HOLBEIN’S “AMBASSADORS”
THE PICTURE AND THE MEN
[Illustration: THE “AMBASSADORS.”
_From the Picture by Holbein in the National Gallery, London._
_Art Repro. Co._]
HOLBEIN’S
“AMBASSADORS”
THE PICTURE AND THE MEN
[Illustration]
AN HISTORICAL STUDY
BY
MARY F. S. HERVEY
“...
Tes esprits courageux ne furent pas contans
Sans doctement conjoindre avec la peinture
L’Art de mathématique et de l’architecture.”
RONSARD
_WITH NINETEEN ILLUSTRATIONS AND TWO FACSIMILES_
LONDON
GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET
COVENT GARDEN
1900
CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.
PREFACE
It may appear a large demand upon the patience of the reader to devote
an entire volume to subjects connected with one picture. So varied and
fascinating, however, is the field of study opened up by Holbein’s
“Ambassadors,” that what was originally intended to occupy but a few
pages has developed to the present dimensions.
The value of a work of art, as such, must necessarily depend on purely
æsthetic considerations. But it often happens that other and hardly
less attractive points of view converge with the artistic aspect. The
unique position occupied by the “Ambassadors” as an example of French
cultivation in the early half of the sixteenth century is a case in
point. Probably no other painting illustrates in the same measure the
private life and pursuits of an educated Frenchman of the period, as well
as certain remarkable points relating to public events.
The documents which at last re-established the identity of Holbein’s
sitters will be found printed _in extenso_ in Part I. of this volume, two
of them for the first time; while all the facts bearing upon the history
of the picture have been gathered together into a continuous narrative.
A large part of the information given throughout the following pages
is based upon hitherto unpublished manuscripts, and a variety of new
circumstances has been brought to light respecting both the picture and
the personages portrayed. Where letters or quotations are inserted in the
original French, the old orthography has been strictly preserved, with
the sole exception that the letter _u_, when it stands for a consonant,
has been replaced by the more familiar _v_. In all cases where the old
French seemed likely to present any difficulty to the modern reader,
translations have been appended.
The fact that Holbein copied the floor of _opus Alexandrinum_ depicted in
the “Ambassadors,” from the grand old mosaic pavement of Abbot Ware in
Westminster Abbey, may come as a surprise to the reader, and will, it is
hoped, be as great a pleasure to him to learn as it was to the writer to
discover.
The short notice in the Appendix respecting George Gyze or Gisze,
showing the position held by him in the corporation of German merchants
in London, now made clear for the first time, may also, it is believed,
offer a point of interest to those acquainted with the fine portrait of
him, by Holbein, in the Gallery at Berlin.
It remains for the writer to express her gratitude to all those who
have assisted the researches of which the following pages are the
result. Special thanks are due to Lady Radnor, for information kindly
communicated respecting the history of the picture while at Longford
Castle; to Mrs. Graham Harrison, for translations from the Latin letters
of Pierre Bunel; to M. Dorlodot des Essarts, Marquis de Selve, for
permission to reproduce the portrait of the Bishop of Lavaur preserved at
Villiers, and for the use of a valuable unpublished Papal rescript which
has formed part of the family archives since the sixteenth century; to
Lord Francis Hervey, for the translation of Alciati’s Latin verses to
accompany the emblem “Fœdera Italorum”; to the Astronomer Royal, for an
opinion respecting the celestial globe painted by Holbein; to the late
Mr. C. H. Coote, of the British Museum; to Mr. W. H. Rylands, G.A.D.C.;
to M. Massif, Keeper of the Public Library at Toulouse; M. Auguste Vidal,
Archivist at Albi (Tarn); the Abbé Cazès, Superior of the Seminary at
Lavaur; M. Lefèvre-Pontalis, editor of the “Correspondance Politique
d’Odet de Selve,” in the series of State Papers published by the French
Foreign Office; M. Tausserat-Radel, editor of the “Correspondance de
Guillaume Pellicier, Evêque de Montpellier,” in the same series; M.
Dardenne, Trésorier-Général of the Department of Aude; Dr. Charles
Fournel, author of the history of the Hospice Beaujon at Paris; M. F.
Abrand, Régisseur at Polisy; to Mr. Morelli, for permission to use the
photographs taken by him from the picture of the “Ambassadors”; to
Messrs. Henry Stevens, Son and Stiles, for leave to reproduce the gores
of the globe copied by Holbein; and to many others who have cordially
done what lay in their power to promote the objects of this study.
The writer is also indebted to the keepers of various departmental and
municipal collections of archives in France; to several Paris notaries
who have kindly examined for her the ancient legal documents in their
possession; and to M. Léon Pajot, for researches conducted amongst the
MSS. preserved at Paris.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
PART I
THE HISTORY OF THE PICTURE
CHAPTER I. The History of the “Ambassadors” from 1533 to 1654 5
CHAPTER II. The History of the “Ambassadors” from 1654 to the
present day. Chronology of the Picture 18
PART II
JEAN DE DINTEVILLE
CHAPTER I. The Early Life of Jean de Dinteville 35
CHAPTER II. The First Mission to England of the Bailly of Troyes
(1531), and the Calais Interview of 1532 50
CHAPTER III. The Bailly of Troyes, French Ambassador in England
(1533) 66
CHAPTER IV. Coronation of Queen Anne Boleyn and Termination of
the Bailly’s Long Embassy to England 83
CHAPTER V. Short Missions of the Bailly of Troyes to England in
1535, 1536, and 1537 99
CHAPTER VI. Disgrace and Return to Favour of the Dinteville
family 111
CHAPTER VII. The Building of Polisy and the Last Years of Jean
de Dinteville. His Supposed Portrait at Windsor 125
PART III
GEORGE DE SELVE
CHAPTER I. The Early Years of George de Selve and his First
Diplomatic Employment 143
CHAPTER II. The Bishop of Lavaur Ambassador at Venice and at Rome 156
CHAPTER III. Repose at Lavaur, and Embassy to Charles V. 169
CHAPTER IV. The Closing Days of the Bishop of Lavaur. His Portrait
at Villiers 184
PART IV
THE DETAILS OF THE PICTURE
CHAPTER I. General Description of the Picture—The Death’s-Head—The
Dagger—The Order of St. Michael—The Celestial Globe—The
Terrestrial Globe 197
CHAPTER II. The Lutheran Hymn-Book—The Book of Arithmetic—The
Geometrical Instruments—The Mosaic Pavement—The Lute—The Seven
Liberal Arts—The Silver Crucifix—Occult Science—Conclusion 219
APPENDIX A. Georg Gyze or Gisze 239
APPENDIX B. “Presbyter Joannes” (Prester John) 241
INDEX 243
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
1. THE “AMBASSADORS,” FROM THE PICTURE BY HOLBEIN IN THE
NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON (_full-page_) _Frontispiece_
2. REDUCED FACSIMILE OF DOCUMENT PURCHASED FROM M. SAFFROY
(_full-page_) 12
3. REDUCED FACSIMILE OF DOCUMENT PRESERVED AMONGST THE
GODEFROY PAPERS, BIBL. DE L’INSTITUT, PARIS (_full-page_) 18
4. THE CHÂTEAU OF POLISY, FROM AN ORIGINAL DRAWING OF THE
EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, PUBLISHED BY M. LUCIEN
COUTANT IN THE ALMANACH DE BAR-SUR-SEINE (_full-page_) 35
5. PORTRAIT OF FRANÇOIS II. DE DINTEVILLE, BISHOP OF AUXERRE,
FROM THE MARTYRDOM OF STE. EUGÉNIE, BY FELIX CHRÉTIEN,
IN THE CHURCH AT VARZY (_full-page_) 56
6. UNNAMED DRAWING BY HOLBEIN IN THE WINDSOR COLLECTION,
SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT JEAN DE DINTEVILLE (_full-page_) 110
7. ARMS OF JEAN DE DINTEVILLE, AS STILL SEEN AT POLISY (_in
the text_) 128
8. ARMS OF THE BISHOP OF AUXERRE, FROM THE TESSELATED PAVEMENT
AT POLISY (_in the text_) 130
9. DORMER WINDOW OF THE MAISON DE L’AÛMONIER AT POLISY, SHOWING
THE EMBLEM OF FORTUNE (_in the text_) 131
10. MARK OF THE PRINTER GRYPHE OF LYONS, SHOWING THE EMBLEM OF
FORTUNE (_in the text_) 132
11. THE CATHEDRAL OF LAVAUR AT THE PRESENT DAY (_full-page_) 143
12. JEAN DE SELVE, PREMIER PRÉSIDENT OF THE PARLIAMENT OF PARIS,
FROM BULLART, “ACADÉMIE DES SCIENCES ET DES ARTS”
(_full-page_) 154
13. GEORGE DE SELVE, BISHOP OF LAVAUR, FROM A POSTHUMOUS PAINTING
AT THE CHÂTEAU OF VILLIERS, SEINE-ET-OISE (_full-page_) 170
14. _a._ THE “ARMS OF DEATH,” FROM HOLBEIN’S DANCE OF DEATH.
_b._ THE DEATH’S-HEAD BROOCH IN DINTEVILLE’S CAP (_full-page_) 197
15. _a._ DINTEVILLE’S DAGGER-SHEATH, FROM THE PICTURE OF THE
“AMBASSADORS.”
