Henri II: His Court and Times (12 page)

On the morrow, Bodin was presented to the Marquis of
Verlana, the governor of the citadel, who conducted him to
the room in which the Dauphin and the Duc d'Orléans were
confined. "They led me," he writes, "into a rather dark
chamber of this fortress, which had neither tapestries nor
hangings of any kind, and only straw mattresses. In this
chamber were my said lords, seated on little stone seats opposite the window of the said chamber, which is furnished both
within and without with solid iron bars, while the wall is
ten feet thick. The said window is so high that only with
great difficulty can my said lords enjoy air and light. It is a
place where persons accused of grave crimes might well be
detained, and most wearisome and unhealthy for those of the
young and tender age of my said lords. They were poorly
clad in a sort of black-velvet riding-costume, with black-velvet
caps, without silk ribbons or ornaments of any kind, white
stockings, and black-velvet shoes. It was impossible for me to
refrain from shedding tears."

Mastering his emotion, Bodin bowed to the Dauphin and
told him in French that the King, the Duchesse d'Angouleme,
and the Queen of Navarre
⁰²
had commissioned him to visit
them, to bid them be of good courage, since a treaty of peace
had just been concluded, and, so soon as the necessary
formalities had been completed, the princes would be restored
to their father and their country.

The Dauphin listened with a puzzled expression, and, instead
of replying, turned to the Marquis of Verlana, and said to him
in Spanish that he understood not a word of what the man
was saying, and that he wished that he would speak in the
language of the country. Bodin, in amazement, repeated to
him in Spanish what he had just said, and then inquired if it
were possible that he had forgotten French.

"How could I remember it," replied the prince, "when I
never see any of my attendants with whom I can speak it?"

The Duc d'Orléans then stepped forward and said:
"Brother, this is the usher Bodin." The Dauphin replied
that he knew him well, but that he had not wished to say so;
and the two princes besieged Bodin with questions about the
King, their grandmother, their aunt the Queen of Navarre,
their youngest brother the Duc d'Angoulême, and various
nobles and ladies of the Court, and, in fact, about everyone
and everything in which they were interested, for they had
received no news from France during the whole of their
imprisonment.

During this conversation, they passed, with the governor's
permission, into an adjoining room, even more sparsely
furnished than the other, but better lighted. The boys at
once ran to the window to get a breath of fresh air, and then
began playing with two little dogs, which were there. "That
is the only pleasure which the princes have," remarked one of
the officers of the fortress, who had followed them, to Bodin,
who replied bitterly that it was a poor pastime for princes of
such exalted rank.

"You see," observed another, "how the sons of the King
your master are treated, with no company but that of the
soldiers of the Spanish mountains, and neither exercise nor
education." And he added, laughing sarcastically: "I
believe that if the King of France were minded to send
here some artist, the Dauphin might suddenly become a
famous master, as he spends his days in modelling little wax
figures."

Bodin replied that he hoped that in less than three months
their Highnesses would have found occupation more suitable
to their rank; but the Marquis of Verlana retorted that neither
in three nor in four months would they have left Spain; and
then gruffly intimated that the interview had lasted long
enough, and that the Frenchman must withdraw.

The latter requested permission to return on the morrow,
which was at first refused, but eventually accorded. He came,
bringing with him two velvet caps with gold ornaments and
white plumes, which he reverently kissed, and was about to
present to the boys, when the captain of the guard snatched
them out of his hands, and, showing them to the princes, who
were very anxious to have them, said that he would keep them
for their Highnesses. The superstitious Spaniards appear to
have been afraid that Bodin might be a magician, and have
invested these objects with qualities which would assist their
precious hostages to escape from prison and return to France;
and, for the same reason, when the usher, observing that the
boys had grown greatly during their captivity, proposed to
take their measure for the information of the King, they
refused to permit it.

The faithful Bodin took leave of his young masters with
tears in his eyes, and prepared to set out on his journey to
France. At the moment of departure, he found that his horse
had been stabbed in the shoulder by one of his guards, who
had taken a fancy to him, and hoped that, by temporarily
disabling the unfortunate animal, he would oblige his master
to leave him behind. In this, however, he was disappointed,
as Bodin preferred to travel by easy stages rather than lose
his horse, whose recovery was no doubt facilitated by the
numerous delays to which the Frenchman had again to
submit.

