Part 25

The third duke had a second cardinal-brother, known as the Cardinal de Guise, who was murdered by Henri III. He was an intriguer; but as brave as any knight of his family. It was long before the king could find men willing to strike a priest; and when they _were_ found, they approached him again and again, before they could summon nerve wherewith to smite him. After all, this second murder at Blois was effected by stratagem. The cardinal was requested to accompany a messenger to the royal presence. He complied with some misgiving, but when he found himself in a dark corridor with four frowning soldiers, he understood his doom; requested a few moments respite to collect his thoughts; and then, enveloping his head in his outer robe, bade them execute their bloody commission. He was instantly slain, without offering resistance, or uttering a word.

This cardinal was father of five illegitimate sons, of whom the most celebrated was the Baron of Ancerville, or, as he proudly designated himself, “Bastard of Guise.”

By the side of the son of Balafré, Charles, the fourth duke, there stood the last cardinal-brother who was able to serve his house, and whose character presents any circumstance of note. This cardinal, if he loved anything more than the bottle, was fondest of a battle. He characteristically lost his life by both. He was present at the siege of St. Jean d’Angely, held by the Protestants in the year 1621. It was on the 20th of May; and the sun was shining with a power not known to our severe springs. The cardinal fought like a fiend, and swore with more than fiendish capacity. The time was high noon, and he himself was in the noontide of his wondrous vigor, some thirty years of age. He was laying about him in the bloody _mêlée_ which occurred in the suburb, when he paused for awhile, panting for breath and streaming with perspiration. He called for a flask of red wine, which he had scarcely quaffed when he was seized with raging fever, which carried him off within a fortnight. He was so much more addicted to knightly than to priestly pursuits, that, at the time of his death, a negotiation was being carried on to procure from the pope permission for the cardinal to give up to his lay-brother, the Duc de Chevreuse, all his benefices, and to receive in return the duke’s governorship of Auvergne. He was for ever in the saddle, and never more happy than when he saw another before him with a resolute foe firmly seated therein. He lived the life of a soldier of fortune, or knight-errant; and when peace temporarily reigned, he rode over the country with a band of followers, in search of adventures, and always found them at the point of their swords. He left the altar to draw on his boots, gird his sword to his hip, and provoke his cousin De Nevers to a duel, by striking him in the face. The indignant young noble regretted that the profession of his insulter covered the latter with impunity, and recommended him, at the same time, to abandon it, and to give De Nevers satisfaction. “To the devil I have sent it already!” said the exemplary cardinal, “when I flung off my frock, and belted on my sword:” and the two kinsmen would have had their weapons in each other’s throat, but for the royal officers, who checked their Christian amusement.

This roystering cardinal, who was interred with more pomp than if he had been a great saint, or a merely honest man, left five children. Their mother was Charlotte des Escar. They were recognised as legitimate, on allegation that their parents had been duly married, on papal dispensation. He was the last of the cardinals, and was as good a soldier as any of the knights.

Neither the pride nor the pretensions of the house expired with either Dukes or Cardinals. There were members of the family whose arrogance was all the greater because they were not of the direct line of succession. Their great ambition in little things was satisfied with the privilege granted to the ladies of Guise, namely, the one which they held in common with royal princesses, at being presented at court previous to their marriage. This ambition gained for them, however, the hatred of the nobles and the princes of the Church, and at length caused a miniature insurrection in the palace at Versailles.

The occasion was the grand ball given in honor of the nuptials of Marie Antoinette and the Dauphin. Louis XV. had announced that he would open the brilliant scene by dancing a _minuet_ with Mlle. de Lorraine, sister of the Prince de Lambesc. The uproar that ensued was terrific. The entire body of nobility protested against such marked precedence being allowed to the lady in question. The Archbishop of Rheims placed himself at the head of the opposing movement; and, assembling the indignant peerage, this successor of the Apostles, in company with his episcopal brother from Noyon, came to the solemnly important resolution, that between the princes of the blood-royal and _haute noblesse_ there could be no intermediate rank; and that Mlle. de Lorraine, consequently, could not take precedence of the female members of the aristocracy, who had been presented. A memorial was drawn up. The entire nobility, old and new, signed it eagerly; and the King was informed that if he did not rescind his determination, no lady would dance at the ball after the _minuet_ in question had been performed. The King exerted himself to overcome the opposition: but neither bishops nor baronesses would give way. The latter, on the evening of the ball, walked about the grand apartments in undress, expressed loudly their resolution not to dance, and received archiepiscopal benison for their pious obstinacy. The matter was finally arranged by compromise, whereby the Dauphin and the Count d’Artois were to select partners among the nobility, and not, as was _de rigueur_, according to the law of _minuets_, among princesses of their own rank. The hour for opening the famous ball was retarded in order to give the female insurrectionists time to dress, and ultimately all went off _à merveille!_

