The fêtes of Fontainebleau--Charles IX. and Catherine set
out on a grand progress through the kingdom--Dangerous
illness of the Princesse de Condé--Her husband obliged
to remain with her--Scandalous _dénoûment_ of the
amours of Condé and Isabelle de Limeuil--Indignation of the
Queen-Mother--Isabelle and the Prince de la Roche-sur-Yon--The
Comte de Maulevrier accuses Isabelle of having plotted to poison
the prince--She is arrested and conducted to the Franciscan
convent at Auxonne--Tender correspondence between her and Du
Fresne--Passionate letters of Condé to his mistress--Isabelle
denies the charges against her--Her letter to Catherine--She
is removed to Vienne--Her despair--Her pathetic letters to
Condé--She is examined by the Bishops of Orléans and Limoges,
and confronted by Maulevrier.
The Court was very gay that winter. At the beginning of the spring,
Charles IX. and Catherine were to set out on a grand progress through
the kingdom, which was expected to occupy the better part of two years;
and, before their departure, Catherine wished to revive the magnificent
fêtes of which Fontainebleau had been the theatre in the days of
“_le Roi chevalier_.” In the vast galleries where Primaticcio has
immortalized the beauty of her rival Diane de Poitiers, she entertained
the _élite_ of the nobility of France, Catholics and Protestants
being invited without distinction. Hunting-parties, tilting-matches,
mimic combats on foot and on horseback, balls, banquets and theatrical
representations filled the days and nights; the princes and great
nobles vied with one another in the sumptuousness of the entertainments
which they, in return, offered to their young Sovereign and his mother;
and a stranger who had been suddenly transported into the midst of all
this gaiety and extravagant splendour would have found it difficult to
believe that he was in a country where the ashes of a desolating civil
war had scarcely had time to grow cold.
One of the features of the fêtes was a grand banquet, followed by a
“_ballet-comédie_,” which Catherine gave at the Vacherie. Isabelle
de Limeuil figured in it, in the character of Hebe, and “attired in a
tunic of transparent gauze, which permitted one to catch a glimpse of
limbs which the goddess might have envied,” was the cynosure of all
eyes. Condé was no doubt not a little flattered by the admiration which
his lady-love was arousing, and it is to be hoped that the charms which
she so freely displayed sufficed to preserve him from the manœuvres
of her fair colleagues in the Queen’s service, who, we are told, were
indefatigable in their efforts to detach him from her. At the Court of
Charles IX., it was something even to be faithful in infidelity!
On 13 March, 1564, their Majesties quitted Fontainebleau, and set
out on their progress through the realm. This journey had been long
meditated by Catherine, who expected from it important results. In the
first place, respect for the central authority had almost disappeared
amid the anarchy of the civil war, and the Queen desired, by making
the young King known to the nation, to re-establish the monarchical
power in the interior. In the second, the crisis through which France
had just passed had lowered the country immeasurably in the eyes of
other States, and she flattered herself that, by means of interviews
with foreign sovereigns on the frontiers, she might do much to restore
the prestige of the French name. Moreover, by establishing a good
understanding with them, and particularly with Philip II. of Spain, she
hoped to free herself from the tutelage of the grandees of the kingdom.
The _cortège_ was a most imposing one, for Catherine wished to
impress the people and the sovereigns whom she was to meet by the
magnificence of the royal retinue. The whole of the Court followed
the King--princes, ministers, gentlemen, and ladies--and there was a
veritable cohort of pages and lackeys, wearing his Majesty’s livery
of blue, red, and white, all the pages being dressed in velvet. The
military escort was a very large one, and comprised not only all the
Household troops, but several companies of men-at-arms. The Constable
marshalled the procession, and directed its movements as he would have
done that of an army on the march.[50]
Champagne was first visited. The Court stopped for a few days at Sens,
where the young King was given a magnificent reception, and then moved
on to Troyes, which was reached on 27 March. In this town, where the
negotiations for peace with England were finally concluded, Condé
“fell sick of the palsy or apoplexy, which took him at tennis, and
a fever upon it,”[51] and his condition appeared sufficiently grave
for his wife, who was then at the Château of Condé-en-Brie, to be
summoned to nurse him. The devoted woman, although suffering herself,
lost not a moment in hastening to her faithless husband’s side, and in
lavishing upon him the tenderest care. Thanks in a great measure to
her solicitude, the prince’s health was soon re-established--for his
illness would appear to have been much less grave than was at first
supposed--and she was able to return to her children. But the hurried
journey to Troyes, and the anxiety she had suffered on her husband’s
account, had exhausted her slender reserve of strength, and scarcely
had she reached Condé-en-Brie, than she was taken dangerously ill.
