Chapter III: Part 3

Petrarca, at the time we speak of, was twenty-three years of age; and, after composing a great number of sonnets to his lady-love, he left Avignon, went to Paris, and travelled through France, Flanders, Brabant and Germany. It has been remarked as a strange coincidence, that during his absence he wrote only four letters to Avignon, and but one to Laura. Ginguené, in his _Literary History of Italy_, has collected from the works of Petrarca a few stray sentences on his mistress, but the poet gives no particulars of her life, and, neither in his Italian nor in his Latin compositions, does he speak of the family of his beloved, although she is almost the sole subject of his songs.

It is not then to be wondered at if his later biographers are left in the dark about Laura, notwithstanding that contemporary authors must have been acquainted both with the lover and with his mistress.

Baldelli, a very partial commentator on Petrarca, is obliged to confess that the poet was by no means faithful to his divinity; but that another, whom he loved after a less ideal fashion, presented him with a daughter, who afterwards became the consolation of his old age. “_Francesco nei passati falli ricadde, e dal suo commercio con femina impura ebbe una figlia appellata Francesca che fu poscia tenera compagna e fedel sostegno di sua vecchiezza. La madre fu rapita da morte dopo la nascita di Francesca, con grand dolore di Petrarca._”

The Abbé de Sade, in his learned researches upon Laura, shows, that besides this daughter, the poet had a son named Giovanno. This young man was legitimatised by Pope Clement VI. in 1348; and in the papal brief he is mentioned as the son of unmarried parents: _De soluto et solutâ_.

Baldelli believes that both children were by the same mother. Francesco Petrarca, who is characterised by Voltaire as a genius eminent for his constant repetition of the same thing, died in 1374, aged seventy.

Nearly a century after his death, in 1471, an anonymous author, in a _Vita di Francesco Petrarca_, pretended that Pope Urbanus V., with whom the poet was an especial favourite, wished to give him Laura in marriage, but that Petrarca declined, saying that the fountain from which he drew his amorous inspiration for the composition of his sonnets, would fail him entirely were he to be united to the object of this love: “_E quantunque gli_ _volse essere data per donna, ad instanza di Papa Urbano quinto, il quale lui singularmente amava, concedendogli di tener colla donna i beneficii insieme, nol volse mai consentire, dicendo che il frutto che prendea dell’ amore, a scrivere, di poi che la cosa amata consequito avesse, tutto si perderia._”

Notwithstanding the improbability of this confession, seeing that Pope Urbanus did not mount the pontifical throne until after the death of Laura, we may still infer from it that in the first years of the 15th century a very exalted opinion was not entertained of the sincerity of Petrarca’s passion. The mention of all these circumstances, no doubt instigated Tomasini, who was the most devoted of Petrarch’s biographers, and who looked upon the poet almost as a saint, to adduce a reason for his remaining unmarried to the end of his life. “He believed,” says he, “that marriage would extinguish his love.” “_Censebat nempè isto nexu amoris puritatem obfuscatam iri, neque cultum animi ita fore constantem, juxta illud Tibulli: Semper in absentes felicior æstus amantis._”

In 1539 Squarciafico and Nicolò Franco attacked with much humour the morals and the life of Laura’s adorer. Ercole Giannini followed in the same vein; and the circumstances we have already mentioned tend to prove, that although Petrarca may have been a great poet, a great politician, a savant, and a prolific writer, there is more than one reason for believing that he was not altogether the Platonic lover some have represented him to be.

With regard to Laura all is doubt, obscurity, and hypothesis. The traces left of her were so faint, even in the century in which she lived, that Baldelli says that doubts were even entertained of her existence. “_Tanto s’oscurò la sua memoria, che nei due secoli in cui l’Italia negli enti allegorici e di ragione, andava smarrita, alcuni dubitarono della esistenza di lui._” (See _Petrarca e sue opere_.)

The Abbé de Sade, in his memoirs on the life of this poet, says also, that in Italy the beautiful Laura was supposed to be an allegorical personage.

The endeavours made by Alexandre Vellutello and others to establish her existence, led to no positive results; for in the certificated of birth from the years 1307 to 1324, the name of Laura, although frequently met with, can never in any one instance be applied to Petrarca’s mistress.

Vellutello tries to make her out the daughter of Henri Chiabau, a seigneur of Cabrières, Monsieur de Bimard in his _Mémoires_, pretends that her father was Raybau de Raimond; the Abbé Castaing, of Avignon, published in 1819 a new view, and maintained that Petrarca’s divinity was a certain Laura Des Beaux, and that his devotion to her was purely Platonic. The Abbé de Sade tries to prove that she was the daughter of Audibert de Noves.

Some assert that Laura never married, and died a virgin: according to others she was married at fourteen years of age to Hugues de Sade, a nobleman hard to please and given to jealousy, and that she bore him eleven children, nine of whom survived their mother.

If, on the one hand, Laura has been considered a myth, many writers, on the other hand, say that she was far from insensible to the passion of Petrarca. Her reputation is lightly treated in a manuscript written by Luigi Peruzsi, of which Mr. Bruce-Whyte has made use in his _Histoire des Langues Romanes_. This view of her character gave rise to a very interesting article in a newspaper of Vaucluse entitled: “_L’Écho de Vaucluse_,” of the 11th September 1842. We can nowhere find any authentic testimony nor any decisive evidence wherewith to dissipate doubts or to confirm assertions on this subject.

