A GLIMPSE AT THE POLITICS OF THE SIXTEENTH
CENTURY
Even after the surrender of the Château de Noizai, and the skirmish in
the forest of Château-Regnault, the whole affair was not at an end.
The majority of the conspirators of Nantes had not been notified of
these two repulses which their party had met with, and were still on
their way to Amboise, prepared to assault the place that night.
But we know that thanks to the precise information furnished by
Lignières, they were expected.
The youthful king had no inclination to retire, but walked anxiously,
with feverish tread, up and down the vast unfurnished hall which had
been set apart for his accommodation.
Mary Stuart, the Duc de Guise, and the Cardinal de Lorraine were also
watching and waiting with him.
"What an everlasting night!" ejaculated François. "I am in agony; my
head is on fire; and those intolerable pains in my ear are beginning to
torment me again. What a night! Oh, what a night!"
"Poor dear Sire!" said Mary, soothingly, "do not excite yourself so, I
pray; you only increase your bodily and mental anguish as well. Take a
few moments' rest, in pity's name!"
"What! how can I rest, Mary?" said the king,--"how can I keep calm when
my people are rebelling, and are in arms against me? Ah, all this
trouble will surely shorten the small portion of life God has granted
me!"
Mary replied only by the tears which streamed down her lovely face.
"Your Majesty ought not to be so deeply affected," said Le Balafré. "I
have already had the honor to assure you that our measures were taken,
and that victory is beyond peradventure. I give you my personal guaranty
of it, Sire."
"Have we not begun well, Sire?" added the Cardinal de Lorraine.
"Castelnau a prisoner, and La Renaudie slain,--are these not happy omens
for the issue of this affair?"
"Happy omens indeed!" said François, bitterly.
"To-morrow everything will be at an end," continued the cardinal; "the
other leaders of the rebels will be in our power, and we can terrify, by
force of a frightful example, those who might venture to try to emulate
them. It must be done, Sire," said he, replying to the king's
involuntary movement of horror. "A solemn 'Act of Faith,' as they say in
Spain, is essential for the outraged glory of the Catholic religion, and
the threatened security of the throne. To begin with, Castelnau must
die. Monsieur de Nemours took it upon himself to swear that he should be
spared; but that is not our affair, and we have promised nothing
ourselves. La Renaudie has escaped punishment by death; but I have
already given orders that at daybreak to-morrow his head be exposed upon
the bridge of Amboise with this inscription: 'Leader of the rebels.'"
"Leader of the rebels!" echoed the king; "why, you yourself say that he
was not the leader, and that the confessions and the correspondence of
the conspirators point to the Prince de Condé alone as the real prime
mover of the undertaking."
"In Heaven's name, speak not so loud, Sire, I implore you!" the
cardinal exclaimed. "Yes, it is true, the prince has led and directed
the whole affair, but from afar. These rascals call him the 'Silent
Captain;' and he was to unmask himself after their first success. But
failing that first success, he has not unmasked himself, nor will he do
so. Therefore let us not drive him to that perilous extremity. Let us
not seem to recognize in him the mighty head and front of the rebellion.
Let us pretend not to see it, so that we may incur no risk of showing
our feeling."
"Nevertheless, Monsieur de Condé is the real arch-rebel!" said
François, whose youthful impatience was little in sympathy with all
these "governmental fictions," as they came to be called at a later day.
"Very true, Sire," said Le Balafré; "but the prince, far from avowing
his schemes, denies them. Let us pretend to believe his word. He came
to-day to shut himself up here in Amboise, where he has been kept in
sight, just as he has conspired, from a safe distance. Let us feign to
accept him as an ally, which will be less hazardous than to have him for
an avowed enemy. The prince, in fact, will assist us, if need be, to
repel his own accomplices to-night, and be present at their execution
to-morrow. Does he not thereby undergo a penalty a thousand times more
grievous than any which is imposed upon us?"
"Yes, indeed he does," replied the king; "but will he do that; and if he
does, can it be possible that he is guilty?"
"Sire," said the cardinal, "we have in our hands, and will deliver to
your Majesty, if you desire, irrefragable proof of Monsieur de Condé's
secret complicity. But the more flagrant and undeniable these proofs
are, the more necessary is it for us to dissimulate; and, for my part, I
deeply regret certain words which I have let fall, and which, if
reported to the prince, might offend him."
"What, you fear to _offend_ a culprit such as you say he is!" cried
François. "But what is all this uproar without, in God's name? Can it
be the rebels already?"
"I will go and see," said the Duc de Guise.
But before he had crossed the threshold, Richelieu, the captain of
arquebusiers, entered, and said hastily to the king,--
"Pardon, Sire, but Monsieur de Condé thinks he overheard certain words
reflecting upon his honor, and he urgently demands the privilege of
clearing himself from these insulting suspicions in your Majesty's
presence, once for all."
The king might have refused to see the prince; but the Duc de Guise had
already made a sign. Captain Richelieu's arquebusiers stepped aside, and
Monsieur de Condé entered, with head erect and cheeks flushed.
He was followed by a few nobles, and a number of canons of St.