A courier, dispatched in all haste, found Condé at Vitry-le-François,
whither he had followed the Court, and, though, for reasons which will
presently be understood, he was extremely loath to part from Isabelle
at this juncture, he felt obliged to take leave of their Majesties and
return to his neglected wife. On his arrival, he found her somewhat
better, but the doctors did not disguise from him that her recovery
was hopeless, and that, in all probability, she had but a few weeks to
live. The prince, however, an incurable optimist, declined to believe
that the case was as serious as they represented, and, though he
decided to remain with her, it is evident, from the following letter,
written by him to his nephew, the Prince de Porcien, that he was
determined to get as much amusement out of his enforced sojourn by the
domestic hearth as circumstances would permit:
“MY NEPHEW--My desire to have news of you prompts me
to write you this letter, and, at the same time, to entreat
that, if your convenience permits, you will come to see and
console your good friend and relative, who is very wearied
[_ennuyé_] by his wife’s serious illness. Come with your
greyhounds and your horses and arms, if that be possible, and I
will promise to show you as fine hunting as you could know how
to find. My horse and arms will arrive here to-day, and I hope
that, if you come, we shall find means, please God, to enjoy
ourselves.”[52]
Meanwhile, the Court was continuing its progress. From Troyes, it
proceeded to Bar-le-Duc, where Charles IX. stood sponsor to the infant
son of his sister Claude and the Duke of Lorraine, and on 22 May
arrived at Dijon, where it remained until the 30th, their Majesties
being lodged in the palace of the old Dukes of Burgundy.
It was during the sojourn of the Court in this town that the liaison of
Condé and Isabelle de Limeuil had the most scandalous _dénoûment_.
At the Queen-Mother’s _coucher_, according to some writers, at an
audience given by their Majesties to a deputation which had come to
present them with an address of welcome, according to others, Isabelle
was suddenly taken ill, and carried into Catherine’s wardrobe, where
she gave birth to a fine boy, of whom she at once declared Condé to be
the father.[53]
It was not the first casualty of its kind which had occurred in the
ranks of the “_escadron volant_.” Only a little while before, a
like misfortune had befallen another maid-of-honour, Mlle. de Vitry
by name; but, in this case, an open scandal had been avoided. Brought
to bed in the morning, Mlle. de Vitry had had the fortitude to drag
herself to a ball given at the Louvre that same evening, and thus had
contrived to preserve what shreds of reputation may have been left to
her.[54] For a young woman who ordinarily showed so much astuteness,
Isabelle, as Mézeray expresses it, had certainly “taken her measures
badly.”[55]
Catherine, who still piqued herself on the outward decorum of
her _entourage_, was beside herself with indignation. Her
maids-of-honour might commit all the sins in the Decalogue with
impunity, so long as they did not add to them the unforgivable one of
being found out; but, once they were so maladroit as to be detected,
they must expect no consideration at her hands.
However, since Isabelle was, after all, a soldier wounded in her
Majesty’s service, and had done her duty nobly until she had been
placed _hors de combat_, it is probable that no worse fate would
have befallen her than dismissal from the “squadron” and the Court, had
not her enemies profited by her misfortune to launch against her a most
formidable accusation.
