Note 74 — Chapter I · 1619 to 1635.

We find in regard to all this, new and curious details in a Journal historique et anecdote de la cour et de Paris, t. xi., in-4ᵒ, manuscripts of Conrart. This unpublished journal commences January 1, 1614, and goes to January 1, 1620.

M. the Prince was arrested September 1, 1616, by order of Marshal d’Ancre, favorite of the queen regent, Marie de Médicis.

“September 11. Madame the young Princess arrives very much afflicted. It is said that M. de Montmorency was not pleased that the queen was unwilling to permit her to see M. le Prince.

“May 19, 1617. M. le Prince petitions the king to do a charitable deed by delivering to him his wife, that she might remain a prisoner with him.

“May 26, 1617. Madame the Princess de Condé goes to salute the king and supplicate him to let her enter as a prisoner in the Bastile with M. the Prince. The king grants it to her, and permits her to take with her only one damsel. Upon which her petit nain, having supplicated the king to be pleased that he should not abandon his mistress, his majesty also permitted him. The same day, after dinner, Madame the Princess entered the Bastile, where she was received by M. the Prince with all the testimonies of friendship that can be imagined; and he gave her no repose until she had said to him that she pardoned him.” In this same journal, there has often been a question of the bad conduct of the prince towards his wife, in regard to which there is not one word of blame.

“August 31, 1617. The undertaking to save the prince from the Bastile discovered.

“September 15, 1617. M. the Prince taken from the Bastile to the wood of Vincennes.... A long time before he had asked that he might be placed there in order to have better air. M. de Modène said to him that, mindful of that, he had pressed the king so much upon the subject, that at last he had obtained it. M. the Prince responded that in the mean time he had become accustomed to the air of the Bastile; and thereupon resisted all that he could, until it was necessary to go. Madame the Princess also went with him in a coach, having been unwilling to enter a litter. It is said that in the beginning M. the Prince only thought it was desired to deprive him of his wife. M. de Vitry, M. de Persan, M. de Modène, were with him in the coach. After his arrival at the wood of Vincennes, it was permitted him, about the beginning of October, to walk upon the top of a thick wall, which is in the form of a gallery. M. de Persan dwelt in the tower of the wood of Vincennes, in order to guard the prince with the greatest part of the soldiers that he had with him in the Bastile, and M. de Cadenet (afterwards Duke and Marshal de Chaulnes, brother of Constable de Luynes), with a dozen companies of the regiment of Normandy, kept guard in the court of the château, which the soldiers are not permitted to leave.

“About December 20, 1617. Madame the Princess very sick. She is put to bed in the wood of Vincennes, at seven months, of a still-born child, and was more than forty-eight hours without motion or feeling. Never was a person in greater extremity without dying. Among other physicians, M. Duret and M. Pietre assisted her with extreme care. When M. the Prince desired that there should be obsequies for this little infant, M. the Bishop of Paris assembled some theologians, who judged that, since, not having received baptism, it had not entered into the Church, no ceremonies ought to be used on the subject of its death.

“September 5, 1618. Madame the Princess is put to bed of two dead boys. The king shows great displeasure thereupon. Several persons had permission to go to see her.

“March 21, 1619. M. the Prince falls sick. Tuesday, April 2. MM. Hatin, Duret, and Seguin came to the Louvre to represent the state of the malady. The cause was attributed to profound melancholy. For several days he was regarded as hopeless. Madame his mother, Madame the Countess, Madame de Ventadour, Madame the Countess d’Auvergne, Madame de la Trémouille, Madame de Fontaines, Madame la Grande, etc., were allowed to go and visit him. Monday, April 8, the king sent to him his sword by M. de Cadenet, and wrote to him: ‘My cousin, I am very much grieved at your illness. I pray you to be comforted. As soon as I shall have set in order my affairs, I will give you your liberty. Be rejoiced then, and have the assurance of my friendship. I am, etc.’

“August 28, 1619. Between midnight and one o’clock, Madame the Princess was put to bed of a daughter, in the wood of Vincennes.

“October 17, 1619. Council held, in which is taken the final resolution of releasing M. the Prince.

“October 18. The king goes to Chantilly, to await there M. the Prince.

“19th. M. de Luynes goes to find M. the Prince at the wood of Vincennes.

“20th. M. de Luynes goes early in the morning to the wood of Vincennes, and gets into a carriage with M. the Prince and Madame the Princess, in which were also MM. de Cadenet and de Modène. He goes to Chantilly to find the king, and sees him in a cabinet, where, it is said, he falls upon his knees, and makes extreme protestations of fidelity, and feeling of obligation, which he had for him.

“22d. The king returns to Compiègne, accompanied by M. the Prince. Madame the Princess arrived there and saw the queen the same day.”

In the xvi. vol. of the same manuscript, p. 933, a French diplomatic agent transmits the reports spread abroad in the Low Countries, on the subject of the Prince and Princess de Condé, prisoners at the Bastile or in Vincennes: “The Princess de Condé, the younger, has written from there to her own femme de chambre married in that city, that M. the Prince de Condé was under the impression that he had been poisoned by his head-cook, named Baucheron, who had practiced and received money for that purpose, and had escaped; and because he might take refuge in that country, she charges her to inform the Prince and Princess of Orange, in order to arrest him if possible. The people of the so-called Prince of Orange also say, that M. the Prince de Condé has thought of escaping, and has been betrayed and discovered by one of his domestics, but that he has still other means for regaining his liberty.”