France_. He tells us that he was with Bussy at a play, when a dispute arose between him and the Marquis of Saint-Phal as to whether the jet embroidery on a certain muff represented XX or YY. The quarrel was appeased for the time being, but on the following day Bussy, meeting Saint-Phal at the house of a lady with whom he had had relations, and who was now the mistress of the Marquis, renewed the dispute. An encounter took place between Bussy, supported by five or six gentlemen, and Saint-Phal, assisted by an equal number of Scotchmen of the Royal Guard, one of whom wounded Bussy's hand. Thereupon Saint-Phal withdrew, but his fire-eating rival was anxious at all hazards for another encounter. It was only with the greatest difficulty, as Brantôme relates in entertaining fashion, that the King was able to bring about a reconciliation between them. Such an episode, reported with exaggeration of details, might well have suggested the narrative in Act II of the triple encounter.
Brantôme further relates a midnight attack upon Bussy, about a month later, by a number of his jealous rivals, when he had a narrow escape from death. Of this incident another account has been given by Margaret of Valois in her _Mémoires_. Margaret and her brother, the Duke of Anjou, were devoted to one another, and Bussy was for a time a paramour of the Queen of Navarre. Though she denies the liaison, she says of him that there was not "_en ce siècle-là de son sexe et de sa qualité rien de semblable en valeur, reputation, grace, et esprit_." Margaret, L'Estoile, and Brantôme all relate similar incidents during Bussy's sojourn at court in the year 1578, and the last-named adds:
"_Si je voulois raconter toutes les querelles qu'il a eues,
j'aurois beaucoup affaire; hélas! il en a trop eu, et toutes
les a desmeslées à son très-grand honneur et heur. Il en
vouloit souvant par trop à plusieurs, sans aucun respect; je
luy ay dict cent fois; mais il se fioit tant en sa valeur qu'il
mesprisoit tous les conseils de ses amis . . . Dieu ayt son âme!
Mais il mourut (quand il trespassa) un preux trés vaillant et
généreux._"
It is plain, therefore, that Chapman in his picture of Bussy's quarrels and encounters-at-arms was deviating little, except in details of names and dates, from the actual facts of history. Bussy's career was so romantic that it was impossible for even the most inventive dramatist to embellish it. This was especially true of its closing episode, which occupies the later acts of Chapman's drama--the intrigue with the Countess of Montsoreau and the tragic fate which it involved. It is somewhat singular that the earliest narratives of the event which have come down to us were published subsequently to the play. The statement, accepted for a long time, that De Thou's _Historiæ sui 

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