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Updated: May 17, 2025
This tragic scene passed soon after my arrival, and opened my eyes to the intimacy that subsisted between Claude Anet and his mistress, for had not the information come from her, I should never have suspected it; yet, surely, if attachment, fidelity, and zeal, could merit such a recompense, it was due to him, and what further proves him worthy such a distinction, he never once abused her confidence.
When, therefore, the Duc de Vendôme proffered his request, the Queen met it with a cold denial, and instructed M. de Brissac to proceed at once to Brittany as his substitute; an affront which so stung the Duke that he immediately challenged De Brissac; but before the meeting could take place it was betrayed to the Queen, who, irritated by this disregard of her authority, would not be induced to wait until a reconciliation could be effected between them, but issued a peremptory order that M. de Vendôme should leave the Court on the instant, and retire to his estate of Anet, and that the Maréchal de Brissac should forthwith proceed to Brittany.
It is not strange that the salamander of Francis I appears upon so many of the châteaux of France, for to this art-loving, luxurious, and débonnaire King she owes Chambord, Fontainebleau, St. Germain and the smaller châteaux of Azay-le-Rideau, Anet and Villers-Cotterets.
This cabal trembled with rage; Vendome still more so. They answered by miserable reasonings, which nobody cared for. This was what led to the suppression of his pay, and his retirement to Anet, where he affected a philosophical indifference. Crestfallen as he was, he continued to sustain at Meudon and Marly the grand manners he had usurped at the time of his prosperity.
Nothing could have made her feel more forcibly the loss she had sustained, than this unworthy and odious observation; disinterestedness and greatness of soul being qualities that poor Anet had eminently possessed.
All the Court, however, followed him there, and the King was pleased rather than otherwise, at seeing Versailles half deserted for Anet, actually asking some if they had been, others, when they intended to go. It was evident that every one had resolved to raise M. de Vendome to the rank of a hero. He determined to profit by the resolution. If they made him Mars, why should he not act as such?
* At Anet, a bronze stag, placed as a fountain in a large piece of water, was on the point of being demolished, because stags are beasts of chace, and hunting is a feodal privilege, and stags of course emblems of feodality. It was with some difficulty preserved by an amateur, who insisted, that stags of bronze were not included in the decree.
Madam de Warrens had taken no one with her but Anet: Merceret, the chambermaid, whom I have before mentioned, still remained in the house. Merceret was something older than myself, not pretty, but tolerably agreeable; good-natured, free from malice, having no fault to my knowledge but being a little refractory with her mistress.
In a journey which Anet had made to Montpelier, to see the physical garden there, and visit Monsieur Sauvages, the demonstrator, he had been informed that Monsieur Fizes had cured a polypus similar to that I fancied myself afflicted with: Madam de Warrens, recollecting this circumstance, mentioned it to me, and nothing more was necessary to inspire me with a desire to consult Monsieur Fizes.
And then he had to do with emerited conspirators, consummate in the art of concealing themselves and of leaving no trace of their whereabouts with the active and indefatigable Duchess de Chevreuse, and with the Duke de Vendôme, who, in order to save his son, set about forwarding the escape of all those whose depositions might help to convict him, or kept them somehow in his own hands, hidden and shut up close at Anet.
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