  Bassompierre arrives at Fontainebleau and is most graciously received by Henri IV—He falls in love with Marie d’Entragues, sister of the King’s mistress—The conspiracy of the d’Entragues—The Sieur d’Entragues and the Comte d’Auvergne are arrested and conveyed to the Bastille, and Madame de Verneuil kept a prisoner in her own house—Jacqueline de Bueil temporarily replaces Madame de Verneuil in the royal affections—The King, unable to do without the latter, sets her and her father at liberty—Bassompierre becomes the lover of Marie d’Entragues—He is dangerously wounded by the Duc de Guise in a tournament, and his life is at first despaired of—He recovers—Attentions which he receives during his illness from the ladies of the Court. Towards the end of August, 1604, Bassompierre arrived in Paris, where his numerous friends, he tells us, were so delighted to see him that it was three days before they would permit him to continue his journey to Fontainebleau, whither the Court had recently removed; and when he at last contrived to get away, so many of them desired to accompany him, that it required no less than forty post-horses to convey them. At Fontainebleau he met with so warm a welcome both from the King and the ladies of the Court, that he thought no more of returning to Germany: “The King was on the great terrace before the Cour du Cheval Blanc when we arrived, and awaited us there, receiving me with a thousand embraces. He then led me into the apartment of the Queen, his wife, who lodged in the apartment above his own, and I was well received by the ladies, who thought me not ill-looking for an inveterate German who had spent a year in his own country. On the morrow the King lent me his own horses to hunt the stag. It was St. Bartholomew’s Day, August 24; and he himself would not hunt on a day whereon he had once been in such great danger. On my return from the chase I joined him in the Salle des Étuves, where we played lansquenet.” Henri IV lost no time in annulling the obnoxious decree concerning the Saint-Sauveur property and restoring it to Bassompierre, who was thus enabled to live “a most delightful life” at the Court, and indulge to the full his inclination for lavish display, gambling, and love-making: “I then fell in love with Antragues, and was also in love with another handsome woman. I was in the flower of my youth, rather well-made and very gay.” The lady whom Bassompierre invariably refers to in his Memoirs as “Antragues,” without any prefix, was Marie de Balsac d’Entragues, younger sister of Madame de Verneuil. Marie was quite as pretty as Henriette—indeed, by not a few she was considered the prettiest woman at the Court—and if she lacked something of the wit and vivacity which made the reigning sultana so attractive, she was not without intelligence. As one might expect in a child of Marie Touchet, she was wholly devoid of moral sense. But she was neither mercenary nor ambitious, or, at any rate, far less so than her sister; and several exalted personages appear to have sighed for her in vain, including Henri IV, who, like Louis XV, in later times, had not the smallest objection to the presence of two or more members of the same family in his seraglio. At the time, however, when his Majesty appears to have made advances to the younger sister, his relations with the elder had been temporarily interrupted by the episode which is known as the Conspiracy of the d’Entragues. In the summer of 1604, acting upon a warning received from James I of England, the French Government had caused one Morgan, an agent of Spain, to be arrested in Paris, and documents found upon this person indicated that he had relations of a highly suspicious character with FranÇois d’Entragues, his daughter, Madame de Verneuil, and his stepson, the Comte d’Auvergne. One fine morning, a party of the King’s guards arrived at the ChÂteau of Malesherbes, where three moats and draw-bridges Early in 1605 we find the King again in amorous correspondence with the woman who had been conspiring against him, entreating her to love him to whom all the rest of this world compared with her was as nothing; and, after keeping him at a distance for a little while, Henriette graciously consented to accord him her favours once more. Henceforth, Jacqueline de Beuil was merely retained as a refuge when the marchioness happened to be spiteful and the Queen sulky. In those days rough horseplay was much in vogue, and during the Carnival of 1605, bands of young nobles rode through the streets of Paris, masked and arrayed in glittering armour. When two of these bands met, they charged vigorously and strove to unhorse one another, and though the points of the lances they carried were carefully padded, and they wielded heavy cudgels gaily decorated with crimson ribbons, instead of swords, very shrewd blows and thrusts were exchanged. On one occasion, Bassompierre, who was accompanied by his brother-in-law Saint-Luc, and