“We found there more than twenty ladies, including several who were very beautiful, and it is needless to say we were made welcome by the daughters of the house, but principally by my lady, who was enraptured to see me, as I was to see her. For I was desperately in love with her, and I can say that never in my life did I pass ten days more agreeably or better employed than those I passed there, being always at table, at the ball, in the sleigh, or engaged in another and better occupation. At length, the Carnival being over, we returned to Prague, with great regret on their part and ours, but very satisfied with our little journey.”
Before leaving Karlstein, Bassompierre had extracted a promise from “Madame Esther” that she would take an early opportunity of coming to Prague; but, as the worthy burgrave fell ill again, very probably in consequence of the quantity of rich food and strong wine which he had consumed during the Carnival, she was unable to do this. However, she hastened to atone to her lover for his disappointment, for “she made him come in disguise to Karlstein, where he spent five days and six nights concealed in a chamber near her own.”
On his return from this amorous escapade, Bassompierre prepared to set out for Lorraine, and, having received his despatches and an order on the Lorraine treasury for the payment of the troops which he had undertaken to raise in the duchy,[43] he left Prague on Palm Sunday, accompanied alone by Cominges-Guitaut, Seigneur de Fléac, a French gentleman who had served with him in Hungary, and a German valet de chambre.
He spent the first night of his journey at Karlstein, ostensibly to bid adieu to the burgrave and his family, but, in reality, to take farewell of “Madame Esther,” who was, of course, very disconsolate at the departure of her lover, though Bassompierre promised that, so soon as he had raised his levy, he would return to her side for a little while, before leading his horsemen into Hungary. As he was still “éperdument amoureux,” and to such a degree that he assures us that the charms of some very beautiful ladies whom he met at a country-house at which he stopped on the following day, and where, sad to relate, both he and his friend Guitaut got very drunk, were powerless to make the smallest impression upon him, he no doubt fully intended to keep his word; but, as events turned out, poor “Madame Esther” was never to see him again.
Travelling by way of Pilsen and Ratisbon, he arrived at Munich, where his friend William II. of Bavaria entertained him very hospitably and “offered him the command of the regiment of foot which Bavaria maintained in Hungary, in any year that he cared to accept it, provided he would notify him before Easter.” The Duke also lent him one of his own coaches, which brought him to Augsburg, where he took horse to Strasbourg, and a few days after Easter reached Saverne, and put up at an inn, with the intention of continuing his journey early on the morrow.
At Saverne an adventure befell him which might very well have had a fatal termination:—
“I sat down to table to sup, before going to visit the canons at the castle; but, as I was about to begin, they arrived to take me to the château and lodge me there. They were the Dean of the Chapter, François de Crehange, the Count von Kayl, and the two brothers von Salm-Reifferscheid. They had already supped and were half-drunk. I begged them, since they had found me at table, to sit down with me, instead of taking me to sup at the castle. This they did, and in a short time Guitaut and I had contrived to make them so drunk, that we were obliged to have them carried back to the castle. I remained at my inn, and, at daybreak on the morrow, I mounted my horse, thinking to depart; but they had, the previous night, given orders that I was not to be allowed to pass, for they wished to have their revenge on me for having made them drunk. I was, therefore, compelled to remain and dine with them, which I had great cause to regret. For, in order to intoxicate me, they put brandy in my wine; at least, that is my opinion, though they afterwards assured me that they had not done so, and that it was only a wine of Leiperg, very strong and heady. Anyway, I had scarcely drunk ten or twelve glasses before I lost all consciousness and fell into such a lethargy that it was necessary to bleed me several times, to cup me and to bind my arms and legs with garters. I remained at Saverne five days in this condition, and lost to such a degree the taste for wine, that for two years I was not only unable to drink it, but even to smell it, without disgust.”
So perhaps, after all, this very painful experience may have proved to be a blessing in disguise.
On his recovery, Bassompierre proceeded to Harouel, but learning that his mother was at Toul, set out thither, stopping for a few days on his way at the Abbey of Épinal, of which an aunt of his, Yolande de Bassompierre, was the Superior. Here he met again his cousin Yolande de Livron, with whom he had fallen in love two years before, and who happened also to be a guest of the abbess. This damsel had lately married the Comte des Cars, but this did not prevent her from being exceedingly agreeable to her handsome kinsman, and “the fires of their old passion blazed up again.” However, perhaps fortunately for the young countess, Bassompierre was soon obliged to continue his journey to Toul, whence he returned with his mother to Harouel.
