[13] Charles, Comte d’Auvergne (1573-1650), natural son of Charles IX and Marie Touchet. He was created Duc d’Angoulême in 1620; but before this period Bassompierre, in his _Mémoires_, frequently speaks of him as M. d’Angoulême. [14] The Grand Equerry, the Duc de Bellegarde. [15] Charles Auguste de Saint-Lary, brother of Bellegarde, whom he succeeded in the post of Grand Equerry. [16] Annibal de Schomberg, second son of Gaspard de Schomberg. [17] In April, 1599, this boy was legitimated by letters-patent, which were duly registered by the complaisant Parlement of Paris. [18] But she had, nevertheless, condescended to ask favours of “the woman of impure life,” and to regard her as a sister. “I speak to you freely,” she writes to Gabrielle, on February 24, 1597, “as to one whom I wish to keep as a sister. I have placed so much confidence in the assurance that you have given me that you love me, that I do not desire to have any protector but you near the King; for nothing that comes from your beautiful mouth can fail to be well received.” She had also, shortly before signing the procuration, transferred to Gabrielle her duchy of Étampes. [19] See the excellent work of Desclozeaux, _Gabrielle d’Éstrées, Marquise de Monceaux_ (Paris: 1889). [20] Alphonse d’Ornano (1548-1610), son of the celebrated Corsican patriot. He was colonel-general of the Corsicans in the service of France, and had been created a marshal of France in 1596. [21] Gabrielle, as we have just stated, survived until the following day (Saturday, April 10); but La Varenne, either to spare the King the sight of his mistress, whom, Bassompierre tells us, he himself had seen on the Thursday afternoon, “so changed that she was unrecognisable,” or to prevent a scandal, had taken upon himself to announce in advance the event which he knew to be inevitable and close at hand. [22] The Parlement of Paris also sent a deputation to condole with the grief-stricken monarch. [23] Bassompierre says “a few days”; Tallemant des Réaux “three weeks.” In point of fact, it was not until the following June that Henri IV., while on his way from Fontainebleau to Blois, broke his journey at the Château of Malesherbes, where resided François de Balsac d’Entragues, governor of Orléans, who had married as his second wife Marie Touchet, mistress of Charles IX, and mother of Charles de Valois, Comte d’Auvergne, and there saw Henriette, then a girl of eighteen, for the first time.