Henri II: His Court and Times (28 page)

Much chagrined at this check, the Dauphin applied to his
father for reinforcements and siege-artillery; but François,
being unwilling to weaken his own lines, in view of the
possibility of being attacked by the Imperialists, who were
assembling in force at Mons and Quesnoi, refused the
assistance solicited and ordered him to raise the siege.
At the end of July the fortifications of Landrecies were
completed, upon which the King, having placed a garrison
of some 3,000 men there, evacuated the other places which
he had taken, disbanded part of his army, and retired with
the remainder to Rheims, where he divided his attentions
between the beasts of the forest and the beauties of the Court.

His rival, meanwhile, was employing his time very differently.
Leaving Spain under the charge of Philip, aided by a
Council of Regency, at the end of May Charles landed at
Genoa. Thanks to the dowry which his daughter-in-law,
Maria of Portugal, had brought with her, the loan of the
treasures of the Mexican fleet, and a large subsidy granted
him by Cosimo de' Medici, he was once more in funds, and
thousands of
landsknechts
flocked to his standard as he hurried through
Germany to Speyer, where he arrived on July 25. That his first move would be to
take summary vengeance upon his rebellious vassal, the Duke of Clèves, could not
be doubted, and that prince sent courier after courier to Francois to implore him to march to his assistance. But the King,
having disbanded the greater part of his army, made no move
until the end of August, when he undertook a fresh invasion
of Luxembourg, in the hope of diverting Charles's attention
from the duchy of Clèves.

Before, however, he had even crossed the Luxembourg
frontier, the fate of his ally was sealed. In mid-August, the
Imperialists, now over 30,000 strong, invaded the duke's
dominions, and on the 22nd appeared before Düren. This
town was reputed to be impregnable, but, two days later,
after a struggle of three hours, it was taken by storm, and the
garrison and all the male inhabitants, save old men and
children, ruthlessly massacred. No second example of the
consequences of resistance to the Imperial arms was required;
town after town opened its gates to the invaders, and on
September 7 the Duke of Clèves rode into Charles's camp
at Venloo, on the Meuse, declaring that he "came to throw
himself at the feet of the most illustrious Emperor, to receive
the chastisement of his fault or some ray of mercy and
pardon."

The news of the duke's submission reached François at
Luxembourg, which had surrendered to the French on
September 10. Although the loss of this valuable ally was
mainly due to his own indolence and want of foresight, he
chose to consider himself the aggrieved party, and revenged
himself upon the duke by refusing to send him his wife,
Jeanne d'Albret. The marriage was subsequently annulled, to
the great satisfaction of the young princess, who married,
five years later, Antoine de Bourbon, Duc de Vendôme;
while the Duke of Clèves received the hand of a daughter of
the King of the Romans.

An even more important ally than the Duke of Clèves had
already been lost to François. Owing to the support accorded
by him to James V of Scotland, joined to several differences
of long standing, in the previous February Henry VIII had
concluded a treaty with the Emperor, in which the old design
of a partition of France was renewed, and 6,000 English
troops now joined the Imperialists, who, at the end of September, entered Hainaut and laid siege to Landrecies. Charles
himself, though he had been recently very ill, joined the
investing army a little later, and took command in person of
the English contingent, declaring that "if the French King
comes, as he saith he will, I will live and die with you
Englishmen."

The French King duly appeared upon the scene at the end
of October, and Martin du Bellay, by a clever stratagem,
succeeded in revictualling Landrecies. A battle seemed
imminent, but François, though he spoke constantly of his
impatience to bring his rival to an engagement, seems to have
had but little desire to try conclusions with him, and Charles
was permitted to draw off without molestation; while on the
night of November 2-3, the King, on his side, fell back to Guise. In their
retreat the French were harassed by a considerable force of the enemy, and some sharp skirmishing
took place, in which the Dauphin showed both coolness and
courage.

