François decides to remain on the defensive in Italy and to invade Luxembourg and Roussillon — Success of the French in Luxembourg compromised by the folly and egotism of the Duc d'Orléans — The Dauphin, with an army of 40,000 men, invades Roussillon and arrives before Perpignan, only to find that the Imperialists have rendered it almost impregnable — Futile efforts of the French to reduce the place — Gallantry of Brissac — The King orders the Dauphin to raise the siege — Retreat of the army — François and the Spanish women-captives — Birth of a son to the Dauphin — Precarious situation of Catherine de' Medici previous to the birth of her child — Her diplomacy saves the situation — Baptism of the little prince — Campaign in the Netherlands — Failure of the Dauphin to reduce the citadel of Binche — Charles V arrives at Speyer — Fatal inaction of François — Düren stormed by the Imperialists — The Duke of Clèves makes his submission to the Emperor — England joins Charles V — Indecisive operations in the Netherlands — The Turks on the coast of Provence
IN former contests between François and Charles, Italy had been the chief theatre of war; but, on the present occasion, notwithstanding that a vigorous attack upon the Milanese seemed to promise a certain and speedy conquest, the King, who had hitherto consistently sacrificed everything to his Italian ambitions, resolved to remain on the defensive beyond the Alps, while he invaded Luxembourg in the north and Roussillon in the south. If we are to believe the words which the Mémoires of Martin du Bellay attribute to François, this decision was arrived at in order to give the appearance of attacking the enemy "in places which rightly appertained to him, and which had been usurped without legitimate title." But, as his claim to the Milanese was at least as strong as those to Luxembourg and Roussillon, and as the advantage to the Porte of a plan of campaign which would prevent the Emperor from sending any considerable force to the valley of the Danube is obvious, it is probable that Soliman had insisted on its adoption as a condition of his support.
The command of the Army of the North was entrusted to the Duc d'Orléans, with Claude, Duc de Guise, to advise him; that of Roussillon was given to the Dauphin, Annebaut being summoned from Piedmont to act as his lieutenant-general and counsellor; while the King, who hoped to draw his rival into a great battle in the Roussillon valleys, announced his intention of joining it in person, if the Emperor should cross the Pyrenees. Three other armies were set on foot; one, consisting almost entirely of German mercenaries hired by the Duke of Clèves with French gold, invaded Brabant; the second, under the Duc de Vendôme, defended the Flemish frontier; while the third held Piedmont.
The troops of the Duke of Clèves defeated the Flemish militia and overran Brabant, which they pillaged mercilessly. They then marched into the duchy of Luxembourg to join Orléans, and their combined forces, amounting to some 33,000 men, stormed or reduced Damvilliers, Yvon, Arlon, Luxembourg and Montmédi. The folly and egotism of the youthful commander-in-chief, however, not only prevented these successes from being followed up, but sacrificed the most important of them. Bitterly jealous of his elder brother, and learning that there was a prospect of a pitched battle being fought in Roussillon, he disbanded the greater part of his forces, and leaving only very weak garrisons to hold the captured towns, posted off to Montpellier, where the King had taken up his quarters. The Imperialists took prompt advantage of this to recover the town of Luxembourg, and, but for the courage and activity of Guise, the other places taken by the French would have shared the same fate.
The news of the fall of Luxembourg followed closely upon the prince's heels, in consequence of which he spent a very unpleasant quarter of an hour with his royal father at Montpellier; nor was he able to redeem his reputation by knightly deeds in Roussillon, since the blunders of François, the Dauphin, and Annebaut had relieved the Emperor of the necessity of risking a battle in order to save that province.
The army of the Dauphin had assembled at Avignon, with the intention of deluding the enemy into the belief that Italy was its destination, until Annebaut, who was on his way from Piedmont with 15,000 men, had had time to join it. Annebaut, however, appears to have been indiscreet — some chroniclers declare intentionally, though this is probably a slander — and when he began his eastward march, the Imperialists had no longer any doubt as to the French designs against Roussillon. Nevertheless, the main objective of the invasion — the taking of Perpignan— might still have been achieved, if the Dauphin, instead of awaiting Annebaut's arrival before taking the offensive, had sent forward a strong advance-guard to occupy the Pyrenean passes and cut off the communications of Perpignan with Catalonia and the sea. This, however, he neglected to do, though, as he was probably only carrying out the King's orders to remain inactive, it would be unfair to blame him.
