Bassompierre’s audience of the new King, Philip IV--The Procession
of the Crosses--An old flame--Good Friday at Madrid--Anxiety of the
Queen’s ladies-in-waiting to see Bassompierre--His visit to
them--He is commissioned by Louis XIII to present his condolences
to Philip IV--He is informed that etiquette requires him to leave
Madrid as though to return to France and then to make another
formal entry--Revolution of the palace at Madrid: fall of the late
King’s Ministers--The Count of Saldagna ordered by Philip IV to
marry Doña Mariana de Cordoba, on pain of his severe
displeasure--Bassompierre offers to facilitate the escape of
Saldagna to France, but the latter’s courage fails him at the last
moment--Negotiations over the Valtellina--Treaty of
Madrid--Bassompierre’s pretended departure for France--He visits
the Escurial, returns to Madrid and makes a second ceremonious
entry--The audience of condolence--State entry of Philip IV into
Madrid--Termination of Bassompierre’s embassy--He returns to
France.
On Palm Sunday, April 4, Bassompierre had an audience of the new King at
the Convent of San Geronimo.
“Twenty carriages were brought,” says he, “in which the Ambassador
[Du Fargis] and I and the whole of our respective suites placed
ourselves. We were conducted only by the Count of Barajas, because
it was not a solemn audience, but a private one, at San Geronimo,
to which the King had retired, and he was only admitting me as a
favour in order to pay honour to the King [of France] his
brother-in-law, and to show the promptitude with which he desired
to conclude the affair upon which I had come. We all wore mourning
according to the Spanish fashion, with the _loba_, the _caperuza_
and _capirote_,[155] which I did for two reasons: first, because,
since all the grandees present at the audience, and the King
himself, were wearing it, I should have been uncovered, while they
were not, which would not have been seemly on my part; secondly,
because the sight of me wearing deep mourning for the death of
their late King was very agreeable to the Spaniards, who would not
have felt thus had I been dressed in our fashion. I made my
obeisance to the King and offered him the _pesame_, which is the
compliment of condolence upon the death of the King his father,
after which we offered him the _parabien_, which is the compliment
of felicitation upon his happy accession to the Crowns.[156] This
we did also in the name of the King [of France], while awaiting the
despatch by him of some prince or great noble expressly to pay this
compliment. I then spoke to the King about our affairs, to all of
which things he answered very pertinently; and, after having paid
my respects to the prince,[157] who was with him, I retired.”
On the Wednesday in Holy Week, Bassompierre and Du Fargis witnessed the
Procession of the Crosses from the balcony of a house in the Calle
Mayor, which had been reserved for them:
“There were,” says Bassompierre, “more than five hundred penitents,
who walked barefooted, drawing large crosses, like that of Our
Lord, and, at intervals, were movable theatres, on which divers
representations of the Passion were exhibited in a very lifelike
manner.”
Bassompierre pronounces this spectacle “_très belle_”; nevertheless, he
soon appears to have had enough of it, and on being joined by the
Ambassador of Lucca and two Spanish nobles, he rose, protesting that he
could not remain seated and leave three such distinguished persons
standing--for there were only two chairs on the balcony--but would
resign his seat to one of them, leave M. du Fargis to represent France,
and go and beg of a party of ladies whom he perceived below the favour
of occupying one of their footstools. This he did, and the ladies were
most kind and did him the honour to allow him to sit at their feet, and,
we fear, paid more attention to his Excellency than to the procession.
Nor was this all; for Fortune willed it that he should discover amongst
them a flame of the days of his youth, a certain Doña Aña de Sanasara,
whom he had known twenty-five years before at Naples, and who was now
the wife of the Secretary of the Council of Finance. “They recognised
each other with joy,” and Doña Aña, who was very rich, sent her old
admirer handsome presents and invited him to her house, where she
entertained him most sumptuously.
On the following day--Maundy Thursday--Bassompierre witnessed another
procession, that of the Penitents, “in which there were more than two
thousand men who belaboured themselves with whips.” Afterwards he went
to hear the _Tenebræ_ at Nuestra Señora de Constantinopoli and spent the
night in visiting different churches.
