Chapter XXIV (1)

A new War of Religion breaks out in France--Luynes created
Constable--Louis XIII and Duplessis-Mornay--Bassompierre joins the
Royal army before Saint-Jean d’Angély--Capitulation of the
town--Bassompierre returns with Créquy to Paris--He is “in great
consideration” amongst the ladies--Apparent anxiety of Luynes for
the marriage of his niece to Bassompierre--The King and the
Constable resolve to lay siege to Montauban--Bassompierre decides
to rejoin the army without waiting for orders from the latter--He
arrives at the King’s quarters at the Château of
Picqueos--Dispositions of the besieging army--Narrow escape of
Bassompierre while reconnoitring the advanced-works of the town--A
gallant Swiss--Death of the Comte de Fiesque--Heavy casualties
amongst the besiegers--The Seigneur de Tréville--Bassompierre and
the women of Montauban--Death of Mayenne--The Spanish monk--An
amateur general--Disastrous results of carrying out his
orders--Furious sortie of the garrison--Bassompierre is wounded in
the face--An amusing incident--The Cévennes mountaineers endeavour
to throw reinforcements into Montauban--A midnight _mêlée_.

Bassompierre would probably have found the Spaniards more difficult to deal with, had it not been that they were anxious to free Louis XIII, for the moment, from foreign embarrassments in order that he might commit himself fully to a war with his Protestant subjects, which could not fail to weaken France and render it unlikely that she would be willing to engage in hostilities beyond her borders.

The drastic measures adopted by Louis XIII towards the Protestants of Béarn had aroused bitter resentment amongst their co-religionists throughout France; and towards the end of December, 1620, a general assembly of the party was held at La Rochelle to decide upon the policy to be adopted in view of this menace to their faith. Of the great Huguenot chiefs, Bouillon, Sully, and Lesdiguières did not respond to the summons or send anyone to represent them; but La Force, Châtillon, La Trémoille and Rohan sent delegates.

The Assembly authorised the raising of troops and a general levy on the funds of the party; and then proceeded to divide France into eight departments--veritable military districts on the model of the German “circles”--each being placed under the command of a general-in-chief. Although these measures were intended to be purely defensive, nothing more calculated to provoke hostilities could have been devised; the Protestants were at once accused by the Government of having established a republic within the State, and in April a new War of Religion began.

It differed from the old wars, however, inasmuch as neither the chiefs nor the rank and file of the Huguenots were unanimous in supporting it. Lesdiguières, who had been won over by the Court, deserted the common cause, as did most of the Protestant nobles; Rohan, his younger brother Soubise and La Force alone remained faithful. Outside the nobility, the same division of opinion manifested itself; the great majority of the warlike Calvinists of the South took up arms; but the rest of Protestant France did not move.

At the moment of entering upon the campaign against the Protestants, Luynes demanded the sword of Constable of France, which Louis XIII bestowed upon him with the utmost pomp, although he had already promised it to Lesdiguières, on condition that he should abjure the Protestant faith, which the marshal had engaged to do. That the sword which had been borne by such warriors as Du Guesclin, Clisson, Buchan, Saint-Pol, the Duc de Bourbon, and Anne de Montmorency should be conferred upon the hero of an assassination, who could not drill a company of infantry, aroused universal astonishment and disgust; and Luynes’s exchange of the _rôle_ of statesman for that of general was, as one might anticipate, attended with disastrous results for the forces under his command.

However, the campaign opened auspiciously enough. The King and Luynes advanced to Saumur, of which the latter succeeded in getting possession by a characteristic act of bad faith. The Governor of Saumur was that grand old veteran Du Plessis-Mornay, the companion-in-arms and counsellor of Henri IV. Mornay had refused to support a rebellion which, in his eyes, was unjustified, and when Luynes assured him that the King had no intention of depriving him of a post which had been conferred upon him by his father more than thirty years before, he opened the gates of town and château to the royal troops. No sooner were they in possession, than he was informed that prudence would not permit the King to leave a Huguenot in charge of so important a link in his communications. He was offered a bribe of money, and even a marshal’s bâton, in return for the resignation of his government, which he indignantly refused, but accepted the royal promise that in three months’ time he should be reinstated. On various pretexts, however, Louis XIII succeeded in evading this engagement until Mornay’s death, two years later.

At the end of May, the Royal army laid siege to Saint-Jean-d’Angély, called the “bulwark of La Rochelle,” to the possession of which great importance was attached; and it was here that Bassompierre, who, after remaining a day at Bayonne, had hastened northwards, joined it. The town, which was defended by Soubise, held out for nearly a month, and at times there was some pretty sharp fighting in the faubourgs, in which Bassompierre appears to have distinguished himself. But on June 23 it capitulated, and d’Épernon and Bassompierre marched in with the French and Swiss Guards.

On the 26th, Bassompierre accompanied the King to Cognac, from which town he was despatched to Paris, to ratify with the Chancellor and the Spanish Ambassador Mirabello the treaty which he had made at Madrid. He was accompanied by Créquy, who had received a musket-ball through the cheek at the siege of Saint-Jean-d’Angély, and to whom Luynes had suggested the advisability of a short sojourn in the capital for the benefit of his health. About the same time, another brigadier-general, Saint-Luc, was appointed lieutenant-general of the western seaboard of France, and sent by Luynes to Brouage, “to make the King powerful at sea.” The reason, however, why the new Constable felt able to dispense simultaneously with the services of three of the most distinguished officers in the army was not made apparent until some weeks later, as, on taking leave of him, each was assured that he would be recalled so soon as any important operations were contemplated.