_b._ DESIGN FOR A DAGGER-SHEATH AFTER HOLBEIN, AT THE MUSEUM
OF BASLE (_full-page_) 206
16. CELESTIAL GLOBE, FROM THE PICTURE OF THE “AMBASSADORS,”
reduced scale (_full-page_) 210
17. TERRESTRIAL GLOBE, FROM THE PICTURE OF THE “AMBASSADORS,”
reduced scale (_full-page_) 214
18. GORES OF THE NUREMBERG GLOBE COPIED BY HOLBEIN, reduced
scale (_full-page_) _ibid._
19. HYMN-BOOK, FROM THE PICTURE OF THE “AMBASSADORS” (_full-page_) 218
20. _a._ BOOK OF ARITHMETIC, FROM THE PICTURE OF THE “AMBASSADORS.”
_b._ PAGE OF APIAN’S “MERCHANT’S ARITHMETIC,” COPIED BY
HOLBEIN (_full-page_) 224
21. _a._ DESIGN OF THE MOSAIC PAVEMENT IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY,
WITH DETAILS OF PATTERNS (_in the text_) 226
_b._ DESIGN OF THE MOSAIC PAVEMENT IN HOLBEIN’S PICTURE,
WITH DETAILS OF PATTERNS (_in the text_) _ibid._
HOLBEIN’S “AMBASSADORS”
INTRODUCTION
Few pictures have attracted more attention than Holbein’s double-portrait
of two Ambassadors, since its migration in 1890 from Longford Castle to
the National Gallery. The great qualities which distinguish it as a work
of art are too well known to need recapitulation here. In conception,
scale, and elaboration, in all the elements characteristic of Holbein’s
genius, the picture stands in the foremost rank of that painter’s
achievement. Moreover, up to 1890, Holbein was unrepresented in the
National Gallery, though much of his best work was executed in England,
and for English patrons.
Besides its great and permanent merits, another cause contributed to draw
notice to this work when it first appeared as national property: the
identity of the two individuals represented had become lost. Good fortune
has since restored to us their forgotten names. It is now possible to
affirm, with complete certainty, that in the personage to the left[1] is
beheld the image of Jean de Dinteville, Seigneur of Polisy and Bailly of
Troyes: in the robed figure to the right, that of George de Selve, Bishop
of Lavaur. How, step by step, the history of Holbein’s masterpiece has
been recovered it will be one of the objects of the following pages to
show.
But the unusual character of the picture, the curiosity it has aroused,
the complex and fascinating setting in which the two friends are placed,
seem to call for something more than a mere chronicle of its story. It is
impossible to repress the question, what manner of men were these? or to
resist the desire to know how far the actual circumstances of their lives
explain the choice of the many striking objects with which they are seen
surrounded. As a matter of fact, a closer acquaintance with the mental
atmosphere they breathed, and with the relations in which they stood to
contemporary thought and events, throws a flood of light on many points
which, at first sight, appear obscure. In the history of their life and
times is to be found the solution of any enigmas suggested by their
_entourage_.
Returning to the picture with the insight derived from the study of their
circumstances, it becomes clear that the composition is no less logical
in thought than symmetrical in design. The varied features presented by
it, many of which deserve close inspection on their own merits, assume
new meaning and interest, whether taken separately or viewed in certain
combinations. Some glimpse is thus obtained, though it may be but an
imperfect one, of the intentions with which, more than three centuries
and a half ago, artist and owner built up the intricate harmonies of
their monumental work.
The subject thus falls naturally into four divisions. The first part
will be devoted to the history of the picture; the second and third, to
the lives of the men it represents; the fourth, to some analysis of its
contents.
PART I
THE HISTORY OF THE PICTURE
THE HISTORY OF THE PICTURE
CHAPTER I
THE HISTORY OF THE “AMBASSADORS” FROM 1533 TO 1654
When, in 1890, the picture of “The Ambassadors” was purchased for the
national collection,[2] nothing was known of its story prior to the last
hundred years. The record began with the fact that it had been owned in
the latter part of the eighteenth century by Jean-Batiste-Pierre Le Brun,
a dealer and collector at Paris.[3]
In 1792 Le Brun published the first volume of his “Galerie des Peintres
Flamands, Hollandais et Allemands,” in which there appeared a very bad
engraving of “The Ambassadors,” thus inscribed:
“Tiré du Cabinet de M. Le Brun d’après l’original peint sur
bois, hauteur 96 pouces, largeur 54.”[4]
The engraving was accompanied by a biographical notice of Holbein which,
after recording various points connected with his paintings, continues:
“Celui dont on voit l’estampe offre les portraits de MM. de
Selve et d’Avaux; l’un fut Ambassadeur à Venise, l’autre le
fut dans le nord: ils sont accompagnés des attributs des
arts qu’ils cultivaient. J’ai depuis vendu ce tableau pour
l’Angleterre, où il est maintenant; les figures sont de
grandeur naturelle.”[5]
It will be remarked that Le Brun offers no information as to where he
had acquired his precious possession. In England it came into the hands
of the dealer Buchanan, who sold it to Jacob, second Earl of Radnor, in
1808, or the following year.[6] It remained at Longford Castle until
purchased for the National Gallery.
During the Longford episode, guesses seemed to have rained as to the
identity of the personages. Some critics favoured the French theory
derived from Le Brun. Others drew into the service a variety of
notabilities, ranging from Charles V., Emperor of Germany, downwards. The
year 1826 seems to have been especially rich in surmise of this type. At
last someone proposed Sir Thomas Wyat for the courtly personage to the
left; and this name appears to have clung a little longer than was the
case with some previous suggestions. At any rate, it was accepted without
much reflection by the leading authorities on Holbein, Mr. Wornum[7]
and Dr. Woltmann,[8] and so came to pass as current coin. Dr. Woltmann
further suggested the name of Leland for the second figure.
But a paper by Mr. Gough Nichols, published in the “Archæologia” for
1873,[9] easily disposed of these identifications. For one thing, the
“Ambassadors” bore no resemblance whatever to authentic portraits of the
individuals they were now supposed to represent, those portraits, in
Wyat’s case, being also by Holbein.[10] Mr. Gough Nichols had no fresh
theory to offer in the place of that which he demolished. Returning
for a moment to the French title of Le Brun’s engraving, he proceeded
to dismiss the claim to consideration of Selve and Avaux as summarily
as that of Sir Thomas Wyat and Leland.[11] Holbein’s sitters were left
nameless. In 1890 there seemed to remain only the traditional title of
“Two Ambassadors” (shorn of the faulty, but highly important corollary,
“MM. De Selve et D’Avaux”), and such clues as the internal evidence of
the picture might afford, to throw any light on the enigma.
It will be necessary now to dwell for a moment on this internal evidence,
in order to show how completely it bears out the documentary testimony
which at last came to light.
The only certain clues were, shortly, the following: 1. The signature
(low down in the left-hand corner): Joannes Holbein pingebat, 1533. 2.
The French Order of St. Michael worn by the personage to the left. 3.
The words, AET. SVAE 29, inscribed on the dagger-sheath of the same
gentleman. 4. A similar inscription, AETATIS SVE (_sic_) 25, on the
leaves of the closed book which supports the elbow of the right-hand
personage.
The best authorities united in the belief that Holbein spent the
year 1533 in England. The Order of St. Michael of France worn by the
individual to the left, pointed to the probability, but not certainty, of
his being a Frenchman; scarcely any foreigners, except royal and a few
other notable personages, being at that time admitted to the Order. The
task, therefore, so far as the left-hand figure was concerned, was to
find a man who, having been in England in the year indicated, was at once
an ambassador, a Knight of the Royal Order of France, and of the desired
age. Further, it was likely that he would be a Frenchman.
Among the many candidates of varied nationality, the dates and
circumstances of whose lives, so far as they could be ascertained, were
investigated by the writer, one only, proposed, with happy insight, by
Mr. Sidney Colvin,[12] appeared to fit these conditions in every respect.
Jean de Dinteville, Seigneur of Polisy, Bailly of Troyes, and Knight of
St. Michael, was French Ambassador at the court of Henry VIII. almost
throughout the year 1533. He was born in September, 1504, and was
therefore in his twenty-ninth year when he came to England in February,
1533. Moreover “Polisy,” the name of Dinteville’s seigneurie in Burgundy,
was found to be marked on the terrestrial globe represented in the
picture close to the principal personage. The word was, however, slightly
damaged, which detracted from the certainty of the reading till further
proof arose to confirm it. That proof was still lacking; while the
presence of many rival theories, some of them highly ingenious, and each
claiming to have some special feature in its favour, left the solution
still doubtful.
The identity of the second personage remained meanwhile as obscure
as ever. Many names were proposed,[13] but none seemed to offer the
substantial promise of success which lent cogency to the Dinteville
theory. The claim of M. de Selve, whose name, as well as the title of
“The Two Ambassadors,” proved in the end to be survivals of the true
tradition, was curiously overlooked from the time when that of his
supposed companion, M. D’Avaux, was found to be a myth. The two names
had in reality nothing in common. The very fact that they were not
contemporary proved the arbitrary nature of their connection. While the
title of Avaux did not exist till more than a hundred years after the
picture was painted,[14] five out of the six sons of Jean de Selve, the
famous Premier Président of the parliament of Paris, were ambassadors
during the sixteenth century and were born within a range of time that
covered the desired date. Two of them were envoys at Venice, in exact
accordance with the French tradition.[15] The difficulty was to know
which brother to select, and to find the precise information which would
bring him into relation with Dinteville and Holbein in England. Much
confusion prevails in the popular sources of information which deal with
this family of diplomatists. This complicated the task of fixing their
exact ages, necessarily the first step towards success. Where, however,
so little evidence was forthcoming on which to base any kind of theory,
the author thought it advisable not to reject an old and plausible
tradition unless proved to be incorrect.
