brother’s friends, and that he is, besides, a busy, meddling kind of man,
who is sorry to find a reconciliation has taken place with us; and, as to
my brother, I will answer for him with my life in case he goes hence, of
which, if he had any design, I should, as I am well assured, not be
ignorant, he never having yet concealed anything he meant to do from me.”
All this was said by me with the assurance that, after my brother’s
escape, they would not dare to do me any injury; and in case of the
worst, and when we should be discovered, I had much rather pledge my life
than hazard my soul by a false declaration, and endanger my brother’s
life. Without scrutinising the import of my speech, she replied:
“Remember what you now say,--you will be bound for him on the penalty of
your life.”
I smiled and answered that such was my intention. Then, wishing her a
good night, I retired to my own bedchamber, where, undressing myself in
haste and getting into bed, in order to dismiss the ladies and maids of
honour, and there then remaining only my chamber-women, my brother came
in, accompanied by Simier and Cange. Rising from my bed, we made the
cord fast, and having looked out, at the window to discover if any one
was in the ditch, with the assistance of three of my women, who slept in
my room, and the lad who had brought in the rope, we let down my brother,
who laughed and joked upon the occasion without the least apprehension,
notwithstanding the height was considerable. We next lowered Simier into
the ditch, who was in such a fright that he had scarcely strength to hold
the rope fast; and lastly descended my brother’s valet de chambre, Cange.
Through God’s providence my brother got off undiscovered, and going to
Ste. Genevieve, he found Bussi waiting there for him. By consent of the
abbot, a hole had been made in the city wall, through which they passed,
and horses being provided and in waiting, they mounted, and reached
Angers without the least accident.
Whilst we were lowering down Cange, who, as I mentioned before, was the
last, we observed a man rising out of the ditch, who ran towards the
lodge adjoining to the tennis-court, in the direct way leading to the
guard-house. I had no apprehensions on my own account, all my fears
being absorbed by those I entertained for my brother; and now I was
almost dead with alarm, supposing this might be a spy placed there by M.
de Matignon, and that my brother would be taken. Whilst I was in this
cruel state of anxiety, which can be judged of only by those who have
experienced a similar situation, my women took a precaution for my safety
and their own, which did not suggest itself to me. This was to burn the
rope, that it might not appear to our conviction in case the man in
question had been placed there to watch us. This rope occasioned so
great a flame in burning, that it set fire to the chimney, which, being
seen from without, alarmed the guard, who ran to us, knocking violently
at the door, calling for it to be opened.
I now concluded that my brother was stopped, and that we were both
undone. However, as, by the blessing of God and through his divine mercy
alone, I have, amidst every danger with which I have been repeatedly
surrounded, constantly preserved a presence of mind which directed what
was best to be done, and observing that the rope was not more than half
consumed, I told my women to go to the door, and speaking softly, as if I
was asleep, to ask the men what they wanted. They did so, and the
archers replied that the chimney was on fire, and they came to extinguish
it. My women answered it was of no consequence, and they could put it
out themselves, begging them not to awake me. This alarm thus passed off
quietly, and they went away; but, in two hours afterward, M. de Cosse
came for me to go to the King and the Queen, my mother, to give an
account of my brother’s escape, of which they had received intelligence
by the Abbot of Ste. Genevieve.
It seems it had been concerted betwixt my brother and the abbot, in order
to prevent the latter from falling under disgrace, that, when my brother
might be supposed to have reached a sufficient distance, the abbot should
go to Court, and say that he had been put into confinement whilst the
hole was being made, and that he came to inform the King as soon as he
had released himself.
I was in bed, for it was yet night; and rising hastily, I put on my
night-clothes. One of my women was indiscreet enough to hold me round
the waist, and exclaim aloud, shedding a flood of tears, that she should
never see me more. M. de Cosse, pushing her away, said to me: “If I were
not a person thoroughly devoted to your service, this woman has said
enough to bring you into trouble. But,” continued he, “fear nothing. God
be praised, by this time the Prince your brother is out of danger.”