Bassompierre’s reception by his friends of both sexes in Paris left nothing to be desired:

“It is impossible to say,” he writes, “how I passed my time during
this visit. Everyone entertained us in turn. The ladies congregated
or came to the Tuileries. There were few gallants in Paris, and I
was in great consideration there, and in love in divers directions.
I had brought back from Spain rarities to the value of 20,000
crowns, and these I distributed amongst the ladies, who gave me a
most cordial reception.”

Bassompierre had not been long in Paris when he received a visit from his friend Roucelaï, who came on behalf of Luynes to interview him on the question of his marriage with the Constable’s niece, Mlle. de Combalet, which had been proposed to the favourite by Condé and Guise during Bassompierre’s absence in Spain. Luynes was anxious to conciliate these two princes, who had been far from pleased at his assumption of the office of Constable, and, aware that Bassompierre had strengthened his position at Court by the success of his embassy to Madrid and his services at Saint-Jean-d’Angély, he appears to have been anxious to remove all difficulties in the way of the match.

“He had sent Roucelaï,” says Bassompierre, “to ascertain what I
desired for my advantage and my fortune, if this marriage were
made. For he imagined that I should demand offices of the Crown,
dignities and governments, and that it was my intention to be
bought. But I answered Roucelaï that the honour of marrying into
the family of the Constable was so dear to me, that he would offend
me by giving me anything except his niece, and that I demanded
nothing beyond that, although afterwards I should not refuse the
benefits of which he might deem me worthy when I was his nephew. He
[Luynes] was delighted at my frankness, and caused me to be
informed that he would place me in the perfect confidence of the
King, who had a very strong inclination for me, of which in future
he would no longer be jealous, as he had been the previous year.”

All this was no doubt very gratifying, but, at the same time, the Constable, notwithstanding that active operations had long since been resumed, showed no inclination to recall either Bassompierre, Créquy, or Saint-Luc to the army; and presently they learned that he had appointed three other brigadier-generals--creatures of his own--in their places, having persuaded the King that, though they were very capable officers, “they were not persons who would stick to their work or give the necessary attention to it.” The real reason seems to have been the favourite’s fear that “they might eclipse his glory and that of his brothers,” and that they might be disinclined to carry out the orders of one whom they knew to be entirely ignorant of military matters.

Towards the middle of August, Bassompierre learned that the King and Luynes, encouraged by the taking of the little town of Clairac and some minor successes, had resolved to lay siege to Montauban, the great citadel of the Huguenots of the South, and were marching towards that town. About the same time, he received a letter from Marie de’ Medici, who had returned to Tours, informing him that the Constable had demanded of her Marillac, who was in her service,[171] as the only man capable of reducing Montauban, “and had begged her to send him to the King at once,” in order not to delay his Majesty’s conquest by his absence.

Notwithstanding the formal reconciliation, Marie still hated the man who had taken her son from her, and subjected her to so many humiliations, as bitterly as ever; and her object in writing was, of course, to animate Bassompierre against the Constable and put an end to the good understanding at which they now seemed to have arrived. By this means she would, so to speak, kill two birds with one stone, since she had probably not forgiven Bassompierre for the activity which he had displayed in the King’s cause during the last war, which had contributed materially to the defeat of her party. Bassompierre, however, had no intention of quarrelling with his prospective uncle to gratify the Queen-Mother or anyone else. At the same time, he was deeply mortified to learn that a mediocre officer like Marillac, who had nothing to recommend him but his subservience to the favourite, was to be appointed to a high command, while he himself was left unemployed; and he felt that to remain inactive while such important operations were in progress was impossible. He therefore decided to rejoin the army without waiting for orders from the Constable, trusting, by the exercise of a little tact, to succeed in disarming the annoyance which his return might occasion that personage.

The Royal army had encamped before Montauban on August 18. If the town fell, all the South would fall with it; and Luynes, elated by recent successes, believed that victory was assured. The most prudent officers did not share the optimism of the favourite; to them the siege of Montauban seemed a very difficult undertaking. La Force had retired into the place with three of his sons, the Comte d’Orval, younger son of Sully, and a number of Huguenot gentlemen; from 3,000 to 4,000 picked soldiers, supported by more than 2,000 armed citizens, formed a truly formidable garrison; the Duc de Rohan, still master of a great part of the Albigeois and Rouergue, would, they knew, make every effort to revictual the place and harass the siege operations; and he could command the services of the Protestant mountaineers of the Cévennes. Several generals and members of the Council had expressed the opinion that they should begin by clearing Upper Guienne and Upper Languedoc of the rebels, and postpone operations against Montauban until the spring. But the King and Luynes had refused to listen to them.

Bassompierre arrived in the Royal camp on the 21st, just as the trenches were about to be opened, and at once proceeded to the Château of Piquecos, to the north of the town, on the right bank of the Aveyron, where Louis XIII had taken up his quarters. Having excused his return without orders on the ground of his zeal for the service of the King, he hastened to disclaim any desire to serve as brigadier-general and declared that “he should content himself with being in this siege Colonel-General of the Swiss.” Luynes thereupon became quite cordial, and the King told Bassompierre that, when the siege was over, and he and the Constable had returned to Paris, he would give him the command of the army.

Lesdiguières had advised Luynes to employ against Montauban all the resources of the military art, and to enclose the town in lines of circumvallation protected by forts. But the presumptuous Constable was unwilling to waste time in what he was pleased to regard as superfluous precautions; and the siege of this formidable stronghold, defended by several thousand resolute men, prepared to die sword in hand in defence of their religion rather than surrender, and with strong reinforcements under an able general hovering in the background, was embarked upon as lightly as if its reduction had presented no more than ordinary difficulty.