The rights of the Selve family now received a fresh impulse from another
quarter. In 1894 the patient research of Mr. Dickes[16] succeeded in
tracing the story of the picture one step behind the ownership of Le Brun
to the sale of the property of M. Nicolas Beaujon, a well-known French
millionaire, who died in the winter of 1786. In the catalogue of that
sale, which occurred in April and May, 1787, the following curious notice
may be read:
“16 _bis._ Un autre tableau de quatre pieds et demi ou environ
de hauteur sur près de huit pieds de large;[17] il représente
deux ambassadeurs, MM. de Selve et d’Avaux, l’un Ambassadeur à
Venise, et l’autre dans les pays du Nord, avec le costume des
nations chez lesquelles ils étoient envoyés; et les attributs
des arts qu’ils aimoient. On voit aussi une tête de mort en
perspective, à prendre de l’angle gauche du tableau,[18] et
qui a l’agrément de ressembler en face à un grand poisson. Le
tableau est du même Holbein, mais la date de l’année n’y est
pas.[19] Il est du règne de François I. ou de Henri II. Ces
deux tableaux sont à considérer.”[20]
It now became clear whence Le Brun had drawn his information. He had
merely repeated the already existing tradition. Notwithstanding the
errors woven by a lively imagination into the substantial facts of
the Beaujon catalogue, the importance of the fresh link in the chain
of evidence was obvious. The new clue added force to the presumption,
already strong, that the French tradition had a real foundation in fact;
but that by some unexplained means the name of Avaux had in course of
time been substituted for that of Dinteville.
Such was the state of things when, in 1895, a fortunate discovery came
to confirm the probabilities thus evolved, and to raise them to the
certainty of fact.
In the “Revue de Champagne et de Brie” for 1888, there was published a
short notice of a picture formerly preserved _at Polisy_, containing the
portraits of _Jean de Dinteville and George de Selve_![21]
Here then, at last, was the long-delayed solution: doubly satisfactory
inasmuch as it exactly corroborated the results of so much previous
research.
The paragraph in the “Revue de Champagne” was based on a catalogue
published in March, 1888, by M. Saffroy, an antiquarian bookseller of
Pré-Saint-Gervais, in which a seventeenth-century parchment, describing
this picture, was offered for sale. The notice in the “Revue” first
came under the present writer’s observation in 1895. The document there
mentioned, which M. Saffroy happily still possessed after the lapse of
seven years, was at once obtained, and furnished exactly the information
which had so long been sought in vain. The following is its complete text:
“[Remarques sur le suject d’un tableau excellent des Srs.
d’Inteville Polizy, et de George de Selve Evesque de Lavour,
contenant leurs emplois, et tems de leur deceds.][22]
“En ce tableau est representé au naturel Messire Iean de
DIntevile chevalier Sieur de Polizy pres de Bar-sur-seyne
Bailly de Troyes, qui fut Ambassadeur en Angleterre pour le Roy
Francois premier ez années 1532 & 1533[23] & de puis Gouverneur
de Monsieur charles de France second Filz diceluy Roy, le quel
Charles mourut a forest monstier en l’an 1545, & le dict Sr.
de DIntevile en lan 1555. Sepulturé en leglise du dict Polizy.
Est aussi represente audict tableau Messire George de Selve
Evesque de Lavaur personage de grandes lettres & fort vertueux,
& qui fut Ambassadeur pres de LEmpereur Charles cinquiesme,
ledict Evesque Filz de Messire Iean de Selve premier president
au parlement de Paris, iceluy Sr. Evesque decedé en lan
1541 ayant des la susdicte année 1532 ou 1533[23] passe en
Angleterre par permission du Roy pour visiter le susdict
Sieur de DIntevile son intime amy & de toute sa famile, & eux
deux ayantz rencontrez en Angleterre un excellent peinctre
holandois l’employerent pour faire iceluy tableau qui a esté
soigneusement conservé au mesme lieu de Polizy iusques en lan
1653.”[24]
The manuscript consists of an oblong piece of parchment which may have
been cut at some time from an inventory. From the fact, however, that
while containing the story of the picture up to the time when it left
Polisy, it does not state where it was then taken to, it seems possible
that it was attached to the painting as a label in the early days of its
next sojourn. If fastened to the frame, it would be obviously superfluous
to describe where the picture was actually hanging. The date of the
document is in accordance with this supposition. On submission to the
authorities at the British Museum, its authenticity was pronounced to
be indisputable. The body of the manuscript, it was further stated, was
written just after the middle of the seventeenth century, while the
heading was added at a slightly later date. Whether originally a label or
not, it appears early to have become separated from the picture and its
proprietors, and to have fallen into careful hands, who then added the
docket.[25]
In 1888 the existence at the present day of the picture thus minutely
placed on record was of course unknown. The writer in the “Revue de
Champagne et de Brie” merely called attention to the notice in M.
Saffroy’s catalogue as to an archæological curiosity connected with a
name once famous in his province.
It is hardly necessary to point out that the dates and circumstances,
already related, of Dinteville’s life, are in exact accordance with
the record of this document. With the new data now at command correct
information was soon obtained with regard to his companion also.
[Illustration: REDUCED FACSIMILE OF DOCUMENT PURCHASED FROM M. SAFFROY.]
The ecclesiastical rank of George de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur, gives
him a place in the great work of the brothers Sainte-Marthe, “Gallia
Christiana;” and this book furnishes a further point of comparison for
the correctness of picture and document. Turning to the article on the
diocese of Lavaur[26] it will be found that George de Selve was appointed
to that see in 1526, when he was in his eighteenth year, but was only
consecrated in 1534, when he was in his twenty-sixth year. Recollecting
that the painting inscribed 1533, and corroborated in this date by the
Saffroy document, states him to be then in his twenty-fifth year, it
follows that the agreement between these three authorities is without a
flaw.
But still further evidence confirms these conclusions. In the Archives of
the Château of Villiers, owned by the present representative of the Selve
family, is a _Motu proprio_ of the Pope in favour of George de Selve,
son of the Premier Président, permitting him to hold several benefices
“although only seventeen years old.” This Latin deed is dated from Rome,
the 13th May, 3rd Clement VII. Now, as this Pope was elected in November,
1523, the month of May of the third year of his pontificate falls in
1526. This document therefore places beyond all possibility of doubt that
George de Selve was in his eighteenth year in May, 1526, and consequently
in his twenty-fifth year, exactly as recorded on the picture when painted
by Holbein in 1533.[27]
The identity of the “Ambassadors” was now fully established. So also
was the history and location of the picture down to 1653; but there
still remained a blank of a hundred and thirty-four years before the
reappearance of the painting at the Beaujon sale in 1787. Where was it
and who owned it during this period?
To answer these questions, so far as possible, the history of Polisy and
its successive proprietors during the century which followed the death of
Dinteville, the Ambassador, must first be traced.
Jean de Dinteville died unmarried in 1555, leaving all his property to
his last surviving brother, Guillaume, Seigneur Deschenetz. The latter,
whose death occurred only four years later, was, in default of heirs
male, succeeded at Polisy by his eldest daughter, Claude de Dinteville.
This lady married, in 1562, François de Cazillac, Baron de Cessac, the
head of a distinguished family in the south of France, who owned large
properties in Quercy and Languedoc. For more than ninety years from the
date of this marriage, the Cazillac family remained in possession of
Polisy.
Madame de Cessac, the last of the race of Dinteville,[28] survived until
1619, outliving her husband many years. This lady was a friend of Nicolas
Camusat, the antiquary; and as it is to him that the next step is due in
the history of the picture, which he must often have seen, it will be
well to consider for a moment his relations with Polisy.
Camusat was a canon of the cathedral at Troyes. He occupied himself with
antiquarian research, and published valuable collections of the papers
he amassed. His correspondences with the French savants of the day were
extensive, consisting chiefly of genealogies and local lore intended for
the literary works on which they were engaged. Amongst those to whom he
imparted such information were the Godefroy family, Du Puy, D’Hozier, the
Sainte-Marthe brothers, and other persons celebrated in the annals of
French learning. He was also interested in art, and himself possessed a
small collection of paintings.
A letter written by Camusat to Du Puy in which, speaking of François de
Dinteville, Bishop of Auxerre,[29] he refers to a conversation that had
taken place between “une sienne niepce” and himself, shows the intimate
terms on which he stood with the family at Polisy.[30] Madame de Cessac
seems to have placed the archives of the Château at his free disposition.
It is certain that she herself gave to him a genealogy of the Polisy
branch of the house of Dinteville,[31] probably the same that he inserted
in his “Meslanges Historiques.”[32] This book, which is a standard
authority for the diplomatic relations of Francis I., owes its principal
value to the access obtained by Camusat to the Dinteville papers and
correspondence. It is, at the same time, one of the chief printed sources
for the history of the family itself.
The connection of Nicolas Camusat with Polisy extended over nearly
half a century. The earliest letters relating to that place are dated
1607; the last must have been penned shortly before his death, which
took place in 1655. They ranged from the time of Mme. de Cessac, niece
of the “Ambassador,” to that of her grandson, another François de
Cazillac-Cessac, who removed the picture to Paris. The circumstances
which probably led to this event must now be briefly recorded.
On the death, in 1619, of Madame de Cessac, Polisy passed to her eldest
son Charles, who, by his marriage with Susanne d’Escar, left one son
François, who succeeded him, and one daughter, Claude.
The daughter became the wife of Jean Jaques de la Roche-Fontenilles. Of
their descendants more will be said hereafter.
The life of François de Cazillac, successively Baron, Vicomte, and
Marquis de Cessac,[33] forms a corner-stone in the story of the picture,
and must therefore be dwelt upon with some care. His wife was a lady of
the Choiseul family; a race united to the Cazillac, and before them to
the Dinteville, by frequent ties of intermarriage, in many generations.
