CHAPTER XI
Education of Henri II. de Bourbon, Prince de Condé—Appearance and character of the young prince—He is offered and accepts the hand of Charlotte de Montmorency, unaware that Henry IV. is desperately enamoured of the lady—Conversation of the King with Bassompierre—Marriage of Condé and Mlle. de Montmorency—Infatuation of the King for the young princess—Condé refuses to accept the odious rôle assigned him, and “plays the devil”—Violent scenes between him and the King—He removes with his wife to Picardy—Amorous escapade of Henri IV.—Condé, summoned to Court for the accouchement of the Queen, leaves the princess behind him—Indignation of Henri IV.—Condé flies with his wife to Flanders—Fury of the King, who sends troops in pursuit of the fugitives—Refusal of the Archdukes to deliver them up—Condé goes to Cologne, while the princess proceeds to Brussels.
Henri IV. charged himself with all the expenses of the little Prince de Condé’s education; the Cardinal de Gondi, Bishop of Paris, was entrusted with the task of instructing him in the Catholic faith, and on 24 January, 1596, the boy attended Mass for the first time.
To assist the gouverneur, the Marquis de Pisani, in his important duties, the King decided to appoint a sous-gouverneur, and selected for that post Nicolas d’Aumale, Sieur d’Harcourt. D’Harcourt was a Protestant, and his appointment was probably due to Henri IV.’s desire to conciliate the Huguenots and to prove to them that, though the heir presumptive to the throne was to be brought up as a Catholic, there was no intention of separating him entirely from those of his father’s faith. For preceptor, the prince was given Nicolas Lefebvre, Counsellor to the Departments of Waters and Forests, who was a devout, though a by no means intolerant, Catholic, and one of the most learned men of his time.
The education of the boy would have progressed smoothly enough, but for the interference of the Dowager-Princesse de Condé, who aspired to direct everything herself, and continually countermanded the orders of Pisani, who was obliged to appeal to Henri IV. to uphold his authority. He complained that the princess refused to admit that anything was right that came from the King; and there can be no doubt that the lady, who was aware that none but political motives had induced Henri IV. to put an end to her imprisonment, was but little disposed to respect his Majesty’s wishes.
Not content with quarrelling with Pisani, the princess endeavoured to create dissension between him and d’Harcourt, by insinuating to the latter that he was distrusted by his superior, on account of his being a Huguenot. Then she tried to persuade the King to allow Texeira to be associated with d’Harcourt and Lefebvre in the education of her son—a proposal which was greatly resented by the sous-gouverneur and the preceptor.
The disputes to which his mother’s meddlesome activity gave rise were very unfortunate for the young prince. And Pisani declared that it was “pitiable to see him thus guided, served, and treated,” and expressed his fear “lest he should be found wanting, and that those who had been charged with his education should be blamed and despised for it.”[142]
In October, 1599, Pisani died suddenly, at the Abbey of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés,[143] to which he had removed with his charge to escape a terrible epidemic—probably typhus—which was then ravaging Paris. The choice of his successor was not an easy one, for now that Queen Marguerite had given her consent to the dissolution of her union with the King, and negotiations had been set on foot for Henri’s marriage with Marie de’ Medici, the post was diminishing in importance. General astonishment, however, was expressed when it was known that the King had conferred it upon the Comte de Belin. The count was a former Leaguer, Governor of Paris under the Duc de Mayenne, and had been one of the first of that party to attach himself to the cause of Henri IV. He had since testified great devotion to the monarch, but he was but little esteemed by the public, and had lost any military prestige he ever possessed by the promptitude with which he had capitulated at Arques, in 1596. Some privileged courtiers ventured to remonstrate with his Majesty on this appointment, to whom he drily replied: “When I wanted to make a King of my nephew, I gave him Pisani; when I wanted to make a subject of him, I gave him Belin.”
The new gouverneur showed himself infinitely more complaisant towards the Princesse de Condé than had his predecessor; indeed, Tallemant des Réaux declares that they “made belles galanteries together,” though no attention need be paid to the unsupported statement of this incorrigible scandalmonger. He was also far more indulgent with his pupil than Pisani had ever been—a change which is generally believed to have had a very injurious effect upon the character of the young prince, who was one of those lads who require a strong hand over them. Thanks, however, to the perseverance of Lefebvre, his studies were not permitted to suffer, and he received an education both sound and varied. He became a tolerable Latin scholar, spoke Italian fluently, understood Spanish, wrote his own language correctly—a rare accomplishment in those days—and had some knowledge of theology and mathematics. In appearance, he was rather below the middle height, with a slight, well-knit figure, and “the strongly marked features which generally distinguished the Bourbons.”[144] He was passionately devoted to the chase and an excellent horseman; nor does he seem to have lacked the courage of his race, since in February, 1607, when the prince was in his nineteenth year, Henri IV. was obliged to exercise his authority to prevent a duel to which he had challenged the Duc de Nevers.
