Part 7 (1/2)
ROBERTSON.
To all the charms of beauty and the utmost elegance of external form, Mary added those accomplishments which render their impression irresistible. Polite, affable, insinuating, sprightly, and capable of speaking and writing with equal ease and dignity. Sudden, however, and violent in all her attachments, because her heart was warm and unsuspicious. Impatient of contradiction, because she had been accustomed from her infancy to be treated as a queen. No stranger, on some occasions, to dissimulation, which in that perfidious court where she received her education was reckoned among the necessary arts of government. Not insensible to flattery, or unconscious of that pleasure with which almost every woman beholds the influence of her own beauty.
Formed with the qualities which we love, not with the talents that we admire, she was an agreeable woman rather than an ill.u.s.trious queen. The vivacity of her spirit, not sufficiently tempered with sound judgment, and the warmth of her heart, which was not at all times under the restraint of discretion, betrayed her both into errors and into crimes.
To say that she was always unfortunate will not account for that long and almost uninterrupted succession of calamities which befell her; we must likewise add, that she was often imprudent. Her pa.s.sion for Darnley was rash, youthful, and excessive; and though the sudden transition to the opposite extreme was the natural effect of her ill-requited love, and of his ingrat.i.tude, insolence, and brutality, yet neither these nor Bothwell's artful address and important services can justify her attachments to that n.o.bleman. Even the manners of the age, licentious as they were, are no apology for this unhappy pa.s.sion; nor can they induce us to look on that tragical and infamous scene which followed upon it with less abhorrence.
Humanity will draw a veil over this part of her character which it cannot approve, and may perhaps prompt some to impute her actions to her situation more than to her dispositions; and to lament the unhappiness of the former, rather than accuse the perverseness of the latter. Mary's sufferings exceed, both in degree and duration, those tragical distresses which fancy has feigned to excite sorrow and commiseration; and while we survey them, we are apt altogether to forget her frailties: we think of her faults with less indignation, and approve of our tears, as if they were shed for a person who had attained much nearer to pure virtue.
With regard to the queen's person, a circ.u.mstance not to be omitted in writing the history of a female reign, all contemporary authors agree in ascribing to Mary the utmost beauty of countenance and elegance of shape of which the human form is capable. Her hair was black, although, according to the fas.h.i.+on of that age, she frequently wore borrowed locks, and of different colours. Her eyes were a dark grey, her complexion was exquisitely fine, and her hands and arms remarkably delicate, both as to shape and colour. Her stature was of an height that rose to the majestic. She danced, walked, and rode with equal grace.
Her taste for music was just; and she both sung and played upon the lute with uncommon skill. Towards the end of her life, long confinement, and the coldness of the houses in which she had been imprisoned, brought on a rheumatism which often deprived her of the use of her limbs. No man, says Brantome, ever beheld her person without admiration and love, or will read her history without sorrow.
GABRIELLE D'ESTREES.
[1576.]
DAVENPORT ADAMS.
The most famous of the beauties of France, and whose renown is inseparably a.s.sociated with the glory of the most popular of the French monarchs, was born at the Chateau de Coeuvres, near Soissons, in the year 1576. Her father was a gallant soldier, who had deserved well of his country, Antoine D'Estrees, Marquis de Coeuvres. At an early age Gabrielle gave promise of a remarkable beauty, when time should have developed the fair proportions, rounded the slender figure, and lent expression to the radiant face. Though her mother was notorious for the looseness of her life, the daughter showed a high sense of purity, and her reserve was the despair of all the young n.o.bles in her neighbourhood. She reached the age of seventeen without knowing what it was to love, and her heart was as innocent as her loveliness was without blemish.
Shortly after the accession of Henri Quatre to his precarious throne, he despatched on a mission to Monsieur D'Estrees the first gentleman of his chamber, the handsome and accomplished Duke de Bellegarde. This brilliant courtier gazed with wonder on the beauty so long concealed in the obscurity of a feudal castle. Her tresses glowed with burnished gold; her blue eyes sparkled with a dazzling fire, her complexion was radiantly fair, her nose well shaped and aquiline, her mouth was well fitted with pearly teeth, and her lips resembled the all-compelling bow of the G.o.d of love. A stately throat, a gently swelling bust, a rounded arm and slender hand--these completed the charms which a fascinating address and natural elegance of movement rendered still more irresistible.
Bellegarde saw and loved; nor was his evident devotion unpleasing to Mademoiselle D'Estrees, who had never before encountered a cavalier so handsome, so gallant, and so chivalrous. The course of true love seemed with this fortunate twain to run most smoothly; for though Gabrielle had been betrothed from her childhood to Andre de Brancas Sieur de Villars, brother of the Marquis de Villars, who had married her elder sister Juliette, the Marquis de Coeuvres could not resist his daughter's entreaties, and consented to affiance her to the Duke de Bellegarde. He was not, indeed, insensible to the advantages of an alliance with a n.o.ble so powerful and wealthy, and who stood so high in the favour of King Henry. The lovers exchanged rings in his presence; the duke presented his lady-love with his portrait, and then returned to his duties at court, where his engagement to an unknown beauty excited great astonishment.
