THE Dutchess of Beaufort was not ignorant that the Duke of Sully opposed all her designs; she knew the power which his wisdom and integrity gave him over the mind of the king; but such was her confidence in her own charms, and in those schemes which her low cunning, and the interested policy of her relations and dependants had suggested, that she fondly flattered herself neither reasons of state, nor motives of honour would have force enough to hinder her royal lover from gratifying her wishes.
Henry, either because he had not yet taken any resolution against her, or, that his tenderness and regard for her hindered him from declaring it, suffered her to remain in this pleasing delusion.
In the mean time she appeared in the state and equipage of a queen; the servile courtiers anticipated her expected dignity by paying her those honours which were due only to the wife of their prince. No language but that of adulation ever reached her ear; power, magnificence, pleasure, offered her every day successive delights; her smile was considered as the smile of fortune; less successful guilt looked up to her with secret repinings; envy, dazzled by her blaze of grandeur, durst not even in whispers breathe its discontent; and only virtue beheld her at once with pity and contempt.
In the midst of all this splendor madame de Beaufort was completely wretched; the fear of future disappointments rendered her present enjoyments tasteless; conscious of the slender chains by which she held the king’s heart, she lived in perpetual anxiety, lest her beauty should suffer any decay; the slightest alteration in her complexion filled her with dreadful alarms, and every evening brought with it the painful reflection that she was now a day older than she was yesterday.
While the dissolution of the king’s marriage with Margaret of Valois was soliciting at Rome, she equally dreaded and wished for the determination of that important affair.
If the divorce was granted, the king would indeed be at liberty to marry her, but he would be free likewise to marry any one else; and all the wisest and best of his subjects earnestly desired to see him married to some princess of Europe, who might bring him heirs worthy to reign over them; and if among all those princesses who were judged to be suitable matches for Henry the IV. she heard any of them praised for their beauty, she trembled and could not conceal her uneasiness.
The king caused the pictures of the Infanta of Spain, and of Mary de Medicis to be shewn to her, being curious to know what she would say.
‘I am under no apprehension of that brown woman, said she, speaking of the Infanta, but the Florentine fills me with dread.’
This painful anxiety, which was the consequence of her precarious situation, received continual increase by the confidence she placed in the predictions of astrologers.
‘Madame de Beaufort, says the Duke of Sully, was the weakest of her sex, with regard to divination: she did not pretend to deny that she consulted astrologers concerning her affairs; and indeed she had always a great many of them about her, who never quitted her; and what is most surprising, though she doubtless paid them well, yet they never foretold her any thing but what was disagreeable.’
‘One said that she would never be married but once, another that she would die young, a third warned her to take care of being with child, and a fourth assured her that she would be betrayed by one of her friends. Hence proceeded that melancholy which oppress’d her, and which she was never able to overcome.’
‘Gracienne, one of her women, has since told me, that she would often retire from company to pass whole nights in grief and weeping, on account of these predictions.’
If we add to this continual anxiety the stings of conscience for unrepented guilt, can imagination form the idea of a more wretched being than this woman, in the midst of all her splendor, power, and magnificence?
The trouble of despair, says a sensible writer, always rises in proportion to the evil that is feared; consequently the greatest agonies of expectation are those which relate to another world.
These agonies, which she who lived in an infamous commerce with a married man often experienced, were heightened by an event which affected her more than any other person, and seemed a frightful presage of her own approaching fate.
She was far advanced in another guilty pregnancy, when the strange death of Louisa de Budos, second wife to Henry Constable de Montmorency, filled her with unusual horrors, and embittered all the short remainder of her life.
‘These two deaths (says the Duke of Sully speaking of the constable’s lady, and Madame de Beaufort) made a great noise every where, and were attended with a surprising similarity of very uncommon circumstances: both were seized with a violent distemper that lasted only three or four days; and both, tho’ extremely beautiful, became horribly disfigured, which together with some other circumstances, that at any other time would have been thought natural, or only the effects of poison, raised a report in the world, that the deaths of these two young ladies, as well as their elevation, was the work of the devil, who made them pay dearly for that short felicity he had procured them. And this was certainly believed not only amongst the common people, who are generally credulous to a high degree of folly, but amongst the courtiers themselves.’
