Condé and his allies offer to secure for Bassompierre the position
of favourite, if he will join forces with them to bring about the
fall of Puisieux--Refusal of Bassompierre--Condé complains to Louis
XIII of Bassompierre’s hostility to him--Bassompierre informs the
King of the proposal which has been made him--Louis XIII orders
_Monsieur le Prince_ to be reconciled with Bassompierre--Siege of
Négrepelisse--The town is taken by storm--Terrible fate of the
garrison and the inhabitants--Fresh differences between Condé and
Bassompierre--Discomfiture of _Monsieur le Prince_--Bassompierre
placed temporarily in command of the Royal army, captures the towns
of Carmain and Cuq-Toulza--Offer of Bassompierre to resign his
claim to the marshal’s bâton in favour of Schomberg--Surrender of
Lunel--Massacre of the garrison by disbanded soldiers of the Royal
army--Bassompierre causes eight of the latter to be hanged--Lunel
in danger of being destroyed by fire with all within its
walls--Bassompierre, by his presence of mind, saves the
situation--Schomberg and Bassompierre--The latter is promised the
marshal’s bâton.
At Moissac, where Louis XIII arrived in the first week in June, Condé
approached Bassompierre and invited him to meet him “in a kind of chapel
which is in the cloister of the abbey,” as he desired to confer with him
on a matter of great importance. Thither Bassompierre repaired and found
the prince in the company of his allies, Retz and Schomberg. All three
forthwith began to inveigh against Puisieux, whose presumption, they
declared, they were no longer able to endure. Although only a Secretary
of State, he was admitted to greater intimacy with the King than
_Monsieur le Prince_ himself, sought to prejudice his Majesty against
those with whom he was not on good terms, conducted separate
negotiations, which he declined to communicate to them, and prevented
the execution of the decisions of the Council, if he had not previously
approved of them. Since the death of the late Constable, they had, they
said, endeavoured “to prevent the King from embarking in a new
affection,” and they were of opinion that it would be better for his
Majesty to have no favourite.
“However, since they saw that his inclination was to be dominated
by someone, they preferred that it should be by a brave man, of
high birth and esteemed for his knowledge of the arts of peace as
well as of those of war, rather than by a man of the pen like M. de
Puisieux, who would turn everything upside down; and that they were
all resolved to conspire to bring about his ruin, as they were to
assist in the aggrandisement of my fortune, and to persuade the
King, who was already favourably inclined towards me, to favour me
entirely with the honour of his good graces, provided that I were
willing to promise them two things: the one, to co-operate with
them to ruin M. de Puisieux and to detach myself entirely from his
friendship; the other, to associate myself entirely with them and
combine our designs and counsels, in the first place, for the good
of the King’s service, in the second, for our common interest and
preservation. And they begged me to come to a prompt decision upon
this matter and to acquaint them with it.”
Bassompierre felt quite certain that the proposal which had just been
made to him was nothing but a skilfully-baited trap, and that the
intention of Condé and his friends was “to penetrate his design and then
to reveal it to the King, and that they desired to make use of him to
ruin M. de Puisieux, and afterwards with greater facility to ruin him.”
“I accordingly replied that I was unable to understand what
necessity there was for the King to have a favourite, since he had
dispensed with one so easily for eight months; that his favourites
ought to be his mother, his brother, his relatives and his good
servants, wherein he would be following the example of the King his
father, and that if some fatality inclined him to have one, the
choice and the election ought to be left to him; that I had never
heard tell of any prince who took his favourites according to the
decrees of his council; but that, however that might be, it would
not be I who would occupy that place, because I did not deserve
it; because, also, the King would not wish to honour me with it,
and because, finally, I would not accept it; that I aspired to a
moderate degree of favour, and a fortune of the same kind acquired
by my virtue and by my merit, and which might be securely
preserved; that my lavish expenditure, and the little care I had
taken up to the present to amass wealth, were sufficient proofs
that I aspired rather to glory than to profit; that I wished to
seek a moderate and a secure fortune, and despised favour to such a
degree that, if it were lying on the ground before me, I should not
condescend to stoop and pick it up; and that such was my
unalterable resolution, which did not allow me to take advantage of
their good-will towards me, for which I rendered them very humble
thanks.”
As for their complaints about Puisieux, he said, it seemed to him that
they were really complaining of the King and questioning his Majesty’s
right to confer privately with, and demand advice from, whichever of his
Ministers he pleased. Puisieux was his [Bassompierre’s] friend, and had
always behaved as such, and, so long as he continued to do so, he
declined to be a party to any intrigue against him.
