the rebels were being treated with the utmost cruelty, when on the 22nd February, on the occasion of the publication of the treaty of peace, the date too of the death of Gaston, Duke of Orleans, these severities were relaxed. After striking terror into the hearts of the citizens of Marseilles, and laying the city desolate, the king went to Toulon, where he released a number of Spanish and other prisoners, who had been thrown into chains. Thence on the 18th March he moved to the papal town of Avignon, where he passed the holy week, at the same time sending away the troops of his Holiness, and entrusting himself to the care of his own soldiers. 1 As a set-off to this insult to Alexander VII., the Marshal Du Plessis-Praslin was ordered to take the little town of Orange, which was invested on the 20th March, and almost immediately surrendered by the Comte de Dohma, the governor. 2 1 Though confiscated more than once by Louis XIV. and Louis XV. , Avignon remained a Papal city until the Eevolution. 2 In the Thurloe State Papers we find the following reference made to this matter — ,, -a 30th March, , aan " France, ' 1660. Wi April, " Two days later the king, accompanied with some of the nobles, went to Orange ; and having stayed some hours there, returned to Avignon. . . Their hearts were so much set upon this business of Orange, that no other issue could be expected from it; and the 472 MARRIAGES OF .THE BOURBONS. [1660. The town belonged to a child then ten years of age, who was destined to become the rival of Louis XI V, and illustrious as William III., but at that moment he was powerless. The citadel and the bastions of Orange were levelled to the ground. " Orange," says Sismondi, " was a portion of the old kingdom of Aries, and of the empire which had never recognized the sovereignty of the crown of France. The hatred which Louis XIV. bore the Protestants had a great deal to do with this act of injustice. He wished to deprive them of an asylum in the midst of his southern provinces. This is how the French king passed his time while waiting for his bride." On the 9th March, 1660, Louis XIV. wrote to Philip IV., saying— "My dear Brother and Uncle, " I cannot allow my private secretary Bartet, who takes with him the dispensation, to leave this without reiterating the assurances of my friendship for your Majesty. I also hope that it will seem good to you to let me have news of your health by the same, sieur Bartet, as also that of the person whom I consider henceforth as forming part of myself, considering that after the troops of Dauphine being all ready to besiege it, it was to be seen that they had a design to' take it, whatever it cost them : so that there was a necessity the Count of Dona (being abandoned by all) should accommodate this business, because the place was ill-provided of all things, and could not have held out for fifteen days ; besides , the town was in very ill intelligence with the castle, and the States of Holland, which ought to have contributed most to its conserva- tion, had writ to the king that they would be guarantee, if the Princess of Orange should approve what the Count of Dona should agree with his Majesty " Thurloe State Papers, t. vii. p. 879. 1660.] LOUIS WRITES TO THE QUEEN. 473 benediction which it has pleased his Holiness to give to our mar- riage, I can more freely than before ask news of her, and send her news of me. " I am, &c. &c. " Louis." There is a tone of refinement about this letter which foreshadowed a great change for the better in the manners of the epoch. The letter of the French king was not only delicate and respectful, as regards both his father-in-law Philip and his cousin the Infanta, but at the same time it was charming in its simplicity. Strange as it may appear, all the passion for Marie Mancini had vanished, and Louis was now anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Infanta, con- cerning whose beauty he had received such glowing accounts. The permission to correspond with his future bride was at once accorded. A few days later Louis XIV. wrote again to his royal father-in-law, announcing the despatch of On- dedei, bishop of Frejus, whom we saw a short time ago trying to persuade Marie Mancini to marry the Constable Colonna. The bishop was to be present, in the name of the King of France, when the Papal dispensation was read out in the cathedral of Burgos. The first letter which Louis XIV". wrote -to the princess he already regarded as his wife was addressed " To the Queen," and ran thus — "In Avignon, 2ith March, 1660. " It is not without constraint that up to the present I yielded to those reasons which hindered me from expressing to your Majesty the sentiments of my heart. Now that things have reached a stage 474 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1660. which allow me to live with you as with my second self, I am delighted to commence by assuring you, by means of these lines, that it would be impossible for this happiness to have befallen any one who longed for it more passionately, and who esteems it more highly than myself. The Bishop of Frejus will have the honour of speaking to you at greater le-Dgth upon this subject should it be agreeable to you ; but all that he may say, and all that others have said on my behalf, will fall very short of the reality, which I hope soon to confirm viva voce, but not soon enough to satisfy my impatience. " Louis." Other letters followed, getting warmer and warmer as the time for meeting approached. The Court had now left Toulouse for St. Jean de Luz, where the marriage was to be celebrated. From the latter town the king, on the 25th April, wrote "to the Queen" — " Seeing your Majesty approach, and my happiness with her, I cannot contain my joy, and although it is impossible to express all I feel, I do not hesitate to send to your Majesty the Comte de Noailles, the captain of my Guards, in whom I have great confidence, to tell you that my delight is beyond all expression. I am enchanted to think that I am on the eve of being able to assure you of this in person. I desire it with a passion which has no equal, and which, in a word, corresponds with the merit of your Majesty. " Louis." In this letter, which Chautelauze characterizes as c/alante, chevalresque , and quite in the Spanish taste, the Infanta hastened to reply, in more measured terms. She too was deeply in love. From her very infancy she had looked upon Louis as her future husband. Her mother, when she was a child, had told her that to be happy she must be either Queen of France or go into a nunnery. It may be imagined 1660.] THE QUEEN WRITES TO LOUIS. 475 with what anxiety she must have followed the various phases of the negotiations now brought to a happy issue. The portrait of King Louis had charmed her, as Louis himself had been charmed by hers. She now replied — " Seigneur, " I have received the letter which your Majesty sent me by the Conite de Noailles, accompanied with the demonstrations of attachment and of joy which our nearer approach causes your Majesty, and which the Count assures me that he has also remarked in you. I have received this assurance with all the deference due to the gallantry of your Majesty, and demanded by the good fortune of having obtained so great a favour. I shall endeavour always to deserve it by conforming to the wishes imposed by your Majesty, hoping that God will grant you all happiness, such as I desire. '" Maria Teresa." No sooner had the French king learned that Philip had left Madrid than he approached the frontier to receive him. But his father-in-law and his Court moved slowly, and with true Spanish leisure and dignity. Then the journey was long, Philip was ill and well stricken with years, and his train was more like an army on the march, extending six leagues. Although the snow had disappeared from the moun- tain passes of Leon and Old Castile, the roads were not in the best condition. It appears that in front of this host rode eight trumpeters in red and yellow uniforms, richly embroidered with the arms of France and Spain. Next came four state coaches, and the same number of horse litters ; then two coaches with the gentlemen of the bed-chamber ; then a great number of the nobility and gentry; and after them 476 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1660. the grandees with their own magnificent coaches and liveried attendants, all having three suits, one for leaving Madrid, one for travelling, and one for the wedding. The Duke of Medina de las Torres seems to have surpassed all the other grandees in the number of his followers and the splendour of their costumes. The royal pages who followed were brilliant with crimson and gold ; they preceded the king's equipage, in which his Majesty and the Infanta were seated. Afterwards came an endless train of baggage waggons, and 3500 bat and saddle mules. The wedding garments of the bride-elect, twenty-three complete attires, all extremely rich, were contained in twelve trunks lined and covered with crimson velvet, the hinges, the locks, and the keys being of silver ; twenty other trunks covered with Russian leather contained the linen. There were also six trunks lined with crimson satin, their hinges, bars, and locks being of gold enamelled. Two of these contained presents for the Due d'Anjou, and the other four presents to be distributed among the ladies of the French Court. No less than fifty sumpter horses were required to carry the articles for the Infanta's toilette, and twenty-five more for exquisite hangings and tapestry. In addition to all this there were special robes and liveries for the entry into Paris, a sedan chair adorned with silver, worked like Flander's lace ; and for charity and other gifts the Infanta had 50,000 pistoles. 1 1 Thurtle's History of Spain, 1660.] VELAZQUEZ. 477 Besides the Infanta, the king was accompanied by Don Louis de Haro, and all the great officers of the State whose names have long been forgotten. Not so the name of Velazquez, who had been sent on to decorate the pavilion on the Tsle of Pheasants. On their way to the Pyrenees the royal party were enter- tained at Burgos, Victoria, St. Sebastian, and other places with bull-fights, fireworks, theatricals, and masquerades, and it was not until June that Font- arabia was reached — three months later than was expected, if we may trust the following letters to be found in the TIturloe State Papers. The first is dated "Paris, 20th March, 1660," and says — " The marriage holds in design for the 20th April, and the Court is expected here towards the latter end of May ; and I hope (if better occasion hinders not) you will be there to see the triumphs and the stately structures at both ends of the Louvre. Thus (by different fates) some kings (Louis XIV.) are busy about ornaments, whilst other sovereigns (Charles II.) are troubled to recover their lost kingdoms. This Louis's grandfather (Henri IV.) was fain to fight for foundations." And then " Paris, 9th April, 1660 "— "The King of Spain will be assuredly about the beginning of May upon the frontiers. The Spanish slowness began to tire out the Court ; and if the marriage had been deferred any longer the king would have returned hither. But the Infanta did so press the king her father that he set out sooner than was expected. The King of Spain hath desired that there may be but two persons at the interview and embroidery. Turenne is made Marshal-General. I would fain know the certainty of your affairs, which make a great noise here, and every one doth believe that this next Parliament will call home their king." On arriving at Fontarabia the first thing that the Infanta did was to renounce all rights to the Spanish 478 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1660. throne in the most solemn manner. On the next day, the 3rd June, the marriage by procuration took place, Don Louis de Haro acting as proxy for the King of France, with the Bishop of Frejus for best man. The ceremony was performed by the Arch- bishop of Pampeluna in presence of the King of Spain, who wore the richest jewels of the Crown. The bride, who was arrayed in white satin embroidered with gold, was not dressed to the satisfaction of Madame de Motteville, who was present at the wed- ding. She complains that the Infanta was disfigured by wearing a tight-fitting cap round her head, which quite concealed her beautiful hair, and that she looked like a Spanish madonna, her figure being completely hidden in a profusion of robes stiff with gold and silver. Louis XIV., who saw his bride for the first time, without himself being seen, directly after this ceremony, told the Prince de Conti and Turenne that the ugliness of the Infanta's head-dress and costume had surprised him, but that on observing her closely he found her pretty, and that it would be eaay to fall in love with her. King Philip, having written a stiff and formal letter to Louis XIV. on the day of the marriage by proxy, received the following answer, undated — "The tenderness with which your Majesty speaks of the celebra- tion of my marriage makes me find additional pleasure in this bond, which is dearer to me than I can tell you. I shall all my life respond to the paternal sentiments of your Majesty, as a holy tie obliges me, which I hope God will bless for the great glory and advantage of our subjects. ..." 1660.] WEDDING GIFTS. 