“This, pursues the duke of Sully, is what is related of the constable’s lady, and as it is said by the ladies who were then at her house: she was conversing with them gaily in her closet, when one of her women entered in great terror, and told her that a certain person, who called himself a gentleman, and who indeed had a good presence, saying that he was quite black, and of a gigantic stature, had just entered her antichamber, and desired to speak to her about affairs of great consequence, which he could communicate to none but her.
“At every circumstance relating to this extraordinary courier, the lady was seen to grow pale; and appeared so oppressed with grief, that she could scarcely bid her woman intreat the gentleman to defer his visit to another time; to which he replied in a tone that filled the messenger with horror, That since the lady would not come to him willingly he would take the trouble to go and seek her in her closet. She, who was more afraid of a publick than a private audience, resolved at last to go to him, but with all the marks of a deep despair.
“The terrible message performed, she returned to her company, bathed in tears, and half dead with dismay: she had only time to speak a few words to take leave of them, particularly of three ladies who were her intimate friends, and to assure them that she should never see them more.
“That instant she was seized with exquisite pains, and died at the end of three days, filling all who saw her with horror at the frightful change of every feature in her once lovely face.”
The dutchess of Beaufort proved the truth of that observation, that repentance is often not so much remorse for our sins, as fear of the consequence—This fear indeed acted powerfully upon her mind; but it did not produce reformation in her conduct, which is the only infallible sign by which true penitence may be known.
The king having resolved to spend the Easter holidays at Fontainebleau, was unwilling to incur the censure of keeping this lady with him during that sacred festival. Madame de Beaufort, who had insisted upon making one of the party with the king, was sensibly mortified when, after a stay only of three or four days, he intreated her to leave him at Fontainebleau, and return herself to Paris.
This request, enforced by motives drawn from the impropriety of their continuing together at such a time, was received with tears by the dutchess. Whether it was that her pride was sensibly wounded by the king’s so easily admitting the necessity of her absence, or that she had really some secret foreboding that she should never see him more, she seemed to consider this separation as the greatest misfortune that could befal her.
The duke of Sully, as well as all the other historians who have mentioned this parting of the king and his mistress, allow that there was something very extraordinary in the grief expressed by the two lovers upon this occasion.
When the moment came that madame de Beaufort was to leave Fontainbleau, she appeared overwhelmed with anguish. The king, who was more passionately fond of her than ever, struggled to repress his emotions: he conducted her half way to Paris; and although they proposed only an absence of a few days, yet they dreaded the moment of separation, as if they were never to meet more. ‘Those (says the duke of Sully) who are inclined to give faith to such kind of forebodings will lay some stress upon this relation. The two lovers renewed their endearments; and in every thing they said to each other at that moment, some persons have pretended to find proofs of these presages of an inevitable fate.’
Henry sighing led his mistress to the boat which was to carry her down to the arsenal. Just as she was preparing to enter it, she stopped, and turning to the king, who was oppressed with grief, she spoke to him, as if for the last time. She recommended to his care her children, her estate of Monceaux, and her domestics. Henry listened to her; but, instead of comforting her, gave way to sympathising sorrow. Again they took leave of each other, and a secret emotion again drew them to each other’s arms.
[Page 91]The king, not being able to tear himself from her, the marshal D’Ornano, Roquelaure, and Frontenac, forced him away, and prevailed upon him at length to return to Fontainebleau, after he had tenderly recommended the care of his mistress to La Varenne, with orders to conduct her safely to the house of Zamet, to whom he chose to confide this pledge so dear to him.
The duke of Sully being at Paris when madame de Beaufort arrived there, he thought himself obliged to wait on her before he set out for his estate at Rosny; and by the account he gives of her discourse to him, it appears that her melancholy ideas were already dissipated; and that she again indulged herself in her gay dreams of royalty, and cherished all her ambitious hopes: dreams so soon to be changed to a frightful certainty, and hopes shortly to terminate in despair and death!
