When, in 1890, the picture of “The Ambassadors” was purchased for the national collection,⁠[2] nothing was known of its story prior to the last hundred years. The record began with the fact that it had been owned in the latter part of the eighteenth century by Jean-Batiste-Pierre Le Brun, a dealer and collector at Paris.⁠[3]

In 1792 Le Brun published the first volume of his “Galerie des Peintres Flamands, Hollandais et Allemands,” in which there appeared a very bad engraving of “The Ambassadors,” thus inscribed:

“Tiré du Cabinet de M. Le Brun d’après l’original peint sur bois, hauteur 96 pouces, largeur 54.”⁠[4]

The engraving was accompanied by a biographical notice of Holbein which, after recording various points connected with his paintings, continues:

“Celui dont on voit l’estampe offre les portraits de MM. de Selve et d’Avaux; l’un fut Ambassadeur à Venise, l’autre le fut dans le nord: ils sont accompagnés des attributs des arts qu’ils cultivaient. J’ai depuis vendu ce tableau pour l’Angleterre, où il est maintenant; les figures sont de grandeur naturelle.”⁠[5]

It will be remarked that Le Brun offers no information as to where he had acquired his precious possession. In England it came into the hands of the dealer Buchanan, who sold it to Jacob, second Earl of Radnor, in 1808, or the following year.⁠[6] It remained at Longford Castle until purchased for the National Gallery.

During the Longford episode, guesses seemed to have rained as to the identity of the personages. Some critics favoured the French theory derived from Le Brun. Others drew into the service a variety of notabilities, ranging from Charles V., Emperor of Germany, downwards. The year 1826 seems to have been especially rich in surmise of this type. At last someone proposed Sir Thomas Wyat for the courtly personage to the left; and this name appears to have clung a little longer than was the case with some previous suggestions. At any rate, it was accepted without much reflection by the leading authorities on Holbein, Mr. Wornum⁠[7] and Dr. Woltmann,⁠[8] and so came to pass as current coin. Dr. Woltmann further suggested the name of Leland for the second figure.

But a paper by Mr. Gough Nichols, published in the “Archæologia” for 1873,⁠[9] easily disposed of these identifications. For one thing, the “Ambassadors” bore no resemblance whatever to authentic portraits of the individuals they were now supposed to represent, those portraits, in Wyat’s case, being also by Holbein.⁠[10] Mr. Gough Nichols had no fresh theory to offer in the place of that which he demolished. Returning for a moment to the French title of Le Brun’s engraving, he proceeded to dismiss the claim to consideration of Selve and Avaux as summarily as that of Sir Thomas Wyat and Leland.⁠[11] Holbein’s sitters were left nameless. In 1890 there seemed to remain only the traditional title of “Two Ambassadors” (shorn of the faulty, but highly important corollary, “MM. De Selve et D’Avaux”), and such clues as the internal evidence of the picture might afford, to throw any light on the enigma.

It will be necessary now to dwell for a moment on this internal evidence, in order to show how completely it bears out the documentary testimony which at last came to light.

The only certain clues were, shortly, the following: 1. The signature (low down in the left-hand corner): Joannes Holbein pingebat, 1533. 2. The French Order of St. Michael worn by the personage to the left. 3. The words, AET. SVAE 29, inscribed on the dagger-sheath of the same gentleman. 4. A similar inscription, AETATIS SVE (sic) 25, on the leaves of the closed book which supports the elbow of the right-hand personage.

The best authorities united in the belief that Holbein spent the year 1533 in England. The Order of St. Michael of France worn by the individual to the left, pointed to the probability, but not certainty, of his being a Frenchman; scarcely any foreigners, except royal and a few other notable personages, being at that time admitted to the Order. The task, therefore, so far as the left-hand figure was concerned, was to find a man who, having been in England in the year indicated, was at once an ambassador, a Knight of the Royal Order of France, and of the desired age. Further, it was likely that he would be a Frenchman.

Among the many candidates of varied nationality, the dates and circumstances of whose lives, so far as they could be ascertained, were investigated by the writer, one only, proposed, with happy insight, by Mr. Sidney Colvin,⁠[12] appeared to fit these conditions in every respect.

Jean de Dinteville, Seigneur of Polisy, Bailly of Troyes, and Knight of St. Michael, was French Ambassador at the court of Henry VIII. almost throughout the year 1533. He was born in September, 1504, and was therefore in his twenty-ninth year when he came to England in February, 1533. Moreover “Polisy,” the name of Dinteville’s seigneurie in Burgundy, was found to be marked on the terrestrial globe represented in the picture close to the principal personage. The word was, however, slightly damaged, which detracted from the certainty of the reading till further proof arose to confirm it. That proof was still lacking; while the presence of many rival theories, some of them highly ingenious, and each claiming to have some special feature in its favour, left the solution still doubtful.

