Part 9 (2/2)
John V. held his court at Nantes. She sent Oliver there to a.s.sure the Duke that his mother and brother were ready to do him homage; and he swore, on his own part, ”de le servir envers et contre tous ceux qui peuvent vivre et mourir.” John, delighted, made the young man share his bed, and treated him with the greatest distinction. Oliver expressed his regret that the age and infirmities of his mother prevented her going to court, and timidly insinuated the honour she would feel at a visit from the Duke. The Duke consented, and, sending off his plate to Champtoceaux, started with his brother-in-law, Count Oliver, and his attendants. Having pa.s.sed the little river which separates Anjou from Brittany, they saw a man throwing the planks of the bridge into the water, and thus preventing the Duke's suite from following. At the same time, Charles de Penthievre, Margaret's second son, issued suddenly from a wood with an escort of lances and surrounded the Duke. There was no kind of indignity they did not make him suffer. He was tied upon his horse like a criminal, and conducted first to Clisson, Oliver leading him with a halter round his neck. The Penthievres, who would not let the place be guessed where they held their captive, conducted him at night, sometimes on foot, from fortress to fortress, from dungeon to dungeon; at the same time circulating the report that they had drowned him in the Loire. As a last insult, they took him to Champtoceaux, where Marguerite visited him in prison to exult over his misfortunes.
Meantime the Breton barons, indignant at the treason of which their Sovereign was the victim, raised an army for his deliverance, and civil war broke out with redoubled fury. His heroic wife, Jeanne de France, showed an untiring energy to save him. Undaunted by the threats of the Penthievres,-who sent word to her, if she did not desist from hostilities they would cut her husband in pieces, nor by the messages from the Duke himself a.s.suring her that her zeal would cost him his life,-she induced her brother, the Dauphin, to order the Penthievres not to attempt the life of their prisoner; she besieged, one after the other, all their castles, and at last compelled Marguerite to capitulate to save her own life.
Finding herself and family in a perilous position, Marguerite agreed that the Duke should be released (he was at Clisson), and that she and her sons should retire where they wished, on their promise to appear at the summons of the Breton n.o.bles. Immediately on his liberation, Duke John ordered the destruction of Champtoceaux. A parliament a.s.sembled at Vannes in 1424, condemned Marguerite and her sons to capital punishment, and declared all the Penthievre possessions to be forfeited to the State. But the culprits had all escaped the kingdom, except the youngest son, William, a child only ten years of age, who had been given as a hostage for the appearance of his mother and brothers, and was condemned to languish for twenty-seven years in prison, where he lost his eyesight-a victim to crimes in which he had not been an accomplice. John had made a vow, during his detention, to give, if he regained his liberty, to the church of Notre Dame at Nantes, his weight in gold; and most conscientiously did he perform his promise, for we read, ”He placed himself in his war armour in the balance, and caused the opposite scale to be filled with gold till it had attained the weight of the first; that is to say, three hundred and eighty marks, seven ounces”-which sum was delivered over to the church. Vows of this nature are not unfrequently recorded. When Don Carlos, the ill-fated son of Philip II., lay ill, he vowed to give to the Virgin, on his recovery, four times his weight in gold plate, and seven times his weight in silver. The vow was fulfilled; but the Prince was placed in the scale in a damask robe and fur coat, and weighed only seventy-six pounds-so much was he reduced by his long illness.
Nantes is a cheerful, busy, handsome city, but wanting in the picturesque characteristics of the towns of Lower Brittany. Quimper, Vannes, Rennes, and Nantes, have all been successively capitals of the duchy, but Nantes was the usual residence of its dukes.
The cathedral contains its princ.i.p.al artistic monument, the tomb of Duke Francis II. and his second wife, Marguerite de Foix, called ”sein de lys,”
from the beauty of her complexion. It was erected by their daughter, the Queen-d.u.c.h.ess Anne, and was executed by Michel Colomb, a sculptor of St.
