This is the reason the King is always in difficulties, always poor, never able to reward or honour a good servant; his wealth is being piled on these young fellows, and they are being fashioned out of nothing into pillars of the State, so that they may occupy the greatest places in France. Amongst those who are greatly offended is Alençon; he is intensely indignant at being assisted with so niggardly a hand in an enterprise which he considers of the first importance, and complains that the King thinks more of his favourites than of his brother.[151]
As I shall often have occasion to allude to these gentlemen, I have described them at some length, so that, when they are referred to, your Majesty may have some idea of them.
Don Antonio is still at Rouen and Dieppe, busily engaged in the equipment of his fleet, or fleetlet, if I may so term it, for it falls far short of what was talked of, and will carry scarce 500 soldiers to reinforce his troops in the Azores.
Great supplies will be collected of such things as are needed in those localities.
May 2, 1583.
[LETTER XVIII.]
Messengers have lately come from Alençon with the news that the negotiations for a reconciliation promise well; in confirmation of this, they produced the terms of an arrangement, which I now enclose. Alençon refuses Brussels and prefers Dunkirk[152] as his permanent residence. When he gets there, people think he will cross over to France, press his grievances upon the King, and ask him why he is more anxious for the aggrandisement of certain young fellows than for the prosecution of a most important enterprise.
Orange has invited from France Teligny’s widow, daughter of Coligny, some time Admiral of France, with the view of making her his wife; he is also giving the hand of his daughter, the Comte de Buren’s grandchild,[153] to Laval, son of d’Andelot, brother of the aforesaid Coligny; they say that Laval will be Governor of Antwerp.
The King is instituting a new order of Flagellants, or Penitents.[154] It is talked of everywhere in Paris, and all the more because lately when a celebrated preacher,[155] though a most orthodox Catholic, attacked the order from the pulpit in a sermon full of sarcasm, the King ordered him to leave the city.