Chapter V (2)

The remains of Biron were interred in the church of St. Paul. Not only was his funeral followed by multitudes, but multitudes visited the church afterwards, for the purpose of sprinkling his grave with holy water. “Never was there a tomb,” says de Thou, “on which so much holy water was poured; a circumstance rather disagreeable to the court, which was vexed to see that a step which all ought to have deemed necessary for the safety of the king and state, was so wrongly interpreted as to become a subject of public dissatisfaction.”

Almost the last wish of Biron was for vengeance on La Fin; the wish was gratified. After a lapse of four years, La Fin ventured to visit Paris. In the middle of the day, and in the centre of the capital, he was attacked by twelve or fifteen well-mounted men, who unhorsed him, and stretched him on the ground, weltering in his blood. Several passengers were killed or wounded by the random firing. The perpetrators of this deed, though not unknown, were never brought to justice. La Fin himself was undeserving of pity; but his murderers, even had he been the only victim, ought to have been shortened by the head.

Faithless to a sovereign who had lavished kindness and honours upon him, borne with his caprices and errors, and more than once saved his life on the field of battle, Biron was rightfully punished; but the severity which, on very slight grounds of suspicion, was shown to René de Marc, sieur de Monbarot, seems to impeach the justice of Henry. When, however, we recollect, that his mind was painfully agitated by the plots which were thickening round him, we may, perhaps, be inclined to pity rather than blame the monarch, that, in one instance, its natural bias towards lenity was turned aside.

In the bay of Douarnenez, off the Breton coast, there is an islet, called Tristan, or Frimeau, which commands the entrance to the harbour of Douarnenez. The government of it was held by the baron de Fontanelles, who, during the war of the League, had rendered himself notorious by his activity in plundering. Not being any longer able to gratify his rapacity in this manner, he sought for other resources, and hoped he had found them in becoming an accomplice of Biron, and in opening a negotiation with the Spaniards, to deliver up to them the island and the neighbouring town. This would have put Spain into possession of a very annoying post in Britanny. Fortunately his treason was discovered, and he was sentenced to be broken on the wheel. Three other persons, two of whom were Bretons, participated in his guilt, and the latter were executed.

Before the accomplices of Fontanelles were led to the scaffold, they were put to the torture, and, while they were writhing under that iniquitous infliction, something dropped from them which was construed into an implication of Monbarot, who was governor of Rennes. Monbarot had done good service against the duke of Mercœur, during the war of the League, and, since the peace, he had made strenuous exertions to maintain the royal authority in Britanny. All this was, nevertheless, insufficient to save him from being suspected of treasonable designs, and immured in the Bastile.

Monbarot languished in prison for three years—and to a solitary captive years are ages. He would, perhaps, have remained there during a much longer period, had not filial love been a persevering suitor for him. His only son repeatedly solicited the king to set his parent free; and, failing to obtain that boon, he entreated that he might be allowed to lighten his sorrows, by sharing his captivity. At length, Monbarot’s enemies having failed to procure any proof whatever against him, he was liberated by Henry. But, though he was declared to be innocent, he was punished as though he were guilty. Instead of being, as far as was possible, compensated for three years of suffering, he was deprived of the government of Rennes, which was given to Philip de Bethune, Sully’s younger brother. It is probable, indeed, that the persecution of Monbarot was set on foot for the sole purpose of wresting from him his coveted office.

Charles of Valois, count of Auvergne, who was afterwards known as duke of Angoulême, was a son of Charles the ninth, by Maria Touchet, and was born in 1573. He was admitted a knight of Malta, and became grand prior of France; but Catherine of Medicis having bequeathed to him the counties of Auvergne and Lauragais, he quitted the order of Malta, and married a daughter of the constable Montmorenci. Charles was one of the first to join Henry of Navarre, on the accession of that prince, and he fought valiantly for him at Arques, Ivry, and Fontaine Française. In the course of a few years, however, his loyalty evaporated, and we find him an accomplice of Biron. When he was arrested, his pleasantry and presence of mind did not forsake him. On Praslin demanding his sword, he laughingly said, “Here it is; it has never killed any thing but wild boars. If you had given me a hint of this business, I should have been in bed and asleep two hours ago.” He preserved the same gay humour while he was in prison. In October he was released, after having disclosed the whole that he knew of the conspiracy. As, however, the king had procured the same information from other quarters, Auvergne would probably have been severely punished but for two favourable circumstances—he was the half brother of the king’s mistress, the marchioness of Verneuil, and he had been particularly recommended to him by Henry the third, when that monarch was on his death-bed.

