Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3

by Isaac Disraeli

Poland, once a potent and magnificent kingdom, when it sunk into an elective monarchy, became “venal thrice an age.” That country must have exhibited many a diplomatic scene of intricate intrigue, which although they could not appear in its public, have no doubt been often consigned to its secret, history. With us the corruption of a rotten borough has sometimes exposed the guarded proffer of one party, and the dexterous chaffering of the other: but a masterpiece of diplomatic finesse and political invention, electioneering viewed on the most magnificent scale, with a kingdom to be canvassed, and a crown to be won and lost, or lost and won in the course of a single day, exhibits a political drama, which, for the honour and happiness of mankind, is of rare and strange occurrence. There was one scene in this drama which might appear somewhat too large for an ordinary theatre; the actors apparently were not less than fifty to a hundred thousand; twelve vast tents were raised on an extensive plain, a hundred thousand horses were in the environs—and palatines and castellans, the ecclesiastical orders, with the ambassadors of the royal competitors, all agitated by the ceaseless motion of different factions during the six weeks of the election, and of many preceding months of preconcerted measures and vacillating opinions, now were all solemnly assembled at the diet.—Once the poet, amidst his gigantic conception of a scene, resolved to leave it out:

So vast a throng the stage can ne’er contain— Then build a new, or act it in a plain!

exclaimed “La Mancha’s knight,” kindling at a scene so novel and so vast!

Such an electioneering negotiation, the only one I am acquainted with, is opened in the “Discours” of Choisin, the secretary of Montluc, Bishop of Valence, the confidential agent of Catharine de’ Medici, and who was sent to intrigue at the Polish diet, to obtain the crown of Poland for her son the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henry the Third. This bold enterprise at first seemed hopeless, and in its progress encountered growing obstructions; but Montluc was one of the most finished diplomatists that the genius of the Gallic cabinet ever sent forth. He was nicknamed in all the courts of Europe, from the circumstance of his limping, “le Boiteux;” our political bishop was in cabinet intrigues the Talleyrand of his age, and sixteen embassies to Italy, Germany, England, Scotland, and Turkey, had made this “connoisseur en hommes” an extraordinary politician!

Catharine de’ Medici was infatuated with the dreams of judicial astrology; her pensioned oracles had declared that she should live to see each of her sons crowned, by which prediction probably they had only purposed to flatter her pride and her love of dominion. They, however, ended in terrifying the credulous queen; and she, dreading to witness a throne in France, disputed perhaps by fratricides, anxiously sought a separate crown for each of her three sons. She had been trifled with in her earnest negotiations with our Elizabeth; twice had she seen herself baffled in her views in the Dukes of Alençon and of Anjou. Catharine then projected a new empire for Anjou, by incorporating into one kingdom Algiers, Corsica, and Sardinia; but the other despot, he of Constantinople, Selim the Second, dissipated the brilliant speculation of our female Machiavel. Charles the Ninth was sickly, jealous, and desirous of removing from the court the Duke of Anjou, whom two victories had made popular, though he afterwards sunk into a Sardanapalus. Montluc penetrated into the secret wishes of Catharine and Charles, and suggested to them the possibility of encircling the brows of Anjou with the diadem of Poland, the Polish monarch then being in a state of visible decline. The project was approved; and, like a profound politician, the bishop prepared for an event which might be remote, and always problematical, by sending into Poland a natural son of his, Balagny, as a disguised agent; his youth, his humble rank, and his love of pleasure, would not create any alarm among the neighbouring powers, who were alike on the watch to snatch the expected spoil; but as it was necessary to have a more dexterous politician behind the curtain, he recommended his secretary, Choisnin, as a travelling tutor to a youth who appeared to want one.

Balagny proceeded to Poland, where, under the veil of dissipation, and in the midst of splendid festivities, with his trusty adjutant, this hair-brained boy of revelry began to weave those intrigues which were afterwards to be knotted, or untied, by Montluc himself. He had contrived to be so little suspected, that the agent of the emperor had often disclosed important secrets to his young and amiable friend. On the death of Sigismond Augustus, Balagny, leaving Choisnin behind to trumpet forth the virtues of Anjou, hastened to Paris to give an account of all which he had seen or heard. But poor Choisnin found himself in a dilemma among those who had so long listened to his panegyrics on the humanity and meek character of the Duke of Anjou; for the news of St. Bartholomew’s massacre had travelled faster than the post; and Choisnin complains that he was now treated as an impudent liar, and the French prince as a monster. In vain he assured them that the whole was an exaggerated account, a mere insurrection of the people, or the effects of a few private enmities, praying the indignant Poles to suspend their decision till the bishop came: “Attendez le Boiteux!” cried he, in agony.

Meanwhile, at Paris, the choice of a proper person for this embassy had been difficult to settle. It was a business of intrigue more than of form, and required an orator to make speeches and addresses in a sort of popular assembly; for though the people, indeed, had no concern in the diet, yet the greater and the lesser nobles and gentlemen, all electors, were reckoned at one hundred thousand. It was supposed that a lawyer who could negotiate in good Latin, and one, as the French proverb runs, who could aller et parler, would more effectually puzzle their heads, and satisfy their consciences to vote for his client. Catharine at last fixed on Montluc himself, from the superstitious prejudice, which, however, in this case accorded with philosophical experience, that “Montluc had ever been lucky in his negotiations.”

Montluc hastened his departure from Paris; and it appears that our political bishop had, by his skilful penetration into the French cabinet, foreseen the horrible catastrophe which occurred very shortly after he had left it; for he had warned the Count de Rochefoucault to absent himself; but this lord, like so many others, had no suspicions of the perfidious projects of Catharine and her cabinet. Montluc, however, had not long been on his journey ere the news reached him, and it occasioned innumerable obstacles in his progress, which even his sagacity had not calculated on. At Strasburgh he had appointed to meet some able coadjutors, among whom was the famous Joseph Scaliger; but they were so terrified by Les Matinées Parisiennes, that Scaliger flew to Geneva, and would not budge out of that safe corner: and the others ran home, not imagining that Montluc would venture to pass through Germany, where the protestant indignation had made the roads too hot for a catholic bishop. But Montluc had set his cast on the die. He had already passed through several hair-breadth escapes from the stratagems of the Guise faction, who more than once attempted to hang or drown the bishop, who, they cried out, was a Calvinist; the fears and jealousies of the Guises had been roused by this political mission. Among all these troubles and delays, Montluc was most affected by the rumour that the election was on the point of being made, and that the plague was universal throughout Poland, so that he must have felt that he might be too late for the one, and too early for the other.

At last Montluc arrived, and found that the whole weight of this negotiation was to fall on his single shoulders; and further, that he was to sleep every night on a pillow of thorns. Our bishop had not only to allay the ferment of the popular spirit of the evangelicals, as the protestants were then called, but even of the more rational catholics of Poland. He had also to face those haughty and feudal lords, of whom each considered himself the equal of the sovereign whom he created, and whose avowed principle was, and many were incorrupt, that their choice of a sovereign should be regulated solely by the public interest; and it was hardly to be expected that the emperor, the czar, and the King of Sweden would prove unsuccessful rivals to the cruel, and voluptuous, and bigoted duke of Anjou, whose political interests were too remote and novel to have raised any faction among these independent Poles.