Chapter V (1)

Reign of Henry IV. continued—Viscount de Tavannes—The marshal
duke of Biron—Faults of Biron—Friendship of Henry IV, for
Biron—La Fin, and his influence over Biron—The duke of
Savoy—Biron’s first treason pardoned—Embassies of Biron—Speech
of Queen Elizabeth to Biron—Discontent among the nobles—Art of
la Fin—Imprisonment of Renazé—La Fin betrays Biron—Artifices
employed to lull Biron into security—Arrest of Biron, and
the count of Auvergne—Conduct of Biron in the Bastile—His
trial—His execution—Respect paid to his remains—Monbarot
sent to the Bastile—The count of Auvergne—He is sent to the
Bastile but soon released—He plots again—Cause and intent of
the conspiracy—He is again arrested—Sentence of death passed
on him, but commuted for imprisonment—He spends twelve years
in the Bastile—Mary of Medicis releases him—Conspiracy of
Merargues—He is executed—Death of Henry IV.

The first distinguished prisoner of the Bastile, after the firm establishment of Henry on the throne, was John de Saulx, viscount de Tavannes, second son of that marshal who acquired an undying but unenviable fame during the massacre of St. Bartholomew. He was born in 1555, and may be said to have been nursed in a deadly hatred to the protestants. The viscount accompanied Henry the third to Poland, remained behind when his master departed, visited the Turkish frontier provinces, was engaged in various actions, and at length fell into the hands of the Ottomans. He managed, however, to get free, and, in 1575, he revisited his native country.

In the wars between the catholics and the protestants, Tavannes was an indefatigable scourge of the latter. On one occasion, while he was governor of Auxonne, he was in no small danger; he was surprised and wounded in a church by the enemy, and was confined in a castle. Yet though the wall was a hundred feet high, and he was guarded in sight, he contrived to escape. In the war of the League, against both Henries, he rendered himself conspicuous by his violence and perseverance. He proposed to arm the people with pikes, but this proposal was overruled, on the ground that it tended to excite in their minds the idea of a republic. In attempting to relieve Noyon, he was again made prisoner; he was, however, soon exchanged, the mother, wife, and two sisters, of the duke of Longueville being given as an equivalent for him. In 1592, he was appointed to the government of Burgundy, and he maintained the contest till 1595, when, being abandoned by all his companions in the cause, he yielded a sullen submission to Henry.

Having refused to join the king at the siege of Amiens, he was arrested, in 1597, and committed to the Bastile. Tavannes had certainly a talent for escaping; we have seen that he twice extricated himself from confinement, and he now did so for the third time. By what means he eluded the vigilance of his jailors does not appear. Henry seems to have cherished no very strong resentment against the fugitive; for, instead of placing him in surer custody, he allowed him to reside unmolested on his estate, where Tavannes died, about the year 1630. The viscount published a life of his father, a curious and valuable work; of which, however, some passages are animated by a spirit dishonourable to the writer.

That Tavannes, who was long his determined enemy, and never professed to have become his friend, should be openly or secretly hostile to him, could excite no surprise in Henry; but his feelings must have received a deep wound, when he discovered that he might say, with the inspired royal psalmist, “Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted his heel against me.”

Charles de Gontaut, duke of Biron, the son of a man distinguished for his honour, loyalty, valour, and martial exploits, was born about 1562, and inherited his father’s warlike spirit, but not his praiseworthy qualities. In his childhood he was so dull of apprehension that he could scarcely be taught to read. In his military studies he must, however, have made early and extraordinary progress; for at fourteen he was colonel of the Swiss regiments, and when he was only fifteen, the command of the army in Guienne was entrusted to him for some weeks by his father, who had broken one of his thighs. His religion we may believe to have hung loosely enough upon him, as he twice changed it before he reached his sixteenth year.

There were two crying sins of the age, duelling and gaming, in which Biron made himself conspicuous. He was not yet twenty, when he fought a duel with the prince of Carency, who was a rival suitor to the heiress of the family of Caumont. Each party had two seconds, all of whom were in habits of friendship with each other. It was in a snow-storm, at day break, that the combatants met; and, by taking their ground so that the snow drove into the faces of their antagonists, Biron and his seconds contrived to destroy them. This triple murder was pardoned by Henry the third, at the request of the duke of Epernon. As a gamester, Biron played so deeply, and with such infatuated perseverance, that he himself said, “I know not whether I shall die on the scaffold; but, if I do not, I am sure that I shall die in a workhouse.”

The scaffold which, with somewhat of a divining spirit, he seems to have thought his not improbable doom, was more than once predicted to him. The basis on which one prediction was built may excite a smile. “The archbishop of Lyons,” says an old writer, “judged better than any one else of the nature of men by their countenances. For having one day curiously contemplated the features and characters of the marshal Biron’s face, he pronounced that he had an exceedingly bad physiognomy, verily that of a man who was fated to perish wretchedly.” On surer grounds, on a knowledge of his son’s disposition, his father sometimes said to him, “Baron,” (that was his early title) “I advise you to go and plant cabbages on your estate, as soon as peace is made; for, otherwise, you will certainly lose your head at the Grêve.”

