Loyalty of Mlle. de Trémoille to Condé--She prevents her
mother, the Duchesse de Thouars, from surrendering the
Château of Taillebourg to a Catholic force--And defends it
gallantly until she is relieved--She equips two ships-of-war
to bring Condé from Guernsey--Reunion of the lovers--Their
marriage--Condé takes the field again--Financial embarrassments
of the new _ménage_--Battle of Coutras: encounter between
Condé and Saint-Luc--Ill-health of the prince--He returns to
Saint-Jean-d’Angely--He is suddenly taken ill, and dies in two
days--Violent grief of his wife--Suspicions of the doctors--An
autopsy is performed, and the prince is declared to have been
poisoned--Letter of the King of Navarre to the Comtesse de
Gramont--Flight of the princess’s page, Belcastel, and her head
_valet-de-chambre_, Corbais--Arrest of her intendant,
Brilland--The King of Navarre arrives at Saint-Jean-d’Angely,
and orders the Princesse de Condé to be placed under
arrest--Terrible situation of the princess.
After the disastrous expedition to Angers and the flight of Condé,
the Duchesse de Thouars resolved to side definitely with the Catholic
party, and to do everything in her power to prevent the marriage of
which she had at first so warmly approved. She had now joined Charlotte
at Taillebourg, “where mother and daughter did not get on too well
together,”[110] for, as is generally the case with young ladies of
a romantic turn of mind, obstacles only served to fire Charlotte’s
imagination, and the more opposed did the duchess become to the
marriage, the more firmly did the girl resolve to remain true to her
lover.
At length, matters reached a climax. At the outbreak of hostilities,
the young Duc de Thouars, who, as we have mentioned, had joined
Condé’s army, had installed a Huguenot garrison in the château. This
garrison the duchess resolved to get rid of, and to replace it by a
Catholic one; and, one fine day, four companies of soldiers marched
into the town, under the command of a certain M. de Beaumont, who was
entrusted with a letter for the Duchesse de Thouars from the Maréchal
de Matignon, general-in-chief of the royal forces in the West, in which
he called upon her, in the King’s name, to surrender the château,
promising to restore it at the conclusion of the war. The duchess was
joyfully preparing to obey, when her daughter intervened and informed
her, very respectfully, but very firmly, that she should refuse to
consent to the surrender, and that “she intended to keep inviolable
the pledge which she had given Mgr. le Prince de Condé to preserve the
château for him until her death.”[111]
Madame de Thouars expostulated, coaxed, threatened; all to no purpose.
Charlotte was immovable as the rock upon which the château stood,
and eventually the mortified lady ordered her coach and set out for
Thouars, abandoning her rebellious daughter to the dangers of a siege.
The Château of Taillebourg was an old fortress of the thirteenth
century,[112] situated on a steep rock, which rendered it perfectly
safe from attack on three sides. On the one on which it was accessible,
Charlotte ordered two culverins to be placed, so as completely to
command the approach, perceiving which, Beaumont, who does not appear
to have had any artillery with him, prudently refrained from any
attempt to take the château by storm, and contented himself by very
closely investing it. Aware that it was not provisioned for a siege, he
felt confident that want of provisions must soon oblige the garrison to
capitulate.
The days went slowly by. Every morning Beaumont formally summoned the
defenders to surrender, only to receive a scornful defiance. But, in
the meantime, famine was beginning to stare them in the face, and
Charlotte recognized that, unless help arrived, it would be impossible
to hold out much longer. Just, however, when her situation seemed
almost desperate, she learned that a body of Huguenot cavalry under the
Sieur de la Boullaye, which had succeeded in escaping from the Angers
fiasco, was in the neighbourhood; and she at once determined to make an
attempt to communicate with it. This, at first sight, seemed a hopeless
undertaking, for the place, as we have said, had been very closely
invested; but she perceived that at the rear of the château, where the
rock was a sheer precipice, Beaumont had placed only a very few men,
deeming it impossible for any one to descend on that side. Accordingly,
when darkness fell, she caused one of her servants to be lowered by a
rope down the face of the cliff; and the man, unperceived by the enemy,
succeeded in making his way to La Boullaye’s camp.
