CHAPTER II.
Clermont—Château now a Penitentiary—a Stronghold of the English in Charles the Sixth’s time—Creil, where Peter the Hermit preached the first Crusade—Charles the Sixth’s place of Confinement during his Madness—Chantilly—Écouen—Henry last Duke of Montmorency—Presentiment of his Father—at eighteen created Lord High Admiral—His early love in Languedoc—His prudential Marriage at the Louvre—His Successes at Rochelle—Coldness of Louis the Thirteenth, and jealousy of Richelieu—His gallantry at Veillane—Restoration of Prisoners—Humanity during the plague at Rivoli—His anxiety to become High Constable of France—Richelieu’s injustice—His retirement to Languedoc—Privileges of Languedoc—Prince Gaston’s efforts to win over Montmorency—The Duke’s arrest by Richelieu’s orders, rendered impossible through the people’s affection—Renewed efforts of Gaston—Persuasions of the Duchess—Montmorency’s reluctant consent—Gaston’s indecision and high words with the Duke—Battle of Castlenaudary—His emulation with the Comte de Moret to strike the first blow—The ditch leaped alone as at Veillane—The troops held back by Gaston in sight of his peril—Montmorency overpowered—Dragged from under his dead horse and carried before Schomberg—The female portrait on his arm discovered by a spy, and notice of his wearing it sent to incense the King by the Cardinal—The cries of the people beneath the Palace windows—His farewell to his wife, and legacy to Richelieu—The emotion of his Judges—His condemnation—Religious feeling of his last hours—His farewell to the statue of his Godfather—His calm death, and blood sought for as that of a martyr—His burial among the bones of the Sainted—The imprisonment of his widow—Her sad life—Her taking the veil—Louis the Thirteenth’s visit to her mourning cell and her reply to the Cardinal’s messengers—The King’s remorse—The apparition in the Hall of Écouen—St. Denis—Foundation of the Cathedral by Dagobert, St. Denis having appeared to him in a dream—Miraculous consecration of the church and the leper’s new skin—Tombs—The column to the memory of Francis, erected by Mary of Scotland—Breaking open of the monuments in 1793—Turenne in a glass case—a lock of Henry the Fourth’s beard making a soldier’s moustache—Plunder of a nose by an Englishman—The Caveau of the last Condé—Devotion of a Russian General to Henry the Fourth’s memory—The Cathedral preserved during the Revolution by being converted into a Market-house—Paris.
18th July.
One of the pleasures of travelling consists in leaving obnoxious places. Quitted Breteuil at four, in a fog cold as December; passing the Abbey, an old building with turrets and Gothic windows, and a grove whose alleys might have proved a resource, had we known they were so near yesterday. Long hills, but no view; till a short distance from Clermont, below the road to the right, we looked down on a wooded country, and the town, built on its bold hill, appeared before us; and we continued to skirt a pretty valley, passing chateaux and pleasure grounds, till, by a gentle ascent, we arrived at the Croissant, really a very good inn, and after Breteuil, a paradise. Fed a puppy, and Fanny showed symptoms of a jealous disposition. D—— arrived just in time to save his life, as she had taken him in her mouth, and was shaking him by the skin of his back. The heat kept us within doors till evening, when we climbed the remainder of the hill. Passed the place and the church to the chateau, which is now a penitentiary, containing 1500 women, and was in early days a fortress of the Franks, to protect them from Norman invasion; and in Charles the Sixth’s time a stronghold of the English. French guide-books still call it a Gothic castle, though I could see no trace of Gothic architecture remaining, except in the building on the place now the Hôtel de Ville, which has still the vestiges of battlements, and one old tower. The road leads, beneath an ancient arch, to the public promenade which surrounds the chateau which crowns it, like a verdant belt, its fine trees making, in French taste, stars and circles. The view it commands, as it juts over the valley, is very lovely; as the river shines below, and seems to lose itself winding among wooded hills, which succeed each other far to the right. The townspeople were assembled on the terrace, playing rackets with much noise and small skill; we sat on one of the stone benches watching the game, and the sun set—decidedly we prefer setting to rising suns; D——, in particular, has no taste for the beauties of nature at half-past four.
Left at five: passing on our way Creil on the Oise, looking from the bridge towards the west, you see built, in a rather elevated situation, the village of Montataire. It is said that here Peter the Hermit first preached the crusade. The ruined castle on the island of Creil was built in Charles the Fifth of France’s time, and a kind of balcony with iron gates, which belonged to Charles the Sixth’s apartment, was formerly shown. He was confined here during his madness, and the well built in the centre of the floor for heating the rooms with charcoal (for chimneys were not yet in use) remained also. I do not know whether they exist now.