The identity of the second personage remained meanwhile as obscure as ever. Many names were proposed,⁠[13] but none seemed to offer the substantial promise of success which lent cogency to the Dinteville theory. The claim of M. de Selve, whose name, as well as the title of “The Two Ambassadors,” proved in the end to be survivals of the true tradition, was curiously overlooked from the time when that of his supposed companion, M. D’Avaux, was found to be a myth. The two names had in reality nothing in common. The very fact that they were not contemporary proved the arbitrary nature of their connection. While the title of Avaux did not exist till more than a hundred years after the picture was painted,⁠[14] five out of the six sons of Jean de Selve, the famous Premier Président of the parliament of Paris, were ambassadors during the sixteenth century and were born within a range of time that covered the desired date. Two of them were envoys at Venice, in exact accordance with the French tradition.⁠[15] The difficulty was to know which brother to select, and to find the precise information which would bring him into relation with Dinteville and Holbein in England. Much confusion prevails in the popular sources of information which deal with this family of diplomatists. This complicated the task of fixing their exact ages, necessarily the first step towards success. Where, however, so little evidence was forthcoming on which to base any kind of theory, the author thought it advisable not to reject an old and plausible tradition unless proved to be incorrect.

The rights of the Selve family now received a fresh impulse from another quarter. In 1894 the patient research of Mr. Dickes⁠[16] succeeded in tracing the story of the picture one step behind the ownership of Le Brun to the sale of the property of M. Nicolas Beaujon, a well-known French millionaire, who died in the winter of 1786. In the catalogue of that sale, which occurred in April and May, 1787, the following curious notice may be read:

“16 bis. Un autre tableau de quatre pieds et demi ou environ de hauteur sur près de huit pieds de large;⁠[17] il représente deux ambassadeurs, MM. de Selve et d’Avaux, l’un Ambassadeur à Venise, et l’autre dans les pays du Nord, avec le costume des nations chez lesquelles ils étoient envoyés; et les attributs des arts qu’ils aimoient. On voit aussi une tête de mort en perspective, à prendre de l’angle gauche du tableau,⁠[18] et qui a l’agrément de ressembler en face à un grand poisson. Le tableau est du même Holbein, mais la date de l’année n’y est pas.⁠[19] Il est du règne de François I. ou de Henri II. Ces deux tableaux sont à considérer.”⁠[20]

It now became clear whence Le Brun had drawn his information. He had merely repeated the already existing tradition. Notwithstanding the errors woven by a lively imagination into the substantial facts of the Beaujon catalogue, the importance of the fresh link in the chain of evidence was obvious. The new clue added force to the presumption, already strong, that the French tradition had a real foundation in fact; but that by some unexplained means the name of Avaux had in course of time been substituted for that of Dinteville.

Such was the state of things when, in 1895, a fortunate discovery came to confirm the probabilities thus evolved, and to raise them to the certainty of fact.

In the “Revue de Champagne et de Brie” for 1888, there was published a short notice of a picture formerly preserved at Polisy, containing the portraits of Jean de Dinteville and George de Selve!⁠[21]

Here then, at last, was the long-delayed solution: doubly satisfactory inasmuch as it exactly corroborated the results of so much previous research.

The paragraph in the “Revue de Champagne” was based on a catalogue published in March, 1888, by M. Saffroy, an antiquarian bookseller of Pré-Saint-Gervais, in which a seventeenth-century parchment, describing this picture, was offered for sale. The notice in the “Revue” first came under the present writer’s observation in 1895. The document there mentioned, which M. Saffroy happily still possessed after the lapse of seven years, was at once obtained, and furnished exactly the information which had so long been sought in vain. The following is its complete text:

“[Remarques sur le suject d’un tableau excellent des Srs. d’Inteville Polizy, et de George de Selve Evesque de Lavour, contenant leurs emplois, et tems de leur deceds.]⁠[22]

