LETTER VI

We accompanied the King of Poland as far as Beaumont.  For some months before he quitted France, he had used every endeavour to efface from my mind the ill offices he had so ungratefully done me.  He solicited to obtain the same place in my esteem which he held during our infancy; and, on taking leave of me, made me confirm it by oaths and promises.  His departure from France, and King Charles’s sickness, which happened just about the same time, excited the spirit of the two factions into which the kingdom was divided, to form a variety of plots.  The Huguenots, on the death of the Admiral, had obtained from the King my husband, and my brother Alencon, a written obligation to avenge it.  Before St. Bartholomew’s Day, they had gained my brother over to their party, by the hope of securing Flanders for him.  They now persuaded my husband and him to leave the King and Queen on their return, and pass into Champagne, there to join some troops which were in waiting to receive them.

M. de Miossans, a Catholic gentleman, having received an intimation of this design, considered it so prejudicial to the interests of the King his master, that he communicated it to me with the intention of frustrating a plot of so much danger to themselves and to the State.  I went immediately to the King and the Queen my mother, and informed them that I had a matter of the utmost importance to lay before them; but that I could not declare it unless they would be pleased to promise me that no harm should ensue from it to such as I should name to them, and that they would put a stop to what was going forward without publishing their knowledge of it.  Having obtained my request, I told them that my brother Alencon and the King my husband had an intention, on the very next day, of joining some Huguenot troops, which expected them, in order to fulfil the engagement they had made upon the Admiral’s death; and for this their intention, I begged they might be excused, and that they might be prevented from going away without any discovery being made that their designs had been found out.  All this was granted me, and measures were so prudently taken to stay them, that they had not the least suspicion that their intended evasion was known.  Soon after, we arrived at St. Germain, where we stayed some time, on account of the King’s indisposition.  All this while my brother Alencon used every means he could devise to ingratiate himself with me, until at last I promised him my friendship, as I had before done to my brother the King of Poland.  As he had been brought up at a distance from Court, we had hitherto known very little of each other, and kept ourselves at a distance.  Now that he had made the first advances, in so respectful and affectionate a manner, I resolved to receive him into a firm friendship, and to interest myself in whatever concerned him, without prejudice, however, to the interests of my good brother King Charles, whom I loved more than any one besides, and who continued to entertain a great regard for me, of which he gave me proofs as long as he lived.