Quarrel between Bassompierre and the Marquis de
Cœuvres--Bassompierre sends his cousin the Sieur de Créquy to
challenge the marquis to a duel--The King sends for the two nobles
and orders them to be reconciled in his presence--Bassompierre and
Créquy are forbidden to appear at Court, but are soon
pardoned--Visit of Bassompierre to Plombières--He returns to Paris,
and “breaks entirely” with Marie d’Entragues--The Chancellor,
Pomponne de Bellièvre, ordered to resign the Seals--His
conversation with Bassompierre at Artenay--Bassompierre wins more
than 100,000 francs at play--He is reconciled with Marie
d’Entragues--He joins Henri IV at Sedan--The adventure of the
King’s love-letter--Henri IV gives orders that a watch shall be
kept on Marie d’Entragues’s house to ascertain if Bassompierre is
secretly visiting that lady--A comedy of errors--Madame d’Entragues
surprises her daughter and Bassompierre.
One day, in the King’s cabinet, Bassompierre, in taking his handkerchief
from his pocket, drew out with it a _billet-doux_ he had just received
from Marie d’Entragues, which fell to the ground and lay there
unperceived by him. An Italian banker named Sardini picked it up, and
the Marquis de Cœuvres having told him that it was his, he gave it
him. Cœuvres read the letter and then sent a message to Bassompierre,
asking him to meet him that night before the Hôtel de Soissons and to
come alone, as he had something of importance to communicate to him.
Bassompierre, not a little surprised, since he and the marquis were on
far from good terms with one another, kept the appointment and found
Cœuvres awaiting him, in company with a friend of his, the Comte de
Cramail, although in his letter he had given him to understand that
there was to be no witness to their meeting.
The marquis began by reproaching Bassompierre with “certain bad offices
which he asserted that he had rendered him,” and then went on to say
that, notwithstanding this, he esteemed him too much not to desire his
friendship, and aspired to serve, rather than injure, him, in proof of
which, although that morning a letter written to him by Mlle.
d’Entragues had fallen into his hands, he had made no use of it, but
sent it at once to the fair writer by the hand of Sardini. Bassompierre,
believing that he was speaking the truth, “made him a thousand
protestations of service and affection,” after which Cœuvres informed
him that the King was aware that he had found a letter written by some
lady to him and had demanded to see it, and asked Bassompierre to send
him as soon as possible one which he had received from another woman, to
enable him to satisfy his Majesty’s curiosity. Bassompierre complied
with this request, which was an easy matter enough, as, like his royal
master, he generally had more than one love-affair on hand, and,
besides, was in the habit of carefully preserving all the epistles which
he received from the fair. At the same time, he sent a message to Mlle.
d’Entragues to apprise her of the mishap which had befallen her letter
and to inquire if she had received it from Cœuvres.
“But, as she wrote that she had seen no one sent by the marquis,
furious with anger and transported with resentment, I went straight
to the marquis’s house to recover the letter, or to punish him. On
the way, however, I met M. d’Aiguillon[45] and M. de Créquy, who
stopped me to inquire whither I was bound. ‘I am going,’ I replied,
‘to the Marquis de Cœuvres’ house, to get back from him a letter
which Antragues wrote me and which he has found. And, if he does
not give it up, I am resolved to kill him!’ They remonstrated with
me, pointing out that, in going to kill a man in his own house,
amongst all his servants, I was running a great danger, without the
means of escaping it; that he [Cœuvres] would be very cowardly
if he surrendered the letter to me when I went to him in this
manner; and that it would be better to send one of my friends. And
Créquy offered to go.”
Bassompierre reluctantly consented, and Créquy accordingly proceeded to
Cœuvres’s house. The marquis, at first, flatly refused to give up the
letter, declaring that Fortune had brought it to him to enable him to
avenge himself on Bassompierre for the ill that he had done him. Créquy
pointed out that, if he were so imprudent as to do this, Bassompierre
would certainly call him out, in which case one of them would probably
be killed, while the victor would be sure to incur the severe
displeasure of the King. Cœuvres thereupon began to waver, and
finally told him to come back early on the following morning, when he
would let him know his decision. When Créquy returned, the marquis, who,
Bassompierre believes, had, in the meantime, sent La Varenne with the
letter to the King and received it back again, told him that he would
himself take the letter to Mlle. d’Entragues, if this would satisfy the
lady’s admirer.
