CHAPTER I
Origin of the House of Condé—Louis de Bourbon, first prince of the name—His modest début at the Court—His personal appearance and character—Enmity between the Bourbons and the Guises—Condé attaches himself to the party of the Connétable Anne de Montmorency, and marries the latter’s niece, Éléonore de Roye—Noble character of Éléonore—Gallantries of Condé—His early military career—Death of Henry II.—Progress of the Reformation in France—Condé embraces Protestantism and places himself at the head of the opposition to the Guises—He is arrested at Orléans, brought to trial for high treason and condemned to death—But is saved by the opportune death of François II.
The Condés and the Bourbons have a common origin. Both families descend from Robert de France, Comte de Clermont, youngest son of St. Louis. An ancient barony, the inheritance of that prince’s wife, was erected into a dukedom in favour of Louis, his son, and gave to his descendants the name which they have retained, that of France being reserved for the royal branch.
After the death, without issue, of the Connétable de Bourbon at the assault of Rome in May 1527, his brother, Charles, Duc de Vendôme, became first Prince of the Blood, though, owing to the profound mistrust with which François I. now regarded the Bourbons, he never acquired either the authority or influence that so high a position ought to have given him. Nor did he succeed in recovering any of the vast possessions of the Constable, which were definitely alienated from his House, and, on his death in 1538, he left but a scanty fortune. This was the more regrettable, since his wife, Françoise d’Alençon, had borne him no less than thirteen children: seven sons and six daughters. Of the daughters, four entered religion; one died unmarried, and the last became the wife of François de Clèves, Duc de Nevers. Of the sons, five lived to attain their majority, though only one survived middle-age and died a natural death, and he was in holy orders. They were:
1. Antoine, Duc de Vendôme, born 22 April, 1518; became, through his marriage with Jeanne d’Albret, King of Navarre; died 17 November, 1562, from the effects of a wound received at the siege of Rouen.
2. François, Comte d’Enghien, born 23 September, 1519; commanded the French army in the great victory of Ceresole, 14 April, 1544; died 23 February, 1546, from the result of what was probably an accident, but was by many attributed to deliberate intent.[1]
3. Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon (“le cardinal des bouteilles”), who was proclaimed King of France by the League after the death of Henri III.); born 22 December, 1523; died 9 May, 1590.
4. Jean, Comte de Soissons, and, after the death of his brother François, Comte d’Enghien; born 6 July, 1526; killed at the battle of Saint-Quentin, 15 August, 1557.
5. Louis, Prince de Condé, born at the Château of Vendôme, 7 May, 1530; killed at the battle of Jarnac, 13 March, 1569.
Two of these princes married and founded families: Antoine, who was the father of Henri IV., and the ancestor of all the Bourbons now living, and Louis, who was the root of the House of Condé and all its branches.
Louis, the youngest brother, was only in his eighth year at the time of his father’s death. Of his boyhood nothing whatever is known, though, as his widowed mother, who lived in strict retirement, was scarcely the person best fitted to superintend that chivalrous education which was deemed indispensable for a lad of high birth, it is probable that he was brought up by his brother-in-law, the Duc de Nevers, or some other male relative. The earliest recorded mention of him occurs in the Domestic Roll of Henri II. for the year 1549, where he appears under the name of “Louis Mr de Vendôme, gentleman of the chamber to the King, at a salary of 1200 livres.”