479 And in reply to a letter in Spanish from the Infanta, the King of France wrote — " At St. Jean db Luz, ith June, 1660. " To receive at the same time a letter from, your Majesty and the news of the celebration of our marriage, and to be on the eve of having the pleasure of seeing you, are matters of unutterable joy for me. My cousin, the Due de Crequi, whom I send to your Majesty, will communicate all the feelings of my heart, which I am impatient to express in person. He will also present you with some trifles from me." Mile, de Montpensier gives a description of a wonderful casket which Louis XIV. despatched to the Infanta by M. de Crequi. It was of sandal-wood inlaid with gold, and contained everything that one can imagine in the shape of jewels in gold and diamonds, such as watches, gloves, mirrors, patch- boxes, little scent-bottles, cases in which to put scissors and tooth-picks, miniatures to place in a bed, crosses, beads, rings, bracelets, a quantity of pearls, diamond earrings, &c. &c. Also a box for the Crown jewels which she would be able to wear while queen, but .which naturally would not belong to her. On the 4th June there was a private meeting on the Isle of the Conference, as it was now called, when Anne of Austria saw her brother for the first time after an absence of forty-five years. She appears to have rushed forward with open arms to embrace King Philip, who received her in the most ceremonious manner, and merely pressed her hands. Madame de Motteville then tells us that, when the Infanta embarked on the Bidassoa to return to Fontarabia 480 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1660. with her father, Louis XIV. accompanied the barge, riding along the bank of the river, hat in hand, followed by a number of French and Spanish nobles. This was the first view that the Infanta had of the King of France. The second meeting, which was of a much more formal character, took place on Sunday the 6 th June, when the two kings met for the purpose of swearing to observe the treaty of the Pyrenees. Philip and Louis sat side by side, but the former on Spanish, and the latter on French territory, and between them was the book of the gospels lying open. After hearing the treaty read aloud they went on their knees, and, gospel in hand, swore to respect it. When Louis XIV. took the oath he swore not only peace, but friendship. After this ceremony the French nobles were introduced to Philip, and the Spanish nobles to Louis, the former being much more . richly attired than the latter, except in the way of jewels. The Spaniards said that they wore simple costumes, as it was for the friends of the husband and not those of the wife to make a display. A third and parting interview then took place, at which the King of Spain handed the' Infanta over to her husband, and, in spite of all his efforts to conceal his feelings, Philip IV. could not refrain from tears when his daughter threw herself at his feet and implored his blessing. He naturally felt that he would never see her again in this world. These formalities having been accomplished, the 1660.] THE MARRIAGE. 481 French Court returned to St. Jean de Luz, where Louis XIV. married the Infanta in person, the Bishop of Bayonne officiating. At this ceremony, which was conducted with all possible magnificence, the king, richly attired, was escorted to the church of St. Jean by two ushers of the chamber with their silver maces. He was immediately preceded by Cardinal Mazarin in full canonicals, and the Prince de Conti, accompanied by gentlemen with blue wands ornamented with fleurs de lys in gold. Next came the queen dressed a la Francaise, wearing a royal , mantle of violet velvet thickly sown with fleurs de lys in gold, and lined with ermine. She wore the royal crown entirely composed of diamonds, and was con- ducted to the altar by Monsieur, the king's brother. Anne of Austria wore a sable mantle. Other members of the royal family, and among them the Grande Mademoiselle and Madame, the widow of Gaston, who would not ask her daughter, Mademoiselle d'Orleans, to witness the ceremony, as she had hoped to marry Louis herself, and might not have been able to disguise her feelings. The Bishop of Bayonne in his pontifical robes gave the nuptial benediction, according to custom, and then filled the office of Grand Almoner, throwing to the people medals of gold and silver on which were engraved the portraits of the king and the queen, and on the reverse was to be seen the town of St. Jean de Luz, upon which a shower of gold was falling, with this device non Icetior alter. VOL. I. II 482 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1660. A few days after the second marriage the king, who appeared perfectly happy, wrote as follows to his royal father-in-law-^- " At St. Jean de Luz, 13th June, 1660. " I can no longer delay renewing to your Majesty the assurances of friendship, which augment every day, in the possession of the precious pledge you have left me of yours. Your Majesty will also permit me to enter into a few domestic details in order to communicate my joy and satisfaction." And, in fact, Louis XIV. thanked the King of Spain most cordially for the " sweet companion " he had given him. This letter had no sooner been despatched than the Court set out for Paris, stopping at several of the prin- cipal towns on the road, and being everywhere received with the most unmistakable signs of joy. Bordeaux was reached on the' 23rd June ; thence the Court proceeded to Poitiers, Amboise, and Orleans, arriving at Fontainebleau on the 13th July, where it remained for more than a month ; then it moved on to Vincennes, where it waited until the preparations for the entry into Paris were completed. On the 26th August this entry took place, and it appears to have been worthy of the occasion. The greatest magnificence was displayed. In the Paubourg St. Antoine a a superb throne had been erected, sup- ported by four columns and covered with a dome. Twenty steps led to the pavilion, which was open 1 This gate has ever since been called the Barriere du Trone, except during the Eevolution, when it was called Barriere du Trone renverse. 1660.] THE ENTRY INTO PARIS. 483 upon three sides ; it was hung with rich tapestry work, and seated under a dais the king and the queen received the "homage and congratulations of their faithful subjects. All the corporate bodies, lay and clerical, presented their duty, and swore allegiance to their sovereigns. In different parts of the city triumphal arches were erected, some in honour of the nuptials, and others in honour of peace. Larrey, who has left us a very detailed and glowing description of this entry, dwells with peculiar gusto on the figure cut by the king, who, mounted upon a Spanish charger whose trappings were rich with pearls, preceded the queen, who gracefully reclined in a triumphal car. All the princes and great nobles passed by in rank, but " when the king appeared on horseback he effaced all this cortege. People looked at no one else. He was preceded by the Swiss guard, the heralds at arms, and officers of the crown, and followed by the gentlemen de Bee et Corbin} He was surrounded by several princes, but it was easy to distinguish him in the midst of all these by his mien, his noble appearance, and the grace with which he rode, no one being able to manage a horse like him. Such as Alexander appeared at his age when he subdued the fiery Bucephalus and gained the admiration of the Macedonian Court, so did Louis XIV. attract the admiration of that of France and all Paris, who saw nothing in this 1 Literally crow-beaks — halberdiers. I i a 484 • MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1660. magnificent spectacle greater and more handsome than its king." But the most curious account of the king's entry is from the pen of the poor widow Scarron, who saw her future husband for the first time. If any sooth- sayer had then foretold that she would one day be the wife of Louis XIV., how incredulous would she have been ! To Madame de Villaeceaux. " Paris, 27th August, 1660. " I shall not attempt to give you an account of the entry of the king. I shall merely mention that neither I nor any one else could give you an idea of all its magnificence. I think that it would be impossible to see anything finer, and the queen must have gone to bed last night sufficiently pleased with the husband of her choice. If any accounts are printed I will forward them. I can relate nothing in order, and I find it difficult to unravel all that I saw yesterday during ten or twelve hours. "The household of the cardinal was not the worst part of the display : it commenced with seventy-two baggage-mules ; the first twenty-four with clothing simple enough, the next twenty-four with finer and more brilliant clothing, and the handsomest tapestries that you ever saw ; the last twenty-four had red velvet embroidered . with silver and gold, with silver bits and bells. In fact, this magnificence surprised every one. Afterwards twenty-four pages passed by, and then the officers and gentlemen of the household in large numbers. N~ext came twelve carriages, each drawn by six horses, and then the guards. His household .took more than an hour to pass by. Afterwards came that of Monsieur. I forgot in that of the cardinal, twenty-four led horses covered with magnificent trappings, and themselves so handsome that I could not take my eyes off them. The household of Monsieur appeared therefore very mean. ' And then came that of the king, truly royal, for nothing in the world could have been more splendid. You know better than I do of what it was composed ; but you cannot imagine the beauty of the horses which the pages of the royal stables rode ; they pranced along, and were handled with great dexterity. Then 1660.] MADAME SCARRON. 485 came all the musketeers with their different plumes — the first brigade had white ; the second yellow, "black and white ; the third blue, white and black ; and the fourth green and white. After that came pages in waiting with red velvet caps covered with gold ; then M. de Nbailles at the head of the light horse — all this magnificent ; next, Vardes at the head of the Hundred Swiss— he wore a uniform of green and gold, and looked very well. " Then . . . Wo, I think that the gentlemen of quality followed the Swiss ; there were a great many, all so splendid that it would be difficult to select any one in particular. I looked out for my friends ; the Marquis de Beuvron passed one of the first, with M. de St. Luc. I looked for M. de Villarceaux, but he rode such a restive horse that he was twenty paces from me before I recognized him. He looked very handsome, and managed his steed well. The Comte de Guiche rode all alone, covered with embroideries and precious stones, which sparkled admirably in the sun ; he was surrounded by men in livery, and was followed by several officers of the Guard. " The marshals preceded the king, before whom they bore a brocaded dais, with a surprising amount of grace and majesty. Wext appeared the chancellor with a robe or mantle of gold brocade, surrounded by lackeys and pages in violet satin adorned with silver and covered with feathers. In fact, madame, it would be difficult to witness greater pomp." So ran the letter of Madame Scarron, who, two months later, was left a widow. In a letter to her uncle dated the 7th Dec, 1660, Madame Scarron said that Madame de Noailles and Madame de Montancier were endeavouring to obtain a pension for her from the queen, . In a note to this letter we are told that a pension of 2000 fr. was accorded to her in 1666, when Anne of Austria died. Madame Scarron then tells her uncle that " every day new taxes are levied ; the edict against gold and silver lace will be published on New Year's day, and well observed ; the king declares that he does not 486 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1661. "wish to see the nobility ruined. A comedy has been written on the marriage of the king, in which one sees on the stage the Kings of France and of Spain, the Infanta, the queen-mother, the cardinal, Don Louis de Haro, and, what is more, the emperor and the Princess of Savoy. It was played at the Louvre two days ago, and all the persons interested in it were well satisfied ; it is a pastoral. I have not seen it, for I am not in a position to see these things until they are printed. I will send it to you as soon as I get it." On the 17th March, 1661, Louis XIV. wrote to Philip IV. a letter, in which he announced the death of his cousin the Cardinal " Mazarini," " who contri- buted so notably to the union of our hearts and our States, to the repose of Christendom, and to the happiness of that marriage which constitutes the whole charm of existence." After dwelling upon the great merits of the deceased, and saying that he had died " in the sentiments of religion and piety " (sentiments not before suspected, says Madame de Motteville), "and repenting his faults," his Majesty expressed the hope that "Divine goodness will recompense his labours." Afterwards Louis XIV. went on to say- — " I cannot assure your Majesty of a piece of news very different from the subject of this letter, because I dare not entirely natter myself of the good fortune I so ardently desire. Should our suspicions turn out to be correct, 1 I shall recognize it as a favour of 1 Suspicion that the queen was enceinte ; which was confirmed in April, and on 1st November a dauphin was born. 1661.] MAZARIJSTS DEATH. 487 Divine bounty, who, wishing to inflict me in one way, has taken care at the same conjuncture to accord me what I so anxiously wished for. ..." Louis XIV. wrote a somewhat similar letter to Charles II. ; he was sure that both Philip and Charles would feel for his loss, and mourn for the late cardinal. No doubt, to tone down the fact of Mazarin having entered into an alliance with Cromwell, and having refused the exiled king the hand of Hortense Mancini, Louis XIV. said to Charles — " You will accord some regret to his memory, especially when you know that during his last and painful sufferings the advice which he the most strictly insisted upon was, to bind myself to you in the strictest bonds of friendship for our mutual interest." And this Louis XIV. expressed his determination to do. 1 Nor had Philip IV. any greater reason to lament the cardinal than had Charles II. He had brought about the marriage with the Infanta, and had con- cluded the Treaty of the Pyrenees after a long and sanguinary war, and on his death-bed, we see by the above letter that he advised his sovereign to throw himself into the arms of England ! On the 20th June, 1661, Louis XIV. wrote a letter to Madame de Venel, saying — " I am delighted to learn by your letters from Milan the success of your voyage, and the end of your adventures. After 1 Louis XIV. also wrote letters of condolence to the cardinal's sister, to the Prince de Conti, the Constable Colonna, to the Duke and Duchess of Modena. 