IV.—ABOUT A PORTRAIT AT WINDSOR.[6]

IV.—ABOUT A PORTRAIT AT WINDSOR.[6]

In Windsor Castle, in the Vandyke Room, there is a portrait which has puzzled a good many visitors. It is an undoubted Vandyke; it shows a pretty face—a trifle sensual, perhaps—but who the lady may have been whose features it immortalises, nobody seems to be able to tell. "Somebody"—"Somebody connected with Charles II."—"Some French lady"—are guesses rather than information offered. "Murray" used to call the lady by her right name. But lately, for some reason or other, she has in his description become transformed into "Madame de St. Croix," which probably sounds "safer." Formerly she figured as "Beatrix de Cusance, Princesse de Cantecroix," which was correct—unless the more illustrious title be given her which for a few brief hours she legitimately bore, though never actually crowned, that of "Duchess of Lorraine."

There is a good deal of history graven in those smiling features—curious, changeful history of their bearer's own life—and history, more important, of nations, on which she exercised a decisive influence. It was thinking of her, not least, that Richelieu penned those truthfully reproachful words:—"Les plus grandes et les plus importantes menées qui se fassent en ce royaume sont ordinairement commencées et conduites par des femmes." Without her and Madame de Chevreuse—perhaps, it would be too much to say that France might still be without that Lorraine of which she felt it so great a hardship to lose a portion in 1871; but certainly the tide of events during the past three centuries would have taken a very different course from that which it actually did—different, probably, for the better.

Beatrix was "somebody connected with our Charles II."—it is quite true. Without that link with our own Court her portrait would scarcely have found a place in Windsor Castle, and the sorry poet Flecknoe—Dryden's "MacFlecknoe"—would certainly not have rhymed upon her beauty and "vertue" in most halting and unmelodious lines, now long forgotten even by students of literature. But her connection with our "gay monarch" was of the briefest, a mere sly nibbling at forbidden fruit while the real good-man was away, closely watched by Spanish guards in the dark tower of Toledo—that same martial and romantic duke, to whom our Charles I. addressed urgent prayers to become his saviour, and on whom he conferred the proud title of "Protector of Ireland." It seems odd now—to us, with our modern notions of Lorraine, as a small and very helpless province of France—to think, that on the wayward ruler of that petty duchy, himself at the time an exile, should our Charles have built up hopes of his own preservation in the storms of the Great Rebellion. There can, however, be no doubt about the fact. In June, 1651,[7] Viscount Taaffe, Sir Nicholas Plunket, and Geffrey Browne, by order of the Marquis of Clanricarde, King Charles's deputy, formally waited upon Duke Charles IV. of Lorraine at Brussels, "to solicit his aid in favour of the unhappy kingdom of Ireland." The mission was considered of such pressing importance that Lord Taaffe, in order not to delay it, put off the call which in duty he owed to the Duke of York, then residing at Antwerp. Charles IV. rather rashly undertook the office pressed upon him, formally accepted the style and title of "Protector of Ireland," fitted out—though not owning an inch of seaboard—a man-of-war, which he christened "Espérance de Lorraine"—and there the matter ended.

With this adventurous Charles IV. was the life of the beautiful Beatrix bound up from girlhood to death. It was a romantic affair—in some of its episodes a little sadly comical—and, since we have constituted ourselves guardians of her effigy, her story may be worth telling.

The Cusances were an old, distinguished, and very wealthy family in the Franche Comté, when the Comté was still a province, not of France, but of the Empire. At the present time the "Almanach de Gotha" knows them no more, nor any French or German "Peerage." But in their own day they ranked among the best of bloods; the strains of the Hapsburghs and the Granvelles mingled in their veins. "Gentillesse de Cusance" had in whilom Burgundy become a proverbial saying. The family owned a wide tract of territory in the mountainous country through which flows the Doubs, and among those hills, forming part of the Jura, stood, twenty miles from Besançon, their Castle Belvoir. Of this proud family Beatrix was, with two sisters—one of whom became a nun, while the other married a cousin on the mother's side, a Count de Berghes, of the Low Countries—left the last offspring. There was no male to perpetuate the name. At twenty she was known as "la personne la plus belle et la plus accomplie de la province." People raved about her. Abbé Hugo, the Lorrain Duke's father-confessor, in his MS. History (which has never been published, for fear of giving offence to the French), describes her as "of a little more than middle height, and exquisitely proportioned." "She possessed," he said, "just sufficient embonpoint to impart to her une mine haute et un port majestueux." Her face, something between oval and round, was marked by a particularly clear complexion and an animated expression. Her eyes were blue and well-placed; her hair was of a light ash colour; her mouth was small, and of a brilliant red; her teeth were of pearly whiteness, and well-ranged; neck, arms, hands were all "beautifully delicate, white, and admirably shaped"; in fact, you could not desire a more perfect specimen of feminine humanity.

