H. Noel Williams

“ I pray God that the contrary may be the case; but, however that may be, you are at present the fable and the malediction of France, and, as I believe, of all the world, even to the barbarians, if they hear of it. But can it really be possible that you have deprived of life a prince who has so much honoured and loved you? If it is, you have no worse enemy than yourself, and have consented to the damnation of your soul. Time, which is the father of truth, will speedily enlighten us on the matter of your conduct, which, I trust, is altogether contrary to the belief which everywhere prevails. ”

“ Louis Henri de Bourbon-Condé, in fact, was neither the odious nor the incapable person whom certain historians have depicted. His courage was indisputable; if he was rapacious, he was also generous and open-handed; if he was a bad enemy, he was also a faithful friend; he possessed cultured tastes, and beneath his love of pleasure and his apparent indifference to public affairs he concealed qualities which only required to be stimulated into activity to make of him, if not a statesman, at least a formidable party-leader. ”

“ The devoted woman, although suffering herself, lost not a moment in hastening to her faithless husband’s side, and in lavishing upon him the tenderest care. Thanks in a great measure to her solicitude, the prince’s health was soon re-established—for his illness would appear to have been much less grave than was at first supposed—and she was able to return to her children. But the hurried journey to Troyes, and the anxiety she had suffered on her husband’s account, had exhausted her slender reserve of strength, and scarcely had she reached Condé-en-Brie, than she was taken dangerously ill. ”

“ Isabelle de Boutteville, who, under the name of the Duchesse de Châtillon, was to achieve celebrity as the most finished coquette of her time, was an imperious young beauty, who already appreciated to the full the power of her own attractions. Insatiable for admiration, she disdained no conquests, encouraging and rebuffing by turns the troop of adorers who gathered about her, and rehearsing thus early with the Duc d’Enghien and the younger of the two boys who were to bear the title of Duc de Nemours the part she was one day to play with them on another stage. ”

“ Isabelle de Limeuil had served Catherine well.
A few days later, Condé having courteously desired Middlemore, who continued to stick to him like a burr, “to retire himself,” joined the army before Le Havre, where operations had already begun. The garrison had promised Elizabeth that “the Lord Warwick and all his people would spend the last drop of their blood before the French should fasten a foot in the town”; but, unhappily, they had an enemy to contend with within the walls infinitely more formidable than the one without—an enemy whom no skill could outwit and no courage repel. ”

“ Condé, to preserve all her power over him—a woman who knew better than any other how to govern that emotional and fickle heart, by associating the most incredible expressions of tenderness with the most exaggerated flatteries. If Isabelle and her prince were brought together again, if matters could be so arranged that the latter should be compelled to offer his mistress the shelter of one of his own residences, was it not probable that, in the joy of this reunion, the question of his second marriage would be relegated, for a time at least, to the background? ”

“ The “elevation” of a petite bourgeoise, daughter of a fraudulent financier and of a woman universally despised, to be the favourite of a prince who stood so near the throne and might even one day ascend it, had not taken place without exciting the most rancorous jealousy and hatred. Chansons, venomous satires, slanders, calumnies, rained upon her, until, if she had been a more sensitive woman, she might well have been driven to the verge of despair. ”

“ For a while, Madame de Prie gave herself up to the enjoyment of all the luxury and splendour with which her princely lover hastened to surround her with the zest which only a pretty young woman can feel who, after once being in a position to indulge all her caprices, has for several years been compelled to deny herself even the necessaries—or what the feminine mind considers the necessaries—of existence. ”

“ Taken to Versailles by the Duchesse de Ventadour, to be presented to Louis XIV., she astonished all the Court by her dazzling beauty and her precocious airs of a woman of the world; and even those who had been inclined to condemn M. de Prie for having contracted a mésalliance were obliged to admit that he had married a wife of whom any man might be proud. Almost immediately after his marriage, the marquis was nominated Ambassador to the King of Sardinia, and set out for Turin, whither, after a short interval, his wife followed him. ”

“ Somewhat piqued at the abruptness of his dismissal, he takes his departure, without the faintest suspicion that the most accomplished actress of the sixteenth century has been playing one of her many parts. Passing through the ante-chamber, he perceives, apparently awaiting her royal mistress’s summons, a demure damsel of disturbing beauty—it is always the freshest and most innocent-looking of the squadron who is detailed for this kind of service—who modestly lowers her eyes as they meet his, but not before he has had time to remark that they are in keeping with her other perfections. ”

“ No sooner did that energetic lady hear of the crime that had been committed and of the rumours that were in circulation concerning La Jonchère and Le Blanc, than she resolved to employ every means in her power to get to the bottom of the affair. Fortune favoured her quest, in bringing her allies, wealthy, enterprising, and capable, and as determined to compass the ruin of the Minister for War as she was herself.
Quite apart from the Condé faction, Le Blanc possessed many enemies. ”

“ On the day of Jarnac, the young prince and his cousin, Henri of Navarre, had been with the Protestant army. But they had not been permitted to take any part in the engagement, and had been ordered to retire to Saintes, where they were joined by Jeanne d’Albret, who at the first news of the defeat had left La Rochelle. Taking the two lads with her, the indomitable Queen of Navarre hastened to the Huguenot camp at Tonnay-Charente, and, in an eloquent speech, presented them to the troops, and made each of them swear “on his honour, soul, and life” never to abandon the cause. ”