The precise time and occasion of his assuming the title which he and his descendants were to render so illustrious are likewise involved in obscurity. The Duc d’Aumale asserts that the earliest official document in which it is given, is in the procès-verbal of the Bed of Justice held on 15 January, 1557;[2] but since the duke wrote it has been discovered that he is thus qualified in at least half-a-dozen other deeds previous to that date, the earliest being an acte seigneurial of 30 March, 1553; while Henri II., in a letter to the Duc de Nevers written on 12 June, 1554, refers to the duke’s youngest brother-in-law as “My cousin, the Prince de Condé.”[3]
Equal uncertainty prevails as to whether he derived the title from Condé-sur-l’Escaut or Condé-en-Brie, both of which lordships seem to have been owned by his father, Charles, Duc de Vendôme. “The best known of the chroniclers of the family, Désormeaux,” observes the Duc d’Aumale, “declares it to be beyond all doubt that the first prince derived his name from Condé-en-Brie.” Indeed, in the marriage-contract of Louis I., the lordship of Condé-en-Brie appears in the list of the prince’s possessions. He owned a château there, at which he often resided, and executed various deeds, whereas there is no official document relating to him known to exist in which any mention is made of Condé-sur-l’Escaut. But another historian of the family, l’Hullier, who, though a tedious and very dull writer, has left in MS. many historical and genealogical memoirs, of which Désormeaux has often made use, declares himself in favour of Condé-sur-l’Escaut; and the Convention appeared to be of the same opinion, by its naming that place “Nord-libre.” The illustrious author modestly “leaves to more learned historians the task of solving the question,” but the majority of modern writers are inclined to favour the claims of Condé-sur-l’Escaut, though, apparently, for no better reason than because it is the more important of the two places.
Few Princes of the Blood have made a more modest début at the Court of France than the first of the Condés. Since the treason of the Connétable de Bourbon his family had fallen into a sort of discredit, and, though, in the last years of the previous reign, the partiality shown by François I. for the young Comte d’Enghien had seemed a promise of returning favour, the untimely death of the count, followed by that of the King, soon dissipated their hopes. When the head of the house, Antoine, Duc de Vendôme, was hard put to maintain a position in accordance with his rank, there was little enough for his younger brothers; and Louis de Bourbon made his appearance at Court so quietly dressed and with so modest a suite as to provoke no small merriment at his expense among the gorgeous butterflies of both sexes who adorned the salons of the Louvre and the gallery of the Tournelles.
Nor was there anything in the personal appearance of this youth of nineteen to suggest the great part that he was to play in after years. Unlike his ancestors, who had been tall men of imposing presence, he was short and slightly built, and some anecdote-mongers even represent him as hump-backed. Admitting however, that he may have been round-shouldered, the imputation of actual deformity is scarcely reconcilable with the well-known popular song concerning him:
“Ce petit homme tant jolly,
Qui toujours cause et toujours ry
Et toujours baise sa mignonne,
Dieu gard’ de mal le petit homme.”
Moreover, if somewhat diminutive in stature, he was “nimble and vigorous, and as adroit at martial exercises, both on foot and on horseback, as any man in France.”[4] His features, too, were pleasing without being regular, and illuminated by a pair of very bright eyes; he had excellent natural abilities, and had not neglected to cultivate them, being exceptionally well-informed and a good conversationalist, with a touch of sarcasm, which, however, his good-humour deprived of its sting, and “agreeable, accessible, and amiable.”[5]
The young prince was, therefore, not without qualifications to ensure advancement at Court, but in the two most essential—wealth and influence—he was conspicuously lacking. The absence of the first might have mattered little had he possessed the second, but the cloud under which the Bourbons had lain for a quarter of a century showed no sign of lifting. Henri II., who had ascended the throne two years before Condé’s arrival at Court, was a well-meaning man, who sincerely desired to do his duty and promote the interests of his subjects, but he was “born to be governed, rather than to govern,”[6] and was surrounded by ambitious and greedy favourites, who thought only of exploiting him for their own selfish ends. In the early days of the new reign, the favour of the King had been divided between his mature mistress, Diane de Poitiers, Duchesse de Valentinois, and his old friend, the Connétable Anne de Montmorency, who, disgraced by François I. in 1543, had, on the death of that monarch, been recalled to Court and entrusted with the direction of affairs. Diane, however, jealous of the influence of the Constable, formed an alliance with the Guises, those able and ambitious Lorraine princes who were to play so conspicuous a part in all the troubles of the latter half of the sixteenth century; François de Lorraine, who succeeded his father as Duc de Guise in the spring of 1550, and his brother, Charles, the second Cardinal de Lorraine, became two of the King’s most trusted advisers; and they and their younger brothers were loaded with honours and benefits. Henri II.’s favourites stood like a bodyguard around the throne to prevent any one else approaching it; their greed was insatiable; “estates, dignities, bishoprics, abbeys, offices, no more escaped them than do the flies the swallow; there was not a choice morsel that was not snapped up in a moment.”[7]
For the Bourbons to have attempted to break through this bodyguard and insinuate themselves into the good graces of their Sovereign would have been a hopeless task; and they soon recognized that their only chance of bettering their fallen fortunes was to follow the example of the other courtiers and attach themselves to one or other of the favourites who governed the King, in the hope that some scraps of the royal bounty might be passed on to them. From the party of Diane de Poitiers and the Guises they had nothing to expect, for, though the two families were closely connected,[8] their relations were exceedingly strained. In both Court and camp their paths crossed; and the sinister rumours to which the death of the young victor of Ceresole had given rise is an eloquent testimony to the jealousy which existed between them. Since the death of François I., who had regarded the Guises with profound mistrust, and in his last hours had warned his son to be on his guard against them, since “their aim was to strip him to his doublet, and his people to their shirts,”[9] the Lorraines had plainly shown their determination to keep the Bourbons in the background, and not content with enjoying the privileges of foreign princes, had profited by the impotence of their kinsmen to usurp those of the Princes of the Blood.