On Maundy Thursday and Good Friday Madrid was a city of mourning:
“The bells of the churches were silent; the carriages ceased to
pass through the town; no one rode on horseback; no one carried a
sword; no one was accompanied by his servants; and all the women
were veiled.”
On Easter Monday, Bassompierre went to pay his respects to the new Queen
at the Carmelite convent, where she was still in retreat. Her Majesty
told him that all her ladies-in-waiting were longing to make his
acquaintance--evidently, the fame of his successes amongst the fair had
preceded him to Madrid--and that he ought to have compassion upon them
and demand _lugar_[158] of every one of them. Bassompierre replied that,
if he were to do that, it would occupy more time than he would require
to conclude the affair of the Valtellina, and asked, as a favour, that
he might be allowed to interview the whole posse of them at the same
time, promising to do his best not to confound one lady with another.
The Queen said that such a proceeding would not be in accordance with
etiquette; but Bassompierre observed that whenever their Majesties
granted favours they authorised some breach of etiquette, and that he
did not see why they could not do so in this case. The Queen smiled and
said that she would be quite willing, but that she dared not take so
important a step without first consulting the King. However, she would
speak to his Majesty, and inform him of the result.
A few days later, Bassompierre was informed that the King had been
graciously pleased to consent that the rules of etiquette should be
waived in his Excellency’s favour, for which his Excellency “rendered
very humble thanks to the King.” Then he wrote to demand audience of all
the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, and, this having been accorded, proceeded
to the Alcazar and was conducted to her Majesty’s ante-chamber, where he
was presently joined by a bevy of fair and intensely curious ladies, in
charge of a duenna, all eager to behold this redoubtable _vainqueur de
dames_. And when they found that, in addition to his good looks and
fascinating manners, he was able to pay them the most charming
compliments in irreproachable Castilian, their delight knew no bounds,
and it was more than two hours before they would allow him to depart.
* * * * *
On April 16, Bassompierre received a despatch from Louis XIII
commissioning him to present his condolences to the new King on the
death of his father. When, however, he informed Zuniga of this and
inquired when Philip IV could give him audience to enable him to acquit
himself of his new duty, that old gentleman shook his head and declared
that it was quite contrary to the etiquette of the Spanish Court for an
Ambassador Extraordinary charged with the duty of concluding a treaty to
represent his sovereign in a different matter, unless he were to absent
himself from the capital for some days and then make a second public
entry. He therefore advised his Excellency to say nothing about the
matter at present, but, on the conclusion of the treaty which he was
then negotiating, to take leave of the King as though he were returning
to France, and to go so far as Burgos on his homeward journey. From that
town he would send a courier to Madrid to announce that, having on the
way received a new commission from his sovereign, he was returning to
discharge it; and, on his arrival, he would, of course, be received with
the same ceremony as on the previous occasion.
Bassompierre, though greatly annoyed at these exasperating formalities,
which would not only delay his return to France, but involve him in a
great deal of unnecessary expense and inconvenience, had no alternative
but to promise compliance. He succeeded, however, in obtaining the
concession that his fictitious departure for France need not be preceded
by fictitious farewells of anyone besides the King and the Royal family,
and that, so long as he left the capital with his whole suite and
remained away for two or three days, the Escorial might be the limit of
his journey.
The death of Philip III was followed by a revolution of the palace
almost as sweeping as that which had succeeded the assassination of
Concini in France. The new King’s favourite, Olivares, who, with his
uncle Don Balthazar de Zuniga, now assumed the direction of affairs,
bore a bitter grudge against the Sandoval family, who, on more than one
occasion, had endeavoured to get rid of him by assassination, and he
proceeded to take vengeance both upon them and their creatures. The Duke
of Uceda was arrested and thrown into prison, where, like the Duke of
Ossuña, he ended his days. His father, the Duke of Lerma, who, in
obedience to the dying summons of Philip III, was hastening to Madrid,
was met on the road by an officer of the Guards and informed that he was
to return to Valladolid, on pain of immediate arrest; while, shortly
afterwards, the greater part of his ill-gotten wealth
[Illustration: PHILIP IV., KING OF SPAIN.