With this beauty it was the happy, or unhappy, lot of the no less engaging Charles IV. to become acquainted at the impressionable age of thirty, when to the eye, at any rate, he represented all that was manly and chivalrous. He was then the beau-ideal of the sex, unequalled in all accomplishments peculiar to the privileged Man of the tip-top strata, a brilliant horseman, fencer, tilter, and love-maker in the bargain—a veritable "Don Juan, alike in love and in politics," as his own historian, M. des Robert, has aptly styled him.

The two were for the first time brought into contact in 1634. Charles was then for the moment—a pretty protracted moment—a lackland prince. Counting a little too confidingly upon the help of that "Empire" which was always ready to claim and never ready to protect, and moreover upon equally treacherous Spain, he had defied France—with the result of being turned out of his dominions by her. But if Charles was driven from his duchy, he had carried his brilliant little army with him—there was no better in Europe. He had gained a high reputation already as a dashing general and a tactician of ready resource. The French feared him, in spite of their superior numbers. The Austrians and Spaniards were eager for his alliance, and willing to pay him his own price. He was stationed, in command of his own troops and some Spaniards, at Besançon, where life was then made gay indeed to the military visitors. Very butterfly that he was—forgetting altogether his homely Duchess Nicole, who was far away—Charles fluttered about merrily from flower to flower, almost thankful to Providence for having by her otherwise harsh judgment driven him to such captivating pastures new for the cult of Cupid. He was told, of course, of the bewitching beauty sojourning in the same city. Sated already with objects of admiration, he, however, at first scarcely paid heed to the praises of her charms. But once he met her, the hearts of both were in a twinkling set aflame.

Charles did not at the time enjoy the best of reputations among respectable folk. He had dabbled a little too freely in illicit loves. Accordingly, old Madame de Cusance observed the young people's mutual passion with very reasonable alarm—and, to prevent its being carried to dangerous lengths, she packed Beatrix off in hot haste to lonely Belvoir. To a lover of Charles's mettle, however, twenty miles was a stimulus rather than an obstacle to love-making. Every day saw him galloping out to pursue his courting. There were French spies and scouts stationed all round, watching for the cavalier, eager to carry him off, as their comrades had not long before carried off our ambassador, Montagu, to Coiffy. By narrow breakneck paths, which are shown to the present day, Charles threaded his way adventurously through the forest, where it seems a marvel that he did not again and again come to grief. No feat, however, was too hazardous, no risk too great for him to encounter in the pursuit of his romantic passion. Accordingly, the old lady, like a prudent, motherly Dutch matron that she was, saw nothing for it but to carry her daughter very much further away still, to Brussels, where she had her family mansion, the Hotel Berghes. There Charles could not at once follow her, for he had his army to look after; and, moreover, the French stood in the way like a massive wall. No sooner, however, had he gathered his fresh bays on the field of Nördlingen, and brought the campaign of 1635 to a more or less satisfactory close, than, still homeless and landless, he hurried likewise to Brussels, which was then the recognised gathering-place of all the poor victims of Richelieu's grasping policy. However, in one way he had been forestalled. In the interval the old countess, thinking in her innocence that nothing could so effectually put a stop to undesirable love-making as an actual marriage, had compelled her beautiful daughter to marry Leopold D'Oiselet, Prince de Cantecroix, a great personage both in the Franche Comté and in Germany. That ought to have made all things sure. In truth, it did nothing of the kind. Beatrix and Charles remained as infatuatedly in love as before, and pursued their amour seemingly with all the greater zest and determination, because there was now a legal hindrance. The husband, as it happened, was not the only difficulty in the way. All the Lorrain princes and princesses—expelled, like Charles, from their own country, and assembled in the capital of the Austrian Netherlands—set their faces dead against the lady, and positively refused to have anything to do with her. Beatrix did not care. She could afford to snap her fingers at Nicole, Nicolas-Francois, Claude, Henriette, and the rest of them, so long as Charles remained true to her; and soon we find her, the lawful wife of Prince Cantecroix, openly avowing herself "the fiancée" of the Lorrain Duke, who was himself lawfully married.

