Note 169 — Book II. LETTERS TO RODOLPH.
Reading edition
Bussy d’Amboise was a notorious duellist. On one occasion, for instance, a gentleman named Saint-Phal was looking at a piece of embroidery, and made the innocent remark that a certain letter worked on it was X; Bussy, in order to provoke a quarrel, insisted that it was Y. The upshot of the dispute was a duel with six champions on either side; at the first meeting Bussy was slightly wounded, on which Saint-Phal withdrew from the combat. Bussy endeavoured to arrange another meeting, but was prevented by the King.
His end was as follows. The King obtained some letters of Bussy’s boasting of an intrigue with a married lady, and showed them to her husband, the Count of Monsoreau. The latter carried off his wife to a lonely castle and compelled her to write a letter to Bussy, inviting him to visit her. He fell into the trap, and was murdered by a band of assassins as soon as he entered the castle. No one regretted him, not even Alençon, to whom he had attached himself.—Ambassadeurs Vénetiens, ii. 453.
Bussy’s sister Renée afterwards married Balagny (see Letter XXIX.) on condition that he would avenge her brother, a promise he never fulfilled. She is the heroine of Cambrai described by Motley, United Netherlands, iii. 350, 351.