488 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1661. . having guarded a treasure with such vigilance, no- thing could have been better than to hand it over untouched to the person to whom it belongs, as you have done. . . ." The treasure was Marie Mancini, who had been married in France by proxy to the Constable Colonna, and had been sent to Italy under the care of Madame de Venel. Marie Mancini in her Ajpologie tells us how, after the ceremony, when taking leave of their Majesties, the king had the kindness to assure her that he would never forget her, " and would always honour me with his affection, no matter in what part of the world I may be. Then I started, accompanied by the Patriarch of Jerusalem " (who had performed the marriage ceremony), " the Marquis Angeleli " (who had stood proxy for his uncle the constable), " and Madame de Venel, followed by fifty guards, who had received orders from his Eminence, before he died, to escort me as far as Milan, where the constable was to meet me." Louis XIV. was glad to get rid of " his treasure," and he never afterwards permitted her to appear at Court ; for it was not long before she ran away from the Constable Colonna, and her sister Hortense from the Due de Mazarin. The king would have deserved credit for this action had it been prompted by a desire to spare the feelings of the queen, and to live a vir- tuous life. But this was not the case. 1 1 . Mazarin had several nieces who made brilliant if not happy- marriages. There were two Martinozzis : the eldest married the 1661.] MAZARIN'S NIECES. 489 Prince de Conti, of the blood royal, the brother of the Grand Conde, and made an excellent wife ; the second married . the Prince of Modena. Then there were five Mancini girls : the eldest became Duchesse de Mercceur ; the second, Olympe, married the Comte de Soissons ; Marie, after nearly becoming Queen of Prance, accepted the hand of the Constable Colonna, and had a very troubled existence ; the next sister, Hortense, who might have been Queen of England, had Mazarin only foreseen that the mon- archy would be restored so soon after the Commonwealth fell into the hands of Richard Cromwell, was possessed of great personal attractions, and married the Due de Meilleraie, who took the name of Mazarin ; and Marie Anne, the youngest, married the Due de Bouillon. M. Amadee Rene has devoted a volume to the bio- graphies of these seven nieces, whose brilliant marriages and strange careers are worthy of record. CHAPTEE XIX. THE REIGN OE LOUIS XIV. CONTINUED. On the 1st November, 1661, the Queen of France was delivered of a child, who was destined for fifty years to bear the title of dauphin, but never to ascend the throne. Mademoiselle de Montpensier tells us that she was in bed when she heard the news, " in great impatience to be able to get up to go and thank God." There was great joy throughout the whole of France, she tells us, fireworks and general rejoicing, to which she would have liked to contribute, being very much attached to the person of the king. " Six weeks after the lying-in of the queen, she went with the king and the queen dowager to our Lady of Chartres. M. le Dauphin was taken to Paris. I went to the Louvre, and I cannot express the pleasure I felt on seeing him." The queen seems to have suffered greatly during her confinement, her life being in danger. The king, while she was in this state, appeared to be deeply afflicted, and showed the queen the greatest affection. He went at five o'clock each morniog to confess and 1661.] LOUIS AND HENRIETTA OF ENGLAND. 491 take the sacrament, and after having implored the Divine protection, devoted himself entirely to his wife. Anne of Austria was much delighted, and on the evening of the queen's confinement, said that God had heard all her prayers, and that she had now nothing to desire but her salvation. 1 Several events had happened between the signing of the treaty of the Pyrenees and the birth of the dauphin. For instance, Mazarin was dead and gone, leaving all his wealth behind him, and his family amply provided for. On the 30th March, 1661, Monsieur, the king's brother, married the Princess Henrietta of England. But what of the Queen Marie Therese ? Alas ! her dream of married bliss was short indeed — a few months. While she was await- ing her confinement at Fontainebleau, the king in- dulged in a flirtation with his brother's wife Henrietta — a flirtation which was carried so far, that Monsieur at last got angry and interfered. Some French his- torians have taken too serious a view of this affair, and the solitary walks in the forest of Fontainebleau " until two or three o'clock in the morning." There was probably nothing criminal in the attentions of the king as regards his sister-in-law. Such was hardly the case in respect to Mademoiselle de la Valliere, one of the maids of honour to Madame. According to Mademoiselle de Montpensier, the king flirted with Madame simply to hide his passion for Mademoiselle de la Valliere, while the Comte de Guiche flirted with 1 Madame de Motteville. 492 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1661. Mademoiselle de la Valliere in order to hide his admir- ation for Madame. Then his Majesty seems to have been much smitten by the charms of Mademoiselle de la Mbtte Houdancourt, but while that young lady was hesitating La Valliere yielded. At first the king took so little care to disguise his love for Mademoiselle de la Valliere, that his mother remonstrated with him, although she had lost nearly all authority over his Majesty, who. in spite of his liaisons, had, on the death of Mazarin, taken over the task of governing the kingdom, or of governing it with the assistance of Fouquet, Le Tellier, Lionne, and Colbert, assisted by a council of conscience. He now assumed the tone of master. He no longer tolerated any interference with his authority, and all that Anne of Austria could do was to persuade him to hide his infidelity from his wife until after her confinement. Another event we mention here to show upon what a slender thread the peace between France and Spain hung, and how very flimsy was the marriage tie which was to bind those two nations together, and to secure the tranquillity of Europe. We have seen the duplicity displayed by Mazarin in the matter of Portugal, which country was to be handed over to Philip IV. in appearance, but which was secretly to receive French aid. Voltaire thus relates the following incident which occurred in 1661 : — " It happened, at the entry of a Swedish ambas- sador into London, during which the Comte d'Estrades, 1661.] BOW IN LONDON. 493 French ambassador, and the Baron de Watteville, 1 Spanish ambassador, disputed precedence. The Spaniard, with more money and a more numerous suite, had gained over the English mob ; he first had the horses in the French carriages killed, and soon the attendants of the Comte d'Estrades, wounded and dispersed, allowed the Spaniards to march through the streets in triumph with drawn swords." Now Clarendon gives a slightly different account of this affair ; he says that " the Spanish ambassador, being greatly irritated at finding it was out of his power to break the marriage " (with Catherine of Portugal), " vented his rage in a pitched battle for precedency with the French ambassdor d'Estrades, to whose superior diplomacy he attributed the treaty. This battle took place on the Tower wharf. . . Several lives were lost, but the Spaniards, who. were very inferior in force to the French, got the victory, and were loudly cheered by the populace." It appears that all the horses of the French ambassador were killed, and six of his servants, while thirty-three persons were wounded, and among them his son. According to the French accounts, d'Estrades had received orders to take precedence of the Spanish ambassador on the first occasion, even by force, and he was attended by a number of " men of war " ; but the English butchers sided with the Spaniard, and turned the scale in his favour. 1 "A man born in Burgundy in the Spanish quarters, bred a soldier," says Clarendon in his autobiography. 494 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1661. Louis XIV., when he heard of this insult, at once recalled his ambassador from Madrid, and ordered the Spanish ambassador in Paris to leave France ; at the same time Philip IV. was informed on the part of his son-in-law, that unless he recognized the superi- ority of the French crown, and. gave ample and solemn satisfaction, France would declare war. -The conse- quence was, that Philip was obliged to send the Count of Fuentes to Fontainebleau to apologize in presence of all the foreign • ministers, and to declare that for the future the Spanish would not dispute precedence with the French ambassadors. At the same time Louis XIV. sent La Bastide, who had been an attache in England, to King Charles, to express regret that any impediment should have been thrown in the way of the Portuguese match, as the Infanta was a lady of great beauty and admirable attainments, and that he himself would have married her, but for the queen his mother, who desired the alliance with Spain. He concluded by offering Charles 300,000 pistoles to relieve him from his present difficulties, intimating at the same time that he could not do better than wed the Infanta of Portugal. He also said that it would be a great damage, and a great shame to all the kings in Europe, should Portugal fall into the possession of Spain ; that he himself had been obliged to desert Portugal for a time, but that Portugal was well assured of the continuance of his affection, and that he would find some opportunity, one way or another, to preserve it. 1661.] PORTUGUESE AFFAIRS, 495 And Charles II. replied that he would, "upon the encouragement and promise of the French king, of the performance whereof he could make no doubt, proceed in the treaty with Portugal, and give that kingdom the best assistance he could without begin- ning a war with Spain." At first Louis XIV. was wrath with Charles, but the Comte d'Estrades, who had been summoned to Paris in October, said that the King of England was not to blame, as he was not master of the London mob, and could not possibly hang the 5000 or 6000 men who had taken up arms in favour of Spain ; that he had a fine fleet fully equipped, that he was master of Dunkirk, 1 which he was fortifying, that he was allied with Portugal, whose Infanta he was about to marry ; but he was not as well obeyed as he wished, and that his finances were out of order. D'Estrades also in- sinuated that this affair had been got up by Spain, not with the view of insulting France, but of getting England into difficulties, owing to her alliance with Portugal. And it is very probable that France on her side considered it good policy to encourage the alliance between England and Portugal so as to pre- vent any alliance between England and Spain. That Louis XIV. should have so soon neglected his wife, is ascribed to the fact that Marie Therese, in spite of her personal charms, her virtuous and kindly 1 Dunkirk, which had heen handed over to Cromwell as the price of his aid in Flanders, was sold to France for a song in 1662 by Charles II. 496 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1665. disposition, lacked the faculty of pleasing ; she had neither education, intelligence, nor animation ; her devotion is said to have been entirely Spanish in its character, and to have consisted of the most narrow- minded superstition. In addition to this, she was melancholy and timid, and appeared to dread her husband. The consequence Was that Louis, who could derive no pleasure from her society, sought amusement and distraction elsewhere. The change from Marie Mancini to the unimpassioned Marie Therese had proved too great for the young monarch. It was under these circumstances that Louis XIV. became enamoured of Mademoiselle Louise Francoise de la Baume Le Blanc de la Valliere, who had been brought up at the Court of his uncle Gaston, and who, when the king's brother married Henrietta of England, was appointed maid of honour to that princess. The biographers of Mademoiselle de la Valliere render full justice to her innate love of virtue, her gentleness, her sincerity, and her simplicity. She is represented to us as having a beautiful complexion, fair silvery hair, blue eyes, an agreeable smile, a look at the same time tender and modest, and well calculated to captivate a youthful prince ; but what rendered these charms irresistible was the fact that Mademoiselle de la Valliere was passionately in love, not with the king, but with the man. Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans, 1 has left it on record that " there was an inexpressible charm in the look of Mademoiselle de la 1 The second wife of Philippe, the king's brother. 1672.] MADAME DE LA VALLIERE. 