The old lady, foiled once more in her precautions, once more packed her daughter off out of harm's way—this time back to Besançon. As a matter quite of course Charles hereupon proposed to the crowned heads with whom he was in league, that the next campaign must necessarily be carried on in the Franche Comté, where, indeed, the French had somewhat alarmingly gained the upper hand, and were at that time rather embarrassingly (for the Spaniards) investing Dôle. As if to support him in his pleading, a deputation of Comtois magnates arrived at Brussels, headed, for irony, by the Prince de Cantecroix himself, petitioning the victor of Nördlingen, with all the urgency of which they were masters, to come to their rescue. Charles did not keep them waiting long. He promptly led his army back to their old quarters at Besançon, where he scarcely repaid Cantecroix in a Christian spirit. For his father-confessor informs us that, being a devout "Catholic," and believing implicity in the efficacy of masses, he caused no less than three thousand such to be said, to obtain from Heaven his rival's death. He drove the French away from Dôle, but after that he would not stir another finger. Fighting was all very well, but there was metal more attractive at Besançon. The old countess, had submitted at last to the inexorable ruling of fate. It was of no use transporting Beatrix backwards and forwards, while Charles followed so persistently after, and her own husband was so blind, or else so helpless. Things must be allowed to take their course.

Charles's masses had the desired effect. In February, 1637 the Prince de Cantecroix died. In his testament he provided liberally for "ma bien aimée femme"—which femme loyally lost no time in transferring herself from his house to one belonging to the duke.

M. de Cantecroix being out of the way, the next thing to be done was to remove the no less inconvenient Duchess Nicole. From her right to the throne Charles had already ousted her by a really grotesque farce enacted in concert with his father. Charles does not appear to have had masses said for Nicole's death, but he very assiduously consulted the learned of Church and State concerning the possibility of obtaining a legal declaration of nullity of marriage. This was an easier matter in those days than it is now; because, for want of any other plea, there was always the charge of witchcraft to fall back upon—a charge much in favour with "the Church." Charles decided to play this trump card. There was a priest, Melchior de la Vallée, a chosen protégé of the late duke, who had baptized Nicole. He was now alleged to have been a sorcerer before he performed the rite of baptism. Ergo, he was incompetent lawfully to baptize; ergo, Nicole was not properly baptized; ergo, she was not a Christian; ergo: the whole marriage must be void. Witnesses were, of course, produced to prove the case, and poor Melchior, having been duly condemned, was orthodoxly burnt at Custines—the place in which Mary Queen of Scots had spent her youth. His property was declared forfeited to the Crown—to be eventually employed by Charles, in a fit of remorse, to endow, by way of pious compensation, the great Chartreuse of Bosserville near Nancy.

That part of the business had been easily accomplished. It remained, on the ground of this condemnation, to upset the obnoxious marriage. The Duke's Chancellor, Le Moleur, was easily persuaded to pronounce an "opinion" to the effect desired, and, armed with this, he was promptly sent to Rome, accompanied by the Duke's father-confessor, Cheminot, to obtain a Papal judgment in accordance with it. The whole thing looked so plausible as readily to silence the last remaining doubts of Beatrix; and just nine days after Cantecroix's death the two lovers put their signatures to the marriage contract which was to make them man and wife. Less than five weeks later the marriage was formally celebrated in a characteristic hole-and-corner fashion. On the evening of April 2, 1637, the duke's physician, Forget, brought the vicaire (curate) of the parish of S. Pierre in Besançon a written authority from his curé (rector) to celebrate Sacraments wherever he might be called upon to do so. That done, the vicaire is led by Forget on a roundabout way into Charles's house, where he finds a sumptuous supper awaiting him. The food and liquor despatched, the unsuspecting curate is, in a temper which disposes him to comply with almost any demand, taken into Charles's own chamber, where the duke bluntly informs him: "Tu es ici pour bénir notre mariage." Even in spite of the supper, the curate hesitates. But the duke will stand no parleying. The ceremony is gone through. The young couple, to place themselves entirely in order, comply with the custom of the diocese to the very tittle: embrace, break a loaf of bread between them, drink out of the same glass, and the thing is done. The curate receives twenty doubloons for his pains, and is, like everybody else present, pledged to silence.

