H. Noel Williams

Return of Bassompierre to the French Court—Frenzied passion of Henri IV for the young Princesse de CondÉ—His extravagant conduct—CondÉ flies with his wife to Flanders—Grief and indignation of the King, who summons his most trusted counsellors to deliberate upon the affair—Sage advice of Sully, which, however, is not followed—The Archduke Albert refuses to surrender the fugitives—CondÉ retires to Milan and places himself under the protection of Spain—Failure of an attempt to abduct the princess—Henri IV and his Ministers threaten war if the lady is not given up—The “Great Design”—Bassompierre appointed Colonel of the Light Cavalry and a Counsellor of State—His account of the last days and assassination of Henri IV.

On Bassompierre’s return to Court, Henri IV expressed himself highly satisfied with the results of his mission and “gave him very great proofs of his good-will.” Scarcely, however, had he concluded his account of his diplomatic activities than the King “requested an audience of him, in order to tell him of his passion for Madame la Princesse and of the unhappy life that he was leading separated from her.” “And assuredly,” adds Bassompierre, “this love of his was a frenzied one, which could not be contained within the bounds of decorum.”

We must here explain that this interesting little affair had not been developing at all in accordance with his Majesty’s anticipations. CondÉ had accepted with becoming gratitude the handsome pension which the King had bestowed upon him and appeared far more interested in his wife’s dowry than in her person; while the fair Charlotte, on her side, scarcely troubled to conceal her indifference to a husband who was shy, awkward, and close-fisted, and lacking in all those qualities calculated to appeal to the imagination of a young girl. Indeed, there can be no doubt that she preferred the company of the King, despite his grey hairs and his wrinkled visage, and she appears to have given the amorous monarch no little encouragement, though perhaps innocently enough.

But CondÉ, with all his faults, was an honourable man, and when he clearly understood the odious part which his royal “uncle” intended should be his; when he saw the King, usually so painfully neglectful of his person, powdered and scented and bedecked like the youngest gallant of his Court; when he learned that he was bombarding his wife with passionate sonnets, obligingly composed for him by Malherbe and other facile rhymesters; when he heard that the princess had stepped one night on to the balcony of her apartments and there unbound her hair and allowed it to fall about her shoulders to gratify a whim of her elderly admirer, who stood beneath “transported with admiration”; when, in short, he found that the King’s infatuation was the talk of Court and town, he began, as his Majesty expressed it, “to play the devil.” And, after several angry scenes, in which Henri IV entirely lost his temper, and all sense of dignity and decorum along with it, and CondÉ appears to have forgotten the respect which he owed to his sovereign in his resentment against the man who wished to dishonour him, the prince carried off his wife to the ChÂteau of Muret, in Picardy, not far from the Flemish frontier.

The lovelorn King followed his inamorata, and, dressed as one of his own huntsmen, and with a patch over his eye, stood by the roadside to see her pass; and, in the same disguise, penetrated into a house where she was dining, and when she appeared at a window, kissed one hand to her, while he pressed the other to his heart.

A few days later, CondÉ received a letter from the King, written in a strain half-coaxing, half-menacing, summoning him to Court, to be present at the approaching accouchement of the Queen. Etiquette required that the first Prince of the Blood should be in attendance on these auspicious occasions, and it was impossible for him to refuse. But he came alone. Henri IV was furious, and his anger rendered him so insupportable to those about him, that Marie de’ Medici herself begged CondÉ to send for his wife, promising to keep strict watch over her. Such was the King’s wrath that he could not trust himself to interview his kinsman personally, but sent for his secretary, Virey, and bade him tell his master that, if he declined to bow to his will, or attempted any violence against his wife, he would give him cause to rue it. He added that, if he had been still only King of Navarre, he would have challenged the prince to a duel.

After receiving this message, CondÉ decided to feign submission, and accordingly begged his Majesty’s permission to fetch his wife. This request, as we may suppose, was readily granted, and on November 25—the day on which the ill-starred Henrietta Maria was born—he set out for Picardy.

On the evening of the 29th, while Henri IV was playing cards with the Comte de Soissons—Monsieur le Comte, as he was styled—Bassompierre, Guise, d’Épernon, and CrÉquy in his private cabinet, word was brought him that a messenger had arrived from Picardy, with intelligence that Monsieur le Prince had early that morning left Muret in a coach with his wife, accompanied by his equerry the Baron de Rochefort, Virey, and two of the princess’s ladies. CondÉ had given out that he was bound on a hunting-expedition; but the messenger—an archer of the Guard named LaperriÈre—had ascertained from his father, who was in the prince’s service, that the party had taken the road to Flanders.

“I sat nearest to the King,” writes Bassompierre, “and he whispered in my ear: ‘Bassompierre, my friend, I am lost. That man is taking his wife into a wood. I know not if it is to kill her or to take her out of France. Take care of my money and continue the game, while I go to learn further particulars.’ Then he went with d’ElbÈne[72] into the Queen’s apartments.

