Shortly after this, the Turks brought up some twenty guns to a height overlooking the Imperialist headquarters, which they bombarded heavily and persistently. One day, whilst Bassompierre was playing cards with the general and two other officers, a shot passed right through the tent, whilst on another, when visiting Annibal de Schomberg, a shot struck the tent-pole and brought the whole tent down upon the heads of its occupants. Finally, after this unpleasant state of things had lasted for five days, Rossworm decided to remove his headquarters to a valley where cannon-shot could not reach him, upon which the bombardment ceased.
Towards the middle of November, the Turks, having succeeded in their main objective, that of revictualling Buda, struck their camp and marched back to Belgrade, where their army was disbanded. Rossworm, after leading a flying column along the river and capturing one or two not very important places, with the idea of showing that the campaign had not been wholly without results on the Imperialists’ side, disbanded his troops likewise, and set out for Vienna, accompanied by Bassompierre.
CHAPTER V
Bassompierre goes to Prague, where the Imperial Court is in residence—He is presented by Rossworm to the lords of the Council—He dines at the house of Prestowitz, Burgrave of Karlstein, and falls in love with his widowed daughter, “Madame Esther”—Bassompierre and Rossworm engage in an amorous adventure, from which they narrowly escape with their lives—Bassompierre plays tennis with Wallenstein, with the Emperor Maximilian an interested spectator—He is presented to the Emperor, who receives him very graciously and commissions him to raise troops in Lorraine for service against the Turks. Bassompierre, Rossworm and other nobles parade the streets masked and have an affray with the police—Singular sequel to this affair—Bassompierre spends the Carnival with the Prestowitz family at Karlstein—Amorous escapade with “Madame Esther”—Bassompierre sets out for Lorraine—He engages in a drinking-bout with the canons of Saverne, which very nearly has a fatal termination—Death of his brother Jean, Seigneur de Removille, at the siege of Ostend—Grievances of Bassompierre against the French Government—Henri IV promises that “justice shall be done him” and invites him to return to his Court—Bassompierre renounces his intention of entering the Imperial service and sets out for France.
In Vienna, Bassompierre remained for six weeks, where he “passed his time extremely well,” and about the middle of January, 1604, set out for Prague, where the Imperial Court was then in residence.
“At Prague,” he writes, “I found Rossworm, who since our reconciliation had been on terms of the closest friendship with me. He came, the following morning, to my lodging in his coach to take me to the hall of the Palace of Prague,[42] where we walked up and down until the Council rose, when the lords of the Council came to salute Rossworm, whom they held in great respect, on account of his being commander-in-chief of the Army. He then presented me to them, begging them to honour me with their friendship and saying many kind things concerning me.”
On leaving the Palace, Rossworm took Bassompierre to dine with an old Bohemian noble named Prestowitz, who occupied the post of burgrave of Karlstein, the fortress in which the Imperial regalia and all the charters of Bohemia were preserved. The burgrave had two sons, the elder of whom was Grand Falconer of the Empire, while the younger, Wolf von Prestowitz, had served with Bassompierre in the recent campaign, and aspired to the command of the cavalry regiment which Bohemia was to send to Hungary that year. For which reason the family were exceedingly civil to the great Rossworm, who could do much to obtain this post for the young man. The burgrave also possessed four young and pretty daughters. Rossworm, it appeared, was in love with the youngest girl, Sibylla; while Bassompierre promptly lost his heart to the third daughter, named Esther, “a young lady of excellent beauty, eighteen years of age, widow since six months of a gentleman called Briczner, to whom she had been married a year.”
“We were nobly received and entertained at Prestowitz’s house,” he continues, “and after dinner there was dancing, when I began to fall in love with Madame Esther, who made me understand that she was not displeased with my design, which I revealed to her as I was leaving the house. For she responded in such a way as to afford me the means to write to her, and to tell me the places which she visited, so that I might go there. I went also to see her sometimes at her house, under cover of the friendship which had sprung up between her younger brother and myself, when we were in Hungary.”
His new-born passion for “Madame Esther” did not, however, prevent our gentleman from indulging in other amorous adventures of a much less excusable character: