Note 99 — INTRODUCTION TO THE GALATEA.

The following statement occurs in Miguel de Cervantes, his life & works by Henry Edward Watts (London, 1895), p. 179, n. 1: "This French ambassador, called by the Spanish commentators the Duque de Umena, must have been the Duc de Mayenne, who was sent by the Regent Anne of Austria, to conclude the double marriage of the Prince of Asturias (afterwards Philip IV.) with Isabelle de Bourbon, and of Louis XIII. of France with the Infanta Ana, eldest daughter of Philip III."

The familiar formula—"must have been"—is out of place here. The necessity does not exist. It seems unlikely that Márquez Torres can have met the members of Mayenne's suite on February 25, 1615; for Mayenne's mission ended two and a half years previously. Mayenne and his attachés left Madrid on August 31, 1612: see Luis Cabrera de Córdoba, Relaciones de las cosas sucedidas en la Córte de España, desde 1599 hasta 1614 (Madrid, 1857), p. 493, and François-Tommy Perrens, Les Mariages espagnols sous le règne de Henri IV. et la régence de Marie de Médicis, 1602-1615 (Paris, 1869), pp. 403 and 416-417. "Umena" is, as everybody knows, the old Spanish form of Mayenne's title; but no Spaniard ever dreamed of applying this title to the ambassador of whom Márquez Torres speaks. As appears from a letter (dated February 18, 1615) to "old Æsop Gondomar," the special envoy to whom Márquez Torres refers was known as "Mr. de Silier": see Navarrete, op. cit., pp. 493-494. Mr. de Silier was the brother of Nicolas Brûlart, Marquis de Sillery, Grand Chancellor of France from September, 1607, to May, 1616. The special envoy figures in French history as the Commandeur Noel Brûlart de Sillery: he and his suite reached Madrid on February 15, 1615 (Navarrete, op. cit., p. 493), and they left that city on March 19, 1615 (Perrens, op. cit., p. 519). One might have hoped that, as M. de Sillery founded the mission of Sillery near Quebec, his name would be known to all educated Englishmen. His death on September 26, 1640, is mentioned by his confessor, St. Vincent de Paul, in a letter to M. Codoing, dated November 15, 1640. See Lettres de S. Vincent de Paul (Paris, 1882), vol. i., p. 100.

I do not know who the above-mentioned "Regent Anne of Austria" is supposed to be. The French Regent who sent Mayenne and Sillery to Spain was Marie de Médicis, mother of Louis XIII. Her regency ended in 1615. In 1615 Anne of Austria, sister of Philip IV., became the wife of Louis XIII. Her regency began in 1643. It would almost seem as though the earlier French Queen-Regent had been mistaken for her future Spanish daughter-in-law, or, as though the writer were unaware of the fact that the "Regent Anne of Austria" and the "Infanta Ana" were really one and the same person. But the whole passage indicates great confusion of thought, as well as strange misunderstanding of Navarrete's words and of the document printed by him.

An old anecdote, concerning Cervantes and a French Minister at the Spanish Court, is inaccurately reproduced in Camoens: his Life and Lusiads. A Commentary by Richard F. Burton (London, 1881), vol. i., p. 71: "Cervantes, who had been excommunicated, whispered to M. de Boulay, French Ambassador, Madrid, 'Had it not been for the Inquisition, I should have made my book much more amusing.'" Sir Richard Burton evidently quoted from memory, and, as his version is incorrect, it may be advisable to give the idle tale as it appeared originally in Segraisiana ou Mélange d'histoire et de littérature. Recueilli des Entretiens de Monsieur de Segrais de l'Académie Françoise (La Haye, 1722), p. 83: "Monsieur du Boulay avoit accompagné Monsieur * * * dans son Ambassade d'Espagne dans le tems que Cervantes qui mourut en 1618 vivoit encore: il m'a dit que Monsieur l'Ambassadeur fit un jour compliment à Cervantes sur la grande réputation qu'il s'étoit acquise par son Dom Quixotte, au de-là des monts: & que Cervantes dit à l'oreille à Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, sans l'Inquisition j'aurois fait mon Livre beaucoup plus divertissant."

It will be observed that M. du Boulay was not Ambassador; that he does not pretend to have heard Cervantes's remark; that he merely repeats the rumour of what Cervantes was alleged to have whispered to M. * * * (who may, or may not, be M. de Sillery); and that he does not mention the Ambassador as his authority for the story. Moreover, Jean Regnauld de Segrais was born in 1624, and died in 1701. Assuming that he was no more than thirty when he met M. du Boulay, this would mean that the story was told nearly forty years after the event. If the volume entitled Segraisiana was compiled towards the end of Segrais' life, we are at a distance of some eighty years from the occurrence. In either case, there is an ample margin for errors of every kind.