H. Noel Williams

Bassompierre accompanies Henri IV in his campaign against Charles Emmanuel of Savoy—His narrow escape at the taking of MontmÉlian—He goes with the King to visit Henriette d’Entragues, Madame de Verneuil, at La CÔte-Saint-AndrÉ, and reconciles Henri IV with his mistress—Marriage of the King to Marie de’ Medici—Presentation of Madame de Verneuil to the Queen—Visit of Bassompierre to Lorraine—He returns to find the royal mÉnage in a very troubled state, owing to the jealousy of the wife and the mistress—He assists at a conference, in which the Chancellor recommends the King to get rid of Madame de Verneuil at any cost—He accompanies the MarÉchal de Biron on a visit to England—He is present at the arrest of Biron at Fontainebleau, in June, 1602—Condemnation and execution of the marshal.

In February, 1600, Charles Emmanuel of Savoy paid a visit to the Court to negotiate personally with the King about the matter of the marquisate of Saluzzo, which, in 1588, the Duke, taking advantage of the internal troubles of France, had invaded and annexed, and the restoration of which Henri IV was now demanding. Charles Emmanuel offered to enter into an alliance with France against Spain, and assist her to conquer the Milanese, if only Henri IV would forgo his claims on Saluzzo, and lavished costly gifts and large sums of money upon the Ministers and the mistress in order to gain their support. But the King was adamant on the question of Saluzzo, and on February 27 the Duke was obliged to sign a treaty, whereby he engaged within three months either to surrender the marquisate, or, as compensation, the county of Bresse, the valley of Barcellonnette, the valley of the Stura, PÉrousse, and Pinerolo.

Towards the middle of May, as Charles Emmanuel had as yet taken no steps to carry out his engagements, Henri IV began moving troops towards the frontier of Savoy, and he himself, accompanied by a few of his intimates, amongst whom was Bassompierre, set out for Lyons, having sent the rest of the Court on in advance to await him at Moulins. At Moulins, where he was the guest of Queen Louise, widow of the late King, he stayed for some little time “principally on account of la BourdaisiÈre, with whom he was in love”[32]; and it was not until the beginning of July that he arrived at Lyons. Here he remained three weeks, to see what action Charles Emmanuel proposed to take. That prince, however, had signed the treaty of February merely for the purpose of gaining time; and the promises of Spain, which feared, above all things, to see France once more in possession of Saluzzo, decided him to break his word. At the expiration of the three months he solicited a further delay or an amelioration of the conditions of the treaty, hoping that the expected rebellion of the MarÉchal de Biron and the Comte d’Auvergne, whom, by specious promises, he had succeeded in seducing from their allegiance to their sovereign, would break out before Henri IV was ready to take the field.

Henri IV, however, was not deceived, and summoned the Duke to declare immediately what his intentions were. The latter, after many tergiversations, announced that he was prepared to surrender Saluzzo. But when the King despatched officers to take possession of the chief places in the marquisate, he refused to surrender them; and on August 11, Henri IV, at the end of his patience, declared war at Lyons.

Bassompierre has left us an interesting account of the campaign which followed—a campaign of invasion undertaken by an army scarcely more numerous than a brigade to-day; but which, thanks to the improvements in the artillery which Sully had introduced and the valour of the troops, proved entirely successful. He himself underwent his “baptism of fire” at the taking of the town of MontmÉlian, where he served with the regiment of the Sire (afterwards the MarÉchal) de CrÉquy. His military career came very near to ending as well as beginning at MontmÉlian, for, in the darkness, he lost his way and was cut off from his comrades, “so that I was for more than an hour at the mercy of the fire from the citadel, at twenty paces from the ditch.” By what seems like a miracle, however, he was not hit, and, at length a sergeant, whom CrÉquy had sent to find him, arrived and guided him to a place of safety.

Charles Emmanuel, for once entirely wrong in his calculations, was unable to offer any effective resistance to the invaders of his realm; France remained tranquil; Biron, traitor though he was, in spite of himself, mastered Bresse; ChambÉry, the capital of Savoy, surrendered to Henri IV after but a show of resistance; the citadel of MontmÉlian, fondly deemed impregnable, fell before Sully’s new siege-guns; and the Duke, seeing himself beaten, sued for peace, and, on New Year’s Day, 1601, signed a treaty with France, by which he retained Saluzzo, in exchange for the cession of Bresse, Bugey, Valromey and Gex.

Whilst engaged in the conquest of Savoy, Henri IV went to visit Madame de Verneuil at Grenoble, as he had hastened at the peril of his life to throw himself at the feet of the Comtesse de Gramont (“la belle Corisande”) after the Battle of Coutras. The years had not changed him and he made these journeys as eagerly as a gallant of half his age.

“I had intended,” writes Bassompierre, “to go with M. LesdiguiÈres to the valley of Marenne, which he was going to subdue, but the King ordered me to follow him. He went to sleep at La Rochette, and on the morrow dined at Grenoble. And having there learned that Madame de Verneuil was about to arrive at Saint-AndrÉ de la CostÉ,[33] he set out to go to her and lent me one of his own horses to follow him. I rode the whole way at a trot, and was so tired that, when I arrived, I could scarcely stand. The King and Madame de Verneuil had a quarrel on meeting,[34] so that the King was going back in anger, and said to me: ‘Bassompierre, order our horses to be saddled for us to return.’ I told him that I would willingly order his to be saddled, but that, as for mine, I should declare myself on Madame de Verneuil’s side and should stay with her. And, after going to and fro several times, in order to reconcile two persons who were well inclined to it, I made peace between them and we slept at Saint-AndrÉ. The next day the King went to Grenoble and took Madame de Verneuil with him.”

