tongue is Monsignor d'Aniballe; but the French pronounced it so that they usually made it sound like Monsignore Asino Bue.[1] This animal then referred to Madame d'Etampes for advice upon the matter, and she ordered him to summon Girolamo Bellarmato without loss of time.[2] He was an engineer from Siena, at that time in Dieppe, which is rather more than a day's journey distant from the capital. He came at once, and set the work of fortification going on a very tedious method, which made me throw the job up. If the Emperor had pushed forward at this time, he might easily have taken Paris. People indeed said that, when a treaty of peace was afterwards concluded, Madame d'Etampes, who took more part in it than anybody else, betrayed the King.[3] I shall pass this matter over without further words, since it has nothing to do with the plan of my Memoirs. Meanwhile, I worked diligently at the door, and finished the vase, together with two others of middling size, which I made of my own silver. At the end of those great troubles, the King came to take his ease awhile in Paris.
That accursed woman seemed born to be the ruin of the world. I ought therefore to think myself of some account, seeing she held me for her mortal enemy. Happening to speak one day with the good King about my matters, she abused me to such an
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- ↑ i.e., ass-ox, Ane-et-bo.
- ↑ Girolamo Bellarmati, a learned mathematician and military architect, banished from Siena for political reasons. He designed the harbour of Havre.
- ↑ There is indeed good reason to believe that the Kings mistress, in her jealousy of the Dauphin and Diane de Poitiers, played false, and enabled the Imperialists to advance beyond Epernay.