From the painting by Velasquez.]
was confiscated, under a clause in the late King’s will by which he
revoked the immense gifts he had made during his lifetime. The confessor
Alliaga was deprived of his post of Grand Inquisitor and relegated to
the obscurity of the monastery from which he had emerged; and several
other highly-placed personages lost their charges and were banished from
Court.
The Count of Saldagna,[159] Lerma’s younger son, thanks to his having
had the good fortune to marry a daughter of the old Duke del
Infantado,[160] who was held in general esteem, was more leniently dealt
with than his father and elder brother, and was merely deprived of his
office of _cavalerizzo mayor_ (Grand Equerry) and ordered to go and
fight the Dutch in the Netherlands. But, a day or two later, “one of the
Queen’s maids-of-honour, Doña Mariana de Cordoba, presented to the King
a promise of marriage which the Count of Saldagna had given her,[161]
and the King commanded the said count to prepare to accomplish it.”
The royal command appears to have been accompanied by an intimation
that, in the event of the count’s refusal to do the lady justice, most
unpleasant things would happen to him. Anyway, Saldagna appears to have
been greatly alarmed, and promised the King to lead Doña Mariana to the
altar “on the first day after the octave of Easter” (April 21).
Now, when Bassompierre was setting out for Spain, Anne of Austria, who
was much attached to the Sandoval family, “had pressingly recommended to
him all that concerned the Duke of Lerma”; and, aware of this,
Saldagna’s aunt the Countess of Lemos[162] and other relatives and
friends of his, who were in despair at the prospect of his contracting
a _mésalliance_, to which, in their opinion, death itself would almost
be preferable, went to the ambassador and besought him, with tears in
their eyes, “to aid in preventing this marriage by every means he was
able to devise.” The recollection of his own troubles with Marie
d’Entragues naturally inclined Bassompierre to view Saldagna’s with a
sympathetic eye, and, apart from this, he had a decided weakness for
meddling in other people’s affairs in a benevolent kind of way. He knew,
too, that, by helping the Sandovals, he would establish a claim upon the
gratitude of Anne of Austria, who, though she had little or no influence
at present, might one day possess a great deal. He accordingly promised
them to do what he could to deliver their relative from the sad fate
which threatened him, and proceeded to San Geronimo--where Saldagna had
gone into retreat on the plea of illness, to escape the remonstrances of
his friends and the mocking felicitations of his enemies--with the
resolution to screw that nobleman’s courage up to what Shakespeare calls
the sticking-place, and then to propose to smuggle him out of Spain,
disguised as one of his servants.
“After we had exchanged compliments,” he says, “I told him that I
knew not whether to give him the _parabien_ or the _pesame_ on his
approaching marriage,[163] since, although it might be a great
satisfaction for him, nevertheless a gallant of the Court, such as
he was, could not without sorrow abandon the pleasant existence he
had led up to the present to accept a lonely life, full of anxiety
and care, as was marriage.
“He answered that he must perforce obey the master, who commanded
him to execute what he had promised the mistress; and that,
although it was a hard condition which he was placing on his
shoulders, it was an ill for which there was no remedy.
“It appeared to me, from his discourse, that the pack-saddle galled
him, and that he would be very willing to find some alleviation.
And this encouraged me to tell him that there were more remedies
than he thought of, if he desired to be cured, and that the express
command which I had received from the Infanta-Queen to assist in
every way I could the duke-cardinal his father, as her own person,
obliged me, when I perceived the palpable displeasure with which he
and all his family regarded this forced marriage, to offer him, on
this occasion, my aid and assistance to extricate him from it, if
he so desired.
“‘And what aid and assistance can you bring me,’ said he, ‘when
neither I myself nor my relatives are capable of doing anything?’