The besiegers, to guard against any attempt to relieve the château,
had taken the precaution to fortify a large house which commanded the
entrance to the town of Taillebourg. But, as soon as morning dawned,
Charlotte “said good-day to the enemy with her culverins,” and, turning
them upon this house, kept up so persistent and well-directed a fire,
that it was soon almost in ruins; and when the Huguenots arrived, they
had no difficulty in making their way into the town.
Fighting continued all day, with no decisive result; but, during the
night, the Catholics, who had lost some sixty men and whose commander
had been taken prisoner, evacuated the town and retreated behind
the Charente. La Boullaye did not pursue them; but, after placing a
strong garrison in the château, escorted its brave defender to La
Rochelle, where she promptly caused two ships to be fitted out, at her
own expense, and despatched to Guernsey, to convey her lover and his
fellow-exiles back to France.
Within an hour or two of the arrival of Charlotte’s ships, Condé was
on his way to La Rochelle, where he landed a few days later. “I was
there,” writes Fiefbrun, “and had the honour of accompanying this
princess (Mlle. de la Trémoille) to the port, where she received his
Excellency with so many expressions of joy, that never was seen
anything in the world to surpass in mutual affection their caresses and
welcomes, followed by public rejoicings on the part of the nobility and
the people which it would be impossible to describe.”[113]
The prince and his lady-love looked forward with impatience to their
marriage, to which, however, the Duchesse de Thouars continued to show
herself extremely hostile. At length, however, she was persuaded to
give a grudging consent, though she absolutely refused to grace the
ceremony with her presence. It took place very quietly at the Château
of Taillebourg, on 16 March, 1586. A little while before, Charlotte had
become a Protestant, her example being followed by her brother, the Duc
de Thouars.
Almost immediately after his marriage, Condé took the field again.
He was burning to distinguish himself and efface the memory of the
disaster of the previous year, which had furnished the King of Navarre
and his little Court of Nérac with material for many biting jests at
his expense.[114] Glory, however, continued to evade his pursuit, and
his solitary success was gained in a cavalry skirmish before Saintes,
which, however, cost him so dear that he is said to have been “more
afflicted by his losses than elated by his victory.”[115]
In August, an armistice was concluded, and the remainder of the year
was spent in negotiations, which led to nothing. They enabled Condé,
however, to spend a few weeks with his bride at Saint-Jean-d’Angely,
where, as most of the prince’s property had been sequestrated by the
Crown, while it was not until nearly two years after the marriage that
the Duchesse de Thouars condescended to pay her daughter’s dowry, they
were obliged to content themselves with a very modest establishment.
Indeed, to judge from the following letter from the princess to
Longuespée, her agent at Taillebourg, there must have been times when
they found themselves greatly embarrassed for even comparatively small
sums of money:
“Longuespée, my knowledge of the good-will which you have long
shown in our service has caused me to write you, to beg you to
do me the favour of handing to the bearer of this the sum of one
hundred écus, on account of larger sums which are due to her for
bread that she has supplied while my husband and I have been
here. And, if just now you have not the sum mentioned, I beg you
to make arrangements to obtain it, so that I may satisfy her,
assuring you that the favour which you will be doing me will be
very agreeable to me, and hoping to remember it on the first
occasion which presents itself as willingly as I shall remain
your good mistress,
“X. DE LA TREMOILLE”
“At Saint-Jean-d’Angely, this 21 September 1586.
“I beg you again not to refuse me.”[116]
On 30 April, 1587, the Princesse de Condé gave birth to “a daughter
worthy of such a mother,” who received the name of Éléonore, in memory
of the prince’s mother, and became in 1606 the wife of Philip William
of Nassau, Prince of Orange.