Policy and inclination therefore both prompted the Bourbons to attach themselves to the opposition, or Montmorency faction. This party, though it attracted to its ranks fewer of the Court nobility than did that of the Duchesse de Valentinois and the Guises, was supported by the bulk of the provincial noblesse, and Montmorency’s great wealth and official position—he was Grand Master of the King’s Household as well as Constable of France—enabled him to dispense extensive patronage. He had five sons and seven daughters, besides numerous nephews and nieces, and he did his duty nobly by them all, and allowed no opportunity to pass of advancing the importance of his family and enriching his relatives and friends. Condé, more ambitious than his brothers, determined to establish claims on the great man’s favour which it would be difficult for him to overlook, and, towards the end of the year 1550, demanded in marriage the hand of Éléonore de Roye, eldest daughter and heiress of Charles, Seigneur de Roye and de Muret, Comte de Roney, an alliance which would unite him with the two great Houses of Montmorency and Châtillon. For Éléonore de Roye’s mother, Madeleine de Mailly, was the daughter of Louise de Montmorency, sister of the Constable;[10] and Louise de Montmorency, by her second marriage with the Maréchal de Châtillon, was the mother of the future Admiral, Gaspard de Coligny, and of his two brothers, Odet, Cardinal de Châtillon, and François, Seigneur d’Andelot.
The consent of the young lady’s parents was readily given. They could not, indeed, fail to be flattered by such a proposal from a Prince of the Blood, besides which they felt that this young man, frank, brave, chivalrous, and amiable, was a husband of whom any girl might well be proud, and ought to have a brilliant future before him. It is possible that the rumours of their prospective son-in-law’s addiction to feminine society which had reached them may have occasioned them some misgivings; but Gaspard de Coligny, who had negotiated the affair, assured them that marriage would change all that, and that he had no doubt that, once in possession of the prince’s affections, Éléonore would be able to fix them permanently. This, in view of what we shall presently relate, seems a decidedly bold assertion; but then Coligny, the most faithful of husbands, was generously inclined to judge others by himself; while the political advantages of a match which would unite the Houses of Montmorency, Bourbon and Châtillon, and counterbalance the exorbitant credit of the Guises, may well have disposed him to regard the young prince’s gallantries with a lenient eye.
After being accepted by the Comte and Comtesse de Roye, the project was submitted to the Constable, who was graciously pleased to approve of it, and promised to obtain the sanction of the King. This proved far from an easy task, as Diane de Poitiers and the Guises did everything possible to persuade his Majesty to refuse his consent; but, in the end, Montmorency triumphed over their opposition, and on June 22, 1551, the marriage was celebrated at the Château of Plessis-lès-Roye, by the Cardinal de Bourbon, the bridegroom’s uncle.