It is a romantically situated town, and the view back to it, from the hill beyond, very interesting. Thence a straight road leads to Chantilly, and is wearisome enough, though a great part of it skirts the forest; but the trees here are young, and mostly oak, and yet without shade or beauty. A long descent conducts to the miserable town, and we stopped at the Hôtel de Bourbon Condé, the best and very bad, to breakfast and dine, intending to go on at sunset. I came here long ago to see the over ornamented park, and the stables for 240 horses; but to-day, instead of braving the burning sun, I lay down tired at last with early hours, and read a savage selection from discoveries in savage islands. John arrived, brought by the pity of the conductor, joined to the price of his place, of course. There being no room, he had constructed a pyramid of baggage on his back, preparatory to walking, when the conductor perched him in some unknown corner. He is growing troublesome; complaining yesterday of dining on bones, which on inquiry proved two fricasseed fowls! and anxious to know the punishment when a foreigner fights a Frenchman. We started after a dear dinner of bad meat, at the same time with the diligence, whose passengers we astonished, because, having taken the horses along a pathway and off the high road, our only way to return was over a ditch, which was narrow, but excited great shouting notwithstanding. The road through the forest pretty, but after quitting it, shorn of all its fine trees—got to Écouen very warm and thirsty—drank some beer in the street, and looked as we passed at the old chateau, 400 years the property of the Montmorency. Henry, marshal of Montmorency, was its last owner of the name. His history is so interesting, that I am tempted to write some of its circumstances here.
The war-cry of the Montmorency was “Dieu aide au premier baron Chrétien,” for the first baron was (tradition tells) baptized at the same time with Clovis, the first Christian king. The last, who was beheaded in 1632 and left no heir, was born in 1595. An astrologer drew his horoscope, and predicted that he would outshine his ancestors in glory, if he could avoid a danger which threatened his thirty-eighth year. He is described as being from his childhood mild, brave, and beautiful; possessing those graces of exterior which set off noble qualities. Henry the Fourth loved him as his own son; and taking pleasure in talking with the boy, he one day asked, “What is the virtue best fitted to a monarch?” “Clemency,” said the child; “since only kings have privilege to pardon.” He was thirteen when Henry bestowed on him the survivance of the governorship of Languedoc possessed by his father, who conducted him there, and himself installed him in his dignities; but when he had placed him in the seat the governor occupied in the parliament of Toulouse, a sudden presentiment of evil came over him, and he burst into tears. The king was sad without the boy, and soon recalled him to court, and proposed his marriage with his own daughter by Henriette d’Entragues. The constable of Montmorency had fixed his wishes on his son’s union with Mademoiselle de Beaufort, Henry’s daughter also, but by Gabrielle d’Estrées, and more beloved by him, as well as more beautiful; and the King, irritated by opposition, exiled him to Chantilly. He was there and in disgrace, when a marriage with the rich demoiselle de Chemilly was proposed to him for his heir. Thinking the King might disapprove, he desired his brother would conduct the youth to one of his own mansions, that he might there meet his destined bride; but Henry the Fourth, apprized of what was passing, sent an order to Duplessis, the commandant at Saumur, to arrest there, on their way, the Duke d’Amville and the young governor. Duplessis in consequence called upon them, and the Duke, suspecting his errand, invited him to dine. The officer refused, yet, wishing to do his duty civilly, put off the arrest till after dinner, merely placing a sentinel at the gates, intending to return in an hour or two. D’Amville and his nephew, instead of repairing to the eating-hall, walked straight to the stables, and riding out a private way, joined an escort of fifty gentlemen. When the King knew he had been outwitted, he sent the Duke of Soubise, with two companies of the guards, to the house where the marriage was to take place, with orders (if necessary) to force an entrance, and bring away Mademoiselle de Chemilly, but Soubise, on arriving, found them united. Some time after, the Constable, finding his daughter-in-law less rich than he expected, determined on dissolving this very marriage. The King gave his assent, and Montmorency was neither old enough nor sufficiently in love to resist him. Many thought that this violation of his vow brought on him the disasters of his after-life. Henry, rather than disoblige his favourite, broke a former engagement made for Mademoiselle de Beaufort, and her marriage with Montmorency was about to take place in 1610, when the King was murdered. The Duke was yet only fifteen. Three years after he was created Lord High Admiral, and the queen-mother proposed his union with the Princess Orsini, her relation, for Mademoiselle de Beaufort’s consequence had died with her father. The young Duke was disinclined to this marriage, for in his own Languedoc he had fallen in love with a lady so surpassingly lovely, that for her sake he was ready to forget ambition and make her his wife. She had been married to an old man, who, shortly after Montmorency first saw her, slipped as he feebly descended some steps, and died of the blow received on his head. The Duke, who witnessed this awful death, first consoled and then loved the widow: but overruled by his father, and perhaps influenced by all this high alliance