Secrecy was, however, under the circumstances, absolutely out of the question, probably not even seriously desired. Soon after we find the duke publicly owning Beatrix as his wife, and giving orders that she shall be treated as duchess and styled "Altesse." She lives with Charles, rides with him, shows herself by his side to his soldiers, who conceive a violent fancy for her. Nicole and the Lorrain princes and princesses protest. But they are far away, and can do no hurt. The old countess is brought to acquiesce in the marriage, and all seems to go as merrily as could be wished. Beatrix's sister, the nun of Gray, confesses to pious scruples, and implores her sister not to do what is wicked, but is silenced with a simple "Vous n'êtes qu'une enfant." To make all things sure, Mazarin, anxious to obtain from Charles an advantageous peace, promises his all-powerful interest with the Curia. The peace duly signed, Beatrix and her husband religiously undertake, side by side, a pilgrimage to Bonsecours, where they pray for Heaven's blessing upon their union, and afterwards hold their formal entry into Nancy, to the bewilderment of her husband's loyal subjects, who, not knowing what to make of the double wedlock, cry out lustily: "Que Dieu protège et bénisse le bon Duc Charles et ses deux femmes!"

But there was mischief brewing. Nicole and her belongings would have been less than human if they had not set heaven and earth in motion to upset the new irregular union. When Cheminot and Le Moleur arrived at Rome to bespeak the Pope's approval, they found the Prince Nicolas-François already there, actively counterworking their game, on which even without such opposing influence the Vatican could scarcely have been expected to smile. In the place of approval, they received nothing but black looks, coupled with a strict injunction to the Lady Beatrix not on any account to pretend to the title of "Duchess."

Of course Charles's "Petite Paix" lasted only a few weeks. Instead of leading his troops into the French camp as supports, as he had agreed, he took them straight to the Spanish headquarters, with the inevitable result of being once more turned out of his country, and finding himself an exile at large. These misfortunes, however, sat lightly upon the gay-hearted monarch, while he had the lovely Beatrix by his side, starring it with her at the Courts of Worms, Luxemburg, and Brussels, and insisting everywhere upon Beatrix being treated as duchess. He had given her her own body-guard, her own establishment of maids of honour, allowed her to hold her courts and drawing-rooms, just like a reigning princess.

Meanwhile, concurrently with the Pope's judgment, another matter was slowly ripening. All this marrying and re-marrying had, as a matter of course, led to litigation. Prince Cantecroix had left a goodly fortune, for the possession of which his mother, the Marquise d'Autriche, and his cousin, M. de Saint Amour, were then fighting fiercely.

While Charles and Beatrix were attending at Malines, as important witnesses in this case, what should unexpectedly arrive but a brief from the Pope, directing the archbishop to proclaim the judgment pronounced on that half-forgotten application of Le Moleur's and Cheminot's! It had taken His Holiness some years to come to a decision even on the preliminary point, that of the marriage with Beatrix; on the main question, the validity of Charles's marriage with Nicole, the judgment was still silent. But Charles's marriage with Beatrix the document declared entirely illegal and invalid, formally threatening both parties concerned with major excommunication if they did not at once separate and thereafter continue apart, and, moreover, within a given time, purge themselves by a public and humiliating penance. To Beatrix this judgment came as a crushing blow. However, she yielded prompt obedience, removing at once to the distant Hombourg Haut, near Saint-Avold.