Annebaut and the troops from Piedmont arrived towards the middle of August, and the Dauphin immediately marched on Roussillon by way of Nimes and Narbonne, where he was reinforced by contingents from Languedoc and Guienne, which raised the strength of his army to over 40,000 men, of whom only about one-third were French, the rest being Swiss, landsknechts, and Italian mercenaries. No opposition was met with, and on August 26 he arrived before Perpignan.
Here, however, a bitter mortification awaited him, for the town, which he had been led to believe would prove an easy conquest, was bristling with cannon, "like a porcupine which, when provoked, shows its quills in every direction," and he was saluted by a storm of shot from cannon and culverins "of which the enemy were as liberal as they were of their arquebus balls."01 Taking advantage of the early information which he had received of the designs of the French and the failure of the Dauphin to occupy the mountain passes, the Emperor had sent by sea all the artillery and ammunition which he had saved from the Algiers expedition, and had caused the fortifications to be strengthened, with the result that Perpignan had been converted into a fortress capable of bidding defiance to an even more powerful army than the one which now lay before it.
However, the Dauphin, who was burning to distinguish himself, at once ordered the trenches to be opened, and sent his light cavalry under the Sieur de Termes into the mountains to occupy the passes and prevent reinforcements arriving from Aragon. But the soil was so sandy that the works which the French constructed were in a moment reduced to powder by the artillery of the besieged; while Termes was too late to prevent a considerable force under the command of Alva from being thrown into the place.
Encouraged by the arrival of Alva, the garrison made continual sorties, in repelling which the besiegers suffered severely. Having one day observed that several batteries were very insufficiently guarded, the Spaniards sallied out in force, stormed the batteries, and were about to overturn the cannon into the trenches, when Brissac,02 who commanded the French infantry, hurried up at the head of the few troops he had been able to get together, and charged the enemy so fiercely that they were compelled to retire. The Dauphin, who had been a witness of this gallant action, paid the victor a graceful compliment. "If," said he, "I were not what I am, I should have wished this day to be M. de Brissac."03
Towards the end of September, the King despatched the Comte de Saint-Pol and Chabot de Brion, who, in the preceding spring, had, thanks to the intercession of Madame d'Étampes, been rehabilitated and restored to all his offices and dignities,04 to ascertain how the siege was progressing. They reported that the investing army had failed to make the slightest impression on the place; that provisions were failing; that dysentery had broken out among the troops, and that the mountain torrents, swollen by the autumn rains, were overflowing their banks and threatening to render the camp untenable and cut off the army's communications with France. François thereupon sent orders to the Dauphin to raise the siege, which was done on October 4, the army retiring in excellent order and repulsing with considerable loss an attempt of the Spaniards to fall upon their rear. It was certainly time to retreat, for three days later the whole valley of the Têt was under water, and several soldiers of the rearguard were drowned in crossing the swollen streams on their line of march.
Thus, the expedition from which so much had been expected ended in total failure, and the only trophies which the invaders had to show were a number of Spanish women, whom the Italian mercenaries had carried off, with the intention of compelling their husbands and fathers to ransom them. The Spaniards sent envoys to the King to complain bitterly of this wholesale abduction as an infringement of the laws of civilised warfare, and to demand the liberation of the captives; but the condottieri retorted that such complaints came very badly from a nation who at the sack of Rome had held not only women but infants in arms to ransom, and declined to surrender them. Finally, if we are to believe Jovius, François, moved by the sight of beauty in distress, settled the matter to the satisfaction of all parties, by paying the money demanded himself and ordering the women to be restored to their homes.
In Piedmont, Guillaume du Bellay and his brother Martin bravely held their ground against the superior forces of the Imperialists; but his exertions proved too much for the former, whose health was already shattered, and he died at the beginning of the following January, while on his way back to France.
At the beginning of the following year, an event took place at Fontainebleau which must have gone some way to console the Dauphin for the Roussillon fiasco. On January 19, 1543, after nearly ten years of marriage, Catherine de' Medici gave birth to the first of her ten children, a son, the future François II.05
Catherine's sterility had been a grievous disappointment to all concerned, and the cause of sore trouble to herself. For some time, indeed, she had lived in constant dread of being repudiated, and to this fear is, no doubt, attributable the fact that she appears to have made it her first study to remain as much as possible in the background, to avoid giving offence to any one, and to live on amicable terms with both the ladies whose rivalry divided the Court; while, at the same time, deferring in every way to her husband and losing no opportunity of insinuating herself into the good graces of the King.
