The Princess de Montpensier | Page 6

Madame de Lafayette
was forced to leave his wife and report for duty.
Chabannes, who had been restored to the Queen's favour, went with
him. It was not without much sorrow that he left the Princess, while she,
for her part, was distressed to think of the perils to which the war might
expose her husband.
The leaders of the Huguenots retired to La Rochelle. They held
Poitou and Saintongne; the war flared up again and the King assembled
all his troops. His brother, the Duc d'Anjou, who later became Henri III,

distinguished himself by his deeds in various actions, amongst others
the battle of Jarnac, in which the Prince de CondÇ was killed. It was
during this fighting that the Duc de Guise began to play a more
important part and to display some of the great qualities which had
been expected of him. The Prince de Montpensier, who hated him, not
only as a personal enemy but as an enemy of his family, the Bourbons,
took no pleasure in his successes nor in the friendliness shown toward
him by the Duc d'Anjou.
After the two armies had tired themselves out in a series of minor
actions, by common consent they were stood down for a time. The Duc
d'Anjou stayed at Loches to restore to order all the places which had
been attacked. The Duc de Guise stayed with him and the Prince de
Montpensier, accompanied by the Comte de Chabannes, went back to
Champigny, which was not far away.
The Duc d'Anjou frequently went to inspect places where fortifications
were being constructed. One day when he was returning to Loches by a
route which his staff did not know well, the Duc de Guise, who claimed
to know the way, went to the head of the party to act as guide, but after
a time he became lost and arrived at the bank of a small river which he
did not recognise. The Duc d'Anjou had a few words to say to him for
leading them astray, but while they were held up there they saw a little
boat floating on the river, in which - the river not being very wide -
they could see the figures of three or four women, one of whom, very
pretty and sumptuously dressed, was watching with interest the
activities of two men who were fishing nearby.
This spectacle created something of a sensation amongst the Princes
and their suite. It seemed to them like an episode from a romance.
Some declared that it was fate that had led the Duc de Guise to bring
them there to see this lovely lady, and that they should now pay court
to her. The Duc d'Anjou maintained that it was he who should be her
suitor.
To push the matter a bit further, they made one of the horsemen go into
the river as far as he could and shout to the lady that it was the Duc
d'Anjou who wished to cross to the other bank and who begged the

lady to take him in her boat. The lady, who was of course the Princess
de Montpensier, hearing that it was the Duc d'Anjou, and having no
doubt when she saw the size of his suite that it was indeed him, took
her boat over to the bank where he was. His fine figure made him easily
distinguishable from the others; she, however, distinguished even more
easily the figure of the Duc de Guise. This sight disturbed her and
caused her to blush a little which made her seem to the Princes to have
an almost supernatural beauty.
The Duc de Guise recognised her immediately in spite of the changes
which had taken place in her appearance in the three years since he had
last seen her. He told the Duc d'Anjou who she was and the Duc was at
first embarrassed at the liberty he had taken, but then, struck by the
Princess's beauty, he decided to venture a little further, and after a
thousand excuses and a thousand compliments he invented a serious
matter which required his presence on the opposite bank, and accepted
the offer which she made of a passage in her boat. He got in,
accompanied only by the Duc de Guise, giving orders to his suite to
cross the river elsewhere and to join him at Champigny, which
Madame de Montpensier told him was not more than two leagues from
there.
As soon as they were in the boat the Duc d'Anjou asked to what they
owed this so pleasant encounter. Madame de Montpensier replied that
having left Champigny with the Prince her husband with the intention
of following the hunt, she had become tired and having reached the
river bank she had gone out in the boat to watch
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