Clermont—Château now a Penitentiary—a Stronghold of the English in
Charles the Sixth’s time—Creil, where Peter the Hermit preached
the first Crusade—Charles the Sixth’s place of Confinement during
his Madness—Chantilly—Écouen—Henry last Duke of
Montmorency—Presentiment of his Father—at eighteen created Lord
High Admiral—His early love in Languedoc—His prudential Marriage
at the Louvre—His Successes at Rochelle—Coldness of Louis the
Thirteenth, and jealousy of Richelieu—His gallantry at
Veillane—Restoration of Prisoners—Humanity during the plague at
Rivoli—His anxiety to become High Constable of France—Richelieu’s
injustice—His retirement to Languedoc—Privileges of
Languedoc—Prince Gaston’s efforts to win over Montmorency—The
Duke’s arrest by Richelieu’s orders, rendered impossible through
the people’s affection—Renewed efforts of Gaston—Persuasions of
the Duchess—Montmorency’s reluctant consent—Gaston’s indecision
and high words with the Duke—Battle of Castlenaudary—His
emulation with the Comte de Moret to strike the first blow—The
ditch leaped alone as at Veillane—The troops held back by Gaston
in sight of his peril—Montmorency overpowered—Dragged from under
his dead horse and carried before Schomberg—The female portrait on
his arm discovered by a spy, and notice of his wearing it sent to
incense the King by the Cardinal—The cries of the people beneath
the Palace windows—His farewell to his wife, and legacy to
Richelieu—The emotion of his Judges—His condemnation—Religious
feeling of his last hours—His farewell to the statue of his
Godfather—His calm death, and blood sought for as that of a
martyr—His burial among the bones of the Sainted—The imprisonment
of his widow—Her sad life—Her taking the veil—Louis the
Thirteenth’s visit to her mourning cell and her reply to the
Cardinal’s messengers—The King’s remorse—The apparition in the
Hall of Écouen—St. Denis—Foundation of the Cathedral by Dagobert,
St. Denis having appeared to him in a dream—Miraculous
consecration of the church and the leper’s new skin—Tombs—The
column to the memory of Francis, erected by Mary of
Scotland—Breaking open of the monuments in 1793—Turenne in a
glass case—a lock of Henry the Fourth’s beard making a soldier’s
moustache—Plunder of a nose by an Englishman—The Caveau of the
last Condé—Devotion of a Russian General to Henry the Fourth’s
memory—The Cathedral preserved during the Revolution by being
converted into a Market-house—Paris.
18th July.
One of the pleasures of travelling consists in leaving obnoxious
places. Quitted Breteuil at four, in a fog cold as December; passing
the Abbey, an old building with turrets and Gothic windows, and a grove
whose alleys might have proved a resource, had we known they were so
near yesterday. Long hills, but no view; till a short distance from
Clermont, below the road to the right, we looked down on a wooded
country, and the town, built on its bold hill, appeared before us; and
we continued to skirt a pretty valley, passing chateaux and pleasure
grounds, till, by a gentle ascent, we arrived at the Croissant, really
a very good inn, and after Breteuil, a paradise. Fed a puppy, and Fanny
showed symptoms of a jealous disposition. D—— arrived just in time to
save his life, as she had taken him in her mouth, and was shaking him
by the skin of his back. The heat kept us within doors till evening,
when we climbed the remainder of the hill. Passed the place and the
church to the chateau, which is now a penitentiary, containing 1500
women, and was in early days a fortress of the Franks, to protect them
from Norman invasion; and in Charles the Sixth’s time a stronghold of
the English. French guide-books still call it a Gothic castle, though I
could see no trace of Gothic architecture remaining, except in the
building on the place now the Hôtel de Ville, which has still the
vestiges of battlements, and one old tower. The road leads, beneath an
ancient arch, to the public promenade which surrounds the chateau which
crowns it, like a verdant belt, its fine trees making, in French taste,
stars and circles. The view it commands, as it juts over the valley, is
very lovely; as the river shines below, and seems to lose itself
winding among wooded hills, which succeed each other far to the right.
The townspeople were assembled on the terrace, playing rackets with
much noise and small skill; we sat on one of the stone benches watching
the game, and the sun set—decidedly we prefer setting to rising suns;
D——, in particular, has no taste for the beauties of nature at
half-past four.
Left at five: passing on our way Creil on the Oise, looking from the
bridge towards the west, you see built, in a rather elevated situation,
the village of Montataire. It is said that here Peter the Hermit first
preached the crusade. The ruined castle on the island of Creil was
built in Charles the Fifth of France’s time, and a kind of balcony with
iron gates, which belonged to Charles the Sixth’s apartment, was
formerly shown. He was confined here during his madness, and the well
built in the centre of the floor for heating the rooms with charcoal
(for chimneys were not yet in use) remained also. I do not know whether
they exist now.
