CHAPTER IX
Loyalty of Mlle. de Trémoille to Condé—She prevents her mother, the Duchesse de Thouars, from surrendering the Château of Taillebourg to a Catholic force—And defends it gallantly until she is relieved—She equips two ships-of-war to bring Condé from Guernsey—Reunion of the lovers—Their marriage—Condé takes the field again—Financial embarrassments of the new ménage—Battle of Coutras: encounter between Condé and Saint-Luc—Ill-health of the prince—He returns to Saint-Jean-d’Angely—He is suddenly taken ill, and dies in two days—Violent grief of his wife—Suspicions of the doctors—An autopsy is performed, and the prince is declared to have been poisoned—Letter of the King of Navarre to the Comtesse de Gramont—Flight of the princess’s page, Belcastel, and her head valet-de-chambre, Corbais—Arrest of her intendant, Brilland—The King of Navarre arrives at Saint-Jean-d’Angely, and orders the Princesse de Condé to be placed under arrest—Terrible situation of the princess.
After the disastrous expedition to Angers and the flight of Condé, the Duchesse de Thouars resolved to side definitely with the Catholic party, and to do everything in her power to prevent the marriage of which she had at first so warmly approved. She had now joined Charlotte at Taillebourg, “where mother and daughter did not get on too well together,”[110] for, as is generally the case with young ladies of a romantic turn of mind, obstacles only served to fire Charlotte’s imagination, and the more opposed did the duchess become to the marriage, the more firmly did the girl resolve to remain true to her lover.
At length, matters reached a climax. At the outbreak of hostilities, the young Duc de Thouars, who, as we have mentioned, had joined Condé’s army, had installed a Huguenot garrison in the château. This garrison the duchess resolved to get rid of, and to replace it by a Catholic one; and, one fine day, four companies of soldiers marched into the town, under the command of a certain M. de Beaumont, who was entrusted with a letter for the Duchesse de Thouars from the Maréchal de Matignon, general-in-chief of the royal forces in the West, in which he called upon her, in the King’s name, to surrender the château, promising to restore it at the conclusion of the war. The duchess was joyfully preparing to obey, when her daughter intervened and informed her, very respectfully, but very firmly, that she should refuse to consent to the surrender, and that “she intended to keep inviolable the pledge which she had given Mgr. le Prince de Condé to preserve the château for him until her death.”[111]
Madame de Thouars expostulated, coaxed, threatened; all to no purpose. Charlotte was immovable as the rock upon which the château stood, and eventually the mortified lady ordered her coach and set out for Thouars, abandoning her rebellious daughter to the dangers of a siege.
The Château of Taillebourg was an old fortress of the thirteenth century,[112] situated on a steep rock, which rendered it perfectly safe from attack on three sides. On the one on which it was accessible, Charlotte ordered two culverins to be placed, so as completely to command the approach, perceiving which, Beaumont, who does not appear to have had any artillery with him, prudently refrained from any attempt to take the château by storm, and contented himself by very closely investing it. Aware that it was not provisioned for a siege, he felt confident that want of provisions must soon oblige the garrison to capitulate.
The days went slowly by. Every morning Beaumont formally summoned the defenders to surrender, only to receive a scornful defiance. But, in the meantime, famine was beginning to stare them in the face, and Charlotte recognized that, unless help arrived, it would be impossible to hold out much longer. Just, however, when her situation seemed almost desperate, she learned that a body of Huguenot cavalry under the Sieur de la Boullaye, which had succeeded in escaping from the Angers fiasco, was in the neighbourhood; and she at once determined to make an attempt to communicate with it. This, at first sight, seemed a hopeless undertaking, for the place, as we have said, had been very closely invested; but she perceived that at the rear of the château, where the rock was a sheer precipice, Beaumont had placed only a very few men, deeming it impossible for any one to descend on that side. Accordingly, when darkness fell, she caused one of her servants to be lowered by a rope down the face of the cliff; and the man, unperceived by the enemy, succeeded in making his way to La Boullaye’s camp.