The faults of Biron were, indeed, such as to justify melancholy forebodings with respect to his end. He was vain, imperious, passionate, restlessly active, so greedy of praise that he deemed himself robbed of all that was given to others, so high an estimater of his own services that he never thought them enough rewarded, and so reckless of speech that, when he was in an angry mood, his invectives and reproaches did not spare even the sovereign. These faults were rendered more dangerous to him by his habits of profusion, and the consequent occasional emptiness of his purse, which laid him open to temptation, especially during his fits of dissatisfaction and disgust. On the other hand, it is beyond all doubt that Biron, for some years after the outset of his career, was devoted to Henry the fourth; he was eminently intrepid, displayed unwearied zeal, gave an admirable example of discipline, and was a consummate master of his profession. “No one,” said Henry, “has a keener eye in reconnoitring an enemy, nor a more ready hand at arraying an army.”

At the battles of Arques, Ivry, and Aumale, at the sieges of Paris and Rouen, and on various other occasions, Biron was conspicuous among his fellow chiefs. His promotion kept pace with his exploits, and he rose rapidly to the highest dignities. In 1592, Henry appointed him admiral of France, and, in 1594, a marshal; on receiving the latter rank he gave up the office of admiral, which Villars demanded as a part of his reward for the surrender of Rouen. It has been imagined, that Biron cherished a rankling resentment for the deprivation of the admiralship; but this is more than doubtful: he appears, on the contrary, to have acceded to it with a good grace. In 1595, he obtained the government of Burgundy, and his life was saved by Henry, at the sharp encounter of Fontaine-Française. After having manifested his wonted military talents at the siege of Amiens, in 1598, Biron attained the zenith of his elevation, by being created a duke and peer. When the deputies of the parliament waited on the king, in Picardy, to congratulate him on the success of his arms, he paid to the new-made peer one of those well-turned compliments by which he so often delighted his warriors and statesmen. In turning to account that part of “the cheap defence of nations” which consists in gracefully bestowing praise, no man was more of a proficient than Henry. “Gentlemen,” said he to the deputies, “I introduce to you the Marshal de Biron, whom I present with equal success to my enemies and my friends.”

Thenceforth, thanks to his own folly, the star of Biron gradually declined till it set in blood. He soon became unsafe to be opposed to the king’s enemies, and unworthy of being presented to his friends. Vanity and prodigality were the faults which began his ruin; the one led him to think that his superlative merit was inadequately requited, the other caused him to accuse Henry of avarice and ingratitude, because the monarch did not feed his extravagance with boundless supplies. Biron might, nevertheless, have stopped short of destruction, had there not been perpetually a tempter at his ear, whispering sinister councils. His evil genius was Beauvais La Nocle, sieur de La Fin, a veteran intriguer, who had spent his life in disturbing the public peace, and was still in correspondence with Spain, Savoy, the banished partisans of the League, and the malecontents in various provinces. He is truly described as having been “an enterprising, active, insinuating man, especially skilful in getting on the weak side of those whom he wished to seduce. Bold with the rash, circumspect with the prudent, he seemed to give himself up entirely to his accomplices, that he might provide for his own safety at their expense.” Henry, who well knew the character of the man, warned Biron against him, but the warning was slighted.[5]

The peace of Vervins, which relieved France from a burthensome war, precipitated the fall of Biron. Even before it was concluded, he had listened to the blandishments of Spanish emissaries, and had suffered them to tempt his ambition with the prospect of independent sovereignty, but he had stopped short on the verge of disloyalty. While his mind was thus susceptible of treasonable infection, he was unfortunately despatched by Henry to Brussels, for the purpose of interchanging, with the archduke, the customary oaths as to the faithful performance of the treaty. There he was surrounded by every imaginable seduction. He was “the observed of all observers;” the most splendid entertainments were given, expressly in honour of him; and he heard nothing but exaggerated praises of his transcendent valour and skill, insidious expressions of regret that he should serve a master so blind to his worth, or so meanly jealous of it, and highly-coloured representations of the glorious career which he might run, if he would devote his talents to the cause of the Spanish sovereign. When it was imagined that his head was sufficiently turned, a treaty with Philip was proposed to him. But he was not yet prepared to go thus far; he would give no more than a vague promise to join the catholics, in case of their rising against Henry, and he returned to Paris only half a traitor.

That which had been begun in the Netherlands was completed in France. During the troubles of the League, the duke of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel, had seized upon the marquisate of Saluzzo. Hitherto he had held nearly undisturbed possession of it, but Henry, now that he was relieved from the pressure of foreign and domestic hostility, resolved to recover a territory which was of importance from its affording a passage into Italy. For the same reason, the duke was anxious to retain it; he could not see without apprehension and disgust a powerful neighbour constantly posted within a few miles of his capital. In the hope of prevailing on Henry to cede the marquisate to him, the duke adopted the plan of visiting the French court. Charles Emmanuel had seductive manners, and a ready eloquence, and he concealed profound dissimulation under the semblance of openness and sincerity. Henry, however, though he treated him with an almost ostentatious kindness and pomp, was inflexible on the main point, and the duke found himself under the necessity of signing a disadvantageous treaty.