These words were very necessary, in the present state of my mind, to
fortify it against the reproaches and threats I had reason to expect from
the King. I found him sitting at the foot of the Queen my mother’s bed,
in such a violent rage that I am inclined to believe I should have felt
the effects of it, had he not been restrained by the absence of my
brother and my mother’s presence. They both told me that I had assured
them my brother would not leave the Court, and that I pledged myself for
his stay. I replied that it was true that he had deceived me, as he had
them; however, I was ready still to pledge my life that his departure
would not operate to the prejudice of the King’s service, and that it
would appear he was only gone to his own principality to give orders and
forward his expedition to Flanders.
The King appeared to be somewhat mollified by this declaration, and now
gave me permission to return to my own apartments. Soon afterwards he
received letters from my brother, containing assurances of his
attachment, in the terms I had before expressed. This caused a cessation
of complaints, but by no means removed the King’s dissatisfaction, who
made a show of affording assistance to his expedition, but was secretly
using every means to frustrate and defeat it.
LETTER XX.
Queen Marguerite Permitted to Go to the King Her Husband.--Is Accompanied
by the Queenmother.--Marguerite Insulted by Her Husband’s Secretary.--She
Harbours Jealousy.--Her Attention to the King Her Husband during an
Indisposition.--Their Reconciliation.--The War Breaks Out
Afresh.--Affront Received from Marechal de Biron.
I now renewed my application for leave to go to the King my husband,
which I continued to press on every opportunity. The King, perceiving
that he could not refuse my leave any longer, was willing I should depart
satisfied. He had this further view in complying with my wishes, that by
this means he should withdraw me from my attachment to my brother. He
therefore strove to oblige me in every way he could think of, and, to
fulfil the promise made by the Queen my mother at the Peace of Sens, he
gave me an assignment of my portion in territory, with the power of
nomination to all vacant benefices and all offices; and, over and above
the customary pension to the daughters of France, he gave another out of
his privy purse.
He daily paid me a visit in my apartment, in which he took occasion to
represent to me how useful his friendship would be to me; whereas that of
my brother could be only injurious,--with arguments of the like kind.
However, all he could say was insufficient to prevail on me to swerve
from the fidelity I had vowed to observe to my brother. The King was
able to draw from me no other declaration than this: that it ever was,
and should be, my earnest wish to see my brother firmly established in
his gracious favour, which he had never appeared to me to have forfeited;
that I was well assured he would exert himself to the utmost to regain it
by every act of duty and meritorious service; that, with respect to
myself, I thought I was so much obliged to him for the great honour he
did me by repeated acts of generosity, that he might be assured, when I
was with the King my husband I should consider myself bound in duty to
obey all such commands as he should be pleased to give me; and that it
would be my whole study to maintain the King my husband in a submission
to his pleasure.
My brother was now on the point of leaving Alencon to go to Flanders; the
Queen my mother was desirous to see him before his departure. I begged
the King to permit me to take the opportunity of accompanying her to take
leave of my brother, which he granted; but, as it seemed, with great
unwillingness. When we returned from Alencon, I solicited the King to
permit me to take leave of himself, as I had everything prepared for my
journey. The Queen my mother being desirous to go to Gascony, where her
presence was necessary for the King’s service, was unwilling that I
should depart without her. When we left Paris, the King accompanied us
on the way as far as his palace of Dolinville. There we stayed with him
a few days, and there we took our leave, and in a little time reached
Guienne, which belonging to, and being under the government of the King
my husband, I was everywhere received as Queen. My husband gave the
Queen my mother a meeting at Wolle, which was held by the Huguenots as a
cautionary town; and the country not being sufficiently quieted, she was
permitted to go no further.