She had need of all her diplomacy, for, some months before she became enceinte, François had all but decided on taking steps to get the marriage annulled.06 Learning, however, of what was in the wind, Catherine lost not a moment in seeking the King, and, bathed in tears, threw herself at his feet, declaring that she was ready to sacrifice herself for the good of France, and would either retire to a convent or remain in his service, just as he might be pleased to order.
François, who was seldom proof against a woman's tears and was genuinely attached to the girl, was touched, and, raising her up, assured her that, "since God had willed that she was to be his daughter-in-law and the Dauphin's wife, he would not have it otherwise," adding that "perchance it might please Him to accord them the grace which they desired more than anything else in the world."
And so, thanks to Catherine's politic move, the evil day was postponed, and when her son was born, the danger passed away altogether, and, for the first time probably since her marriage, she was able to regard the future with a tranquil mind.
The baptism of the royal infant, which took place on the evening of February 10, 1543, must have been an impressive ceremony. Let us listen to Paradin:
"Three hundred torches were given to as many persons of the Guards of the King and of the Dauphin, and the Swiss Guard, who were stationed from his Majesty's chamber to the Church of the Mathurins, passing the little gallery, where these lights made everything so plainly visible that it seemed as though it were the middle of the day. Afterwards, came his hundred gentlemen of the Household. Then the Chevaliers of the Order (of Saint-Michel), among them being the King of Navarre, the Ducs d'Orléans, de Vendôme, d'Estouteville, de Guise, de Nevers, and the Comte d'Aumale, and also the Venetian Ambassador. The Legate [Cardinal Farnese], with several other cardinals and prelates, was also present.
"Next came the Queen and all the princesses who were then at Court, namely, Madame Marguerite, the King's daughter, who has married the Duke of Savoy, the Princess of Navarre [Jeanne d'Albret], Madame de Saint-Pol, the two Duchesses de Nevers, Madame de Montpensier, Madame de Guise, the Duchesse d'Étampes, and several other ladies, who were all very sumptuously attired in cloth of gold and silver with an infinitude of precious stones, which had a dazzling effect; and in the midst of this crowd was the child who was being carried to be baptized.
"In this order and magnificence they entered the aforesaid Church of the Mathurins, whither the King proceeded immediately. It was decorated with the most costly Crown tapestries and divers other ornaments. In the middle there was a circular daïs, on which one saw a great covering of cloth of silver. This was the place where the baptismal ceremony was performed, the duty being undertaken by the Cardinal de Bourbon.
"The godfathers were the King, who gave the child his own name of François, and the Duc d'Orléans, third Son of France and paternal uncle of our little prince,07 and the godmother was Madame Marguerite, of whom mention has already been made.
"All this ceremonial being thus completed, the child was carried back in the same order in which he had been brought thither; and they at once sat down to the banquet which the King had caused to be made ready in what now bears the name of the Salle du Bal; and, after this banquet, there were divers ballets, dances, and other similar rejoicings, which continued for several days.
"A large and splendid bastion had been erected near the Kennels, on the ground which is now occupied by the Allée Solitaire and the Allée des Muriers blancs, and on the pond were three galleys decorated with their banderoles. All being thus arranged, on Thursday, the 14th of the said month, several skirmishes took place between two parties of princes and nobles, one party defending the said bastion, and the other attacking it, by land, and by water with the said galleys. In this fashion these splendours concluded."
