[38] Jacques de la Guesle, procurator-general to the Parlement.
[39] The Comte d’Auvergne showed the most craven terror, and offered—king’s son though he was—to play the part of a spy and to continue to communicate with his confederates, in order to disclose their plans to the Government.
[40] The Prince de Joinville, having become the lover of Madame de Villars, who had aspired to succeed Gabrielle d’Estrées in the affections of Henri IV, and was bitterly hostile in consequence to Madame de Verneuil, had been cajoled by that lady into handing over to her the love-letters which he had received from Henriette, some of which contained expressions of great tenderness and had been written at the very time when the King was paying the damsel his addresses. These letters Madame de Villars had the meanness to send to Henri IV, who was naturally furious at the discovery that his mistress had had two strings to her bow. Eventually, however, his Majesty allowed himself to be persuaded by Madame de Verneuil and her friends that the letters were forgeries, the work of one Bigot, whom Joinville had suborned; and Henriette was forgiven, while the prince received orders to leave France.
[41] Rossworm had distinguished himself in 1601 at the capture of Stuhl-Weissemburg, and in 1602 had taken by assault the lower town of Buda and the town of Pesth.
[42] Presumably, Ladislaus’s Hall, or the Hall of Homage, constructed towards the end of the fifteenth century by Rieth.
[43] Lorraine, though its independence had been recognised in 1542, still contributed its share to the charges which had for their object the peace and security of the Empire; and, as the troops which Bassompierre proposed to raise were intended for service in Hungary against the Turks, it was on this fund, called the landsfried, that the order was drawn.
[44] Jacqueline de Bueil was an orphan who had been brought up by Charlotte de la Trémoille, widow of Henri I, Prince de Condé. She was a very astute young lady indeed, and demanded, as the price of her surrender, a large sum of money, a pension, a title, and a husband, all of which the amorous monarch conceded. The husband chosen for her was a needy and complaisant noble, Philippe de Harlay, Comte de Cess, a nephew of Queen Margaret’s old lover, Harlay de Chanvallon, who raised no objection to his sovereign exercising le droit de seigneur. Subsequently, the King created the lady Comtesse de Moret in her own right.
[45] Henri de Lorraine, Duc d’Aiguillon, eldest son of the Duc de Mayenne, and brother of the Comte de Sommerive.
[46] Among the members of Queen Marguerite’s suite, was a youth of some twenty summers, the son of one Date, a carpenter of Arles, whom her Majesty ennobled, “avec six aunes d’étoffe,” and who forthwith blossomed into a Sieur de Saint-Julien. This Saint-Julien, if we are to believe the chroniclers of the time, was passionately beloved by his regal mistress, though perhaps, as a charitable biographer of Marguerite suggests, her affection for him may have been “merely platonic and maternal.” However that may be, he stood on the very pinnacle of favour, and was regarded with envy and hatred by his less fortunate rivals. One of these rivals, Vermont by name—not Charmont, as Bassompierre calls him—either because he was jealous of the privileges which Saint-Julien enjoyed, or, more probably, because he believed that the favourite had used his influence with the Queen to procure the disgrace of certain members of his family, suspected of having aided the intrigues of the Comte d’Auvergne, swore to be avenged. Nor was his vow an idle one, for one fine morning in April, 1606, at the very moment when Saint-Julien was assisting Marguerite to alight from her coach, on her return from hearing Mass at the Célestines, he stepped forward, and, levelling a pistol, shot him dead. The assassin endeavoured to escape, but was pursued and captured; and the bereaved princess, beside herself with rage and grief, vowed that she would neither eat nor drink until justice had been done, and wrote to the King “begging his Majesty very humbly to be pleased that the assassin should be punished.” The King sent orders for Vermont to be brought to trial without an hour’s delay; and he was condemned to death and executed the following morning in front of Marguerite’s hôtel, “declaring aloud,” writes L’Estoile, “that he cared not about dying, since he had accomplished his purpose.”
[47] Although he had resumed his relations with Madame de Verneuil, and seemed more infatuated with her than ever, his Majesty continued his attentions to Madame de Moret, and had also fallen in love with a certain Mlle. de la Haye, with whom he spent a honeymoon at Chantilly, obligingly placed at his disposal by the Connétable de Montmorency, under the pretext of enjoying the fine hunting which the neighbourhood afforded. This affair, however, only lasted a short time. The young lady, it appears, had persuaded his Majesty that he was the first who had gained her heart, but, in point of fact, she had begun her career of gallantry by a liaison with M. de Beaumont, the late French Ambassador in England, who, however, had soon broken off his relations with her. Mlle. de la Haye had not forgiven him for this rupture, and, believing herself more in favour than she was, she endeavoured to prejudice the King’s mind against him. Beaumont, learning of this, promptly sent his Majesty the letters which Mlle. de la Haye had written him when she was his mistress; and Henri IV, indignant at having been deceived, broke with her in his turn.