The Life of Queen Marie de Medicis. Miss Pardoe

seventeenth century, was the descendant of an illustrious family of Geneva, whose branches spread alike over Italy and Spain. He was born in 1569, and first bore arms in Flanders. In 1604, being in command of the army, he took Ostend, and in consequence of his important services was appointed General of the Spanish troops in the Low Countries. When opposed to Prince Maurice of Nassau, he counterbalanced alike his renown and his success; and in 1629, when serving in Piedmont, he took the town of Casal, but died in the following year of vexation at having failed to reduce the fortress of that city.

      [271] Marie Touchet, Comtesse d'Entragues, was the daughter of an apothecary at Orleans; who, on the occasion of a visit of Charles IX to that city, obtained permission to see his Majesty dine in public, where her extreme beauty so impressed the Monarch that he inquired her name, and at the close of the repast despatched M. de Latour, the master of his wardrobe, to desire her attendance in his closet. The negotiation did not prove a difficult one; as the lady, although at the moment strongly attached to M. de Monluc, the brother of the Bishop of Valence, could not resist the prestige of royalty. Charles, anxious to retain her near him, requested Madame Marguerite, his sister, to receive her into her household as a waiting-woman; but as she shortly afterwards became pregnant, he removed her from the Court and established her in Paris, where she gave birth to Charles, Comte d'Auvergne. Although tenderly beloved by the King, Marie Touchet still retained her attachment to Monluc, with whom she carried on an active correspondence, which was at length discovered by Charles; who, having on one occasion been apprised that she had at the moment a letter from her former lover in her pocket, instantly caused a number of the Court ladies to be invited to supper; and they were no sooner assembled than he sent to desire a man named Chambre, the chief of a band of gipsies, to disperse a dozen of his most expert followers about the apartment, with orders to cut away the pockets of all the guests and to bring them carefully to his closet when he retired for the night. He then caused the faithless favourite to be seated beside himself, in order that she might not have an opportunity of disposing of the letter elsewhere; and the Bohemians having adroitly obeyed his instructions, the King found himself a few hours afterwards in possession of the booty. In the pocket of Marie Touchet he discovered, as he had anticipated, the letter of M. de Monluc; which, on the following morning, he placed, with the most bitter reproaches, in the hands of its owner; who, on finding herself detected, declared that the pocket in which the King had discovered it was not hers, a subterfuge by which, as the letter bore no address, she hoped to escape the anger and indignation of her royal lover. Unfortunately, however, Charles recognized several of the trinkets by which it had been accompanied; and she had, consequently, no alternative save to acknowledge her fault and to entreat for pardon. Charles, who could not resist her tears, was soon induced to promise this, provided she pledged herself to relinquish all intercourse with Monluc; and in order to render her performance of this pledge more sure, he shortly afterwards married her to the Comte d'Entragues, whose complaisance he rewarded by the government of Orleans.--L'Etoile, Hist, de Henri IV, vol. iii. pp. 247–249.

      [272] Dreux du Radier, vol. vi. p. 98. Saint-Edmé, vol. ii. p. 227. L'Etoile, vol. iii. p. 247.

      [273] Antoine Eugène Chevillard, general treasurer of the gendarmerie of France.

      [274] Sully, Mém. vol. v. p. 161, quoted from Amelot de la Houssaye.

      [275] Dreux du Radier, vol. vi. p. 99.

      [276] Mademoiselle de Bueil became Comtesse de Chésy on the 5th of October 1604, and two months later she obtained a divorce. M. de Chésy died in 1652.

      [277] Péréfixe, vol. ii. p. 401.

      [278] Sully, Mém. vol. v. pp. 193–197.

      [279] Guillaume Fouquet, Sieur de la Varenne, was one of those singularly-gifted individuals who by the unaided power of intellect are raised from obscurity to fortune. On his first introduction to the Court of France, his position was merely that of cloak-bearer to the King; but his excessive acuteness and his genius for intrigue soon drew upon him the attention of the Cabinet. The event that originally procured for him the favour by which he so largely profited in the sequel was a voyage to Spain, voluntarily undertaken under unusual difficulties. The courier who was conveying to Philip the despatches of the Duc de Mayenne and the other chiefs of the League, having been taken by the emissaries of Henri IV, and the despatches opened by his ministers, it was decided that copies should be made, and the originals resealed and forwarded to their destination by some confidential person who might bring back the replies, in order that a more perfect judgment might be formed by the Council of their probable result. For such an undertaking as this, however, it was obvious that a messenger must be found at once faithful, expert, and courageous; and such an one offered himself in the person of La Varenne, who without a moment's hesitation offered his services to the King, and acquitted himself so dexterously of his self-imposed task that he succeeded, not only in procuring two interviews with the Spanish Council, but even an audience of Philip, without once exciting suspicion; and his arrival at Madrid had been so well timed that although a second courier was despatched in all haste by the League, to announce the capture of his predecessor, he was enabled to effect his return to France with the reply of the Spanish monarch, by which Henry and his ministers were apprised of the plans and pretensions of that potentate (Amelot de la Houssaye, Lettres du Cardinal d'Ossat, vol. ii. p. 17 note.) La Varenne was subsequently Master-General of the Post Office.

      [280] Philippe de Mornay, Seigneur de Plessis-Marly, Governor of Saumur, was born in the year 1549, at Bussy, in the department of the Oise, of a Catholic father and a Protestant mother (Françoise du Bec), the latter of whom educated him in the reformed faith. Having escaped the massacre of St. Bartholomew, he visited Germany, Italy, and England, and finally entered the service of Henri IV, while he was still King of Navarre, who sent him on a mission to Queen Elizabeth. His science, his valour, and his high sense of honour, rendered him after the abjuration of the monarch the chief of the Protestant party, and caused him to be called the Huguenot Pope. He sustained against Duperron, Bishop of Evreux, the famous conference of Fontainebleau, at whose close each of the two parties claimed the victory. Louis XIII deprived him of his government of Saumur; and he died in 1623. He had issue by his wife, Charlotte de l'Arbalète, widow of the Marquis de Feuquières, one son (Plessis-Mornay, Sieur de Bauves), who was killed in 1605 while serving under Prince Maurice in the Low Countries, and three daughters, the younger of whom married the Duc de la Force.

      [281] Mézeray, vol. x. pp. 254, 255.

      [282] Bonnechose, Hist. de France, vol. i. p. 438, seventh edition.

      [283] Bonnechose, vol. i. p. 438.