It is a romantically situated town, and the view back to it, from the
hill beyond, very interesting. Thence a straight road leads to
Chantilly, and is wearisome enough, though a great part of it skirts
the forest; but the trees here are young, and mostly oak, and yet
without shade or beauty. A long descent conducts to the miserable town,
and we stopped at the Hôtel de Bourbon Condé, the best and very bad, to
breakfast and dine, intending to go on at sunset. I came here long ago
to see the over ornamented park, and the stables for 240 horses; but
to-day, instead of braving the burning sun, I lay down tired at last
with early hours, and read a savage selection from discoveries in
savage islands. John arrived, brought by the pity of the conductor,
joined to the price of his place, of course. There being no room, he
had constructed a pyramid of baggage on his back, preparatory to
walking, when the conductor perched him in some unknown corner. He is
growing troublesome; complaining yesterday of dining on bones, which on
inquiry proved two fricasseed fowls! and anxious to know the punishment
when a foreigner fights a Frenchman. We started after a dear dinner of
bad meat, at the same time with the diligence, whose passengers we
astonished, because, having taken the horses along a pathway and off
the high road, our only way to return was over a ditch, which was
narrow, but excited great shouting notwithstanding. The road through
the forest pretty, but after quitting it, shorn of all its fine
trees—got to Écouen very warm and thirsty—drank some beer in the
street, and looked as we passed at the old chateau, 400 years the
property of the Montmorency. Henry, marshal of Montmorency, was its
last owner of the name. His history is so interesting, that I am
tempted to write some of its circumstances here.
The war-cry of the Montmorency was “Dieu aide au premier baron
Chrétien,” for the first baron was (tradition tells) baptized at the
same time with Clovis, the first Christian king. The last, who was
beheaded in 1632 and left no heir, was born in 1595. An astrologer drew
his horoscope, and predicted that he would outshine his ancestors in
glory, if he could avoid a danger which threatened his thirty-eighth
year. He is described as being from his childhood mild, brave, and
beautiful; possessing those graces of exterior which set off noble
qualities. Henry the Fourth loved him as his own son; and taking
pleasure in talking with the boy, he one day asked, “What is the virtue
best fitted to a monarch?” “Clemency,” said the child; “since only
kings have privilege to pardon.” He was thirteen when Henry bestowed on
him the survivance of the governorship of Languedoc possessed by his
father, who conducted him there, and himself installed him in his
dignities; but when he had placed him in the seat the governor occupied
in the parliament of Toulouse, a sudden presentiment of evil came over
him, and he burst into tears. The king was sad without the boy, and
soon recalled him to court, and proposed his marriage with his own
daughter by Henriette d’Entragues. The constable of Montmorency had
fixed his wishes on his son’s union with Mademoiselle de Beaufort,
Henry’s daughter also, but by Gabrielle d’Estrées, and more beloved by
him, as well as more beautiful; and the King, irritated by opposition,
exiled him to Chantilly. He was there and in disgrace, when a marriage
with the rich demoiselle de Chemilly was proposed to him for his heir.
Thinking the King might disapprove, he desired his brother would
conduct the youth to one of his own mansions, that he might there meet
his destined bride; but Henry the Fourth, apprized of what was passing,
sent an order to Duplessis, the commandant at Saumur, to arrest there,
on their way, the Duke d’Amville and the young governor. Duplessis in
consequence called upon them, and the Duke, suspecting his errand,
invited him to dine. The officer refused, yet, wishing to do his duty
civilly, put off the arrest till after dinner, merely placing a
sentinel at the gates, intending to return in an hour or two. D’Amville
and his nephew, instead of repairing to the eating-hall, walked
straight to the stables, and riding out a private way, joined an escort
of fifty gentlemen. When the King knew he had been outwitted, he sent
the Duke of Soubise, with two companies of the guards, to the house
where the marriage was to take place, with orders (if necessary) to
force an entrance, and bring away Mademoiselle de Chemilly, but
Soubise, on arriving, found them united. Some time after, the
Constable, finding his daughter-in-law less rich than he expected,
determined on dissolving this very marriage. The King gave his assent,
and Montmorency was neither old enough nor sufficiently in love to
resist him. Many thought that this violation of his vow brought on him
the disasters of his after-life. Henry, rather than disoblige his
favourite, broke a former engagement made for Mademoiselle de Beaufort,
and her marriage with Montmorency was about to take place in 1610, when
the King was murdered. The Duke was yet only fifteen. Three years after
he was created Lord High Admiral, and the queen-mother proposed his
union with the Princess Orsini, her relation, for Mademoiselle de
Beaufort’s consequence had died with her father. The young Duke was
disinclined to this marriage, for in his own Languedoc he had fallen in
love with a lady so surpassingly lovely, that for her sake he was ready
to forget ambition and make her his wife. She had been married to an
old man, who, shortly after Montmorency first saw her, slipped as he
feebly descended some steps, and died of the blow received on his head.
