Charles de Mayenne

“ Immediately afterwards, Mayenne struck camp and marched away, leaving Henry master of the situation. The king of Navarre had scored a master-point in the contest for the throne of France.
During the ensuing year the cause of the king rapidly advanced. More and more of France acknowledged him as the legitimate heir to the throne. A year after the affair at Dieppe he marched suddenly and rapidly on Paris, and would have taken it had not Mayenne succeeded in throwing his army into the city when it was half captured. ”

“ Mayenne's thronging horsemen wavered and broke before this impetuous rush. Into the heart of the opposing army rode Henry and his ardent followers, cutting, slashing, shouting in victorious enthusiasm. In a few minutes the forward movement of Mayenne's cavalry was checked. His troops halted, wavered, broke, and fled, hotly pursued by their foes. The battle was won. That rush of the white plume had carried all before it, and swept the serried ranks of the Leaguers to the winds. Let us quote the poetic rendition of this scene from Macaulay's ode.
"Hurrah! the foes are moving! ”

“ The Duchess of Nemours, who desired peace, exerted herself to convince her son of all their danger. “Set your affairs in order,” she said;—“if you do not begin to make your arrangements with the king before leaving Paris, you will lose this capital. I know that projects are already afoot for giving it up, and that those who can do it, and in whom you have most confidence, are accomplices and even authors of the plot.” Mayenne himself did not hide from his confidants the gravity of the mischief and his own disquietude. ”

“ Regularly as the deputies arrived, Mayenne went to each of them, saying privately, “Gentlemen, you see what the question is; it is the very chiefest of all matters (res maxima rerum agitur) . I beg you to give your best attention to it, and to so act that the adversaries steal no march on us and get no advantage over us. Nevertheless, I mean to abide by what I have promised them.” Mayenne was quite right: it was certainly the chiefest of all matters. The head of the Protestants of France, the ally of all the Protestants in Europe—should he become a Catholic and King of France? ”

“ M. de Mayenne put one knee on the ground, embraced the king’s thigh, and assured him that he was his very humble servant and subject, saying that he considered himself greatly bounden to him, as well for having with so much, of gentleness, kindness, and special largesses restored him to his duty, as for having delivered him from Spanish arrogance and Italian crafts and wiles. Then the king, having raised him up and embraced him once more, told him that he had no doubt at all of his honor and word, for a man of worth and of good courage held nothing so dear as the observance thereof. ”

“ In 1593 he summoned the States General to Paris and placed before them the claims of the Infanta, but they protested against foreign intervention. Mayenne signed a truce at La Villette on the 31st of July 1593. The internal dissensions of the league continued to increase, and the principal chiefs submitted. Mayenne finally made his peace only in October 1595. Henry IV. allowed him the possession of Chalon-sur-Saône, of Seurre and Soissons for three years, made him governor of the Isle of France and paid a large indemnity. Mayenne died at Soissons on the 3rd of October 1611. ”

“ Mayenne, who lay beneath the double yoke of his party’s passions and his own ambitious projects, rejected the king’s overtures, or allowed them to fall through; and on the 21st of October, 1589, Henry, setting out with his army from Dieppe, moved rapidly on Paris, in order to effect a strategic surprise, whilst Mayenne was rejecting at Amiens his pacific inclinations. The king gained three marches on the Leaguers, and carried by assault the five faubourgs situated on the left bank of the Seine. ”

“ MAYENNE, a town of north-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Mayenne, 19 m. N.N.E. of Laval by rail. Pop., town 7003, commune 10,020. Mayenne is an old feudal town, irregularly built on hills on both sides of the river Mayenne. Of the old castle overlooking the river several towers remain, one of which has retained its conical roof; the vaulted chambers and chapel are ornamented in the style of the 13th century; the building is now used as a prison. The church of Notre-Dame, beside which there is a statue of Joan of Arc, dates partly from the 12th century ”

