In attempting to follow the career of Jean de Dinteville, and to read aright the picture by Holbein, which is, to so large an extent, the intimate expression of his mind, it is necessary to step back, in imagination, into the sixteenth century, and to see things, so far as possible, as an observer of that day would have beheld them. Passing events present themselves to contemporaries in proportions widely differing from those under which they appear to the student of a later day. Circumstances which, as they arose, assumed mountainous dimensions, have dwindled to molehills with the lapse of time. Other events, which had small beginnings, have subsequently acquired an importance undreamed of by lookers-on, in the story of the world’s progress. Again, a third category exhibits less divergence between the verdict of contemporary opinion and that of posterity. In such cases, it is a less arduous task to move into the place of the thinkers and actors of the past, and to mark with their eyes, uninfluenced by the knowledge of later developments, the scene that unfolded itself to their view.

Only by noting the facts of history in their relation to Dinteville’s character and career, rather than to their intrinsic importance,⁠[67] will it be possible to obtain a distinct understanding of the man and of his work. Often, indeed, the two points of view will be found to converge.

Jean de Dinteville was born on the 21st of September, 1504. He was the third son of Gaucher de Dinteville, Seigneur of Polisy, and of Anne Du Plessis.

The race of Dinteville was of ancient descent and allied to the best blood in France. It had originally been known as Jaucourt, but early in the fourteenth century an ancestor, Pierre de Jaucourt, adopted the name of Dinteville, which was that of his seigneurie in Champagne, by which the family was henceforth called. The elder line remained and flourished at Dinteville. The younger branch, founded by Jean de Dinteville, second son of Pierre, settled at Polisy shortly before 1321.

A glance at an old map of France, divided into provinces, shows that, at a certain point, the waving boundary between Champagne and Burgundy takes a sharp curve upwards, and, doubling back, makes the deepest of many indentures in the contour of the northern province. This narrow strip of land, surrounded on three sides by the territory of Champagne, formed, approximately, the ancient Comté of Bar-sur-Seine. Attached to Champagne, and consequently to France, in 1225 (long before the Dinteville family settled at Polisy), it passed to Burgundy early in the fifteenth century, returning to France with that Duchy in 1477. On this often-debated ground, just at the spot where the small river Laigne throws its waters into the Seine, stands the Château of Polisy—the chief home of that branch of the house of Dinteville with which we are here concerned.

The marriage of the first Dinteville, Seigneur of Polisy, with the heiress of Deschenetz⁠[68] (or Echenay, as it is now called) in Champagne, brought to the family another considerable fief, which, a century later, became the theatre of an exciting drama. A second Jean de Dinteville, who held the office of Bailly of Troyes, now reigned there. On a dark night, when peace spread all around, the house of Deschenetz was treacherously attacked by one Fortespice, a vassal of the Comte de Vaudemont, who was the head of that powerful house which later succeeded to the Dukedom of Lorraine. The Comte de Vaudemont was Dinteville’s kinsman and supposed friend. Taken completely by surprise, the master of Deschenetz could offer no resistance. The house was sacked, while he himself was made a prisoner, and forced to buy his release by a large sum of money. Years later he challenged Fortespice to a duel in the fosse at Chablis, when both combatants fell mortally wounded.

His son and successor, Claude de Dinteville, entered the service of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Claude attained a distinguished position as Surintendant de Finance to the Duke, and perished, fighting at his master’s side, at the battle of Nancy, in 1477. His body was brought back to Polisy for interment.

With the cession of the Duchy of Burgundy to France, which now took place, happier days dawned for the Dinteville family. All questions of divided allegiance ceased. The numerous sons of Claude de Dinteville entered French service, several of them rising high in their respective vocations. One of them, Jacques de Dinteville, was Grand Veneur of France under Louis XII., and was also employed as Deputy Governor of Paris during the absence of the Duke of Vendôme.⁠[69] Another son, François, became Bishop of Auxerre; Pierre was Seneschal of Rhodes, and fell while defending the island against the Turks in the memorable siege of 1522; and Gaucher, the father of Holbein’s “Ambassador,” was Bailly of Troyes, and was attached to the French Court, almost throughout his life, in many honourable capacities. He accompanied Charles VIII. to Italy, and was appointed Governor of Sienna during the French occupation of that city.⁠[70]

On his return to France, Gaucher de Dinteville settled at the Château of Thennelières, near Troyes, and in 1496 married Anne Du Plessis, daughter of Jean, Seigneur of Ouschamps and La Perrine. Their eldest son, François, who ultimately succeeded his uncle as Bishop of Auxerre, was born in 1498; and from this date onwards the births of numerous children are recorded as having occurred at Thennelières or at Troyes. A few years later the family migrated to Polisy.