497 Valliere. She had a slender waist, her eyes seemed to me much finer than those of Madame de Montespan. Her whole "bearing was modest ; she was a little lame, but that became her." Louis XIV. idolized this woman, says La Porte, but did not allow his love to interfere with his pursuit of glory. On the side of Mademoiselle de la Valliere, we are told that it was neither by vanity or ambition that she loved the master of France ; she loved with passion, and during the whole of her life conceived no other attach- ment. Madame de Caylus says much the same. She writes that Mademoiselle de la Valliere loved the king, not royalty, that the only intrigues in which she indulged were limited to trying to restore to favour persons who had fallen into disgrace. And Madame de Sevigne' gives the following ex- quisite little picture of Mademoiselle de la Valliere in a description of Madame de Montespan. " She " (Madame de Montespan) "is the exact contrary of that little violet which concealed itself under the grass, and which was ashamed of being mistress, of being mother, of being duchess. Never shall we have another cast in such a mould." The knowledge of her fault seems always to have weighed on the mind of Louise de Valliere, who more than once endeavoured to break the guilty chain which united her to the king. However, love proved stronger than reason, remorse, or religion. Twice, she fled to the convent of St. Marie of Chaillot, but returned. The second time that she sought the consolation of religion was when VOL. I. K K 498 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1674. she found that she had been supplanted in the affec- tions of the king by Madame de Montespan. From her convent she wrote a touching letter to the king, who, says Madame de Sevigne, wept much, and sent Colbert to beg her immediately to return to Versailles. She allowed herself to be taken back. Two years later she fell dangerously ill, and on her recovery determined to leave the Court, and to join the order of the Carmelites. She took leave of the king, who saw her depart with the utmost indifference. Before leaving Versailles she said to Madame Scarron, after- wards Madame de Maintenon, who had endeavoured to persuade her not to bury herself in a cloister, "When I suffer at the Carmelites, that will remind me of all that those people have made me go through," meaning the king and Madame de Mon- tespan. It is interesting to note that it was the unhappy queen who presented Mademoiselle de la Valliere with her black veil, 1 and that Bossuet preached on the occasion. " She performed this action," says Madame de SeVignd, " like everything else which she did, in a manner both noble and charming. Such was her beauty that every one was surprised." She was only thirty years of age. Several years later Madame de Sevigne found her still handsome, grace- ful, distinguished, noble, and modest, " perfectly com- 1 The queen often visited her afterwards, once in company of Madame de Montespan ! In after years, when Madame de Monte- span was succeeded by Madame de Maintenon, she often went to see Sister Louise de la Misericorde in quest of consolation. 1661-6.] THE NEGLECTED QUEEN. 499 bining her tenderness as a mother with that of the spouse of Christ." We shall simply add here that the Duchesse de la Valliere, who died in 1710 (five years before Louis XIV.), had three children — Louis de Bourbon, Marie Anne de Bourbon, called Mademoiselle de Blois, afterwards Princess de Conti, and the Comte de Vermandois. The eldest child died when he was three years old, without being legitimized. The Comte de Vermandois, who was Grand Admiral of France, expired at the age of twenty-one. It was Bossuet who was charged with the painful mission of announcing his death to his mother. The queen may after a while have accepted her situation. Sismondi remarks that although being passionately in love with her husband, she was not sufficiently ignorant of the morals of her country to have counted upon a conjugal fidelity unknown at the Court of her father — a rather surprising reflection. There can be no doubt that for several years the queen suffered from all the pangs of jealousy, though it seldom took a more violent form than tears. On one occasion, however, when she was about to become a mother, her despair, on learning that Mademoiselle de la Valliere had been admitted to the royal table, was so acute that it produced a miscarriage. The king appears to have been so deeply afflicted at this accident that he promised to amend his ways, and to find a husband for his mistress. His wife recovered, his promises were forgotten, and in spite of the remonstrances of his mother, the queen was once more K K 2 500 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1665. neglected. On another occasion the king displayed his affection for his wife by attending her while she had the small-pox ; he never left her bedside, took the disease himself, and nearly died of it. In addition to the jealousy caused by the infi- delities of Louis XIV., the queen had another subject which rendered her unhappy. . She soon perceived with grief and apprehension that her husband, in spite of the Treaty of the Pyrenees, was intent upon dismembering Spain on the first opportunity, and for that opportunity the king had not long to wait. 1 In 1665 Anne of Austria fell seriously ill, and while lying in a hopeless condition received the news of the death of her brother, Philip IV. The king of Spain died partly from infirmities contracted during his journey to Fontarabia, partly from grief, owing to the crushing defeat inflicted on his troops on the 17th September, by the Portuguese, under the command of the Comte de Schomberg, aided not only by an English but by a French contingent, which Louis XIV., in spite of the Treaty of the Pyrenees, had furnished. Philip left ^behind him one son by his second wife, a sickly boy, born in 1661, " pale, extenuated, the offspring of 1 The peace which had been cemented by the marriage with Marie Therese was far from being assured. The king constantly proposed to enlarge France at the expense of Spain. Although engaged by the Treaty of the Pyrenees to abandon Portugal, he determined upon continuing to aid her. In the minutes drawn up by himself, or in his name, he said that the two crowns of France and Spain existed in a state of permanent rivalry and enmity, which treaties might conceal, but could never extinguish. — Memoires Historiques, t. i. p. 64. 1666.] ANNE OF AUSTRIA'S DEATH. 501 impure blood, who was not weaned until he was four years of age, who was constantly carried about, whose feet had no strength, who had not cut his teeth, and whose skull was not properly closed higher than the forehead." Such is the description given of the royal child who was to sit on the Spanish throne and reign as. Charles II. Philip had been but a short time in the grave when his sister, Anne of Austria, followed him, expiring at the Louvre on the 20th January, 1666. 1 Mademoiselle de Montpensier, who, with other members of the royal family, was present when the dowager queen died, has left a graphic description of the scene in her , Memoirs. She says that — . "On Monday the queen-mother was worse, and it became a question whether she ought not to be in- formed of her condition ; it was clear that the end was approaching. The Archbishop of Auch said to ' her, ' Madame, your disease grows worse; it is thought that you are in danger.' She received this intelligence 1 The official notification of the death of Anne of Austria : — ■ Born of Philip III., King of Spain, and of Margaret of Austria, at Valadolid, Saturday, 22nd September, 1601 ; named at baptism Anne Maurice, at the same place on Sunday the 7th . October following ; married to Louis XIII., King of France, called the Just, the 9th November, 1615; mother of Louis XIV., Dieudonne^ the 5th Sep- tember, 1638, and of Philip of Prance, to-day Duke of Orleans, the 20th September, 1640; died 20th January, 1666. And so passed away into the pages of history a woman of whom it was written that she was Et soror, et conjux, et mater, nataque regum, Nulla magis tanto sanguine digna fuit. 502 MARRIAGES OF TEE BOURBONS. [1667. in a most Christian spirit. The shrine of Ste. Gene- vieve was let down. The king had consulted us all to know whether this should be done. I said to him that miracles should not be resorted to every day ; that the disease from which the queen was suffering- was one which could not be cured, unless God per- formed a visible miracle ; that this was not an epoch in which God performed miracles for human consider- ations ; that we were not sufficiently good to draw down upon us His benediction. He replied that he was of my opinion, but that every one advised him to do it, assuring him that it was the custom. The next day I learned that the shrine was to be let down." Spain ought to have been aware that mischief was brewing, and have prepared to defend herself, but she was in a state of chaos. There was a regency, and the government had fallen into the hands of the widow of Philip IV., and her confessor Mtard, a German Jesuit. Intrigue reigned supreme. Before Anne of Austria died she made some overtures to the Spanish ambassador which should have opened the eyes of the Court of Madrid. She spoke to the ambassador about the pretensions of her son, and the necessity of coming to terms with him. The ambas- sador replied that he could not discuss claims for which there was not the slightest foundation, and there the matter seems to have ended. Castel-Rodrigo, the Governor-General of Flanders, appears to have seen the storm coming, and to have signalled its 1667.] THE RENUNCIATION. 503 approach. But his warnings and his entreaties were alike unheeded. It is true that Louis XIV. had employed all his diplomatic skill in soothing the suspicions both of Spain and of Holland. "The more the matter ad- vanced," says Louis XIV. in his Memoirs, 1 " the more I endeavoured to conceal it, and to this intent I amused the Spaniards with the proposal to form a league. . ." And the better to deceive both the regent of Spain and De Witt, Louis XIV. deceived his own ambas- sadors. He wrote to the Comte d'Estrades at the Hague on the 27th April to declare that he would undertake nothing to establish the rights of his wife without giving due notice to the United Provinces ; that he would never search discord for the love of the thing (de gaite de coeur), desiring nothing but justice and reason, and that he was much more moderate than people supposed. It may be remarked that De Lionne, who exercised more influence over Louis XIV. than any other minister, and who was intrusted with the manage- ment of foreign affairs, had commenced in 1666 to render both Europe and Spain familiar with the idea that his master considered the renunciation clause in the Treaty of the Pyrenees as not valid. At the same time, however, it was asserted that if France should urge claims, those claims would form the subject of peaceful negotiation, and would never be backed up by violence. 1 T. ii. p. 262. 504 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1667. In spite of all his promises, and in spite of his declaration of the 27th April that he would do nothing without warning the United Provinces, the Erench king, on the 8th May, notified to the Spanish regent that he had come to the determination " to march in person, at the end of the month, at the head of his army, to try and take possession of wbat belonged to him in the Low Countries through his wife, or an equivalent." At the same time he offered to settle matters in a friendly way, and if justice were done to him, to defend the remainder of the States of his brother the King of Spain against any aggression. 1 " We do not consider," he added, " peace to be broken on our part by our entry into the Low Countries, although sword in hand, because we march thither merely to endeavour to gain possession of what has been usurped from us." 2 To this letter was joined a work entitled Treaty of the rights of the Most Christian Queen over divers States of the Spanish monarchy. This treaty was drawn up by a person called Duhan, one of Turenne's secretaries, who pointed out to Louis XIV. an important dis- 1 Six weeks before writing this letter Louis XIV. had concluded an offensive treaty with Portugal against Spain. 2 Macaulay, in his essay on Sir William Temple, referring to Dr. Lingard's faith in the promises of Louis XIV., was reminded of the words of that great politician, Mrs. Western, who said — "Indeed, brother, you would make a fine plenipo. to negotiate with the French. They would soon persuade you that they take towns out of mere defensive principles." We suppose that Mrs. Western's brother would also have believed that the fact of marching into Flanders sword in hand was a peaceful operation. 1667.] THE CLAIM ON FLANDERS. 505 covery, to wit, that there existed in Brabant a custom which went by the name of the " law of devolution," supposed to have been instituted to prevent second marriages, in virtue of which, if either husband or wife died, the property of both was transferred to the children, the surviving father or mother enjoying merely a life-interest in it. If the children died before the surviving parent, the property returned to that parent. It was on the strength of this local custom that Louis XIV. laid claim to Flanders, his paid writers setting forth that by the death of Elizabeth of France, the first wife of Philip IV., on the 6th October, 1644 (twenty-two years before the claim was set up), the • entire possessions of the Spanish monarchy devolved by right on their children, and as Don Balthasar died in childhood, on Marie Thdrese. Duhan, who ex- pounded this doctrine afterwards, limited the claim to the provinces upon which Louis XIV. had cast an eye. In the treaty on the rights of the queen many beautiful maxims are laid down, such as the following : "It is neither the ambition of possessing new States, nor the desire of acquiring glory by conquest, which inspires his Most Christian Majesty with the intention of supporting the rights of the queen. . . . He knows that an illegitimate conquest. cannot increase the limits of a State without diminishing the reputa- tion of its sovereign. . . . Would it not be shameful on the part of the king to allow all the privileges conferred by blood and by law to be violated in 506 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1667. the person of- himself, his wife, and his son ? ... As king, he feels obliged to prevent this injustice; as husband, to oppose this usurpation ; as father, to protect the patrimony of his son. ... He does not desire to force open the doors, but to enter like the sun with beams of love. . . . Heaven not having established a tribunal on earth to which the Kings of France can appeal for justice, he can consult his heart only. ..." And after having demolished the validity of the renunciation, this document stigmatized the dowry as a fraud, and then went into a long history of the law of devolution. With regard to this matter, Voltaire observes that Louis XIV. caused his claims to be examined by his council and by the theologians, who found them incontestable. But the council and the confessor of the widow of Philip IV. were of a contrary opinion. The Queen of Spain had on her side the law of Charles V., but then the laws of Charles V. were not observed in France. One of the pretexts invoked by the king's council was that the 500,000 crowns, which formed the dowry of his wife, had not been paid ; but it was forgotten that France had not paid the dowry of Elizabeth, the daughter of Henri IV., who married Philip IV. France and Spain at first fought with despatches, in which were mixed up the calculations of the banker and the reasons of the lawyer. But, in fact, the real question was the raison d'etat, which was very extra- 1667.] THE KING TAKES THE FIELD. 