promised him, he quitted Languedoc for Paris, accompanied by a hundred gentlemen and nobles of his province. He was lodged in the Louvre, and married there with all the ceremonial which accompanies the wedding of a prince; but either because his heart was far away with the fair lady of Montroux, or because something whispered that out of this ill-starred union would grow all his future misfortune, his joy was ill feigned. There was even an unwonted bitterness in his manner which brought on him a foolish quarrel; for, presenting to the Duke of Retz (who had espoused his deserted bride, Madlle. de Chemilly) a bowl of sweetmeats, which he had himself tasted, he said, “Take these, Sir; it is not the first time you have accepted what I have left;” they fought in consequence, but Montmorency disarmed him. The Duchess Mary of Orsini was gentle and of a fine figure, but by no means handsome. In spite of his infidelity, which she knew and deplored the more, seeing its object so beautiful, she was fondly attached to her husband and gained his esteem and affection by her uncomplaining gentleness. Once he remarked with sorrow, that she looked pale and changed. “It is true that my countenance is so,” she replied mildly, “it must suffice you that my heart is not.” His history would occupy too much space if told in detail. For many years almost constantly successful in the civil wars which desolated France; a faithful as well as brave subject; notwithstanding that the Cardinal Richelieu and the Duke of Luynes were his enemies, he refused to join the queen-mother against the King when they parted in anger. He was called the “King of Men” by his soldiers, who adored him. Sent to command the naval attack of La Rochelle, he was denied the needful supplies through the influence of Richelieu, and spent, to procure them, a part of his private fortune. He found the Dutch Admiral Houstain had lost a vessel, and wanted munition, and furnished him with both; yet when, having succeeded gloriously, he returned to court, he was coldly received by Louis the Thirteenth, and the jealous Cardinal soon after caused the suppression of the post of Lord High Admiral.
The religious wars ended, the King sent an army into Italy to support the Duke of Mantua against the Austrians. Richelieu had the command, and rather than not serve, Montmorency went as volunteer. The King bestowed on him, shortly after, the command of his army at Pignerol; then sent him to head the troops which entered Piedmont, where he obtained a signal victory. His army had received orders to join that of Marshal Laforce, but the Duke of Savoy lay between. The latter commenced the attack in an unexpected quarter, and the Marquis of Effiat and others advised rather to sacrifice the one regiment in peril than to risk the army. Montmorency exclaimed, “Who love me, follow!” and rushed forward at the head of the King’s gens-d’armes. Prince Doria was approaching; and the duke, to meet him with less delay, and well mounted, leaped a broad ditch which lay between them, and, though unfollowed, forced his way before a regiment of infantry, whose fire did not stop him, and through the ranks of a squadron commanded by Prince Doria, whom he wounded; and had arrived fighting and unharmed in the sixth rank of these horsemen before he was joined by any of those who had made a detour instead of leaping after him, and who, having believed him dead, found that he alone had half routed a squadron. By this and other exploits, continued throughout the day, the battle of Veillane was won; and the generous duke, who among his prisoners had taken almost all the officers of the Piedmontese army, sent them back to the Duchess of Savoy, who was King Louis’s sister. He had received no wound, but came from the field, the gold ornaments hacked from his splendid armour, and himself so bruised that he was hardly to be recognised. His horse, which was called “Le Remberge,” was wounded in twenty places, though slightly; and as it was a strong and beautiful animal, one of Montmorency’s officers wished for and received him from his general.
His troops were attacked at Rivoli by the plague, and to aid sick friends and soldiers he sold luxuries and comforts, and his head-quarters, far from being kept free from infection, rather resembled an hospital. Spite of his successes and the love of his army, or rather on account of them (for Richelieu envied his popularity, and already meditated his ruin), he was recalled. The soldiers mourned over him. “Who,” they said, “will lead us to victory when we lose Montmorency?” And yet, when the duke arrived at Lyons, and found there the King to all appearance dying, and Richelieu torn by anxiety, he took pity on the latter and frankly offered him protection in the province he commanded: relays were held in readiness to bear the Cardinal thither in case of the fatal termination of Louis’s malady; he vowed eternal gratitude, but forgot it as the King recovered. Montmorency had yielded his assent to the suppression of the States of Languedoc,—a loss of privilege which the province deplored, and he too repented. The King at his request promised their re-establishment, but avoided keeping his word; and the duke, whose ambition was to hold, like so many of his ancestors, the office of constable of France, being only created marshal, and otherwise coldly treated at court, retired to Languedoc. The Duke of Angoulême, his brother-in-law, said, when he bade him farewell, “that the king could never forget his services, and that his friends would always have sufficient influence to efface the false impressions made by the Cardinal;” but the duke shook his head sadly. “I do not flatter myself,” he said; “I shall not return to court, if affairs there continue as at present; my welfare is in the hands of God.”
