at an end They likewise say that it was so resolved in the Kings Council Perhaps there might be some neglect on his side But I cannot believe what a famous Author says that he affected this delay to give occasion to this defeat which he looked upon as the augmentation of his Authority There was a great number of Rheistres or German Troopers in the Army of whom the Baron of Lunebourg was one of the principal Commanders As Guise was one day visiting the Camp that German who was brave and violent and in whom Wine had that day augmented his natural fierceness fell into such a passion against Guise as to offer to fire at him Guise having drawn his Sword without being concerned struck his Pistol out of his hand and seeing that Montpesat was going to kill that insolent Man Hold Montpesat cryed he to him you know not how to kill a man better than I do I could kill him if I had a mind I pardon thee said he to the Baron the Injury thou hast done me I might have revenged my self but as for that which thou hast done to the King whose Person I here represent it is for him to do what Justice he shall think fit And taking him immediatly by the Belt he sent him to Prison and proceeded to visit the Camp with a hundred Horse not one of the Rheistres daring to stir though they are naturally mutinous and seditious The Marriage of the Dauphin with Mary Steward which was celebrated towards the end of the War had raised Guise who was Uncle to the Dauphiness above all others in the Kingdom It was he who at the Ceremony of the Nuptials had performed the Office of Lord High Steward in the Constables absence who was taken Prisoner at the Battle of Saint Quentin The Peace was made and the Constable returned and Guise being become less necessary quickly saw the favour he was in diminished He had rendered great Services to his Master but he affected too much to make him sensible of the importance of them and Soveraigns make little difference between the Injuries and the Services that are valued to them at too high a rate And indeed Guise believing that nothing could be refused to his merrit had had the boldness to demand of the King the Charge of Lord High Steward which the Constable was possessed of The King refused it him however and then remembred the Counsel that Francis the First had given him as he lay a dying which was to be diffident of the natural Ambition of the Guises and to remove them from the Government that otherwise their their rise would be the fall of the Royal Family On the other side the Dutchess of Valentinois whom the Guises were indebted to for one part of their Grandeur complained of their change of Conduct towards her Guise did no longer pay her those devoirs and the Cardinal of Lorrain insolent in good Fortune and as proud of the fine actions of his Brother as if he had performed them himself begun to treat her very scornfully This haughty and imperious Woman who saw all bend before her was not of a humour to bear with the Contempts of the Cardinal whom she looked upon as her Creature and hardly ever called him otherwise than Master Charles She made her complaints to the King whose mind was already perfectly disposed to receive them and it is certain that he was resolved to remove those two Brothers with both whom he was equally dissatisfied when he was prevented by his Death which happenned in such a manner as all the World knows Never had the Guises seen themselves so near their ruin and never did they see themselves so raised It seemed as if all things would have conspired to render them Masters of the Kingdom King Francis the Second weak in Body and yet more feeble in mind suffered himself to be absolutely governed by his Wife who was their Niece The Queen-Mother who hated the Constable and stood in fear of the Princes of the Blood caused the first to be discharged by the King and removed the others upon divers pretexts The Guises remained alone at Court and she was obliged to contribute to the Augmentation of their Authority for the supporting her own The King declared to the Depuputies of the Parliament who came to kiss his Hand that he had shared the Government of the State amongst his Uncles that Guise should have care of the War and that the Cardinal should govern the Revenue The Dutchess of Valentinois was put away and the Constable constrained to yield up at length his Charge of Lord High Steward to Guise who had so long aimed at it Thus Guise being Master of the Armies by the division that was newly made and Master of the Kings Person by this last Office had the same Authority in the Kingdom as the Maires of the Palace had under the King of the former Race and we may say that it was he who reigned in the King and Regents Name The last Wars had drained the Treasury and the Demesn was almost wholly engaged in the mean time nothing was seen at Fountainbleau where the Court was at that time but People who demanded some Payments others Recompences with an extraordinary Importunity The Cardinal of Lorrain bethought himself of a way conformable to his humour to free himself from these troublesom Sollicitors He caused Proclamation to be made by sound of Trumpet that all those who were at Court upon account of Petitioning should be gone within four and twenty hours upon pain of being Hanged upon a Gibbet that was set up before the Castle It is incredible how much this extravagant Order did incense People against its Author and against Guise likewise though he had no Hand in it For notwithstanding that he was naturally mild and moderate we may say that he rendered himself an Accomplice of the violences and extravagances of his Brother by not hindring them and often likewise by helping him to put in execution such designes as he ought to have opposed Thus the Publick seeking usually in its misfortunes only whom to complain of almost equally accused them both The Princes of the Blood and the Collignies made use of that occasion to disturb the Government which they had but little reason to be satisfied with being they had no share in it They formed the famous Conspiracy of Amboise which I shall not here give an account of because it is not a History but a Life that I write And besides it has been so exactly described by all our Historians that it would be only a useless Repetition Their design was to kill Guise and his Brother and afterwards to oblige the King to give to the Princes and the Collignies the share they pretended was due to them in the Administration of the Kingdom The Liberty of Conscience which they demanded did only help them to cover their intentions with a specious Title and to increase their Party by