One son and two daughters were the offspring of this union.[34] The
eldest girl was destined to the veil; but hardly was she grown up when
the death of her brother hurried her home from her convent to become the
future heiress of her parents. Her return seemed the more urgent as the
younger sister was so delicate that it was evident she could not long
survive. On the fatal termination of her illness, the whole inheritance
would devolve on the elder daughter. Perhaps this point of view may have
struck a young captain of cavalry, the owner of a neighbouring château,
Charles le Genevois, Marquis de Blaigny, serving with the Duke of Guise.
At any rate, in May, 1651, he carried off the young lady, then twenty
years of age, from her home at Polisy, where she was living with her
mother during the absence of her father in Languedoc. A hue and cry of
hot pursuit was at once raised. Royal despatches brought hasty orders
to the Prince de Conti, Governour of Champagne, to turn out even the
soldiery, in order to capture the runaway pair. But all the king’s horses
and all the king’s men were of no avail. The young couple made good their
escape over the frontier to Franche-Comté,[35] and, in spite of every
effort to stop the marriage, Charlotte-Marie de Cazillac became the wife
of M. de Blaigny.[36]
Annoyance at his daughter’s elopement with a man he detested, combined
no doubt with grief at the untimely death of his other children, seems
to have put the climax to M. de Cessac’s distaste for his northern home.
His heart was in the southern country which had been the cradle of his
race. In spite of their long residence at Polisy, the interests of the
Cazillac-Cessac family still centred in the south. The heads of the
house, in succession, were constantly absent in Quercy and Languedoc.
The elopement of Charlotte-Marie de Cazillac only afforded an additional
proof of the difficulty of exercising simultaneous control in districts
so remote from each other.
In the latter part of the sixteenth century, during the wars of religion,
no part of France had suffered more severely than those southern
provinces in which the Cazillac estates were situated. For reasons of
safety, as well as from the fact that François I. de Cazillac (husband of
the Dinteville heiress) filled the post of Governor of Troyes, Polisy may
at that time have been considered a more desirable place of abode than
any of the Châteaux in Quercy or Languedoc; though Polisy itself enjoyed
no immunity from the troubles which lacerated all France. But in the
middle of the seventeenth century the motives which, at an earlier date,
had made residence in the north preferable had ceased to exist. Moreover,
Charles de Cazillac had magnificently rebuilt the Château of Milhars, the
chief residence of his family in the south. He had consequently left a
somewhat embarrassed financial position to his son François, which did
not improve as time went on. The proceeds which would accrue from the
sale of the northern properties were therefore of great importance to
their owner. Thus it came about that the next few years saw the sale of
all the estates inherited from the Dinteville grandmother.[37] Polisy
became the property of the Maréchal Du Plessis-Praslin, and was shortly
afterwards raised to the rank of a Duché-Pairie, with the title of
Choiseul. Henceforth it drops out of the path of our investigation.
CHAPTER II
THE HISTORY OF THE “AMBASSADORS” FROM 1654 TO THE PRESENT DAY. CHRONOLOGY
OF THE PICTURE.
Meanwhile Camusat, ever active in the cause of archæology, carefully
preserved the record of the famous Polisy Holbein, in letters addressed
to his friends, the Godefroy brothers. Those letters themselves, with
possibly one exception, have not been found. But the summary of their
contents, drawn up by the Godefroy family, exists at the present day at
the Bibliothèque de l’Institut at Paris; and shall here be given word for
word:
“Memoire[38] pour l’intelligence de trois lettres envoyées par
Monsʳ. Camusat, chanoine de St. Pierre de Troyes [touchant un
tableau faict en Angleterre de George de Selve, ev. de Lavaur
qui y estoit allé visiter le bailly de Troies, sr. de Polizi,
Jean d’Inteville, lors Amb. pour le Roy].[39]
“Il y en a deux de Monsr. l’evesque de Lavaur, George de
Selve, fils de Mr. le premier president de Selve, lequel Sr.
Evesque avoit este invite par Mr. de Polizy, bailly de Troyes,
ambassadeur en Angleterre es années 1532 et 1533[40] de le
visiter en Angleterre, comme il feit, après en avoir pris congé
du Roy. Et estans en Angleterre ils feirent faire l’excellent
tableau par un peintre holandois, Holben,[41] lequel tableau a
esté conservé en la maison de Polizy, distant seulement d’une
lieue de Bar-sur-Seine, cent quarante ans[42] et plus, comme
appartenant au seigneur du lieu, Sr. de Sessac, jusques en
l’année 1653, qu’il l’a faict transporter à Paris, en sa maison
proche la parroisse de St. Sulpice, ledict tableau représentant
ledit Sr. de Polizy, Jean de d’Inteville et ledit Sr. Evesque
de Lavaur qui fut depuis ambassadeur près de l’Empereur
Charles Quint et mourut ledit evesque en l’an 1541. On tient
ledit tableau la plus belle pièce de peinture qui soit en
France, au jugement des meilleurs peintres. M. le Mareschal du
Plessis-Praslain a nagueres achepté la terre de Polisy, trois
cens mille livres dudit Sr. de Sessac.
“On a autrefois entendu de Mr. de Vic,[43] garde des sceaux,
qui c’estoit la plus belle pièce de peinture qui fût en France.
“Mr. George de Selve, et messieurs ses frères, ont dignement
servy la France en plusieurs ambassades et légations.”[44]
[Illustration: REDUCED FACSIMILE OF DOCUMENT PRESERVED AMONGST THE
GODEFROY PAPERS, BIBL. DE L’INSTITUT, PARIS.]
Three points in this document deserve special notice.
Firstly, the name of the painter, “Holben,” is given.
Secondly, it is stated that, on its removal from Polisy, the picture was
taken to M. de Cessac’s house in Paris.
Thirdly, it is asserted that no less than three letters concerning it had
been sent by Camusat to the brothers Godefroy.
With regard to the third point, it has been already stated that so far
no trace of two out of the three letters in question has been found. But
if the rather ambiguous phrase, “il y en a deux de Monsr. l’evesque de
Lavaur,” may be interpreted “relating to the Bishop of Lavaur,” there
is, in the Godefroy collection, a paper which may well correspond to the
third. It is a copy, dated 1654, of a memorandum drawn up by Camusat,
on the family and descendants of the Premier Président de Selve. At the
risk of some amount of repetition, the passage in which the “Ambassadors”
figure shall here be inserted. Referring to George de Selve, Bishop of
Lavaur, we read:
[45]“... Ledit Sr. Evesque ... fust visiter en Angleterre en
1532, un sien intime amy, Mr. de Polizy, Jean de d’Inteville,
bailly de Troyes lequel estoit lors ambassadeur près du Roy
Henry 8; et lors aussy lesdᵗˢ evesque et bailly de Troyes
firent faire en Angleterre l’excellent tableau qui est à
present a Paris, au logis de M. de Sessac, auquel iceux bailly
et evesque sont representez au naturel; ledit tableau fait de
la main d’un Hollandois; la pièce est estimée la plus riche et
mieux travaillée qui soit en France.”[46]
Thus we possess no less than three documents, all written shortly after
the middle of the seventeenth century; all giving in the most explicit
terms the history of the picture up to that date; and each corroborating
the other in every particular.
The house in Paris to which Holbein’s masterpiece was conveyed in 1653
can be identified with precision. On the last day of February, 1654,
the deed was there signed by which the Maréchal Du Plessis-Praslin
(subsequently Duc de Choiseul) became the owner of Polisy. After
enumerating the titles of M. de Cessac in the usual way, the document
describes him as “estant de present en cette ville de Paris logé faubourg
Saint Germain des Prez, grande rue du Four”; and terminates with the
words: “Fait et passé a Paris en la maison ou demeurent lesdits Seigneur
et Dame de Cessac....”[47]
Another deed, four years later in date, amplifies these details. In
June, 1658, three years before her death, Madame de Cessac, _née_ Marie
de Choiseul, made her will. She is therein stated to be living “a St.
Germain des Prez, Rue du Four, en l’un des corps de logis, et derrière de
la maison, du Chappeaufort, parroisse St. Sulpice.”[48]
The Rue du Four, it is scarcely necessary to add, still exists. The house
of Chapeaufort was well known until quite recent times, and is described
in histories of old Paris.[49]
No further notice occurs of Holbein’s “Ambassadors” until the Beaujon
sale of 1787.
Perhaps this is not surprising when it is considered that the vast
majority of papers preserved in the archives of France are of legal
nature; while not one of the documents containing a direct mention of
the picture, which have hitherto guided us, have any connection with the
law. They are exclusively derived from the learned antiquaries of the
seventeenth century, bent on preserving to future generations the records
of their day. But after the death of Camusat, which took place, at an
advanced age, in 1655, none of his type remained, conversant with the
history of the picture, to chronicle its further fate.
The difficulty of tracing the “Ambassadors” in the eighteenth century is
enhanced by the fact that, in the earlier stages of its existence, that
work never seems to have formed part of any well-known collection. It
was, and apparently remained, an isolated family picture of startling
excellence, celebrated enough at various periods of its career, but
tending to relapse into oblivion when its proprietors for the time being
were engrossed in the pursuits of their own generation, or devoid of
cultivated interests.
Moreover, many changes had come over French taste since the days when
Méry de Vic had called the “Ambassadors” the most beautiful piece of
painting in France. Holbein’s sober and restrained art was out of
date.[50] Who shall say through how many decades the picture may now have
hung unheeded on the walls of some forgotten mansion!
