The Life of Marie de Medicis Volume I Part 2

The Princesses of Mayenne,[38] of Aumale,[39] and of Longueville,[40]

were next the subject of the royal comments; but they were all either too fair or too dark, too old or too plain; nor were Mesdemoiselles de Rohan,[41] de Luxembourg,[42] or de Guemenee[43] more fortunate: the first was a Calvinist, the second too young, and the third not to his taste.

Long ere the King had arrived at this point of his discourse, the keen-sighted minister had fathomed his determination to raise some obstacle in every instance; and he began to entertain a suspicion that this was not done without a powerful motive, which he immediately became anxious to comprehend. Thus, therefore, when Henry pressed him to declare his sentiments upon the subject, he answered cautiously: "I cannot, in truth, hazard an opinion, Sire; nor can I even understand the bent of your own wishes. Thus much only do I comprehend--that you consent to take another wife, but that you can discover no princess throughout Europe with whom you are willing to share the throne of France. From the manner in which you spoke of the Infanta, it nevertheless appeared as though a rich heiress would not be unacceptable; but surely you do not expect that Heaven will resuscitate in your favour a Marguerite de Flandres, a Marie de Bourgogne, or even permit Elizabeth of England to grow young again."

"I antic.i.p.ate nothing of the kind," was the sharp retort; "but how know I, even were I to marry one of the princesses I have enumerated, that I should be more fortunate than I have hitherto been? If beauty and youth could have ensured to me the blessing of a Dauphin, had I not every right to antic.i.p.ate a different result in my union with Madame Marguerite? I could not brook a second mortification of the like description, and therefore I am cautious. And now, as I have failed to satisfy myself upon this point, tell me, do you know of any one woman in whom are combined all the qualities which I have declared to be requisite in a Queen of France?"

"The question is one of too important a nature, Sire, to be answered upon the instant," said Sully, "and the rather that I have never hitherto turned my attention to the subject."

"And what would you say," asked Henry with ill-concealed anxiety, "were I to tell you that such an one exists in my own kingdom?"

"I should say, Sire, that you have greatly the advantage over myself; and also that the lady to whom you allude must necessarily be a widow."

"Just as you please," retorted the King; "but if you refuse to guess, I will name her."

"Do so," said Sully with increasing surprise; "for I confess that the riddle is beyond my reach."

"Rather say that you do not wish to solve it," was the cold reply; "for you cannot deny that all the qualities upon which I insist are to be found combined in the person of the d.u.c.h.esse de Beaufort."

"Your mistress, Sire!"

"I do not affirm that I have any intention, in the event of my release from my present marriage, of making the d.u.c.h.ess my wife," pursued Henry with some embarra.s.sment; "but I was anxious to learn what you would say, if, unable to find another woman to my taste, I should one day see fit to do so."

"Say, Sire?" echoed the minister, struggling to conceal his consternation under an affected gaiety; "I should probably be of the same opinion as the rest of your subjects."

[Ill.u.s.tration: GABRIELLE D'ESTReES. [Paris Richard Bentley and Son 1890]]

The King had, however, made so violent an effort over himself, in order to test the amount of forbearance which he might antic.i.p.ate in his favourite counsellor, and was so desirous to ascertain his real sentiments upon this important subject, that he exclaimed impatiently: "I command you to speak freely; you have acquired the right to utter unpalatable truths; do not, therefore, fear that I shall take offence whenever our conversation is purely confidential, although I should a.s.suredly resent such a liberty in public."

The reply of the upright minister, thus authorized, was worthy alike of the monarch who had made such an appeal, and of the man to whom it was addressed. He placed before the eyes of his royal master the opprobrium with which an alliance of the nature at which he had hinted must inevitably cover his own name, and the affront it would entail upon every sovereign in Europe. He reminded him also that the legitimation of the sons of Madame de Beaufort, and the extraordinary and strictly regal ceremonies which he had recently permitted at the baptism of the younger of the two (throughout the whole of which the infant had been recognized as a prince of the blood-royal, although the King had himself refused to allow the registry of the proceedings until they were revised, and the obnoxious pa.s.sages rescinded), could not fail, should she ever become Queen of France, in the event of her having other children, to plunge the nation into those very struggles for the succession from which he had just declared his anxiety to preserve it.

