Old Court Life in France, vol. 1

“What!” cries Henry, disengaging himself from her and striding up and down the room. “What! spare, when Guise, triumphant among the citizens of Paris, dared to lay his hand on the hilt of his sword in our very presence at the Louvre! Spare him who drove me a fugitive from the capital! Spare the chief of the League, who, assisted by Spain, is dismembering France! Spare them, when they will both be within this castle to-night, to attend the council! Spare them who never spared ME! No, my mother, I will NOT spare them! Your sickness has weakened your courage. ‘A nut for a nut’ was once your motto. It is mine. If the Balafré and the Cardinal enter these doors to-morrow they shall not go hence alive; they shall die like rebels as they are.”

“Alas! my son,” says the Queen in a very low voice, – she has fallen back exhausted upon the bed, – “alas! it is easy to cut the thread of life; but once cut, can you mend it? Shed no more blood, Henry, for my sake, for I am dying. Let my last hour be undisturbed. I have much that troubles me,” and she heaves a deep sigh. “Too much blood has flowed already. Spare them, Henry, spare them.”

“My mother, you never spared an enemy when within your power, nor will I. Either Guise or I must die. You have taught me that all means are good to save the sovereign and support his authority. My brother Charles, by your order, spared not Coligni and massacred the Huguenots at the festival of St. Bartholomew. I helped him. The Guises, madame, must die.”

“But, my son,” replies Catherine, wringing her bony hands, and struggling again to raise herself upright, “it is sacrilege. You have sworn peace upon the altar; you have eaten together the body of the Lord.”

Catherine’s voice is so feeble, that the King either does not hear, or does not heed her. He still strides up and down the room, speaking from time to time as if to himself.

“Every detail is arranged; we cannot fail. To-morrow the guards within the walls will be doubled; a hundred Swiss will be posted at the entrance in the courtyard and on the grand staircase. When the Duke arrives, Crillon will see that the outer gates are closed. As soon as Guise enters the council-chamber, I will send for him into my closet. When he has passed through the guard-room to reach it, Nambre will bar the door, that he may not return. My trusty Dalahaide and the guards – the 45th – who will be hidden on the secret stair behind the arras, will then rush down, fall upon the traitor as he passes through the guard-room, and finish him.”

Catherine, with haggard eyes, listens breathlessly. When the King has ceased speaking and looks round for a reply, she has fainted.

…

The next morning the sky was black with clouds. The month was December. It rained violently, and the wind howled round the corners of the château. Catherine, lying in the uneasy slumber of disease, was awakened at eight o’clock by the sound of heavy footsteps overhead. The state apartments are on the second floor, immediately over and corresponding with those of the Queen-mother. They still remain, gloomy and ill-omened, haunted by evil memories. Every plank has its history – each corner a ghastly detail. There is the hidden stair within the wall, concealed by tapestry, where Dalahaide and the guards hid; the door against which the great Balafré fell, stabbed by Malines in the breast, where he was spurned by the heel of the King, as he himself had spurned Coligni, and where he lay long uncovered, until an old carpet was found in which to wrap his corpse.

…

Catherine, listening breathlessly, hears the council assembling. Heavy footsteps are passing backwards and forwards through the guard-room overhead to the royal gallery where the council is to meet. Then all is hushed, and the face of the dying queen flushes with hope, and her hands clasp themselves in prayer, if, perchance, at the last moment Henry has relented and listened to her entreaties to spare the Duke.

A moment after a door closes violently. She hears a single footstep – a powerful and firm footstep. It crosses the floor. Then came loud tramplings, as of a rush of armed men, a clash of weapons, a fall as of a heavy body; then a terrible cry —

“À moi, mes amis! – trahison! – à moi, Guise, – je me meurs.”

The dying woman knows that all is over; she sinks back on her bed raving in delirium. In a few days she was dead.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE LAST OF THE VALOIS

WE are at Saint-Cloud. The time, the wars of the League. At the head of the Leaguers is the Duc de Mayenne, only living brother of the Guises. Henry III. commands the royal forces. With him is Henry of Navarre. Since the Queen-mother’s death the King of France has become reconciled to his brother-in-law. He shows himself almost a hero. They are both defending the Crown to which Mayenne aspires. Eight months have passed since the murder of the Balafré. That treacherous deed has done the King no good; Mayenne lives to avenge his brother’s death, and the Catholic party is still more alienated from the King since he has called a heretic into his councils. The royal troops are lying encamped among the hilly woodlands of the park towards Ville d’Avray and Meudon, then, as now, pleasant to the eye.