507 ordinary. Louis XIV. was about to attack an infant, whose natural protector he ought to have been because he had married his sister. 1 How could he believe that the Emperor Leopold, who was considered the head of the House of Austria, would allow him to oppress a member of that House and to seize upon Flanders ? The king left St. Germain on the 16th May to place himself at the head of his army, which, little by little, and without noise, had been raised from 72,000 to 125,000 men; 1600 guns had been cast in France, and others had been purchased abroad, while magazines had been established in Picardy. We have no intention of giving a detailed account of the cam- paign which ensued, full particulars of which will be found in the pages of Mignet, who says that " Louis XIV. promptly felt, with the superior instinct of ambition, that the means of his greatness and the knot of his reign lay in Spain. As early as 1661 he gave his attention without relaxation to this Spanish inheritance, and laboured to get the act by which he had renounced it revoked." And, after giving a rapid account of what Louis did for his army and navy, how hard he worked, and how well he husbanded his resources, the same author adds — "But this epoch of the reign of Louis XIV. was, if possible, even more remarkable through the skill exhibited in negotia- tions." Then come sundry high compliments paid to the diplomatic skill of De Lionne, who was to Louis 1 Philip IV. had just died, leaving the crown to his only sur- viving son Charles, then four years of age. 508 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. ' [1667. XIV. vvhat, in more modern clays, Talleyrand was to Napoleon ; alliances were cultivated with care, while powers which were either jealous or alarmed were im- mobilized, and a partition treaty was signed with the emperor in case of the death of Charles II. of Spain, an event daily expected. All this proves premedita- tion, and that the Treaty of the Pyrenees, with its renunciation, and other clauses, was so much gossamer. The result of all this fine diplomacy was that when Louis entered the field he found no army to oppose him. What could poor Castel Kodrigo, the Spanish governor of Flanders, do ? His cries of despair had been unheeded at Madrid. Directly he heard that Louis XIV. and Turenne would soon be upon him, he issued orders for all the fortified towns of second importance to be dismantled. He had not a sufficient force to defend them. A number of places thus evacuated fell into the hands of the French. Castel Eodrigo had spent two years in fortifying Charleroi, the key of Brabant, but the fortifications were un- finished when Louis crossed the frontier, and he was reluctantly obliged to blow them up and to fall back upon Brussels. Thither the king and the more youthful officers of the army wished to pursue the enemy, but Turenne's advice prevailed, and the French were contented with establishing them- selves in the country which had been conquered, and in besieging such fortified places as still resisted. Negotiations for peace were opened, and in order to hasten them, Conde and Luxembourg attacked 1667.] EUROPE ALARMED. 509 Franclie Comte, and it was soon found that the latter province was no more in a condition to resist the French arms than Flanders. In the space of a fortnight the whole of Franche Comte, including four strong places and thirty-six, walled towns, was conquered, These rapid successes on the part of Louis XIV. and his commanders had the effect of greatly alarming Europe. It was no longer the universal monarchy of Spain which was dreaded. The little apprehension which that nation now inspired was more instinctive than real. France could hardly bring herself to believe in the utter helplessness of her late formidable' rival. What Europe now feared was the supremacy of France, with her ambitious young sovereign and his talented ministers ; De Lionne to do the diplomacy, Louvois to organize the army, and Colbert to manage the finances and find the sinews of war. This feeling of alarm resulted in the triple alliance and the con- clusion of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which obliged Louis XIV. to renounce his predatory designs. Let us note one little incident here. Before the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was concluded, and in fact while France was hesitating, the Dutch ambassador in Paris insisted upon the necessity of calming the anxiety of Europe. He pointed out that all the continental States were ready to unite to restrain an ambition which caused universal alarm. As a proof of this he pointed to Portugal, which would have been unable to defend her independence but for the 510 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1668. clandestine aid of France, and which had concluded an offensive and defensive treaty with France so recently as the 31st March, 1667. Well, on the 13th February, 1668, Portugal had signed, thanks to the intervention of England, a private treaty with Spain. This he considered a sufficient proof that in the event of France not coming to terms with Spain and renouncing her aggressive policy, she would find arrayed against her a most formidable coalition. From Portugal no doubt Louis XIV. expected more gratitude. He had not only violated the Treaty of the Pyrenees by aiding her with men and money, but in 1666 he had accorded the hand of a French princess, Mademoiselle d'Aumale, to his Majesty Alphonso VI., in the hope of strengthening the bonds which united the two countries. It is true that previous to the private treaty with Spain there had been a revolution in Portugal, and that the queen had deposed her husband in order to j)lace his brother Don Pedro on the throne, and to give him her hand. Concerning this strange affair Mademoiselle de Montpensier writes thus: — "Once the marriage with Alphonso consummated, the queen wrote to all her friends that she had good reason to be satisfied, that she had married the best man in the world, that nothing would be wanting to her happiness when she had a child, and that she hoped soon to have one. I saw all this in a letter which she wrote to Madame de B^thune, who read it to the queen in my presence ; and two years afterwards the Cardinal 1668.] THE QUEEN OF PORTUGAL. 511 d'Estrdes" (her uncle, who had proposed the match) " would have it that she was not married, negoti- ated her union with the Prince of Portugal, and got the king deposed by his brother, who sent him to an island, as he said his life was not safe. Thus she has not only two husbands, but these are brothers. By her second husband, who they say is very debauched, she has a daughter. Even if loose conduct were a sufficient ground for breaking a marriage, she could not leave her present husband and marry a third brother, because there are only two." 1 Robert Southwell, our ambassador at the Court of Lisbon, informed Lord Arlington, in a despatch dated November 1667, that a person worthy of belief told him that the Infant, being very much struck with the charms of the queen, had determined first of all to dethrone the king, when the Cortes were assembled, and then to shut his Majesty up in a monastery ; he added — " The crown will be placed on the head of the Infant ; the queen will retire to a convent, and after a short while, under the de- claration that she is still a virgin, her marriage will be annulled, so that without any dispense being necessary, the Infant will marry her. All this will no doubt appear strange to your lordship." 1 Henri Martin says that Alphonso VI. was a dangerous lunatic, who was shut up by a universal conspiracy on the part of his subjects, at the head of which were his wife and brother, who obtained the Papal dispensation which allowed them to marry, on the ground that Alphonso, who had several bastards, was impotent. 512 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1668. In a letter addressed to the Duke of Ormond in December, the ambassador says that " the queen, coming from France to be provided with a husband, and to be queen, must have been surprised to find at the same time that the king was impotent, and that she counted for nothing in the Government." After this what is to be thought of the statements made by Mademoiselle de ■ Montpensier ? Of the insanity of Alphonso VI., who had been almost bled to death when a child, Southwell had no doubt. As for Don Pedro, we find that he wished to take part with Louis XIV., but the Cortes insisted upon peace with Spain, which was signed 13th February, 1668 ; Spain treating Portugal as an independent Power. France therefore gained nothing by giving the hand of Mademoiselle dAumale to King Alphonso. It is well known with what rapidity the Triple Alliance was concluded, thanks to De Witt and Sir William Temple. In five days everything was settled, and on the sixth the result was communicated to M. d'Estrades, the French ambassador, who was rather taken by surprise. Its effect was as rapidly felt as the negotiations had been rapidly conducted. In fact, the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed before the King of Sweden had sent in his formal adhesion, which did not reach Westminster until the 15th May, 1668 ; and it was not until May 1669 that the peace was guaranteed at the Hague by England, the United Provinces, and Sweden, Spain adhering. One curious fact about the treaty of Aix- 1668.] the Schemes of louis xiv. 513 la-Chapelle is, that neither in the preamble nor the articles is any mention made of the claims of the Queen of France to Brabant, which were the cause of the war, nor of the renunciation by that princess to the Spanish monarchy. The reason which induced Louis XIV. to forego his schemes of conquest may have been due in a great measure to the strength of the coalition against him ; but there was also another reason. The little King of Spain was reported to be on the point of death, and Louis and the emperor had come to an agreement to share his kingdom between them. Why fight over a few towns in Flanders with such a splendid prospect in view ? France by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was to keep all the towns con- quered in Flanders, but was to restore Franche Comte to Spain. As for the little king whose approaching end brought about the termination of the war, he took thirty-two years to die. He lived to marry the un- fortunate Maria Louisa, the niece of Louis XIV. Of her sad fate and story we shall have to speak anon. The question before us is the result of the Spanish marriage, which seems to have rather kindled than have prevented war. Louis XIV. had seized upon the towns in Flanders in the name of his wife, and it appears to us that the War of Succession began, not in 1700, but in 1667. Macaulay says that "the great object of Louis, from the beginning to the end of his reign, was the acquisition of those large and valuable provinces of the Spanish monarchy which vol. 1. it 514 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1668. lay contiguous to the eastern frontier of France." And Schcell in his abridged history of treaties gives it as his opinion that "from the date of the Treaty of the Pyrenees, Louis XIV. never lost sight of the plan prepared by his marriage with the Infanta of Spain ; this was to unite to his crown, if not the totality of the Spanish monarchy, at least a portion of its provinces, and especially the Low Countries, which were so handily situated. This scheme gave him occupation for fifty years, and became the cause of those wars which, after having illustrated his reign, brought his kingdom to the brink of a precipice and filled his old age with bitterness." The marriage with the Infanta, if not the actual cause of the series of wars which followed that event, may have inspired them. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had hardly been concluded when Louis XIV. set to work to break up the Triple Alliance, and he had little difficulty by means of bribes in detaching Sweden and England. This accomplished, he found a frivolous pretext for attacking Holland, on the ground that the Republic had struck off medals which insulted his dignity as le roi Soleil. One of these represented the figure of a woman trampling discord underfoot ; on the reverse was a Belgian lion holding a cannon in its claws. An in- scription in Latin stated that Holland had struck off this medal in honour of " laws consolidated, religion improved, allies protected, kings pacified, the liberty 1672.] THE DUTCH MEDALS. 