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Holbein's "Ambassadors", the picture and the men

Note 265 — Chapter VI · Disgrace and Return to Favour of the Dinteville Family

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“On the following day the said Damoyselle de Thelligny and Madame de Brou, her sister, came to dine with me at the apartment of the late Duke of Orleans. Which ladies both told me it would be necessary to come to an agreement with the said Bishop of Lavaur, and that Madame d’Estampes had become very angry when the said M. de Lavaur had come to speak to her in the room where she was playing at cards, and had said that we were not yet where we imagined.... Seeing which I recognized that we should be obliged to take that course. And the next or the same day (I do not remember which) I went to find the said Bishop of Lavaur in his apartment, in a little low room, where was the Bailly of Dijon ... and a few others ...; and I said these, or similar, words to the Bishop of Lavaur:

“‘Sir, my friends have told me that Madame d’Estampes has in the last two days spoken ill words of Monsieur d’Aucerre and of my brothers. For which reason, sooner than to fall again into the king’s disfavour, we would rather lose all we possess. You know that in past times we were friends. You speak of wishing to have the bishopric of Aucerre; I beg and warn you to content yourself with something else instead.’

“He insisted that he wished to have the Abbey of Monstier-aramey. I then begged him to give up the said Abbey of Monstier-aramey. He continued to insist, desiring it rather than that of Monstier-la-Celle. Nevertheless I showed him that the said Abbey of Monstier-aramey was close to Polisy, and that that of Monstier-la-Celle was of the same value, within six or seven hundred livres, which was not a great sum. In the end, the said Bishop of Lavaur agreed to this.

“He then made a great fuss about having the house of the see of Auxerre at Paris, which I would not at all agree to, although, if he became our friend, not only that one, but all others would be at his service....”

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