The besieging army was divided into three divisions. One division, composed of the French and Swiss Guards, with the regiments of Piedmont and Normandy, and commanded by the Maréchaux de Praslin and de Chaulnes, under the orders of the Constable, was to assail the advanced works of Montmirat and Saint-Antoine, to the west and north-west of the town, on the right bank of the Tarn, in front of the faubourg of Ville-Nouvelle. The second, of which Mayenne had the command, with the Maréchal de Thémines under him, was to attack Ville-Bourbon, a faubourg situated on the left bank of the Tarn,[172] and connected with the town by an old brick bridge, dating from the early part of the fourteenth century. The third, commanded by Joinville--or the Duc de Chevreuse, as he had now become--who had Lesdiguières and Saint-Géran to assist him, was entrusted with the attack on Le Moustier, a fortified suburb to the south-west of the town. Two bridges which had been thrown across the Tarn maintained communication between the three divisions, to the first of which Bassompierre, as Colonel-General of the Swiss, was attached.

* * * * *

On leaving the King, Bassompierre returned to the camp, and he and Praslin crossed the river to visit Mayenne. The Lorraine prince offered to show them the fortifications of Ville-Bourbon, and took them as close to the walls as he could persuade them to go, “with the intention of drawing upon us some musket-shots.” This kind of bravado appears to have been a favourite amusement of Mayenne, but, as we shall presently see, he was to indulge in it once too often.

On their return to the Guards’ camp, they began preparations for opening the trenches, and Bassompierre, accompanied by an Italian engineer named Gamorini, who had been sent to the army by Marie de’ Medici, in whose service he was, went out to reconnoitre the advance-works of the town. They succeeded in getting quite close to them without being observed; but, as they were returning, they lost their way and were suddenly confronted by an advanced guard-house of the enemy. The sentries fired upon them point-blank, and one ball went through Bassompierre’s coat; but both he and Gamorini succeeded in effecting their escape unharmed. They brought back with them some useful information, and that evening the first trench was opened, the work being entrusted to the Regiment of Piedmont.

On the following day, Luynes came to their camp and summoned Bassompierre and the other leaders to a council of war. While this was proceeding, the enemy brought one of their cannon to bear upon the men working on the trench, the first shot blowing a captain of the Regiment of Piedmont to pieces and mortally wounding two other officers, one of whom, a lieutenant named Castiras, was in Bassompierre’s service. The bombardment was followed by a furious sortie, and the Piedmonts were obliged to abandon the unfinished trench and fall back. Bassompierre, leaving the council, hurriedly collected reinforcements, and drove the enemy back into the town; but the Piedmonts had suffered severely.

Work proceeded without interruption during the next three days, and considerable progress was made; but, during the night of August 26-27, the enemy sallied out again, their attack on this occasion being directed against a sunken road, which the Royal troops were fortifying, with the intention of placing a battery there. They were again repulsed, but not before they had succeeded in over-turning the gabions which had been placed there. Some of these they carried off with them, but abandoned between the road and the fortifications, well within musket-shot of the latter.

“The following night,” writes Bassompierre, “one of the Swiss named
Jacques told us that, if I were willing to give him a crown, he
would bring back the gabions which the enemy had removed from the
road; and what astonished us the more, was that this man brought
back the gabions on his back, so strong and robust was he. The
enemy fired two hundred arquebus-shots at him, without wounding
him. After he had brought back six, the captains of the Guards
begged me not to permit so brave a man to risk his life again for
the one that still remained. But he told them that he wished to
bring it back to complete his bargain; and this he did.”

On the 27th, Lesdiguières and Saint-Géran attacked the counterscarp of the bastion of Le Moustier, and carried it after a desperate struggle of more than three hours. This success, which cost the besiegers some 600 casualties, was not followed up, chiefly owing to the opposition of Marillac, who was of opinion that, if they descended into the fosse to attack the bastion, they would find themselves exposed to a murderous flanking-fire from masked batteries.

On the 29th, the Guards’ trenches had been sufficiently advanced to allow of a battery of eight guns being established, and Schomberg, who was acting as Grand Master of the Artillery, came to inspect it. Bassompierre warned him that the park of powder was too near the battery for safety, and that, with a high wind blowing in its direction, the sparks from the cannon might be carried to the powder. The Sieur de Lesine, the officer in charge of the munitions, however, protested that there was no danger, and Schomberg did not order their removal.

They continued to push forward their trenches, and on the 31st Bassompierre, “to reconnoitre how far they had advanced, came to the head of the trench and advanced eight or ten paces from it.” He got back again in safety, the enemy not having had time to train their muskets upon him. But when, shortly afterwards, his friend, the Comte de Fiesque, attempted to do the same, they were ready for him, and he received a musket-ball in the abdomen, from which he died two days later. “He was a great loss to us,” writes Bassompierre, “and more particularly to me, for he was greatly attached to me. He was a brave noble, an honourable man and an excellent friend.”

By the evening of that day they had got another battery of four guns into position, and on the following morning a furious bombardment of the enemy’s advanced works began, Schomberg and Praslin superintending the work of the larger battery and Bassompierre of the smaller.

“They both made a fine noise,” writes Bassompierre; “but, after
firing for an hour or more, what I had predicted two days before
happened: the sparks from the cannon were carried into the park of
powder and fired five tons of it, with the loss of Lesine and forty
men.”