Condé then warned Bassompierre that a time might come when he would
regret having lost his friendship and that of his allies in order to
preserve that of Puisieux; to which Bassompierre replied that he would
be “extraordinarily grieved to lose their good graces, but that the
consolation would remain to him of not having lost them through any
fault of his own, and that he would never purchase those of anyone at
the price of his reputation.”
That evening, Louis XIII decided to send a body of two hundred cavalry
to scout in the direction of Montauban, and Valençay, who was lieutenant
of Condé’s company of gensdarmes, asked to be allowed to go, and to take
with him both his own men and _Monsieur le Prince’s_ company of light
horse; and to this the King consented. Condé was not at the council of
war, and did not learn of what had been done until later in the
evening, when he was extremely angry and went to the King to complain
that an affront had been put upon him by sending his two companies of
horse away without his knowledge, and that he felt quite certain that it
was Bassompierre who had suggested it. The King assured him that
Bassompierre had had nothing to do with the affair, and that Valençay
had himself asked for the commission, which he had given him, never
imagining that _Monsieur le Prince_ would take it ill. Condé, however,
insisted that Bassompierre must have been at the bottom of it, and
declared that he was hostile to him. When he had gone, the King sent for
Bassompierre and told him of what the prince had said, upon which he
deemed it advisable to inform his Majesty of the proposal which Condé
had made him that morning in the chapel. “But,” he says, “as it is very
dangerous to be in the disfavour of a person of that rank who is your
general, I begged the King very humbly either to reconcile us or to
permit me to retire, since I did not wish to draw his hatred and his
anger upon me.”
This the King promised to do, and the next evening, when the army had
encamped at Villemode, near Montauban, he came into the camp, and having
praised Bassompierre for the arrangements which he had made, he turned
to Condé and said: “Monsieur, yesterday you were angry with him without
cause, and you can learn from Valençay whether Bassompierre was in any
way responsible for his being sent away. I beg you, for love of me, to
live on good terms with him, for I assure you he is your servant; and,
if he were lost to this army, you know yourself whether it would be our
fault.” Condé promised to do as the King desired, and the same evening
offered his apologies to Bassompierre, who begged him to regard him as
his very humble servant, and that “when he happened to have any reason
to be displeased with him, to do him the honour of telling him of it,
and, if he did not give him satisfaction in the matter, to be angry
with him with all his soul, and not before.”
On the following day--June 8--the army arrived before Négrepelisse, a
little town on the left bank of the Aveyron. Louis XIII and his whole
army were bitterly incensed against the inhabitants of Négrepelisse,
who, one night during the previous winter, had revolted and massacred
four hundred men of the Vaillac Regiment who had been placed in garrison
there; while a report was current among the soldiers that, during the
siege of Montauban, the sick and wounded of the Royal army who had been
transported thither had been poisoned. However, as the town was believed
to have returned to its allegiance, provided they admitted the King,
there would not appear to have been any intention of punishing the
inhabitants. But when the quartermaster who had been charged to select
suitable quarters for his Majesty, approached the gates, he found them
closed, and was received with a volley of musket-shots.
On learning of what had occurred, the King ordered Bassompierre, who was
with the advance-guard, to invest the town, which he proceeded to do;
but, on going forward to reconnoitre the place with Praslin and
Chevreuse, he had a narrow escape of his life, being fired upon from a
distance of twenty paces by a party of the enemy, whom he had mistaken
for some of his own men.
“There was not in Négrepelisse,” says Bassompierre, “anything
better than a musket; no munitions of war save what each inhabitant
might have had to go out shooting; no foreign soldier, no chief to
command them; and the place, though it might have offered some
resistance to a provincial force, was quite incapable of resisting
a Royal army. Nevertheless, the inhabitants would neither consent
to surrender nor even to parley.”
The probable explanation is that the townsfolk were convinced that the
King was bent upon their destruction, and that no terms which he might
consent to give them would be observed; and that they had therefore
determined to sell their lives for what they might be worth.
On the 9th, a battery of seven cannon was got into position close to the
walls, and, although the enemy’s musketry-fire was very effective, and
caused many casualties amongst the gunners, by the following morning a
considerable breach had been made. The besieged endeavoured to repair it
by a barricade of carts, but this was of little avail, and the town was
quickly taken by assault.