While these events were taking place in the Netherlands,
the ports of Provence were witnessing the strange spectacle of
the white cross of the Very Christian King and the crescent
of the Infidel floating side by side. In the last week of April,
Barbarossa left Constantinople, with one hundred and ten
galleys and a number of smaller vessels and transports, with
14,000 troops on board, and, after ravaging the Calabrian
and Tuscan coasts and burning Reggio to the ground, proceeded
to Marseilles, where he was joined by a considerable,
but very inadequately equipped, French squadron under the
Comte d'Enghien, younger brother of Antoine de Bourbon.
⁰⁹
The combined fleet then sailed for Nice, the only place of
any importance remaining to the Duke of Savoy, and speedily
compelled it to capitulate. The garrison, however, retired into
the castle, which defied all the efforts of the besiegers, and
when, in September, Del Guasto and Andrea Doria moved to
its relief, Enghien and Barbarossa raised the siege, and, having
laid the town in ashes, retired to Toulon. No further expedition
was attempted, the Turks wintering at Toulon and
converting that port into a market for the sale of the hapless
population of Nice, whom they had carried off as slaves.
Early in the spring, they sailed homewards, harrying the
Italian coasts on their way, the only result of their intervention
being to cover with indelible disgrace the monarch
who had invoked their aid and connived at the atrocities
which they had perpetrated upon the subjects of his
defenceless kinsman.
¹⁰

(1)
Martin du Bellay,
Mémoires
.

(2)
Charles de Cossé,
Seigneur de Brissac, afterwards marshal.

(3)
Boyvin du Villars,
Mémoires
.

(4)
Chabot's rehabilitation,
however, came too late, for his misfortunes had so
affected his health that he died the following year.

(5)
It may be as well here
to give the list of the children of Henri and Catherine:

1. François, born at Fontainebleau, January 19, 1543; married April 24, 1558,
Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots; became King July 10, 1559; died at Orléans,
November 17, 1560.

2. Elisabeth, born at Fontainebleau, April 2, 1545; married July 1559, Philip II
of Spain; died October 3, 1568.

3. Claude, born at Fontainebleau, November 12, 1547; married 1559 the Duke
of Lorraine.

4. Louis, born at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, February 3, 1548
[printing error
in the original publication, should read 1549];
died at the
Château of Mantes, October 25, 1550.

5. Charles Maximilien, born at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, June 27, 1550; became
King November 27, 1560; married Isabella of Austria, October 22, 1570; died
May 30, 1574.

6. Edouard Alexandre (Henri III), born at Fontainebleau, September 20, 1551;
King of Poland, 1573; King of France, 1574; married February 15, 1575, Louise
de Lorraine; died at Saint-Cloud, August 2, 1589.

7. Marguerite (the celebrated "Queen Margot"), born at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, May 14, 1553; married Henri de Bourbon, King of Navarre (Henri IV of
France), August 18, 1572; died March 27, 1615.

8. Hercule (François, Duc d'Alençon, and later Duc d'Anjou), born at Fontainebleau, March 18, 1554; died at Château-Thierry, June 10, 1584.

9. Victoire, born at Fontainebleau, July 24, 1556; died at Amboise on
August 17 of the same year.

10. Jeanne, born the same day, ten hours after her sister;
died immediately.

(6)
Miss Sichel, in her "Catherine de' Medici and the French Reformation,"
without giving her authority, says that "Diane persuaded the King that the
separation of husband and wife was the only wise course." But this is most
improbable. In the first place, neither the Dauphin nor Diane desired it, for the
very good reason that Henri was very unlikely to find another consort as
complaisant as Catherine had shown herself. In the second, Diane was in very
bad odour with the King, owing to the jealousy between her and Madame d'Étampes, and she was about the last person at the Court from whom François
would have been inclined to take advice.

(7)
Paradin is in error.
The godfathers were François I, the Pope (Paul III), and the
Seigneurie of Venice.

(8)
Martin du Bellay.

(9)
The French vessels
were so short of powder and ball that they had to purchase them
from their allies.

(10)
François's own
subjects did not altogether escape the attentions of the Turks,
for, a fever having carried off a number of their galley-slaves,
Barbarossa organised night-raids upon the villages around
Toulon, in order to fill the empty benches.