Their home-coming was a sad one, for, while at Toul, Madame de Bassompierre had learned that her second son, Jean, Seigneur de Removille, who towards the end of the previous year had quitted the service of France for that of Spain, had died from the effects of a wound which he had received at the siege of Ostend, and, the day after their arrival at Harouel, the poor young man’s body was brought there for burial. Bassompierre was genuinely grieved at the death of his brother, to whom he had been much attached, and whom he describes as “a man of high courage and good sense, which, joined to a handsome presence, would have assured his fortune”; and he was greatly incensed against Henri IV, or, rather, against Sully, whom he regarded as indirectly responsible for the sad event.
This requires some explanation.
It appears that, during the Wars of Religion, the French Government had become indebted to Christophe de Bassompierre for various large sums, amounting in all to about 140,000 crowns, which Christophe had paid the troops whom he had raised for their service. As it was not convenient for the Treasury to discharge the debt, it was decided that certain estates belonging to the Crown in Normandy—Saint Sauveur-le-Vicomte, Saint-Sauveur-Landelin, and the barony of Nehou, should be mortgaged to Christophe, the estates to be administered by persons appointed by him. It was anticipated that the revenues of these lands would be sufficient to pay the interest on the money which he had advanced; but this did not prove to be the case, and the arrears of interest continued to mount up, until at the time of his death they had reached a very large sum. However, being on the whole satisfied with the arrangement which had been made, Christophe does not appear to have taken any steps to press his claims upon the French Government, nor did his family do so after his death. But, in the autumn of 1601, Sully, seeing an opportunity of mortgaging these lands on more favourable terms, persuaded Henri IV to issue a decree which provided that the money advanced by Christophe should be refunded to his heirs, with the addition of a sum which represented less than half of the accumulated interest due to them. The King—or rather his Minister—defended this decision on the ground that of late years the Saint-Sauveur lands had become much more valuable, and had—or ought to have—produced a revenue in excess of the interest due.
Bassompierre protested warmly to the King against the injustice of this decree, and asked that it should be annulled; and Henri IV, a little ashamed of the shabby manner in which he had allowed his favourite to be treated, promised him, shortly before Bassompierre’s departure for Hungary, that “within two months he should be satisfied.”
However, as time went on, without anything being done, Removille, with whom his brother had left full authority to settle the matter with the Government, took upon himself to remind the King of his promise. Henri IV returned an evasive answer, upon which Removille, who was far less tactful than his elder brother, spoke to his Majesty “without that respect or restraint that he ought to have employed.” This brought upon him a severe reprimand from the King, and, burning with resentment, the young man promptly quitted Henri IV’s service and entered that of Spain, in which he met an untimely death.
Nor was this all, for, shortly before Removille’s death, Henri IV, learning that he had been raising a regiment of foot in Lorraine to serve in Flanders, and that Bassompierre was raising a body of horse, concluded, not unnaturally, that the troops which the latter was recruiting were also destined for Flanders, and that he too had quitted his service for that of Philip III. Thereupon he seized the Château of Saint-Sauveur and ejected Bassompierre’s servants.
This news, which reached him almost simultaneously with that of his brother’s death, served to incense Bassompierre still further against Henri IV and his advisers, and it is very probable that the Court of France would have seen him no more, had not the King, ascertaining that the elder brother’s levy was intended for service against the Turks in Hungary and that the younger was dead, hastened to make amends for his high-handed action, and directed Zamet to write Bassompierre a letter of explanation. In this letter Bassompierre was informed that his Majesty was greatly surprised and pained that he should desire to quit his service without cause; that he had not yet allowed the decree of the Council to be executed, and had only taken possession of the Château of Saint-Sauveur because Removille had become a Spanish subject and the château was Crown property; and that he fully intended to make an arrangement which would be satisfactory to him.
Bassompierre replied that nothing was further from his desire than to leave the King’s service, but, unless the decree were annulled, he would be so impoverished that it would be no longer possible to live as befitted his rank at his Majesty’s Court. This letter had the desired effect, for Henri IV was really much attached to the gay and lively Lorrainer, who was a man after his own heart; and, shortly afterwards, Bassompierre received a letter in the King’s own hand inviting him to return to the Court, when “he would soon see how good a master he was.”
