Poland, once a potent and magnificent kingdom, when it sunk into an
elective monarchy, became "venal thrice an age." That country must have
exhibited many a diplomatic scene of intricate intrigue, which although
they could not appear in its public, have no doubt been often consigned
to its secret, history. With us the corruption of a rotten borough has
sometimes exposed the guarded proffer of one party, and the dexterous
chaffering of the other: but a masterpiece of diplomatic finesse and
political invention, electioneering viewed on the most magnificent
scale, with a kingdom to be canvassed, and a crown to be won and lost,
or lost and won in the course of a single day, exhibits a political
drama, which, for the honour and happiness of mankind, is of rare and
strange occurrence. There was one scene in this drama which might appear
somewhat too large for an ordinary theatre; the actors apparently were
not less than fifty to a hundred thousand; twelve vast tents were raised
on an extensive plain, a hundred thousand horses were in the
environs--and palatines and castellans, the ecclesiastical orders, with
the ambassadors of the royal competitors, all agitated by the ceaseless
motion of different factions during the six weeks of the election, and
of many preceding months of preconcerted measures and vacillating
opinions, now were all solemnly assembled at the diet.--Once the poet,
amidst his gigantic conception of a scene, resolved to leave it out:
So vast a throng the stage can ne'er contain--
Then build a new, or _act it in a plain_!
exclaimed "La Mancha's knight," kindling at a scene so novel and so
vast!
Such an electioneering negotiation, the only one I am acquainted with,
is opened in the "Discours" of Choisin, the secretary of Montluc, Bishop
of Valence, the confidential agent of Catharine de' Medici, and who was
sent to intrigue at the Polish diet, to obtain the crown of Poland for
her son the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henry the Third. This bold
enterprise at first seemed hopeless, and in its progress encountered
growing obstructions; but Montluc was one of the most finished
diplomatists that the genius of the Gallic cabinet ever sent forth. He
was nicknamed in all the courts of Europe, from the circumstance of his
limping, "le Boiteux;" our political bishop was in cabinet intrigues the
Talleyrand of his age, and sixteen embassies to Italy, Germany, England,
Scotland, and Turkey, had made this "connoisseur en hommes" an
extraordinary politician!
Catharine de' Medici was infatuated with the dreams of judicial
astrology; her pensioned oracles had declared that she should live to
see each of her sons crowned, by which prediction probably they had only
purposed to flatter her pride and her love of dominion. They, however,
ended in terrifying the credulous queen; and she, dreading to witness a
throne in France, disputed perhaps by fratricides, anxiously sought a
separate crown for each of her three sons. She had been trifled with in
her earnest negotiations with our Elizabeth; twice had she seen herself
baffled in her views in the Dukes of Alencon and of Anjou. Catharine
then projected a new empire for Anjou, by incorporating into one kingdom
Algiers, Corsica, and Sardinia; but the other despot, he of
Constantinople, Selim the Second, dissipated the brilliant speculation
of our female Machiavel. Charles the Ninth was sickly, jealous, and
desirous of removing from the court the Duke of Anjou, whom two
victories had made popular, though he afterwards sunk into a
Sardanapalus. Montluc penetrated into the secret wishes of Catharine and
Charles, and suggested to them the possibility of encircling the brows
of Anjou with the diadem of Poland, the Polish monarch then being in a
state of visible decline. The project was approved; and, like a profound
politician, the bishop prepared for an event which might be remote, and
always problematical, by sending into Poland a natural son of his,
Balagny, as a disguised agent; his youth, his humble rank, and his love
of pleasure, would not create any alarm among the neighbouring powers,
who were alike on the watch to snatch the expected spoil; but as it was
necessary to have a more dexterous politician behind the curtain, he
recommended his secretary, Choisnin, as a travelling tutor to a youth
who appeared to want one.
Balagny proceeded to Poland, where, under the veil of dissipation, and
in the midst of splendid festivities, with his trusty adjutant, this
hair-brained boy of revelry began to weave those intrigues which were
afterwards to be knotted, or untied, by Montluc himself. He had
contrived to be so little suspected, that the agent of the emperor had
often disclosed important secrets to his young and amiable friend. On
the death of Sigismond Augustus, Balagny, leaving Choisnin behind to
trumpet forth the virtues of Anjou, hastened to Paris to give an account
of all which he had seen or heard. But poor Choisnin found himself in a
dilemma among those who had so long listened to his panegyrics on the
humanity and meek character of the Duke of Anjou; for the news of St.
