Duke of Epernon

“ As he rode along, he thought with somewhat of a smile upon his countenance, that his last prophecy to the Duke of Epernon had met with a speedy fulfilment; and he pondered with some bitterness over the parting words which that nobleman had spoken to him.
"The aspirant to the hand of Mademoiselle de Clairvaut," he said to himself, "without a single footboy to hold his horse! That may be in the present instance policy rather than any thing else, my good Lord Duke. But still we may learn wisdom, even, from such bitter words as those. I had forgotten how much all men value the gilded exterior. ”

“ He sprang up eagerly towards the small dressing-room above, and the mayor and his armed companions pursued as fiercely, leaving the Abbé to make his escape towards the court of the guard, without giving any heed to his proceedings. Before the Abbé had passed the door, however, he heard a loud crash, and turned his head to see by what it was occasioned, when, at a single glance he perceived that the very eagerness of his pursuers had saved the Duke of Epernon. Ten or twelve heavily armed men had all rushed at once upon the old and crazy staircase which led to the Duke's dressing-room. ”

“ Silence, Epernon! I forbid you, on pain of my utmost displeasure, to take notice, even by a word, of what this young man has said. You were yourself wrong to answer for the King in the King's presence. The Duke of Guise shall have no just occasion to complain of us," he added, the brightness which had come upon him gradually dying away like the false promising gleam of sunshine which sometimes breaks for a moment through a rainy autumnal day, and fades away again as soon, amidst the dull grey clouds; "the Duke of Guise shall have no occasion to complain of us. ”

“ He must have known that if danger of assassination threatened him from any quarter it was most to be feared from those whose influence with the Queen was almost such as to give them a control over her—the Concinis and their unavowed but obvious ally the Duke of Epernon. If he were dead, and the Queen so left that she could be made absolute regent during the Dauphin’s minority, it was those adventurers who would become through her the true rulers of France, and so enrich themselves and gratify to the full their covetous ambitions. ”

“ D'Epernon started back. "You, who denounce them!"
"Monsieur, a good servant should risk all in the service of the king."
"Mordieu! you risk hanging."
"I prefer death to infamy, or to the death of the king, therefore I came; and I thought, M. le Duc, that you, the friend of the king, would not betray me, and would turn my news to good account."
The duke looked fixedly at Poulain. "There must be more in it," said he; "resolute as the duchess is, she would not attempt such an enterprise alone."
"She expects her brother."
"The Duke Henri?"
"No, monsieur; only the Duc de Mayenne." ”

“ Henry said. "The trouble began, it is true, in the Limousin, but it has spread into Poitou and into the Angoumois"--he looked at Epernon's agent, for the Duke of Epernon was so great a man he had not come himself. "Gentlemen," the King continued, sitting back in his great chair, "can you not come to some agreement? Can you not mass what force you have, and deal with them shortly but mercifully? The longer the fire burns, the more trouble will it be to extinguish it, and the greater the suffering." ”

“ The new duke of Épernon was one of the favourites of Henry III., who were called les Mignons; the king showered favours upon him, giving him the posts of colonel-general in the infantry and of admiral of France. ”

“ The Duc d'Epernon bore her company to the extreme frontier of his government, where they parted with mutual manifestations of affection and goodwill. As the Duke, who had alighted from the carriage where he had hitherto occupied a place beside her Majesty, stood near the door expressing his last wishes for her prosperity, and was about to raise her hand to his lips, Marie, who was drowned in tears, drew a costly diamond from her finger, which she entreated him to wear as a mark of her gratitude for the signal services that he had rendered to her in her need ”

“ And he marched troops and cannon to Angoumois. “Many men,” says Duke Henry of Rohan, “envied the Duke of Epernon his gallant deed, but few were willing to submit themselves to his haughty temper, and everybody, having reason to believe that it would all end in a peace, was careful not to embark in the affair merely to incur the king’s hatred, and leave to others the honors of the enterprise.” ”