“En ce tableau est representé au naturel Messire Iean de DIntevile chevalier Sieur de Polizy pres de Bar-sur-seyne Bailly de Troyes, qui fut Ambassadeur en Angleterre pour le Roy Francois premier ez années 1532 & 1533⁠[23] & de puis Gouverneur de Monsieur charles de France second Filz diceluy Roy, le quel Charles mourut a forest monstier en l’an 1545, & le dict Sr. de DIntevile en lan 1555. Sepulturé en leglise du dict Polizy. Est aussi represente audict tableau Messire George de Selve Evesque de Lavaur personage de grandes lettres & fort vertueux, & qui fut Ambassadeur pres de LEmpereur Charles cinquiesme, ledict Evesque Filz de Messire Iean de Selve premier president au parlement de Paris, iceluy Sr. Evesque decedé en lan 1541 ayant des la susdicte année 1532 ou 1533⁠[23] passe en Angleterre par permission du Roy pour visiter le susdict Sieur de DIntevile son intime amy & de toute sa famile, & eux deux ayantz rencontrez en Angleterre un excellent peinctre holandois l’employerent pour faire iceluy tableau qui a esté soigneusement conservé au mesme lieu de Polizy iusques en lan 1653.”⁠[24]

The manuscript consists of an oblong piece of parchment which may have been cut at some time from an inventory. From the fact, however, that while containing the story of the picture up to the time when it left Polisy, it does not state where it was then taken to, it seems possible that it was attached to the painting as a label in the early days of its next sojourn. If fastened to the frame, it would be obviously superfluous to describe where the picture was actually hanging. The date of the document is in accordance with this supposition. On submission to the authorities at the British Museum, its authenticity was pronounced to be indisputable. The body of the manuscript, it was further stated, was written just after the middle of the seventeenth century, while the heading was added at a slightly later date. Whether originally a label or not, it appears early to have become separated from the picture and its proprietors, and to have fallen into careful hands, who then added the docket.⁠[25]

In 1888 the existence at the present day of the picture thus minutely placed on record was of course unknown. The writer in the “Revue de Champagne et de Brie” merely called attention to the notice in M. Saffroy’s catalogue as to an archæological curiosity connected with a name once famous in his province.

It is hardly necessary to point out that the dates and circumstances, already related, of Dinteville’s life, are in exact accordance with the record of this document. With the new data now at command correct information was soon obtained with regard to his companion also.

The ecclesiastical rank of George de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur, gives him a place in the great work of the brothers Sainte-Marthe, “Gallia Christiana;” and this book furnishes a further point of comparison for the correctness of picture and document. Turning to the article on the diocese of Lavaur⁠[26] it will be found that George de Selve was appointed to that see in 1526, when he was in his eighteenth year, but was only consecrated in 1534, when he was in his twenty-sixth year. Recollecting that the painting inscribed 1533, and corroborated in this date by the Saffroy document, states him to be then in his twenty-fifth year, it follows that the agreement between these three authorities is without a flaw.

But still further evidence confirms these conclusions. In the Archives of the Château of Villiers, owned by the present representative of the Selve family, is a Motu proprio of the Pope in favour of George de Selve, son of the Premier Président, permitting him to hold several benefices “although only seventeen years old.” This Latin deed is dated from Rome, the 13th May, 3rd Clement VII. Now, as this Pope was elected in November, 1523, the month of May of the third year of his pontificate falls in 1526. This document therefore places beyond all possibility of doubt that George de Selve was in his eighteenth year in May, 1526, and consequently in his twenty-fifth year, exactly as recorded on the picture when painted by Holbein in 1533.⁠[27]

The identity of the “Ambassadors” was now fully established. So also was the history and location of the picture down to 1653; but there still remained a blank of a hundred and thirty-four years before the reappearance of the painting at the Beaujon sale in 1787. Where was it and who owned it during this period?

To answer these questions, so far as possible, the history of Polisy and its successive proprietors during the century which followed the death of Dinteville, the Ambassador, must first be traced.

Jean de Dinteville died unmarried in 1555, leaving all his property to his last surviving brother, Guillaume, Seigneur Deschenetz. The latter, whose death occurred only four years later, was, in default of heirs male, succeeded at Polisy by his eldest daughter, Claude de Dinteville. This lady married, in 1562, François de Cazillac, Baron de Cessac, the head of a distinguished family in the south of France, who owned large properties in Quercy and Languedoc. For more than ninety years from the date of this marriage, the Cazillac family remained in possession of Polisy.

Madame de Cessac, the last of the race of Dinteville,⁠[28] survived until 1619, outliving her husband many years. This lady was a friend of Nicolas Camusat, the antiquary; and as it is to him that the next step is due in the history of the picture, which he must often have seen, it will be well to consider for a moment his relations with Polisy.

Camusat was a canon of the cathedral at Troyes. He occupied himself with antiquarian research, and published valuable collections of the papers he amassed. His correspondences with the French savants of the day were extensive, consisting chiefly of genealogies and local lore intended for the literary works on which they were engaged. Amongst those to whom he imparted such information were the Godefroy family, Du Puy, D’Hozier, the Sainte-Marthe brothers, and other persons celebrated in the annals of French learning. He was also interested in art, and himself possessed a small collection of paintings.