Bartholomew's massacre had travelled faster than the post; and Choisnin
complains that he was now treated as an impudent liar, and the French
prince as a monster. In vain he assured them that the whole was an
exaggerated account, a mere insurrection of the people, or the effects
of a few private enmities, praying the indignant Poles to suspend their
decision till the bishop came: "Attendez le Boiteux!" cried he, in
agony.
Meanwhile, at Paris, the choice of a proper person for this embassy had
been difficult to settle. It was a business of intrigue more than of
form, and required an orator to make speeches and addresses in a sort of
popular assembly; for though the people, indeed, had no concern in the
diet, yet the greater and the lesser nobles and gentlemen, all electors,
were reckoned at one hundred thousand. It was supposed that a lawyer who
could negotiate in good Latin, and one, as the French proverb runs, who
could _aller et parler_, would more effectually puzzle their heads, and
satisfy their consciences to vote for his client. Catharine at last
fixed on Montluc himself, from the superstitious prejudice, which,
however, in this case accorded with philosophical experience, that
"Montluc had ever been _lucky_ in his negotiations."
Montluc hastened his departure from Paris; and it appears that our
political bishop had, by his skilful penetration into the French
cabinet, foreseen the horrible catastrophe which occurred very shortly
after he had left it; for he had warned the Count de Rochefoucault to
absent himself; but this lord, like so many others, had no suspicions of
the perfidious projects of Catharine and her cabinet. Montluc, however,
had not long been on his journey ere the news reached him, and it
occasioned innumerable obstacles in his progress, which even his
sagacity had not calculated on. At Strasburgh he had appointed to meet
some able coadjutors, among whom was the famous Joseph Scaliger; but
they were so terrified by _Les Matinees Parisiennes_, that Scaliger flew
to Geneva, and would not budge out of that safe corner: and the others
ran home, not imagining that Montluc would venture to pass through
Germany, where the protestant indignation had made the roads too hot for
a catholic bishop. But Montluc had set his cast on the die. He had
already passed through several hair-breadth escapes from the stratagems
of the Guise faction, who more than once attempted to hang or drown the
bishop, who, they cried out, was a Calvinist; the fears and jealousies
of the Guises had been roused by this political mission. Among all these
troubles and delays, Montluc was most affected by the rumour that the
election was on the point of being made, and that the plague was
universal throughout Poland, so that he must have felt that he might be
too late for the one, and too early for the other.
At last Montluc arrived, and found that the whole weight of this
negotiation was to fall on his single shoulders; and further, that he
was to sleep every night on a pillow of thorns. Our bishop had not only
to allay the ferment of the popular spirit of the evangelicals, as the
protestants were then called, but even of the more rational catholics of
Poland. He had also to face those haughty and feudal lords, of whom each
considered himself the equal of the sovereign whom he created, and whose
avowed principle was, and many were incorrupt, that their choice of a
sovereign should be regulated solely by the public interest; and it was
hardly to be expected that the emperor, the czar, and the King of Sweden
would prove unsuccessful rivals to the cruel, and voluptuous, and
bigoted duke of Anjou, whose political interests were too remote and
novel to have raised any faction among these independent Poles.
The crafty politician had the art of dressing himself up in all the
winning charms of candour and loyalty; a sweet flow of honeyed words
melted on his lips, while his heart, cold and immovable as a rock, stood
unchanged amidst the most unforeseen difficulties.