‘She gave me (says the duke of Sully) a most obliging reception, and seemed to have wholly forgot our dispute at Saint Germain; but not chusing to explain herself clearly upon that compliance with her projects to which she wished to bring me, she contented herself with endeavouring to engage me in her interest, by mingling with those civilities which she shewed to very few persons, words which carried a double sense, and hinted to me a boundless grandeur, if I would relax a little in the severity of my counsel to the king with regard to her.’
‘I (pursues the duke) who was as little moved with the chimeras that filled her head as with those she sought to inspire me with, pretended not to understand any part of a discourse intelligible enough; and answered her equivocal terms with general professions of respect, attachment, and devotion, which signify what one will.’
The dutchess of Sully going likewise to pay a visit to the triumphant mistress, was overwhelmed with the airs of royalty assumed by this poor creature already devoted to the shades of death, and so soon to answer at the tribunal of divine justice for that guilty grandeur which she prefered to eternal happiness.
Madame de Beaufort kindly intreated the dutchess of Sully to love her, and to converse with her as a friend. ‘Entered into confidances (says the duke of Sully) that would have appeared to be the last instances of the most intimate friendship to those, who, like madame de Sully, knew not that the dutchess, who had no great share of understanding, was not very delicate in the choice of her confidants. It was her highest pleasure to entertain any person she first saw with her schemes and expectations; and when she conversed with her inferiors, she scarce submitted to any caution; for with them she no longer guarded her expressions, but often assumed the state and language of a queen.’
‘Madame de Sully (continues the duke) could not avoid shewing some surprize at the dutchess’s discourse, especially when that lady, making an absurd assemblage of the civilities practised among persons of equal rank with these airs of a queen, told her she might come to her coucher and lever when she pleased, with many other speeches of the same kind.’
It was in the midst of these intoxicating dreams of ambition, and while she resigned her whole soul to scenes of present pleasure, and to hopes of future greatness, that Providence thought fit to put a period to her life.
She was still at the house of Sebastian Zamet, who had received his fair guest with all the assiduity of a courtier solicitous to please, when on Maundy Thursday, after a luxurious repast, she had an inclination to hear the evening service at Saint Anthony’s the Less: she was there seized with fainting fits, which obliged her attendants to carry her back immediately.
As soon as she arrived at Zamet’s, she went into the garden, hoping to receive some benefit from the air; but in a few minutes she was attacked with an apoplectic fit, which it was expected would have instantly stifled her.
She recovered a little, through the assistance that was given her; and, strongly prepossessed with a notion that she was poisoned, she commanded her servants to carry her from that house to madame de Sourdis her aunt, who lived in the cloister Saint Germain.
They had but just time to put her in bed, when thick succeeding convulsions, so dreadful as amazed all who were present, and every symptom of approaching death, left monsieur Varenne, who had taken up the pen to inform the king of this melancholy accident nothing else to say, but that the physicians despaired of the dutchess’s life, from the nature of her distemper, which required the most violent remedies, and the circumstance of her being big with child, which made all applications mortal.
Scarce had he sent away the letter, when the dutchess, drawing near her last moments, fell into new convulsions, which disfigured her so horribly, that Varenne, not doubting but that the king would upon the receipt of his letter set out instantly to see his mistress, thought it more prudent to tell him in a second letter that she was dead, than expose him to a spectacle at once so dreadful and afflicting, as that of a woman whom he tenderly loved, expiring in agitations, struggles, and agonies which scarcely left any thing of human in her figure.
On the Saturday following the convulsions had turned her quite black, and writh’d her mouth to the back of her neck. Riviere, the king’s first physician, coming in great haste upon this occasion with others of the king’s physicians, but just entered her chamber, and when he saw the extraordinary condition she was in went away, saying to those who were with him, This is the hand of God
A few moments afterwards the dutchess expired, in a general subversion of all the functions of nature, capable of inspiring horror and dismay.
The king who, upon the receipt of Varenne’s first letter, had not failed to mount his horse immediately, received the second when he was got half way to Paris; and listening to nothing but the excess of his passion, was resolved, notwithstanding all that could be said to him to give himself the consolation of seeing his mistress once more.
Marshal Bassompierre, in his Memoirs, relates that Henry did not believe his mistress was dead, and continued his journey; but that Varenne, having come to acquaint the marshal D’Ornano and him, who had accompanied the dutchess to Paris, that she was just dead, they both took horse, to carry the melancholy news to the king, and hinder him from proceeding to Paris.