Charles evidently cared very much less about the separation, however little he might relish the idea of a penance. It looks very much as if he had already grown a little tired of the lovely Beatrix. She was still very beautiful, and had any amount of love-making left in her. Her little amour with Charles II. was still to come; and that portrait to be seen at Windsor, which so much enamoured Flecknoe, actually shows her as she was a little later. However, the toujours perdrix of one particular beauty had evidently begun to pall upon Charles's exacting taste. He managed very soon to find some cheering consolation for his loss, to the infinite entertainment of the gay Court of Brussels—which delighted in scandal, and was constantly on the look out for some fresh amusement. Charles provided such, very opportunely, by a quite unexpected new amour, which was certainly not wanting in originality. Charles suddenly fell over head and ears in love with the very bourgeoise daughter of the Burgomaster of Brussels. He pressed his heart and hand upon her again and again. No effort was too great for him to make in prosecution of his suit, no expense too lavish. The girl found herself serenaded, fêted, asked to all sorts of festivities—tournaments, concerts, balls—all arranged specifically in her honour. She found jewellery showered upon her. And, to secure her good will, the proud Carlovingian Duke even condescended to compete with the humble burghers at the popular kermesse, in the cross-bow shooting at the "papegay," which, crack marksman that he was, he brought down in brilliant style, thereby constituting himself "papegay-king" for the year. That dignity imposed upon him the obligation of treating all the burghers and their young women to a flow of liquor—which liquor he did not stint—and, moreover, of holding a triumphal progress through the town—which he magnified into a sort of Lord Mayor's procession, himself appearing in the character of his own ancestor, Godfrey de Bouillon, encased in costly armour, with all his rich jewellery hung upon his person, and seated, high and lofty, upon a magnificent car. The buxom Flamande found all this mightily pretty, but scarcely knew what to make of it so long as her mother strictly forbade her to give the devoted Charles any encouragement, nor dare so much as to meet him in private. Once only was the mother prevailed upon to permit a tête-à-tête for just as long as Charles could manage to hold a live coal in his palm. To extend the time, Charles extinguished the fire by heroically crushing the coal with his fingers. All this tomfoolery amused the Court intensely. But people were just a little astounded when Charles carried his devotion so far as to refuse to treat with the Spanish plenipotentiaries for a renewal of his treaty, unless their Excellencies would first secure the approval and advocacy of his Flemish Dulcinea. The Spaniards needed the Lorrain troops badly, and so submitted for the time—but they had their revenge.

Of course the news of all this love-making brought Beatrix back pretty promptly to the Low Countries. As an excuse she alleged a burning desire to be reconciled to the Church, whose censure her sensitive conscience could no longer endure. Charles was by no means equally impatient. However, late in 1645, he too at length consented, and, accordingly, the two attended together to hear the Church's commination, prostrate themselves at full length before the altar, play the abject penitents throughout, confess their guilt, and receive episcopal absolution—all in the presence of a very large assemblage, which made the proceeding none the more pleasant for the principal actors.

That done, Beatrix settled down again, perhaps all the better pleased at finding that by his new treaty obligations Charles had bound himself to proceed immediately to the battle-fields in France. Whether she had a right to be severe upon Charles's little amatory escapades may appear a trifle doubtful by the light of her own conduct now that he was away. At Ghent she took a leaf out of his own book. The duke soon heard of her being in a close liaison with a Polish magnate, Prince Radzivill, jeune et bien fait, poli et galant. And not long after arrived the further intelligence that one of her most conspicuous and most successful admirers was our own "gay monarch," Charles Stuart, subsequently Charles II., who was then a refugee in the Netherlands. There is no reason to believe that these misfeasances were in any way belittled to Charles's ear, seeing that it was Princess Marguerite, the Duchess of Orleans, his sister, who played the principal tale-bearer, a lady who, like all the Lorrain princesses, had a direct interest in bringing Charles's connection with Beatrix to a close. Charles took the bait. He was furious with the Princess de Cantecroix. He would repudiate her for good. He would be reconciled on the spot with Nicole. All seemed to herald a happy and creditable ending to the misunderstanding of years, when, all of a sudden, Beatrix announced herself enceinte, and by that announcement upset the whole carefully reared-up house of cards. Nicole had borne the duke no son. Here was the prospect of one. Throwing the Pope's warning to the winds, forgetting and forgiving all about Beatrix's wrong-doings, Charles rushed to join her, and was overjoyed to be able to be present at the birth of what was destined to be his only son, Charles, subsequently the gifted and distinguished Prince de Vaudémont, our William III.'s confidant and adviser, and the elder Pretender's potent patron and ally. The Papal Nuncio and the Archbishop of Malines were horrorstruck at this barefaced breaking of a solemn oath. But no serious harm came of it after all. Only, it was a little provoking to find that when the confinement was over, and Charles's back was once more turned, Beatrix calmly resumed her illicit flirtations, of which the Lorrain princesses, more particularly the Princess Marguerite, were not slow to advise the duke.