Pol de Leon, originally a herd-boy. This monument, considered a masterpiece of the Renaissance, is not copied from any Italian original, but is entirely the offspring of the artist's own fancy. There is much simplicity in its design and execution. The tomb, about five feet high, is of white marble, diapered with ermine and the letter F. On a black slab repose the effigies of the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess, and at their feet are lying a lion and a greyhound, holding their several escutcheons. Four large allegorical figures are at each angle of the tomb, representing the cardinal virtues. Justice carries the book of the laws, and the sword by which she makes them respected. This figure is said to be the portrait of the d.u.c.h.ess Anne. Temperance, in a monastic dress, is characterised by a bit and a lantern. Prudence, double faced, holds a mirror and a compa.s.s, and has a serpent at her feet. This figure is in the costume of a peasant girl of St. Pol; the second face, that of an old man, is also in the dress of Lower Brittany. Strength or Fort.i.tude, handsome, resolute, and calm, strangles a dragon with his grasp.
Upon the princ.i.p.al sides of the tomb are the twelve Apostles, and below, in niches, sixteen mourners (pleureuses) in monastic habits, the faces and hands white, the rest of the body black. The beautiful att.i.tude of these figures is much admired. Some are kneeling, others are seated-all in the att.i.tude and expression of prayer. This monument was originally in the church of the Carmelites, whence it was transferred to the cathedral.
Besides the remains of Duke Francis and his two wives, it formerly contained the heart of his daughter, the Queen-d.u.c.h.ess Anne, enshrined in a golden case in the form of a heart, surmounted by a crown, and surrounded by a cordeliere; but the tomb was rifled during the Reign of Terror. It now holds the remains of the Constable Duke Arthur III.
Duke John IV. also died at Nantes, after his long eventful reign, having acquired a military glory which earned him the name of Conqueror, and equalled that of Du Guesclin and Clisson. Twice he lost and twice he regained his crown. He alienated Du Guesclin and his faithful subjects by his partiality to England. The Bretons rose, and he fled to Edward III.; but when Charles V. entered the duchy, with the intention of confiscating it to the crown of France, the Bretons all united to defend their nationality against the ambition of the French King, and recalled their Sovereign. So great was the enthusiasm on his arrival at St. Malo, that the n.o.bles plunged into the water to approach his s.h.i.+p; and even the widow of his rival, Charles of Blois, went to welcome him. His cowardly attempt against the Constable Clisson again compromised his reputation, and was disgracefully avenged upon his son by the implacable daughter of Clisson.
The old ducal castle still rises on the left bank of the river. It was here Anne of Brittany was born, and here she married, 1499, her old admirer, the chivalrous Duke of Orleans, then King Louis XII., according to her stipulation, that the King, ”viendra l'espouser en sa maison de Nantes.” Left at the age of eleven, by the death of her father, a prey to claimants to her hand, which carried with it the powerful duchy of Brittany, Anne was a prize worth a king's seeking, even at a time when there were so many other rich heiresses undisposed of-Mary of Burgundy, Elizabeth of York, Isabella of Castille, and Catherine de Foix. Anne is described as handsome, but slightly lame, generous, and gentle, but grave and proud in her demeanour. Louis XII. called her his ”fiere Bretonne,”
and allowed her the uncontrolled government of Brittany, ”tout ainsi que si elle n'estoit point sa femme.”
Though the wife of two Kings of France, Anne never forgot the interests of her duchy, whose nationality she always strove to maintain with the pertinacity of a true Breton, and showed herself, by her spirit and independence, to be the most worthy of all her race to wear the ducal crown. Jean Marot addresses her as ”Royne incomparable, deux fois devinement sacree, Anne d.u.c.h.esse de Bretagne.”
Like most of the ladies of her age, Anne was an accomplished linguist. She understood Latin and Greek, and most of the European languages. She corresponded with her husband in Latin verse. Her letters, still extant, breathe the most tender affection. One, written to him (1499) during the Italian wars, begins, ”Une epouse tendre et cherie ecrit a son epoux encore plus cheri, l'objet a la fois de ses regrets et de son estime, conduit par la gloire loin de sa patrie. Amante infortunee, il n'est pour elle aucun instant sans alarmes. Quel malheur affreux que celui d'etre prive d'un Prince que l'on aime, d'un Prince plus amant qu'epoux.”