Retired to the seat of his government, the duke’s heart was set on recovering the privileges of the province. By the King’s command the subject occupied the states-general assembled at Pézenas, but the King’s commissaries, Miron and Hemery, had the Cardinal’s private instructions to yield in nothing, for he hoped to wear out the patience of the governor by oppression of the province. He knew by his spies that the King’s brother Gaston intended striving to win over Montmorency; and as it was his maxim to treat as guilty those who possibly might become so, he dispatched an order to Hemery to arrest the duke. The latter just then making a journey to Montpellier, Hemery and the Marquis des Fossés followed, intending to make him prisoner there; but they judged the people’s love for him would render it impossible. Des Fossés altered his opinion when he found he was to attend the representation of a drama acted in his honour by the Jesuits’ pupils. He placed soldiers at the college gates to seize him, and issued an order to the garrison of the citadel, which joined it, to remain under arms. The duke, warned of what was passing, at first would not believe it possible, but the report spreading, persons of rank and condition flocked round him, offering to seize Hemery and Des Fossés, and to take possession of the citadel, which would have been easy, as it was feebly garrisoned, but the duke refused; a proof he did not then contemplate the treason to which Richelieu’s injustice was urging him. He went, contrary to advice, to the college, and returned, none having dared molest him, and two days after returned to Pézenas, where he told what had happened to the duchess, and his uncle, and other private counsellors there; they were loud in their cry for vengeance. The bishop of Alby, who was with Montmorency, had a nephew, partizan of Gaston and the queen-mother, with whom he corresponded. Just about this time a new commission arrived from court empowered to tax the province, and Alby and his nephew, who had come in disguise to treat with the governor, took advantage of it to influence him. They reminded him of reward denied and services forgotten; of the death of his cousin De Bouteville; the refusal to restore the privileges of Languedoc; the execution of the innocent Marshal of Marillac; yet all would have failed, had not the duchess joined to persuade, for she was niece of the queen-mother. A young girl who served her overheard a conversation between them. The duchess spoke low, in sentences broken by sobs; and the duke at last answered: “I will do so; you need persuade me no longer, your ambition shall be satisfied: but remember it will cost me my life.” Soud’heilles, the captain of his guard, was then in Paris; and the cardinal, alarmed when the duke had declared himself, dispatched him to Languedoc to try his influence with his master. Montmorency wavered, but the duchess and his confidants persuaded him, that to desert Gaston would be dishonour. He had a final conference with them, and returned from it straight to Soud’heilles. “My dear friend,” he said, “the stone is thrown, I cannot call it back again.”
The weak Gaston, then, as afterwards, incapable of opposing a foe as of protecting a friend long, was ill advised at this juncture, and arrived before the time agreed on with Montmorency, and before his measures could be taken. He had fifteen hundred half-armed men, the sympathy of the people, but neither Narbonne nor Montpellier. Lodeve received him, and from thence he sent a messenger to the duke.
“He has advisers who betray him,” he said, “and his over haste impairs his cause: but be it so, we must face the storm; and I feel it will fall on me.”
On the way to Beaucaire, which opposed Gaston, the duke passed Montpellier, and the people came out, weeping as they understood his danger. Beaucaire would have been taken; but when the army was before it, the Duke of Elbeuf claimed the chief command, which had been promised Montmorency; and Gaston being undecided, as usual, the delay of the attack gave time for the king’s troops to come up. He soon after, through the treason of some of his advisers, lost St. Felix de Carmain, and when the news of its surrender reached the prince, there came with it that of the advance of the royal troops to take Castelnaudary; near which lay his forces. The duke disposed his army in order of battle, near a brick bridge, which crossed the road, half a league from the town. “The time of your triumph is come,” he said to Gaston; “but this sword,” touching his own, “must be red to the hilt first.” The prince coldly answered, “Your rodomontades are never ending, Monsieur de Montmorency, but as yet, when you have promised me success, I have only been indebted to you for hope.” “I am not sorry to say to you now, that it will always be easy for me to make my peace with the King, and with two or three more to retire.” In consequence of this, high words ensued between the duke and Gaston, and they parted hardly reconciled.
