Old Court Life in France, vol. 1

Gabrielle neither speaks nor moves, save that she shakes with sobs. Sully gazes at her with a cynical air as of a man who would not be deceived.

“You see, Rosny,” whispers the King into his ear, “that she does not govern me, much as I love her. You do me wrong to say so.” Sully shrugged his shoulders. “No, she shall not control you, who only live for my service. I must make her feel that I am displeased. Speak, Gabrielle,” he continues aloud, in a voice which he endeavours to make severe, “speak.” Receiving no answer he turns away with affected unconcern. Yet in spite of his words, he glances over his shoulder to watch her. Had Sully not been present, he would have flown to her on the spot and yielded. This Sully well knew; so he did not stir.

There is an awkward pause. Horrible suspicions rush into Gabrielle’s mind. That strange story of the ferryman and the taxes; Sully’s audacious language; the King’s coldness: it could only mean one thing, and as this conviction comes over her, her heart dies within her.

“Sire,” she answers at last, suppressing her sobs as she best could and approaching where Henry stood, affecting not to notice her, “I see that you have permitted the Duc de Sully to come here in order to insult me. You want to abandon me, Sire. Say so frankly; it is more worthy of you. But remember that I am not here by my own wish, save for the love I bear you.” As she utters these words her voice nearly failed her; but by a strong effort she continues, “No one can feel more forlorn than I do. Your Majesty has promised me marriage against the advice of your ministers. This scene is arranged between you to justify you in breaking your sacred word, else you could never allow the lady whom you design for so high an honour to be thus treated in your very presence.”

Henry, placed between Sully and Gabrielle, is both angry and embarrassed. Her bitter words have stung him to the quick. He knows that she has no cause to doubt his loyalty.

“Pardieu, madame, you have made me a fine speech. You talk all this nonsense to make me dismiss Rosny. If I must choose between you, let me tell you, Duchesse, I can part with you better than with him.” Gabrielle turns very pale, and clings to a chair for support. “Come, Rosny, we will have a ride in the forest, and leave the Duchesse to recover her usually sweet temper”; and without one look at her, Henry strode towards the door.

These bitter words are more than his gentle mistress can bear. With a wild scream she rushes forward, and falls flat upon the floor at the King’s feet. Henry, greatly moved, gathers her up tenderly in his arms. Even the stern Sully relents. He looks at her sorrowfully, shakes his head, collects his papers, and departs.

The Holy-week is at hand. Gabrielle, who is to be crowned within a month, is to communicate and keep her Easter publicly at Paris, while the King remains at Fontainebleau. An unaccountable terror of Paris and a longing desire not to leave the King overwhelm her. Again and again she alters the hour of her departure. She takes Henry’s hand and wanders with him to the Orangery, to the lake where the carp are fed, to the fountain garden, and to the Salle de Diane, which he is building. She cannot tear herself from him. She speaks much to him of their children, and commends them again and again to his love. She adjures him not to forget her during her absence.

“Why! ma belle des belles!” exclaims the King, “one would think you were going round the world; remember, in ten days I shall join you in Paris, and then my Gabrielle shall return to Fontainebleau as Queen of France. I have ordered that bon diable Zametti, to receive you at Paris as though you were already crowned.”

Now Zametti was an Italian Jew from Genoa, who had originally come to France in the household of Catherine de’ Medici, as her shoemaker. He had served her and all her sons in that capacity, until Henry III., amused by his jests, and perceiving him to be a man of no mean talents, gave him a place in the Customs. Zametti’s fortune was made, and he became henceforth usurer and money-lender in chief to the reigning monarch.

“I love not Zametti,” replies Gabrielle, shuddering. “I wish I were going to my aunt, Madame de Sourdis, she always gives me good advice. Cannot your Majesty arrange that it should be so still?”

“It is too late, sweetheart. I do not like Madame de Sourdis; she is not a fitting companion for my Gabrielle. Zametti has, by my orders, already prepared his house for your reception, and certain parures for your approval; besides, what objection can you have to Zametti, the most courteous and amusing of men?”

“Alas! Henry, I cannot tell; but I dread him. I would I were back again. I feel as though I were entering a tomb. I am haunted by the most dismal fancies.”

