When Henry III assassinated the Duc de Guise at Blois, Paris took it greatly to heart and swore vengeance. The "Sixteen" held the Bastile, and its governor, Bussy-Leclerc, an ex-fencing master, sought to coerce the Parliament, seizing at once upon all with royalist leanings and driving them into the Bastile. President Auguste de Thou was arrested and with him his wife, who is said to have been the first female occupant of this prison. Now the King, in despair, turned to the Huguenots and formed an alliance with Henry of Navarre. The two kings joined forces to recover Paris and the Parisians, alarmed, feeling they could not make long resistance, accepted the worst. Some said there would be a second St. Bartholomew, for the "Leaguers" and the Royalists boasted that so many should be hanged that the wood for gibbets would run short. But the situation suddenly changed, for Henry III was unexpectedly assassinated by a fanatical monk, Clément, in the very heart of the royal apartments.
Early governors of the Bastile--Frequent changes--Day of Barricades--Conspiracy of Biron--Assassination of Henry IV--Ravaillac--Barbarous sentence--Marie de Medicis left Regent--Story of the Concinis--Rise of Richelieu--Gifts and character--His large employment of the State prisons--Duelling prohibited--The Day of Dupes--Triumph over his enemies--Fall of Marie de Medicis--Maréchal Bassompierre--His prolonged imprisonment.
We may pause a moment at this stage to give some attention to a few of the more prominent governors of the Bastile, appointed by each side in turn during the long conflicts of the opposing parties. Antoine d'Ivyer was the first after the English, as captain under the supreme command of Duke Charles of Bourbon. One Cissey, after fifteen years' tenure in the Bastile, was succeeded by La Rochette, he by De Melun, he by De Chauvigny, and the last by Phillip Luillier, who enjoyed the confidence of Louis XI and was personally in charge of the bishops and dukes who have been mentioned. He was the last of the royal functionaries, the court officials other than military men who acted as gaolers. Only in the troublous times of the League and later of the Fronde, when the possession of the Bastile meant so much to the existing régime, was the fortress entrusted to the strong hands of soldiers and men of action equal to any emergency. After Luillier the charge was considered equal to a provincial government and those entrusted with it were some of the most considerable persons in the State, constables or ministers who ruled by lieutenant or deputy and kept only the title and dignity of the office. It was long deemed hereditary in certain great families and descended from father to son, as with the Montmorencys. The head of that house, William, in 1504, was succeeded by his son, Anne, a Pluralist, at the same time governor of Paris and captain of the castle of Vincennes. Francis, a marshal of France, son of the last-named, was a third Montmorency governor. Much later the post was held by successive members of the family of Admiral Coligny, and some of the governors were very eminent persons, such as Châteauneuf, the Duc de Luynes, Maréchal Bassompierre and Sully, the celebrated minister of Henry IV, whose memoirs have been widely read and were the inspiration of the English novelist, Stanley Weyman.