"And this strife, Sire," he concluded fearlessly, "would be even more formidable and more frightful than that to which you so anxiously alluded; for you will do well to remember that not only the arena in which it must take place will be your own beloved kingdom of France, while the whole of civilised Europe stands looking on, but that it will be a contest between the son of M. de Liancourt and the King's mistress--the son of Madame de Monceaux, the divorced wife of an obscure n.o.ble, and the declared favourite of the sovereign; and, finally, between these, the children of shame, and the Dauphin of France, the son of Henri IV and his Queen. I leave you, Sire, to reflect upon this startling fact before I venture further."

"And you do well," said the monarch, as he turned away; "for truly you have said enough for once." [44]

It will be readily conceived that at the close of this conference M. de Sully was considerably less anxious than before to effect the divorce of the infatuated sovereign; nor was he sorry to remind Henry, when he next touched upon the subject, that they had both been premature in discussing the preliminaries of a second marriage before they had succeeded in cancelling the first. It was true that Clement VIII, in his desire to maintain the peace of Europe, had readily entered into the arguments of MM. de Marquemont,[45] d'Ossat,[46] and Duperron,[47] whom the Duke had, by command of the monarch, entrusted with this difficult and dangerous mission, when they represented that the birth of a dauphin must necessarily avert all risk of a civil war in France, together with the utter hopelessness of such an event unless their royal master were released from his present engagements; and that the sovereign-pontiff had even expressed his willingness to second the washes of the French monarch. But the consent of Marguerite herself was no less important; and with a view to obtain this, the minister addressed to her a letter, in which he expressed his ardent desire to effect a reconciliation between herself and the King, in order that the prayers of the nation might be answered by the birth of a Dauphin; or, should she deem such an event impossible, to entreat of her to pardon him if he ventured to take the liberty of imploring her Majesty to make a still greater sacrifice.

Sully had felt that it was unnecessary to explain himself more clearly, as a reconciliation between Henri IV and his erring consort had, from the profligate life which she was known to have led at Usson, become utterly impossible; nor could she doubt for an instant the nature of the sacrifice which was required at her hands. It was not, therefore, without great anxiety that he awaited her reply, which did not reach him for the s.p.a.ce of five months; at the expiration of which period he received a letter, wherein she averred her willingness to submit to the pleasure of the King, for whose forbearance she expressed herself grateful; offering at the same time her acknowledgments to the Duke himself for the interest which he exhibited towards her person. From this period a continued correspondence was maintained between the exiled Queen and the minister; and she proved so little exacting in the conditions which she required as the price of her concession, that the affair would have been concluded without difficulty, had not the favourite, who was privy to the negotiation, calculating upon her influence over the mind of the monarch, suddenly a.s.sumed an att.i.tude which arrested its progress.

For a considerable time she had aspired to the throne; but it was not until she learnt that the agents of the King in Rome were labouring to effect the dissolution of his marriage with Marguerite de Valois, and that the Duc de Luxembourg[48] was also about to visit the Papal Court in order to hasten the conclusion of the negotiations, that she openly declared her views to Sillery,[49] whom she knew to be already well affected towards her, declaring that should he be instrumental in inducing the King to make her his wife, she would pledge herself to obtain the seals for him on his return from Rome, as well as the dignity of chancellor so soon as it should be vacant.[50]

Sillery, whose ambition was aroused, was not slow to obey her wishes; and, finding the Pope unwilling to lend himself to the haste which was required of him, he not only informed him privately that, in the event of a divorce, his royal master was ready to espouse the Princesse Marie de Medicis, his kinswoman (although at this period Henry evinced no inclination towards such an alliance), but even when he discovered that his Holiness remained unmoved by this prospect of family aggrandizement, he ventured so far as to hint, in conjunction with the Cardinal d'Ossat, that it was probable, should the Pontiff continue to withhold his consent to the annullation of the King's present marriage, he would dispense with it altogether, and make the d.u.c.h.esse de Beaufort Queen of France: a threat which so alarmed the sovereign-prelate that, immediately declaring that he placed the whole affair in the hands of G.o.d, he commanded a general fast throughout Rome, and shut himself up in his oratory, where he continued for a considerable time in fervent prayer. On his reappearance he was calm,[51] and simply remarked: "G.o.d has provided for it."

A few days subsequently a courier arrived at Rome with intelligence of the death of the d.u.c.h.ess.