Gaucher’s tenure of the office of Bailly of Troyes coincides with an important period of French law. The Bailly was the Crown officer in whose name justice was administered throughout a certain district. Each Bailliage, or bailiwick, had its separate Custom, a system naturally resulting in much inequality and confusion. To remedy this state of things, Louis XII. took the first step towards the unification of the legal code, by ordering the publication of the Customs throughout the kingdom.⁠[71] The fulfilment of this edict was a work of time, to be accomplished only after years of labour. The Custom of Troyes was published in 1509, during the term of office of Gaucher de Dinteville, and under the immediate presidency of his brother the Bishop of Auxerre. The latter, like many of his ecclesiastical contemporaries, was equally versed in civil and canon law.

How large a share Gaucher himself had in this important undertaking is uncertain. The duties of the Bailly became in course of time almost nominal, and devolved upon his deputy, a professional lawyer; but this period had hardly yet arrived. In 1505, however, Gaucher was sent by the king to Switzerland, where his duties detained him on and off for several years.⁠[72]

Nothing is known of the childhood of Jean, the future ambassador, passed, it may be surmised, on the breezy plains of Thennelières, or amidst the wooded slopes which surround the Château of Polisy. His two elder brothers, François and Louis, the latter of whom became a Knight of St. John, began their education at the College of Troyes, which at this time enjoyed a high reputation; and it is likely enough that in due course Jean followed in the same steps. Scholars were entered there from the early age of eight years. Again following his eldest brother, he may have pursued his later studies at the University of Paris, where the degree of Bachelor of Arts could be obtained at fifteen or sixteen years of age.

It may be useful to recall that the instruction imparted there, as at most of the older universities of Europe, was based in the first instance on the study of the Seven Liberal Arts. These were divided into two courses: the first, comprising Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric, was called the Trivium; the second, which embraced Music, Arithmetic, Geometry, and Astronomy, the Quadrivium. Dinteville’s education, wherever acquired, was doubtless laid on these familiar lines.

Destined to succeed to his father’s honours, and in due course to become the head of his house, he was early brought into contact with the French Court. Indeed, the whole family seems to have found exceptional favour there. A manuscript is still preserved⁠[73] which gives the names of those who were members of the royal household, and in this list the Dinteville family figures extensively. Jean de Dinteville first appears in attendance on the royal children between 1521 and 1524, when he holds the appointment of Echanson. His life from this time centred at the Court, where his father was now Premier Maître d’Hotel to the Dauphin François.

There were many links to connect Gaucher de Dinteville and his sons with the royal family of France. Besides the intrinsic merits and past services of the father, they possessed powerful friends. Anne de Montmorency, the great minister, was their cousin, and did much to shape the subsequent career of Gaucher’s sons. In early days, the intimate friendship of Madame de Montreuil, a sister of the Grand-Maître Boisy and of Admiral Bonnivet, played a large part in their advancement.

It is pleasant to lift for a moment the veil that conceals so much of the private life of that remote period, and to contemplate a friendship which continued unbroken through two generations.

The Seigneurie of Montreuil was a dependency of Deschenetz, a possession of the Dinteville family which ranked second in importance only to Polisy, and which they, no doubt, often visited. It was, perhaps, partly through the accident of being neighbours in the country that the kindly feeling entertained for them by the Châtelaine of that estate ripened into the closest intimacy. Madame de Montreuil was governess to the royal children; and it was through her mediation that Gaucher received his early appointment in connection with them. It was again due to her influence that when the little Prince Charles, Duke of Angoulême, the youngest of the three sons of Francis I., outgrew her tender care, he was placed under the immediate charge of Jean de Dinteville, whom “she loved and trusted as her own son.”⁠[74]