Bassompierre, feeling sure that the King would keep his word, however much Sully might protest, decided to return to France forthwith, and accordingly sent a messenger to Vienna to inform the Emperor that he was summoned to France by private affairs of the highest importance, and that it would therefore be impossible for him to raise the troops which he had intended to recruit for his Imperial Majesty’s service. At the same time, he returned in full the money which he had received for that purpose, although he had already disbursed a portion of it. This very honourable action served to mollify any resentment which the Emperor might otherwise have felt; and he replied, through Rossworm, that he should not appoint a colonel of his foreign cavalry for the present, but would keep the post open for Bassompierre, in case he desired to return to Hungary the following year.
Bassompierre arrives at Fontainebleau and is most graciously received by Henri IV—He falls in love with Marie d’Entragues, sister of the King’s mistress—The conspiracy of the d’Entragues—The Sieur d’Entragues and the Comte d’Auvergne are arrested and conveyed to the Bastille, and Madame de Verneuil kept a prisoner in her own house—Jacqueline de Bueil temporarily replaces Madame de Verneuil in the royal affections—The King, unable to do without the latter, sets her and her father at liberty—Bassompierre becomes the lover of Marie d’Entragues—He is dangerously wounded by the Duc de Guise in a tournament, and his life is at first despaired of—He recovers—Attentions which he receives during his illness from the ladies of the Court.
Towards the end of August, 1604, Bassompierre arrived in Paris, where his numerous friends, he tells us, were so delighted to see him that it was three days before they would permit him to continue his journey to Fontainebleau, whither the Court had recently removed; and when he at last contrived to get away, so many of them desired to accompany him, that it required no less than forty post-horses to convey them.
At Fontainebleau he met with so warm a welcome both from the King and the ladies of the Court, that he thought no more of returning to Germany:
“The King was on the great terrace before the Cour du Cheval Blanc when we arrived, and awaited us there, receiving me with a thousand embraces. He then led me into the apartment of the Queen, his wife, who lodged in the apartment above his own, and I was well received by the ladies, who thought me not ill-looking for an inveterate German who had spent a year in his own country. On the morrow the King lent me his own horses to hunt the stag. It was St. Bartholomew’s Day, August 24; and he himself would not hunt on a day whereon he had once been in such great danger. On my return from the chase I joined him in the Salle des Étuves, where we played lansquenet.”
Henri IV lost no time in annulling the obnoxious decree concerning the Saint-Sauveur property and restoring it to Bassompierre, who was thus enabled to live “a most delightful life” at the Court, and indulge to the full his inclination for lavish display, gambling, and love-making:
“I then fell in love with Antragues, and was also in love with another handsome woman. I was in the flower of my youth, rather well-made and very gay.”
The lady whom Bassompierre invariably refers to in his Memoirs as “Antragues,” without any prefix, was Marie de Balsac d’Entragues, younger sister of Madame de Verneuil. Marie was quite as pretty as Henriette—indeed, by not a few she was considered the prettiest woman at the Court—and if she lacked something of the wit and vivacity which made the reigning sultana so attractive, she was not without intelligence. As one might expect in a child of Marie Touchet, she was wholly devoid of moral sense. But she was neither mercenary nor ambitious, or, at any rate, far less so than her sister; and several exalted personages appear to have sighed for her in vain, including Henri IV, who, like Louis XV, in later times, had not the smallest objection to the presence of two or more members of the same family in his seraglio.
At the time, however, when his Majesty appears to have made advances to the younger sister, his relations with the elder had been temporarily interrupted by the episode which is known as the Conspiracy of the d’Entragues.
In the summer of 1604, acting upon a warning received from James I of England, the French Government had caused one Morgan, an agent of Spain, to be arrested in Paris, and documents found upon this person indicated that he had relations of a highly suspicious character with François d’Entragues, his daughter, Madame de Verneuil, and his stepson, the Comte d’Auvergne. One fine morning, a party of the King’s guards arrived at the Château of Malesherbes, where three moats and draw-bridges always raised protected its lord, as he fondly imagined, from surprise. Four of the soldiers, however, succeeded in gaining admission to the château, disguised as peasant-women with butter and eggs to dispose of, overpowered the sentries and admitted their comrades. D’Entragues was arrested and carried off to the Bastille, and with him a voluminous correspondence between the conspirators and the Court of Madrid, containing proposals for the assassination of Henri IV, and a promise signed by Philip III to recognise Henriette’s son as heir to the French throne, in the event of the King’s death. The Comte d’Auvergne once more found himself in the Bastille, while Madame de Verneuil was confined to her own house and strictly guarded. D’Entragues and his step-son were arraigned for high treason, convicted and sentenced to death; and Henriette was remanded until further evidence could be procured. The King’s advisers were urgent that the law should be allowed to take its course; but Henri IV, though he had made a valiant attempt to overcome his infatuation for Madame de Verneuil, and with the idea of driving out fire by fire, had taken unto himself a new sultana, in the person of Jacqueline de Bueil,[44] felt that he must have his Henriette back, and all the more because she affected to scorn him and refused to sue for his pardon. Dead though he might be to all sense of decency where his passions were concerned, he felt that, if he cut off her father’s head, he could scarcely again be her lover, and that d’Entragues’ life must therefore be spared. And if d’Entragues were spared, he could not well send his fellow-conspirator—the last scion of the House of Valois—to the scaffold, though, as this was Auvergne’s second experiment in high treason, he was even more deserving of death. And so d’Entragues and his daughter were set at liberty; while Auvergne remained in the Bastille, nor did he emerge from it until more than ten years later.
