TO MY NIECE

THE COUNTESS OF MINTO

THIS WORK IS

INSCRIBED

I CANNOT express the satisfaction I feel at finding myself once more addressing the great American public, which from the first has received my works with such flattering favour.

I have taken special pleasure in the production of this new edition of Old Court Life in France, which was first published in America some twenty years ago, and which is, I trust, now entering into a new lease of life.

That the same cordial welcome may follow the present edition, which was accorded to the first, is my anxious hope.

A new generation has appeared, which may, I trust, find itself interested in the stirring scenes I have delineated with so much care, that they might be strictly historical, as well as locally correct.

To be the guide to these romantic events for the American public is indeed an honour. To lead where they will follow, with, I trust, something of my own enthusiasm, is worth all the careful labour the work has cost me.

With these words I take my leave of the unknown friends across the sea, who have so kindly appreciated me for many years. Although I have never visited America, this sympathy bridges space, and draws me to them with inexpressible cordiality and confidence, in which sentiment I shall ever remain, leaving my work to speak to them for me.

Frances Elliot.

June, 1893.

TO relate the “Court life” of France—from Francis I. to Louis XIV.—it is necessary to relate, also, the history of the royal favourites. They ruled both court and state, if they did not preside at the council. The caprice of these ladies was, actually, “the Pivot on which French history turned.”

Louis XIII. was an exception. Under him Cardinal Richelieu reigned. Richelieu’s “zeal” for France led him unfortunately to butcher all his political and personal opponents. He ruled France, axe in hand. It was an easy way to absolute power.

Cardinal Mazarin found France in a state of anarchy. The throne was threatened with far more serious dangers than under Richelieu. To feudal chiefs were joined royal princes. The great Condé led the Spanish troops against his countrymen. Yet no political murder stains the name of the gentle Italian. He triumphed by statescraft,—and married the Infanta to Louis XIV.

Cardinal de Retz possessed much of the genius of Richelieu. No cruelty, however, attaches to his memory. But De Retz was on the wrong side, the side of rebellion. He was false to his king and to France. Great as were his gifts, he fell before the persevering loyalty of Mazarin.[Pg ]

The personal morality of either of these statesmen ill bears investigation. Marion de l’Orme was the mistress and the spy of Richelieu; Mazarin—it is to be hoped—was privately married to the Queen Regent Anne of Austria. Cardinal de Retz had, as a contemporary remarks, “a bevy of mistresses.”

We have the authority of Charlotte de Bavière, second wife of Phillippe Duc d’Orléans, brother of Louis XIV., in her Autobiographical Fragments, “that her predecessor, Henrietta of England, was poisoned.” No legal investigation was ever made as to the cause of her sudden death. There is no proof “that Louis XIV. disbelieved she was poisoned.”

The number of the victims of the St. Bartholomew-massacre is stated by Sully to have been 70,000. (Memoirs, book I., page 37.) Sully and other authorities state “that Charles IX., at his death, manifested by his transports and his tears the sorrow he felt for what he had done.” Further, “that when dying he sent for Henry of Navarre, in whom alone he found faith and honour.” (Sully, book I., page 42.)

That Sorbin, confessor to Charles IX., should have denied this is perfectly natural. Henry of Navarre would stink in the confessor’s nostrils as a pestilent heretic. As to the credibility of Sorbin (a bigot and a controversialist), I would refer to the Mémoires de l’état de France sous Charles IX., vol. 3, page 267.

According to the Confession de Saucy, Sorbin de St. Foy “was made a Bishop for having placed Charles IX. among the Martyrs.”

Frances (Minto) Elliot.

August, 1873.

ALL my life I have been a student of French memoir-history. In this species of literature France is remarkably rich. There exist contemporary memoirs and chronicles, from a very early period down to the present time, in which are preserved not only admirable outlooks over general events, but details of language, character, dress, and manners, not to be found elsewhere. I was bold enough to fancy that somewhat yet remained to tell;—say—of the caprices and eccentricities of Louis XIII., of the homeliness of Henri Quatre, of the feminine tenderness of Gabrielle d’Estrées, of the lofty piety and unquestioning confidence of Louise de Lafayette, of the romantic vicissitudes of Mademoiselle de Montpensier; and that some pictures might be made of these old French personages for English readers in a way that should pourtray the substance and spirit of history, without affecting to maintain its form and dress.

To be true to life has been my object. Keeping close to the background of history, I have endeavoured to group the figures of my foreground as they grouped themselves in actual life. I have framed them in the frames in which they really lived.

Frances Elliot.

Farley Hill Court,
Christmas, 1872.

OLD COURT LIFE IN FRANCE.

WE are in the sixteenth century. Europe is young in artistic life. The minds of men are moved by the discussions, councils, protests, and contentions of the Reformation. The printing press is spreading knowledge into every corner of the globe.