She drives through the forest accompanied by the King, who rides beside her litter, attended by the Ducs de Retz, Roquelaure, Montbazon, and the Maréchal d’Ornano, to Mélun, where a royal barge awaits her, attended by a flotilla of boats decorated with flags and streamers in the Venetian style. Here they take a tender farewell; again and again Gabrielle throws herself upon the King’s neck and whispers through her tears that they will never meet again. Henry laughs, but, seeing her agitation, would have accompanied her and have braved the religious prejudices of the Parisians, had it not been for the entreaties of D’Ornano. Almost by force is he restrained. Gabrielle embarks; he stands watching her as the barge is towed rapidly through the stream; one more longing, lingering look she casts upon him, then disappears from his sight. Downcast and sorrowful the King rides back to Fontainebleau.

All night long Gabrielle is towed up the river. She arrives at Paris in the morning. Zametti, the Italian usurer and jeweller, with a numerous suite of nobles and attendants, is waiting on the quay to receive her. She is carried to Zametti’s house, or rather palace, for it was a princely abode, near the Arsenal, in the new quarter of Paris then called the Marais.

Here unusual luxuries await her, such as were common only in Italy and among Italian princes: magnificent furniture, embroidered stuffs, delicious perfumes, rich dishes. She rests through the day (the evening having been passed in the company of the Duchesse de Guise and her daughter), and the first night she sleeps well. Next day she rises early and goes to church. Before she leaves the house, Zametti presents her with a highly decorated filigree bottle, containing a strong perfume.

Before the service is over she faints. She is carried back and placed, by her own desire, in Zametti’s garden, under a tuft of trees. She calls for refreshments. Again in the garden she sinks back insensible. This time it is very difficult to revive her. When she recovers, she is undressed and orders a litter to be instantly prepared to bear her to her aunt’s house, which is situated near Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, close to the Louvre.

In the meantime her head aches violently, but she is carried to her aunt’s, where she is put to bed. Here she lies with her sweet eyes wide open and turned upward, her beautiful face livid, and her mouth distorted. In her anguish she calls incessantly for the King. He cannot come, for it is Holy-week, which he must pass out of her company. She tries to write to him, to tell him of her condition. The pen drops from her hand. A letter from him is given her; she cannot read it. Convulsions come on, and she expires insensible.

That she died poisoned is certain. Poisoned either by the subtle perfume in the filigree bottle, or by some highly flavoured dish of Zametti’s Italian cuisine.

CHAPTER XXVI.

BIRON’S TREASON

THE scene is again at Fontainebleau. Henry’s brow is knit. He is gloomy and sad. With slow steps he quits the palace by the Golden Gate, passes through the parterre garden under the shadow of the lime berceau which borders the long façade of the palace, and reaches a pavilion under a grove of trees overlooking the park and the canal. This pavilion is the house he has built for Sully. The statesman is seated writing in an upper chamber overlooking the avenues leading to the forest.

The King enters unannounced; he throws his arms round Sully, then sinks into a chair. Sully looks at him unmoved. He is accustomed to outbreaks of passion and remorse caused by the King’s love affairs, and he mentally ascribes his master’s present trouble to this cause. “Sully,” says Henry, speaking at last, “I am betrayed, betrayed by my dearest friend. Ventre de ma vie! Maréchal Biron has conspired against me, with Spain.”

“How, Sire?” cries Sully, bounding from his chair; “have you proofs?”

“Ay, Sully, only too complete; his agent and secretary Lafin has confessed everything. Lafin is now at Fontainebleau. I have long doubted the good faith of Biron, but I must now bring myself to hold him as a traitor.”

“If your Majesty has sufficient proofs,” said Sully, re-seating himself, “have him at once arrested. Allow him no time to communicate with your enemies.”

“No, Sully, no; I cannot do that: I must give my old friend a chance. Of his treason, there is, however, no question. He has intrigued for years with the Duke of Savoy and with Spain, giving out as his excuse that the Catholic faith is endangered by my heresy, and that I am a Calvinist. He has entered into a treasonable alliance with Bouillon and D’Auvergne; and worse, oh, far worse than all, during the campaign in Switzerland he commanded the battery of St. Catherine’s Fort to be pointed against me. – God knows how I was saved.”

“Monstrous!” cries Sully, casting up his hands. “And your Majesty dallies with such a miscreant?”

“Yes, I can make excuses for him. He has been irritated against me by the base insinuations of the Duke of Savoy. Biron is vain, hot-tempered, and credulous. I know every detail. He shall come here to Fontainebleau: I have summoned him. The sight of his old master will melt his heart. He will confide in me; he will confess, and I shall pardon him.”