Early in the new year hostilities were resumed, and Condé gained
several successes in Poitou and Saintonge. In October, the King of
Navarre and Condé marched from La Rochelle to the Loire to meet the
latter’s younger brothers, the Marquis de Conti and the Comte de
Soissons, who, although Catholics, had been persuaded to cast in
their lot with their relatives. Then they turned southwards, with the
intention of concentrating all their troops in Gascony, and afterwards
marching towards Berry, to effect their junction with a German force
which was advancing to their assistance.[117] They were closely
followed by a royal army under the Duc de Joyeuse, while another
Catholic force under Matignon advanced against them from Guienne. To
prevent the junction of Joyeuse and Matignon, the King of Navarre
decided to give battle to the former in the plain before Coutras, on
the borders of Saintonge and Périgord. The Catholics had a considerable
advantage in point of numbers; but Henri’s army was almost entirely
composed of veterans, and he was confident of success. As his officers
were hastening to their posts, he stopped his cousins and exclaimed:
“Gentlemen, I have only one thing to say to you: remember that you
are of the House of Bourbon. _Vive Dieu!_ I will show you that I
am its head!” “And we will show you that we are good cadets,” replied
Condé.
Henri’s confidence was justified; in less than an hour the Catholic
army was completely routed, Joyeuse killed, and all the artillery,
standards and baggage taken. It was the first victory in the open field
which the Protestants had gained in twenty-five years of civil war, and
stamped the King of Navarre as a bold and successful general.
Condé greatly distinguished himself, and, though his armour was hacked
almost to pieces, he escaped unwounded from the battle itself. But
in the pursuit he was not so fortunate. One of the bravest captains
of the royal army, d’Espinay Saint-Luc, who had gallantly defended
Brouage against the Huguenots in the preceding year, finding that his
horse was too exhausted to carry him out of the field, resolved to do
something to distinguish himself ere he surrendered. Having descried
Condé almost isolated in the middle of the plain, he laid his lance in
rest and charged him so furiously that both horse and man went down.
Saint-Luc immediately dismounted, extricated the prince from his fallen
steed, and tendered him his gauntlet, saying: “Monseigneur, Saint-Luc
surrenders to you; do not refuse him.”
Although the lance had not penetrated the prince’s armour, which
happened to be intact at the spot where he had been struck, he
was badly bruised and shaken and scarcely able to stand. However,
he embraced and pardoned the prisoner who had adopted this highly
disagreeable mode of surrender, and was then carried to the King of
Navarre’s quarters.
The victory of Coutras although so complete, had no important results.
D’Aubigné accuses the King of Navarre of having sacrificed his duty to
love--to his eagerness to lay at the feet of his mistress, the Comtesse
de Gramont (_la belle_ Corisande), the standards which he had
captured. But his inaction was more probably due to the fact that it
was impossible for him to keep his army together, so eager were the
soldiers to return to their homes with their booty. Anyway, he made
no attempt to join the Germans, who were defeated by the Duc de Guise
at Vimory, near Orléans, and again at Anneau, and driven across the
frontier, with terrible loss.
Condé, who had in vain endeavoured to persuade his cousin to continue
the operations, decided to lead the contingents of Poitou and Saintonge
against Saumur, but so many of his men deserted that he was compelled
to abandon this enterprise. He was, besides, far too unwell for
further service, for, since his encounter with Saint-Luc, he had been
suffering from severe pains in the side; and on reaching Saintes, these
were complicated by an attack of fever. The princess rejoined him
there,[118] and early in January, 1588 he was sufficiently recovered
to return to Saint-Jean-d’Angely. Shortly afterwards, the pains in
the side returned; but, passionately devoted as he was to all martial
exercises, he no sooner felt better than he was in the saddle again;
and on Thursday, 3 March, spent some hours in tilting at the ring, on
which occasion he rode a restive horse, which reared repeatedly.[119]
About an hour after supper that evening, the prince was seized with
violent pains in the stomach, followed by repeated vomiting. He was
attended by his chief surgeon, Nicolas Poget, and a physician named
Bonaventure de Médicis, “who aided the movements of nature. The malady
notwithstanding continued all night ... and so great was his difficulty
in breathing that he was unable to stay in his bed, and was compelled
to sit in a chair.