On the 1st August, 1589, Henry sat in the long gallery of the palace (until lately lined with pictures and gorgeously decorated), playing at cards with his attendants. He holds himself so upright, that he moves neither his head nor his feet, and his hands as little as possible. A hood hangs upon his shoulders; a little cap, with a flower stuck in it, is placed over one ear; round his neck, suspended by a broad blue ribbon, is a basket of gold wickerwork, full of little puppies.

Monsieur d’O, Seigneur of Fiesnes and Maillebois, first gentleman of the bed-chamber, and Governor of Paris, has been joking him about the predictions of an astrologer, named Osman, who has arrived that evening at Saint-Cloud in company with some noblemen.

“By our Ladye-mother! let us have him in and hear what he can say,” cries the King. “These fellows are diverting. I will question him myself.”

Osman is sent for; but startled at so sudden and unexpected an interview with the King himself in such a whimsical attire, scarcely knows how to reply to the gibes his Majesty addressed to him.

“Come, come,” says the King, “let us hear what you can do. They tell me you draw horoscopes. Let me have a specimen of your skill.”

“Sire,” replies Osman, somewhat recovered from his confusion, “I will obey you; but, as sure as fate, the heavens this night are unpropitious. The light of the moon is veiled; there are signs of mourning among the stars; lamentations and woe are written in the planets; a great misfortune hangs over you – Beware!”

“By St. Denis!” cries the King, “the fellow is glib enough with his tongue; but tell me, good heathen, are the stars in mourning for a king or for an emperor?”

“Sire, they mourn over the approaching extinction of your race.”

“Heaven preserve us!” answers the King, with affected consternation, caressing his puppies. “But tell me now, if you have any knowledge, what do the celestial powers think of those accursed rebels, the Leaguers, and their chief, the Duc de Mayenne? Is that bold traitor in favour among the stars?”

Osman does not at once reply; but, advancing to the window, throws open the sash, and silently observes the heavens.

“Sire, I see one star shining brightly in the firmament.”

“Where?” asks the King.

“Just over the Camp of Meudon, where Henry of Navarre lies this night. But look, your Majesty, at that other star there over the woods. It blazes for a moment; and now, see – it falls; it has disappeared behind the palace!”

“By the mother of God,” says the King, reddening either with terror or passion, “I have had enough of this gibberish. Hark ye, you wandering Jew! no more of these ugly portents, or, by St. Louis, the guardian of our race, we will hold you warrant for all that may happen to our person.”

Osman shrunk back from the window, trembling with fright. He does not wait for permission to depart, but as the King rises to address some gentlemen he glides from the gallery.

“If ever I heard a voice hoarse with blood, it is his,” mutters the astrologer, pointing to the King as he crept away. “By the brightness of the celestial bodies, there will be evil this night. I will never draw horoscope more, if to-morrow’s sun finds Henry of Valois alive. There is blood on him, but he sees it not. His star has fallen, he beheld it; but he understood not the portent.”

As Osman crosses the circular hall opening from the gallery and leading to the principal staircase, he meets the Comte d’Auvergne18 conversing with a Dominican monk, whose sinister countenance expressed every evil passion. A crowd of attendants had assembled and are listening to the conversation.

“Good father,” says M. d’Auvergne, addressing the Dominican, “you must not, at this late hour, insist on seeing his Majesty; he is engaged.”

“But, indeed, monseigneur, I do insist upon seeing him without a moment’s delay, and alone. It is on a matter of life and death.” The monk’s bold words and determined bearing evidently impress M. d’Auvergne in his favour.

“Are you the bearer of any despatches for his Majesty?” he asks. “Those might be delivered, although his Majesty has just retired and is at this moment in his oratory, busy with his devotions.”

As he spoke, D’Auvergne scans him curiously; the monk perceives the look, draws his cowl closer over his face, and withdraws from the full glare of the lights on the staircase.

“I am the bearer of letters of the greatest importance, monseigneur – letters from the President Harlay, now a prisoner of the League; but I am charged to deliver them in person, and into the hand of his Majesty alone. Nor is that all; I have a secret communication to make, which it behoves the King to hear without delay. Good gentlemen,” and he faces round to the courtiers who are gathered about him, “I pray you, one of you, go to the King and tell him what I say.”

“Impossible,” replies the Count d’O, who came from the gallery at that moment, and hears the last few words; “impossible. His Majesty is now alone; I have just left him. He is fatigued, and desired not to be disturbed.”