“To this I agreed,” writes Bassompierre, “resolved, nevertheless, to
fight with this trickster, though I was anxious first to get Antragues
out of the affair.”
The marquis took the letter to the lady, and, shortly afterwards,
Bassompierre received a message from his mistress, informing him that it
was her good pleasure that he should be reconciled to Cœuvres, for
which purpose he was to come to her house that afternoon at five
o’clock, where he would find the marquis waiting to embrace him. Much
against his will, he obeyed, and a formal reconciliation took place
between the two gentlemen, who then separated, secretly hating one
another more bitterly than ever. In the evening, as Bassompierre was
leaving his lodging to go to the Louvre, the Grand Equerry, the Duc de
Bellegarde, arrived and told him that the King, having learned that he
had quarrelled with the Marquis de Cœuvres, forbade him, on pain of
death, to call the latter out. Bassompierre replied, laughing, that it
would be easy to obey his Majesty, as he and the marquis were now the
best of friends.
Notwithstanding the royal command, Bassompierre was determined to fight
the purloiner of his love-letter, though, as he did not wish Mlle.
d’Entragues’s name to be mixed up in the affair, he had decided to allow
two or three days to pass and then to quarrel with him on some other
matter. A pretext was easily found, and Créquy, who, now that the letter
had been recovered, had altered his views on the question of a duel
between them, repaired to Cœuvres’s house as the bearer of a formal
challenge. The marquis, however, had no desire to oblige the fire-eating
Lorrainer; possibly, he thought that he might get the worst of the
encounter, but, more probably, since he appears to have been brave
enough, he feared the displeasure of the King. Anyway, he refused to see
Créquy, although the latter called on two or three occasions; and,
meanwhile, Henri IV, having been warned of Bassompierre’s bellicose
intentions, again interfered, and, sending for him and Cœuvres,
ordered them to be reconciled in his presence. He then told Bassompierre
that he had gravely offended him by daring to call out the marquis in
the face of his express command, and forbade him to come to the Louvre
or to any place where the Court might be. His anger extended to Créquy,
and, not only did he forbid him the Court, but even talked of depriving
him of the command of the regiment of guards to which he had just been
appointed. However, thanks to the solicitations of the ladies of the
Court, the Queen interceded with the King on behalf of the offenders,
and Henri IV, who had reasons of his own for wishing to keep his consort
in a good humour, relented so far as to allow them to return. For some
little time he pretended to ignore their presence, but he soon grew
tired of this, and admitted them once more to his favour.
In May, Bassompierre went to Plombières, the baths of which had been
recommended by the doctor, as his thigh was still causing him a good
deal of pain. He travelled thither accompanied by several of his
friends from the Court, and an imposing suite, which included a band of
musicians whose services he had engaged, and remained there three
months, enjoying “all the amusements which a young man, rich, debauched,
and extravagant, could desire.” His mother, his sister, Madame de
Saint-Luc, his younger brother, who had assumed Jean de Bassompierre’s
title of Seigneur de Removille, and a number of friends from Lorraine
joined him there, and he appears to have passed a very agreeable time,
to which a love-affair with a Burgundian lady, named Madame de Fussé,
contributed not a little.
About the middle of August, by which time he was completely cured,
learning that Henri IV had set out at the head of a small army for the
Limousin, where the friends of that incorrigible intriguer the Duc de
Bouillon were threatening to cause trouble, and that there was a chance
of seeing a little fighting, he returned to Paris to prepare to follow
the King. On his arrival, he had a violent quarrel with Marie
d’Entragues, and “broke with her entirely.” What was the cause of the
rupture he does not tell us; possibly, the lady may have been seeking
consolation for his absence in the devotion of some rival admirer;
possibly, she may have heard of the attentions which he had been paying
to Madame de Fussé at Plombières and had taken umbrage. Anyway, complete
as it may have been at the time, it was soon healed.