It was a subject of emulation between the Comte de Moret and Montmorency to strike the first blow in the battle; and the latter, to make sure of himself doing so, asserted, as he advanced precipitately, that he went only to reconnoitre a post, and with some impatience commanded the noblemen who followed him to keep back! The Comte de Rieux, who rode close, reminded him, that it was his duty to be prudent, as on the general’s fate hung the army’s. Montmorency knew him for a brave man, yet he said what was far from his thoughts, “It would seem you are afraid;” and to shorten remonstrance as well as distance, he leaped his horse, as at Viellane, across a broad fence, and found himself at the other side with the Comte de la Feuillade, the Vicomte du Pujol Villeneuve, and a few more, in the midst of the enemy’s infantry. At the first fire, all with him fell, except Pujol, who fought by his side till a shot in the leg disabled him. His company of gens-d’armes came up, but the infantry, posted to advantage, kept up a fire which few escaped; yet the duke was unshaken; he opened a way wherever he turned, and might have retired with ease, and gloriously, to bring up the army; but being within their sight, he believed the troops would advance to support him; and a corps of cavalry, commanded by Baron de Laurières, coming up, he spurred so impetuously to meet him, that horse and man, as he encountered them, went down; and discharged on the head-piece of the leader’s son, Baron de Bourdet, so violent a blow, that the casque, examined after the battle, seemed indented by a battle-axe rather than a sword. His father rose from the ground at the moment, and seeing his son stagger, he wounded mortally the duke’s charger, and Montmorency fell with and under his dying horse. If Gaston had then brought up the army, this misfortune might have been repaired. The Duke of Elbeuf and Puy Laurens, and La Ferté Imbaut, (the two last suspected of having been bought over,) persuaded him to hold back, though his peril was visible from where they stood. A report next reached the prince, that his general had fallen, whereupon, flinging down his arms, and panic-struck, he exclaimed, “Sound the retreat, I will play this game no further.”
During this time Guiltaut and St. Preuil, captains of the royal guard, had come up with the duke, and mourned over him as he was drawn with difficulty from under his dead horse, covered with its gore and his own, for he was desperately wounded; and the blood which gushed from his mouth, as he lay with the weight pressing on him, had almost stifled him. “I sacrificed myself to ungrateful cowards,” he said, as soon as he could speak, “though it was told me, even before Beaucaire, that I was betrayed in the prince’s army.” Four soldiers raised him gently, and carried him to Marshal Schomberg, who received him with the esteem and tenderness which were his due. It is told that he wore on his arm, when taken prisoner, a portrait enriched with diamonds; this was perceived by his friend, De Bellièvre, who was afterwards President of the Parliament. Recognizing the female head, he pretended to question the duke, and taking his arm as he spoke to him, adroitly drew forth the miniature; but dexterously as it was done, it could not be hidden from a spy of the cardinal, present at the scene, and it was reported to Richelieu, who made use of it as a means to render Louis the Thirteenth implacable, as the picture was that of his queen, Anne of Austria!
The Count de Moret, natural son of Henry the Fourth, received his death-wound not thirty paces from his companion in arms. The latter, in consequence of the refinement on cruelty practised by the cardinal, and while all the people, loud as they dared, murmured shame, was borne in a litter to Toulouse, notwithstanding the insupportable heat and his uncured wounds. The inhabitants of Toulouse vowed to save him at any cost, but the cardinal received intimation of their resolves, and the prisoner was carried through without stopping to Leitoure. Arrived, he was conducted to the castle, and here a chance of escape presented itself again, for the Marchioness of Castelnaud bribed one of the guards, and provided him with ropes, by which the duke might be lowered to a place whence a passage led out into the country; and the marchioness, who was a determined woman, advanced with twenty horsemen as near to the citadel as they dared; but the guard was discovered with the ropes in his possession, by the lieutenant of the citadel, and killed by him on the spot, in the first burst of passion.
Notwithstanding the prayers of the army and the people, those of his brothers-in-law, the Prince of Condé and Duke of Angoulême, the agony of the duchess—the proceedings against Montmorency went on, and to a fatal termination. He expressed penitence for his conduct, and showed as much firmness as in his best days. He was persuaded by De Launay and his confessor to ask his pardon of the king: “Tell the cardinal,” he added to Launay, charged with the message, “that if he saves my life, he will have no reason to repent of it: but also that I do not ask the king’s council to act against conviction, if they believe my death more useful to the state than might be the rest of the years I have to live.”
Anne of Austria, the queen consort, solicited by the Duke of Épernon and the principal nobility of the court, to intercede with the king, feared the cardinal’s misinterpretation, and applied to him in the first instance. He answered that he did not doubt the king’s granting any favour she desired, but that she herself should also consider, that the annoyance she was about to cause him would injure his health, which, since his malady at Lyons, he had never recovered; and Anne, seeing by the cardinal’s manner, that, by saving the captive she risked his anger, determined rather to let him die. The people assembled under the king’s windows, and their cry reached his ears: he asked its import, it was “Mercy for Montmorency!” The king merely permitted him to dispose of his property, notwithstanding the confiscation about to be pronounced, and the duke occupied himself with the payment of his debts and the care of his vassals. He wrote an affectionate farewell to his unhappy wife, who was not in a state to read it, and sent to Richelieu, who had once wished to possess it, a fine picture of St. Sebastian, as his dying gift.