“Good God!” cries the monk, clasping his hands, “if I do not see him to-night, I shall never see him.”

“And why not, I pray?” asks the Comte d’Auvergne. “Come and sup with my people to-night; and to-morrow, as early as you please, I will take you to his Majesty. Follow me.”

“I wash my hands of all the evil this delay will cause,” exclaims the monk, following him reluctantly. “On your head be it, monseigneur.” They quitted the hall together.

All this time Osman had stood near watching them. He had not lost a syllable of the conversation. “Did I not say that there was blood?” he mutters half aloud; “is it not true? The knowledge of it came to me in a vision. Now I have read it also in the stars. The blood of the King is on that monk. His robes are spotted with it. In his hand, while he spoke, there was a dagger. None else beheld it; but I saw it, and the point streamed with the King’s life-blood. Woe! woe! woe! Would that I could speak! Would that they would listen! Before many hours, death will be within these walls. Alas! it is given to me to avert it if they would but hear me.”

The astrologer slowly follows the steps of the Comte d’Auvergne and the Dominican, descending the stairs after them. They enter a suite of rooms on the ground floor of the palace. The monk had now thrown back his cowl and displayed a face yet young, but seamed and wrinkled with deep lines. His eyes are dull and bloodshot; his thin hair scarcely shades his projecting forehead. He stands in the centre of the apartment, silent, sullen, and preoccupied.

“What is your name?” asks the Count sternly, turning towards him.

“Jacques Clément,” is the short rejoinder.

“You say you are the bearer of letters to the King?”

“Yes,” replies he, “from Monsieur de Brienne and the President Harlay, now both prisoners in the Bastille. There is my passport; you see it is signed by Monsieur de Brienne.”

“Show me the President’s letter,” says D’Auvergne; “his writing is as familiar to me as my own. If you are a spy, you will meet with no mercy here,” and he measured him from head to foot with eyes full of doubt and suspicion.

The monk draws forth a parcel of unsealed letters, which the Count reads and examines.

“It is well,” he says. “These are proofs that you are a messenger from the King’s friends. But how did you, carrying such dangerous credentials, contrive to pass the gates of Paris? Answer me that, my father.”

“My habit protected me,” replies the monk, devoutly crossing himself, “our Blessed Lady gave me courage and address to escape from those Philistines. Once past the gates, I came here in company with Monsieur de la Guesle’s people.”

“You say, then, that you will answer with your head that two gates of Paris will open to the King if he advances?”

“I swear before God that this is the truth,” replies the monk, again crossing himself; “and my God is not that false one worshipped by the Huguenot dogs under Henry of Navarre, but the true God of the Holy Catholic Church. Let the King trust to his loyal Catholic subjects, and beware of the heretics that are in his council and amongst his troops.” And the monk scowls around. His eyes meet those of Osman the astrologer, which are fixed on him with the intensity of a cat ready to spring. Jacques Clément trembles. For an instant his courage forsakes him and he turns pale.

“Well, father,” says D’Auvergne, laughing, “you are true to your trade – a steady Catholic. We understand; you can smell a heretic a mile off, I’ll be sworn.”

The monk makes no reply, and to avoid further discussion turns to a table on which supper is spread, and sitting down, begins to eat.

The Attorney-General de la Guesle having been told of the arrival of a mysterious monk, enters the room and confirms what he had said of their meeting outside the gates of Paris.

The Comte d’Auvergne, after scrutinising Jacques Clément for some minutes, turns aside to Monsieur de la Guesle, and whispers —

“I do not know why, but I have a strange suspicion of that fellow. All he says seems fair enough and his papers are properly signed; but there is something about his dark, sinister face and surly answers that alarms me.”

Osman, seeing them converse apart, advances eagerly from the bottom of the room, and addresses them in a low voice, “If monseigneur will only listen to me, he will not admit this monk within a hundred miles of his Majesty. The stars, Count, are – ”

“Confound the stars!” interrupts Monsieur de la Guesle. “Do you take us for a parcel of fools? Go prate elsewhere.”

The noblemen seat themselves at the upper end of the supper-table. The Comte d’Auvergne, Monsieur de la Guesle, and other gentlemen are served by an old valet who, after pouring out the wine all round, stands behind the chair of his master, the Count. His eyes are fixed on Jacques Clément, who had drawn forth from the folds of his sleeve a large dagger with which he cuts up his meat.