“I trust it may be as your Majesty wishes,” answers Sully; “but you are playing a dangerous game, Sire. God help you safe out of it.”

Biron, ignorant of the treachery of Lafin, arrives at Fontainebleau. He reckons on the King’s ignorance and their old friendship, and trusts to a confident bearing and a bold denial of all charges. They meet – the Maréchal and the King – in the great parterre, where, it being the month of June, sweetly scented herbs and gay flowers fill the diamonded beds – under the lime berceau surrounding the garden. Biron, perfectly composed, makes three low obeisances to the King, then kisses his hand. Henry salutes him. His eyes are moist as he looks at him. “You have done well to confide in me,” he says; “I am very glad to see you, Biron,” and he passes his arm round the Maréchal’s neck, and draws him off to describe to him the many architectural plans he has formed for the embellishment of the château, and to show him the great “gallery of Diana” which is in course of decoration. He hopes that Biron will understand his feelings, and that kindness will tempt him to confess his crime. Biron, however, is convinced that if he braves the matter out, he will escape; he ascribes Henry’s clemency to an infatuated attachment to himself. He wears an unruffled brow, is cautious and plausible though somewhat silent, carefully avoids all topics which might lead to discussion of any matters touching his conduct, and pointedly disregards the hints thrown out from time to time by the King. Henry is miserable; he feels he must arrest the Maréchal. Sully urges him to lose no time. Still his generous heart longs to save his old friend and companion in arms.

Towards evening the Court is assembled in the great saloon. The King is playing a game of primero. Biron enters. He invites him to join; Biron accepts, and takes up the cards with apparent unconcern. The King watches him; is silent and absent, and makes many mistakes in the game. The clock strikes eleven, Henry rises, and taking Biron by the arm, leads him into a small retiring-room or cabinet at the bottom of the throne-room, now forming part of that large apartment. The King closes the door carefully. His countenance is darkened by excitement and anxiety. His manner is so constrained and unnatural that Biron begins to question himself as to his safety; still he sees no other resource but to brave his treason out. “My old companion,” says the King, in an unsteady voice, standing in the centre of the room, “you and I are countrymen; we have known each other from boyhood. We were playfellows. I was then the poor Prince de Béarn, and you, Biron, a cadet of Gontaut. Our fortunes have changed since then. I am a great king, and you are a Duke and Maréchal of France.” Biron bows; his confident bearing does not fail him.

“Now, Biron,” and Henry’s good-natured face grows stern – “I have called you here to say, that if you do not instantly confess the truth (and all the truth, instantly, mind), you will repent it bitterly. I was in hopes you would have done so voluntarily, but you have not. – Now I can wait no longer.”

“Sire, I have not failed in my duty,” replies Biron haughtily; “I have nothing to confess; you do me injustice.”

“Alas, my old friend, this denial does not avail you. I know all!” – and Henry sighs and fixes his eyes steadfastly upon him. “I conjure you to make a voluntary confession. Spare me the pain of your public trial. I have kept the matter purposely secret. I will not disgrace you, if possible.”

“Sire,” answers Biron, with a well-simulated air of offended dignity. “I have already said I have nothing to confess. I can only beseech your Majesty to confront me with my accusers.”

“That cannot be done without public disgrace – without danger to your life, Maréchal. Come, Biron,” he adds, in a softer tone, and turning his eyes upon him where he stands before him, dogged and obstinate; “come, my old friend, believe me, every detail is known to me; your life is in my hand.”

“Sire, you will never have any other answer from me. Where are my accusers?”

“Avow all, Biron, fearlessly,” continues Henry, in the same tone, as if not hearing him. “Open your heart to me; – I can make allowances for you, perchance many allowances. You have been told lies, you have been sorely tempted. Open your heart, – I will screen you.”

“Sire, my heart is true. Remember it was I who first proclaimed you king, when you had not a dozen followers at Saint-Cloud,” Biron speaks with firmness, but avoids the piercing glance of the King; “I shall be happy to answer any questions, but I have nothing to confess.”

“Ventre Saint Gris!” cries Henry, reddening, “are you mad? Confess at once – make haste about it. If you do not, I swear by the crown I wear to convict you publicly as a felon and a traitor. But I would save you, Maréchal,” adds Henry in an altered voice, laying his hand upon his arm, “God knows I would save you, if you will let me. Pardieu! I will forgive you all!” he exclaims, in an outburst of generous feeling.