Florentin, regular attaches of the Château d'Amboise, whom the cardinal
had transformed into soldiers that night to assist in the defence, and
who, as was frequently the case in those days, carried the arquebuse
with the rosary, and wore the helmet under their cowl.
"Sire, I trust you will pardon my boldness," said the prince, after
saluting the king; "but it is perhaps justified in advance by the
insolence of certain charges, which are made, it seems, in the dark by
my foes against my loyalty, and which I feel called upon to bring forth
into the light that I may confound and chastise them."
"To what do you refer, my cousin?" asked the king, gravely.
"Sire," replied Condé, "they dare to say that I am the real leader of
the rebels, whose foolhardy and impious undertaking is at this moment
throwing the realm into confusion, and filling your Majesty's heart with
dismay."
"Ah, they say that, do they?" returned François. "Who says it, pray?"
"I succeeded just now in surprising these hateful slanders, Sire, upon
the lips of these reverend brothers of St. Florentin, who, believing
doubtless that they were among friends, did not scruple to repeat aloud
what had been whispered in their ears."
"Do you mean to accuse those who repeated the offensive words, or those
who whispered them in the first place?" asked François.
"Both, Sire," replied Condé, "but especially the instigators of these
foul and cowardly calumnies."
As he said these words, he turned his gaze full upon the face of the
Cardinal de Lorraine, who did his best to hide his embarrassed
countenance behind his brother.
"Very well, my good cousin," replied the king, "you have our permission
to disprove the slander, and to accuse the slanderers. Proceed."
"To disprove the slander, Sire?" repeated the prince. "Ah, will not my
actions do that better than any words of mine! Did I not come at the
first summons to this château, to take my place among your Majesty's
defenders? Is that the act of a guilty man, Sire?--I put the question to
yourself, Sire?"
"Then proceed to accuse the slanderers," said François, who chose to
make no more direct reply.
"I will do so, not in words, but by deeds, Sire," said Monsieur de
Condé. "They must, if they have the courage, themselves accuse me in
the light of day. I here cast down my glove to them before God and the
king. Let the man, of whatever rank or quality he may be, who dares to
affirm that I am the author of this conspiracy come forward! I offer to
do battle with him when and where he chooses; and if in any point he be
not upon a level with me, I agree to make myself his equal in every way
for this combat."
The Prince de Condé, as he ceased to speak, threw his glove at his
feet. His glance had not ceased to form an eloquent commentary upon his
challenge, and had fixed itself proudly upon the Duc de Guise, who did
not move a muscle.
There was a moment of silence,--every one reflecting, no doubt, upon
this extraordinary spectacle of the lie given by a prince of the blood
to the whole court, where there was not a page who did not know him to
be guilty twenty times over of that offence from which he defended
himself with such well-simulated indignation.
And, in truth, the youthful king was probably the only one who was
innocent enough to be astonished; and no one thought any the worse of
the prince's valor or virtue.
The political theories of the Italian courts, brought into France by
Catherine de Médicis and her Florentines, were then fashionable in
France. He who was most skilful in deceit was considered the most
clever; and to conceal one's thoughts and disguise one's purpose was the
acme of political skill. Frankness would have been looked upon as folly.
The noblest and purest characters of the time--Coligny, Condé, the
Chancellor Olivier--had not succeeded in keeping clear of the contagion.
Therefore the Duc de Guise did not despise the Prince de Condé; he
rather admired him. But he said to himself, smiling, that he was at
least as good an actor as the other. Taking a step forward, he slowly
removed his glove, and cast it beside that of the prince.
There was a murmur of surprise; and the first impression was that he
proposed to answer Monsieur de Condé's defiant challenge.
But in that case he would not have been the subtle politician he prided
himself on being.
In a loud, firm voice, and as if really convinced by the prince's
demeanor, he said,--
"I approve Monsieur le Prince de Condé's words, and support him in
them; and I am so devotedly his humble servant, having the honor to be
his kinsman, that I here offer myself as his second, and will assist him
in his just defence against all comers."
Le Balafré, with these words, let his inquiring glance rove boldly upon
all those who stood around.
The Prince de Condé could only lower his own. He felt himself more
thoroughly worsted than if he had been overthrown in the lists.
"Will no one," continued the Duc de Guise, "take up either the Prince de
Condé's glove or mine?"
No one stirred, of course.
"My cousin," observed François II., with a melancholy smile, "you are,
as you desired, thoroughly cleared of all suspicion of felony, in my
opinion."
"Yes, Sire," said the "Silent Captain," with ingenuous impudence; "and I
thank your Majesty for having assisted me."
He turned with an effort to Le Balafré, and added,--
"I also am grateful to my good ally and kinsman, Monsieur de Guise. I
hope to prove afresh to him, and to all others, by my behavior to-night
against the rebels, if there be an attack, that he was not wrong in
taking my part."
Thereupon the Prince de Condé and the Duc de Guise exchanged most
profoundly courteous salutations.
Then the prince, being well and duly justified, and having no further
business there, bowed to the king, and left the room, followed by those
who had come in with him.
None were left in the royal apartment but the four personages whose
dreary waiting had been enlivened and their apprehension distracted for
a moment by this singular comedy.
It was a chivalrous scene, peculiar to the politics of the sixteenth
century.