Duke of Bourbon

“ Pressing to the king's side, he still beat back his foes, saying to him,—
"Yield, my liege! You stand alone. If you fight longer, I cannot answer for your life. Look! there is no hope for you. The Duke of Bourbon is not far off. Let me send for him to receive your sword."
The visor of the king hid the look with which he must have received these words. But from the helmet's iron depths came in hollow tones the reply of Francis of France to this appeal.
"No," he cried, sternly, "rather would I die the death than pledge my faith to Bourbon the traitor! ”

“ The principality was confiscated by King Francis I. in 1523, along with the other possessions of the Constable de Bourbon, was granted in 1527 to the queen-mother, Louise of Savoy, and after her death was held successively by kings Francis I., Henry II. and Francis II., and by Catherine de’ Medici. In 1561 it was granted to Louis, duke of Bourbon-Montpensier, by whose descendants it was held till, in 1682, “Mademoiselle,” the duchess of Montpensier, gave it to Louis XIV.’s bastard, the duke of Maine, as part of the price for the release of her lover Lauzun. ”

“ Bourbon contributed materially to the Emperor's great victory at Pavia, and was rewarded by being made Duke of Milan and commander in Northern Italy. But although Charles thus honored Bourbon he did not trust him, and was not really desirous of advancing a person of such great resource and consequence. In the peace between Spain and France in 1526 Bourbon's great interests were neglected. Notwithstanding these things, when Charles V wished to punish Pope Clement VII, who had joined a league against him, Bourbon, with George of Frundsberg, led an army of Spanish and German mercenaries to Rome. ”

“ II. HOW BOURBON WAS APPOINTED TO THE COMMAND OP THE IMPERIAL ARMY. Accompanied by all his partisans, and attended by a strong escort of reiters, the Duke de Bourbon set out from Besançon for Italy. Shaping his course through Germany, and eventually reaching Coire, he crossed the Alps by the Splugen, which at that time was a difficult and dangerous proceeding, and passing through Bergamo and Brescia, succeeded in reaching Mantua in safety. ”

“ The army must retire, I say. I am the representative of his Imperial Majesty in Italy, and I issue that order.”
“By the beard of my father! I shall not respect it,” cried Von Frundsberg. “I do not serve the Emperor!”
“Neither do we,” added Zueker, Maramaldo, and the Italian leaders. “We have received no pay from him. We serve the brave Bourbon.”
“But the Duke de Bourbon only derives his authority from the Emperor,” said Lannoy; “and I offer you payment for your troops.” ”

“ The ultras, on the whole, are much pleased. The Duke de Richelieu and all the former Ministers have resigned.
133 CHAPTER VII. SOCIETY IN PARIS—JOURNEY TO HOMBURG—THE LANDGRAVE AND THE LANDGRAVINE—THE DOWAGER QUEEN OF WÜRTEMBERG—CHRISTMAS AT LOUISBURG.
JOURNAL CONTINUED—1822. January 12th.—Yesterday the Duchess de Bourbon died suddenly in the newly consecrated church of Sainte-Geneviève. She was in the seventy-second year of her age, and was aunt to the Duke of Orleans. She had been long separated from her husband, having been very gay in her youth. Latterly she did much good in charities. ”

“ I. HOW FRANÇOIS I. WAS TAKEN TO MADRID, AND CONFINED IN A MOORISH CASTLE. Had the Duke de Bourbon been able to follow up the great and decisive victory won at Pavia by an immediate invasion of France, he must inevitably have become master of the destinies of that kingdom.
His march to Paris could scarcely have been opposed. The king was a captive—many of his best leaders were slain—others were prisoners—the flower of the French chivalry was destroyed—the gendarmerie annihilated. All that was needed was an army. But this Bourbon could not obtain. ”

“ The Duchess can drink very copiously without being affected; her daughters would fain imitate her, but they soon get tipsy, and cannot control themselves as their mother can.
SECTION XXVII.—LOUIS III., DUC DE BOURBON.
It is said that the Duke has solid parts; he does everything with a certain nobility; he has a good person, but the loss of that eye, which the Duc de Berri struck out, disfigures him much. He is certainly very politic, and this quality he has from his mother. He is polite and well-bred; his mind is not very comprehensive, and he has been badly instructed. ”