Early in 1605 we find the King again in amorous correspondence with the woman who had been conspiring against him, entreating her to love him to whom all the rest of this world compared with her was as nothing; and, after keeping him at a distance for a little while, Henriette graciously consented to accord him her favours once more. Henceforth, Jacqueline de Beuil was merely retained as a refuge when the marchioness happened to be spiteful and the Queen sulky.
In those days rough horseplay was much in vogue, and during the Carnival of 1605, bands of young nobles rode through the streets of Paris, masked and arrayed in glittering armour. When two of these bands met, they charged vigorously and strove to unhorse one another, and though the points of the lances they carried were carefully padded, and they wielded heavy cudgels gaily decorated with crimson ribbons, instead of swords, very shrewd blows and thrusts were exchanged. On one occasion, Bassompierre, who was accompanied by his brother-in-law Saint-Luc, and two of their friends, met another party, headed by the Duc de Nemours and the Comte de Sommerive, who challenged him to a mimic combat later in the day in the Place de Cimetière Saint-Jean, it being agreed that both sides might bring as many supporters as they could get together. Both parties repaired to the field of battle in considerable force, but that of Nemours and Sommerive had the advantage in numbers. Nevertheless, victory rested with Bassompierre and his friends, who drove their opponents through the streets in disorder, and “he had the satisfaction of seeing one of his rivals in the affections of Mlle. d’Entragues soundly beaten before the eyes of that lady, who was watching them from one of the windows of her house.” Nor was this all, for a day or two later Mlle. d’Entragues gave the victor a rendezvous.
This bonne fortune of Bassompierre, however, came very near to costing him his life:
“The Tuesday following, which was the first day of March, in the morning, the King being at the Tuileries, said to M. de Guise: ‘Ah! Guisard, d’Entragues despises us all and dotes on Bassompierre. I don’t speak without certainty.’ ‘Sire,’ replied M. de Guise, ‘you have means enough to avenge yourself. As for me, I have none other than that of a knight-errant. I will therefore break three lances with him this afternoon in open field, in whatever place you shall be pleased to appoint.’ The King gave us permission, and said that it should be in the Louvre, and that he would have the court sanded. He [Guise] chose his brother M. de Joinville for his second and M. de Termes for third; while I chose M. de Saint-Luc and the Comte de Sault. We all six went to dine and arm ourselves at Saint-Luc’s lodging; and, as we always kept armour and caparisons ready for all occasions, my friends and I wore silver armour, with silver and white plumes and silk stockings of the same colours. M. de Guise and his supporters wore black and gold, on account of the imprisonment of the Marquise de Verneuil, with whom he was at that time secretly in love. Then we repaired to the Louvre, preceded by our horses and attendants.
“My friends and I, who were the first to enter the lists, placed ourselves by the side of the old building; M. de Guise and his seconds took up their station beneath the windows of the Queen’s apartment. Our course was the length of the Salle des Suisses. It happened that M. de Guise was mounted on a little horse called Lesparne, while I was riding a big charger which the Comte de Fiesque had given me. He took the lower ground, while I was on the wall side, so that I towered over him, and, instead of breaking his lance while raising it, he broke it while lowering it, in such a way that, after splintering it for the first time against my casque, he splintered it the second against my tasset; and the lance penetrated my stomach and lodged in that great bone which connects the hip and the loins. And there the lance broke again, and a stump longer than a man’s arm remained attached to the thigh bone. I broke my lance against his breastplate, and, though I felt that I was mortally wounded, I finished my course, and they helped me to dismount near the King’s private staircase, and Monsieur le Grand and the elder Guitaut aided me to ascend to M. de Vendôme’s apartment, below the King’s chamber.”