Meanwhile Gabrielle, by her unbridled vanity, had counteracted all the exertions of her partisans. Aware of her power over the King, and believing that this divorce from Marguerite once obtained, she should find little difficulty in overcoming all other obstacles, she was unguarded enough prematurely to a.s.sume the state and pretensions of the regality to which she aspired, affecting airs of patronage towards the greatest ladies of the Court, and lavishing the most profuse promises upon the sycophants and flatterers by whom she was surrounded. The infatuation of the King, whose pa.s.sion for his arrogant mistress appeared to increase with time, tended, as a natural consequence, to encourage these unseemly demonstrations; nor did the friends of the exiled Queen fail to render her cognizant of every extravagance committed by the woman who aspired to become her successor; upon which Marguerite, who, morally fallen as she was in her own person, had never forgotten that she was alike the daughter and the consort of a king, suddenly withdrew her consent to the proposed divorce; declaring, in terms more forcible than delicate, that no woman of blighted character should ever, through her agency, usurp her place.

The sudden and frightful death of the d.u.c.h.ess, which shortly afterwards supervened, having, however, removed her only objection to the proposed measure, her marriage with the King was, at length, finally declared null and void, to the equal satisfaction of both parties. The event which Marguerite had dreaded had now become impossible, and she at once[52] forwarded a personal requisition to Rome, in which she declared that "it was in opposition to her own free will that her royal brother King Charles IX and the Queen-mother had effected an alliance to which she had consented only with her lips, but not with her heart; and that the King her husband and herself being related in the third degree, she besought his Holiness to declare the nullity of the said marriage." [53]

On the receipt of this application, the Pontiff--having previously ascertained that the demand of Henry himself was based on precisely the same arguments, and still entertaining the hope held out to him by Sillery that the King would, when liberated from his present wife, espouse one of his own relatives--immediately appointed a committee, composed of the Cardinal de Joyeuse, the Archbishop of Arles,[54] and the Bishop of Modena, his nuncio and nephew, instructing them, should they find all circ.u.mstances as they were represented, to declare forthwith the dissolution of the marriage.[55]

Meanwhile the King, whose first burst of grief at the loss of the d.u.c.h.ess had been so violent that he fainted in his carriage on receiving the intelligence, and afterwards shut himself up in the palace of Fontainebleau during several days, refusing to see the princes of the blood and the great n.o.bles who hastened to offer their condolences, and retaining about his person only half a dozen courtiers to whom he was personally attached, had recovered from the shock sufficiently to resume his usual habits of dissipation and amus.e.m.e.nt. In the extremity of his sorrow he had commanded a general Court mourning, and himself set the example by a.s.suming a black dress for the first week; but as his regret became moderated, he exchanged his sables for a suit of violet, in which costume he received a deputation from the Parliament of Paris which was sent to condole with him upon the bereavement that he had undergone![56]

while the intelligence which reached him of the presumed treachery of the Duc de Biron, by compelling his removal to Blois, where he could more readily investigate the affair, completed a cure already more than half accomplished. There the sensual monarch abandoned himself to the pleasures of the table, to high play, and to those exciting amus.e.m.e.nts which throughout his whole life at intervals annihilated the monarch in the man: while the circle by which he had surrounded himself, and which consisted of M. le Grand[57], the Comte de Lude[58], MM. de Thermes[59], de Castelnau[60], de Calosse, de Montglat,[61] de Frontenac,[62] and de Ba.s.sompierre,[63] was but ill calculated to arouse in him better and n.o.bler feelings. Ambitious, wealthy, witty, and obsequious, they were one and all interested in flattering his vanity, gratifying his tastes, and pandering to his pa.s.sions; and it is melancholy to contemplate the perfect self-gratulation with which some of the highest-born n.o.bles of the time have in their personal memoirs chronicled the unblushing subserviency with which they lent themselves to the encouragement of the worst and most debasing qualities of their sovereign. Even before his departure for Blois, and during the period of his temporary retirement from the Court, while Henry still wore the mourning habits which he had a.s.sumed in honour of his dead mistress, the more intimate of his a.s.sociates could discover no means of consolation more effective than by inducing him to select another favourite.