The last night of his existence he slept during six hours, tranquilly, as if the coming events of the next day were unknown to him, and prayed fervently when he woke. The hour arrived for his being conducted to the palace, he received the Count of Charlus, who came to seek him, cheerfully as ever, but refused to allow his surgeon to dress his wounds, saying they would soon be cured. He asked for something to eat, and then got into the carriage, which was open. The Counts of Charlus and Launay followed, and four companies of soldiers escorted him; the rest of the army lined the streets he passed through, or filled the squares of the town. As he stood with mild demeanour and bareheaded before his judges, his noble presence was that of the governor, not the criminal. The judges seeing him they loved, and were perforce about to doom, looked down to hide the tears which rose in spite of them, or buried their faces in their handkerchiefs. He was desired to sit on the criminal’s stool, which however, contrary to custom, had been raised to the level of the judges’ seats, and, contrary to custom also, he was left unbound. He was painfully affected while replying to the question, “Whether he had children by his marriage,” for he mourned the want of an heir.
The trial over, he was conducted from the Palace of Justice back to the Hôtel de Ville, where he recommenced his devotions, and these ended, conversed with his friends and wrote some private instructions for his family; and the Count de Charlus, his face covered with tears, asking in the king’s name for his order of the Holy Ghost and bâton of marshal, he delivered them calmly, saying, “it was true that one crime had cancelled the services which obtained them;” and then took some slight refreshment. He next repaired to the chapel. The commissaries of the court arrived to read his sentence to him, he listened with perfect tranquillity, kneeling before the altar, and rising when they concluded, and sobbed with their emotion, he spoke to them with great kindness. He was informed that the royal favour (though indeed it was the cardinal’s fear) allowed his being executed within the courts of the Hôtel de Ville instead of on the public square. De Launay was at this time with the king, who had sent for him, and the duke’s friends felt hope revive; but Louis merely desired “that he should die unbound,” and this he declined, saying, “he would end life as he deserved, like a criminal.” He cut off his own hair, and changed his rich attire for the poor clothes of a soldier; he had bowed, as he came along, to the troops who guarded him, and bade them farewell. There was some delay, (perhaps in consequence of changing the place of execution,) and during this time the duke remained seated on a bench adjoining the chapel balustrade, and conversed with his confessor, too low for others to overhear. He asked for water to wash his mouth, for he suffered from sore throat: “Father,” he said, “can you explain to me my feelings? Before heaven I assure you that I go to death with satisfaction, without regret or dread; and if I had never believed in God until now, this firmness vouchsafed to my weak nature would make me adore him.” Efforts, even in this last hour, were made to save him, but in vain, though the Pope’s nuncio was one who pleaded. He calmly presented his arms to be bound by the executioner, and desired Father Arnoux to take from his hand the crucifix, since “the just might not be bound with the guilty.” He was led into the court where was the scaffold, and his surgeon cut his hair which he had left too long, and fainted when he had done; even the executioner wept. The marble statue of Henry the Fourth stood above one of the entrances, and he gazed at it earnestly. The confessor noticing it, he said, “Father, he was a good and generous prince.” Continuing to advance, he ascended the steps of the scaffold as firmly as if they had led to glory. He spoke to a jesuit who stood beneath: “I pray you,” he said, “prevent, if you may, my head from falling to the earth; receive it, if possible.” He kneeled and prayed once more, and adjusted himself on the block, which gave him great pain, as it was too low; a single stroke severed his head from his body. The gates were thrown open; people and troops thronged in with cries of grief, crowding round and on the scaffold, reverently dipping kerchiefs in his blood, which they held to be that of a martyr. That day, a soldier drew on the executioner to kill the wretch by whose vile hand the best and bravest of men had died. The people withheld and concealed him, for the cardinal caused search to be made that he might be put to death. His hatred was not quenched in Montmorency’s blood, for he persecuted his friends and relatives.
After the execution, the duke’s body was folded in a black silk velvet pall, and conveyed in a carriage to the abbey of St. Sernin, where it was buried in a chapel in which only the bones of saints had been laid, and the counts of Toulouse had been refused a sepulchre. Masses for the repose of his soul were said in every part of France, as well as by the command of the empress at Vienna, and the arch-duchess in the Low Countries. The king imprisoned the unhappy widow in the castle of Moulins, where she remained eight months reproaching herself with her husband’s untimely death; but feeling that time elapsed, that there could be no reason for doubting her, and ashamed of his rigour, he desired her to choose her place of residence, either within or without his kingdom; she staid at Moulins. Having purchased a house adjoining the convent of La Visitation, she there lived an exemplary life during ten years, her only consolation a portrait of the duke, gazing on which she spent whole days. Before her marriage she had wished to become a nun, and the desire now reviving, in her mistaken fervour, she believed it a duty to part with this which she looked on as a last tie to the world, and ere she entered the convent she wept over it once more and then parted from it.