“Whereupon, on the morrow, Maîtres Louis Bontemps and Jean Pallet,
also doctors of medicine, were called into consultation; and they
all of them succoured his Excellency with all diligence and fidelity,
by all the means that they judged suitable, according to the symptoms
of the malady. But on the Saturday, the fifth day of the month, and
the second of the malady, at three o’clock in the afternoon, all
things took a turn for the worse, and an entire suffocation of all the
faculties supervened, in which he rendered his soul to God half an hour
afterwards.”[120]
“I was one of those,” writes Fiefbrun, “who were chosen to report this
piteous calamity to Madame his wife, whom I found descending the steps
of her hôtel to come and visit him in his little lodging, where she
expected to find him alive, since she had as yet no idea that he was so
near his last day. As soon as she caught sight of me, she suspected her
misfortune, and pressing me to tell her in a few words, she fell down
in a swoon, and was carried immediately to her bed, where she broke
forth into the most terrible lamentations, accompanied by so many sobs
and sighs that they could not be imagined save by those who saw and
heard them. They were so violent that I am often astonished that they
did not occasion a miscarriage.”[121]
In view of what we are about to relate, Fiefbrun’s account of the
manner in which the Princesse de Condé received the news of her
husband’s death is of extreme importance.
The rapidity of the malady, and the fact that decomposition set in
within two hours after death, “gave cause to the doctors and surgeons
to suspect that there had been some extraordinary and violent cause.”
By order of the prince’s council, two other surgeons were called in,
and an autopsy performed. This served to confirm their suspicions. “We
have found,” runs their report, “all the stomach, particularly towards
the right part, black, burned, gangreened, and ulcerated, which, in
our opinion, can only have been caused by a quantity of burning,
ulcerating, and caustic poison, which poison has left evident traces
of its passage in the esophagus. The liver, in the part adjoining
the aforesaid channel, was altered and burned, and all the rest of
the organ livid, as were also the lungs. There was not a single part
of his Excellency’s body which was not very sound and very healthy,
if the violent poison had not destroyed and corrupted the parts
mentioned.”[122]
Meanwhile, orders had been given that all the late prince’s servants
were to be placed under arrest, and a courier had been despatched to
the King of Navarre, who was at Nérac. Under date 10 March, 1588, we
find Henri writing to the Comtesse de Gramont as follows:
“To finish describing myself, there has happened to me one of the
greatest calamities that I could possibly fear, which is the sudden
death of _Monsieur le Prince_. I mourn for him as he ought to have
been to me, not as he was. I am assured of being the only target at
which the perfidies of the Mass are aimed. They have poisoned him, the
traitors!
“On Thursday, this poor prince, after tilting at the ring, supped,
feeling well. At midnight, he was seized with a very violent vomiting,
which lasted till morning. All Friday he kept his bed. In the evening,
he supped, and having slept well, he rose on Saturday morning, dined
at table, and then played at chess. He rose from his chair, and walked
up and down his chamber, chatting with one and the other. All at once,
he said: ‘Give me my chair; I feel a great weakness.’ Scarcely was he
seated when he lost the power of speech, and immediately expired. The
effects of poison at once became apparent.
“It is incredible the consternation which this has caused in that part
of the country. I am starting at daybreak to travel thither with all
speed. I see myself on the way to encounter much danger. Pray to God
for me earnestly. If I escape it, it must be because it is He who had
protected me. Up to the grave, to which I am perhaps nearer than I
think, I shall remain your faithful slave. Good-night, my soul; I kiss
your hands a thousand times.”[123]
Next morning, the King of Navarre set out for Saint-Jean-d’Angely,
“to console my cousin, _Madame la Princesse_, and to prevent
our enemies from profiting by our losses and misfortunes and by my
absence.”[124] On the second day of his journey, however, he was met
by a courier, with intelligence which convinced him that the bereaved
princess was an object of something very different from sympathy.