The emperor had set to work the Abbe Cyre in a sort of ambiguous
character, an envoy for the nonce, to be acknowledged or disavowed as
was convenient; and by his activity he obtained considerable influence
among the Lithuanians, the Wallachians, and nearly all Prussia, in
favour of the Archduke Ernest. Two Bohemians, who had the advantage of
speaking the Polish language, had arrived with a state and magnificence
becoming kings rather than ambassadors. The Muscovite had written
letters full of golden promises to the nobility, and was supported by a
palatine of high character; a perpetual peace between two such great
neighbours was too inviting a project not to find advocates; and this
party, Choisnin observes, appeared at first the most to be feared. The
King of Sweden was a close neighbour, who had married the sister of
their late sovereign, and his son urged his family claims as superior to
those of foreigners. Among these parties was a patriotic one, who were
desirous of a Pole for their monarch; a king of their fatherland,
speaking their mother-tongue, one who would not strike at the
independence of his country, but preserve its integrity from the
stranger. This popular party was even agreeable to several of the
foreign powers themselves, who did not like to see a rival power
strengthening itself by so strict a union with Poland; but in this
choice of a sovereign from among themselves, there were at least thirty
lords who equally thought that they were the proper wood of which kings
should be carved out. The Poles therefore could not agree on the Pole
who deserved to be a _Piaste_; an endearing title for a native monarch,
which originated in the name of the family of the _Piastis_, who had
reigned happily over the Polish people for the space of five centuries!
The remembrance of their virtues existed in the minds of the honest
Poles in this affectionate title, and their party were called the
_Piastis_.
Montluc had been deprived of the assistance he had depended on from many
able persons, whom the massacre of St. Bartholomew had frightened away
from every French political connexion. He found that he had himself only
to depend on. We are told that he was not provided with the usual means
which are considered most efficient in elections, nor possessed the
interest nor the splendour of his powerful competitors: he was to derive
all his resources from diplomatic finesse. The various ambassadors had
fixed and distant residences, that they might not hold too close an
intercourse with the Polish nobles. Of all things, he was desirous to
obtain an easy access to these chiefs, that he might observe, and that
they might listen. He who would seduce by his own ingenuity must come in
contact with the object he would corrupt. Yet Montluc persisted in not
approaching them without being sought after, which answered his purpose
in the end. One favourite argument which our Talleyrand had set afloat,
was to show that all the benefits which the different competitors had
promised to the Poles were accompanied by other circumstances which
could not fail to be ruinous to the country: while the offer of his
master, whose interests were remote, could not be adverse to those of
the Polish nation: so that much good might be expected from him, without
any fear of accompanying evil. Montluc procured a clever Frenchman to be
the bearer of his first despatch, in Latin, to the diet; which had
hardly assembled, ere suspicions and jealousies were already breaking
out. The emperor's ambassadors had offended the pride of the Polish
nobles by travelling about the country without leave, and resorting to
the infanta; and besides, in some intercepted letters the Polish nation
was designated as _gens barbara et gens inepta_. "I do not think that
the said letter was really written by the said ambassadors, who were
statesmen too politic to employ such unguarded language," very
ingeniously writes the secretary of Montluc.
However, it was a blow levelled at the imperial ambassadors; while the
letter of the French bishop, composed "in a humble and modest style,"
began to melt their proud spirits, and two thousand copies of the French
bishop's letter were eagerly spread.
"But this good fortune did not last more than four-and twenty hours,"
mournfully writes our honest secretary; "for suddenly the news of the
fatal day of St. Bartholomew arrived, and every Frenchman was detested."
Montluc, in this distress, published an apology for _les Matinees
Parisiennes_, which he reduced to some excesses of the people, the
result of a conspiracy plotted by the protestants; and he adroitly
introduced as a personage his master Anjou, declaring that "he scorned
to oppress a party whom he had so often conquered with sword in hand."
This pamphlet, which still exists, must have cost the good bishop some
invention; but in elections the lie of the moment serves a purpose; and
although Montluc was in due time bitterly recriminated on, still the
apology served to divide public opinion.
Montluc was a whole cabinet to himself: he dispersed another tract in
the character of a Polish gentleman, in which the French interests were
urged by such arguments, that the leading chiefs never met without
disputing; and Montluc now found that he had succeeded in creating a
French party. The Austrian then employed a real Polish gentleman to
write for his party; but this was too genuine a production, for the
writer wrote too much in earnest; and in politics we must not be in a
passion.
