An Enemy to the King: From the Recently Discovered Memoirs of the Sieur de la Tournoire — John Shaqi
An Enemy to the King: From the Recently Discovered Memoirs of the Sieur de la TournoireStephens, Robert Neilson
History
An Enemy to the King: From the Recently Discovered Memoirs of the Sieur de la Tournoire
Stephens, Robert Neilson
France -- History -- Henry IV, 1589-1610 -- Fiction
On the second morning after the ball, I heard, from De Rilly, that the
King had put his brother under arrest, and kept him guarded in the Duke's
own apartment, lest he should leave Paris and lead the rebellion which
the King had to fear, not only on its own account, but because of the
further disrepute into which it would bring him with his people. The
King, doubtless, soon saw, or was made to see, that this conduct towards
his brother--who had many supporters in France and was then affianced to
Queen Elizabeth of England--would earn only condemnation; for, on the day
after the arrest, he caused the court to assemble in Catherine's
apartments, and there De Quelus went ironically through the form of an
apology to the Duke, and a reconciliation with Bussy. The exaggerated
embrace which Bussy gave De Quelus made everybody laugh, and showed that
this peace-making was not to be taken seriously. Soon after it, Bussy
d'Amboise and several of his followers left Paris.
The next thing I saw, which had bearing on the difference between the
King and Monsieur his brother, was the procession of penitents in which
Monsieur accompanied the King through the streets, after the hollow
reconciliation. I could scarcely convince myself that the
sanctimonious-looking person, in coarse penitential robe, heading the
procession through the mire and over the stones of Paris, from shrine to
shrine, was the dainty King whom I had beheld in sumptuous raiment in the
gallery of the Louvre. The Duke of Anjou, who wore ordinary attire,
seemed to take to this mummery like a bear, ready to growl at any moment.
His demeanor was all that the King's gentlemen could have needed as a
subject for their quips and jokes.
Two evenings after this, I was drinking in the public room of an inn,
near my lodgings in the town, when a young gentleman named Malerain, who,
though not a Scot, was yet one of the Scotch bodyguard, sat down at my
table to share a bottle with me.
"More amusement at the palace," he said to me. "To think that, any one of
these nights, I may be compelled to use force against the person of the
King's brother, and that some day he may be King! I wonder if he will
then bear malice?"
"What is the new trouble at the Louvre?" I asked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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