“No one,” writes Boudet de Puymaigre, “makes us understand better than does Bassompierre the character of Henri IV, that extraordinary man, great on the field of battle, where his inspired language, in accord with his deeds, elevates him often to the sublimity of the epopee; skilful and even adroit in the government of his realm, causing at need acts which were merely the outcome of political necessity to be attributed to his clemency; in his private life, despotic and good-humoured at the same time, often duped by his mistresses and blinded by his passions. Such as he was, he remains the type of the popular king, and posterity has done honour even to his faults, for it has enshrined the name of ‘la belle Gabrielle’ amidst the trophies of the Battle of Ivry. ‘His tragic end,’ remarks Chateaubriand, ‘has contributed not a little to his renown; to disappear appropriately from life is a condition of glory.’”

Just a month before peace was signed with the Duke of Savoy, Marie de’ Medici, whom the Duc de Bellegarde, acting as proxy for his master, had married at Florence on Oct. 6, 1600, arrived at Lyons. Henri IV joined her there a few days later, and on December 17 the marriage was celebrated with great splendour. On the arrival of the royal bride at Nemours, the King caused Madame de Verneuil to be presented to her. As the sultana came forward, he explained who she was: “This young lady is my mistress; she will be your obedient and humble servant!” Then, as the scant curtsey which was all the salutation which Henriette vouchsafed the Queen appeared to hold out little hope of the fulfilment of this promise, he placed his hand on her head and bent it down, until she kissed the hem of her rival’s dress.

It must be acknowledged that his Majesty could hardly have contrived an introduction better calculated to exasperate the temper of both women. Nevertheless, on this occasion, the Queen contrived to dissimulate her feelings, and, according to Bassompierre, gave Madame de Verneuil a very good reception—“bonne chÈre,” as they said then.

In January, 1601, Bassompierre again went to Lorraine, to visit his mother, who was ill, and remained there three months. He returned in company with the Duchess of Bar and her father-in-law, Charles III of Lorraine, who were on their way to pay a visit to the Court, which was then in residence at Monceaux. The ChÂteau of Monceaux, so closely associated with memories of “la belle Gabrielle,” had just been presented to the Queen by Henri IV, and Marie de’ Medici entertained her distinguished guests with lavish hospitality. The royal mÉnage was, however, in a very troubled state, for the wife and the mistress were already at daggers drawn, and between them the Very Christian King was having a decidedly unpleasant time of it. Matters, indeed, had come to such a pass that Henri IV was contemplating the advisability of marrying Madame de Verneuil, with a rich dowry, to some needy foreign prince, and thus removing her from his Court; and Bassompierre was called upon to assist at a sort of council between the King, Sully, and the Chancellor, Pomponne de BelliÈvre, the last of whom strongly urged his Majesty to get rid of the lady at any cost:—

In September, 1601, Henri IV was at Calais, and Queen Elizabeth came to Dover, partly in the hope that her old ally would visit her to discuss the advisability of joint action against Spain. The King, however, was unwilling to alarm the Catholics or to do anything which might precipitate a renewal of the war with Spain, and he also perhaps feared that Elizabeth might seize the opportunity to demand the repayment of certain advances of money which she had made him during his struggle against the League, and which it would be highly inconvenient to refund just then. Accordingly, he dispatched the MarÉchal de Biron to offer his excuses and regrets to the Queen; and Biron persuaded Bassompierre, who had just arrived at Calais from a journey to Verneuil upon which the King had sent him, to accompany him to England.

The first news which greeted Bassompierre and the marshal on their arrival at Boulogne, near which contrary winds had obliged them to land, was the birth of the Dauphin (afterwards Louis XIII), which had taken place on September 27, 1601.[37]

Bassompierre was present at Fontainebleau that evening in the following June, when Biron, after refusing Henri IV’s magnanimous offer of pardon on condition that he would confess the truth concerning his treasonable dealings with the Duke of Savoy, was arrested by the Marquis de Vitry, Captain of the ChÂteau of Fontainebleau, as he was passing from the King’s cabinet into the Chambre de Saint-Louis, and requested to give up his sword.

Biron was conducted to the Bastille, where his captivity was shared by the Comte d’Auvergne, who had been arrested at the same time.[39] Later that evening, Henri IV sent for Bassompierre and other nobles, and placed before them the letters which La Fin, the instigator of the conspiracy, who had subsequently turned informer, had given him. They were all written in Biron’s own hand.

The marshal was arraigned for high treason before the Parlement of Paris, the peers of the realm being summoned to take their places amongst the judges, as was the custom when one of their number was on his trial. The evidence of the accused’s guilt was overwhelming, and he was unanimously sentenced to death. On July 31, 1602, he was beheaded in the courtyard of the Bastille, it having been decided to spare him the ignominy of a public execution in the Place de GrÈve. The pusillanimous Comte d’Auvergne was pardoned and set at liberty in the following October, thanks to the intercession of his half-sister, Madame de Verneuil.