In the summer of 1540 the Bishop of Lavaur begged permission to resign his public career, for the future to devote himself wholly to the care of his diocese.

Meanwhile, following the court from place to place on the Emperor’s progress through Holland, the month of August found Selve at the Hague. An urgent letter to Montmorency, who, on the verge of disgrace,⁠[392] still had charge of the correspondence with ambassadors, shows the almost feverish anxiety which possessed the bishop to be released from his post. The “days are years” to him. “Vous supplions, Monseigneur, après m’avoir tant faict d’autres grâces, ne m’oublier point maintenant jusques là que de me laisser ici plus longuement.”⁠[393]

Yet the man who thus passionately implored release from a post which was the zenith of other men’s ambitions, was now only in his thirty-second year.

Ten days later he repeats the same request, but with a breath of relief, Montmorency having apparently answered in a manner not unfavourable to his desire. Probably the Connétable had consented to his departure so soon as a suitable substitute could be found; for Selve mentions several names of persons in his opinion specially fitted to replace him as ambassador with the Emperor.⁠[394] But, adds the bishop, with characteristic modesty, the number of those more capable than himself to fill the post is so great, that this point can present no difficulty.

He includes in his letter a request to Montmorency to remember his brothers, having regard to the services of their father and to their own ability. “What is asked for them,” he adds, with dignified simplicity, “is only that they should be put in the way of earning their living by work and by service.”

The explanation must have read curiously to Montmorency. The habit of the times had accustomed him to receive continual petitions for advantageous posts unaccompanied by any such suggestion of corresponding responsibility. The Connétable himself had not been unduly scrupulous in amassing his enormous wealth.

It would seem from the letter in question that Montmorency had sent to the Bishop of Lavaur some part of the arrears of his salary, the defections in which, combined with the expense of continual journeys with the Imperial Court, were putting him to serious straits. The irregularity with which these payments were made, and the distress of ambassadors who frequently saw themselves constrained to keep up an honourable appearance on their often slender private means, are chronic features in the diplomatic correspondence of the period.

The letters of the Bishop of Lavaur give a lively idea of the unhealthiness of the cities of the Low Countries at the time of his mission. While at the Hague he reported that a third part of the Court had fallen ill, some of tertian, some of daily fevers. There had already been several deaths. His own house was full of sick people. Arrived at Antwerp, where he trusted to have found a cleaner atmosphere, he was told that in that city alone there were more than seven thousand cases of illness, and that the whole surrounding country was in a similar state.⁠[395]

The Emperor meanwhile, who was suffering from gout, had dispensed with the company of the ambassadors in his recent journeys. The Court, including the diplomatic circle, only met again at Brussels on the 1st September. On the same day the Bishop of Lavaur wrote to Montmorency, overjoyed at the news that he was at last to be relieved. M. de Vély had been appointed to succeed him.⁠[396]

The political facts recorded in the correspondence of the Bishop of Lavaur at this period are not of great moment. A kind of lull had fallen on everything since the fiasco of the negotiations for a closer union with France. Charles V., still lame from his last attack of gout, pale and feeble, hardly showed himself to the Court. Granvella displayed such reticence in his communications with the French ambassador that the latter no longer cared to question him.⁠[397] The Imperial party were, in fact, as disappointed on their side at the rejection of their proposals by the French king as Francis himself was at the tenour of those offers. To the practical intelligence of Charles V. it was impossible to understand the objection felt by the King of France to the substitution of Burgundy and Flanders for the Duchy of Milan, a far more valuable concession than the Italian territory would have been. In political sagacity, in cold clear grasp of a situation, the Emperor by a long way surpassed his rival. But, for that very reason, he failed to take into account the imaginative temperament of Francis, so far removed from his own, and the halo with which that king was apt to invest the objects of his desire. Of these, Milan was the very essence, and was therefore clung to with corresponding obstinacy. Moreover, the aims of the two sovereigns in dealing with this subject were diametrically opposed. Charles sought to banish French influence from Italy, and was ready to pay a good price to effect his purpose. Francis wished by the acquisition of Milan to consolidate his position in the peninsula. Mutual disappointment could alone result from such diversity of character and aim.

Under these circumstances the breach between the two Courts, though still laboriously veiled by a show of friendship, necessarily widened from month to month.