There are three portraits of Laura extant all of which differ materially in features and in costume. In 1339, Simon of Sienna, who was employed to decorate the episcopal palace at Avignon, is said to have painted Laura’s portrait, and to have presented it to Petrarca, with whom he was intimate.

Richard de Sade brought another portrait from Avignon to Rome, and gave it to Cardinal Barberini. It has no resemblance whatever to the first. The third is in a manuscript at Florence.

Marsand in a special dissertation on these portraits, rejects the two first and only admits the latter, engraved by the celebrated Morghen. Here again we are met by doubt and obscurity.

In the French Imperial Library, there are two manuscripts of the 15th century containing a Latin treatise by Petrarca: _De contemptu Mundi_, which apparently affirms that Laura was the mother of several children, as above stated. In this treatise we read that she gradually approaches her end, and that her lovely form has suffered much from her frequent confinements: “_Morbis ac crebris partubus exhaustum, multum pristini vigoris amisit corpus illud egregium._”

In the work of Olivier Vitalis, published in Paris in 1842, which contains researches into almost every opinion concerning Laura and Petrarca, that of her marriage is rejected: “_Des couches fréquentes_,” says the author, “_des chagrins domestiques peuvent convenir et s’appliquer à la Laure de De Sade, mais non à la Laure célébrée par Pétrarque, qui mourut dans le célibat_.”

Several Italian authors declare on the other hand that the objection against Laura’s celibacy is made by Petrarch himself, who, in his Latin Dialogue with St. Augustin, frequently makes use of the word _mulier_, in speaking of her. The dictionary of Vanieri, and others, tell us that: “_Fæmina propriè sexum significat, mulier quæ virgo non est._”

Unfortunately, our poet, in all matters appertaining to his mistress, has intentionally, or by chance, only very vaguely mentioned, by allusions, or by figures of speech, dates or circumstances bearing reference to her. Besides the striking difference that exists on many points in the manuscripts which have served as foundations for the various editions of Petrarca, it must be confessed that nowhere have primary and incontrovertible facts been produced on which to ground a true and faithful biography of Laura.

It is stated that an allusion to Laura’s death, and burial at Avignon, is to be found in a manuscript Virgil which belonged to Petrarca, and which is preserved in the _Bibliotheca Ambrosiana_ at Milan; but learned critics, among whom we may name Alexander Tassoni, one of the most reliable authors of Italy, A. Vellutello, and others, consider this note as very apocryphal, and even as a forgery: for the writing has never been proved to be that of the poet, and moreover this memorandum is in open contradiction with the sonnets of Petrarca written on the spot where the lovers first met.

It was not until towards the beginning of the 16th century that the desire sprang up among the Italians to know who the Laura really was, that had been the theme of song for twenty years. Alexander Vellutello made two journeys to Avignon for the express purpose of collecting information regarding her, and from that time innumerable discussions arose from all quarters. Tomasini, Maria Suarez, G. Ferrari, F. Orsino, Muratori, &c., on the one side, and Vellutello, Gesualdo, Tassoni, le Bastie, &c. on the other. But they were all staggered by a remark made by Giacomo Colonna, Bishop of Lombez, with whom Petrarca lived for some time, and who consequently must have known him intimately. The bishop writes: “Your Laura is only a phantom of your imagination on whom you exercise your muse. _Un nome imaginario di Laura per avere un oggetto di cui ragionare._”

Amid such a multiplicity of conflicting opinions where can reliance be placed!

In 1529, one hundred and eighty years after the death of Laura, a pretended discovery of her tomb was made at Avignon; but Olivier Vitalis[31] proves the utter fallacy of this discovery, and shows the absurdity of the explanation given in support of it. This tomb is almost universally acknowledged to have been devoid, both inside and out, of any trace of the name of the defunct, or any date of her decease. The tomb itself was destroyed in the French revolution, and at the present day no vestige of it remains.

We see then that this enigmatical Laura has made far more noise in the world during the last four or five centuries, than she ever did in her own time. Perhaps contemporary writers were well aware, as some have asserted, that Petrarch’s sonnets were mere poetical fictions as far as Laura was concerned. Had it been otherwise, more would surely have transpired about her during her lifetime. But on the contrary, her existence is even now thought to be so problematical, that the author of the article on _Laura_, in Didot’s _Biographie Générale_, refrains from giving an opinion on the question.

EXECUTION OF JEANNE D’ARC.

A. D. 1431.

History relates that Jeanne d’Arc was led to the stake the last day but one of May 1431, and burnt alive by a slow fire, and her bones and ashes thrown into the Seine.

When, in the 15th and 16th centuries, the memory of Jeanne d’Arc revived in the minds of historians, the subject invariably served as a theme for controversy and discussion. It is well known that Charles VII., to reward the bravery of this exalted heroine, bestowed letters of nobility upon her brothers and their descendants. Documents discovered by the learned Père Vignier have led to the supposition that Jeanne d’Arc subsequently married, and was not therefore burnt at Rouen, as is commonly believed, but that some other poor unknown creature was sacrificed in her stead. This opinion, which sounds paradoxical, is nevertheless supported by weighty evidence.