The mutual jealousies of each party assisted the views of our
negotiator; they would side with him against each other. The archduke
and the czar opposed the Turk; the Muscovite could not endure that
Sweden should be aggrandised by this new crown; and Denmark was still
more uneasy. Montluc had discovered how every party had its vulnerable
point, by which it could be managed. The cards had now got fairly
shuffled, and he depended on his usual good play.
Our bishop got hold of a palatine to write for the French cause in the
vernacular tongue; and appears to have held a more mysterious
intercourse with another palatine, Albert Lasky. Mutual accusations were
made in the open diet: the Poles accused some Lithuanian lords of
having contracted certain engagements with the czar; these in return
accused the Poles, and particularly this Lasky, with being corrupted by
the gold of France. Another circumstance afterwards arose; the Spanish
ambassador had forty thousand _thalers_ sent to him, but which never
passed the frontiers, as this fresh supply arrived too late for the
election. "I believe," writes our secretary with great simplicity, "that
this money was only designed to distribute among the trumpeters and the
tabourines." The usual expedient in contested elections was now
evidently introduced; our secretary acknowledging that Montluc daily
acquired new supporters, because he did not attempt to gain them over
_merely by promises_--resting his whole cause on this argument, that the
interest of the nation was concerned in the French election.
Still would ill fortune cross our crafty politician when everything was
proceeding smoothly. The massacre was refreshed with more damning
particulars; some letters were forged, and others were but too true; all
parties, with rival intrepidity, were carrying on a complete scene of
deception. A rumour spread that the French king disavowed his accredited
agent, and apologised to the emperor for having yielded to the
importunities of a political speculator, whom he was now resolved to
recall. This somewhat paralysed the exertions of those palatines who had
involved themselves in the intrigues of Montluc, who was now forced
patiently to wait for the arrival of a courier with renewed testimonials
of his diplomatic character from the French court. A great odium was
cast on the French in the course of this negotiation by a distribution
of prints, which exposed the most inventive cruelties practised by the
Catholics on the Reformed; such as women cleaved in half in the act of
attempting to snatch their children from their butchers; while Charles
the Ninth and the Duke of Anjou were hideously represented in their
persons, and as spectators of such horrid tragedies, with words written
in labels, complaining that the executioners were not zealous enough in
this holy work. These prints, accompanied by libels and by horrid
narratives, inflamed the popular indignation, and more particularly the
women, who were affected to tears, as if these horrid scenes had been
passing before their eyes.
Montluc replied to the libels as fast as they appeared, while he
skilfully introduced the most elaborate panegyrics on the Duke of
Anjou; and in return for the caricatures, he distributed two portraits
of the king and the duke, to show the ladies, if not the diet, that
neither of these princes had such ferocious and inhuman faces. Such are
the small means by which the politician condescends to work his great
designs; and the very means by which his enemies thought they should
ruin his cause, Montluc adroitly turned to his own advantage. Anything
of instant occurrence serves electioneering purposes, and Montluc
eagerly seized this favourable occasion to exhaust his imagination on an
ideal sovereign, and to hazard, with address, anecdotes, whose
authenticity he could never have proved, till he perplexed even
unwilling minds to be uncertain whether that intolerant and inhuman duke
was not the most heroic and most merciful of princes. It is probable
that the Frenchman abused even the license of the French _eloge_, for a
noble Pole told Montluc that he was always amplifying his duke with such
ideal greatness, and attributing to him such immaculate purity of
sentiment, that it was inferred there was no man in Poland who could
possibly equal him; and that his declaration, that the duke was not
desirous of reigning over Poland to possess the wealth and grandeur of
the kingdom, and that he was solely ambitious of the honour to be the
head of such a great and virtuous nobility, had offended many lords, who
did not believe that the duke sought the Polish crown _merely_ to be the
sovereign of a virtuous people.
These Polish statesmen appear, indeed, to have been more enlightened
than the subtle politician perhaps calculated on; for when Montluc was
over anxious to exculpate the Duke of Anjou from having been an actor in
the Parisian massacre, a noble Pole observed, "That he need not lose his
time at framing any apologies; for if he could prove that it was the
interest of the country that the duke ought to be elected their king, it
was all that was required. His cruelty, were it true, would be no reason
to prevent his election, for we have nothing to dread from it: once in
our kingdom, he will have more reason to fear us than we him, should he
ever attempt our lives, our property, or our liberty."