The darkness which envelopes the story of Holbein’s great work from 1654
to 1787 is thus partially accounted for. A chance light will doubtless,
some day, reveal its forgotten track. Yet, even now, it is worth while to
dwell for a moment on the circumstantial evidence at our command.
Firstly, then, it must be borne in mind that the picture reappears
in 1787, under the partially changed name of “Portraits de Deux
Ambassadeurs, MM. de Selve _et d’Avaux_.”
The alteration seems to denote either that it was for a time owned by
some member of the family of Mesmes, Contes d’Avaux, or was in some
manner connected with them. Let us see, therefore, if any circumstance
can be found to bring that family into relation with the heirs of the
Marquis de Cessac.
More than one such link does, in fact, exist.
It has been noted that when first removed from Polisy in 1653, the
picture was taken to M. de Cessac’s residence in Paris, in the Rue du
Four; and that in 1658, when his first wife, Marie de Choiseul, made her
will, he was still living in the same house. After her death, however,
he seems never again to have had a permanent home in Paris. At the time
of his second marriage, to Anne Louise de Broglie, which took place in
1669, he was indeed in Paris, but at a different address, if not at a
mere lodging;[51] and the marriage contract specially designates the
Château of Milhars in Languedoc as the “ordinary habitation” of the
bridegroom.[52] Milhars had been magnificently rebuilt by his father,
Charles de Cazillac; and hither the Marquis de Cessac now brought his
young bride.[53] It was, perhaps, a rash experiment from the point of
view of domestic felicity. He was now over seventy years of age, while
she was about four-and-twenty. At the end of two years, unable to
accustom herself to the seclusion of the country, after the gay life of
the capital, she left the poor old man in dudgeon, and returned with
her mother to Paris. M. de Cessac made her an allowance, and henceforth
they lived separated. His daughter, Madame de Blaigny, now came to live
at Milhars, and remained, though apparently without much cordiality on
either side, with her father until his death, which took place in 1679.
What meanwhile became of the picture, when the Marquis de Cessac left
Paris to take up his abode in the country?
The houses he owned in the capital seem to have been bought and sold as
mere speculations, having no element of permanence. It is impossible to
imagine the great family picture wandering from pillar to post in this
succession of changes. Some more stable home must surely have been found
for it.
Neither does it appear likely that M. de Cessac sold the one picture he
had been at pains to preserve, when he parted with Polisy, its home of
generations.[54]
The natural inference is that he took the “Ambassadors” with him to one
of his residences in the south.
The three principal estates were Cazillac and Cessac in Quercy, and
Milhars in Languedoc.
The Barony of Cazillac was sold as early as 1689 by the granddaughter
of the Marquis de Cessac; and, after that date, falls out of the
competition. Nevertheless, this place has a point of interest for the
present investigation. In 1665 the Marquis de Cessac bestowed it upon
his cousin, Roger de Guénégaud, with the condition that he should in
future bear the name and arms of Cazillac. The estate was, however,
too tightly entailed on the immediate heirs of M. de Cessac for the
donation to take effect; and the result was merely to add one more to the
crowd of litigants who put in claims to the various property on M. de
Cessac’s demise. Had the intention succeeded, this would have been an
exceedingly likely quarter in which to seek the Holbein; even as it is,
the question arises whether M. de Cessac may not have given the picture
to the man whom he had wished to establish as the future head of the
Cazillac family. But here again research has been unproductive of further
result.[55]
Cessac ultimately passed into the hands of another cousin of the Marquis
de Cessac, François de la Roche, Marquis de Fontenilles, and owing to
this circumstance enters into the lists with Milhars.
Notwithstanding the fact that the most minute search has failed to reveal
any mention of the picture in the exclusively legal documents connected
with the latter Château,[56] it does not appear unlikely that Milhars
was indeed the new home to which the picture was transported. It must be
borne in mind, however, that we here enter the region of guess-work, and
that the discovery of one little fact is apt to overthrow many pages of
specious reasoning. The following indications are therefore given merely
for what they are worth.
On the death of the Marquis de Cessac a lawsuit respecting the
inheritance took place, in which the principal parties concerned were his
widow, Annie Louise de Broglie, and his daughter, Charlotte de Blaigny.
It is of some importance to our object to note that in the end the widow
accepted a sum of money in lieu of all other claims; and that the entire
property of the Marquis de Cessac was settled on his granddaughter,
Marie-Renée Le Genevois, the only child of Madame de Blaigny. This took
place in 1681.[57]
Unfortunately Charlotte de Blaigny now quarrelled with her daughter, who
remained with her father in Champagne, while her mother continued to
reside at Milhars. A designing relation, François de la Roche, Comte and
Marquis de Fontenilles, took advantage of this state of things to induce
Madame de Blaigny to disinherit her daughter and make a will in favour of
himself and of his heirs.
François de la Roche-Fontenilles was the grandson of that Jean-Jacques de
la Roche-Fontenilles who had married Claude de Cazillac, the only sister
of the Marquis de Cessac.[58] But for the existence of Marie-Renée, he
would have been the nearest heir to the property. He now took up his
abode at Milhars and drew his meshes closer and closer round the unhappy
old lady who ruled there. No sooner was the will signed than he began to
dismantle the Château before the very eyes of his aged cousin. Furniture
and valuables were hastily removed to his house at Toulouse. Fortunately
Charlotte de Blaigny did not long survive to reap the bitter results of
her mistake. She died at Milhars in October, 1683, a month after the
making of the momentous will.
The day after the funeral Fontenilles, in the double capacity he
assumed of heir to the property and executor of the will, made a formal
declaration to the effect that “tous les meubles de la dite hérédité sont
au pouvoir et en la jouissance dudit Sr. Conte de Fontenilles, partie
desquels ont été apportés du vivant de ladite dame [Charlotte de Blaigny]
audit Toulouse; et prétend ledit Seigneur Conte y en faire apporter
davantage.”[59]
Holbein’s picture—if indeed the Château in Languedoc had become its
home—now perhaps found its way with the rest of the valuables to
Toulouse. In any case, Milhars remained for some years in the hands of
M. de Fontenilles.
Under the settlement of 1681, Madame de Blaigny, although certain rights
may have been reserved to her, had no power whatever to disinherit her
daughter and settle the property elsewhere. Immediately upon her mother’s
death, Marie-Renée, now Madame Voisin, therefore instituted legal
proceedings for the recovery of her inheritance.
The lawsuits dragged on, almost interminably, year after year. In 1686 M.
and Mme. Voisin were indeed reinstated at Milhars, but only at the price
of a ruinous pension to be paid annually to M. de Fontenilles. On the
death of the latter, in 1693, his son and namesake, who now claimed the
property, renewed his attacks time after time with implacable hostility.
In 1697 Mme. Voisin was definitely confirmed in the possession of Milhars
and of the other estates in Languedoc; but Cessac and all the remaining
property in Quercy (Cazillac, we have seen, had been previously sold),
had to be ceded to François de Fontenilles. Notwithstanding these
sacrifices the claims for arrears of pension were still pending in 1700.
Bearing in mind that the picture reappears in 1787 under the partially
corrupt title of “Portraits de MM. de Selve _et d’Avaux_,” it is
somewhat startling to find that in the same year, 1683, in which M. de
Fontenilles, the elder, seized Milhars, his son and successor, named
above, became the husband of Marie-Thérèse de Mesmes,[60] daughter,
niece, and sister of a succession of Contes d’Avaux.
Her father, Jean-Jacques de Mesmes, Conte d’Avaux, was a President _à
mortier_ of the Parliament of Paris. Her uncle, Jean-Antoine de Mesmes,
Conte d’Avaux, was one of a series of famous ambassadors of the name,
and, dying unmarried in 1709, made Madame de Fontenilles his heiress.
Her brother, another Jean-Antoine de Mesmes, Conte d’Avaux, was the
well-known Premier Président of the Parliament of Paris, who died in 1723.
The connection of François de Fontenilles with the family of Mesmes seems
to reveal a not improbable path by which the picture may have descended
to modern times. Either the seizure of Milhars or the acquisition of
Cessac, perhaps placed it in the possession of La Roche Fontenilles. If
it remained in his hands, how easily might it have passed in later years
for part of the property bequeathed to Mme. de Fontenilles by her uncle,
Jean-Antoine, Conte d’Avaux, and the name of the supposed donor have
crept into the title!
Mme. Voisin, now known as the Marquise de Milhars, had, however, other
links with the Mesmes family, which forbid a too exclusive faith in one
hypothesis. The niece of her husband, François Voisin, a daughter of
Denis Feydeau de Brou, was the wife of the future Premier Président de
Mesmes.
Here, then, are two distinct threads connecting the Contes d’Avaux with
the only two persons, M. de Fontenilles and Mme. Voisin, who seem likely
to have owned the picture at this period.[61]
All that can be said, in the absence of direct testimony, is that we
appear to breathe the atmosphere through which the “Ambassadors” passed.
It would be rash to build too definitely on any particular theory;
for other paths, which the picture may have taken, lie close at hand.
Several of the great legal families of France, who were mixed up with the
Cazillac or their descendants—the Mesmes, Voisin, Brou, Lamoignon—were
connected by intermarriages; while the Broglie (the family of the second
Marquise de Cessac) were thus related both to the Lamoignon and Voisin.
If we may for a moment suppose, however, that after the settlement of
the disputes between Marie-Renée Voisin and François de Fontenilles, the
picture returned, with other abstracted property—perhaps also with an
altered name[62]—to Milhars, another curious circumstance comes to light,
which seems a possible guide to its history.