Public events meanwhile were gradually ripening towards the great catastrophe which was to colour French policy for many years to come. In February, 1525, the news of the defeat of the French forces before Pavia, where Francis I. was taken prisoner, and the flower of the French nobility fell, sent a thrill of horror through France. The king was carried to Madrid, only to be released in the following year on the humiliating terms of sending his two eldest sons to replace him in captivity, pending the payment of a large ransom. From the time of the affront placed upon the national pride by this crushing misfortune, the main endeavour of French statecraft through a long series of years was to convert the enemies of Charles V. into the allies of France, and by a succession of skilful diplomatic combinations, open or secret, to form coalitions sufficiently powerful to resist the overwhelming might of the Empire. Already, during the king’s captivity, the regent, Louise of Savoy, had courted the friendship of Henry VIII., imploring him not to make war upon an imprisoned king. At about the same period, the first French emissary had been despatched to the Court of Solyman, forming the beginning of that series of negotiations between the Most Christian King and the Turk which, avowed many years later, was to startle Europe.⁠[75] Sigismund, King of Poland, and John Zapolski, Waiwode of Transylvania, who was endeavouring to wrest the crown of Hungary from Ferdinand, the Emperor’s brother, were other objects of French solicitude; to whom, for convenience sake, may here be added the Protestant Princes of Germany, led by the Elector of Saxony, with whom an alliance was formed a few years later.

But the most conspicuous engagement entered into by France, in the early days succeeding the Spanish captivity, was the League signed at Cognac in May, 1526, by which Francis I., Clement VII., the Signory of Venice, and Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, bound themselves in a common alliance against the Emperor Charles V.

How deep was the impression made by these events on young Dinteville, whose attendance on the royal children kept him in the vortex of French politics, may be actually seen in some details of Holbein’s picture, to which reference will be made later on. Nor was it surprising that this should be so. The League of Cognac was the definite public act by which Francis I. made plain his intention to repudiate that part of the Treaty of Madrid which involved the cession of the Duchy of Burgundy. Had the latter compact been observed in its integrity, Polisy would have become a fief of the Empire. The race of Dinteville had been French long ere they were Burgundian. At the close of the fifteenth century they had resumed with passionate loyalty their complete allegiance to the Crown of France. What wonder, then, if Jean de Dinteville gave himself heart and soul to the anti-Imperial policy expressed by the League of Cognac, which appeared to guarantee the continuance of his French nationality?

In February, 1527, he was appointed Captain and Governor of Bar-sur-Seine, on the resignation, probably caused by advancing years, of his father.⁠[76] As in the document which records these changes Jean is already described as Bailly of Troyes, Gaucher must previously have resigned that office also, for the succession to which he had instituted his son by royal letters as early as 1520.⁠[77]

Later in the same year Gaucher de Dinteville visited Troyes to request the contributions of its inhabitants to the ransom of Francis I.⁠[78] The young Bailly was meanwhile kept almost entirely at Court, accompanying the royal family from Paris to Blois, and from Blois to Amboise, or the various other places to which duty or pleasure determined its movements.

The next glimpse obtained of him finds him in these surroundings. In October, 1527, Marguerite d’Angoulême, the sister of Francis I., and her husband, the King of Navarre,⁠[79] made a short stay at Blois on their journey to the south of France. Some point appears to have then been under discussion relating to the little Duke of Angoulême (the only one of the king’s sons at that time in France, his brothers being prisoners at Madrid), and to the young princesses, his sisters. Marguerite writes to Anne de Montmorency from Gabarre, a small town in the Landes:

“... En passant dernierement a Blays,⁠[80] Madame de Montereul et M. le Bailly de Troyes, en me parlant du fait de Monsieur et de Mesdames, me prierent d’escrire a madite dame,⁠[81] ce que j’ai differe jusques a ce que fussiez de retour.”⁠[82]

Montmorency was absent at the moment on his way to England. Henry VIII. and Francis I. were becoming more and more deeply engaged in a common policy against Charles V. Earlier in the same year, Wolsey had been brilliantly received in France. Now the Grand-Maître was sent with Jean Du Bellay and the Chancellor of Alençon, at the head of a splendid train of gentlemen, to convey the Royal Order of St. Michael to the King of England. This was the expedition from which Marguerite awaited Montmorency’s return, before writing to the king’s mother.⁠[83]

It would be interesting to know what was the subject upon which Madame de Montreuil and the Bailly of Troyes sought to obtain the good offices of Louise of Savoy with regard to the children. That the question was not unimportant may be inferred from their anxiety to obtain such influential assistance, and from the hesitation of the Queen of Navarre to accede to their request without previously consulting Montmorency. Her desire to conciliate the minister shows the power he had already acquired in the internal relations of the French Court.

Was the question connected with religion? History offers no reply; but the suggestion awakens some interesting considerations.