“After the King had gone, Monsieur le Comte begged me to tell him what had happened. I replied that his nephew and niece had fled. MM. de Guise, d’Épernon and de CrÉquy asked me the same question, and I gave them the same answer. Upon this they all withdrew from the game, and I, taking the opportunity of returning to the King the money which he had left on the table, entered the room where he was.

“Never did I see a man so distressed or so frantic. The Marquis de Coeuvres, the Comte de Cramail, d’ElbÈne, and LomÉnie were with him, and to each suggestion that one of them made he forthwith assented: such as to send the Captain of the Watch after Monsieur le Prince with his archers; to send Balagny[73] to Bouchain to try and catch him; to send Vaubecourt [governor of the county of Beaulieu-en-Argonne], who was then in Paris, to the frontier of Verdun to prevent his passage in that direction; and other ridiculous things.”

Meanwhile, the distracted monarch had sent to summon his most trusted counsellors, as though for an affair of State of the first importance; and, as each one arrived, he hurried up to him to inform him of what had occurred and to ask his advice.

“The Chancellor[74] was the first to arrive, and the King, having acquainted him with the matter, demanded of him what ought to be done. He answered gravely that this prince was taking the wrong road; that it was to be regretted that he had not been better counselled; and that he ought to have moderated his impetuosity. ‘That is not what I am asking you, Monsieur le Chancelier,’ cried the King angrily. ‘What I desire is your advice.’ The Chancellor then said that severe proclamations ought to be issued against him and against all who should follow him or render him aid, whether by money or counsels.

“As he said this, M. de Villeroy entered, and the King impatiently demanded his advice. He shrugged his shoulders and appeared to be very astonished at the news; and then said that letters ought to be written to all the King’s Ambassadors at foreign Courts to acquaint them with Monsieur le Prince’s departure without permission of the King and contrary to his orders, and to instruct them to take such steps with the princes to whom they were accredited as would cause them to refuse him an asylum in their dominions, or to send him back to his Majesty.”

The PrÉsident Jeannin had arrived at the same time as Villeroy, and the King demanded his advice also. The President was for strong measures, and said without hesitation that his Majesty ought immediately to send one of the captains of his Guards after Monsieur le Prince to endeavour to bring him back. If that could not be effected, then an envoy ought to be despatched to the sovereign in whose dominions he had taken refuge to demand that he should be surrendered, and, in case that was refused, to threaten war. In his opinion, there could be little doubt that he had gone to Flanders, to demand an asylum of the Archduke Albert, Sovereign of the Netherlands; but, since CondÉ was not personally acquainted with that prince, he did not suppose that the latter was privy to his flight, and, unless he were to receive express orders from Madrid to protect him, he would in all probability prefer to send him back, or, at any rate, order him to leave Flanders, rather than risk trouble with France.

“The King,” continues Bassompierre, “approved of this expedient, but he did not wish to decide until he had heard what M. de Sully had to say about the matter. The latter entered some time after the others, in a rough,

The King, however, was in no mood to follow this sage counsel, and preferred the strong measures proposed by Jeannin. He accordingly launched the Captain of the Watch in pursuit of the fugitives, and, when that officer returned empty-handed, sent Praslin to Brussels, where, as was generally expected, CondÉ had taken refuge, to demand his surrender from the Archduke Albert. The Archduke felt that he could not without shame deliver up a prince who came to seek an asylum against an all-powerful monarch who was endeavouring to dishonour his wife. On the other hand, he did not wish to offend Henri IV and afford him a pretext, which he might be only too ready to seize, for breaking the peace. He therefore tendered his good offices and made every effort to bring about an accommodation. But the King insisted on CondÉ’s unconditional submission and immediate return; while the prince demanded a place of surety on the frontier, with a convenient back-door, to enable him, at the first alarm, to leave the kingdom again.

The attitude assumed by Henri IV was so threatening, that CondÉ, judging it to be unsafe to remain in Flanders, confided his wife to the care of the Archduchess and took refuge at Milan, the governor of which, the Count de Fuentes, was a declared enemy of Henri IV and France. He had already appealed to Spain for protection; and Philip III instructed his Ambassador at the French Court, Don Inigo de Cardenas, to inform Henri IV that “he had taken the Prince de CondÉ under his protection, with the object of acting as a mediator in the matter and contributing by all means in his power to the repose and happiness of the Very Christian King.” The remainder of the despatch, however, shows that Philip was actuated by very different motives.

CondÉ’s departure from Brussels did not leave the Archduke in a less difficult position. It was not the prince, but the princess, whose return Henri IV most eagerly desired. He endeavoured to have her carried off, but the attempt failed.[76] He obliged the Constable to demand that she should be sent back to the paternal roof. The Archduke replied that he could not do so, except by her husband’s desire.

The King was the more exasperated by the resistance of the Archduke, as he had reason to believe that his ridiculous passion was returned. The princess, this child of sixteen, who had no affection for her husband and resented the inconvenience to which he had subjected her in order to save her honour, weary of her exile, far from her relatives and the Court of France, did not refuse the letters and presents of the King. Her entourage and Madame de Berny, the wife of the French Ambassador at Brussels, chanted continually the praises of her crowned adorer. She received verses in which Malherbe depicted in touching terms the grief of the great Alcandre. But Henri IV himself, in a letter to one of his agents, is not less pathetic:—

“I am writing to my beautiful angel: I am so worn out by these pangs that I am nothing but skin and bone. Everything disgusts me. I avoid company, and if, to observe the usage of society, I allow myself to be drawn into some assemblies, my wretchedness is complete.”