Isabelle, as we have mentioned elsewhere, possessed a biting wit,
which she was accustomed to exercise freely at the expense of those
who were so unfortunate as to displease her, not sparing even the most
exalted personages. The sharpness of her tongue, indeed, made her as
many enemies as the charms of her person gained her admirers, and often
those who approached her with words of devotion on their lips were so
cruelly rebuffed that they retired with vengeance in their hearts.
Among those whom she had thus contrived to offend, was Charles IX.’s
former _gouverneur_, the Prince de la Roche-sur-Yon,[56] an
extremely dangerous person for a maid-of-honour to have as an enemy,
since not only was he a Prince of the Blood, and a gentleman of a
peculiarly vindictive character, but his wife[57] held the post of
Grand Mistress of Catherine’s Household, a position which enabled her
to make things extremely unpleasant for any of the Queen’s damsels
of whose conduct she happened to disapprove. Nor was it long before
Isabelle had good reason to regret her treatment of the prince, for the
latter took an early opportunity of representing to the Grand Mistress
that it was high time to introduce “a little reformation” into the
Queen’s Household, and hinted that it might not be a bad plan were she
to make a few inquiries as to the way in which Mlle. de Limeuil passed
her time when off duty. The lady was of her husband’s opinion, and,
from that moment, the maids-of-honour, and Isabelle in particular,
found their opportunities for clandestine meetings with their admirers
seriously curtailed; while, as time went on, the Grand Mistress began
to evince an interest in Mlle. de Limeuil’s health which occasioned the
object of her solicitude infinite embarrassment.
The girl, who well knew whom she had to thank for these annoyances,
was furious against La Roche-sur-Yon, and made no secret of the hatred
which she entertained for him. One of those to whom she expressed
her opinion of the prince was the Comte de Maulevrier,[58] a great
admirer of hers, who had himself no cause to love his Highness. In the
summer of 1560, it had happened that Maulevrier was hunting with the
prince’s only son, the Marquis de Beaupréau, a boy of thirteen. The
marquis’s horse stumbled and fell; Maulevrier, who was close behind,
was unable to stop his, and the animal came down with all its weight
upon the unfortunate lad, who was so badly crushed that he died shortly
afterwards. Although this calamity was obviously due to pure accident,
La Roche-sur-Yon, who had been passionately attached to his son,
conceived the most violent resentment against Maulevrier, and swore
that he should answer for the boy’s life with his own. So threatening
an attitude did he assume, that the count deemed it prudent to go
into hiding for some time, and though, thanks to the intervention of
Catherine, the bereaved father was eventually persuaded to forego his
vengeance, it was only on the understanding that Maulevrier should
never again venture to appear before him.
Maulevrier had no desire to do so, and carefully avoided the prince,
until one day, in the previous summer, they happened to meet by
accident. No sooner did La Roche-sur-Yon catch sight of the involuntary
murderer, than he drew his sword and rushed upon him like a madman, and
the count only saved himself from being spitted like a fowl by promptly
taking to his heels.
Such being the relations between La Roche-sur-Yon and Maulevrier, it is
not surprising that Isabelle should have expected to find in the latter
a sympathetic listener, when she inveighed against the prince as the
instigator of all the annoyances to which she and her colleagues were
being subjected by the Grand Mistress, or that, when in his company,
she should have occasionally indulged in that extravagant language in
which angry and excitable women are accustomed to find an outlet for
their wounded feelings, but to which, fortunately for them, sensible
people seldom attach any importance. For how could she have imagined
that Maulevrier, who had always expressed so much admiration for her,
and who had himself been subjected to such unmerited persecution at the
hands of La Roche-sur-Yon, would betray her confidences to their common
enemy?
But Maulevrier, whether because he had some secret grudge against
the girl, or, more probably, because he hoped that, by pretending to
render a great service to La Roche-sur-Yon, he might persuade that
personage to be reconciled to him, gave a most sinister interpretation
to the expressions which the exasperated Isabelle permitted to escape
her, and communicated them to the prince, with no doubt a good many
exaggerations.
