Chapter II

34

Clermont—Château now a penitentiary—A Stronghold of the English in
Charles the Sixth’s time—Creil, where Peter the Hermit preached
the first Crusade—Charles the Sixth’s place of confinement during
his Madness—Chantilly—Écouen—Henry last Duke of
Montmorency—Presentiment of his Father—At eighteen created Lord
High Admiral—His early love in Languedoc—His prudential Marriage
at the Louvre—His Successes at Rochelle—Coldness of Louis the
Thirteenth, and jealousy of Richelieu—His gallantry at
Veillane—Restoration of Prisoners—Humanity during the plague at
Rivoli—His anxiety to become High Constable of France—Richelieu’s
injustice—His retirement to Languedoc—Privileges of
Languedoc—Prince Gaston’s efforts to win over Montmorency—The
Duke’s arrest by Richelieu’s orders, rendered impossible through
the people’s affection—Renewed efforts of Gaston—Persuasions of
the Duchess—Montmorency’s reluctant consent—Gaston’s indecision
and high words with the Duke—Battle of Castelnaudary—His
emulation with the Comte de Moret to strike the first blow—The
ditch leaped alone as at Veillane—The troops held back by Gaston
in sight of his peril—Montmorency overpowered—Dragged from under
his dead horse and carried before Schomberg—The female portrait on
his arm discovered by a spy, and notice of his wearing it sent to
incense the King by the Cardinal—The cries of the people beneath
the Palace windows—His farewell to his wife, and legacy to
Richelieu—The emotion of his Judges—His condemnation—Religious
feeling of his last hours—His farewell to the statue of his
Godfather—His calm death, and blood sought for as that of a
martyr—His burial among the bones of the Sainted—The imprisonment
of his widow—Her sad life—Her taking the veil—Louis the
Thirteenth’s visit to her mourning cell and her reply to the
Cardinal’s messengers—The King’s remorse—The apparition in the
Hall of Écouen—St. Denis—Foundation of the Cathedral by Dagobert,
St. Denis having appeared to him in a dream—Miraculous
consecration of the church and the leper’s new skin—Tombs—The
column to the memory of Francis, erected by Mary of
Scotland—Breaking open of the monuments in 1793—Turenne in a
glass case—A lock of Henry the Fourth’s beard making a soldier’s
moustache—Plunder of a nose by an Englishman—The Caveau of the
last Condé—Devotion of a Russian General to Henry the Fourth’s
memory—The Cathedral preserved during the Revolution by being
converted into a Market-house—Paris