The custom of the seconds fighting with each other appears to have been introduced by the royal _mignons_, who, no doubt, vied with each other for the monarch’s favour. In these murderous contests, one of the most celebrated bravoes was Bussy d’Amboise, one of the principal actors in the massacre of St. Barthelemi, during which he assassinated his own near relation, Antoine de Clermont, with whom he was at law. This was undoubtedly a more _expedient_ motive than the one that induced him to call out a gentleman of the name of St. Phal, who having an X embroidered on some part of his apparel, Bussy maintained that it was a Y. A combat forthwith took place, of six against six. One could scarcely believe that the brave Crillon should have risked his life with such a pernicious cut-throat. Yet it is recorded that, having met him one day in the Rue St. Honoré, Bussy asked him the hour; when Crillon, drawing his sword, replied, “It is the hour of thy death!” Fortunately the combatants were separated. The intrigues of Bussy with Marguerite de Valois are well known; and at the same period he boasted of the favour of the Countess de Montsoreau, whose husband was master of the hunt of the Duke d’Alençon; and having written to that prince, that he had caught a deer of the Count’s in his snares, the letter was shown to Henry III, who kindly put it into the husband’s hand. The master of the hunt did not deem it advisable to risk his life in seeking revenge, but compelled his faithless spouse to give a _rendez-vous_ to her paramour; when, instead of his mistress’s embraces, he was received by the daggers of hired bravoes. The assassination of this monarch himself (Henry III.) afforded a singular instance of the manners of the time, and the reckless character of the courtiers. A young man in the royal household, of the name of Isle Marivaux, determined not to survive his royal master; and begged to know if any one would do him the favour of fighting with him, to give him a fair chance of being killed. Fortunately for him, another courtier, of the name of Marolles, took him at his word; and, after a few lounges, gratified his best wishes. Such were what historians called “_the good old times_,” when, as a late writer asserts, the lasciviousness of Messalina was combined with the ferocity of Nero and the gluttony of Heliogabalus; and when wit and ribaldry were the associates of assassination. Thus, when Catherine de Medicis was informed upon her death-bed of the murder of the Duke and Cardinal de Guise, she replied, “’Tis well cut out, my son; but now your work must be stitched!” CHAPTER VIII. FRANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.