In the course of the afternoon, a similar disaster occurred in Mayenne’s camp before Ville-Bourbon, amongst the killed being that prince’s uncle the Marquis de Villars and a son of the Comte de Riberac, a young man of great promise. Worse misfortunes, however, were in store for Mayenne’s division.

In the night of September 2-3, the Lorraine prince advanced to the assault of a crescent-shaped outwork which had been constructed by La Force, and was defended by his sons and other Huguenot nobles and some of the best soldiers in the garrison. The attack failed; but on the following afternoon the attempt was renewed. After a furious hand-to-hand conflict, Mayenne was again repulsed, with heavy loss. On that day died the gallant Marquis de Thémines, eldest son of the marshal, La Frette, the governor of Chartres, “who yielded to no man of his time in courage and ambition,” and more than fifty Catholic gentlemen. The siege of Montauban, so lightly undertaken by Luynes, seemed likely to cost France dear.

On September 4, the King and the Constable called a council of war to discuss the advisability of endeavouring to carry the bastion of Le Moustier by assault. Bassompierre strongly urged that the attempt should be made, and was supported by Lesdiguières; but the other generals opposed it, and Marillac declared that to descend into the fosse meant certain death. Luynes asked Bassompierre to step into his cabinet, where the King presently joined them. Louis XIII informed them that Marillac and the others had said to him that it was easy for M. de Bassompierre to advocate this hazardous undertaking, as all the danger would be left to them, and he would have no share in it; and had accused him of wishing to expose them to butchery. Bassompierre, in high indignation, thereupon declared that, if the King would give him leave, he himself would lead the assault on the bastion, and pledged his word that, if he did not fall, “in three weeks he would have three cannon in position there against the town.”

“The King, who always had a rather good opinion of me, said to the
Constable: ‘Take Bassompierre at his word and let him go; I will
answer for him. Send the three brigadier-generals from Le Moustier
to the camp of the Guards, and place him at Le Moustier. I am sure
that he will do as he promises us, and we shall be the gainers.”

The Constable objected that the change would not be agreeable to either division, and declared that the Guards would not obey the orders of the brigadier-generals from Le Moustier. Finally, Luynes asked Bassompierre to go and reconnoitre the bastion. This he did, in company with the Italian engineer Gamorini and two other officers from his division, and reported that an attack would not present more than ordinary difficulty. Luynes thereupon proposed that it should be undertaken; but Marillac and his colleagues persisted in their objections, and assured him that Montauban would soon be theirs, without any need for such sacrifice of life as this attack must entail. And they succeeded in bringing him round to their opinion.

On the 9th, the Guards, after some fierce fighting, succeeded in getting a footing in the advanced-works of Ville-Nouvelle. In this attack a poor gentleman of Béarn, Henri de Peyrac, Seigneur de Tréville, who had served for four years as a private soldier, greatly distinguished himself; and Bassompierre brought his gallantry to the notice of the King, and recommended him for an ensigncy in the Regiment of Navarre. This Louis XIII granted him, and Bassompierre told Tréville that he must accompany him to Piquecos to thank his Majesty. Tréville, however, refused the commission offered him, saying that he did not wish to leave his regiment, and that he “intended to conduct himself so well in future that the King would feel obliged to give him one in the Guards.” This he not long afterwards obtained, and eventually rose to be captain of the company of Musketeers of the Guard and to be governor of the district of Foix.

A few days later, 1,200 of the Cévennes mountaineers succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the covering force and throwing themselves into Saint-Antonin, a town eight leagues north-east of Montauban, obviously with the intention of marching through the Forest of Gréseigne and reinforcing the beleaguered garrison. The folly of Luynes in refusing to listen to the advice of Lesdiguières to enclose the town within lines of circumvallation was now apparent to all. The Constable’s ineptitude, however, was already a by-word in the army; and “both he and his brother the Maréchal de Chaulnes showed such ignorance of the military art, that the King, who, at any rate, understood the rudiments, perceived it and made game of them.”

In consequence of this disconcerting move on the part of the enemy, it was necessary to send out a strong force of cavalry every night to guard the roads between the forest and Montauban, which Bassompierre and the other generals commanded in turn.

On the 13th, Mayenne delivered another assault on the outworks of Ville-Bourbon, with the same result as had attended his previous efforts. “This,” says Bassompierre, “put great heart into the enemy and disheartened his troops. As for him, he was beside himself with rage.”

A day or two later, there was a comic interlude in the siege, of which Bassompierre was the hero. We shall allow him to describe it in his own words:--

“It had been resolved some days before to break by cannon-shot the
bridge of Montauban,[173] in order to stop the reinforcements which
those in Montauban were sending to Ville-Bourbon. The Maréchal de
Chaulnes, who was newly returned from Toulouse, where he had been
lying ill, had charged me to bring a battery to bear upon the
bridge. But, since it was a great way off and five hundred shots
caused but little damage, which could easily be repaired with wood,
I remonstrated against the little utility and great expense of this
bombardment; and I was told not to persist in it. At the same time,
two hundred women who were in the habit of washing linen and
kitchen-utensils under or near this bridge, and who were incommoded
by the cannon-shot, aware that I was in command in the quarter from
which the firing came, and that I had always made war upon women in
kindly fashion, sent me a drummer to beg me, on their part, not to
incommode their washing. This request I granted them readily, since
I had already received an order to that effect; and so pleased were
they with me, that they demanded a truce in order to see me, and a
great number of the principal women of the town came on to the top
of the ramparts to look at me. And I, on that day alone, during the
whole of the siege, dressed myself with care and adorned myself, so
that I might go and talk with them.”