The besiegers, to guard against any attempt to relieve the château, had taken the precaution to fortify a large house which commanded the entrance to the town of Taillebourg. But, as soon as morning dawned, Charlotte “said good-day to the enemy with her culverins,” and, turning them upon this house, kept up so persistent and well-directed a fire, that it was soon almost in ruins; and when the Huguenots arrived, they had no difficulty in making their way into the town.
Fighting continued all day, with no decisive result; but, during the night, the Catholics, who had lost some sixty men and whose commander had been taken prisoner, evacuated the town and retreated behind the Charente. La Boullaye did not pursue them; but, after placing a strong garrison in the château, escorted its brave defender to La Rochelle, where she promptly caused two ships to be fitted out, at her own expense, and despatched to Guernsey, to convey her lover and his fellow-exiles back to France.
Within an hour or two of the arrival of Charlotte’s ships, Condé was on his way to La Rochelle, where he landed a few days later. “I was there,” writes Fiefbrun, “and had the honour of accompanying this princess (Mlle. de la Trémoille) to the port, where she received his Excellency with so many expressions of joy, that never was seen anything in the world to surpass in mutual affection their caresses and welcomes, followed by public rejoicings on the part of the nobility and the people which it would be impossible to describe.”[113]
The prince and his lady-love looked forward with impatience to their marriage, to which, however, the Duchesse de Thouars continued to show herself extremely hostile. At length, however, she was persuaded to give a grudging consent, though she absolutely refused to grace the ceremony with her presence. It took place very quietly at the Château of Taillebourg, on 16 March, 1586. A little while before, Charlotte had become a Protestant, her example being followed by her brother, the Duc de Thouars.
Almost immediately after his marriage, Condé took the field again. He was burning to distinguish himself and efface the memory of the disaster of the previous year, which had furnished the King of Navarre and his little Court of Nérac with material for many biting jests at his expense.[114] Glory, however, continued to evade his pursuit, and his solitary success was gained in a cavalry skirmish before Saintes, which, however, cost him so dear that he is said to have been “more afflicted by his losses than elated by his victory.”[115]
In August, an armistice was concluded, and the remainder of the year was spent in negotiations, which led to nothing. They enabled Condé, however, to spend a few weeks with his bride at Saint-Jean-d’Angely, where, as most of the prince’s property had been sequestrated by the Crown, while it was not until nearly two years after the marriage that the Duchesse de Thouars condescended to pay her daughter’s dowry, they were obliged to content themselves with a very modest establishment. Indeed, to judge from the following letter from the princess to Longuespée, her agent at Taillebourg, there must have been times when they found themselves greatly embarrassed for even comparatively small sums of money:
“Longuespée, my knowledge of the good-will which you have long shown in our service has caused me to write you, to beg you to do me the favour of handing to the bearer of this the sum of one hundred écus, on account of larger sums which are due to her for bread that she has supplied while my husband and I have been here. And, if just now you have not the sum mentioned, I beg you to make arrangements to obtain it, so that I may satisfy her, assuring you that the favour which you will be doing me will be very agreeable to me, and hoping to remember it on the first occasion which presents itself as willingly as I shall remain your good mistress,
“X. de la Tremoille”
“At Saint-Jean-d’Angely, this 21 September 1586.
“I beg you again not to refuse me.”[116]
On 30 April, 1587, the Princesse de Condé gave birth to “a daughter worthy of such a mother,” who received the name of Éléonore, in memory of the prince’s mother, and became in 1606 the wife of Philip William of Nassau, Prince of Orange.