Charles's patience was now completely worn out. As soon as he could manage it, he posted back to the Low Countries, resolved, as he declared, to "mettre deux folles à la raison." One folle, of course, was Beatrix—whom Charles protested that nothing would induce him ever to take into favour again; and the other was his sister Henriette, who had distinguished herself by a very unconventional match indeed, her third, between herself, aged fifty, and the youthful Italian banker, Grimaldi, aged twenty-seven. There were some utilitarian arguments to plead in excuse of the marriage. Henriette had spent her last écu, had sold every bit of property of hers that was at all saleable, and was deep in debt to boot; and Grimaldi had money. But nothing would justify the extraordinary proceeding which these two lovers, driven into a corner, resorted to, of, so to speak, "springing themselves" upon the unsuspecting Archbishop of Malines, and simultaneously declaring their intention to be man and wife, before he could so much as utter a word of protest. That constituted, the archbishop had himself previously explained, a legal marriage according to canon law.

Charles found Beatrix at Antwerp. He at once seized her house in all legal form, fretting and fuming with rage, and refusing to listen to a word which she might say in explanation. He had everything put under lock and key, sentries placed before the door, and, overhauling all the furniture with his own hands, he claimed back all the property which the lady held from him; above all, that very valuable collection of jewellery for which the Lorrain Court was noted. To his dismay he found that a portion of it was gone. That made matters ten times worse. The missing pieces must necessarily have been given to Beatrix's galants.

The Lorrain princes and princesses were delighted to observe a fresh rupture, and spared no pains to fan the flame. As it happened, at this very time, in 1654, the Papal Tribunal of the "Rota" had at last made up its mind how to adjudicate upon that old plea first raised in 1637, and formally laid before the Pope in 1642—the question of the validity of Charles's marriage with Nicole. The "Rota" ruled the whole suit to be frivolous. The marriage had been "freely contracted," was therefore binding, and, not to be troubled again with anything of the sort, the Court imposed upon Beatrix "perpetual silence." Charles accepted the judgment readily; indeed, he was so earnestly bent upon reconciliation with Nicole, that he seriously talked of having her excommunicated, should she withhold her consent. All seemed once more coming right, in spite of itself, when Europe was surprised by a gross outrage against law and good faith, namely, the high-handed seizure by the Spanish governor, Fuensaldana, of the Duke of Lorraine, and his removal, as a prisoner, to the distant Castle of Toledo. Six long years was the duke destined to pine in that unwholesome, dark, barred tower, a prey to vermin and to all discomforts, and a victim to ever freshly-raised, ever sorely-disappointed hopes. The very Spaniards around him pitied him. The ladies of Toledo conspired to liberate the interesting captive, who, in spite of his fifty years, was still handsome, nimble, full of courtesy and full of life. His own subjects braved tortures, galleys, death—everything, to effect his rescue. Never was ruler more beloved; rarely did he less deserve it. Nicole loyally forgot all past grievances, appealed to Mazarin, appealed to King Louis, appealed to the Pope. Beatrix likewise did her best—more especially after Nicole's death, in 1657—though roughly rated all the time by her wrathful and impatient late lover, who never for a day together knew his own mind. At one time he asked indignantly: Why did she not come to share his prison? At another he bade her stay where she was, since there she could be of greater use. A third time he would have nothing whatever to say to her. When she sent her intendant, Pelletier, to Spain, to exert himself in the cause of the duke's liberation, Charles brought up the old charges of infidelity and misappropriation of his jewellery. But he was delighted to receive at Pelletier's hands the newly-painted portraits of his two children, Anne and Charles, to whom, as a partially redeeming feature in his character, he continued devoted to his dying day.

In 1660 Spain found that she could carry on war no longer. The result was the Treaty of the Pyrenees, which was rather dictated by Mazarin than negotiated between France and Spain, and which, among other things, provided that Charles should be set free. Purchasing the glory of a princely escort from the needy noblemen of Spain by a distribution of the full sum of compensation just received at Madrid, the duke hurried to Saint Jean de Luz in state, and there, with his habitual impetuosity, nearly got himself back into prison. The Spanish Ambassador, Don Louis de Haro, badgered beyond endurance by Charles, full of his complaints, seriously threatened to have the duke carried back to Toledo. This brought our rather romantic Stuart exile to the front, whom nobody then supposed to be so near becoming Charles II. of England. Indeed, Mazarin held him in such small estimation, that he would not even admit him to his presence. But on Don Louis, if he ever seriously intended fresh violence, this bold manœuvre had the desired effect. He promptly desisted from further threats. The Lorrain Charles, touched by the chivalrous conduct of his namesake, in a burst of gratitude generously offered the latter the free use of his purse—an offer which must have been peculiarly welcome to the ever-impecunious Stuart—and frankly forgave him his rivalry in the matter of Beatrix, which looks, indeed, as if between him and her he now intended all to be over.