Here someone, without awaiting the arrival of the surgeons, was so ill-advised as to pull the broken stump of the lance from the wound, with the result that part of the entrails came out with it; and, though the surgeons when they came contrived to replace them, Bassompierre seemed in desperate case:—
“The King, the Constable, and all the chief personages of the Court stood around, many weeping, as they thought that I should not live an hour. Nevertheless, I did not appear cast down, nor did I think I should die. Many ladies were there and helped to dress my wound, and, as I insisted on returning to my lodging, the Queen sent me the chair in which she was carried about, for she was then pregnant. The people followed me with many marks of sorrow. When I arrived at my lodging, I lost my sight, which made me think I was very ill, so that they made me confess and bled me at the same time. Yet I did not believe I should die, and laughed all the time.
“So soon as I received my wound, the King ordered the tournament to stop, and never permitted one afterwards. This was the only one in open field which had taken place in France for one hundred years, and they were never renewed.”
Youth and a splendid constitution saved him, and the attentions he received from the ladies of the Court appear to have consoled him for the pain which he had to endure:
“I cannot say how much I was visited during my illness, and particularly by ladies. All the princesses were there, and the Queen sent on three occasions her maids-of-honour, who were brought by Mlle. de Guise to pass whole afternoons. This lady, who considered herself obliged to assist in nursing me, as it was her brother who had given me my wound, was there most of the time. My sister, Madame de Saint-Luc, who, so long as I was in danger, always slept at the foot of my bed, received the ladies, and, with the exception of the day after I was wounded, the King came every afternoon to see me, and partly also to see my pretty companions.”
After being obliged to keep his bed for about a fortnight, he was allowed to get up and take the air in a chair, an object of sympathetic interest to all the ladies of the Court and town. His wound healed rapidly, and by Easter, though still somewhat lame, he felt sufficiently recovered to challenge the Marquis de Cœuvres, brother of Gabrielle d’Estrées, to a duel.
Quarrel between Bassompierre and the Marquis de Cœuvres—Bassompierre sends his cousin the Sieur de Créquy to challenge the marquis to a duel—The King sends for the two nobles and orders them to be reconciled in his presence—Bassompierre and Créquy are forbidden to appear at Court, but are soon pardoned—Visit of Bassompierre to Plombières—He returns to Paris, and “breaks entirely” with Marie d’Entragues—The Chancellor, Pomponne de Bellièvre, ordered to resign the Seals—His conversation with Bassompierre at Artenay—Bassompierre wins more than 100,000 francs at play—He is reconciled with Marie d’Entragues—He joins Henri IV at Sedan—The adventure of the King’s love-letter—Henri IV gives orders that a watch shall be kept on Marie d’Entragues’s house to ascertain if Bassompierre is secretly visiting that lady—A comedy of errors—Madame d’Entragues surprises her daughter and Bassompierre.
One day, in the King’s cabinet, Bassompierre, in taking his handkerchief from his pocket, drew out with it a billet-doux he had just received from Marie d’Entragues, which fell to the ground and lay there unperceived by him. An Italian banker named Sardini picked it up, and the Marquis de Cœuvres having told him that it was his, he gave it him. Cœuvres read the letter and then sent a message to Bassompierre, asking him to meet him that night before the Hôtel de Soissons and to come alone, as he had something of importance to communicate to him. Bassompierre, not a little surprised, since he and the marquis were on far from good terms with one another, kept the appointment and found Cœuvres awaiting him, in company with a friend of his, the Comte de Cramail, although in his letter he had given him to understand that there was to be no witness to their meeting.
The marquis began by reproaching Bassompierre with “certain bad offices which he asserted that he had rendered him,” and then went on to say that, notwithstanding this, he esteemed him too much not to desire his friendship, and aspired to serve, rather than injure, him, in proof of which, although that morning a letter written to him by Mlle. d’Entragues had fallen into his hands, he had made no use of it, but sent it at once to the fair writer by the hand of Sardini. Bassompierre, believing that he was speaking the truth, “made him a thousand protestations of service and affection,” after which Cœuvres informed him that the King was aware that he had found a letter written by some lady to him and had demanded to see it, and asked Bassompierre to send him as soon as possible one which he had received from another woman, to enable him to satisfy his Majesty’s curiosity. Bassompierre complied with this request, which was an easy matter enough, as, like his royal master, he generally had more than one love-affair on hand, and, besides, was in the habit of carefully preserving all the epistles which he received from the fair. At the same time, he sent a message to Mlle. d’Entragues to apprise her of the mishap which had befallen her letter and to inquire if she had received it from Cœuvres.