Early in the new year hostilities were resumed, and Condé gained several successes in Poitou and Saintonge. In October, the King of Navarre and Condé marched from La Rochelle to the Loire to meet the latter’s younger brothers, the Marquis de Conti and the Comte de Soissons, who, although Catholics, had been persuaded to cast in their lot with their relatives. Then they turned southwards, with the intention of concentrating all their troops in Gascony, and afterwards marching towards Berry, to effect their junction with a German force which was advancing to their assistance.[117] They were closely followed by a royal army under the Duc de Joyeuse, while another Catholic force under Matignon advanced against them from Guienne. To prevent the junction of Joyeuse and Matignon, the King of Navarre decided to give battle to the former in the plain before Coutras, on the borders of Saintonge and Périgord. The Catholics had a considerable advantage in point of numbers; but Henri’s army was almost entirely composed of veterans, and he was confident of success. As his officers were hastening to their posts, he stopped his cousins and exclaimed: “Gentlemen, I have only one thing to say to you: remember that you are of the House of Bourbon. Vive Dieu! I will show you that I am its head!” “And we will show you that we are good cadets,” replied Condé.
Henri’s confidence was justified; in less than an hour the Catholic army was completely routed, Joyeuse killed, and all the artillery, standards and baggage taken. It was the first victory in the open field which the Protestants had gained in twenty-five years of civil war, and stamped the King of Navarre as a bold and successful general.
Condé greatly distinguished himself, and, though his armour was hacked almost to pieces, he escaped unwounded from the battle itself. But in the pursuit he was not so fortunate. One of the bravest captains of the royal army, d’Espinay Saint-Luc, who had gallantly defended Brouage against the Huguenots in the preceding year, finding that his horse was too exhausted to carry him out of the field, resolved to do something to distinguish himself ere he surrendered. Having descried Condé almost isolated in the middle of the plain, he laid his lance in rest and charged him so furiously that both horse and man went down. Saint-Luc immediately dismounted, extricated the prince from his fallen steed, and tendered him his gauntlet, saying: “Monseigneur, Saint-Luc surrenders to you; do not refuse him.”
Although the lance had not penetrated the prince’s armour, which happened to be intact at the spot where he had been struck, he was badly bruised and shaken and scarcely able to stand. However, he embraced and pardoned the prisoner who had adopted this highly disagreeable mode of surrender, and was then carried to the King of Navarre’s quarters.
The victory of Coutras although so complete, had no important results. D’Aubigné accuses the King of Navarre of having sacrificed his duty to love—to his eagerness to lay at the feet of his mistress, the Comtesse de Gramont (la belle Corisande), the standards which he had captured. But his inaction was more probably due to the fact that it was impossible for him to keep his army together, so eager were the soldiers to return to their homes with their booty. Anyway, he made no attempt to join the Germans, who were defeated by the Duc de Guise at Vimory, near Orléans, and again at Anneau, and driven across the frontier, with terrible loss.
Condé, who had in vain endeavoured to persuade his cousin to continue the operations, decided to lead the contingents of Poitou and Saintonge against Saumur, but so many of his men deserted that he was compelled to abandon this enterprise. He was, besides, far too unwell for further service, for, since his encounter with Saint-Luc, he had been suffering from severe pains in the side; and on reaching Saintes, these were complicated by an attack of fever. The princess rejoined him there,[118] and early in January, 1588 he was sufficiently recovered to return to Saint-Jean-d’Angely. Shortly afterwards, the pains in the side returned; but, passionately devoted as he was to all martial exercises, he no sooner felt better than he was in the saddle again; and on Thursday, 3 March, spent some hours in tilting at the ring, on which occasion he rode a restive horse, which reared repeatedly.[119]
About an hour after supper that evening, the prince was seized with violent pains in the stomach, followed by repeated vomiting. He was attended by his chief surgeon, Nicolas Poget, and a physician named Bonaventure de Médicis, “who aided the movements of nature. The malady notwithstanding continued all night ... and so great was his difficulty in breathing that he was unable to stay in his bed, and was compelled to sit in a chair.
