Visit of the Bassompierre family to Paris--François dances in a
ballet before Henri IV at Monceaux--He is presented to the King,
who receives him very graciously--He decides to enter the service
of Henri IV--He escorts his Majesty’s mistress, Gabrielle
d’Estrées, Duchesse de Beaufort, to Paris--Sudden illness and death
of the duchess--Extravagant grief of Henri IV, who, however, soon
finds consolation in the society of Henriette d’Entragues--Affray
between the Prince de Joinville and the Grand Equerry Bellegarde at
Zamet’s house, where the King is staying--Visit of Bassompierre to
Lorraine--He returns to Paris.
In September, 1598, the Archduke Albert, son of the Emperor Maximilian
II, passed through Lorraine on his way to Italy, there to take ship for
Spain to marry the Infanta Clara Eugenia, Philip II’s daughter, by
Élisabeth of France, and become through her the sovereign of the
Netherlands.[9] The Comte de Vaudemont, younger son of Charles III of
Lorraine, went to meet the archduke at Vaudrevange, and invited the
brothers Bassompierre to accompany him. They were duly presented to the
prince, who received them very cordially and “told them their name was
very dear to all his House.”
On their return from this little journey, the whole Bassompierre family
began to prepare for a visit to France, Madame de Bassompierre, like a
loyal Frenchwoman, being anxious that her sons should be presented to
Henri IV, in the hope that they might decide to enter his service. She
was, however, at pains to conceal the real object of her journey from
the Count von Mansfeld,[10] whom her late husband had associated with
her in the guardianship of his children, and whose consent was required
before they could leave Lorraine.
“The Count von Mansfeld,” writes Bassompierre, “gave his consent
very unwillingly, because he wished us to enter the service of the
Catholic King [Philip III of Spain]; and it was only on condition
that, after we had been some time at the Court of France and in
Normandy (where my mother made him believe that we had some
business affairs to transact), we should proceed from there to the
Court of Spain, and should not commit ourselves until our return
from both. He made us promise further that, when we wished to make
our choice, we should follow the advice that might be given us in
the matter by our principal friends and relatives.”
At the beginning of October, the Bassompierres left Harouel and on the
12th of that month arrived in Paris, where they took up their quarters
at the Hôtel de Montlor, in the Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre.
Henri IV was then lying ill at the Château of Monceaux, near Meaux,
which he had presented to his beloved Gabrielle d’Estrées, Duchesse de
Beaufort, in 1595, and reported to be in considerable danger. The only
courtier of Madame de Bassompierre’s acquaintance who was with him at
the time was Gaspard de Schomberg, father of the marshal, to whom she
wrote to inquire when her sons could be presented to his Majesty.
Schomberg replied that it was impossible to think of such matters as
presentations in the condition the King was in, and advised her to
remain in Paris until Henri IV was sufficiently recovered to return to
the capital. This she decided to do, and meantime sent her sons to pay
their court to Catherine de Bourbon, the King’s sister, who was about to
marry the Duke of Bar, eldest son of Charles III of Lorraine. The
princess was very gracious to the young men, and, says Bassompierre,
“had the intention of marrying me to Mlle. Catherine de Rohan,[11] in
order to keep her near her when she went to Lorraine, but I had at that
time no inclination towards marriage.”
Several of Madame de Bassompierre’s relatives and friends of her late
husband came to visit the Bassompierres at the Hôtel de Montlor, amongst
them being Charles de Balsac, Seigneur de Dunes--“_le bel_
Entraguet”--the hero of the famous Duel of the Mignons; Jacques de
Harlay, Seigneur de Chanvallon, a former lover of Marguerite de Valois,
Queen of Navarre; Charles de Cossé, Maréchal de Brissac, and the Comte
(afterwards) Duc de Gramont. One day, when Henri IV’s health was
beginning to mend, the Duc de Bellegarde, First Gentleman of the Chamber
and Grand Equerry to the King--_Monsieur le Grand_, as he was commonly
styled--arrived in Paris on a short visit, and Gramont presented
François de Bassompierre to him. Bellegarde received the lad very
cordially, and pressed him to dine with him, saying that he had invited
some of the most brilliant gentlemen of the Court. During dinner a
suggestion was made to organise a ballet to amuse their convalescent
sovereign and to go to Monceaux to dance it, and was received with
acclamation.