A letter written by Camusat to Du Puy in which, speaking of François de Dinteville, Bishop of Auxerre,⁠[29] he refers to a conversation that had taken place between “une sienne niepce” and himself, shows the intimate terms on which he stood with the family at Polisy.⁠[30] Madame de Cessac seems to have placed the archives of the Château at his free disposition. It is certain that she herself gave to him a genealogy of the Polisy branch of the house of Dinteville,⁠[31] probably the same that he inserted in his “Meslanges Historiques.”⁠[32] This book, which is a standard authority for the diplomatic relations of Francis I., owes its principal value to the access obtained by Camusat to the Dinteville papers and correspondence. It is, at the same time, one of the chief printed sources for the history of the family itself.

The connection of Nicolas Camusat with Polisy extended over nearly half a century. The earliest letters relating to that place are dated 1607; the last must have been penned shortly before his death, which took place in 1655. They ranged from the time of Mme. de Cessac, niece of the “Ambassador,” to that of her grandson, another François de Cazillac-Cessac, who removed the picture to Paris. The circumstances which probably led to this event must now be briefly recorded.

On the death, in 1619, of Madame de Cessac, Polisy passed to her eldest son Charles, who, by his marriage with Susanne d’Escar, left one son François, who succeeded him, and one daughter, Claude.

The daughter became the wife of Jean Jaques de la Roche-Fontenilles. Of their descendants more will be said hereafter.

The life of François de Cazillac, successively Baron, Vicomte, and Marquis de Cessac,⁠[33] forms a corner-stone in the story of the picture, and must therefore be dwelt upon with some care. His wife was a lady of the Choiseul family; a race united to the Cazillac, and before them to the Dinteville, by frequent ties of intermarriage, in many generations. One son and two daughters were the offspring of this union.⁠[34] The eldest girl was destined to the veil; but hardly was she grown up when the death of her brother hurried her home from her convent to become the future heiress of her parents. Her return seemed the more urgent as the younger sister was so delicate that it was evident she could not long survive. On the fatal termination of her illness, the whole inheritance would devolve on the elder daughter. Perhaps this point of view may have struck a young captain of cavalry, the owner of a neighbouring château, Charles le Genevois, Marquis de Blaigny, serving with the Duke of Guise. At any rate, in May, 1651, he carried off the young lady, then twenty years of age, from her home at Polisy, where she was living with her mother during the absence of her father in Languedoc. A hue and cry of hot pursuit was at once raised. Royal despatches brought hasty orders to the Prince de Conti, Governour of Champagne, to turn out even the soldiery, in order to capture the runaway pair. But all the king’s horses and all the king’s men were of no avail. The young couple made good their escape over the frontier to Franche-Comté,⁠[35] and, in spite of every effort to stop the marriage, Charlotte-Marie de Cazillac became the wife of M. de Blaigny.⁠[36]

Annoyance at his daughter’s elopement with a man he detested, combined no doubt with grief at the untimely death of his other children, seems to have put the climax to M. de Cessac’s distaste for his northern home. His heart was in the southern country which had been the cradle of his race. In spite of their long residence at Polisy, the interests of the Cazillac-Cessac family still centred in the south. The heads of the house, in succession, were constantly absent in Quercy and Languedoc. The elopement of Charlotte-Marie de Cazillac only afforded an additional proof of the difficulty of exercising simultaneous control in districts so remote from each other.

In the latter part of the sixteenth century, during the wars of religion, no part of France had suffered more severely than those southern provinces in which the Cazillac estates were situated. For reasons of safety, as well as from the fact that François I. de Cazillac (husband of the Dinteville heiress) filled the post of Governor of Troyes, Polisy may at that time have been considered a more desirable place of abode than any of the Châteaux in Quercy or Languedoc; though Polisy itself enjoyed no immunity from the troubles which lacerated all France. But in the middle of the seventeenth century the motives which, at an earlier date, had made residence in the north preferable had ceased to exist. Moreover, Charles de Cazillac had magnificently rebuilt the Château of Milhars, the chief residence of his family in the south. He had consequently left a somewhat embarrassed financial position to his son François, which did not improve as time went on. The proceeds which would accrue from the sale of the northern properties were therefore of great importance to their owner. Thus it came about that the next few years saw the sale of all the estates inherited from the Dinteville grandmother.⁠[37] Polisy became the property of the Maréchal Du Plessis-Praslin, and was shortly afterwards raised to the rank of a Duché-Pairie, with the title of Choiseul. Henceforth it drops out of the path of our investigation.