A very short time elapsed before Auvergne was again involved in treasonable projects. His confederates were the marchioness of Verneuil, her father, Francis de Balsac d’Entragues, and an Englishman named Thomas Morgan. The duke of Bouillon, and other nobles, were also ready to lend their aid. The marchioness, who, in consequence of the promise of marriage which the king had given to her during the insanity of his passion, affected to consider herself as his wife, was irritated by the birth of a dauphin, which seemed to shut out the possibility of her son ever possessing what she called his right. D’Entragues was deeply wounded in his feelings, by the stain which Henry’s licentious love for his daughter had cast upon him. Some writers,—who appear to suppose that a French father could not think himself dishonoured by his child becoming a king’s concubine,—throw doubts on the sincerity of d’Entragues’ indignation; but I can see no real grounds for their so doing. There is an air of sincerity, in what he says upon this subject, which is greatly in his favour. After touching upon the ingratitude with which his faithful services had been repaid, he adds, “Borne down by years and maladies, I was condemned to suffer more deadly blows from blind fortune. My daughter, the sole consolation of my old age, pleased the king, and this last stroke completed my misery. Grief aggravated my maladies, and still more intense mental anguish was joined to the pains which my body endured. I found myself exposed to all the gibes of the courtiers, and that which generally constitutes the happiness of a father, and which ought to have formed the glory and felicity of my family, was, on the contrary, the cause of my shame, of the dishonour of my house, and of the insulting scorn with which I was overwhelmed.” As often as he implored for leave to withdraw from court he was refused, and at length he was forbidden to see his daughter. Not content with inflicting these wrongs upon him, Henry was striving to seduce his second daughter also. Assuredly if such injuries are not sufficient to rouse the wrath of a father, it is difficult to imagine what would be. That d’Entragues keenly felt them is certain; for he more than once endeavoured to intercept and kill the king, while he was on his way to the marchioness, and to her sister, and Henry is said to have narrowly escaped. The design to assassinate is indefensible; but it at least proves that the father was in earnest. At a subsequent period, Henry said to d’Entragues, “Is it true, as is reported, that you meant to kill me?” “Yes, Sire,” replied the undaunted noble, “and the idea will never be out of my mind, while your majesty persists to blot my honour in the person of my daughter.”

The particulars of the conspiracy are very imperfectly known. It is said the principal stipulations of the treaty with Spain were, that Philip should recognise as dauphin the natural son of Henry by the marchioness of Verneuil, on her putting him into his hands; that, in the first instance, the mother and child should seek refuge at Sedan, under the protection of the duke of Bouillon, and that subsequently five Portuguese fortresses should be ceded to them as places of security; and that France should be invaded on the frontiers of Champagne, Burgundy, and Provence, by the marquis of Spinola, the count of Fuentes, and the duke of Savoy.

To the prosecution of Auvergne there were two obstacles, which arose out of the conduct of Henry. When the count was released from the Bastile, he offered to continue his correspondence with the Spanish court, for the purpose of betraying its secrets to the king; and a regular authority for so doing was unwisely granted to him. It was base in Auvergne to make such a proposal, and scarcely less so in Henry to adopt it. By another act, the monarch gave him a fresh pretext for holding intercourse with a power which was thoroughly hostile at heart. Henry being attacked by a fit of illness, the marchioness, who had insulted Mary of Medicis beyond endurance, affected to feel, or perhaps felt, such extreme dread of what would befal her and her offspring in case of his death, that the king gave her half brother a written permission to negotiate an asylum for her in a foreign country. Cambray was the place which she and Auvergne selected as the city of refuge; and this selection afforded them, while the negotiation was proceeding, an opportunity to carry on intrigues with the emissaries of Spain.