After spending a couple of days with a merry party at the Comtesse de
Sault’s château at Savigny, amongst whom he doubtless contrived to
dissipate any inclination to melancholy which his breach with Mlle.
d’Entragues may have caused him, Bassompierre set out for the South. At
Artenay, he met the aged Chancellor, Bellièvre, who, to his profound
mortification, had just been directed by the King to surrender the Seals
to Nicolas Brulart, afterwards Marquis de Sillery, though Bellièvre was
to remain Chancellor and head of the Council.
“I found him,” writes Bassompierre, “walking in a garden with
certain _maîtres des requêtes_, who were returning with him to
Paris. He said to me: ‘Monsieur, you behold in me a man who goes to
seek a grave in Paris. I have served the Kings to the best of my
ability, and when they saw that I was no longer capable, they sent
me to take repose and to attend to the safety of my soul, of which
their affairs had prevented me from thinking.’ And when, a little
later, I told him that he would continue to serve them and to
preside at the Council as Chancellor, he replied: ‘My friend, a
Chancellor without seals is an apothecary without sugar.”
Leaving the mortified Chancellor to continue his journey to Paris, where
he died a year later, Bassompierre took the road to Orléans, where he
found the Queen, whose pregnancy had prevented her following her husband
to the Limousin, and Mlle. de Guise, who, while he was at Plombières,
had married the Prince de Conti. From Orléans he proceeded to Limoges,
which Henri IV had made his headquarters, and, though he was
disappointed in his hope of seeing some fighting, since the rebels
submitted without any attempt at resistance, he had no reason to regret
his journey to the South, as he won at play more than 100,000 francs.
In November, he returned with the King to Fontainebleau, whither the
Queen and the ladies of the Court had proceeded, and, shortly
afterwards, followed their Majesties to Paris, where he and Mlle.
d’Entragues appear to have taken an early opportunity of making up their
quarrel.
In the early spring, Henri IV, with a small army and a powerful
battering-train, set out for Sedan, to teach the Duc de Bouillon a
much-needed lesson. That troublesome nobleman, however, finding that
neither the French Protestants nor Spain were disposed to move a finger
to assist him, prudently decided to sue for pardon, and surrendered his
impregnable fortress before a shot had been fired against it. The terms
he obtained from the sovereign whose authority he had so long defied
were favourable in the extreme, no punishment being inflicted upon him
beyond the occupation of Sedan for five years by a body of the royal
troops under a Huguenot commander.
Having settled with the Duc de Bouillon, Henri IV wrote to Bassompierre,
Guise, and Bellegarde, ordering them to join him. On their arrival they
found the King making preparations for his formal entry into Sedan,
which took place the following day. In the morning Bouillon presented
himself before his Majesty, who read to him his _abolition_, to which
the duke listened with becoming humility. But the moment it was handed
to him his manner changed, and he became as haughty and arrogant as
ever, and even had the presumption to alter the order in which the King
had marshalled his troops for the procession through the town.
After remaining a few days longer at Sedan, Henri IV went to Busancy,
whence he despatched Bassompierre to Paris, to inquire, on his behalf,
after the health of his former consort, Queen Margot, “who had lost
Saint-Julian Date, her gallant, slain by a gentleman named Charmont
[_sic_], whose head the King had caused to be cut off in
consequence,”[46] and to carry letters to his two chief sultanas,
Madame de Verneuil and the Comtesse de Moret.[47]
Bassompierre, impatient to see Marie d’Entragues, went first to the
house of her sister, Madame de Verneuil, where he hoped to find her, and
was not disappointed. Having saluted the ladies and executed his
commission, he had the imprudence to mention that he was going to call
upon Madame de Moret, for whom he had also a letter from the King. That
was quite enough to pique the curiosity of the marchioness, who at once
determined to see the correspondence which the Béarnais was carrying on
with her rival, and asked Bassompierre to give her the letter. That
gentleman naturally objected, but Marie d’Entragues joined her commands
to the request of her sister, and he weakly allowed himself to be
persuaded. Madame de Verneuil broke the seal, and having read the
amorous epistle, handed it back to Bassompierre--presumably, it
contained nothing of much importance, otherwise, she would have been
quite capable of retaining
[Illustration: HENRIETTE DE BALSAC D’ENTRAGUES, MARQUISE DE VERNEUIL.