This marriage added little to Condé’s fortune, but it brought him “an inexhaustible treasure of affection and devotion.” “If ever, in fact,” writes an enthusiastic biographer, “a young girl, pure and loving, entered married life with the energetic resolution to consecrate all the living forces of her soul to the practice of the most holy duties, and raised herself by her piety and her virtues, by the generosity of her soul and the heroism of her character, to the rank of a femme d’élite, it was this incomparable Éléonore de Roye, who, from the day of her union with Louis de Bourbon, became for this prince, and remained up to the day when she succumbed prematurely to the cruel attacks of disease, a tender and submissive companion, a faithful friend, an immovable support in time of trial.”[11]
Amidst that band of noble Huguenot ladies, who in the evil days to come so bravely upheld their persecuted faith against the overwhelming forces arrayed against it, and inspired their disheartened co-religionists with fresh energy and enthusiasm to maintain the unequal struggle, there is no nobler figure than that of Éléonore de Roye. Less capable, less ambitious, than Jeanne d’Albret, she is infinitely more attractive, for she possessed a boundless fund of sympathy, an exquisite tact, and a charity which was but too seldom found among the leaders of “the Religion.”
Catholic as well as Protestant writers bear homage to the charms and virtues of this admirable woman. “She was a lady of much intelligence, of heroic courage, and of an admirable chastity,” says De Thou; Le Laboureur, while describing her as “a very obstinate Huguenot,” admits that she was “beautiful and very virtuous”;[12] while Désormeaux declares that she yielded to none of her sex in beauty, in grace, in intelligence and in chastity, and that she “surpassed every one in knowledge, in courage, and in magnanimity.”[13]
Condé could not be indifferent to the devotion of such a woman, and there can be no doubt that, for a long time, he reciprocated her affection and that he always entertained for her a sincere regard. Nevertheless, his marriage did little to subdue his taste for gallantry, and his attentions to the light beauties of the Court must often have caused her the keenest pain. “The good prince,” observes Brantôme, “was as worldly as his neighbour and loved other people’s wives as much as his own, partaking largely of the nature of the Bourbons, who have always been of a very amorous complexion.”
If, however, Condé shared his family’s weakness for the fair sex, he shared also its taste for a military career, and, for some years after his marriage, it was the camp rather than the Court which claimed the greater part of his time. The long and bitter struggle between the Houses of France and Austria, closed for a time by the Peace of Crépy, broke out afresh in the early summer of 1551, in Italy, where Henry II. and Charles V., though still nominally at peace, intervened in the dispute between Pope Julius III. and his vassal Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma. Condé, though only a few days married, at once demanded and obtained permission to serve as a volunteer in the Army of Italy, commanded by the Maréchal de Brissac, and set out for Piedmont.
When Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, went to the wars, two centuries later, he took with him an immense retinue of servants, and a long procession of carts and carriages, to transport which over two hundred horses were required;[14] while a whole regiment had to be detached for the protection of his precious person. His ancestor must have started on his first campaign in very different fashion; indeed, there was probably little to distinguish him from the crowd of gentlemen volunteers whom the prospect of some hard fighting had drawn across the Alps; and he evidently did not disdain to perform the work of the humblest soldier, since we hear of him toiling for two whole nights at the task of dragging the guns up the steep heights which commanded the Castle of Lantz. At the conclusion of the campaign, in which he had given abundant proof that he possessed all the courage of his race, although his general had found him “a little difficult to manage,” he reappeared for a brief interval at Court, and then, in the spring of 1552, took part in the “Austrasian expedition,” that military promenade through the Rhine country which gave to France, almost without striking a blow, Metz, Toul, and Verdun.
In the autumn of the same year, when Charles V., freed from his Germanic embarrassments by the agreement of Passau, laid siege to Metz, Condé and his brother, the second Comte d’Enghien, were among the young nobles who received permission “to take their pleasure at the siege.” The two Bourbon princes were entrusted with the defence of a part of the ramparts, and acquitted themselves with courage and capacity.
The summer of 1553 found Condé in Picardy, sharing with the Duc de Nemours the command of the light cavalry. In an engagement with the Imperialist cavalry at Doullens, he brought up four squadrons at a critical moment, and, by a brilliant charge on the enemy’s flank, decided the day. In the following year, he commanded the light cavalry on the Meuse and distinguished himself at the combat at Renty, and in 1555 he returned to the Army of Italy, in which he rendered excellent service on several occasions, notably at the siege of Vulpiano.
