On the 13th of the month M. de Rohan[291] was married at Ablon[292] to Marguerite de Bethune, the daughter of the Duc de Sully, whom Henry had previously determined to bestow upon the Comte de Laval,[293] and not only did he confer the honour of his presence upon the well-dowered bride, but he also signed her marriage contract and presented to her ten thousand crowns for the purchase of her trousseau, with a similar sum to her bridegroom to defray the expenses of the wedding-feast.  A singular ceremony followed upon the nuptial blessing, for M. de Rohan had no sooner led his newly-made wife from the altar than his ducal coronet was placed upon his brow, his ducal mantle flung upon his shoulders, and in this pompous costume he was, at the close of the banquet, escorted to Paris by the princes and nobles who had been the guests of M. de Sully.

Seldom had the King evinced more gaiety of heart than at this particular period, or appeared to derive greater amusement from the gossipry of the Court and the gallantries of the courtiers; and he no sooner ascertained that Mademoiselle d’Entragues had become the mistress of Bassompierre than he said laughingly to the Duc de Guise:  “D’Entragues despises us all in her idolatry of Bassompierre.  I have good grounds for what I state.”

“Well, Sire,” was the reply, “you can be at no loss to revenge the affront; while for myself I know of no means so fitting as those of knight-errantry, and I am consequently ready to break three lances with him this afternoon at any hour and place which your Majesty may be pleased to ordain.”

The preparations for this combat are so graphically described by Bassompierre himself, and so characteristic of the manners of the time, that we shall offer no apology for giving them in his own words.

“The King acceded to our wishes, as such encounters were by no means unusual, and told us that the tilting should take place in the great court of the Louvre, which he would cause to be covered with sand.  M. de Guise selected as his seconds his brother the Prince de Joinville and M. de Thermes;[294] while I chose M. de Saint-Luc[295] and the Comte de Sault.[296] We all six dressed and armed ourselves at the house of Saint-Luc, and as we had armour and liveries ready for every occasion, my party wore silver-mail, with plumes of red and white, as were our silk stockings; while M. de Guise and his troop, on account of the imprisonment of Madame de Verneuil, of whom he was secretly the lover, were dressed and armed in black and gold.  In this equipage we arrived at the Louvre, myself and my friends being the first upon the ground.” [297]

Henry, with his whole Court, both male and female, was present on the occasion, and the lists were placed immediately beneath the windows of the Queen’s apartments; but the diversion was not fated to be of long duration, for at the first encounter the lance of M. de Guise entered the body of his antagonist and inflicted so formidable a wound that he was carried from the spot and laid upon the bed of the Duc de Vendome, apparently in a dying state.  After his hurt had been dressed, the Queen sent her sedan chair to convey him to his residence.