The wedded pair had already kept house for a month when Brusquet (who was daily electrifying the Papal Court by his mirthfulness or impudence) suddenly learned the news of his death, and of the indecently hasty marriage of his not altogether disconsolate widow. He was in exceeding wrath, hurried back to Paris, turned the second husband into the street, chastised his wife, and then publicly remarried her! Court, camp, and city considered this last act as one more in the official character of the fool than any he had hitherto accomplished, and the hilarity was general and unbounded. Brusquet, however, only showed that his wit had departed, for he attempted to avenge himself by conveying false information to the Court of Rome as to alleged traitorous intentions of Strozzi against the states and property of the Church. He represented the Marshal as having fallen into disgrace, and, after flying from France, having joined an Algerine force destined to operate successively against Ostia, Civita Vecchia, and Ancona, and ultimately to plunder the wealthy shrine of Loretto. The Roman Government was only needlessly alarmed, and Brusquet only suffered for his accusation of another. There can be little doubt that his old personal enemy brought down upon him the calamity by which he was visited in 1562. In the very midst of much worldly prosperity, he found himself accused of a very serious crime, that of being a Huguenot, and, still worse, that of suppressing or delaying despatches which contained news unfavourable to the Huguenot cause. The accusation would seem to have been better founded as regards Brusquet’s son-in-law. The storm, however, fell most heavily upon the former. He was obliged to fly, and the orthodox populace plundered the house which the heretical court fool had abandoned with so much precipitation. The fugitive jester found a home, first at Nogent, with Madame de Bouillon, a great friend of the Huguenots, and, subsequently, with Madame de Valentinois. But to be a concealed, fugitive dependant was little to the humour of a man who had made three kings laugh, and whose jokes had for so long a period been accepted as apologies or excuses for much rascality. He stooped to beseech his adversary, Strozzi, in a letter shown by the latter to Brantôme, who describes it as very well expressed, to use his influence with the authorities, to enable him, an odd man, to end his days in Paris, in peace and quietness. The petition was unheeded; at all events, the petitioner drew no benefit from it. He lost all heart, patience, and health, sank into moody despair, and died at the château of Anet, the guest of Madame de Valentinois, in the year 1563.