But the enmity of the Guises barred the way to the royal favour, and when, in 1556, the Truce of Vaucelles put an end to the war, the only recompense he had been able to obtain was the captaincy of a compagnie d’ordonnance, the nearest equivalent to a modern regiment.[15]
The truce, which had been concluded for five years, was soon broken, and at the beginning of 1557 the dogs of war were again slipped. In the summer, the Spaniards invaded Picardy and laid siege to Saint-Quentin, on the Somme, one of the bulwarks of Paris. Realizing the importance of saving a town the fall of which would open the road to the capital, the Constable hurried northwards with all the troops he could muster, and Condé accompanied him. The overwhelming superiority of the enemy in numbers, however, decided Montmorency not to risk an engagement, but merely to make a feint against the besiegers’ lines, and, under cover of this movement, to throw reinforcements and provisions into the town, after which he intended to retire. But the non-arrival of the boats required to transport the reliefs across the Somme caused a delay of more than two hours; and, when Montmorency began to retire, he found that the enemy had crossed the river by a ford of which he appears to have been in ignorance, seized the only road by which he could retreat, and cut his army right in two.
Surprised and hopelessly outnumbered, the French were routed with terrible loss. Condé’s brother, the gallant Comte d’Enghien, was among the slain, while the Constable and the Maréchal de Saint-André were taken prisoners. Condé himself, who was stationed with part of the light cavalry on the extreme right wing of the army, displayed the most admirable courage and presence of mind amid the general panic, and, keeping his men together, succeeded in cutting his way through the victorious Spaniards and reaching La Fère. He lost no time in taking the field again and kept it throughout the autumn, continually harassing the enemy and attacking their foraging-parties and convoys. So much activity and vigour on the morrow of a great defeat undoubtedly merited some substantial recognition; but when, at the beginning of the following year, he solicited the post of colonel-general of the light cavalry which he had so gallantly led, he was, to his intense mortification, passed over in favour of the Duc de Nemours, the candidate of the Guises. It is true that, by way of compensation, he was nominated colonel-general of the Cisalpine infantry, that is to say, of the infantry stationed in Piedmont; but, since France had lately withdrawn all her troops from Piedmont with the exception of a few garrisons, the appointment was regarded as an affront rather than an honour.
The Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis, which was concluded in the following spring, prevented Condé from acquiring any further military distinction in the service of his country, and henceforth whatever laurels fell to his share were gained on fields where Frenchmen were opposed to Frenchmen. If, however, the life of Henri II. had been prolonged only a little while, it is almost certain that the prince’s faithful services would not have remained unrewarded; for both the King and Diane de Poitiers were becoming seriously alarmed at the growing power and arrogance of the Guises, and the latter had broken with them and formed an alliance with Montmorency. But before the summer was over, Henri II. slept with his fathers at Saint-Denis; Diane and the Constable had been disgraced, and the Guises, thanks to the marriage of their niece, Mary Stuart, to the new King, had become the masters of France.
Condé’s patience had been severely tried during the reign which had just terminated; and it was scarcely to be expected that a young prince of his ambitious and energetic character would resign himself to the sight of the royal authority concentrated in the hands of those whose aim it had always been to exclude his family from their rightful share in the direction of affairs. Nor were the means for giving very effective expression to his dissatisfaction wanting.
The Reformation in France, which had made immense strides during the last years of Henri II., notwithstanding the fierce, if intermittent, persecution to which it had been subjected, had ceased to be a purely religious movement and was developing into a formidable political combination with which it was the interest of discontented and ambitious nobles to make common cause, without in any way partaking of its spiritual aspirations. Condé, with his gay and pleasure-loving nature, could have had but little sympathy with the austere tenets of Calvinism, and it is probable that the mortifications he had experienced, the hope of uniting his fortunes with the chances of success which the Reformers were able to offer, and, above all, his hatred of the Guises, contributed far more than religious convictions to decide him to embrace their faith and their cause. His elder brother, Antoine, who, on the death of his father-in-law Henri d’Albret, in 1555, had succeeded to the throne of Navarre, had already done so, but, though brave enough in war, he was irresolute and shifty to the last degree, and now, when faced with the necessity for vigorous action, he declined to compromise himself; and it was therefore to the second Prince of the Blood that the Huguenots and the swarm of disbanded soldiers and disappointed office-seekers whom the Guises had driven into the ranks of the opposition looked for leadership. How far Condé was implicated in the Conspiracy of Amboise, whether or no he was the chef muet who, in the event of a first success, was to place himself at the head of the movement, is a question which is never likely to be satisfactorily answered. It is sufficient that he was almost universally identified with that mysterious personage at the time, and that this belief came near to costing him his life.