Louis XIII, infuriated by the obstinacy of the inhabitants, had given
orders that they were to be treated as they had treated his soldiers
some months before, and every man capable of bearing arms was put to the
sword, with the exception of a few who succeeded in escaping into the
château. The troops exceeded the pitiless orders of the King, and the
majority of the women were violated and many murdered, together with
their children; while the town was pillaged and burned almost to the
ground. The officers appear to have done their best to protect the women
and to save the town; but, as so often happened in those days when
places were taken by assault, the soldiers were quite out of hand, and
it was impossible to restrain them.[6] The château held out until the
following day, when it surrendered at discretion, and twelve or fifteen
of those found there were taken and hanged.
The reconciliation between Bassompierre and Condé was of very short
duration, for, a day or two later, the prince accused him in a council
of war of questioning the orders which were given him. Bassompierre
retorted that he had a right to his opinion, and that “if his mouth were
to be closed, he should retire from the Service. The King thereupon took
his part, and was very angry with _Monsieur le Prince_.” Further
differences arose between them respecting the investment of
Saint-Antonin, and, as Condé refused to be guided by his advice,
Bassompierre begged to be permitted not to serve during the siege, and
his request was granted.
Marillac was then appointed to the temporary command of Bassompierre’s
troops; but the officers of the Guards refused to take their orders from
him, as did those of the Navarre Regiment. Condé was furious and, going
to the King, accused Bassompierre of “making cabals and mutinies in his
army,” and said that he “deserved punishment and even death.” And that
gentleman happening to enter the royal presence a few moments later, he
denounced him to his face. Bassompierre denied the charge, and said that
the refusal of the officers of the Guards and of Navarre to serve under
Marillac was not due to any action on his part, but to the poor opinion
they entertained of Marillac’s military capabilities, and that if some
other officer were appointed, they would obey him readily enough. With
this explanation Louis XIII professed himself satisfied, and _Monsieur
le Prince_ retired discomfited.
If we are to believe Bassompierre, Condé would appear to have bungled
the siege of Saint-Antonin pretty badly, and an imprudent attempt to
take the place by assault was repulsed with heavy loss. However, on June
22 the town surrendered.
A few days later, Bassompierre and the prince again came into
collision. Condé had proposed in the Council to attack Carmain, a nest
of Huguenots which was a great annoyance to the people of Toulouse, who
had petitioned that its reduction should be undertaken;[7] but
Bassompierre objected that to conquer these small places was to waste
time which might be more usefully employed in besieging important
strongholds of the enemy like Nîmes and Montpellier. It was decided to
follow his advice, whereat “_Monsieur le Prince’s_ bile was stirred
against him,” and he left the Council in anger, complaining loudly that
Bassompierre had prevented Carmain from being invested. Some Huguenot
gentlemen happening to overhear him, sent to inform the authorities of
that town that the Royal army had no intention of laying siege to it, in
consequence of which a body of 500 men who were on their way from
Puylaurens to reinforce the garrison received orders to return.
Bassompierre, who had been ordered to lead the army to Castelnaudary,
while the King and Condé went to visit Toulouse, learned of the return
of this reinforcement, and aware that, deprived of its assistance, the
people of Carmain would probably consider themselves incapable of
withstanding a siege, determined to make an attempt to trick them into
surrender. He accordingly appeared before the town, with all the
paraphernalia for a siege: carts loaded with gabions, platforms for the
batteries, and so forth, although he, of course, had no intention of
undertaking it, since he had not received any orders to that effect,
and, besides, had only two siege-guns with him. He then summoned it to
surrender, vowing to make a terrible example of it in the event of a
refusal, and to treat it as Négrepelisse had been treated; and the
inhabitants, completely deceived, offered to parley forthwith, and early
on the following morning, terms of capitulation having been arranged,
the place surrendered (June 30).
The previous night part of the Piedmont Regiment, which Bassompierre had
detached against the neighbouring town of Cuq-Toulza, had carried that
place by assault, after blowing in the gate with a petard. So that
within a few hours two towns had been taken, one of them without a blow
being struck.
Not a little elated by this double success, Bassompierre placed the army
in charge of Valençay, and repaired to Toulouse to report to the King.