“ Perhaps it may be well to explain that Mademoiselle was Anne Genevieve de Bourbon, daughter of Gaston, Duke of Orleans, by his first wife, the heiress of the old Bourbon branch of Montpensier. She was the greatest heiress in France, and an exceedingly vain and eccentric person, aged twenty-three at the beginning of the Fronde. ”

“ Louis Armand de Bourbon, prince de Conti (1606–1727) , eldest son of the preceding, was treated with great liberality by Louis XIV., and also by the regent, Philip duke of Orleans. He served under Marshal Villars in the War of the Spanish Succession, but he lacked the soldierly qualities of his father. In 1713 he married Louise Elisabeth (1693–1775) , daughter of Louis Henri de Bourbon, prince de Condé, and grand-daughter of Louis XIV. He was a prominent supporter of the financial schemes of John Law, by which he made large sums of money. ”

“ The ladies who were looking on could not help hiding their eyes in their handkerchiefs, from fear lest they should see him overbalance and fall and kill himself." The chronicler of Charles XII., Jean d'Arton, tells us of a not less remarkable feat, performed on the occasion of the obsequies of Duke Pierre de Bourbon, which were celebrated at Moulins, in the month of October, 1503, in the presence of the king and the court. ”

“ The Duke of Orleans (the future Louis Philippe) , deserting the Republican army along with Dumouriez, after teaching in a school in Switzerland, and after a visit to America, where he spent a night in an Indian wigwam, also repaired to England. There he was doomed [3] to long years of inactivity, though he would fain have joined the English forces in Spain, in which case, as having fought against France, he could scarcely have grasped the French crown. The Duc de Bourbon likewise settled in England, and it would have been well had his unfortunate son, the Duc d’Enghien, followed his example. ”

“ As Colonel Gustave he appeared in Paris, in 1827, and in the following year reasserted his rights, as the following communication addressed to the Chamber of Peers shows:—
"LUXEMBOURG, 2 February, 1828.
"NOBLE PEERS,—Organs of justice, it is to your exalted wisdom that the unfortunate Louis Charles de Bourbon, Duke of Normandy, confides his interests. Saved, as by a miracle, from the hands of his ferocious assassins, and after having languished for several years in various countries of the globe, he addresses himself to your noble lordships.
"He does not reclaim the throne of his father ”

“ During the spring of the same year Bourbon (who together with Lannoy, Viceroy of Naples, and the Marquis of Pescara was in command of the imperialist army) had gained his first success over the French, and driven them out of the Milanese with the loss of the Chevalier Bayard (April 30th) ; but during the 209 following summer the rebel duke found great difficulties to encounter. He had marched on Marseilles, hoping to reduce that town, but lack of means and provisions obliged him to retrace his steps to Italy, where he was met by a powerful army under Bonnivet. ”

“ The authorities had traced his career with some care, and showed that his real name was d'Hébert, and that he always used that name in legal documents, such as transfers of property to himself, being shrewd enough to know that a conveyance would be invalid if executed in a false name. In his [194] proclamations, however, he invariably appeared as "Charles de Bourbon, Duke of Normandy." In private life his favourite title was Baron Richemont, although sometimes he condescended to be addressed as Colonel Gustave ”

“ But soon it became known that no one would easily earn those 10,000 golden crowns; for M. de Bourbon was in the camp of the Emperor, preparing to invade Provence. The tide of opinion suddenly turned. Bourbon was no longer a popular hero; men saw in him, and justly, a traitor leagued against his country with her bitterest enemies. Nothing could have been better for Francis, whose carelessness and frivolity had begun to disgust the more serious of his subjects. He was again the Knight of France, the champion of the French, the Ogier of his time ”

“ He loves not either to see a subject of his own age so powerful and so magnificent; it trenches too much on his own prerogatives of success. Besides, as lads, Bourbon and Francis had quarrelled at a game of maille. The King had challenged Bourbon but had never fought him, and Bourbon resented this refusal as an affront to his honour.
The Constable, mounted on a splendid charger, with housings of black velvet, and attended by a brilliant suite, gallops into the courtyard. ”