Two years later (April 2, 1545), also at Fontainebleau, Catherine presented her husband with a daughter, Elisabeth de Valois, the future Queen of Spain. The little girl's baptism appears to have been celebrated with as much pomp and magnificence as that of her brother, for Henry VIII had consented to stand as godfather to the young princess, and the French King wished to show Cheney and Dudley, who represented their master, that his Court could still make as brave a show as in the days of the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
The war in 1543 was confined to Italy and the Netherlands. In the Low Countries, Fortune at first smiled upon the French and their allies; at the end of March the troops of the Duke of Clèves defeated the Imperialists at Sittard, while in June François and the Dauphin invaded Hainaut, at the head of 35,000 men, and took Landrecies, on the Sambre, which they proceeded to fortify. While this work was in progress, the army encamped at Marolles, to cover the engineers, but, so that it might not remain altogether idle, François detached the Dauphin and a small force to reduce the Château of Émery, Barlemont, Maubeuge, and Binche. The first three places surrendered with scarcely a pretence of resistance, but at Binche the prince found the same ill-fortune awaiting him as he had experienced at Perpignan the previous autumn; for, having received warning of his approach, the Imperialists had thrown a strong force of landsknechts into the citadel and provisioned it for a long siege. In a rather rash attempt to take the fortress by storm, the French suffered considerable loss, and Gaspard de Coligny, the future Huguenot leader — "a young noble full of fire, who sought only opportunities for distinction" — received an arquebus-ball in the chest, which nearly cut short his career.08
Much chagrined at this check, the Dauphin applied to his father for reinforcements and siege-artillery; but François, being unwilling to weaken his own lines, in view of the possibility of being attacked by the Imperialists, who were assembling in force at Mons and Quesnoi, refused the assistance solicited and ordered him to raise the siege. At the end of July the fortifications of Landrecies were completed, upon which the King, having placed a garrison of some 3,000 men there, evacuated the other places which he had taken, disbanded part of his army, and retired with the remainder to Rheims, where he divided his attentions between the beasts of the forest and the beauties of the Court.
His rival, meanwhile, was employing his time very differently. Leaving Spain under the charge of Philip, aided by a Council of Regency, at the end of May Charles landed at Genoa. Thanks to the dowry which his daughter-in-law, Maria of Portugal, had brought with her, the loan of the treasures of the Mexican fleet, and a large subsidy granted him by Cosimo de' Medici, he was once more in funds, and thousands of landsknechts flocked to his standard as he hurried through Germany to Speyer, where he arrived on July 25. That his first move would be to take summary vengeance upon his rebellious vassal, the Duke of Clèves, could not be doubted, and that prince sent courier after courier to Francois to implore him to march to his assistance. But the King, having disbanded the greater part of his army, made no move until the end of August, when he undertook a fresh invasion of Luxembourg, in the hope of diverting Charles's attention from the duchy of Clèves.
Before, however, he had even crossed the Luxembourg frontier, the fate of his ally was sealed. In mid-August, the Imperialists, now over 30,000 strong, invaded the duke's dominions, and on the 22nd appeared before Düren. This town was reputed to be impregnable, but, two days later, after a struggle of three hours, it was taken by storm, and the garrison and all the male inhabitants, save old men and children, ruthlessly massacred. No second example of the consequences of resistance to the Imperial arms was required; town after town opened its gates to the invaders, and on September 7 the Duke of Clèves rode into Charles's camp at Venloo, on the Meuse, declaring that he "came to throw himself at the feet of the most illustrious Emperor, to receive the chastisement of his fault or some ray of mercy and pardon."
The news of the duke's submission reached François at Luxembourg, which had surrendered to the French on September 10. Although the loss of this valuable ally was mainly due to his own indolence and want of foresight, he chose to consider himself the aggrieved party, and revenged himself upon the duke by refusing to send him his wife, Jeanne d'Albret. The marriage was subsequently annulled, to the great satisfaction of the young princess, who married, five years later, Antoine de Bourbon, Duc de Vendôme; while the Duke of Clèves received the hand of a daughter of the King of the Romans.
An even more important ally than the Duke of Clèves had already been lost to François. Owing to the support accorded by him to James V of Scotland, joined to several differences of long standing, in the previous February Henry VIII had concluded a treaty with the Emperor, in which the old design of a partition of France was renewed, and 6,000 English troops now joined the Imperialists, who, at the end of September, entered Hainaut and laid siege to Landrecies. Charles himself, though he had been recently very ill, joined the investing army a little later, and took command in person of the English contingent, declaring that "if the French King comes, as he saith he will, I will live and die with you Englishmen."
The French King duly appeared upon the scene at the end of October, and Martin du Bellay, by a clever stratagem, succeeded in revictualling Landrecies. A battle seemed imminent, but François, though he spoke constantly of his impatience to bring his rival to an engagement, seems to have had but little desire to try conclusions with him, and Charles was permitted to draw off without molestation; while on the night of November 2-3, the King, on his side, fell back to Guise. In their retreat the French were harassed by a considerable force of the enemy, and some sharp skirmishing took place, in which the Dauphin showed both coolness and courage.
