[17] Published September 10th at Lyons.
[18] The Seigneur de Rambouillet was sent by the Queen Mother, and the Seigneur d’Estrées by Alençon, to Henry on June 4th, to congratulate him on his accession.—De l’Estoile, i. 5. ‘Rambouillet, that was aforetime captain in one of the guards, and his three brothers, has left the Court, because the King has given away an office, that one of the Rambouillets looked for.’—Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, 1572-74, p. 560.
[19] These towns had been retained by the French when the rest of the possessions of the Duke of Savoy were restored to him, partly after the treaty of Cateau Cambrésis, in 1559, and partly by Charles IX. in 1562. With the exception of the Marquisate of Saluzzo, they were the last remains of the French conquests beyond the Alps. The Duchess of Savoy was Margaret, daughter of Francis I., and therefore aunt to Henry III. She was born in 1523, married in 1559, at the conclusion of peace, to Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, and died September 14th, 1574. The indignant protest of the Duc de Nevers against the surrender of these towns may be found in the compilation known as his Mémoires, vol. i. page i.
[20] Frederic III. was Elector Palatine from 1559 to 1576. He was the first important German prince who embraced Calvinism, and was the head of that sect in Germany. His Court was the asylum of the French and Flemish exiles. When Henry III. passed through Germany on his way to Poland, he visited Heidelberg at the Palatine’s invitation. He found the gates of the town guarded, the streets lined with soldiers, match in hand, and no one to receive him at the Castle except armed men. Halfway up the stairs he was met by the Rhinegrave, attended by two of the survivors of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. The Rhinegrave asked him on the Elector’s behalf to excuse his coming down, on account of indisposition. Henry found him at the entrance of the room supported by a gentleman, in the attitude of a man who finds it a great effort to stand upright. ‘On n’y pouvoit entrer sans jetter la veüe sur un grand Tableau de la mort de l’Admiral, et des principaux Seigneurs tués à Paris. Voyant que le Roi portoit sa veüe de ce costé, il poussa un grand souspir, et dit tout haut, “Ceux qui les ont fait mourir sont bien malheureux, croyez qu’ils estoient gens de bien et grands Capitaines.” Le Roy respondit doucement, “Qu’ils estoient capables de bien faire s’ils eussent voulu.” Ce Prince sentoit un grand contentement en son ame de pouvoir faire esclatter l’excez de sa passion en la presence du Roy, il en fit voir les effets en diverses façons, lui donna à souper, et le servit de poisson, mais il n’eut pour Gentilhomme que ceux qu’on luy dit avoir eschappé le jour de Saint Barthelemy, qu’il appelloit “La boucherie et le massacre de Paris.”’ The next day the Count took more than thirty turns with the King up and down the great hall of the Castle, with a firm step and in perfect health, so as to show that his indisposition of the previous evening had been entirely feigned.—Matthieu, Histoire de France, i. p. 363. The Palatine’s second son, John Casimir, born in 1543, is a prominent figure in the religious wars of the time. He was one of the military adventurers who hoped in the general confusion to win themselves a throne by their sword. He conducted several expeditions to the aid of the French Protestants, and was one of the many princes suggested as a husband for Queen Elizabeth. At her instigation he was given the command of the German army which entered the Netherlands in 1578. For an estimate of his character see Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic. Part V. ch. v. He died in 1592.
[21] The two sons of the Constable were his two youngest sons, de Méru and de Thoré. While the Marshal and Damville, their elder brothers, remained Catholics, they became Protestants. The reason of their flight to Germany was that they had been implicated in the rising of Shrove Tuesday, 1574, and the conspiracy to seize Charles IX. at St. Germain. ‘Les cousins [du Prince de Condé] de Thoré et de Méru se rendent à Geneve, où le Seingneur de Thoré se déclare et fait profession de la Religion et là est arresté et retenu, et son frère de Méru mis hors ladite ville, pour ne vouloir faire semblable profession.’—De l’Estoile, i. 22.
[22] François de Foix de Candale, Bishop of Aire, in Gascony, third son of Gaston de Foix, Comte de Candale, Captal de Buch, &c. His father’s sister Anne married Ladislaus, King of Hungary and Bohemia, by whom she had two children—Louis, King of Hungary, killed at Mohacz in 1526, and Anne, who married the Emperor Ferdinand, and was the mother of the Emperor Maximilian. The Bishop was one of the most learned men of his time, especially in mathematics and natural philosophy. Besides the works mentioned in the text, he translated Euclid into Latin. He invented various mathematical instruments, and founded a chair of mathematics in the College of Aquitaine at Bordeaux. He died in 1594, aged eighty-four according to Thuanus, but eighty-one according to his monument. D’Aubigné, in his Mémoires under the year 1580, relates the following anecdote of him and Henry IV. ‘Le roi de Navarre, passant un jour à Cadillac, pria le grand François de Candale, de lui faire voir son excellent cabinet, ce qu’il vouloit bien faire, à condition qu’il n’y entreroit pas d’ignares. “Non, mon oncle,” dit mon maître, “je n’y mènerai personne qui ne soit plus capable de le voir et d’en connoître le prix que moi.” La compagnie s’amusa d’abord à faire lever le poids d’un canon par une petite machine qu’un enfant de six ans tenoit entre ses mains. Comme elle étoit fort attentive à cette operation, je me mis à considérer un marbre noir de sept pieds en quarré, qui servoit de table au bon Seigneur de Candale; et ayant apperçu un crayon, j’écrivis dessus pendant qu’on raisonnait sur la petite machine, ce distique latin:—
Non isthæc, princeps, regem tractare doceto,
Sed docta regni pondera ferre manu.
Cela fait, je recouvris le marbre et rejoignis la compagnie, qui étant arrivée à ce marbre, M. de Candale dit à mon maître, “Voici ma table;” et ayant ôté la couverture et vu ce distique, il s’écria, “Ah! il y a ici un homme.” “Comment,” reprit le roi de Navarre, “croyez-vous que les autres soient des bêtes? Je vous prie, mon oncle, de deviner à la mine qui vous jugez capable d’avoir fait ce coup.” Ce qui fournit matière à d’assez plaisans propos.’
[23] He was killed February, 1573, in an attack on the château of Soumiere, in Languedoc.—Mezeray, Histoire de France, iii. 282.