UBRARY \ UNlVCRSlTY Q" CAUFOIIHIA SAN DIEGO Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/favouritesoflienrOOvizeiala THE FAVOURITES OF THE FRENCH COURT THE FAVOURITES OF HENRY OF NAVARRE >ILARMA EVM NO^ IPjSE TV£TVT^"3g "> L..^.y^NClS R,QRV3^ ORRI.^,.?^.' ixtrJ IIEMBY IV., KINO OF FBANCE AND NAVARBE, IN 1596. THE FAVOURITES OF HENRY OF NAVARRE BV LE PETIT HOMME ROUGE AUTHOR OF " "THE COURT OF THE TUILERIES, 1852-187O WITH SIX PORTRAITS PUBLISHED BY RICHARD G. BADGER THE GORHAM PRESS, BOSTON MCMX — — " Lightly from fair to fair he flew, And loved to plead, lament, and sue ; Suit lightly won, and short-lived pain, For monarchs seldom sigh in vain." Marmion. AU rights reserved A LA DAME DE MES PENSEES " L'amour est une passion k laquelle toutes les autres doivent ob^issance." Henri IV. a la Seine Elisabeth, le 26 Octobre, 1596. PREFACE Three years ago the reviewers and the public gave a flattering reception to a book written by Le Petit Homme Rouge on the Court of the Tuileries in the days of the Second French Empire. He now offers a work in some respects similar to and in others different from his previous effort. For instance, this volume contains no elaborate descriptions of Court life and ceremonisJ, though these are incidentally dealt with ; and while, on the other hand, monarchs, nobles, and statesmen again throng Le Petit Homme Rouge's pages, they are men of long ago, offering fre- quently but little resemblance to those about whom the author wrote in his earlier work. This time, moreover, his theme is more particularly Woman in connection with Histor}'. He holds the view that, although women have been debarred by the Salic Law from reigning in France, they have really exer- cised more power and influence there than in any other country. It is, indeed, certain that the fair and frail creatures, with whom one or another Sovereign became infatuated in the days of the old monarchy, often proved, for good or for evil, im- portant factors in the national life, and that due account of them and their influence should therefore be taken by every student who desires to arrive at a right understanding of Fi-ench history. The present volume, then, treats of the Favourites of that famous monarch, Henri de Navarre ; and although he was a ruler who never deliberately entrusted the authority vested in himself to either wife or mistress, the readers of this book will probably recognize that his personal career and the fortunes of his Kingdom were profoundly influenced by his numerous entanglements with women. —; viii PREFACE The author believes that he has gathered together in a volume of moderate length a large amount of information hitherto scattered here and there, and often not easily acces- sible, while at times it has only been conveyed in works over- burdened with details that offer little if any interest to the British reader. At the same time, there have been hitherto very few books limited to the Favourites of Henri de Navarre, yet also professing to give fairly detailed accounts of all of them. An anonymous volume of the kind was issued at Amsterdam in 1743, and nearly fifty years ago M. de Lescure produced in Paris a more elaborate one, which is frequently quoted in this present work. It must be said, however, that latter-day research in many directions has demonstrated the inaccuracy of a good many of Lescure's facts and a good many of his conclusions. At the present time his book is somewhat " similar to the curate's egg, that is, " excellent in parts only for, since it was written, public and private archives have dis- closed many of their secrets, and documents have come to light invalidating much which was once regarded as being probable if not altogether beyond dispute. In the following pages the author has availed himself of this great advance in our historical knowledge, and hopes to have attained to a higher degree of accuracy than was formerly possible; whilst, by carefully examining and sifting evidence, he thinks that he may have elucidated certain points which had hitherto remained more or less obscure. He has not forgotten that his book is intended for the British public, and although he has much to say about women who were frail as well as fair, and claims the rights to which every conscientious historical writer is entitled—for historical writing is valueless unless it adequately sets forth the truth he does not think that he has written a single word to which any reasonable exception can be taken. On the other hand, he has not indulged in moralizing, for he holds that the facts he recounts speak amply for themselves, and that his readers PREFACE ix will easily draw their own conclusions from