“ Everybody is pursuing his private ends. Mayenne has never abandoned his own wish to be king, although he sees the difficulties in the way; and while he has not the power to do us as much good as is thought, it is certainly in his hands to do us a great deal of injury."
When his army was rapidly diminishing by disease, desertion, mutiny, and death, he vehemently and perpetually denounced the utter inadequacy of the king's means to his vast projects. ”

“ Yet it is certain that the most healthy moral, in military affairs, to be derived from the event, is that the importance of a victory depends less upon itself than on the use to be made of it. Mayenne fled to Mantes, the Duke of Nemours to Chartres, other leaders of the League in various directions, Mayenne told every body he met that the Bearnese was killed, and that although his own army was defeated, he should soon have another one on foot. The same intelligence was communicated to the Duke of Parma, and by him to Philip. ”

“ THE LAST OF THE VALOIS. WE are at Saint-Cloud. The time, the wars of the League. At the head of the Leaguers is the Duc de Mayenne, only living brother of the Guises. Henry III. commands the royal forces. With him is Henry of Navarre. Since the Queen-mother’s death the King of France has become reconciled to his brother-in-law. He shows himself almost a hero. They are both defending the Crown to which Mayenne aspires. Eight months have passed since the murder of the Balafré. That treacherous deed has done the King no good ”

“ Not Grammont's brutality, not Lucas's venom, not Mlle. de Tavanne's rampant suspicion, had ever frightened me so horribly as did Mayenne's amiable composure. He made me feel as I had felt when I entered the tunnel, helpless in the dark, unable to cope with dangers I could not see. Mayenne was a well, the light shining down its sides a way, and far below the still surface of the water. You hang over the edge and peer till your eyes drop out; you can as easily look through iron as discern how deep the water is. I seemed to see clearly that Mayenne suspected us not in the least. ”

“ He was declared lieutenant-general of the crown and state of France. He organized a council-general of the League, composed of forty members and charged with the duty of providing for all matters of war, the finance and the police of the realm, pending a fresh convocation of states-general. To counterbalance in some degree the popular element, Mayenne introduced into it fourteen personages of his own choice and a certain number of magistrates and bishops; the delegates of the united towns were to have seats at the council whenever they happened to be at Paris. ”

“ The satisfaction which he derived from the event was so unconcealed, and his surprise at hearing the intelligence so unaffected and natural, that although those were days of suspicion, no one ventured to suspect, for a moment, that Mayenne had any previous knowledge of the intrigues which ended in the death of Henry III.
"Good faith! my lord," replied Aumale, "I can tell you no more than I have already told. The friends of Malivaut let out the secret, that the king had been stabbed by a Jacobin friar, and died of his wounds ”

“ It is impossible, but it is true. He is a Lorraine—Mayenne's nephew, and for years Mayenne's spy. He came to you to kill you—for that object pure and simple. Last spring, before he came to you, he was here in Paris with Mayenne, making terms for your murder. He is no Huguenot, no Kingsman. He is Mayenne's henchman, son to Guise himself. ”

“ As long as she is suffered to make a point of vanity of her refusal, she will persist, even contrary to her own wishes; but once let her be my wife, and I will make her contented and happy, I will be answerable for it."
Mayenne shook his head, observing dryly, "Her reluctance did not seem to me much shaken when I spoke with her yesterday, Monsieur d'Aubin; but still I do not see how this question is affected by Henry's march upon Maine." ”

“ Mayenne must fall back on Picardy; the king will march on Paris; and Maine will offer a safer asylum than even this which we possess at present."
The political anticipations of Beatrice of Ferrara were not far wrong: scarcely had the day of Arques been won, when the English succour disembarked at Dieppe. Henry effected his junction with the Duke of Longueville and the Count of Soisson, the former of whom had been detached to levy troops; and then resuming the offensive, he marched in search of Mayenne, and attempted to provoke him to another battle. ”