With the exception of this incident, his early youth appears to have been very uneventful, for, since France was now at peace, no opportunity occurred for his initiation into the art of war. The King kept him constantly about his person, less through any affection for his kinsman than from a desire to protect him against the influence of ambitious and scheming persons who might seek to use him for the furtherance of their own ends. But the young prince did not possess the qualities which would have fitted him to shine in the gay and licentious society of the time, being shy and awkward, particularly in the presence of ladies, while his revenues were not at all commensurate with his rank; and after the birth of sons to Henri IV. had deprived him of all hope of the throne, he seems to have occupied a very inconspicuous position at Court.
Condé’s comparative lack of fortune made a wealthy marriage a necessity, and when, at the beginning of the year 1609, the King announced his intention of bestowing upon him the hand of Charlotte de Montmorency, daughter of the Connétable Henri de Montmorency,[145] and one of the richest heiresses in France, he accepted the offer with a gratitude which was not diminished by the fact that Mlle. de Montmorency united to the advantages of wealth remarkable personal attractions.
There was, indeed, no more lovely girl at Court than the daughter of the Constable. Cardinal Bentivoglio, the Papal Nuncio at Brussels, who saw her towards the close of the same year, has left us the following description of her:
“She was then sixteen years old, and her loveliness was adjudged by all men to accord with the fame thereof. She was very fair; her eyes and all her features full of charm; an ingenuous grace in all her gestures and in her manner of speaking. Her beauty owed its power to itself alone, since she did not bring to its aid any of the artifices of which women are wont to make use.”[146]
It is certain, however, that Condé would have received the proposition in a very different spirit if he had been aware of the reasons which had prompted the King to make it; for it was not the young prince’s interests, but his own convenience, that his Majesty had in mind.
One day in January, 1609, it happened that Henri IV. was passing through the great gallery of the Louvre, when he came upon a bevy of young ladies of the Court practising for a ballet, nymphs of Diana, armed for the chase. Among them was Mlle. de Montmorency, whose charms, enhanced by the classical costume she was wearing, made so profound an impression upon the susceptible monarch that he was quite unable to take his eyes off her.
Shortly after this encounter, his Majesty was laid up with an attack of gout. Several of the ladies of the Court came to visit him, and among those who were most assiduous in their attentions was the Duchesse d’Angoulême, who was invariably accompanied by Mlle. de Montmorency, her niece. Henri IV. was fifty-five, and his hair and beard, whitened by a life of peril and hardship, made him look considerably older. But his heart was still young, and he was as amorous as he had been at twenty. From the first, he took the keenest pleasure in Mlle. de Montmorency’s society; soon he was hopelessly in love, although for some time he appears to have deluded himself with the belief that his interest in the damsel was of a paternal nature only.
The fair Charlotte was already betrothed, with the King’s approval, to François de Bassompierre, a handsome young noble of Lorraine, high in favour with his Majesty, and one of the most redoubtable lady-killers of the Court. Henri, however, having himself become a candidate for the lady’s affections, had no mind to endure a rival so formidable as the fascinating Bassompierre, and, accordingly, decided that the projected marriage must be broken off.
One night, when Bassompierre was on duty in the King’s chamber, endeavouring to soothe his master’s pain by reading to him M. d’Urfé’s sentimental romance “l’Astrée,” then at the height of its vogue, Henri informed him, after some preamble, that he intended to marry him to Mlle. d’Aumale, and to revive the duchy of that name in his favour. “You wish then, Sire, to give me two wives!” exclaimed the astonished courtier. “Baron,” rejoined the King, “I wish to speak to you as a friend. I am not only in love, but distracted about Mlle. de Montmorency. If you marry her and she loves you, I shall hate you. If she loves me, you will hate me. It were better that the marriage were broken off, lest it should mar the good understanding between us, and destroy the affection I entertain for you. I have decided to marry her to my nephew, the Prince de Condé, and to keep her near the person of my wife. She will be the solace and support of the old age upon which I am about to enter. I shall give her to my nephew, who is only twenty, and prefers hunting a thousand times to ladies’ society; and I desire no other favour from her than her affection, without pretending to anything further.”
