Henri II: His Court and Times (61 page)

The obsequies took place on the morrow, the Cardinal
de Lorraine officiating. After the cardinal had pronounced
the funeral oration, the coffin was lowered into the vault,
whereupon Montmorency, according to usage, broke his
bâton
of Grand-Master and dropped the fragments into the grave,
his example being followed by the other Court officials. Then
the
Roi d'armes
, turning to either side, cried: "
Le Roi est mart
— Vive le roi François!
" And, amid a fanfare of trumpets, the
assemblage dispersed.

The reign of Diane de Poitiers terminated with that of her
royal lover, but the precaution that she had taken to marry
her elder daughter, Louise de Brézé, into the House of Lorraine, and her grand-daughter, Gabrielle de la Marck, into that
of Montmorency, saved her from suffering too glaring a
disgrace. She was, of course, ordered to retire from Court,
as was her younger daughter, the Duchesse de Bouillon, widow
of Robert de la Marck; but the only humiliation which
Catherine inflicted upon her fallen rival consisted in demanding
the restoration of the jewels which Henri II had given her,
¹⁹
and the surrender of the Château of Chenonceaux in return for
that of Chaumont, which her Majesty purchased from the
Barbezieux family for 120,000 livres.

But, if Chenonceaux were lost to her, Diane possessed in
Anet an even more sumptuous residence, and, though such
enormous sums from the Royal Treasury had gone to its
construction and embellishment that it might almost be
considered Crown property, it stood, fortunately for its owner,
upon land which had belonged to the Brézé family for generations; and so Catherine was unable to lay claim to it. To her
beautiful Norman home the fallen favourite withdrew to spend
the short remainder of her life in complete retirement. Little
is known of her last years, except that, like several of her
predecessors and successors in the favour of kings, she appears
to have been extremely generous to the poor. She died on
April 25, 1566, in her sixty-seventh year, and was honoured by
a magnificent funeral, all the gentry of the neighbourhood
gathering to pay a last tribute of respect to the woman who
for twelve years had been the virtual Queen of France.
Brantôme, who saw her a few months before her death,
assures us that she was then "
aussi belle, aussi fraiche, aussi
aimable comme en l'âge de trente ans
"; but we fear that
Brantôme's desire to please the duchess's daughters, to whom
he very probably submitted this part of his manuscript, has
prevailed over his regard for the truth.

By her will, Diane's immense estates were divided between
her two daughters; Anet falling to the share of the Duchesse
d'Aumale; Chaumont to that of the Duchesse de Bouillon.
Large sums were left to various charitable institutions,
including several homes for repentant women.

After the death of the Duchesse d'Aumale, Anet became
the property of her son, Charles de Lorraine, one of the chiefs
of the League, against whom the
Parlement
of Paris issued a
decree condemning him to death and confiscating his estates.
The decree ordered the demolition of the Château of Anet,
but it was not carried out. Sold to Marie de Luxembourg,
Duchesse de Mercœur, it passed, after her death, to her son-
in-law, César de Vendôme, son of Henri IV by Gabrielle d'Estrées; then, in succession, to the Duchesse de Vendôme,
the Princesse de Condé, the Duc and Duchesse du Maine, and
their two sons, the Prince de Dombes and the Comte d'Eu.
The latter sold it to Louis XV, though the sale was not to
take effect until after the count's death. When that event
occurred, Louis XV was no more; and his successor ceded the
Château to the Duc de Penthièvre, who possessed it at the
time of the Revolution. The duke was permitted to remain in
undisturbed occupation until his death in March 1793, when
Anet was declared national property.

