THE LIFE OF MARIE DE MEDICIS
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BOOK I
MARIE DE MEDICIS AS QUEEN
CHAPTER I
1572
However
celebrated he was destined to become as a sovereign, Henri IV of France was
nevertheless fated to be singularly unfortunate as a husband. Immediately after
the death of his mother, the high-hearted Jeanne d'Albret, whom he succeeded on
the throne of Navarre, political considerations induced him to give his hand to
Marguerite, the daughter of Henri II and Catherine de Medicis, a Princess whose
surpassing beauty and rare accomplishments were the theme and marvel of all the
European courts, and whose alliance was an object of ambition to many of the
sovereign princes of Christendom.
Marguerite
de Valois was born on the 14th of May 1552, and became the wife of Henry of
Navarre on the 18th of August 1572, when she was in the full bloom of youth and
loveliness; nor can there be any doubt that she was one of the most extraordinary
women of her time; for while her grace and wit dazzled the less observant by
their brilliancy, the depth of her erudition, her love of literature and the
arts, and the solidity of her judgment, no less astonished those who were
capable of appreciating the more valuable gifts which had been lavished upon
her by nature. A dark shadow rested, however, upon the surface of this glorious
picture. Marguerite possessed no moral self-government; her passions were at
once the bane and the reproach of her existence; and while yet a mere girl her
levity had already afforded ample subject for the comments
of the courtiers.
Fortunately,
in the rapid sketch which we are compelled to give of her career, it is
unnecessary that we should do more than glance at the licentiousness of her
private conduct; our business is simply to trace such an outline of her varying
fortunes as may suffice to render intelligible the position of Henri IV at the
period of his second marriage.
After
the death of Francis II, when internal commotion had succeeded to the feigned
and hollow reconciliation which had taken place between Charles IX and Henri de
Lorraine, Duc de Guise, Marguerite and her younger brother,
the Duc d'Alençon, were removed to the castle of Amboise for greater security;
and she remained in that palace-fortress from her tenth year until 1564, when
she returned to Court, and thenceforward became one of the brightest ornaments
of the royal circle. Henri de Guise was not long ere he declared himself her
ardent admirer, and the manner in which the Princess received and encouraged
his attentions left no doubt that the affection was reciprocal. So convinced,
indeed, were those about her person of the fact, that M. du Gast, the favourite
of the King her brother, earnestly entreated His Majesty no longer to confide to the Princess, as he had hitherto done, all the
secrets of the state, as they could not, he averred, fail, under existing
circumstances, to be communicated to M. de Guise; and Charles IX so fully
appreciated the value of this advice, that he hastened to urge the same caution
upon the Queen-mother. This sudden distrust and coldness on the part of her
royal relatives was peculiarly irritating to Marguerite; nor was her
mortification lessened by the fact that the Duc de Guise, first alarmed, and
ultimately disgusted, by her unblushing irregularities, withdrew his
pretensions to her hand; and, sacrificing his ambition to a sense of
self-respect, selected as his wife Catherine de Clèves, Princesse de Portien.
At this
period Marguerite de Valois began to divide her existence between the most
exaggerated devotional observances and the most sensual and degrading
pleasures. Humbly kneeling before the altar, she would assist at several masses
during the day; but at twilight she cast off every restraint, and careless of
what was due, alike to her sex and to her rank, she plunged into the grossest
dissipation; and after having played the guest at a riotous banquet, she might
be seen sharing in the disgraceful orgies of a masquerade. A short time after
the marriage of the Duc de Guise, the hand of the Princess
was demanded by Don Sebastian, King of Portugal; but the Queen-mother, who
witnessed with alarm the increasing power of the Protestant party, and the
utter impossibility of inspiring confidence in their leaders save by some bold
and subtle stroke of policy, resolved to profit by the presence of the Huguenot
King of Navarre, in order to overcome the distrust which not even the edict of
1570 had sufficed to remove; and to renew the project which had been already
mooted during the lifetime of Jeanne d'Albret, of giving Marguerite in marriage
to the young Prince, her son.
The
consciousness that she was sacrificing her daughter by thus bestowing her hand
upon the sovereign of a petty kingdom might perhaps have deterred Catherine,
had she not already decided upon the means by which the bonds of so unequal an
alliance might be rent assunder; and it is even possible that the hatred which
she bore to the reformed faith would in itself have sufficed to render such an
union impossible, had not the crafty and compunctionless spirit by which she
was animated inspired her with a method which would more than expiate the
temporary sin. It is at all events certain that having summoned Henry of Navarre
to her presence, she unhesitatingly, and with many professions of regard for
himself, informed him of the overtures of the Portuguese monarch, assuring him at the same time, that although the King of Spain was opposed
to the alliance from motives of personal interest, it was one which would prove
highly gratifying to Gregory XIII; but adding that both Charles IX and herself
were so anxious to perform the promise which they had made to his mother, and
to prove their good faith to his own person, that they were willing to refuse
the crown of Portugal and to accept that of Navarre for the Princess.
Henry
of Béarn hesitated. He was aware that the chiefs of the Protestant party,
especially the Admiral de Coligny, whom he regarded as a father, were desirous
that he should become the husband of Elizabeth of England. Past experience had
rendered them suspicious of the French, while an alliance with the English
promised them a strong and abiding protection. Nor was Henry himself more
disposed to espouse Marguerite de Valois, as her early reputation for gallantry
offended his sense of self-respect, while a strong attachment elsewhere
rendered him insensible to her personal attractions. As a matter of ambition,
the alliance was beyond his hopes, and brought him one step nearer to that
throne which, by some extraordinary prescience, both he and his friends
anticipated that he was destined one day to ascend; but he
could not forget that there were dark suspicions attached to the strange and
sudden death of a mother to whom he had been devoted; and
he felt doubly repugnant to receive a wife from the very hands which were
secretly accused of having abridged his passage to the sovereignty of Navarre.
Like Marguerite herself, moreover, he was not heart-whole; and thus he clung to
the freedom of an unmarried life, and would fain have declined the honour which
was pressed upon him; but the wily Catherine, who instantly perceived his
embarrassment, bade him carefully consider the position in which he stood, and
the fearful responsibility which attached to his decision. Charles IX, in
bestowing upon him the hand of his sister, gave to the Protestants the most
decided and unequivocal proof of his sincerity. It was evident, she said, that
despite the edict which assured protection to the Huguenot party, they still
misdoubted the good-faith of the monarch; but when he had also overlooked, or
rather disregarded, the difference of faith so thoroughly as to give a Princess
of France in marriage to one of their princes, they would no longer have a
pretext for discontent, and the immediate pacification of the kingdom must be
the necessary consequence of such a concession. The ultimate issue of so
unequal a conflict could not, as she asserted, be for one moment doubtful; but
the struggle might be a bloody one, and he would do well to remember that the
blood thus spilt would be upon his own head.
Henry
then sought, as his mother had previously done, to create a difficulty by
alleging that the difference of faith between himself and
the Princess must tend to affect the validity of their marriage; but the wily
Italian met this objection by reminding him that Charles IX had publicly
declared that “rather than that the alliance should not take place, he would
permit his sister to dispense with all the rites and ceremonies of both
religions”.
It is
well known that the motive of the French King in thus urging, or rather
insisting upon, a marriage greatly beneath the pretensions of the Princess, was
simply to attract to Court all the Huguenot leaders, who, placing little faith
in the conciliatory edict, had resolutely abstained from appearing in the
capital; but Catherine alluded so slightly to this fact that it awoke no
misgivings in the mind of the young monarch.
Thus
adjured, Henry of Navarre yielded; nor did the Princess on her part offer any
violent opposition to the marriage. She objected, it is true, her religious
scruples, and her attachment to her own creed; but her arguments were soon
overruled, the hand of the King of Portugal was courteously declined, Philip of
Spain was assured that his representations had decided the French Court, and
immediate preparations were made for the unhappy union, whose date was to be
written in blood. The double ceremony, exacted by the difference of faith in
the contracting parties, was performed, as we have said, on the 18th of August
1572, the public betrothal having taken place on the preceding day at the
Louvre; and it was accompanied by all the splendour of
which it was susceptible. The marriage-service was performed by the Cardinal de
Bourbon, on a platform erected in front of the metropolitan church of
Notre-Dame; whence, at its conclusion, the bridal train descended by a
temporary gallery to the interior of the Cathedral, and proceeded to the altar,
where Henry, relinquishing the hand of his new-made wife, left her to assist at
the customary mass, and meanwhile paced to and fro along the cloisters in
conversation with the venerable Gaspard de Coligny and others of his
confidential friends, the whole of whom were sanguine in their anticipations of
a bright and happy future.
At the
conclusion of the mass the King of Navarre rejoined his bride, and taking her
hand, conducted her to the episcopal palace, where, according to an ancient
custom, the marriage-banquet awaited them. The square of the
Parvis Notre-Dame was crowded with eager spectators, and the heart of the
Queen-mother beat high with exultation as she glanced at the retinue of the
bridegroom, and recognised in his suite all the Huguenot leaders who had hitherto
refused to pass the gates of the capital.
Save
her own, however, all eyes were rivetted upon Marguerite; and many were the
devout Catholics who murmured beneath their breath at the policy which had
determined the monarch to bestow a Princess of such beauty and genius upon a
heretic. In truth, nothing could be more regal or more dazzling than the
appearance of the youthful bride, who wore, as Queen of
Navarre, a richly-jewelled crown, beneath which her long and luxuriant dark
hair fell in waving masses over an ermine cape (or couet) clasped from
the throat to the waist with large diamonds; while her voluminous train of
violet-coloured velvet, three ells in length, was borne by four princesses. And thus in royal state she moved along, surrounded and followed
by all the nobility and chivalry of France, amid the acclamations of an
admiring and excited people, having just pledged herself to one whose feelings
were as little interested in the compact as her own.
The
bridal festivities lasted throughout three entire days; and never had such an
excess of luxury and magnificence been displayed at the French Court. Towards
the Protestants, the bearing both of Charles IX and his mother was so
courteous, frank, and conciliating, that the most distrustful gradually threw
off their misgivings, and vied with the Catholic nobles both in gallantry and
splendour; and meanwhile Catherine, the King, the Duc d'Anjou, and the Guises
were busied in organizing the frightful tragedy of St. Bartholomew!
The
young Queen of Navarre had scrupulously been left in ignorance of a plot which
involved the life of her bridegroom as well as those of his co-religionists;
nor was she aware of the catastrophe which had been organised until Paris was
already one vast shambles. Startled from her sleep at the dead of night, and
hurriedly informed of the nature of the frightful cries
that had broken her rest, she at once sprang from her bed, and throwing on a
mantle, forced her way to the closet of her royal brother, where, sinking on
her knees, she earnestly implored the lives of Henry's Protestant attendants;
but for a time Charles was obdurate; nor was it until after he had reluctantly
yielded to her prayers that she recognised, with an involuntary cry of joy, the
figure of her husband, who stood in the deep bay of a window with his cousin,
M. de Condé.
By one
of those caprices to which he was subject, the King had refused to sacrifice
either of these Princes; and he had accordingly summoned them to his presence,
where he had offered them the alternative of an instant abjuration of their
heresy.
Shrieks
and groans already resounded on all sides; the groans of strong men, struck
down unarmed and defenceless, and the shrieks of women struggling with their
murderers; while through all, and above all, boomed out the deep-toned bells of
the metropolitan churches--one long burial-peal; and amid this ghastly diapason
it was the pleasure of the tiger-hearted Charles to accept the reluctant and
informal recantation of his two horror-stricken victims; after which he
compelled them without remorse to the agony of seeing their
friends and followers butchered before their eyes.
Enraged
by what they denounced as the weak and impolitic clemency of the King, in
having thus shielded two of the most powerful leaders of the adverse faction,
Catherine de Medicis and the Guises, having first wreaked their vengeance upon
the corpse of the brave and veteran de Coligny, which they induced the King to
dishonour himself by subjecting to the most ignominious treatment, next endeavoured
to alienate Marguerite from her husband, and to induce her to solicit a
divorce. It had formed no part of the Queen-mother's intention that the
Princess should remain fettered by the bonds which she had herself wreathed
about her; nor could she brook that after having accomplished a coup-de-main which had excited the indignation of half of Europe, Henry of Navarre should be
indebted for an impunity which counteracted all her views to the alliance which
he had formed with her own family. Marguerite, however, resolutely refused to
lend herself to this new treachery, declaring that as her husband had abjured
his heresy, she had no plea to advance in justification of so flagrant an act
of perfidy; nor could the expostulations of her mother produce any change in
her resolve.
It is
probable that the perfect freedom of action for which she was indebted to the
indifference of her young bridegroom had great influence in prompting this
reply, and that the crown which had so recently been placed upon her brow had
at the same time flattered her ambition; while the
frightful carnage of which she had just been a witness might well cause her to
shrink from the probable repetition of so hideous a catastrophe. Be her motives
what they might, however, neither threats nor entreaties could shake the
resolution of the Princess; and she was supported in her opposition by her
favourite brother, the Duc d'Alençon, who had secretly attached himself to the
cause of the Protestant Princes.
This
was another source of uneasiness to the Queen-mother, who apprehended, from the
pertinacity with which Marguerite clung to her husband, that she would exert
all her influence to effect an understanding between the two brothers-in-law
which could not fail to prove fatal to the interests of the Duc d'Anjou, who,
in the event of the decease of Charles IX, was the rightful heir to the throne.
Nor was that decease a mere matter of idle speculation, for the health of the
King, always feeble and uncertain, had failed more than ever since the fatal night
of the 24th of August; and he had even confessed to Ambroise Paré,
his body-surgeon, that his dreams were haunted by the
spectres of his victims, and that he consequently shrank from the sleep which
was so essential to his existence. The Duc d'Anjou meanwhile was absent at the
siege of Rochelle, while his brother, d'Alençon, was about the person of the
dying monarch, and had made himself eminently popular among the citizens of
Paris. The crisis was an alarming one; but it was still destined to appear even
more perilous, for, to the consternation of Catherine, intelligence at this
period reached the Court that the Polish nation had elected the Duc d'Anjou as
their King, and that their ambassadors were about to visit France in order to
tender him the crown. In vain did she represent to Charles the impolicy of
suffering a warlike prince like Henri d'Anjou to abandon his country for a
foreign throne, and urge him to replace the elder by the younger brother,
alleging that so long as the Polish people could see a prince of the
blood-royal of France at the head of their nation, they would care little
whether he were called Henry or Francis; the King refused to countenance such a
substitution. He had long been jealous of the military renown of the Duc
d'Anjou; while he was also perfectly aware of the anxiety with which both the
Queen-mother and the Prince himself looked forward to his own death, in order
that Henry might succeed him; and he consequently issued a command that the
sovereign-elect should immediately repair to Paris to receive at the hands of
the foreign delegates the crown which they were about to offer to him.
The summons was obeyed. The ambassadors, who duly
arrived, were magnificently received; Henri d'Anjou was declared King of
Poland; and, finally, he found himself compelled to depart for his own kingdom.
Unfortunately for Marguerite, she had not sufficient self-control to conceal
the joy with which she saw the immediate succession to the French throne thus
transferred to her favourite brother; and her evident delight so exasperated
the Queen-mother, that she communicated to Charles the suspicions which she
herself entertained of the treachery of the Princess; but the King, worn down
by both physical and mental suffering, treated her warnings with indifference,
and she was consequently compelled to await with patience the progress of
events.
The
death of the French monarch, which shortly afterwards took place, and the
accession of Henri d'Anjou, whom a timely warning had enabled to abandon the
crown of Poland for that of France, for a time diverted the attention of
Catherine from the suspected machinations of her daughter, when, as if to
convince her of her injustice, she suddenly received secret intelligence from
the young Queen of Navarre, that the Duc d'Alençon had entered into a new
league with the Bourbon Princes. It is difficult to account for the motive
which led Marguerite to make this revelation, when her extraordinary affection
for her brother, and the anxiety which she had universally exhibited for the
safety of her husband, are remembered; thus much, however,
is certain, that she did not betray the conspiracy (which had been revealed to
her by a Lutheran gentleman whom she had saved during the massacre of St.
Bartholomew) until she had exacted a pledge that the lives of all who were
involved in it should be spared. In her anxiety to secure the secret, the
Queen-mother, on her side, gave a solemn promise to that effect, and she
redeemed her word; while from the immediate precautions which she caused to be
taken the plot was necessarily annihilated.
The
Princess had, however, by the knowledge which she thus displayed of the
movements of the Huguenot party, only increased the suspicions both of the
Queen-mother and her son; and the Court of France became ere long so
distasteful to Henry of Navarre, from the constant affronts to which he was
subjected, and the undisguised surveillance which fettered all his
movements, that he resolved to effect his escape from Paris, an example in
which he was imitated by the Duc d'Alençon and the Prince de Condé, the former
of whom retired to Champagne, and the latter to one of his estates, and with
both of whom he shortly afterwards entered into a formidable league.
Henri
III, exasperated by the departure of the three Princes, declared his
determination to revenge the affront upon Marguerite, who had not been enabled
to accompany her husband; but the representations of the Queen-mother induced
him to forego this ungenerous project, and he was driven to
satiate his thirst for vengeance upon her favourite attendant, Mademoiselle de
Torigni, of whose services he had already deprived her, on
the pretext that so young a Princess should not be permitted to retain about
her person such persons as were likely to exert an undue influence over her
mind, and to possess themselves of her secrets. In the first paroxysm of his
rage, he even sentenced this lady to be drowned; nor is it doubtful that this
iniquitous and unfounded sentence would have been really carried into effect,
had not the unfortunate woman succeeded in making her escape through the agency
of two individuals who were about to rejoin the Duc d'Alençon, and who
conducted her safely to Champagne.
One of
the first acts of Henry of Navarre on reaching his own dominions had been to
protest against the enforced abjuration to which he was compelled on the fatal
night of St. Bartholomew, and to evince his sincerity by resuming the practices
of the reformed faith, a recantation which so exasperated the French King that he
made Marguerite a close prisoner in her own apartments, under the pretext that
she was leagued with the enemies of the state against the church and throne of
her ancestors. Nor would he listen to her entreaties that
she might be permitted to follow her husband, declaring that “she should not
live with a heretic”; and thus her days passed on in a gloomy and cheerless
monotony, ill suited to her excitable temperament and splendid tastes.
Meanwhile, the Duc d'Alençon, weary of his voluntary exile, and hopeless of any
successful result to the disaffection in which he had so long indulged, became
anxious to effect a reconciliation with the King; and for this purpose he
addressed himself to Marguerite, to whom he explained the conditions upon which
he was willing to return to his allegiance, giving her full power to treat in
his name. Henri III, who, on his side, was no less desirous to detach his
brother from the Protestant cause, acceded to all his demands, among which was
the immediate liberation of the Princess; and thus she at length found herself
enabled to quit her regal prison and to rejoin her royal husband at Béarn.
During
the space of five years the ill-assorted couple maintained at least a semblance
of harmony, for each apparently regarded very philosophically those delicate
questions which occasionally conduce to considerable discord in married life.
The personal habits of Henry, combined with his sense of gratitude to his wife
for her refusal to abandon him to the virulence of her mother's hatred, induced
him to close his eyes to her moral delinquencies, while Marguerite, in her
turn, with equal complacency, affected a like ignorance as regarded the
pursuits of her husband; and thus the little Court of Pau, where they had established their residence, rendered attractive by
the frank urbanity of the sovereign, and the grace and intellect of the young
Queen, became as brilliant and as dissipated as even the daughter of Catherine
de Medicis herself could desire. Poets sang her praise under the name of Urania; flatterers sought her smiles by likening her to the goddesses
of love and beauty, and she lived in a perpetual atmosphere of pleasure and
adulation.
The
marriage-portion of Marguerite had consisted of the two provinces of the
Agénois and the Quercy, which had been ceded to her with all their royal
prerogatives; but even after this accession of revenue the resources of Henry
of Navarre did not exceed those of a private gentleman, amounting, in fact,
only to a hundred and forty thousand livres, or about six thousand pounds
yearly. The ancient kingdom of Navarre, which had once extended from the
frontier of France to the banks of the Ebro, and of which Pampeluna had been
the capital, shorn of its dimensions by Ferdinand the Catholic at the
commencement of the sixteenth century, and incorporated with the Spanish
monarchy, now consisted only of a portion of Lower Navarre, and the
principality of Béarn, thus leaving to Henry little of sovereignty save the
title. The duchy of Albret in Gascony, which he inherited from his
great-grandfather, and that of Vendôme, his appanage as a Prince of the
Blood-royal of France, consequently formed no inconsiderable portion of his
territory: while the title of Governor of Guienne, which he
still retained, was a merely nominal dignity whence he derived neither income
nor influence; and so unpopular was he in the province that the citizens of
Bordeaux refused to admit him within their gates.
Nevertheless,
the young monarch who held his court alternately at Pau and at Nérac, the capital
of the duchy of Albret, expended annually upon his household and establishment
nearly twelve thousand pounds, and that at a period when, according to the
evidence of Sully, "the whole Court could not have furnished forty
thousand livres"; yet so inadequately were those about
him remunerated, that Sully himself, in his joint capacity of councillor of
state and chamberlain, received only two thousand annual livres, or ninety
pounds sterling. This royal penury did not, however, depress the spirits of the
frank and free-hearted King, who eagerly entered into every species of gaiety
and amusement. Jousts, masques, and ballets succeeded each other with a
rapidity which left no time for anxiety or ennui; and Marguerite has
bequeathed to us in her memoirs so graphic a picture of the royal circle in
1579-80, that we cannot resist its transcription. “We passed the greater
portion of our time at Nérac”, she says, “where the Court was so brilliant that
we had no reason to envy that of France. The sole subject of regret was that
the principal number of the nobles and gentlemen were Huguenots; but the
subject of religion was never mentioned; the King, my husband, accompanied
by his sister, attending their own devotions, while I and
my suite heard mass in a chapel in the park. When the several services were
concluded, we again assembled in a garden ornamented with avenues of laurels
and cypresses upon the bank of the river; and in the afternoon and evening a
ballet was performed”.
It is
much to be regretted that the royal biographer follows up this pleasing picture
by avowals of her own profligacy, and complacent comments upon the indulgence
and generosity with which she lent herself to the vices of her husband.
The
temporary calm was not, however, fated to endure. Marguerite, even while she
indulged in the most unblushing licentiousness, was, as we have already stated,
devoted to the observances of her religion; and on her first arrival at Pau she
had requested that a chapel might be provided in which the services of her
church could be performed. This was a concession which Henry of Navarre was
neither willing nor indeed able to make, the inhabitants of the city being all
rigid reformers who had not yet forgiven the young monarch either his enforced
renunciation of their faith or his Catholic marriage; and accordingly the Queen
had been compelled to avail herself of a small oratory in the castle
which would not contain more than six or eight persons; while so anxious was
the King not to exasperate the good citizens, that no individual was permitted
to accompany her to the chapel save the immediate members of her household, and
the drawbridge was always raised until she had returned to her own apartments.
Thus,
the arrival of Marguerite in the country, which had raised the hopes of the
Catholic portion of the population, by no means tended to improve their
position; and for a time her co-religionists, disheartened by so signal a
disappointment, made no effort to resist the orders of the King; but on the day
of Pentecost, 1579, a few zealous devotees, who had by some means introduced
themselves secretly into the castle, followed the Queen to her oratory, where
they were arrested by Dupin the royal secretary, very roughly treated in the
presence of Marguerite herself, and only released on the payment of a heavy
fine.
Indignant
at the disrespect which had been shown to her, the Princess at once proceeded
to the apartment of her husband, where she complained with emphatic bitterness
of the insolence of his favourite; and she had scarcely begun to acquaint him
with the details of the affair when Dupin entered unannounced, and in the most
intemperate manner commented on her breach of good faith in having wilfully
abused the forbearance of the sovereign and his Protestant subjects.
It was
not without some difficulty that Henry succeeded in
arresting this indecent flow of words, when, rebuking Dupin for his want of
discretion and self-control, he commanded him immediately to crave the pardon
of the Queen for his ill-advised interference and the want of deference of
which he had been guilty towards her royal person; but Marguerite refused to
listen to any apology, and haughtily and resolutely demanded the instant
dismissal of the delinquent. In vain did Henry expostulate, declaring that he
could not dispense with the services of so old and devoted a servant; the
Princess was inexorable, and the over-zealous secretary received orders to
leave the Court. Marguerite, however, purchased this triumph dearly, as the
King resented with a bitterness unusual to him the exhibition of authority in
which she had indulged; and when she subsequently urged him to punish those who
had acted under the orders of the exiled secretary, he boldly and positively
refused to give her any further satisfaction, alleging that her want of
consideration towards himself left him at equal liberty to disregard her own
wishes.
Angry
and irritated, Marguerite lost no time in acquainting her family with the
affront which she had experienced; and Catherine de Medicis, who believed that
she had now found a pretext sufficiently plausible to separate the young Queen
from her husband, skilfully envenomed the already rankling wound, not only by
awakening the religious scruples of her daughter, but also by reminding her
that she had been subjected to insult from a petty follower
of a petty court; and, finally, she urged her to assert her dignity by an
immediate return to France.