was declared Lieutenant General of the Kingdom The agitation of a Court filled with so many several Interests and the Devoirs which they crowded to pay the new King caused those to be forgotten which they owed the King who was newly expired His Body was carried to Saint Denis being only attended by Sansac and la Brosse who had been his Governours and Lewis Guillard Bishop of Senlis who was blind People were not satisfied with the Guises though they excused themselves that they had stayed with their Niece to comfort her It was thought strange that there being six Brothers of them at Court not one had accompanied the Corps of a Prince who had been so kind to them during his Life They were likewise reproached with their ingratitude after a very ingenuous manner There was fastened upon the Pall of the Coffin a Ticket wherein these words were written Tanneguy du Chastel Where art thou This Tanneguy du Chastel had been Lord High Chamberlain under Charles the Seventh who had banished him though he had rendered great Services to the King and the State But this ill usage not having been able to stifle the acknowledgements of the benefits he had formerly received as soon as he knew of the Death of his Master he came to bewail him upon his Coffin and did at his own charges the Funeral Rites which no one would take care of The Queens Ambition was the preservation of the Guises but without their being obliged to her for it She was affraid that by their removal the Princes would absolutely become Masters Thus she entertained both Parties that she might make use of the one to poise the Authority of the other Things were during some days in a pretty great Tranquillity But the most prudent easily perceived that this Calm could not last long The King of Navarre being grown haughty with his new Authority and thinking that he might at length oblige Guise to renounce the Government sought only to vex him upon all occasions He quarrelled with him for keeping the Keys of the Castle as Lord High Steward and pretended that they were to be brought to him as being Lieutenant General of the Kingdom The Queen not daring to Condemn this Prince openly proposed the bringing the Keys to her but this temperament did not please him he threatned her to retire if Guise was not removed and to take with him all the Princes of the Blood and the Constable likewise whose Authority was very great at that time The Queen in this perplexity caused the Constable to be forbidden to leave the Court he obeyed more willingly than was expected and this stayed the King of Navarre who was affraid they would accustom themselves to be without him as they had done in the former Reign In the mean time the Admiral had got such an influence over the Queen that she did nothing but by his Counsel both as to Religion and the Government of the State The Constable who was fixed to the Catholick Religion preferrably to all the Interests at Court was shocked at the Queen's Conduct He could not bear she should permit the Hugonots to exercise their Religion in the very Louvre nor that she obliged the King to assist at the Sermons of the Bishop of Valence whose Sentiments were but too much suspected He represented to her that it was against the Kings honour and Conscience to suffer the excesses that were daily committed in his very Family contrary to the Religion he made profession of But seeing that his Remonstrances were to no purpose and that this Princess only considered things as they might augment or diminish her Authority he begun to withdraw himself from her interests The Marshal de Saint Andre did dexterously make use of that Conjuncture to unite the Constable with Guise who desired nothing more He succeeded in his undertaking These two Lords had ever had a very pure and sincere affection for the Catholick Religion and we may say that it is to them France is indebted for the Conservation of it in that Kingdom Thus they passed over the several Interests which separated them from one another and forgot their ancient Enmities to unite themselves in the Design of opposing the enterprizes of the Hugonots The Constable went to the Communion with Guise on Easter-day and in the Evening they supped together at the Constable's House with the Prince of Joinville Guise's Son and the Marshal de Saint Andre The Constable going afterwards to Chantilly Guise retired to his House at Nanteuil which is not far distant and from whence he wrote to him very often He stayed there till Spring and then followed the King who was going to be Crowned at Rheimes Upon the occasion of this Ceremony there arose a dispute for precedence between Guise and the Princes of the Blood the source of which was as followeth There was formerly but twelve Peers of France six Ecclesiasticks and six Laicks But all the Titles of the Laicks having been suppressed whether by the Re-union of their Lands to the Crown or otherwise