“They said,” continues Bassompierre, “that I must be one of the
party, but, thought I declared that I should be most delighted, I
added that it appeared to me that, as I had not yet been presented
to the King, I ought not to take part in the ballet. M. de
Joinville[12] then said: ‘That need not stand in your way; for we
shall arrive at Monceaux early in the day, when you can be
presented to the King, and in the evening we shall dance the
ballet.’ So I learned it with the others, who were MM.
d’Auvergne,[13] de Sommerive, _le Grand_,[14] de Gramont, de
Termes,[15] the young Schomberg,[16] Saint-Luc, Pompignan,
Messillac and Maugiron, whose names I have decided to set down,
since they represented a select band of persons so handsome and so
well-made that it was impossible to find their superiors. At my
suggestion, they made up as barbers, in order to poke fun at the
King, who had placed himself in the hands of persons of that trade
for the cure of a wart which he had.”
After this aristocratic troupe had rehearsed the ballet to their
satisfaction, they set out for Monceaux, but were met on the way by a
messenger from the King, who expressed his regret that he was unable to
lodge them at the château, where at that time there was but little
accommodation, and desired them to stop at Meaux, to which he would send
coaches that evening to bring them and their “props” to Meaux.
Bassompierre was thus disappointed in his expectation of being presented
to the King before the ballet. However, it was decided that he should
take part in it all the same.
The party accordingly proceeded to Meaux, where they dressed for the
ballet, and then bestowed themselves, with their pages, the musicians,
and all their paraphernalia in six of the royal coaches, and set off for
Monceaux, where they danced their ballet, which appears to have caused
the good-natured monarch, who took the jest at his expense in excellent
part, much amusement.
“After which,” says Bassompierre, “as we were removing our masks,
the King rose and came amongst us, and inquired where Bassompierre
was. Then all the princes and nobles presented me to him to embrace
his knees; and he received me most affectionately, and I should
never have believed that so great a King would have shown so much
kindness and familiarity towards a young man of my condition.
Afterwards, he took me by the hand and presented me to the
Duchesse de Beaufort, his mistress, whose gown I kissed; and the
King, in order to give me the opportunity of saluting and kissing
her, stepped aside.”
Humility was certainly not a fault of this young gentleman from
Lorraine, who had a nice appreciation of his own attractions. And he
proceeds to relate with complacency how, a few days later, they danced
again the same ballet at the Tuileries, for the diversion of Catherine
de Bourbon and Gabrielle d’Estrées, who, by permission of her royal
lover, had come to Paris expressly to witness it again, and that “when
the twenty-four men and women came forward to perform the dances, all
the spectators were delighted to behold a selection of such handsome
persons. So that, when the dances were over, they insisted on their
being performed again, an incident which I have never seen happen
since.”
Undoubtedly, if we are to judge from his portraits, which belong,
however, to the time of Louis XIII, that is to say, to a period when he
had already passed the brilliant years of his youth, Bassompierre may be
pardoned his satisfaction at his personal appearance. These depict him
as of middle height and very well made, though his figure is a little
inclined to _embonpoint_. The face is of an almost perfect oval, framed
in long blond curls which descend to the richly-embroidered lace which
covers his shoulders. The nose, which sinks a little in joining the
forehead, dominates two small moustaches, separated above the mouth and
ending in carefully-pomaded points. A “_royale_”--or, as it has been
called since the time of the Second Empire, an “_impériale_”--extends
from immediately under the lower lip to the extremity of the chin, and
imparts to the whole physiognomy that intelligent expression which is to
be observed in all the portraits of the time of Louis XIII. However, if
Bassompierre had arranged his beard in quite a different manner, his
features would not have been less intelligent or less pleasing; his
agreeable smile and bright brown eyes would have always sufficed to
animate his countenance and to denote a man made for successes of all
kinds.
In December, Henri IV, being sufficiently recovered to leave Monceaux,
removed for change of air to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where he lodged at
the Deanery, as did Gabrielle, and where he had his last natural son by
the duchess--Alexandre de Vendôme, afterwards Grand Prior of
France--baptised.[17] In the evening there was a grand ballet, in which
Bassompierre took part, “dressed as an Indian.”