Bassompierre, who was above all things a courtier, seeing that the King was determined, and that, unless he submitted with a good grace, he would lose both his bride and the royal favour, protested his willingness to obey, adding the hope that “this new affection would bring his Majesty as much joy as it would occasion him pain, but for his consideration for his Majesty.”[147] His chagrin was, nevertheless, intense, and when, next morning, the young lady having been acquainted with the change that had been made in the disposition of her hand, greeted her too facile lover with an expressive shrug of her pretty shoulders and a glance of the most withering disdain, his grief and mortification were such that he fled precipitately to his lodging, where, he assures us, he spent three days without food or sleep.
The betrothal of Condé and Charlotte de Montmorency took place shortly afterwards (2 March, 1609), in the great gallery of the Louvre. The Constable gave his prospective son-in-law 100,000 écus; while the King granted him an increase of his pension and a present of 150,000 livres. The bride received 18,000 livres from his Majesty, for the purchase of jewellery, as well as a magnificent trousseau. Owing to the necessity of obtaining the Papal dispensation for the union of cousins,[148] the marriage-ceremony was postponed until 16 May, when it was celebrated at Chantilly, “very inexpensively, but very gaily.”
This gaiety was not of long duration. Scarcely had the young couple rejoined the Court, which was then at Fontainebleau, than the King began to lay the closest siege to the princess’s heart and strove by every means in his power to gain her affection. The girl, flattered by the homage of her Sovereign, of which she perhaps did not divine the end, was far from discouraging his attentions, and, if we are to believe Tallemant des Réaux, appeared one evening on the balcony of her apartments in a peignoir, with her hair falling over her shoulders, in order to please the King, who was transported with admiration. “Dieu!” cried she, “how foolish he is!” And she laughed heartily.
Her husband, however, did not laugh. The affair had become a public scandal. Even in the streets, people laughed and jested about the infatuation of the King, and “talked with the utmost freedom of his Majesty and of the corruption and debaucheries of his Court.”[149] If Condé had little love for his wife, he was exceedingly jealous of his honour, and, to Henri’s intense chagrin, absolutely declined to accept the odious rôle he had intended for him, and began, in his Majesty’s phrase, “to play the devil.”[150]
In vain, the King endeavoured to reassure him as to the innocence of his intentions; in vain, the Constable, at his Majesty’s request, made the strongest representations to his son-in-law. Condé was deaf to all appeals, and, towards the middle of June, carried off his wife to Valery, in the hope that, during his absence, the King’s passion might cool or be diverted to some fresh object.
Henri IV. was in despair. In obedience to his orders, the poet Malherbe consented “to degrade his muse to the office of pander,”[151] and composed stanzas wherein the King, under the name of Alcandre, cries:
Il faut que je cesse de vivre
Si je veux cesser de souffrir;
and the princess, under the name of Orante, replies:
La cœur outrée du même ennui,
Jurait que s’il mourait pour elle,
Elle mourait aussi pour lui.[152]
Condé and his wife remained at Valery until the first week in July, when they were compelled to return to Court, in order to attend the marriage of César de Vendôme, Henri IV.’s eldest son by Gabrielle d’Estrées, and Mlle. de Mercœur. The King’s passion became more violent than ever, and his conduct would have been ludicrous to the last degree had it been less culpable. Not only did he continue to commission Malherbe to bombard the princess with elegies and sonnets, but “one saw him alter in less than no time his hair, his beard, and his countenance.” He who had hitherto been distinguished from the nobles of his Court by the simplicity and even negligence of his attire, might now be seen dressing and adorning himself with as much care as the youngest and most dandified of his courtiers, and, on one occasion, he appeared at a tilting-match wearing “a scented ruff, a doublet with sleeves of Chinese satin, and the colours of the Princesse de Condé, who called him ‘her knight.’”[153] “The King is well and grows younger every day,” wrote Malherbe to his friend Peiresc.
The unfortunate husband began to “play the devil” again, and, though Henri, in the hope of bending him to his will, had the meanness to give orders to Sully that the instalment of his pension due at Midsummer should not be paid him, and to threaten him with even more severe measures unless he mended his ways, his complaints grew louder than ever. Violent scenes took place between him and the King, in one of which Condé allowed the word “tyranny” to escape him, and his Majesty, losing all control of himself, replied that the only occasion on which he had merited such a reproach was when he had recognized the prince for what he was not—that is to say, a legitimate son.