The Duke, who witnessed this awful death, first consoled and then loved
the widow: but overruled by his father, and perhaps influenced by all
this high alliance promised him, he quitted Languedoc for Paris,
accompanied by a hundred gentlemen and nobles of his province. He was
lodged in the Louvre, and married there with all the ceremonial which
accompanies the wedding of a prince; but either because his heart was
far away with the fair lady of Montroux, or because something whispered
that out of this ill-starred union would grow all his future
misfortune, his joy was ill feigned. There was even an unwonted
bitterness in his manner which brought on him a foolish quarrel; for,
presenting to the Duke of Retz (who had espoused his deserted bride,
Madlle. de Chemilly) a bowl of sweetmeats, which he had himself tasted,
he said, “Take these, Sir; it is not the first time you have accepted
what I have left;” they fought in consequence, but Montmorency disarmed
him. The Duchess Mary of Orsini was gentle and of a fine figure, but by
no means handsome. In spite of his infidelity, which she knew and
deplored the more, seeing its object so beautiful, she was fondly
attached to her husband and gained his esteem and affection by her
uncomplaining gentleness. Once he remarked with sorrow, that she looked
pale and changed. “It is true that my countenance is so,” she replied
mildly, “it must suffice you that my heart is not.” His history would
occupy too much space if told in detail. For many years almost
constantly successful in the civil wars which desolated France; a
faithful as well as brave subject; notwithstanding that the Cardinal
Richelieu and the Duke of Luynes were his enemies, he refused to join
the queen-mother against the King when they parted in anger. He was
called the “King of Men” by his soldiers, who adored him. Sent to
command the naval attack of La Rochelle, he was denied the needful
supplies through the influence of Richelieu, and spent, to procure
them, a part of his private fortune. He found the Dutch Admiral
Houstain had lost a vessel, and wanted munition, and furnished him with
both; yet when, having succeeded gloriously, he returned to court, he
was coldly received by Louis the Thirteenth, and the jealous Cardinal
soon after caused the suppression of the post of Lord High Admiral.
The religious wars ended, the King sent an army into Italy to support
the Duke of Mantua against the Austrians. Richelieu had the command,
and rather than not serve, Montmorency went as volunteer. The King
bestowed on him, shortly after, the command of his army at Pignerol;
then sent him to head the troops which entered Piedmont, where he
obtained a signal victory. His army had received orders to join that of
Marshal Laforce, but the Duke of Savoy lay between. The latter
commenced the attack in an unexpected quarter, and the Marquis of
Effiat and others advised rather to sacrifice the one regiment in peril
than to risk the army. Montmorency exclaimed, “Who love me, follow!”
and rushed forward at the head of the King’s gens-d’armes. Prince Doria
was approaching; and the duke, to meet him with less delay, and well
mounted, leaped a broad ditch which lay between them, and, though
unfollowed, forced his way before a regiment of infantry, whose fire
did not stop him, and through the ranks of a squadron commanded by
Prince Doria, whom he wounded; and had arrived fighting and unharmed in
the sixth rank of these horsemen before he was joined by any of those
who had made a detour instead of leaping after him, and who, having
believed him dead, found that he alone had half routed a squadron. By
this and other exploits, continued throughout the day, the battle of
Veillane was won; and the generous duke, who among his prisoners had
taken almost all the officers of the Piedmontese army, sent them back
to the Duchess of Savoy, who was King Louis’s sister. He had received
no wound, but came from the field, the gold ornaments hacked from his
splendid armour, and himself so bruised that he was hardly to be
recognised. His horse, which was called “Le Remberge,” was wounded in
twenty places, though slightly; and as it was a strong and beautiful
animal, one of Montmorency’s officers wished for and received him from
his general.
His troops were attacked at Rivoli by the plague, and to aid sick
friends and soldiers he sold luxuries and comforts, and his
head-quarters, far from being kept free from infection, rather
resembled an hospital. Spite of his successes and the love of his army,
or rather on account of them (for Richelieu envied his popularity, and
already meditated his ruin), he was recalled. The soldiers mourned over
him. “Who,” they said, “will lead us to victory when we lose
Montmorency?” And yet, when the duke arrived at Lyons, and found there
the King to all appearance dying, and Richelieu torn by anxiety, he
took pity on the latter and frankly offered him protection in the
province he commanded: relays were held in readiness to bear the
Cardinal thither in case of the fatal termination of Louis’s malady; he
vowed eternal gratitude, but forgot it as the King recovered.
Montmorency had yielded his assent to the suppression of the States of
Languedoc,—a loss of privilege which the province deplored, and he too
repented. The King at his request promised their re-establishment, but
avoided keeping his word; and the duke, whose ambition was to hold,
like so many of his ancestors, the office of constable of France, being
only created marshal, and otherwise coldly treated at court, retired to
Languedoc. The Duke of Angoulême, his brother-in-law, said, when he
bade him farewell, “that the king could never forget his services, and
that his friends would always have sufficient influence to efface the
false impressions made by the Cardinal;” but the duke shook his head
sadly. “I do not flatter myself,” he said; “I shall not return to
court, if affairs there continue as at present; my welfare is in the
hands of God.”