Father Vignier of the Oratory, a learned and zealous philobiblon, ever in pursuit of literary discoveries, of which so many are due to the institution of the Oratory, found during a visit to Metz, while turning over the archives of that city, the following notice, in a manuscript register of the events that had taken place there during the 15th century: “In the year 1436, Messire Phlin Marcou was sheriff of Metz, and on the 20th day of May of the aforesaid year, came the maid Jeanne, who had been in France, to la Grange of Ormes, near St. Privé, and was taken there to confer with any one of the sieurs of Metz, and she called herself Claude; and on the same day there came to see her there her two brothers, one of whom was a knight and was called Messire Pierre, and the other “petit Jehan” a squire, and they thought that she had been burnt, but as soon as they saw her they recognised her, and she them. And on Monday the 21st day of the said month they took their sister with them to Boquelon, and the sieur Nicole, being a knight, gave her a stout stallion, of the value of thirty francs, and a pair of saddle cloths; the sieur Aubert Boulle, a riding hood; the sieur Nicole Grognet a sword; and the said maiden mounted the said horse nimbly, and said several things to the sieur Nicole by which he well understood that it was she who had been in France; and she was recognised by many tokens to be the maid Jeanne of France who escorted king Charles to Reims, and several declared that she had been burnt in Normandy, and she spoke mostly in parables. She afterwards returned to the town of Marnelle for the feast of Pentecost, and remained there about three weeks, and then set off to go to Notre Dame d’Alliance. And when she wished to leave, several of Metz went to see her at the said Marnels and gave her several jewels, and they knew well that she was the maid Jeanne of France; and she then went to Erlon in the Duchy of Luxembourg, where she was thronged, so much so that the son of the count of Wuenbourg took her to Cologne near his father the count de Wuenbourg, and the said count loved her greatly, and when she wished to come away he had a handsome cuirass made for her to equip her therein; and then she came to the aforesaid Erlon and there was solemnised the marriage of Monsieur de Hermoise knight, and the said maid Jeanne, and afterwards the said sieur Hermoise with his wife the maid, came to live at Metz in the house the said sieur had, opposite Saint Seglenne, and remained there until it pleased them to depart.”

Since the discovery made by Père Vignier, this remarkable document has been inserted in a work entitled: _Chronique de Metz, composé par le doyen de Saint Thiebaut de la même ville_. This chronicle terminates at the year 1445.

Vignier might not probably have put much faith in this manuscript, had it not been supported by a proof which he considered of great weight. As he was very popular among the best families of Lorraine, he frequently visited them, and being one day at dinner with M. des Armoises, member of an old and illustrious race, the conversation fell on the genealogy of this nobleman, who told the learned father that among the family archives he would find much information regarding his ancestors. Dinner was therefore no sooner ended than the keys of the chamber containing these musty papers were given to Vignier, and he spent the remainder of the day in looking over numerous old manuscripts and parchments. At length he fell upon a contract of marriage between one Robert des Armoises, chevalier, with Jeanne d’Arcy, the so called Maid of Orleans. I leave the reader to imagine the surprise of father Vignier at this unexpected confirmation of the manuscript register.

This historical novelty excited a great sensation at the time, as may easily be supposed. The above extract was inserted in the before mentioned chronicle, and Dom Calmet placed it among the printed documents in his _History of Lorraine_.

The circumstance had been nearly forgotten, when, towards the year 1740, a member of the literary society of Orleans, while making some researches among the archives in the town-hall, found a bill of Jacques l’Argentier, in which in the years 1435 and 1436 there is mention of a sum of eleven panes eight cents for refreshments supplied to the messenger who had brought letters from the maid of Orleans; and another sum of twelve livres, given by the magistrates on the 21st August 1436 to John du Lis, brother to the maid of Orleans, to help him to pay his journey back to his sister. He had an audience of the king, who had granted him a donation of one hundred francs.

Here is a third extract, even more remarkable than the former: “_Au Sieur du Lis, le 18 Octobre 1436, pour un voyage qu’il fit en la dite ville, en route vers la Pucelle, qui se trouvant_ _alors à Arlon, au Luxembourg, et pour port de letters de Jeanne la Pucelle, pour le Roi, à Loicher, où il résidait alors, six livres parisis._”

And again: “_A. Renard Brune, le 25 Juillet 1435, au soir, pour faire loire un messager qui apportait lettres de Jeanne la Pucelle et allait devers Guillaume Belier, Bailly de Troyes, II. s. 83. Parisis._”

The reader must remember that immediately after the execution of Jeanne d’Arc, there was a common rumour that she was not dead, and that another victim had been substituted for her. In the _Histoire de Lorraine_ by Dom Calmet, which only extends to 1544, we read, speaking of the siege of Compiègne, that the Maid of Orleans escaped in the crowd, and that no one knew what became of her. Some supposed her to have been captured and carried to Rouen and burnt, others affirm that the army was averse to her death.

The chronicle of Metz is still more explicit. After relating the capture of Jeanne d’Arc, her removal to Rouen, and her death at the stake, the author adds: “It was so asserted, but since that time a contrary opinion has been held.”

Pasquier, in his researches on France, declares, that during four whole years he had in his keeping the original trial of the maid of Orleans with all the attendant circumstances, and he introduced the subject into chapter V. book VI. of his history. His opinion then should be treated with consideration. He observes that the inexplicable delay between the condemnation and execution, and still more the extraordinary precautions that were taken to hide the victim from the eyes of the public, are very remarkable. When she was led to the stake, a large mitre was placed on her head, which concealed the greater part of her face, and a huge frame, covered with insulting phrases, was carried before her, and completely concealed her person.

