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Updated: June 16, 2025
M. de Segur, chief of Navarre's council, who had been won over during a visit to the capital, where he had made the discovery that "Henry III. was an angel, and his ministers devils," came back to Pau, urging his master's acceptance of the royal invitation. Henry wavered.
Agrippa d'Aubigne, still young, but grave and serious-looking greeted M. de Ribaumont as men meet in hours when common interests make rapid friendships; and from him Berenger learnt, in a few words, that the King of Navarre's eyes had been opened at last to the treachery of the court, and his own dishonourable bondage.
When Anjou died, Navarre was heir presumptive to the throne, and had to meet the furious hostility of the Guise faction. These said that Navarre's uncle, Cardinal de Bourbon, "wine-tun rather than a man," should be their king when Valois died. They secured the help of Spain before publishing their famous Manifesto.
The King of Navarre's lieutenant, being appealed to for aid, summoned, but to no purpose, the Parliament of Bordeaux; he was forced to take refuge in Chateau-Trompette, and was massacred by the populace whilst he was trying to get out; the president of the Parliament, a most worthy magistrate, and very much beloved, it is said, by the people, only saved his own life by taking the oath prescribed by the insurgents.
Of M. le Duc we heard no word till, one night, a chance traveller, putting up at the inn in the village, told a startling tale. The Duke of St. Quentin, though known to have been at Mantes and strongly suspected of espousing Navarre's cause, had ridden calmly into Paris and opened his hôtel! It was madness madness sheer and stark.
"Oh! that is different. Come with me," said the king, rising, with a sigh. Come, Chicot, I will conduct you." Chicot followed the king, thinking, "How disagreeable! to come and trouble this honest man in his peace and his ignorance. Bah! he will be philosophical." The king of Navarre's room was not very sumptuous, for he was not rich, and did not waste the little he had.
It was only when the party had set forth that the plot burst like a bomb, in Catherine's own boudoir, where she sat with her favourite son, vile Henri III of France. Fervacques, one of the plotters, had stopped in Paris, feigning illness. The plan had been concocted in his rooms, and he but waited for Navarre's back to be turned to betray him. Navarre and his hunters had passed through.
Another proposes the gaining the Emperor by money, which is omnipotent with him. Another proposes a peace with the King of Arragon, and in order to cement it, the yielding up the King of Navarre's pretensions. Another thinks the Prince of Castile is to be wrought on, by the hope of an alliance; and that some of his courtiers are to be gained to the French faction by pensions.
About seven o'clock in the evening many of Navarre's gentlemen left the house, and some of us accompanied them to the end of the street. La Bonne having received favourable news from the palace, our alarm, in consequence, had begun to subside, though we still remained a trifle anxious.
Yeux-gris burst into joyous laughter. "He said my house belonged to the Béthunes! Well played, Jacques! You owe that gallant lie to me, Gervais, and the pains I took to make him think us Navarre's men. He is heart and soul for Henri Quatre. Did he say, perchance, that in this very courtyard Coligny fell?"
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