It was the intention of the Queen my mother to make but a short stay; but
so many accidents arose from disputes betwixt the Huguenots and
Catholics, that she was under the necessity of stopping there eighteen
months. As this was very much against her inclination, she was sometimes
inclined to think there was a design to keep her, in order to have the
company of her maids of honour. For my husband had been greatly smitten
with Dayelle, and M. de Thurene was in love with La Vergne. However, I
received every mark of honour and attention from the King that I could
expect or desire. He related to me, as soon as we met, the artifices
which had been put in practice whilst he remained at Court to create a
misunderstanding betwixt him and me; all this, he said, he knew was with
a design to cause a rupture betwixt my brother and him, and thereby ruin
us all three, as there was an exceeding great jealousy entertained of the
friendship which existed betwixt us.
We remained in the disagreeable situation I have before described all the
time the Queen my mother stayed in Gascony; but, as soon as she could
reestablish peace, she, by desire of the King my husband, removed the
King’s lieutenant, the Marquis de Villars, putting in his place the
Marechal de Biron. She then departed for Languedoc, and we conducted her
to Castelnaudary; where, taking our leave, we returned to Pau, in Bearn;
in which place, the Catholic religion not being tolerated, I was only
allowed to have mass celebrated in a chapel of about three or four feet
in length, and so narrow that it could scarcely hold seven or eight
persons. During the celebration of mass, the bridge of the castle was
drawn up to prevent the Catholics of the town and country from coming to
assist at it; who having been, for some years, deprived of the benefit of
following their own mode of worship, would have gladly been present.
Actuated by so holy and laudable a desire, some of the inhabitants of
Pau, on Whitsunday, found means to get into the castle before the bridge
was drawn up, and were present at the celebration of mass, not being
discovered until it was nearly over. At length the Huguenots espied
them, and ran to acquaint Le Pin, secretary to the King my husband, who
was greatly in his favour, and who conducted the whole business relating
to the new religion. Upon receiving this intelligence, Le Pin ordered
the guard to arrest these poor people, who were severely beaten in my
presence, and afterwards locked up in prison, whence they were not
released without paying a considerable fine.
This indignity gave me great offence, as I never expected anything of the
kind. Accordingly, I complained of it to the King my husband, begging
him to give orders for the release of these poor Catholics, who did not
deserve to be punished for coming to my chapel to hear mass, a
celebration of which they had been so long deprived of the benefit. Le
Pin, with the greatest disrespect to his master, took upon him to reply,
without waiting to hear what the King had to say. He told me that I
ought not to trouble the King my husband about such matters; that what
had been done was very right and proper; that those people had justly
merited the treatment they met with, and all I could say would go for
nothing, for it must be so; and that I ought to rest satisfied with being
permitted to have mass said to me and my servants. This insolent speech
from a person of his inferior condition incensed me greatly, and I
entreated the King my husband, if I had the least share in his good
graces, to do me justice, and avenge the insult offered me by this low
man.
The King my husband, perceiving that I was offended, as I had reason to
be, with this gross indignity, ordered Le Pin to quit our presence
immediately; and, expressing his concern at his secretary’s behaviour,
who, he said, was overzealous in the cause of religion, he promised that
he would make an example of him. As to the Catholic prisoners, he said
he would advise with his parliament what ought to be done for my
satisfaction.
Having said this, he went to his closet, where he found Le Pin, who, by
dint of persuasion, made him change his resolution; insomuch that,
fearing I should insist upon his dismissing his secretary, he avoided
meeting me. At last, finding that I was firmly resolved to leave him,
unless he dismissed Le Pin, he took advice of some persons, who, having
themselves a dislike to the secretary, represented that he ought not to
give me cause of displeasure for the sake of a man of his small
importance,--especially one who, like him, had given me just reason to be
offended; that, when it became known to the King my brother and the Queen
my mother, they would certainly take it ill that he had not only not
resented it, but, on the contrary, still kept him near his person.