Another Polish lord, whose scruples were as pious as his patriotism was
suspicious, however observed that, in his conferences with the French
bishop, the bishop had never once mentioned God, whom all parties ought
to implore to touch the hearts of the electors in the choice of God's
"anointed." Montluc might have felt himself unexpectedly embarrassed at
the religious scruples of this lord, but the politician was never at a
fault. "Speaking to a man of letters, as his lordship was," replied the
French bishop, "it was not for him to remind his lordship what he so
well knew; but since he had touched on the subject, he would, however,
say, that were a sick man desirous of having a physician, the friend who
undertook to procure one would not do his duty should he say it was
necessary to call in one whom God had chosen to restore his health; but
another who should say that the most learned and skilful is he whom God
has chosen, would be doing the best for the patient, and evince most
judgment. By a parity of reason we must believe that God will not send
an angel to point out the man whom he would have his anointed;
sufficient for us that God has given us a knowledge of the requisites of
a good king; and if the Polish gentlemen choose such a sovereign, it
will be him whom God has chosen." This shrewd argument delighted the
Polish lord, who repeated the story in different companies, to the
honour of the bishop. "And in this manner," adds the secretary with
great _naivete_, "did the _sieur_, strengthened by good arguments,
divulge his opinions, which were received by many, and run from hand to
hand."
Montluc had his inferior manoeuvres. He had to equipoise the opposite
interests of the Catholics and the Evangelists, or the Reformed: it was
mingling fire and water without suffering them to hiss, or to extinguish
one another. When the imperial ambassadors gave _fetes_ to the higher
nobility only, they consequently offended the lesser. The Frenchman gave
no banquets, but his house was open to all at all times, who were
equally welcome. "You will see that the _fetes_ of the imperialists will
do them more harm than good," observed Montluc to his secretary.
Having gained over by every possible contrivance a number of the Polish
nobles, and showered his courtesies on those of the inferior orders, at
length the critical moment approached, and the finishing hand was to be
put to the work. Poland, with the appearance of a popular government,
was a singular aristocracy of a hundred thousand electors, consisting of
the higher and the lower nobility, and the gentry; the people had no
concern with the government. Yet still it was to be treated by the
politician as a popular government, where those who possessed the
greatest influence over such large assemblies were orators, and he who
delivered himself with the most fluency and the most pertinent arguments
would infallibly bend every heart to the point he wished. The French
bishop depended greatly on the effect which his oration was to produce
when the ambassadors were respectively to be heard before the assembled
diet; the great and concluding act of so many tedious and difficult
negotiations--"which had cost my master," writes the ingenuous
secretary, "six months' daily and nightly labours; he had never been
assisted or comforted by any but his poor servants, and in the course of
these six months had written ten reams of paper, a thing which for forty
years he had not used himself to."
Every ambassador was now to deliver an oration before the assembled
electors, and thirty-two copies were to be printed, to present one to
each palatine, who in his turn was to communicate it to his lords. But a
fresh difficulty occurred to the French negotiator; as he trusted
greatly to his address influencing the multitude, and creating a popular
opinion in his favour, he regretted to find that the imperial ambassador
would deliver his speech in the Bohemian language, so that he would be
understood by the greater part of the assembly; a considerable advantage
over Montluc, who could only address them in Latin. The inventive genius
of the French bishop resolved on two things which had never before been
practised: first, to have his Latin translated into the vernacular
idiom; and, secondly, to print an edition of fifteen hundred copies in
both languages, and thus to obtain a vast advantage over the other
ambassadors, with their thirty-two manuscript copies, of which each copy
was used to be read to 1200 persons. The great difficulty was to get it
secretly translated and printed. This fell to the management of
Choisnin, the secretary. He set off to the castle of the palatine,
Solikotski, who was deep in the French interest; Solikotski despatched
the version in six days. Hastening with the precious MS. to Cracow,
Choisnin flew to a trusty printer, with whom he was connected; the
sheets were deposited every night at Choisnin's lodgings, and at the end
of a fortnight the diligent secretary conducted the 1500 copies in
secret triumph to Warsaw.