All this was very charming, but, a few days later, Bassompierre was to meet the women of Montauban in much less agreeable circumstances.

On the 17th, Guise, who had arrived in the camp some days earlier, accompanied by a great number of gentlemen from his government of Provence, came to see Bassompierre and persuade him to go and dine with Mayenne. Bassompierre, however, who had to attend a council of war which Praslin had summoned, excused himself and, at the same time, warned the duke to be on his guard against Mayenne, “who had no greater pleasure than to make the enemy fire on him or on those whom he took to view his works, and was burning his fingers in order to burn others.”

“To my great regret,” he continues, “my prophecy was in a certain
fashion a true one, for, after dinner, as he [Mayenne] was showing
them his works, a ball from an arquebus, which had first pierced M.
de Schomberg’s hat, struck him in the eye and killed him.”

Mayenne had possessed amiable qualities, and had enjoyed in Paris a popularity which recalled that of the great Guises. The news of his death caused a riot in the capital, where an infuriated mob fell upon the Huguenots one day when they were returning from their temple at Charenton. The Huguenots were armed, and several persons were killed on both sides, while the temple was burned.

The King and the Constable had recourse to a singular expedient to avenge Mayenne and take the town. The famous Spanish Carmelite monk Domingo de Jesu Maria, who had marched at the head of the Imperial army on the day of the Battle of Prague, and to whom the devout attributed the victory, was passing through France on his way from Germany. Luynes sent for him to come to the camp, and asked him what he ought to do to reduce this heretic stronghold, upon which the monk assured him that if he caused four hundred cannon-shots to be fired into the town, the terrified inhabitants would undoubtedly surrender. The King thereupon sent for Bassompierre and ordered him to fire the four hundred shots, which were to deliver Montauban into his hands. “This I did,” says Bassompierre; “but the enemy did not surrender for all that.”

Matters continued to go badly with the besiegers, which is scarcely surprising, having regard to the gross ineptitude of the amateur warriors who commanded them. At Ville-Nouvelle, where alone any real progress had been made, a mine had been prepared which was intended to demolish the inner face of the advanced-work of which the Guards had carried the outer. On the day before it was to be fired, Ramsay, the officer in charge of the mine, came to the Maréchal de Chaulnes to inquire how he wished it to be charged. Chaulnes, who was entirely ignorant of such matters, turned to the officers about him for information; but he misunderstood what they said and ordered the charge to be made four times as large as that which they had suggested. The astonished engineer remonstrated, but was curtly told to carry out his orders. On the following day, however, Chaulnes appears to have discovered his mistake, and told Bassompierre to go and have the mine charged as he judged best. It was too late; for, just as he reached the entrance to the gallery, Ramsay came rushing out and shouted to him to run for his life, as he had ignited the fuse and feared that the explosion would be terrible.

“I needed no second bidding,” writes Bassompierre, “and ran back
forty paces as fast as I could to get away. The mine exploded with
a greater violence than I have ever seen, and all the entrenchment
under which it was laid was carried into the air. It was a long
time in descending, when it came pouring down into the trench upon
us.”

Bassompierre, who had had the presence of mind to thrust his head and the upper portion of his body into an empty barrel which happened to be lying near him, was fortunate enough to escape injury, though he had considerable difficulty in extricating himself, as there were “more than a thousand pounds of earth upon his loins, his thighs and his feet.” When he at last succeeded, he found that the effect of the explosion had been most disastrous, more than thirty men having been killed by the falling débris, amongst them being the unfortunate engineer Ramsay. The mine had also demolished a great part of their own defences, and placed them in a most dangerous position.

The enemy did not fail to seize their advantage, and, having discharged a storm of grenades and fire-balls at them, sallied out and fell upon two companies of the Guards on the left of the line. Bassompierre, with a body of gentlemen-volunteers, hurried to their assistance, and the assailants were repulsed. But, as he was returning, he met Praslin, who begged him to go at once to their four-gun battery, which was being heavily attacked. As he approached the battery, he saw that it was on fire, and that while some of the fifty Swiss who guarded it were engaged in extinguishing the flames, the rest were defending themselves with their pikes and halberds against a large force of the enemy, who were evidently determined to capture the battery at all costs.

“I saw, for the first time in my life,” he says, “women in a fight,
throwing stones against us with far more strength and animosity
than I should have conceived possible, or handing them to the
soldiers to throw.”

He arrived only just in time, for the Swiss, many of whom had already been killed or wounded, were being desperately hard-pressed, and in a few minutes the battery must have been taken. But he placed himself at their head with his volunteers, and led a charge which drove the enemy back a little distance. They continued, however, to assail them with missiles of every description, and a large stone striking Bassompierre in the face--let us hope it was not thrown by one of the ladies with whom he had been conversing so amiably a few days before!--brought him to the ground insensible. Some of the Swiss raised him up, and carried him out of the _mêlée_, when he soon came to himself and returned to the fight. Finally, Praslin came up with two companies and forced the enemy to retire.

Their troubles, however, were not yet over, for meantime the enemy had made a sally in another quarter. Bassompierre and his noblesse again went to the rescue, and taking the assailants in the rear, obliged them to retreat, leaving several prisoners behind them.[174]

Bassompierre was certainly a person of extraordinary energy, for after this strenuous day he volunteered to take command of the force which was detached each evening to watch for the approach of the enemy’s reinforcements from Saint-Antonin, in place of Praslin, who was suffering from the effects of a slight wound, and spent the whole night in the saddle.