This counsel prevailed with him, and he at length discarded his
secretary. The King, however, continued to behave to me with great
coolness, being influenced, as he afterwards confessed, by the counsel of
M. de Pibrac, who acted the part of a double dealer, telling me that I
ought not to pardon an affront offered by such a mean fellow, but insist
upon his being dismissed; whilst he persuaded the King my husband that
there was no reason for parting with a man so useful to him, for such a
trivial cause. This was done by M. de Pibrac, thinking I might be
induced, from such mortifications, to return to France, where he enjoyed
the offices of president and King’s counsellor.
I now met with a fresh cause for disquietude in my present situation,
for, Dayelle being gone, the King my husband placed his affections on
Rebours. She was an artful young person, and had no regard for me;
accordingly, she did me all the ill offices in her power with him. In the
midst of these trials, I put my trust in God, and he, moved with pity by
my tears, gave permission for our leaving Pau, that “little Geneva;” and,
fortunately for me, Rebours was taken ill and stayed behind. The King my
husband no sooner lost sight of her than he forgot her; he now turned his
eyes and attention towards Fosseuse. She was much handsomer than the
other, and was at that time young, and really a very amiable person.
Pursuing the road to Montauban, we stopped at a little town called Eause,
where, in the night, the King my husband was attacked with a high fever,
accompanied with most violent pains in his head. This fever lasted for
seventeen days, during which time he had no rest night or day, but was
continually removed from one bed to another. I nursed him the whole
time, never stirring from his bedside, and never putting off my clothes.
He took notice of my extraordinary tenderness, and spoke of it to several
persons, and particularly to my cousin M-----, who, acting the part of an
affectionate relation, restored me to his favour, insomuch that I never
stood so highly in it before. This happiness I had the good fortune to
enjoy during the four or five years that I remained with him in Gascony.
Our residence, for the most part of the time I have mentioned, was at
Nerac, where our Court was so brilliant that we had no cause to regret
our absence from the Court of France. We had with us the Princesse de
Navarre, my husband’s sister, since married to the Duc de Bar; there were
besides a number of ladies belonging to myself. The King my husband was
attended by a numerous body of lords and gentlemen, all as gallant
persons as I have seen in any Court; and we had only to lament that they
were Huguenots. This difference of religion, however, caused no dispute
among us; the King my husband and the Princess his sister heard a sermon,
whilst I and my servants heard mass. I had a chapel in the park for the
purpose, and, as soon as the service of both religions was over, we
joined company in a beautiful garden, ornamented with long walks shaded
with laurel and cypress trees. Sometimes we took a walk in the park on
the banks of the river, bordered by an avenue of trees three thousand
yards in length. The rest of the day was passed in innocent amusements;
and in the afternoon, or at night, we commonly had a ball.
The King was very assiduous with Fosseuse, who, being dependent on me,
kept herself within the strict bounds of honour and virtue. Had she
always done so, she had not brought upon herself a misfortune which has
proved of such fatal consequence to myself as well as to her.
But our happiness was too great to be of long continuance, and fresh
troubles broke out betwixt the King my husband and the Catholics, and
gave rise to a new war. The King my husband and the Marechal de Biron,
who was the King’s lieutenant in Guienne, had a difference, which was
aggravated by the Huguenots. This breach became in a short time so wide
that all my efforts to close it were useless. They made their separate
complaints to the King. The King my husband insisted on the removal of
the Marechal de Biron, and the Marshal charged the King my husband, and
the rest of those who were of the pretended reformed religion, with
designs contrary to peace. I saw, with great concern, that affairs were
likely soon to come to an open rupture; and I had no power to prevent it.