“ I am not only in love, but distracted about Mlle. de Montmorency. If you marry her and she loves you, I shall hate you. If she loves me, you will hate me. It were better that the marriage were broken off, lest it should mar the good understanding between us, and destroy the affection I entertain for you. I have decided to marry her to my nephew, the Prince de Condé, and to keep her near the person of my wife. She will be the solace and support of the old age upon which I am about to enter. ”

“ Never had the internal condition of France been more critical, never had she stood more in need of a strong and wise government, than at the moment when the imaginary majority of François II. was succeeded by the real minority of Charles IX. The danger which threatened her was no longer, as in the time of the last Sovereign of that name, a struggle between individual ambitions; private ambitions had now identified themselves with the living forces of the nation ”

“ Condé could not be indifferent to the devotion of such a woman, and there can be no doubt that, for a long time, he reciprocated her affection and that he always entertained for her a sincere regard. Nevertheless, his marriage did little to subdue his taste for gallantry, and his attentions to the light beauties of the Court must often have caused her the keenest pain. “The good prince,” observes Brantôme, “was as worldly as his neighbour and loved other people’s wives as much as his own, partaking largely of the nature of the Bourbons, who have always been of a very amorous complexion.” ”

“ And the luckless Enghien found that he had escaped from the paternal control only to fall under the tyranny of Richelieu, who reorganized his Household, which he filled with persons devoted to his own interests, fixed the number of days which he was to spend in any one place, and regulated everything which concerned him down to the smallest details. No wonder that the young duke was glad when the time arrived for him to rejoin the army of Picardy, with which he took part in the sieges of Aire, La Bassée, and Bapaume! ”

“ He accepted them all with alacrity; nevertheless, the star of la belle Châteauneuf paled before that of the Princesse de Condé and she suffered the fate which had befallen Isabelle de Limeuil. She was not called upon to restore the presents which Anjou had made her—she had given far more than she had ever received—but, on the other hand, she had the mortification of seeing those which she had made the prince decorating the person of her triumphant rival. ”

“ It was in this splendid residence which she had not entered since the death of her mother-in-law, ten years before, that a fresh and final disillusion awaited the long-suffering wife of the Great Condé. On her return from exile, Claire-Clémence might well have believed that a new life was about to begin for [237] her—a life in which she would be restored both to her place in Society and in her husband’s house, and receive abundant compensation for all the hardships and humiliations which she had experienced. ”

“ Every evening there was dancing under the ramparts, and the Princesse de Condé held a court in a brilliantly-illuminated gallery. The festivities, indeed, were continuous, notwithstanding that skirmishes, often very sanguinary, took place almost daily.
However, the assistance promised by Spain did not arrive; the better-class citizens soon grew tired of a struggle into which they had been forced against their better judgment; while the bellicose ardour of the populace was cooled by the scarcity of provisions. ”

“ If in beauty and intelligence Madame de Pléneuf left little to be desired, the same, unfortunately, could not be said for her reputation. The prolonged absences of her husband with the army provided her with abundant opportunities for receiving the homage of her numerous admirers, and she took advantage of them so freely that she earned for herself the name of the Messalina of her time. To no lady in Paris did gossip ascribe so many lovers, and, in most cases, it is to be feared, with only too much justification. There was a Lorraine prince, the Prince Charles d’Armagnac ”

“ Isabelle, as we have mentioned elsewhere, possessed a biting wit, which she was accustomed to exercise freely at the expense of those who were so unfortunate as to displease her, not sparing even the most exalted personages. The sharpness of her tongue, indeed, made her as many enemies as the charms of her person gained her admirers, and often those who approached her with words of devotion on their lips were so cruelly rebuffed that they retired with vengeance in their hearts. ”

“ A few hours later, he receives a courteous note from Catherine, greatly regretting the inconvenience to which he is being subjected and inviting him to a ball which she is giving the following evening. “The Religion” looks with scant favour on such worldly pleasures, but he tells himself that it would be churlish, perhaps impolitic, to refuse. Naturally, he meets Mademoiselle, arrayed in a ravishing toilette—very probably a present from the Queen—and looking more alluring than ever. He requests to be presented to her; they dance together, and he finds her as charming as she is beautiful. ”

“ Princess Elizabeth was reported to be a true child of her mother, and would be certain to acquire a great influence over the young King, which would, of course, be directed by Catherine. But let the prince resign his own pretensions to the hand of Marie Leczinska in favour of his Sovereign, and not only would he escape a marriage which only a sense of the duty he owed his family was impelling him to contract, but he would secure a Queen who would owe everything to him, who had no support either in France or abroad, and whose character promised obedience and docility. ”

“ The Duc de Bourbon, however, though he was not without ability, was incurably indolent, and, despite all the efforts of his teachers and the reprimands of Monsieur le Prince, his progress both at the Collège de Clermont and at Louis-le-Grand, to which he was transferred when he was fourteen, was most disappointing. It was evident that Condé had not taken into sufficient consideration the great difference in temperament between himself and his grandson, and that a system which had produced such splendid results in his own case was quite unsuited to this idle, pleasure-loving lad. ”

“ The Cardinal, already irritated by the coldness with which Enghien had from the first treated his child-wife, in spite of the affection which she lavished upon him, was much displeased on learning of this entertainment, for, in his opinion, no society was more calculated to wean his nephew from the domestic hearth than that of these charming young ladies. He had another, and more serious cause for resentment against the young prince, in the fate which had befallen one Maigrin, a creature of his own, whom Condé, at his suggestion, had appointed comptroller of his son’s Household. ”