The King conducted his distinguished guests to Paris, where they were magnificently entertained. But, as the plague was increasing in the capital, it was decided that the baptism should take place at Fontainebleau. So the Parisians were deprived of the opportunity of admiring Bassompierre’s fourteen-thousand-crown suit and diamond scabbard, and he had to rest content with the sensation which they doubtless created at the Court.
In February, 1607, Charles III of Lorraine wrote to Bassompierre begging him, as a personal favour, to assist at the approaching meeting of the Estates of Lorraine, where his influence with the nobility of the duchy might serve to remove some of the difficulties which he feared that he might have with that body. Bassompierre, accordingly, requested leave of absence of Henri IV, but his Majesty was unwilling to let him go, because, he explains, he had been winning his money at play and he wanted to have his revenge, and put him off on two or three occasions. At last, in despair of obtaining permission, he determined to go without it, and one day, when the Court was at Chantilly, he slipped away unperceived and set out for Paris. On the road he met the Ducs d’Aiguillon and de Bouillon, and begged them not to tell the King that they had seen him; but the two dukes, probably supposing that he was bound on some amorous adventure which he wished to keep from his Majesty’s knowledge, denounced him so soon as they arrived at Chantilly. The consequence was that when Bassompierre reached Meaux, he found the provost of that town and two exempts of the King’s guards, whom his Majesty had sent to head him off, waiting to arrest him. In great indignation, he despatched one of his suite to Chantilly, with letters for the King and Villeroy, one of the Secretaries of State, protesting against the indignity to which he was being subjected; and the following day the provost came to inform him that he had received orders to set him at liberty, provided he would give his word to return to the Court. On his arrival at Chantilly he was sent for by the King, who laughed heartily at his crestfallen demeanour, telling him that he had now had an opportunity of seeing the good order that he maintained in his realm, which no one could leave without his consent; but that he only wanted him to remain ten days longer, when he would give him permission to go to Lorraine. He added that his stay would not be unprofitable; and he was as good as his word, for during this time the vexed question of the Saint-Sauveur lands was finally settled, to Bassompierre’s entire satisfaction.
Before leaving for Lorraine, Bassompierre endeavoured to do a good turn to his friend the Prince de Joinville and Madame de Moret, who had been so imprudent as to fall in love with one another, and warned them that the King intended to surprise them together, in which event he had vowed to make a public example both of the presumptuous noble who had dared to violate the sanctity of the royal seraglio and of his faithless sultana. The lovers, however, did not profit by his warnings, and, while on his way to Nancy, he learned that, though the King had not succeeded in surprising them, he had discovered enough to confirm his suspicions, and had banished Joinville from the Court for the second time. Bassompierre at once turned back and came to Paris incognito, “in order to see Madame de Moret and offer to serve her in her affliction”; but his presence was discovered and reported to Madame d’Entragues, who, suspecting that he had returned with the object of paying surreptitious visits to her daughter, promptly locked that flighty young lady up until he had taken his departure.
CHAPTER IX
Amusements of Bassompierre during the winter of 1608—His gambling-parties—Embarrassment which the fact of having several love-affairs on his hands simultaneously sometimes occasions him—Death of Charles III of Lorraine—Bassompierre goes to Nancy to attend the Duke’s funeral—Gratifying testimony which he receives during his absence of the esteem in which he is held by the ladies of the Court of France—“The star of Venus is very much in the ascendant over him”—Marriage arranged between Marie d’Entragues and the Comte d’Aché, of Auvergne—The affair is broken off—Frenzied gambling at the Court: gains of Bassompierre—Secret visits paid by him and the Duc de Guise to Madame de Verneuil and Marie d’Entragues at Conflans—Visit of the Duke of Mantua to the Court of France.
Bassompierre begins his journal for the year 1608 in the following strain:—
“In the year 1608 I embarked in an affair with a blonde lady. I won a great deal at play that year, and gave away much at the Foire. We danced a number of ballets.... I had more mistresses at the Court, and was on excellent terms with Antragues. M. de Vendôme also danced a ballet, in which the King would have Cramail, Termes, and myself, who were called les dangereux, assist. We went to dance it at M. de Montpensier’s, who rose to see it, though he was dying.”[54]
After Easter the King went to Fontainebleau, where on April 25 the Queen gave birth to her third son, Gaston, Duc d’Anjou, afterwards Duc d’Orléans. Bassompierre, however, excused himself from accompanying his Majesty, apparently on the plea of illness, and remained in Paris, where, he tells us, he passed his time very agreeably.
“I pretended to be suffering from a weakness of the lungs, so that no one saw me until midday, when all the Court came to my lodging to pass the time until nine o’clock in the evening, when I made believe to retire, on account of my delicate state of health; but it was to pass the night in good company.”
The “good company” he speaks of was a little coterie of gamblers, “eight or ten worthy men of the town, and of the Court, M. de Guise, Créquy, and myself,” who played for tremendously high stakes, since Bassompierre had considerately introduced amongst them a Portuguese merchant named Fernandez, who came prepared to make good the losses of those upon whom Fortune happened to frown, in return for approved security. This kind of arrangement was so convenient that, when the King returned from Fontainebleau, he wished to be of the party, which met every day either at the Louvre, Zamet’s, or the Marquis de Roquelaure’s; and doubtless the organiser of these séances, who appears to have been one of the luckiest gamblers who ever turned a card or rattled a dice-box, and the accommodating Fernandez, derived substantial benefits from them.