“My cousin,” Henri IV had remarked to Joyeuse a little while before, as they were standing one day on a balcony, beneath which a crowd had gathered, “those people down there do not appear very well pleased at seeing an apostate King and an unfrocked monk together.” This pleasantry struck Joyeuse to the quick and this time he resumed the hair-shirt, not to put it off again. And as in those days people obeyed their religious convictions without deeming it necessary to advertise the fact to the public, Joyeuse, having spent the evening in the midst of the gayest company in Paris, withdrew to the convent where he had resolved to spend the remainder of his days, without saying a word of his intention to anyone.
“After we had supped together at the Hôtel de Retz,” writes Bassompierre, “at midnight I bade him good night at the postern-door of his lodging, the threshold of which he merely crossed, and then repaired to the Capuchins, where he ended his days piously.”
Bassompierre was by this time firmly established in the good graces of the King, for whom he had already conceived so warm an admiration and affection that he had decided to enter his service. We will allow him to speak himself on this occasion, inasmuch as he does so with a sensibility and gratitude very unusual with him, and which one does not find in his Mémoires, except when Henri IV is in question:
“Two days later I went to Fontainebleau, and, one day, as someone had told the King that I had some beautiful Portuguese pieces and other gold coins, he asked me if I would play for them against his mistress. On my agreeing to do this, he made me stay and play with her while he was at the chase, and in the evening he played too. This put me on terms of great familiarity with the King and the duchess, and when we were talking one day about the reason which led me to come to France, I told him [the King] frankly that I did not come with any intention of engaging in his service, but merely to pass some time there, and then to do the same at the Court of Spain, before I came to any determination as to the conduct of my future life; but that he had so charmed me, that, if he would accept my service, I would go no further to seek a master, but would devote myself to him until death. He embraced me and assured me that I should not find a better master than he would be to me, or one who would love me more or contribute more to my fortune or advancement. This was on a Tuesday, March 12 [1599]. Henceforth, I looked upon myself as a Frenchman; and I can say that, from that time, I experienced from him so much kindness, so much affability, and such proofs of good-will, that his memory will be deeply graven in my heart during the remainder of my days.”
On the approach of Holy Week, Bassompierre requested the King’s permission to go to Paris to perform his Easter devotions, when Henri IV informed him that he should go with him on the Tuesday to Melun, whither he proposed to escort the Duchesse de Beaufort, who also wished to perform her devotions in the capital, and next day continue his journey to Paris.
We must here explain that it had been for some months generally known that the Very Christian King, notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of his great Minister Sully and his faithful adviser Duplessis-Mornay, fully intended to marry his Gabrielle, as soon as he could obtain the dissolution of his marriage with Marguerite de Valois. Such a resolution aroused universal alarm. The duchess had many friends and few enemies, but not even her most devoted partisans could maintain that her birth and previous life fitted her to be the Queen of France, while it was obvious that the claims of her legitimated sons, and of those who might be born in wedlock, would add another element of discord to those already existing. After considerable difficulty, on February 7, 1599, Marguerite, who had declared that it was “repugnant to her to put in her place a woman of such low extraction, and of so impure a life as the one about whom rumour speaks,”[18] was at length persuaded to sign the necessary procuration, which Henri IV lost no time in sending to Rome. But Clement VIII disapproved of his Majesty’s choice, less probably on account of Gabrielle’s obvious unsuitability to share a throne than because she was the intimate friend of Catherine de Bourbon, Duchess of Bar, and Louise de Coligny, Princess of Orange. These two ladies were amongst the most stubborn heretics in Europe, and his Holiness did not doubt that, urged by them, Gabrielle would use all her influence with the King in favour of their co-religionists. He, therefore, refused to dissolve the marriage, sheltering himself behind the difficulties regarding the succession in which the new union which the King was contemplating would involve France. This paternal solicitude for his kingdom did not deceive Henri IV, who, impatient at the delay, instructed his representative at the Vatican to hint that, if the Holy Father continued contumacious, the eldest son of the Church might be tempted to behave in an exceedingly unfilial manner, and follow the example of his last namesake on the throne of England. Whether, with this threat hanging over him, Clement would eventually have yielded is a matter of opinion; but an unexpected event came to relieve the tension.
Bassompierre duly accompanied the King and the duchess to Melun, Gabrielle, who was in an advanced state of pregnancy, being carried in a litter. At supper Henri IV said to him: “Bassompierre, my mistress wishes to take you with her in her barge to-morrow to Paris. You will play cards together by the way.” That night they slept at Savigny, about midway between Fontainebleau and the capital, and the following morning (April 6) the King accompanied the duchess to the bank of the Seine, where her barge was awaiting her, in which she embarked with Bassompierre, the Duc de Montbazon, Captain of the Guards, the Marquis de la Varenne and her waiting-women.
At the moment of parting from her royal lover, Gabrielle broke down and began to sob bitterly, declaring that she had a presentiment that she should never see him again. The King, after vainly endeavouring to console her, was on the point of yielding and taking her back to Fontainebleau. But, in view of their intended marriage, he attached great importance to the duchess performing her Easter devotions in the capital, and, after repeated embraces, he freed himself from her detaining arms and gave the signal for the barge to start.
About three o’clock in the afternoon, Gabrielle reached Paris, and disembarked on the quay near the Arsenal, where her brother-in-law, the Maréchal de Balagny, her brother the Marquis de Cœuvres, Madame de Retz, and the duchesse and Mlle. de Guise were awaiting her. She rested for a while at her sister’s house, where a number of distinguished persons called upon her, and then went to sup at the house of Sebastian Zamet,—“the lord of the 1,800,000 crowns”—an Italian financier, who had risen from a very humble position to great wealth and the personal friendship of Henri IV. After supper she attended the Tenebræ at the Couvent du Petit Saint-Antoine, then renowned for its fine music. During the service she was taken ill and was carried to Zamet’s house, where she recovered sufficiently to go to the apartments of her aunt Madame de Sourdes, at the Deanery of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, where she always stayed when paying a short visit to Paris, as she did not make use of her own house in the Rue Fromenteau, which communicated with the Louvre, except when the Court happened to be in residence. Next day, though still feeling far from well, she attended Mass at her parish church, Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois. She was borne in a litter, by the side of which walked the Duc de Montbazon, in virtue of his position as Captain of the Guards, and escorted by archers; while the Lorraine princesses and a number of ladies of high rank followed in coaches. In the church she was again taken ill, and, on returning to the deanery, fell into violent convulsions. On the 9th—Good Friday—she gave birth to a still-born child, after which the surgeons who attended