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Updated: April 30, 2025
"Monseigneur the grand master, I am advised how while the truce is still in being, the Duke of Burgundy has taken Nesle and slain all whom he found within. I must be avenged for this. I wished you to know so that if you can find means to do him a like injury in his country you will do it there and anywhere that you can without sparing anything. "Done at Angers, June 19th.
Behind the German line, under German rule, the French people, prisoners in their own land, suffered most in spirit, but were proud and patient in endurance. "Why don't your people give in?" asked a German officer of a woman in Nesle. "France is bleeding to death." "We shall go on for two years, or three years, or four, or five, and in the end we shall smash you," said the woman who told me this.
They were perfectly right that the duke was not likely to attempt a perilous escape. From time to time his pale face was at the window which overlooked the fosses of the Louvre, beyond which was an open space about fifteen feet broad, and then the Seine rolled calm as a mirror. On the other side rose, like a giant, the tower of Nesle.
Three of the sons of Count Guy retired to Namur. The constable Raoul of Nesle "was lieutenant for the King of France in his newly-won country of Flanders." Next year, in the month of May, 1301, Philip determined to pay his conquest a visit; and the queen, his wife, accompanied him. There is never any lack of galas for conquerors.
Nor was it long before this place, on which she had set her heart first within the walls of the Port Royal Convent, was unassailably hers; and Madame de Mailly, in tears and sadness, saw an unbridgeable gulf widen between her and the man she undoubtedly had grown to love. That Félicité de Nesle had not over-estimated her powers of conquest was soon apparent.
It was at this Tour de Nesle that Francis paid Cellini a surprise visit with his mistress Madame d'Estampes, his sister Margaret of Valois, the Dauphin and his wife Catherine de' Medici, the Cardinal of Lorraine, Henry II. of Navarre, and a numerous train of courtiers.
"Count Robert," rejoined William, "I shall be so forward in peril to-day, that you will not even come near the tail of my horse." With these words they all set out at full gallop, Robert's old deaf tutor, Sir Foucault de Nesle, who had not heard one word of the remonstrance, holding his bridle, and shouting, "Ores a eux! ores a, eux!"
I hear that the Duke of Burgundy has seized Roye, Nesle, and Ham, and a number of other places, and that both parties are fortifying all their towns. They say, too, that there is news that the king has again been seized with one of his fits of madness. However, that matters little. He has of late been a tool in the hands of Burgundy, and the royal signature has no weight one way or the other.
Villequier blushed, but at last said, "I confess that up to this moment I had no reason to believe it; but since you put me into such good company I have no right to complain." I do not think Madame de Nesle was well revenged. I remember that the Duke, who was terribly ill-made, said one day to the late Monsieur, who was a straight, well-formed person, that a mask had taken him for Monsieur.
It was said that two princesses of the blood disputed his affections, which did not prevent Madame de Nesle and Madame de Polignac from fighting with pistols for him, or Madame de Sabran, Madame de Villars, Madame de Mouchy, and Madame de Tencin, from sharing his heart.
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