In 1440, the people so firmly believed that Jeanne d’Arc was still alive, and that another had been sacrificed in her place, that an adventuress who endeavoured to pass herself off as the Maid of Orleans was ordered by the government to be exposed before the public on the marble stone of the palace hall, in order to prove that she was an impostor. Why were not such measures taken against the real Maid of Orleans, who is mentioned in so many public documents, and who took no pains to hide herself?

The king of France not only ennobled Jeanne d’Arc, her father, brothers, and their descendants male and female, by letters patent dated 1429, but moreover wished that her brothers should take the surname of de Lys, and in fact we find this name in the registers already quoted.

A very remarkable extract given by Pasquier is drawn from the accounts of the auditor of the Orleans estate, in the year 1444 (observe the date). An island on the river Loire is restored to a brother of the Maid of Orleans, Pierre de Lys, chevalier: “_Quie la supplication de Messire Pierre, contenant que pour acquitter la loyauté envers le Roi notre seigneur et Monsieur le Duc d’Orléans, il se partit de son pays pour venir au service du Roi et de Monsieur le Duc, en la compagnie de Jeanne la Pucelle sa seur, avec la quelle, jusques à son absentement et depuis jusques à présent, il a exposé son corps et ses biens au dit service et au fait des guerres du Roi, tant à la résistance des anciens ennemis du Royaume qui tinrent le siège devant la ville d’Orléans, comme en plusieurs voyages faits et entrepris pour le Roi, &c._”

It is scarcely necessary to observe here how very much stronger the claims of this brother would have been, if in 1444, instead of saying “_jusques à son absentement_,” he had brought forward the martyrdom of this sister, as having been the means of saving France from the yoke of England. The expression _son absentement_ may, easily be explained when we remember that the Duke of Bedford, regent of France, died in 1435, and that most probably Jeanne d’Arc was released from prison after this event. It was only one year later that she married Robert des Armoises.

But we may be told that Pope Calixtus III. appointed in 1455 a commission to inquire into the justice or injustice of the condemnation of the maid of Orleans, and that more than a hundred witnesses were heard during this examination without the question of the reality of her execution being once raised. Father Vignier has met this objection by observing that the committee of enquiry was desired to examine exclusively whether the judges had been justified in condemning her as a heretic and an apostate, and it was on this point only that the inquiry touched.

The commission was by no means ignorant of the received opinion that Jeanne d’Arc still lived, but they were bound to keep to the letter of the instructions received.

Jules Quicherat has collected almost every item bearing upon the doubt of the fate of Jeanne d’Arc, in the fifth volume of his work: _Procès de condamnation et de réhabilitation de Jeanne d’Arc_ (in 8ᵛᵒ. Paris 1849). 1) He gives the entire extract from the chronicle of Metz. 2) The extract from the audited accounts of the city of Orleans for the year 1436, according to the register preserved in the Orleans library. 3) An extract from the contract of sale of the fourth part of the lordship of Haraucourt by Robert des Armoises and Jeanne du Lys, called la Pucelle, his wife. 4) Other extracts from the accounts kept by the city of Orleans and the city of Tours for presents of wine made to the Pucelle, and expense of postage of letters from the Bailly of Tournay to the king, touching the matter of Dame Jeanne des Armoises.

Quicherat does not admit that this Jeanne was the true Pucelle, but those who read all his authorities will still retain strong doubts on the subject.

In the 4th volume of the same work we find the account of the execution of Jeanne according to the chronicle of Perceval de Cagny, whom M. Quicherat considers to be the most complete, the best informed, and the most honest of all the historians of “la Pucelle.”

This Perceval was in the service of the Duc d’Alençon who had constant intercourse with the maid of Orleans and had the best opportunities of observing and knowing her. It was in 1436 that Perceval occupied himself in committing the facts to writing, only five years after the execution at Rouen. Now he asserts that the victim’s face was covered when walking to the stake, while at the same time a spot had been chosen for the execution, that permitted the populace to have a good view. Why this contradiction? A place is chosen to enable the people to see everything, but the victim[32] is carefully hidden from their sight. Does it not seem as if this was arranged with a sinister intention?

The following words are from the chronicle: “_Les gens de la justice du Roi d’Angleterre et la dite ville de Rouen firent appareiller lieu convenable pour exécuter la justice, qui peult être vu de très grand peuple. Et le dit 24ⁱᵉᵐᵉ jour de May environ l’eure de midy, la pucelle fut amenée du Chastel, le visage embronché (recouvert) au dit lieu ou le feu estoit prest; et après autres choses lues en la ditte place, elle fut liée à l’estache et arse, par le rapport de ceux, qui disent ce avoir vu._”

THE MURDER OF THE COUNTESS OF CHATEAUBRIAND.

A. D. 1525.

The tragical death of the Countess of Chateaubriand is one of the most remarkable traditions of Brittany.

Go in the present day to Chateaubriand, that feudal city whose duke rendered homage to the Duke of Brittany alone. Let yourself be conducted to the castle, now transformed into the town-hall, with a tricolor flag waving over the dilapidated arms of the Sires of Chateaubriand. Question the first person you meet, be it a young woman or child: either will relate to you with an air of unalterable conviction the tragical fate of Françoise de Foix, assassinated by her husband Jean, Count of Chateaubriand. No other proofs will be advanced in support of the murder than the public belief transmitted from father to son, and the traces still visible of the blood of the victim in the room where the crime was committed. Follow your guide, who is about to show you these bloody vestiges, which nearly three centuries have, it is said, failed to efface.