Finally, Condé took his wife back to Valery, and, though Henri employed every means in his power to induce him to return, it was to no purpose. “Beaumont,” writes the King to the Constable, on 23 September, “returned yesterday, and says that he found our friend (Condé) more unmanageable than ever. He leaves Valery this morning for Muret.”[154]
Muret was a château belonging to Condé in Picardy, not far from the Flemish frontier, and the prince’s pretext for removing thither was the excellent hunting which the neighbourhood afforded. Early in November, he and his wife went to join a hunting-party at the Abbey of Verteuil, and, while they were there, M. de Traigny, governor of Amiens, invited the Princesse de Condé and the dowager-princess, who was with her, to dine at his country-house, situated some three leagues from the abbey. We will allow Lenet, the faithful servant of the Condés, who had the story from the princess’s own lips, to relate what followed:
“It would seem very much as though this party had been concerted with the King, but he was, at any rate, informed of it by the Sieur de Traigny, who always abetted him in his pleasures, so that the princesses, while on their way thither, saw a carriage pass with the King’s liveries and a great number of hounds. The princess-mother, who was passionately attached to her son, and watched the actions of the young princess very narrowly, feared that, under the pretext of some hunting excursion, the King had prepared for them a rendezvous. She summoned the huntsmen, whom she saw at a distance; but one of them, advancing before the others, came to the door of the coach to answer the princess’s questions, and disarmed her fears, by telling her that a captain of the hunt, who was in the neighbourhood to celebrate the feast of St. Hubert, had placed the relays where she saw them, because he was hunting a stag with some of his friends. Whilst the princess-dowager was speaking to the huntsman, the young princess, who was at the coach-door, glanced at the others, who stood some little distance off, and perceived that one of them was the King, who, the better to disguise himself under the livery he wore, had put a large black patch over his left eye and held two greyhounds in a leash. The princess told us that she had never been more astonished in her life, and that she did not dare to mention what she had seen to her mother-in-law, from fear lest she should inform her husband. At the same time, she confessed to us that this gallantry had not displeased her, and, continuing her story, she told us that, having arrived at Traigny and entered the salon, she remarked upon the extreme beauty of the view, whereupon Madame de Traigny said to her that, if she cared to put her head out of a window which she would show her, she would see one still more agreeable. Advancing to it, she perceived that the King was placed at the window of a pavilion opposite, he having preceded her after having had the pleasure of seeing her on the road, and that he held all the time one hand to his lips, as though to send her a kiss, and the other to his heart, to show her that he had been wounded.
“The surprise of this rencontre did not allow the princess time to reflect what she should do, and she retired abruptly from the window, exclaiming, ‘Ciel! what is this? Madame, the King is here!’ On which the princess-dowager, greatly incensed, divided her words between giving directions for the horses to be immediately harnessed to her coach and loading Traigny and his wife with reproaches. Even the King, who hastened to the spot on hearing the commotion, did not escape her anger. The enamoured prince employed all the entreaties which his passion could dictate, and all the promises possible, to induce her to remain, but to no purpose; for the princesses re-entered their coach and returned forthwith to Verteuil, where that same night the princess-mother broke the promise which the King had extracted from her, and related the whole story to her son.”
A few days later, Condé received a letter from the King, written in a strain half-coaxing and half-menacing, summoning him to Court, to be present at the approaching accouchement of the Queen. Etiquette required that the first Prince of the Blood should be in attendance on these auspicious occasions, and it was impossible for him to refuse. But he came alone. Henri was furious, and his anger and disappointment rendered him so insupportable to all about him, that Marie de’ Medici herself begged Condé to send for his wife, promising to keep the strictest watch over her. Such was the King’s wrath that he apparently could not trust himself to interview his cousin personally, but sent for the prince’s secretary Virey,[155] and told him that, if Condé desired a divorce from his wife, he would not oppose it, and would even undertake to obtain the parents’ consent. The prince, it should be explained, had no such wish, but, a few months before, after a stormy interview with the King, he had chanced to observe to the Duc de Villeroy, whom he had met on leaving the royal presence, and who had inquired the cause of his agitation, that, rather than consent to his own dishonour, or expose himself any longer to his Majesty’s anger, he would get himself “dismarried”; and these hasty words, which had been duly reported to the King, had been wrested into a request for a divorce.[156]
Virey withdrew, and the next day returned and handed the King a very skilfully-worded memorial from Condé, which had been drafted for him by the Président de Thou, wherein he begged his Majesty to appoint such persons as he might think fit to assist him with their counsel in this delicate affair; adding that, until the matter was decided, he did not doubt that the King would think it necessary that the princess should remain at Muret.