“May it please monseigneur,” the valet whispers into the Count’s ear, “the reverend father knows how to travel in these stormy times. He has not forgotten to bring a goodly dagger with him; though perhaps the breviary, being less useful, is forgotten.”

“Not so, brother,” answers the monk who, overhearing his whisper, draws out a missal from his bosom; “I never travel without the one and the other – defences for the body and the soul – whichever may most need it.”

But the garrulous old servant, once set talking, is not to be silenced. He begins a long account, in a low voice, addressed to the Count, of how the monk, on arriving, had entertained him and his fellows in the courtyard with a history of the death of Holofernes the tyrant, by the hands of a Jewish maiden Judith, the saviour of her country.

“A bloody tale, forsooth,” says M. de la Guesle, eying the monk.

“Ay, blood, blood!” mutters Osman who is seated below the salt, next the Comte d’Auvergne. “See you not, my lord,” he continues, half aloud to the Count, holding up his hand warningly, “that this monk is a mad fanatic? Admit him to no speech with the King, I entreat you; he is mad, monseigneur.”

“Oh,” answers the Count, in low voice, “I will watch over his Majesty. As the bearer of letters of importance I cannot refuse him an audience, but I will answer that no mischief comes of the meeting.”

Soon after, supper being ended, the party separates. The monk is conducted to a bed; and Osman, heaving many heavy sighs, retires to the room appropriated to him, where he consults the stars, until the dawn of day obliterates them and ends his labour.

The next day is the 2d of August, and the King, who has been informed of the arrival of a monk with letters over night, commands his early attendance in his bed-chamber. The Comte d’Auvergne conducts Jacques Clément into the presence of Henry, who sits in an arm-chair, only partially dressed, close to the bed. As the communication is to be private, the King signs to D’Auvergne, Clermont, and the other attendants present, to retire to the farther end of the room; then he stretches out his hand to receive the packet from Jacques Clément, who in presenting it bows his head, and stands motionless, his arms crossed on his breast.

As Henry’s attention is absorbed and his eyes are bent upon the page, Jacques Clément suddenly draws out the dagger he carried concealed in his sleeve, springs forward, and plunges it up to the hilt in the King’s abdomen.

“Help!” groans the King, with difficulty plucking out the weapon and flinging it on the floor. “Help! the wretch has stabbed me. I am killed – kill him!”

D’Auvergne rushes forward. The pages and gentlemen in attendance, the guards outside, and Monsieur de la Guesle, who is waiting for an audience, all burst into the room.

The King is lying back in the arm-chair; a pool of blood stains the floor from a deep wound; Jacques Clément still stands immovable before him. Swords flash in the air; some fly to support the dying monarch, some to raise an alarm over the palace; others, transported with fury, fall upon the monk, who offers no resistance. He is speedily despatched. Osman, hearing the uproar, enters. “What!” cries he, “is the King dead?”

“Not quite,” is the reply.

“Who did it?”

“Jacques Clément.”

“Sainte Marie!” groans the astrologer, wringing his hands, “if you had listened to me this would never have happened. Did I not say there was blood on that monk? Did I not say that the star of the House of Valois had fallen? Alas! alas! If you had but listened!”

At this moment M. d’O and the Comte d’Auvergne leave the King’s room to send for a surgeon.

“Why did you kill the assassin? We might have tortured him, and discovered his accomplices,” says M. d’O, while they await the messenger whom they had despatched.

“I did not kill him,” answered the Comte d’Auvergne. The King was seated when he entered, and, taking the wretch’s papers in his hands, was busy reading them. M. Clermont and I were present, but had retired a little to leave his Majesty more at liberty. As he rose from his seat and was addressing the monk, the traitor drew a dagger from his sleeve and plunged it into the King’s stomach. The King cried out, “Kill him – he has killed me!” and, drawing forth the dagger from the wound, gave two or three cuts at the assassin, and then fell. We rushed to his aid, and smote the fellow, who was unarmed, right and left. At the noise, the doors burst open, and the gentlemen and pages in their rage finished him with a hundred blows. Seeing that he was dead, I ordered him to be stripped and thrown out of the window, in order to be recognised if possible.”

“What does it matter who recognises him?” answers M. d’O. “Have the papers that he showed the King disappeared also?”