François Voisin, Marquis de Milhars, died in 1706; and Marie-Renée, left
a childless widow, had to bethink herself of an heir. Her own nearest
relation was the hated La Roche Fontenilles, who was, of course, out of
the question. Her deceased husband’s next of kin were the children of
his niece, the wife of the Premier Président. But this lady had died in
1705, leaving only two daughters; moreover, the terms of friendship which
existed between them and La Roche Fontenilles must have been sufficient
reason to look elsewhere.
One degree further removed in relationship, the eyes of Mme. Voisin fell
upon the heir of a distinguished family, Chrétien de Lamoignon, whose
mother had been Jeanne Voisin, first cousin to the Marquis de Milhars.
In 1716 Marie-Renée made the will which constituted M. de Lamoignon her
universal heir. In 1721 she died and he came into possession.
We may pass briefly over the first two generations of the Lamoignon
family after they succeeded to Milhars. The new proprietors never resided
at the Château in Languedoc. They owned considerable estates in the
centre of France at Basville and Lamoignon, whence they derived their
titles. But their real sphere lay at Paris, where from generation to
generation they played conspicuous parts in the political events of their
day. In course of time they probably removed whatever Milhars contained
of value to one of their other homes.
The special point of interest in connection with this family is that
Chrétien-François (II.) de Lamoignon,[63] Marquis de Basville, who in
1765 sold Milhars to the family of Rey de St. Géry, was the intimate and
lifelong friend of Nicolas Beaujon, at the sale of whose property, in
1787, the picture once more comes to the surface.
If the Polisy Holbein, notwithstanding stormy interludes, did actually
descend from heir to heir of the house of Dinteville through this obscure
period of one hundred and thirty-three years, Chrétien de Lamoignon de
Basville is precisely the person in whose hands we should now expect to
find it.
His intimacy with Beaujon gives curious point to these speculations.
The French millionaire appointed “Monseigneur Chrétien-François de
Lamoignon,” and his heirs, administrators in perpetuity of the famous
Hospice (now Hospital) which he founded, and which still bears his
name.[64] He further begged M. de Lamoignon to be executor of his will,
as a last proof of the friendship “dont il m’a toujours honoré;” and
bequeathed to him a fine service of Sevres china.[65]
Beaujon died on the 20th December, 1786. At the end of January, 1787, M.
de Lamoignon, acting in his capacity of executor, caused an inventory to
be drawn up of all the deceased gentleman’s property contained in his two
palaces, the Hotel d’Evreux[66] and the so-called “Chartreuse,” where
he died. This inventory, which gives minute and interesting particulars
of all the pictures constituting the galleries of those two residences,
was drawn up by the notary Maigret, now represented by Maître Houel, in
whose custody this document at present rests. At the writer’s request
this gentleman kindly examined the inventory in question; but, strange to
say, without success. No trace of Holbein’s “Ambassadors” is there to be
found, although nothing is more certain than that the picture was sold
three months later at the Beaujon sale, and included in the catalogue of
the millionaire’s property drawn up for that occasion.
The inference would seem to be that either “The Ambassadors” dwelt in
some third residence belonging to M. Beaujon, the contents of which were
not included in the inventory in question, or that, still owned by the
executor, M. de Lamoignon, who was in chronic need of money, the picture
was thrown by him into the sale and disposed of at the same time as the
Beaujon collection.
How it now passed into the hands of Le Brun, thence to an English dealer
who sold it to Lord Radnor, and finally to the National Gallery, the
reader already knows.
A table of chronology is appended which sums up the salient points of the
foregoing narrative.
CHRONOLOGY.
1533. Jean de Dinteville, French Ambassador in England, and George de
Selve, Bishop of Lavaur, are painted in London by Holbein. Subsequently
the picture is taken to Polisy, Dinteville’s home in Burgundy.
1562. Claude de Dinteville, niece of Jean the Ambassador and heiress of
Polisy, marries François de Cazillac, Baron de Cessac.
1653. François II. de Cazillac, Vicomte, then Marquis de Cessac, grandson
of the foregoing, moves the picture to Paris. Having sold Polisy, M. de
Cessac spends most of the remainder of his life at Milhars in Languedoc.
1679. Death at Milhars of the Marquis de Cessac.
1681. Marie-Renée Le Genevois de Blaigny, granddaughter of the Marquis de
Cessac, is declared sole heiress of all his possessions.
1683. Charlotte, Marquise de Blaigny, only daughter of the Marquis de
Cessac, attempts to disinherit her daughter, Marie-Renée, in favour of
her cousin, François de la Roche-Fontenilles, and of his son, François
II. de la Roche-Fontenilles.
—— Marriage of the latter gentleman to Marie Thérèse de Mesmes, daughter,
niece, and sister of a succession of Contes d’Avaux.
—— Marriage of Marie-Renée Le Genevois de Blaigny with François Voisin,
Marquis de Bougueval, subsequently known as Marquis de Milhars.
—— Death of Charlotte de Blaigny.
[A long series of lawsuits now ensues between François de
Fontenilles, who denudes Milhars, and Marie-Renée Voisin, the
rightful heiress. Mme. Voisin at last obtains possession.]
1721. Death of Marie-Renée, who, being childless, leaves Milhars to her
husband’s cousin, Chrétien de Lamoignon, Marquis de Basville.
1765. Chrétien-François II. de Lamoignon, grandson of the heir of
Marie-Renée, sells Milhars to the family of Rey de St. Géry.
1786. Death of M. Nicolas Beaujon, Banker to the French Court, whose will
appoints his intimate friend, Chrétien-François de Lamoignon, Marquis de
Basville, to be his executor.
1787. Sale of M. Beaujon’s pictures, in the catalogue of which Holbein’s
“Ambassadors” reappears after a silence of a hundred and thirty-three
years. The picture now becomes the property of J. B. P. Le Brun.
1792. Publication of the first volume of Le Brun’s “Galerie des Peintres
Flamands, Hollandais, et Allemands,” in which there is an engraving of
the “Ambassadors.” Le Brun had previously sold the picture to a dealer in
England.
1808 or 1809. Holbein’s picture is bought by Jacob, second Earl of
Radnor, and taken to Longford Castle.
1890. The picture of the “Ambassadors” finds a permanent home in the
National Gallery.
PART II
JEAN DE DINTEVILLE
JEAN DE DINTEVILLE
CHAPTER I
THE EARLY LIFE OF JEAN DE DINTEVILLE
In attempting to follow the career of Jean de Dinteville, and to read
aright the picture by Holbein, which is, to so large an extent, the
intimate expression of his mind, it is necessary to step back, in
imagination, into the sixteenth century, and to see things, so far as
possible, as an observer of that day would have beheld them. Passing
events present themselves to contemporaries in proportions widely
differing from those under which they appear to the student of a later
day. Circumstances which, as they arose, assumed mountainous dimensions,
have dwindled to molehills with the lapse of time. Other events, which
had small beginnings, have subsequently acquired an importance undreamed
of by lookers-on, in the story of the world’s progress. Again, a third
category exhibits less divergence between the verdict of contemporary
opinion and that of posterity. In such cases, it is a less arduous
task to move into the place of the thinkers and actors of the past,
and to mark with their eyes, uninfluenced by the knowledge of later
developments, the scene that unfolded itself to their view.
Only by noting the facts of history in their relation to Dinteville’s
character and career, rather than to their intrinsic importance,[67] will
it be possible to obtain a distinct understanding of the man and of his
work. Often, indeed, the two points of view will be found to converge.
[Illustration: THE CHÂTEAU OF POLISY, FROM AN ORIGINAL DRAWING OF THE
EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, PUBLISHED BY M. LUCIEN COUTANT IN THE ALMANACH
DE BAR-SUR-SEINE.]
Jean de Dinteville was born on the 21st of September, 1504. He was the
third son of Gaucher de Dinteville, Seigneur of Polisy, and of Anne Du
Plessis.
The race of Dinteville was of ancient descent and allied to the best
blood in France. It had originally been known as Jaucourt, but early in
the fourteenth century an ancestor, Pierre de Jaucourt, adopted the name
of Dinteville, which was that of his seigneurie in Champagne, by which
the family was henceforth called. The elder line remained and flourished
at Dinteville. The younger branch, founded by Jean de Dinteville, second
son of Pierre, settled at Polisy shortly before 1321.
A glance at an old map of France, divided into provinces, shows that, at
a certain point, the waving boundary between Champagne and Burgundy takes
a sharp curve upwards, and, doubling back, makes the deepest of many
indentures in the contour of the northern province. This narrow strip of
land, surrounded on three sides by the territory of Champagne, formed,
approximately, the ancient Comté of Bar-sur-Seine. Attached to Champagne,
and consequently to France, in 1225 (long before the Dinteville family
settled at Polisy), it passed to Burgundy early in the fifteenth century,
returning to France with that Duchy in 1477. On this often-debated
ground, just at the spot where the small river Laigne throws its waters
into the Seine, stands the Château of Polisy—the chief home of that
branch of the house of Dinteville with which we are here concerned.
The marriage of the first Dinteville, Seigneur of Polisy, with the
heiress of Deschenetz[68] (or Echenay, as it is now called) in Champagne,
brought to the family another considerable fief, which, a century later,
became the theatre of an exciting drama. A second Jean de Dinteville,
who held the office of Bailly of Troyes, now reigned there. On a
dark night, when peace spread all around, the house of Deschenetz was
treacherously attacked by one Fortespice, a vassal of the Comte de
Vaudemont, who was the head of that powerful house which later succeeded
to the Dukedom of Lorraine. The Comte de Vaudemont was Dinteville’s
kinsman and supposed friend. Taken completely by surprise, the master
of Deschenetz could offer no resistance. The house was sacked, while he
himself was made a prisoner, and forced to buy his release by a large sum
of money. Years later he challenged Fortespice to a duel in the _fosse_
at Chablis, when both combatants fell mortally wounded.