the Kings have reserved to themselves the power of honouring with that Quality those they shall think fit without confining themselves to the number which is no longer limited However for the preserving the memory of the first Institution the Custom is That at the Coronation of Kings besides the six Ecclesiastick Peers who assist at the Ceremony six others are chosen from amongst the Laicks who represent the six ancient ones and who assisting there only in Quality of Peers have no other Rank amongst them than that of their Seniority without having regard to the Offices they are otherwise possessed of Insomuch by example that a meer Gentleman would take place there of the Constable if he had been made Peer before him The dispute was to know if this Custome ought to reach to the Princes of the Blood The Prince of Montpensier pretended to go before Guise though Guise was a more ancient Peer than he He said that the quality of a Prince of the Blood eminently contained all the others and that this was the reason that those who had the honour to be so did not take their Rank among them according to their Dignities but according as they were more or less related to the Kings Person Guise made answer That Montpensier not assisting at that Ceremony as Prinoc of the Blood but only as Peer of France his quality ought not to regulate the precedence in that occasion But his best reason was that Custome was for him his Father at the Coronation of Henry the Second and he himself at that of Francis the Second having preceeded the Princes of the Blood Thus he walked immediately after the King of Navarre and before the Prince of Montpensier though Prince Alexander who was afterwards King under the name of Henry the Third went before the King of Navarre As it was difficult after what had passed but that the Prince of Conde who was at Court should
the Marshal de Brissac who complained he had not Forces sufficient to keep the Field All these disappointments did not alter his Resolution of taking the Town He told Castlenau that thé business in hand was of so great importance as to deserve some time to consider of it In the mean time that he would show him his Infantry which was the finest that had been yet seen in France and having commanded him to follow him he came to it within two hundred Paces of the Suburbs of Portereau where they expected him without noise according to the Orders they had received Castlenau thinking he was carried to a Review was much amazed to see Guise light off his Horse and cause four Culverins to advance drawn by Pioneers falling Pell-mell upon the Suburbs The Culverins having over-turned the Gabions and Barrels the Enemies had covered themselves with he caused his Souldiers to march with Sword in Hand who took the Suburbs after a very obstinate Fight and taking advantage of the Enemies disorder they had like to have entered the Town with them During the heat of the Attacque Guise told Castlenau I am grieved the Marshal de Brissac is not here I believe he would take delight to see the Performances of our Foot and that he would find them much better employed in taking this Town and in freeing the Constable than in crossing the Kingdom to run after the Admiral 's Cavalry The River of Loire which runs along the Walls of Orleans separates the City from the Suburbs of Portereau and the Bridge which makes the Communication of the one with the other is guarded by the Fort of Tourelles Guise became Master of it in a few days and the Town was so prest that it was impossible for it to hold out four and twenty hours longer when there happened a Misfortune which changed the state of things There was in the Camp a Gentleman called Poltrot of a gloomy and close humour and having all the manners of Spain where he had been brought up but was resolute besides and capable of the greatest Crimes He had let himself be perswaded by Guises Enemies that he could not render a greater piece of Service to the State than by dispatching Guise out of the World This Man by much thinking of this Design which at first raised a horrour in him and overcome with the continual Instances of those who moved him to it imagined that it would be really an Heroical action and of the greatest advantage to his Country He came thereupon and offered himself to Guise as having abandoned the Reformed Religion and Guise having received him with a great deal of humanity appointed him Quarters amongst the Harbingers and caused him to eat often at his Table This Traytor having waited a pretty while for a convenient opportunity to put his design in Execution and knowing that Guise who had spent the day at Portereau in giving Orders for the general Assault was returning being attended only by a Page and Tristan Rostain who was mounted upon a Mule he hid himself behind a Nut-Tree near which Guise was to pass and having fired his Pistols at him at five or sixpaces distance he shot three Bullets into his Shoulder and gallopped away full speed on a Spanish Horse that he had bought for that purpose This accident put all the Army in a Consternation and the Queen came in all haste to the Camp seeming more grieved than perhaps she really was The Murderer spent the Night in Gallopping up and down the Wood whither he had made his escape But whether the horrour of what he had done had disturbed his mind or that Heaven would not that so great a Crime should remain unpunished it was impossible for this wretch to get from the place where he had committed it and he was taken the next day being so weary that he was not able to stir any longer The Queen caused him to be examined in her presence he declared that it was the Admiral who persuaded him to kill the Duke of Guise that at first he had found a repugnance to this action and