It was in this castle that Henry IV. signed his celebrated Edict of Nantes, so fatally revoked by Louis XIV.
The Duc de Mercur, when governor of Brittany, made Nantes a regular fortified town. Having married Marie de Luxembourg, heiress of the house of Penthievre, he sought to secure to himself the duchy of Brittany, while his brother, the Duke de Guise, aimed at the crown of France. Head of the League in that province, he looked upon it as a means of attaining his end: his wife joined him in his plans of ambition, and they by turns tyrannized and caressed the Nantais, amusing them with fetes, in which the d.u.c.h.ess condescended to dance with the townsfolk. For twenty years Mercur held the province; but a peace was eventually signed between him and Henry IV., through the mediation of Gabrielle d'Estrees, whose son Cesar de Vendome, then four years of age, was affianced to the Duke de Mercur's daughter, then only six. When Henry IV. made his entry into Nantes after the pacification, he observed, on surveying the fortifications, ”Ventre Saint Gris, les Ducs de Bretagne n'etaient pas de pet.i.ts compagnons.”
Nantes has been the scene of many an act of vengeance on the part of the Kings of France.
The Place du Bouffay, the place of execution, was the scene of the tragic death of the young Henri de Talleyrand, Comte de Chalais, executed by Louis XIII. for his part in the conspiracy which bears his name. Its object was the death of the Cardinal, and to place the crown on the head of the feeble Gaston, who was celebrating his marriage at Nantes at the time that his victim Chalais was paying the penalty of his crime.
The restless, intriguing Cardinal de Retz was imprisoned in Nantes Castle during the minority of Louis XIV., and made a wonderful escape by letting himself down from the walls to the river, where a boat awaited him. It was also at Nantes that the same monarch caused Fouquet to be arrested, not, as alleged, for his malpractices in office, but because his ambition and pomp offended the pride of his royal master.
For their part in the conspiracy of Cellamare, the Marquis de Poncallec and three other Breton gentlemen suffered on the Place du Bouffay, and the Vendean chief, La Charette, was also there shot in 1795.
Not far from the castle is the Rue Haute du Chateau. At the Maison Juigny, in this street, the d.u.c.h.esse de Berri was arrested, after having remained sixteen hours concealed in an aperture behind a chimney on the third floor, scarcely a foot and a half high and four feet long. The police, having information of her being in the house, through the treachery of a Jew, had made a fruitless search, but had left a watch behind. The soldiers lighted a fire in the chimney, and the d.u.c.h.ess, with her three attendants, sallied out, her dress completely scorched. They had endured the heat, but were unable to bear the suffocation.
Nantes has some fine promenades and boulevards, planted with trees. In the Cours Saint Pierre and St. Andre are statues of the d.u.c.h.ess Anne and of the three Breton constables, Du Guesclin, Clisson, and Richmont.
One of the leading characteristics of Nantes is its numerous bridges: a regular chain of them form a continuous line across the river and ca.n.a.ls, and others unite the islands which form the suburbs to the town itself.
The Museum contains a large collection of pictures, which the bequest of the Duke de Feltre (Marechal Clarke) has increased considerably. These consist mostly of sketches by Paul Delaroche, and the charming Italian subjects of Leopold Robert.
”L'enfant charitable”-a nun on her deathbed embracing a child who is standing by her side, an angel behind-is a touching composition of Ary Schaeffer. Another, by Paul Baudry, represents the death of Marat: Charlotte Corday's open, handsome face, looks incapable of the crime she has just perpetrated. There is one by Ziegler-Daniel in the lion's den-an angel staying the lions from molesting him. The atmosphere of light surrounding the angel is wonderful and unearthly. These two are in the general collection, together with numerous examples of the old masters.
Near our hotel is one of the curiosities of Nantes, the Pa.s.sage de la Pommeraye, consisting of three stories of iron galleries or arcades, uniting the Rue de Crebillon with the Rue de la Fosse. The second arcade communicates by a flight of stairs with the third, called the Galerie de la Fosse, opening upon the street of that name.
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