Then, with his three hundred horse, he threw himself on the Catholic cavalry and drove them back in confusion on the “bataille,” which the Duc d’Anjou led in person. But the charges of Coligny on the right, and Montgommery on the left, failed completely, and the prince’s little troop was soon assailed on all sides by overwhelming numbers. Condé’s horse was killed under him, and, impeded by his injuries, he was unable to mount another. His followers gathered around him and fought on heroically, but one by one they were cut down. Among these devoted men, d’Aubigné tells us, was an aged gentleman named La Vergne, who had joined Condé accompanied by twenty-five of his sons, grandsons, and nephews. “He and fifteen of his relatives were left dead on the field, all in a heap.”
Soon Condé found himself almost alone, but, with his back to a tree and kneeling on one knee, he continued to defend himself. His strength, however, was failing fast, and perceiving two Catholic gentlemen, d’Argence and Saint-Jean, to whom he had once been of service, he called out to them, raised the vizor of his helmet, and handed them his gauntlets, in token of surrender. The two gentlemen sprang from their horses, and with several others formed a circle round Condé, promising to protect his life with their own. Scarcely, however, had they done so, when Anjou’s guards passed by, and their captain, “a very brave and honourable gentleman, called Montesquiou,”[83] learning the name of the prisoner, wheeled his horse round, galloped up to the group, and shouting: “Kill! Mordieu! Kill!” drew a pistol from his holster, and shot the prince through the head from behind, killing him instantly.[84]
Thus died—“on the true bed of honour,” as Jeanne d’Albret expresses it—Louis I. de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, a man typical of his age and of his country, alike in his faults and his good qualities. If the former were, as we have seen, many and glaring, the latter were no less conspicuous. “In courage and in courtesy,” writes La Noue, “no one surpassed him. His conversation was eloquent, rather from nature than from cultivation; he was generous and affable towards all; he was an excellent leader in war, yet, at the same time, a lover of peace. In adversity he bore himself even better than in prosperity.”
The battle of Jarnac was little more than a skirmish, for the greater part of the Protestant army had not been engaged at all, and its losses, except among the cavalry, were inconsiderable. The death of Condé, however, created a profound impression. The Catholic chiefs fondly imagined that, with his fall, the Huguenots would cease to be formidable, and their joy, in consequence, was extreme. A solemn Te Deum was chanted at the Court and in every church in France; thanksgiving processions took place at Brussels and Venice, and the captured standards were sent to Rome, to be hung in St. Peter’s as a perpetual memorial.
By the orders of the detestable Anjou, the body of the murdered prince was treated with the most shameful indignity. “The same night that the battle was fought, the Duc d’Anjou, pursuing the enemy, victoriously entered into Jarnac, whither the body of the prince was carried in triumph on the back of a miserable ass, to the infinite joy and diversion of the whole army, which made a joke of this spectacle, though, while he lived, they were terrified at the name of so great a man.”[85] For two whole days it lay exposed to the effects of the air and the vulgar insults of Anjou and his creatures, and was then handed over to Condé’s brother-in-law, the Duc de Longueville, who caused it to be interred in the ancestral vault at Vendôme.[86]
CHAPTER VII
Henri I. de Bourbon, Prince de Condé—His personal appearance and character—Jeanne d’Albret presents Henri of Navarre and Condé to the army—The “Admiral’s pages”—The “Journey of the Princes”—Battle of Arnay-le-Duc—Condé at La Rochelle—Henri of Navarre is betrothed to Marguerite de Valois, and Condé to Marie de Clèves—An awkward lover—Marriage of Condé—Massacre of Saint-Bartholomew—The King of Navarre and Condé are ordered to abjure their religion—Firmness of the latter, who, however, at length yields—Humiliating position of Condé—Intrigue between his wife and the Duc d’Anjou—Condé at the siege of La Rochelle—Anjou elected King of Poland—He offers the hand of his discarded mistress, Mlle. de Châteauneuf, to Nantouillet, provost of Paris—Unpleasant consequences of the provost’s refusal of this honour.
By his two marriages, Louis I., Prince de Condé, had had eleven children, of whom seven—six sons and a daughter—survived him.[87] The eldest son, Henri de Bourbon, was at this time in his seventeenth year. In appearance, he was very short, like his father, and very slightly built, with a countenance which betokened an extremely sensitive nature, a nervous and delicate constitution: a high forehead, large, expressive blue eyes, a long face, a long, straight nose, and thin lips. In character, save in the matter of physical courage, the new head of the House of Condé had little in common with his predecessor. Nor is this surprising, since few princes have passed a more gloomy boyhood. The constant companion of his mother during the last sad years of her life, he had shared with her the hardships and dangers of the civil war, and had been shut up in Orléans, amid the horrors of that terrible siege. Returning home, he had seen the poor princess, “to whom he had plighted his boundless reverence and love,”[88] slowly languish away before his eyes, worn out by sickness and sorrow. Then had come Condé’s second marriage, and the lad had been left to the care of bigoted divines, who had brought him up in the strictest tenets of the Calvinistic faith. Finally, scarcely had he been summoned to take his place by his father’s side, than that father had been foully slain. Thus, at the age of sixteen, Henri de Bourbon had experienced little of life but its sorrows, and was a thoughtful, grave, and almost melancholy youth, without any of those social qualities which had made his father so popular, but very superior to him in the earnestness of his religious convictions, and ready, as we shall see hereafter, to suffer for the truth in circumstances which overcame the courage and constancy of some even of the boldest.
On the day of Jarnac, the young prince and his cousin, Henri of Navarre, had been with the Protestant army. But they had not been permitted to take any part in the engagement, and had been ordered to retire to Saintes, where they were joined by Jeanne d’Albret, who at the first news of the defeat had left La Rochelle. Taking the two lads with her, the indomitable Queen of Navarre hastened to the Huguenot camp at Tonnay-Charente, and, in an eloquent speech, presented them to the troops, and made each of them swear “on his honour, soul, and life” never to abandon the cause. The army received them with acclamations, and the young Prince of Béarn was forthwith chosen as its leader; while, as a mark of its respect and gratitude for the hero whom it had lost, the new Prince de Condé was associated with him in command.
For more than two years the double signature, “Henry, Henry de Bourbon,” appeared at the foot of the official documents of the Reformed party.[89] But, though always accompanied by the two young princes, and nominally acting as their lieutenant and counsellor, Coligny had henceforward the undivided command of the Huguenot army, as well as the principal voice in determining the policy of his party; and, by the camp-fire, the lads were commonly referred to as “the Admiral’s pages.”