Note 876 — Chapter X

This remarkable statement is made by Agrippa d'Aubigné, Mémoires, 478 (Ed. Panthéon Lit.). He tells us that he had inherited from his father, himself one of the conspirators, the original papers of the enterprise of Amboise. The suggestion was made by a confidant, that the possession of the proof of L'Hospital's complicity would certainly secure him 10,000 crowns, either from the chancellor or from his enemies; whereupon the youth threw all the papers into the fire lest he might in an hour of weakness succumb to the temptation. In his Hist. universelle, i. 95, D'Aubigné makes the same assertion with great positiveness: "L'Hospital, homme de grand estime, luy succeda, quoyqu'il eust esté des conjurez pour le faict d'Amboise. Ce que je maintiens contre tout ce qui en a esté escrit, pource que l'original de l'entreprise fut consigné entre les mains de mon père, où estoit son seing tout du long entre celuy de Dandelot et d'un Spifame: chose que j'ai faict voir a plusieurs personnes de marque."