“ I must now give a description of Epernon. By the King’s favour he has been created duke; five years ago, before he became intimate with the King, he was a poor unknown man, who passed by the name of La Valette; at the outside his income did not exceed 400 crowns; his father was a gallant soldier, but his grandfather was a scrivener or notary. Now this upstart is a duke, and, what is more, a wealthy duke, for he can always dip his fingers into the royal treasury. But his present position is nothing to what he has in prospect ”

“ Go, my child; I will send the letter to him who asks for it; be easy. D'Epernon, give him ten crowns."
"Thanks, sire," said the monk.
"You did not say that as if you meant it," said D'Epernon, who did not understand a monk despising ten crowns.
"I would rather have one of those beautiful Spanish knives on the wall," said Jacques.
"What! you do not prefer money?"
"I have made a vow of poverty."
"Give him a knife, then, and let him go, Lavalette," said the king.
The duke chose one of the least rich and gave it to him. Jacques took it, quite joyful to possess such a beautiful weapon. ”

“ He may tell the Duke of Guise."
"Let him!" answered Epernon. "Go not one of you; but bring the rest of them along hither."
Without giving any intimation of his intent, Charles of Montsoreau turned his horse suddenly back to the side of the litter, and drew the curtain back, saying to Marie de Clairvaut, who sat pale and anxious within it, "You hear what has happened; there is no power of resistance, for they are ten to one: but the boy has escaped, and will give the Duke notice of where you are. ”

“ But Epernon is raising troops, I hear----" he added, although he saw that some one had entered the room and was approaching him.
"Which he will soon disband. Monsieur de Guise," said the stranger, "as I am charged by the King to set out to-morrow morning to give the Duke his commands to that effect."
"By my life, Monsieur Miron," said the Duke, "you will have soon to lay aside altogether the exercise of your esculapean powers, at least upon his Majesty's person. You show yourself so skilful in healing the wounds of the state, and curing the sickness of the body politic." ”

“ Epernon was desperately opposed to it, and maltreated Villeroy in full council when he affected to say a word, insincere as the Duke knew it to be, in favour of executing agreements signed by the monarch, and sealed with the great seal of France. The Duke of Guise, finding himself abandoned by the Queen, and bitterly opposed and hated by Soissons, took sides with his deaf and dumb and imbecile brother, and for a brief interval the Duke of Sully joined this strange combination of the House of Lorraine and chiefs of ancient Leaguers, who welcomed him with transport, and promised him security. ”

“ I offer it to your majesty who has the right to dispose of it and of me. My honor is dear to me, sire, but I place it fearlessly in your hands."
Ernanton, so saying, held out the tablets to the king, who gently put them back.
"What did you say, D'Epernon?" said he; "M. de Carmainges is an honest man and a faithful servant?"
"What did I say, sire."
"Yes; I heard you pronounce the word 'prison.' Mordieu! on the contrary, when one meets a man like M. de Carmainges, it is reward we should speak of. A letter, duke, belongs only to the bearer and to the person to whom it is sent. ”

“ I have every reason to think, however, that Captain Cauvignac is a creature of Monsieur le Duc d'Épernon and very devoted to him."
"That answers the question; any man who is devoted to the duke is devoted to his Majesty."
"He's a sort of scout sent on ahead to beat up the country for the king," said the old officer, who was making up for the time lost in waiting. "I have heard of him in that connection."
"Is his Majesty on his way hither?" asked Richon, with his customary tranquil manner. ”

“ It is time the Duke of Guise were in Paris, if but to deliver the King from such Dukes of Epernon who abuse his authority, disgrace his name, absorb his favours, ruin the state, overthrow the church, and dare do acts that make men blush for shame. ”

“ Ah! but you surely will agree that one need not be very cunning to have solved that problem; once you had named the Duc d'Épernon as your rival, it was plain enough that if you named any Nanon whatsoever, it must be the beautiful, wealthy, and clever Nanon de Lartigues, by whom the duke is bewitched, so they say, and who really governs in his province; the result being that throughout Guyenne she is almost as bitterly detested as he is himself. ”

