On 22d October 1685 the Edict for the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was registered in the Parliament of Paris. The same day, the king declared to the Deputy-General that he revoked his office, and prohibited his speaking to him on the affairs of the Reformed for the future. (Benoist’s “Hist, de l’Edit de Nantes,” vol. v., Corrections et Additions.)
Chapter III.
HENRI DE RUVIGNY, EARL OF GALWAY.
Sec. i. — His Career as a Frenchman.
Henri De Massue De Ruvigny, eldest son of the first Marquis De Ruvigny, was born at Paris, on the 9th of April 1648. According to French custom he, from his birth, was also styled Le Marquis de Ruvigny. He entered the army, and first served under Schomberg in Portugal. It seems certain that he was at the Battle of Montesclaros; for he is mentioned in the subsequent irruption into Spain, along with Count Charles de Schomberg, as taking a valiant and prominent part in the siege of the Fort de la Garda. He was then only seventeen years of age; but he thus early earned, and long maintained, the reputation, expressed in the phrase, “bon officier.” In 1675 he attained the rank of colonel. It was in this year that Marshal Turenne, while reconnoitring, was killed by a random cannon ball. It is recorded, as the general belief, that the army in Germany would have perished after the death of Turenne, through the jealousy of the chiefs who aspired to the command, if the good sense and tact of young Ruvigny had not effected an amicable arrangement. The Prince of Condé, who arrived soon afterwards, to command in chief, admitted the young Marquis to his friendship. An anecdote, which young Ruvigny repeated to Burnet, is a memento of this campaign. Condé, laughing heartily, told him how he had pleased Louis XIV. by disparaging the glory of great commanders, a glory which the King coveted, yet, through political prudence, and the instinct of self-preservation, had always missed. Condé’s nephew, the Prince of Conti, was once advised by the king not to demean his royal blood by fighting a duel with a mere nobleman, and Condé’s example in a similar case was quoted. Conti replied, “My uncle might safely decline to be called out after he had won two battles; but I, who have as yet done nothing, have no such distinction as a shelter.” The king, nettled at what seemed to hit himself, mentioned this answer to Condé. So to restore his complacency, Condé said, “My nephew speaks like a young man. The winning of a battle is no great matter. The commander gets the glory, but the subalterns do the deed.”
On the return of the troops to France, old Ruvigny claimed for his son the rank of brigadier, and the reversion of his own office of Deputy-General of the Reformed Churches. There was some hesitation as to granting the former request, as there always was in the case of a Protestant, it being understood that conversion to Romanism was the royal road to promotion. The good services of the father were, however, recognised as contributing to the son’s claim, which (at least the ecclesiastical portion) was granted in 1678. He thus retired from military life, probably with the rank of Brigadier, and with a pension of 4000 livres and an official salary of 1000 pistoles. His career was exactly the same as his father’s. He was sent on diplomatic errands, the king having unbounded confidence in him.
In extenuation of his zeal in a service quite unworthy of him, we only refer to what we have hinted by way of apology for the old Marquis, with whom the son is sometimes confounded. For instance, the conversation (said to have been with young Ruvigny) in which Montague, our ambassador at Paris, assumed it as an axiom mutually admitted, that dans ce monde on ne fait rien pour rien, was in reality with the old Marquis, as Lord Danby’s correspondence proves.
In 1678, being in his thirty-first year, and Barillon being the accredited ambassador, Henri came over on a secret mission, or rather on two errands, both aimed against the Earl of Danby. This nobleman, to whom all generations owe much for his promotion of the marriage of the Prince of Orange to the Princess Mary, was known in France to be against the French Government, while he was suspected in England to be its tool — a charge which he could not refute consistently with the reserve which official life imposed upon him. As we have not young Ruvigny’s own story, it would be unfair to him to adopt Montague’s and Danby’s letters as history