"All the Court," says a quaint old chronicler, himself a member of the royal circle, "were aware that the King had a heart which could not long preserve its liberty without attaching itself to some new object, a knowledge which induced the flatterers at Court who had discovered his weakness for the other s.e.x to leave nothing undone to urge him onward in this taste, and to make their fortunes by his defeat." [64]

Unfortunately the natural character of the King lent itself only too readily to their designs; and, as already stated, they had profited by the opportunity afforded to them during the short retreat at Fontainebleau to arouse the curiosity of Henry on the subject of a new beauty. Whether at table, at play, or lounging beneath the shady avenues of the stately park, the name of Catherine Henriette d'Entragues was constantly introduced into the conversation, and always with the most enthusiastic encomiums;[65] nor was it long ere their pertinacity produced the desired effect, and the monarch expressed his desire to see the paragon of whom they all professed to be enamoured. A hunting-party was accordingly organized in the neighbourhood of the chateau of Malesherbes, where the Marquis d'Entragues was then residing with his family; and the fact no sooner became known to the mother of the young beauty, whose ambition was greater than her morality, and who was aware of the efforts which had been made to induce Henry to replace the deceased d.u.c.h.ess by a new favourite, than she despatched a messenger to entreat of his Majesty to rest himself under her roof after the fatigue of the chase. The invitation was accepted, and on his arrival Henriette was presented to the King, who was immediately captivated by her wit, and that charm of youthfulness which had for some time ceased to enhance the loveliness of the once faultless Gabrielle. At this period Mademoiselle d'Entragues had not quite attained her twentieth year, but she was already well versed in the art of fascination. Advisedly overlooking the monarch in the man, she conversed with a perfect self-possession, which enabled her to display all the resources of a cultivated mind and a lively temperament; while Henry was enchanted by a gaiety and absence of constraint which placed him at once on the most familiar footing with his young and brilliant hostess; and thus instead of departing on the morrow, as had been his original design, he remained during several days at Malesherbes, constantly attended by the Marquise and her daughter, who were even invited to share the royal table.[66]

The d.u.c.h.esse de Beaufort had been dead only three weeks, and already the sensual monarch had elected her successor.

Less regularly handsome than Gabrielle d'Estrees, Mademoiselle d'Entragues was even more attractive from the graceful vivacity of her manner, her brilliant sallies, and her apt.i.tude in availing herself of the resources of an extensive and desultory course of study. She remembered that, in all probability, death alone had prevented Gabrielle d'Estrees from ascending the French throne; and she was aware that, although less cla.s.sically beautiful than the deceased d.u.c.h.ess, she was eminently her superior in youth and intellect, and, above all, in that sparkling conversational talent which is so valuable amid the _ennui_ of a court. Well versed in the nature of the monarch with whom she had to deal, Mademoiselle d'Entragues accordingly gave free course to the animation and playfulness by which Henry was so easily enthralled; skilfully turning the sharp and almost imperceptible point of her satire against the younger and handsomer of his courtiers, and thus flattering at once his vanity and his self-love. Still, the pa.s.sion of the King made no progress save in his own breast. At times Mademoiselle d'Entragues affected to treat his professions as a mere pleasantry, and at others to resent them as an affront to her honour; at one moment confessing that he alone could ever touch her heart, and bewailing that destiny should have placed him upon a throne, and thus beyond the reach of her affection; and at another declaring herself ready to make any sacrifice rather than resign her claim upon his love, save only that by which she could be enabled to return it. This skilful conduct served, as she had intended that it should do, merely to irritate the pa.s.sion of the monarch, who, unconscious of the extent of her ambition, believed her to be simply anxious to secure herself against future disappointment and the anger of her family; and thus finding that his entreaties were unavailing, he resolved to employ another argument of which he had already frequently tested the efficacy, and on his return to Fontainebleau he despatched the Comte de Lude to the lady with what were in that age termed "propositions."

It is, from this circ.u.mstance, sufficiently clear that Henry himself was far from feeling any inclination to share his throne with the daughter of Charles IX's mistress; and that, despite the infatuation under which he laboured, he already estimated at its true price the value of Henrietta's affection. Nevertheless, the wily beauty remained for some short time proof against the representations of the royal envoy; nor was it until the equally wily courtier hinted that Mademoiselle d'Entragues would do well to reflect ere she declined the overtures of which he was the bearer, as there was reason to believe that the King had, on a recent visit to the widowed Queen Louise[67] at Chenonceaux, become enamoured of Mademoiselle la Bourdaisiere, one of her maids of honour[68], that the startled beauty, who had deemed herself secure of her royal conquest, was induced to affix a price to the concession which she was called upon to make, and that M. de Lude returned bearing her _ultimatum_ to the King.[69]