With the Prince de Lambesc above-named, the race of Guise disappeared altogether from the soil of France. He was colonel of the cavalry regiment, _Royal Allemand_, which in 1789 came into collision with the people. The Prince was engaged, with his men, in dispersing a seditious mob. He struck one of the most conspicuous of the rioters with the flat of his sword. This blow, dealt by a Guise, was the first given in the great Revolution, and it helped to deprive Louis XVI. of his crown. The Prince de Lambesc was compelled to fly from the country, to escape the indignation of the people. Nearly three centuries before, his great ancestor, the boy of the mule, had entered the kingdom, and founded a family which increased in numbers and power against the throne, and against civil and religious liberty. And now, the sole survivor of the many who had sprung from this branch of Lorraine, as proud, too, as the greatest of his house, having raised his finger against the freedom of the mob, was driven into exile, to seek refuge for a time, and a grave for age, on the banks of the distant Danube.

When Cardinal Fleury annexed the Duchy of Lorraine to France, it was by arrangement with Austria; according to which, Francis, Duke of Lorraine, received in exchange for his Duchy, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the hand of Maria Theresa. Their heirs form the imperial house of Hapsburgh-Lorraine. Such of my readers as have visited Nancy, the capital of old Lorraine, will remember there the round chapel near what is left of the old palace of the old Dukes. This chapel contains the tombs of the principal of the twenty-nine Dukes who ruled sovereignly in Lorraine. The expense of supporting the service and fabric, altar and priests, connected with this chapel, is sustained entirely by Austria. It is the only remnant preserved of the Lorraine sovereignty of the olden time. The priests and _employes_ in the edifice speak of Hapsburgh-Lorraine as _their_ house, to which they owe exclusive homage. When I heard expression given to this sentiment, I was standing in front of the tomb of that famous etcher, old Jean Callot. The latter was a native of Nancy; and I could almost fancy that his merry-looking lip curled with scorn at the display of this rag of pride in behalf of the house of Lorraine.

With the story of part of that house I fear I may have detained the reader too long. I will tell more briefly the shifting fortunes of a material house, the knightly edifice of Rambouillet.

THE RECORD OF RAMBOUILLET.

“Imagine that this castle were your court, And that you lay, for pleasure, here a space, Not of compulsion or necessity.”--KIT MARLOWE.

Rambouillet is an old château where feudal knights once lived like little kings. In its gardens Euphuism reigned supreme. It is a palace, in whose chambers monarchs have feasted, and at whose gates they have asked, when fugitives, for water and a crust of bread. It commenced its career as a cradle of knights; it is finishing it as an asylum for the orphan children of warriors. The commencement and finale are not unworthy of one another; but, between the two, there have been some less appropriate disposals of this old chevalier’s residence. For a short period it was something between Hampton Court and Rosherville. In the very place where the canons of the Sainte Chapelle were privileged to kiss the cheeks of the Duchess of Burgundy, the denizens of the Faubourg St. Antoine could revel, if they could only pay for their sport. Where the knightly D’Amaurys held their feudal state, where King Francis followed the chase, and the Chevalier Florian sang, and Penthièvre earned immortality by the practice of heavenly virtues; where Louis enthroned Du Barry, and Napoleon presided over councils, holding the destiny of thrones in the balance of his will, there the sorriest mechanic had, with a few francs in his hand, the right of entrance. The gayest _lorettes_ of the capital smoked their _cigarettes_ where Julie D’Angennes fenced with love; and the bower of queens and the refuge of an empress rang with echoes, born of light-heartedness and lighter wine. Louis Napoleon has, however, established a better order of things.

To a Norman chief, of knightly character, if not of knightly title, and to the Norman tongue, _Rabouillet_, as it used to be written, or the “Rabbit warren,” owes the name given to the palace, about thirteen leagues from Paris, and to the village which clusters around it. The former is now a quaint and confused pile, the chief tower of which alone is now older than the days of Hugues Capet. Some authors describe the range of buildings as taking the form of a horseshoe; but the hoof would be indescribable to which a shoe so shaped could be fittingly applied. The changes and additions have been as much without end as without taste. In its present architectural entirety it wears as motley an aspect as Cœur de Lion might, were he to walk-down Pall Mall with a modern _paletót_ over his suit of complete steel.

The early masters of Rambouillet were a knightly, powerful but uninteresting race. It is sufficient to record of the chivalric D’Amaurys that they held it, to the satisfaction of few people but themselves, from 1003 to 1317. Further record these sainted proprietors require not. We will let them sleep on undisturbedly, their arms crossed on their breast, in the peace of a well-merited oblivion. _Requiescat!_

One relic of the knightly days, however, survived to the period of the first French Revolution. In the domain of Rambouillet was the fief of Montorgueil. It was held by the prior of St. Thomas d’Epernon, on the following service: the good prior was bound to present himself yearly at the gate of Rambouillet, bareheaded, with a garland on his brow, and mounted on a piebald horse, touching whom it was bad service if the animal had not four white feet.