them. The book makes no claim whatever to be a complete history of Henri de NavaiTe's career and rule; but, in order that the King's position at one and another period may be the better under- stood, there are not infrequent glances at political and military affairs. Moreover, the writer has had to refer incidentally to a very large number of characters, with a good many of whom the English reader is scarcely familiar. There are instances also when one or another personage, after figuring for a while under some particular title, suddenly becomes known by another ; and, further, more or less important questions of relationship occasionally present themselves. The author has therefore been at some pains to supply, either in his text or in his footnotes, a variety of information respecting those subordinate characters, in order that no confusion may arise in the reader's mind. That said, Le Petit Homme Rouge respectfully submits his work to the judgment of the critics and the public, in the hope that it may meet with some at least of the favour which was so generously extended to his previous volume. Paris^ Easter, 1910. CONTENTS CRAPTES PAOB I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. CHARLOTTE DE SAUVES 25 III. A QUARTETTE OF BEAUTIES : TIGNONVILLE, DAYELLE, REBOURS, AND FOSSEUX 48 IV. A ROYAL SEPARATION 71 V. CORISANDA 88 VI. LA BELLE GABRIELLE—WOOED AND WON 116 VII. LA BELLE GABRIELLE—PALMY DAYS 145 VIII. LA BELLE GABRIELLE—DISAPPOINTMENT AND DEATH 173 IX. HENRIETPE d'eNTBAGUES—THE FELINE FAVOURITE 212 X. HENRIETTE d''eNTRAGUES AMBITION AND FALL 238 XI. THE PRINCESS DE CONDE—THE ASSASSINATION OF THE KING AND AFTERWARDS 276 APPENDIX A. WOMEN ASSOCIATED WITH HENRI DE NAVARRE 291 B. NATURAL CHILDREN OF HENRI DE NAVARRE AND THEIR DESCENDANTS 294 C. SONGS ATTRIBUTED TO HENBI DE NAVARRE 301 INDEX 307 ILLUSTRATIONS HENRI DE NAVARRE Frontispieee QUEEN MARGUERITE To face page 24 CORISAXDA 88 GABRIELLE d'esTREES 128 HENRIETTE d'eNTRAGUES 216 PRINCESSE DE CONDE 280 — THE FAVOURITES OF HENRY OF NAVARRE INTRODUCTION The Popularity of Henri de Navarre—His amorous Nature—His Parentage and Ancestry—His Birth, Appearance, Habits and Early Years—His Marriage with Marguerite de Valois—Marguerite's striking Beauty Marguerite and the Duke de Guise—Wedding of Henri and Marguerite The Massacre of St. Bartholomew—Marguerite and the Massacre—Guise and Coligny—The suggested Annulment of Marguerite's Marriage Predicament of Henri and Conde—Henri as "Prince Hal"— Henri and AleuQon seek to Escape—They are foiled by Marguerite—A second Plot for Escape—La Mole and Coconas—Marguerite's alleged Love for La Mole—His Trial and Execution—The strange Legend of the Severed Heads— Henri and Alen^on threatened—Marguerite helps her Husband Another unsuccessful Scheme for Escape—Death of King Charles IX. A GREAT King is not necessarily a popular one. For instance both Francis I and Louis XIV rank among the most remark- able men who ruled France in her monarchical days, yet neither acquired a shred of popularity among the millions under his sway. But the same cannot be said of the monarch whom the French call " Henri Quatre,"" but who is generally known to present-day Englishmen as " Henry of Navarre," an appellation which properly belongs only to the earlier part of his strenuous career. Macaulay helped to popularize it, however, and there is perhaps a particular reason why it should have prevailed among us. Broadly speaking, ours is a Protestant country, " " and Henry of Navarre was the champion of Protestantism ; whereas " Henri Quatre "'"' was a Catholic King. B — ! — 2 FAVOURITES OF HENRY OF NAVARRE i Even in these republican days that sovereign"'s memory may well appeal to many Frenchmen. A forgotten eighteenth- century writer, Gudin de la Brenellerie, wrote of him that he was " Le seal Boi dont le pauvre ait gard^ la m^moiro " a famous line, the authorship of which is little known and which is almost always misquoted, the practice being to substitute patple for pauvre. But, as Gudin was wont to explain on occasions when that error was perpetrated in his presence, the peuple (which, in his time, meant the nation, not merely the inferior or working classes) had reason to remember other monarchs in a favourable sense, among them being Louis XII, on whom, as will be recollected, the appellation of " Fere du Peuple," was bestowed. When, however, Gudin penned the line which alone, of all his writings, has survived, he was thinking, he said, of Henri's desire to improve the lot of his lowlier subjects, and introduce plenty into their homes, a desire he expressed by the wish that the humblest peasant in France might have a fowl in his pot on Sundays.