“ Smarting under these injuries, Bourbon, who for some time had been coquetting with the enemies of France, renewed his negotiations with the emperor and Henry VIII. of England. It was agreed that the constable should raise in his own dominions an armed force to assist the emperor in an invasion of France, and should receive in return the hand of Eleonora, queen dowager of Portugal, or of another of the emperor’s sisters, and an independent kingdom comprising his own lands together with Dauphiné and Provence. He was required, too, to swear fidelity to Henry VIII. as king of France. ”

“ After he came of age she could not get her dowry properly paid, so she sent for her brother Louis, Duc de Bourbon, who came at once with a troop of soldiers and threatened to make war upon the Savoyards. Thereupon the dowry was paid without any further trouble. Bonne died at the Château de Mâcon, 1402. In 1372 the Duchess-dowager de Bourbon, mother of the Queen, was at the castle of Belle Perche, in the Bourbonnais, when one night it was surprised by three captains of brigands or free companies, who got in by scaling the walls. ”

“ He proved that he was as punctilious a knight as Bayard, and wrote to his mother on the evening of this battle, "All is lost but honour."
The Emperor's army now had both France and Italy at their mercy. Bourbon decided to march on Rome, to the joy of his needy, avaricious soldiers. He took the ancient capital where the riches of centuries had accumulated; both Spaniards and Germans rioted on its treasures without restraint. They spared neither church nor palace, but defiled the most sacred places. The very ring was removed from the hand of Pope Julius as he lay within his tomb. ”

“ It is very true. Setting aside those whose family interest, position or fortune attached them to the Bourbon dynasty, it is impossible to conceive any idea of the ever growing feeling of opposition which spread throughout the provinces; it got to such a pitch that, without knowing why, in spite of every reason that my mother and I had to curse Napoleon, we hated the Bourbons far more, though they had never done anything to us, or had even done us good rather than harm. ”

“ As soon as the rule of the Catholic, in the persons and by the actions of the Guises, became sovereign and aggressive, the threatened Reformers put themselves into the attitude of defence. They too had got for themselves great leaders, some valiant and ardent, others prudent or even timid, but forced to declare themselves when the common cause was greatly imperilled. The house of Bourbon, issuing from St. Louis, had for its representatives in the sixteenth century Anthony de Bourbon, King of Navarre and husband of Jeanne d’Albret, and his brother Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Conde. ”

“ BOURBON. The noble family of Bourbon, from which so many European kings have sprung, took its name from the rich district in the centre of France, called the Bourbonnais, which in the 10th century was one of the three great baronies of the kingdom. The first of the long line of Bourbons known in history was Adhdmar or Aimar, who was invested with the barony towards the close of the 9th century. In 1272 Beatrix, daughter of Agnes of Bourbon and her husband John of Burgundy, married Robert, count of Clermont, sixth son of Louis IX. (St Louis) of France. ”

“ There is a restless, mobile expression on Bourbon’s dark yet comely face, that tells of strong passions ill suppressed. A man capable of ardent and devoted
CHÂTEAU OF AZAY-LE-RIDEAU.
love, and of bitter hate; his marriage with his cousin Suzanne, lately dead, had been altogether a political alliance to bring him royal kindred, wealth, and power. Suzanne had failed to interest his heart. It is said that another passion has long engaged him. Francis may have some hint as to who the lady is, and may resent Bourbon’s presumption. At all events, the Constable is no favourite with the King. ”

“ You will have heard in the course of last month of my return to the French coast, my entering Paris, and the departure of the Bourbon family. The true nature of these events must now be known to your Majesty: they are the work of an irresistible power, the work and the unanimous will of a great nation, who knows its duties and its rights. The dynasty, which force (p. 367) had bestowed on the French people, was not formed for them: the Bourbons would not accommodate themselves either to their sentiments, or to their manners. France could not but separate itself from them. ”

“ The immediate interests of the younger Bourbon branch are entirely set out of sight in the political combinations upon which men speculate in France: adherents they have none: they exist not in men's minds, much less in their hearts: they are never spoken of.
It is evident, then, to every observing eye, that the cause of legitimacy is daily gaining ground in France; although it must be admitted that, with all this, attachment to the person of the exiled prince of the elder branch of the Bourbons, to the family, or even to legitimist principles in theory, has as yet had little to do. ”