At this period, three highly educated and unscrupulous young men divide the power of Europe. They are Henry VIII. of England, Charles V. of Austria, and Francis I. of France. Each is magnificent in taste; each is desirous of power and conquest. Each acts as a spur to the others both in peace and in war. They introduce the cultivated tastes, the refined habits, the freedom of thought of modern life, and from the period in which they flourish modern history dates.

His reign educated Europe. If ambition led him towards Italy, it was as much to capture the arts of that classic land and to bear them back in triumph to France, as to acquire the actual territory. Francis introduced the French Renaissance, that subtle union of elaborate ornamentation with purity of design which was the renovation of art. When and how he acquired such exact appreciation of the beautiful is unexplained. That he possessed judgment and taste is proved by the monuments he left behind, and by his patronage of the greatest masters of their several arts.

The wealth of beauty and colour, the flowing lines of almost divine expression in the works of the Italian painters of the Cinque-cento, delighted the sensuous soul of Francis. Wherever he lived he gathered treasures of their art around him. Such a nature as his had no sympathy with the meritorious but precise elaboration of the contemporary Dutch school, led by the Van Eycks and Holbein. It was Leonardo da Vinci, the head of the Milanese school, who blended power and tenderness, that Francis delighted to honour. He brought Cellini, Primaticcio, and Leonardo from Italy, and never wearied of their company. He established the aged Leonardo at the Château de Clos, near his own castle of Amboise, where the painter is said to have died in the arms of his royal patron.

As an architect, Francis left his mark beyond any other sovereign of Europe. He transformed the gloomy fortress-home—embattled, turreted, and moated—into the elaborately decorated, manorial château. The bare and foot-trodden space without,

enclosed with walls of defence, was changed into green lawns and overarching bowers breaking the vista toward the royal forest, the flowing river, and the open campagne.

Francis had a mania for building. Like Louis XIV., who in the century following built among the sandhills of Versailles, Francis insisted on creating a fairy palace amid the flat and dusty plains of Sologne. Here the Renaissance was to achieve its triumph. At Chambord, near Blois, were massed every device, decoration, and eccentricity of his favourite style. So identified is this place with its creator, that even his intriguing life peeps out in the double staircase under the central tower—representing a gigantic fleur-de-lys in stone—where those who ascend are invisible to those who descend; in the doors, concealed in sliding panels behind the arras; and in many double walls and secret stairs.

Azay le Rideau, built on a beautifully wooded island on the river Indre, though less known than Chambord, was and is an exquisite specimen of the Renaissance. It owes the fascination of its graceful outlines and peculiar ornamentation to the masterhand which has graven his crowned F and Salamander on its quaint façades. The Louvre and Fontainebleau are also signed by these monograms. He, and his son Henry II., made these piles the historic monuments we now behold.

Printing at that time having become general, literature of all kinds circulated in every direction, stirring men’s minds with fresh tides of knowledge. Marguerite de Valois, who was called “the tenth Muse,” dwelt upon poetry and fiction, and already meditated her Boccaccio-like stories, afterwards to be published under the title of the Heptameron. Francis gloated over such adventures as were detailed in the roundelay of the “Four Sons of Aymon,” a ballad of that day, devoured the history of Amadis de Gaul, and tried his hand in twisting many a love-rhyme, after the fashion of the “Romaunt of the Rose.”

In such an idyllic life of love, of solitude, and of thought, full of the humanising courtesies of family life, was formed the paradoxical character of Francis, who above all men possessed what the French describe as “the reverse of his qualities.” His fierce passions still slumbered, his imagination was filled with poetry, his heart beat high with the endearing love of a brother and a son. His reckless courage vented itself in the chase, among the royal forests of Amboise and of Chanteloup, that darkened the adjacent hills, or in a tustle with the boorish citizens, or travelling merchants, in the town below.

THE Court is at Amboise. Francis is only twenty, and still solicits the advice of his mother, Louise de Savoie, regent during his minority. Marguerite, now married to the Duc d’Alençon, has also considerable influence over him. Both these princesses, who are with him at Amboise, insist on the claims of their kinsman, Charles de Montpensier, Duc de Bourbon,—in right of his wife, Suzanne, only daughter and heiress of Pierre, the last duke,—to be appointed Constable of France. It is an office next in power to the sovereign, and has not been revived since the treasonable conspiracy of the Comte de St. Pol, in the reign of Louis XI.

Bourbon is only twenty-six, but he is already a hero. He has braved death again and again in the battle-field with dauntless valour. In person he is tall and handsome. In manners, he is frank, bold, and prepossessing; but when offended, his proud nature easily turns to vindictive and almost savage revenge. Invested with the double dignity of General of the royal forces and Constable of France, he comes to Amboise to salute the King and the princesses, who are both strangely interested in his career, and to take the last commands from Francis, who does not now propose accompanying his army into Italy.

There is a restless, mobile expression on Bourbon’s dark yet comely face, that tells of strong passions ill suppressed. A man capable of ardent and devoted