In truth, he did not leave the lady very long in doubt upon that point; for, finding her at Bar-le-Duc, when, on his way home from Paris, he passed through that town, he flatly declined to see her. She was staying with her daughter, whom in Paris Charles had got married to the Prince de Lillebonne, the governor of the Barrois. He was quite willing that Beatrix should be treated en duchesse, but at this time of day it surely was not to be expected that he would once more embroil himself with the Pope by breaking his oath! Just only for a few minutes did he at length consent to meet her, at the urgent supplication of both his children—outside Bar, in a little village; and then he was chillingly cold.

Otherwise, he had still fire enough left in him, when occasion required—as he showed not long after, when at Paris, while engaged on that hare-brained errand of concluding the "Treaty of Montmartre," he became madly enamoured of Marianne Pajot, the daughter of his brother-in-law's (the Duke of Orleans') apothecary. The marriage very nearly became a fact. Everything was ready, in spite of protests from all sides. The priest was waiting, the wedding-guests were in attendance, actually eating the wedding supper, and drinking the young couple's health—for precisely at midnight the ceremony was to be performed—when Du Tellier marched into the room with a guard, and at Louis XIV.'s order carried off Marianne to the convent of Ville l'Evêque. "You would have had to take a syringe for your armorial device if you had married her," said Louis XIV. mockingly. "Yes," replied Charles, alluding to the treaty just concluded, "with the royal fleur-de-lys at the nozzle."

This was by no means Charles's last amour. Indeed, after various wildish escapades nearly leading to matrimony he, four years later, when arrived at the ripe age of sixty, actually took to wife a girl of thirteen, and settled down a tolerably staid and respectable husband at last. But this adventure with Marianne Pajot warned Beatrix, whose health was beginning seriously to fail, that if she wanted to become Charles's wife at all, she must be quick about it. Accordingly, when the two once more found themselves in close proximity, unwilling neighbours at Bar-le-Duc—she up in the castle, he in the lower town, to be out of her way—she took the liberty of reminding him of his repeated promises to obtain a dispensation from the Pope and get the marriage renewed. Charles was not at all prepared for such an appeal, which accordingly made him not a little cross. "Not yet," he pleaded, "il n'est pas encore temps de songer à notre mariage"—not when he was fifty-six and she nearly forty-six! Would he not consent at any rate to see her? God forbid; how could he, a devout "Catholic," presume to infringe the Pope's explicit command? Indeed, these repeated appearances of Beatrix, when she was not wanted, were becoming wearisome to him. She must keep out of the way. Let her go back to Besançon! He was duke and could command. But Beatrix, loth to fly from that which alone could cure her heartache, pleaded, like Lot, for a shorter journey. Might she not stay at Remiremont? Charles acquiesced. In small Lorrain towns she spent the next year or so. Life was getting hard for her, in view of progressively failing health—harder under the painful sense of injustice and unfaithfulness. She gave herself up to religious devotions. At Mattaincourt it was, while she was burning candles and offering prayers to the Lorrain saint, P. Fourier, that the startling news reached her of a fresh amour into which Charles had thrown himself with all the ardour of a young man of twenty, an amour with the beautiful Isabelle de Ludres ("Matame te Lutre," as Madame de Sévigné called her, ridiculing the rough Lorrain accent), a most delicately-formed, symmetrically-shaped brunette, a very tit-bit of womanhood, destined to shine in after-time for a brief period in the changing firmament of Le Roi Soleil at Versailles, as an ephemeral favourite star. She was a canoness of Poussay—Lavandières they were called in the popular slang—looking probably all the prettier in her semi-religious garb, because its wear involved no religious obligations of any kind. The abbess had obligingly allowed Charles free access to the "nun," and there they were, acknowledged fiancé and fiancée, talking of the time when the marriage was to take place. To be near Isabella, Charles had moved his court to Mirecourt, which is just about halfway between Poussay and Mattaincourt, utterly unconscious probably of the proximity of Beatrix. There were daily fêtes, dances, tourneys, the whole bit of country seemed transformed into a "Garden of Love." It was like a ghost rising from the earth when Beatrix—pale, worn, haggard, but still erect and dignified in bearing—appeared on the scene, her marriage contract in her hand, to bid the young canoness beware, and remind her lover of his promises and broken vows. What right had she to be there? asked Charles in a pet. Had he not bidden her go back to Besançon? Let her be off at once and not trouble him any more! Alas! in her state of health, travelling to Besançon was out of the question. She got as far as Mattaincourt, sending fresh precatory letters to faithless Charles. He would give them no heed. But she left him no peace. By a severe effort she got to Besançon at last. "She may disinherit your children," urged Charles's lawyers. "She may stop your marriage," chimed in the Churchmen. "Remember, she has but at longest a few weeks to live," added the doctors. "Really?" asked Charles with visible relief. "She cannot possibly live longer." Not a moment did he cease from his amatory merry-making preparatory to a contemplated new marriage. But, as there was time for celebrating a preliminary one in the interval, for his children's sake he consented to despatch a messenger to the Pope to demand a dispensation, which arrived just in time for the marriage with Beatrix to be solemnised while there was still breath in her. "Me voilà, bien honoré," whispered the dying woman, "à la fin de mes jours!" Scarcely had the priest left her bedside, when he was called in once more to celebrate another sacrament. "Ah! quelle union," gasped Beatrix, "du sacrement de mariage et de l'extrême onction!"