Marguerite,
whom the King had not made a single effort to conciliate, obeyed without
reluctance; and, in the year 1582, she left Navarre, and on her arrival in
Paris took possession of her old apartments in the Louvre. She was received
with great cordiality by Henri III, who trusted that her residence in France
might induce her husband ere long to follow her; but he soon discovered that
not even the warmth of his welcome could cause her to forget the past; and
that, under his own royal roof, she was secretly intriguing with the Duc
d'Alençon, who was once more in open revolt against him.
For a
time, although thoroughly informed that such was the fact, his emissaries were
unable to produce any tangible proof of the validity of their accusations; but
at length, rendered bold by impunity, Marguerite was so imprudent (for the
purpose of forwarding some despatches to the rebel Duke) as to cause the arrest
of a royal courier, charged with an autograph letter of two entire sheets from
the King to his favourite the Duc de Joyeuse, who was then
on a mission at Rome; when the unfortunate messenger, who found himself suddenly
attacked by four men in masks, made so desperate an effort
to save the packet with which he had been entrusted, that the sbirri of
the Princess, who had anticipated an easy triumph, became so much exasperated
that they stabbed him on the spot.
This
occurrence no sooner reached the ears of Henri III, than he sent to desire the
presence of his sister, when, utterly regardless of the fact that they were not
alone, he so far forgot his own dignity as to overwhelm her with the coarsest
and most cutting reproaches; and not satisfied with expatiating upon the
treachery of which she had been guilty towards himself, he passed in review the
whole of her ill-spent life, accusing her, among other enormities, of the birth
of an illegitimate son, and terminated his invectives by
commanding her instantly "to quit Paris, and rid the Court of her
presence."
On the
morrow Marguerite accordingly left the capital with even less state than she
had entered it, for she had neither suite nor equipage, and was accompanied
only by Madame de Duras and Mademoiselle de Béthune, her two favourite
attendants. She was not, however, suffered to depart even thus without
impediment, for she had only travelled a few leagues when, between Saint-Cler
and Palaiseau, her litter was stopped by a captain of the royal guard, at the head of a troop of harquebusiers: she was
compelled to remove her mask; and her companions, after having been subjected
to great discourtesy, were finally conveyed as prisoners to the Abbey of
Ferrières, near Montargis, where they underwent an examination, at which the
King himself presided, and wherein facts were elicited that
were fatal to the character of their mistress. Their replies were then reduced
to writing; and Marguerite, who had been detained for this express purpose, was
compelled by her inexorable brother to affix her signature to the disgraceful
document; when, after she had been subjected to this new indignity, the
daughter of Catherine de Medicis was at length permitted to pursue her journey;
but she was compelled to do so alone, as her two attendants were forbidden to
bear her company.
She had
no sooner left Ferrières than Henri III despatched one of the valets of his
wardrobe to St. Foix, where the King of Navarre was for the moment sojourning,
with an autograph letter, in which he informed him that he had considered it
expedient to dismiss from the service of his royal sister both Madame de Duras
and Mademoiselle de Béthune, having discovered that they were leading the most
dissolute and scandalous lives, and were “pernicious vermin” who could
not be permitted to remain about the person of a Princess of her rank.
Thus
ignominiously driven from the Court of France, Marguerite,
who had no resource save in the indulgence of her husband, travelled with the
greatest speed to Nérac, where he was then residing, in the hope that she might
be enabled by her representations to induce him to espouse her cause against
her brother; but although, in order to preserve appearances, Henry received her
courteously, and even listened with exemplary patience to her impassioned
relation of the indignities to which she had been subjected, the coldness of
his deportment, and the stern tone in which he informed her that he would give
the necessary orders for a separate residence to be prepared for her
accommodation, as he could never again receive her under his own roof, or
accord to her the honour and consideration due to a wife, convinced her that
she had nothing more to hope from his forbearance.
Even
while he thus resented his own wrongs, however, Henry of Navarre no sooner
comprehended that Marguerite had been personally exposed to insults which had
affected his honour as her consort, than he despatched a messenger to the
French King at Lyons, “to entreat him to explain the cause of these affronts,
and to advise him, as a good master, how he had better act”. But this somewhat servile proceeding produced no adequate
result, as his envoy received only ambiguous answers, and all he could
accomplish was to extort a promise from Henri III that on his return to Paris
he would discuss the affair with the Queen-mother and the
Duc d'Alençon.
Unaware
of the negotiation which was thus opened, Marguerite had, as we have said, lost
all confidence in her own influence over her husband; and accordingly, without
giving any intimation of her design, she left Nérac and retired to Agen, one of
her dower-cities, where she established herself in the castle; but her
unbridled depravity of conduct, combined with the extortions of Madame de
Duras, her friend and confidante, by whom she had been rejoined, soon
rendered her odious to the inhabitants.
In vain
did she declare that the bull of excommunication which Sixtus V had recently
fulminated against the King of Navarre had been the cause of her retiring from
his Court, her conscience not permitting her to share the roof of a prince
under the ban of the Church. The Agenese, although
Catholics and leagued against her husband, evinced towards herself a
disaffection so threatening that her position was rapidly becoming untenable,
when the city was stormed and taken by the Maréchal de Matignon
in the name of Henri III.
Convinced that the capture of her own person was the
sole motive of this unprovoked assault, the fugitive Queen had once more
recourse to flight; and her eagerness to escape the power of the French King
was so great that she left the city seated on a pillion behind a gentleman of
her suite named Lignerac, while Madame de Duras followed in like manner; and
thus she travelled four-and-twenty leagues in the short space of two days,
attended by such of the members of her little household as were enabled to keep
pace with her.
The
fortress of Carlat in the mountains of Auvergne offered to her, as she
believed, a safe asylum; but although the Governor, who was the brother of M.
de Lignerac, received her with respect, and promised her his protection, the
enmity of Henri III pursued her even to this obscure place of exile.
At this
period even the high spirit of Marguerite de Valois was nearly subdued, for she
no longer knew in what direction to turn for safety. She had become
contemptible in the eyes of her husband; she was deserted by her mother, hated
by her brother, despised by her co-religionists from the licentiousness of her
life, and detested by the Protestants as the cause, however innocently, of the
fatal massacre of their friends and leaders. The memory of the martyred Coligny
was ever accompanied by a curse on Marguerite; and thus she was an outcast from
all creeds and all parties. Still, however, confident in the good faith of the
Governor of Carlat, she assumed at least a semblance of
tranquillity, and trusted that she should be enabled to remain for a time
unmolested; but it was not long ere she ascertained that the inhabitants of the
town, like those of Agen, were hostile to her interests, and that they had even
resolved to deliver her up to the French King.
Under
these circumstances, she had no alternative save to become once more a
fugitive; and having, with considerable difficulty, succeeded in making her
escape beyond the walls, she began to indulge a hope that she should yet baffle
the devices of her enemy; she was soon, however, fated to be undeceived, for
she had travelled only a few leagues when she was overtaken and captured by the
Marquis de Canillac, who conveyed her to the fortress of
Usson. As she passed the drawbridge, Marguerite recognised
at a glance that there was no hope of evasion from this new and impregnable
prison, save through the agency of her gaoler; and she accordingly lost no time
in exerting all her blandishments to captivate his reason. Although she had now
attained her thirty-fifth year, neither time, anxiety, hardship, nor even the
baneful indulgence of her misguided passions, had yet robbed her of her
extraordinary beauty; and it is consequently scarcely surprising that ere long
the gallant soldier to whose custody she was confided, surrendered at discretion, and laid at her feet, not only his heart, but
also the keys of her prison-house.
“Poor
man!” enthusiastically exclaims Brantôme, her friend and correspondent; “what
did he expect to do? Did he think to retain as a prisoner her who, by her eyes
and her lovely countenance, could hold in her chains and bonds all the rest of
the world like galley-slaves?”
Certain
it is, that if the brave but susceptible marquis ever contemplated such a
result, he was destined to prove the fallacy of his hopes; for so totally was
he subjugated by the fascinations of the captive Queen, that he even abandoned
to her the command of the fortress, which thenceforward acknowledged no
authority save her own.
Marguerite
had scarcely resided a year at Usson when the death of the Duc d'Alençon
deprived her of the last friend whom she possessed on earth; and not even the
security that she derived from the impregnability of the fortress in which she
had found an asylum could preserve her from great and severe suffering. The
castle, with its triple ramparts, its wide moat, and its iron portcullis, might
indeed defy all human enemies, but it could not exclude famine; and during her
sojourn within its walls, which extended over a period of two-and-twenty years,
she was compelled to pawn her jewels, and to melt down her plate, in order to
provide food for the famishing garrison; while so utterly destitute did she ultimately become, that she found herself driven to appeal
to the generosity of Elizabeth of Austria, the widow of her brother Charles IX,
who thenceforward supplied her necessities.
In the
year 1589 Henry of Navarre ascended the throne of France, having previously,
for the second time, embraced the Catholic faith; but for a
while the liaisons which he found it so facile to form at the Court, and
his continued affection for the Comtesse de Guiche,
together with the internal disturbances and foreign wars which had convulsed
the early years of his reign, so thoroughly engrossed his attention, that he
had made no attempt to separate himself from his erring and exiled wife; nor
was it until 1598, when the Edict of Nantes had ensured a lasting and certain
peace to the Huguenots: and that la belle Gabrielle had replaced Madame de Guiche, and by making him the father
of two sons, had induced him to contemplate (as he had done in a previous case
with her predecessor) her elevation to the throne, that he became really
anxious to liberate himself from the trammels of his ill-omened marriage.
Having
ascertained that the Duc de Bouillon, notwithstanding the
concessions which he had made to the Protestant party, had been recently
engaged, in conjunction with D'Aubigny and other zealous reformers, in endeavouring to create renewed disaffection
among the Huguenots, Henry resolved to visit Brittany, and personally to
express to the Duke his indignation and displeasure.
On his
arrival at Rennes, where M. de Bouillon was confined to his bed by a violent
attack of gout, the King accordingly proceeded to his residence; where, after
having expressed his regret at the state of suffering in which he found him, he
ordered all the attendants to withdraw, and seating himself near the pillow of
the invalid, desired him to listen without remark or interruption to all that
he was about to say. He then reproached him in the most indignant terms with
his continual and active efforts to disturb the peace of the kingdom,
recapitulating every act, and almost every word, of his astonished and
embarrassed listener, with an accuracy which left no opportunity for denial;
and, finally, he advised him to be warned in time, and, if he valued his own
safety, to adopt a perfectly opposite line of conduct; assuring him, in
conclusion, that should he persist in his present contumacy, he should himself
take measures, as his sovereign and his master, to render him incapable of
working further mischief.
The
bewildered Duke would have replied, but he was instantly silenced by an
imperious gesture from the King, who, rising from his seat,
left the chamber in silence.
The
presence of Henri IV in Brittany was the signal for festivity and rejoicing,
and all that was fair and noble in the province was soon collected at Rennes in
honour of his arrival; but despite these demonstrations of affection and
respect, his watchful and anxious minister, the Duc de Sully, remarked that he
occasionally gave way to fits of absence, and even of melancholy, which were
quite unusual to him, and which consequently excited the alarm of the zealous
Duke. He had, moreover, several times desired M. de Sully's attendance in a
manner which induced him to believe that the King had something of importance
to communicate, but the interviews had successively terminated without any such
result; until, on one occasion, a few days after his interview with the Duc de
Bouillon, Henry once more beckoned him to his side, and turning into a large
garden which was attached to his residence, he there wreathed his fingers in
those of the minister, as was his constant habit, and drawing him into a
retired walk, commenced the conversation by relating in detail all that had
passed between himself and the ducal rebel. He then digressed to recent
political measures, and expressed himself strongly upon the advantages which
tranquillity at home, as well as peace abroad, must ensure to the kingdom;
after which, as if by some process of mental retrogression, he became suddenly
more gloomy in his discourse; and observed, as if despite himself, that
although he would struggle even to the end of his existence
to secure these national advantages, he nevertheless felt that as the Queen had
given him no son, all his endeavours must prove fruitless; since the contention
which would necessarily arise between M. de Condé and the other Princes of the
blood, when the important subject of the succession gave a free and sufficient
motive for their jealousy, could not fail to renew the civil anarchy which he
had been so anxious to terminate. He then, after a moment's silence, referred
to the desire which had been formally expressed to him by the Parliament of
Paris, that he should separate himself from Marguerite de Valois, and unite
himself with some other princess who might give a Dauphin to France, and thus
transmit to a son of his own line the crown which he now wore.
Sully,
who was no less desirous than himself to ensure the prosperity of the nation to
which he had devoted all the energies of his powerful and active mind, did not
hesitate to suggest the expediency of his Majesty's immediate compliance with
the prayer of his subjects, and entreat him in his turn to obtain a divorce,
which by leaving him free, would enable him to make a happier choice; and he
even assured the anxious monarch that he had already taken steps to ascertain
that the Archbishop of Urbino and the Pope himself (who was fully aware of the
importance of maintaining the peace of Europe, which must necessarily be
endangered by a renewal of the intestine troubles in France) would both readily
facilitate by every means in their power so politic and so
desirable a measure.
Henry
urged for a time his disinclination to contract a second marriage, alleging
that his first had proved so unfortunate in every way, that he was reluctant to
rivet anew the chain which had been so rudely riven asunder; but the
unflinching minister did not fail to remind him that much as he owed to
himself, he still owed even more to a people who had faith in his wisdom and
generosity; and the frank-hearted King suffered himself, although with evident
distaste, to be ultimately convinced.
He then
began to pass in review all the marriageable princesses who were eligible to
share his throne, but to each in succession he attached some objection which
tended to weaken her claim. After what he had already undergone, as he
declared, there were few women, and still fewer women of royal blood, to whom
he would willingly a second time confide his chance of happiness. “In order not
to encounter once more the same disappointment and displeasure”, he said at
length, “I must find in the next woman whom I may marry seven qualities with
which I cannot dispense. She must be handsome, prudent, gentle, intellectual,
fruitful, wealthy, and of high extraction; and thus I do not know a single
princess in Europe calculated to satisfy my idea of feminine perfection”.
Then,
after a pause during which the minister remained silent, he added, with some
inconsistency: “I would readily put up with the Spanish
Infanta, despite both her age and her ugliness, did I
espouse the Low Countries in her person; neither would I refuse the Princess
Arabella of England, if, as it is alleged, the crown of
that country really belonged to her, or even had she been declared heiress
presumptive; but we cannot reasonably anticipate either contingency. I have
heard also of several German princesses whose names I have forgotten, but I
have no taste for the women of that country; besides which, it is on record
that a German Queen nearly proved the ruin of the French
nation; and thus they inspire me only with disgust”.
Still
Sully listened without reply, the King having commenced his confidence by
assuming a position which rendered all argument worse than idle.
“They
have talked to me likewise”, resumed Henry more hurriedly, as disconcerted and
annoyed by the expressive silence of his companion he began to walk more
rapidly along the shaded path in which this conference took place; “they have
talked to me of the sisters of Prince Maurice; but not only
are they Huguenots, a fact which could not fail to give umbrage at the Court of
Rome, but I have also heard reports that would render me
averse to their alliance. Then the Duke of Florence has a niece,
who is stated to be tolerably handsome, but she comes of one of the pettiest
principalities of Christendom; and not more than sixty or eighty years ago her
ancestors were merely the chief citizens of the town of which their successors
are now the sovereigns; and, moreover, she is a daughter of the same race as
Catherine de Medicis, who has been alike my own enemy and that of France”.
Once
more the King paused for breath, and glanced anxiously towards his minister,
but Sully was inexorable, and continued to listen respectfully and attentively
without uttering a syllable.
“So
much for the foreign princesses”, continued Henry with some irritation, when he
found that his listener had resolved not to assist him either by word or
gesture; “at least, I know of no others. And now for our own. There is my
niece, Mademoiselle de Guise; and she is one of those whom
I should prefer, despite the naughty tales that are told of her, for I place no
faith in them; but she is too much devoted to the interests of her house, and I have reason to dread the restless ambition of her brothers”.
The
Princesses of Mayenne, of Aumale, and
of Longueville, were next the subject of the royal
comments; but they were all either too fair or too dark, too old or too plain;
nor were Mesdemoiselles de Rohan, de Luxembourg, or de Guéménée more fortunate: the first
was a Calvinist, the second too young, and the third not to his taste.
Long
ere the King had arrived at this point of his discourse, the keen-sighted
minister had fathomed his determination to raise some obstacle in every
instance; and he began to entertain a suspicion that this was not done without
a powerful motive, which he immediately became anxious to comprehend. Thus,
therefore, when Henry pressed him to declare his sentiments upon the subject,
he answered cautiously: “I cannot, in truth, hazard an
opinion, Sire; nor can I even understand the bent of your own wishes. Thus much
only do I comprehend--that you consent to take another wife, but that you can
discover no princess throughout Europe with whom you are willing to share the throne
of France. From the manner in which you spoke of the Infanta, it nevertheless
appeared as though a rich heiress would not be unacceptable; but surely you do
not expect that Heaven will resuscitate in your favour a Marguerite de
Flandres, a Marie de Bourgogne, or even permit Elizabeth of England to grow
young again”.
“I
anticipate nothing of the kind”, was the sharp retort; “but how know I, even
were I to marry one of the princesses I have enumerated, that I should be more
fortunate than I have hitherto been? If beauty and youth could have ensured to
me the blessing of a Dauphin, had I not every right to anticipate a different
result in my union with Madame Marguerite? I could not brook a second
mortification of the like description, and therefore I am cautious. And now, as
I have failed to satisfy myself upon this point, tell me, do you know of any
one woman in whom are combined all the qualities which I have declared to be
requisite in a Queen of France?”
“The
question is one of too important a nature, Sire, to be answered upon the
instant," said Sully, "and the rather that I have never hitherto
turned my attention to the subject”.
“And what would you say”, asked Henry with ill-concealed
anxiety, “were I to tell you that such an one exists in my own kingdom?”
“I
should say, Sire, that you have greatly the advantage over myself; and also
that the lady to whom you allude must necessarily be a widow”.
“Just
as you please”, retorted the King; “but if you refuse to guess, I will name her”.
“Do so”,
said Sully with increasing surprise; “for I confess that the riddle is beyond
my reach”.
“Rather
say that you do not wish to solve it”, was the cold reply; “for you cannot deny
that all the qualities upon which I insist are to be found combined in the
person of the Duchesse de Beaufort”.
“Your
mistress, Sire!”
“I do
not affirm that I have any intention, in the event of my release from my
present marriage, of making the Duchess my wife”, pursued Henry with some
embarrassment; “but I was anxious to learn what you would say, if, unable to
find another woman to my taste, I should one day see fit to do so”.
“Say,
Sire?” echoed the minister, struggling to conceal his consternation under an
affected gaiety; “I should probably be of the same opinion as the rest of your
subjects”.
The
King had, however, made so violent an effort over himself, in order to test the
amount of forbearance which he might anticipate in his favourite counsellor,
and was so desirous to ascertain his real sentiments upon
this important subject, that he exclaimed impatiently: “I command you to speak
freely; you have acquired the right to utter unpalatable truths; do not,
therefore, fear that I shall take offence whenever our conversation is purely
confidential, although I should assuredly resent such a liberty in public”.
The
reply of the upright minister, thus authorized, was worthy alike of the monarch
who had made such an appeal, and of the man to whom it was addressed. He placed
before the eyes of his royal master the opprobrium with which an alliance of
the nature at which he had hinted must inevitably cover his own name, and the
affront it would entail upon every sovereign in Europe. He reminded him also
that the legitimation of the sons of Madame de Beaufort, and the extraordinary
and strictly regal ceremonies which he had recently permitted at the baptism of
the younger of the two (throughout the whole of which the infant had been
recognized as a prince of the blood-royal, although the King had himself
refused to allow the registry of the proceedings until they were revised, and
the obnoxious passages rescinded), could not fail, should she ever become Queen
of France, in the event of her having other children, to plunge the nation into
those very struggles for the succession from which he had just declared his
anxiety to preserve it.
“And
this strife, Sire”, he concluded fearlessly, “would be even more formidable and
more frightful than that to which you so anxiously alluded; for you will do well to remember that not only the arena in which it
must take place will be your own beloved kingdom of France, while the whole of
civilised Europe stands looking on, but that it will be a contest between the
son of M. de Liancourt and the King’s mistress--the son of Madame de Monceaux,
the divorced wife of an obscure noble, and the declared favourite of the
sovereign; and, finally, between these, the children of shame, and the Dauphin
of France, the son of Henri IV and his Queen. I leave you, Sire, to reflect
upon this startling fact before I venture further”.
“And you
do well”, said the monarch, as he turned away; “for truly you have said enough
for once”.
It will
be readily conceived that at the close of this conference M. de Sully was
considerably less anxious than before to effect the divorce of the infatuated sovereign;
nor was he sorry to remind Henry, when he next touched upon the subject, that
they had both been premature in discussing the preliminaries of a second
marriage before they had succeeded in cancelling the first. It was true that
Clement VIII, in his desire to maintain the peace of Europe, had readily
entered into the arguments of MM. de Marquemont, d'Ossat, and Duperron, whom
the Duke had, by command of the monarch, entrusted with this difficult and
dangerous mission, when they represented that the birth of a dauphin must
necessarily avert all risk of a civil war in France, together with the utter
hopelessness of such an event unless their royal master were released from his
present engagements; and that the sovereign-pontiff had even expressed his willingness
to second the washes of the French monarch. But the consent of Marguerite
herself was no less important; and with a view to obtain this, the minister
addressed to her a letter, in which he expressed his ardent
desire to effect a reconciliation between herself and the King, in order that
the prayers of the nation might be answered by the birth of a Dauphin; or,
should she deem such an event impossible, to entreat of her to pardon him if he
ventured to take the liberty of imploring her Majesty to make a still greater
sacrifice.
Sully
had felt that it was unnecessary to explain himself more clearly, as a
reconciliation between Henri IV and his erring consort had, from the profligate
life which she was known to have led at Usson, become utterly impossible; nor
could she doubt for an instant the nature of the sacrifice which was required
at her hands. It was not, therefore, without great anxiety that he awaited her
reply, which did not reach him for the space of five months; at the expiration
of which period he received a letter, wherein she averred her willingness to
submit to the pleasure of the King, for whose forbearance she expressed herself
grateful; offering at the same time her acknowledgments to the Duke himself for
the interest which he exhibited towards her person. From this period a
continued correspondence was maintained between the exiled Queen and the
minister; and she proved so little exacting in the conditions which she
required as the price of her concession, that the affair would have been
concluded without difficulty, had not the favourite, who was privy to the
negotiation, calculating upon her influence over the mind of the monarch, suddenly assumed an attitude which arrested its progress.
For a
considerable time she had aspired to the throne; but it was not until she
learnt that the agents of the King in Rome were labouring to effect the
dissolution of his marriage with Marguerite de Valois, and that the Duc de
Luxembourg was also about to visit the Papal Court in order
to hasten the conclusion of the negotiations, that she openly declared her
views to Sillery, whom she knew to be already well affected
towards her, declaring that should he be instrumental in inducing the King to
make her his wife, she would pledge herself to obtain the seals for him on his
return from Rome, as well as the dignity of chancellor so soon as it should be
vacant.
Sillery,
whose ambition was aroused, was not slow to obey her wishes; and, finding the
Pope unwilling to lend himself to the haste which was required
of him, he not only informed him privately that, in the event of a divorce, his
royal master was ready to espouse the Princesse Marie de Medicis, his kinswoman
(although at this period Henry evinced no inclination towards such an
alliance), but even when he discovered that his Holiness remained unmoved by
this prospect of family aggrandizement, he ventured so far as to hint, in
conjunction with the Cardinal d'Ossat, that it was probable, should the Pontiff
continue to withhold his consent to the annulation of the King’s present
marriage, he would dispense with it altogether, and make the Duchesse de
Beaufort Queen of France: a threat which so alarmed the sovereign-prelate that,
immediately declaring that he placed the whole affair in the hands of God, he
commanded a general fast throughout Rome, and shut himself up in his oratory,
where he continued for a considerable time in fervent prayer. On his
reappearance he was calm, and simply remarked: “God has
provided for it”.
A few
days subsequently a courier arrived at Rome with intelligence of the death of
the Duchess.
Meanwhile
Gabrielle, by her unbridled vanity, had counteracted all the exertions of her
partisans. Aware of her power over the King, and believing that this divorce
from Marguerite once obtained, she should find little difficulty in overcoming
all other obstacles, she was unguarded enough prematurely to assume the state
and pretensions of the regality to which she aspired,
affecting airs of patronage towards the greatest ladies of the Court, and
lavishing the most profuse promises upon the sycophants and flatterers by whom
she was surrounded. The infatuation of the King, whose passion for his arrogant
mistress appeared to increase with time, tended, as a natural consequence, to
encourage these unseemly demonstrations; nor did the friends of the exiled
Queen fail to render her cognizant of every extravagance committed by the woman
who aspired to become her successor; upon which Marguerite, who, morally fallen
as she was in her own person, had never forgotten that she was alike the
daughter and the consort of a king, suddenly withdrew her consent to the
proposed divorce; declaring, in terms more forcible than delicate, that no
woman of blighted character should ever, through her agency, usurp her place.