Retired to the seat of his government, the duke’s heart was set on
recovering the privileges of the province. By the King’s command the
subject occupied the states-general assembled at Pézenas, but the
King’s commissaries, Miron and Hemery, had the Cardinal’s private
instructions to yield in nothing, for he hoped to wear out the patience
of the governor by oppression of the province. He knew by his spies
that the King’s brother Gaston intended striving to win over
Montmorency; and as it was his maxim to treat as guilty those who
possibly might become so, he dispatched an order to Hemery to arrest
the duke. The latter just then making a journey to Montpellier, Hemery
and the Marquis des Fossés followed, intending to make him prisoner
there; but they judged the people’s love for him would render it
impossible. Des Fossés altered his opinion when he found he was to
attend the representation of a drama acted in his honour by the
Jesuits’ pupils. He placed soldiers at the college gates to seize him,
and issued an order to the garrison of the citadel, which joined it, to
remain under arms. The duke, warned of what was passing, at first would
not believe it possible, but the report spreading, persons of rank and
condition flocked round him, offering to seize Hemery and Des Fossés,
and to take possession of the citadel, which would have been easy, as
it was feebly garrisoned, but the duke refused; a proof he did not then
contemplate the treason to which Richelieu’s injustice was urging him.
He went, contrary to advice, to the college, and returned, none having
dared molest him, and two days after returned to Pézenas, where he told
what had happened to the duchess, and his uncle, and other private
counsellors there; they were loud in their cry for vengeance. The
bishop of Alby, who was with Montmorency, had a nephew, partizan of
Gaston and the queen-mother, with whom he corresponded. Just about this
time a new commission arrived from court empowered to tax the province,
and Alby and his nephew, who had come in disguise to treat with the
governor, took advantage of it to influence him. They reminded him of
reward denied and services forgotten; of the death of his cousin De
Bouteville; the refusal to restore the privileges of Languedoc; the
execution of the innocent Marshal of Marillac; yet all would have
failed, had not the duchess joined to persuade, for she was niece of
the queen-mother. A young girl who served her overheard a conversation
between them. The duchess spoke low, in sentences broken by sobs; and
the duke at last answered: “I will do so; you need persuade me no
longer, your ambition shall be satisfied: but remember it will cost me
my life.” Soud’heilles, the captain of his guard, was then in Paris;
and the cardinal, alarmed when the duke had declared himself,
dispatched him to Languedoc to try his influence with his master.
Montmorency wavered, but the duchess and his confidants persuaded him,
that to desert Gaston would be dishonour. He had a final conference
with them, and returned from it straight to Soud’heilles. “My dear
friend,” he said, “the stone is thrown, I cannot call it back again.”
The weak Gaston, then, as afterwards, incapable of opposing a foe as of
protecting a friend long, was ill advised at this juncture, and arrived
before the time agreed on with Montmorency, and before his measures
could be taken. He had fifteen hundred half-armed men, the sympathy of
the people, but neither Narbonne nor Montpellier. Lodeve received him,
and from thence he sent a messenger to the duke.
“He has advisers who betray him,” he said, “and his over haste impairs
his cause: but be it so, we must face the storm; and I feel it will
fall on me.”
On the way to Beaucaire, which opposed Gaston, the duke passed
Montpellier, and the people came out, weeping as they understood his
danger. Beaucaire would have been taken; but when the army was before
it, the Duke of Elbeuf claimed the chief command, which had been
promised Montmorency; and Gaston being undecided, as usual, the delay
of the attack gave time for the king’s troops to come up. He soon
after, through the treason of some of his advisers, lost St. Felix de
Carmain, and when the news of its surrender reached the prince, there
came with it that of the advance of the royal troops to take
Castelnaudary; near which lay his forces. The duke disposed his army in
order of battle, near a brick bridge, which crossed the road, half a
league from the town. “The time of your triumph is come,” he said to
Gaston; “but this sword,” touching his own, “must be red to the hilt
first.” The prince coldly answered, “Your rodomontades are never
ending, Monsieur de Montmorency, but as yet, when you have promised me
success, I have only been indebted to you for hope.” “I am not sorry to
say to you now, that it will always be easy for me to make my peace
with the King, and with two or three more to retire.” In consequence of
this, high words ensued between the duke and Gaston, and they parted
hardly reconciled.