“Sire, I can only reply – confront me with my accusers. I am your Majesty’s oldest friend. I have no desire but the service of your Majesty.”

“Would to God it were so!” exclaims the King, turning upon Biron a look of inexpressible compassion. Then moving towards the door he opens it, and looks back at Biron, who still stands where he has left him, with his arms crossed, in the centre of the room. “Adieu, Baron de Biron!” – and the King emphasises the word “Baron,” his original title before he had received titles and honours – “adieu! I would have saved you had you let me – your blood be on your own head.” The door closed – Henry was gone.

Biron gave a deep sigh of relief, passed his hand over his brow, which was moist with perspiration, and prepared to follow.

As he was passing the threshold, Vitry, the Captain of the Guard, seized him by the shoulder, and wrenched his sword from its scabbard. “I arrest you, Duc de Biron!”

Biron staggered, and looked up with astonishment. “This must be some jest, Vitry!”

“No jest, monseigneur. In the King’s name, you are my prisoner.”

“As a peer of France, I claim my right to speak with his Majesty!” cried Biron, loudly. “Lead me to the King!”

“No, Duke; the King is gone – his Majesty refuses to see you again.”

Once in the hands of justice, Biron vainly solicited the pardon which Henry would gladly have granted. He was arraigned before the parliament, convicted of treason, and beheaded at the Bastille privately, the only favour he could obtain from the master he had betrayed.

…

The pleasant days are now long past when Henry wandered, disguised as a Spaniard or a peasant, together with Bellegarde and Chicot, in search of adventures – when he braved the enemy to meet Gabrielle, and escaped the ambuscades of the League by a miracle. He lives principally at the Louvre, and is always surrounded by a brilliant Court. He has grown clumsy and round-shouldered, and shows much of the Gascon swagger in his gait. He is coarse-featured and red-faced; his hair is white; his nose seems longer – in a word, he is uglier than ever. His manners are rougher, and he is still more free of tongue. There is a senile leer in his eyes, peering from under the tuft of feathers that rests on the brim of his felt hat, as cane in hand, he passes from group to group of deeply curtseying beauties in the galleries of the Louvre. He has neither the chivalric bearing of Francis I., nor the refined elegance of the Valois Princes. Beginning with his first wife, “la reine Margot,” the most fascinating, witty, and depraved princess of her day, his experience of the sex has been various. The only woman who really loved him was poor Gabrielle, and to her alone he had been tolerably constant. Her influence over him was gentle and humane, and, although she sought to legalise their attachment by marriage, she was singularly free from pride or personal ambition.

Now she is dead. He has wedded a new wife, Marie de’ Medici, whose ample charms and imperious ways are little to his taste. “We have married you,

Sire,” said Sully to him, entering his room one day, bearing the marriage contract in his hand, “you have only to affix your signature.” “Well, well,” Henry had replied, “so be it. If the good of France demands it, I will marry.” Nevertheless, he had bitten his nails furiously and stamped up and down the room for some hours, like a man possessed. Ever reckless of consequences, he consoles himself by plunging deeper than ever into a series of intrigues which compromise his dignity and create endless difficulties and dangers.

What complicated matters was his readiness to promise marriage. He would have had more wives than our Henry VIII. could he have made good all his engagements. Gabrielle would have been his queen in a few weeks had not the subtle poison of Zametti, the Italian usurer, cleared her from the path of the Florentine bride. Even in the short interval between her death and the landing of Marie de’ Medici at Marseilles, he had yielded to the wiles of Henriette de Balsac d’Entragues, half-sister to the Comte d’Auvergne, son of Charles IX., and had given her a formal promise of marriage.

Henriette cared only for the sovereign, not for the man, who was old enough to be her father. In the glory of youth and insolence of beauty, stealthy, clever, and remorseless, a finished coquette and a reckless intrigante, she allured him into signing a formal contract of marriage, affianced though he was to a powerful princess proposed by the reigning Pontiff, whose good-will it was important to the King, always a cold Catholic, to secure.