But Charles Emmanuel had not relied solely on the policy or the generosity of Henry; he knew that the embers of disaffection were still alive in some of the French nobles, and he hoped to fan them into a flame which should scorch the monarch. To win the discontented to his side, he scattered with a lavish hand his largesses, under the disguise of presents. Though from some of those whom he tempted he failed to procure an explicit avowal of their sentiments, he doubted not that they might be reckoned upon in case of an explosion; others spoke out more plainly; and Biron threw himself unreservedly into the arms of the wily Savoyard. It was partly, perhaps, by ministering to the marshal’s wants, but much more by rousing his wrath against the king, that the duke succeeded in making him a traitor. He artfully communicated to him some depreciating language which Henry was said to have used, and the vain and passionate Biron no longer hesitated to cast off his allegiance. The reward of his treason was to be the sovereignty of Burgundy, and the hand of one of Charles Emmanuel’s daughters. Yet at the moment when he was rushing headlong into rebellion, he publicly refused to accept a present of two fine horses from the duke of Savoy; assigning as the reason, that it would not become him to receive gifts from a prince between whom and his own sovereign there were differences existing. Thus hypocrisy was added to the list of his vices.

Imagining that the succour which he expected from the Spanish court, and the movements of the French malecontents, would render it impossible for Henry to attack him, Charles Emmanuel, on his return to Turin, refused to carry the treaty into effect. Henry determined, therefore, to resort to force. To Biron, of whose fidelity he did not yet doubt, he offered the command of the army; and the marshal, in order to avoid suspicion, was compelled to accept it. All that, without betraying himself, he could do to shun success, he did. But the duke of Savoy, relying on his intrigues, had left his fortresses scantily provided with the means of defence, and they consequently made only a feeble resistance, in spite of Biron’s wishes and faulty measures. It was a fatal circumstance for the Savoyard prince, that the power of Spain was palsied by the recent accession of the contemptible Philip the third. Had the second Philip been alive, the viceroy of Milan, the count de Fuentes, a deadly foe of Henry, would probably have led his numerous forces from the Milanese, and made the contest something like what the duke had vauntingly threatened to make it, “a forty years’ affair.” As it was, Fuentes could only recommend to Biron, to seize the king and send him to Spain, “where,” said he, contemptuously, “he shall be well treated, and we will divert him with dancing, and banquetting among the ladies.” Biron shrank from this step, yet, in one of his furious outbreaks of passion, he meditated a fouler crime. At the siege of fort St. Catherine, knowing that the king was about to visit the trenches, he sent a message to the governor, to point his cannon on a certain part of them, and to place in another a company of musketeers, who were to fire when a signal was given. But he quickly repented of his purpose, and kept the king from approaching the perilous spots.

Though the marshal renounced the base idea of becoming the murderer of his sovereign, he did not renounce his plots against him. La Fin was still employed in negotiating for him with the count de Fuentes, and a second treaty was agreed upon at Milan. It was arranged that the duke of Savoy should sign a peace, which, however, he was to break as soon as the French armies were withdrawn, and the Spanish troops were ready; that the Spanish monarch should give to the marshal the title of his lieutenant-general, and secure to him Burgundy, and a princess of Spain or Savoy; and that, in case of the war being unsuccessful, he should be indemnified for his loss by the payment of twelve hundred thousand golden crowns, and an annuity of a hundred and twenty thousand.

By this time the suspicions of Henry began to be awakened with regard to Biron. There were many circumstances which conspired to rouse them; not one of the least of which was the incomprehensible apathy of the duke of Savoy; who, as he scarcely made an effort to defend himself, must be supposed to look for deliverance by some unknown means. Rumours, too, began to be spread of dark and dangerous intrigues; and it is probable, that the manner in which the military operations were conducted by the marshal, so unlike his wonted vigour, was not unremarked. All this appears to have induced Henry to refuse to give the government of the citadel of Bourg to Biron, who urgently requested it. There can be no doubt that Biron wished to be master of this citadel solely to enable him the better to act in concert with Charles Emmanuel; yet he considered as an inexpiable insult the king’s refusal to grant it.

No longer doubting that the marshal had become entangled in dangerous projects, and anxious to save a man whom he loved, Henry took the step of coming to a personal explanation with him. Taking Biron aside, in the cloister of the Cordeliers, at Lyons, he questioned him as to the purpose and cause of the correspondence which he carried on with the enemies of the state, promising, at the same time, a full pardon for all past errors. Thus caught by surprise and pressed, the marshal could not wholly deny his fault, but he described it so as to make it appear only venial, suppressed every thing that it was important for the king to know, and affirmed that, though he was tempted by the prospect of marrying a princess of Savoy, he should never for a moment have wavered in his duty had he not been refused the government of the citadel of Bourg. Without seeking to penetrate deeper into the mystery, Henry embraced him, and said, “Well, marshal, do you think no more about Bourg, and, for my part, I will never remember what has occurred.” The king, however, hinted that a relapse would be productive of dangerous effects.