“But, as she wrote that she had seen no one sent by the marquis, furious with anger and transported with resentment, I went straight to the marquis’s house to recover the letter, or to punish him. On the way, however, I met M. d’Aiguillon[45] and M. de Créquy, who stopped me to inquire whither I was bound. ‘I am going,’ I replied, ‘to the Marquis de Cœuvres’ house, to get back from him a letter which Antragues wrote me and which he has found. And, if he does not give it up, I am resolved to kill him!’ They remonstrated with me, pointing out that, in going to kill a man in his own house, amongst all his servants, I was running a great danger, without the means of escaping it; that he [Cœuvres] would be very cowardly if he surrendered the letter to me when I went to him in this manner; and that it would be better to send one of my friends. And Créquy offered to go.”
Bassompierre reluctantly consented, and Créquy accordingly proceeded to Cœuvres’s house. The marquis, at first, flatly refused to give up the letter, declaring that Fortune had brought it to him to enable him to avenge himself on Bassompierre for the ill that he had done him. Créquy pointed out that, if he were so imprudent as to do this, Bassompierre would certainly call him out, in which case one of them would probably be killed, while the victor would be sure to incur the severe displeasure of the King. Cœuvres thereupon began to waver, and finally told him to come back early on the following morning, when he would let him know his decision. When Créquy returned, the marquis, who, Bassompierre believes, had, in the meantime, sent La Varenne with the letter to the King and received it back again, told him that he would himself take the letter to Mlle. d’Entragues, if this would satisfy the lady’s admirer.
“To this I agreed,” writes Bassompierre, “resolved, nevertheless, to fight with this trickster, though I was anxious first to get Antragues out of the affair.”
The marquis took the letter to the lady, and, shortly afterwards, Bassompierre received a message from his mistress, informing him that it was her good pleasure that he should be reconciled to Cœuvres, for which purpose he was to come to her house that afternoon at five o’clock, where he would find the marquis waiting to embrace him. Much against his will, he obeyed, and a formal reconciliation took place between the two gentlemen, who then separated, secretly hating one another more bitterly than ever. In the evening, as Bassompierre was leaving his lodging to go to the Louvre, the Grand Equerry, the Duc de Bellegarde, arrived and told him that the King, having learned that he had quarrelled with the Marquis de Cœuvres, forbade him, on pain of death, to call the latter out. Bassompierre replied, laughing, that it would be easy to obey his Majesty, as he and the marquis were now the best of friends.
Notwithstanding the royal command, Bassompierre was determined to fight the purloiner of his love-letter, though, as he did not wish Mlle. d’Entragues’s name to be mixed up in the affair, he had decided to allow two or three days to pass and then to quarrel with him on some other matter. A pretext was easily found, and Créquy, who, now that the letter had been recovered, had altered his views on the question of a duel between them, repaired to Cœuvres’s house as the bearer of a formal challenge. The marquis, however, had no desire to oblige the fire-eating Lorrainer; possibly, he thought that he might get the worst of the encounter, but, more probably, since he appears to have been brave enough, he feared the displeasure of the King. Anyway, he refused to see Créquy, although the latter called on two or three occasions; and, meanwhile, Henri IV, having been warned of Bassompierre’s bellicose intentions, again interfered, and, sending for him and Cœuvres, ordered them to be reconciled in his presence. He then told Bassompierre that he had gravely offended him by daring to call out the marquis in the face of his express command, and forbade him to come to the Louvre or to any place where the Court might be. His anger extended to Créquy, and, not only did he forbid him the Court, but even talked of depriving him of the command of the regiment of guards to which he had just been appointed. However, thanks to the solicitations of the ladies of the Court, the Queen interceded with the King on behalf of the offenders, and Henri IV, who had reasons of his own for wishing to keep his consort in a good humour, relented so far as to allow them to return. For some little time he pretended to ignore their presence, but he soon grew tired of this, and admitted them once more to his favour.
In May, Bassompierre went to Plombières, the baths of which had been recommended by the doctor, as his thigh was still causing him a good deal of pain. He travelled thither accompanied by several of his friends from the Court, and an imposing suite, which included a band of musicians whose services he had engaged, and remained there three months, enjoying “all the amusements which a young man, rich, debauched, and extravagant, could desire.” His mother, his sister, Madame de Saint-Luc, his younger brother, who had assumed Jean de Bassompierre’s title of Seigneur de Removille, and a number of friends from Lorraine joined him there, and he appears to have passed a very agreeable time, to which a love-affair with a Burgundian lady, named Madame de Fussé, contributed not a little.