Yet this glorious labour was not ended; Montluc was in no haste to
deliver his wonder-working oration, on which the fate of a crown seemed
to depend. When his turn came to be heard, he suddenly fell sick; the
fact was, that he wished to speak last, which would give him the
advantage of replying to any objection raised by his rivals, and admit
also of an attack on their weak points.
He contrived to obtain copies of their harangues, and discovered five
points which struck at the French interest. Our poor bishop had now to
sit up through the night to re-write five leaves of his printed oration,
and cancel five which had been printed; and worse! he had to get them by
heart, and to have them translated and inserted, by employing twenty
scribes day and night. "It is scarcely credible what my master went
through about this time," saith the historian of his "gestes."
The council or diet was held in a vast plain. Twelve pavilions were
raised to receive the Polish nobility and the ambassadors. One of a
circular form was supported by a single mast, and was large enough to
contain 6000 persons, without any one approaching the mast nearer than
by twenty steps, leaving this space void to preserve silence; the
different orders were placed around; the archbishop and the bishops, the
palatines, the castellans, each according to their rank. During the six
weeks of the sittings of the diet, 100,000 horses were in the environs,
yet forage and every sort of provisions abounded. There were no
disturbances, not a single quarrel occurred, although there wanted not
in that meeting for enmities of long standing. It was strange, and even
awful, to view such a mighty assembly preserving the greatest order, and
every one seriously intent on this solemn occasion.
At length the elaborate oration was delivered: it lasted three hours,
and Choisnin assures us not a single auditor felt weary. "A cry of joy
broke out from the tent, and was re-echoed through the plain, when
Montluc ceased: it was a public acclamation; and had the election been
fixed for that moment, when all hearts were warm, surely the duke had
been chosen without a dissenting voice." Thus writes, in rapture, the
ingenuous secretary; and in the spirit of the times communicates a
delightful augury attending this speech, by which evidently was foreseen
its happy termination. "Those who disdain all things will take this to
be a mere invention of mine," says honest Choisnin: "but true it is,
that while the said _sieur_ delivered his harangue, a lark was seen all
the while upon the mast of the pavilion, singing and warbling, which was
remarked by a great number of lords, because the lark is accustomed only
to rest itself on the earth: the most impartial confessed this to be a
good augury.[236] Also it was observed, that when the other ambassadors
were speaking, a hare, and at another time a hog, ran through the tent;
and when the Swedish ambassador spoke, the great tent fell half-way
down. This lark singing all the while did no little good to our cause;
for many of the nobles and gentry noticed this curious particularity,
because when a thing which does not commonly happen occurs in a public
affair, such appearances give rise to hopes either of good or of evil."
The singing of this lark in favour of the Duke of Anjou is not so
evident as the cunning trick of the other French agent, the political
Bishop of Valence, who now reaped the full advantage of his 1500 copies
over the thirty-two of his rivals. Every one had the French one in hand,
or read it to his friends; while the others, in manuscript, were
confined to a very narrow circle.
The period from the 10th of April to the 6th of May, when they proceeded
to the election, proved to be an interval of infinite perplexities,
troubles, and activity; it is probable that the secret history of this
period of the negotiations was never written. The other ambassadors were
for protracting the election, perceiving the French interest prevalent:
but delay would not serve the purpose of Montluc, he not being so well
provided with friends and means on the spot as the others were. The
public opinion which he had succeeded in creating, by some unforeseen
circumstance might change.
During this interval, the bishop had to put several agents of the other
parties _hors de combat_. He got rid of a formidable adversary in the
Cardinal Commendon, an agent of the pope's, whom he proved ought not to
be present at the election, and the cardinal was ordered to take his
departure. A bullying colonel was set upon the French negotiator, and
went about from tent to tent with a list of the debts of the Duke of
Anjou, to show that the nation could expect nothing profitable from a
ruined spendthrift. The page of a Polish count flew to Montluc for
protection, entreating permission to accompany the bishop on his return
to Paris. The servants of the count pursued the page; but this young
gentleman had so insinuated himself into the favour of the bishop, that
he was suffered to remain. The next day the page desired Montluc would
grant him the full liberty of his religion, being an evangelical, that
he might communicate this to his friends, and thus fix them to the
French party. Montluc was too penetrating for this young political
agent, whom he discovered to be a spy, and the pursuit of his fellows to
have been a farce; he sent the page back to his master, the evangelical
count, observing that such tricks were too gross to be played on one who
had managed affairs in all the courts of Europe before he came into
Poland.
