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Updated: June 16, 2025
Coligny, indeed, had refused the offer of many Protestant gentlemen to spend the night in the house; and even Teligny, his son-in-law, had gone to his own lodgings a short distance away. He had with him only his chaplain Merlin, the king's surgeon, three gentlemen and four or five servants; while in the court below were five of the King of Navarre's Swiss guards.
Henry was apprised by one of his confidants, Nicholas de Rambouillet, that one of the King of Navarre's confidants, Sully, who was then only Sieur de Rosny, was passing by Blois on his way to his master; he saw him and expressed to him his "desire for a reconciliation with the King of Navarre, and to employ him on confidential service;" the difficulty was to secure to the Protestant king and his army, then engaged in the siege of Chatellerault, a passage across the Loire.
Yet from that moment he rallied, spurred, I think, by the thought that the King of Navarre's recovery depended under God on M. de Mornay; whom he was ever inclined to regard as his rival. He began to make instant preparations for departure from Rosny, and bade me do so also, telling me, somewhat curtly and without explanation, that he had need of me.
"Understand me, mademoiselle," Mayenne went on. "I pardon him, but not that he may be anything to you. That time is past. The St. Quentins are Navarre's men now, and our enemies. For your sake I will let Mar alone; but if he come near you again, I will crush him as I would a buzzing fly." "That I understand, monsieur," she answered in a low tone.
Teligny and De Guerchy were in the sick-room, and with them Paré, the surgeon, and the Admiral's chaplain, Pastor Merlin; Carnaton and La Bonne dozed in the ante-chamber, while Yolet was posting the five Switzers who formed part of Navarre's bodyguard. "It seems as if we shall have a quiet night, Yolet," I remarked. "The danger has blown over," he answered.
Enghien commanded the cavalry on the right wing, with Gassion as second in command. In place of his helmet the prince wore a hat with large white plumes, remembering, perhaps, how Henri of Navarre's white plumes had served as a rallying point. Marshal l'Hopital commanded the cavalry on the French left, Baron d'Espenan commanded the infantry in the centre, and Baron Sirot the reserves.
That a valetudinarian who took great pleasure in being wheeled along his terrace, who relished his boiled chicken, and his weak wine and water, and who enjoyed a hearty laugh over the Queen of Navarre's tales, should be treated as a caput lupinum because he could not read the Timaeus without a headache, was a notion which the humane spirit of the English school of wisdom altogether rejected.
I told myself with shame that I was not made for Courts, or for such scenes as these; and recalling with new and keen mortification the poor figure I had cut in the King of Navarre's antechamber at St. Jean, I experienced so strange a gush of pity for my mistress that nothing could exceed the tenderness I felt for her. I had won her under false colours, I was not worthy of her.
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.
"My master," was ever Guise's address to Henry; "my gossip," the young King of Navarre's reply. But the crafty Bearnese had made use of the intimacy only to read the secrets of the Balafre's heart; and on Navarre's flight from the court, and his return to Huguenotism, Guise knew that he had been played upon by a subtler spirit than his own.
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