Volume I Part 18 (1/2)

[287] Louis Servin distinguished himself from an early age by his extraordinary learning and his extreme attachment to his sovereign. He was indebted for the rank of King's Advocate to the Cardinal de Vendome, and acquitted himself so admirably of the duties of his office as to justify the confidence of his patron.

[288] L'Etoile, vol. iii. pp. 255-257. Mezeray, vol. x. pp. 277-279.

Daniel, vol. vii. p. 456.

[289] Marie de Balzac d'Entragues, in pursuit of whom the King incurred the risk of a.s.sa.s.sination.

[290] Richer, _Mercure Francais,_ Paris, 1611, year 1605, pp. 9-11.

[291] Henri, Duc de Rohan, Prince de Leon, was the eldest son of Rene, second Vicomte de Rohan, and was born at Blein, in Brittany, in 1579. He made his first campaign under Henri IV, by whom he had been adopted, and who had declared his intention of making him his successor on the French throne should Marie de Medicis fail to give him a son. Henry created him duke and peer in 1603, and Colonel-general of the Swiss Guards in 1605; but after the death of the King he entered into a struggle with the Court, declared himself the head of the Protestant party, and sustained three campaigns against Louis XIII, the last of which was terminated by his compelling that monarch (in 1629) to sign for the second time a confirmation and re-establishment of the Edict of Nantes. He next entered into a negotiation with the Porte for the purchase of the island of Cyprus, and subsequently became Generalissimo of the Venetians against the Imperialists, then General of the Grisons, and finally, displeased and disgusted with the French Court, he withdrew to the territories of the Duke of Saxe Weimar, in whose service he was killed in 1638. He left an only child, Marguerite, who married Henri de Chabot, and whose descendants took the name of Rohan-Chabot.

[292] Ablon was a small village upon the Seine, distant about three leagues from the capital, where the Protestants celebrated their wors.h.i.+p before they built the church at Charenton, which was subsequently destroyed.

[293] Guy, Comte de Laval, was one of the richest and most accomplished n.o.blemen of his time. He not only inherited all the wealth of his father, but also that of his grandfather Francois de Coligny, a fact which, after his death, caused a lawsuit between the family of La Tremouille and the Duc d'Elboeuf. His qualities, both physical and mental, were worthy of his extraordinary fortune, and his devotion to literature and the fine arts was unwearied. M. de Laval had been reared in the Protestant faith, but to the great regret of the reformed party, who had hoped to find in him as zealous a defender as they had found in his ancestors, he embraced the Romish religion. His valour as a soldier was as remarkable as his attainments, and he had scarcely reached his twentieth year when he asked and obtained from the King the royal permission to serve under the Archduke Matthias in Hungary against the Turks. Accompanied by fifteen or sixteen gentlemen, and attended by a retinue befitting his rank and wealth, he eminently distinguished himself by the manner in which he effected the retreat after the siege of Strigonia; but his first triumph was fated to be his last, as during the struggle he received a gunshot wound of which he died a few days subsequently, deeply regretted by the Prince in whose cause he had fallen and by the troops, to whom he had already endeared himself by his n.o.ble qualities.

[294] Cesar Auguste de St. Larry, Baron de Thermes, was the son of Jean de St. Larry and of Anne de Villemur, and was the younger brother of Roger de St. Larry, Duc de Bellegarde, Grand Equerry of France. He was first created Knight of Malta and Grand Prior of Auvergne, and subsequently, on the dismissal of the Duc de Bellegarde, Grand Equerry in his stead. Having incurred the displeasure of Marie de Medicis he was compelled to leave the Court, when he proceeded to Holland, where he was warmly welcomed by Prince Maurice, a welcome which was not lessened by the fact of his being accompanied by forty gentlemen. The anger of the Queen having subsided he returned to France, where, as previously stated, he succeeded to the honours of his brother, was made Knight of St. Michael and the Holy Ghost, and died of a wound which he had received at the siege of Clerac in July 1621.

