The Life of Marie de Medicis — Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 443 pages of information about The Life of Marie de Medicis — Volume 1.

The Life of Marie de Medicis — Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 443 pages of information about The Life of Marie de Medicis — Volume 1.

[180] Edme de Malain, Baron de Luz, Lieutenant-Governor of Burgundy, was the son of Joachim de Malain and Marguerite d’Epinac.  He was deeply involved in the conspiracy of the Marechal de Biron, and would infallibly have perished with him had he not been induced by the President Jeannin to reveal all that he knew of the plot to Henri IV, on condition of a free pardon.  He survived his treachery for ten years, and in 1613 was killed in a duel by the Chevalier de Guise.  His son, Claude de Malain, having sworn to avenge his death, in his turn challenged M. de Guise, at whose hands he met with the same fate as his father.

[181] Jacques de Lanode, Sieur de la Fin, was a petty Burgundian nobleman, whose spirit of intrigue was perpetually involving those to whom he attached himself in cabals and factions.  He had been actively engaged at one time in the affairs of the Duc d’Alencon, and at another, he was no less busily engaged in instigating Henri III to aggressive measures against the Duc de Guise.  Since that period he had negotiated with the ministers of Spain and Savoy, and by these means he had contracted a great intimacy with the Duc de Biron, to whom he affected to be distantly related, and over whom he acquired such extraordinary ascendancy by his subtle and unceasing flattery that the weak Marechal became a mere puppet in his hands, and, misled by his vanity, suffered himself to be persuaded that his merit had been overlooked and his services comparatively unrewarded, and that he was consequently fully justified in aspiring even to regal honours, and in using every exertion to attain them.

[182] Matthieu, Histoire des Derniers Troubles arrivez en France, book ii. p. 411.

[183] Pierre Fougeuse, Sieur Descures.

[184] Pierre Jeannin was the architect of his own fortunes.  He was born at Autun in 1540, where his father followed the trade of a tanner, and was universally respected alike for his probity and his sound judgment.  The future president, after receiving the rudiments of his education in his native town, was removed to Bourges, where he became a pupil of the celebrated Cujas.  In 1569 he was entered as an advocate at the Parliament of Burgundy, where he greatly distinguished himself during the space of two years, at the expiration of which time he was appointed provincial advocate and member of the Burgundian States; and in this capacity he justified, by his extraordinary talents, the choice of his fellow-citizens.  On one occasion a wealthy individual, enchanted by his eloquence, waited upon him at his house, and expressed a desire to have him for a son-in-law, inquiring, however, at the same time, the amount of his property.  Jeannin, by no means disconcerted at the abruptness of his visitor, pointed with a smile first to his head and then to his books:  “You see it before you,” he said with honest pride; “I have not, nor do I require, a greater fortune.”  Tradition is silent as regards the termination of

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The Life of Marie de Medicis — Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.