You mount a staircase the steps of which are worn by feet; you cross long galleries and reach at length a vast chamber stript of its gothic furniture, but still preserving as a remnant of past splendour decorations of faded gilt leather, a wainscot of carved oak, and some painted panels blackened by age. It is here, you are told, that the Countess remained a prisoner for several years; it is here that she breathed her last sigh, exhausted by the blood that flowed from veins opened in her hands and feet by order of her husband.

The commandant of the gendarmerie now inhabits this immense apartment, in which the vulgarity of the shabby modern furniture contrasts with the general aspect of the room. If you question the clerks and servants who lodge in the interior of the ancient castle, or are obliged from the nature of their duties to frequent these spots, they will tell you, making the sign of the cross, that the soul of the Countess yearly revisits the place where she lost her life, on the night of the 24th October, the anniversary of this cruel act of vengeance. Many witnesses will be at hand to declare that they have frequently heard piercing cries and stifled lamentations issue from the walls at midnight, the hour at which the Count de Chateaubriand murdered his wife. The commandant, nevertheless, we are happy to say, contrives to sleep remarkably well on the very scene of the alleged crime.

The story of Françoise de Foix is told as follows: Endowed with extraordinary beauty, she was married at the age of twelve years to the Count of Chateaubriand, who obtained her hand without difficulty, being content to receive it with no other dowry than her youth and loveliness. The young countess in course of time presented her husband with a daughter, and his happiness would have been complete had he been able for an indefinite period to conceal his treasure in the secluded corner of Brittany in which they lived. But the reputation of his wife’s beauty traversed the confines of the province, and when Francis I., King of France, desired that the ladies, who had until then only appeared at court on state occasions, should henceforward be introduced and should take part in all the festivities, one of the first on whom his thoughts rested was the Countess of Chateaubriand.

The count for a while evaded the royal mandate, and laid the blame on the peculiar temperament of his wife, representing her as a wild wayward creature whom it was impossible to subdue.

At length some urgent and unforeseen business calling the count to Paris, he hit upon an expedient by which he hoped to escape the importunity of the king, and at the same time reserve to himself private communication with, and control over the actions of, his wife. He ordered two rings to be made of a peculiar device, and so exactly similar that they could not be distinguished the one from the other. He gave one to the countess, and told her that during his absence she was not to put faith in any instructions he might send her from Paris unless they were accompanied by his ring enclosed in the letter.

He then parted from her somewhat relieved in mind, but still anxious and doubtful as to the result of his precaution. On his arrival in Paris he was questioned about his wife by the king, who complained of her absence from court. The count, to excuse himself, offered to summon her at once from Brittany, and even to write to her in the name of Francis I., begging her to come immediately to join her husband. But the letter, unaccompanied by the ring, produced no effect. At length a servant of the count, yielding to the seductions of a bribe, betrayed his master’s secret. A duplicate ring was made, and in the next letter addressed by the count to his wife it was fraudulently inserted. The young countess hastened to her husband’s side, and the count’s stupefaction may be imagined on the sudden appearance of one he so little expected to see. She showed him the second ring; he at once perceived that he had been betrayed, and feeling sure of the inevitable consequences under the influence of such a monarch as Francis I., he took a hasty departure for Brittany in order to avoid being a witness to his wife’s shame and his own dishonour.

The countess, after some little resistance, verified all his apprehensions, and yielded to the importunities of her royal lover.

For some time she ruled the king absolutely, and provided handsomely for her three brothers. Her husband would also have been raised to some important office in the state, had he not indignantly refused any such preferment. He would not even allow his wife’s name, under any pretext, to be mentioned in his presence.

On the fall of Francis I., and his imprisonment after the battle of Pavia, the Countess of Chateaubriand was thrown upon the mercy of her husband, who only awaited his opportunity to revenge himself upon his wife.

On her return to the castle in Brittany, he refused to see her, and shut her up in apartments entirely draped in black. He allowed their little daughter, then seven years of age, to take her meals with her mother and to remain with her a part of each day; but after six months the countess was deprived of this consolation by the death of her child, and the count, having no longer this endearing object before his eyes, to plead for the mother, gave himself up entirely to the gratification of his vengeance.

One day he entered the gloomy prison of his wife accompanied by six men in masks and by two surgeons. The latter bled the countess in the arms and feet and then left her gradually to die. The count took refuge in a foreign land to escape the pursuit of justice.

Brantôme is the first historian who has mentioned the private amours of Francis I. and the Countess of Chateaubriand. Varillas is the first who published the secret details of the violent death of this lady. Since then most historians have regarded the authority of Brantôme as indisputable, founded as it is on contemporary opinion and belief, and sanctioned by the court itself. The details of Varillas, however, seem to be little better than a romance, so many errors and inaccuracies do they contain.

Before we enter upon the discussion of this tradition let us remark by way of preface, that the historian Varillas is acknowledged by all critics to be pre-eminently careless in verifying the sources from which he draws his information. He would not even have deigned to quote the documents on which he founded his narrative,[33] had not his detractors accused him of having invented the whole of it.