“Next morning,” he says, “as I was returning with my thousand men
to camp, the King sent for me to come to him at Picqueos. I did not
alight from my horse, and, in the dirty and disordered condition in
which I was, after having been on the watch all night, and with the
clotted blood from the wound on my head spread all over my face and
round my eyes, I was unrecognisable. On my arrival, the King and
the Constable told me that M. de Luxembourg,[175] who had command
of 600 horse who went out every night to watch for the arrival of
the reinforcements, had fallen ill, and that I must take charge of
them, until the reinforcements had either made their way into the
town or had been defeated. This I accepted willingly. While I was
talking to them, the Queen arrived from Moissac.[176] The King
sent the Constable to receive her and remained talking to me. As
she entered, she asked who was that frightful man talking to the
King. He told her that it was a nobleman of that part of the
country called the Comte de Curton. ‘Jesus!’ she exclaimed, ‘how
ugly he is!’ The Constable said to the King as he approached the
Queen: ‘Sire, present M. de Bassompierre to the Queen, and tell her
that he is the Comte de Curton.’ And this the King did. I kissed
the hem of her gown, after which the Constable presented me to the
Princesse de Conti, Mlle. de Vendôme, Madame de Montmorency and
Madame la Connétable, his wife. I saluted them and heard them say:
‘This is a strange-looking man, and very dirty; he does well to
stay in the country.’ Then I began to laugh, and, from my laugh and
my teeth, they knew me, and had great pity upon me, and still more
after dinner, when, on an alarm being raised that the enemy’s
reinforcements were coming, we went out to fight.”

The alarm proved to be a false one; but in the night of September 26-27, just as Bassompierre was looking forward to the enjoyment of the first night’s rest he had had for more than a week, his equerry Le Manny came in with the news that the reinforcements from Saint-Antonin were approaching. There could be no doubt about the matter this time; the officer who had arrived with the news had seen them marching through the forest.

Bassompierre awoke the Duc de Retz and Créquy’s son Canaples, who slept in his room, and told them that the enemy were at hand; “but they thought he was playing a jest on them, as they had been up ten successive nights watching and waiting.” And they positively refused to accompany him. Leaving them, he went into a gallery near his room, where some thirty gentlemen slept, but could only persuade two of them to go with him. “The cry of ‘Wolf!’ had been raised so often without any justification that they vowed they would answer it no more.” But the wolf from the Cévennes was really coming this time, and a very fierce wolf he proved to be.

Hurriedly getting together some 1,200 men, of whom 200 were Swiss, Bassompierre marched away and took up his position in a sunken road intersecting the plain of Ramiers, which lies between the Forest of Gréseigne and Montauban, where it had been decided to await the enemy. Learning that they were approaching in three bodies, he detached the Baron d’Estissac with 400 men to his right; the Comte d’Ayen, who was in command of the cavalry that night, was already in position on his left.

It was a very dark night, and when presently the forms of men began to loom out of the blackness ahead, he was uncertain whether they were the enemy or a party of the Royal troops. But he shouted, “_Vive le Roi!_” and the answering cry of “_Vive_ Rohan!” settled the question.

His position was protected by a barricade, but the agile mountaineers quickly swarmed over it and jumped down into the road, where a furious struggle began. So intense was the darkness there that it was often impossible to tell friend from foe, and not a few must have died by the weapons of their comrades. Bassompierre, lunging with a halberd at one of the enemy, stumbled and fell; the Huguenot, killed by the Swiss, fell on top of him, as did two other men who had shared his fate; and he was pinned down and unable to rise. At length, Le Manny and one of his servants, hearing his cries for help, came and extricated him; but scarcely was he on his feet again, than he narrowly escaped being run through the body by a Swiss, who mistook him for an enemy. The _mêlée_ continued for some time, but at length numbers prevailed, and practically all the brave mountaineers were either killed or made prisoners. The dead had not died in vain, however, for, though their comrades on the right had been routed by d’Ayen, those on the left, to the number of some 600 men, had contrived in the darkness to elude d’Estissac, and throw themselves into Montauban.

Among the prisoners taken by Bassompierre[177] was the Sieur de Beaufort, the commander of the Cévennais. He was treated as a prisoner of war and imprisoned in the Bastille, from which he was released on the conclusion of peace. His humble comrades, however, were less fortunate, and those who recovered from their wounds were sent to the galleys.

END OF VOL. I.

PRINTED BY THE ANCHOR PRESS, LTD., TIPTREE, ESSEX, ENGLAND.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Most of the places of the German part of Lorraine had two names, of which one was the approximate translation of the other. The future marshal’s family would not appear to have adopted definitely the French form of the name until the end of the sixteenth century; but, for the sake of convenience, we propose to use it throughout this work.

[2] Agrippa d’Aubigné, in his _Histoire universelle_, cites a letter from Guise to Christophe de Bassompierre, dated May 21, 1588, which is signed “l’amy de cœur.”

[3] She was the daughter of George le Picart de Radeval and Louise de la Motte-Bléquin.

[4] Of Bassompierre’s two brothers, the elder, Jean, Seigneur de Removille, after serving as a volunteer in Hungary against the Turks, entered the service of France, and took part in the invasion of Savoy, in 1600. In 1603, having quarrelled with Henri IV, he quitted his service for that of Philip III of Spain, and died the following year of a wound received at the siege of Ostend. The younger, George African, was destined for Holy Orders, but renounced this intention on learning of his brother’s death, and assumed the title of Seigneur de Removille. He married in 1610 Henriette de Tornelle, daughter of Charles Emmanuel, Comte de Tornelle, by whom he had six children. He died in 1632, on his return from the campaign of Leipsic, on which he had accompanied Charles IV of Lorraine.