In the following year, 1601, Biron was sent as ambassador to England, to announce to Elizabeth the marriage of Henry. He was accompanied by the counts of Auvergne and Chateauroux, the marquis de Créqui, and a splendid train of a hundred and fifty gentlemen. Elizabeth received him in the most flattering manner; but there was one of her conversations with him which might well have excited ominous thoughts in his mind. Essex had recently suffered. Speaking of that nobleman, she said, “I raised him to the most eminent dignities, and he enjoyed all my favour; but the rash man had the audacity to imagine that I could not do without him. His too prosperous fortune and his ambition rendered him haughty, perfidious, and the more criminal from his having seemed to be virtuous. He suffered a just punishment; and if the king my brother would take my advice, he would act at Paris as I have done here. He ought to sacrifice to his safety all the rebels and traitors. God grant that his clemency may not prove fatal to him. For my part, I will never show any mercy to those who dare to disturb the peace of the realm.” Biron must surely have felt his heart sink within him, when he heard this language, which, in all ways, was so applicable to himself. It is said, and we may easily believe it, that he omitted to mention this speech, when he gave an account of his embassy.

The forbearance of Henry, and the lesson of Elizabeth, were alike powerless to check the downward career of the infatuated Biron. His treasonable practices were still persevered in. After his return from England, he was sent as ambassador, to Soleure, to ratify a treaty with the Swiss, and, on his way thither, he had a four hours’ conversation with Watteville, the duke of Savoy’s agent. Instead of proceeding to Paris, to render an account of his mission, he stayed at Dijon, the capital of his government, where the violent and insulting language in which he spoke of the king, gave abundant proof that little reliance could be placed upon his fidelity. In the meanwhile, various parts of the kingdom, particularly Poitou, the Limousin, and Périgord, in the last of which provinces the marshal had numerous partisans and vassals, were thrown into a ferment by insidious reports of Henry’s tyrannical intentions. Among the nobles also discontent was at work; the duke of Bouillon and the count of Auvergne were the principal malecontents. The provinces Henry quieted, by the kindness which he displayed in a journey through them; the nobles were not so easily to be reclaimed. It was obvious that a speech which the duke of Savoy made, after his leaving France, was not a mere idle vaunt. His friends rallying him on his failure, and alluding to the season at which he came home, told him that he had brought nothing but mud back from France. “If I have put my feet into the mud,” replied the duke, “I have put them in so far, and have left such deep marks behind, that France will never efface them.”

While, within the kingdom, men’s minds were in this uneasy state, the news from without was by no means consolatory. Philip Dufresne Canaye, the French ambassador at Venice, was laudably active in procuring information of all movements among the Italian powers, by which his country might be affected. He learned that, while throughout Italy the utmost pains were taken to blacken the character and depreciate the resources of Henry, French subjects, disguised, were busy at Turin and Milan, and that they had frequent nocturnal interviews with the ministers of the two courts. He described minutely the features, demeanour and dress of these emissaries, and offered to have one of them seized, and carried off to France, if a small remittance were sent to him. Some strange lethargy seems to have come over the king and the French ministry at this moment; for they not only refused the money which was required, but even failed to send that which was indispensable for the payment of his spies.

From this ill-timed slumber they would probably have been startled up by a fatal explosion, had not the catastrophe been averted by a disclosure of nearly all that related to the plot which had so long been carried on. The terrible secret was divulged by that very La Fin who had so largely contributed to lead Biron astray. La Fin’s first feeling of alienation from the great conspirator is supposed to have arisen out of the only act for which, during a considerable period, the marshal had been deserving of praise. From Biron’s sudden abandonment of the plan to kill the king, in the trenches of fort St. Catherine, his confident drew the conclusion that his firmness was not to be relied upon, and that consequently, at some time or other, he might bring ruin upon those who were connected with him. That he might have the means of shielding himself in case of such an event, he immediately began to preserve all the papers that passed through his hands; and when the marshal desired him to burn any of them before his face, he, by a dextrous sleight, contrived to throw others into the fire in their stead.

Still La Fin continued to be employed in his perilous office of a negociator. It is probable, however, that, now his fears were excited, and it was become a main object with him to keep open a door for escape, he did not display the same alacrity and zeal as before. Biron did not suspect him, but the more cautious and penetrating count de Fuentes did; and his suspicions are said to have been strengthened by some words which dropped from La Fin. Those suspicions the count took especial care to conceal from the person who had inspired them. “Dead men,” says the proverb, “tell no tales;” and the case is much the same with men entombed alive in a dungeon. Fuentes thought it prudent to provide against the danger of a betrayal, by getting rid of La Fin. In order to effect this, he found a pretext for requesting him to pass through Piedmont, on his way to France. Either La Fin had some misgiving as to the intention of the Spanish viceroy, or chance served him well; for, instead of going himself to Turin, he took the road through Switzerland, and sent Renazé, his confidential secretary, to the duke of Savoy. Renazé was immediately arrested, and carried to the castle of Chiari. It was in vain that La Fin strove to interest the marshal in behalf of the secretary; Biron spoke coldly of the captive, as a man who must be sacrificed for the safety of the rest; and he is said even to have advised his confidant to take secret measures for effectually silencing all who had been the companions of his travels, or could give any clue to his proceedings. Already, though he seems not to have had the slightest idea that La Fin would be unfaithful to him, he had deemed it politic to transfer his dangerous confidence to the baron de Luz, his cousin, and two subordinate agents. Of this La Fin obtained information; and it did not tend to quiet his fears. It might be thought advisable to make him share the fate of Renazé. But, even supposing this not to happen, he saw plainly that the violent conduct of Biron towards the king must inevitably soon bring matters to extremities, and that, if the conspirators failed, which it was highly probable they would, his own life would be periled beyond redemption. His nephew, the vidame of Chartres, was also urgent with him to secure his head while there was yet an opportunity.