His talent for exaggerating or suppressing important facts to suit his personal views, is well known, and as he generally draws from his own prodigious memory without consulting references, he often falls into serious and unpardonable mistakes. His chief error in this instance is in the date he assigns to the murder of the Countess of Chateaubriand, viz. the 26th October 1526, when in fact she died on the 16th October 1537, as we learn from the inscription on her tomb in the church of the convent des Mathurins in the town of Chateaubriand. The count died on the 11th February 1543, and his natural heirs having instituted a law suit, memorable for its duration of half a century, against his donatee, Anne de Montmorency, the learned Pierre Hévin, a lawyer of the parliament of Rennes, published in 1686 a memoir founded on the original legal documents, in which he triumphantly refutes the assertions made by Varillas.

The marriage of Françoise de Foix with the Count of Chateaubriand took place in the course of the year 1509, and as we have said, they resided in Brittany until the king called them to court. Brantôme tells us that the Countess was appointed lady in waiting to Queen Claude of France. From the year 1515, her power over the king was apparent. The alacrity with which Francis conferred the dignity of field-marshal on her elder brother leads to the conclusion that the king sought to obtain her good graces as soon as he mounted the throne. Her husband was sent to a military command in Italy, that grave of many of the flower of the French nobility during the space of thirty years, but the count returned to France safe and sound. Francis being taken prisoner at Pavia, a correspondence in prose and in verse was carried on between him and the countess. It still exists in the Imperial Library, numbered 7688, and corrections are traceable in the handwriting of the king; but when the monarch was restored to liberty and to France, on the 10th March 1526, another beauty captivated his imagination, and the reign of the Countess of Chateaubriand was at an end.

From the date of the imprisonment of Francis I. Brantôme, Gaillard, and other historians shew that the countess lived on good terms with her husband, and that she accompanied him of her own accord to Chateaubriand, where the count falling dangerously ill, he deemed it expedient to make some settlement for the future maintenance of his wife. Towards the end, then, of the year 1526 he drew up a deed before a notary, in virtue of which she became entitled to 4000 livres a year independently of the castle. This act on the part of the count proves that his wife was pardoned; for it is, to say the least, unusual to begin by providing for and enriching those whom we intend to assassinate.

Hévin, the lawyer, avers, that in 1532, the countess herself superintended the erection of additional buildings at the castle of Chateaubriand. Brantôme, whose authorities are generally trustworthy, affirms that she was at court in 1533, and present at the interview between Francis I. and Pope Clement VII. at Marseilles: and J. Bouchet, in his _Annales d’Aquitaine_, even relates a remarkable anecdote connected with that meeting, in which the Countess of Chateaubriand plays a part. Lastly, a proof exists of her presence at the marriage of her brother Lautrec’s daughter in 1535.

One strong objection that still remains to be mentioned against the truth of the murder of the Countess, is this. Among the popular ballads of Brittany so carefully and scrupulously collected by M. Hersart de la Villemarqué, there is not one wherein we find the slightest allusion to this dramatic story.

_Les lettres inédites de la Reine de Navarre_ quoted by M. de Lescure in his _Amours de François I._, contain a document that is quite conclusive in refuting the statements of Varillas; a document which M. de Lescure was the first to discover.

It is a letter written by Marguerite de Navarre to her royal brother a few days after the death of the Countess of Chateaubriand, October 1537. She died at the residence of her husband, who was very ill himself at the time and likely apparently, to follow speedily to the grave the wife whom he was accused of having murdered. The following is a translation of a part of this remarkable epistle: “I have also Monseigneur, seen M. de Chateaubriand, who has been so near death that he is scarcely to be recognised. He expresses much regret at the loss of his wife; your goodness to him however, and the satisfaction he felt in seeing me, have gone far to console him.”

M. de Chateaubriand, the renowned author of Réné, Atala, &c., makes some interesting remarks on this subject in his _Mémoires d’Outretombe_. He disbelieves the tragical death of his relative, and thinks that Varillas has confounded the actual adventures of Gilles de Bretagne, the husband of Françoise de Chateaubriand, with those of Françoise de Foix. Gilles was confined in a dungeon by order of his brother, Francis Duke of Brittany, at the instigation of a favourite, Arthur de Montauban, who was madly in love with Françoise, the wife of Gilles. On the 24th April 1450, the husband was strangled in his prison, and his widow married the Count of Laval. We perceive, that although the dates differ, there is a similarity in the names and circumstances of these two stories, Varillas having only changed the sex of his victim and substituted the wife for the murdered husband.

Nevertheless Paul Lacroix, in his _Curiosités de l’Histoire de France_, does not yield to our view of the argument, but is still disposed to coincide with Varillas. Didot, in his _Biographie Universelle_, also supports the same hypothesis; but we attribute their persistence and that of many others, to the influence exercised over their imagination by the production of two popular novels.

Pierre de Lescouvel, a Breton author, wrote a novel on this supposed assassination, which went through four or five editions and was at first attributed to the Countess Murat, who had gained some reputation as an authoress at the court of Louis XIV.

Madame de Lussan also founded a romance on this tragical event, under the title of _Anecdotes de la Cour de François I._

CHARLES V. OF SPAIN.

A. D. 1540.

Notwithstanding the information afforded by the latest writers on the closing years of the life of Charles V., which were passed in the convent of Yuste,[34] the history of that monarch by Robertson and by other authors who have adopted his views, is still received by many as unimpeachable authority. According to these, Charles V., after his abdication, retired to the convent of St. Yuste, in Estramadura, where he adopted the habit of a monk, withdrew from all interference in the government of his vast empire, occupied himself wholly with mechanism and the construction of clocks and watches, and at length, when his mind had become weakened and worn out, personally rehearsed his own funeral. All this is in fact nothing but a tissue of errors, clearly disproved by existing authentic documents. The love of the marvellous, however, always inherent in the human mind, has fostered the adoption of this romance, to the exclusion of truth and veracity.