No steps, however, seem to have been taken by La Roche-sur-Yon in the
matter until the occurrence of the scandal which we have just related,
when, having decided that the moment for action had arrived, he
persuaded Maulevrier to draw up and sign a formal information against
Isabelle, which he lost no time in laying before the King and the
Queen-Mother.
In this document, Maulevrier declared that Isabelle had on several
occasions said to him: “If I were in your place, I should poison the
prince”; that during the journey of the Court she had indulged in
the most violent language against his Highness, whom she accused of
inspiring all the annoyances which his wife had inflicted upon the
Queen’s “maids,” and of having sought to injure her in a matter which
closely concerned her honour; that, one evening, she had sent for
him, and told him that La Roche-sur-Yon was giving a supper-party the
following night, and that it would be the last that he would ever give,
warning him, at the same time, not to repeat a word of what she had
said, or “he would be found dead in the corner of some ditch”; that,
notwithstanding this threat, he had sent warning to the prince, who
had begged him to entice Mlle. de Limeuil into further confidences;
that, a few days later, the Court being at Vitry, the lady had said to
him: “The coup failed; the prince postponed his supper-party, but the
opportunity will recur”; with which she drew from an envelope a white
powder and gave him part of it, telling him to make his dog take it
and he would see that in a short time the animal would be dead; and,
finally, that on the morning of a state dinner given at Bar-le-Duc,
Mlle. de Limeuil had remarked to him: “It is truly astonishing that the
Queen-Mother has not been ill!”[59]
It was, of course, impossible for Charles IX. and Catherine to ignore
so grave an accusation as that of having planned the poisoning of a
Prince of the Blood, backed by evidence drawn up with such minuteness
and precision of detail as to give it an air of probability. At the
same time, Catherine would perhaps, in ordinary circumstances, have
hesitated to accept the unsupported testimony of Maulevrier, who was
not a person on whose word much reliance was usually placed. But, as La
Roche-sur-Yon had, of course, foreseen, the scandal of which Isabelle
had just been the cause was scarcely calculated to incline her to view
the matter from a judicial standpoint; and, at her instigation, the
King at once signed an order for Isabelle to be arrested and conducted
to the Franciscan convent at Auxonne. Her child was taken away from her
and given into the charge of a poor woman at Dijon.
On arriving at Auxonne, Isabelle was received by M. de Ventoux,
governor of the town, who conducted her to the convent. Here, she was
incarcerated in a little, bare, low-ceilinged room, like a prison
cell, and very strictly guarded. The unfortunate girl, though still
in ignorance of the charge against her, was in despair, and, we are
assured, for three days and nights did nothing but groan and weep. M.
de Ventoux, a kindly man, who visited her several times, was touched
with compassion, and, after vainly endeavouring to console her,
despatched the most alarming reports of her condition to the Court, in
one of which he declared that, if it were possible for a woman to die
of melancholy, then assuredly she had not long to live.
With such rapidity and secrecy had Isabelle been carried off from
Dijon, that none of her relatives or friends at the Court had the least
idea what had become of her. But, on receiving Ventoux’s reports, the
Queen-Mother so far relented as to authorize him to transmit to the
prisoner all the letters which were addressed to her, and to forward to
their destination those which she wrote herself, having first taken the
precaution to open and copy them, since in this way some very useful
information might be obtained. Singularly enough, neither Isabelle
nor her friends seemed to have had the least suspicion that their
correspondence was being tampered with.
Catherine must have been disappointed if she expected to secure from
these epistles any evidence in regard to the charge which had been
brought against Isabelle, but, _en revanche_, they contained some
interesting information concerning other matters. The first letters,
for instance, which passed between the fair captive and M. du Fresne
were peculiarly enlightening, and established beyond all possibility of
doubt the character of their relations.