“ I have received you in this way that you may tell him, indeed, that he may learn in what light I hold his orders,” cried the old gentleman, unable to restrain his anger; “the Provençal nobility has known how, in the last century, to drive from its province the insolent Duke d’Epernon and his Gascons, as unworthy of governing it, and shall we not drive away a Vitry, a wretched assassin, who acts like an Italian bandit, who leaves our coasts without defence, who obliges us to protect ourselves, and then comes to take away from us the means of resisting the pirates! ”

“ Richelieu "drubbed his people," he drubbed his [116] officers, he drubbed (so it was said) his ministers. The celebrated Duke d'Épernon, the last of the great Seigniors after Saint Simon, was "as mild-mannered a man as ever cut a throat or scuttled a ship"; one day when he was discussing some official question with his Eminence, the Archbishop of Bordeaux, he gave the exalted prelate "three clips of his fist full in the archiepiscopal face and breast, supplementing them by several cuts of the end of his cane in the pit of the stomach." ”

“ The position of the Abbé was perplexing, as he well knew that M. d'Epernon never forgave an injury inflicted upon him by an inferior; but the crisis was one of such importance that the Florentine resolved to make any concession rather than abandon his design. He was aware that, however hostile the Duke might be to himself personally, his hatred of De Luynes far exceeded any feeling of animosity which he could possibly entertain towards a man whom he considered as a mere adventurer ”

“ The Duke d’Epernon and other (Roman) Catholic chiefs, retired with their troops, on the ground that they could not serve under a Huguenot chief. Those who remained, demanded that their aid should be paid for by great personal favours. The Calvinist chiefs were more faithful and less exacting. Among them were the Duke de Bouillon, sovereign of the principality of Sédan; François de Châtillon, [204] son of the Admiral Coligny; the Duke Claude de la Trémoille, Jacques Caumont de la Force, Agrippa d’Aubigné, Lanoue, Rosny, and Mornay. ”

“ The duke took out a key, and, after crossing a court, opened an arched door, the bottom of which was overgrown with long grass. They went along a dark corridor, and then up a staircase to a room, of which D'Epernon had also the key. He opened the door, and showed the king forty-five beds, and in each of them a sleeper.
The king looked at all this with a troubled curiosity. "Well," said he, "who are these people?"
"People who sleep to-night, but will not do so to-morrow night."
"Why not?"
"That your majesty may sleep in peace."
"Explain yourself. Are these your friends?"
"Chosen by me, sire ”

“ If you had been in any ordinary position I would have tried to win you over to the cause of the princes; but as an envoy of the king, intrusted with a confidential mission by her [Pg 270] Majesty the queen regent and the first minister of the crown, honored with the good-will of Monsieur le Duc d'Épernon, who, notwithstanding the suspicions I entertained at first, is your very zealous patron, so I am told—"
Canolles blushed.
"I will say no more on that subject, but listen to me, baron; we do not part forever, be sure; I have a presentiment that we shall meet again." ”

“ Hereat Sir Pertinax smote hand to knee And, frowning, shook his head. “Messire,” said he, “Thou art a man, and young, of noble race, And, being duke, what matter for thy face? Rank, wealth, estate—these be the things I trow Can make the fairest woman tender grow. Ride unto her in thy rich armour dight, With archer, man-at-arms, and many a knight To swell thy train with pomp and majesty, That she, and all, thy might and rank may see; So shall all folk thy worthiness acclaim, And her maid's heart, methinks, shall do the same. ”

“ This one is loyal to Mayenne, he will be loyal to me."
"Toward you, sire, I shall be more than loyal—I shall be devoted," cried Ernanton.
"Now, D'Epernon, no more quarrels," said the king; "and you must at once pardon in this brave fellow what you looked upon as a want of loyalty, but which I regard as a proof of honesty."
"Sire," said Ernanton, "M. le Duc is too superior a man not to have discovered, through my disobedience (for which I confess my regret) , my respect for him; only, before all things, I must do what I believe to be my duty." ”