“ The surface is agreeably undulating; forests are numerous, and the beauty of the cultivated portions is enhanced by the hedgerows and lines of trees by which the farms are divided. The highest point of the department, and indeed of the whole north-west of France, is the Mont des Avaloirs (1368 ft.) . Hydrographically Mayenne belongs to the basins of the Loire, the Vilaine and the Sélune, the first mentioned draining by far the larger part of the entire area. The principal stream is the Mayenne, which passes successively from north to south through Mayenne, Laval and Château-Gontier ”

“ For this purpose, my lord, let me beseech you to furnish me with a billet to her, under your own hand, telling her what we have determined, couched in what courteous terms you will, but sufficiently explicit to let her know that there is no chance of evasion."
"Perhaps you are right," said Mayenne, "perhaps you are right; but nevertheless, D'Aubin, try all gentle means. You are not one, as far as ever I have heard, to fail in persuasion, when you choose to use your eloquence against a woman's heart." ”

“ Mayenne looked towards the Count d'Aubin, who said, in a low and hurried tone, "Never mind the contract, my Lord! let us get over the ceremony in the chapel. That will be sufficient. Marriage is a sacrament, you know, and that once past, it cannot be shaken off."
Mayenne paused for a moment, as if scarcely able to master the reluctance which struggled in his bosom against the fulfilment of his promise to the Count d'Aubin. "Where is Father Herbert?" he asked at last; "Catherine, did you not bring him with you?" ”

“ Mayenne gave her some mild but evasive reply; and turning with a smile towards St. Real, as they walked on, he said, "You see the post I occupy is not without its cares, and those cares so nicely balanced as to be all equally weighty; for you may judge, by that old woman, that, if the greater cares are more oppressive, the lighter are the more importunate."
All these interruptions of their onward progress had occupied no small time; so that the western sky began to look rosy with the summer sunset ere they reached the Hotel de Guise. "Quick! ”

“ In December, however, the death of the great commander freed the King from immediate apprehension, and left the League without any leader who could match him in the field. Nevertheless, the war seemed likely to be indefinitely protracted. The party of the League indeed threatened to break up. Mayenne was impatient of Spanish influence, and was becoming daily more disgusted with the extravagance of the League in Paris. ”

“ It would be impossible in the present position of affairs to become either the king or the protector of France. The dignity of France allows it not."
Mayenne then insisted on the necessity of a truce with the royalists or politicians, and, assembling the estates at the Louvre on the 4th July, he read a written paper declining for the moment to hold an election for king. ”

“ As Jean and I passed at a rapid pace the groups under the wine-shop lanterns, we caught always the names of Mayenne and Navarre. Everywhere they asked the same two questions: Was it true that Henry was coming into the Church? And if so, what would Mayenne do next? I perceived that old Maître Jacques of the Amour de Dieu knew what he was talking about: the people of Paris were sick to death of the Leagues and their intriguery, galled to desperation under the yoke of the Sixteen.
Mayenne's fine new hôtel in the Rue St. Antoine was lighted as for a fête. ”

“ In middle life Mayne definitely abandoned poetry. In 1639 he accepted the college living of Cassington, near Woodstock, but during the civil war he was chiefly in Oxford, and often preached before the king. ”

“ This having been settled, and Mayenne feeling deeply the clemency of the monarch, who had thus, in fact, loaded him with favours, when he had nothing to expect but disgrace and punishment, set out to make his submission in person to the King, who was then at Monceaux with the fair Gabrielle. When he arrived, Henry was in the beautiful park of that place, attended only by Sully, and on his approach the monarch advanced to meet him. ”

“ An incredible story had leaked out through Mayne's Madras servant—who had accompanied him to the Hills; it whispered, that when there, he had got into some sort of entanglement with a girl! This tale was frankly discussed, and believed, in the Gorrah bazaar at Cananore, but had never risen in any substantial form to higher circles,—such as the club or mess; and yet all the time, though nothing was said, there was a vague uneasy feeling, that Mayne was keeping back some incident or experience, connected with his six week's leave on that coffee plantation. ”