Note 517 — Chapter VIII

The dauphin Francis died at Tournon, Aug. 10, 1536, probably from the effects of imprudently drinking ice-water when heated by a game at ball. None the less was one of his dependants—the Count of Montecuccoli—compelled by torture to avow, or invent the story, that he had poisoned him at the instigation of Charles the Fifth. He paid the penalty of his weakness by being drawn asunder by four horses! How little Francis I. believed the story is seen from the magnificence and cordiality with which, three years later, he entertained the supposed author and abettor of the crime. See an interesting note of M. Guiffrey, Cronique du Roy Françoys Ier, 184-186. The imperialists replied by attributing the supposed crime, with equal improbability, to Catharine de' Medici, the youthful bride of Henry, who succeeded to his brother's title and expectations. Charles of Angoulême, a prince whose inordinate ambition, if we may believe the memoirs of Vieilleville, led him to exhibit unmistakable tokens of joy at a false report of the drowning of his two elder brothers, died on the 8th of September, 1545, of infection, to which he wantonly exposed himself by entering a house and handling the clothes of the dead, with the presumptuous boast "that never had a son of France been known to die of the plague."