[5] See the author’s “The Brood of False Lorraine,” Vol. II., p. 545.

[6] Don Cesare d’Este, grandson of Alphonso I and Laura Eustachia, had caused himself to be proclaimed Duke of Ferrara on October 29, 1597. Pope Clement VII claimed the duchy as devolving on the Holy See by the extinction of the legitimate line of Este.

[7] Pietro Aldobrandini, nephew of Clement VII. He had been created cardinal in 1593 and subsequently became Archbishop of Ravenna. He died in 1621.

[8] By a capitulation, signed on January 13, 1598, Don Cesare renounced the duchy of Ferrara in favour of Clement VIII and remained only Duke of Modena and Reggio.

[9] The Archduke Albert, who had taken Holy Orders and been created a cardinal, had renounced that dignity in order to marry the Infanta.

[10] Peter Ernest, Count von Mansfeld. He was subsequently created a Prince of the Empire by Maximilian II. He died in 1604.

[11] Daughter of René, Vicomte de Rohan, and Catherine de Parthenay, Dame de Soubise. She married in 1604 Johann of Bavaria, Duke of Zweibrücken.

[12] Claude de Lorraine, younger son of Henri I de Lorraine, Duc de Guise, and Catherine de Clèves. He bore at first the title of Prince de Joinville, but in 1606 became Duc de Chevreuse, in consequence of his elder brother having resigned that duchy to him. He died in 1657.

[13] Charles, Comte d’Auvergne (1573-1650), natural son of Charles IX and Marie Touchet. He was created Duc d’Angoulême in 1620; but before this period Bassompierre, in his _Mémoires_, frequently speaks of him as M. d’Angoulême.

[14] The Grand Equerry, the Duc de Bellegarde.

[15] Charles Auguste de Saint-Lary, brother of Bellegarde, whom he succeeded in the post of Grand Equerry.

[16] Annibal de Schomberg, second son of Gaspard de Schomberg.

[17] In April, 1599, this boy was legitimated by letters-patent, which were duly registered by the complaisant Parlement of Paris.

[18] But she had, nevertheless, condescended to ask favours of “the woman of impure life,” and to regard her as a sister. “I speak to you freely,” she writes to Gabrielle, on February 24, 1597, “as to one whom I wish to keep as a sister. I have placed so much confidence in the assurance that you have given me that you love me, that I do not desire to have any protector but you near the King; for nothing that comes from your beautiful mouth can fail to be well received.” She had also, shortly before signing the procuration, transferred to Gabrielle her duchy of Étampes.

[19] See the excellent work of Desclozeaux, _Gabrielle d’Éstrées, Marquise de Monceaux_ (Paris: 1889).

[20] Alphonse d’Ornano (1548-1610), son of the celebrated Corsican patriot. He was colonel-general of the Corsicans in the service of France, and had been created a marshal of France in 1596.

[21] Gabrielle, as we have just stated, survived until the following day (Saturday, April 10); but La Varenne, either to spare the King the sight of his mistress, whom, Bassompierre tells us, he himself had seen on the Thursday afternoon, “so changed that she was unrecognisable,” or to prevent a scandal, had taken upon himself to announce in advance the event which he knew to be inevitable and close at hand.

[22] The Parlement of Paris also sent a deputation to condole with the grief-stricken monarch.

[23] Bassompierre says “a few days”; Tallemant des Réaux “three weeks.” In point of fact, it was not until the following June that Henri IV., while on his way from Fontainebleau to Blois, broke his journey at the Château of Malesherbes, where resided François de Balsac d’Entragues, governor of Orléans, who had married as his second wife Marie Touchet, mistress of Charles IX, and mother of Charles de Valois, Comte d’Auvergne, and there saw Henriette, then a girl of eighteen, for the first time.

[24] Although so young, Mlle. de Entragues was very much alive to her own interests, and, counselled by her parents, determined that the brilliant destiny of which fate had deprived her predecessor in the royal affections should be hers. The enamoured monarch loaded her with costly gifts and employed every persuasion he could think of to overcome her resistance; but the damsel was adamant, until, in despair, he placed in her hands the following remarkable document, which Henriette carried about in her pocket and triumphantly exhibited to all her friends:--

“We, Henri, by the Grace of God, King of France and Navarre, promise and swear by our faith and kingly word to Monsieur François de Balsac, Sieur d’Entragues, etc., that he, giving us to be our consort (_pour compagne_) demoiselle Henriette Catherine de Balsac, his daughter, provided that within six months from the present date she becomes pregnant and bear us a son, that forthwith we will take her to wife and publicly espouse her in the face of Holy Church, in accordance with the solemnities required in such cases.”

Once more, however, the unexpected came to save the situation. One night, the room in which the sultana--now become Marquise de Verneuil--lay, was struck by lightning. The shock caused a miscarriage, and the King, whose marriage with Marguerite de Valois had been solemnly annulled, on December 29, 1599, by the commission appointed by the Pope, holding himself released from his promise, thereupon decided to send a formal demand to the Court of Tuscany for the hand of Marie de’ Medici.

[25] Charles de Lorraine, Duc d’Elbeuf (1566-1605).

[26] The Prince de Joinville was, or had been, in love with Henriette d’Entragues, who, until the King appeared upon the scene, had been far from insensible to his admiration, and he believed that the Grand Equerry was endeavouring to prejudice his Majesty’s mind against him on that account.

