But truly the unfortunate mansion did lose all its splendour later, forasmuch as it was utterly devastated, pillaged, ruined and overthrown. I have heard say how its mistress, on learning this ruin, did fall in such distress, despite and fury, that ’twas many days ere she could be appeased. Subsequently, when one day passing near the spot, she was fain to see the remains, and gazing very sadly at these, did swear, the tears in her eyes, that all France should repent the deed and be right sorry for these conflagrations, and that she would never be content till yonder proud Castle of Fontainebleau, whereof folk did make so much, was levelled with the earth and not one stone left on another. And in very deed she did spew out her anger right fiercely over the unhappy land of Picardy, which felt the sore effects of her wrath and the fires she kindled there; and I ween, if truce had not interfered, her vengeance would have been startling. For she was of a proud and hard heart, and slow to be appeased, and was generally held, of her own people as well as ours, somewhat over cruel; but such is ever the bent of women, especially of high-born women, which be very ready to take vengeance for any offence done them. The Emperor, by all they say, did only love her the more for this.
I have heard tell how, when the Emperor did abdicate at Brussels and strip him of his power, the ceremony being held in a great Hall wherein he had called together an assembly of his Estates, after he had made a set speech and said all he wished to his son, and had likewise humbly thanked his sister, Queen Mary, which was seated by the side of the Emperor her brother, the latter presently rising from her seat, and with a deep reverence to her brother, did address the people with a grave and dignified port and much confidence and grace, and said as follows: “Gentlemen, for these three and twenty years past that my brother, the Emperor, hath been pleased to grant me the charge and government of these Low Countries, I have ever employed in the said task all the means and abilities that God, Nature and Fortune have bestowed on me, for to perform the same to the utmost of my powers. But an if in aught I have made failure, I am surely to be excused, for I think I have never forgot my duty nor spared the proper pains. Yet, and if I have lacked in anything, I do beg you to forgive me. However, if there be any one of you will not so do, but is ill content with me and my government, why! ’tis the smallest of my cares, seeing the Emperor, my brother, is well content, and to please him, and him alone, hath ever been the chiefest of my desires and cares.” With these words and another deep reverence to the Emperor, she did resume her seat. I have heard some say this speech was found of many somewhat over proud and haughty, more especially on occasion her giving up her charge and bidding farewell to a people she was about to leave. ’Twould surely have been more natural, had she desired to leave a good savour in their mouth and some grief behind her on her departure. But for all this she had never a thought, seeing her sole end was to please and content her brother, and from henceforth to take no heed of the world but keep her brother company in his retirement and life of prayer.
This account I had of a gentleman of my brother’s suite, which was at the time at Brussels, whither he had gone to treat of the ransom of my brother aforesaid, he having been taken prisoner in Hedin, and having spent five years in confinement at Lille in Flanders. The said gentleman was present throughout this assembly and mournful abdication of the Emperor; and did tell me how not a few persons were something scandalized in secret at this haughty pronouncement of the Queen’s, yet did never dare say a word or let their opinion appear, seeing plainly they had to do with a masterful dame, which, if angered, would surely before her final departure have done something startling for a last stroke.
Presently freed of all her charge and responsibility, she doth accompany her brother to Spain; which land she did never after quit, either she or her sister Queen Eleanor, till the day of death. Of the three, each did survive the other by one year; the Emperor died first, the Queen of France next, being the eldest, then the Queen of Hungary after the two others, her brother and sister. Both sisters did behave them wisely and well in widowhood; the Queen of Hungary was a longer time widow than her sister, and did never marry again, while her sister did so twice, partly to be Queen of France, a dainty morsel, partly by the prayers and persuasion of the Emperor, to the end she might be a sure pledge of peace and public quietness. Not that the said pledge did avail for long while, for War brake out again presently, as cruel as ever. However this was no fault of the poor Princess, who did all she could. Yet for all that did King Francis, her husband, treat her but scurvily, hating and abominating the connection, as I have been told.
4.
After the departure of the Queen of Hungary there was left no great Princess with King Philip (now Sovereign Lord invested with his domains in the Netherlands and elsewhere), but only the Duchesse de Lorraine, Christina of Denmark,[107*] his cousin german, later entitled Her Highness, which did always hold him good company, so long as he tarried in these parts. She did add much to the brilliance of his Court, for truly no Court, whether of King, Prince, Emperor or Monarch, no matter how magnificent it be, is of much account, if it be not accompanied and seconded by a Queen’s or Empress’s Court, or at least a great Princess’s, and thereat a good abundance of noble dames and damsels, as both myself have observed and have heard pronouncement to the same effect in the highest quarters.