The
sudden and frightful death of the Duchess, which shortly afterwards supervened,
having, however, removed her only objection to the proposed measure, her
marriage with the King was, at length, finally declared null and void, to the
equal satisfaction of both parties. The event which Marguerite had dreaded had
now become impossible, and she at once forwarded a personal
requisition to Rome, in which she declared that “it was in opposition to her
own free will that her royal brother King Charles IX and the Queen-mother had
effected an alliance to which she had consented only with her lips, but not with her heart; and that the King her husband and herself
being related in the third degree, she besought his Holiness to declare the
nullity of the said marriage”.
On the
receipt of this application, the Pontiff--having previously ascertained that
the demand of Henry himself was based on precisely the same arguments, and
still entertaining the hope held out to him by Sillery that the King would,
when liberated from his present wife, espouse one of his own
relatives--immediately appointed a committee, composed of the Cardinal de
Joyeuse, the Archbishop of Arles, and the Bishop of Modena,
his nuncio and nephew, instructing them, should they find all circumstances as
they were represented, to declare forthwith the dissolution of the marriage.
Meanwhile
the King, whose first burst of grief at the loss of the Duchess had been so
violent that he fainted in his carriage on receiving the intelligence, and
afterwards shut himself up in the palace of Fontainebleau during several days,
refusing to see the princes of the blood and the great nobles who hastened to
offer their condolences, and retaining about his person only half a dozen
courtiers to whom he was personally attached, had recovered from the shock
sufficiently to resume his usual habits of dissipation and amusement. In the
extremity of his sorrow he had commanded a general Court mourning, and himself set the example by assuming a black dress for the
first week; but as his regret became moderated, he exchanged his sables for a
suit of violet, in which costume he received a deputation from the Parliament
of Paris which was sent to condole with him upon the bereavement that he had
undergone! while the intelligence which reached him of the
presumed treachery of the Duc de Biron, by compelling his removal to Blois,
where he could more readily investigate the affair, completed a cure already
more than half accomplished. There the sensual monarch abandoned himself to the
pleasures of the table, to high play, and to those exciting amusements which
throughout his whole life at intervals annihilated the monarch in the man:
while the circle by which he had surrounded himself, and which consisted of M.
le Grand, the Comte de Lude, MM. de
Thermes, de Castelnau, de Calosse, de Montglat, de Frontenac,
and de Bassompierre, was but ill calculated to arouse in
him better and nobler feelings. Ambitious, wealthy, witty, and obsequious, they
were one and all interested in flattering his vanity, gratifying his tastes,
and pandering to his passions; and it is melancholy to contemplate the perfect
self-gratulation with which some of the highest-born nobles of the time have in
their personal memoirs chronicled the unblushing subserviency with which they
lent themselves to the encouragement of the worst and most debasing qualities
of their sovereign. Even before his departure for Blois, and during the period
of his temporary retirement from the Court, while Henry
still wore the mourning habits which he had assumed in honour of his dead
mistress, the more intimate of his associates could discover no means of
consolation more effective than by inducing him to select another favourite.
“All
the Court”, says a quaint old chronicler, himself a member of the royal circle,
“were aware that the King had a heart which could not long preserve its liberty
without attaching itself to some new object, a knowledge which induced the
flatterers at Court who had discovered his weakness for the other sex to leave nothing
undone to urge him onward in this taste, and to make their fortunes by his
defeat”.
Unfortunately
the natural character of the King lent itself only too readily to their
designs; and, as already stated, they had profited by the opportunity afforded
to them during the short retreat at Fontainebleau to arouse the curiosity of
Henry on the subject of a new beauty. Whether at table, at play, or lounging
beneath the shady avenues of the stately park, the name of Catherine Henriette
d'Entragues was constantly introduced into the conversation, and always with
the most enthusiastic encomiums; nor was
it long ere their pertinacity produced the desired effect, and the monarch
expressed his desire to see the paragon of whom they all professed to be
enamoured. A hunting-party was accordingly organized in the neighbourhood of
the château of Malesherbes, where the Marquis d'Entragues was then residing
with his family; and the fact no sooner became known to the mother of the young
beauty, whose ambition was greater than her morality, and who was aware of the
efforts which had been made to induce Henry to replace the deceased Duchess by
a new favourite, than she despatched a messenger to entreat of his Majesty to
rest himself under her roof after the fatigue of the chase. The invitation was
accepted, and on his arrival Henriette was presented to the King, who was
immediately captivated by her wit, and that charm of youthfulness which had for
some time ceased to enhance the loveliness of the once faultless Gabrielle. At
this period Mademoiselle d'Entragues had not quite attained her twentieth year,
but she was already well versed in the art of fascination. Advisedly
overlooking the monarch in the man, she conversed with a perfect
self-possession, which enabled her to display all the resources of a cultivated
mind and a lively temperament; while Henry was enchanted by a gaiety and
absence of constraint which placed him at once on the most familiar footing
with his young and brilliant hostess; and thus instead of departing on the morrow, as had been his original design, he remained
during several days at Malesherbes, constantly attended by the Marquise and her
daughter, who were even invited to share the royal table.
The
Duchesse de Beaufort had been dead only three weeks, and already the sensual
monarch had elected her successor.
Less
regularly handsome than Gabrielle d'Estrées, Mademoiselle d'Entragues was even
more attractive from the graceful vivacity of her manner, her brilliant
sallies, and her aptitude in availing herself of the resources of an extensive
and desultory course of study. She remembered that, in all probability, death
alone had prevented Gabrielle d'Estrées from ascending the French throne; and
she was aware that, although less classically beautiful than the deceased
Duchess, she was eminently her superior in youth and intellect, and, above all,
in that sparkling conversational talent which is so valuable amid the ennui of a court. Well versed in the nature of the monarch with whom she had to deal,
Mademoiselle d'Entragues accordingly gave free course to the animation and
playfulness by which Henry was so easily enthralled; skilfully turning the
sharp and almost imperceptible point of her satire against the younger and
handsomer of his courtiers, and thus flattering at once his vanity and his
self-love. Still, the passion of the King made no progress save in his own
breast. At times Mademoiselle d'Entragues affected to treat
his professions as a mere pleasantry, and at others to resent them as an
affront to her honour; at one moment confessing that he alone could ever touch
her heart, and bewailing that destiny should have placed him upon a throne, and
thus beyond the reach of her affection; and at another declaring herself ready
to make any sacrifice rather than resign her claim upon his love, save only
that by which she could be enabled to return it. This skilful conduct served,
as she had intended that it should do, merely to irritate the passion of the
monarch, who, unconscious of the extent of her ambition, believed her to be
simply anxious to secure herself against future disappointment and the anger of
her family; and thus finding that his entreaties were unavailing, he resolved
to employ another argument of which he had already frequently tested the efficacy,
and on his return to Fontainebleau he despatched the Comte de Lude to the lady
with what were in that age termed “propositions”.
It is,
from this circumstance, sufficiently clear that Henry himself was far from
feeling any inclination to share his throne with the daughter of Charles IX's
mistress; and that, despite the infatuation under which he laboured, he already
estimated at its true price the value of Henrietta's affection. Nevertheless,
the wily beauty remained for some short time proof against the representations
of the royal envoy; nor was it until the equally wily courtier hinted that
Mademoiselle d'Entragues would do well to reflect ere she declined the
overtures of which he was the bearer, as there was reason
to believe that the King had, on a recent visit to the widowed Queen Louise at Chenonceaux, become enamoured of Mademoiselle la Bourdaisière, one of her maids of honour,
that the startled beauty, who had deemed herself secure of her royal conquest,
was induced to affix a price to the concession which she was called upon to
make, and that M. de Lude returned bearing her ultimatum to the King.
This ultimatum amounted to no less than a hundred thousand crowns; and,
setting aside the voluntary degradation of the lady--a degradation which would
appear to have been more than sufficient to disgust any man of delicacy who
sought to be loved for his own sake--it was a demand which even startled the
inconsiderate monarch himself, although he had not sufficient self-command to
meet it with the contempt that it was calculated to excite. Well had it been,
alike for himself and for the nation generally, had he suffered his better
judgment on this occasion to assume the ascendant, and misdoubted, as he well
might, the tears and protestations of so interested a person; particularly,
when he could not fail to remember that he had been deceived even by Gabrielle
d'Estrées, whom he had overwhelmed with riches and honours, and who had
voluntarily given herself to him when he was young and handsome; whereas he was
now in the decline of life, and was suing for the love of one so much his
junior. Unfortunately, however, reason waged a most unequal warfare with
passion in the breast of the French sovereign; and
voluntarily overlooking alike the enormity of the demand, and the circumstances
under which it was made, he at once despatched an order to the finance-minister
to supply the required sum. Sully had no alternative save obedience; he did not
even venture upon expostulation; but he did better. When admitted to the royal
closet, he alluded in general terms to the extreme difficulty which he
anticipated in raising the required amount of four millions for the renewal of
the Swiss alliance; and then, approaching the table beside which the King was
seated, he proceeded slowly and ostentatiously to count the hundred thousand
crowns destined to satisfy the cupidity of Mademoiselle d'Entragues. He had
been careful to cause the whole amount to be delivered in silver; and it was
not, therefore, without an emotion which he failed to conceal, that Henry saw
the numerous piles of money which gradually rose before him and overspread the
table.
Nevertheless,
although he could not control an exclamation of astonishment, he made no effort
to retrieve his error; but, after the departure of M. de Sully, placed the
required amount in the hands of the Comte de Lude, who hastened to transfer it
to those of the frail beauty. It was not until after the receipt of this
enormous present that the Marquis d'Entragues and his step-son
affected to suspect the design of the King, and upbraided M. de Lude with the part which he had acted, desiring him never again to enter
a house which he sought only to dishonour; an accusation which, from the lips
of the husband of Marie Touchet, was a mere epigram. He, however, followed up
this demonstration by removing his daughter from Malesherbes to Marcoussis,
although with what intention it is difficult to determine, as the King at once
proceeded thither, and at once obtained an interview.
Little
accustomed to indulge in a prodigality so reckless, Henry had flattered himself
that the affair was concluded; but such was by no means the intention of the
young lady and her family. Henriette, indeed, received her royal lover with the
most exaggerated assurances of affection and gratitude; but she nevertheless
persisted in declaring that she was so closely watched as to be no longer
mistress of her own actions, and so intimidated by the threats of her father
that she dared not act in opposition to his will. In vain did the King
remonstrate, argue, and upbraid; the lady remained firm, affecting to bewail
the state of coercion in which she was kept, and entreating Henry to exert his
influence to overcome the repugnance of her family to their mutual happiness.
To his anger she opposed her tears; to his resentment, her fascinations; and
when at length she discovered that the royal patience was rapidly failing,
although her power over his feelings remained unshaken, she ventured upon the
last bold effort of her ambition, by protesting to the infatuated sovereign
that her father had remained deaf to all her entreaties,
and that the only concession which she could induce him to make was one which
she had not courage to communicate to his Majesty. As she had, of course,
anticipated, Henry at once desired her to inform him of the nature of the fresh
demand which was to be made upon his tenderness; when, with well-acted
reluctance, Mademoiselle d'Entragues repeated a conversation that she had held
with the Marquis, at the close of which he had assured her that he would never
consent to see her the mistress of the King until she had received a written
promise of marriage under the royal hand, provided she became, within a year,
the mother of a son.
“In
vain, Sire”, she pursued hurriedly, as she perceived a cloud gather upon the
brow of the monarch—“in vain did I seek to overcome the scruples of my parents,
and represent to them the utter inutility of such a document; they declared
that they sought only to preserve the honour of their house. And you well know,
Sire”, she continued with an appealing smile, “that, as I ventured to remind
them, your word is of equal value with your signature, as no mere subject could
dare to summon a great king like yourself to perform any promise--you, who have
fifty thousand men at your command to enforce your will! But all my reasoning
was vain. Upon this point they are firm. Thus then, since there is no other
hope, and that they insist upon this empty form, why should you not indulge
their whim, when it cannot involve the slightest consequence?
If you love as I do, can you hesitate to comply with their desire? Name what
conditions you please on your side, and I am ready to accept them--too happy to
obey your slightest wish”.
Suffice
it that the modern Delilah triumphed, and that the King was induced to promise
the required document; a weakness rendered the less
excusable, if indeed, as Sully broadly asserts: “Henry was not so blind but
that he saw clearly how this woman sought to deceive him. I say nothing of the
reasons which he also had to believe her to be anything rather than a vestal;
nor of the state intrigues of which her father, her mother, her brother, and
herself had been convicted, and which had drawn down upon all the family an
order to leave Paris, which I had quite recently signified to them in the name
of his Majesty”.
As it
is difficult to decide which of the two the Duke sought in his Memoirs to praise the most unsparingly, the sovereign or himself, the epithet of “this
weak Prince”, which he applies to Henry on the present occasion, proves the
full force of his annoyance. He, moreover, gives a very detailed account of an
interview which took place between them upon the subject of the document in
question; even declaring that he tore it up when his royal master placed it in
his hands; and upon being asked by the King if he were mad, had replied by
saying: “Would to God that I were the only madman in France!”
As, however, I do not find the same anecdote recorded
elsewhere by any contemporaneous authority, I will not delay the narrative by
inserting it at length; and the rather as, although from the influence
subsequently exercised over the fortunes of Marie de Medicis by the frail
favourite I have already been compelled to dwell thus long upon her history, it
is one which I am naturally anxious to abridge as much as possible. I shall
therefore only add that the same biographer goes on to state that the contract
which he had destroyed was rewritten by the King himself, who within an hour
afterwards was on horseback and on his way to Malesherbes, where he sojourned
two days. It is, of course, impossible to decide whether Henry had ever
seriously contemplated the fulfilment of so degrading an engagement; but it is
certain that only a few months subsequently he presented to Mademoiselle
d'Entragues the estate of Verneuil, and that thenceforward she assumed the
title of Marquise, coupled with the name of her new possession.
CHAPTER II
1599
The
infatuation of the King for his new favourite decided M. de Sully to hasten by
every means in his power the marriage of the sovereign with
some European princess worthy to share his throne, and he accordingly
instructed the royal agents at Rome to demand forthwith the hand of Marie de
Medicis for the French monarch; while Henry, absorbed in his passion, permitted
him to act as he saw fit, offering neither assistance nor impediment to a
negotiation on which his domestic happiness was in future to depend. Nor was it
until the Duke urged upon him the necessity of selecting such of his nobility
as it was his pleasure to entrust with the management of the affair in
conjunction with the ambassador whom the Grand Duke, her uncle, was about to
despatch to Paris, that, by dint of importunity, he was induced to name M. de
Sully himself, the Constable, the Chancellor, and the Sieur de Villeroy, whose
son, M. d'Alincourt, had previously been sent to Rome to offer the
acknowledgments of Henry to his Holiness for the dissolution of his marriage
with Queen Marguerite, and to apprise him of that which he was desirous to
contract with Marie de Medicis. This duty performed, M. d'Alincourt solicited
the permission of the Pope to accompany Sillery to Florence to pay his respects
to the Princess and to negotiate the alliance; and having obtained the required
sanction, the two nobles set forth upon their embassy, quite unaware that the
preliminaries were already nearly concluded. So determined,
indeed, had been the minister that no time should be
afforded to the King to redeem the pledge which he had given to the favourite
that Joannini, the agent of the Grand Duke, had not been many days in Paris
before the articles were drawn up and signed on both sides, and Sully was
commissioned by the other contracting parties to communicate the termination of
their labours to his royal master. The account given by the minister of this
interview is highly characteristic.
“He had
not”, says the chronicler, “anticipated such expedition; and thus when I had
answered his question of where I had come from by ‘We come, Sire, from marrying
you’, the Prince remained for a quarter of an hour as though he had been
stricken by thunder; then he began to pace the chamber with long strides,
biting his nails, scratching his head, and absorbed by reflections which
agitated him so violently that he was a considerable time before he was able to
speak to me. I entertained no doubt that all my previous representations were
now producing their effect; and so it proved, for ultimately recovering himself
like a man who has at length taken a decided resolution: ‘Well’, said he,
striking his hands together, ‘well, then, so be it; there is no alternative,
since for the good of my kingdom you say that I must marry’.”
Such
was the ungracious acceptance of the haughty Florentine Princess at the hands
of her future bridegroom.
The indignation of Madame de Verneuil was unbounded
when she ascertained that she had for ever lost all hope of ascending the
throne of France; but it is nevertheless certain that she was enabled to
dissimulate sufficiently to render her society indispensable to the King, and
to accept with a good grace the equivocal honours of her position. Her brother,
the Comte d'Auvergne, was, however, less placable; he had always affected to
believe in the validity of her claim upon the King, and his naturally restless
and dissatisfied character led him, under the pretext of avenging her wrongs,
to enter into a conspiracy which had recently been formed against the person of
the King, whom certain malcontents sought to deprive alike of his throne and of
his liberty, and to supersede in his sovereignty by one of the Princes of the
Blood. Among others, the Duke of Savoy, who, during the
troubles of 1588, had taken possession of the marquisate of Saluzzo, which he
refused to restore, was said to be implicated in this plot; and he was the more
strongly suspected as it had been ascertained that he had constant
communication with several individuals at the French Court,
and that he had tampered with certain of the nobles; among others, with the Duc
de Biron. He had also succeeded in attaching to his
interests the Duchesse de Beaufort; and had, during her lifetime, proposed to
the King to visit France in person in order to effect a compromise, which he
anticipated that, under her auspices, he should be enabled to conclude with
advantage to himself. Henry had accepted the proposition; and although after
the death of the Duchess, M. de Savoie endeavoured to rescind his resolution,
he found himself so far compromised that he was compelled to carry out his
original purpose; and accordingly, on the 1st of December, he left Chambéry
with a train of twelve hundred horse, accompanied by the greater part of his
ministers, his nobles, and the most magnificent members of his Court. As the French King had issued orders that he should, in every
city through which he passed, be received with regal honours, he did not reach
Fontainebleau until the 14th of the same month, where he arrived just as his
royal host was mounting his horse to meet him. As he approached Henry he bent
his knee, but the King immediately raised and embraced him
with great cordiality; and during the seven days which he spent at
Fontainebleau the Court was one scene of splendour and dissipation. Balls,
jousts, and hunting-parties succeeded each other without intermission, but the
Duke soon perceived that the monarch had no intention of taking the initiative
on the errand which had brought him to France, a caution from which he justly
augured no favourable result to his expedition; while on
his side the subject was never alluded to by Sully or any of the other
ministers without his giving the most unequivocal proofs of his determination
to retain the marquisate
Meanwhile
his conduct was governed by the most subtle policy; his bearing towards the
monarch was at once deferential and familiar; his liberality was unbounded; and
his courtesy towards the great nobles and the officials of the Court untiring
and dignified.
On the
eighth day after the arrival of the Duke at Fontainebleau the Court removed to
Paris, where Henry had caused apartments to be prepared for his royal guest in
the Louvre; but M. de Savoie, after offering his acknowledgments for the
proffered honour, preferred to take up his abode in the house of his relative
the Duc de Nemours, near the Augustine convent. The whole of the Christmas
festival was spent in a succession of amusements as splendid as those with
which he had been originally received; and on the 1st of
January 1600, when it is customary in France to exchange presents, the Duke
repaid all this magnificence by a profusion almost unprecedented. To the King,
his offering was two large bowls and vases of crystal so exquisitely worked as
to be considered unrivalled; while he tendered to Madame de Verneuil, who did
the honours of the royal circle, and whom he was anxious to attach to his
interests, a valuable collection of diamonds and other precious stones. Nor did
his liberality end here, for there was not a great noble of the Court who was
not enriched by his munificence save the Duc de Biron; who, from policy,
declined to accept some magnificent horses which were sent to him in the name
of the Prince; and Sully, who, upon being presented by M. des Alimes, one of
the principal Savoyard lords, with a snuff-box enriched with diamonds, and
estimated at fifteen thousand crowns, containing a portrait of M. de Savoie, at
once perceived that the costly offering was intended as a bribe, and declined
to receive it, declaring that he had made a vow never to accept any present of
value except from his own sovereign.
The
King responded to the liberality of his guest by the gift of a diamond star, of
which the centre brilliant covered a miniature of Madame de Verneuil, together
with other valuable jewels; but the profusion of the Duke was so great that his
whole outlay upon this occasion was estimated at no less a sum than four
hundred thousand crowns; and when it was believed that he
must have exhausted his resources, he still further astonished the French
nobles by appearing at a ball which he gave to the Court in a dress entirely
covered with precious stones, and valued at a far higher sum than that which he
had expended.
That
this profusion had been dictated by policy rather than by generosity was
sufficiently apparent; and whatever effect it might have produced upon the
minds of the courtiers, M. de Savoie was soon made aware that it had been
utterly powerless over the resolution of the sovereign; for he no sooner
ventured to allude to the subject of his journey, than Henry with his
accustomed frankness declared his determination to enforce his right to the
marquisate which his guest had usurped; an assurance which determined the Duke
to request that a commission might be appointed to examine their conflicting
claims.
His
demand was conceded; commissioners were appointed on both sides, and the
question was rigidly discussed; propositions were mutually made and mutually
declined; until finally the King, by the advice of his council, despatched
Sebastian Zamet to the Duke of Savoy, with full authority to negotiate either a restitution or an exchange; giving him
at the same time three months in which to consult his nobility, and to decide
upon the one measure or the other.
So
skilfully did the envoy perform his mission, that he ultimately succeeded in
inducing M. de Savoie to propose to the King, as compensation for the contested
marquisate, the cession of certain towns and citadels named in a treaty which
was signed by the two contracting parties; and this arrangement had no sooner
been concluded than the court resumed its career of gaiety; nor was it until
the 7th of March that the Duke finally took leave of his royal entertainer, and
commenced his homeward journey.
Meanwhile
the Court poets had not been idle; and while the Duke of Savoy had recognized
the supremacy of the favourite by costly gifts, her favour had been courted by
the most popular of those time-serving bards who were accustomed to make their
talents subservient to their interests; nor is it the least
remarkable feature of the age that the three most fashionable rhymesters in the
circles of gallantry were all ecclesiastics, and that the charms and virtues of Henriette d'Entragues were celebrated by a cardinal, a bishop, and an abbé!
Her
most palmy days were, however, at an end, for hitherto she had reigned
undisputed mistress of the King's affections, and she was henceforward to hold
at best a divided sway. On the 5th of May, M. d'Alincourt arrived at
Fontainebleau from Florence, with the intelligence that, on the 25th of the
preceding month, the contract of marriage between the French monarch and the
Princesse Marie de Medicis had been signed at the Palazzo Pitti, in the
presence of Carlo-Antonio Putéi, Archbishop of Pisa, and the Duke of Bracciano;
and that the bride brought as her dowry six hundred thousand crowns, besides
jewels and other ornaments of value. He further stated that a Te Deum had been
chanted, both in the Palazzo Pitti and at the church of the Annunciation at
Florence; after which the Princesse Marie, declared Queen of France, had dined
in public, seated under a dais above her uncle; and at the conclusion of the
repast, the Duke of Bracciano had presented the water to wash her hands, and
the Marquis de Sillery, the French Ambassador, the napkin upon which she wiped
them. Having made his report, and delivered his despatches, M. d'Alincourt
placed in the hands of the King a portrait of Marie richly set
in brilliants, which had been entrusted to him for that purpose; and the lover
of Madame de Verneuil found himself solemnly betrothed.
This
fact, however, produced little visible effect upon the Court circle, and still
less upon the King himself; and after having afforded a subject of conversation
for a brief interval, it soon appeared to be entirely forgotten amid the more
absorbing matters of interest by which the minds of the different individuals
were severally engrossed. From policy, the betrothal was never mentioned by the
courtiers in the presence of Madame de Verneuil, a restraint which caused it to
fall into partial oblivion; and the rather as the month of June had arrived
without any demonstration on the part of the Duke of Savoy, who had availed
himself of every possible pretext to evade the fulfilment of the treaty of
Paris; and who had rendered it evident that force of arms alone could compel
him to resign the usurped marquisate. Even the monarch himself became at length
convinced of the impolicy of further delay, and resolved forthwith to advance
to Lyons, whither Sully had already despatched both troops and artillery. M. de Savoie had, however, during his sojourn in France, made
many partisans, who urged upon their sovereign the expediency of still
affording to the Duke an opportunity of redeeming his pledge; and Henry, even
against his better reason, listened the more complacently to their counsels
that Madame de Verneuil was about to become a mother, and
he shrank from the idea of separation from her at such a moment. Thus he
delayed his journey until Sully, who was not long in discovering the cause of
his inaction, renewed his expostulations with still greater emphasis, and
finally induced him to make preparations for an immediate departure. As the
hour arrived, however, he again wavered, until at length he declared his
determination to be accompanied by the Marquise; but this arrangement was, from
her state of health, soon found to be impossible; and after considerable
difficulty he was persuaded to consent that she should await his return at
Monceaux, whither he himself conducted her, with renewed protestations that he
loved her well enough to resign even then the alliance with Marie de Medicis,
and to make her his wife. This was precisely what the
favourite still hoped to accomplish. She was aware of the extraordinary
influence which she had obtained over the mind of her royal lover, and she
looked forward to the birth of a son as the one thing necessary to her success.