Before the Count could reply the surgeon appears. He desires that every one shall be turned out of the King’s bedroom whilst he examines him. He pronounces the wound mortal; the dagger was poisoned. Henry, after great anguish, expires in a few hours. The letters were forgeries. The body of Jacques Clément, having first been drawn by four horses through the streets of Saint-Cloud, is burned by the common hangman. He is much lauded, however, at Rome, where Sixtus V. reigns as Pontiff; at Paris his effigy is placed upon the altars beside the Host.

Meanwhile the King of Navarre is within his quarters at Meudon. His minister Sully lodges a little way down the hill, in the house of a man called Sauvat. Sully is just sitting down to supper, when his secretary enters and desires him to go instantly to his master.

Henry of Navarre tells him that an express has arrived from Saint-Cloud, and that the King is already dead, or dying. “Sully,” he says, “for what I know, I may be at this very instance King of France. Yet, who will support me? Half my army will desert if Henry be really dead. Not a prince of the blood – not a minister will stand by me. I am here, as it were, in the midst of an enemy’s country, with but a handful of followers. What is to be done?”

“Stay where you are, Sire, is my advice,” answers Sully. “If you are, indeed, now King of France, remain with such as are faithful to you. A monarch should never fly. But let us go to Saint-Cloud and hear the truth.”

“That is just what I desire,” answers Henry. “We will start as soon as our horses are saddled.”

As they enter the gates of Saint-Cloud, a man rushes by them, shouting, “The King is dead – the King is dead!” Henry reins up his horse. The Swiss Guard, posted round the château, perceive him. They throw down their arms and cast themselves at his feet. “Sire,” they cry, “now you are our King and master, do not forsake us.” Biron, the Duc de Bellegarde, the Comte d’O, M. de Châteauvieux, and De Dampierre come up; they all warmly salute Henry as their sovereign.

But the bonfires that already blaze in the streets of Paris at the news of the death of the King, warn Henry of Navarre that he must fight as many battles to gain the Crown, as he has already done to secure his personal liberty.

CHAPTER XXIII.

DON JUAN

THE wars of the League rage fiercer than ever. By the death of the last Valois, Henry III., Henry IV., a Bourbon, is King of France.19 But he is only acknowledged by his Protestant subjects. To the Catholics he is but a rebel, and still only King of Navarre. The Duc de Mayenne (a Guise, brother of the Balafré), subsidised with money and troops by Spain, is the orthodox pretender to the

throne. The capital, Paris, is with him. The two Henries, reconciled after the death of Catherine de’ Medici, encamped with their respective forces at Saint-Cloud, were about to invest the city. But now Henry III. is dead. His successor, Henry of Navarre, weakened in influence, troops, and money, is forced to raise the siege and retire. Henry IV. had at this time but 3,000 troops, while the army of Mayenne numbered 32,000 men. Then came help from England. The victory of Ivry was gained, Henry again invested Paris and encamped on the heights of Montmartre. It was now he uttered that characteristic mot: – “I am like the true mother in the judgment of Solomon, – I would rather not have Paris at all than see it torn to pieces.”

At this time the fortune of war called the King in many places. He loved an adventurous life. Brave to a fault, he rode hither and thither like a knight-errant, regardless of his personal safety, accompanied only by a few attendants.

Although a warrior and a statesman, Henry was a true child of the mountains. Born under the shadows of the Pyrenees, he would as soon encamp under a hedge as lie on a bed of down; would rather eat dried ham spiced with garlic than dine sumptuously at Jarnet’s Palace, at the Marais or at “Le Petit More,” the polite traiteur of that day; would quaff the petit cru of his native grape with more relish than the costliest wines from the vineyards of Champagne or Bordeaux. Henry was not born upon the banks of the Garonne, but a more thorough Gascon never lived, – his hand upon his sword, his foot in the stirrup, his gun slung across his shoulder, the first in assault, the last in retreat, ready to slay the wild boar of his native forests, or lute in hand to twang a roundelay in honour of the first Dulcinea he encountered. Boastful, fearless, capricious; his versatility of accomplishments suited the changing aspects of the times. He was plain of speech, rough in manner – with a quaint jest alike for friend or foe; irregular in his habits, eating at no stated times, but when hungry voraciously devouring everything that pleased him, especially fruit and oysters; negligent, not to say dirty, in his person, and smelling strong of garlic. A man who called a spade a spade, swore like a trooper, and hated the parade of courts; was constant in friendship, fickle in love, promised everything freely, especially marriage, to any beauty who caught his eye; a boon companion among men, a libertine with women, a story-teller, cynical in his careless epicureanism, and so profound a believer in “the way of fate,” that reckless of the morrow he extracted all things from the passing hour.