Apprehending, probably, that his treasonable duplicity would soon be detected, Auvergne, by challenging the count of Soissons, artfully contrived to be banished from court. Soissons complained, and Henry, to satisfy him, exiled the challenger to the province whence he derived his title. This was what Charles of Valois had aimed at; for, in that province, his possessions, his popularity, and the rugged nature of the country, would contribute to secure him from danger. While he was there, a letter written by him, to one of his friends at Paris, was intercepted, and, though its language was obscure, it gave the king reason to believe that, under pretence of betraying Spain, the count was in reality plotting with it. Henry immediately summoned him to return to court. Auvergne was however aware of the reason and the danger. “It is only for the purpose of bringing my head to the scaffold,” said he, “that I am called to Paris.” The mere idea of being re-immured in “that great heap of stones,” as he called the Bastile, made him shudder. Neither a safe-conduct, nor a formal pardon, which were offered to him, nor the assurances of several persons, whom the king sent to him, could remove his suspicions. To avoid being taken by surprise, he lived in the woods, and the most solitary spots, and kept dogs and sentinels continually on the watch. Yet he was at last circumvented. His regiment of cavalry was purposely ordered to pass near his abode, and he could not deny himself the gratification of inspecting it. In this pleasure he thought he might safely indulge, as he was resolved that he would neither dismount nor be surrounded, and was on the back of a fleet horse, that could gallop ten leagues without stopping. He was, nevertheless, adroitly seized, and carried off to the Bastile, where he was placed in the chamber that Biron had inhabited. On his way thither he had preserved his serenity, but, when he entered the chamber, the remembrance of his friend drew from him a few tears. He soon, however, recovered his equanimity, and jocosely told the governor, “there was no inn at Paris so bad that he would not rather go to bed in it, than in this building.” As soon as Auvergne was secured, d’Entragues was arrested and lodged in the Concièrgerie, and the marchioness of Verneuil was placed under a guard in her own house.

The parliament was now directed to take cognizance of the plot. Henry, however, whose main object in all this was to render his haughty mistress more submissive, sent one of his confidential servants to make her an offer of pardon on certain conditions. He was repulsed, as he richly deserved to be. The marchioness disdainfully replied, that, as she had never committed a crime against the king, there was no room for a pardon. The trial accordingly proceeded. The conspirators defended themselves dextrously. Biron had been ruined partly by admitting, at the outset, the fair character and veracity of intended witnesses. The marchioness and the count at least avoided that rock, by manifesting an apparently bitter hostility to each other. As to d’Entragues, he censured them both; but his vindication principally consisted of a severe exposure and impeachment of Henry’s conduct, with respect to himself, the marchioness, and her sister.

Though in a legal point of view, whatever they might be in a moral, the proofs against the prisoners were by no means clear, the judges, on the 1st of February, 1605, found Auvergne, d’Entragues, and Morgan, guilty of high treason, and condemned them to lose their heads. The marchioness was sentenced to be confined in a monastery, while further inquiries were being made into her past proceedings. She was, however, soon after allowed to reside in her own house at Verneuil; and no long time elapsed before the king ordered that all inquiry into her acts should be discontinued. The punishment of the remaining offenders was next commuted. D’Entragues was exiled to his house at Malesherbes, Morgan was sent out of the kingdom, and Auvergne was doomed to remain in “that great heap of stones,” which he so much abhorred.

Thus ended a farce which was eminently disgraceful to Henry, and for which he was justly censured. “It excited indignation,” says de Thou, “to see the ministry of the most respectable tribunal in the realm profaned by a court intrigue. The king, it was said, had brought the marchioness to trial, not for the purpose of punishing her, nor to give an example which was equally necessary and full of equity, but that her father and brother, who had tried to withdraw her from the court, might be foremost in exhorting her to renew her connection with a prince who madly loved her.” To crown the whole, the monarch who, to secure more effectually a refractory mistress, had thus made a laughing-stock of the laws and the magistracy, speedily deserted that mistress, and transferred his fickle affections to Jacqueline de Beuil, whom he created countess of Moret.

The death of Henry did not open the prison doors of the count of Auvergne. He spent nearly twelve years in the Bastile. Happily for him, he had been well educated, and though, while he was immersed in the debaucheries of an immoral court, he had lost sight of literature, his taste for it was not destroyed. He was therefore enabled to solace by study his long captivity; and we may believe that, when he once more emerged from his durance, reflection and added years had made him a wiser and a better man. He had need of consolation while he was incarcerated; for, the year after he was committed to the Bastile, he received another heavy blow. Queen Margaret instituted a suit, to recover from him the vast property which he derived from her mother, and the tribunal decided against him.

At last, in 1616, he was set free by Mary of Medicis, that he might assist in forming a counterpoise to the Condéan faction; and in 1619, he was created duke of Angoulême. He subsequently served the state with honour, on various occasions, both as ambassador and general. His death took place in 1650.

