standard," said he, "four escutcheons of Van Horn, and of course have
four ancestors of that house. I must have them erased and effaced, and
there would be so many blank spaces, like holes, in my heraldic ensigns.
There is not a sovereign family which would not suffer, through the
rigor of your Royal Highness; nay, all the world knows, that in the
thirty-two quarterings of Madame, your mother, there is an escutcheon of
Van Horn."
"Very well," replied the Regent, "I will share the disgrace with you,
gentlemen."
Seeing that a pardon could not be obtained, the Cardinal de Rohan and
the Marquis de Créqui left the cabinet; but the Prince de Ligne and the
Duke de Havré remained behind. The honor of their houses, more than the
life of the unhappy Count, was the great object of their solicitude.
They now endeavored to obtain a minor grace. They represented that in
the Netherlands, and in Germany, there was an important difference in
the public mind as to the mode of inflicting the punishment of death
upon persons of quality. That decapitation had no influence on the
fortunes of the family of the executed, but that the punishment of the
wheel was such an infamy, that the uncles, aunts, brothers, and sisters
of the criminal, and his whole family, for three succeeding generations,
were excluded from all noble chapters, princely abbeys, sovereign
bishoprics, and even Teutonic commanderies of the Order of Malta. They
showed how this would operate immediately upon the fortunes of a sister
of the Count, who was on the point of being received as a canoness into
one of the noble chapters.
While this scene was going on in the cabinet of the Regent, the
illustrious assemblage of petitioners remained in the hall of council,
in the most gloomy state of suspense. The re-entrance from the cabinet
of the Cardinal de Rohan and the Marquis de Créqui, with pale, downcast
countenances, had struck a chill into every heart. Still they lingered
until near midnight, to learn the result of the after application. At
length the cabinet conference was at an end. The Regent came forth, and
saluted the high personages of the assemblage in a courtly manner. One
old lady of quality, Madame de Guyon, whom he had known in his infancy,
he kissed on the cheek, calling her his "good aunt." He made a most
ceremonious salutation to the stately Marchioness de Créqui, telling
her he was charmed to see her at the Palais Royal; "a compliment very
ill-timed," said the Marchioness, "considering the circumstance which
brought me there." He then conducted the ladies to the door of the
second saloon, and there dismissed them, with the most ceremonious
politeness.
The application of the Prince de Ligne and the Duke de Havré, for a
change of the mode of punishment, had, after much difficulty, been
successful. The Regent had promised solemnly to send a letter of
commutation to the attorney-general on Holy Monday, the 25th of March,
at five o'clock in the morning. According to the same promise, a
scaffold would be arranged in the cloister of the Conciergerie,
or prison, where the Count would be beheaded on the same morning,
immediately after having received absolution. This mitigation of the
form of punishment gave but little consolation to the great body of
petitioners, who had been anxious for the pardon of the youth: it was
looked upon as all-important, however, by the Prince de Ligne, who, as
has been before observed,--was exquisitely alive to the dignity of his
family.
The Bishop of Bayeux and the Marquis de Créqui visited the unfortunate
youth in prison. He had just received the communion in the chapel of the
Conciergerie, and was kneeling before the altar, listening to a mass for
the dead, which was performed at his request. He protested his innocence
of any intention to murder the Jew, but did not deign to allude to the
accusation of robbery. He made the bishop and the Marquis promise to see
his brother the prince, and inform him of this his dying asseveration.
Two other of his relations, the Prince Rebecq-Montmorency and the
Marshal Van Isenghien, visited him secretly, and offered him poison, as
a means of evading the disgrace of a public execution. On his refusing
to take it, they left him with high indignation. "Miserable man!" said
they, "you are fit only to perish by the hand of the executioner!"
The Marquis de Créqui sought the executioner of Paris, to bespeak an
easy and decent death--for the unfortunate youth. "Do not make him
suffer," said he; "uncover no part of him but the neck; and have his
body placed in a coffin, before you deliver it to his family." The
executioner promised all that was requested, but declined a rouleau of a
hundred louis-d'ors which the Marquis would have put into his hand. "I
am paid by the king for fulfilling my office," said he; and added that
he had already refused a like sum, offered by another relation of the
Marquis.
The Marquis de Créqui returned home in a state of deep affliction. There
he found a letter from the Duke de St. Simon, the familiar friend of the
Regent, repeating the promise of that prince, that the punishment of the
wheel should be commuted to decapitation.
"Imagine," says the Marchioness de Créqui, who in her memoirs gives a
detailed account of this affair, "imagine what we experienced, and what
was our astonishment, our grief, and indignation, when, on Tuesday, the
26th of March, an hour after midday, word was brought us that the Count
Van Horn had been exposed on the wheel, in the Place de Gréve, since
half-past six in the morning, on the same scaffold with the Piedmontese
de Mille, and that he had been tortured previous to execution!"
One more scene of aristocratic pride closed this tragic story. The
Marquis de Créqui, on receiving this astounding news, immediately
arrayed himself in the uniform of a general officer, with his cordon
of nobility on the coat. He ordered six valets to attend him in grand
livery, and two of his carriages, each with six horses, to be brought
forth. In this sumptuous state, he set off for the Place de Gréve, where
he had been preceded by the Princes de Ligne, de Rohan, de Croüy, and
the Duke de Havré.
The Count Van Horn was already dead, and it was believed that the
executioner had had the charity to give him the coup de grace, or
"death-blow," at eight o'clock in the morning. At five o'clock in the
evening, when the Judge Commissary left his post at the Hotel de Ville,
these noblemen, with their own hands, aided to detach the mutilated
remains of their relation; the Marquis de Crequi placed them in one of
his carriages, and bore them off to his hotel, to receive the last sad
obsequies.
The conduct of the Regent in this affair excited general indignation.
His needless severity was attributed by some to vindictive jealousy; by
others to the persevering machinations of Law. The house of Van Horn,
and the high nobility of Flanders and Germany, considered themselves
flagrantly outraged: many schemes of vengeance were talked of, and a
hatred engendered against the Regent, that followed him through life,
and was wreaked with bitterness upon his memory after his death.
The following letter is said to have been written to the Regent by the
Prince Van Horn, to whom the former had adjudged the confiscated effects
of the Count:
"I do not complain, Sir, of the death of my brother, but I complain
that your Royal Highness has violated in his person the rights of the
kingdom, the nobility, and the nation. I thank you for the confiscation
of his effects; but I should think myself as much disgraced as he,
should I accept any favor at your hands. _I hope that God and the
King may render to you as strict justice as you have rendered to my
unfortunate brother._"