“Whereupon, on the morrow, Maîtres Louis Bontemps and Jean Pallet, also doctors of medicine, were called into consultation; and they all of them succoured his Excellency with all diligence and fidelity, by all the means that they judged suitable, according to the symptoms of the malady. But on the Saturday, the fifth day of the month, and the second of the malady, at three o’clock in the afternoon, all things took a turn for the worse, and an entire suffocation of all the faculties supervened, in which he rendered his soul to God half an hour afterwards.”[120]
“I was one of those,” writes Fiefbrun, “who were chosen to report this piteous calamity to Madame his wife, whom I found descending the steps of her hôtel to come and visit him in his little lodging, where she expected to find him alive, since she had as yet no idea that he was so near his last day. As soon as she caught sight of me, she suspected her misfortune, and pressing me to tell her in a few words, she fell down in a swoon, and was carried immediately to her bed, where she broke forth into the most terrible lamentations, accompanied by so many sobs and sighs that they could not be imagined save by those who saw and heard them. They were so violent that I am often astonished that they did not occasion a miscarriage.”[121]
In view of what we are about to relate, Fiefbrun’s account of the manner in which the Princesse de Condé received the news of her husband’s death is of extreme importance.
The rapidity of the malady, and the fact that decomposition set in within two hours after death, “gave cause to the doctors and surgeons to suspect that there had been some extraordinary and violent cause.” By order of the prince’s council, two other surgeons were called in, and an autopsy performed. This served to confirm their suspicions. “We have found,” runs their report, “all the stomach, particularly towards the right part, black, burned, gangreened, and ulcerated, which, in our opinion, can only have been caused by a quantity of burning, ulcerating, and caustic poison, which poison has left evident traces of its passage in the esophagus. The liver, in the part adjoining the aforesaid channel, was altered and burned, and all the rest of the organ livid, as were also the lungs. There was not a single part of his Excellency’s body which was not very sound and very healthy, if the violent poison had not destroyed and corrupted the parts mentioned.”[122]
Meanwhile, orders had been given that all the late prince’s servants were to be placed under arrest, and a courier had been despatched to the King of Navarre, who was at Nérac. Under date 10 March, 1588, we find Henri writing to the Comtesse de Gramont as follows:
“To finish describing myself, there has happened to me one of the greatest calamities that I could possibly fear, which is the sudden death of Monsieur le Prince. I mourn for him as he ought to have been to me, not as he was. I am assured of being the only target at which the perfidies of the Mass are aimed. They have poisoned him, the traitors!
“On Thursday, this poor prince, after tilting at the ring, supped, feeling well. At midnight, he was seized with a very violent vomiting, which lasted till morning. All Friday he kept his bed. In the evening, he supped, and having slept well, he rose on Saturday morning, dined at table, and then played at chess. He rose from his chair, and walked up and down his chamber, chatting with one and the other. All at once, he said: ‘Give me my chair; I feel a great weakness.’ Scarcely was he seated when he lost the power of speech, and immediately expired. The effects of poison at once became apparent.
“It is incredible the consternation which this has caused in that part of the country. I am starting at daybreak to travel thither with all speed. I see myself on the way to encounter much danger. Pray to God for me earnestly. If I escape it, it must be because it is He who had protected me. Up to the grave, to which I am perhaps nearer than I think, I shall remain your faithful slave. Good-night, my soul; I kiss your hands a thousand times.”[123]
Next morning, the King of Navarre set out for Saint-Jean-d’Angely, “to console my cousin, Madame la Princesse, and to prevent our enemies from profiting by our losses and misfortunes and by my absence.”[124] On the second day of his journey, however, he was met by a courier, with intelligence which convinced him that the bereaved princess was an object of something very different from sympathy.