that having been once already in the Camp upon the same design he had been touched with Repentance and returned to Orleans but that the Admiral and two Ministers of whom Beza was one had so pressed him that he was not able to resist their persuasions But they cleared themselves of this business by publick Writings and perfect Demonstrations of their being no ways concerned in this Assassinate and desired likewise that Poltrot might be kept so long till the Truth was found out And though the Admiral confessed in his Letter to the Queen that he could not be sorry for an accident that freed the Reformed Religion from its greatest Enemy he protested that he had never spoken to Poltrot and that he did not so much as know his Face In the mean time Guise finding his death approaching prepared himself for it by all the actions of Piety that can be done by a Man under those Circumstances I shall mention here some of his last Words not such as I have imagined them as most Historians do but as they have been written by the Bishop of Ries who assisted him to his last gasp and who has Collected them in a Letter he Addresses to Charles the Ninth After having told the Queen that he had no other regret in leaving the World than to leave it in a time when the King and She might have some occasion for his Service He advised her to employ all things to make Peace and that it was the only means of appeasing the troubles that set France in a Cumbustion that she knew very well that he had never given her any other Counsel and that at the very time when he thought himself sure of taking Orleans it was his Advice That new Propositions of accomodation should be made to the Hugonots and that in short all those who Counselled a War were neither good French-men nor good Servants to the King Then turning towards his Wife who was all in Tears near his Bed and having put her in mind of the Affection he had always had for her he recommended to her the Education of their mutual Children giving her an absolute Power over them and permitting her to retrench a third part of their shares who should be disobedient to her to recompence those she should be most satisfied with praying God to punish her likewise as she would merrit it in case she had not for them the Sentiments that a good Mother ought to have Farewell said he to her grasping her Hand I perceive I have but a short time to see you remember me without desiring to revenge my Death since that God Commands us to pardon our Enemies and that I do pardon him who has so grievously assassinated me Then causing the young Prince of Joinville his Eldest Son to come to him My Son said he to him you have heard what I have said
to your Mother The Condition thou seest me in will be to thee as long as thou livest a fine Instruction of the Vanity of the things of this World as often as thou shalt remember that a Great General in the midst of his Army was not able to defend himself from the treachery of a simple Souldier I do not say this out of Vanity but to make thee comprehend the better that what sâ—ems greatest in the Eyes of men is nothing before God and perhaps destroyed in a moment I have had great Offices which I have always endeavoured to acquit my self of as I ought to do Do you the same in those it shall please the King and Queen to honour thee with but above all think rather of meriting them by thy Services than of obtaining them by thy Cares and by Intrigues which are very often Criminal My dear Child have always the Fear of God and Love of Vertue before thy Eyes but remember that these Sentiments are only learnt and kept in the Commerce of good People wherefore contract Friendship with such Persons as are Vertuous and carefully avoid irregular Companies which the Court is but too full of and where the greatest Crimes are excused under the Notion of Follies of Youth God judges otherwise of them than men do and there are no small Crimes before him I heartily beseech him that he would bestow on thee the Grace to follow these Counsels it is all that I wish thee in giving thee my Benediction and is what I am going to demand of him in Heaven where I hope his Goodness will not disdain to receive me Then looking upon all his Friends and his Brothers who were weeping he thanked them for their Cares and desired them not to grieve for his Death and as they exclaimed against the blackness of that horrible Assassinate I avow to you said he to them that I am troubled at it for the Honour of France I should never have believed that it could have born Men capable of committing an Action that would raise a horrour in Barbarians But God from whom I expect Pardon for my Faults commands us to pardon our Enemies I heartily pardon them and I take him to Witness the sincerity of the intentions I have had all my Life time for the good and repose of this Kingdom After that he would hear no more talk of things of this World and dyed at length on the sixth day after he had received his Wound being hardly fifty years old He was sensibly regretted by all those whom his Death was of no advantage to The Souldiers deplored him as their Father and they run through all the Camp asking one another where they should find such another General as they had newly lost who is it that would expose himself to dangers before them And who would henceforward make inquiry for the wounded and distribute to them Money with his own Hands And in short who would shelter them from the rigours and hardness of the Constable The Catholicks said that they had lost their Protectour and looked upon his Death as a Martyr who had suffered for the defence of the Faith He left his Family incommoded and charged with Debts which is perhaps as glorious to a Man who has had the chiefest Places and Offices of the