Some time after, the king passing through Moulins, did her the honour of a visit, and the next day the cardinal sent to offer her his compliments. In her cell hung with black, the shadow of what she had been, the duchess received his officer: “Tell your master,” she said, “that I thank him, but that my tears are still undried!” After his general’s death, the king’s remorse was awakened; and he confessed that he repented of many things which had been done during his inauspicious journey to Languedoc. He once arrived late at Écouen, intending to pass the night there. It was evening, and the monarch passed slowly along one of the vast halls on his way to the apartment prepared for him. His suite followed at a little distance, but rushed to his side when he uttered a faint cry, and stretched his arm forth in the gloom as if to put back some one advancing on him.
“What ails you, sire,” they exclaimed as he stood still, and in an attitude of defence against what appeared to them empty space. “He was there! I saw Montmorency there,” said the king; “I cannot sleep in this castle;” and turning precipitately, Louis the Thirteenth left the hall. Écouen now again, as during the empire, belongs to the Legion of Honour. As we rode down the hill, the fine view of Paris once more stretched below us in the sunshine. I had not seen it for some years, and looked at it now with a strange sensation, pleasant and painful, for it seemed like home, because so much of early association is connected with it, and I felt it was not home, because death and marriage, time and revolution have so severed and scattered all the links which held me here, that I shall scarcely find a trace of where they were once riveted.
From Écouen to St. Denis the way seemed wearisome, for we had ridden fifteen leagues since morning, yet Fanny went prancing into the inn yard gay as at starting. A disagreeable hotel from its unconquerable bad air. To-day, 19th July, D—— is gone to Paris in search of apartments; and I, followed by John, have passed an hour in the cathedral. The Suisse, I believe, thought his countenance suspicious, for he was unwilling to lead the way. Near the principal entrance, on the left hand, is a strange monument, erected by St. Louis to Dagobert. This church (my authority is the Benedictine who wrote its history) was founded under singular circumstances. When Clotaire the Second was king its place was occupied by a small chapel, which had already miraculous properties, being built over St. Denis’s tomb. A stag, hard pressed, had one day taken refuge within, and the hounds were unable to follow. Prince Dagobert witnessed this fact. He soon after incurred his father’s anger by barbarously ill-treating his governor, and he repaired to the sanctuary. The royal guards sent to seize him were invisibly withheld, and the prince fell asleep while they rushed to and fro, vainly attempting to come nearer. St. Denis appeared to him in a dream, and desired that he would erect a building in his honour. Become king he obeyed the saint’s mandate; and when the day for the consecration of the church came (the 24th February, 636), and a great crowd assembled to witness it, the people were all forced to retire, excepting one poor leper, who hid himself in a corner of the chapel. Night closed in, and of a sudden he beheld a great light shining through one of the windows, filling the whole church; and continuing to fix his eyes on the same window, he saw the Saviour enter at it, followed by St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Rustique and St. Éleuthère, and also by a great multitude of saints and angels. He consecrated the church, walked round it, heading the procession, scattered holy water on the pavement, poured celestial oil on the walls, and at last perceived the leper: he commanded him to tell faithfully what he had seen to king and prelate. “Alas!” said the leper, “I cannot approach them for my rags and my leprosy.”
He had no sooner said this, than he felt the skin of his face gently lifted, and being cast against the wall it stuck there, and that which remained in its place was pure as a child’s; and looking at his clothes he saw he was richly habited: this miracle performed, he watched the Saviour and the celestial procession issue forth by the same window, and went and told the king.[[1]]
More interesting than Dagobert’s tomb, or those of Louis the Twelfth, and Anne of Brittany, and Henry the Second, and Catherine de Médicis, with her countenance telling of a life of intrigue, public massacre and private murder, is the slight marble column, at whose foot are three weeping angels,—for it was raised by Mary of Scotland to the memory of her young husband, who died when she had been a wife and queen of France but one short year. The monument of Francis the First is in the opposite aisle; the figures of himself and his wife Anne, kneeling on the top of the stone canopy, under which they are again represented dead. The alto relievo of the battle of Marignan, which surrounds the tomb, is very beautiful. On each side of the choir steps lead down to the crypt, and the Suisse unlocked the iron gate, though still I saw against his will, and we walked through the avenue of royal tombstones, wherein kings and queens do not sleep now; since a municipal decree, proceeding from St. Denis itself, in conformity with the decree of the Convention, ordered on the 12th of October, 1793, the breaking open of the monuments for the sake of the lead they might contain, and the scattering of bones, some of which had lain there near 1500 years. Curiosity induced the workmen to commence by the grave of Turenne. He was found in an extraordinary state of preservation, perfectly resembling the portraits and medals which we possess of him, only that the skin had darkened. The distortion of feature, caused by his violent death (by a cannon ball), remained, as the mouth was very wide open. He was, at the suggestion of some present, confided to one “Host,” keeper of the cathedral, and by him placed in an oaken case with a glass cover, and for eight months exhibited in the vestry. The vault of the Bourbons and the tomb of Henry the Fourth were next opened, and the body found so perfect, that the features had undergone no change. He also was exhibited during the two following days, and then borne to the churchyard, called De Valois, where he was buried in a grave dug at its extremity, on the right hand and north side. A soldier present at the time rushed towards the corpse, and with his sabre cut from it a lock of the long beard, exclaiming, that “He too was a Frenchman,” and henceforth would wear no other mustachio; and holding the lock on his upper lip, and saying he was sure of conquering any enemy of France, went away.