515 of the seas assured, a glorious peace acquired by the superiority of the valour of its arms, and the tranquillity of Europe firmly established." This inscription no doubt offended the French king, because the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle had not been wrung from him at the point of the sword, but, ostensibly, through the fear of seeing himself opposed by Spain, backed by England, Holland, and Sweden. Another medal was spoken of and attributed to Van Beuningen, the Dutch ambassador at the French Court. This represented Van Beuningen as Joshua bidding the sun (Louis XIV.) to stand still. Bas- nage, in his History of the United Provinces, treats the story of this medal as pure fiction, while Van Loon, in his History of the Medals of the Low Countries, says that such medals are to be found in a few cabinets, but that they were struck off at a later period in Germany, Van Beuningen evidently having had nothing whatever to say to the matter. However this may be, in 1672 Holland was invaded by the most formidable army which had ever been set in motion in Europe. Louis XIV. himself took the command of this force, more than 100,000 strong, having Conde\ Turenne, Luxembourg, and Chamilly to serve under him. Vauban was to capture the fortresses, and Pellisson was to chronicle the victories. At sea the Dutch were opposed by the combined fleets of England and France. How could the United Provinces resist such a storm? William of Orange L L 2 516 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1672-8. was elected Captain-General of the forces, but even his active and penetrating genius, his courage and fertility of resource could avail little. All the places on the Rhine and the Yessel speedily fell into the hands of the French. In the course of a few months three provinces were captured and Amsterdam was threatened. The De Witts sued for peace ; the demands of Louis XIV. so exasperated the nation, that John and Cornelius de Witt were massacred ; the Dutch broke their dykes, laid the whole country under water, saved Amsterdam, and forced the French to retreat. The wanton attack upon Holland and the growing ambition of France once more aroused the appre- hensions of Europe. William of Orange appealed for aid, and the result was the formation of the Grand Alliance, into which entered the Emperor Leopold, the King of Spain, Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, soon to be king, and the Duke of Lorraine. A desperate war ensued, during which, among other atrocities committed, the Palatinate was burned. At last, in 1678, after many fluctuations, peace was signed at Nimeguen. Charles II. had been obliged by the voice of the nation, if not to desert Louis, to pretend to desert him. The course pursued by England in this affair was exceedingly intricate. When the news came that the Prince of Orange had sustained a defeat at Cassel, the English people, Cavaliers and Puritans, demanded war ; the Parlia- ment was in favour of hostilities, and even Charles II. 1678.] MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY. 517 owned that if Flanders were abandoned "he could never live at ease with his subjects." The king said he must have money in order to make war, and the Parliament had not sufficient confidence in his Majesty to vote subsidies. At this juncture the Prince of Orange was suddenly invited to England and wedded to the Lady Mary, daughter of the Duke of York, who, as the king had no children, and as James had no son, was presumptive heiress to the crown of England. This marriage filled Louis XIV. with anger, for it was not only calculated to draw closer the bonds of friendship between Holland and England, but it insured a Protestant succession after the death of James, or, as it turned out, after his abdication. Probably reassured by this match, which was highly popular in the country, Parliament voted supplies, and Charles made a great show of going to war ; the English ambassador was recalled, and 3000 men were landed at Ostend, but war was not declared. There is every reason to believe that this fine display of energy on the part of Charles was simply intended as a means of extracting more money from the French king, in whose pay he had long been ; and if he were actuated by this venal motive, it perfectly succeeded. Green sums up the consequences of the peace in these words : — " The treaty of Nimeguen not only left France the arbiter of Europe, but it left Charles the master of a force of 20,000 men, levied for the war he refused to declare, and with nearly a million of French 518 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1678. money in. his pocket." However, what most concerns us here, is to remark that by the treaty of Nimeguen the Dutch recovered all they had lost during the war, while Spain lost Franche Comte, the two last towns she possessed in Artois, together with a dozen places such as Valenciennes, Cambrai, &c. in the Low Countries: So much for the matrimonial alliarice ! It was after this treaty of Nimeguen that the title of " Great " was given to Louis XIV., and we may note that his Majesty on this occasion forced the Grand Elector of Brandenburg to make peace with Sweden, which had fought for France. And Carlyle says in his Frederick the Great, chapter xviii., that Louis XIV., it is thought, once offered to get him, the great Elector, made king. 1 On the part of England, we see that the treaty was nearly being signed by Sir William Temple, the author of the Triple Alliance, who regarded it as a hollow and unsatisfactory instrument, by which the distractions of Europe would be suspended only for a while. "He grumbled much," says Macaulay, "at being required to affix his name to bad articles which he had not framed, and still more at having to travel in very cold weather. After all, a difficulty of etiquette prevented him from signing, and he returned to the Hague." Sir William Temple was justified in grumbling and 1 Could Louis XIV. only have known that two centuries later the last king of Prussia would be crowned emperor in the palace of Versailles ! 1680.] ANOTHER WAR. 519 wishing himself at Sheen, for the treaty left Louis XIV. a loophole for employing both fraud and violence in furtherance of his ends. It was laid down in the treaty that the territories ceded should be accom- panied by their dependencies. The negotiators natur- ally thought that this clause would form the subject of mutual agreement, but the French king took another view of the case, and determined to settle the question alone. To this end he established tribunals at Tournay, Metz, Bisach, and Besancon, charged to determine what dependencies should be annexed to France. The King of Spain, the Elector Palatine, and several German princes were obliged to appear by proxy before these courts to justify their claims, and the decisions of these tribunals gave to Louis no less than twenty important towns, among which was Strasburg, which Vauban at once fortified. There was, of course, no appeal from these arbitrary courts, which despoiled a number of princes of a portion of their territories, and forced them to do homage for other portions. Strasburg 'might have resisted, but Louvois and the Marquis de Montclar suddenly pre- sented themselves under its walls, and what with threats and seduction, it consented to capitulate. The Powers of Europe, irritated by this aggressive policy, signed a fresh league ; but France was saved for a while by the Turks, who, attacking Vienna, rendered it impossible for the Emperor Leopold and Charles of Lorraine to move. Spain alone took up arms, and after losing Courtrai, Dixmunde, and 520 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1683. Luxemburg, a truce for twenty years was signed at Eatisbon, .to which the Empire and Holland acceded. While this treaty lasted, France was to retain all the places awarded to her by her own tribunals ! The next high-handed measures may be thus briefly recapitulated. Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and Genoa were bombarded. Genoa was bombarded for having fur- nished the corsairs with arms, and for having sold four ships to the Spaniards ! In the same year his Most Christian Majesty, aided by Bossuet, drew up the four articles which formed the basis of the Gallican Church, which articles were duly recognized in France until after the establish- ment of the third Republic. In 1683 the Queen of France died, and so did Colbert. Little was ever heard of Marie Therese after her' marriage. She was evidently regarded by the king as an official wife. He treated her with coldness and neglect, and was unfaithful j but that was not entirely his fault. He was fond of pleasure, when able to lay aside the cares of State. She was a confirmed bigot, who could neither amuse the king nor charm him with her conversation. Her education had been sadly neglected, and she does not appear to have had any intellectual predilections. She exhibited symptoms of jealousy at first, when the king was unfaithful, and shed a few tears ; but she soon accepted her position, never was the cause of any Court scandal, and got on tolerably well with the mistresses of her husband. In 1679, when the king 1683.] THE THREE QUEENS. 521 was campaigning in Flanders, she accompanied the army, and seems to have made no objection to the presence of Mademoiselle de la Valliere and the Marquise de Montespan. They sometimes all three rode in the same carriage. It is said that the simple- minded peasantry, in the countries through which the French king marched, thought that a new law had been passed, allowing polygamy, and that there were three queens. How could they suspect his Most Christian Majesty, the Eldest Son of the Church, of indulging in simple and in double adultery in the eyes of the whole camp, pioneers and all ? Louis never seems to have treated his wife rudely, and always to have shared her couch ; and she always admired and loved her faithless lord. Perhaps she felt her own deficiencies, and that she was not suited to him. From the time that the influence of Madame de Maintenon began to be felt, the queen was much happier — so much happier, that with her own hand she presented her portrait to the woman who was destined to succeed her. The king appears to have been much grieved at the death of his wife ; it is supposed that he felt a pang of remorse. Madame de Maintenon was going to leave the palace, when M. de la Eochefoucauld took her by the arm, saying, " Your place is here, he stands in need of you." Louis XIV. soon recovered from both grief and remorse ; he went to Fontaine- bleau, and there meeting Madame de Maintenon, he began to laugh and joke at the deep mourning in 522 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1685. which she was attired. No one seemed to miss poor Marie Thdrese. Madame de Caylus says that she had nothing in her, and was quite incapable of in- spiring affection ; whereas Louis XIV. not only pos- sessed great talent, but captivated all who approached him. She bore the king five children : Louis, who . died before his father ; Philippe, who lived only three years, and three children who died in their infancy. Several important events occurred in 1685. Charles II. of England, the friend, or rather the pensioner of Louis XIV. , died ; and the Edict of Nantes, granted by Henri IV., and confirmed by Marie de Medicis, Louis XIIL, and Mazarin, was revoked. Louis XIV. therefore lost an ally, and raised up against himself a host of enemies. In persecuting the Protestants he reversed the policy of Henri IV. and Richelieu. But how was it to be expected that an absolute monarch, beginning to be concerned for the safety of his soul, who had humiliated Alexander VII. once, and Innocent XL twice, who had established the Gallican Church, who had seized upon Avignon, and had been guilty of simony, should tolerate heretics in France ? Times of course were changed. Catholic domination was no longer dreaded. Spain had sunk low in the scale of nations, and without Spain the Empire was not to be feared. But was the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by the French king an act of good policy ? It had, of course, its political as well as its religious side, but its immediate results were to drive 250,000 Protestants out of the country, and to alienate all the 1685.] TROUBLES AHEAD. 523 Protestant Powers. Whole regiments of Calvinists were formed in England, Holland, and Germany, and those who remained in France were persecuted with the greatest barbarity. Numbers of pastors, says a French Catholic historian, were sent to execution, and lest their last exhortations should be heard by the crowd, drums were beaten at the foot of the scaffold to drown their voices. They were treated as Louis XVI. was treated a century later by the men of the Revolution, when for a moment he broke away from his gaolers, and " Stood at the foot of the scaffold, And lingered, and fain would have spoke." When the revocation of the Edict of Nantes was signed in 1685, Louis XIV. had determined at last to listen to the exhortations of his spiritual advisers, and of Madame de Maintenon, and to give up adultery. The Marquise de Montespan had at length retired from Court, leaving the field clear to her rival, who was secretly united to the king. How strange the story of her life ! We must not omit to mention that in 1685, or six years after the marriage of Charles II. of Spain with Mademoiselle d'Orleans, there was a rumour that his end was approaching ; and the emperor proposed to him that he should at once abandon the government of the Low Countries to the Elector of Bavaria, who was destined to marry an Archduchess of Austria, and assure the succession of the Spanish monarchy to that couple. Louis XIV., who kept his eyes wide open, 524 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1685. immediately assembled an army on the Spanish frontier, and threatened war unless the King of Spain at once gave satisfactory and precise explanations. The consequence of this display of energy was, that Charles denied ever having had the intention of ceding the government of the Low Countries to the Elector of Bavaria. CHAPTER XX. LA GRANDE DEMOISELLE. Let us now turn to Anne Marie Louise d'Orleans, known as Mademoiselle or the Grande Demoiselle, the daughter of Gaston, the brother of Louis XIII. , and of Marie de Bourbon. Her mother died in giving her birth in 1627, leaving her the richest heiress in Europe. She had for godfather and godmother Cardinal Eichelieu and Anne of Austria. We learn that Gaston wished his daughter to receive an educa- tion in accordance with her rank and fortune, and destined her to become the bride of the Comte de Soissons, of the blood royal ; but the count was slain at the battle of Marf^e in 1641, when Mademoiselle was thirteen years of age. It then appears that Anne of Austria, when about to become a mother, told Mademoiselle that she should be her daughter-in- law, and in fact she was brought up to believe that she would one day marry the dauphin, whom she used in childhood to call her little husband. How- ever, Cardinal Eichelieu disapproved, and the young princess was sent away from St. Germains to reside at the Tuileries, and was told that her future husband 526 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1644-6. ■was not to be the King of France, but the Cardinal- Infant, brother of the King of Spain, and Governor of the Low Countries. The cardinal scolded her, and she cried. The queen consoled her, saying, " It i3 true, my son is too young ; you shall marry my brother." As Mademoiselle says in her Memoirs, she thought more at that time of dancing than of getting married ; but she wept when she heard that the Comte de Soissons had been killed, for he was a very accom- plished and agreeable prince, and had written to her father just before the battle to remind him of his promise, and to propose to run away with her, as Louis XIII. was opposed to the match. Monsieur, however, refused to consent. In the year 1644, Elizabeth, Queen of Spain, daughter of Henri IV., died, and Mademoiselle tells us that Anne of Austria and Mazarin wished her to marry Philip IV., but this match was not persisted in. In 1646 the Prince of Wales arrived at Fontaine- bleau, having fled from England. " The Queen of England, she says, presented her son to the king and to the queen, who kissed him. He was about seven- teen years old, tall for his age, dark, rather agreeable in his person, but could not speak a word of French . . . The Queen of England wished to persuade me that he was in love with me, that he never ceased speaking about me, and that had she not prevented him he would have come to my chamber at all hours ; that I was to his taste, and that he was in despair, as at the death of the empress " (then very ill) " he thought 1646.] THE PRINCE OF WALES. 