The prior, fully armed like a knight, save that his white gloves were of a delicate texture, carried a flask of wine at his saddle-bow. In one hand he held a cake, to the making of which had gone a bushel of flour--an equal measure of wheat was also the fee of the lord. The officers of the latter examined narrowly into the completeness of the service. If they pronounced it imperfect the prior of Epernon was mulcted of the revenues of his fief for the year ensuing.

In later days the ceremony lost much of its meaning; but down to the period of its extinction, the wine, the cake, and the garland, were never wanting; and the maidens of Rambouillet were said to be more exacting than the baronial knights themselves, from whom many of them were descended. The festival was ever a joyous one, as became a feudal lord, whose kitchen fireplace was of such dimensions that a horseman might ride into it, and skim the pot as he stood in his stirrups.

It is a singular thing that scarcely a monarch has had anything to do with the knightly residence of Rambouillet, but mischance has befallen him. The kings were unjust to the knights, and the latter found for the former a Nemesis. Francis I. was hunting in the woods of Rambouillet when he received the news of the death of Henry VIII. that knight-sovereign, with whom he had struggled on the Field of the Cloth of Gold. With the news, he received a shock, which the decay sprung from various excesses could not resist. He entered the chateau as the guest of the Chevalier d’Angennes, in whose family the proprietorship then resided. The chamber is still shown wherein he died, roaring in agony, and leaving proof of its power over him, in the pillow, which, in mingled rage and pain, he tore into strips with his teeth.

The French author, Leon Gozlau, has given a full account of the extraordinary ceremonies which took place in honor of Francis after his death. In front of the bed on which lay the body of the king, says M. Gozlau, “was erected an altar covered with embroidered cloth; on this stood two gold candlesticks, bearing two lights from candles of the whitest wax. The cardinals, prelates, knights, gentlemen, and officers, whose duty it was to keep watch, were stationed around the _catafalque_, seated on chairs of cloth of gold. During the eleven days that the ceremony lasted, the strictest etiquette of service was observed about the king, as if he had been a living monarch in presence of his court. His table was regularly laid out for dinner, by the side of his bed. A cardinal blessed the food. A gentleman in waiting presented the ewer to the figure of the dead king. A knight offered him the cup mantling with wine: and another wiped his lips and fingers. These functions, with many others, took place by the solemn and subdued light of the funeral torches.”

The after ceremonies were quite as curious and extraordinarily magnificent; but it is unnecessary to rest upon them. A king, in not much better circumstances than Francis, just before his death, slept in the castle for one night in the year 1588. It was a night in May, and the knight proprietor Jean d’Angennes, was celebrating the marriage of his daughter. The ceremony was interrupted by a loud knocking at the castle gates. The wary Jean looked first at the clamorous visitors through the wicket, whence he descried Henri III. flurried, yet laughing, seated in an old carriage, around which mustered dusty horsemen, grave cavaliers, and courtiers scantily attired. Some had their points untrussed, and many a knight was without his boots. An illustrious company, in fact; but there were not two nobles in their united purses. Jean threw open his portals to a king and his knights flying from De Guise. The latter had got possession of Paris, and Henri and his friends had escaped in order to establish the regal authority at Chartres. The two great adversaries met at Blois: and after the assassination of Guise, the king, with his knights and courtiers, gallopped gayly past Rambouillet on his return to Paris, to profit by his own wickedness, and the folly of his trusty and well-beloved cousin, the duke.

Not long before this murder was committed, in 1588, the Hotel Pisani in Paris was made jubilant by the birth of that Catherine de Vivonnes, who was at once both lovely and learned. She lived to found that school of lingual purists whose doings are so pleasantly caricatured in the _Précieuses Ridicules_ of Molière. Catherine espoused that noble chevalier, Charles d’Angennes, Lord of Rambouillet, who was made a marquis for her sake. The chevalier’s lady looked upon marriage rather as a closing act of life than otherwise; but then _hers_ had been a busy youth. In her second lustre she knew as many languages as a _lustrum_ has years. Ere her fourth had expired, her refined spirit and her active intellect were disgusted and weary with the continual sameness and the golden emptiness of the court. She cared little to render homage to a most Christian king who disregarded the precepts of Christianity; or to be sullied by homage from a monarch, which could not be rendered without insult to a virtuous woman. Young Catherine preferred, in the summer eve, to lie under the shadow of her father’s trees, which once reared a world of leafy splendor on the spot now occupied by the Palais Royal. There she read works coined by great minds. During the long winter evenings she lay in stately ceremony upon her bed, an unseemly custom of the period, and there, surrounded by chevaliers, wits, and philosophers, enjoyed and encouraged the “cudgelling of brains.” At her suggestion the old hotel was destroyed, and after her designs a new one built; and when, in place of the old dark panelling, obscurely seen by casements that kept out the light, she covered the walls of her reception-rooms with sky-blue velvet, and welcomed the sun to shine upon them, universal France admiringly pronounced her mad, incontinently caught the infection, and broke out into an incurable disease of fancy and good taste.

