The next morning the Duke invited Bassompierre to play tennis with him that afternoon, and, on his arrival at the palace, led him into the gallery of the tennis-court and told him that he was “fully resolved to conform to the wishes of the King and accept the honour which he wished to do him”; stipulating, however, that he should be allowed time to dispose his subjects favourably to the idea of such an alliance and to overcome the objections of his relatives. And he requested Bassompierre to beg the King very humbly on his behalf to observe the most absolute secrecy in regard to the affair, until the time should come to reveal it.
Bassompierre had, however, all the difficulty in the world to get this decision committed to writing and signed by the Duke. The poor prince appeared convinced that, if this were done, some unauthorised use would be made of the document. He feared his subjects; he feared his relatives; above all, he feared the ill-will of the Courts of Vienna and Madrid; and he protested that he would prefer to die rather than the affair should become known. At last, however, he yielded, and at the beginning of September Bassompierre returned to France with his answer duly signed and sealed.
CHAPTER XII
Return of Bassompierre to the French Court—Frenzied passion of Henri IV for the young Princesse de Condé—His extravagant conduct—Condé flies with his wife to Flanders—Grief and indignation of the King, who summons his most trusted counsellors to deliberate upon the affair—Sage advice of Sully, which, however, is not followed—The Archduke Albert refuses to surrender the fugitives—Condé retires to Milan and places himself under the protection of Spain—Failure of an attempt to abduct the princess—Henri IV and his Ministers threaten war if the lady is not given up—The “Great Design”—Bassompierre appointed Colonel of the Light Cavalry and a Counsellor of State—His account of the last days and assassination of Henri IV.
On Bassompierre’s return to Court, Henri IV expressed himself highly satisfied with the results of his mission and “gave him very great proofs of his good-will.” Scarcely, however, had he concluded his account of his diplomatic activities than the King “requested an audience of him, in order to tell him of his passion for Madame la Princesse and of the unhappy life that he was leading separated from her.” “And assuredly,” adds Bassompierre, “this love of his was a frenzied one, which could not be contained within the bounds of decorum.”
We must here explain that this interesting little affair had not been developing at all in accordance with his Majesty’s anticipations. Condé had accepted with becoming gratitude the handsome pension which the King had bestowed upon him and appeared far more interested in his wife’s dowry than in her person; while the fair Charlotte, on her side, scarcely troubled to conceal her indifference to a husband who was shy, awkward, and close-fisted, and lacking in all those qualities calculated to appeal to the imagination of a young girl. Indeed, there can be no doubt that she preferred the company of the King, despite his grey hairs and his wrinkled visage, and she appears to have given the amorous monarch no little encouragement, though perhaps innocently enough.
But Condé, with all his faults, was an honourable man, and when he clearly understood the odious part which his royal “uncle” intended should be his; when he saw the King, usually so painfully neglectful of his person, powdered and scented and bedecked like the youngest gallant of his Court; when he learned that he was bombarding his wife with passionate sonnets, obligingly composed for him by Malherbe and other facile rhymesters; when he heard that the princess had stepped one night on to the balcony of her apartments and there unbound her hair and allowed it to fall about her shoulders to gratify a whim of her elderly admirer, who stood beneath “transported with admiration”; when, in short, he found that the King’s infatuation was the talk of Court and town, he began, as his Majesty expressed it, “to play the devil.” And, after several angry scenes, in which Henri IV entirely lost his temper, and all sense of dignity and decorum along with it, and Condé appears to have forgotten the respect which he owed to his sovereign in his resentment against the man who wished to dishonour him, the prince carried off his wife to the Château of Muret, in Picardy, not far from the Flemish frontier.
The lovelorn King followed his inamorata, and, dressed as one of his own huntsmen, and with a patch over his eye, stood by the roadside to see her pass; and, in the same disguise, penetrated into a house where she was dining, and when she appeared at a window, kissed one hand to her, while he pressed the other to his heart.
A few days later, Condé received a letter from the King, written in a strain half-coaxing, half-menacing, summoning him to Court, to be present at the approaching accouchement of the Queen. Etiquette required that the first Prince of the Blood should be in attendance on these auspicious occasions, and it was impossible for him to refuse. But he came alone. Henri IV was furious, and his anger rendered him so insupportable to those about him, that Marie de’ Medici herself begged Condé to send for his wife, promising to keep strict watch over her. Such was the King’s wrath that he could not trust himself to interview his kinsman personally, but sent for his secretary, Virey, and bade him tell his master that, if he declined to bow to his will, or attempted any violence against his wife, he would give him cause to rue it. He added that, if he had been still only King of Navarre, he would have challenged the prince to a duel.
After receiving this message, Condé decided to feign submission, and accordingly begged his Majesty’s permission to fetch his wife. This request, as we may suppose, was readily granted, and on November 25—the day on which the ill-starred Henrietta Maria was born—he set out for Picardy.