The Marshal advised the King to come to Guienne himself, saying that in
his presence matters might be settled. The Huguenots, hearing of this
proposal, supposed the King would take possession of their towns, and,
thereupon, came to a resolution to take up arms. This was what I feared;
I was become a sharer in the King my husband’s fortune, and was now to be
in opposition to the King my brother and the religion I had been bred up
in. I gave my opinion upon this war to the King my husband and his
Council, and strove to dissuade them from engaging in it. I represented
to them the hazards of carrying on a war when they were to be opposed
against so able a general as the Marechal de Biron, who would not spare
them, as other generals had done, he being their private enemy. I begged
them to consider that, if the King brought his whole force against them,
with intention to exterminate their religion, it would not be in their
power to oppose or prevent it. But they were so headstrong, and so
blinded with the hope of succeeding in the surprise of certain towns in
Languedoc and Gascony, that, though the King did me the honour, upon all
occasions, to listen to my advice, as did most of the Huguenots, yet I
could not prevail on them to follow it in the present situation of
affairs, until it was too late, and after they had found, to their cost,
that my counsel was good. The torrent was now burst forth, and there was
no possibility of stopping its course until it had spent its utmost
strength.
Before that period arrived, foreseeing the consequences, I had often
written to the King and the Queen my mother, to offer something to the
King my husband by way of accommodating matters. But they were bent
against it, and seemed to be pleased that matters had taken such a turn,
being assured by Marechal de Biron that he had it in his power to crush
the Huguenots whenever he pleased. In this crisis my advice was not
attended to, the dissensions increased, and recourse was had to arms.
The Huguenots had reckoned upon a force more considerable than they were
able to collect together, and the King my husband found himself
outnumbered by Marechal de Biron. In consequence, those of the pretended
reformed religion failed in all their plans, except their attack upon
Cahors, which they took with petards, after having lost a great number of
men, M. de Vezins, who commanded in the town, disputing their entrance
for two or three days, from street to street, and even from house to
house. The King my husband displayed great valour and conduct upon the
occasion, and showed himself to be a gallant and brave general. Though
the Huguenots succeeded in this attempt, their loss was so great that
they gained nothing from it. Marechal de Biron kept the field, and took
every place that declared for the Huguenots, putting all that opposed him
to the sword.
From the commencement of this war, the King my husband doing me the
honour to love me, and commanding me not to leave him, I had resolved to
share his fortune, not without extreme regret, in observing that this war
was of such a nature that I could not, in conscience, wish success to
either side; for if the Huguenots got the upper hand, the religion which
I cherished as much as my life was lost, and if the Catholics prevailed,
the King my husband was undone. But, being thus attached to my husband,
by the duty I owed him, and obliged by the attentions he was pleased to
show me, I could only acquaint the King and the Queen my mother with the
situation to which I was reduced, occasioned by my advice to them not
having been attended to. I, therefore, prayed them, if they could not
extinguish the flames of war in the midst of which I was placed, at least
to give orders to Marechal de Biron to consider the town I resided in,
and three leagues round it, as neutral ground, and that I would get the
King my husband to do the same. This the King granted me for Nerac,
provided my husband was not there; but if he should enter it, the
neutrality was to cease, and so to remain as long as he continued there.
This convention was observed, on both sides, with all the exactness I
could desire. However, the King my husband was not to be prevented from
often visiting Nerac, which was the residence of his sister and me. He
was fond of the society of ladies, and, moreover, was at that time
greatly enamoured with Fosseuse, who held the place in his affections
which Rebours had lately occupied. Fosseuse did me no ill offices, so
that the King my husband and I continued to live on very good terms,
especially as he perceived me unwilling to oppose his inclinations.
Led by such inducements, he came to Nerac, once, with a body of troops,
and stayed three days, not being able to leave the agreeable company he
found there. Marechal de Biron, who wished for nothing so much as such
an opportunity, was apprised of it, and, under pretence of joining M. de
Cornusson, the seneschal of Toulouse, who was expected with a
reinforcement for his army, he began his march; but, instead of pursuing
the road, according to the orders he had issued, he suddenly ordered his
troops to file off towards Nerac, and, before nine in the morning, his
whole force was drawn up within sight of the town, and within cannon-shot
of it.