h the duels and
intrigues of his younger days at Court. Chapman, however, has connected
the earlier and the later episodes with much ingenuity. Departing from
historical truth, he represents Bussy as a poor adventurer at Court,
whose fortunes are entirely made by the patronage of Monsieur. His
sudden elevation turns his head, and he insults the Duke of Guise by
courting his wife before his face, thus earning his enmity, and exciting
at the same time the ridicule of the other courtiers. Hence springs the
encounter with Barrisor and his companions, and this is made to serve as
an introduction to the _amour_ between Bussy and Tamyra, as Chapman
chooses to call the Countess of Montsurry. For Barrisor, we are told
(II, ii, 202 ff.), had long wooed the Countess, and the report was
spread that the "main quarrel" between him and Bussy "grew about her
love," Barrisor thinking that D'Ambois's courtship of the Duchess of
Guise was really directed towards "his elected mistress." On the advice
of a Friar named Comolet, to whom Chapman strangely enough assigns the
repulsive _role_ of go-between, Bussy wins his way at night into
Tamyra's chamber on the plea that he has come to reassure her that she
is in no way guilty of Barrisor's blood. Thus the main theme of the play
is linked with the opening incidents, and the action from first to last
is laid in Paris, whither the closing scenes of Bussy's career are
shifted. By another ingenious departure from historical truth the Duke
of Anjou, to whom Bussy owes his rise, is represented as the main agent
in his fall. He is angered at the favour shown by the King to the
follower whom he had raised to serve his own ends, and he conspires with
Guise for his overthrow. He is the more eagerly bent upon this when he
discovers through Tamyra's waiting-woman that the Countess, whose
favours he has vainly sought to win, has granted them to Bussy. It is he
who, by means of a paper, convinces Montsurry of his wife's guilt, and
it is he, together with Guise, who suggests to the Count the stratagem
by which Tamyra is forced to decoy her paramour to his doom. All this
is deftly contrived and does credit to Chapman's dramatic craftsmanship.
It is true that the last two Acts are spun out with supernatural
episodes of a singularly unconvincing type. The Friar's invocation of
Behemoth, who proves a most unserviceable spirit, and the vain attempts
of this scoundrelly ecclesiastic's ghost to shield D'Ambois from h