Just before he left Paris, what was regarded at the time as a most advantageous marriage was proposed to him.
It happened that, some weeks before, the Duc de Retz, the nobleman who had played such a sorry part at the Ponts-des-Cé, had lost his wife, upon which his uncle, the Cardinal de Retz, and his friend, the Comte de Schomberg, decided to counsel him to demand the hand of Luynes’s niece, Mlle. de Combalet. Condé and Guise, learning what was in the wind, and fearing that this marriage might divert all the good things which were in the favourite’s power to bestow from themselves and their relatives to the Retz family, thereupon determined to put Bassompierre forward as a rival candidate. For Bassompierre had no near relatives to provide for—at least none who were French subjects, with the exception of his natural son by Marie d’Entragues—and, so far as courtiers went, he was neither ambitious nor greedy. They judged, too, that Luynes would welcome the opportunity of attaching Bassompierre to his interests, which he might serve in many ways. However, they were a little doubtful as to how that gentleman himself might be inclined to regard the matter, for, since the day when his matrimonial aspirations had been so rudely dashed by the intervention of Henri IV, he had shown a most marked disinclination to enter the “holy estate.” But since, notwithstanding this, the ladies had great influence over him, Condé proposed that he should depute his wife, and Guise his sister, the Princesse de Conti, “to persuade him to embrace the match.” With the former Bassompierre had always remained on the friendliest terms; for the latter he was known to entertain a warmer feeling than friendship.
On February 9—the day before he left Paris—Bassompierre attended a grand ball given by Luynes, to which he had apparently gone with the intention of taking leave of the Comtesse de Rochefort, of whom he was still the very devoted servant.
“As I was ascending the stairs,” he says, “Madame la Princesse and the Princesse de Conti, who were laughing very much, drew me into a window, but, instead of speaking, came nigh to splitting their sides with laughter. At last they told me that formerly I had spoken of love to many fair ladies, but that never had ladies of good family spoken to me of marriage, which now they were going to require of me. I was a long time in deciphering the meaning of what they said, but, finally, they told me that the husband of one and the brother of the other had charged them to seduce me, but that it was to enter into an honourable marriage; and that I must empower Monsieur le Prince and M. de Guise to negotiate and conclude the affair of Mlle. de Combalet while I was Ambassador Extraordinary in Spain.”
To this proposal Bassompierre gave a not very cordial consent. Since a man must marry some time or other, as well the niece of the favourite as any other lady, and he did not quite see how otherwise he was to disarm the jealousy of Luynes.
On the following day Bassompierre set out on his long journey to Madrid, and on the 17th arrived at Bordeaux, where he remained a couple of days “for love of MM. d’Épernon and de Roquelaure.” On reaching Belin, nine leagues from Bordeaux, on the evening of the 19th he found a courier awaiting him with a letter from Du Fargis d’Angennes, the ordinary French Ambassador at Madrid, begging him to delay his arrival there until he heard from him again, as a most unpleasant incident had occurred, in consequence of which the greater part of his staff and servants were now in prison, while he himself had been obliged to leave the city, as his life was no longer safe there.
It appears that Du Fargis, whom Tallemant des Réaux describes as “a man of courage, intelligence, and learning, but of a singular levity,” not finding the French Embassy a sufficiently-commodious residence, desired to remove to a larger one, and had cast his eye upon a very fine house near by, which appeared in every way suited to his requirements. Now, in those days, there were at Madrid certain State officials called aposentadores, part of whose duty it was to find suitable accommodation for ambassadors and other distinguished foreigners, and who were empowered to requisition any house which these important personages might desire to have. Du Fargis accordingly went to the aposentadores and informed them that he wished to remove to this house, and the aposentadores immediately assigned it to him. But just as he was on the point of taking possession, the owner of the house appeared upon the scene, and produced a document bearing the King’s signature which expressly exempted his property from being requisitioned for State purposes. The Ambassador angrily replied that the house had been assigned to him by the aposentadores and that he should insist on having it, upon which the owner told him that he should appeal to the Council of Castile. This he did, and the Council at once decided in his favour.
Meantime, however, Du Fargis, with the idea of stealing a march upon his adversary, had sent two of his valets to the house with part of the ambassadorial wardrobe, and when the decision of the Council was communicated to him, he replied that, as some of his property was already in the house, he was in possession, and could not be turned out. And so resolved was he to have his way that he forthwith sent all his staff and servants there, together with some of the people of the Venetian Ambassador, who was a particular friend of his, with instructions to resist by force any attempt to dislodge them.
The exasperated owner went to complain to the Council, who sent orders to the invaders to leave the house and take their master’s clothes with them, and two alguazils to see that they did so; because, never dreaming that the Ambassador intended to resist the law—“a thing unheard of in that country”—they did not think it necessary to send any more. But the French and their Venetian allies fell upon the unfortunate officers and killed them, after which, in derision, they hung their vares, or wands of office, from the balcony of the house.
The townsfolk, on learning of this outrage, were infuriated, and soon an armed mob more than two thousand strong besieged the house and the Ambassador, “who had gone in by a back door.” The garrison, on their side, prepared for a desperate resistance, and a sanguinary affray seemed inevitable, when, happily, an alcalde, Don Sebastian de Carvajal, arrived on the scene, persuaded the mob to disperse and the Ambassador and his people to evacuate their fortress, and carried off Du Fargis in his carriage to the French Embassy.