On June 18, 1795, the Commissary of Public Safety for
the Department of Eure-et-Loir and his assistant visited Anet,
and gave orders for the destruction of Diane's tomb, since
equality demanded that the dead should lie in earth common
to all. The tomb was accordingly broken open, when a
singular discovery was made, for by the side of the duchess,
dressed like her in the splendid sepulchral garments and
ornaments of the sixteenth century, and, like her, in a state
of almost perfect preservation, lay the bodies of two little girls,
between seven and nine years of age. The fact that these little
girls were clothed in the fashion of the sixteenth century seems
to preclude the possibility of their having been placed there at
a later period, and some historians incline to the belief that
they were the children of the duchess and Henri II. We are
not, however, of their opinion. Diane lived far too much in
the limelight for it to have been possible for her to conceal the
birth of two children, and, if she had become a mother by
the King, contemporary chroniclers would certainly have
recorded it. It is more probable that the little girls had
been adopted by her after her banishment from Court, to
console the tedium of her declining years.

The bodies of Diane and the children were stripped bare
and exposed to the brutal curiosity of the crowd which had
gathered to witness the work of destruction, until some compassionate women covered them with strips of paper torn
from the walls of a ruined house. Then, after the hair of the
duchess had been cut off and distributed as a souvenir among
the members of the local committee of surveillance, they were
interred in a grave near the chapel.

In 1788, Anet was sold to the bankers Ramsden and
Herigoyen, who, aware of the importance of their acquisition,
seem to have intended to preserve it intact. Circumstances,
however, obliged them to resell it, and it became the property
of a M. Demonti. This personage, not content with disposing of the treasures which it contained, at once embarked
upon a course of systematic destruction, selling the château
itself piece by piece. Some
débris
was saved; through the efforts
of the celebrated archæologist Alexandre Lenoir, including
the Diane chasseresse, now in the Louvre, and the façade of
the entrance, which now stands in the courtyard of the École
des Beaux-Arts. Demonti continued his vandalism for some years, when, owing to
the hostility of the inhabitants of the village, disgusted at the destruction of
a monument which had brought so many wealthy connoisseurs into the neighbourhood, he decided to sell what remained of the
château
en
bloc
. The daughter of the Duc de Penthièvre became the
purchaser, and sold it to Louis-Philippe, then Duc d'Orléans,
who, however, soon parted with it. Subsequent owners, who
include the Comte de Caraman and M. Moreau, a Paris
banker, have attempted something in the way of restoration,
but the work of mutilation had been carried too far for their
efforts to produce much effect.

The Constable, who had shared with Diane de Poitiers the
confidence and affection of Henri II, shared her disgrace,
though in a modified form. The Guises, for the moment all-powerful, hated him and insisted on his dismissal; while he
could look for no support from the Queen-Mother, who
had several grievances against him, notably, his attachment
to her husband's mistress in the early days of Diane's favour,
and the fact that he was generally believed to have counselled
the dissolution of her marriage in the time of François I.

When Montmorency waited upon the new King for the
first time, his young Sovereign received him courteously and
confirmed him in the possession of his estates and titles; but,
repeating the words which his uncles, the Guises, had dictated
to him, added that, having regard to the great age of the
Constable, he had decided to confide the command of his
armies to the Duc de Guise and the charge of his finances to
the Cardinal de Lorraine. He would, however, willingly
reserve an honourable place in his Council for his father's
trusted friend, whenever his age permitted him to assist at its
deliberations.

The Constable replied that he would not abuse this honour,
and, having assured his Majesty that, if need should arise, he
would find him not too old to spend his life and his goods in
his service, retired, and, after the funeral of Henri II, quitted
the Court and withdrew to Écouen. His disgrace, however,
terminated with the brief reign of François II.

In conclusion, a few words must be said concerning the
unhappy young Captain of the Scottish Guard, who had been
the involuntary cause of his Sovereign's death.