Kingdom as it is shameful for a private Person He had all the Qualities which have ever made the greatest Heroes and if his Enemies have reproached him with any thing he was not so much to be accused as the Misfortune of the Age and the disorders which happened during his time He was a true Friend a Quality pretty rare at Court and having made the Fortune of a great number of Persons even those who most decryed his Conduct have been obliged to allow that he never advanced any other than Persons of a known and extraordinary Merit He was exact even to the doing all himself when he was in War going always in Person to view the Places he designed to Attacque which he understood better than any Man of that Age. He wrote all his Dispatches with hs own Hand and he spent whole Nights sometimes in so doing When he was wounded at Boulogne his Life was despaired of the Chyrurgions were obliged to set their Feet against his Head to draw out the piece of the Lance that stuck in it and they feared that the violence of the pain would make him expire in their Hands But he was the first to encourage them and du Bellay says that he suffered all that cruel Operation with the same Tranquillity as if they had only pulled away a Hair His Civility and the sweetness of his Carriage procured him the love of all People He never said any thing that any body could be offended at and if some hasty Word escaped from him he repaired it with an extraordinary care He was told that a Gentleman called Saint Val complained that he had struck him with his Sword on that day that the Battle of Renty was fought because he was too eager to engage the Enemies and out-went his Ranks He promised to give him satisfaction therein And indeed having met with him in the Kings Tent he told him before all the Company Mounsieur de Saint Val you ought not to be displeased at my happening to strike you with my Sword since far from being disadvantageous to you it makes appear how much ardour you had to sight the Enemies I take all these Gentlemen here to Witness and desire of you that we may live Friends as before He was so brave as never to be amazed at any thing and from thence comes the presence of mind which he preserves in the greatest dangers They once shewed him a Man who had several times boasted that he would kill him He looked squintingly upon him and told those who had shown him to him That Man will never kill me he is not worth the trouble of taking into Custody After the Death of the King of Navarre who was kill'd at the Siege of Rouen it was the general apprehension that the Kings Army would disband of it self being no longer commanded by a Prince of the Blood And the Queen was told that all the Officers talked of going to the Prince of Conde No no Madam said Guise to her be not affraid the number of those who shall quit your Army will be very small and besides they will be such as that we shall gain by losing them Traytors do but hurt where they are but if there be any here I shall stick to them so close and have them so well watched that they shall not dare so much as to make a Leaf tremble I cannot forbear adding one word more which will help extreamly to make known the Character of his mind and his humour Some Company talking one day of the Troubles that begun to be a brooding in France after the Death of Henry the Second Montluc quick and boiling like a Gascon as he was said That there was no other causes of these ills than the Ambition of the King of Navarre who envy'd the great Actions of Guise and complain'd every where that he had usurped over him the Government of the State He had discoursed thereof to me continued Montluc Whereupon I made him answer That if he had such great pretensions you ought each of you some fair Morning to examin them with a good Sword and that I was sure you would make good my Words Guise who easily foresaw the Consequences that such a Discourse might have answered him very coldly Montluc have you an Order signed from the King of Navarre to talk to me after this manner And Montluc replying that he had not and that he had framed all this himself You think said he to him that you are still in Piemont diverting your self in seeing your Souldiers fight against one another learn a little that the King of Navarre and I am not born to exercise your Imaginations I do not believe that I have any thing to dispute with him or that he does complain of me When he lets me hear from him he shall hear from me We have long known one another All the learned Men of his time strove to make Epitaphs on him which are still in being But if it is a great honour to be commended by a Man who himself merits the highest Applauses we may say that nothing is more glorious to the memory of Guise than the Verses which have been made of him by the Illustrious Chancellour of the Hospital His Virtue was as much admired by Strangers as by French-men The Italians and the Spaniards themselves who cannot be reproached with Commending others to excess call'd him The Great Duke of Guise and at the interview of Bayonne which was two years after his Death they seemed extream earnest to see his Widow and the Prince of Joinville his Son never calling them otherwise than la muger y el hijo d'aquel gran Ducque di Guisa His Body was carried to the Chartreux and from then to Nostre Dame where the Funeral Rites were very Magnificent before they carried him to Joinville where he was buried The wretched Poltrot had the same punishment inflicted on him as those have who have made attemps upon the sacred Persons of our Kings But this was not the least vengeance that was taken of this Crime and we may say that never any one Mans Death has set so much blood a flowing nor drawn after it so great a number of Illustrious Victimes FINIS