His son and successor, Claude de Dinteville, entered the service of
Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Claude attained a distinguished
position as Surintendant de Finance to the Duke, and perished, fighting
at his master’s side, at the battle of Nancy, in 1477. His body was
brought back to Polisy for interment.
With the cession of the Duchy of Burgundy to France, which now took
place, happier days dawned for the Dinteville family. All questions of
divided allegiance ceased. The numerous sons of Claude de Dinteville
entered French service, several of them rising high in their respective
vocations. One of them, Jacques de Dinteville, was Grand Veneur of France
under Louis XII., and was also employed as Deputy Governor of Paris
during the absence of the Duke of Vendôme.[69] Another son, François,
became Bishop of Auxerre; Pierre was Seneschal of Rhodes, and fell while
defending the island against the Turks in the memorable siege of 1522;
and Gaucher, the father of Holbein’s “Ambassador,” was Bailly of Troyes,
and was attached to the French Court, almost throughout his life, in
many honourable capacities. He accompanied Charles VIII. to Italy, and
was appointed Governor of Sienna during the French occupation of that
city.[70]
On his return to France, Gaucher de Dinteville settled at the Château
of Thennelières, near Troyes, and in 1496 married Anne Du Plessis,
daughter of Jean, Seigneur of Ouschamps and La Perrine. Their eldest son,
François, who ultimately succeeded his uncle as Bishop of Auxerre, was
born in 1498; and from this date onwards the births of numerous children
are recorded as having occurred at Thennelières or at Troyes. A few years
later the family migrated to Polisy.
Gaucher’s tenure of the office of Bailly of Troyes coincides with an
important period of French law. The Bailly was the Crown officer in
whose name justice was administered throughout a certain district. Each
Bailliage, or bailiwick, had its separate Custom, a system naturally
resulting in much inequality and confusion. To remedy this state of
things, Louis XII. took the first step towards the unification of the
legal code, by ordering the publication of the Customs throughout
the kingdom.[71] The fulfilment of this edict was a work of time, to
be accomplished only after years of labour. The Custom of Troyes was
published in 1509, during the term of office of Gaucher de Dinteville,
and under the immediate presidency of his brother the Bishop of Auxerre.
The latter, like many of his ecclesiastical contemporaries, was equally
versed in civil and canon law.
How large a share Gaucher himself had in this important undertaking is
uncertain. The duties of the Bailly became in course of time almost
nominal, and devolved upon his deputy, a professional lawyer; but this
period had hardly yet arrived. In 1505, however, Gaucher was sent by the
king to Switzerland, where his duties detained him on and off for several
years.[72]
Nothing is known of the childhood of Jean, the future ambassador, passed,
it may be surmised, on the breezy plains of Thennelières, or amidst
the wooded slopes which surround the Château of Polisy. His two elder
brothers, François and Louis, the latter of whom became a Knight of St.
John, began their education at the College of Troyes, which at this time
enjoyed a high reputation; and it is likely enough that in due course
Jean followed in the same steps. Scholars were entered there from the
early age of eight years. Again following his eldest brother, he may have
pursued his later studies at the University of Paris, where the degree of
Bachelor of Arts could be obtained at fifteen or sixteen years of age.
It may be useful to recall that the instruction imparted there, as at
most of the older universities of Europe, was based in the first instance
on the study of the Seven Liberal Arts. These were divided into two
courses: the first, comprising Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric, was called
the Trivium; the second, which embraced Music, Arithmetic, Geometry, and
Astronomy, the Quadrivium. Dinteville’s education, wherever acquired, was
doubtless laid on these familiar lines.
Destined to succeed to his father’s honours, and in due course to become
the head of his house, he was early brought into contact with the French
Court. Indeed, the whole family seems to have found exceptional favour
there. A manuscript is still preserved[73] which gives the names of those
who were members of the royal household, and in this list the Dinteville
family figures extensively. Jean de Dinteville first appears in
attendance on the royal children between 1521 and 1524, when he holds the
appointment of Echanson. His life from this time centred at the Court,
where his father was now Premier Maître d’Hotel to the Dauphin François.
There were many links to connect Gaucher de Dinteville and his sons
with the royal family of France. Besides the intrinsic merits and
past services of the father, they possessed powerful friends. Anne de
Montmorency, the great minister, was their cousin, and did much to shape
the subsequent career of Gaucher’s sons. In early days, the intimate
friendship of Madame de Montreuil, a sister of the Grand-Maître Boisy and
of Admiral Bonnivet, played a large part in their advancement.
It is pleasant to lift for a moment the veil that conceals so much of
the private life of that remote period, and to contemplate a friendship
which continued unbroken through two generations.
The Seigneurie of Montreuil was a dependency of Deschenetz, a possession
of the Dinteville family which ranked second in importance only to
Polisy, and which they, no doubt, often visited. It was, perhaps, partly
through the accident of being neighbours in the country that the kindly
feeling entertained for them by the Châtelaine of that estate ripened
into the closest intimacy. Madame de Montreuil was governess to the
royal children; and it was through her mediation that Gaucher received
his early appointment in connection with them. It was again due to her
influence that when the little Prince Charles, Duke of Angoulême, the
youngest of the three sons of Francis I., outgrew her tender care, he was
placed under the immediate charge of Jean de Dinteville, whom “she loved
and trusted as her own son.”[74]
Public events meanwhile were gradually ripening towards the great
catastrophe which was to colour French policy for many years to come.
In February, 1525, the news of the defeat of the French forces before
Pavia, where Francis I. was taken prisoner, and the flower of the
French nobility fell, sent a thrill of horror through France. The king
was carried to Madrid, only to be released in the following year on
the humiliating terms of sending his two eldest sons to replace him in
captivity, pending the payment of a large ransom. From the time of the
affront placed upon the national pride by this crushing misfortune, the
main endeavour of French statecraft through a long series of years was
to convert the enemies of Charles V. into the allies of France, and by a
succession of skilful diplomatic combinations, open or secret, to form
coalitions sufficiently powerful to resist the overwhelming might of
the Empire. Already, during the king’s captivity, the regent, Louise of
Savoy, had courted the friendship of Henry VIII., imploring him not to
make war upon an imprisoned king. At about the same period, the first
French emissary had been despatched to the Court of Solyman, forming the
beginning of that series of negotiations between the Most Christian King
and the Turk which, avowed many years later, was to startle Europe.[75]
Sigismund, King of Poland, and John Zapolski, Waiwode of Transylvania,
who was endeavouring to wrest the crown of Hungary from Ferdinand, the
Emperor’s brother, were other objects of French solicitude; to whom, for
convenience sake, may here be added the Protestant Princes of Germany,
led by the Elector of Saxony, with whom an alliance was formed a few
years later.
But the most conspicuous engagement entered into by France, in the early
days succeeding the Spanish captivity, was the League signed at Cognac in
May, 1526, by which Francis I., Clement VII., the Signory of Venice, and
Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, bound themselves in a common alliance
against the Emperor Charles V.
How deep was the impression made by these events on young Dinteville,
whose attendance on the royal children kept him in the vortex of French
politics, may be actually seen in some details of Holbein’s picture, to
which reference will be made later on. Nor was it surprising that this
should be so. The League of Cognac was the definite public act by which
Francis I. made plain his intention to repudiate that part of the Treaty
of Madrid which involved the cession of the Duchy of Burgundy. Had the
latter compact been observed in its integrity, Polisy would have become
a fief of the Empire. The race of Dinteville had been French long ere
they were Burgundian. At the close of the fifteenth century they had
resumed with passionate loyalty their complete allegiance to the Crown of
France. What wonder, then, if Jean de Dinteville gave himself heart and
soul to the anti-Imperial policy expressed by the League of Cognac, which
appeared to guarantee the continuance of his French nationality?
In February, 1527, he was appointed Captain and Governor of
Bar-sur-Seine, on the resignation, probably caused by advancing years,
of his father.[76] As in the document which records these changes Jean
is already described as Bailly of Troyes, Gaucher must previously have
resigned that office also, for the succession to which he had instituted
his son by royal letters as early as 1520.[77]
Later in the same year Gaucher de Dinteville visited Troyes to request
the contributions of its inhabitants to the ransom of Francis I.[78] The
young Bailly was meanwhile kept almost entirely at Court, accompanying
the royal family from Paris to Blois, and from Blois to Amboise, or the
various other places to which duty or pleasure determined its movements.
The next glimpse obtained of him finds him in these surroundings. In
October, 1527, Marguerite d’Angoulême, the sister of Francis I., and her
husband, the King of Navarre,[79] made a short stay at Blois on their
journey to the south of France. Some point appears to have then been
under discussion relating to the little Duke of Angoulême (the only one
of the king’s sons at that time in France, his brothers being prisoners
at Madrid), and to the young princesses, his sisters. Marguerite writes
to Anne de Montmorency from Gabarre, a small town in the Landes:
“... En passant dernierement a Blays,[80] Madame de Montereul
et M. le Bailly de Troyes, en me parlant du fait de Monsieur et
de Mesdames, me prierent d’escrire a madite dame,[81] ce que
j’ai differe jusques a ce que fussiez de retour.”[82]
Montmorency was absent at the moment on his way to England. Henry VIII.
and Francis I. were becoming more and more deeply engaged in a common
policy against Charles V. Earlier in the same year, Wolsey had been
brilliantly received in France. Now the Grand-Maître was sent with Jean
Du Bellay and the Chancellor of Alençon, at the head of a splendid
train of gentlemen, to convey the Royal Order of St. Michael to the
King of England. This was the expedition from which Marguerite awaited
Montmorency’s return, before writing to the king’s mother.[83]
It would be interesting to know what was the subject upon which Madame de
Montreuil and the Bailly of Troyes sought to obtain the good offices of
Louise of Savoy with regard to the children. That the question was not
unimportant may be inferred from their anxiety to obtain such influential
assistance, and from the hesitation of the Queen of Navarre to accede to
their request without previously consulting Montmorency. Her desire to
conciliate the minister shows the power he had already acquired in the
internal relations of the French Court.