The enamoured Secretary of State begins by deploring that he had
been unable to take farewell of the lady before the Court left
Dijon; but the mere suspicion that he had done so had so enraged the
Queen-Mother that to have defied her would have probably entailed his
prompt disgrace. On the other hand, the Prince de Condé, whom he had
taken upon himself to inform of the interesting event which had taken
place at Dijon and of the subsequent disappearance of its heroine, had
expressed much annoyance, because he had happened to mention that he
had lent Isabelle a dressing-gown, being evidently of opinion that it
was a piece of presumption for any one but himself to assist the lady.
“It is very strange,” he writes, “that, being abandoned, as I was able
to tell him you had been by every one, the prince should take it ill
that you have been visited and succoured by those who were incurring
risks in order to serve you.” However, he should not cease to employ
his life and his property for her, “the person whom he loved and
esteemed the most in the world.” But, at the same time, he thinks it
would be perhaps advisable for her to return the dressing-gown, “since
he saw clearly that it was not agreeable to the prince [Condé] that
she should make use of it.” And he concludes by reminding her of the
happy days they had spent together when the Court was in Normandy the
previous summer, when he had received “_tant de contentement_.” In
a postscript, he bids her burn his letter, which, in view of the fact
that a copy was already in the hands of M. de Ventoux, seems a rather
unnecessary precaution.
Isabelle’s reply was calculated to satisfy the most exacting of lovers.
It was impossible to tell him what pleasure his letter had given her;
words quite failed her to describe it. She did nothing all day but
think of him, and he might rest assured that, whatever Fortune might
have in store for her, she would never cease to love him. [The minx
will write much the same to Condé a little later.] She sends him a
scarf woven with her own fair hands, two pictures of saints which she
has painted, a heart, and a book, the “Patience of Job,” which, is
“_fort à propos_.” She concludes by kissing his hands “thousands
and millions of times.”[60]
It was, as we have seen, through the medium of Du Fresne that Condé,
retained by the bedside of his dying wife, was informed of the
misfortunes of Isabelle. To receive such news of his mistress through
the courtesy of a rival occasioned him, as may be supposed, the keenest
mortification; and his jealousy reveals itself very plainly in the
first letter which he addressed to the lady:
“Alas! my heart, what can I say to you, save that I am more dead
than alive, seeing that I am deprived of the means of serving
you, and seeing you depart[61] without knowing how I may be
able to aid you? M. du Fresne often informs me that you send
him news of yourself, but I, I cannot know whither you have
been conducted, and I am greatly astonished, since you have the
means of writing to some persons, that I may not receive your
letters also. For you know that there is not a man in the world
who would be so much grieved at your distress as myself, nor
who, with greater gaiety of heart, would be more determined to
hazard his life to do you a useful service. I am sending you one
of my dressing-gowns, which has served me and you also when we
were together, begging you to believe that I should prefer you
to your gown, since I should be of more service to you than a
sable. Let me know that you are as anxious to retain me in your
good graces, now that you are a captive as when you were at
liberty; for you know that, being accustomed not to share them
with any one, but to be the first and the only one, I feel sure
that you have not lost the good opinion that you have of me,
but, on the contrary, that it is rather increased. It remains to
make use of me and to give me the opportunity of coming to free
you from the trouble in which you are, for you must acquaint me
with the means of doing so. I have eyes which do nothing but
weep, and strength which is inanimate, since it is not commanded
by you.”
If Condé had been unable at first to discover the place where his
Isabelle had been incarcerated, he had succeeded in getting her son
into his possession; and, having received two letters from Isabelle
recommending the child to his care, he hastens to relieve her maternal
anxiety:
“I shall content myself by telling you that I have our son in
my hands, safe, and merry and certain to live.... It is true
that they had left him at the house of a poor woman, who made
him lie on straw for six nights, like a hound, which I thought
very strange. But if, at the beginning, those to whom he did not
belong treated him like a little dog, I have taken him like a
father to bring him up _en prince_. He deserves it, for he
is the most beautiful creature that ever man saw.”
And the lovelorn prince concludes:
“If I do not see you soon, I would as lief die as live. I desire
it as much or more than my salvation.” And, at the end of the
monogram which replaces the signature, he writes: “Let us die
together!”