Accordingly, before she suffered the King to depart, she compelled him to
promise that he would be near her during her illness; and then she reluctantly
saw him set forth to Moulins, where he was detained for a fortnight, his
council not being able to agree as to the expediency of the campaign.
There
can be little doubt that under other circumstances Henry would have found means
to bring them to a decision; but as he was enabled during
their discussions to receive daily intelligence of the Marquise, he submitted
quietly to a detention which seconded his own wishes.
At
length the period arrived in which Madame de Verneuil was about to enforce her
claim upon the tenderness of her royal lover, and already he spoke of returning
for a while to Monceaux; when a violent storm, and the falling of a thunderbolt
in the very chamber of the invalid, so affected her nervous system, that she
lost the infant upon which she had based all her anticipations of greatness;
and although the King hastened to condole with her upon her disappointment, and
even remained in constant attendance upon her sick-bed until she was partially
convalescent, the great link between them was necessarily broken; a fact of
which she was so well aware that her temper gave way beneath the trial, and she
bitterly upbraided her royal lover for the treachery of which she declared him
to have been guilty in permitting his ministers to effect his betrothal with
Marie de Medicis, when she had herself, as she affirmed, sacrificed everything
for his sake. In order to pacify her anger, the King loaded her with new gifts,
and consoled her by new protestations; nor did his weakness end there, for so
soon as her health was sufficiently re-established, he wrote to entreat of her
to join him at Lyons; although not before she had addressed to him a most
submissive letter, in which she assured him that her whole happiness depended upon his affection, and that as she had too late become aware
that his high rank had placed an inseparable barrier between them, and that her
own insignificance precluded the possibility of her ever becoming his wife, she
at least implored of him to leave to her the happiness of still remaining his
mistress, and to continue to feel for her the same tenderness, with so many
demonstrations of which he had hitherto honoured her.
This
was an appeal to which the enamoured monarch willingly responded, and the nature
of her reception at Lyons tended still further to restore peace between them.
What the Lyonnese had previously done in honour of Diane de Poitiers, when, as
the accredited and official mistress of Henri II, she visited their
city, they repeated in honour of Madame de Verneuil, whose entrance within
their gates was rather that of a crowned queen than a fallen woman; and this
triumph was shortly afterwards augmented by her reception of the standards
taken by the King at Charbonnières, which he caused to be conveyed to her as a
proof of his devotion, and which she, with ostentatious pomp, transferred to
the church of St. Just.
From
Lyons, Henry proceeded to Grenoble, still accompanied by Madame de Verneuil,
the Duke of Savoy having at length declared that rather than submit to the
conditions which had been proposed to him, he would incur the hazard of a war.
In consequence of this decision, immediate measures were
taken by the French generals to march upon Saluzzo; and the Maréchal de Biron,
although already strongly suspected of disaffection to his sovereign, having
collected a body of troops, possessed himself of the whole territory of
Brescia. The town of Bourg was stormed by Du Terrail, and
taken, with the exception of the citadel; while M. de Créquy
entered Savoy, and made himself master of the city of
Montmelian, although the castle still held out.
Henry
then resolved to enter Savoy in person; and having once more taken leave of the
Marquise, who returned to Lyons, he marched upon Chambéry, which immediately
capitulated; and thence he proceeded to possess himself of the citadels of
Conflans and Charbonnières, which had hitherto been deemed impregnable. M. de
Savoie, who had confided in the strength of his fortresses of Montmelian and
Bourg, and who had continued to affect the most perfect indifference to the
approach of the French troops, now became seriously alarmed, and made instant
preparations to relieve the Marquis de Brandis, the governor of the former
fortress, for which purpose he applied to Spain for assistance. This was,
however, refused; and both places fell into the hands of the French monarch,
who then successively took Chablais and Faussigny; after which he sat down
before the fortress of St. Catherine, which the Savoyards had erected to overawe
the Genevese.
During
the siege of Fort St. Catherine, intelligence reached the King of the arrival
of the young Queen at Marseilles; and meanwhile the gratification of the Pope
at an alliance so flattering to his pride had been of essential benefit to the
French interest, as he had, in consequence, made no demonstration in favour of
the Duke of Savoy, although it was not entirely without anxiety that he had
seen the army of Henry approach his own dominions; but,
satisfied that at such a conjuncture the French monarch would attempt no
aggressive measures against Italy, he had consented to remain passive.
Madame
de Verneuil was no sooner apprised of the landing of Marie de Medicis than,
after having vehemently reproached the King for a haste which she designated as
insulting to herself, she made instant preparations for her return to Paris,
resolutely refusing to assist at the ceremonious reception of the new Queen;
nor could the expostulations of Henry, even accompanied, as they were, by the
most profuse proofs of his continued affection, induce her to rescind her
determination. To every representation of the monarch she replied by reminding
him that out of all the high nobles of his Court, he had seen fit to select the
Duc de Bellegarde as the bearer of his marriage-procuration to the Grand Duke
of Florence--thus indemnifying him to the utmost of his power for the
mortification to which he had been subjected by the royal refusal to permit him
to act personally as his proxy; while she assured him that she was not blind to
the fact that this selection was meant as an additional affront to herself, in
order to avenge the preposterous notion which his Majesty had adopted, that,
after having previously paid his court to the Duchesse de Beaufort during her
period of power, the Duke had since transferred his affections to the Marquise
de Verneuil.
Under
all circumstances, this accusation was most unfortunate and ill-judged, and
should in itself have sufficed to open the eyes of the
monarch, who had, assuredly, had sufficient experience in female tactics to be
quite aware that where a woman is compelled mentally to condemn herself, she is
the most anxious to transfer her fault to others, and to blame where she is
conscious of being open to censure. Madame de Verneuil had not, however, in
this instance at all miscalculated the extent of her influence over the royal
mind; as, instead of resenting an impertinence which was well fitted to arouse
his indignation, Henry weakly condescended to justify himself, and by this unmanly
concession laid the foundation of all his subsequent domestic discomfort.
Madame
de Verneuil returned to Paris, surrounded by adulation and splendour, and the
King was left at liberty to bestow some portion of his thoughts upon his
expected bride. It is probable, indeed, that the portrait of Marie presented to
him by the Grand Duchess had excited his curiosity and flattered his self-love;
for it was more than sufficiently attractive to command the attention of a
monarch even less susceptible to female beauty than himself. Marie was still in
the very bloom of life, having only just attained her twenty-fourth year; nor
could the King have forgotten that when, some time previously, her portrait had
been forwarded to the French Court together with that of the Spanish Infanta,
Gabrielle d'Estrées, then in the full splendour of her own surpassing
loveliness, had exclaimed as she examined them: “I should fear nothing from the
Spaniard, but the Florentine is dangerous”. From whatever
impulse he might act, however, it is certain that after the departure of the
favourite, Henry publicly expressed his perfect satisfaction with the marriage
which he had been induced to contract, and lost no time in
issuing his commands for the reception of his expected bride.
The Duc
de Bellegarde, Grand Equerry of France, had reached Livorno on the 20th of
September, accompanied by forty French nobles, all alike eager, by the
magnificence of their appearance and the chivalry of their deportment, to
uphold the honour of their royal master. Seven days subsequently, he entered
Florence, where he delivered his credentials to the Grand Duke, having been
previously joined by Antonio de Medicis with a great train of Florentine
cavaliers who had been sent to meet him; and the same evening he had an
interview with his new sovereign, to whom he presented the letters with which
he had been entrusted by the King.
On the
4th of October, the Cardinal Aldobrandini, the nephew and legate of the Pope,
who had already been preceded by the Duke of Mantua and the Venetian
Ambassador, arrived in his turn at Florence, in order to perform the ceremony
of the royal marriage. His Eminence was received at the gate of the city by the
Grand Duke in person, and made his entry on horseback under a canopy supported by
eight young Florentine nobles, preceded by all the
ecclesiastical and secular bodies; while immediately behind him followed
sixteen prelates, and fifty gentlemen of the first families in the duchy
bearing halberds. On reaching the church, the Cardinal dismounted, and thence,
after a brief prayer, he proceeded to the ducal palace. At the conclusion of
the magnificent repast which awaited him, the legate, in the presence of his
royal host, of the Dukes of Mantua and Bracciano, the Princes Juan and Antonio de
Medicis, and the Sieur de Bellegarde, announced to the young Queen the entire
satisfaction of the Sovereign-Pontiff at the union upon which he was about to
pronounce a blessing: to which assurance she replied with grace and dignity.
On the
morrow a high mass was celebrated by the Cardinal in the presence of the whole
Court; and during its solemnization he was seated under a canopy of cloth of
gold at the right-hand side of the altar, where a chair had been prepared for
him upon a platform raised three steps above the floor. He had no sooner taken
his place, than the Duc de Bellegarde, approaching the Princess (who occupied a
similar seat of honour, together with her uncle, at the opposite side of the
shrine), led her to the right hand of the legate; the Grand Duke at the same
time placing himself upon his left, and presenting to his Eminence the
procuration by which he was authorized to espouse his niece in the name of the
King. The document was then transferred to two of the attendant prelates, by
whom it was read aloud; and subsequently the authority
given by the Pope for the solemnization of the marriage was, in like manner,
made public. The remainder of the nuptial service was then performed amid
perpetual salvos of artillery. In the evening a splendid ball took place at the
palace, followed by a banquet, at which the new Queen occupied the upper seat,
having on her right the legate of his Holiness, the Duke of Mantua, and the
Grand Duke her uncle, who, in homage to her superior rank, ceded to her the place
of honour; and on her left, the Duchesses of Mantua, Tuscany, and Bracciano;
the Duke of Bracciano acting as equerry, and Don Juan, the brother of the Grand
Duke, as cup-bearer.
The
four following days were passed in a succession of festivities: hunting-parties,
jousts, tiltings at the ring, racing, and every other description of manly
sport occupying the hours of daylight, while the nights were devoted to balls
and ballets, in which the Florentine nobility vied with their foreign visitors
in every species of profusion and magnificence. Among other amusements, a
comedy in five acts was represented, on which the outlay was stated to have
amounted to the enormous sum of sixty thousand crowns.
At the
close of the Court festivals, the Cardinal Aldobrandini took his leave of the
distinguished party, and proceeded to Chambéry; but the Queen lingered with her
family until the 13th of the month, upon which day, accompanied by the Grand-Duchess her aunt, the Duchess of Mantua her sister, her
brother Don Antonio, the Duke of Bracciano, and the French Ambassador, she set
forth upon her journey to her new kingdom.
Without
being strictly beautiful, Marie de Medicis possessed a person at once pleasing
and dignified. All the pride of her Italian blood flashed from her large dark
eye, while the consciousness of her exalted rank lent a majesty to her
deportment which occasionally, however, in moments of irritation, degenerated
into haughtiness. Her intellect was quick and cultivated, but she was deficient
alike in depth of judgment and in strength of character. Amiable, and even
submissive in her intercourse with her favourites, she was vindictive and
tyrannical towards those who fell under the ban of her displeasure; and with
all the unscrupulous love of intrigue common to her race, she was nevertheless
unguarded in her confidences, unstable in her purposes, and short-sighted in
her policy. In temper she was hot, impatient, and irascible; in temperament,
jealous and exacting; while her vanity and love of power perpetually made her
the tool of those who sought to profit by her defects.
It is
probable that throughout the whole of Europe no princess could have been
selected less constituted to make the happiness of a sovereign who, like Henri
IV, had not scrupled to avow to his minister that he dreaded domestic
dissension far more than foreign warfare; but who at the same time
did not hesitate, by his own irregularities, to arouse all the worst passions
in the bosom of an outraged wife.
On the
17th of October the royal bride reached Livorno, where she made her entry in
great pomp, and was received with the most enthusiastic acclamations; and on
the following day she embarked in the state-galley of the Grand-Duke, one of
the most magnificent vessels which had ever floated upon the blue waters of the
Mediterranean. Seventy feet in length, it was impelled by fifty-four oars, and
was richly gilded from stem to stern; the borders of the poop being inlaid with
a profusion of lapis-lazuli, mother-of-pearl, ivory, and ebony. It was, moreover,
ornamented by twenty large circles of iron interlaced, and studded with topaz,
emeralds, pearls, and other precious stones; while the splendour of the
interior perfectly corresponded with this gorgeous framework. In the principal
cabin, which was hung and carpeted with cloth of gold, a seat of state had been
arranged for the Queen, opposite to which were suspended the shields of France
and of the house of Medicis side by side; the fleurs-de-lis of the former being
composed of large diamonds, and the device of the latter represented by five
immense rubies and a sapphire, with an enormous pearl above, and a fine emerald
in the centre. This fairy vessel was followed by five
other galleys furnished by the Pope, and six appertaining to the Grand Duke;
and thus escorted Marie de Medicis reached Malta, where she
was joined by another fleet which awaited her off that island; but, despite all
this magnificence, the voyage of the Queen was anything but propitious, for
after arriving at Esperies, where the authorities of Genoa proffered to her,
with great respect, the attendance of their own flotilla, she had no sooner
reached Portofino than she was compelled to anchor for several days from stress
of weather. Unaccustomed as she was, however, to this mode of travelling, the
high-spirited young Queen resisted all the entreaties of those about her, who
were anxious that she should land until the wind had moderated, simply
remarking that the King had given no directions to that effect;
and retaining, amid all the dismay and discomfort by which she was surrounded,
not only her self-command, but even her cheerfulness.
Meanwhile,
Henry had no sooner ascertained the approach of his royal bride, than he
forthwith despatched to welcome her, the Constable, the Chancellor, and the
Dues de Nemours, de Ventadour, and de Guise; and these princes were followed on
the ensuing day by the Cardinals de Joyeuse, de Gondy, and
de Sourdis; after which he intimated his pleasure to all the several princesses
and great ladies of the Court who were then sojourning at Grenoble in order to
be near the royal army, that they should immediately set forth to pay their
respects to their new sovereign, and remain in attendance upon her person until
her entry into Paris; a command which was so literally obeyed, that three days
afterwards the city was utterly stripped of the aspect of gaiety and splendour
which had rendered it for a time an epitome of the capital itself.
On the
28th of October the Queen once more put to sea, and two days subsequently she entered
the port of Toulon, where she landed under a canopy of cloth of gold, with her
fine hair flowing over her shoulders. There she remained
for two days, in order to recover from the effects of her voyage; after which
she re-embarked and proceeded to Marseilles, where she arrived on the evening
of Friday the 3rd of November. A gallery had been constructed from the port to
the grand entrance of the palace in which apartments had been prepared for her;
and on stepping from her galley, she was welcomed by the Chancellor, who announced to her the orders that he had received from
the King relative to her reception, and presented to her Majesty the
Connétable--Duc de Montmorency, and the Ducs de Nemours and de Ventadour. The consuls and
citizens then tendered to her upon their knees the keys of the city in gold,
linked together by a chain of the same precious metal; after which ceremony,
the young Queen was conducted to the palace under a rich canopy, preceded by
the Constable, surrounded by the Cardinals and prelates who had been sent to
welcome her, and followed by the wife of the Chancellor, and the other great
ladies of the Court. So long a delay having occurred between her betrothal and
her marriage, the Princess had been enabled to render herself mistress of the
language of her new country; and the satisfaction of the courtiers was
consequently undisguised when she offered her acknowledgments for the courtesy
of her reception in their own tongue; a gratification which was
enhanced by the fact that Marie had made no effort to assimilate her costume to
that of the French Court, but appeared in a robe of cloth of gold on a blue
ground, fashioned in the Italian taste, and with her fine fair hair simply
braided and utterly destitute of powder; a circumstance
which had already sufficed to awaken the jealousy of the French princesses.
On the
following day the Queen held a reception in the great hall of the palace, and
graciously listened, surrounded by her august relatives, to the eloquent and
celebrated harangue of M. du Vair, the president of the
Parliament of Provence; to which she had no sooner replied than she hastened to
examine from the balcony a sumptuous state-carriage presented to her by the
King, and then retired to her own apartments, attended by her personal suite.
Of the royal vehicle in question Cayet gives a minute description, which we
transcribe as affording an accurate idea of the taste displayed in that age in
the decoration of coaches: “It was”, he says, “covered with brown velvet and trimmed with silver tinsel on the outside; and within it was
lined with carnation-coloured velvet, embroidered with gold and silver. The
curtains were of carnation damask, and it was drawn by four gray horses”. These royal conveyances were, however, far less convenient
than showy, being cumbrous and ungraceful in form, rudely suspended upon
leather straps, and devoid of windows, the use of glass not becoming known
until the succeeding reign.
On the
morrow during her toilette the Queen received the principal ladies of the city,
who had the honour of accompanying her to the temporary chapel which adjoined
the principal saloon, where a high mass was performed with all the magnificent
accessories of which it was susceptible; the numerous prelates and high
dignitaries of the Church then assembled at Marseilles assisting at its
celebration. The subsequent days were spent in courtly festivities and a survey
of the noble city, where the ponderous and gilded coach of the royal bride was
followed by the wondering acclamations of the dazzled and delighted populace,
probably little less dazzled and delighted than herself; for Marie de Medicis,
young and ambitious, could not but be forcibly struck by the contrast of her
present splendour with the comparative obscurity of the Court to which she had
been previously habituated.
On the
16th of the month, however, she experienced her first trial, in a separation
from the Grand Duchess her aunt, and the Duchess of Mantua her
sister, who then took their leave, and returned to Florence in the galleys
which were still awaiting them; and they had no sooner left the port than the
Queen, followed by the brilliant train by which she had been surrounded since
her arrival in France, proceeded to Aix, where she remained two days; and on
the morning of the third she made her entry into Avignon escorted by two
thousand horsemen, who met her before she reached the city, and officiated as a
guard of honour. Every street through which she passed was richly decorated;
tapestry and velvet hangings were suspended from the windows, and draped the
balconies; triumphal arches and platforms, splendidly decorated and covered
with devices and emblems appropriate to the occasion, were to be seen on all
sides; and finally, in the great square of the city, her progress was arrested
by a stately procession of ecclesiastics, in whose name she was harangued by
François Suarés; who having in the course of his address
expressed his ardent hope that before the anniversary of her entry into Avignon
she might give a Dauphin to France, she momentarily interrupted by exclaiming
energetically: “I will pray to God to grant me that grace!”
The
royal train then again moved forward, and Marie took
possession of the stately abode which had been prepared for her, amid the
firing of musketry, the pealing of bells, and the shouts of the excited people,
in whom the affability and beauty of their new Queen had aroused the most
ardent feelings of loyalty and hope.
On the
following day the corporation of the city presented to their young sovereign a
hundred and fifty medals of gold, some of which bore on their obverse her own
profile, and others that of the King, their reverse being in every case a
representation of the town by which the offering was made; and on the ensuing
evening she attended a banquet given in her honour by the Papal vice-legate at
the palace of Rouvre, where at the conclusion of the ball, as she was about to
retire with her suite, the tapestry hangings of the saloon were suddenly
withdrawn, and revealed a magnificent collation served upon three separate
tables. Among other costly delicacies, the guests were startled by the variety
and profusion of the ornamental sugar-work which glistened like jewellery in
the blaze of the surrounding tapers; for not only were there representations of
birds, beasts, and fishes, but also fifty statues, each two palms in height,
presenting in the same frail material the effigies of pagan deities and
celebrated emperors. So marvellous indeed had been the outlay of the prelate on
this one luxury, that at the close of the repast three hundred baskets of the
most delicate confectionery, consisting chiefly of fruits skilfully imitated in
sugar, were distributed among the fair and astonished
guests.
During
her sojourn at Avignon Marie received from the hands of M. de Rambure, whom the
King had despatched from Savoy for that purpose, not only his renewed
assurances of welcome, but also the costly gifts which he had prepared for her.
“After the departure of the princes and cardinals”, says the quaint old chronicler,
“his Majesty desired my attendance in his chamber, and I had no sooner entered
than he exclaimed: ‘Friend Rambure, you must go and meet our future Queen, whom
you must overtake two days before her arrival at Lyons; welcome her in my name,
and present to her this letter and these two caskets of gems, together with
these chests containing all the materials necessary for her first
state-toilette; and having done this, bring me back her answer without delay.
You will find a relay of horses awaiting you at every second league, both going
and coming, in order that you may use all speed, and give me time to reach
Lyons so soon as I shall know that she is to be there’.” This order could not,
however, be implicitly obeyed, as the courtier was only enabled on his return
to the King's presence to inform him that the Princess would enter Lyons that
very day; upon which Henry instantly ordered post-horses, and accompanied by
Sully, Rambure, and ten more of his favourite nobles, he commenced his journey,
making, as he rode along, a thousand inquiries relative to
his young wife, her deportment, and her retinue; asking with the utmost
earnestness how she had received the presents which he had sent, and finally
demanding of M. de Rambure if he were satisfied with the diamond ring that she
had presented to him, a question which his messenger was careful to answer in
the affirmative, at the same time assuring his Majesty that although he valued
the jewel itself at a hundred pistoles, he prized it still more as the gift of
so illustrious a Princess and Queen.
On the
3rd of December the Queen reached La Guillotière, one of the faubourgs of
Lyons, where she passed the night; and on the following morning she proceeded
to Lamothe, where she assisted at the mass, and subsequently dined. At the
close of the repast, all the several civic corporations paid their respects to
their new sovereign, the Chancellor replying to their harangue in the name of
the Queen; who, immediately that they had retired, ascended her carriage, and entered
the city gates in the same state, and amid the same acclamations which had
accompanied her entry into Avignon. The suave majesty of her demeanour, the
magnificence of her apparel, and the flush of health and happiness which glowed
upon her countenance, filled the people with enthusiasm.
As her
ponderous coach with its heavy curtains drawn back crushed beneath its ungainly
wheels the flowers and branches that had been strewn upon her
path, she showed herself in all her imperial beauty, dividing her smiles
between the richly-attired groups who thronged the windows and balconies and
the tumultuous multitude who ran shouting and gesticulating at her side; and
the popular enthusiasm was as great as though in her person each individual
beheld an earnest of the future prosperity and happiness of the nation over
which she had been called to reign. Triumphal arches, floating draperies, and
emblematic devices were scattered over the city; and thus welcomed and
escorted, she reached the cathedral, where an address was delivered by M. de
Bellièvre, and a Te Deum was solemnly performed.
In the
course of the afternoon the young Queen received M. de Roquelaure, who had been despatched by the monarch to announce that he
was already on his way to Lyons; and her interview with this new messenger had no sooner terminated than she was
invited to pass into the great saloon, where several costly vases of gold and
silver were presented to her in the name of the citizens; after which she was
permitted to take the repose which she so greatly needed while awaiting the
arrival of the King.
Meanwhile
Henry, who was not expected until the 10th of the month, reached Lyons on the
previous evening just as the Queen had taken her seat at the supper-table; and
being anxious to form his own judgment of her person and deportment before he
declared his identity, he entered the apartment in an undress military uniform,
trusting in this disguise to pass unnoticed among the throng of attendants. The
Chancellor had, however, hurriedly seized an opportunity of intimating to Marie
the arrival of her royal consort; while the King had no sooner crossed the
threshold than he was recognized by several of the nobles; who, by hastily
stepping aside to enable him to pass, created a movement which the quick eye of
the Princess instantly detected, and of whose cause she did not remain one
instant in doubt. Nevertheless, she betrayed no sign of her consciousness of
the monarch's presence; while he, on his side, aware that all further incognito
had become impossible, hastily retired.
When he
had withdrawn, the Queen instantly ceased eating; and, as each succeeding dish
was presented to her, silently motioned its removal. Thus the remainder of the
repast was rapidly terminated; and at its close, she rose
and retired to her private apartments, which she had scarcely reached when a
loud stroke upon the door of the ante-room, so authoritatively given that she
was at once made aware of the approach of her royal consort, caused her to rise
from the arm-chair in which she was seated, and to advance to the centre of the
floor. She had scarcely done so when the tapestry hanging was drawn aside, and
M. le Grand entered, followed by the impatient monarch. In
an instant she was at his feet, but in the next she found herself warmly and
affectionately welcomed; nor was it until he had spent half an hour in
conversation with her, that the King, weary and travel-worn as he was, withdrew
to partake of the refreshment which had been prepared for him. On the following
afternoon their Majesties, occupying the same carriage, attended vespers with
great pomp at the Abbey of Aisnay; after which they passed the ensuing days in
a succession of the most splendid festivities, at which the whole of the Court
were present (the cost of those of the 13th being entirely at the expense of
the monarch, in celebration of his birthday), until the arrival of the Cardinal
Aldobrandini, whom the King had invited from Chambéry to be present at the
public celebration of his nuptials, and who entered the city in state, when
preparations were immediately made for the august rite upon which he was to
confer his benediction.
At the
close of a state dinner on the morrow (17th of December),
the royal couple proceeded, accompanied by all the princes and great nobles of
the Court, to the church of St. John; where the Papal legate, surrounded by the
Cardinals de Joyeuse, de Gondy, and
de Sourdis, together with the prelates then residing in
the city, were already awaiting them. The royal bride retained her Tuscan costume,
which was overlaid with the splendid jewels that formed so considerable a
portion of her dowry; the most conspicuous among them being an ornament serving
as a stomacher, which immediately obtained the name of “the Queen’s Brilliant”.
