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MM. Bassompierre and Schomberg were marshals of France, and claimed their right of commanding the army under the orders of the king; but the cardinal, who feared that Bassompierre, a Huguenot at heart, might press but feebly the English and Rochellais, his brothers in religion, supported the Duc d'Angouleme, whom the king, at his instigation, had named lieutenant general.
The quarters of Monsieur were at Dompierre; the quarters of the king were sometimes at Estree, sometimes at Jarrie; the cardinal's quarters were upon the downs, at the bridge of La Pierre, in a simple house without any entrenchment. So that Monsieur watched Bassompierre; the king, the Duc d'Angouleme; and the cardinal, M. de Schomberg.
"I am thinking of marrying her to my nephew, Conde. Thus I shall have her in my family to be the comfort of my old age, which is coming on. Conde, who thinks of nothing but hunting, shall have a hundred thousand livres a year with which to amuse himself." Bassompierre understood perfectly the kind of bargain that was in Henry's mind.
Such being my state of mind, and such the suspense I suffered during two days, it may be imagined that M. Bassompierre was not more happy. Despairing of the King's favour unless he could clear up the matter, and by the event justify his indiscretion, he became for those two days the wonder, and almost the terror, of the Court.
The extraordinary loveliness of the young Princess, combined with her exquisite grace and dignified bearing, at once fascinated the King, who declared to the Duc de Bellegarde that he had never before beheld so faultless a face and form; to which assurance M. le Grand replied, says Bassompierre, "according to his usual manner of extolling everything that was novel, and particularly Mademoiselle de Montmorency, who was indeed worthy of all admiration; and thus infused into the mind of the King, always ready to yield to a new fancy, the passion which subsequently caused him to commit so many extravagances."
One day as the Duchess of Angouleme led her niece away from their morning visit to the King, Margaret as she passed by Bassompierre shrugged her shoulders with a scornful glance. Stung by this expression of contempt, the lover who had renounced her sprang from the dice table, buried his face in his hat, pretending that his nose was bleeding, and rushed frantically from the palace.
In the year 1607, M. de Bassompierre relates in his Memoirs, that being unable from want of funds to purchase a new and befitting costume in which to appear at the christening of the Dauphin, he nevertheless gave an order to his tailor to prepare him a dress upon which the outlay was to be fourteen thousand crowns; his actual resources amounting at that moment only to seven hundred; and that he had no sooner done so, than he proceeded with this trifling sum to the hotel of the Duc d'Epernon, where he won five thousand; while before the completion of the costume, he had not only gained a sufficient amount to discharge the debt thus wantonly incurred, but, as he adds, with a self-gratulation worthy of a better cause, "also a diamond-hilted sword of the value of five thousand crowns, and five or six thousand more with which to amuse myself."
All being in readiness, Bassompierre was awakened at three o'clock in the morning of the 1st of September by a gentleman of the Queen-mother's household, and instructed to proceed immediately to the Louvre in disguise. On his arrival he found Marie only half-dressed, seated between Mangot and Barbin, and evidently in a state of extraordinary agitation and excitement.
But the love-stricken Henry, then confined to his bed with the gout, sent for the chosen husband of the beautiful Margaret. "Bassompierre, my friend," said the aged king, as the youthful lover knelt before him at the bedside, "I have become not in love, but mad, out of my senses, furious for Mademoiselle de Montmorency. If she should love you, I should hate you.
He married Chrétienne d'Aguirre, the daughter of Michel d'Aguirre, a celebrated jurisconsult of the diocese of Pampeluna, was created Lieutenant-Governor of Burgundy, and died in 1633. Bassompierre, Mém. p. 43. Idem.
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