Scarcely were the proceedings against Auvergne and his accomplices brought to a close before another conspiracy was discovered; it was the last which was formed, or rather, perhaps, which was made public, during the reign of Henry. The author of this plot was Louis d’Alagon, sieur de Merargues, a Provençal noble, nearly allied to some great families. We have seen that the Spaniards were desirous to obtain an establishment on the Breton coast, which might be a thorn in the side of France. They now sought to gain a much more dangerous footing on the shore of the Mediterranean. The important city of Marseilles was the object which they coveted, and Merargues was the person on whom they reckoned to put it into their possession.

Almost the first step which Merargues took, after becoming a traitor, showed how unfit he was to act the part which he had chosen; he had all the will in the world to be a dangerous conspirator, and wanted only the talent. Some years before, he had proposed to the king to keep two galleys ready for service, in order to secure the port of Marseilles; the plan was adopted, and as a recompense, he received the command of the vessels. In maturing this scheme, he derived much assistance from a galley-slave, who was a man of ability. To this man, whom he imagined to be entirely devoted to him, and capable of daring deeds, Merargues communicated his purpose of betraying Marseilles to the Spanish monarch. By means of the two galleys, he considered himself to be master of the port; and he had no doubt of being elected to the office of Viguier, or Royal Provost, for the following year, which would give him full authority over the city and the forts.

In order to fathom to the bottom the project of Merargues, the wily galley-slave affected to lend a willing ear to the projector. He, however, deemed it more prudent to trust to the gratitude of his own sovereign for a reward, than to that of Philip of Spain. As soon as he had acquired a thorough knowledge of the particulars, he wrote to the duke of Guise, offering to give information of the utmost importance, on condition of recovering his liberty. His offer was made known to the king by the duke, and was accepted. Guise was at the same time directed to keep the affair a profound secret, till decisive proof could be obtained against the criminal, and to take the necessary precautions for the safety of the city.

Merargues himself was not slow in furnishing the evidence which was wanted. He had already had various conferences with Zuniga, the Spanish ambassador, an able and intriguing diplomatist, but his correspondence on the subject was principally carried on through Bruneau, the ambassador’s secretary. Unconscious that his scheme was known to the French government, he now visited Paris, on a mission to the court, from the states of Provence; a mission which he no doubt readily undertook, that he might have an opportunity of making arrangements with his foreign confederates. By order of the king, he was closely watched, and it was soon discovered that he had secret interviews with Zuniga and Bruneau. The latter was tracked to the abode of Merargues, and both of them were arrested. On the secretary, who tried in vain to draw his sword, was found a paper, which bore witness to the criminality of his purpose. Merargues, on being seized, exclaimed, “I am a dead man! but if the king will spare my life, I will disclose great things to him!” He was conveyed to the Bastile, and Bruneau to the Châtelet.

No sooner did Zuniga learn the detention of his secretary than he demanded an audience of the king. It must excite a smile, to hear that he complained bitterly of heavy wrong, and assumed the lofty tone of offended dignity. In the face of the clearest evidence, he denied all sinister designs; and talked largely of the privilege of ambassadors being violated, and the law of nations set at nought—as if any privileges or law could exist authorizing an envoy to conspire in the very court of the monarch to whom he is deputed. Nor did he forget to recriminate upon the ministers of Henry, as being fomenters of revolution in the Spanish dominions, nor to throw out threats of hostility, in case redress were denied. Angered by the haughty language of Zuniga, Henry retorted with at least equal acrimony, and concluded by a peremptory refusal to release Bruneau, till the question of his guilt or innocence had been thoroughly investigated. In the course of a few days, however, Bruneau was sent back to his master; but not before he had answered interrogatories, and been confronted with Merargues.

The fate of Merargues could not be doubtful. He was sentenced to be beheaded, and then quartered. As the culprit was related to the families of the duke of Montpensier and the cardinal de Joyeuse, the king sent to those personages, to offer the commutation of the punishment into perpetual imprisonment. They, however, with a praiseworthy spirit, replied that, though they were grateful for his kindness, they must decline to accept it; of all such villains they would, they said, be glad to see France cleared, and, although the criminal was their relative, they would do justice on him with their own hands, if there were no executioner to perform that duty. Merargues was in consequence executed, at the Grêve, and his head was sent to Marseilles, and exposed on the summit of one of the city gates.

On the same day that Merargues was led to the scaffold, the life of Henry was endangered by the violence of one John de Lisle, a madman. In the course of a few months another accident occurred; he narrowly escaped drowning, while crossing the ferry of Neuilly in his carriage. At the expiration of five years, treason accomplished its purpose, and the existence of this justly celebrated monarch was cut short by the knife of Ravaillac.