[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.
Touching the Flagellants there is a merry story to be told. The footmen of the nobles, of whom we have crowds at Paris, out of sheer wantonness, were mimicking in the palace itself certain rites of the brotherhood;[156] the King ordered some eighty of them to be carried off into the kitchen, and there flogged to their hearts’ content, so their representation of the Flagellants and Penitents was turned from a sham into a reality!
May 20, 1583.
[LETTER XIX.]
The reports of fresh disturbances, which I mentioned lately, are gaining ground, and worst of all, there is no certainty as to whether Alençon is concerned in them or not.
In consequence of these rumours his mother (Catherine de Medici) has been for some time intending to visit him at Calais, but he has been detained at Dunkirk by sickness; he is supposed to be suffering from the French disease, and has placed himself in the hands of his physicians and surgeons. As soon as he recovers, people think he will cross over to Calais; but there is no telling, for some maintain that he will go to Normandy, and others that he will take ship for Brittany. If war ensues the King will be in great straits, since neither financially, nor in any other way, is he prepared to meet it.