“Then I told him that, if he were willing to believe me and to
trust himself to me, I would extricate him from this difficulty
with honour and glory; that the Duke of Alba, grandfather of the
present duke,[164] had preferred to commit the crime of rebellion,
in delivering his son Fadrigue de Toledo,[165] in the midst of
peace, by the use of petards, from a château in which he had been
shut up in order to force him to espouse a maid-of-honour, than to
allow him to espouse a very wealthy girl, of a family equal to his
own; and that I myself had been at law for eight years with a
powerful family, who had threatened me with certain death if I did
not espouse a maid-of-honour of the Queen [of France] by whom I had
had a child, and to whom I had given a promise of marriage to serve
her as a blind; that, in case his honour and that of his House was
dear to him, as I believed it to be, he ought without regret to
quit for a time the Court of Spain, in which he was out of favour,
since he had been deprived of the charge of _cavalerizzo mayor_,
while his relatives and friends were disgraced and persecuted; that
the remedy I offered him was to leave the town at nightfall by
post, and go to await me at Bayonne, where I would join him at a
month at furthest; that the Comte de Gramont would entertain him
there in the meantime in such fashion that his stay would not be
disagreeable; that, in case he had not the money at hand to take
him there, I would furnish him with 1,000 pistoles to defray his
expenses until my arrival; that I would answer that, when he
reached the Court, the Queen would give him--until, by her
intervention, his peace was made here--1,000 crowns a month, and
that, if she did not, I would do so out of my own purse and give
him the word of a _caballero_ for it.
“He assured me that he was deeply grateful both to the Queen and to
myself, and then said: ‘But what means have I of leaving Spain
without being stopped? And, if I were stopped, they would
undoubtedly have my head struck off.’
“I answered that I never proposed impossible things to those whom I
desired to serve, and that I would be responsible for his
departure, his journey and his safety; that I had been given a
passport for a gentleman whom I was sending that same day to the
King, and that he was travelling with two attendants; that he would
serve him on the road as valet, although this gentleman ought to be
his; that he would not take his departure until an hour of the
night when he [Saldagna] might come to me unperceived, and that he
might leave the other arrangements to me.
“He told me that he was resolved to do as I proposed, and would be
all his life under a profound obligation to me; that he wished to
speak first to two of his friends; and that he begged me to have
everything in readiness at the hour I had named.”
Not a little elated with his success, Bassompierre left him and returned
to Madrid to finish the despatch which Saldagna’s supposed master was to
carry that night to France. This task accomplished, he placed the
thousand pistoles he had promised the count in two purses, summoned his
equerry Le Manny, whom he had decided to send, told him of the
distinguished personage who was to accompany him and gave him his
instructions what to do in the event of their being stopped, though of
that there was little or no danger, as he would indeed be a bold man
who, without authorisation, would venture to detain the couriers of an
Ambassador Extraordinary.
The fateful hour arrived, but no Saldagna. Instead, there came a message
from that nobleman informing Bassompierre that, to his profound regret,
he found himself unable to carry out what they had decided upon
together, “for reasons which he would tell him when he had the happiness
of seeing him.”
“I know not,” says Bassompierre, “whether the friends to whom he
had spoken had dissuaded him, if he lacked the resolution to
undertake it, or if the love which he bore this girl had decided
him to espouse her.”
Anyway, espouse her he did on the day which he had promised the King.
The marriage took place in the church of the Carmelite convent, where
the Queen was still in retreat. The King led the bridegroom, and the
Queen the bride, to the nuptial Mass, and then brought them with the
same ceremony to the door of her Majesty’s ante-chamber. Here certain
officers of the Court appeared upon the scene, took charge of bride and
bridegroom, conducted them, “without even giving them time to dine,” to
the gates of the town, where a travelling-carriage was in waiting, told
them to step in and informed them that they were banished from Madrid.
Meantime, the negotiations on the Valtellina question, which had been
interrupted by the death of Philip III, had been resumed. At first, the
Spaniards suggested that if France would guarantee the protection of
religion in the Valtellina, refuse to Venice the right of passage for
her troops, and compensate Spain for the expense to which she had been
put in occupying the country, she would withdraw. Bassompierre promptly
declined. They then offered to waive the question of compensation, in
return for the right of transit for Spanish troops, the very privilege
which they had just endeavoured to deny to France’s old ally Venice.
This proposition, as may be supposed, was likewise declined. It was
impossible for the Spanish commissioners to persist in such demands, as
the influence of Gregory XV, greatly alarmed by visions of Spain’s
supremacy throughout Italy, had been thrown into the French scale. And
so Zuniga proposed that the Grisons should receive compensation for the
Valtellina, and the district be ceded to the Pope. Bassompierre curtly
replied that he had been sent to Madrid to recover, not to sell, the
Valtellina. Zuniga and his colleagues brought forward other schemes:
that the Valtellina should be erected into a fourth League; that it
should be constituted into a fourteenth canton of the Swiss
Confederation, and so forth. But, finding that Bassompierre stood firmly
by his instructions, they at length gave way, and on April 26, 1621, the
Treaty of Madrid was signed.
