"You are two fools to amuse yourselves with these absurd prognostics,"

said Henry, who had approached them unheard during their momentary excitement. "For the last thirty years all the astrologers and mountebanks in the kingdom, as well as a host of other impostors, have predicted at given intervals that I was about to die, so that when the time comes some of these prophecies must prove correct and will be quoted as miracles, while all the false ones will be studiously forgotten."

The young n.o.bles received the rebuke in silence; but the inexplicable accident which had just occurred was sufficient in so superst.i.tious an age to arouse the liveliest forebodings in the minds of those by whom it was witnessed.[430]

FOOTNOTES:

[391] Mademoiselle de Montmorency was the daughter of Henri, first of the name, Duc de Montmorency, Marshal and Constable of France, celebrated in the history of the civil wars under the name of Damville, who died on the 2nd of April 1614, and of Louise de Budos, his second wife, who had, on her appearance at Court, attracted the attention of the King. This lady, who became the wife of the Connetable in 1593, died in 1598. Charlotte Marguerite was born in 1594, and was consequently but fifteen years of age when she entered the household of the Queen.

[392] Bentivoglio, _Della Fuga del Principe di Conde_.

[393] Ba.s.sompierre, _Mem_. p. 53.

[394] Ba.s.sompierre, _Mem_. p. 55.

[395] Hector de Pardaillan, Seigneur de Montespan, who died in 1611, at the advanced age of eighty years. He was the father of Antoine-Arnauld de Pardaillan, first Marquis d'Antin, grandfather of Roger-Hector, Marquis d'Antin, great-grandfather of Louis-Henri, Marquis de Montespan, the husband of Franchise Athenais de Rochechouart-Mortemart, the celebrated favourite of Louis XIV.

[396] _Memoires_, p. 55.

[397] Mezeray, vol. x. p. 369.

[398] _Memoires_, p. 56.

[399] Mezeray, vol. x. p. 365.

[400] _Memoires_, p. 58.

[401] Sully, _Mem_. vol. vii. p. 189.

[402] Sully, _Mem_. vol. vii. pp. 191, 192.

[403] Mezeray, vol. x. pp. 370, 371.

[404] Montfaucon, vol. v. p. 425.

[405] Daniel, vol. vii. p. 498.

[406] Dreux du Radier, vol. vii. pp. 115, 116.

[407] Alexandre, Comte d'Elbene, celebrated for his military talent and prowess under Henri III and Henri IV.

[408] _Memoires_, p. 67.

[409] Francois Annibal d'Estrees, Marquis de Coeuvres, subsequently duke, peer, and Marshal of France, was the son of Jean d'Estrees, Grand Master of Artillery, and the representative of an ancient and ill.u.s.trious family. He was born in 1563, originally entered the Church, and became Bishop of Laon, to which see he was promoted by Henri IV himself. He, however, some time afterwards, abandoned the ecclesiastical profession and embraced that of arms. In this new career he soon distinguished himself. In 1626 he relieved the Duke of Mantua, took Treves, and made himself conspicuous alike by his valour and his talent.

When appointed, in 1636, amba.s.sador-extraordinary to Rome, he maintained the interests of his sovereign with energy and perseverance, and his frankness and decision caused a misunderstanding between himself and Urban VIII. On his recall to France he refused to explain or to palliate his conduct, and died, leaving behind him the _Memoirs of the Regency of Marie de Medicis._

[410] Louis Potier, Marquis de Gevres, was killed at the siege of Thionville in 1643.

[411] Jacques Nompar de Caumont, Duc de la Force, was the representative of a family which traced its descent from the eleventh century, and was the son of Francois, Seigneur de la Force, who fell during the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew. He bore arms in the Protestant army of Henri IV, and also placed himself at the head of the reformed party under Louis XIII, to whom, however, he surrendered in 1622, and subsequently became Marshal of France, and lieutenant-general of the army in Piedmont. He took Pignerol, defeated the Spaniards at Carignano in 1603, and possessed himself of several towns in Germany. He then returned to France, where he died in 1652.

[412] Albert, Archduke of Austria, was the sixth son of Maximilian II, and was born in 1559. In 1583 he was appointed Viceroy of Portugal, and in 1596 became Governor of the Low Countries under Philip II. He made himself master of Calais, Ardres, and Amiens, and married Isabel Clara Eugenia, the daughter of the Spanish King, who brought him as her dowry the Catholic Low Countries and Franche-Comte, and thus renewed the war with Holland. Defeated at Nieuwpoort by Maurice of Na.s.sau in 1600, he possessed himself of Ostend in 1604, after a siege of three years, three months, and three days; but he was nevertheless compelled to conclude a truce of eight months in 1607, and another of twelve years in 1609. He died in 1621.

[413] Rene de Sainte Marthe de Chateauneuf, who became Keeper of the Seals under the regency of Marie de Medicis.

[414] Madame Henrietta Marie de France, who was married by procuration, by the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld, in the cathedral of Notre Dame, on the 11th of May 1625, to Charles I of England. This unfortunate Queen died suddenly at her country-house at Colombes in 1669.

[415] Daniel, vol. vii. pp. 502, 503, by whom these details were obtained from ma.n.u.script letters in the library of the Abbe d'Estrees.

[416] Hector de Preau was a Calvinist n.o.bleman and Governor of Chatellerault.

[417] Mezeray, vol. x. p. 374.

[418] Mezeray, vol. x. p. 384.

[419] Mezeray, vol. x. p. 387. L'Etoile, vol. iv. p. 16.

[420] _Memoires_, p. 70.

[421] Rambure, MS. _Mem_. vol. vi. pp. 27, 28.

[422] Rambure, _MS. Mem_. vol. vi. pp. 28, 29.

[423] Rambure, MS. _Mem_. vol. vi. pp. 29, 30.

[424] Mezeray, vol. x. p. 385.

[425] Mezeray, vol. x. pp. 376, 385.

[426] _Mem. pour l'Hist. de France_, vol. ii. p. 309.

[427] Dupleix, p. 411.

[428] L'Etoile, vol. iv. p. 31 _n_.

[429] Mezeray, vol. x. pp. 390, 391.

[430] Ba.s.sompierre, _Mem_. p. 70. Rambure, MS. _Mem_. vol. vi. p. 33.

END OF VOL. I