XXXVIIl THE MASTER OF GAME

x1.’s dower to his daughter Marie, and that for this reason it was furnished with the arms
of the Saint Valliers some time after the body of the work had been completed. Before Diane de
Poitiers entered upon her notorious career she had married Louis de Brézé, the eldest son of a
renowned sportsman, Jack de Brézé. Louis had lost his mother in a tragic manner. One
night Jack de Brézé, the father, returned home unexpectedly and discovered his wife, who was
no less a personage than Charlotte of France, natural daughter of Charles VII. by Agnes Sorel,
in a compromising position with Piere de la Vergne, a knight attached to his household. Draw-
ing his sword the angry husband forthwith killed both his wife, who was forty-three years of age,
and her paramour. It was a deed which, on account of his victim’s relationship with the King,
involved Jack de Brézé in consequences far more serious than usually marked reprisals of this sort.
Indeed, he escaped the death sentence which was passed on him after four years’ confinement, only
by the payment of the enormous fine of 100,000 gold écus.

But there was yet another tragic event to befall the family. In 1523 Jean de Poitiers, Diane
de Poitiers’ father, involved himself in the Connétable de Bourbon’s conspiracy, and the discovery
by the King’s minions among Jean’s secret papers of the code treacherously used by the Connétable
in his correspondence with the Emperor Charles y. sent Jean speedily to the scaffold. He was in
the act of kneeling down to receive the deathblow when the pardon obtained by his daughter from
her royal lover, the King, saved his life. But all his goods and chattels were confiscated by
Francis 1., and amongst them was most probably our Codex, for we know from other sources that
Francis took personal possession of this volume, and prized it very highly. So much so, indeed,
that when a year or two later he started on his invasion of Italy he took with him on this ill-fated
expedition this very volume.

As there were at least three, and possibly four, printed editions of ‘‘ Gaston Phoebus ” published
by the year 1525 (by Antoine Verard, Jehan Trepperel, and Philippe-le-Noir), it is curious that
Francis did not take with him on his Italian campaign one of these infinitely more portable printed
copies. It is another proof of the love for finely illuminated MSS. which was a ruling passion with
him.

On the fateful 24th of February, 1525, when Emperor Charles’ generals, Lannoy and the burly
Frundsberg, founder of infantry tactics, defeated at Pavia Francis’ army, taking not only him but
also Henry u. of Navarre prisoners, the Codex formed part of the immensely rich booty garnered
by the victors. So rich were the spoils found in the two Kings’ gold-laden tents that for generations
the ‘“ Day of Pavia” formed the subject of soldiers’ song and tale. The fortunate captors of
Francis’ personal belongings were the famed Landsknechte, who under their giant Captain Georg
von Frundsberg, of whose personal strength wonderful tales were told, had borne the brunt of that
hard-fought day by storming the 7hzergarten or deer park.

Richard, Duke of Suffolk, one of the last male scions of the house of York, commanded on that
fateful day the dande noire, the famous bodyguard of Francis 1, a force hitherto considered
invincible ; and it is a curious proof of the rare fighting qualities of our Plantagenet princes to find
that, like his ancestor who translated this very book more than one hundred years before, he too
lost his life in battle on foreign soil. The gallant heavily mailed French nobility, who on that day
felt for the first time to the full the dire effects of small arms fire, were shot down or cut to pieces
by Frundsberg’s Landsknechte almost to the last man, Francis, severely wounded in three places,
escaping death only by a miracle.

The Landsknechte were recruited almost entirely in Tyrol and adjacent districts of Southern
Suabia, and for this reason it is not surprising that the next authentic news we have of our book
comes from the former country. A long Latin inscription on the fly-leaf (see Bibliog.: Gaston
Phoebus), unfortunately unprovided with a date, shows that Bishop Bernhard of Trent, in Tyrol,
after ‘coming into possession by chance of this book, and seeing that its subject was one of interest
to you,” humbly presented it to Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol (brother of Emperor Charles), one
of the greatest collectors of any age, whose museum and library at his castle Ambras, near Innsbruck,
continued to be the wonder of the world long after his death, The Manuscript remained in the

 

   

THE MS. 616 OF «GASTON PHOEBUS” XXXIX

i u ned
victory Once ore retur
burgs for about a century and a quarter, when We m
5

During Turenne’s campaign in the Nee
M is of Vigneau became possessed of the Codex—how remains net ae
coe ae t A to Paris presented it, according to the inscription on the 1M
oe nae O51 ng King, Louis x1v. The Grand Monarch
fe eo - le LAE) where it received its librarian’s birthmark, the number pee
cot i a as recent tare when it was rechristened, to be known henceforth, as already
ye eee ee It eee should have left those sacred halls, but Louis XIV. Ws no
a : ne when it suited him to break them. Regretting his gift to the library a
i. ae he demanded the volume back, and back again ae = nit ints aoe ae
ca in i if im it passed to Orleans princes, tne
: Gielen beconineere Nae ee fee aon of 1848 our Codex formed
ek fee ieee of Louis Philip in the Chateau of Neuilly, near Paris. There it very
ee er cae end, for when this royal residence was plundered and fired by the
Mee val peren only by a miracle. As it was, its covers and clasps were badly
ee ee hee cen but the inside of the book tie ee na eae 5 ae
i reat ue to the effo .
ao Se ae eee an and did his utmost to save from
ae ons : a ee so well. By his efforts it was soon afterwards placed in its
ee ol le, will probably agree that the great libraries of oe world ae
few volumes that have had a more adventurous career, Or have passed throug ee a i j
s have been turned by the hands of so many men and women who have playe

i Haps
ossession of the
\ to the country whence defeat had removed it.

to his splendour-lovi

whose leave
great parts in history.”

1 When recently making some researches in the magnificent library of the a a ee at eee a
i ic li te in the late duke’s hand in
the French nation, I came across a pathetic little no
mee aces: have heard, belonged to the House of Orleans for nearly two centuries. It
MS. 616, and it runs: “ Saved from the conflagration of 1848, it
olume addressed to the conservateurs

respecting our Codex, which, as we
occurs where the Duc d’Aumale speaks of the
was taken to the Bibliothéque Nationale, but our appeals for a return of the v
of the Library were rejected, however well founded we considered our claim !

 

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