From an engraving by Aubert.]
or destroying it--observing that in an hour he could get a seal made
similar to that with which the letter was fastened, and that, when he
had sealed it again, no one would suspect that it had ever been tampered
with. Bassompierre, relying on this assurance, sent his _valet de
chambre_ with the letter into the town to get a replica of the seal
made; but, as ill luck would have it, the man went to an engraver named
Turpin, who happened to be the very same person who had made the
original for the King. Turpin, recognising his handiwork and suspecting
that something was wrong, seized the valet by the collar, with the
intention of handing him over to the police. But the latter, who was a
strong and active fellow, contrived to wrench himself free and hurried
off to warn his master, leaving his hat and cloak, together with the
King’s letter, in the hands of the engraver.
Bassompierre, much disturbed by this misadventure, hid his valet, who,
he tells us, would have been hanged within two hours if he had been
caught, and then went to call on Madame de Moret. Having decided that
his best plan was to brazen it out, he told the countess that having
been entrusted by the King with a letter for her, he had unfortunately
opened it, in mistake for a _poulet_ which a lady had sent him; that,
through fear of being suspected of having acted intentionally, he had,
instead of coming to her at once to offer his apologies, as he, of
course, should have done, been so imprudent as to try and get a similar
seal made, and that his servant, having by ill chance gone to the King’s
engraver, the latter, his suspicions aroused, had retained the letter.
If Madame de Moret wished to have it, she had only to send someone to
explain the matter to Turpin, and no doubt the engraver would give it
up. The countess believed, or pretended to believe, this not very
probable story, and sent one of her servants to Turpin to claim her
letter; but was informed that it was no longer in his hands, but in
those of Séguier, President of the Tournelle, or criminal court of the
Parlement of Paris, to whom the honest engraver had deemed it his duty
to transmit it without delay.
Here was a fresh complication and one which caused Bassompierre no
little disquietude, as he did not know Séguier personally, and the
latter had the reputation of being a most austere magistrate, who would
be certain to sift the matter to the very bottom. Resourceful though he
was, he was for the moment at a loss how to act, but, finally, resolved
to go and see Madame de Loménie, wife of Antoine de Loménie, one of the
Secretaries of State, with whom he was on very friendly terms, and beg
her to intervene in order to hush up this unfortunate affair, either by
persuading Séguier to surrender the letter, or by writing to her
husband, who was on his way to Paris with the King, to ask him to give
some plausible explanation to his Majesty.
This time Fortune was on his side. He found the Minister’s wife seated
at her writing-desk and apparently very busy. She was engaged, she told
him, in drafting a very important letter to her husband concerning a
singular adventure. Bassompierre, having an idea that this singular
adventure might well have some relation to his own, pressed her to tell
him more, upon which the lady explained that an attempt had been made
that morning to counterfeit the King’s seal; that the man who had been
sent to the engraver had unfortunately succeeded in effecting his
escape, but that the letter of which he was the bearer had been seized,
and that the President Séguier had just sent it to her, with the request
that she would forward it to her husband, in order that he might lay it
before the King, when perhaps they would be able to get to the bottom of
the matter. And Madame de Loménie added that she would willingly give
2,000 crowns to solve this imbroglio.
Bassompierre, with a sigh of relief, offered to enlighten her for
nothing, and proceeded to furnish her with the same explanation of the
affair which he had already given Madame de Moret. Madame de Loménie
accepted it, and, after having given him a good lecture, promised to
smooth things over for him, on condition that he would go on the morrow
to Villers-Cotterets, where the King and her husband had just arrived,
and take with him a report of the matter which she would draw up.
Bassompierre agreed readily enough, as may be imagined, and, having
called again upon Madame de Verneuil to obtain her answer to the King’s
letter, and also upon Madame de Moret, who wrote likewise to thank his
Majesty, although she had not received the one intended for her, set out
for Villers-Cotterets, where Henri IV laughed heartily over the
adventure, of which he does not appear to have suspected the true
explanation.