Critical situation of France at the beginning of the campaign of 1544 — Brilliant
victory of Enghien at Ceresole — France invaded by Charles V and Henry VIII —
The mutual suspicion of the allies prevents their adhering to their original plan
of advancing straight upon Paris — Henry VIII lays siege to Boulogne and
Montreuil, and the Emperor to Saint-Dizier — A pretended letter from the Duc de
Guise causes the garrison of Saint-Dizier to capitulate — Charge of treason against
Madame d'Étampes considered — The Dauphin entrusted with the command of
the French Grand Army, with orders to remain entirely on the defensive —
He entreats the King to recall Montmorency, but François angrily refuses — Henry VIII declines to advance on Paris until Boulogne and Montreuil have
fallen— Capture of the Dauphin's magazines at Épernay and Château-Thierry by
the Imperialists — The Dauphin falls back to Meaux — Panic in the capital — The
King succeeds in restoring the confidence of the Parisians — Charles V, finding
that his ally still refuses to cross the Somme, makes overtures for peace — Peace
of Crépy — Indignation of the Dauphin, who enters a secret protest against the
treaty — Henry VIII and the bulk of his army return to England — The Dauphin
in Picardy — Failure of the camisado of Boulogne

T
HE
third campaign began, in 1544, under the most
gloomy auspices. François was now isolated. During the winter Charles had
succeeded in detaching Denmark and Sweden from the hostile coalition, while
most of the German Protestants, irritated by the French
King's supposed friendship with the Pope, had made their
peace with the Emperor. Henry VIII had assembled an
army of 30,000 men at Calais, which was subsequently joined
by 15,000 Netherlanders, with the intention of marching
through Picardy, straight upon Paris; while the Emperor
was to advance upon the capital from Lorraine, and Del
Guasto, having swept the French out of Piedmont, would
enter France by way of Lyons. François's resources were
practically exhausted. He had been accustomed to rely
almost entirely on mercenaries, and to repose but little confidence
in his own subjects, notwithstanding their undoubted
courage and natural aptitude for war; and now there was
no money to pay these hireling warriors. By incredible
exertions, however, an army was raised in Piedmont and
placed under the command of Enghien, with strict injunctions
not to allow himself to be drawn into an engagement.
Thanks to the persuasive eloquence of Blaise de Montluc,
whom Enghien had sent to the Court, this order was subsequently
revoked,
⁰¹
and on April 14 the young general gained
the great victory of Ceresole, in which the Imperialists were
utterly routed with the loss of 12,000 men.

This brilliant success, the most decisive which France had
won in Italy since Marignano, was barren of results, at least
so far as the peninsula was concerned, for the danger in
the north was too pressing for François to permit Enghien
to invade Lombardy. He accordingly received orders to
remain in Piedmont, and, towards the end of June, the greater
part of his victorious troops was recalled to France, to assist
in stemming the advancing tide of invasion.

It had been arranged between Charles and Henry that their
campaign should begin in June, and that they should both
advance direct upon Paris, without lingering to lay siege to
any of the fortresses which lay on their respective lines of
march. If this plan had been strictly adhered to, Paris
must have fallen, and the dismemberment of France would
probably have followed. But neither King nor Emperor
trusted his ally, and the result of their mutual suspicion was
that Henry turned aside to besiege Boulogne and Montreuil,
while the Imperialists invested Saint-Dizier, on the Marne
(July 8).

Although the fortifications of Saint-Dizier were in a very
dilapidated condition, the heroism of its garrison arrested the
advance of the invaders for nearly six weeks, and it was not
until August 17 that it capitulated. Its fall came about in a
singular manner.

The scouts of the investing army intercepted and brought
to the Imperial Chancellor, Granvelle, who had accompanied
his master, a packet in which was found "the alphabet of
the cypher" which the Duc de Guise, governor of Champagne,
employed for his correspondence with the Comte de Sancerre,
who commanded the garrison of Saint-Dizier. Granvelle
immediately forged a letter from Guise to Sancerre, in which
he warned him that he must not expect any assistance and
authorised him to surrender the place on honourable terms,
which the Imperialists, of course, readily accorded.
⁰²