“I arrived,” says he, “at the moment when the King was holding his
council and was reprimanding _Monsieur le Prince_, because, when
the Parlement and aldermen of Toulouse had come to do him homage,
_Monsieur le Prince_ had said that the cowardice of M. de
Bassompierre had prevented the King from attacking Carmain, as,
though he had counselled him to do it, I had dissuaded him. When
the King was informed that I was at the door, he wondered what
could have caused me to quit the army; but, when he ordered me to
be admitted, I told him that I wished to bring him myself the news
of the capture of Carmain and Cuq and to receive his commands upon
other matters which I wished to propose to him. Then _Monsieur le
Prince_ rose and came to embrace me, telling me that he had done
wrong to say what he had said, and that he would repair it by
saying much good of me.... It is impossible to describe the joy
with which the people of Toulouse received the news of this
capture. They caused a splendid lodging to be made ready for me;
and the aldermen came to thank me, and to invite me to dine on the
morrow at the Hôtel-de-Ville, where they would hold a grand
assembly for love of me, and a ball to follow. But I begged them to
excuse me, on the ground that it was necessary for me to return
promptly to the army.”
Bassompierre returned to the army accompanied by Praslin, who took over
the command. The following day he met with what might have been a very
severe accident, his horse stumbling and falling into a ditch on top of
him. However, he escaped with nothing worse than a badly bruised foot.
On July 2, the army reached Castelnaudary, having snapped up the little
town of Le Mas-Saintes-Puelles on the way, and on the 5th the King
joined it. His Majesty was unwell, suffering, says his physician
Hérouard, from “sore throat, a cold, and a relaxed uvula,” and he
remained for some days at Castelnaudary and kept Bassompierre with him;
while the army under Praslin continued its march into Lower Languedoc.
Meantime, Lesdiguières, to whom, after the death of Luynes, Louis XIII
had promised the office of Constable, provided he would renounce the
Reformed faith, had sent to inform the King that he was about to be
received into the Catholic Church. His elevation would entail a vacancy
among the marshals, and the King sent for Bassompierre and Schomberg,
who had also remained at Castelnaudary, and told them that, so soon as
another occurred, he would create them both marshals, but that he did
not wish to promote one before the other, as he considered that their
claims were equal. Schomberg, however, pressed the King to promote both
Bassompierre and himself forthwith, pointing out that they could render
him more useful service as marshals of France in the approaching
campaign in Lower Languedoc, and that when there was another vacancy,
his Majesty could leave it unfilled, which would come to the same thing.
Perceiving that the King seemed very reluctant to take this course,
though, at the same time, he was unwilling to refuse so pressing a
request, Bassompierre, like a true courtier, came to his aid, and
declared that, as he had “always preferred to deserve great honours than
to possess them,” he was not so eager for the bâton as Schomberg, and
would “without envy or regret” resign his claims in favour of one who
was six years his senior, and one of his Majesty’s Ministers, and
therefore entitled to the preference. “M. de Schomberg,” says he,
“feeling that my courtesy had placed him under a great obligation,
thanked me very gracefully; but the King persisted in refusing to
promote one of us without the other; and so we withdrew.”
On July 13, Louis XIII left Castelnaudary and proceeded, by way of
Carcassonne and Narbonne, to Béziers, where he remained for some little
time. Bassompierre, however, rejoined the army, which was advancing
slowly towards Montpellier, and which, on August 2, laid siege
simultaneously to the towns of Lunel and Marsillargues, situated about a
league from one another. Marsillargues surrendered almost at once, and
Lunel a few days later, the garrison of the latter place, by the terms
of the capitulation, being permitted to march out with their swords
only; their other weapons were to be placed in the carts which carried
their baggage.
Bassompierre had received orders to enter the town with the Guards the
moment the garrison evacuated it. On his way thither, he saw great
numbers of disbanded soldiers of different regiments, _landsknechts_ and
Swiss as well as French, lingering about, and felt sure that their
presence boded no good, and that they were meditating an attack upon the
baggage. He accordingly decided not to allow the garrison to leave until
he had ridden back to the Royal camp to warn Praslin, whom he advised to
take measures to prevent any such attempt. But the marshal replied that
“he was not a child, and that he understood his business, and that if he
[Bassompierre] would only give the necessary orders within the town, he
would do the same without.”
Bassompierre returned to the town and directed the garrison to march out
with their baggage, after which he entered with his troops, and gave
orders that the gates should be closed and the breach which the
besiegers’ cannon had made strongly guarded, as he thought it not
improbable that an attempt might be made to enter and pillage the
place.
“There was some degree of order in the departure of the enemy,” he
says, “until the baggage came in sight; but, when that appeared,
all the disbanded soldiers of our army rushed upon it, before it
was possible for the marshal or Portes or Marillac to prevent them,
and plundered these poor soldiers, 400 of whom they inhumanly
butchered.”