Another alarm was raised by a letter from the grand vizier of Selim the
Second, addressed to the diet, in which he requested that they would
either choose a king from among themselves, or elect the brother of the
King of France. Some zealous Frenchman at the Sublime Porte had
officiously procured this recommendation from the enemy of Christianity;
but an alliance with Mahometanism did no service to Montluc, either with
the catholics or the evangelicals. The bishop was in despair, and
thought that his handiwork of six months' toil and trouble was to be
shook into pieces in an hour. Montluc, being shown the letter, instantly
insisted that it was a forgery, designed to injure his master the duke.
The letter was attended by some suspicious circumstances; and the French
bishop, quick at expedients, snatched at an advantage which the
politician knows how to lay hold of in the chapter of accidents. "The
letter was not sealed with the golden seal, nor enclosed in a silken
purse or cloth of gold; and farther, if they examined the translation,"
he said, "they would find that it was not written on Turkish paper."
This was a piece of the _sieur's_ good fortune, for the letter was not
forged; but owing to the circumstance that the Boyar of Wallachia had
taken out the letter to send a translation with it, which the vizier had
omitted, it arrived without its usual accompaniments; and the courier,
when inquired after, was kept out of the way: so that, in a few days,
nothing more was heard of the great vizier's letter. "Such was our
fortunate escape," says the secretary, "from the friendly but fatal
interference of the sultan, than which the _sieur_ dreaded nothing so
much."
Many secret agents of the different powers were spinning their dark
intrigues; and often, when discovered or disconcerted, the creatures
were again at their "dirty work." These agents were conveniently
disavowed or acknowledged by their employers. The Abbe Cyre was an
active agent of the emperor's, and though not publicly accredited, was
still hovering about. In Lithuania he had contrived matters so well as
to have gained over that important province for the archduke; and was
passing through Prussia to hasten to communicate with the emperor, but
"some honest men," _quelques bons personnages_, says the French
secretary, and no doubt some good friends of his master, "took him by
surprise, and laid him up safely in the castle of Marienburgh, where
truly he was a little uncivilly used by the soldiers, who rifled his
portmanteau and sent us his papers, when we discovered all his foul
practices." The emperor, it seems, was angry at the arrest of his secret
agent; but as no one had the power of releasing the Abbe Cyre at that
moment, what with receiving remonstrances and furnishing replies, the
time passed away, and a very troublesome adversary was in safe custody
during the election. The dissensions between the catholics and the
evangelicals were always on the point of breaking out; but Montluc
succeeded in quieting these inveterate parties by terrifying their
imaginations with sanguinary civil wars, and invasions of the Turks and
the Tartars. He satisfied the catholics with the hope that time would
put an end to heresy, and the evangelicals were glad to obtain a truce
from persecution. The day before the election Montluc found himself so
confident, that he despatched a courier to the French court, and
expressed himself in the true style of a speculative politician, that
_des douze tables du Damier nous en avons les Neufs assures_.
There were preludes to the election; and the first was probably in
acquiescence with a saturnalian humour prevalent in some countries,
where the lower orders are only allowed to indulge their taste for the
mockery of the great at stated times and on fixed occasions. A droll
scene of a mock election, as well as combat, took place between the
numerous Polish pages, who, saith the grave secretary, are still more
mischievous than our own: these elected among themselves four
competitors, made a senate to burlesque the diet, and went to
loggerheads. Those who represented the archduke were well beaten, the
Swede was hunted down, and for the _Piastis_, they seized on a cart
belonging to a gentleman, laden with provisions, broke it to pieces, and
burnt the axle-tree, which in that country is called a _piasti_, and
cried out _The Piasti is burnt!_ nor could the senators at the diet that
day command any order or silence. The French party wore white
handkerchiefs in their hats, and they were so numerous as to defeat the
others.
