Photo. Giraudon.
LOUIS I. DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE CONDÉ. HENRI I. DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE CONDÉ.
School of François Clouet. School of François Clouet.
Musée Condé.
Francis II, whose health had always been delicate, suddenly showed alarming symptoms of decline. Catherine, the Royne Mère, cast about to get the Regency into her own hands; and in order to check the steadily growing power of the Guises, she resolved to recall the Bourbons, promising to save Condé from death if they would accept her as Regent. The King of Navarre, Antoine de Bourbon, consented to her proposition in order to save his brother. The terrified Guises entreated Catherine to keep Condé still in prison; since he would, if set at liberty, get the better of them all. It is characteristic to note that when the state of the King’s health became desperate, the Guises were wholly without sympathy; though we read that Mary Stuart nursed her dying husband with tenderest solicitude. As soon as the King had breathed his last, Gaspard de Coligny addressed these memorable words to those who stood by: “Messieurs, le roi est mort, çela nous apprend à vivre.”
The death of Francis II opened Condé’s prison doors; whereupon he insisted on proving his innocence, and claiming punishment for those who had caused his incarceration. The Guises began to tremble, and their friends trembled with them. Meantime, Catherine de Medicis, always intent on her own interests, tried to placate the Protestant nobility, and even showed toleration for the Protestant cult in various parts of France. She endeavoured to entice Condé to her Court through the charms of one of her Court ladies—the beautiful Isabelle de Limeuil—in order to make him an instrument for her own purposes. Brantôme, with reference to this, speaks of Louis de Bourbon as a man of corrupt morals. Nor could he resist the passion shown for him by Marguerite de Lustrac, widow of the Maréchal de Saint-André, from whom he accepted the magnificent château of Valery, with its vast appanage, originally intended as a dowry for Mademoiselle de Saint-André, the affianced bride of his own son Henri I de Bourbon, who had died young, poisoned, it is said, by her mother. Condé’s irregular habits called for the severe rebuke of Calvin, and his noble wife Eleonore was broken-hearted over them.
Antoine, King of Navarre, the eldest of the brothers, also became a puppet in the hands of the Queen-Mother and the Guises, who deliberately provoked the sanguinary conflicts at Vassy between the Huguenots and the Catholics.
Jeanne d’Albret, who sided with the Protestants, left the Court in consequence, and to the great regret of Eleonore, retired to her kingdom of Navarre. Had the husbands of these two great ladies been equally desirous of keeping the peace the Massacre of St. Bartholomew would never have taken place. Indeed, when Eleonore de Roye died at the early age of twenty-eight the Protestants of France lost faith in Condé as their leader, believing that it was through her influence alone that he served their cause.
When Eleonore felt her end approaching she sent a messenger for her husband and upon his hurrying to her bedside most generously forgave him for all his infidelities. Her eldest son, Henri I de Bourbon, who had shared all her anxieties and who had been her constant companion, listened with deep emotion to her exhortations to his father that he should remain true to the Protestant Faith; and the memory of this noble woman prevailed with Condé after her death.