“There arrived yesterday,” he writes to his Corisande, “the one at midday, the other in the evening, two couriers. The first reported that Belcastel, the page of Madame la Princesse,[125] and her first valet de chambre[126] had fled, immediately after seeing their master dead. They found two horses worth two hundred écus at an inn in the faubourg, where they had been kept for a fortnight, and each had a wallet full of money. On being questioned, the innkeeper stated that it was a person named Brilland who had given him the horses, and that he came every day to tell him to treat them well; that if he gave four measures of oats to the other horses, he was to give them eight, and that he would pay double. This Brilland is a man whom Madame la Princesse had placed in her Household and given the charge of everything. He was immediately arrested. He confesses to have given one thousand écus to the page and to have purchased the horses, by his mistress’s order, to go to Italy.
CHARLOTTE CATHERINE DE LA TRÉMOILLE, PRINCESSE DE CONDÉ
FROM AN ENGRAVING BY MIGER, AFTER THE PAINTING BY LE MONNIER
“The second courier confirms all this, and says further that Brilland was compelled to write a letter to the valet de chambre, who was known to be at Poitiers, in which he requested him to come two hundred paces from the gate, as he wished to speak to him.[127] Immediately, the ambuscade which was there seized him, and he was brought to Saint-Jean. He has not yet been interrogated, but he said to those who were bringing him: ‘Ah! what a wicked woman Madame [the Princesse de Condé] is! Let them arrest her treasurer; I will tell everything frankly.’ This was done. That is all that is known up to the present. Remember what I have told you at other times. I am seldom deceived in my judgments. A bad woman is a dangerous animal (une dangereuse beste). All these poisoners are Papists. It was from them that the lady received her instructions. I have discovered an assassin for myself. God will protect me, and I will tell you more about it soon.... My soul, I am very well in body, but very afflicted in mind. Love me, and let me see that you do; that will be a great consolation for me.”[128]
The King of Navarre did not carry out his original intention of proceeding straight to Saint-Jean-d’Angely, for, on reaching Pons, he turned aside to La Rochelle, and it was not until the evening of 29 March that he reached the scene of the tragedy. The probable reason for this delay was his wish to avoid committing himself until further light had been thrown upon the affair.
The princess, although, of course, under close supervision, was still nominally at liberty, for Fiefbrun, to whom, in his capacity of bailiff of Saint-Jean-d’Angely, Henri had entrusted the conduct of the inquiry, was a devoted servant of the Condés and was naturally very reluctant to take any definite steps against her. But, on his arrival, he found public opinion in the town so hostile to the lady that he felt obliged to order her arrest.
Personal considerations would appear to have been no stranger to this decision, and to the vigour with which he subsequently pushed on proceedings against the princess. The very strained relations which had existed for some time past between him and the late prince were common knowledge, and his enemies had not hesitated to circulate the report that he was privy to the death of his cousin. Théodore de Bèze had just written, warning him of this atrocious calumny, and urging him to take immediate steps to refute it:
“On this point I am constrained to add, knowing what might be the consequence of sinister counsels and your own clemency and good-nature, that your enemies have even dared, with that imprudence and wickedness which is the result of despair, to spread the report that this detestable crime was instigated by you. You neither can nor ought to hesitate about this action, without making an irreparable breach in your reputation; but, on the contrary, you ought to pursue the matter to judgment and execution, so as to stop the mouths of these detestable calumniators in the sight of God and man.”[129]
After ordering the arrest of the Princesse de Condé, Henri despatched one of his gentlemen, the Sieur de Veau Limery, to the Court, with a letter for “the Queen, mother of the King, my lord,” in which he informed her that the page Belcastel, “the principal instrument of the crime,” had taken refuge in Poitiers, and begged her to give orders that search should be made for him, and that, when apprehended, he should be conducted to Saint-Jean-d’Angely, to be confronted with his accomplices. Instructions to that effect were sent to Poitiers; but nothing was ever heard of the fugitive page, who seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth.