At this time Henri Quatre was holding his court at Mantes, and relieving the sterner toils of empire by sharing in the banquet and the song. The dames and demoiselles of Mantes were often the themes of the merry talk of the jocund monarch and his courtiers, and much surprise was expressed at the indifference with which the Duke de Bellegarde conducted himself among them. They could not conceive that a country maiden could be any worthy rival of the dazzling _dames de la cour_. The duke replied that not one of them could hope to equal _la dame des ses pensees_, the beautiful Gabrielle D'Estrees. Henry laughed at the lover's infatuation.
Bellegarde, piqued at his incredulity, invited him to accompany him to the Chateau de Coeuvres. The king promised; and thus, as Mademoiselle de Guise sagely observes, ”the hopeful lover became the artificer of his own misfortunes,” for it was due to that ill-omened visit that he perilled his happiness, and lost the favour of the king.
As the chateau was at no great distance from Senlis, where Henry afterwards was, he and the courtiers rode hastily forward. Henry was received with the welcome due to so brave a king; and the beautiful Gabrielle did homage to him by kissing his hand, and proffered the winecup for his refreshment. Her loveliness burst upon the astonished monarch, as the glories of the new world broke on the dazzled eyes of Columbus. Fresh, and pure, and unsophisticated, it took captive the royal heart, and the memories of all former loves paled before the fervency of this new pa.s.sion. When he retired to Senlis, he summoned thither the Marquis de Coeuvres and his daughter, under pretext that the marquis might take his oaths as a member of the royal council. The summons was most unacceptable to Gabrielle, who complained bitterly that Henry's attentions sullied her maiden fame, while she grieved at the popular rumour that her lover Bellegarde had been ensnared by the charms of Mademoiselle de Guise. On her arrival at Senlis, she offered Bellegarde to consent to a private marriage as the only means of evading the ”evil designs” of his majesty; but the duke was not chivalrous enough to dare the royal wrath. The king persisted in demanding Bellegarde's submission. He visited the beauty in the hope of soothing her disappointment and moderating her anger; but she wept continually, and, flinging herself on her knees, implored him to restore to her her affianced husband. When she found him immovable, she rose and abruptly left the apartment, and during the night quitted Senlis, and returned to her father's castle.
Meanwhile, engaged in war, Henry joined his princ.i.p.al officers at La Fere. It was at this epoch that he resolved on the most romantic and adventurous pa.s.sage of his romantic and adventurous life. He set out from La Fere early in the dim, misty morning of the 18th November, accompanied by twelve cavaliers. At a village about nine miles from Coeuvres he quitted his attendants, and prosecuted his journey on foot, in the disguise of a peasant. To complete the transformation he carried a sack of straw on his head. It was difficult for even the invincible Gabrielle to resist so surprising a proof of her royal lover's devotion. She did not allow herself, however, to succ.u.mb too quickly. The reception was cold and ungracious. Mademoiselle professed to be disgusted with the coa.r.s.e, rude garb a.s.sumed by the royal adventurer; but a brief conversation having followed, a visible relenting on the part of the flattered beauty so cheered the enamoured Henry, that, on taking leave, he said to Madame Villars, ”I have now a good heart that nothing will go wrong with me, but all things prosper. I am going to pursue the enemy, and in a day or two _ma belle_ will hear what gallant exploits I have accomplished for love of her.”
The king's visit to the chateau was not attended by any disastrous consequences. He returned to La Fere in safety, and his devotion to the lady became well known all over France; but her father was determined to save her honour by a method not unusual in those days. He chose a husband for his daughter, and intimated that no option would be allowed her. This was Monsieur de Liancourt, who was many years her senior, and a widower, with nine children,--wealthy, ignorant, weak in mind, and disagreeable in person. In vain Gabrielle appealed to the king against a marriage which was little better than ”a living death.” Henry was well pleased with an event which he foresaw would vanquish the beauty's last lingering reluctance. He said ”he would cause her to be carried away within one hour of the celebration of her espousals.” Her marriage took place at Coeuvres in January 1591, and she made her preparations to escape immediately from the bridegroom she loathed to the gallant Henry.
The following day a royal order exiled Monsieur de Liancourt.
Thenceforth Gabrielle reigned supreme in the heart of Henri Quatre.
ANNE, d.u.c.h.eSS OF PEMBROKE.
[1589.]
BISHOP RAINBOW.