About the middle of August, by which time he was completely cured, learning that Henri IV had set out at the head of a small army for the Limousin, where the friends of that incorrigible intriguer the Duc de Bouillon were threatening to cause trouble, and that there was a chance of seeing a little fighting, he returned to Paris to prepare to follow the King. On his arrival, he had a violent quarrel with Marie d’Entragues, and “broke with her entirely.” What was the cause of the rupture he does not tell us; possibly, the lady may have been seeking consolation for his absence in the devotion of some rival admirer; possibly, she may have heard of the attentions which he had been paying to Madame de Fussé at Plombières and had taken umbrage. Anyway, complete as it may have been at the time, it was soon healed.
After spending a couple of days with a merry party at the Comtesse de Sault’s château at Savigny, amongst whom he doubtless contrived to dissipate any inclination to melancholy which his breach with Mlle. d’Entragues may have caused him, Bassompierre set out for the South. At Artenay, he met the aged Chancellor, Bellièvre, who, to his profound mortification, had just been directed by the King to surrender the Seals to Nicolas Brulart, afterwards Marquis de Sillery, though Bellièvre was to remain Chancellor and head of the Council.
“I found him,” writes Bassompierre, “walking in a garden with certain maîtres des requêtes, who were returning with him to Paris. He said to me: ‘Monsieur, you behold in me a man who goes to seek a grave in Paris. I have served the Kings to the best of my ability, and when they saw that I was no longer capable, they sent me to take repose and to attend to the safety of my soul, of which their affairs had prevented me from thinking.’ And when, a little later, I told him that he would continue to serve them and to preside at the Council as Chancellor, he replied: ‘My friend, a Chancellor without seals is an apothecary without sugar.”
Leaving the mortified Chancellor to continue his journey to Paris, where he died a year later, Bassompierre took the road to Orléans, where he found the Queen, whose pregnancy had prevented her following her husband to the Limousin, and Mlle. de Guise, who, while he was at Plombières, had married the Prince de Conti. From Orléans he proceeded to Limoges, which Henri IV had made his headquarters, and, though he was disappointed in his hope of seeing some fighting, since the rebels submitted without any attempt at resistance, he had no reason to regret his journey to the South, as he won at play more than 100,000 francs.
In November, he returned with the King to Fontainebleau, whither the Queen and the ladies of the Court had proceeded, and, shortly afterwards, followed their Majesties to Paris, where he and Mlle. d’Entragues appear to have taken an early opportunity of making up their quarrel.
In the early spring, Henri IV, with a small army and a powerful battering-train, set out for Sedan, to teach the Duc de Bouillon a much-needed lesson. That troublesome nobleman, however, finding that neither the French Protestants nor Spain were disposed to move a finger to assist him, prudently decided to sue for pardon, and surrendered his impregnable fortress before a shot had been fired against it. The terms he obtained from the sovereign whose authority he had so long defied were favourable in the extreme, no punishment being inflicted upon him beyond the occupation of Sedan for five years by a body of the royal troops under a Huguenot commander.
Having settled with the Duc de Bouillon, Henri IV wrote to Bassompierre, Guise, and Bellegarde, ordering them to join him. On their arrival they found the King making preparations for his formal entry into Sedan, which took place the following day. In the morning Bouillon presented himself before his Majesty, who read to him his abolition, to which the duke listened with becoming humility. But the moment it was handed to him his manner changed, and he became as haughty and arrogant as ever, and even had the presumption to alter the order in which the King had marshalled his troops for the procession through the town.
After remaining a few days longer at Sedan, Henri IV went to Busancy, whence he despatched Bassompierre to Paris, to inquire, on his behalf, after the health of his former consort, Queen Margot, “who had lost Saint-Julian Date, her gallant, slain by a gentleman named Charmont [sic], whose head the King had caused to be cut off in consequence,”[46] and to carry letters to his two chief sultanas, Madame de Verneuil and the Comtesse de Moret.[47]
Bassompierre, impatient to see Marie d’Entragues, went first to the house of her sister, Madame de Verneuil, where he hoped to find her, and was not disappointed. Having saluted the ladies and executed his commission, he had the imprudence to mention that he was going to call upon Madame de Moret, for whom he had also a letter from the King. That was quite enough to pique the curiosity of the marchioness, who at once determined to see the correspondence which the Béarnais was carrying on with her rival, and asked Bassompierre to give her the letter. That gentleman naturally objected, but Marie d’Entragues joined her commands to the request of her sister, and he weakly allowed himself to be persuaded. Madame de Verneuil broke the seal, and having read the amorous epistle, handed it back to Bassompierre—presumably, it contained nothing of much importance, otherwise, she would have been quite capable of retaining
or destroying it—observing that in an hour he could get a seal made similar to that with which the letter was fastened, and that, when he had sealed it again, no one would suspect that it had ever been tampered with. Bassompierre, relying on this assurance, sent his valet de chambre with the letter into the town to get a replica of the seal made; but, as ill luck would have it, the man went to an engraver named Turpin, who happened to be the very same person who had made the original for the King. Turpin, recognising his handiwork and suspecting that something was wrong, seized the valet by the collar, with the intention of handing him over to the police. But the latter, who was a strong and active fellow, contrived to wrench himself free and hurried off to warn his master, leaving his hat and cloak, together with the King’s letter, in the hands of the engraver.