two of their friends, met another party, headed by the Duc de Nemours and the Comte de Sommerive, who challenged him to a mimic combat later in the day in the Place de CimetiÈre Saint-Jean, it being agreed that both sides might bring as many supporters as they could get together. Both parties repaired to the field of battle in considerable force, but that of Nemours and Sommerive had the advantage in numbers. Nevertheless, victory rested with Bassompierre and his friends, who drove their opponents through the streets in disorder, and “he had the satisfaction of seeing one of his rivals in the affections of Mlle. d’Entragues This bonne fortune of Bassompierre, however, came very near to costing him his life: “The Tuesday following, which was the first day of March, in the morning, the King being at the Tuileries, said to M. de Guise: ‘Ah! Guisard, d’Entragues despises us all and dotes on Bassompierre. I don’t speak without certainty.’ ‘Sire,’ replied M. de Guise, ‘you have means enough to avenge yourself. As for me, I have none other than that of a knight-errant. I will therefore break three lances with him this afternoon in open field, in whatever place you shall be pleased to appoint.’ The King gave us permission, and said that it should be in the Louvre, and that he would have the court sanded. He [Guise] chose his brother M. de Joinville for his second and M. de Termes for third; while I chose M. de Saint-Luc and the Comte de Sault. We all six went to dine and arm ourselves at Saint-Luc’s lodging; and, as we always kept armour and caparisons ready for all occasions, my friends and I wore silver armour, with silver and white plumes and silk stockings of the same colours. M. de Guise and his supporters wore black and gold, on account of the imprisonment of the Marquise de Verneuil, with whom he was at that time secretly in love. Then we repaired to the Louvre, preceded by our horses and attendants. “My friends and I, who were the first to enter the lists, placed ourselves by the side of the old building; M. de Guise and his seconds took up their station beneath the windows of the Queen’s apartment. Our course was the length of the Salle des Suisses. It happened that M. de Guise was mounted on a little horse called Lesparne, while I was riding a big charger which the Comte de Fiesque had given me. He took the lower ground, while I was on the wall side, so that I towered over him, and, instead of breaking his lance while raising it, he broke it while lowering it, in such a way that, after splintering Here someone, without awaiting the arrival of the surgeons, was so ill-advised as to pull the broken stump of the lance from the wound, with the result that part of the entrails came out with it; and, though the surgeons when they came contrived to replace them, Bassompierre seemed in desperate case:— “The King, the Constable, and all the chief personages of the Court stood around, many weeping, as they thought that I should not live an hour. Nevertheless, I did not appear cast down, nor did I think I should die. Many ladies were there and helped to dress my wound, and, as I insisted on returning to my lodging, the Queen sent me the chair in which she was carried about, for she was then pregnant. The people followed me with many marks of sorrow. When I arrived at my lodging, I lost my sight, which made me think I was very ill, so that they made me confess and bled me at the same time. Yet I did not believe I should die, and laughed all the time. “So soon as I received my wound, the King ordered the tournament to stop, and never permitted one afterwards. This was the only one in open field which had taken place in France for one hundred years, and they were never renewed.” Youth and a splendid constitution saved him, and the attentions he received from the ladies of the Court appear to have consoled him for the pain which he had to endure: “I cannot say how much I was visited during my illness, and particularly by ladies. All the princesses were there, and the Queen sent on three occasions her maids-of-honour, who were brought by Mlle. de Guise to pass whole afternoons. This lady, who considered herself obliged to assist in nursing me, as it was her brother who had given me my wound, was there most of the time. My sister, Madame de Saint-Luc, who, so long as I was in danger, always slept at the foot of my bed, received the ladies, and, with the exception of the day after I was wounded, the King came every afternoon to see me, and partly also to see my pretty companions.” After being obliged to keep his bed for about a fortnight, he was allowed to get up and take the air in a chair, an object of sympathetic interest to all the ladies of the Court and town. His wound healed rapidly, and by Easter, though still somewhat lame, he felt sufficiently recovered to challenge the Marquis de Coeuvres, brother of Gabrielle d’EstrÉes, to a duel. |
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