On receiving this epistle, which confirmed the warning which Du Fresne
had given her concerning the suspicions of Condé, Isabelle hastened to
assure the prince that her heart was wholly his, and that henceforth
she would communicate with him alone. Meantime, however, Condé had
learned that gossip was far from unanimous in attributing the paternity
of the child to him, and that the general opinion at the Court was that
M. du Fresne’s claims to the honour were at least equal to his own.[62]
All aflame with jealousy, he writes to his mistress:
“I assure you, my heart, that I am very greatly annoyed that
people are able to find in your conduct reason to ask: ‘Whose
is this child?’ which is as much as to say that you admit two
persons to a like degree of favour. I do not tell you this
because I believe it, as I will show you; for I will give you
a proof whether I love you or no in a few days. My heart, since
we have gone so far, we must raise the mask, for every one knows
what has passed between us. You will be honoured and esteemed by
all, since you show them, as much in small things as in great,
that you do not wish to address or to receive news save from him
whom you have loved more than that which you prize more dearly
than yourself [_i.e._ her honour].... You have heard that
they speak at the Court of a certain person [Du Fresne]. You
must take care to silence these false reports. You need not
resort to oaths to make me believe that your son is mine, for I
have no more doubt of him than of those of my wife. But act in
such a way that others may be able to entertain no doubt of it,
and reflect that whoever sees him will say with reason that he
is my son and yours, for our two faces are to be recognized in
his. I implore you, my heart, to love me and never to abandon
me, as you have promised; and when you remind yourself of the
occasion on which it was made, I am sure that you will keep your
promise to me. I send you a fur-lined dressing-gown. I should
like to be near you in its place, for I cannot be so useless as
not to be of as much service to you as it will be.
“Our son is very well, and is being well taken care of, and is
in my hands, which is my only consolation, since I am separated
from you, and is a pledge to render me for ever assured of
remaining in your good graces, which is the thing which I prize
the most, and more so than I have ever done.”
In a third letter, couched in equally passionate terms, the prince
informs his lady-love that he has entrusted her son to a gentleman who
will bring him up as one of his own children, advises her to write to
the Queen-Mother to implore her clemency, and impresses upon her the
importance of receiving only the servants whom he may send to her,
“by which she will make it known that she loves no one save him.” He
concludes by assuring her that he intends to live and die with her.
On 9 June, the bishop of the diocese, Du Puy, and the Sieur Sarlan, one
of Catherine’s _maîtres d’hôtel_, who had received a commission
from the King to investigate the charges against Isabelle, arrived
at Auxonne. The prisoner was brought before them and very closely
interrogated. She admitted that she had bitter cause to complain of La
Roche-sur-Yon, who had not only egged on his wife to pester her with
questions concerning her health, but had told Condé that he was “very
blind and very credulous if he believed that Limeuil was with child by
him.” At the same time, she denied absolutely that she had ever made,
or even contemplated, an attempt upon the life of the prince. Nor had
she ever suggested to Maulevrier that he should poison his Highness,
although, on one occasion, when she and the count were in the company
of a number of other persons, she had heard some one, whom she did not
name, advise Maulevrier to make away with him, “in the interests of his
repose.” Mlle. de Bourdeille,[63] who was one of those present, would
confirm her statement.
The commissioners departed for Lyons, where the Court had just arrived,
taking with them a very dignified and pathetic letter from Isabelle to
the Queen-Mother:
“MADAME--After having heard from the Sieurs Sarlan and
Du Puy the reasons which have induced your Majesty to send them
to me, it has afflicted me to such a degree that, but for the
aid of God and the hope that I repose in your kindness, I should
have fallen into the greatest despair that a poor creature could
be in, not being so forgetful of God as to have conceived or
meditated such wickedness. When it shall have pleased God to
make known to you my innocence, I implore you, for the honour of
those to whom I am related, to do such justice upon the false
accuser as I should have deserved, had I committed such a crime.”
