At the time, however, when his Majesty appears to have made advances to the younger sister, his relations with the elder had been temporarily interrupted by the episode which is known as the Conspiracy of the d’Entragues.
In the summer of 1604, acting upon a warning received from James I of England, the French Government had caused one Morgan, an agent of Spain, to be arrested in Paris, and documents found upon this person indicated that he had relations of a highly suspicious character with François d’Entragues, his daughter, Madame de Verneuil, and his stepson, the Comte d’Auvergne. One fine morning, a party of the King’s guards arrived at the Château of Malesherbes, where three moats and draw-bridges always raised protected its lord, as he fondly imagined, from surprise. Four of the soldiers, however, succeeded in gaining admission to the château, disguised as peasant-women with butter and eggs to dispose of, overpowered the sentries and admitted their comrades. D’Entragues was arrested and carried off to the Bastille, and with him a voluminous correspondence between the conspirators and the Court of Madrid, containing proposals for the assassination of Henri IV, and a promise signed by Philip III to recognise Henriette’s son as heir to the French throne, in the event of the King’s death. The Comte d’Auvergne once more found himself in the Bastille, while Madame de Verneuil was confined to her own house and strictly guarded. D’Entragues and his step-son were arraigned for high treason, convicted and sentenced to death; and Henriette was remanded until further evidence could be procured. The King’s advisers were urgent that the law should be allowed to take its course; but Henri IV, though he had made a valiant attempt to overcome his infatuation for Madame de Verneuil, and with the idea of driving out fire by fire, had taken unto himself a new sultana, in the person of Jacqueline de Bueil,[44] felt that he must have his Henriette back, and all the more because she affected to scorn him and refused to sue for his pardon. Dead though he might be to all sense of decency where his passions were concerned, he felt that, if he cut off her father’s head, he could scarcely again be her lover, and that d’Entragues’ life must therefore be spared. And if d’Entragues were spared, he could not well send his fellow-conspirator—the last scion of the House of Valois—to the scaffold, though, as this was Auvergne’s second experiment in high treason, he was even more deserving of death. And so d’Entragues and his daughter were set at liberty; while Auvergne remained in the Bastille, nor did he emerge from it until more than ten years later.
Early in 1605 we find the King again in amorous correspondence with the woman who had been conspiring against him, entreating her to love him to whom all the rest of this world compared with her was as nothing; and, after keeping him at a distance for a little while, Henriette graciously consented to accord him her favours once more. Henceforth, Jacqueline de Beuil was merely retained as a refuge when the marchioness happened to be spiteful and the Queen sulky.
In those days rough horseplay was much in vogue, and during the Carnival of 1605, bands of young nobles rode through the streets of Paris, masked and arrayed in glittering armour. When two of these bands met, they charged vigorously and strove to unhorse one another, and though the points of the lances they carried were carefully padded, and they wielded heavy cudgels gaily decorated with crimson ribbons, instead of swords, very shrewd blows and thrusts were exchanged. On one occasion, Bassompierre, who was accompanied by his brother-in-law Saint-Luc, and two of their friends, met another party, headed by the Duc de Nemours and the Comte de Sommerive, who challenged him to a mimic combat later in the day in the Place de Cimetière Saint-Jean, it being agreed that both sides might bring as many supporters as they could get together. Both parties repaired to the field of battle in considerable force, but that of Nemours and Sommerive had the advantage in numbers. Nevertheless, victory rested with Bassompierre and his friends, who drove their opponents through the streets in disorder, and “he had the satisfaction of seeing one of his rivals in the affections of Mlle. d’Entragues soundly beaten before the eyes of that lady, who was watching them from one of the windows of her house.” Nor was this all, for a day or two later Mlle. d’Entragues gave the victor a rendezvous.
This bonne fortune of Bassompierre, however, came very near to costing him his life:
“The Tuesday following, which was the first day of March, in the morning, the King being at the Tuileries, said to M. de Guise: ‘Ah! Guisard, d’Entragues despises us all and dotes on Bassompierre. I don’t speak without certainty.’ ‘Sire,’ replied M. de Guise, ‘you have means enough to avenge yourself. As for me, I have none other than that of a knight-errant. I will therefore break three lances with him this afternoon in open field, in whatever place you shall be pleased to appoint.’ The King gave us permission, and said that it should be in the Louvre, and that he would have the court sanded. He [Guise] chose his brother M. de Joinville for his second and M. de Termes for third; while I chose M. de Saint-Luc and the Comte de Sault. We all six went to dine and arm ourselves at Saint-Luc’s lodging; and, as we always kept armour and caparisons ready for all occasions, my friends and I wore silver armour, with silver and white plumes and silk stockings of the same colours. M. de Guise and his supporters wore black and gold, on account of the imprisonment of the Marquise de Verneuil, with whom he was at that time secretly in love. Then we repaired to the Louvre, preceded by our horses and attendants.
“My friends and I, who were the first to enter the lists, placed ourselves by the side of the old building; M. de Guise and his seconds took up their station beneath the windows of the Queen’s apartment. Our course was the length of the Salle des Suisses. It happened that M. de Guise was mounted on a little horse called Lesparne, while I was riding a big charger which the Comte de Fiesque had given me. He took the lower ground, while I was on the wall side, so that I towered over him, and, instead of breaking his lance while raising it, he broke it while lowering it, in such a way that, after splintering it for the first time against my casque, he splintered it the second against my tasset; and the lance penetrated my stomach and lodged in that great bone which connects the hip and the loins. And there the lance broke again, and a stump longer than a man’s arm remained attached to the thigh bone. I broke my lance against his breastplate, and, though I felt that I was mortally wounded, I finished my course, and they helped me to dismount near the King’s private staircase, and Monsieur le Grand and the elder Guitaut aided me to ascend to M. de Vendôme’s apartment, below the King’s chamber.”
Here someone, without awaiting the arrival of the surgeons, was so ill-advised as to pull the broken stump of the lance from the wound, with the result that part of the entrails came out with it; and, though the surgeons when they came contrived to replace them, Bassompierre seemed in desperate case:—
“The King, the Constable, and all the chief personages of the Court stood around, many weeping, as they thought that I should not live an hour. Nevertheless, I did not appear cast down, nor did I think I should die. Many ladies were there and helped to dress my wound, and, as I insisted on returning to my lodging, the Queen sent me the chair in which she was carried about, for she was then pregnant. The people followed me with many marks of sorrow. When I arrived at my lodging, I lost my sight, which made me think I was very ill, so that they made me confess and bled me at the same time. Yet I did not believe I should die, and laughed all the time.
“So soon as I received my wound, the King ordered the tournament to stop, and never permitted one afterwards. This was the only one in open field which had taken place in France for one hundred years, and they were never renewed.”