Weakened by the rigorous abstinence which he habitually practised, as well as by the worries of his responsible position, the Bishop of Lavaur now fell a victim to a severe attack of the prevalent tertian fever. In his next letters he begs that, if ready to start, M. de Vély may be despatched instantly, for he, Selve, is unable to attend to the king’s business. As to his recovery, he resigns himself entirely to the Divine Will; but he fears it will be long and slow. Such has been the case with others who have sickened in the same way. Indeed, the Low Countries disagree with him to such a point that he thinks it impossible he should get well there; and a large part of those who accompany him are even more ill than himself.⁠[398]

The fever appears to have increased, for he shortly after “thanks God that he has passed one day without a fresh attack.” Nevertheless M. de Vély’s arrival was postponed from week to week, and instructions were continually sent to the bishop for communication to Granvella, in spite of the fact that he was so feeble as to be unable to leave his bed. The Emperor was to leave Brussels in three weeks’ time; and, as it was important that the business of the last despatches should be transacted before his departure, the sick man writes an urgent appeal to the King of France to despatch M. de Vély without further delay. Under such circumstances it can hardly cause surprise that he should have had relapse after relapse, which further undermined his already enfeebled constitution. He now resolved to travel in a litter to France on receipt of permission to depart, sooner than remain a single day longer than necessary in the infected atmosphere.

Notwithstanding the severity of his fever he still continued to inform Montmorency of such public events as he could follow from his bed of sickness. The arrival of the Prince and Princess of Orange, the assembling of the Estates of the country in the presence of the Emperor and Queen of Hungary, the speech of the Imperial Chancellor, are amongst the intelligence thus transmitted.

At last, to his infinite joy, he received the tidings that M. de Vély had actually started. He gratefully acknowledges this piece of good news in a letter dated the 5th October, the last of the series. On the 10th of October M. de Vély arrived at Brussels. The French Court appears to have realized at last that the case was urgent; for the new envoy performed the journey by post, three days in advance of his suite.⁠[399]

Notwithstanding his arrival, Selve was kept at his post until the middle of the following month. A Treasury grant of the 12th November, 1540, still qualifies him “ambassador with the Emperor.” A second similar grant, however, dated on the 22nd of the same month, shows that his term of office at last expired on the 18th November.⁠[400]

Henceforth the bishop was free to return to his beloved flock at Lavaur. Henceforth he could give himself completely to his pastoral duties in the pure and peaceful atmosphere of the little southern diocese, for which he had so often sighed.

It is sad to think how short a time was left to him in which to fulfil this, his dearest wish. When he returned to Lavaur his health was broken, his days were numbered. The terrible fever which had prostrated him in the Netherlands still clung to his shattered frame, and refused to be shaken off.

His retirement was so complete that not even a passing mention of his name occurs in the various series of documents in which, so short a time before, it had blazed in the full glare of publicity.

But a letter addressed at a later period by Bunel to Danès supplies the want, and gives some idea of the concluding scenes of the bishop’s life.⁠[401]

“On such days as the fever of the Bishop of la Vaur was not upon him,” says Bunel, “I often, since he had thus requested me, used to visit him. Ever did he discourse of things divine, and of good and holy living. At times he would lament that, being hindered by sickness, he was unable to take part in everything that occurred in his diocese.... On such occasions, when I would humbly beseech him for the present to set aside burdensome matters, and such as might increase his dejection, he would very cheerfully discourse to this effect: that never did he spend his time more happily than when engaged in the discharge of his duty.... He said furthermore that, although he was prevented by sickness from taking advantage of his high calling in order to exhort his flock to virtue, yet that even the risk of death could not and ought not to hinder him from the care of those things which pertained to the health of their souls. Wherefore he would fain learn of others such things as he could not himself know; not indeed that he might be the more severe on any in particular, but that he might make trial of every manner of remedy. By such meditations, which were most sweet, his melancholy, said he, was nowise increased, but rather diminished....”⁠[402]

Thus, intent to the last upon the welfare of his people, the bishop gently awaited his latter end. A few short months yet remained to him, in which to find solace in the society of his friend; to bask perhaps, on his less suffering days, in the sunshine of southern France, generous even in winter; above all, to provide for the spiritual needs of the flock committed to his charge. But the burning spirit of the man who combined with the accomplishments of a scholar the ardour of an apostle, had too early consumed its earthly tabernacle. Slowly but surely his life was ebbing away.

The approach of death appears to have been very gradual. On the 19th March he made his will; after which he still lingered for several weeks. Then, when the first flush of spring was spreading in green waves over the southern landscape, George de Selve, twenty-first Bishop of Lavaur, sank to his last rest. Worn out in body, though not in mind, by the travail of things divine, he passed away on the 12th April, 1541, in the thirty-third year of his age.⁠[403]

His remains were laid to rest at Lavaur, in the cathedral which had so often witnessed his ministrations.⁠[404]

The monument raised to his memory perished at the time of the French Revolution. Not even the site of the grave is known at the present day. The curious epitaph, formed upon the letters of his name, together with the answer supposed to proceed from his spirit, once inscribed upon his tomb, have, however, been preserved for us by the editor of his collected works:⁠[405]

The sorrow caused by the early death of the Bishop of Lavaur was deep and sincere. Bunel mourned for him as for a father. “There was never a good or wise man intimately acquainted with thy brother,” so he writes to Odet de Selve, “who did not desire to resemble him.”⁠[407] And to Danès he says, “I did fervently love and most deeply revere him.... I seem moreover to have noted this, that those who have attained with unusual speed unto maturity seldom live to an advanced age. For what can years contribute unto men beside moderation, prudence, skill and experience in the most important matters! All these things this man possessed in so high a degree that first the Senate of Venice, then the Roman Pontiff, and finally the Emperor, to all of whom the King sent him to treat of the weightiest matters, marvelled at his surpassing virtue, his great experience in human affairs and his administrative skill.”⁠[408]

There can be no doubt that Bunel did not exaggerate the general opinion formed of George de Selve by his contemporaries. The reputation of his extraordinary gifts has indeed survived to the present day, and is reflected in every notice that has been printed of his life. A distinguished modern historian has paid a high tribute to the brilliant and precocious talents displayed by him on his various embassies, and records the impression everywhere produced by his learning.⁠[409]

It would appear that Odet de Selve proposed to Bunel to write a biography of the bishop. Bunel did not decline an undertaking which he himself had been the first to desire. But for some reason he was unable to devote himself to the task at the required moment,⁠[410] and the work was left undone. It is to be regretted that posterity should thus have been deprived of a contemporary account of so remarkable a man composed by one to whom it would have been a labour of love. Bunel suggested to Odet, however, that his brothers translations from the Greek, and discourses on the Christian religion, should be carefully preserved, and, at some future time, given to the world.⁠[411] This was done; the theological portion constituting those collected works which have been so freely quoted in the course of this sketch.

The portrait of George de Selve given in the illustration, page 170, is taken from an oil painting in the possession of the Marquis de Selve at the Château of Villiers, near La Ferté-Alais, Department of Seine-et-Oise, and is reproduced here by the kind permission of the proprietor.

This portrait, which is life-size, on canvas, is the only one known to exist of the Bishop of Lavaur besides that of the “Ambassadors.” The coat-of-arms of the Selve family and the following inscription are painted on the background:

GEORGE DE SELVE EVEQUE DE LAVAUR AMBASSADEUR A VENISE A ROME ET VERS LEMPEREUR CHARLE QUINT MORT JEUNE A SON DIOCESE EN MDXLI.

The picture is posthumous. It forms a pendant to the portrait of Jean-Paul de Selve, Bishop of Saint-Flour (brother of George), and was obviously painted at the same time and by the same hand. Jean-Paul de Selve was only made a bishop comparatively late in the sixteenth century, long after his brother’s decease, and, as both prelates are represented in episcopal dress, it is evident that the portrait of George de Selve can only have been painted many years after his death. The style of painting, which is highly mannerized, bears out these indications; if, indeed, it does not point to a yet later date.

The portrait of Jean-Paul de Selve has an inscription identical in orthography, and in shape and size of letters, with that on the portrait of George. If these inscriptions are contemporaneous with the painting, as appears to be the case, both portraits must be posthumous, as the wording records the date of death in each case. The demise of the Bishop of Saint-Flour occurred in 1570.

But the painter of these portraits, whoever he was, must have had something to go upon in producing them; probably, in the case of George, some old likeness which he generalized somewhat freely to bring it into line with the fashion of a later day. Family tradition, moreover, would have preserved the memory of the colouring and general appearance of so distinguished a bishop.

Here it is that the interest of the comparison with Holbein’s portrait comes in. The Villiers presentment of George de Selve shows the same dark eyes and hair, the same fashion of beard, that we are already acquainted with in the “Ambassadors.” The emaciated features of the later picture tell, indeed, of the effect that years of asceticism, combined with feeble health, had wrought upon the frame of the bishop. But, when every allowance is made, the resemblance between the two portraits is sufficient, it is thought, to show that they represent the same individual, and to lend interest to the examination of the Villiers picture.