The name even of the monastery has been transformed. Sancho Martin, a Spanish gentleman, presented a small piece of land to some monks in 1408; a convent was built upon it which was called Yuste, from a small stream of that name that trickled down the rocks and watered the garden of the monks. It is this stream, the Yuste, that merged its cognomen, even in Spain, into St. Juste or Justo, leading one to suppose that the monastery was dedicated to a saint of that name.

Charles V. did not live with the monks, as is commonly asserted; he never wore the habit of the order; and he never ceased to wield the imperial sceptre _de facto_ and to control the affairs of the state. He had, moreover, a residence built for himself, detached from the convent but communicating by passages with the cloister and the church.

Except in Titian’s portrait the Emperor was never seen in the habit of St. Jerome. He always retained his secular dress, which was a single black doublet, exchanged during periods of illness and _déshabille_, for rich wadded silk dressing-gowns, of which he possessed no less than sixteen in his wardrobe, if we may believe the inventory made after his death. In his letters to intimate correspondents we continually find the following observation: “I shall never become a monk, notwithstanding my respect for the children of St. Jérome.”

Far from adopting an appearance of poverty, or limiting his attendants to twelve in number, as Sandoval and Robertson have asserted, the household of the Emperor consisted of more than fifty individuals, the chief of whom was the major-domo, Luis Quijada. Their annual salaries amounted to above 10,000 florins, equal to £. 4,400 of the present day.

The profusion of plate taken by the Emperor to the monastery was employed generally for the wants of the establishment, and for his personal use. The dishes and ornaments of his table, the accessories of his dressing-table, which betokened the _recherché_ nature of his toilet, the vases, ewers, basins, and bottles of every shape and size in his chamber, utensils of all sorts for his kitchen, his cellar, his pantry and his medicine chest, were made of solid silver, and weighed upwards of 1,500 marks.

All these details, which are derived from authentic documents in the archives of Simancas, bring Charles V. before us in his convent of Yuste in a very different light from that in which we have usually seen him. Neither must we picture to ourselves the convent in Estramadura as the gloomy and solitary residence it had been up to this time. It now became a centre of life and action. Couriers were continually arriving and departing. Every fresh event was immediately reported to the Emperor, whose opinion and whose commands were received and acted upon in all important matters. He was the umpire in every dispute, and all candidates for favours applied to him. In spite of the gout with which he was continually afflicted, he spent whole hours in reading despatches; in fact he was almost as much immersed in public affairs in his retreat, as he had been while actually on the throne. Although he had delegated all official authority, he retained the habit of command, and was emperor to the last.

Another error propagated by Robertson and several subsequent writers is, that the intellect of Charles V. deteriorated until he became a mere second-rate amateur of clocks and watches, and that Torriano, who held the title of watchmaker to the Emperor, worked with his master at the trade. The truth is, that Charles V. had a great natural taste for the exact sciences, which is corroborated by the variety of mathematical instruments enumerated in the inventory of his effects taken after his death. Torriano, far from being a mere clockmaker, was a first-rate engineer and mathematician, and was called by the historian Strada the Archimedes of his age. His mechanical inventions gained him a reputation for sorcery among the monks of Yuste. With regard to the reported collection of clocks, we only find mention of four or five in the long inventory. The Emperor was a very exact observer of time, but no contemporary writer has authorised us to suppose that he took especial pleasure in amassing a variety of watches and time-pieces.[35]

Let us now examine the account given by Sandoval and Robertson of the famous funeral ceremony of the 31st August 1558. The Scotch historian, with a sublime indifference to facts, informs us that Charles V., in the last six months of his life, fell into the lowest depths of superstition. He describes him as seeking no other society but that of the monks; as continually occupied in singing hymns with them from the missal; as inflicting on himself the discipline of the scourge, and lastly, as desiring to rehearse his own obsequies. A desire which could only have originated in an enfeebled and diseased brain. Such are the events contained in the introduction to Robertson’s romance. He goes on to say that: “The chapel was hung with black, and the blaze of hundreds of waxlights was scarcely sufficient to dispel the darkness. The brethren, in their conventual dress, and all the Emperor’s household clad in deep mourning, gathered round a huge catafalque shrouded also in black, which had been raised in the centre of the chapel. The service for the burial of the dead was then performed, and was accompanied by the dismal wail of the monks’ prayers interceding for the departed soul, that it might be received into the mansion of the blessed. The sorrowing attendants were melted to tears at this representation of their master’s death, or they were touched, it may be, with compassion by this pitiable display of his weakness. Charles, muffled in a dark mantle, and bearing a lighted candle in his hand, mingled with his household, the spectator of his own obsequies; and the doleful ceremony was concluded by his placing the taper in the hands of the priest in sign of his surrendering up his soul to the Almighty.”

Such is the account given by Robertson, and it has been still further embellished by later writers. Not only have they represented Charles V. as assisting at his own funeral, but they have extended him in his coffin like a corpse. In that position he is reported to have joined the monks in chanting the prayers for the dead. Another writer (Count Victor Duhamel, _Histoire constitutionelle de la Monarchie Espagnole_) goes still further: “After the service,” says he, “they left the emperor alone in the church. He then arose like a spectre out of his bier, wrapped in a winding-sheet, and prostrated himself at the foot of the altar. This ceremony was succeeded by fearful delirium caused by an attack of fever. The Emperor,” he continues, “at length regained his cell, where he expired the following morning.”

