Monseigneur,
We cannot forbear to beseech you not only to use your endeavours in the cause of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the advancement of the Gospel and for the security and repose of the poor faithful, but also to show in your whole life that you have profited by the doctrines of salvation, and to let your example be such as to edify the good and to close the mouths of all slanderers. For in proportion as you are conspicuous from afar in so exalted a position, ought you to be on your guard lest they should find any fault in you. You cannot doubt, Monseigneur, that we love your honour as we desire your salvation; and we should be traitors were we to conceal from you the rumours that are in circulation concerning you. We do not suppose that there is any direct offence to God; but when it is reported to us that you make love to ladies, your authority and reputation are seriously prejudiced. Good people will be scandalized thereby; the evil-disposed will make it a subject of mockery. It involves a distraction which hinders and retards you from attending to your duty. There must even be some mundane vanity in it; and it becomes you, above all else, to take heed lest the light which God has placed in you be quenched or grow dim. We trust, Monseigneur, that this warning will be taken in good part, when you reflect how much it is for your service. From Geneva, this thirteenth day of September 1563.
Your very humble brethren,
Jean Calvin
Théodore de Besze
Condé received this letter at the Château of Muret, in Picardy, whither he had just arrived on a visit to his wife and family, accompanied by his brother-in-law, the Comte de la Rochefoucauld,[45] and his nephew, the Prince de Porcien. It would not appear to have been altogether without effect, for, on 2 October, Condé’s mother-in-law, the Comtesse de Roye, wrote to the Duke of Würtemberg: “The prince, my son-in-law, intends to devote himself more and more to everything which can further the reign of Jesus Christ.”[46]
In the course of that same month, a domestic calamity came to add weight to the counsels of Calvin and Bèze. Two of his younger children, Madeleine, aged three, and Louis, a child of eighteen months, fell ill and died within a few days of one another, to the inexpressible grief of the Princesse de Condé, who was one of the most devoted of mothers.
The princess’s relatives and friends, who probably regarded the death of the children as a direct judgment from Heaven upon the father’s sins, did not fail to improve the occasion, and represented to Condé that it was his duty to withdraw, for some time at least, from the Court and remain with his bereaved wife. The poor lady, indeed, needed all the care and attention which were in his power to bestow, since she was a prey to bodily suffering as well as to anguish of mind. Always a delicate woman, the dangers and agitations of the past two years had tried her cruelly. In the spring of 1562, when on her way from Meaux to Muret with her eldest boy and a small retinue, she had been attacked by a mob of fanatical peasants, who were marching in a Catholic procession, “without any cause, unless it were that they had been incited by a malignant priest, out of hatred for the Religion.”[47] The litter in which the princess was being carried was smashed to pieces by volleys of stones, and she herself narrowly escaped serious injury. She was then in an advanced stage of pregnancy, and had barely time to reach the nearest village when she gave birth to twin sons. Nevertheless, as soon as she was able to leave her bed, she insisted on setting out for Orléans to join her husband, and, during the siege of that town in the following winter, she remained there, amid all the horrors of war, pestilence, and famine, to encourage its defenders by her heroic example.
Although her health had been profoundly affected by all that she had gone through during the civil war, the princess considered it her duty, so long as any physical strength remained to her, to reside at the Court with her husband, and to follow him in his journeys. Thus, when, in the early summer of 1563, Condé decided to take part in the expedition against Le Havre, she set out for Normandy, accompanied by her mother, the Comtesse de Roye. But, on reaching Gaillon, she was attacked by small-pox of so severe a type that, for some time, she was in grave danger. Scarcely was she convalescent, than Madame de Roye fell ill, in her turn; and the princess, in attending to her mother, neglected her own health, which from that moment declined steadily.
Although the dissolute life which Condé was leading had caused her the greatest grief, she had refrained from reproaching him. “For her,” says her biographer, “the true remedy for the irregularities of the unfaithful husband and for the anguish of the outraged wife was to be found in earnest and continual prayer. She implored God to save the soul led astray, and strove, by patient efforts, discreetly directed, and loving instances, to bring back this soul into the path of duty, and to revive in it family affections.”[48] She now joined her entreaties to those of her friends and relatives to persuade her husband to remain with her. But Condé’s career of dissipation had stifled his better nature; the impressions produced on his mind by the death of his children were soon effaced, and, oblivious of the duty which he owed his ailing wife, and of the many obligations under which she had placed him, in the first days of November, he quitted her abruptly and returned to the Court, which was now in residence at Fontainebleau.