While these events were taking place in the Netherlands, the ports of Provence were witnessing the strange spectacle of the white cross of the Very Christian King and the crescent of the Infidel floating side by side. In the last week of April, Barbarossa left Constantinople, with one hundred and ten galleys and a number of smaller vessels and transports, with 14,000 troops on board, and, after ravaging the Calabrian and Tuscan coasts and burning Reggio to the ground, proceeded to Marseilles, where he was joined by a considerable, but very inadequately equipped, French squadron under the Comte d'Enghien, younger brother of Antoine de Bourbon.09 The combined fleet then sailed for Nice, the only place of any importance remaining to the Duke of Savoy, and speedily compelled it to capitulate. The garrison, however, retired into the castle, which defied all the efforts of the besiegers, and when, in September, Del Guasto and Andrea Doria moved to its relief, Enghien and Barbarossa raised the siege, and, having laid the town in ashes, retired to Toulon. No further expedition was attempted, the Turks wintering at Toulon and converting that port into a market for the sale of the hapless population of Nice, whom they had carried off as slaves. Early in the spring, they sailed homewards, harrying the Italian coasts on their way, the only result of their intervention being to cover with indelible disgrace the monarch who had invoked their aid and connived at the atrocities which they had perpetrated upon the subjects of his defenceless kinsman.10
Notes
(1) Martin du Bellay, Mémoires.
(2) Charles de Cossé, Seigneur de Brissac, afterwards marshal.
(3) Boyvin du Villars, Mémoires.
(4) Chabot's rehabilitation, however, came too late, for his misfortunes had so affected his health that he died the following year.
(5) It may be as well here to give the list of the children of Henri and Catherine:
1. François, born at Fontainebleau, January 19, 1543; married April 24, 1558, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots; became King July 10, 1559; died at Orléans, November 17, 1560.
2. Elisabeth, born at Fontainebleau, April 2, 1545; married July 1559, Philip II of Spain; died October 3, 1568.
3. Claude, born at Fontainebleau, November 12, 1547; married 1559 the Duke of Lorraine.
4. Louis, born at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, February 3, 1548 [printing error in the original publication, should read 1549]; died at the Château of Mantes, October 25, 1550.
5. Charles Maximilien, born at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, June 27, 1550; became King November 27, 1560; married Isabella of Austria, October 22, 1570; died May 30, 1574.
6. Edouard Alexandre (Henri III), born at Fontainebleau, September 20, 1551; King of Poland, 1573; King of France, 1574; married February 15, 1575, Louise de Lorraine; died at Saint-Cloud, August 2, 1589.
7. Marguerite (the celebrated "Queen Margot"), born at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, May 14, 1553; married Henri de Bourbon, King of Navarre (Henri IV of France), August 18, 1572; died March 27, 1615.
8. Hercule (François, Duc d'Alençon, and later Duc d'Anjou), born at Fontainebleau, March 18, 1554; died at Château-Thierry, June 10, 1584.
9. Victoire, born at Fontainebleau, July 24, 1556; died at Amboise on August 17 of the same year.
10. Jeanne, born the same day, ten hours after her sister; died immediately.
(6) Miss Sichel, in her "Catherine de' Medici and the French Reformation," without giving her authority, says that "Diane persuaded the King that the separation of husband and wife was the only wise course." But this is most improbable. In the first place, neither the Dauphin nor Diane desired it, for the very good reason that Henri was very unlikely to find another consort as complaisant as Catherine had shown herself. In the second, Diane was in very bad odour with the King, owing to the jealousy between her and Madame d'Étampes, and she was about the last person at the Court from whom François would have been inclined to take advice.
(7) Paradin is in error. The godfathers were François I, the Pope (Paul III), and the Seigneurie of Venice.
(8) Martin du Bellay.
(9) The French vessels were so short of powder and ball that they had to purchase them from their allies.
(10) François's own subjects did not altogether escape the attentions of the Turks, for, a fever having carried off a number of their galley-slaves, Barbarossa organised night-raids upon the villages around Toulon, in order to fill the empty benches.