We found the king, says marshal Bassompierre, on the other side of La Saussaye near Vilejuif, coming on post horses with the utmost expedition. As soon as he perceived the marshal D’Ornano, he suspected that he was come to bring him fatal tidings, which as soon as he had heard, he uttered the most passionate complaints.
These noblemen having with great difficulty prevailed upon Henry to go into the Abbey La Sauissay, they laid him upon a bed, till the coach which they had ordered to follow came from Paris: they put him into it, to carry him back to Fontainebleau, and during this little journey he was so oppress’d with grief that he fell into a fainting fit in the arms of the master of the horse.
As soon as he arrived at Fontainebleau he dispatched a messenger to the Duke of Sully, who was at his country-seat, to desire he would come to him instantly.
It is worthy remark, that the king should upon this occasion of his mistress’s death think no one so capable of giving him consolation as the man who had most opposed his extravagant fondness for her; such is the involuntary homage which even the passions themselves pay to wisdom and virtue!
When this messenger arrived at the duke’s castle, he was conversing with his wife upon the extraordinary airs assumed by the Dutchess of Beaufort when she last saw her; and perceiving her to be so much affected with the discourse she had held with her as to conclude there would certainly be some very great change in the fortune of this lady, the duke acquainted her with Madame de Beaufort’s design to get herself declared queen, with the practices of her relations and dependants for that purpose, the struggles the king had in his own mind, and the resolution he had taken to overcome himself.
Madame de Sully was listening attentively to this relation, when they heard the bell of the first gate of the castle, without the moat, ring, and none of the servants answering, it being yet scarcely day, a voice several times repeated, I come from the king
The Duke of Sully that instant wakening one of the grooms of his chamber, sent him to open the gate; and in his impatience to know the cause of this early summons, he slipt on a night-gown and ran to meet the courier, when observing a deep concern upon his countenance, he asked him trembling, if the king was ill?
No, replied the man, but he is in the utmost affliction, madame the dutchess is dead.
‘This news, says the Duke of Sully, appeared to me so improbable, that I made him repeat his words several times; and when convinced that it was true, I felt my mind divided between grief for the condition to which her death reduced the king, and joy for the advantages all France would derive from it, which was increased, by my being fully persuaded that the king would by this transitory affliction purchase a release from a thousand anxieties, and much more anguish of heart than what he now actually suffered. I went up again to my wife’s chamber full of these reflections, ‘You will neither go to the dutchess’s Coucher nor Lever, said I, for she is dead.’’
So sudden and so fatal a fall from all those towering hopes of grandeur filled Madame de Sully with astonishment and concern for the unhappy dutchess of Beaufort. The shocking particulars of her strange death she was made acquainted with by a letter from La Varenne to her lord.
The Duke of Sully hastened to the king, whom he found walking in a gallery, so oppress’d with grief that all company was insupportable to him. This wise counsellor and faithful friend employed every argument drawn from religion, virtue, and policy, to mitigate his sorrow: he even ventured to represent to him that the event which now caused him all this affliction was among the number of those which he would one day look upon as most fortunate: he conjured him to consider the painful situation he would have been in, if his mistress had lived; when on one side, struggling with the force of a tender and violent passion, and on the other with the silent convictions of what honour and duty required of him, he would have been under an absolute necessity of coming to some resolution with respect to an engagement which he could not break without torture, nor continue without infamy.
Heaven, he told him, came to his assistance by a stroke painful indeed; but the only one that could open the way to a marriage upon which depended the tranquillity of France, the fate of Europe, the welfare of his subjects, and his own happiness.
‘Henry, adds the Duke of Sully, had not the weakness of resigning himself up to grief through obstinacy; or of seeking a cure in insensibility. He listened more to the dictates of his reason than his passion, and appeared already much less afflicted to the courtiers who entered his chamber. At length, every one being careful not to renew his grief, which his daily employments gradually diminished, he found himself in that state which all wise men ought to be, who have had great subjects of affliction; that is, neither condemning nor flattering the cause, nor affecting either to recal or banish the remembrance of it.