The position of the Princesse de Condé was a terrible one. It was not only at Saint-Jean-d’Angely that public opinion had pronounced against her. The more zealous Huguenots, furious at the supposed crime which had deprived them of the prince who had shared all their passions and prejudices, were loud in their demands that she should be brought to justice; while the Catholics were very hostile to the princess, on account of her abjuration and her conduct in recent events, in which she had rendered such good service to the Protestant cause. To her relatives she looked in vain for help or sympathy. The Duchesse de Thouars, who, since the affair of Taillebourg, had been on the worst possible terms with her daughter, never seems to have even thought of coming to Saint-Jean-d’Angely to inquire if she were innocent or guilty; and her absence still further prejudiced the princess’s case in the eyes of the public. The young Duc de Thouars, who, one would naturally suppose, would have been eager to champion his sister, does not appear to have moved in the matter at all. As for her husband’s relatives, the Prince de Conti and the Comte de Soissons seem to have at once made up their minds that she was guilty and did all in their power to hasten the prosecution; while the attitude of the Dowager-Princesse de Condé may be gauged from the following remarkable letter:
“Great as was the pleasure it gave me to address you as Madame la Princesse, I shall have reason to regret this name so long as you are not justified of the atrocious accusation which will cause you to lose honour and life together, if your innocence is not proved. That is what I desire intensely, since I am unable to believe that the heart of a woman so well-born and so well brought up could cherish such wickedness against the prince who had done you so much honour in wooing and espousing you. This loss is so great for all the family that the peculiar honour which I received from his father invites me to deplore it for the rest of my life. I have been among the first to demand justice of our King (Henri III.), who is neither able nor willing to refuse it. Their Majesties have declined to receive your letters, and the cardinals[130] to reply to them. I have also spoken of your story to the Queen, mother of the King, who replied that she is so much the friend of honour and virtue, and is so overwhelmed with horror at the deed of which you are accused, that she does not intend to intervene.... It is, therefore, your duty to endeavour to secure the arrest of your page, to whom, it is said, you caused a great deal of money to be given by your treasurer, and to whom one of your valets de chambre has confessed to have given the poison. This evidence makes matters very serious for you.
“It is further said that you love your page so passionately that he used to occupy your husband’s place, with so many other dreadful things that the Court is horrified; and there is no conversation now except at the expense of your reputation, which, I think, is very unfortunate for you.
“Those who have counselled you (if such is the case) have done you more harm than if they had given you the same poison. Who would ever wish to see you, holding you to be without honour and without heart? Believe that God, who threatens poisoners with having no share in the Kingdom of Heaven, will permit the truth to be known and justice to be executed. I have very humbly entreated the King, on your behalf, that the page should be arrested. His Majesty desires it and has written about it; but it is not believed that you are anxious for it. I pray God that the contrary may be the case; but, however that may be, you are at present the fable and the malediction of France, and, as I believe, of all the world, even to the barbarians, if they hear of it. But can it really be possible that you have deprived of life a prince who has so much honoured and loved you? If it is, you have no worse enemy than yourself, and have consented to the damnation of your soul. Time, which is the father of truth, will speedily enlighten us on the matter of your conduct, which, I trust, is altogether contrary to the belief which everywhere prevails.
“When I knew that you were living as an honourable princess, and were respecting such a husband, a member of so great a family, I desired to do you service, and I esteemed myself happy. But now that I see you thus accused, if your justification does not appease this widespread rumour of so iniquitous a deed, I have received too much honour from the late Monseigneur my husband to be willing that any one should surpass me in the desire to be the most cruel enemy that you have ever had, although I shall nevertheless weep for your disgrace.... And if you have been instigated to this crime, as is reported, hasten to denounce those who have given you this pernicious counsel, for the sake of your life and honour; and I shall implore God to punish the guilty and protect the innocent.
“From Paris this IX. April 1588.
“She who was formerly your mother-in-law to do you service.
“Françoise d’Orléans”[131]