At length, he reached the frontier and took leave of his
escort, who had kept him under the closest observation all the
way from Pedraza.
⁰³
François and Louise of Savoy were filled with indignation
and alarm when they received Bodin's report, and lost no
time in sending a copy to Margaret of Austria, begging her to
use her influence with the Emperor to secure some amelioration
of the young hostages' lot. Thanks to his aunt's
intercession,
⁰⁴
Charles
gave orders that the princes were to be
treated with as much consideration as was compatible with
their security, and, though they continued to be very closely
guarded, their French attendants were restored to them, they
were given clothes more in accordance with their station, and
the remainder of their captivity was comparatively tolerable.

The governor of the citadel of Pedraza was, however, right
when he predicted, on the occasion of Bodin's visit, that the
brothers would remain another four months in Spain, and, in
point of fact, it was not until the summer of 1530 that they
recovered their liberty. This delay was caused by the
difficulty experienced in raising their ransom, which proved
a terrible tax on the exhausted finances of France, and by the
suspicion which each nation seemed to entertain of the good
faith of the other.

At the beginning of 1530, the Vicomte de Turenne was
despatched to Spain to wed Queen Eleanor, on behalf of
François, and, after numerous objections raised by the
Spanish Court on the question of his powers, the marriage
was celebrated at Toledo (March 20). After the ceremony,
the Queen set out for Vittoria, where she was to remain until
the arrangements had been completed for the liberation of the
princes, when she was to accompany them to France. The
boys had hoped that they would be at once conducted to
Vittoria to join their stepmother; but they were kept at
Pedraza for some weeks longer, and it was not until the
beginning of June that they reached Vittoria, under the escort
of Don Pedro Hernandez de Velasco, Constable of Castile.

Towards the end of April, Montmorency, who after the
return of the King from captivity had been created Grand-
Master of France, arrived at Bayonne, accompanied by
Tournon, Archbishop of Bourges, now a cardinal, to make
the final arrangements for the payment of the ransom and
to receive the Queen and the princes. Here he was joined
by Louis van Praet, who was to represent the Emperor, and
several officials of the Spanish Treasury. On the 29th, the
Grand-Master invited Van Praet to dine, and afterwards conducted
him into a strong-room and showed him gold to the amount of
1,200,000 crowns piled up in glittering heaps.
⁰⁵
"You see," said he, "what steps the King is taking to pay the
Emperor, and that it is his intention to execute the articles
of the peace in order to recover his children. And it is much
better to employ it in this business than in making war and
causing the effusion of human blood."

A few days later, the French began to deliver the money, which was packed in
sacks of 10,000 crowns each, and conveyed to the house of Don Alvaro de Lugo, a high official
of the Imperial Treasury, who carefully counted the contents
of each sack as it was brought to him.

The next proceeding was to weigh the money, which was
carried out by Treasury officials of both nations, under the
supervision of the Cardinal de Tournon. It was then found
that the coinage had been so debased by the unscrupulous
Du Prat, that most of the money was of short weight, and
the French had in consequence to find a further 41,000
crowns to make good the deficiency.

After this difficulty had been satisfactorily adjusted, the
gold was packed in boxes of 25,000 crowns each, which were
sealed up by the officials on either side and placed in a room
in Don Alvaro's house, twelve guards being posted "above,
below, and about it."
⁰⁶

All these formalities naturally occupied a great deal of time,
and fresh delays were constantly being occasioned by the
exasperating punctiliousness of the Spaniards, which drove
Montmorency and Tournon to the point of distraction. At
length, however, it was arranged that the princes and the
money should change hands on the Bidassoa, between
Fontarabia and Andaye, on the same spot where François
had been released four years before, on the morning of
July 1.

On June 30, Montmorency, who since the beginning of
the month had been waiting impatiently at Saint-Jean-de-Luz,
sent a messenger to Bayonne with orders for the gold to be
brought to him, and was congratulating himself that the end
of his labours was in sight, when he received news of an
incident which threatened to postpone it indefinitely.