Thus ended, on June 5, 1663, the changeful life of that "excellents peace as Nature ever made," as wrote Richard Flecknoe in contemplation of her portrait at Windsor, full of "colour" and "freshness," and with eyes whose very lids were "than other eyes more admirably fair," the lady who on the canvas in our royal castle looks so happy and serene, but who in real life tasted far more of the bitterness than of the sweet of man's fleeting love—not, certainly, without much fault on her own part, yet, in respect of her relations with Charles, surely more sinned against than sinning.

The news of her death found the feasting at Mirecourt at its merriest. Trumpets were sounding, flags were flying, drums were beating, all the jingle of the masquerade of court life was at its noisiest. The widower scarcely stopped in his amusements to order a brief formal mourning, which altered but the hue, not the spirit of the feast. For all that his labour was thrown away. Beatrix had, in self-defence, despatched a protest against the marriage to the Vicar-general of Toul, who, as a French bishop, stood in no sort of dependence upon the Duke of Lorraine—rather delighted in crossing him. Besides, Isabelle's mother, shocked at what she saw and heard, peremptorily forbade the marriage, and packed her daughter off in haste to the solitude of Richardménil.

When Beatrix's will was opened, it was found that she had not forgotten "her very dear husband." "As a token of respect and submission," she had "taken the liberty" of bequeathing to him—that very diamond ring with which he had wedded her, then the worship of all, twenty-six years before, when his own affection was still fresh and young, and his whole being seemed bound up in the life and possession of the fervently-loved young widow. At her death, certainly, she had this to boast of, that of all the beauties who had riveted Charles's affection, none had for so long a time and with equal power held sway over his fickle heart. If she was neglected, it is some satisfaction to think that her children were honoured and cherished. On the Prince de Vaudémont Charles heaped what benefits he had to bestow. But the stain of his birth clung to him to his death. At one time Charles had hoped to seat him on the proud throne of the Carlovingians. When in 1723 he died, the Lorrain Courts found that no princely honours could be paid to his body. Quietly, without pomp and show, were his bones laid beside the bones of his father, in the Chartreuse of Bosserville, sad memorial that it remains of the duke's faithlessness to his first wife. Neither of Charles nor of Beatrix has any offspring survived. Of Charles even later Dukes of Lorraine have scarcely ever spoken without a protest. Beatrix lies buried at Besançon, and, after all, considering what evil she unwittingly brought upon her adopted country, the portrait which alone remains to recall what she was finds, perhaps, a more fitting place on the walls of Royal Windsor than could have been given to it in the historic hall of the more than half-destroyed palace of Nancy, or among the Lorrain portraits preserved, as a memorial of Lorrain-Hapsburg rule, in the museum of Florence.