This _ultimatum_ amounted to no less than a hundred thousand crowns;[70]

and, setting aside the voluntary degradation of the lady--a degradation which would appear to have been more than sufficient to disgust any man of delicacy who sought to be loved for his own sake--it was a demand which even startled the inconsiderate monarch himself, although he had not sufficient self-command to meet it with the contempt that it was calculated to excite. Well had it been, alike for himself and for the nation generally, had he suffered his better judgment on this occasion to a.s.sume the ascendant, and mis...o...b..ed, as he well might, the tears and protestations of so interested a person; particularly, when he could not fail to remember that he had been deceived even by Gabrielle d'Estrees, whom he had overwhelmed with riches and honours, and who had voluntarily given herself to him when he was young and handsome; whereas he was now in the decline of life, and was suing for the love of one so much his junior. Unfortunately, however, reason waged a most unequal warfare with pa.s.sion in the breast of the French sovereign; and voluntarily overlooking alike the enormity of the demand, and the circ.u.mstances under which it was made, he at once despatched an order to the finance-minister to supply the required sum. Sully had no alternative save obedience; he did not even venture upon expostulation; but he did better. When admitted to the royal closet, he alluded in general terms to the extreme difficulty which he antic.i.p.ated in raising the required amount of four millions for the renewal of the Swiss alliance; and then, approaching the table beside which the King was seated, he proceeded slowly and ostentatiously to count the hundred thousand crowns destined to satisfy the cupidity of Mademoiselle d'Entragues. He had been careful to cause the whole amount to be delivered in silver; and it was not, therefore, without an emotion which he failed to conceal, that Henry saw the numerous piles of money which gradually rose before him and overspread the table.

Nevertheless, although he could not control an exclamation of astonishment, he made no effort to retrieve his error; but, after the departure of M. de Sully, placed the required amount in the hands of the Comte de Lude, who hastened to transfer it to those of the frail beauty.

It was not until after the receipt of this enormous present that the Marquis d'Entragues and his step-son[71] affected to suspect the design of the King, and upbraided M. de Lude with the part which he had acted, desiring him never again to enter a house which he sought only to dishonour; an accusation which, from the lips of the husband of Marie Touchet, was a mere epigram. He, however, followed up this demonstration by removing his daughter from Malesherbes to Marcoussis, although with what intention it is difficult to determine, as the King at once proceeded thither, and at once obtained an interview.

Little accustomed to indulge in a prodigality so reckless, Henry had flattered himself that the affair was concluded; but such was by no means the intention of the young lady and her family. Henriette, indeed, received her royal lover with the most exaggerated a.s.surances of affection and grat.i.tude; but she nevertheless persisted in declaring that she was so closely watched as to be no longer mistress of her own actions, and so intimidated by the threats of her father that she dared not act in opposition to his will. In vain did the King remonstrate, argue, and upbraid; the lady remained firm, affecting to bewail the state of coercion in which she was kept, and entreating Henry to exert his influence to overcome the repugnance of her family to their mutual happiness. To his anger she opposed her tears; to his resentment, her fascinations; and when at length she discovered that the royal patience was rapidly failing, although her power over his feelings remained unshaken, she ventured upon the last bold effort of her ambition, by protesting to the infatuated sovereign that her father had remained deaf to all her entreaties, and that the only concession which she could induce him to make was one which she had not courage to communicate to his Majesty. As she had, of course, antic.i.p.ated, Henry at once desired her to inform him of the nature of the fresh demand which was to be made upon his tenderness; when, with well-acted reluctance, Mademoiselle d'Entragues repeated a conversation that she had held with the Marquis, at the close of which he had a.s.sured her that he would never consent to see her the mistress of the King until she had received a written promise of marriage under the royal hand, provided she became, within a year, the mother of a son.

"In vain, Sire," she pursued hurriedly, as she perceived a cloud gather upon the brow of the monarch--"in vain did I seek to overcome the scruples of my parents, and represent to them the utter inutility of such a doc.u.ment; they declared that they sought only to preserve the honour of their house. And you well know, Sire," she continued with an appealing smile, "that, as I ventured to remind them, your word is of equal value with your signature, as no mere subject could dare to summon a great king like yourself to perform any promise--you, who have fifty thousand men at your command to enforce your will! But all my reasoning was vain. Upon this point they are firm. Thus then, since there is no other hope, and that they insist upon this empty form, why should you not indulge their whim, when it cannot involve the slightest consequence? If you love as I do, can you hesitate to comply with their desire? Name what conditions you please on your side, and I am ready to accept them--too happy to obey your slightest wish."