This answer completely disconcerted the amorous monarch’s plans, and made him more angry than ever. Ignoring the memorial, he turned furiously upon Virey, to whose influence he attributed the firm tone which Condé maintained, reproached him bitterly with the counsels he had given the prince, threatened him with his severe displeasure, and, finally, dismissed him, bidding him tell his master that, if he declined to yield to his will or attempted the slightest violence against the princess, he would give him cause to rue it. He added that, had he been still only King of Navarre, he would at once have challenged the prince to a duel.
After receiving the King’s message, Condé decided to feign submission, and accordingly begged his Majesty’s leave to return to Muret to fetch his wife. His request, as we may suppose, was readily granted, and on 25 November, the day on which the ill-fated Henriette-Marie was born, he set out for Picardy.
On the evening of the 29th, while Henri was at the card-table, word was brought him that a messenger had arrived from Picardy with intelligence that Monsieur le Prince had early that morning left Muret, in a coach with his wife, accompanied by his chamberlain, the Baron de Rochefort, Virey, and two of the princess’s ladies. Condé had given out that they were bound on a hunting-expedition; but the messenger—an archer of the Guard named Laperrière—had learned from his father, who was in the prince’s service, that the party had taken the road to Flanders.
The consternation of the King knew no bounds. The moment he learned the news, he at once summoned his most trusted counsellors, who found him pacing up and down the room, with downcast eyes and hands clasped behind his back. As each arrived, he informed him of what had occurred and demanded his advice, refusing to give him even a moment for reflection. The prudent Sully advised his master to let the matter rest, pointing out that, in that case, the fugitive prince, being unable to draw his pension, would soon be reduced to sue for terms; whereas, if Henri showed anxiety to get him back, the enemies of France would be only too ready to assist him, in order to spite the King.
The infatuated monarch, however, was in no mood to follow such counsel, and that very night, without pausing to reflect on the probable effect of such a step, wrote to the governors of Marle and Guise, directing them to send the whole strength of their garrisons to capture Condé, “wherever he might be;” and despatched La Chaussée, an officer of the Guards, with orders to pursue the prince even over the frontier, “and if he should discover him in any town beyond his dominions to address himself to the governor and magistrates of that city, and to inform them that his Majesty had given him authority to require and entreat them to have the prince and his suite arrested and well guarded, assuring them that, in acting thus, they would be doing great service to the Archdukes.”[157]
La Chaussée came up with the fugitives at Landrecies, the first Spanish fortress in Flanders, which they had reached in the early morning of the 30th. Since leaving Muret, they had only rested for a few minutes at a village inn; the almost impassable state of the roads had compelled them to abandon their coach before crossing the Somme, and the unfortunate princess had passed fifteen hours on the crupper of Rochefort’s saddle, under a continuous downpour of rain.
La Chaussée produced the royal warrant for the arrest of Condé, but the authorities of Landrecies refused to allow it to be executed until they had referred the matter to the Archdukes. Rochefort, at the prince’s request, was permitted to proceed to Brussels to beg the Archdukes to grant his master a safe-conduct through their dominions, in order that he might visit his sister, the Princess of Orange,[158] at Breda. An envoy from Henri IV. arrived almost simultaneously to denounce the prince as a traitor and an enemy to the public peace, and to request their Highnesses to permit his arrest, or, at least, not to grant him an asylum in Flanders.
The Archdukes found themselves in a very embarrassing position, and took refuge in a compromise. They declined to allow the rights of nations to be violated by the arrest of Condé, and granted his wife permission to continue her journey, but gave orders that the prince should quit the Netherlands within three days.
Rochefort returned to Landrecies with this answer on the night of 2–3 December, and, without waiting for the day, Condé quitted the town and set out for Cologne, a city whose ancient liberties protected him from any attempt at molestation by his enraged Sovereign. On the following morning, the princess, under the charge of the faithful Virey, started for Brussels, where she arrived the same night, and was lodged at the Hôtel de Nassau, the residence of the Prince of Orange.
The Prince and Princess of Orange were at Breda, and their palace was only occupied by a few servants. Virey was very uneasy at the situation in which he found himself, since Madame la Princesse had for the moment no protector at hand but himself, and he feared lest Praslain, the envoy whom Henri IV. had despatched to Brussels, should take advantage of his helplessness and carry her off. Such, indeed, was Praslain’s intention, but, before resorting to this extreme step, he wished to endeavour to obtain the consent of the Prince of Orange, for which purpose he set off for Breda. There he was received by the princess, who told him what she thought of his proposal in such very forcible language, that he was glad to beat a retreat. He hastened back to Brussels, but, on arriving there, found a guard, which Virey had contrived to obtain, posted before the Hôtel de Nassau, and was obliged to abandon all idea of a coup de main.