This costly decoration consisted of an octagonal framework of large diamonds,
divided into sections by lesser stones, each enclosing a
portrait in enamel of one of the princes of her house, beneath which hung three
immense pear-shaped pearls. The King was attired in a vest and haut-de-chausses
of white satin, elaborately embroidered with silk and gold, and a black cape; and wore upon his head the velvet toque that had been
introduced at the French Court by Henri III, to which a string of costly pearls
was attached by a star of diamonds. Nor were the ladies and nobles of the royal
retinue very inferior in the splendour of their appearance even to the monarch
and his bride; feathers waved and jewels flashed on every side; silks and
velvets swept the marble floor; and the brilliant uniforms of the royal guard
were seen in startling contrast with the uncovered shoulders of the Court
dames, which were laden with gems; while, to complete the gorgeousness of the
picture, the high altar blazed with light, and wrought gold, and precious
stones; and the magnificent robes of the prelates and priests who surrounded
the shrine, formed a centre worthy of the rich framework by which it was
enclosed.
At the
termination of the ceremony, gold and silver coins were thrown to the crowd,
and the procession returned to the palace in the same order as it had reached
the church.
Great,
however, as was the satisfaction which Henri IV had publicly expressed at his
marriage, and lavish as were the encomiums that he had passed upon the grace
and beauty of his wife, it is, nevertheless, certain that
he by no means permitted this legitimate admiration to interfere with his
passion for Madame de Verneuil, to whom he constantly despatched couriers,
charged with both letters and presents; and whom he even permitted to speak of
the Queen in her replies in a disrespectful manner. But the crowning proof of
the inequality of the struggle which was about to ensue between the wife and
the mistress, was the departure of the King from Lyons on the 18th of December,
the second day after his marriage; when, announcing his
intention of travelling post to Paris, he left the Queen and her suite to
follow at their leisure. That the haughty spirit of Marie de Medicis was stung
by this abrupt abandonment, and that her woman-pride revolted, will admit of no
doubt; nor is it wonderful that her indignation and jealousy should have been
aroused when she discovered that, instead of pursuing his way to the capital,
where the public arrangements necessitated by the peace with Savoy, which he
had just concluded, required his presence, the King had embarked at Roanne, and
then proceeded from Briare, where he landed, to Fontainebleau, whence on the
morrow, after dining at Villeneuve, he had travelled at once to Verneuil, and
remained there three days before he entered Paris. Nor even after his arrival
in the capital was his conduct such as to reassure her delicacy; for
Bassompierre has left it upon record that the newly-wedded sovereign took up
his abode with M. de Montglat, at the priory of St.
Nicolas-du-Louvre, where he constantly entertained ladies at supper, as well as
several of his confidential courtiers.
So
singular and insulting a commencement of her married life was assuredly well
calculated to alarm the dignity of the Tuscan Princess; and even brief as had
been her residence in France, she had already several individuals about her
person who did not suffer her to remain in ignorance of the movements of her
royal consort; while, unhappily for her own peace, her Italian followers--revolted
by an indifference on the part of the monarch which they considered as an
insult to their mistress--instead of endeavouring to allay the irritation which
she did not attempt to conceal, exasperated her feelings by the vehemence of
their indignation. It was indeed but too manifest that the favourite retained
all her influence; and the arrangements which had been formally made for the
progress of the Queen to the capital involved so much delay, that it was not
possible for her to remain blind to the fact that they had been organised with
the view of enabling the monarch to enjoy uninterruptedly for a time the
society of his mistress. In consequence of these perpetual stoppages on the
road, the harangues to which she was constrained to listen, and the dreary
ceremonies to which she was condemned, it was not until the 1st of February
1601 that Marie de Medicis reached Nemours, where she was met by the King, who
conducted her to Fontainebleau, at which palace the royal
couple made a sojourn of five or six days; and, finally, on the 9th of the
month, the young Queen entered Paris, where the civic authorities were anxious
to afford to her a magnificent state reception; a purpose which was, however,
negatived by the monarch, who alleged as his reason the enormous outlay that
they had previously made upon similar occasions, and who commanded that the
ceremony should be deferred. Whatever may have been the
real motive of Henry for exhibiting this new slight towards his royal bride, it
is certain that the partisans of Marie did not fail to attribute it to the
malevolence of Madame de Verneuil; and thus another subject of animosity was
added to the list.
Under
these circumstances, the Queen entered the metropolitan city of her new kingdom
without any of that pomp which had characterised her progress through the
provinces; and alighted at the residence of M. de Gondy,
where the Princesses and the principal ladies of the Court and city hastened to
pay their respects to her Majesty on her arrival.
It was
rumoured that one motive for the visit of the King to
Verneuil had been his anxiety to induce the insolent favourite (whom he
resolved to present to the Queen in order that she might be authorized to
maintain her place at Court) to treat her new sovereign with becoming respect;
and with a view to render her presentation as dignified as possible, he
commanded the Duchesse de Nemours to officiate as her
sponsor. The pride of Anne de Savoie revolted, however, against the function
which was assigned to her, and she ventured respectfully to intimate her
reluctance to undertake so onerous an office, alleging as her reason, that such
a measure on her part must inevitably deprive her of the confidence of her
royal mistress. Nevertheless the King insisted on her obedience;
and, accordingly, the mortified Duchess was compelled to lead the mistress of
the monarch into the circle, and to name her to the agitated and outraged
Queen. Marie de Medicis in this trying emergency was sustained by her Italian
blood; and although her lip quivered, she vouchsafed no other token of
displeasure; but after coldly returning the curtsey of the favourite, who was blazing with jewels and radiant with triumph, she
turned abruptly aside to converse with one of the Court ladies, leaving the
Marquise still standing before her, as though she had suddenly become
unconscious of her existence. Nor did the Duchesse de Nemours receive a more
gracious welcome when, having ventured to interpose in the conversation, she
sought the eye of the Queen; for that eye was instantly averted, and she became
aware that she had in truth incurred the displeasure which she had so justly
apprehended.
But
although the high-born and exemplary Duchess shrank from the anger of her young
sovereign, the parvenue Marquise was far from feeling equally abashed.
With a steady step, and a proud carriage she advanced a pace nearer to Marie,
and in her turn took up the thread of the discourse; nor did the haughtiness of
the Queen's deportment disturb her serenity for a moment. The great fascination
of Madame de Verneuil existed, as we have already remarked, in her
extraordinary wit, and the vivacity of her conversation; while so ably did she
on this occasion profit by her advantage, that the disgust of Marie was
gradually changed into wonder; and when, at the close of one of her most
brilliant sallies, the insolent favourite even carried her audacity so far as
to address her royal mistress personally, the Queen was startled into a reply. She soon, however, recovered her self-possession; and pleading fatigue, broke up the circle by retiring to her own
apartments.
The
mortification of Madame de Nemours, whose highest ambition had been to secure
the affection of her new sovereign, and whose pride had been sorely wounded by
the undignified office that she had been compelled to fulfil, had not, however,
yet reached its culminating point; for as on the approach of the King, who was
in his turn preparing to withdraw, she awaited some acknowledgment of the
submission with which she had obeyed his commands, she was startled to see a
frown gather upon his brow as their eyes met; and still more so to hear herself
rebuked for the ungracious manner in which she had performed her task; an
exhibition of ill-will to which, as he averred, Madame de Verneuil was solely
indebted for the coldness of her reception.
The
Duchess curtseyed in silence; and Henry, without any other salutation, slowly
pursued his way to the ante-room, followed by the officers of his household.
On the
12th of the month the Queen changed her residence, and took up her abode in the
house of Zamet, where she was to remain until the Louvre
was prepared for her reception, a precaution which Henry had utterly neglected;
and on the 15th she at length found herself established in the palace which had
been opened to her with so much apparent reluctance. On the
morrow Marie appeared in the costume of the French Court, with certain modifications which at once became popular. Like those by whom she
was now surrounded, she wore her bosom considerably exposed, but her back and
shoulders were veiled by a deep ruff which immediately obtained the name of the
Medicis, and which bore a considerable resemblance to a similar decoration much
in vogue during the sixteenth century. The Medicis was composed of rich lace,
stiffened and supported by wire, and rose behind the neck to the enormous
height of twelve inches. The dress to which this ruff was attached was of the
most gorgeous description, the materials employed being either cloth of gold or
silver, or velvet trimmed with ermine; while chains of jewels confined it
across the breast, descending from thence to the waist, where they formed a
chatelaine reaching to the feet. Nor did the young Queen even hesitate to
sacrifice to the prejudices of her new country the magnificent hair which had
excited so much astonishment on her arrival; but, in conformity with the taste
of the French Court, instead of suffering it, as she had previously done, to
flow loosely over her shoulders, or to display its luxuriant braids like a succession
of glossy diadems around her head, she caused it to be closely cut, and
arranged in stiff rows of thickly-powdered curls.
Hitherto,
since the accession of Henri IV, the French Court had been
one of the least splendid in Europe; if, indeed, it could in reality have been
said to exist at all--a circumstance to which many causes had conduced. During
his separation from Marguerite, and before his second marriage, Henry had cared
little for the mere display of royalty. His previous poverty had accustomed him
to many privations as a sovereign, which he had sought to compensate by
self-indulgence as a man; and thus he made a home in the houses of the most
wealthy of his courtiers, such as Zamet, Gondy, and other dissipated and
convenient sycophants, with whom he could fling off the trammels of rank, and
indulge in the ruinously high play or other still more objectionable amusements
to which he was addicted. On the arrival of the Tuscan Princess, however, all
was changed; and, as though he sought to compensate to her by splendour and
display for the mortifications which awaited her private life, the King began
forthwith to revive the traditional magnificence of the Court.
Two
days after their arrival at the Louvre, Henry conducted his Queen to the royal
palaces of Fontainebleau and St. Germain; and on the 18th of the month, their
Majesties, attended by the whole of their respective households, and
accompanied by all the princes and great nobles then resident in the capital,
partook of a superb banquet at the Arsenal, given by Sully in honour of his
appointment as Grand-Master of the Artillery. At this festival the minister,
casting aside the gravity of his functions and the dignity
of his rank, and even forgetful, as it would appear, of the respect which he
owed to his new sovereign, not satisfied with pressing upon his guests the
costly viands that had been prepared for them, no sooner perceived that the
Italian ladies of her Majesty's suite were greatly attracted by the wine of
Arbois, of which they were partaking freely, quite unconscious of its potency,
than he caused the decanters containing the water that they mingled with it to
be refilled with another wine of equal strength, but so limpid as to be utterly
undistinguishable to the eye from the purer liquid for which it had been
substituted. The consequences of this cruel pleasantry may be inferred; the
heat, the movement, and the noise by which they were surrounded, together with
the increased thirst caused by the insidious draughts that they were unconsciously
imbibing, only induced the unfortunate Florentines to recur the more
perseveringly to their refreshing libations; and at length the results became
so apparent as to attract the notice of the King, who, already prepossessed
like Sully himself against the Queen's foreign retinue, laughed heartily at a
piece of treachery which he appeared to consider as the most amusing feature of
the entertainment.
During
the succeeding days several ballets were danced by the young nobles of the
Court; and a tournament, open to all comers, and at which the Queen presented
the prizes to the victors, was held at the Pont-au-Change.
At the close of Lent, the Duchesse de Bar, the King’s
sister, and her father-in-law, the Duc de Lorraine, arrived in France to
welcome the new sovereign; who, together with her consort, met them at
Monceaux, which estate, lately the property of la belle Gabrielle. Henry
had, after her arrival in the capital, presented to his wife. Here the Court
festivals were renewed; and had the heart and mind of Marie been at ease, her
life must have seemed rather like a brilliant dream than a sober reality. Such,
however, was far from being the case; for already the seeds of domestic discord
which had been sown before her marriage were beginning to germinate. Madame de
Verneuil was absent from the Court, and it was evident to every individual of
whom it was composed, that the King rather tolerated than shared in the
gaieties by which he was surrounded.
Bassompierre
relates that during this sojourn at Monceaux, while Henry was standing apart
with himself, M. de Sully, and the Chancellor, he suddenly informed them that
the favourite had confided to him a proposal of marriage which she had received
from a prince, on condition that she should be enabled to bring with her a
dowry of a hundred thousand crowns; and inquired if they would advise him to
sacrifice so large a sum for such a purpose. “Sire”, replied M. de Bellièvre, “I
am of opinion that you would do well to give the young lady the hundred
thousand crowns in order that she may secure the match”. And when Sully, with
his usual prudence, remarked that it was more easy to talk
of such an amount than to procure it, the Chancellor continued, heedless of the
interruption: “Nay more, Sire; I am equally of opinion that you had better give
two or even three hundred thousand, if less will not suffice. Such is my advice”.
It is
needless to say that it was not followed.
The
only amusement in which Henri IV indulged freely and earnestly was play; and he
was so reckless a gamester, that at no period has the Court of France been so
thoroughly demoralized by that frightful vice as throughout his reign. Not only
did his own example corrupt those immediately about him, but the rage for
gaming gradually pervaded all classes. The nobility staked their estates where
money failed; the citizens trafficked in cards and dice when they should have
been employed in commerce or in science; the very valets gambled in the halls,
and the pages in the ante-chambers. Play became the one great business of life
throughout the capital; and enormous sums, which changed the entire destiny of
families, were won and lost. One or two traits will suffice to prove this, and
we will then dismiss the subject. In the year 1607, M. de Bassompierre relates
in his Memoirs, that being unable from want of funds to purchase a new and
befitting costume in which to appear at the christening of the Dauphin, he
nevertheless gave an order to his tailor to prepare him a dress upon which the
outlay was to be fourteen thousand crowns; his actual
resources amounting at that moment only to seven hundred; and that he had no
sooner done so, than he proceeded with this trifling sum to the hotel of the
Duc d'Epernon, where he won five thousand; while before the completion of the
costume, he had not only gained a sufficient amount to discharge the debt thus
wantonly incurred, but, as he adds, with a self-gratulation worthy of a better
cause, “also a diamond-hilted sword of the value of five thousand crowns, and
five or six thousand more with which to amuse myself”.
In
1609, only one Year later, L'Etoile has left on record a still more astounding
and degrading fact. “In this month” (March), he says, “several academies of
play have been established, where citizens of all ages risk considerable sums,
a circumstance which proves not only an abundance of means, but also the
corruption of morals. The son of a merchant has been seen at one sitting to
lose sixty thousand crowns, although he had only inherited twenty thousand from
his father; and a man named Jonas has hired a house in the Faubourg St.
Germain, in order to hold one of these academies for a fortnight during the
fair, and for this house he has given fourteen hundred francs”.
D'Aubigny
and several other chroniclers bear similar testimony; and while Bassompierre
boasts of having won five hundred thousand pistoles in one year (each pistole
being little inferior in value to our own sovereign), he
nevertheless gives us plainly to understand that the King was a more reckless
gamester than himself, a fact corroborated moreover by Sully, who tells us in
his Memoirs, “The sums, at least the principal ones, that I employed on the
personal expenses of Henry, were twenty-two thousand pistoles, for which he
sent to me on the 18th of January 1609, and which he had lost at play; a
hundred thousand livres to one party, and fifty-one thousand to another,
likewise play debts, due to Edward Fernandès, a Portuguese. A thousand pistoles
for future play; Henry at first took only five hundred, but he subsequently
sent Beringhen for the remainder for a different purpose. I carried him a
thousand more for play when I went with the Chancellor to Fontainebleau”.
Only a
short time subsequent to the establishment of the Court at the Louvre, what
neither the desire and authority of the King himself nor the arts of his
mistress had been able to accomplish, was achieved through the agency of the
Queen's favourite attendant, Leonora Galigaï, who had
accompanied her royal mistress and foster-sister from Italy at the period of
her marriage. On the formation of the Queen's household, Henry had, among other
appointments, honoured Madame de Richelieu
with the post of Mistress of the Robes; but Marie de Medicis having decided on
bestowing this charge upon Leonora, refused to permit the Countess to perform
the duties of her office, and requested the King to transfer it to her Italian protégée.
This, however, was a concession to which Henry would not consent; and while the
Queen persisted in not permitting the services of Madame de Richelieu, her
royal bridegroom as pertinaciously negatived the appointment of parvenue lady of honour. The high-born countess bore the affront thus offered to her
with the complacent dignity befitting her proud station; but such was far from
being the case with the ambitious and mortified Leonora, who had not been a
week at the French Court ere she became aware that all the Italian followers of
the Queen were peculiarly obnoxious both to the King and his minister; and who
felt that should she fail to push her fortunes upon the instant, she might one
day be compelled to leave France as poor and as powerless as she had entered
it. Not contented, therefore, with urging her royal mistress to persevere in
her resolution of rejecting the attendance of Madame de Richelieu, she began to
speculate upon the most feasible measures to be adopted in order to secure her
own succession to the coveted dignity; and after considerable reflection, she
became convinced that this could only be accomplished
through the assistance of the Marquise de Verneuil. Once assured of the fact,
Leonora did not hesitate; but, instead of avoiding, as she had hitherto done,
the advances of the favourite--who, aware of her unlimited power over the mind
of the Queen, had on several occasions treated her with a courtesy by no means
warranted by her position at the Court--she began to court the favour of the
Marquise in as marked a manner as she had previously slighted it; and ere long
the intrigue of the two favourites was brought to a successful issue. Each
stood in need of the other, and a compact was accordingly entered into between
them. Madame de Verneuil, whose pride was piqued by her exclusion from the
royal circle, was desirous to gain at any price the countenance of Marie, and
to be admitted to her private assemblies, where alone she could carry out her
more extended plan of ambition; while the wily Italian, rendered only the more
pertinacious by difficulty, and anxious moreover to secure a post which would
at all times enable her to remain about the person of the Queen, thought no
price too great, even the dishonour of her royal foster-sister, to obtain her
object, and thus a mutual promise was made; the Marquise pledging herself that,
in the event of the Queen recognizing her right to attend her receptions, and
treating her with the courtesy and consideration due to the rank conferred upon
her by the King, she would effect the appointment courted by Leonora; while the
Signora Galigaï, with equal confidence, promised in her
turn that she would without delay cause Madame de Verneuil to receive a summons
to the Queen's presence.
Nor did
either of these ladies over-estimate the amount of her influence; for the
monarch no sooner learnt that the reception of his mistress by the haughty and
indignant Princess could be purchased by a mere slight to Madame la Grande
Prévoste, than he consented to sanction the appointment of the Italian suivante of Marie to the post of honour; while Leonora soon succeeded by her tears and
entreaties in wringing from her royal mistress a reluctant acquiescence to her
request.
Thus
then, as before stated, a hollow peace was patched up between the unequal
rivals; and Madame de Verneuil at length found herself in possession of a
folding-seat in the Queen's reception room; while her coadjutress triumphantly
took her place among the noblest ladies of the land; but scarcely had this
result been accomplished, when Henry, profiting by so unhoped-for an
opportunity of gratifying the vanity of the favourite, assigned to her a suite
of apartments in the Louvre immediately above those of the Queen, and little,
if at all, inferior to them in magnificence.
This,
however, was an affront which Marie de Medicis could not brook; and she
accordingly, with her usual independence of spirit, expressed herself in no
measured terms upon the subject, particularly to such of her ladies as were
likely to repeat her comments to the Marquise. The latter retorted by assuming all the airs of royalty, and by assembling about her
a little court, for which that of the Queen herself was frequently forsaken,
especially by the monarch, who found the brilliant circle of the favourite,
wherein he always met a warm and enthusiastic welcome, infinitely more to his
taste than the formal etiquette and reproachful frowns by which his presence in
that of his royal consort was usually signalized.
Nor
could the annoyance of the proud Florentine Princess be subject of astonishment
to any rightly-constituted mind. The position was a monstrous and an unnatural
one. Both the wife and the mistress were about to become mothers; and the whole
Court was degraded by so unblushing an exhibition of the profligacy of the
monarch. Still, however, the French ladies of the household forebore to censure
their sovereign; and even sought to persuade the outraged Queen that when once
she had given a Dauphin to France the favourite would be compelled to leave the
palace; but Marie's Italian followers were far less scrupulous, and expressed
their indignation in no measured terms. The Queen, wounded in her most sacred
feelings, became gradually colder to the Marquise, who, as though she had only
awaited this relapse to sting her still more deeply than she had yet done,
retorted the slights which she constantly received by declaring that “the
Florentine”, as she insolently designated her royal mistress, was not the legal
or lawful wife of the King, whose written promise, still in her possession, he
was, as she asserted, bound to fulfil should she bear him a son.
This surpassing assurance no sooner reached the ears of Marie de Medicis than
she once more forbade Madame de Verneuil her presence; but the Marquise, strong
in her impunity, merely replied by an epigram, and consoled herself for her
exclusion from the Queen's private circle by assuming more state and
magnificence than before, and by collecting in her saloons the prettiest women
and the most reckless gamblers that the capital could produce. Thus attracted,
the infatuated monarch became her constant guest; and his neglected wife, in
weak health, and with an agonised heart, saw herself abandoned for a wanton who
had set a price upon her virtue, and who made a glory of her shame.
Poor
Marie! whatever were her faults as a woman, they were bitterly expiated both as
a wife and as a mother!
Vain
were all the efforts of the King on the one hand and those of Leonora on the
other to terminate this new misunderstanding; the Queen was coldly resolute,
and the Marquise insolently indifferent; nor would a reconciliation, in all
probability, ever again have taken place, had not the interests of the Mistress
of the Robes once more required it, when her influence over the mind of her
royal foster-sister sufficed to overcome every obstacle.
Among
the numerous Florentines who composed the suite of Marie de Medicis was Concino
Concini, a gentleman of her household, whose extreme personal beauty had captivated the heart of Leonora; while she
saw, as she believed, in his far-reaching ambition and flexile character the
very elements calculated, in conjunction with her own firmer nature and higher
intellect, to lead her on to the most lofty fortunes. It is probable, however,
that had La Galigaï continued to attend the Queen in her original and obscure
office of waiting-woman, Concini, who was of better blood than herself, and who
could not, moreover, be supposed to find any attraction in the diminutive
figure and sallow countenance of his countrywoman, would never have been
induced to consent to such an alliance; but Leonora was now on the high road to
wealth and honour, while his own position was scarcely defined; and thus ere
long the consent of the Queen to their marriage was solicited by Concini
himself.
Marie,
who foresaw that by this arrangement she should keep both parties in her
service, and who, in the desolation of a disappointed spirit, clung each day
more closely to her foreign attendants, immediately accorded the required
permission; but it was far otherwise with the King, who had no sooner been
informed of the projected union than he sternly forbade it, to the great
indignation of his consort, who was deeply mortified by this new interference
with her personal household, and saddened by the spectacle of her favourite's
unaffected wretchedness. In vain did the Queen expostulate, and, urged by
Leonora and her suitor, even entreat of Henry to relent; all her efforts to
this effect remained fruitless; and she was at length
compelled to declare to the sorrowing woman that she had no alternative save to
submit to the will of the King.
Such,
however, was far from being the intention of the passionate Italian. Too
unattractive to entertain any hope from her own pleadings with Henry himself,
she once more turned in this new difficulty to Madame de Verneuil, who, in
order to display how little she had been mortified or annoyed by the coldness
of the Queen, and at the same time to prove to her that where the earnest
entreaties of the latter had failed to produce any effect, her own expressed
wish would suffice to ensure success, immediately bade Leonora dry her eyes and
prepare her wedding-dress, as she would guarantee her prompt reception of the
royal consent upon one condition, and that one so easy of accomplishment that
she could not fail to fulfil it.
Marie
de Medicis had been heard to declare that in the event of her becoming the
mother of a Dauphin, she would, at the earliest possible period, dance a ballet
in honour of the King, which should exceed in magnificence every exhibition of
the kind that had hitherto been attempted; and the condition so lightly treated
by the favourite was no less than her own appearance in the royal ballet,
should it indeed take place. Even La Galigaï herself was startled by so
astounding a proposition; but she soon discovered, from the resolute attitude
assumed by the Marquise, that her powerful intercession with the King was not
otherwise to be secured; and it was consequently with even
less of hope than apprehension that the agitated Mistress of the Robes kissed
the hand of Madame de Verneuil, and assured her that she would leave no effort
untried to obtain the consent of her royal mistress to her wishes. But when she
had withdrawn, and was traversing the gallery which communicated with the
apartments of Marie, she began to entertain serious misgivings: the pretension
of the Marquise was so monstrous, that, even conscious as she was of the extent
of her own influence over her foster-sister, she almost dreaded to communicate
the result of her interview, and nearly despaired of success; but with the
resolute perseverance which formed so marked a feature in her character, she
resolved to brave the utmost displeasure of the Queen rather than forego this
last hope of a union with Concini. It was, nevertheless, drowned in tears, and
with a trembling heart, that she presented herself before Marie as the
voluntary bearer of this new and aggravated insult; while, incomprehensible as
it must appear in this age, whatever may have been the arguments and entreaties
of which she was clever enough to avail herself, it is at least certain that
they were ultimately successful; and that she was authorized by the Queen to
communicate to Madame de Verneuil her Majesty's willingness to accede to her
request, provided that the Marquise pledged herself in return to perform her
portion of the contract.