La Fin at length passed the Rubicon. He made known to the king, that he had momentous secrets to communicate. In reply, he was told, that he should be rewarded for this service; but he stipulated only for pardon, and it was readily granted. The whole of the proofs of Biron’s guilt were then placed by him in the hands of Henry, who was deeply afflicted by these convincing testimonies of the marshal’s treason.

Justice seems to be degraded, and almost to change its nature, when its purpose is attained by fraudulent means. The net was spread for Biron, but in quieting his fears, and luring him into it, a scene of trickery and falsehood was exhibited, which cannot be contemplated without pain. Sully had set a better example, by a stratagem which is not amenable to censure. To prevent Biron from maintaining a war in Burgundy, the minister prudently withdrew from the fortresses of that province the greatest part of the cannon and gunpowder, on the plea that the former were damaged and ought to be recast, and the latter was weakened by age, and must be re-manufactured, and he took care not to replace them. The right arm of Biron’s strength was thus cut off. The marshal, nevertheless, might still take flight; he had more than once evaded a summons to confer with Henry; and it was of primary importance to secure his person. As alarm might be excited by La Fin journeying to court, he was instructed to write to the marshal, that the king had required his presence, that he could not refuse to comply without giving rise to surmises; and that nothing should drop from his lips which could prejudice his friend. In the allusions which it made, and the caution which it recommended, the reply of Biron furnished additional evidence of his guilt. The monarch, too, played his part in the deception. To the baron de Luz, who had been sent from Burgundy to observe what was going on, and was about to return to that province, he spoke of the marshal in terms of kindness, and declared that his heart was lightened by a conversation which he had held with La Fin, as it proved that many of the charges brought against Biron were wholly unfounded. La Fin, at the same time, assured the marshal that the king was entirely satisfied, and would receive him with open arms. Deluded by these artifices, Biron determined to join Henry at Fontainebleau, notwithstanding that the incredulous de Luz, and others of his adherents, strenuously endeavoured to dissuade him. Various circumstances, ominous of evil, are said to have preceded his departure. On his road he received more than one warning from his well-wishers, but he spurned them all, and proceeded to Fontainebleau. As he was descending from his horse, he was saluted by the traitorous La Fin, who whispered, “Courage and wary speech, my master! they know nothing.” His belief in these words consummated the ruin of Biron.

In spite of Biron’s faults, the heart of Henry still yearned towards him. Though he could not greet the offender with his customary warmth and frankness, he received him graciously, and led him through the palace, pointing out the improvements which had been made. At length he touched upon the delicate subject of the marshal’s deviation from the path of duty. He hinted that he had incontrovertible proof, but assured him that an honest confession would cancel every thing, and replace him on the summit of favour. Misled by his pride, and the fatal mistake that his secret was safe, Biron, instead of seizing this opportunity to extricate himself from danger, was mad enough to assume the lofty tone of conscious and wronged innocence; studiously cold in his general manner, he sometimes verged upon insolence, and he loudly declared, that he came not to justify his conduct, but to demand vengeance upon those who had slandered him, or, if need were, to take it. Twice more, in the course of the day—once in person, and once through Biron’s friend, the count of Soissons—Henry renewed his efforts, and was haughtily repulsed. On the morrow the monarch returned to the charge, and made other two attempts to save the marshal from the gulf which was opening to receive him. Oblivion for the past, friendship for the future, were earnestly offered to his acceptance. But Biron was like the deaf adder; he even broke out into a fit of passion on being pressed for the last time; and Henry was reluctantly compelled to resign him to his fate.

It is probable that the king would have borne with Biron for a while longer, had not the terrors, entreaties, and tears of his consort, impelled him to decisive measures. Mary of Medicis believed, that it was a part of the policy of Spain to cut off the royal family, and she shuddered at the idea of what, in the case of a minority, might happen to herself and her offspring, from the hostility of a man who was in all ways so formidable as Biron. The king himself had already betrayed the same apprehension to Sully. After having, in melancholy terms, confessed his lingering affection for the marshal, he added, “But all my dread is, that were I to pardon him, he would never pardon me, or my children, or my kingdom.” The gates of mercy were in consequence shut upon the dangerous criminal.