Although permitted, after his indignant denial of the charge, to withdraw from Court, he and the King of Navarre, notwithstanding the entreaties of the Princesse de Condé, most imprudently resolved to obey the summons of François II. to the States-General at Orléans. It was to place his head in the lion’s mouth, for in the interval fresh evidence, or what might pass for evidence, against him had been obtained, and the Guises were resolved on his destruction. On 30 October, 1560, the two princes arrived at Orléans. The King received them with ominous coldness, and, as Condé was leaving the apartments of the Queen-Mother, where the audience had taken place, he was arrested, and conducted to a house near the convent of the Jacobins, which was immediately barred up, surrounded by soldiers, and transformed into a veritable Bastille. His wife, who, on learning of his arrest, had hastened to Orléans, was refused permission to see him; his attendants were withdrawn, and he was kept in the most absolute solitude.
Catherine de’ Medici, who at this time possessed little or no power, and had been compelled, from the instinct of self-preservation, to cling to the Guises, pretended to approve of what had been done, and replied to all who besought her not to allow the prince to be brought to trial. “It is my son’s will.” She confined her efforts to saving the King of Navarre, who was merely kept under surveillance in his apartments.
Although, as a Prince of the Blood, it was Condé’s undoubted privilege to be tried by the Grande Chambre of the Parlement in Paris, in which the princes and peers sat, the King entrusted his examination to a commission of judges presided over by Christophe de Thou, First President of the Parlement. Condé denied the competency of this tribunal, and “appealed from the King ill-advised to the King better-advised.” But his imprudence in accepting the services of two advocates gave a semblance of legality to the proceedings, and his appeals and protests having been overruled by the Privy Council, in which such was the fear inspired by the Guises that no one dared to utter a word in his defence, on 26 November, he was sentenced “to lose his head on the scaffold.”
It was at first considered probable that the King’s clemency would be extended to his condemned kinsman, “in consideration of his youth,” and every effort was made by the Princesse de Condé, the Châtillons, and other persons of high rank to secure a remission of the sentence. But nothing less than the death of their rival would satisfy the Guises, and, though the Chancellor de l’Hôpital, under the pretext of some legal flaw in the decree, succeeded in delaying the execution, it was finally fixed for 10 December, and the scaffold on which it was to take place was erected before the royal lodging.
Condé, whose courage had never once failed him, was calmly awaiting his fate, and actually playing cards with some of the officers who guarded him, when one of his servants, who had been permitted to attend him, approached as though to pick up a fallen card, and whispered: “Notre homme est croqué!” Mastering his emotion, the prince finished his game, and then, taking the man aside, learned from him that François II. was dead. The sickly young King had been taken ill on 16 November, and, though he so far recovered as to preside over the Council which passed judgment against Condé, on the following day his malady assumed a grave form, and on 5 December an abscess which had formed in the ear suddenly broke, and he died in a few minutes.
Foreseeing her eldest son’s approaching end, Catherine de’ Medici, on the advice of l’Hôpital, had determined to save the Bourbons, in order to use them to counterbalance the Guises and assure the independence of the royal power of which she was about to hold the reins. Scarcely had François II. drawn his last breath, when the old Connétable de Montmorency, hastily summoned by her, arrived at Orléans, at the head of eight hundred gentlemen; and the despotism of the Lorraine princes was at an end.
The death of François II. opened the doors of Condé’s prison, but the prince, who attached more importance to his honour than his liberty, refused to accept the latter until the former had been publicly vindicated, and, in the meanwhile, announced his intention of remaining where he was. In this decision he was supported by his wife, but, as his health had suffered during his imprisonment, she persuaded him, towards the end of December, to exchange the severe régime of his detention at Orléans for a mitigated captivity, more apparent than real, in the form of residence on an estate belonging to the King of Navarre, near la Fère, in Picardy. Here he remained for some weeks, when he returned to Court, where his innocence was acknowledged by a declaration of the new King, Charles IX., which was subsequently confirmed by the Parlement, and he was restored to his former position.