The Court remained at Saint-Germain until after the marriage of
Catherine de Bourbon with the Duke of Bar, which was celebrated on
January 30, 1599, when it returned to Paris; but at the beginning of
Lent the King set out for Fontainebleau. Bassompierre, however, remained
for a few days longer in Paris, and was the last to bid farewell to that
singular personage the Maréchal de Joyeuse, whom Voltaire has so well
described in these two lines:
“Vicieux, pénitent, courtisan, solitaire,
Il prit, quitta, reprit la cuirasse et la haire,”
before he finally quitted the world for the convent.
“My cousin,” Henri IV had remarked to Joyeuse a little while before, as
they were standing one day on a balcony, beneath which a crowd had
gathered, “those people down there do not appear very well pleased at
seeing an apostate King and an unfrocked monk together.” This pleasantry
struck Joyeuse to the quick and this time he resumed the hair-shirt, not
to put it off again. And as in those days people obeyed their religious
convictions without deeming it necessary to advertise the fact to the
public, Joyeuse, having spent the evening in the midst of the gayest
company in Paris, withdrew to the convent where he had resolved to
spend the remainder of his days, without saying a word of his intention
to anyone.
“After we had supped together at the Hôtel de Retz,” writes
Bassompierre, “at midnight I bade him good night at the
postern-door of his lodging, the threshold of which he merely
crossed, and then repaired to the Capuchins, where he ended his
days piously.”
Bassompierre was by this time firmly established in the good graces of
the King, for whom he had already conceived so warm an admiration and
affection that he had decided to enter his service. We will allow him to
speak himself on this occasion, inasmuch as he does so with a
sensibility and gratitude very unusual with him, and which one does not
find in his _Mémoires_, except when Henri IV is in question:
“Two days later I went to Fontainebleau, and, one day, as someone
had told the King that I had some beautiful Portuguese pieces and
other gold coins, he asked me if I would play for them against his
mistress. On my agreeing to do this, he made me stay and play with
her while he was at the chase, and in the evening he played too.
This put me on terms of great familiarity with the King and the
duchess, and when we were talking one day about the reason which
led me to come to France, I told him [the King] frankly that I did
not come with any intention of engaging in his service, but merely
to pass some time there, and then to do the same at the Court of
Spain, before I came to any determination as to the conduct of my
future life; but that he had so charmed me, that, if he would
accept my service, I would go no further to seek a master, but
would devote myself to him until death. He embraced me and assured
me that I should not find a better master than he would be to me,
or one who would love me more or contribute more to my fortune or
advancement. This was on a Tuesday, March 12 [1599]. Henceforth, I
looked upon myself as a Frenchman; and I can say that, from that
time, I experienced from him so much kindness, so much affability,
and such proofs of good-will, that his memory will be deeply graven
in my heart during the remainder of my days.”
On the approach of Holy Week, Bassompierre requested the King’s
permission to go to Paris to perform his Easter devotions, when Henri IV
informed him that he should go with him on the Tuesday to Melun, whither
he proposed to escort the Duchesse de Beaufort, who also wished to
perform her devotions in the capital, and next day continue his journey
to Paris.
We must here explain that it had been for some months generally known
that the Very Christian King, notwithstanding the strenuous opposition
of his great Minister Sully and his faithful adviser Duplessis-Mornay,
fully intended to marry his Gabrielle, as soon as he could obtain the
dissolution of his marriage with Marguerite de Valois. Such a resolution
aroused universal alarm. The duchess had many friends and few enemies,
but not even her most devoted partisans could maintain that her birth
and previous life fitted her to be the Queen of France, while it was
obvious that the claims of her legitimated sons, and of those who might
be born in wedlock, would add another element of discord to those
already existing. After considerable difficulty, on February 7, 1599,
Marguerite, who had declared that it was “repugnant to her to put in her
place a woman of such low extraction, and of so impure a life as the one
about whom rumour speaks,”[18] was at length persuaded to sign the
necessary procuration, which Henri IV lost no time in sending to Rome.