Biron had been in the habit of contemptuously reflecting upon the character of Essex, for what he considered as a cowardly surrender, and of maintaining that a man of spirit ought rather to suffer himself to be cut to pieces, than run the risk of dying by the headsman’s axe. The time was now come when it was to be seen whether he could practise his own doctrine. It was midnight when he quitted the presence of the king. Every thing had been prepared for his arrest, and that of the count of Auvergne, who was suspected of sharing in the treason. The latter nobleman was taken into custody by Praslin, at the palace gate. No sooner had Biron passed out of the ante-chamber than Vitry, the captain of the guard, seized the marshal’s arm, informed him that he was a prisoner, and demanded his sword. At first he supposed it to be a jest; and, when he was undeceived, he desired to see the king, that he might deliver the weapon into his hands. He was told that Henry could not be seen, and his sword was again required. “What!” exclaimed he furiously, “take the sword from me, who have served the king so well! My sword, which ended the war, and gave peace to France! Shall the sword which my enemies could not wrest from me be taken by my friends!” At length he submitted. When he was led along the gallery, through a double line of guards, he imagined that he was going to execution, and he wildly cried out, “Companions! give me time to pray to God, and put into my hand a firebrand, or a candlestick, that I may at least have the comfort to die while I am defending myself.” When, however, he found that he was in no instant danger, he meanly endeavoured to irritate the soldiers against the king, by saying to them, “You see how good catholics are treated!” He passed a sleepless and agitated night, pacing about his chamber, striking the walls, raving to himself, and occasionally to the sentinels, pouring forth invectives and imprecations, and sometimes with singular imprudence striving to seduce a valet de chambre of the king, who watched him, to write to his secretaries, directing them to keep out of the way, and to maintain, in case of their being taken and questioned, that he never had carried on any correspondence in cipher.

From Fontainebleau the prisoners were conveyed by water to the Bastile. During the passage, Biron was lost in gloomy reverie, and when he entered within the walls of the prison his mind was racked with the worst forebodings. Nor were the circumstances attendant on his abode in the Bastile at all of a nature to raise his spirits. Placed in the chamber whence the constable St. Pol had passed to the scaffold, watched with lynx-eyed vigilance, and so carefully kept from weapons that he was allowed only a blunted knife at his meals, he could not help exclaiming, “This is the road to the Grêve.” While he was in this disturbed state, superstitious weakness is said to have lent its aid to complete his distraction. He was told that the Parisian executioner was a native of Burgundy; and it instantly flashed into his recollection, that having shown to la Brosse, an astrologer, his own horoscope under another person’s name, the wizard predicted the beheading of the person; and that Cesar, a pretended magician, of whom more will be seen in the next chapter, had said, that “a single blow given behind by a Burgundian would prevent him from attaining royalty.” The shock seems for the moment to have utterly deprived him of his senses. Refusing to eat, or drink, or sleep, he incessantly raved, threatened, and blasphemed. A visit from the archbishop of Bourges, who came to offer the consolations of religion, and who gave him some hopes of mercy on earth, rendered Biron less violent. At the prisoner’s request, Villeroi and Silleri, two of the king’s ministers, also visited him; and, either that his brain was still wandering, or that he thought to establish a claim to pardon by appearing to make important discoveries, or that he was prompted by a malignant wish to involve in his own ruin those whom he hated, he is said to have charged, and in the strongest terms, a number of innocent persons with being engaged in treasonable practices. Whatever was his motive, his purpose was frustrated; Henry did not thirst for blood; and it has been remarked, that the documents which, on the trial, were brought forward against the culprit, were not those that most forcibly criminated him, but those which criminated him alone.

While Biron was thus the sport of his unruly passions, his friends were actively employed in endeavouring to save him. Henry had returned to the capital, amidst the shouts and congratulations of his subjects. Soon after his arrival, many of the nobles, some of whom were of Biron’s nearest kindred, waited upon the king, to intercede for the criminal. The duke of la Force was their spokesman; he spoke on his knees, and, though Henry desired him to rise, he retained that posture. He pleaded the services of the culprit and his father, the divine command to forgive our enemies, the pardon which the king had extended to others, and, especially, the deep indelible stain which would be thrown upon the family by a public execution; and, as far as was possible, he laboured to extenuate the marshal’s guilt, by representing that it arose from the warmth of his temper, and had never been carried beyond mere intention. There was one point in the duke’s speech which it was, perhaps, impolitic in him to urge; that in which he stated himself to speak in the name of a hundred thousand men, who had served under Biron. This was begging too much in the style of the Spanish beggar in Gil Blas, and was not calculated to propitiate a man like Henry.

The monarch answered temperately, and even kindly, but with due firmness. Reminding them that he did not resemble some of his predecessors, who would not suffer parents to sue for their children on such an occasion, he declared that the mercy for which they asked would, in fact, be the worst of cruelty. He alluded to the love which he had always borne to Biron, and told them, that had the offence been only against himself he would willingly have forgiven it, and did forgive it as far as related to his person, but that the safety of his children and of the whole kingdom was implicated, and he must perform his duty to them. With respect to the disgrace which it was feared would attach to the relatives of the culprit, he treated the fear as a visionary one; he was, he said, himself descended from the constable St. Pol and the Armagnacs, who suffered on a scaffold, yet he did not feel dishonoured. In conclusion, he assured them that, far from depriving the marshal’s kindred of the titles and offices which they possessed, he was much more inclined to add to the number, so long as they continued to serve the state with fidelity and zeal.