“There arrived yesterday,” he writes to his Corisande, “the one at
midday, the other in the evening, two couriers. The first reported that
Belcastel, the page of _Madame la Princesse_,[125] and her first
_valet de chambre_[126] had fled, immediately after seeing their
master dead. They found two horses worth two hundred écus at an inn
in the faubourg, where they had been kept for a fortnight, and each
had a wallet full of money. On being questioned, the innkeeper stated
that it was a person named Brilland who had given him the horses, and
that he came every day to tell him to treat them well; that if he gave
four measures of oats to the other horses, he was to give them eight,
and that he would pay double. This Brilland is a man whom _Madame
la Princesse_ had placed in her Household and given the charge of
everything. He was immediately arrested. He confesses to have given
one thousand écus to the page and to have purchased the horses, by his
mistress’s order, to go to Italy.
[Illustration: CHARLOTTE CATHERINE DE LA TRÉMOILLE, PRINCESSE DE
CONDÉ
FROM AN ENGRAVING BY MIGER, AFTER THE PAINTING BY LE MONNIER]
“The second courier confirms all this, and says further that Brilland
was compelled to write a letter to the _valet de chambre_, who was
known to be at Poitiers, in which he requested him to come two hundred
paces from the gate, as he wished to speak to him.[127] Immediately,
the ambuscade which was there seized him, and he was brought to
Saint-Jean. He has not yet been interrogated, but he said to those
who were bringing him: ‘Ah! what a wicked woman Madame [the Princesse
de Condé] is! Let them arrest her treasurer; I will tell everything
frankly.’ This was done. That is all that is known up to the present.
Remember what I have told you at other times. I am seldom deceived
in my judgments. A bad woman is a dangerous animal (_une dangereuse
beste_). All these poisoners are Papists. It was from them that
the lady received her instructions. I have discovered an assassin for
myself. God will protect me, and I will tell you more about it soon....
My soul, I am very well in body, but very afflicted in mind. Love
me, and let me see that you do; that will be a great consolation for
me.”[128]
The King of Navarre did not carry out his original intention of
proceeding straight to Saint-Jean-d’Angely, for, on reaching Pons, he
turned aside to La Rochelle, and it was not until the evening of 29
March that he reached the scene of the tragedy. The probable reason for
this delay was his wish to avoid committing himself until further light
had been thrown upon the affair.
The princess, although, of course, under close supervision, was still
nominally at liberty, for Fiefbrun, to whom, in his capacity of bailiff
of Saint-Jean-d’Angely, Henri had entrusted the conduct of the inquiry,
was a devoted servant of the Condés and was naturally very reluctant
to take any definite steps against her. But, on his arrival, he found
public opinion in the town so hostile to the lady that he felt obliged
to order her arrest.
Personal considerations would appear to have been no stranger to this
decision, and to the vigour with which he subsequently pushed on
proceedings against the princess. The very strained relations which had
existed for some time past between him and the late prince were common
knowledge, and his enemies had not hesitated to circulate the report
that he was privy to the death of his cousin. Théodore de Bèze had just
written, warning him of this atrocious calumny, and urging him to take
immediate steps to refute it:
“On this point I am constrained to add, knowing what might be the
consequence of sinister counsels and your own clemency and good-nature,
that your enemies have even dared, with that imprudence and wickedness
which is the result of despair, to spread the report that this
detestable crime was instigated by you. You neither can nor ought to
hesitate about this action, without making an irreparable breach in
your reputation; but, on the contrary, you ought to pursue the matter
to judgment and execution, so as to stop the mouths of these detestable
calumniators in the sight of God and man.”[129]
After ordering the arrest of the Princesse de Condé, Henri despatched
one of his gentlemen, the Sieur de Veau Limery, to the Court, with
a letter for “the Queen, mother of the King, my lord,” in which he
informed her that the page Belcastel, “the principal instrument of the
crime,” had taken refuge in Poitiers, and begged her to give orders
that search should be made for him, and that, when apprehended, he
should be conducted to Saint-Jean-d’Angely, to be confronted with
his accomplices. Instructions to that effect were sent to Poitiers;
but nothing was ever heard of the fugitive page, who seemed to have
vanished off the face of the earth.
