Youth and a splendid constitution saved him, and the attentions he received from the ladies of the Court appear to have consoled him for the pain which he had to endure:
“I cannot say how much I was visited during my illness, and particularly by ladies. All the princesses were there, and the Queen sent on three occasions her maids-of-honour, who were brought by Mlle. de Guise to pass whole afternoons. This lady, who considered herself obliged to assist in nursing me, as it was her brother who had given me my wound, was there most of the time. My sister, Madame de Saint-Luc, who, so long as I was in danger, always slept at the foot of my bed, received the ladies, and, with the exception of the day after I was wounded, the King came every afternoon to see me, and partly also to see my pretty companions.”
After being obliged to keep his bed for about a fortnight, he was allowed to get up and take the air in a chair, an object of sympathetic interest to all the ladies of the Court and town. His wound healed rapidly, and by Easter, though still somewhat lame, he felt sufficiently recovered to challenge the Marquis de Cœuvres, brother of Gabrielle d’Estrées, to a duel.
CHAPTER VII
Quarrel between Bassompierre and the Marquis de Cœuvres—Bassompierre sends his cousin the Sieur de Créquy to challenge the marquis to a duel—The King sends for the two nobles and orders them to be reconciled in his presence—Bassompierre and Créquy are forbidden to appear at Court, but are soon pardoned—Visit of Bassompierre to Plombières—He returns to Paris, and “breaks entirely” with Marie d’Entragues—The Chancellor, Pomponne de Bellièvre, ordered to resign the Seals—His conversation with Bassompierre at Artenay—Bassompierre wins more than 100,000 francs at play—He is reconciled with Marie d’Entragues—He joins Henri IV at Sedan—The adventure of the King’s love-letter—Henri IV gives orders that a watch shall be kept on Marie d’Entragues’s house to ascertain if Bassompierre is secretly visiting that lady—A comedy of errors—Madame d’Entragues surprises her daughter and Bassompierre.
One day, in the King’s cabinet, Bassompierre, in taking his handkerchief from his pocket, drew out with it a billet-doux he had just received from Marie d’Entragues, which fell to the ground and lay there unperceived by him. An Italian banker named Sardini picked it up, and the Marquis de Cœuvres having told him that it was his, he gave it him. Cœuvres read the letter and then sent a message to Bassompierre, asking him to meet him that night before the Hôtel de Soissons and to come alone, as he had something of importance to communicate to him. Bassompierre, not a little surprised, since he and the marquis were on far from good terms with one another, kept the appointment and found Cœuvres awaiting him, in company with a friend of his, the Comte de Cramail, although in his letter he had given him to understand that there was to be no witness to their meeting.
The marquis began by reproaching Bassompierre with “certain bad offices which he asserted that he had rendered him,” and then went on to say that, notwithstanding this, he esteemed him too much not to desire his friendship, and aspired to serve, rather than injure, him, in proof of which, although that morning a letter written to him by Mlle. d’Entragues had fallen into his hands, he had made no use of it, but sent it at once to the fair writer by the hand of Sardini. Bassompierre, believing that he was speaking the truth, “made him a thousand protestations of service and affection,” after which Cœuvres informed him that the King was aware that he had found a letter written by some lady to him and had demanded to see it, and asked Bassompierre to send him as soon as possible one which he had received from another woman, to enable him to satisfy his Majesty’s curiosity. Bassompierre complied with this request, which was an easy matter enough, as, like his royal master, he generally had more than one love-affair on hand, and, besides, was in the habit of carefully preserving all the epistles which he received from the fair. At the same time, he sent a message to Mlle. d’Entragues to apprise her of the mishap which had befallen her letter and to inquire if she had received it from Cœuvres.
“But, as she wrote that she had seen no one sent by the marquis, furious with anger and transported with resentment, I went straight to the marquis’s house to recover the letter, or to punish him. On the way, however, I met M. d’Aiguillon[45] and M. de Créquy, who stopped me to inquire whither I was bound. ‘I am going,’ I replied, ‘to the Marquis de Cœuvres’ house, to get back from him a letter which Antragues wrote me and which he has found. And, if he does not give it up, I am resolved to kill him!’ They remonstrated with me, pointing out that, in going to kill a man in his own house, amongst all his servants, I was running a great danger, without the means of escaping it; that he [Cœuvres] would be very cowardly if he surrendered the letter to me when I went to him in this manner; and that it would be better to send one of my friends. And Créquy offered to go.”
Bassompierre reluctantly consented, and Créquy accordingly proceeded to Cœuvres’s house. The marquis, at first, flatly refused to give up the letter, declaring that Fortune had brought it to him to enable him to avenge himself on Bassompierre for the ill that he had done him. Créquy pointed out that, if he were so imprudent as to do this, Bassompierre would certainly call him out, in which case one of them would probably be killed, while the victor would be sure to incur the severe displeasure of the King. Cœuvres thereupon began to waver, and finally told him to come back early on the following morning, when he would let him know his decision. When Créquy returned, the marquis, who, Bassompierre believes, had, in the meantime, sent La Varenne with the letter to the King and received it back again, told him that he would himself take the letter to Mlle. d’Entragues, if this would satisfy the lady’s admirer.