527 they would wish me to marry the emperor." The Due d'Epernon also seems to have spoken in favour of the Prince of Wales, but Mademoiselle declined the proposed honour. She did not know what her answer would have been had the prince proposed himself; but she had no faith in an adorer who could not urge his own suit. She tells us shortly afterwards that her mind was full of the emperor, and that she might have married him had the Court acted with good faith ; that Mondevergne, who had been sent to offer condolence to the emperor on the loss of his wife, reported that throughout the country, and at the Court of Vienna, every one wished to see her empress, that some ministers had even told her that the queen had the means of consoling the emperor. " The queen," adds Mademoiselle, " while dressing me that evening, spoke of nothing but this marriage ; told me that she passionately desired it, as she was persuaded that it would be a good thing for her House. Thus the thought of the Emperor took such possession of my mind that I looked upon the Prince of Wales as an object to be pitied." We then find that the Queen of England, perceiv- ing that Mademoiselle treated the Prince of Wales with disdain at a ball, reproached her with having the emperor on her brain. She defended herself as well as she could, but her face always betrayed the secrets of her heart. Cardinal Mazarin often spoke to her about the match, and said that he would do all in his power to bring it about, while Monsieur, he 528 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1648-9. father, said to her one day, " ' I have learned that the proposition of a marriage with the emperor pleases you : if that be so I will contribute to it as well as I can ; but I am persuaded that you will not be happy in that country, where they live Spanish-like. The emperor is older than I am, and this is why I do not think it will be an advantage for you, and that you would be happier in England should matters settle down, or in Savoy.' I replied that I wished for the emperor. ..." Poor Mademoiselle carried her affection for the emperor so far, that hearing he was devout, she also became devout, and had serious thoughts of entering the convent of the Carmelites. However, she did not carry this resolution into effect, even when she learned in 1648 that the emperor was going to marry some one else. And here the affair ended. It is curious to read how quickly matters changed. In 1649 Mademoiselle, instead of sitting on the Imperial throne, found herself in sad straits. She says in her Memoirs, " I had no change of linen ; my night-shirt was washed during the day, and my day- shirt at night. I had no women to do my hair and dress me, and I was obliged to take my meals with Monsieur, who had very bad fare." The Fronde had broken out. When matters settled down Mademoiselle went to Paris to condole with the Queen of England, whose husband had had his head cut off by the Parliament. The Court did not go into mourning 1649.] MADEMOISELLE HESITATES. 529 as there was no money. "Shortly afterwards," says Mademoiselle, " the Abbe" de la Riviere came to see me, and told me that the Queen of England was doing all in her power to get Monsieur to consent to my marriage with the King of England (Charles II.). Monsieur spoke to me on the subject, and I replied that I would obey him in all things, and that he knew better than I did what was for my interest. A few days later the King of England sent ' Milord Per- ron ' (?) to present his compliments to their Majesties, and to ask permission to enter France. This milord and Germain (Jermyn) paid me assiduous court. The queen greatly desired this marriage, and so did the cardinal, and assured me that France would powerfully aid the King of England." It was even agreed that Lord Jermyn should go to Holland to fetch King Charles ; that his Majesty should pass a few days at St. Germain, marry Mademoiselle, and then go to Ireland to fight for his crown, leaving his wife behind him. Mademoiselle, however, protested that she would accompany her husband. However, when it became a question of selling all her property and staking the proceeds on the chance of Charles II. re-conquering the crown, Mademoiselle began to hesitate. She was told that there was no other match for her in Europe, that the emperor and the King of Spain were both married, that the King of Hungary was engaged to the Infanta, that the archduke would never be sovereign of the Low Countries, and that King Louis and his VOL. I. MM 530 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1649. brother were too young. However, Mademoiselle, though willing to obey her father, soon found excuses against the marriage, and insisted that Charles II. should become a Catholic. When the King of England arrived atPeronne, his mother told Mademoi- selle' that her gallant was coming, upon which she replied, " I am dying to hear him say sweet things to me, because I don't yet know what that is ; nobody has ever dared to speak thus to me ; it is not on account of my rank, however, because persons have dared thus to address queens whom I knew ; it is on account of my character, and because I am far from being a coquette. However, without being a coquette I can listen to a king who wishes to marry me." Charles II. arrived. Mademoiselle found that he could not speak French, and at once determined not to conclude the marriage. She formed a very bad opinion of this sovereign, who seemed to know nothing of his affairs. " It is not," she says, " that I should not have recognized in this my own blood ; the Bourbons are a race much given to busy them- selves with trifles ; perhaps I myself also, being a Bourbon by the side of my father and my mother, have the same defect. Soon after he arrived dinner was served ; he did not eat ortolans, but ' flung him- self upon a piece of beef and a shoulder of mutton.' After dinner the queen amused herself by leaving us alone, and he remained a quarter of an hour without speaking to me. I am willing to believe that his 1651.] THE COURTSHIP OF CHARLES II. 531 silence was owing rather to respect than want of passion." 1 There was hunting in the forest, and afterwards King Charles said to Mademoiselle, " I think that Lord Jermyn, who speaks better than I do, will be able to explain my feelings and my intentions. I am your most humble servant." Mademoiselle replied to this that she was his very humble servant. Lord Jermyn paid her some compliments. Then King Charles saluted her and went away. After remaining three months instead of a fort- night at the French Court, King Charles took his departure. When Mademoiselle heard that his Majesty was leaving, she went to see the Queen of England, and also to take leave of the king. " The Queen of England said, ' We ought to rejoice with you that the empress is dead ; it looks as if this affair, if it failed formerly, will not fail again.' I replied that I was not thinking about that. She added that a king eighteen years old was better than an emperor of fifty with four children." If for the moment Mademoiselle thought of nothing but the emperor, before many months had passed he was forgotten, and we find her contemplating a marriage with the Prince de Conde, whose wife was at death's door. However, the princess re- covered, and, as Mademoiselle coolly remarks, " there the chapter ended." Mademoiselle then returns to Charles II. "I forgot 1 But his Majesty did not know French ! M M 2 532 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1651. to mention," she says, "that the King of England passed through France on his way to Scotland, and that the queen, his mother, went to see him at Beauvais. When she returned, she said to me, ' The king, my. son, is incorrigible ; he loves you more than ever, and I gave him a good scolding.' " When the news of his Majesty's disaster at Worcester came, and Mademoiselle learned that Charles had returned to Paris, she rushed off to see his mother sans itre coiffee, and although she had a swollen cheek. The Queen of England said, " You will find my son very ridiculous, for to make his escape he had to cut off his hair. . ." Mademoiselle found the unfortunate king much improved in appearance, although his hair was short and his beard was long ; also that he spoke French very well. He related his adventures, and declared he bad been so bored in Scotland that he felt the loss of a battle less than he should otherwise have clone. The Scotch, he said, thought it a sin to listen to a violin. He wished the fiddlers to strike up at once, and asked Mademoiselle if dancing would soon begin. "He appeared to me," she adds, "in all he said like a timid lover, who was afraid to say all he felt for me. . . He did not displease me. . ." And in fact King Charles went to see her every second day, to dance with her and to court her, the Queen of England and the Duke of York sometimes joining the party. The queen now asked Mademoiselle if she would marry her son. She replied that she was very happy 1651.] MADEMOISELLE UNDECIDED. 533 as she was, but that she would think the matter over. The queen gave her a week; she said that Charles would leave her mistress of • her fortune, that she would be a queen and the happiest of women, that several princes of Germany had promised to aid her son, who had a strong party in England. She also said, " My niece, I know that you entertain some hope of marrying the king " (of France), " I know that there have been negotiations on the subject, and neither my son nor myself would wish to prevent you from being Queen of France. . ." And her Majesty ended by asking Mademoiselle to give her hand to her son in the event of the match with Louis XIV. not being concluded. Mademoiselle replied that she would leave the matter in the hands of Monsieur, knowing, as she avows, that her father was opposed to the match. Monsieur in his turn said .that it was for the king and his ministers to decide. Charles appears to have considered the match settled, not thinking that the Court could offer any objections. " He even promised," says Mademoiselle, " to sacrifice his con- science and his salvation for me " on certain conditions which she does not mention. The Duchesse d'Aiguil- lon, Cardinal Richelieu's niece, who was very devout, " pressed her terribly to promise to marry Charles if he would become a Catholic, saying that she would be responsible to God for the salvation of his soul." However, Charles could get no definite answer, it being evident that Mademoiselle was afraid of losing her vast fortune in a hopeless struggle. 534 MARRIAGES OF TEE BOURBONS. [1652. At the beginning of 1652, Mazarin returned to France, civil war broke out, and Monsieur declared against the Court. Instead of dancing and love- making, Mademoiselle had to draw the sword. Monsieur sent her to defend Orleans, into which city she had much difficulty to enter ; had to climb up a water- pipe, say some chroniclers, but Mademoiselle says it was a ladder. During this investment we find her killing time by going to mass in the convents, to salut in the churches, and playing at skittles. Having held Orleans, and forced the enemy to raise the siege, she once more took the open field, Monsieur addressing his despatches to her two friends, the Countesses of Fiesque and Frontenac — A mesdames les comtesses marechales-de-camp dans Varmee de ma jille contre le Mazarin. An attempt was made to detach Monsieur by means of a promise that Mademoiselle should marry the king ; but Monsieur did not fall into the trap, and continued to wage war against Mazarin and the Court. Mademoiselle relates that while campaigning she received a visit from the King of England, who was not in the interest of her party, having sent his brother, the Duke of York, to serve with the Eoyal army under Turenne. What passed between Charles and herself on this occasion she does not say. We afterwards find Mademoiselle taking an active part in the defence of Paris in conjunction with Conde\ while Monsieur was pretending to be sick. She threw herself into the Bastille, and fired on the 1653.] MADEMOISELLE IN EXILE. 