This said Princess was in mine opinion one of the most beauteous and most well accomplished Princesses I have ever seen,—in face very fair and pleasing, her figure very tall and fine, her conversation agreeable, and above all her dress most excellent. In fact all her life she was the pattern and model of fashion to all the ladies of France. This mode of dressing head and hair and arranging the veil was known as the Lorraine way, and ’twas a pretty sight to see our Court ladies so attired. These were ever a-making grand fêtes and splendid shows, the better thereat to show off their dainty adornments, all being à la Lorraine and copied after Her Highness. In especial she had one of the prettiest hands ever seen; and I have heard the Queen Mother herself praise the same, and liken it to her own for perfection. She had an excellent seat on horseback, and rode with no little grace, always using the stirrup attached to the saddle, the mode whereof she had learned of the Queen Marie, her aunt, and the Queen Mother, so I have heard say of her; for previously she had ridden with help of the old-fashioned “planchette,”[108] which was far from properly showing off her grace and her elegant seat like the stirrup. In all this she was for imitating the Queen her aunt, never mounting any but Spanish horses, Turks, Barbs and the very best jennets, which could go well at the amble. Of such I have seen a dozen capital mounts at one time in her stable, all so excellent, ’twere impossible to say one was better than another. The said aunt did love her dearly, as well for the exercises they both were fond of, hunting, riding and the like, as for her virtues, the which she did observe in her. Accordingly, after her marriage, she did often go to visit her in Flanders, as I have heard Madame de Fontaines relate; and indeed after she became a widow, and especially after her son had been taken from her, she did quit Lorraine altogether in despite, so proud and high of heart was she. She did thereafter take up her abode with the Emperor her uncle and the Queens her aunts, all which great personages did receive her with no small pleasure.
She did bear exceeding hardly the loss and absence of her son, and this in spite of all possible excuses which King Henri did make her, and his declared intention of adopting him as his son. But presently, finding no assuagement, and seeing how they were giving him one M. de La Brousse as tutor, instead of the one he now had, namely M. de Montbardon, a very wise and honourable gentleman the Emperor himself had assigned to that office, having long known him for a worthy man, for he had been in the service of M. de Bourbon, and was a French refugee, the Princess, thinking all desperate, did seek out King Henri one Holy Thursday in the great Gallery at Nancy, where all his Court was assembled. Thus, with an assured grace and that great beauty which did make her yet more admirable, she did advance, with no undue awe or any sort of abasement at his grandeur, albeit bowing low in reverence before him; and in suppliant wise, with tears in her eyes, the which did but make her more fair and more delightsome to look upon, did remonstrate with the King as to the wrong he was doing her in taking away her son,—the dearest possession she had in all the world. Little did she deserve, she added, so harsh treatment, seeing the high station she was born in and the fact she had never dreamed of doing aught to his disservice. All this she said so well and with so excellent a grace, with reasoning so cogent and complaint so pitiful, as that the King, always very courteous toward ladies, was deeply stirred with compassion,—and not he alone, but all the Lords and Princes, great and small, which were present at the sight.
The King, who was the most respectful monarch toward ladies hath ever been in France, did answer her in very honourable terms, albeit with no rigmarole of words nor by way of set harangue, as Paradin doth represent the matter in his History of France; for indeed of his nature this monarch was not so prolix, nor copious in reasons and fine speeches, nor a mighty orator. Neither had he any need to be, nor is it becoming that a King should play the philosopher and rhetorician, the shortest replies and briefest questions being more meet for him and more becoming. This I have heard argued by not a few great men, amongst others by M. de Pibrac,[109*] whose judgment was much to be relied on by reason of the competence of knowledge he did possess. Moreover any one that shall read the speech as given by Paradin, as supposed by him to have been delivered in this place by King Henri, will credit never a word of it; besides which, I have heard positively from a number of great folk which were there present that he did not make any such lengthy harangue as the historian saith.
’Tis quite true at the same time that he did condole with her in very honourable and proper phrase on her alleged grievance, saying she had no real reason to be troubled thereat, for that ’twas to assure the lad’s estate, and not out of any selfish hostility toward him, he was fain to have her son by his side, and to keep him along with his own son and heir, to share his bringing up and fashion of life and fortune. Further that himself being French, and the boy of French extraction, he could scarce be better off than to be reared at the French Court and among French folk, where he had so many kinsmen and friends. In especial he forgat not to add how the house of Lorraine did lie under greater obligation to that of France than to any other in all Christendom, alleging the countenance given by France to the Duke of Lorraine as against Duke Charles of Burgundy, that was slain before Nancy. For that ’twas an undoubted truth to say that but for that Country’s help, the said Duke would have utterly undone the Duke of Lorraine and his Duchy to boot, and made him the most unhappy Prince in the world. He did further allege the gratitude they of the House of Lorraine did owe to the French, for the great assistance rendered them by the latter in their successes in the Holy Wars and conquests of Jerusalem, and the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily. Further he did declare how neither his natural bent nor true interests were like to set him on ruining and undoing Princes, but rather to help the same in all ways, when in danger and difficulty,—as he had actually done to the little Queen of Scots, a near kinswoman of his son, to the Duke of Parma, as well as to Germany, that was so sore pressed it was nigh coming to utter ruin without such help. The same kindness and generosity, he said, was his motive for taking the young Prince of Lorraine under his protection, for to bring him up to an higher estate than else he could aspire to, and make him his son by marrying him eventually to one of his own daughters; in fine that she had no sort of call to be afflicted at his action.