The king having authorized the parliament to proceed to trial, a deputation from that body, with the first president Harlay at its head, went to the Bastile, to take the necessary examinations, and confront the witnesses. With only one exception, which exception the internal evidence supplied by the papers soon obliged him to retract, Biron recognized all the letters and memorials which were shown to him; but he strove to put an innocent construction upon them, and, as they were written in a studiously ambiguous style, he might have thrown doubts upon the subject, had they been unsupported by oral testimony. In this stage of the business, he was asked what was his opinion of la Fin? Still believing that person to be true to him, he replied that he was “an honourable gentleman, a good man, and his friend.” The depositions of la Fin were then read, and he was brought face to face with the prisoner. The marshal now burst out into the most furious abuse of the man whom, but a moment before, he had declared to be his honourable and worthy friend. “O good God!” exclaims a contemporary chronicler, “what said he, and what did he not say! With what more atrocious revilings could he have torn to pieces the character of the most execrable being in the world! With what more horrible protestations, with what more terrible oaths, could he have called upon men, angels, and God himself, to be the witnesses and judges of his innocence!” La Fin, however, stood his ground against the storm of invective; and supported his evidence by corroborative circumstances, and additional documents in the prisoner’s handwriting. It seemed as though every thing conspired against Biron at this dreadful moment. “If Renazé,” said he, “were here, he would prove La Fin to be a liar.” To his utter surprise and consternation, the witness whom he had invoked, but whom he imagined to be dead, was suddenly brought forward, and amply confirmed the whole of La Fin’s story. On the very day that Biron was arrested, Renazé contrived to escape from the castle of Chiari, and he now sealed the fate of the marshal. Driven to his last resource, Biron pleaded the pardon which was granted to him at Lyons, and protested that, since he received it, he had never entertained any criminal designs. In this plea he was no less unfortunate than in the others. From his own incautious avowal, it was gathered that he did not make a full confession to the king; and one of his letters showed that he had continued to plot for many months after the monarch had forgiven him.

The preliminary proceedings being completed, three days were occupied by the parliament in going over the mass of evidence, and hearing the summing up of the attorney general. The courts of justice, in those times, always commenced their sittings at an early hour. Between five and six o’clock, on the morning of the fourth day, Biron, closely guarded, was taken by water to the hall of the parliament, where a hundred and twelve of the members were in waiting to receive him; the peers had unanimously refused to sit upon his trial. At the sight of this array of judges he changed colour, but he soon recovered his self-possession, and is said to have assumed a kind of theatrical air which was scarcely decorous. A contemporary describes him as rudely bidding the chancellor speak louder, and as “putting forward his right foot, holding his mantle under his arm, with his hand on his side, and raising his other hand to heaven, and smiting his breast with it, whenever he called upon God and the celestial beings to be witnesses of his integrity in the service of the king and kingdom.”

The whole of the crimes attributed to him had been arranged under five heads, concerning which he was interrogated by the chancellor. The questioning and defence of Biron lasted between four and five hours, and it must be owned that, in this final struggle for life and reputation, he made a noble stand. Though, in the course of a long speech, he sometimes became entangled in contradictions, its general tenor was well calculated to produce a favourable effect; at moments he was even eloquent, and worked strongly on the feelings of his auditors. Much he denied, and what he could not deny he palliated; with respect to the treasons charged against him, he was, he said, the seduced and not the seducer, a man not deliberately wicked, but led astray by hateful intriguers, who wrought his violent passions into frenzy, by representing that the monarch had undervalued and insulted him—a representation which seemed to be confirmed by his being refused the government of Bourg; he pleaded that his errors had gone no farther than intention, that they had been fully and freely pardoned, and had never been repeated; he urged his numerous and eminent services as a counterbalance to his faults, and the mercy which had uniformly been shown to far worse offenders as a reason why it should be extended to him; and he repelled, as an infamous calumny, the accusation of having intended to bring about the death of Henry—yet, imprudent as such language was, he could not forbear from broadly hinting that the monarch was fickle, unjust, and cruel: “I rely more upon you, gentlemen,” said he, “than I do upon the king, who, having formerly looked on me with the eyes of his affection, no longer sees me but with the eye of his hatred, and thinks it a virtue to be cruel to me, and a fault to exercise towards me an act of clemency.” At the close of his speech, few of his hearers were unmoved, but all were unconvinced.

The most curious part of his defence is yet to be mentioned. If he did not spare his sovereign, it is not to be supposed that he would spare La Fin. Whenever he mentioned him he could not restrain his fury, but gave vent to a flood of abuse. Coining, and an unnatural regard for Renazé, were among the numerous crimes which he imputed to him. Strange that he did not perceive the folly of thus vituperating a man, whom he had so recently recognized as his honourable and worthy friend, and whose sins, if they really existed, he must then have known! But this was not all. For his vindication he mainly trusted to one plea—that he had not been a free agent, that he was under the irresistible influence of La Fin, who was a sorcerer, and had dealings with the devil. He averred, seriously, that La Fin was in the habit of breathing on him, biting his ear, and kissing his left eye, and calling him his master, his lord, his prince, and his king; that whenever his eye was kissed he felt a tendency to do evil; that the magician also enchanted him by making him drink charmed waters; and that he showed him waxen images which moved and spoke, and one of which pronounced, in Latin, the words “impious king, thou shalt perish!” “If by magic he could give voice to an inanimate body,” said he, “is it wonderful that he should have such power over me as to bend my will to an entire conformity with his own?”