It was a subject of emulation between the Comte de Moret and
Montmorency to strike the first blow in the battle; and the latter, to
make sure of himself doing so, asserted, as he advanced precipitately,
that he went only to reconnoitre a post, and with some impatience
commanded the noblemen who followed him to keep back! The Comte de
Rieux, who rode close, reminded him, that it was his duty to be
prudent, as on the general’s fate hung the army’s. Montmorency knew him
for a brave man, yet he said what was far from his thoughts, “It would
seem you are afraid;” and to shorten remonstrance as well as distance,
he leaped his horse, as at Viellane, across a broad fence, and found
himself at the other side with the Comte de la Feuillade, the Vicomte
du Pujol Villeneuve, and a few more, in the midst of the enemy’s
infantry. At the first fire, all with him fell, except Pujol, who
fought by his side till a shot in the leg disabled him. His company of
gens-d’armes came up, but the infantry, posted to advantage, kept up a
fire which few escaped; yet the duke was unshaken; he opened a way
wherever he turned, and might have retired with ease, and gloriously,
to bring up the army; but being within their sight, he believed the
troops would advance to support him; and a corps of cavalry, commanded
by Baron de Laurières, coming up, he spurred so impetuously to meet
him, that horse and man, as he encountered them, went down; and
discharged on the head-piece of the leader’s son, Baron de Bourdet, so
violent a blow, that the casque, examined after the battle, seemed
indented by a battle-axe rather than a sword. His father rose from the
ground at the moment, and seeing his son stagger, he wounded mortally
the duke’s charger, and Montmorency fell with and under his dying
horse. If Gaston had then brought up the army, this misfortune might
have been repaired. The Duke of Elbeuf and Puy Laurens, and La Ferté
Imbaut, (the two last suspected of having been bought over,) persuaded
him to hold back, though his peril was visible from where they stood. A
report next reached the prince, that his general had fallen, whereupon,
flinging down his arms, and panic-struck, he exclaimed, “Sound the
retreat, I will play this game no further.”
During this time Guiltaut and St. Preuil, captains of the royal guard,
had come up with the duke, and mourned over him as he was drawn with
difficulty from under his dead horse, covered with its gore and his
own, for he was desperately wounded; and the blood which gushed from
his mouth, as he lay with the weight pressing on him, had almost
stifled him. “I sacrificed myself to ungrateful cowards,” he said, as
soon as he could speak, “though it was told me, even before Beaucaire,
that I was betrayed in the prince’s army.” Four soldiers raised him
gently, and carried him to Marshal Schomberg, who received him with the
esteem and tenderness which were his due. It is told that he wore on
his arm, when taken prisoner, a portrait enriched with diamonds; this
was perceived by his friend, De Bellièvre, who was afterwards President
of the Parliament. Recognizing the female head, he pretended to
question the duke, and taking his arm as he spoke to him, adroitly drew
forth the miniature; but dexterously as it was done, it could not be
hidden from a spy of the cardinal, present at the scene, and it was
reported to Richelieu, who made use of it as a means to render Louis
the Thirteenth implacable, as the picture was that of his queen, Anne
of Austria!
The Count de Moret, natural son of Henry the Fourth, received his
death-wound not thirty paces from his companion in arms. The latter, in
consequence of the refinement on cruelty practised by the cardinal, and
while all the people, loud as they dared, murmured shame, was borne in
a litter to Toulouse, notwithstanding the insupportable heat and his
uncured wounds. The inhabitants of Toulouse vowed to save him at any
cost, but the cardinal received intimation of their resolves, and the
prisoner was carried through without stopping to Leitoure. Arrived, he
was conducted to the castle, and here a chance of escape presented
itself again, for the Marchioness of Castelnaud bribed one of the
guards, and provided him with ropes, by which the duke might be lowered
to a place whence a passage led out into the country; and the
marchioness, who was a determined woman, advanced with twenty horsemen
as near to the citadel as they dared; but the guard was discovered with
the ropes in his possession, by the lieutenant of the citadel, and
killed by him on the spot, in the first burst of passion.
Notwithstanding the prayers of the army and the people, those of his
brothers-in-law, the Prince of Condé and Duke of Angoulême, the agony
of the duchess—the proceedings against Montmorency went on, and to a
fatal termination. He expressed penitence for his conduct, and showed
as much firmness as in his best days. He was persuaded by De Launay and
his confessor to ask his pardon of the king: “Tell the cardinal,” he
added to Launay, charged with the message, “that if he saves my life,
he will have no reason to repent of it: but also that I do not ask the
king’s council to act against conviction, if they believe my death more
useful to the state than might be the rest of the years I have to live.”
Anne of Austria, the queen consort, solicited by the Duke of Épernon
and the principal nobility of the court, to intercede with the king,
feared the cardinal’s misinterpretation, and applied to him in the
first instance. He answered that he did not doubt the king’s granting
any favour she desired, but that she herself should also consider, that
the annoyance she was about to cause him would injure his health,
which, since his malady at Lyons, he had never recovered; and Anne,
seeing by the cardinal’s manner, that, by saving the captive she risked
his anger, determined rather to let him die. The people assembled under
the king’s windows, and their cry reached his ears: he asked its
import, it was “Mercy for Montmorency!” The king merely permitted him
to dispose of his property, notwithstanding the confiscation about to
be pronounced, and the duke occupied himself with the payment of his
debts and the care of his vassals. He wrote an affectionate farewell to
his unhappy wife, who was not in a state to read it, and sent to
Richelieu, who had once wished to possess it, a fine picture of St.
Sebastian, as his dying gift.