Bassompierre, however, had the satisfaction of executing rigorous
justice upon some of these ruffians:--
“Eight soldiers, of different countries and regiments, presented
themselves at the gates of Lunel, with more than twenty prisoners,
whom they brought tied together, with the intention of entering the
town. Their swords were stained with the blood of those whom they
had massacred, and they were so laden with booty that they could
hardly walk. Finding the gate of Lunel shut, they called to the
sentries to go and tell me to give orders for them to be let in. I
went to the gate in consequence of what I heard, which I found to
be true. I let them in and then ordered these eight fine fellows to
be bound with the same cords with which they had bound the twenty
prisoners. After giving these men the booty of the eight soldiers,
whom, without any form of trial, I caused to be hanged before their
eyes on a tree near the bridge of Lunel, I had them escorted by my
carabiniers so far as the road to Cauvisson. On the morrow,
_Monsieur le Prince_ was very pleased with what I had done and
thanked me.”
Two or three days after the Royal troops had taken possession of Lunel,
the town narrowly escaped being destroyed, with everyone within its
walls.
Bassompierre was at dinner with Créquy, Schomberg, and the Duc de
Montmorency when there was a violent explosion, which partially wrecked
the room in which they sat, though, happily, they were unhurt. They ran
out to ascertain the cause, and learned that one of a train of
ammunition-waggons which was entering the town had caught fire, and that
the flames had reached the powder, with the result that several houses
had been destroyed and others were blazing furiously. The utmost
consternation prevailed, for the explosion had occurred near the gate
by which the waggons had entered, and the débris of the houses barred
the approach to it, while the other gates had been blocked up by Condé’s
orders; and the fire was rapidly approaching a convent, in the vaults of
which a great quantity of powder was stored. If once it reached it, the
whole town would be consumed, with all the troops and inhabitants.
“The confusion was extreme,” says Bassompierre, “and, as everyone
was thinking only of himself and his own safety, no one ran to
extinguish the fire; all the people sought only to get out of the
town, but no one could find a way. At length, I caused one of the
blocked-up gates to be broken open, through which everyone could
get out, and, having by this expedient got more elbow-room, we
removed our powder to a safe place and extinguished the fire, by
which more than fifty persons had perished.”
The following day Bassompierre went with a body of 500 cavalry to
Villeneuve-de-Maguelonne to escort the King to Lunel, where his Majesty
arrived on August 15. On the 17th, Louis XIII went to visit Sommières,
which had just surrendered to his troops, and on the return journey
Schomberg, whose jealousy of Bassompierre was increasing daily, finding
an opportunity for private conversation with his sovereign, did not fail
to turn it to account:
“On the road M. de Schomberg said to the King that I was his enemy,
and he begged him to believe nothing that I might say about him.
The King replied that he was entirely wrong, and that I had never
spoken of him except to his advantage, nor of any other person, and
that Schomberg knew me very little to take me for a man who did ill
turns to people. He [Schomberg] was not a little astonished by this
answer.”
Perceiving by Bassompierre’s manner that the King had told him of their
conversation, Schomberg requested Puisieux to effect a reconciliation
between them, to which Bassompierre “consented reluctantly and after he
had expressed to him his sentiments.”
Schomberg would appear to have possessed an unusual amount of assurance,
even for a German, for, immediately afterwards, he begged the man whom
he had attempted to injure to employ his good offices with the King to
obtain for him the governments which d’Épernon was about to resign in
order to accept that of Guienne. This cool request, however, proved a
little too much for Bassompierre, whose friend Praslin also aspired to
these offices; and he replied that, not only should he refuse to speak
in his favour, but should oppose him, until Praslin had been provided
for. Eventually d’Épernon’s governments were divided between the two,
Praslin receiving Saintonge and Aulnis, and Schomberg the Angoumois and
the Limousin.
On August 27, Louis XIII arrived at Laverune, a little to the west of
Montpellier, and on the following day Lesdiguières, who had been
received into the Catholic Church in the Cathedral of Grenoble on the
24th, took the oath as Constable of France; after which, to the great
mortification of Schomberg, the King informed Bassompierre that it was
his intention to confer the vacant marshal’s bâton upon him, and that he
would give orders for the necessary patent to be made out forthwith. His
Majesty’s decision to give it to Bassompierre, notwithstanding what he
had told him and Schomberg a fortnight before, was no doubt due to the
fact that he had just bestowed a lucrative government upon the latter
and considered that he ought to be content for the present with that
proof of the royal favour. However, M. de Schomberg, who was one of
those whose appetite for honours and emoluments seems only to have been
stimulated by attempts to satisfy it, did not view the matter in that
light, and felt deeply aggrieved.