That
her partiality for her early friend induced Marie de Medicis to make, in this
instance, a most unbecoming concession, is certain; while
it is no less matter of record that, probably to prevent any opportunity of
retractation on the part of Madame de Verneuil, she lavished upon her from that
day the most flattering marks of friendship, and publicly treated her with a
distinction which was envied by many of the greatest ladies at Court, even
although it excited the censure of all.
The
comparative tranquillity which succeeded this new adjustment of the differences
between the Queen and the Marquise continued until the month of September, on
the 17th day of which Marie became the mother of a Dauphin (subsequently Louis
XIII), at the palace of Fontainebleau, where, as had already been the case at
the Louvre, the apartments of the favourite adjoined her own. Nothing could
exceed the delight of Henry IV at the birth of his heir. He stood at the lower
end of the Queen's apartment, surrounded by the Princes of the Blood, to each
of whom the royal infant was successively presented; and this ceremony was no
sooner terminated than, bending over him with passionate fondness, he audibly
invoked a blessing upon his head; and then placing his sword in the tiny hand
as yet unable to grasp it, “May you use it, my son”, he exclaimed, “to the
glory of God, and in defence of your crown and people”. He
next approached the bed of the Queen: “M'amie” he
said tenderly, “rejoice! God has given us what we asked”. Mézeray
and Matthieu both assert that the birth of the Dauphin was preceded by an
earthquake, which, with the usual superstition of the period, was afterwards
declared to have been a forewarning of the ceaseless wars by which Europe was
convulsed during his reign.
Rejoicings
were general throughout the whole country, and were augmented by the fact that
more than eighty years had elapsed since the birth of a successor to the crown
who had been eligible to bear the title of Dauphin,--Francis II having come
into the world before his father Henri II was on the throne, who had himself
only attained to that title after the death of his elder brother Francis, who
was born in 1517. Te Deums were chanted in all the
churches; salvos of artillery were discharged at the Arsenal; fireworks,
bonfires, and illuminations made a city of flame of Paris for several
successive nights; while joyous acclamations rent the air, and the gratified
citizens congratulated each other as they perambulated the streets as though
each had experienced some personal benefit. The fact that Anne of Austria, the
daughter of Philip III of Spain, was born only five days previous to the
Dauphin, was another source of delight to the French people, who regarded the
circumstance as an earnest of the future union of the two kingdoms, a prophecy
which was afterwards fulfilled by the marriage of the two
royal children.
We have
already made more than one allusion to the belief in magic, sorcery, and
astrology which at this period had obtained in France, and by which many, even
of the most enlightened of her nobles and citizens, suffered themselves to be
trammelled and deluded; and however much we of the present day may be inclined
to pity or to despise so great a weakness, we shall do well to remember that
human progress during the last sixty years has been more marked and certain
than that which had taken place in the lapse of the three previous centuries.
It is true that there were a few strong-minded individuals even at the period
of which we treat who refused to submit their reason to the wild and illogical
superstitions which were rife about them; but these formed a very small portion
of the aggregate population, and from the peasant in his hovel to the monarch
on his throne the plague-spot of credulity had spread and festered, until it
presented a formidable feature in the history of the time. It is curious to
remark that L'Etoile, the most commonplace and unimaginative of chroniclers,
who might well have been expected in his realism to treat such phantasies as
puerile and absurd, seems to justify to his own mind the extreme penalties of
the scaffold and the stake as a fitting punishment for sorcerers and magicians:
declaring them, as he records in his usual terse and matter-of-fact style, to
be dictated by justice, and essential to the repression of
an intercourse between men and evil spirits.
Gabrielle
d'Estrées was the dupe, if, indeed, not the victim, of her firm faith in astrology.
She had been assured that “a child would prevent her from attaining the rank to
which she aspired”; and the predisposition of an excited
nervous system probably assisted the verification of the prophecy. The old
Cardinal de Bourbon, whom the Leaguers would fain have
made their king, was seduced from his fidelity to the illustrious race from
which he sprang by his weak reliance upon the predictions of soothsayers, who
thus degraded him into the tool of the wily Due de Guise;
while his nephew, Charles II, also a Cardinal, even more
infatuated than himself, had been impelled to believe that the disease which was
rapidly sapping his existence was the effect of the machinations of a Court
lady by whom he had been bewitched! Traitors found excuse for their treason in
the assertion that they had been deluded by false predictions or ensnared by
magic; princes were governed in their
political movements by astral calculations; a grave
minister details with complacency, although without comment, various anecdotes
of the operation of the occult sciences, and even makes
them a study; while a European monarch, strong in the love of his people and
his own bravery, suffers the predictions of soothsayers and prophets to cloud
his mind and to shake his purposes, even while he declares his contempt for all
such delusions.
That
such was actually the case is proved by De Thou, who relates an extraordinary
speech made by the King at the Louvre, in 1599, on the occasion of the
promulgation of the Edict of Nantes, to the deputies of the Parliament of
Paris, in the course of which he declared that, twenty-six years previously,
when he was residing at the Court of Charles IX, he was about to cast the dice
with Henri de Lorraine, Duc de Guise, his relative, amid a large circle of
nobles, when at the instant in which they were prepared to commence their game
drops of blood appeared upon the table, which were renewed without any apparent
agency as fast as they were wiped away. Each party carefully ascertained that
it could not proceed from any of the individuals present;
and the phenomenon was so frequently repeated that Henry, as he averred, at
once amazed and disturbed, declined to persevere in the pastime, considering
the circumstance as an evil omen. Whatever may be the
opinion of the reader as to the actual cause of this apparent prodigy, it is at
least certain that it was verified by subsequent events, as well as the
extraordinary and multiplied prophecy that the King himself would meet his
death in a coach.
Under
these circumstances, combined with the almost universal credulity of the age
and nation which he governed, it is scarcely matter of surprise that Henri IV,
on so momentous an occasion as the birth of his son, should have sought, even
while he feigned to disregard the result, to learn the after-destiny of the
royal infant; and accordingly, a few days subsequently, he commanded M. de la
Rivière, who publicly professed the science of judicial
astrology, to draw the horoscope of the Dauphin with all the accuracy of which
the operation was susceptible. The command was answered by an assurance from La
Rivière that the work was already in progress; but as another week passed by
without any communication from the seer, Henry became
impatient, and again summoned him to his presence in order to inquire the cause
of the delay.
“Sire”,
replied La Rivière, “I have abandoned the undertaking, as I am reluctant to
sport with a science whose secrets I have partially forgotten, and which I
have, moreover, frequently found defective”.
“I am
not to be deceived by so idle a pretext”, said the King, who readily detected
that the alleged excuse was a mere subterfuge; “you have no such scruples, but
you have resolved not to reveal to me what you have ascertained, lest I should
discover the fallacy of your pretended knowledge or be angered by your
prediction. Whatever may be the cause of your hesitation, however, I am
resolved that you shall speak; and I command you, upon pain of my displeasure,
to do so truthfully”.
Still
La Rivière excused himself, until perceiving that it would be dangerous to
persevere in his pertinacity, he at length reluctantly replied: “Sire, your son
will live to manhood, and will reign longer than yourself; but he will resemble
you in no one particular. He will indulge his own opinions and caprices, and
sometimes those of others. During his rule it will be safer to think than to speak.
Ruin threatens your ancient institutions; all your measures will be overthrown.
He will accomplish great deeds; will be fortunate in his undertakings; and will
become the theme of all Christendom. He will have issue; and after his death
more heavy troubles will ensue. This is all that you shall know from me, and even this is more than I had proposed to tell you”.
The
King remained for a time silent and thoughtful, after which he said coldly: “You
allude to the Huguenots, I see that well; but you only talk thus because you
have their interests at heart”.
“Explain
my meaning as you please”, was the abrupt retort; “but you shall learn nothing
more from me”. And so saying, the uncompromising astrologer made a hurried
salutation to the monarch and withdrew.
A
fortnight after this extraordinary scene another event took place at the Louvre
sufficiently interesting to Henry to wean his thoughts for a time even from the
foreshadowed future of his successor. In an apartment immediately contiguous to
that of the still convalescent Queen, Madame de Verneuil became in her turn the
mother of a son, who was baptized with great ceremony, and received the names
of Gaston Henri; and this birth, which should have covered
the King with shame, and roused the nation to indignation,
when the circumstances already detailed are considered, was but the pretext for
new rejoicings.
On the
27th of October the Dauphin made his public entry into Paris. The infant Prince
occupied a sumptuous cradle presented to him by the Grand Duchess of Florence;
and beside him, in an open litter, sat Madame de Montglat, his gouvernante, and the royal nurse. The
provost of the merchants and the metropolitan sheriffs met him at some distance
from the gates, and harangued him at considerable length; and Madame de
Montglat having replied in his name to the oration, the cortège proceeded to the house of Zamet. Two days subsequently he was conveyed in the
same state to St. Germain-en-Laye, where, in order that the people might see
him with greater facility, the nurse carried him in her arms. The enthusiasm of
the crowd, by which his litter was constantly surrounded, knew no bounds; and
the heart of that exulting mother, which was fated afterwards to be broken by
his unnatural abandonment, beat high with gratitude to Heaven as her ear drank
in the enthusiastic shouts of the multitude, and as she remembered that it was
herself who had bestowed this well-appreciated blessing upon France.
CHAPTER III.
1602
The
convalescence of the Queen was the signal for a succession of festivities, and
the whole winter was spent in gaiety and dissipation; banquets, ballets, and
hunting-parties succeeded each other with bewildering
rapidity; and so magnificent were several of the Court festivals that even some
of the gravest historians of the time did not disdain to record them. The most
brilliant of the whole, however, and that which will best serve to exemplify
the taste of the period, was the ballet to which allusion has already been made
as given in honour of the King by his royal consort, and in which Marie de
Medicis herself appeared. In order to heighten its effect she had selected
fifteen of the most beautiful women of the Court, Madame de Verneuil being,
according to the royal promise, one of the number; and the first part of the
exhibition took place at the Louvre. The entertainment commenced with the
entrance of Apollo and the nine Muses into the great hall of the palace, which
was thronged with native and foreign princes, ambassadors, and ministers, in
the midst of whom sat the King with the Papal Nuncio on his right hand. The god
and his attendants sang the glory of the monarch, the pacificator of Europe;
and each stanza terminated with the somewhat fulsome and ungraceful words:
Il faut
que tout vous rende hommage,
Grand Roi,
miracle de notre âge.
Thence
the whole gay and gallant company proceeded to the Hôtel de Guise, where the
eight maids of honour of the Queen performed the second act; and this was no
sooner concluded than the brilliant revellers removed to the archiepiscopal
palace, where the Queen appeared in person upon the scene, with her suite
divided into four quadrilles. Marie herself represented
Venus, and led by the hand César de Vendôme attired as
Cupid; when the splendour of her jewels produced so startling an effect that
murmurs of astonishment and admiration ran through the hall. Gratified at the
sensation caused by the unexampled magnificence and grace of his royal consort,
Henry smilingly inquired of the Nuncio “if he had ever before seen so fine a
squadron?”
“Bellissimo
e pericolosissimo!” was the reply of the gallant prelate.
Each of
the ladies composing the party of the Queen represented a virtue, an
arrangement which, when it is remembered that Madame de Verneuil was one of the
chosen, rendered their attributes at least equivocal. This royal ballet was
nevertheless considered worthy of a poetical immortality by Berthault, a popular bard of the day, who left little behind him worthy
of preservation, but who enjoyed great vogue among the fashionables of the
Court at that period. Its most important result was, however,
the marriage of Concini and Leonora; to which, in consideration of the honour
done to the favourite by the Queen, Henry withdrew his opposition; even
authorizing his royal consort to bestow rich presents upon the bride, and to
celebrate the nuptials with considerable ceremony.
All
these royal diversions were suddenly and disagreeably terminated some months
afterwards by an intrigue which once more threw the King and his courtiers into
a state of agitation and discomfort.
As
regards Marie de Medicis herself, she had long ceased to derive any
gratification from the splendid festivities of which she was one of the
brightest ornaments; her ill-judged indulgence, far from exciting the gratitude
of Madame de Verneuil, having rendered the insolent favourite still more
arrogant and overbearing. To such an extent, indeed, did the Marquise carry her
presumption, that she affected to believe herself indebted for the forbearance
of the Queen to the conviction of the latter that she had a superior claim upon
the monarch to her own; and while she permitted herself to comment upon the
words, actions, and tastes, and even upon the personal peculiarities of her
royal mistress, she declared her conviction of the legality of the written
promise obtained by her from the King; and announced her determination, now
that she had become the mother of a son, to enforce its observance.
These
monstrous pretensions, which were soon made known to the Queen,
at once wounded and exasperated her feelings; and she anxiously awaited the
moment when some new imprudence of the favourite should open the eyes of the
monarch to her delinquency, as she had already become aware that mere argument
on her own part would avail nothing.
Several
writers, and among them even female ones, yielding to the prestige attached to
the name of Henri IV, have sought the solution of all his domestic discomfort
in the “Italian jealousy” of Marie de Medicis; but surely it is not difficult
to excuse it under circumstances of such extraordinary trial. Marie was a wife,
a mother, and a queen; and in each of these characters she was insulted and
outraged. As a wife, she saw her rights invaded--as a mother, the legitimacy of
her son questioned--and as a queen her dignity compromised. What very inferior
causes have produced disastrous effects even in private life! The only subject
of astonishment which can be rationally entertained is the comparative patience
with which at this period of her career she submitted to the humiliations that
were heaped upon her.
In vain
did she complain to her royal consort of the insulting calumnies of Madame de
Verneuil; he either affected to disbelieve that she had been guilty of such
absurd assumption, or reproached Marie with a want of self-respect in listening
to the idle tattle of eavesdroppers and sycophants; alleging that her foreign
followers, spoiled by her indulgence, and encouraged by her
credulity, were the scourge of his Court; and that she would do well to dismiss
them before they accomplished her own unhappiness. A hint to this effect always
sufficed to silence the Queen, to whom the society and support of Leonora and
her husband were becoming each day more necessary; and thus she devoured her
tears and stifled her wretchedness, trusting that the arrogance and presumption
of the Marquise would ultimately serve her better than her own remonstrances.
Such
was the position of affairs when the intrigue to which allusion has been
already made promised to produce the desired result; and it can create no
surprise that Marie should eagerly indulge the hope of delivering herself from
an obnoxious and formidable rival, when the opportunity presented itself of
accomplishing so desirable an end without betraying her own agency.
During
the lifetime of la belle Gabrielle, her sister, Juliette Hippolyte
d'Estrées, Marquise de Cérisay, who in 1597 became the wife of Georges de
Brancas, Duc de Villars, had attracted the attention of the King, whose
dissipated tastes were always flattered by novelty; although if we are to
credit the statements of the Princesse de Conti, this lady, so far from
rivalling the beauty of her younger sister, had no personal charms to recommend
her beyond her youth and her hair. Being as unscrupulous
as the Duchesse de Beaufort herself, Juliette exulted in the idea of
captivating the King, and left no effort untried to secure
her supposed conquest; but this caprice on the part of Henry was only
momentary, and in his passion for Henriette d'Entragues, he soon forgot his
passing fancy for Madame de Villars. The Duchess herself, however, was far from
being equally oblivious; and listening to the dictates of her ambition and
self-love, she became persuaded that she was indebted to the Marquise alone for
the sudden coldness of the King; and accordingly she vowed an eternal hatred to
the woman whom she considered in the light of a successful rival. Up to the
present period, anxious as she was to avenge her wounded vanity, she had been
unable to secure an opportunity of revenge; but having at this particular
moment won the affection of the Prince de Joinville, who
had been a former lover of Madame de Verneuil, and with whom, as she was well
aware, he had maintained an active correspondence, she made his surrender of
the letters of that lady the price of her own honour. For a time the Prince
hesitated; he felt all the disloyalty of such a concession; but those were not
times in which principles waged an equal war against passion; and the letters
were ultimately placed in the possession of Madame de Villars.
The
Duchess was fully cognizant of the fact that it was from an impulse of
self-preservation alone that M. de Joinville had been
induced to forego his suit to the favourite, and to absent himself from the
Court, a consideration which should have aroused her delicacy as a woman; but
she was by no means disposed to yield to so inconvenient a weakness; and she
had consequently no sooner secured the coveted documents than she prepared to
profit by her good fortune.
Henriette
d'Entragues had really loved the Prince--if indeed so venal and vicious a woman
can be supposed capable of loving anything save herself--and thus the letters
which were transferred to Madame de Villars, many of them having been written
immediately after the separation of the lovers, were filled with regrets at his
absence, professions of unalterable affection, and disrespectful expressions
concerning the King and Queen; the latter of whom was ridiculed and slandered
without pity. It is easy to imagine the triumphant joy of the Duchess. She held
her enemy at her mercy, and she had no inclination to be merciful. She read and
re-read the precious letters; and finally, after deep reflection, her plans
were matured.
The
Princesse de Conti was her personal friend, and was, moreover, attached to the
household of the Queen, to whom Madame de Villars, from circumstances which
require no comment, had hitherto been comparatively a stranger. Marie de
Medicis, who had experienced little sympathy from the great ladies of the
Court, having thrown herself principally upon her Italian followers for
society, had in consequence been cold and distant in her
deportment to the French members of her circle; who, on their side, trammelled
by the rigorous propriety of her conduct, were quite satisfied to be partially
overlooked, in order that their own less scrupulous bearing might pass
unnoticed by so rigid a censor; and thus, when, upon the earnest request of
Madame de Villars to be introduced to the more intimate acquaintance of the
Queen, the Princess succeeded in obtaining for her the privilege of the petites
entrées (unaware of the powerful passport to favour which she possessed),
she found it difficult to account for the eagerness with which the ordinarily
unapproachable Marie greeted the appearance and courted the society of the
astute Duchess; nor did she for an instant dream that by facilitating the
intercourse between them, she was undermining the fortunes of a brother whom
she loved.
It
appears extraordinary that of all the ladies about the Queen, Madame de Villars
should have selected the sister of the Prince de Joinville to enable her to
effect her purpose; but let her have acted from whatever motive she might, it
is certain that day by day her favour became more marked; and the circumstance
which most excited the surprise of Madame de Conti, was the fact that her protégée was often closeted with the Queen when, for reasons sufficiently obvious, she
herself and even Leonora Galigaï were excluded. In encouraging the vengeance of
her new friend, Marie was well aware that she was committing an imprudence from
which the more far-seeing Florentine would have dissuaded
her; and thus, with that impetuosity which was destined through life to be her
scourge, she resolved only to consult her own feelings. The secret of this new
discovery was consequently not divulged to her favourite; and as her cheek
burned and her eye flashed, while lingering over the insults to which she had
been subjected by the unscrupulous mistress of the monarch, she urged Madame de
Villars to lose no time in communicating the contents of the obnoxious letters
to her sovereign.
The
undertaking was difficult as well as dangerous; and in the case of the Duchess
it required more than usual tact and caution. She had not only to encounter the
risk of arousing the anger of Henry by accusing the woman whom he loved, but
also to combat his wounded vanity when he should see his somewhat mature
passion made a subject of ridicule, and, at the same time, to conceal her own
motive for the treachery of which she was guilty. This threefold trial, even
daring as she was, the Duchess feared to hazard. In communicating the fatal
letters to the Queen, she had calculated that the indignation and jealousy of
the Italian Princess would instigate her to take instant possession of so
formidable a weapon against her most dangerous enemy, and to work out her own
vengeance; but Marie had learnt prudence from past experience, and she was
anxious to conceal her own agency in the cabal until she could avow it with a
certainty of triumph. Perceiving the reluctance of Madame de Villars
to take the initiative, she hastened to explain to her the suspicion which
would naturally be engendered in the mind of the King, should he imagine that
the affair had been preconcerted to satisfy her private animosity; and moreover
suggested that the Duchess should, in her interview with the monarch, carefully
avoid even the mention of her name. Encouragement and entreaties followed this
caution; while a few rich presents sufficed to convince her auditor--and
ultimately, Madame de Villars (who had too long waited patiently for such an
opportunity of revenge to shrink from her purpose when it was secured to her),
having gained the favour and confidence of the Queen at the expense of her
rival, resolved to terminate her task.
The
pretext of urgent business easily procured for her a private interview with the
King, for the name of D'Estrées still acted like a spell upon the mind and
heart of Henry, and the Duchess was a consummate tactician. Notice was given to
her of the day on which the sovereign would visit St. Denis; and as she
presented herself in the lateral chapel where he had just concluded his
devotions, Henry made a sign for his attendant nobles to withdraw, when the
Duchess found herself in a position to explain her errand, and to assure him
that she had only been induced to make the present disclosure from her
affection for his person, and the gratitude which she owed to him for the many
benefits that she had experienced from his condescension. Having briefly dwelt
on the contents of the letters which she delivered into his
keeping, she did not even seek an excuse for the means by which they had come
into her own possession, but concluded by observing: “I could not reconcile it
to my conscience, Sire, to conceal so great an outrage; I should have felt like
a criminal myself, had I been capable of suffering in silence such treason
against the greatest king, the best master, and the most gallant gentleman on
earth”.
Henry
was not proof against this compliment. He believed himself to be all that the
Duchess had asserted, but he liked to hear his own opinion confirmed by the
lips of others; and, although smarting under the mortification of wounded
vanity occasioned by the contents of the letters of his perfidious mistress, he
smiled complacently upon Madame de Villars, thanking her for her zeal and
attachment to his person, and assuring her that both were fully appreciated.
She had
no sooner retired than, as the Queen had previously done, he repeatedly read
over each letter in turn until his patience gave way under the task; when
hastily summoning the Duc de Lude, he desired him to forthwith proceed to the
apartments of the Marquise, and inform her in his name that "she was a
perfidious woman, a monster, and the most wicked of her sex; and that he was
resolved never to see her again."
At this
period Madame de Verneuil had quitted the palace, and was
residing in an hôtel in the city, which had been presented to her by the King:
a fortunate circumstance for the envoy, who required time and consideration to
enable him to execute his onerous mission in a manner that might not tend to
his own subsequent discomfiture; but on the delivery of the royal message, which
even the courtly De Lude could not divest of its offensive character, Madame de
Verneuil (who was well aware that the King, however he might yield to his
momentary anger, was even less able to dispense with her society than she
herself was to lose the favour which alone preserved her from the ignominy her
conduct had justly merited) did not for an instant lose her self-possession. “Tell
his Majesty”, she replied, as calmly as though a sense of innocence had given
her strength, “that being perfectly assured that I have never been guilty of
word or deed which could justly incur his anger, I cannot imagine what can have
induced him to treat me with so little consideration. That someone has traduced
me, I cannot doubt; but I shall be revenged by a discovery of the truth”.
She
then rose from her seat, and retired to her private room, much more alarmed and
agitated than she was willing to betray. De Lude had, during the interview,
suffered a few remarks to escape him from which she was enabled to guess whence
the blow had come; and conscious of the enormity of her imprudence, she lost no
time in confiding to most confidential friends the
difficulty of her position, and entreated them to discover some method by which
she might escape its consequences.
As had
been previously arranged with the Queen, Madame de Villars, at her audience of
the King, had carefully abstained from betraying the share which his consort
had taken in the intrigue, and had assumed to herself the very equivocal honour
of the whole proceeding; and it was, consequently, against the Duchess alone
that the anger of the favourite was excited. Even the Prince de Joinville was
forgiven, when with protestations of repentance he threw himself at the feet of
the Marquise, and implored her pardon--he could scarcely fail to be understood
by such a woman, when he pleaded the extremes to which passion and
disappointment could urge an ardent nature--while the Duc de Bellegarde was no
sooner informed by the Princesse de Conti that the fortune, and perhaps even
the life, of her brother were involved in the affair, than he devoted himself
to her cause.
We have
already stated that the time was not one of unnecessary scruple, and the peril
of the Marquise was imminent. The letters not only existed, but were in the hands
of the King: no honest or simple remedy could be suggested for such a disaster;
and thus, as it was imperative to clear Madame de Verneuil from blame in order
to save the Prince, it was ultimately determined to deny the authenticity of
the documents, and to attribute the forgery to a secretary of the Duc de Guise,
who was celebrated for his aptitude in imitating every
species of handwriting. The attempt was hazardous; but the infatuation of Henry
for the fascinating favourite was so well known, that the conspirators were
assured of the eagerness with which he would welcome any explanation, however
doubtful; and they accordingly instructed the Marquise boldly to disavow the
authorship of the obnoxious packet. The advice was, unfortunately, somewhat tardy;
as, in her first terror, Madame de Verneuil had declared her inability to deny
that she had written the letters which had aroused the anger of the King; but
she modified the admission, by declaring that her hand had betrayed her heart,
and that she had never felt what, in a moment of pique and annoyance, she had
permitted herself to express. These were, however, mere words; and she had no
sooner become cognizant of the expedients suggested by her advisers than she
resolved to gainsay them; and accordingly, without a moment's hesitation, she
despatched a message to the monarch to entreat that he would allow her to
justify herself.
For a
few days Henry remained inexorable, but at length his passion triumphed over
his pride; and instead of summoning the Marquise to his presence as a criminal
he proceeded to her residence, listened blindly to her explanations, became, or
feigned to become, convinced by her arguments, and ultimately confessing
himself to have been sufficiently credulous to be the culprit rather than the
judge, he made a peace with his exulting mistress, which
was cemented by a donation of six thousand livres.