The last night of his existence he slept during six hours, tranquilly,
as if the coming events of the next day were unknown to him, and prayed
fervently when he woke. The hour arrived for his being conducted to the
palace, he received the Count of Charlus, who came to seek him,
cheerfully as ever, but refused to allow his surgeon to dress his
wounds, saying they would soon be cured. He asked for something to eat,
and then got into the carriage, which was open. The Counts of Charlus
and Launay followed, and four companies of soldiers escorted him; the
rest of the army lined the streets he passed through, or filled the
squares of the town. As he stood with mild demeanour and bareheaded
before his judges, his noble presence was that of the governor, not the
criminal. The judges seeing him they loved, and were perforce about to
doom, looked down to hide the tears which rose in spite of them, or
buried their faces in their handkerchiefs. He was desired to sit on the
criminal’s stool, which however, contrary to custom, had been raised to
the level of the judges’ seats, and, contrary to custom also, he was
left unbound. He was painfully affected while replying to the question,
“Whether he had children by his marriage,” for he mourned the want of
an heir.
The trial over, he was conducted from the Palace of Justice back to the
Hôtel de Ville, where he recommenced his devotions, and these ended,
conversed with his friends and wrote some private instructions for his
family; and the Count de Charlus, his face covered with tears, asking
in the king’s name for his order of the Holy Ghost and bâton of
marshal, he delivered them calmly, saying, “it was true that one crime
had cancelled the services which obtained them;” and then took some
slight refreshment. He next repaired to the chapel. The commissaries of
the court arrived to read his sentence to him, he listened with perfect
tranquillity, kneeling before the altar, and rising when they
concluded, and sobbed with their emotion, he spoke to them with great
kindness. He was informed that the royal favour (though indeed it was
the cardinal’s fear) allowed his being executed within the courts of
the Hôtel de Ville instead of on the public square. De Launay was at
this time with the king, who had sent for him, and the duke’s friends
felt hope revive; but Louis merely desired “that he should die
unbound,” and this he declined, saying, “he would end life as he
deserved, like a criminal.” He cut off his own hair, and changed his
rich attire for the poor clothes of a soldier; he had bowed, as he came
along, to the troops who guarded him, and bade them farewell. There was
some delay, (perhaps in consequence of changing the place of
execution,) and during this time the duke remained seated on a bench
adjoining the chapel balustrade, and conversed with his confessor, too
low for others to overhear. He asked for water to wash his mouth, for
he suffered from sore throat: “Father,” he said, “can you explain to me
my feelings? Before heaven I assure you that I go to death with
satisfaction, without regret or dread; and if I had never believed in
God until now, this firmness vouchsafed to my weak nature would make me
adore him.” Efforts, even in this last hour, were made to save him, but
in vain, though the Pope’s nuncio was one who pleaded. He calmly
presented his arms to be bound by the executioner, and desired Father
Arnoux to take from his hand the crucifix, since “the just might not be
bound with the guilty.” He was led into the court where was the
scaffold, and his surgeon cut his hair which he had left too long, and
fainted when he had done; even the executioner wept. The marble statue
of Henry the Fourth stood above one of the entrances, and he gazed at
it earnestly. The confessor noticing it, he said, “Father, he was a
good and generous prince.” Continuing to advance, he ascended the steps
of the scaffold as firmly as if they had led to glory. He spoke to a
jesuit who stood beneath: “I pray you,” he said, “prevent, if you may,
my head from falling to the earth; receive it, if possible.” He kneeled
and prayed once more, and adjusted himself on the block, which gave him
great pain, as it was too low; a single stroke severed his head from
his body. The gates were thrown open; people and troops thronged in
with cries of grief, crowding round and on the scaffold, reverently
dipping kerchiefs in his blood, which they held to be that of a martyr.
That day, a soldier drew on the executioner to kill the wretch by whose
vile hand the best and bravest of men had died. The people withheld and
concealed him, for the cardinal caused search to be made that he might
be put to death. His hatred was not quenched in Montmorency’s blood,
for he persecuted his friends and relatives.
After the execution, the duke’s body was folded in a black silk velvet
pall, and conveyed in a carriage to the abbey of St. Sernin, where it
was buried in a chapel in which only the bones of saints had been laid,
and the counts of Toulouse had been refused a sepulchre. Masses for the
repose of his soul were said in every part of France, as well as by the
command of the empress at Vienna, and the arch-duchess in the Low
Countries. The king imprisoned the unhappy widow in the castle of
Moulins, where she remained eight months reproaching herself with her
husband’s untimely death; but feeling that time elapsed, that there
could be no reason for doubting her, and ashamed of his rigour, he
desired her to choose her place of residence, either within or without
his kingdom; she staid at Moulins. Having purchased a house adjoining
the convent of La Visitation, she there lived an exemplary life during
ten years, her only consolation a portrait of the duke, gazing on which
she spent whole days. Before her marriage she had wished to become a
nun, and the desire now reviving, in her mistaken fervour, she believed
it a duty to part with this which she looked on as a last tie to the
world, and ere she entered the convent she wept over it once more and
then parted from it.
