Volume I Part 35 (2/2)
Aussi a il este constamment chery et aime de tous ses subjets durant sa vie, desire et regrette apres sa mort” (Histoire particuliere de la cour du Roy Henry II., Cimber et Danjou, Archives curieuses, iii. 277).
Tavannes is less complimentary: ”Le roy Henry eut les mesmes defauts de son predecesseur, l'esprit plus foible, et se peut dire le regne du connestable, de Mme. de Valentinois et de M. de Guise, non le sien.”
(Memoires de Gaspard de Saulx, seigneur de Tavannes, ed. Pet.i.tot, i.
410.)]
[Footnote 524: Dr. Wotton to the Council, Paris, April 6, 1547, State Paper Office, and printed in Fraser-Tytler, England under the Reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, i. 35, etc.]
[Footnote 525: De l'Aubespine (Cimber et Danjou), iii. 284, 285.]
[Footnote 526: Relaz. Venete, ii. 437, 438.]
[Footnote 527: The legate Santa Croce describes his qualities thus: ”Erat Montmorantius animo alacri et prompto, ingenio acri, corpora vivido, somni ac vini parcissimus, negotiis vehementer deditus, etc.” He mentions as remarkable the facility with which, in the midst of the most pressing affairs of state or military exigencies, he could give his attention, as grand master of the royal household, to the most minute matters respecting the king's food or dress. De Civilibus Gall. Dissens.
Comment. (Martene et Durand, Ampliss. Coll., v. 1429).]
[Footnote 528: The devoted ”_connestabliste_” Begnier de la Planche does not conceal the aversion the head of the family which he delights in exalting entertained for letters: ”Il avoit opinion,” he writes, ”que les lettres amolissoyent les gentilshommes et les faisoyent degenerer de leurs majeurs, et mesmes estoit persuade que les lettres avoyent engendre les heresies et accreu les lutheriens en telle nombre qu'ils estoyent au royaume; en sorte qu'il avoit en peu d'estime les scavans, et leurs livres.” Histoire de l'estat de la France tant de la republique que de la religion sous le regne de Francois II., p. 309.]
[Footnote 529: The people were as a body declared attainted of treason, their _hotel-de-ville_ was razed to the ground, their written privileges were seized and reduced to ashes. The bells that had sounded out the tocsin, at the outbreak of the insurrection, were for the most part broken in pieces and melted. One miserable man was hung to the clapper of the same bell that he had rung to call the people to arms. Others for the like crime were broken on the wheel or burned alive. Tristan de Moneins, lieutenant of the King of Navarre, had been basely murdered by the citizens: they were now compelled to disinter his remains, being allowed the use of no implements, but compelled to sc.r.a.pe off the earth with their nails! De Thou, i. 459, etc.]
[Footnote 530: Brantome, Homines ill.u.s.tres (uvres, viii., 129).]
[Footnote 531: Sir John Mason to Council, Poissy, Sept. 14, 1550, State Paper Office.]
[Footnote 532: Claude de l'Aubespine, Histoire particuliere de la cour du Roy Henry II. (Cimber et Danjou), iii. 277.]
[Footnote 533: ”Onorevolissimo universal carico che tiene.” Relazioni Venete, ii. 166. It is somewhat painful to find from a letter of Margaret of Navarre, written after Henry's accession, that this amiable princess was compelled to depend, for the continuance of her paltry pension of 25,000 livres as sister of Francis, upon the kind offices of the constable. Lettres de Marguerite d'Angouleme, t. i., No. 154. The king's affection for Montmorency was so demonstrative that he ordered that, after their death, the constable's heart and his own should be buried together in a single monument, as an indication to posterity of his partiality. Jod. Sincerus (Itinerarium Galliae, 1627, pp. 281-284) takes the trouble to transcribe not less than three of the epitaphs in the Church of the Celestines, in which Montmorency receives more than his proportion of fulsome praise.]
[Footnote 534: Relazioni Venete, ii. 175, 176.]
[Footnote 535: De Thou, i. 237, 245.]
[Footnote 536: A contemporary writer (_apud_ De Thou, i. 237, note) pretends to cite the monarch's precise words. The current quatrain was the following:
Le feu roy devina ce poinct, Que ceux de la maison de Guyse, Mettroyent ses enfans en pourpoint, Et son pauvre peuple en chemise.
Regnier de la Planche, Hist. de l'estat de France sous Francois II., ed.
Pantheon lit., p. 261. The lines are given, with a few variations, by almost every history of the times; Recueil des choses memorables, etc., 1565, p. 31; Memoires de Conde, i. 533. De Thou is a firm believer in the truth of the vulgar report (_ubi supra_), and even Davila (Eng.
trans. of Sir Charles Cottrell, 1678, p. 7) admits that later events have added much credit to the current belief.]
[Footnote 537: By arrangement with his elder brother Antoine (A. D.
1530), Claude received, as his portion of the paternal estate, four or five considerable seigniories enclosed within the territorial limits of France: _Guise_ on the north, not far from the boundary of the Netherlands; _Aumale_ and _Elbeuf_ in Normandy; _Mayenne_ in Maine, on the borders of Brittany; and _Joinville_, in Champagne, on the northeastern frontier of the kingdom; besides others of minor importance. Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine (Nancy, 1752), v. 481, 482.]
[Footnote 538: De Thou draws no flattering sketch of his course: ”Le dernier de ces deux prelats avoit eu beaucoup de part aux bonnes graces de Francois I^er, _sans autre merite que de s'etre rendu utile a ses plaisirs_ et d'avoir su se distinguer par une liberalite folle et indiscrete, deux moyens par lesquels il avoit ete a.s.sez heureux pour adoucir la juste indignation de ce prince contre son frere, Claude duc de Guise.” Hist. univ., i. 523.]
[Footnote 539: Soldan, Gesch. des Protestantismus in Frankreich, i. 214.
A still longer list is given by Dom Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine, v. 482.]
[Footnote 540: In 1518. Abbe Migne, Dictionnaire des Cardinaux; table chronologique.]
[Footnote 541: Sir John Mason to Council, Feb. 23, 1551. State Paper Office.]
[Footnote 542: Memoires de Castlenau, liv. i., c. 1; Migne, _ubi supra_.]
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