As is
usual in such cases, all the blame was now visited upon her accusers. Madame de
Villars was exiled from the Court--a sentence to her almost as terrible as that
of death, wedded as she was to a court-life, and by this unexpected result,
separated from the Prince de Joinville, whose pardon she had hoped to secure by
her apparent zeal for the honour of the monarch. The Prince himself was directed
to proceed forthwith to Hungary to serve against the Turks; and the unfortunate
secretary, who had been an unconscious instrument in the hands of the able
conspirators, and whom it was necessary to consider guilty of a crime
absolutely profitless to himself whatever might be its result, was committed to
a prison; there to moralize at his leisure upon the vices of the great.
No
mortification could, however, equal that of the Queen; who, having felt assured
of the ruin of her rival, had incautiously betrayed her exultation in a manner
better suited to a jealous wife than to an indignant sovereign; and who, when
she became apprised of the reconciliation of the King with his wily mistress,
expressed herself with so much warmth upon his wilful blindness, that a
fortnight elapsed before they met again.
Nothing
could be more ill-judged upon the part of Marie than this violence, as by
estranging the King from herself she gave ample opportunity to the Marquise to
resume her empire over his mind. It nevertheless appears
certain that although he resented the sarcasms of the Queen, he was less the
dupe of Madame de Verneuil than those about him imagined; he was fascinated,
but not convinced; and it is probable that had Marie de Medicis at this moment
sufficiently controlled her feelings to remain neuter, she might, for a time at
least, have retained her truant husband under the spell of her own attractions.
Such, however, was not the case; and between his suspicion of being deceived by
his mistress, and his irritation at being openly taunted by his wife, the King,
who shrank with morbid terror from domestic discomfort, instead of finding
repose in the privacy of his own hearth, even while he was anxious to shake off
the trammels by which he had been so long fettered, and to abandon a liaison which had ceased to inspire him with confidence, only sought to escape by
transferring his somewhat exhausted affections to a new object. The struggle
was, however, a formidable one; for although the Marquise had forfeited his good
opinion, she had not lost her powers of fascination; and she so well knew how
to use them, that, despite his better reason, the sensual monarch still
remained her slave.
Thus
his life became at this period one of perpetual worry and annoyance. Marie, irritated
by what she justly considered as a culpable weakness and want of dignity on the
part of her royal consort, persisted in exhibiting her resentment, and in
loading the favourite with every mark of contempt and obloquy; while Madame de
Verneuil, in her turn, renewed her assertions of the
illegality of the Queen’s marriage, and the consequent illegitimacy of the
Dauphin. The effect of such a feud may be readily imagined: the Court soon
became divided into two distinct factions; and those among the great ladies and
nobles who frequented the circle of the Marquise were forbidden the entrance of
the Queen's apartments. One intrigue succeeded another; and while Marie, with
jealous vindictiveness, endeavoured to mar the fortunes of those who attached
themselves to the party of Madame de Verneuil, the Marquise left no effort
untried to injure the partisans of the Queen. This last rupture was an
irrevocable one.
In vain
did Sully endeavour to restore peace. He could control the finances, and
regulate the defences of a great nation; but he was as powerless as the King
himself when he sought to fuse such jarring elements as these in the social
crucible; and while he was still striving against hope to weaken, even if he
could not wholly destroy, an animosity which endangered the dignity of the
crown, and the respect due to one of the most powerful monarchs of Christendom,
that monarch himself, wearied of a strife which he had not the moral courage
either to terminate or to sustain, sought consolation for his trials in the
smiles of Mademoiselle de Sourdis, whose favour he
purchased by giving her in marriage to the Comte d'Estanges. This caprice,
engendered rather by ennui than affection, was, however, soon
terminated, as the new favourite could not, either personally or mentally,
sustain a comparison with Madame de Verneuil; and great coldness still existed
between the royal couple when the Court removed to Blois.
During
the sojourn of their Majesties in that city, a misunderstanding infinitely more
serious than any by which it had been preceded took place between them; and at
length became so threatening, that although the night was far advanced, the
King despatched D'Armagnac, his first valet-de-chambre, to desire the immediate
presence of M. de Sully at the castle. Singularly enough, the Duke in his
Memoirs affects a morbid reluctance even to allude to this outbreak, and
professes his determination, in accordance with his promise to that effect made
to both parties, not to reveal the subject of dispute; while at the same time
he admits that, after a long interview with Henry, he spent the remainder of
the night in passing from one chamber to the other, endeavouring to restore
harmony between the royal pair, during which attempt many of the attendants of
the Court were enabled at intervals to hear all parties mention the names of
the Grand Duke and Duchess of Florence, the Duchess of Mantua, Virgilio Ursino,
Don Juan de Medicis, the Duc de Bellegarde, Joannini, Concini, Leonora,
Trainel, Vinti, Caterina Selvaggio,
Gondy, and more frequently still, of Madame de Verneuil; a
circumstance which was quite sufficient to dispel all mystery, as it at once
became evident to those who mentally combined these significant names, that the
royal quarrel was a recriminatory one, and that while the Queen was indulging
in invectives against the Marquise, and her champion M. le Grand, the King
retorted by reproaching her with the insolence of her Italian favourites, and
her own weak submission to their thrall.
Capefigue,
in his history, has shown less desire than Sully to envelop this royal quarrel
in mystery; and plainly asserts, although without quoting his authority for
such a declaration, that after mutual reproaches had passed between Henry and
his wife, the Queen became so enraged that she sprang out of bed, and throwing
herself upon the monarch, severely scratched him in the face; a violence which
he immediately repaid with interest, and which induced him to summon the
minister to the palace, whose first care was to prevail upon the King to retire
to another apartment.
Marie,
exasperated by the persevering infidelity of her husband, considered herself,
with some reason, as the aggrieved party: she had given a Dauphin to France; her fair fame was untainted; and she persisted in
enforcing her right to retain and protect her Tuscan attendants. Henry, on his
part, was equally unyielding; and it was, as we have already shown, several
hours before the bewildered minister of finance could succeed in restoring even
a semblance of peace. To every argument which he advanced the Queen replied by
enumerating the libertine adventures of her husband (with the whole of which
she proved herself to be unhappily only too familiar), and by declaring that
she would one day take ample vengeance on his mistresses; strong in the
conviction that to whatever acts of violence she might be induced by the
insults heaped upon her, no rightly thinking person would be found to condemn
so just a revenge.
This
declaration, let Sully modify it as he might, could but aggravate the anger of
the King; and accordingly, he replied by a threat of banishing his wife to one
of his distant palaces, and even of sending her back to Florence, with the
whole of her foreign attendants.
From
this project, if he really ever seriously entertained it, Henry was, however,
at once dissuaded by his minister; who, less blinded by passion than himself,
instantly recognised its enormity when proportioned to the offence which it was
intended to punish; and consequently he did not hesitate to represent the odium
which so unjust a measure must call down upon the head of
the King. The Queen, whose irritation had reached its
climax, was less easily persuaded; or the astute Concini, who was ever daring
where his personal fortunes might be benefited, sacrificed his royal mistress
to his own interests; for we find it recorded that some time subsequently, when
Madame de Verneuil was residing at her hôtel in Paris, the Florentine favourite
privately informed the monarch that Marie had engaged some persons on whom she
could rely, to insult the Marquise; upon which Henry, after expressing his
thanks for the communication, caused the favourite to leave the city under a
strong escort.
Had the
King been less unscrupulously inconstant, there is, however, no doubt that
Marie de Medicis, from the strict propriety of her conduct to the last, and
under every provocation, would ultimately have become an attached and devoted
wife. Her ambition was satisfied, and her heart interested, in her maternal
duties; but the open and unblushing licentiousness with which Henry pursued his
numerous and frequently ignoble intrigues, irritated her naturally excitable
temper, and consequently tended to throw her more completely into the power of
the ambitious Italians by whom she was surrounded; among whom the most
influential was Madame de Concini, a woman of firm mind, engaging manners, and
strong national prejudices, who, in following the fortunes of her illustrious
foster-sister, had deceived herself into the belief that
they would be almost without a cloud; and it is therefore probable that a
disappointment in this expectation, which, moreover, involved her own personal
interests, rendered her bitter in her judgment of the débonnaire and
reckless monarch who showed himself so indifferent to the attractions of her
idolized mistress.
The
subsequent ingratitude of Marie, indeed, only tends to increase the admiration
of a dispassionate critic for the ill-requited Leonora; to whom it would
appear, after a close analysis of her character, that ample justice has never
yet been done; for ambitious as she was, it is certain that this unfortunate
woman ever sought the welfare of the Queen, to whom she owed her advancement in
life, even when the more short-sighted selfishness of her husband would have
induced him to sacrifice all other considerations to his own insatiable thirst
for power.
Unfortunately,
however, the very excess of her affection rendered her a dangerous adviser to
the indignant and neglected Princess, from whose private circle Henry at this
period almost wholly absented himself.
Nor
were these domestic anxieties the only ones against which the French King had
to contend at this particular crisis; for while the Court circle had been
absorbed in banquets and festivals, the seeds of civil war, sown by a few of
the still discontented nobles, began to germinate; and Henry constantly
received intelligence of seditious movements in the provinces. On the banks of
the Loire and the Garonne the symptoms of disaffection had
already ceased to be problematical; while at La Rochelle and Limoges the
inhabitants had assaulted the government officers who sought to levy an
obnoxious tax.
Little
doubt existed in the minds of the monarch and his ministers that these hostile
demonstrations were encouraged, if not suggested, by the secret agents of
Philip III of Spain, and the Duke of Savoy, who had been busily engaged some
time previously in dissuading the Swiss and Grisons from renewing the alliance
which they had formed with Henri III, and which became void at his death. This
attempt was, however, frustrated by an offer made to them by Sillery of a
million in gold, as payment of the debt still due to them from the French
government for their past services; which enormous sum reached them through the
hands of the Duc de Biron, to whom, as well as to the memory of his father, the
old Maréchal, many of the Switzers were strongly and personally attached.
Day by
day, also, the King had still more serious cause of apprehension, having
ascertained almost beyond a doubt that the Duc de Bouillon, the head of the
Huguenot party, who were incensed against Henry for having deserted their
faith, was secretly engaged in a treaty with Spain, Savoy, and England, a
circumstance rendered doubly dangerous from the fact that the Protestants still
held several fortified places in Guienne, Languedoc, and other provinces, which
would necessarily, should the negotiation prove successful, be delivered into
his hands. There can be no doubt, moreover, that the
monarch keenly felt the ingratitude of this noble, whom he had himself raised
to the independent sovereignty of the duchy whence he derived his title; but
his mortification was increased upon ascertaining that the Maréchal de Biron,
who had been one of his most familiar friends, and in whose good-faith and
loyalty he had ever placed implicit trust, was also numbered among his enemies,
and endeavouring to secure his own personal advancement by betraying his
master.
No two
men could probably have been selected throughout the whole nation more fitted
to endanger the stability of the royal authority. Both were marshals of France,
and alike celebrated for their talent as military leaders, as well as for their
insatiable ambition. Of the two, perhaps, however, the Due de Bouillon was
likely to prove the most formidable enemy to the sovereign; from the fact of
his being by far the more able and the more subtle politician, and, moreover,
gifted with a caution and judgment which were entirely wanting in the impetuous
and reckless Biron.
Bouillon,
who possessed great influence in the counsels of the Huguenots, was supported
by the Due de la Trémouille, his co-religionist, another leader of the reformed party; and secretly also by the Duc
d'Epernon, whose fortunes having greatly deteriorated
since the death of Henri III, considered himself harshly treated, and was ready
to join every cabal which was formed against that King's successor, although he
always avoided any open demonstration of hostility which might tend to
compromise his personal safety.
A third
individual pointed out to the King as one of his most active enemies was
Charles de Valois, Comte d'Auvergne, the step-brother of Madame de Verneuil; to
whom not only in consideration of his royal blood, but also as the relative of
the Marquise, Henry had ever shown a favour which he little merited. Such an
adversary the monarch could, however, afford to despise,
for he well knew the Count to be more dangerous as a friend than as an enemy;
his cowardly dread of danger constantly impelling him, at the merest prospect
of peril, to betray others in order to save himself; while his cunning, his
gratuitous and unmanly cruelty, and the unblushing perfidy which recalled with
only too much vividness the character of his father, Charles IX, rendered him
at once unsafe and unpleasant as an associate. Despite all these drawbacks,
Biron with his usual recklessness had nevertheless accepted him as a partner in
his meditated revolt, D'Auvergne having declared that he would run all risks in
order to revenge the dishonour brought upon his family by the King; but in
reality the Comte only sought to benefit himself in a struggle where he had
little to lose, and might, as he believed, become a gainer.
The
madness of the Duc de Biron in betraying the interests of a sovereign who had
constantly treated him with honour and distinction, can only find its solution
in his overweening vanity, as he was already wealthy, powerful, and popular;
and had, moreover, acquired the reputation of being one of the first soldiers in
France. He had been appointed admiral, and subsequently marshal; and had even
been entrusted with the command of the King's armies at the siege of Amiens,
where he bore the title of marshal-general, although several Princes of the
Blood and the Connétable himself were present. He was decorated with all the
Royal Orders; was a duke and peer of the realm, and Governor of Bordeaux; and, in fine, every attainable dignity had been
lavished upon him; while he yielded precedence only to royalty, and to the Duc
de Montmorency, to whose office it was vain to aspire during his lifetime.
Such
was the Maréchal de Biron, when, in the vainglorious hope of one day becoming
the sovereign of certain of the French provinces, he voluntarily trampled under
foot every obligation of loyalty and gratitude, and leagued himself with the
enemies of his royal master, to wrest from him the sceptre which he so firmly
wielded. The first intelligence of the Duke's defection which reached the
monarch--to whom, however, his conduct had long appeared problematical--was
obtained through the treachery of the Maréchal’s most trusted agent; a man whom
Biron had constantly employed in all his intrigues, and from whom he had no
secrets. This individual, who from certain circumstances saw reason to believe
that the plans of the Duke must ultimately fail from their very immensity, and
who feared for his own safety in the event of his patron's disgrace, resolved
to save himself by communicating the whole conspiracy to the King; for which
purpose he solicited an audience, declaring that he had important matters to
reveal, which involved not only the throne of the sovereign, but even his life;
and he so confidently insisted upon this fact, that an interview was at length
accorded to him at Fontainebleau; where, in the presence of Henry and the Duc
de Sully, he confessed that conceiving himself to have been
ill-used by the Court, he had from mortified vanity adopted the interests of M.
de Biron, and even participated in the conspiracy of which he was now anxious
to anticipate the effects, and from which he had instantly retired when he
discovered that it involved the lives of his Majesty and the Dauphin.
He then
solemnly asserted that when the Maréchal de Biron proceeded to Flanders to
receive the oath of peace from the Archduke Albert, the Spaniards, who at once
detected the extent of his vanity and ambition, had flattered his weakness and
encouraged his hopes; and that they had ultimately despatched to him an
individual named Picoté, who for some crime had been exiled from Orleans, and
who was authorized to give him the assurance that it only depended upon the
Duke himself to secure a brilliant position through their agency, should he see
fit to become their ally. The Maréchal, his associate went on to say, listened
eagerly to the proposition, and expressed his willingness to treat with Spain
whenever it might be deemed expedient to confide to him the real meaning of the
message; a reply which satisfied the Spaniards that with proper caution they
should find it no difficult undertaking to attach him entirely to their
interests, or, failing in this attempt, to rid themselves of a dangerous
adversary by rendering him the victim of his own treason.
Elated
by the brilliant prospect which thus opened upon him, Biron gradually became
less energetic in the service of his legitimate master; and after the peace of Vervins, finding his influence necessarily diminished, he
began to murmur, affecting to believe that the services which he had rendered
to the sovereign had not been duly recognized; and it was at this period,
according to his betrayer, that their acquaintance had commenced, an
acquaintance which so rapidly ripened into friendship that ere long he became
the depository of his patron’s most cherished secrets.
After
many and anxious consultations, principally caused by the uncertainty of the
Duke as to the nature of the honours which were to be conferred upon him, it
had been at length resolved between the two conspirators that they should
despatch a priest to the Duke of Savoy, a monk of Cîteaux to Milan, and Picoté
himself to Spain, to treat with the several Princes in the name of the
Maréchal; and what was even more essential to the monarch to ascertain, was the
fact that a short time subsequently, and before he visited Paris, the Duke of
Savoy had entered into a secret negotiation with Biron, and even led him to
believe that he would bestow upon him the hand of one of his daughters, by
which marriage the Maréchal would have become the cousin of the Emperor of Germany,
and the nephew of the King of Spain, an alliance which, to so ambitious a
spirit, opened up an opportunity of self-aggrandizement never to be realized in
his own country and under his own sovereign.
In
return for this concession, Biron had pledged himself to his wily ally that he
would provide so much occupation for Henry in the interior of his kingdom, that he should have no leisure to attempt the
invasion of the marquisate of Saluzzo, a pledge which more than any other
gratified M. de Savoie, who lived in constant dread of being driven from his
territories. During the war the Maréchal nevertheless took several of the
Duke's fortresses in Brescia; but a perfect understanding had been established
between them which rendered this circumstance comparatively unimportant; and on
the refusal of Henry to permit the appointment of a governor of his own
selection for the citadel of Bourg, Biron became so incensed by what he
designated as the ingratitude of his sovereign--though he was fully aware that
by countenancing such an arrangement the King must necessarily leave the
fortress entirely in his power--that he no longer restrained himself, but
declared that the death of the French sovereign was essential to the
accomplishment of his projects; and meanwhile he gave the Duke of Savoy, whom
he thenceforward regarded as his firmest friend, constant information of the
state and movements of the hostile army.
A short
time afterwards it was definitely arranged between the conspirators that the
Duke of Savoy should give his third daughter in marriage to the Maréchal, with
a dowry of five hundred thousand golden crowns; that the Spanish monarch should
cede to him all his claims of sovereignty upon the duchy of Burgundy; and that
the Condé de Fuentes and the Duke of Savoy should march
their combined forces into France, thus disabling Henry
from pursuing his design of reconquering the long-coveted duchy.
This
treasonable design, owing to circumstances upon which the impetuous Biron had
failed to calculate, proved, however, abortive; and he had no sooner convinced
himself of the fact, and comprehended the perilous position in which he had
been placed by his imprudence, than he hastened to Lyons, where the King was
then sojourning; and having obtained an audience, he confessed with a seeming
frankness irresistible to so generous and unsuspicious a nature as that of
Henry, that he had been sufficiently misled by his ambition secretly to demand
from the Duke of Savoy the hand of his younger daughter; and that, moreover, in
the excess of his mortification at the refusal of his Majesty to appoint a
governor of his own selection at Bourg, he had even been induced to plot
against the state, for both which crimes he humbly solicited the royal pardon.
Full
well did Henry and his minister remember this occurrence; nor could the King
forget that although he had urged the Maréchal to reveal to him the whole
extent of the intrigue, he had dexterously evaded his most searching inquiries,
and constantly recurred to his contrition. Henry owed much to Biron, whom he
had long loved; and with a magnanimity worthy of his noble nature, after a few
expostulations and reproaches, he not only pardoned him for what he believed to
have been a mere temporary abandonment of his duties, but even assured
him of his future favour, and bade him return in all security to his post.
Unhappily,
however, the demon of ambition by which the Duke was possessed proved too
powerful for the generous clemency of the King, and he resumed his treasonable
practices; but a misunderstanding having ensued between himself and the false
friend by whom he was now betrayed, all the private documents which had been
exchanged between himself and the foreign princes through whose aid he trusted
to obtain the honours of sovereignty, were communicated on this occasion to the
monarch whose dignity and whose confidence he had alike outraged.
A free
pardon was accorded to the traitor through whose means Henry was made
acquainted with the extent of the intrigue, on condition that he should reside
within the precincts of the Court and lend his assistance to convict the Duke
of his crime, terms to which the perfidious confidant readily consented; while
with a tact worthy of his falsehood, he soon succeeded in reinstating himself
in the good graces of the Duke, by professing to be earnestly engaged in France
in furthering his interests, and by giving him reason to believe that he was
still devoted to his cause.
To this
deception, and to his own obstinacy, Biron owed his fate.
The
alarming facts which had thus been revealed to them were communicated by Henry
and his minister to certain members of the privy council,
by whom a report was drawn up and placed in the hands of the Chancellor; and,
this preliminary arrangement completed, it was determined to recall the
Maréchal to Court either to justify himself, or to undergo the penalty of his
treason. In order to effect this object, however, it was necessary to exercise
the greatest caution, as Biron was then in Burgundy; and his alarm having
already been excited by the evasion of his most confidential agent, they felt
that he might, should his suspicions be increased, place himself at the head of
the troops under his command, by whom he was idolized, and thus become doubly
dangerous. It was, consequently, only by a subterfuge that there was any
prospect of inducing him to approach the capital; and the King, by the advice
of Sully, and not without a latent hope that he might be enabled to clear
himself of blame, openly asserted that he put no faith in the disclosures which
had been made to him, and that he would advise the Maréchal to be careful of
those about him, whose envy or enmity led them to put a misconstruction upon
his motives as well as upon his actions. The Baron de Luz, the confidential friend of Biron, for whose ear these declarations were
especially designed, did not fail to communicate them on the instant to the
accused party; while La Fin, by whom he had been betrayed,
likewise wrote to assure him that in revealing the conspiracy to the King and
the ministers he had been cautious not to utter a word by which he could be
personally implicated. It is certain, however, that the Duke placed little
reliance either upon the assertions of Henry, or the assurances of his
treacherous agent; as on the receipt of a letter from the sovereign, announcing
his own instant departure for Poitou, where he invited Biron to join him, in
order that he might afford him his advice upon certain affairs of moment, the
latter wrote to excuse himself, alleging, as a pretext for his disobedience to
the royal command, the rumour of a reported aggression of the Spaniards, and
the necessity of his presence at a meeting of the States of Burgundy which had
been convoked for the 22nd of May, where it would be
essential that he should watch over the interests of his Majesty.
The
King did not further insist at that moment; but having ascertained on his
return from Poitou that fresh movements had been made in Burgundy, in
Saintonge, in Périgord, and in Guienne, which threatened to prove inimical to
his authority, and that couriers were constantly passing from one of these
provinces to the other, he sent to desire the presence of the Sieur Descures, an intimate friend and follower of the Maréchal, whom he
commanded to proceed with all speed to Burgundy, and to inform his lord that if
he did not forthwith obey the royal summons, the sovereign would go in person
to bring him thence. This threat was sufficiently appalling; and the rather as
Sully, by his authority as grand-master of artillery, had taken the precaution,
on pretext of recasting the cannon and improving the quality of the powder in
the principal cities of Burgundy, to cripple Biron’s resources, and to render
it impossible for him to attempt any rational resistance to the royal will. The
Maréchal soon perceived that he had been duped, but, nevertheless, he would not
yield; and Descures left him, firm in his determination not to trust himself
within the precincts of the Court.
The
King, who, from his old attachment to Biron, had hitherto hoped that he had
been calumniated, and that, in lieu of crimes, he had only been guilty of follies, offended by so resolute an opposition to his will,
began, like his ministers, to apprehend that he must in truth thenceforward
number the Duke among his enemies; and he consequently suffered himself,
shortly after the return of his last messenger, to be persuaded to despatch the
President Jeannin as the bearer of a third summons to the
Maréchal, and to represent to him how greatly he was increasing the displeasure
of the sovereign by his disobedience, as well as strengthening the suspicions which were already entertained against him. Finally, the
president was instructed to assure the haughty and imperious rebel that the
King had not forgotten the good service which he had rendered to the nation;
and that he ascribed the accusations which had reached him rather to the
exaggerations of those who in making such reports sought to increase their own
favour at Court than to any breach of trust on the part of the Maréchal
himself.
Somewhat
reassured by these declarations, and unconscious of the extent of La Fin's
treachery, Biron allowed himself to be persuaded by the eloquence of Jeannin,
and reluctantly left Dijon for Fontainebleau, where he arrived on the 13th of
June. As he was about to dismount, La Fin approached to welcome him; and while
holding his stirrup whispered in his ear: “Courage, my master; speak out
boldly, for they know nothing”. The Duke silently nodded his reply, and at once
proceeded to the royal chamber, where Henry received him with a gay countenance
and open arms, declaring that he had done well to accept his invitation, or he
should assuredly have gone to fetch him in person as he had threatened. Biron
excused himself, but with a coldness extremely displeasing to the King, who,
however, forebore to exhibit any symptom of annoyance; and after a short
conversation in which no further allusion was made to the position of the
Maréchal, Henry, as he had often previously done, proposed
to show him the progress of the new buildings upon which he was then actively
engaged; and, leading the way to the gardens, he did in fact for a time point
out to him every object of interest. This done, he suddenly turned the
discourse upon the numerous reasons for displeasure which the recent acts of
Biron had given him (being careful, nevertheless, not to betray the extent of
his knowledge), and earnestly urged him to confess the real amount of the
imprudence of which he had been guilty, pledging his royal word, that should he
do so with frankness and sincerity, the avowal would ensure his pardon.