Some time after, the king passing through Moulins, did her the honour
of a visit, and the next day the cardinal sent to offer her his
compliments. In her cell hung with black, the shadow of what she had
been, the duchess received his officer: “Tell your master,” she said,
“that I thank him, but that my tears are still undried!” After his
general’s death, the king’s remorse was awakened; and he confessed that
he repented of many things which had been done during his inauspicious
journey to Languedoc. He once arrived late at Écouen, intending to pass
the night there. It was evening, and the monarch passed slowly along
one of the vast halls on his way to the apartment prepared for him. His
suite followed at a little distance, but rushed to his side when he
uttered a faint cry, and stretched his arm forth in the gloom as if to
put back some one advancing on him.
“What ails you, sire,” they exclaimed as he stood still, and in an
attitude of defence against what appeared to them empty space. “He was
there! I saw Montmorency there,” said the king; “I cannot sleep in this
castle;” and turning precipitately, Louis the Thirteenth left the hall.
Écouen now again, as during the empire, belongs to the Legion of
Honour. As we rode down the hill, the fine view of Paris once more
stretched below us in the sunshine. I had not seen it for some years,
and looked at it now with a strange sensation, pleasant and painful,
for it seemed like home, because so much of early association is
connected with it, and I felt it was not home, because death and
marriage, time and revolution have so severed and scattered all the
links which held me here, that I shall scarcely find a trace of where
they were once riveted.
From Écouen to St. Denis the way seemed wearisome, for we had ridden
fifteen leagues since morning, yet Fanny went prancing into the inn
yard gay as at starting. A disagreeable hotel from its unconquerable
bad air. To-day, 19th July, D—— is gone to Paris in search of
apartments; and I, followed by John, have passed an hour in the
cathedral. The Suisse, I believe, thought his countenance suspicious,
for he was unwilling to lead the way. Near the principal entrance, on
the left hand, is a strange monument, erected by St. Louis to Dagobert.
This church (my authority is the Benedictine who wrote its history) was
founded under singular circumstances. When Clotaire the Second was king
its place was occupied by a small chapel, which had already miraculous
properties, being built over St. Denis’s tomb. A stag, hard pressed,
had one day taken refuge within, and the hounds were unable to follow.
Prince Dagobert witnessed this fact. He soon after incurred his
father’s anger by barbarously ill-treating his governor, and he
repaired to the sanctuary. The royal guards sent to seize him were
invisibly withheld, and the prince fell asleep while they rushed to and
fro, vainly attempting to come nearer. St. Denis appeared to him in a
dream, and desired that he would erect a building in his honour. Become
king he obeyed the saint’s mandate; and when the day for the
consecration of the church came (the 24th February, 636), and a great
crowd assembled to witness it, the people were all forced to retire,
excepting one poor leper, who hid himself in a corner of the chapel.
Night closed in, and of a sudden he beheld a great light shining
through one of the windows, filling the whole church; and continuing to
fix his eyes on the same window, he saw the Saviour enter at it,
followed by St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Rustique and St. Éleuthère, and
also by a great multitude of saints and angels. He consecrated the
church, walked round it, heading the procession, scattered holy water
on the pavement, poured celestial oil on the walls, and at last
perceived the leper: he commanded him to tell faithfully what he had
seen to king and prelate. “Alas!” said the leper, “I cannot approach
them for my rags and my leprosy.”
He had no sooner said this, than he felt the skin of his face gently
lifted, and being cast against the wall it stuck there, and that which
remained in its place was pure as a child’s; and looking at his clothes
he saw he was richly habited: this miracle performed, he watched the
Saviour and the celestial procession issue forth by the same window,
and went and told the king.[1]
More interesting than Dagobert’s tomb, or those of Louis the Twelfth,
and Anne of Brittany, and Henry the Second, and Catherine de Médicis,
with her countenance telling of a life of intrigue, public massacre and
private murder, is the slight marble column, at whose foot are three
weeping angels,—for it was raised by Mary of Scotland to the memory of
her young husband, who died when she had been a wife and queen of
France but one short year. The monument of Francis the First is in the
opposite aisle; the figures of himself and his wife Anne, kneeling on
the top of the stone canopy, under which they are again represented
dead. The alto relievo of the battle of Marignan, which surrounds the
tomb, is very beautiful. On each side of the choir steps lead down to
the crypt, and the Suisse unlocked the iron gate, though still I saw
against his will, and we walked through the avenue of royal tombstones,
wherein kings and queens do not sleep now; since a municipal decree,
proceeding from St. Denis itself, in conformity with the decree of the
Convention, ordered on the 12th of October, 1793, the breaking open of
the monuments for the sake of the lead they might contain, and the
scattering of bones, some of which had lain there near 1500 years.
Curiosity induced the workmen to commence by the grave of Turenne. He
was found in an extraordinary state of preservation, perfectly
resembling the portraits and medals which we possess of him, only that
the skin had darkened. The distortion of feature, caused by his violent
death (by a cannon ball), remained, as the mouth was very wide open. He
was, at the suggestion of some present, confided to one “Host,” keeper
of the cathedral, and by him placed in an oaken case with a glass
cover, and for eight months exhibited in the vestry. The vault of the
Bourbons and the tomb of Henry the Fourth were next opened, and the
body found so perfect, that the features had undergone no change. He
also was exhibited during the two following days, and then borne to the
churchyard, called De Valois, where he was buried in a grave dug at its
extremity, on the right hand and north side. A soldier present at the
time rushed towards the corpse, and with his sabre cut from it a lock
of the long beard, exclaiming, that “He too was a Frenchman,” and
henceforth would wear no other mustachio; and holding the lock on his
upper lip, and saying he was sure of conquering any enemy of France,
went away.