Bassompierre, much disturbed by this misadventure, hid his valet, who, he tells us, would have been hanged within two hours if he had been caught, and then went to call on Madame de Moret. Having decided that his best plan was to brazen it out, he told the countess that having been entrusted by the King with a letter for her, he had unfortunately opened it, in mistake for a poulet which a lady had sent him; that, through fear of being suspected of having acted intentionally, he had, instead of coming to her at once to offer his apologies, as he, of course, should have done, been so imprudent as to try and get a similar seal made, and that his servant, having by ill chance gone to the King’s engraver, the latter, his suspicions aroused, had retained the letter. If Madame de Moret wished to have it, she had only to send someone to explain the matter to Turpin, and no doubt the engraver would give it up. The countess believed, or pretended to believe, this not very probable story, and sent one of her servants to Turpin to claim her letter; but was informed that it was no longer in his hands, but in those of Séguier, President of the Tournelle, or criminal court of the Parlement of Paris, to whom the honest engraver had deemed it his duty to transmit it without delay.
Here was a fresh complication and one which caused Bassompierre no little disquietude, as he did not know Séguier personally, and the latter had the reputation of being a most austere magistrate, who would be certain to sift the matter to the very bottom. Resourceful though he was, he was for the moment at a loss how to act, but, finally, resolved to go and see Madame de Loménie, wife of Antoine de Loménie, one of the Secretaries of State, with whom he was on very friendly terms, and beg her to intervene in order to hush up this unfortunate affair, either by persuading Séguier to surrender the letter, or by writing to her husband, who was on his way to Paris with the King, to ask him to give some plausible explanation to his Majesty.
This time Fortune was on his side. He found the Minister’s wife seated at her writing-desk and apparently very busy. She was engaged, she told him, in drafting a very important letter to her husband concerning a singular adventure. Bassompierre, having an idea that this singular adventure might well have some relation to his own, pressed her to tell him more, upon which the lady explained that an attempt had been made that morning to counterfeit the King’s seal; that the man who had been sent to the engraver had unfortunately succeeded in effecting his escape, but that the letter of which he was the bearer had been seized, and that the President Séguier had just sent it to her, with the request that she would forward it to her husband, in order that he might lay it before the King, when perhaps they would be able to get to the bottom of the matter. And Madame de Loménie added that she would willingly give 2,000 crowns to solve this imbroglio.
Bassompierre, with a sigh of relief, offered to enlighten her for nothing, and proceeded to furnish her with the same explanation of the affair which he had already given Madame de Moret. Madame de Loménie accepted it, and, after having given him a good lecture, promised to smooth things over for him, on condition that he would go on the morrow to Villers-Cotterets, where the King and her husband had just arrived, and take with him a report of the matter which she would draw up. Bassompierre agreed readily enough, as may be imagined, and, having called again upon Madame de Verneuil to obtain her answer to the King’s letter, and also upon Madame de Moret, who wrote likewise to thank his Majesty, although she had not received the one intended for her, set out for Villers-Cotterets, where Henri IV laughed heartily over the adventure, of which he does not appear to have suspected the true explanation.
A few days later, Henri IV, in celebration of his bloodless victory over the Duc de Bouillon, made a sort of triumphal entry into Paris, where he was received with salvoes of artillery and loud acclamations from the populace. The effect of this ceremony, however, appears to have been somewhat spoiled by the extraordinary attitude assumed by the rebellious vassal whom he had just brought to heel, and who rode along bowing and smiling to the people who thronged the streets and the windows and roofs of the houses, for all the world as if he himself were the hero of the day and the object of all the acclamations.