But Clement VIII disapproved of his Majesty’s choice, less probably on
account of Gabrielle’s obvious unsuitability to share a throne than
because she was the intimate friend of Catherine de Bourbon, Duchess of
Bar, and Louise de Coligny, Princess of Orange. These two ladies were
amongst the most stubborn heretics in Europe, and his Holiness did not
doubt that, urged by them, Gabrielle would use all her influence with
the King in favour of their co-religionists. He, therefore, refused to
dissolve the marriage, sheltering himself behind the difficulties
regarding the succession in which the new union which the King was
contemplating would involve France. This paternal solicitude for his
kingdom did not deceive Henri IV, who, impatient at the delay,
instructed his representative at the Vatican to hint that, if the Holy
Father continued contumacious, the eldest son of the Church might be
tempted to behave in an exceedingly unfilial manner, and follow the
example of his last namesake on the throne of England. Whether, with
this threat hanging over him, Clement would eventually have yielded is a
matter of opinion; but an unexpected event came to relieve the tension.
Bassompierre duly accompanied the King and the duchess to Melun,
Gabrielle, who was in an advanced state of pregnancy, being carried in a
litter. At supper Henri IV said to him: “Bassompierre, my mistress
wishes to take you with her in her barge to-morrow to Paris. You will
play cards together by the way.” That night they slept at Savigny, about
midway between Fontainebleau and the capital, and the following morning
(April 6) the King accompanied the duchess to the bank of the Seine,
where her barge was awaiting her, in which she embarked with
Bassompierre, the Duc de Montbazon, Captain of the Guards, the Marquis
de la Varenne and her waiting-women.
At the moment of parting from her royal lover, Gabrielle broke down and
began to sob bitterly, declaring that she had a presentiment that she
should never see him again. The King, after vainly endeavouring to
console her, was on the point of yielding and taking her back to
Fontainebleau. But, in view of their intended marriage, he attached
great importance to the duchess performing her Easter devotions in the
capital, and, after repeated embraces, he freed himself from her
detaining arms and gave the signal for the barge to start.
About three o’clock in the afternoon, Gabrielle reached Paris, and
disembarked on the quay near the Arsenal, where her brother-in-law, the
Maréchal de Balagny, her brother the Marquis de Cœuvres, Madame de
Retz, and the duchesse and Mlle. de Guise were awaiting her. She rested
for a while at her sister’s house, where a number of distinguished
persons called upon her, and then went to sup at the house of Sebastian
Zamet,--“the lord of the 1,800,000 crowns”--an Italian financier, who
had risen from a very humble position to great wealth and the personal
friendship of Henri IV. After supper she attended the _Tenebræ_ at the
Couvent du Petit Saint-Antoine, then renowned for its fine music. During
the service she was taken ill and was carried to Zamet’s house, where
she recovered sufficiently to go to the apartments of her aunt Madame de
Sourdes, at the Deanery of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, where she always
stayed when paying a short visit to Paris, as she did not make use of
her own house in the Rue Fromenteau, which communicated with the Louvre,
except when the Court happened to be in residence. Next day, though
still feeling far from well, she attended Mass at her parish church,
Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois. She was borne in a litter, by the side of
which walked the Duc de Montbazon, in virtue of his position as Captain
of the Guards, and escorted by archers; while the Lorraine princesses
and a number of ladies of high rank followed in coaches. In the church
she was again taken ill, and, on returning to the deanery, fell into
violent convulsions. On the 9th--Good Friday--she gave birth to a
still-born child, after which the surgeons who attended
[Illustration: GABRIELLE D’ESTRÉES, DUCHESSE DE BEAUFORT.]
her proceeded to bleed the unfortunate woman four times. The consequence
was that poor Gabrielle died the following morning (April 10); the only
wonder is that she did not die before! The public, learning that she had
been taken ill shortly after supping with Zamet, persisted in the belief
that she had been poisoned--Italians bore a sinister reputation in those
days, and, indeed, down to a much later period--but this theory is now
generally discredited.[19]
“On Good Friday,” writes Bassompierre, “while we were at the sermon
on the Passion at Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, La Varenne came to
tell the Maréchal d’Ornano[20] that the duchess had just died,[21]
and that we ought to prevent the King, who was travelling post to
Paris, from coming there; and he begged him to go and meet him, in
order to stop him. I was with the marshal at the sermon, and he
asked me to accompany him, which I did. We met the King beyond La
Saussaye, near Villejuif, travelling at the top speed of his
horses. When he saw the marshal, he suspected that he was the
bearer of bad news, which caused him to weep bitterly. Finally,
they made him alight at the Abbey of La Saussaye, where they laid
him on a bed. He gave vent to every excess of grief which it is
possible to describe. At length, a coach having arrived from Paris,
they placed him in it to return to Fontainebleau, whither all the
princes and nobles had hastened to find him. We went with him to
Fontainebleau, and when he had mounted to the great Salle de la
Cheminée, he begged all the company to return to Paris to pray God
for his consolation. He kept with him _Monsieur le Grand_, the
Comte du Lude, Termes, Castelnau de Charosse, Montglat, and
Frontenac; and, as I was taking my leave with all those whom he had
dismissed, he said to me: ‘Bassompierre, you were the last who was
with my mistress; stay with me to talk to me of her.’ So I remained
also, and we were eight or ten days without the company being
augmented, if one excepts certain of the Ambassadors, who came to
condole with him[22] and then returned to Paris immediately.”