[295] Francois d'Espinay, second of the name, was the son of Francois d'Espinay, Seigneur de Saint-Luc, Knight of St. Michael and of the Holy Ghost, and Grand Master of Artillery, who was killed at the siege of Amiens in 1597. In the preceding year, at the early age of fourteen, the young Saint-Luc had a quarrel with Emmanuel-Monsieur, the son of the Duc de Mayenne, by whom he conceived that he had been insulted, and who, upon his demanding whether the affront were intended as a jest or designed as an insult, replied that he might interpret it as he pleased, inquiring at the same time if he were not aware who he was. ”Yes, I know you,” was the reply of the high-spirited boy; ”you are the son of the Duc de Mayenne, and you are in your turn aware that I am the son of Saint-Luc, a loyal gentleman who has always served his country with fidelity and never borne arms against his lawful sovereign.” This quarrel between two mere youths having reached the ears of the King, he forbade the disputants to proceed further; but the young Saint-Luc had thus already, alike by his courage and his ready wit, given ample promise of his future loyalty and prowess.

[296] Guillaume de Sault (or Saulx) was the son of the celebrated Gaspard de Saulx, Marechal de Travannes. He married Chretienne d'Aguirre, the daughter of Michel d'Aguirre, a celebrated jurisconsult of the diocese of Pampeluna, was created Lieutenant-Governor of Burgundy, and died in 1633.

[297] Ba.s.sompierre, _Mem_. p. 43.

[298] _Idem_.

[299] Ippolito Aldobrandini, subsequently Clement VIII, was a Florentine by birth, who, in the year 1585, was made Grand Penitentiary and Cardinal by Pope Sixtus V. His diplomatic talents caused him to be sent as legate to Poland to arrange the difficulties between Sigismund of Sweden and the Archduke Maximilian, who had both been elected King of Poland by their several partisans. On the death of Innocent IX, Aldobrandini was raised to the pontifical chair (1592), which he occupied during thirteen years.

[300] Camillo Borghese was a native of Rome, whose family were originally from Sienna. Clement VIII called him to a seat in the conclave in 1598. After his elevation to the pontifical chair he quarrelled with the republic of Venice, the result of the difference between the two states being the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Venetian territories. He succeeded in effecting the union of the Nestorians of Chaldea with the Church of Rome, and in appeasing for a time several controversial differences between members of his own communion. Paul V greatly embellished the city of Rome; and also completed the facade of St. Peter's, and the palace of the Quirinal. He died in 1621, at the age of sixty-nine years.

[301] Mezeray, vol. x. p. 280.

[302] _Amours du Grand Alcandre_, p. 47.

[303] Anne d'Anglure, Seigneur de Giury, who subsequently married Marguerite Hurault, daughter of Philippe Hurault, Comte de Chiverny, Chancellor of France under Henri III and Henri IV.

[304] Eleonore de Bourbon was the daughter of Henri I. de Bourbon, Prince de Conde, who succeeded his father in the command of the Calvinist party, conjointly with the King of Navarre, afterwards Henri IV. This prince raised a body of foreign troops in 1575, and distinguished himself greatly at Coutras in 1587. He died in the following year, having, as was a.s.serted, been poisoned by his wife, Charlotte de la Tremouille, at St-Jean-d'Angely.

[305] Montfaucon, vol. v. p. 418.

[306] This hotel was the property of the Bishop of Bourges, known as M.

de Sens, who died in September 1606 at the age of seventy-nine years, and who was interred at Notre-Dame, at his own request, without pomp or ceremony of any description. This prelate had been involved in so many delicate, but withal conspicuous affairs, that he had become the object of very general curiosity and slander. At the commencement of the reign of Henri IV a satire made its appearance, ent.i.tled, ”Library of Madame de Montpensier, brought to light by the advice of Cornac, and with the consent of the Sieur de Beaulieu, her equerry,” in which mention was made of a supposit.i.tious work called, ”The Art of not Believing in G.o.d,”

by M. de Bourges, in which an attempt was made to convict the prelate of atheism. This book was attributed to the reformed party; while the libel was strengthened by the indignation felt by the Court of Rome at the circ.u.mstance of M. de Bourges having taken upon himself to absolve Henri IV without the Papal authority, on his conversion to the Roman Catholic faith. The manner of his death, however, gainsayed the calumny; although so slight had been the respect felt for his sacred office, that the ex-Queen Marguerite had no sooner taken possession of his hotel, than the following placard was found affixed to the entrance-gate:

”Comme Reine, tu devais etre En ta royale maison; Comme ----, c'est bien raison Que tu loge an logis d'un pretre.”

[307] Ba.s.sompierre calls him Saint-Sulliendat, _Mem_. p. 46.

[308] L'Etoile, vol. iii. pp. 353, 354. Ba.s.sompierre, _Mem_. p. 46.

[309] Richelieu, _La Mere et le Fils_, vol. i. p. 326.