IV.
June, 1544] CHARLES V. IN LORRAINE
Soon after her return from Spires, on the 20th of April, 1544, Christina gave birth, at Nancy, to a daughter, who was named Renée, after the late Duchess. But her happiness was clouded by the illness of her husband, whose health had become a cause of grave anxiety. Fighting was renewed with fresh vigour in the spring, and unexpected success attended the imperial arms. Luxembourg was recovered by Ferrante Gonzaga, and the French invaders were expelled from most of the strongholds which they held in this province. The war raged fiercely on the borders of Lorraine, and the annoyance to which his subjects were exposed, induced Duke Antoine to make another effort at mediation. Since the Emperor turned a deaf ear to all appeals, he decided to apply to King Francis in person, and on the 8th of May he set out in a litter for the French Court; but when he reached Bar he was too ill to go any farther, and took to his bed in this ancient castle of his ancestors. His sons hastened to join him, and Christina followed them as soon as she was able to travel, and arrived in time to be present at her father-in-law's death-bed. The fine old man made his will, appointed his brothers, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal, to be his executors, and with his last breath begged his son to rule Lorraine wisely and raise as few extraordinary taxes as possible. Above all, he adjured him to preserve his people from the scourge of war, and use every endeavour to obtain the restoration of peace. With these words on his lips, he passed away on the 19th of June, 1544.[352] The new Duke was as anxious for peace as his father, but the moment was unpropitious for any efforts in this direction. King Henry had at length taken the field and invaded Picardy with a large army, and the Emperor was bent on carrying the war into the heart of France, and urged his ally to meet him under the walls of Paris. On the 17th of June Charles himself came to Metz with Maurice of Saxony and the young Marquis Albert of Brandenburg, the boldest warrior in Germany, and prepared plans for the extension of the campaign which Ferrante Gonzaga and the Prince of Orange were carrying on in Champagne. Here Francis of Lorraine joined him as soon as he was able to mount a horse, and, after spending some days at Metz, induced the Emperor to accompany him to Nassau-le-Grand, where Christina was awaiting him.[353] On his way Charles stopped at Pont-à-Mousson, and paid a visit to Queen Philippa, the sister of his old enemy Charles of Guelders, for whom he had always entertained a genuine regard, and who was proud to welcome the great Emperor under her convent roof. Since the death of the Empress, five years before, Charles had formed a fixed resolution to end his days in some cloistered retreat, and he looked with admiration, not unmixed with envy, on the aged Queen's peaceful home, and the garden where she hoed and raked the borders and planted flowers with her own hands. It was a memorable day in the convent annals, and one which left pleasant recollections in the Emperor's breast.[354]
But although Charles was full of affection for Christina and her husband, he declined to receive the Cardinal of Lorraine, who begged for an interview, and during his brief visit not a word was spoken with regard to overtures of peace.[355] On the 12th of July he took leave of the Duke and Duchess, and joined the Prince of Orange's camp before St. Dizier. This town was strongly fortified, but René had taken up his position near a bridge across the Marne, and opened fire from a battery of guns placed in the dry bed of the castle moat. Charles himself visited the trenches on the day of his arrival, and early the next morning the Prince of Orange walked round to inspect the artillery with Ferrante Gonzaga. The Marquis of Marignano was sitting in a chair, which had been brought there for the Emperor's use the day before, and, seeing the Prince, sprang to his feet and offered him his seat. Compliments were exchanged on both sides, and the Prince finally sat down in the empty chair. He had hardly taken his seat before he was struck by a shell which, passing between the Viceroy and the Marquis, broke one of his ribs, and shattered his shoulder to pieces. They bore his unconscious form to the Emperor's tent, where he lay between life and death for the next forty-eight hours. The whole camp was filled with consternation.
"I doubt yet what will become of him," wrote Wotton, who had followed Charles to the camp. "If he should die of it, it were an inestimable loss to the Emperor, so toward a gentleman he is, so well beloved, and of such authority among men of war."
Before the writer had finished his letter, a servant came in to tell him that the Prince was gone.[356]
July, 1544] DEATH OF RENÉ
A Spanish officer on the spot wrote a touching account of the Prince's last moments. From the first the doctors gave little hope, and when the Emperor heard of René's critical state he hastened to the wounded hero's bedside, and knelt down, holding his hand in his own. The Prince knew him, and begged him as a last favour to confirm the will which he had made a month before, and take his young cousin and heir, William of Nassau, under his protection. Charles promised to do all in his power for the boy, and, with tears streaming down his face, kissed the Prince's cheek before he passed away.
"His Majesty the Emperor," continued the same writer, "saw him die, and after that retired to his chamber, where he remained some time alone without seeing anyone, and showed how much he loved him. The grief of the whole army and of the Court are so great that no words of mine can describe it."[357]
Aug., 1544] LA SQUELETTE DE BAR
From all sides the same bitter wail was heard. There was sorrow in the ancient home at Bar, where René's marriage had been celebrated with great rejoicing four years before. The Duke and Duchess wept for their gallant brother-in-law, and Christina thought, with tender regret, of the hero who in youthful days had seemed to her a very perfect knight. The sad news was sent to De Courrières at the English camp before Boulogne, by his Lieutenant of Archers, and the veteran shed tears over the gallant Prince whom he had often followed to victory. Great was the lamentation at Brussels when the truth became known. Nothing but weeping was heard in the streets, and Queen Mary retired to the Abbey of Groenendal to mourn for the loss which the Netherlands had sustained by René's untimely death.[358] In his own city of Breda the sorrow was deeper still. There his faithful wife, Anne of Lorraine, was waiting anxiously for news from the battle-field. Her father had died a few weeks before, and now her lord was torn from her in the flower of his age, and she was left a childless widow. Early in the year she had given birth to a daughter, who was christened on the 25th of February, and called Mary, after her godmother, the Queen of Hungary, but who died before she was a month old. Now report said that she was about to become a mother for the second time, but her hopes were once more doomed to disappointment. By René's last will, his titles and the greater part of his vast estates passed to his cousin William of Nassau, a boy of eleven, while a large jointure and the rich lands of Diest were left to Anne for her life.[359] The Prince's corpse, clad in the robes of a knight of the Golden Fleece, was borne to Breda, and buried with his forefathers; but his heart was enshrined in the Collegiate Church of Bar, among the tombs which held the ashes of his wife's ancestors. On his death-bed René had expressed a wish that a representation of his face and form, not as he was in life, but as they would appear two years after death, should be carved on his tomb. This strange wish was faithfully carried out by Anne of Lorraine, who employed Ligier-Richier, the gifted Lorraine sculptor, to carve a skeleton with upraised hand clasping the golden casket which contained the dead hero's heart. The figure, carved in fine stone of ivory whiteness, was, as it were, a literal rendering of the words, "Though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." At the Revolution, the Collegiate Church of Bar, with the chapel of the Lorraine Princes, which Montaigne called the most sumptuous in France, was entirely destroyed; but René's monument was saved and placed in the Church of St. Étienne, where it is commonly known as "La Squelette de Bar."[360]
The memory of this popular Prince lingered long in the land of his birth, and his fame lived in the songs of Flanders and Holland for many generations. One of the best known begins with the lines:
"C'est le Prince d'Orange,
Trop matin s'est levé,
Il appela son page,
Mon Maure, est-il bridé?
Que maudit soit la guerre—
Mon Maure, est-il bridé?"[361]
And so the story goes on through many stanzas, which tell how, in spite of his wife's dark forebodings, the hero rode out to the wars to fight against the French, how he met with his fatal wound, and never came home again.