Here the horrible and the absurd seem to vie with one another. But these descriptions are in complete contradiction with the strength of mind really displayed by Charles V. in his last moments; and are moreover contrary to his character, his habits, and mode of life, and with his sentiments as a man and as a Christian on the solemnity of death, and the gravity of the burial service. His dependants, who never left his side, and who have transmitted the minutest details of his life, would surely have been cognizant of these imputed eccentricities, and would doubtless have alluded to them. But their testimony, on the contrary, contradicts everything told by the monks, and their records differ materially in regard to dates.

In the first place, how can we give credence to the ceremony itself?--a ceremony reserved only for the dead by the Roman-catholic church, and never performed for the living? A council held at Toulouse in the beginning of the 14th century pronounced, that the church considered an anticipated funeral to be an act of censurable superstition, and prohibited any priest under pain of excommunication, from taking part in it. This circumstance would perhaps be insufficient to cast a doubt upon the obsequies of Charles V., if it stood alone, but it is supported by others. The greater number of the incidents related by the monks are improbable or false. The Hieronymite chroniclers allege that Charles V. expended on this ceremony two thousand crowns which he had saved up. Now a forcible objection arises to the employment of so enormous a sum for so simple a service. Only a very small part of it could have been used in obsequies which were without pomp and needed scarcely any outlay. It is more probable, on the contrary, as Sandoval affirms (_Vida del Emperador Carlos V. en Yuste_), that it was from this sum that the expenses of the real funeral were drawn, the solemn services of which lasted nine days. Moreover, the physical strength of the Emperor, which was on the wane, could not have borne the fatigue of any such mock display. On the 15th August he was carried to the church, and received the sacrament sitting. It was only on the 24th that he was free from gout: the eruption on his legs succeeded the gout: and he was quite unfit to present himself before the altar on the 29th. On the 31st August, the day that has been selected for these obsequies, he was confined for twenty hours to his room by illness. If all these impossibilities and improbabilities do not settle the question, it remains to be explained why neither the major-domo, nor the Emperor’s secretary, nor his physician, who mention in their letters all the ordinary incidents of his religious life, especially when they bear some reference to the state of his health, do not speak of so extraordinary a ceremonial?--why, remembering the funeral service of the Empress on the anniversary of the 1st May, they make no mention of the sham funeral that the emperor had devised for himself?--why, after stating that he had been carried to church on the 15th of August, where he received the sacrament sitting, they are entirely silent respecting the absurd obsequies of the 31st, to which their master would undoubtedly have summoned them, and which were so immediately followed by his death? But they are even more than silent, they indirectly deny all the alleged circumstances. Their narrative is at complete variance with that of the monks.

About two o’clock on the morning of the 21st September 1558, the Emperor perceived that his life was slowly ebbing away and that death was near. Feeling his own pulse, he shook his head as much as to say: “It is all over.” He then begged the monks, says Quijada, in a letter to Vasquez of the 21st September, to recite the litanies by his bedside, and the prayers for the dying. The archbishop, at his request, gave him the crucifix which had been embraced by the empress in her last hours; he carried it to his lips, pressed it twice to his breast and said: “The moment has come!” Shortly after he again pronounced the name of Jesus and expired breathing two or three sighs.

“So passed away,” wrote Quijada, with mingled grief and admiration, “the greatest man that ever was or ever will be.” The inconsolable major-domo adds: “I cannot persuade myself that he is dead.” And he continually entered the chamber of his master, fell on his knees by his bedside, and with many tears kissed over and over again his cold inanimate hands.

THE INVENTOR OF THE STEAM-ENGINE.

A. D. 1625.

The biography of Salomon de Caus and the account of his labours and his discoveries were scarcely known until the year 1828, when a learned French scholar, Arago, published for the first time in _L’Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes_, a remarkable article upon the history of the steam-engine.

In it he cites the work of Salomon de Caus entitled _Les raisons des forces mouvantes avec diverses machines, &c._, which was first published at Frankfort in 1615 and reprinted at Paris in 1624. M. Arago draws from it the conclusion that De Caus was the original inventor of the steam-engine. Six years later there appeared in the _Musée des Familles_, a letter from the celebrated Marion Delorme, supposed to have been written on the 3rd February 1641 to her lover Cinq-Mars. It is as follows:

“My dear d’Effiat,[36] Whilst you are forgetting me at Narbonne and giving yourself up to the pleasures of the court and the delight of thwarting the cardinal, I, pursuant to the wishes you have expressed, am doing the honours to your English lord, the Marquis of Worcester, and I am taking him, or rather he is taking me, from sight to sight, always choosing the dullest and the saddest; speaking little, listening with great attention, and fixing upon those whom he questions two large blue eyes which seem to penetrate to the very depths of their understanding. Moreover, he is never satisfied with the explanations that are given him, and scarcely ever sees things from the point of view in which they are represented. As an instance of this I will mention the visit we made together to Bicêtre, where he thinks he has discovered in a maniac a man of genius. If the man were not raging mad I really believe that your Marquis would have demanded his freedom, that he might take him with him to London and listen to his ravings from morning till night.