[41] On July 2.
[42] Among the things which Louvigny appears to have invented was the accusation that Chalais meditated the death of the King, by scratching him on the neck with a poisoned pin when, as Master of the Wardrobe, he was adjusting his ruff.
[43] Here is a specimen: “If my complaints have moved with compassion the most insensible of hearts, when my sun failed to shine in the alleys dedicated to love, where will be those who do not share my tears in a prison into which the sun’s rays can never enter, and in which my lot is so much the harder in that I am forbidden to make known to her my cruel martyrdom? In this perplexity, I felicitate myself on having a master who makes me suffer only in body; and murmur against the marvels of that sun whose absence is killing the soul, and brings about such a metamorphosis that I am no longer myself save in the persistence of adoring it; and my eyes, which survive for that alone, are justly punished for their too great presumption by the shedding of more tears than ever love caused to flow.”
[44] The horrible tortures inflicted on the condemned man are accounted for by the fact that the executioner of Nantes had hidden or taken away his axe, and that his substitute was obliged to make use of unsuitable weapons: “They brought from the prisons of the town two men destined for the gibbet, one of whom played the part of executioner, while the other served as his assistant. But the former was so clumsy that, besides two blows with a Swiss sword, which had been purchased on the spot, he gave him [Chalais] thirty-four with an adze such as carpenters use, and was obliged to turn the body round to finish the severing of the head, the victim exclaiming up to the twentieth blow: ‘Jesus, Maria et Regina Coeli!’”
[45] There can be no possible doubt that, had the marshal lived a little longer, he would have shared the fate of Chalais. “I am infinitely vexed that the death of the Maréchal d’Ornano has forestalled the judgment of the court,” wrote Richelieu to the King. “The justice of God wished to anticipate yours.”
[46] Bassompierre appears to have been addressed frequently by Louis XIII and Monsieur by the German form of his name.
[47] Enormous as were these revenues, the King was able to sequestrate them by a stroke of the pen, and Richelieu took care that Monsieur should not have in his hands a single fortified place. It was a wise precaution, since Gaston’s first treason was to be followed by others.
[48] “Monsieur was playing cards when the news was brought to him. He did not interrupt his game, but went on with it, as though, instead of Chalais’s death, he had heard of his deliverance.”—Mémoires d’un favori du duc d’Orléans.
[49] When Louis lay on his death-bed, the Queen swore, with tears in her eyes, that she had been innocent of any such intention. “In the state in which I am,” was the reply, “I am obliged to pardon you, but I am not obliged to believe you.”
[50] Tyburn Tree would appear to have stood on the spot which is now the junction of the Bayswater and Edgware Roads.