In or about 1526, Francis I. had confided the education of the little Duke of Angoulême, perhaps by Dinteville’s advice, to Lefèvre d’Etaples,⁠[84] a celebrated professor of mathematics and philosophy. This learned man was one of the earliest and greatest of the French Reformers. He was the author of the first complete translation of the Bible into French; it is still in use in the Protestant churches of France. A correspondent of Budé⁠[85] and Erasmus,⁠[86] his name carries us into the centre of that sphere of intellectual activity with which Dinteville was constantly brought into contact both at home and at Court.

In 1527 Francis I. ordered Lefèvre, in conjunction with Gérard Roussel,⁠[87] to translate into Latin the Homilies of Chrysostom on the Acts of the Apostles.⁠[88] The following year we find Lefèvre teaching the Psalms to the little Duke of Angoulême.⁠[89] But by September, 1528, both he and Roussel had left the Court to follow Marguerite of Navarre to the south of France, where Lefèvre was established in deep retirement at Nérac.⁠[90] The links which connected the Bailly of Troyes with such men as Lefèvre and Roussel were primarily, no doubt, on the side of learning rather than of religion; for the Dinteville family were staunch Catholics. But they appear, at any rate at this early date, to have belonged to the liberal Catholic group, and to have been averse to the extremes of the rigidly orthodox party. Their cordial relations with the Queen of Navarre, the Du Bellay, and other advocates of tolerance, point to this conclusion, no less than their love of learning and their intimacy with the eminent humanists patronized by the French Court. The bigotry of Montmorency, on the other hand, was well known. If, therefore, they desired to replace the services of Lefèvre by those of another teacher of liberal leanings, they did well to apply to the Queen of Navarre and her mother, rather than direct to the minister. On this point, however, we have no further light.

Persecuted by the Sorbonne and the extreme ecclesiastical zealots, the French Reformers were, at this time, upheld by an enlightened section of the Roman Catholic party, who desired to see the discipline of the Church amended without pushing matters to a split with Rome. It still seemed possible to combine these objects, which the efforts of the humanists, and the general hatred entertained towards the monks, had rendered popular in high places. Louise of Savoy herself was, in early days, not opposed to the aims of the innovators. Marguerite of Navarre was, and remained, their ardent supporter, though without forsaking the communion of Rome.⁠[91] The lines of demarcation were not yet as tightly drawn as they were destined to be hereafter. Renée of France,⁠[92] who, married in 1527 to Ercole d’Este, became the mother of Tasso’s Leonora, was all her life the unflinching protectress of the advocates of a purified religion. At no time, perhaps, were the prospects of the Reformation brighter at the Court of France than in the years now under consideration. Francis I., cynical and indifferent himself, though not incapable of superstitious fear, alternately protected and persecuted the French Lutherans according to the influences which prevailed with him at the moment. But in her goodly band of learned men, supported by the liberal group in the Roman Catholic Church, France possessed a happy omen for the future.

The same revival of letters which had paved the way for the Reformation in Germany, had penetrated deeply into France. The humanists formed a compact group, almost independent of nationality, corresponding in Latin, and pursuing the same objects in each country. The union between the leading European nations in these respects was very close. In France the ranks of the law, more especially, were crowded with votaries of the new learning. Besides the study of classical literature, they bestowed eager attention upon mathematics, natural science and astronomy, which still included astrology, obtaining the newest instruments from Southern Germany, where they were principally made. Celebrated teachers were placed at the great provincial universities, specially famous for their schools of civil law, the teaching of which was forbidden at the University of Paris. The lectures were ardently attended. Foreigners as well as Frenchmen gathered in large numbers round any well-known luminary. The lecturers themselves were not infrequently members of another nation. Thus Andrea Alciati, the famous Italian lawyer, taught successively at Avignon and at Bourges; while large numbers of Germans, such as Melchior Wolmar, Johann Sturm, subsequently rector of Strasburg University, Sleidan, the historian of the Reformation, André Melanchthon, a relation of his more famous namesake, helped to promote the cause of liberal instruction, and, in many cases, also of the doctrines of Luther. As the Reformation advanced in Germany, its influence permeated the ranks of the French humanists, hand-in-hand with the purely secular learning they had hitherto cultivated. Those who professed the new doctrines were known as “Luthériens.” The day of Calvin, who was to impress the final and definite stamp on French Protestantism, was yet to come.