Suffice it that the modern Delilah triumphed, and that the King was induced to promise the required doc.u.ment;[72] a weakness rendered the less excusable, if indeed, as Sully broadly a.s.serts: "Henry was not so blind but that he saw clearly how this woman sought to deceive him. I say nothing of the reasons which he also had to believe her to be anything rather than a vestal; nor of the state intrigues of which her father, her mother, her brother, and herself had been convicted, and which had drawn down upon all the family an order to leave Paris, which I had quite recently signified to them in the name of his Majesty." [73]

As it is difficult to decide which of the two the Duke sought in his _Memoirs_ to praise the most unsparingly, the sovereign or himself, the epithet of "this weak Prince," which he applies to Henry on the present occasion, proves the full force of his annoyance. He, moreover, gives a very detailed account of an interview which took place between them upon the subject of the doc.u.ment in question; even declaring that he tore it up when his royal master placed it in his hands; and upon being asked by the King if he were mad, had replied by saying: "Would to G.o.d that I were the only madman in France!" [74] As, however, I do not find the same anecdote recorded elsewhere by any contemporaneous authority, I will not delay the narrative by inserting it at length; and the rather as, although from the influence subsequently exercised over the fortunes of Marie de Medicis by the frail favourite I have already been compelled to dwell thus long upon her history, it is one which I am naturally anxious to abridge as much as possible. I shall therefore only add that the same biographer goes on to state that the contract which he had destroyed was rewritten by the King himself, who within an hour afterwards was on horseback and on his way to Malesherbes, where he sojourned two days. It is, of course, impossible to decide whether Henry had ever seriously contemplated the fulfilment of so degrading an engagement; but it is certain that only a few months subsequently he presented to Mademoiselle d'Entragues the estate of Verneuil, and that thenceforward she a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of Marquise, coupled with the name of her new possession.[75]

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Henri de Lorraine, Duc de Guise, was the brother of Charles, Duc de Mayenne, and of Louis, Cardinal de Guise. He was the chief of the League, and excited a popular revolt on the day of the Barricades, in the hope of possessing himself of the crown. Henri III caused him to be a.s.sa.s.sinated at Blois, in the year 1588. He was distinguished as _le Balafre_ by the people, in consequence of the deep scar of a wound across the face by which he was disfigured.

[3] Catherine was the second daughter of Francois de Cleves, Duc de Nevers, and of Marguerite de Bourbon-Vendome, the aunt of Henri IV. Her dower consisted of the county of Eu, in Normandy. She was twice married; first to Antoine de Croi, Prince de Portien, by whom she had no issue; and secondly, to Henri de Lorraine, Duc de Guise. She died in 1633, at the age of eighty-five years.

[4] She heard three ma.s.ses every day, one high and two low ones, and took the holy communion each week on the Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays.--_Letters of Etienne Pasquier_, book xxii. letter v. col. 666, of the folio edition.

[5] By some extraordinary presentiment they always imagined that they saw a King of France in the Prince of Navarre, even at a time when the greatest obstacles were opposed to such an idea.--Dreux du Radier, _Memoires des Reines et Regentes de France_, vol. v. p. 130. See also _Memoires de Sully_, vol. i. pp. 60-67.

[6] Dreux du Radier, vol. v. p. 182.

[7] _Hist. des Reines et Regentes de France_, vol. ii. p. 4.

[8] Henri de Bourbon, Prince de Conde, first Prince of the Blood, and Grand Master of France, was born in 1552, and succeeded his father, the Comte Louis, who was killed at the battle of Jarnac, on the 13th of May 1569, in the command of the Protestant party, conjointly with the King of Navarre (Henri IV). He made a levy of foreign troops in 1575, distinguished himself at Coutras in 1587, and died by poison the following year at St. Jean d'Angely.

[9] Ambroise Pare was born at Laval (Mayenne), in 1509. He commenced his public career as surgeon of the infantry-general Rene de Montejean; and on his return to France, having taken his degrees at the College of St.

Edme, he was elected Provost of the Corporation of Surgeons. In 1552, Henri II gave him the appointment of body-surgeon to the King, a post which he continued to fill under Francis II, Charles IX, and Henri III.

Charles IX, whose life he saved when he had nearly fallen a victim to the want of skill of his physician Portail, who, in opening a vein, had inflicted a deep and dangerous wound in his arm, repaid the benefit by concealing him in his own chamber during the ma.s.sacre of St.

Bartholomew. Pare was a zealous Calvinist. He died in 1590. His published works consist of one folio volume, divided into twenty-eight books.