The next day, however, opened a different scene; "the nobles prepared to
deliberate, and each palatine in his quarters was with his companions on
their knees, and many with tears in their eyes, chanting a hymn to the
Holy Ghost; it must be confessed that this looked like a work of God,"
says our secretary, who probably understood the manoeuvring of the
mock combat, or the mock prayers, much better than we may. Everything
tells at an election, burlesque or solemnity!
The election took place, and the Duke of Anjou was proclaimed King of
Poland--but the troubles of Montluc did not terminate. When they
presented certain articles for his signature, the bishop discovered that
these had undergone material alterations from the proposals submitted to
him before the proclamation; these alterations referred to a disavowal
of the Parisian massacre; the punishment of its authors, and toleration
in religion. Montluc refused to sign, and cross-examined his Polish
friends about the original proposals; one party agreed that some things
had been changed, but that they were too trivial to lose a crown for;
others declared that the alterations were necessary to allay the fears,
or secure the safety, of the people. Our Gallic diplomatist was
outwitted, and after all his intrigues and cunning, he found that the
crown of Poland was only to be delivered on conditional terms.
In this dilemma, with a crown depending on a stroke of his
pen,--remonstrating, entreating, arguing, and still delaying, like
"Ancient Pistol" swallowing his leek, he witnessed with alarm some
preparations for a new election, and his rivals on the watch with their
protests. Montluc, in despair, signed the conditions--"assured,
however," says the secretary, who groans over this _finale_, "that when
the elected monarch should arrive, the states would easily be induced to
correct them, and place things in _statu quo_, as before the
proclamation. I was not a witness, being then despatched to Paris with
the joyful news, but I heard that the _sieur evesque_ it was thought
would have died in this agony, of being reduced to the hard necessity
either to sign, or to lose the fruits of his labours. The conditions
were afterwards for a long while disputed in France." De Thou informs
us, in lib. lvii. of his history, that Montluc after signing these
conditions wrote to his master, that he was not bound by them, because
they did not concern Poland in general, and that they had compelled him
to sign, what at the same time he had informed them his instructions did
not authorise. Such was the true Jesuitic conduct of a grey-haired
politician, who at length found that honest plain sense could embarrass
and finally entrap the creature of the cabinet, the artificial genius of
diplomatic finesse.
The secretary, however, views nothing but his master's glory in the
issue of this most difficult negotiation; and the triumph of Anjou over
the youthful archduke, whom the Poles might have moulded to their will,
and over the King of Sweden, who claimed the crown by his queen's side,
and had offered to unite his part of Livonia with that which the Poles
possessed. He labours hard to prove that the palatines and the
castellans were not _pratiques_, i.e., had their votes bought up by
Montluc, as was reported; from their number and their opposite
interests, he confesses that the _sieur evesque_ slept little, while in
Poland, and that he only gained over the hearts of men by that natural
gift of God which acquired him the title of the _happy ambassador_. He
rather seems to regret that France was not prodigal of her
purchase-money, than to affirm that all palatines were alike scrupulous
of their honour.
One more fact may close this political sketch; a lesson of the nature of
court gratitude! The French court affected to receive Choisnin with
favour, but their suppressed discontent was reserved for "the happy
ambassador!" Affairs had changed; Charles the Ninth was dying, and
Catharine de' Medici in despair for a son to whom she had sacrificed
all; while Anjou, already immersed in the wantonness of youth and
pleasure, considered his elevation to the throne of Poland as an exile
which separated him from his depraved enjoyments! Montluc was rewarded
only by incurring disgrace; Catharine de' Medici and the Duke of Anjou
now looked coldly on him, and expressed their dislike of his successful
mission. "The mother of kings," as Choisnin designates Catharine de'
Medici, to whom he addresses his memoirs, with the hope of awakening her
recollections of the zeal, the genius, and the success of his old
master, had no longer any use for her favourite; and Montluc found, as
the commentator of Choisnin expresses in a few words, an important
truth in political morality, that "at court the interest of the moment
is the measure of its affections and its hatreds."[237]