The orthodox professors of the University of Paris viewed with distrust all this intellectual stir. They regarded the revival of classical learning, especially the study of Greek, which enabled people to examine the New Testament for themselves, as conducive to heresy. To free the path of knowledge from their bigoted restrictions, Guillaume Budé persuaded Francis I. to found a college for the special purpose of instruction in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, the “Three Languages” as they were then called; to which mathematics and other chairs were subsequently added. The scheme did not at once come to full maturity; but a variety of first-rate professors were engaged, who gave free lectures in their several branches, and assembled round them a large group of students of international character. Such was the nucleus of the famous Collège Royal.

The Bailly of Troyes was well acquainted with Budé, both at Court and in Champagne. The lifelong services of this eminent savant to a succession of French kings brought him into constant communication with the members of the royal households. As secretary to Charles VIII. and librarian to Francis I. he must have been well known to Gaucher de Dinteville. In the second capacity, his influence may have been almost incalculable on Gaucher’s son. Budé, had, moreover, many connections at Troyes. He was related to the Raguier family, one of whom married a sister of the Bailly. The Raguiers were of German origin, and later, including Charlotte de Dinteville, embraced the reformed religion.⁠[93]

Troyes at this time inclosed within its walls several remarkable men, whose fame extended beyond these limits. Among them was Pierre Pithou, a celebrated advocate, and the father of yet more eminent sons. Pithou’s friendship with Lefèvre d’Etaples added another link to the chain. All these names, Budé, Raguier, and Pithou, became Protestant in the next generation. For the present things had not gone so far.

In the highest class of society there was, at this early stage, little thought of secession. On the contrary, the liberal-orthodox Frenchmen were prepared to strain every nerve to avert a schism. They occupied a middle position between the ultra-clerical party and the Reformers. Their whole energies were directed towards the re-establishment of ecclesiastical unity.

At the head of this little band of select intelligence stood the Du Bellay family. Guillaume Du Bellay, Seigneur de Langey, the eldest of the brothers, and Jean, successively Bishop of Bayonne and of Paris, and ultimately Cardinal, were equally conspicuous for their talents in peace and war, in religion and in diplomacy.⁠[94] No ambassadors were more frequently employed in the negotiations with England which marked the years of closest friendship between Henry VIII. and Francis I. Guillaume Du Bellay also made repeated visits to Germany in the interests of religious unity, an aim which, in a letter to his friend and correspondent, Melanchthon, he terms “the most glorious on which mortals can be engaged.”⁠[95]

Jean Du Bellay had the same objects at heart. He too writes to Melanchthon, signing himself, “Yours from my very heart, Bellaius.”⁠[96] A statesman of conspicuous ability, and a leader of much that was best in French thought and aspiration at this time, he opened his doors freely and dispassionately to all whom learning, merit, or need of any kind, commended to his notice. Even Rabelais found a shelter beneath his hospitable roof; many of the lesser humanists he drew from obscurity to an assured position; he himself was an author of some pretension.

In politics the liberal Catholics were, as might be expected, the keenest adversaries of Spain. They supported the divorce of Henry VIII., and all the diplomatic combinations directed against Charles V. It is a striking fact that nearly all the French ambassadors sent to England during the years we now have to consider, belonged, in greater or lesser degree, to this group. Some of them, at a later period, when things had developed further, embraced the Protestant religion.

The extreme clerical party, on the other hand, which included Montmorency, upheld the Imperial alliance. But in the years which immediately succeeded Pavia, the susceptibilities of the nation were too deeply wounded to admit of any real cordiality between France and Spain. The policy of France necessarily took another direction in consequence. This coolness towards Spain gave the liberals their opportunity. The Grand Maître, realizing the position with his usual cold sagacity, held the strings of both parties firmly in his hands. He stood, indeed, on terms of friendship with such men as the Du Bellay, who, while protecting liberty of opinion and condemning the delinquencies of the clergy, were doing their utmost to prevent a rupture with Rome. The Papacy itself courted those whose aim was to draw back the Reformers into the fold of the Church. Starting from very different grounds, they were obviously playing the Pope’s game.

But for the out-and-out Lutherans, whose object was complete severance from Rome, Montmorency had no weapon but persecution. His hatred of the “heretics” only intensified when time made clear the impossibility of any compromise. As the years wore by, the shadows of the coming conflict crept onwards, ultimately forcing the party of mediation to make their choice between strict orthodoxy and secession. Slowly but surely the brilliant promise of an earlier date faded away. But that time had not yet come.