This tragic event completely changed Montgomery's destiny.
Deprived of his post and banished to his estates in Lower
Normandy, he beguiled the tedium of his enforced leisure by
the study of works on the religious controversy, was converted
to the Reformed faith, and, after the massacre of Vassy,
participated openly in Calvinistic worship, and established
a
prêche
at his château of Ducey. Scarcely had the first War
of Religion broken out, than he joined the army of Condé, at
the head of a considerable body of gentlemen, and, combining
as he did considerable military talent with the most dashing
courage, soon became one of the most redoubtable of the
Huguenot leaders, and inflicted several reverses on the royal
troops. At the time of the St. Bartholomew he was in Paris,
but, having had the good fortune to be lodged in the
faubourgs
, succeeded in effecting his escape, though he was
hotly pursued for many miles. He then took refuge in Jersey,
and subsequently in England, where he organised an expedition which made a
descent upon the Breton coast. In February 1574, he was again in arms, and
landed in Normandy with English supplies and English volunteers;
but his
stormy career was now drawing to a close. Besieged in
Domfront, with a mere handful of his followers, by the
Maréchal de Matignon at the head of 10,000 men, he surrendered, after a gallant defence, on the promise that his life
should be spared. Catherine,
²⁰
however, who, ever since the
fatal tourney, had entertained for him the most violent
hatred, declined to recognise this verbal capitulation; and
Montgomery was brought from Normandy to Paris, tried by
the
Parlement
on a charge of high treason and, on June 26,
condemned to a traitor's death. On the following day, after
having been put to the
question
, he was placed in a tumbril,
with his hands tied behind his back, conveyed to the Place de
Grève, and there beheaded and quartered. Catherine herself,
L'Estoile tells us, witnessed the execution, "and was at length
avenged, as she had so long desired, for the death of the
late King Henri, her husband."
²¹

(1)
The appointment of the last, whose orthodoxy was already suspected, was a
snare to entrap him.

(2)
F. Decrue,
Anne, duc de Montmorency.

(3)
"State Papers, Elizabeth (Foreign Series)."

(4)
Ibid.

(5)
La Place,
De l'estat de la religion et république
.

(6)
He was the son of Jacques, Comte de Montgomery, a veteran of the wars
of Louis XII, and was at this time about twenty-eight years old. His father
had preceded him in the command of the Scottish Guard, and still held the title
of Captain, though Gabriel, who had been promised the reversion of the post,
fulfilled all the duties. The Montgomerys were, of course, of Scotch origin,
and traced their descent from the lairds of Ardrossan.

(7)
"State Papers, Elizabeth
(Foreign Series)."

(8)
This part of the Rue Saint-Antoine
had been unpaved for the occasion.

(9)
His despatch is dated July 1, but, with the exception of a few sentences, it
was written on the previous evening.

(10)
Caraccioli's letter was published in a
Recueil des épistres des princes
collected
by Girolamo Ruscelli, and translated into French by Belleforest in 1572. A
second edition appeared two years later, since which it has never been
reprinted; and, so far as we are aware, the bishop's account of the tragedy has
not appeared in any modern work.

(11)
The anxiety to induce Henri II to leave the lists had probably nothing to do
with the sinister dreams and presentiments of which so many writers speak, but
was due to the fact that the King, when he over-exerted himself, was subject to
attacks of vertigo, and had had a severe one not long before,
after playing tennis.

(12)
According to the
Mémoires de Tavennes
, the King had lowered his visor, but,
in his eagerness to engage Montgomery, had not stopped to fasten it.

(13)
"The force of which stroke was so vehement and the paine he had withall
so great, as he was much astonished and had great ado (with reling to and fro)
to kepe himself on horseback." — Throckmorton.

(14)
"Whereupon with all
expedition he was unarmed in the field, even against the place
where I stode. . . . Marry, I saw a splinte taken out of a good
bigness." — Throckmorton.

(15)
"I noted him to be very
weake, and to have the sens of all his lymmes almost benummed, for
being caryed away, as he lay along, he moved neither hand nor
fote, but laye as one amazed." — Throckmorton.

(16)
Relation d'Andre Vésale
,
in Ruble,
Antoine de Bourbon et Jeanne d'Albret.

(17)
Jérôme de la Rovère, Bishop of Toulon, in the sermon which he preached
at the King's funeral, stated that Henri II, after receiving the Sacraments, called
the Dauphin, and "recommended to him his Church and his people, and declared
that he persisted and remained firm in the faith in which he was dying." It is
doubtful, however, if during the last days of his illness Henri II was ever
conscious.