The remainder of the bodies, some in a state of putrefaction, which during this unnatural work produced malignant fever, others, reduced to skeletons or ashes, were dragged from their coffins, and flung by torchlight into one wide grave. The Suisse pointed out the side door near Mary Stuart’s funeral column, as that through which they were carried. The monuments in the crypt are ranged in chronological order: among the most ancient, those of the royal fury Frédégonde and her daughter-in-law Brunehaude, who died torn by wild horses. The vaults are but half under ground, and a dreary daylight enters, falling on the figures stretched on the tombs, for those only of the earliest period are mere outlines. The rest are dressed in the costume of their time, with hands crossed and raised, and the dog or lion couched at the feet. “Here,” said the Suisse, stopping before one of the Capetian race, and pointing to the very prominent nose which had been broken from his face and lay there yet uncemented, “is the token of the last English visit. A gentleman came, conversed with me, walked by my side, and when he thought me not attending to his movements, wrenched off this nose. I seized it in his hand in his coat pocket; he said he had broken it by mistake, and pocketed it in absence of mind. “Mon pauvre nez, que je n’ai pas encore restitué,” said the Suisse in indignation. I understood at last why he had an objection to showing the church, and tranquillized him by making John walk on before. Here were laid Clovis, the first Christian king, and his wife, Bertha, who converted him; King John after his ill-fortune at Poitiers; his excursion on his white horse through the streets of London, beside his conqueror, on his pony; his visit to his own kingdom, and voluntary return to captivity to die.
We wished to enter the vault where the Bourbons are interred, but this the Suisse said was impossible, as he had not the keys, and even Mons. Thiers had been denied admittance some days before. The last buried was Louis the Eighteenth, whose chapelle ardente I saw here when I was a child, and with its splendid sarcophagus, purple velvet hangings, and thousand lights, and the silent crowd pressing to see, was a scene of melancholy brilliancy. The “chapelle ardente” occupied the whole of the nave, inclosed by the hangings, and terminated by a burning cross.
The “caveau,” which holds the last Condé, is totally dark, excepting where the lamp, which burns so feebly in its bad air, just shows the damp-decaying pall hanging in ribands. The lapse of centuries robs in some measure of its sadness the long range of monuments we passed before; but it is not so as we look through the iron gate at these dimly-seen coffins.
We think of the ditch of Vincennes and the bed-room of St. Leu!
It was in the now-closed vault of the Bourbons that Henry the Fourth lay. One anecdote more I must tell you, as it proves the respect entertained for his memory. It is told by Le Noir, the antiquarian:—
“The day following that of the allied armies’ entrance into Paris, a Russian general, accompanied by a detachment of cavalry, presented himself at eight in the morning at the museum of the Petits Augustins. He said he had heard in Russia of the collection I had formed, and as a lover of the arts it was the first place he desired to visit in Paris. I opened the gates to him, and he and his soldiers dismounted. Arrived in the hall of the sixteenth century, a statue in white marble absorbed his attention. I said to him, ‘It is the statue of Henry the Fourth.’ He repeated my words in Russian to his companions, and all, uncovering their heads, kneeled on one knee to do homage to the dead king of France.”
In January, 1815, the remains of Louis the Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette were transferred to the vault of the Bourbons. In 1817, all the noble or royal remains cast forth from the violated tombs were once more deposited within them in presence of the chancellor, the necessary authorities and witnesses, a company of the gardes du corps and the clergy of St. Denis. Immense crowds flocked thither, by a bright moonlight which shone on the old towers, making the numberless torches which flashed on the walls almost useless; the broken and mingled bones were returned to their first place of repose, after a twenty-four years’ exile.
The Cathedral of St. Denis will shortly be in complete repair, though it was ravaged in the revolution, and roofless during twelve years; though it was several times offered for sale without finding a purchaser; and its destruction had been commanded, when Petit Radel, architecte des domaines, proposed, with a view to preserve it, that it should be left as it stood then, with uncovered walls, and rain, or snow, falling in its aisles, and serve as a kind of market-house in the fairs which occur frequently during the year!
Paris, and in our old apartment, 20th of July.
Unforeseen circumstances have postponed till next spring our ride to Italy, when I will continue these notes for you, and we shall go as heretofore, except that John will no longer be of the party; his disposition has become so warlike that we intend sending him back to Ireland.
| [1] | History of the Abbey of St. Denis, by Doublet. |