The remainder of the bodies, some in a state of putrefaction, which
during this unnatural work produced malignant fever, others, reduced to
skeletons or ashes, were dragged from their coffins, and flung by
torchlight into one wide grave. The Suisse pointed out the side door
near Mary Stuart’s funeral column, as that through which they were
carried. The monuments in the crypt are ranged in chronological order:
among the most ancient, those of the royal fury Frédégonde and her
daughter-in-law Brunehaude, who died torn by wild horses. The vaults
are but half under ground, and a dreary daylight enters, falling on the
figures stretched on the tombs, for those only of the earliest period
are mere outlines. The rest are dressed in the costume of their time,
with hands crossed and raised, and the dog or lion couched at the feet.
“Here,” said the Suisse, stopping before one of the Capetian race, and
pointing to the very prominent nose which had been broken from his face
and lay there yet uncemented, “is the token of the last English visit.
A gentleman came, conversed with me, walked by my side, and when he
thought me not attending to his movements, wrenched off this nose. I
seized it in his hand in his coat pocket; he said he had broken it by
mistake, and pocketed it in absence of mind. “Mon pauvre nez, que je
n’ai pas encore restitué,” said the Suisse in indignation. I understood
at last why he had an objection to showing the church, and
tranquillized him by making John walk on before. Here were laid Clovis,
the first Christian king, and his wife, Bertha, who converted him; King
John after his ill-fortune at Poitiers; his excursion on his white
horse through the streets of London, beside his conqueror, on his pony;
his visit to his own kingdom, and voluntary return to captivity to die.
We wished to enter the vault where the Bourbons are interred, but this
the Suisse said was impossible, as he had not the keys, and even Mons.
Thiers had been denied admittance some days before. The last buried was
Louis the Eighteenth, whose chapelle ardente I saw here when I was a
child, and with its splendid sarcophagus, purple velvet hangings, and
thousand lights, and the silent crowd pressing to see, was a scene of
melancholy brilliancy. The “chapelle ardente” occupied the whole of the
nave, inclosed by the hangings, and terminated by a burning cross.
The “caveau,” which holds the last Condé, is totally dark, excepting
where the lamp, which burns so feebly in its bad air, just shows the
damp-decaying pall hanging in ribands. The lapse of centuries robs in
some measure of its sadness the long range of monuments we passed
before; but it is not so as we look through the iron gate at these
dimly-seen coffins.
We think of the ditch of Vincennes and the bed-room of St. Leu!
It was in the now-closed vault of the Bourbons that Henry the Fourth
lay. One anecdote more I must tell you, as it proves the respect
entertained for his memory. It is told by Le Noir, the antiquarian:—
“The day following that of the allied armies’ entrance into Paris, a
Russian general, accompanied by a detachment of cavalry, presented
himself at eight in the morning at the museum of the Petits Augustins.
He said he had heard in Russia of the collection I had formed, and as a
lover of the arts it was the first place he desired to visit in Paris.
I opened the gates to him, and he and his soldiers dismounted. Arrived
in the hall of the sixteenth century, a statue in white marble absorbed
his attention. I said to him, ‘It is the statue of Henry the Fourth.’
He repeated my words in Russian to his companions, and all, uncovering
their heads, kneeled on one knee to do homage to the dead king of
France.”
In January, 1815, the remains of Louis the Sixteenth and Marie
Antoinette were transferred to the vault of the Bourbons. In 1817, all
the noble or royal remains cast forth from the violated tombs were once
more deposited within them in presence of the chancellor, the necessary
authorities and witnesses, a company of the gardes du corps and the
clergy of St. Denis. Immense crowds flocked thither, by a bright
moonlight which shone on the old towers, making the numberless torches
which flashed on the walls almost useless; the broken and mingled bones
were returned to their first place of repose, after a twenty-four
years’ exile.
The Cathedral of St. Denis will shortly be in complete repair, though
it was ravaged in the revolution, and roofless during twelve years;
though it was several times offered for sale without finding a
purchaser; and its destruction had been commanded, when Petit Radel,
architecte des domaines, proposed, with a view to preserve it, that it
should be left as it stood then, with uncovered walls, and rain, or
snow, falling in its aisles, and serve as a kind of market-house in the
fairs which occur frequently during the year!
Paris, and in our old apartment, 20th of July.
Unforeseen circumstances have postponed till next spring our ride to
Italy, when I will continue these notes for you, and we shall go as
heretofore, except that John will no longer be of the party; his
disposition has become so warlike that we intend sending him back to
Ireland.
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Footnote 1:
History of the Abbey of St. Denis, by Doublet.