Catherine de Médicis, Queen, consort of Henry II, King of France, 1519-1589 -- Fiction; French fiction -- Translations into English
At the moment when Charles V. was put to flight, leaving the bones of
his army in Provence, the dauphin was returning to Lyon by the Rhone.
He stopped to sleep at Tournon, and, by way of pastime, practised some
violent physical exercises,--which were nearly all the education his
brother and he, in consequence of their detention as hostages, had ever
received. The prince had the imprudence--it being the month of
August, and the weather very hot--to ask for a glass of water, which
Montecuculi, as his cup-bearer, gave to him, with ice in it. The dauphin
died almost immediately. Francois I. adored his son. The dauphin was,
according to all accounts, a charming young man. His father, in despair,
gave the utmost publicity to the proceedings against Montecuculi, which
he placed in the hands of the most able magistrates of that day. The
count, after heroically enduring the first tortures without confessing
anything, finally made admissions by which he implicated Charles V. and
his two generals, Antonio di Leyva and Ferdinando di Gonzago. No affair
was ever more solemnly debated. Here is what the king did, in the words
of an ocular witness:--
“The king called an assembly at Lyon of all the princes of his
blood, all the knights of his order, and other great personages of
the kingdom; also the legal and papal nuncio, the cardinals who
were at his court, together with the ambassadors of England,
Scotland, Portugal, Venice, Ferrara, and others; also all the
princes and noble strangers, both Italian and German, who were
then residing at his court in great numbers. These all being
assembled, he caused to be read to them, in presence of each
other, from beginning to end, the trial of the unhappy man who
poisoned Monseigneur the late dauphin,--with all the
interrogatories, confessions, confrontings, and other ceremonies
usual in criminal trials; he, the king, not being willing that the
sentence should be executed until all present had given their
opinion on this heinous and miserable case.”
The fidelity, devotion, and cautious skill of the Comte de Montecuculi
may seem extraordinary in our time, when all the world, even ministers
of State, tell everything about the least little event with which they
have to do; but in those days princes could find devoted servants, or
knew how to choose them. Monarchical Moreys existed because in those
days there was _faith_. Never ask devotion of _self-interest_, because
such interest may change; but expect all from sentiments, religious
faith, monarchical faith, patriotic faith. Those three beliefs produced
such men as the Berthereaus of Geneva, the Sydneys and Straffords of
England, the murderers of Thomas a Becket, the Jacques Coeurs, the
Jeanne d’Arcs, the Richelieus, Dantons, Bonchamps, Talmonts, and also
the Clements, Chabots, and others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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