The position of the Princesse de Condé was a terrible one. It was not
only at Saint-Jean-d’Angely that public opinion had pronounced against
her. The more zealous Huguenots, furious at the supposed crime which
had deprived them of the prince who had shared all their passions and
prejudices, were loud in their demands that she should be brought to
justice; while the Catholics were very hostile to the princess, on
account of her abjuration and her conduct in recent events, in which
she had rendered such good service to the Protestant cause. To her
relatives she looked in vain for help or sympathy. The Duchesse de
Thouars, who, since the affair of Taillebourg, had been on the worst
possible terms with her daughter, never seems to have even thought
of coming to Saint-Jean-d’Angely to inquire if she were innocent or
guilty; and her absence still further prejudiced the princess’s case
in the eyes of the public. The young Duc de Thouars, who, one would
naturally suppose, would have been eager to champion his sister, does
not appear to have moved in the matter at all. As for her husband’s
relatives, the Prince de Conti and the Comte de Soissons seem to
have at once made up their minds that she was guilty and did all
in their power to hasten the prosecution; while the attitude of the
Dowager-Princesse de Condé may be gauged from the following remarkable
letter:
“Great as was the pleasure it gave me to address you as
_Madame la Princesse_, I shall have reason to regret
this name so long as you are not justified of the atrocious
accusation which will cause you to lose honour and life
together, if your innocence is not proved. That is what I desire
intensely, since I am unable to believe that the heart of a
woman so well-born and so well brought up could cherish such
wickedness against the prince who had done you so much honour
in wooing and espousing you. This loss is so great for all the
family that the peculiar honour which I received from his father
invites me to deplore it for the rest of my life. I have been
among the first to demand justice of our King (Henri III.), who
is neither able nor willing to refuse it. Their Majesties have
declined to receive your letters, and the cardinals[130] to
reply to them. I have also spoken of your story to the Queen,
mother of the King, who replied that she is so much the friend
of honour and virtue, and is so overwhelmed with horror at the
deed of which you are accused, that she does not intend to
intervene.... It is, therefore, your duty to endeavour to secure
the arrest of your page, to whom, it is said, you caused a great
deal of money to be given by your treasurer, and to whom one of
your _valets de chambre_ has confessed to have given the
poison. This evidence makes matters very serious for you.
“It is further said that you love your page so passionately
that he used to occupy your husband’s place, with so many other
dreadful things that the Court is horrified; and there is no
conversation now except at the expense of your reputation,
which, I think, is very unfortunate for you.
“Those who have counselled you (if such is the case) have done
you more harm than if they had given you the same poison. Who
would ever wish to see you, holding you to be without honour
and without heart? Believe that God, who threatens poisoners
with having no share in the Kingdom of Heaven, will permit the
truth to be known and justice to be executed. I have very humbly
entreated the King, on your behalf, that the page should be
arrested. His Majesty desires it and has written about it; but
it is not believed that you are anxious for it. I pray God that
the contrary may be the case; but, however that may be, you are
at present the fable and the malediction of France, and, as I
believe, of all the world, even to the barbarians, if they hear
of it. But can it really be possible that you have deprived of
life a prince who has so much honoured and loved you? If it is,
you have no worse enemy than yourself, and have consented to
the damnation of your soul. Time, which is the father of truth,
will speedily enlighten us on the matter of your conduct, which,
I trust, is altogether contrary to the belief which everywhere
prevails.
“When I knew that you were living as an honourable princess, and
were respecting such a husband, a member of so great a family,
I desired to do you service, and I esteemed myself happy. But
now that I see you thus accused, if your justification does not
appease this widespread rumour of so iniquitous a deed, I have
received too much honour from the late Monseigneur my husband to
be willing that any one should surpass me in the desire to be
the most cruel enemy that you have ever had, although I shall
nevertheless weep for your disgrace.... And if you have been
instigated to this crime, as is reported, hasten to denounce
those who have given you this pernicious counsel, for the sake
of your life and honour; and I shall implore God to punish the
guilty and protect the innocent.
“From Paris this IX. April 1588.
“She who was formerly your mother-in-law to do you service.
“FRANÇOISE D’ORLÉANS”[131]