The fruit of the union above spoken of was abundant, but the very jewel in that crown of children, the goodliest arrow in the family quiver, was that Julie d’Angennes who shattered the hearts of all the amorous chevaliers of France, and whose fame has, perhaps, eclipsed that of her mother. Her childhood was passed at the feet of the most eminent men in France; not merely aristocratic knights, but as eminent wits and philosophers. By the side of her cradle, Balzac enunciated his polished periods, and Marot his tuneful rhymes, Voiture his conceits, and Vaugelas his learning. She lay in the arms of Armand Duplessis, _then_ almost as innocent as the little angel who unconsciously smiled on that future ruthless Cardinal de Richelieu; and her young ear heard the elevated measure of Corneille’s “Melite.” To enumerate the circles which was wont to assemble within the Hôtel Rambouillet in Paris, or to loiter in the gardens and hills of the country château, whose history I am sketching, would occupy more space than can be devoted to such purpose. The circle comprised parties who were hitherto respectively exclusive. Knights met citizen wits, to the great edification of the former; and Rambouillet afforded an asylum to the persecuted of all parties. They who resisted Henry IV. found refuge within its hospitable walls, and many nobles and chevaliers who survived the bloody oppression of Richelieu, sought therein solace, and balm for their lacerated souls.

Above all, Madame de Rambouillet effected the social congregation of the two sexes. Women were brought to encounter male wits, sometimes to conquer, always to improve them. The title to enter was, worth joined with ability. The etiquette was pedantically strict, as may be imagined by the case of Voiture, who, on one occasion, after conducting Julie through a suite of rooms, kissed her hand on parting from her, and was very near being expelled for ever from Rambouillet, as the reward of his temerity. Voiture subsequently went to Africa. On his return, he was not admitted to the illustrious circle, but on condition that he narrated his adventures, and to these the delighted assembly listened, all attired as gods and goddesses, and gravely addressing each other as such. Madame de Rambouillet presided over all as Diana, and the company did her abundant homage. This, it is true, was for the nonce; but there was a permanent travesty notwithstanding. It was the weak point of this assembly that not only was every member of it called by a feigned, generally a Greek, name, but the same rule was applied to most men and things beyond it; nay, the very oaths, for there were little expletives occasionally fired off in ecstatic moments, were all by the heathen gods. Thus, as a sample, France was _Greece_. Paris was _Athens_; and the Place Royale was only known at Rambouillet as the _Place Dorique_. The name of Madame de Rambouillet was _Arthemise_; that of Mademoiselle de Scudery was _Aganippe_; and _Thessalonica_ was the purified cognomen of the Duchess de Tremouille. But out of such childishness resulted great good, notwithstanding that Molière laughed, and that the Academie derided Corneille and all others of the innovating coterie. The times were coarse; things, whatever they might be, were called by their names; ears polite experienced offence, and at Rambouillet periphrasis was called upon to express what the language otherwise conveyed offensively by the medium of a single word. The idea was good, although it was abused. Of its quality some conjecture may be formed by one or two brief examples; and I may add, by the way, that the French Academy ended by adopting many of the terms which it at first refused to acknowledge. Popularity had been given to much of the remainder, and thus a great portion of the vocabulary of Rambouillet has become idiomatic French. “Modeste,” “friponne,” and “secrète,” were names given to the under-garments of ladies, which we now should not be afraid to specify. The sun was the “amiable illuminator;” to “fulfil the desire which the chair had to embrace you,” was simply to “sit down.” Horses were “plushed coursers;” a carriage was “four cornices,” and chairmen were “baptized mules.” A bed was the “old dreamer;” a hat, the “buckler against weather;” to laugh was to “lose your gravity;” dinner was the “meridional necessity;” the ear was the “organ, or the gate of hearing;” and the “throne of modesty” was the polished phrase for a fair young cheek. There is nothing very edifying in all this, it is true; but the fashion set people thinking, and good ensued. Old indelicacies disappeared, and the general, spoken language was refined. If any greater mental purity ensued from the change, I can scarcely give the credit of it to the party at Rambouillet, for, with all their proclaimed refinement, their nicety was of the kind described in the well-known maxim of the Dean of St. Patrick.