A few days later, Henri IV, in celebration of his bloodless victory over
the Duc de Bouillon, made a sort of triumphal entry into Paris, where he
was received with salvoes of artillery and loud acclamations from the
populace. The effect of this ceremony, however, appears to have been
somewhat spoiled by the extraordinary attitude assumed by the rebellious
vassal whom he had just brought to heel, and who rode along bowing and
smiling to the people who thronged the streets and the windows and roofs
of the houses, for all the world as if he himself were the hero of the
day and the object of all the acclamations.
“He [the King],” writes Bassompierre, “desired M. de Bouillon to
march immediately before him, and this he did, but with such
assurance and audacity, that it was impossible to decide whether it
was the King who was leading him in triumph or he the King.”
Henri IV only remained a few days in Paris, and then went to
Fontainebleau; but Bassompierre did not accompany him, being desirous of
enjoying the society of Marie d’Entragues, of whom, since their
reconciliation, he was more enamoured than ever.
Bassompierre’s conquest of Mlle. d’Entragues had naturally aroused a
good deal of jealousy amongst the less fortunate admirers of that young
lady, who were numerous and distinguished, and included both the King
and the Duc de Guise. As yet, however, they had no actual proof of his
_bonne fortune_, as the intrigue was conducted with unusual discretion.
It was his habit, he tells us, to enter the house in the Rue de la
Coutellière, where Marie lived with her mother, late at night, by a back
entrance, “whereby I ascended to the third floor, which Madame
d’Entragues had not furnished, and her daughter, by a secret staircase
leading from her wardrobe, came to join me there, when her mother had
fallen asleep.”
Henri IV, piqued by the assurances of several of Bassompierre’s rivals,
and principally by Guise, that Marie d’Entragues made game of them all
and preferred the handsome Lorrainer, gave orders, just before his
departure for Fontainebleau, to have the house watched.
“As he was in love with Antragues, M. de Guise and several others
also, who were all jealous of me, because they believed me to be on
better terms with her than themselves, plotted together to have me
spied upon, in order to discover if I entered her house, and if I
saw her privately; and the King commanded those whom he had charged
to watch it, to take their orders from M. de Guise and to report to
him if they saw anything.”
The sequel was a most amusing comedy of errors.
A day or two later, Bassompierre, who had an assignation with his
inamorata that night, happened to sup with the Grand Equerry, the Duc de
Bellegarde. During the meal it came on to rain heavily, and, as he had
come unprovided with a cloak, he borrowed one from his host, and,
wrapped in this, made his way, at about eleven o’clock, to the Rue de la
Coutellière, without noticing that the Cross of the Ordre du
Saint-Esprit, of which none but Princes of the Blood, very great
nobles, and Ministers of State, were members, was attached to the cloak.
The spies posted around Madame d’Entragues’s house were more observant,
and one of them at once hurried off to inform the Duc de Guise that they
had just seen a young Knight of the Ordre du Saint-Esprit enter the
house by a back door. Guise immediately sent two of his _valets de
chambre_ to identify the gentleman when he left, which did not happen
until four o’clock in the morning. But Bassompierre caught sight of them
before they saw him, and, recognising them as the duke’s servants,
pulled his cloak over his face, though he had little hope of escaping
detection, since he was well known to them both. The valets, however,
deceived by the Cross of the Saint-Esprit, reported to their master that
Mlle. d’Entragues’ midnight visitor was the Grand Equerry, since they
were aware that there was no other Knight of the Order in Paris at the
time in the least likely to have such a _bonne fortune_.
In the morning, Bassompierre wrote to Mlle. d’Entragues to inform her of
the espionage of which he had been the object, and to urge her to be on
her guard. On his side, the Duc de Guise went between nine and ten
o’clock to the Grand Equerry’s house, but was told that Bellegarde had
given directions that he could see no one until the evening, as he had
been kept awake all night by violent toothache. This seemed to confirm
his suspicions in regard to the Grand Equerry, since a man who had not
returned from an assignation until four o’clock in the morning would
naturally desire to sleep until late in the day; and chuckling at the
thought of Bassompierre’s mortification when he learned that he had a
successful rival, he made his way to that gentleman’s lodging.