Deceived by the compassion which some of his judges had manifested, Biron cherished the flattering hope of an acquittal. His spirits were so elated by this idea, that he amused himself with repeating to his guards various portions of his defence, and mimicking the gestures and speeches which he supposed the chancellor to have made in the course of the subsequent proceedings. His vanity, too, contributed to buoy him up. He ran over, in conversation, the list of French commanders, found some defect in each of them, and thence concluded that, as his military talents were obviously indispensable to the state, his life was secure.

The termination of that life was, nevertheless, rapidly approaching. By an unanimous vote, on the day after his appearance at their bar, the parliament pronounced Biron guilty of high treason, and condemned him to lose his head on the Grêve. The place of execution was changed by the king to the interior of the Bastile, at the request, it was said, of the criminal’s friends; but partly, perhaps, in the fear that a popular commotion might occur, and partly because a report was spread, that some of his domestics intended to throw a sword to him on the scaffold, that he might at least have the chance of dying an honourable death. It was wise not to run the risk of encountering his despair.

The first intimation which Biron received of his impending doom, was from seeing that crowds were gathering together in the neighbourhood of the Bastile. The change of time and place had not been publicly made known. “I am sentenced! I am a dead man!” he instantly exclaimed. He then sent a messenger to Sully, to request that he would come to him, or would intercede with the king. With these requests Sully declined to comply, but he desired the messenger to leave the marshal in doubt as to the king’s intention. On the following morning, the last day of July, 1602, the chancellor, accompanied by some of his officers, proceeded to the Bastile, to read the sentence to him, and announce its immediate execution. Biron was at the moment deeply engaged in calculating his nativity. When he was taken down to the chancellor, he addressed him in an unconnected rhapsody of prayers, lamentations, invectives, and reproaches, intermingled with protestations of innocence, and vaunts of the services which he was yet capable of rendering to the state. He besought that he might be suffered to live, even though it were in prison and in chains! It was a considerable time before the chancellor could obtain a hearing, and he was speedily interrupted by sallies of rage from the marshal, who reproached him with hardness of heart, execrated La Fin, accused the king of being revengeful, and the parliament of injustice in not having allowed sufficient time for his vindication, and, finally, asserted that he was put to death because he was a sincere catholic.

This burst of insane passion was succeeded by a lucid interval, during which he calmly dictated his will, sent tokens of remembrance to his friends, and distributed in alms the money which he had about him. The reading of some parts of his sentence again roused his irritable feelings. When he heard the charge of having intended to destroy the king, he exclaimed, “That is false! blot it out!” and when the Grêve was mentioned, he declared that no power on earth should drag him thither, and that he would sooner be torn to pieces by wild horses than submit to such an indignity. He was quieted by being told of the change which had been made; but, when it was hinted to him that his arms must be bound, he relapsed into such violence that it was thought advisable to leave his hands at liberty. He then made his confession to the priest; and it was remarked that he, who had just before boasted of being a good catholic, was ignorant of the commonest forms of prayer, prayed more like a soldier than a Christian, and seemed to be thinking less of his salvation than of the things of this world.

It being now near five o’clock, the hour which was appointed for the execution, he was informed that he must descend into the court of the prison. As he was quitting the chapel, he caught sight of the executioner. “Begone!” vociferated he: “touch me not till it is time; if you come near me till then, I swear that I will strangle you!” He twice repeated the command and the threat when he was at the scaffold. Looking round on the soldiers, he mournfully said, “Would but some one of you fire his musket through my body, how thankful I should be! What misery it is to die so wretchedly, and by so shameful a blow!” The sentence was then read again, and again he lost all patience at being accused of planning Henry’s death. It was with much difficulty that the clerk of the parliament completed the reading of the sentence, his voice being almost drowned by the clamour of the prisoner. Thrice Biron tied a handkerchief over his eyes, and as often he tore it off again, and once more he vented his rage on the executioner, who had maddened him by wishing to cut off his hair behind. “Touch me not,” he cried, “except with the sword. If you lay hands on me while I am alive, if I am driven into a fury, I will strangle half the folks that are here, and compel the rest to kill me.” So terrible were his looks and his tone, that several of the persons present were on the point of taking flight. It was believed that he meditated seizing the death-sword, but the executioner had prudently desired his attendant to conceal it till it was wanted. At last, after long delay, the marshal requested Baranton, one of the officers of the Bastile, to bandage his eyes and tuck up his hair; and, when this was done, he laid his head upon the block. “Be quick! be quick!” were his last words, and they were promptly obeyed. They were scarcely out of the mouth of the speaker when the sword descended, and by a single blow Biron ceased to exist.