This treaty stipulated that Spain should withdraw her troops from the
Valtellina; that the Grisons should grant a general amnesty to the
Valtellinas; that “the novelties prejudicial to the Catholic religion
should be removed,” and that the Grisons should ratify the treaty, which
was to be guaranteed by the King of France and the Swiss Cantons.
The Cabinet of Madrid hoped that, in the interval between the conclusion
and the execution of the treaty, some incident might arise which would
furnish them with a pretext for not keeping their word; and in this, as
we shall see, they were not disappointed.
On April 28, Bassompierre, having taken leave of Philip IV, left Madrid,
accompanied by his whole suite, as though he were returning to France.
He spent the night at Torreladones, and on the following morning reached
the Escorial, “where he saw everything in this wonderful building and
all the rare things which it contained.” Early on the 30th, he left the
Escorial and proceeded to El Pardo, a pleasure-house belonging to the
King, where he dined, and then went on to Alcovendas. Here he passed the
night, and on May 1, dressed in deep mourning, as became one who had
been charged with an embassy of condolence, made his second ceremonious
entry into Madrid.
On the 4th, he had an audience of the King to offer the _pesame_, and
appeared, according to his own account, before the bereaved monarch
“with a countenance which, apart from the absence of tears, presented
every indication of grief and sadness.”[166] Afterwards, by Philip IV’s
invitation, he accompanied him to the funeral service in honour of the
late King at San Geronimo.
On the following day Bassompierre began to pay his farewell visits to
the grandees and other important persons whose acquaintance he had made
at Madrid, a task which was to occupy him several days, as there were so
many to visit and so many formalities to be observed. His adieux were
interrupted on May 9 by Philip IV’s solemn entry into Madrid, which he
witnessed from a balcony at the Puerta Guadalaxara, which the King had
ordered to be prepared for him:
“The King,” he says, “set out from San Geronimo and came to his
palace by way of the Calle Mayor. Before him marched the
kettle-drummers; then came the gentlemen of the King’s table; then,
the _titulados_;[167] after them the mace-bearers; then the four
mayor-domos; then the grandees; and then the Duke del Infantado,
_cavalerizzo mayor_, bareheaded, and carrying a drawn sword. He
preceded the King, who followed under a canopy, supported on
thirty-two poles, which were borne by the thirty-two _regidores_ of
Madrid,[168] habited in cloth of silver and crimson. Then came the
_corregidor_,[169] surrounded by the King’s equerries, and the
Counsellors of State and Gentlemen of the Chamber closed the
procession.”
In a despatch to Louis XIII, dated the following day, Bassompierre
describes the entry as “very magnificent for Madrid, but not equal to
the least of those which take place in France.”
On the 12th, Bassompierre had his farewell audience of the King, who
gave him a letter in his own hand for Louis XIII and another for Anne of
Austria. He then took leave of Don Carlos, and, on leaving the Alcazar,
went to bid adieu to Olivares and Zuniga.
In the afternoon “the executors of the late King’s will placed in his
hands a great reliquary, which must have been worth 500,000 crowns,” and
charged him to present it to the Queen of France, to whom Philip IV had
bequeathed it.
On the 15th--the day he was to leave Madrid--Don Juan de Serica came to
present him, on behalf of Philip III, with “an ensign of diamonds worth
6,000 crowns.”[170] The Countess of Barajas sent him “a very beautiful
present of perfumes,” and he begged the countess’s acceptance of a
diamond chain worth 1,500 crowns. Shortly before his departure, he
received another gift from the King, in the shape of a very fine horse
from his Majesty’s stud.
In the afternoon he left Madrid, “the King ordering him to be escorted
on his departure in the same fashion as when he had made his entry,” and
was accompanied so far as Alcovendas, where he was to pass the night, by
Du Fargis, the Prince of Eboli and a number of Spanish nobles. His
journey to the frontier was uneventful, and on May 24 he reached
Bayonne.