The new favourite claimed to be of royal blood through her mother, Marie Touchet, and, therefore, a fitting consort for the King. She showed her “marriage lines” to every one – did not hesitate to assert that she, not Marie de’ Medici, was the lawful wife; that the King would shortly acknowledge her as such, and send the Queen back whence she came, together with the hated Concini, her chamber-women and secretary, along with all the jesters and mountebanks who had come with her from Italy. Endless complications ensued with the new Queen. Quarrels, recriminations, and reproaches ran so high that Marie on one occasion struck the King in the face. Henry was disgusted with her ill-temper, but was too generous either to coerce or to control her. Her Italian confidants, Concini and his wife, however, made capital of these dissensions to incense Marie violently against her husband, and at the same time to gain influence over herself. Henry was watched, – no very difficult undertaking, as he had assigned a magnificent suite of rooms in the Louvre to his new mistress, between whose apartments and those of the wife there was but a single corridor.

Henrietta meanwhile lived with all the pomp of a sovereign; there were feasts at Zametti’s, balls, and jousts, and hunting-parties at Saint-Germain and Fontainebleau. Foreign ambassadors and ministers scoured the country after the King; so engaged was he in pleasure and junketing.

CHAPTER XXVII.

A COURT MARRIAGE

THE great gallery of the Louvre is just completed. It is on the first floor, and approached through a circular hall with a fine mosaic floor; it has painted walls and a vaulted ceiling. The gallery is lighted by twelve lofty windows looking towards the quays and the river, which glitters without in the morning sun. Every inch of this sumptuous apartment is painted and laden with gilding; the glittering ceiling rests upon a cornice, where Henry’s initials are blended with those of the dead Gabrielle. A crowd of lords-in-waiting and courtiers walk up and down, loll upon settees, or gather in groups within the deep embrasures of the windows, to discuss in low tones the many scandals of the day, as they await his Majesty’s lover. Presently Maréchal Bassompierre enters. Bassompierre, the friend and confidant of Henry, as great a libertine as his master, who has left behind him a minute chronicle of his life, is a tall, burly man; his face is bronzed by the long campaigns against the League, and his bearing as he moves up and down, his sword clanging upon the polished floor, has more of the swagger of the camp than the refinement of the Court. He wears the uniform of the Musketeers who guard the person of the King, and on his broad breast is the ribbon of the Order of the “Saint-Esprit.” He is joined by the Duc de Roquelaure. Now Roquelaure is an effeminate-looking man, a gossip and a dandy, the retailer of the latest scandal, the block upon which the newest fashions are tried. He wears a doublet of rose-coloured Florence satin quilted with silk, stiff with embroidery and sown with seed-pearls. The sleeves are slashed with cloth of silver; a golden chain, with a huge medallion set in diamonds, hangs round his neck. Placed jauntily over his ear is a velvet cap with a jewelled clasp and white ostrich plume. Broad golden lace borders his hose, and high-heeled Cordovan boots – for he desires to appear tall – of amber leather, with huge golden spurs, complete his attire. Being a man of low stature – a pigmy beside the Marshal – as the sun streams upon him from the broad window-panes, he looks like a gaudy human butterfly.

“Well, Bassompierre,” says the Duke eagerly, standing on the points of his toes, “is it true that your marriage with the incomparable Charlotte de Montmorenci is broken off?”

Bassompierre bows his head in silence, and a sorrowful look passes over his jovial face.

“Pardieu! Marshal, for a rejected lover you seem well and hearty. Are you going to break your heart, or the Prince of Condé’s head – eh, Marshal?”

A malicious twinkle gathers in Roquelaure’s eye, for there is a certain satisfaction to a man of his inches in seeing a giant like Bassompierre unsuccessful.

“Neither, Duke,” replies Bassompierre drily. “I shall in this matter, as in all others, submit myself to his Majesty’s pleasure.”

“Mighty well spoken, Marshal; you are a perfect model of our court virtue. But how can a worshipper of ‘the great Alexander,’ at the court of ‘Lutetia,’ in the very presence of the divine Millegarde, the superb Dorinda, and all the attendant knights and ladies, tolerate the affront, the dishonour of a public rejection?” And Roquelaure takes out an enamelled snuff-box, taps it, and with a pinch of scented snuff between fingers covered with rings awaits a reply. “Not but that any gentleman,” continues he, receiving no answer, “who marries the fair Montmorenci will have perforce to submit to his Majesty’s pleasure – eh, Marshal, you understand?” and Roquelaure takes his pinch of snuff and dusts his perfumed beard.