Meanwhile Condé had not been idle. He had sent to Auxonne one of his
confidential servants, who had put himself into communication with the
leading Huguenots of the town, with a view to an attempt to liberate
Isabelle _vi et armis_, and, at the beginning of July, Ventoux,
getting wind of this, wrote, in great alarm, to Catherine, declaring
that he could no longer be responsible for the safety of the prisoner,
and urging her removal to some place where she would be in greater
security. Her Majesty thereupon despatched her first _valet de
chambre_, Gentil, with six of her guards to Auxonne, with orders to
conduct Isabelle to Vienne.
The lady was in despair when informed that she was to leave the
convent, and with good reason, since it would appear that Condé’s
supporters had arranged to make an attempt to carry her off a night
or two later. At first, she refused to budge and threatened to kill
herself; but eventually she thought better of it, and allowed herself
to be conducted to the river, where she and her escort embarked in a
boat to proceed to Maçon, the first stage of their journey. Scarcely,
however, had they got her on board, when she was seized with a violent
attack of hysteria and gave vent to the most heartrending cries. Then,
for a whole day and a night she refused either to eat or drink, until
Gentil began to fear that she would never reach her destination alive.
At length, however, she became more tractable, partook of some food,
and, asking for writing materials, indited an appealing letter to
Condé, which was intercepted by Gentil and, in due course, transmitted
to Catherine. It was as follows:
“Alas! my heart, have pity upon a poor creature who suffers all
things for having loved you more than herself.[64] My affliction
will be only pleasure, provided, that you remember me, and that
I am so happy as to be the only one to possess your love. I am
so afraid that my absence has the misfortune to banish me from
your good graces, which tortures me more than I can describe. My
heart, help me and free me from the position in which I have no
more to suffer for the rest of my life. Write to the Queen in
my favour and make the Maréchal de Bourdillon write.”
On reaching Maçon, Gentil decided that it was inadvisable to proceed
further with so weak an escort, for the Huguenots were very strong
in that part of the country, and he accordingly wrote to Catherine
begging her to send reinforcements, as he was in hourly dread of being
attacked and his prisoner carried off. On her side, Isabelle, more and
more alarmed as to the fate in store for her, profited by the delay to
write another despairing letter to Condé, which, like the first, was
intercepted by the vigilant Gentil and forwarded to his mistress:
“The Queen is sending me to Lyons; if you have not compassion on
me, I see myself the most miserable creature in the world, in
such manner do they drag me about, with soldiers for my guards,
as though I were a person who had merited death. I have no hope
save in God and you. It would be well for you to write to Madame
de Savoie,[65] to persuade her to obtain my pardon from the
Queen. I am a more faithful, a more affectionate, slave to you
than ever I was, and the greater my tortures, the more I adore
you. Send to this Lyonnais country to ascertain where I may be.
I believe that I shall not be far away from it. Alas! my heart,
remember that you have promised to be faithful to me. Place me
in such a position that, at least ere I die, I may be able to
see you. Have no other heart than mine, or make me die first. I
kiss your hands and feet a thousand times.”
On the arrival of the soldiers demanded by Gentil, Isabelle was
conducted to Lyons and thence to Vienne, where she arrived on 18
July, and was incarcerated in the Château des Canoux. Here she was
again examined, this time by two members of the Council, the Bishops
of Orléans and Limoges, who were frequently employed in important
negotiations. The two bishops brought Maulevrier with them and
confronted him with the prisoner, who gave him, as may be supposed, an
exceedingly warm reception, “liar,” “evil liver,” and “drunkard” being
among the epithets which she hurled at his head. Maulevrier persisted
in his charges, but could call no evidence to support them; Isabelle
reiterated her denials. Their lordships, though they pretended to look
very wise, could make nothing of the affair at all; but, since a man is
not less a man because he happens to be a bishop, and Isabelle’s beauty
and distress had not been without its effect upon them, they left her
with a promise to intercede for her with the Queen.
Their intercession, however, does not appear to have had any effect,
for the months passed, and the lady still remained under lock and key.