The intrigue was not intended to bring over the Prince de Condé, and still less Coligny: it was well known that their hearts were too noble, and their will too strong for this to take effect. But the king of Navarre offered an easier prey to seduction, and the legate of the pope, the cardinals, the Lorraines, the ambassador of Spain, concerted together for this purpose. The details which follow, are attested even by the defenders of the Church of Rome: it is necessary to remember this, in order that they may be believed.
In the first place, they played upon the jealousy of the king of Navarre, by telling him that, in spite of his title of lieutenant-general, he was only the second, or even the third, person of the Calvinist party. Abandoned women were placed in his way, because his passions were known to incline him towards ignoble pleasures. Above all, they flattered his dream of the restitution of the kingdom of Navarre, or of an equivalent. Philip II., without binding himself in writing, as we may readily believe, offered him, by his ambassador, sometimes a kingdom in Africa, at one time that of Tunis, and at another the island of Sardinia, of which he was to have the sovereignty on condition of paying a moderate tribute. The memoirs of the time record the fantastic and marvellous descriptions made to him of this country: it was represented to him as one of those fortunate isles that exist only in fables. The pope, taking part in this comedy, promised his good offices to secure such a magnificent kingdom for Anthony de Bourbon.
The historian Davila, favourable as he is to the (Roman) Catholic party, cannot help sneering at the credulity of the king of Navarre: “The ambassador Mauriquez,” he says, “renewed his negotiations by his usual arts; the clauses and conditions were discussed as seriously as if a treaty were to be signed.”[41] The Cardinal de Sainte Croix, with the same frankness, lays open the secrets of this bargain. Anthony de Bourbon consented to separate himself from the others (the Calvinists); but he wished first of all to re-enter into possession of his property, or to obtain a fair equivalent. Thus we may perceive his conscience truckled for a kingdom in the clouds.
The Guises laid another trap. They insinuated to the king of Navarre that he might marry their niece, Mary Stuart, when the pope had annulled his marriage with Jeanne d’Albret, on account of heresy; and thus they held the crown of Scotland before his eyes!
Anthony de Bourbon, dazzled, seduced, won, profited by a conference between the theologians of the two communions, to declare that the Calvinist ministers, after all their boasting, had not been able to withstand the (Roman) Catholic doctors; and full of violence, like a man who has just sold himself, he treated them as charlatans and impostors, with whom he would have nothing more to do. On learning this, the Cardinal de Lorraine cried out, with an air of triumph, “See what truth has gained by those conferences, for which I have been so much reproached!”
Theodore de Bèze, who had been called to France by the king of Navarre, went to him several times to beseech him not to abandon the cause of (the Reformed) religion. He was coldly received: and in a letter to Calvin, dated the 26th of February, 1562, he said, “Never was there witnessed such an example of treachery and wickedness. In an audience which he gave me, he was not ashamed to treat me as if I were ignorant of things, of which even children were cognizant.”
Calvin wrote pressing letters to the king, but in vain. Jeanne d’Albret herself employed both tears and prayers without success. “She excited pity in all who beheld her,” says Bèze, “except in her husband, the king, so besotted was he!” Anthony de Bourbon was, in fact, so enraged against her, as positively to maltreat her; and Jeanne d’Albret, losing all hope, retired to Béarn.
She was born at Paris, in 1528, and was the only daughter of Margaret of Valois: she had all the brilliant qualities of her mother, combined with a firmer piety, and a more decided character. Her education was solid and well directed. She understood Greek, Latin, and Spanish, and wrote verses with facility in a poetical contest with Joachim du Bellay.
In 1548 she married Anthony de Bourbon, and in 1555, on the death of her father, she took the name of queen of Navarre. Jeanne d’Albret was slower than her husband in embracing the Reformed faith; she only decided in 1560; but she was unalterably constant to it; and when Catherine de Medicis advised her to fall in with the altered humour of the king of Navarre, she made this answer, which marks the fervour of the newly-converted: “Madame, rather than ever go to mass, if I had my kingdom and my son in my hand, I would cast them both into the depths of the sea.”