[27] Achille de Harlay. He was First President of the Parlement of Paris from 1583 to 1611.

[28] The brother, mother, and sister of the Prince de Joinville.

[29] Henri, Duc and Maréchal de Montmorency (1534-1614).

[30] Yolande de Livron, demoiselle de Bourbonne, daughter of Erard de Livron, Baron de Bourbonne, and Yolande de Bassompierre, and cousin-german of the future marshal, who tells us that he would probably have married the young lady and “might not have lived unhappily with her,” had it not been for the opposition of his mother, whom he did not wish to displease.

[31] Mlle. Quelin. She was the mother of Nicolas Quelin, counsellor to the Grande Chambre of the Parlement of Paris, who claimed, wrongly it is said, to be the son of Henri IV.

[32] Marie Babou de la Bourdaisière, daughter of Georges Babou, Seigneur de la Bon, Comte de Sagonne. She was one of Queen Louise’s maids-of-honour.

[33] La Côte-Saint-André, on the road from Vienne to Grenoble.

[34] The cause of this quarrel was in all probability the famous promise of marriage which Henri IV had given to Madame de Verneuil and the approaching arrival of Marie de’ Medici--“_la grosse financière_,” as Henriette disrespectfully called her--who was to become Queen of France.

[35] Basing House, Hampshire.

[36] William Pawlet, Marquis of Winchester.

[37] Madame de Verneuil gave birth to a son a month later, and, in the pride of her motherhood, scoffed at “_la grosse financière_,” who, said she, had indeed got a son, but not the Dauphin. For the King was her husband--she had his written promise--and it was SHE who held the Dauphin in her arms.

[38] Jacques de la Guesle, procurator-general to the Parlement.

[39] The Comte d’Auvergne showed the most craven terror, and offered--king’s son though he was--to play the part of a spy and to continue to communicate with his confederates, in order to disclose their plans to the Government.

[40] The Prince de Joinville, having become the lover of Madame de Villars, who had aspired to succeed Gabrielle d’Estrées in the affections of Henri IV, and was bitterly hostile in consequence to Madame de Verneuil, had been cajoled by that lady into handing over to her the love-letters which he had received from Henriette, some of which contained expressions of great tenderness and had been written at the very time when the King was paying the damsel his addresses. These letters Madame de Villars had the meanness to send to Henri IV, who was naturally furious at the discovery that his mistress had had two strings to her bow. Eventually, however, his Majesty allowed himself to be persuaded by Madame de Verneuil and her friends that the letters were forgeries, the work of one Bigot, whom Joinville had suborned; and Henriette was forgiven, while the prince received orders to leave France.

[41] Rossworm had distinguished himself in 1601 at the capture of Stuhl-Weissemburg, and in 1602 had taken by assault the lower town of Buda and the town of Pesth.

[42] Presumably, Ladislaus’s Hall, or the Hall of Homage, constructed towards the end of the fifteenth century by Rieth.

[43] Lorraine, though its independence had been recognised in 1542, still contributed its share to the charges which had for their object the peace and security of the Empire; and, as the troops which Bassompierre proposed to raise were intended for service in Hungary against the Turks, it was on this fund, called the _landsfried_, that the order was drawn.

[44] Jacqueline de Bueil was an orphan who had been brought up by Charlotte de la Trémoille, widow of Henri I, Prince de Condé. She was a very astute young lady indeed, and demanded, as the price of her surrender, a large sum of money, a pension, a title, and a husband, all of which the amorous monarch conceded. The husband chosen for her was a needy and complaisant noble, Philippe de Harlay, Comte de Cess, a nephew of Queen Margaret’s old lover, Harlay de Chanvallon, who raised no objection to his sovereign exercising _le droit de seigneur_. Subsequently, the King created the lady Comtesse de Moret in her own right.

[45] Henri de Lorraine, Duc d’Aiguillon, eldest son of the Duc de Mayenne, and brother of the Comte de Sommerive.

[46] Among the members of Queen Marguerite’s suite, was a youth of some twenty summers, the son of one Date, a carpenter of Arles, whom her Majesty ennobled, “_avec six aunes d’étoffe_,” and who forthwith blossomed into a Sieur de Saint-Julien. This Saint-Julien, if we are to believe the chroniclers of the time, was passionately beloved by his regal mistress, though perhaps, as a charitable biographer of Marguerite suggests, her affection for him may have been “merely platonic and maternal.” However that may be, he stood on the very pinnacle of favour, and was regarded with envy and hatred by his less fortunate rivals. One of these rivals, Vermont by name--not Charmont, as Bassompierre calls him--either because he was jealous of the privileges which Saint-Julien enjoyed, or, more probably, because he believed that the favourite had used his influence with the Queen to procure the disgrace of certain members of his family, suspected of having aided the intrigues of the Comte d’Auvergne, swore to be avenged. Nor was his vow an idle one, for one fine morning in April, 1606, at the very moment when Saint-Julien was assisting Marguerite to alight from her coach, on her return from hearing Mass at the Célestines, he stepped forward, and, levelling a pistol, shot him dead. The assassin endeavoured to escape, but was pursued and captured; and the bereaved princess, beside herself with rage and grief, vowed that she would neither eat nor drink until justice had been done, and wrote to the King “begging his Majesty very humbly to be pleased that the assassin should be punished.” The King sent orders for Vermont to be brought to trial without an hour’s delay; and he was condemned to death and executed the following morning in front of Marguerite’s hôtel, “declaring aloud,” writes L’Estoile, “that he cared not about dying, since he had accomplished his purpose.”