The princess, in her turn, appealed to “his heart,” and besought him, as “her knight,” to effect her deliverance.

For his “pangs” Henri IV regarded the Archduke and the Spaniards as responsible. Already on December 9, 1609, he had caused the Pope to be informed that “if the Spaniards contemplated employing the person of Monsieur le Prince to stir up trouble in his realm, he had the means and the courage to resent it, and to avenge the injuries and the offences which they might be able to do him.” The conduct of the Archduke was irreproachable; he had merely safeguarded his own dignity, and it was certainly not his fault that CondÉ was not reconciled to the King. But Philip III and his Government, although they had neither foreseen nor aided the prince’s flight, were now asking themselves what advantage they might derive from it. In the event of war with France, the first Prince of the Blood would be a valuable ally, and it is not improbable that a most imprudent manifesto which CondÉ issued at Milan, wherein, after detailing his grievances against Henri IV, he claimed to be the rightful heir to the throne of France, on the ground that the King’s first marriage had not been truly annulled, was inspired by Spain, with the idea of still further widening the breach between him and his sovereign.

Henri IV and his Ministers, finding persuasion of no avail with the Court of Brussels, had recourse to threats, representing that, unless the fair Charlotte were surrendered, war would follow. “Peace and war depend on whether the princess is or is not given up,” said Jeannin to Pecquius, the Archduke’s Ambassador in Paris; and the King himself reminded him that Troy fell because Priam would not surrender Helen.

The gravity of the situation was enhanced by the warlike preparations which were going on all over France for the execution of the “Great Design”: the scheme of liberating Europe from the domination of the House of Austria and of giving France her rightful place in the world which Henri IV had cherished ever since his accession to the throne. It was, however, believed by many that these formidable preparations had no other object that the forcible recovery of the Princesse de CondÉ, and Malherbe wrote:—

The question of how far the course of events was influenced by Henri IV’s infatuation for the Princesse de CondÉ has been much discussed. The probability is that the affair did little more than determine the King to hasten by a few weeks the war so long resolved upon, and that this was due rather to his irritation against the Spaniards for their support of CondÉ than to the refusal of the Court of Brussels to surrender the princess. Henri had not scrupled to use the large forces assembled for quite a different purpose as a bugbear to frighten the Archduke. But when the latter refused to purchase security by a compliance inconsistent with his honour, it was not on Brussels that the French armies prepared to march. On the contrary, a few days before his death, the King in the most friendly terms requested the Archduke’s permission to lead his troops across his territory to the assistance of his German allies, a permission granted by the Archduke, notwithstanding the opposition of the Spanish party in his Council.

By the end of April France was ready to strike. ChÂlons, MeziÈres and Metz were the chief rendezvous. The King hoped to have 30,000 men on foot, to join them on May 15, and to march at their head into the duchies. A second army under LesdiguiÈres was to enter Piedmont, where it would effect a junction with the forces of the Duke of Savoy, and then proceed to invade the Milanese. A third army was to observe the Pyrenees. Maurice of Nassau, with 30,000 Dutch, was to join Henri IV in ClÈves.

Never had Bassompierre stood higher in the royal favour than on the eve of the outbreak of war. Henri, anxious to make amends to him for the loss of Charlotte de Montmorency and her dowry, and to recompense him for the zeal and ability which he had shown in his mission to Lorraine and Germany in the previous year, overwhelmed him with benefits. He appointed him, quite unsolicited, Colonel of the Light Cavalry, made him a Counsellor of State, gave him 50 guards, and a pension of 4,000 crowns, and again proposed to marry him to the heiress of BeauprÉau and revive in her favour the duchy of that name. “But,” says Bassompierre ingenuously, “I was then in the high follies of my youth, in love in so many quarters, and well received in most, that I had not the leisure to think of my advancement.”

But the sun which shone upon him with such warmth and splendour was now about to be clouded for ever. The tragic end of the first Bourbon King has been so often told that we have no intention of narrating it; but there are circumstances recorded by Bassompierre which are not to be found in the memoirs and correspondence of his contemporaries, and which afford a curious insight into the state of Henri IV’s mind just before his assassination:—

Before parting from the King, Bassompierre informed him that he had received a complaint from the captains of the Light Cavalry, of which he had recently been appointed Colonel, that their companies were insufficiently armed and that they were unable to obtain the weapons which they required, and begged his Majesty to give orders that these should be supplied to them. Henri IV told him to come to him that afternoon at the Arsenal, where he proposed to go to visit Sully, who was ill, and he would direct the Minister to let him have the arms he wanted. And, upon Bassompierre observing that he would very willingly give Sully at the same time the money which they were worth, to enable him to replace them, he laughingly replied by quoting two verses from a well-known song, which ran:

Bassompierre thanked his Majesty, kissed his hand and withdrew, little imagining that he was never to see him alive again.