It appears that the previous day the Constable of Castile,
who was now at Fontarabia, had sent a courier to Don Alvaro
de Lurgo at Bayonne. The soldier who guarded Don
Alvaro's house, where, as we have said, the princes' ransom
had been deposited, having received the strictest orders that
no unauthorised person was to be allowed to approach,
refused the man permission to pass, and it was not until he
had been kept waiting for some considerable time — four hours,
according to his own account — that he was able to deliver his
message. So incensed was the Constable of Castile at the
detention of his courier, that he informed Montmorency and
Tournon that until the amplest apology was forthcoming from
the French Government for the affront that had been put
upon him in the person of his emissary, he should refuse
to deliver over the Queen and the princes, which, of course,
meant that the exchange could not possibly take place on the
appointed day, and that fresh arrangements would have to
be made.

Montmorency, however, was determined not to submit to
the immense inconvenience and expense which this would
entail, merely to satisfy the
amour-propre
of a personage who
was notoriously ill-disposed towards the French and had
done everything in his power to hinder the negotiations; and
the early hours of the following morning found the treasure
and its escort wending their way towards the Bidassoa. First,
came fifty men-at-arms and three companies of infantry; then,
thirty-one mules, each carrying 40,000 crowns in boxes, and
each escorted by four French and two Spanish foot-soldiers;
next, another mule bearing the
fleur-de-lis
and the various
documents which had to be handed over with the ransom,
among them Henry VIII's discharge for the money which
had been paid to him; while the Grand-Master, in gala
costume, and mounted on a magnificent horse with an
immense plume on its head, brought up the rear, with forty
gentlemen of his Household.

On reaching Andaye, on the French bank of the Bidassoa,
Montmorency at once despatched an officer to Fontarabia,
who found that the Constable had just issued orders for the
princes to be conducted back to Renteria, from which they
had arrived on the previous day. That personage informed
him that, quite apart from the matter of the courier, there was
another and much stronger reason why the exchange could
not take place — namely, that Montmorency had assembled at
Saint-Jean-de-Luz a larger force than the convention which
had been drawn up between the representatives of the two
nations permitted.

The officer replied that the Grand-Master insisted on the
affair going forward, but, at the same time, if his Excellency
maintained that he had failed in any part of his engagements,
he was quite prepared to give him satisfaction in person.

Upon this, the Spaniard, whose courage was not equal to
his arrogance, and who did not at all relish the prospect
of meeting so redoubtable a warrior as Montmorency in
single combat, changed countenance, and, after some demur,
promised that the princes should be brought to the Bidassoa
with as little delay as possible.

At eight o'clock in the evening, the Queen and the princes
arrived on the Spanish bank of the river, and the exchange
took place at once, with very much the same formalities as
had been observed at that of the King, the most minute
precautions being taken on both sides to guard against any
attempt at treachery. Montmorency and Don Alvaro de
Lurgo, with the coffers containing the ransom, embarked in
a barge, which was manned by twelve rowers and a steersman. They were accompanied by eleven French gentlemen
and two pages of the same height as the Dauphin and the Duc d'Orléans. At precisely the same moment, the Constable
of Castile and Van Praet, with the princes and ten Spanish
gentlemen, entered a similar barge, which was propelled by the
same number of oarsmen. The princes and the pages wore
poniards, the gentlemen both sword and poniard. Both
barges then rowed out to mid-stream, where a raft had been
moored, on which stood two gentlemen, one French, the
other Spanish. The Spaniard called the Constable, the
Frenchman the Grand-Master; and the two plenipotentiaries
mounted the raft together, and passed thus from one barge
to the other. The persons of their respective suites — summoned one by one, a Frenchman and a Spaniard alternately —
followed, until the Spanish barge, in which the princes had
remained, was occupied by the French, and that containing
the ransom was filled by Spaniards. Then the barges cast off
from the raft and made for either bank, "the Spaniards bearing away the gold crowns, and the Grand-Master the treasure
of France."