Bassompierre, like Bellegarde, was still in bed when the duke arrived,
but, having told the servants that he had come to see their master on a
matter of urgency, he was conducted to his room.
“I beg you to put on your dressing-gown,” said he so soon as he entered;
“I have a word to say to you.”
“I felt quite sure,” writes Bassompierre, “that he intended to tell
me that I had been seen leaving Antragues’s house, and determined
to deny it positively. But, on the contrary, he continued: ‘What
would you say if the Grand Equerry were preferred by Antragues to
you and everyone, and she were in the habit of receiving him at
night?’ I told him that I should decline to believe it, as neither
he nor she had any inclination for the other. ‘_Mon Dieu_,’ said
he, ‘how easy to deceive are lovers! I thought as you do;
nevertheless, it is true that he went to her house last night, and
did not leave until four o’clock this morning. He was seen to go
in, and my _valets de chambre_ themselves saw him come out, with so
little care that he had not even troubled to wear a cloak without
the cross of the Order, to disguise himself.’
“Thereupon, he called one of the valets, D’Urbal by name, and
inquired whether he had not seen _Monsieur le Grand_ leave
Antragues’s house. ‘Yes, Monseigneur,’ the man answered, ‘as
plainly as I see M. de Bassompierre there.’ I dared not look in the
face of this valet, who had seen me that same morning leaving the
house, and believed that it was a trick to make game of me; but, as
I turned away, I perceived on a chair _Monsieur le Grand’s_ cloak,
which my valet had folded in such a way that the cross of the Order
was visible, and ought to have been easily seen by M. de Guise, if
he had not been so much occupied just then. I sat down upon it,
fearing lest M. de Guise should catch sight of the cross, and
pretending to be disconsolate as he was, I complained bitterly of
the fickleness of Antragues. I refused to rise from my seat on the
cloak, although M. de Guise invited me to go for a walk with him,
until I had told my valet to take it away, when M. de Guise should
be looking in another direction, and hide it in a wardrobe.”
So soon as the duke had taken his departure, Bassompierre wrote to his
mistress to inform her of this new incident. Marie d’Entragues had the
caustic spirit of her family, and it pleased her, in order to perpetuate
this comedy of errors and avert suspicion from Bassompierre, to show
herself exceedingly gracious to the Grand Equerry when she met him that
afternoon, so that Bellegarde, who was not without vanity, was himself
deceived, and began to think he had made an impression upon the lady.
The consequence was that when, on the morrow, Guise, who could not keep
silent, although he and Bassompierre had agreed to say nothing to the
Grand Equerry about it, began to rally that gentleman upon his supposed
_bonne fortune_, the latter defended himself so feebly, that all the
jealousy of Guise and of the King, when he heard of the affair, was
turned in his direction, and the real gallant was able to continue his
nocturnal visits to the Rue de la Coutillière with but few precautions.
However, they had warned Madame d’Entragues to take better care of her
daughter--it was certainly high time that she did--and one fine June
morning, happening to awake very early, she drew aside the curtain of
her bed, and saw, to her astonishment, that that of Marie, who slept in
the same room, was empty. She rose at once and went into her wardrobe,
where she found the door leading to the secret staircase, which was
always kept locked, open.
“She began to scream,” relates Bassompierre, “and, at the sound of
her voice, her daughter rose in haste and went to her. I,
meanwhile, shut the door and took my departure, very troubled about
what might come of this affair, which was that her mother chastised
her, and caused the door of the room where we were that night to be
broken open, so that she might enter, and was very amazed to find
this apartment furnished with splendid furniture purchased from
Zamet. Then all intercourse was broken off; but I made my peace
with the mother through the intervention of Mlle. d’Asy, at whose
house I saw her, when I asked her pardon so many times, coupled
with the assurance that we had not gone beyond kissing, that she
pretended to believe me. She went to Fontainebleau, and I went
also, but I did not venture to speak to Antragues except secretly,
because the King did not approve of it.[48] However, lovers are
resourceful enough to find opportunities for occasional meetings.”