Was the question connected with religion? History offers no reply; but
the suggestion awakens some interesting considerations.
In or about 1526, Francis I. had confided the education of the
little Duke of Angoulême, perhaps by Dinteville’s advice, to Lefèvre
d’Etaples,[84] a celebrated professor of mathematics and philosophy. This
learned man was one of the earliest and greatest of the French Reformers.
He was the author of the first complete translation of the Bible into
French; it is still in use in the Protestant churches of France. A
correspondent of Budé[85] and Erasmus,[86] his name carries us into the
centre of that sphere of intellectual activity with which Dinteville was
constantly brought into contact both at home and at Court.
In 1527 Francis I. ordered Lefèvre, in conjunction with Gérard
Roussel,[87] to translate into Latin the Homilies of Chrysostom on the
Acts of the Apostles.[88] The following year we find Lefèvre teaching
the Psalms to the little Duke of Angoulême.[89] But by September, 1528,
both he and Roussel had left the Court to follow Marguerite of Navarre
to the south of France, where Lefèvre was established in deep retirement
at Nérac.[90] The links which connected the Bailly of Troyes with such
men as Lefèvre and Roussel were primarily, no doubt, on the side of
learning rather than of religion; for the Dinteville family were staunch
Catholics. But they appear, at any rate at this early date, to have
belonged to the liberal Catholic group, and to have been averse to the
extremes of the rigidly orthodox party. Their cordial relations with
the Queen of Navarre, the Du Bellay, and other advocates of tolerance,
point to this conclusion, no less than their love of learning and their
intimacy with the eminent humanists patronized by the French Court.
The bigotry of Montmorency, on the other hand, was well known. If,
therefore, they desired to replace the services of Lefèvre by those of
another teacher of liberal leanings, they did well to apply to the Queen
of Navarre and her mother, rather than direct to the minister. On this
point, however, we have no further light.
Persecuted by the Sorbonne and the extreme ecclesiastical zealots, the
French Reformers were, at this time, upheld by an enlightened section of
the Roman Catholic party, who desired to see the discipline of the Church
amended without pushing matters to a split with Rome. It still seemed
possible to combine these objects, which the efforts of the humanists,
and the general hatred entertained towards the monks, had rendered
popular in high places. Louise of Savoy herself was, in early days, not
opposed to the aims of the innovators. Marguerite of Navarre was, and
remained, their ardent supporter, though without forsaking the communion
of Rome.[91] The lines of demarcation were not yet as tightly drawn as
they were destined to be hereafter. Renée of France,[92] who, married in
1527 to Ercole d’Este, became the mother of Tasso’s Leonora, was all her
life the unflinching protectress of the advocates of a purified religion.
At no time, perhaps, were the prospects of the Reformation brighter
at the Court of France than in the years now under consideration.
Francis I., cynical and indifferent himself, though not incapable of
superstitious fear, alternately protected and persecuted the French
Lutherans according to the influences which prevailed with him at the
moment. But in her goodly band of learned men, supported by the liberal
group in the Roman Catholic Church, France possessed a happy omen for the
future.
The same revival of letters which had paved the way for the Reformation
in Germany, had penetrated deeply into France. The humanists formed a
compact group, almost independent of nationality, corresponding in Latin,
and pursuing the same objects in each country. The union between the
leading European nations in these respects was very close. In France
the ranks of the law, more especially, were crowded with votaries of
the new learning. Besides the study of classical literature, they
bestowed eager attention upon mathematics, natural science and astronomy,
which still included astrology, obtaining the newest instruments from
Southern Germany, where they were principally made. Celebrated teachers
were placed at the great provincial universities, specially famous for
their schools of civil law, the teaching of which was forbidden at the
University of Paris. The lectures were ardently attended. Foreigners
as well as Frenchmen gathered in large numbers round any well-known
luminary. The lecturers themselves were not infrequently members of
another nation. Thus Andrea Alciati, the famous Italian lawyer, taught
successively at Avignon and at Bourges; while large numbers of Germans,
such as Melchior Wolmar, Johann Sturm, subsequently rector of Strasburg
University, Sleidan, the historian of the Reformation, André Melanchthon,
a relation of his more famous namesake, helped to promote the cause of
liberal instruction, and, in many cases, also of the doctrines of Luther.
As the Reformation advanced in Germany, its influence permeated the ranks
of the French humanists, hand-in-hand with the purely secular learning
they had hitherto cultivated. Those who professed the new doctrines were
known as “Luthériens.” The day of Calvin, who was to impress the final
and definite stamp on French Protestantism, was yet to come.
The orthodox professors of the University of Paris viewed with distrust
all this intellectual stir. They regarded the revival of classical
learning, especially the study of Greek, which enabled people to
examine the New Testament for themselves, as conducive to heresy. To
free the path of knowledge from their bigoted restrictions, Guillaume
Budé persuaded Francis I. to found a college for the special purpose of
instruction in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, the “Three Languages” as they
were then called; to which mathematics and other chairs were subsequently
added. The scheme did not at once come to full maturity; but a variety
of first-rate professors were engaged, who gave free lectures in their
several branches, and assembled round them a large group of students of
international character. Such was the nucleus of the famous Collège Royal.
The Bailly of Troyes was well acquainted with Budé, both at Court and in
Champagne. The lifelong services of this eminent savant to a succession
of French kings brought him into constant communication with the members
of the royal households. As secretary to Charles VIII. and librarian to
Francis I. he must have been well known to Gaucher de Dinteville. In
the second capacity, his influence may have been almost incalculable
on Gaucher’s son. Budé, had, moreover, many connections at Troyes. He
was related to the Raguier family, one of whom married a sister of
the Bailly. The Raguiers were of German origin, and later, including
Charlotte de Dinteville, embraced the reformed religion.[93]
Troyes at this time inclosed within its walls several remarkable men,
whose fame extended beyond these limits. Among them was Pierre Pithou, a
celebrated advocate, and the father of yet more eminent sons. Pithou’s
friendship with Lefèvre d’Etaples added another link to the chain. All
these names, Budé, Raguier, and Pithou, became Protestant in the next
generation. For the present things had not gone so far.
In the highest class of society there was, at this early stage, little
thought of secession. On the contrary, the liberal-orthodox Frenchmen
were prepared to strain every nerve to avert a schism. They occupied
a middle position between the ultra-clerical party and the Reformers.
Their whole energies were directed towards the re-establishment of
ecclesiastical unity.
At the head of this little band of select intelligence stood the Du
Bellay family. Guillaume Du Bellay, Seigneur de Langey, the eldest of
the brothers, and Jean, successively Bishop of Bayonne and of Paris,
and ultimately Cardinal, were equally conspicuous for their talents in
peace and war, in religion and in diplomacy.[94] No ambassadors were
more frequently employed in the negotiations with England which marked
the years of closest friendship between Henry VIII. and Francis I.
Guillaume Du Bellay also made repeated visits to Germany in the interests
of religious unity, an aim which, in a letter to his friend and
correspondent, Melanchthon, he terms “the most glorious on which mortals
can be engaged.”[95]
Jean Du Bellay had the same objects at heart. He too writes to
Melanchthon, signing himself, “Yours from my very heart, Bellaius.”[96]
A statesman of conspicuous ability, and a leader of much that was best
in French thought and aspiration at this time, he opened his doors
freely and dispassionately to all whom learning, merit, or need of any
kind, commended to his notice. Even Rabelais found a shelter beneath his
hospitable roof; many of the lesser humanists he drew from obscurity to
an assured position; he himself was an author of some pretension.
In politics the liberal Catholics were, as might be expected, the keenest
adversaries of Spain. They supported the divorce of Henry VIII., and all
the diplomatic combinations directed against Charles V. It is a striking
fact that nearly all the French ambassadors sent to England during the
years we now have to consider, belonged, in greater or lesser degree, to
this group. Some of them, at a later period, when things had developed
further, embraced the Protestant religion.
The extreme clerical party, on the other hand, which included
Montmorency, upheld the Imperial alliance. But in the years which
immediately succeeded Pavia, the susceptibilities of the nation were too
deeply wounded to admit of any real cordiality between France and Spain.
The policy of France necessarily took another direction in consequence.
This coolness towards Spain gave the liberals their opportunity. The
Grand Maître, realizing the position with his usual cold sagacity, held
the strings of both parties firmly in his hands. He stood, indeed, on
terms of friendship with such men as the Du Bellay, who, while protecting
liberty of opinion and condemning the delinquencies of the clergy, were
doing their utmost to prevent a rupture with Rome. The Papacy itself
courted those whose aim was to draw back the Reformers into the fold of
the Church. Starting from very different grounds, they were obviously
playing the Pope’s game.
But for the out-and-out Lutherans, whose object was complete severance
from Rome, Montmorency had no weapon but persecution. His hatred of the
“heretics” only intensified when time made clear the impossibility of
any compromise. As the years wore by, the shadows of the coming conflict
crept onwards, ultimately forcing the party of mediation to make their
choice between strict orthodoxy and secession. Slowly but surely the
brilliant promise of an earlier date faded away. But that time had not
yet come.