535 king's troops — a shot which, as Mazarin remarked, killed her husband, or destroyed all chance she had of marrying the king. Several volleys were after- wards fired with great effect, one cannon-ball mowing down a whole rank of cavalry, and in fact Mademoiselle not only saved the beaten army of Conde, but forced that of the king to retire. Monsieur having made his submission, and Mazarin having retired, the Fronde collapsed ; Conde with- drew from Paris, and so did Mademoiselle, who spent four years in exile from the Court, during which time she indulged in the chase, got horses and a pack of hounds from England, and hunted three days a week. In 1653 a certain Jesuit father presented himself to Mademoiselle, with proposals of marriage on the part of the Duke of Neubourg, a prince of the House of Bavaria, with chance of becoming emperor, well made, thirty years of age, intelligent, fine estates, a very beautiful palace, Dusseldorf the capital, hand- some city well situated. The Jesuit showed Mademoi- selle a portrait of the duke, saying, " He is the best man in the world, you will be extremely happy with him. His first wife, who was a sister of the King of Portugal, died of joy on his return from a voyage." However, Mademoiselle declined the offer of the duke. In 1656 we find the Queen of England still urging Mademoiselle, who was on bad terms with her father, to marry her son. And Mademoiselle gives a pretty sketch of how things went on at this epoch. She 536 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1656. says, " Nothing could have been more pompous than Madame de Chatillon that day ; she wore a dress of aurora-coloured taffeta embroidered with silver ; she was more white and more crimson than I had ever seen her ; she wore a number of diamonds in her ears, on her fingers and her arms ; she was attired most magnificently. Any one who attempted to relate her adventures would never come to the end. It was said that the Prince de Conde" was still in love with her, also the King of England, Lord Digby, and the Abbe" Fouquet. . . ." And the next year Mademoiselle adds, " The Queen of England told me that when at Sedan, King Charles wished to marry Madame de Chatillon, and that she had asked him if they would treat her as Queen of England at Court." Mademoiselle declared that she could not believe that the King of England had any intention of marrying the duchess. In 1656 it appears that Madame de Brienne, the confidante of Anne of Austria, told Mademoiselle that her mistress was dying to see her marry the king's brother, and that Louis XIV., when his brother asked him for an apanage, replied, " I will marry you to my cousin, who is very rich, and she will make your fortune." Mademoiselle was then twenty-nine years of age, and the prince only seventeen. Nothing more, says Mademoiselle, was said of the matter. In 1659, while at supper, Monsieur said to Mademoiselle, " "Which would you sooner marry, the Duke of Savoy or the emperor ? " To this Mademoiselle 1659-70.] LAUZUN MENTIONED. 537 replied that she would rather wed the Duke of Savoy, who spoke French, than the emperor, who was more of a Spaniard. We' have already seen how in 1659, when Louis XIV. was about to be married to the Infanta, and when the French Court was at St. Jean de Luz, Mazarin suggested to Mademoiselle that she should accept Charles II. of England, and how Mademoiselle declined to take any steps in the matter. In 1660 we find the first mention of Lauzun in the Memoirs of Mademoiselle, where, speaking of the Prince of Monaco, she says that although he was young, well made, and a grand seigneur, Mademoiselle de Gramont did not wish to marry him, as :< there was some one else at the Court who pleased her better," and in that her taste was not depraved ; other people had the same taste — perhaps too many for the welfare of the personage in question. In 1662 Mademoiselle refused the son and heir of the Duke of Lorraine, and also .Alphonse VI., King of Portugal, of whom we have spoken elsewhere. 1 In 1670 Mademoiselle, who had now been for some years in love with Lauzun, has two curious anecdote's to tell. She went to Calais with the Court, and found a few moments to speak with 1 The Due de JToailles says in his Memoirs that the king wished Mademoiselle to marry King Alphonse of Portugal, know- ing her decided character and her military tastes, and being sure that she would be able to govern the country under his direction ; but Mademoiselle obstinately refused, and for her disobedience to the royal will she was banished from the Court for eighteen months. 538 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1670. M. de Lauzun. The Marquis de Croissy, the French ambassador to the Court of St. James, came to salute Louis XIV., and the niornino; after his arrival Mademoiselle learned that the King of Er)gland was about to dissolve his marriage because his wife was not capable of bearing children, and that — "a great number of Englishmen of the highest rank wished him to marry me. This news appeared to me ridicu- lous, and would not have made me angry if Monsieur? the king's brother, had not said that he knew some- thing he would not mention. . . The king told me that Croissy had spoken to him as if the King of England really intended to dissolve his marriage and to marry me, that the most important people in the country, who shared the king's pleasures, had spoken to him of this with so much certitude that he could not doubt the truth of the report.' Everything capable of throwing an obstacle in the way of what my mind was fixed upon filled me with grief. I began to cry. The queen said, ' It would be horrible for a man to have two wives at the same time ! ' The king said, ' My cousin, what is your opinion % ' I replied that I had no will but his, that I was per- suaded he would never oblige me to do anything contrary to his conscience and to mine. The queen exclaimed, ' What ! if the king wishes you will give yourself away through complacency ? ' The king answered, ' She well knows that I would not damn 1 On the death of his uncle Gaston, the king's hrother became Monsieur. 1670.] AN UNTOWARD EVENT. 539 myself.' Monsieur declared that lie thought the affair very fine. Madame de Montespan said, ' Mademoiselle knows the King of England so well ; he was so much in love with her.' The more the match was approved of the more I cried. The king said to me, ' You are wrong to cry about a rumour.' I replied, ' The thought of leaving your Majesty overcomes me.' " And here Mademoiselle adds, " This gave me an opportunity for showing my friendship towards the king, and letting M. de Lauzun know that I preferred him to all the emperors and kings in the world." As there was no divorce this affair naturally dropped. Shortly after the above incident Madame returned from England, where she had been doing a stroke of diplomacy with her brother. She had hardly landed before she was taken ill and died. 1 When all was over Mademoiselle says, " We returned to Versailles to supper. M. de Lauzun arrived as we were leaving table. I approached him to whisper, 'Here is an incident which will disconcert our plans.' He replied, ' I am persuaded that this will upset all our projects.' . . Madame died at three o'clock; the king was informed at six ; he made up his mind to give up drinking the waters at Aix, and to take medicine. . . I was unable to sleep all night. I made this reflection, that should Monsieur take it into his head to marry me, I should be greatly embarrassed. . . 1 We shall refer to the death, of Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, sister of Charles II., further on. 540 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. ' [1670. I went to the king's mass ; we found him there in his dressing-gown. . . . When the king had dined and dressed himself he came to the queen's room and cried. After he had spoken awhile he said- to me, ' My cousin, there is a place vacant, will you fill it ? ' I became as pale as death, and answered him tremb- ling, ' You are the master, I shall never have any other will than yours.'- He pressed me greatly on the •matter. I could return no other answer. ' Have you an aversion to it % ' I did not answer. He said, ' I will think it over and speak to you.' " A short while after this conversation with the king we find Lauzun coming to take leave of Mademoiselle, so as not to stand between her and Monsieur, and after a painful scene the two lovers agreed to separate for a time. The king, having duly reflected, told Mademoiselle that his brother was anxious to wed her, and wished the contract to be drawn up at once. However, the negotiations on this subject did not last very long, the whole affair being turned into ridicule in consequence of the absurd pretensions of Monsieur, who wanted the vast estates of Mademoiselle to be settled on his only daughter, Marie Louise, and that there should be no other children ! In this same year Mademoiselle accompanied the army in the field, where she had the opportunity of seeing both Louis XIV. and Monsieur de Lauzun. " We left St. Quentin," she writes, " in terrible weather. No matter what inconvenience I experi- enced, I was contented, because I saw those whom 1670.] MADEMOISELLE AND LAUZUN. 541 I most loved in the world. The king always was, and still is, my first passion, Monsieur de Lauzun the second. . . The horrible rain threw everything into disorder ; nothing was so painful to me as to see Monsieur de Lauzun on horseback sometimes speak- ing bareheaded to the king. When he rode up, hat in hand, I could not refrain from saying, ' Make him put his bat on.' " On the return of the Court to Versailles, Mademoi- selle at last mustered up courage to write a long letter to the king, asking him to allow her to marry Monsieur de Lauzun. His Majesty returned a very gracious reply, said he was rather astonished, asked her to do nothing hastily, told her to think over the matter, said that he would not hamper her, that he was very fond of her, and other amiable things, but gave no decisive answer. Mademoiselle adds — " The day after I received the answer to which I have referred, the king took medicine. I went to dine at the Tuileries, and looked at him all day, but without daring to say a word. I affected to speak to Monsieur de Lauzun before him. He looked at us with a very gracious air, and it seemed to me that we ought to be content." A few days later Mademoiselle returned to the charge. She waited for his Majesty in his bed-room. "The king," she says, "played that night very late, until two a.m. The queen went to bed, saying, ' Your business must be very pressing, to wait for the king so late.' The king arrived, and when he saw me, said, ' Ah, my cousin, you here again ! -Do 54:2 MARRIAGES OF THE BOURBONS. [1670. you know that it is two o'clock 1 ' I replied, ' I want to speak to your Majesty.' He went out of the door, saying, ' I must lean against something, my head turns.' I asked him if he would sit clown. He said, 'No ; I feel better now.' My heart beat so violently that I repeated several times, ' Sire, sire.' " Then she went on to urge her demand, and this with so much warmth and eloquence that the king yielded, and after that the intended marriage was made public. Great was the astonishment which this news caused at Court, where, as Sismondi says, the con- quest of a province or the downfall of a monarchy would have made less noise. Madame de SeVigne" wrote as follows on this subject to the Comte de Grignan — "Paris, 15th December, 1670. " I am going to tell you the thing the most astonishing, the most surprising, the most marvellous, the most miraculous, the most triumphant, the most stunning, the most unheard of, the most singular, the most extraordinary, the most incredible, the most unforeseen, the most large, the most small, the most rare, the most common, the most dazzling, the most secret until to-day, the most brilliant, the most worthy of envy. . . A thing which people cannot believe in Paris ; a thing which makes every one cry out for mercy ; a thing which will take place next Sunday, when those who witness it will think that they have the staggers. . . Give your tongue to the dogs (give up trying to guess). Well, I must tell you that Monsieur de Lauzun is going to be married on Sunday at the Louvre — guess to whom ! To Madame de la Valliere 1 — no. To Mademoiselle de Eetz? — no. To Mademoiselle Colbert? — still less. To Mademoiselle de Crequy ? — you are wrong. Well, I must tell you. He marries on Sunday, at the Louvre, with the consent of the king, Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle de . . . 'Mademoiselle . . . guess the name. My faith ! by my faith ! my sworn faith ! 1670.] MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 543 Mademoiselle, the great Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle the daughter of late Monsieur ; Mademoiselle granddaughter of Henri IV. ; Mademoiselle d'Eu, Mademoiselle de Dombes, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, Mademoiselle d'Oiieans ; Mademoiselle first cousin of the king ; Mademoiselle destined for the throne. 1 Mademoiselle the only match in France worthy of Monsieur? Here is a fine subject upon -which to discuss. If you yell, if you go out of your mind, if you say that we have lied, that it is false, that we are poldng fun at you — if, in fact, you abuse us, we shall consider that you do quite right. . ." In a second letter to the Comte de Grignan, Madame de SeVignd wrote — " Paeis, 19th December, 1670. " What is called falling from the clouds happened to me this evening at the Tuileries. . . It was on Monday that the affair was announced, as you know. Tuesday was passed in talking, in expressing astonishment, in compliments. On "Wednesday Mademoiselle made a donation to Monsieur de Lauzun of titles, names, &c. for the marriage contract, which was drawn up that day. She gave him en attendant mieux, four duchies, Eu, Mont- pensier, St. Fargeau, and Chatellerault : all this valued at twenty- two millions. The contract was then drawn up, in which he took the name of Montpensier. On Thursday morning Mademoiselle hoped that the king would sign, as he had said he would ; hut at ahout seven p.m. his Majesty, being persuaded by the queen, Monsieur, and several graybeards, that this affair would injure his reputation, determined to break off the match, and 'after having sent for Mademoiselle and Monsieur de Lauzun, he declared to them that he forbade them to think of marrying. Monsieur de Lauzun received this order with due respect, with submission, firmness, and all the despair which so great a fall deserved. As for Mademoiselle,