During this time the King remained prostrated with grief. “My
affliction,” he wrote to his sister Catherine, “is incomparable, like
the person who is the cause of it. Regrets and tears will accompany me
to the tomb. The root of my love is dead and will never put forth
another branch.”
But alas! how changeable are the affections of kings! Scarcely two
months had passed[23] before his Majesty had embarked in a new
love-affair, with Henriette d’Entragues, whom he created Marquise de
Verneuil, that ambitious, greedy, intriguing woman, who, later, was to
conspire with the enemies of France against her royal lover. Nor did
this attachment prevent him from seeking amusement in other directions
and honouring with his fugitive attentions, not only divers beauties of
the Court, whose names Bassompierre does not hesitate to hand down to
fame, but even that vulgar class which the chronicler qualifies with a
word so explicit that we dare not repeat it.
The following scene described by Bassompierre is too typical of the life
of Henri IV and his immediate entourage to be omitted. It occurred
during a flying visit to Paris which the King and a few of his
favourites paid in July, 1599, while the Court was in residence at
Blois:--
“The King had no retinue on this journey, and dined with a
president and supped with a prince or noble as the humour took him.
Mlle. d’Entragues was not yet his mistress,[24] and he used
sometimes to pass the night with a pretty wench called la Glaude.
It happened one evening that, after he had been supping with M.
d’Elbeuf[25], the King came to pass the night with this girl at
Zamet’s house, and when, after we had undressed him, we were about
to enter the King’s coach, which was to take us back to our
lodging, M. de Joinville and _Monsieur le Grand_ quarrelled,
touching something which the former pretended that _Monsieur le
Grand_ had told the King about him and Mlle. d’Entragues.[26] In
consequence, _Monsieur le Grand_ was wounded in the buttock, the
Vidame de Mans received a thrust through the body, and La Rivière
one in the stomach. After M. de Praslin had caused the doors of
the house to be shut, and M. de Chevreuse [Joinville] had taken his
departure, they asked me to go to the King and tell him what had
occurred. The King rose, put on his dressing-gown and, taking up
his sword, came on to the stairs, where the others were standing,
while I preceded him, carrying a taper. He was intensely annoyed,
and sent the same night to the First President[27] to command him
to come to him on the morrow with the Court of the Parlement, when
he directed them to investigate the affair and to show no favour to
anyone. This they did, and proceeded to summon before them the
Comte de Cramail, Chasseron, and myself to give evidence. And the
King bade us go and answer the questions which the commissioners
might put to us, which we did; and proceedings were instituted
against the offender. But, by reason of the pressing entreaties
which Monsieur, Madame, and Mlle. de Guise[28] addressed to the
King, the affair went no further, and two months later the
Constable[29] brought about a reconciliation at Conflans.”
In November, Bassompierre obtained permission from the King to go to
Lorraine, to persuade Charles IV to free him from the security which his
late father had given for some 50,000 crowns which the duke had borrowed
at the time of the marriage of his elder daughter to the Grand Duke of
Tuscany, an obligation which had been causing him considerable
uneasiness. In Lorraine he remained for some six weeks, “more for the
love which I bore Mlle. de Bourbonne[30] than for the other affair.”
Early in the New Year he returned to Paris, where the charms of Mlle. de
Bourbonne were soon forgotten for those of a lady whom he calls la
Raverie and who was presumably a star of the _demi-monde_. The courtiers
of Henri IV were, however, quite capable of losing their hearts to two
or more ladies at the same time, following the example of their royal
master, who “fell in love that winter with Madame de Boinville and Mlle.
Clin.”[31] In addition to love-making, he danced in several ballets, one
of which was appropriately called _le Ballet des Amoureux_.