But
this the infatuated Duke had no intention of conceding. The whispered assurance
of La Fin still vibrated on his ear, and he also calculated largely on his intimacy
with D'Auvergne, which secured to him the influence of Madame de Verneuil. He
consequently replied, with an arrogance as unbecoming as it was misplaced, that
he had not come to Court to justify himself, but in order to ascertain who were
his accusers; and, moreover, added that, having committed no crime, he did not
require any pardon; nor could either Henry himself or the Duc de Sully, with
whom he had subsequently a lengthened interview, succeed in inducing him to
make the slightest confession.
The noonday
repast was no sooner over than the King sent to summon the Maréchal to his
closet, where he once more exerted every effort to soften the obduracy of the
man to whose valour he was well aware that he had been
greatly indebted for his crown, and whom he was consequently anxious to save
from dishonour and ignominy; but, unfortunately for his own interests, Biron
retained as vivid a recollection of the fact as Henry himself; and he so highly
estimated the value of his services, that he resolved to maintain the haughty
position which he had assumed, and to persist in a denial that was fated to
cost him his life. Instead, therefore, of throwing himself upon the clemency of
the King by an undisguised avowal of his treason, he merely replied to the
appeal by again demanding to know who were his accusers; upon which Henry rose
from his seat, and exclaiming: “Come, we will play a match at tennis”, hastily
left the room, followed by the culprit.
The
King having selected the Comte de Soissons as his second
against the Duc d'Epernon and the Maréchal, this
ill-assorted party continued for some time apparently absorbed in the game; and
so thoroughly did it recall past scenes and times to the mind of the monarch,
that he resolved, before he abandoned his once faithful subject to his fate, to
make one last endeavour to overcome his obstinacy. He accordingly authorized M.
de Soissons to exert whatever influence he possessed with the rash man who was
so blindly working out his own ruin, and to represent to him the madness of
persisting in a line of conduct which could not fail to provoke the wrath of
his royal master.
“Remember,
Monsieur”, said the Prince, who was as anxious as the monarch himself that the
scandal of a public trial, and the certainty of an ignominious death, should be
spared to so brave a soldier—“remember that a sovereign’s anger is the
messenger of destruction”.
Biron,
however, persisted in declaring that he had no reason to fear the displeasure
of Henry, and had consequently no confession to make; and with this fatal
answer the Count was fain to content himself.
The
King rose early on the following morning, full of anxiety and apprehension. He
could not look back upon the many gallant acts of the unfortunate Maréchal
without feeling a bitter pang at the idea that an old and formerly zealous
servant was about to become a victim to expediency, for the spirit of revolt,
which he had hitherto endeavoured to suppress by clemency,
had now risen hydra-headed, threatening to dispute his right of reprisal, and
to involve the nation once more in civil war. He painfully felt, that under
circumstances like these, lenity would become, not only a weakness, but a
crime, and possessing, as he did, the most indubitable proofs of Biron’s guilt,
he saw himself compelled to forget the friend in the sovereign, and to deliver
up the attainted noble to the justice of his betrayed country.
A privy
council was consequently assembled, at which Henry declared his determination
to arrest the Duke, and to put him upon his trial, if, after mature
deliberation, it was decided that he deserved death, as otherwise he was
resolved not to injure his reputation by any accusations which might tarnish
his renown or embitter his existence. To this last indication of relenting he
received in reply an assurance that no further deliberation was requisite, as
the treason of the Maréchal was so fully proved, and the facts so amply
authenticated, that he would be condemned to the axe by every tribunal in the
world.
On
finding that his councillors were unanimous in this opinion, the King summoned
MM. de Vitry and de Praslin, and gave
them orders to arrest both the Duc de Biron and the Comte
d'Auvergne, desiring them at the same time to act with the greatest caution,
and carefully to avoid all noise and disorder.
When
their Majesties had supped they retired to the private apartments, where, among
other courtiers, they were joined by the two conspirators, both of whom were
peculiarly obnoxious to the Queen--D'Auvergne from his general character, as
well as his relationship to Madame de Verneuil, and Biron from his intimacy
with the brother of the favourite, who had renewed her pretended claim to the
hand of Henry, a subject which always tortured the heart of Marie, involving,
as it did, the legitimacy of her son, and her own honour. It was not,
therefore, without a great exertion of self-command that she replied to the
ceremonious compliments of the Duke by courtesies equally lip-deep, and, at the
express desire of the King, was induced to accept him as her companion at the
card-table. During the progress of the game, a Burgundian nobleman named Mergé
approached the Maréchal and murmured in a low voice, as he affected to examine
his cards, that he was about to be arrested, but Biron being at that moment
deeply absorbed in his occupation, did not hear or heed the warning, and he
continued to play on in the greatest security until D'Auvergne, to whom Mergé
had communicated the ill-success of his own attempt, in his
turn drew near the royal table, and whispered as he bowed profoundly to the
Queen, by which means he brought his lips to a level with the Duke's ear: “We
are not safe here”.
Biron
did not for an instant lose his presence of mind; but without the movement of a
muscle again gathered up his cards, and pursued his game, which was only
terminated at midnight by an intimation from the King that it was time for her
Majesty to retire. Henry then withdrew in his turn; but before he left the room
he turned towards the Maréchal and said with marked emphasis: “Adieu, Baron
de Biron, you know what I have told you”.
As the
Duke, considerably startled by this extraordinary address, was about to leave
the antechamber, Vitry seized his right arm with one hand, and with the other
laid a firm grasp upon his sword, exclaiming: “Monsieur, the King has confided
the care of your person to me. Deliver up your sword”. A few of the gentlemen
of the Duke’s household who were awaiting him made a show of resistance, but
they were instantly seized by the guard; upon which the Maréchal demanded an
interview with the monarch.
“His
Majesty has retired”, replied Vitry. “Give me your sword”.
“Ha! my sword”, said Biron with a deep sigh of
indignant mortification, “that sword which has rendered him so much good
service”; and without further comment or expostulation he placed the weapon in
the hands of the captain of the guard, and followed him to the chamber in which
he was to pass the night.
The
Comte d'Auvergne had meanwhile also been arrested at the gate of the palace by
M. de Praslin, and conducted to another apartment.
The
criminals were no sooner secured than the King despatched a messenger to Sully
to inform him of the fact, and to desire his immediate attendance at the
palace; and on his arrival, after narrating to him the mode of their capture,
Henry desired him to mount his horse, and to repair without delay to the
Bastille, in order to prepare apartments for them in that fortress. “I will
forward them in boats to the water-gate of the Arsenal”, he pursued; “let them
land there, but be careful that they are seen by no one; and convey them thence
to their lodgings as quietly as possible across your own courts and gardens. So
soon as you have arranged everything for their landing, hasten to the
Parliament and to the Hôtel-de-Ville; there explain all that has passed, and
say that on my arrival in the capital I will communicate my reasons for what I
have done, of which the justice will be at once apparent”.
This
arrangement was made upon the instant, and on the morrow
the prisoners were embarked in separate boats upon the Seine, under a strong
escort of the King's bodyguard; and on their arrival at the Bastille they were
delivered into the express keeping of the Duc de Sully; while upon his
subsequent entrance into Paris on the afternoon of the same day, Henry was
received with acclamation by the citizens, who were aware of the fruitless
efforts made by the monarch to induce the Maréchal to return to his allegiance,
and whose joy was of the most enthusiastic description at the escape of their beloved
sovereign from a foul conspiracy. The Maréchal de Biron,
like all men who have attained to a high station, and whose ambition prompts
them to conciliate the goodwill of those by whom they are approached, possessed
many friends; but the accusation of lèse-majesté under which he laboured
was one of so formidable a nature that they remained totally passive; and it
was only his near relatives who ventured to peril their own favour by making an
appeal in his behalf. Their supplications, earnest and humble though they were,
failed, however, to shake the resolution of Henry, whose pride had, in this
instance, been doubly wounded alike as a monarch and as a man. He felt that not
only had the King of France to deal with a rebel, but that the confiding friend,
who had been ready upon the slightest appearance of regret or repentance once more to forgive, had been treated with distrust and
recompensed by falsehood.
While
those closely connected with him were endeavouring, by every means in their
power, to appease the just indignation of the sovereign, and to intercede in
his behalf, Biron himself, as though his past services must necessarily suffice
to secure his impunity, was indulging, even within the formidable walls of the
Bastille, in the grossest and most ill-judged vituperations against the King;
and boasting of his own exploits, rather like a maniac than a brave and gallant
soldier who had led armies into the field, and there done his duty
unflinchingly. He partook sparingly of the food which was
presented to him; and instead of taking rest, spent the greater portion of the
night in pacing to and fro the narrow apartment. It was evident that he had
firm faith either in the royal pardon, or in the means of escape being provided
for him by his friends; but as day by day went by, and he received no
intelligence from without, while he remarked that every individual who entered
his chamber was fully armed, and that the knives upon his table were not
pointed, in order that he should be unable to convert them into defensive
weapons, he became somewhat less violent; and he no sooner ascertained that
Henry had refused to comply with the petition of his family than he said, with
a bitter laugh: “Ha! I see that they wish me to take the road to the scaffold”.
Thenceforward he ceased to demand justice on his accusers,
became less imperious, and even admitted that he had no rational hope save in
the mercy of the monarch.
On the
27th of July, the preliminary arrangements having been completed, the Maréchal
was conducted to the Palais de Justice by the Sieur de Montigny,
the Governor of Paris, in a covered barge escorted by twelve or fifteen armed
men. Previously, however, to his being put upon his trial, he was privately
interrogated by the commissioners chosen for that purpose; but this last
judicial effort to save him only tended to secure his ruin. When confronted
with his judges, Biron appeared to have lost all consistency of character; the
soldier was sunk in the sophist; he argued vaguely and inconsistently; and
compromised his own cause by the very clumsiness of the efforts which he made
to clear himself. Unaware of the revelations of La Fin, when he was confronted
with him he declared him to be a man of honour, his relative, and his very good
friend; but the depositions of the Burgundian noble were no sooner made known
to him than he retracted his former assertion, branding him
as a sorcerer, a traitor, an assassin, and the vilest of men, with other
epithets too coarse for repetition. These terrible
accusations, however, came too late to serve his cause; he had already
committed himself by his previous panegyric; and, perceiving that such was the
case, he hastened to support his testimony against his former accomplice by
asserting that were Renazé alive and in France, he should be able to prove the
truth of what he advanced, and to justify himself. Unfortunately for the
success of this assurance, Renazé in his turn made his appearance in court;
having, by a strange chance, recently escaped from Savoy, where the Duke had held
him a prisoner; and Biron had the mortification of finding that this, another
of his ancient allies, had not been more faithful to him in his adversity than
La Fin. These two witnesses, indeed, decided his fate; as the letters which
were produced against him were proved to have been written before the previous
pardon granted to him by Henry at Lyons, and they were consequently of no avail
as regarded the present accusation.
The
Parliament was presided over by Messire Pomponne de Bellièvre, Chancellor of France,
beside whom the Maréchal was requested to take his place upon a low wooden
stool. Matthieu asserts that, although neither duke nor peer had obeyed the
summons of the Chambers, the number of Biron’s judges nevertheless amounted to
one hundred and twelve; and it is
probable that this very fact gave him confidence, as during the two long hours
occupied by his trial he never once lost his self-possession, but argued as
closely and as sagaciously as though he had yielded to no previous intemperance
of language. He urged the pardon previously accorded to him by the King;
earnestly protested that he had never entered into any cabal against the throne
or dignity of his sovereign; and denied that any man could be proved a traitor,
whatever might be his wishes, so long as he made no effort to realize them. He
admitted that he might have talked rashly, but appealed to his judges whether
he had not proved himself equally reckless in the field; and required them to
declare if so venial a fault had not, by that fact, already been sufficiently
expiated. He then recapitulated the events of his career as a military leader;
but he did so temperately and modestly, without a trace of the arrogant bombast
for which he had throughout his life been celebrated. So great was the effect
of this unexpected and manly dignity, that many members of the court were seen
to shed tears; and had his fate been decided upon the instant, it is probable
that his calm and touching eloquence might have saved his life; but so much
time had already been exhausted that enough did not remain for collecting the
votes, and the result of the trial was consequently deferred; the Maréchal
meanwhile returning to the Bastille under the same escort
which had conveyed him to the capital.
On the
29th, the Chambers having again assembled, they remained in deliberation from
six o'clock in the morning until two hours after midday, when sentence of death
was unanimously pronounced against the prisoner; and he was condemned to lose his
head in the Place de Grève, “as attainted and convicted of having outraged the
person of the King, and conspired against his kingdom; all his property to be
confiscated, his peerage reunited to the Crown; and himself shorn of all his
honours and dignities”.
On the
following day, the decision of the Parliament having been made public, immense
crowds collected in the Place de Grève in order to witness the execution;
scaffoldings were erected on every side for the accommodation of the
spectators; and the tumult at length became so great that it reached the ears
of the Maréchal in his prison-chamber. Rushing to the window, whence he could
command a view of some portion of the open fields leading to the Rue St.
Antoine, along which numerous groups were still making their eager way, he exclaimed,
in violent emotion: “I have been judged, and I am a dead man”. One of his
guards hastened to assure him that the outcry was occasioned by a quarrel
between two nobles, which was about to terminate in a duel; and the unhappy
prisoner thus remained for a short time in uncertainty as to his ultimate fate. Yet still, as he sat in his dreary prison, he heard the
continued murmur of the excited citizens, who, believing that he was to be put
to death by torchlight, persisted in holding their weary watch until an hour
before midnight.
The
King had, however, determined to postpone the execution until the morrow; when,
apparently yielding to the solicitations of the Duke’s family, but, as many
surmised, anxious to avoid a tumult which the great popularity of Biron with
the troops, and the numerous friends and followers whom he possessed about the
Court, led him to apprehend might prove the result of so public a disgrace to
his surviving relatives, Henry consented to change the place of execution to
the court of the Bastille, where the Maréchal accordingly was beheaded at five
o'clock in the evening. The circumstances attending his decapitation are too
painful for detail; suffice it that his last struggles for life displayed a
cowardice which ill accorded with his previous gallantry, and that it was only
by a feint that the executioner at length succeeded in performing his ghastly
office; while so great had been the violence of the victim, that his head
bounded three times upon the scaffold, and emitted more blood than the trunk
from which it had been severed.
It was
said that the father of the culprit, the former Maréchal, had on one occasion,
during an exhibition of the violence in which Biron so continually indulged,
bitterly exclaimed: “I would advise you, Baron, as soon as
peace is signed, to go and plant cabbages on your estate, or you will one day
bring your head to the scaffold”. A fearful prophecy
fearfully fulfilled.
The
corpse was conveyed to the church of St. Paul, where it was interred without
any ceremony, but surrounded by a dense mass of the populace, many of whom
openly pitied his fate, and lamented over his fall.
La Fin
and Renazé were pardoned; but Hubert, the secretary of the Maréchal, suffered “the
question”, both ordinary and extraordinary, and was condemned to perpetual
imprisonment, having refused to make any confession. He was, however, a short
time subsequently, restored to liberty; but the remembrance of all that he had
undergone rankled in his heart, and he no sooner found himself once more free
than he abandoned his country, and withdrew to Spain, where he passed the
remainder of his life.
The
Baron de Luz, who had revealed all he knew of the conspiracy on the promise of
a free pardon, was not only forgiven for the share which he had taken in the
plot, but had, moreover, all his appointments confirmed; and was made governor
of the castle of Dijon and the town of Beaune. The governorship of Burgundy,
vacant by the death of Biron, was given to the Dauphin; and the lieutenancy of
the province was conferred upon the Duc de Bellegarde, by
whom the young Prince was ultimately succeeded in the higher dignity.
A
Breton nobleman, named Montbarot, was committed to the
Bastille on suspicion of being involved in the cabal; but no proof of his
participation having transpired, he was shortly afterwards liberated.
The Duc
de Bouillon, who was conscious that he had not been altogether guiltless of
participation in the crime for which the less cautious Biron had just suffered
death, deeming it expedient to provide for his own safety, took refuge in his
viscounty of Turenne, where, however, he did not long remain inactive; and
reports of his continued disaffection having reached the ears of the King, he
was, in his turn, summoned to the royal presence in order to justify himself;
but the example of his decapitated friend was still too recent to encourage him
to such a concession; and instead of presenting himself at Court he despatched
thither a very eloquent letter, in which he informed the monarch that, being aware
of the falsehood and artifice of his accusers, he entreated him to dispense
with his appearance in the capital; and to approve instead, that, for the
satisfaction of his Majesty, the French nation, and his own honour, he should
present himself before the Chamber of Castres; that
assembly forming an integral portion of the Parliament of Toulouse, which held
jurisdiction over his own viscounty of Turenne. Having forwarded this missive
to the sovereign, he hastened to Castres, where he appeared as he had suggested,
and caused his presence to be registered. The determination of Henry to compel
his attendance at Paris was, however, only strengthened by this act of
defiance; and having ascertained that the King was about to despatch a
messenger to compel his obedience, M. de Bouillon left Castres in haste for
Orange, whence he proceeded, by way of Geneva, to Heidelberg, and placed
himself under the protection of the Prince Palatine, after having declared his
innocence to Elizabeth of England and the other Protestant sovereigns, and
entreated their support and mediation.
Thus
far, with the exception of Biron himself, all the members of this famous
conspiracy had escaped with their lives, and some among them without loss,
either of freedom or of property; one of their number, however, was fated to be
less fortunate, and this one was the Baron de Fontenelles,
a man of high family, who had for several years rendered
himself peculiarly obnoxious to the King and his ministers, and whose atrocious
barbarities caused him to fall unpitied. This wretched man, after having been
put to the torture, was, by the sentence pronounced against him by the council,
broken alive upon the wheel, where he suffered the greatest agony during an
hour and a half. His lieutenant was condemned to the gallows for having been
the medium of his communication with the Spanish Government; although, even as
he was ascending the fatal ladder, he continued to declare that he had always
been ignorant of the contents of the packets which he was charged to deliver,
and could neither read nor write.
With
the life of Biron, the conspiracy had terminated; while his fate had not failed
to produce universal consternation. His devotion to the early fortunes of the
King had been at once so great and so efficient, his military renown was so
universally acknowledged, and his favour with the monarch was so apparently
beyond the reach of chance or change, that his unhappy end pointed a moral even
to the proudest, and so paralysed the spirit of those who might
otherwise have felt inclined to question the royal authority, that even the
nearest and dearest of his friends uttered no murmur; while those individuals
who had dreaded to find themselves compromised by his ruin, and who, to their
equal surprise and satisfaction, discovered that, while he had unguardedly
preserved all the papers which could tend to his own destruction, he had
destroyed every vestige of their criminality, rejoiced at their escape, and
flattered themselves that their participation in his treachery would for ever
remain undiscovered; a circumstance which rendered them at once patient and
silent.
That
the necessity for taking the life of the Maréchal had been bitterly felt by the
King himself, we have already shown; and it was further evinced when he
declared to those who interceded for the doomed man, that had his personal
interests alone been threatened by the treason of the criminal, he should have
found it easy to pardon the wrong that had been done him; but that, when he
looked into the future, and remembered that the safety of the kingdom which had
been confided to him, and of the son who was to succeed him upon the throne,
must both be compromised by sparing one who had already proved that his loyalty
could not be purchased by mercy, he held himself bound to secure both against
an evil for which there was no other safeguard than the infliction of the
utmost penalty of the law.
Many
argued that, having spared the lives of the Ducs d'Epernon,
de Bouillon, and de Mayenne, all of whom had at different
times been in arms against him, Henry might equally have shown mercy to Biron;
but while they urged this argument, they omitted to remember that the political
crime of these three nobles had not been aggravated, like that of the Maréchal,
by private wrong; and that they had not, by an unyielding obstinacy, and an
ungrateful pertinacity in rebellion, exhausted the forbearance of an indulgent
monarch. Moreover, Biron, in grasping at sovereignty, had not hesitated to
invite the intrusion of foreign and hostile troops into French territory, or to
betray the exigencies and difficulties of the army under his own command to his
dangerous allies; thus weakening for the moment, and imperilling for the
future, the resources of a frank and trusting master; two formidable facts, which justified the severity alike of his King and of
his judges.
The
lesson was a salutary one for the French nobility, who had, from long impunity,
learnt to regard their personal relations with foreign princes as matters
beyond the authority of the sovereign, and which could involve neither their
safety nor their honour; for it taught them that the highest head in the realm
might fall under an accusation of treason; and that, powerful as each might be
in his own province or his own government, he was still responsible to the
monarch for the manner in which he used that power, and answerable to the laws
of his country should he be rash enough to abuse it.
That
Henry felt and understood that such must necessarily be the effect produced by
the fate of the Maréchal there can be little doubt, as well as that he was
still further induced to impress so wholesome a conviction upon the minds of
his haughty aristocracy by the probability of a minority, during which the
disorders incident to so many conflicting and imaginary claims could not fail
to convulse the kingdom and to endanger the stability of the throne; while it
is no less evident that, once having forced upon their reason a conviction of
his own ability to compel obedience where his authority was resisted, and to
assert his sovereign privilege where he felt it to be essential to the
preservation of the realm, he evinced no desire to extend his severity beyond
its just limits. Thus, as we have seen, with the exception of
the Baron de Fontenelles, who had drawn down upon himself the terrible
expiation of a cruel death, rather by a long succession of crime than by his
association in the conspiracy of Biron, all the other criminals already judged
had escaped the due punishment of their treason; while the Comte d'Auvergne,
after having been detained during a couple of months in the Bastille, was
restored to liberty at the intercession of his sister, Madame de Verneuil, who
pledged herself to the monarch that he was guilty only in so far as he had been
faithful to the trust reposed in him by the Maréchal, and had forborne to
betray his secret, while he had never actively participated in the conspiracy.
She moreover assured Henry, who was only anxious to find an opportunity of
pardoning the Count--an anxiety which the tears and supplications of the
Marquise, as well as his own respect for the blood of the Valois inherited by
D'Auvergne from his royal father, tended naturally to increase--that the
prisoner was prepared, since the death of Biron had freed him from all further
necessity for silence, to communicate to his Majesty every particular of which
he was cognizant. The concession was accepted; the Count made the promised
revelations; and his liberation was promptly followed by a renewal of the
King's favour.
Towards
the close of the year, intelligence having reached Henry that the Prince de
Joinville, who was serving in the army of the Archduke, had, in his turn,
suffered himself to be seduced from his allegiance by the Spaniards, he gave
instant orders for his arrest; but the Prince no sooner
found himself a prisoner than he declared his readiness to confess everything,
provided he were permitted to do so to the King in person and in the presence
of Sully. His terms were complied with; and, as both Henry and his minister had
anticipated from the frivolous and inconsequent character of their new captive,
it at once became apparent that no idea of treason had been blent with the
follies of which he had been guilty, but that they had merely owed their origin
to his idle love of notoriety. A correspondence with Spain had become, as we
have shown, the fashion at the French Court; and Joinville had accordingly, in
order to increase his importance, resolved to effect in his turn an
understanding with that country. During his audience of the King he so
thoroughly betrayed the utter puerility of his proceedings that the monarch at
once resolved to treat him as a silly and headstrong youth, towards whom any
extreme measure of severity would be alike unnecessary and undignified; and he
had consequently no sooner heard Joinville's narration to an end than he
desired the presence of his mother the Duchesse de Guise and his brother the
Duke, and as they entered the royal
closet, somewhat startled by so sudden a summons, he said, directing their
attention to the delinquent: “There stands the prodigal son in person; he has
filled his head with follies; but I shall treat him as a child and forgive him
for your sakes, although only on condition that you reprimand him seriously;
and that you, my nephew”, addressing himself particularly to the Duke, “become
his guarantee for the future. I place him in your charge, in order that you may
teach him wisdom if it be possible”.
In
obedience to this command M. de Guise, who was well aware with how rash and
intemperate a spirit he was called upon to contend, at once, with the royal
sanction, reconducted Joinville to his prison, where during several months the
young Prince exhausted himself in threats, murmurs, and every species of verbal
extravagance, until wearied by the monotony of confinement he finally subsided
into repentance, and was, upon his earnest promise of amendment, permitted to
exchange his chamber in the Bastille for a less stringent captivity in Château
de Dampierre. Such was the lenient punishment of the last
of the conspirators; and it was assuredly a clever stroke of policy in the
monarch thus to cast a shade of ridicule over the close of the cabal, which,
having commenced with a tragedy, had by his contemptuous forbearance almost
terminated in an epigram.
The
Court, after having passed a portion of the summer at St. Germain, removed in
the commencement of August to Fontainebleau, the advanced pregnancy of the
Queen having rendered her anxious to return to that palace. But any
gratification which she might have promised herself, in this her favourite
place of residence, was cruelly blighted by the legitimation of the son of
Madame de Verneuil, which was formally registered at this period. Nor was this
the only vexation to which she was exposed, the notoriety of the King's
intrigues becoming every day more trying alike to her temper and to her health;
while the new concession which had been made to the vanity--or, as the Marquise
herself deemed it, to the honour--of the favourite, induced the latter to
commit the most indecent excesses, and to increase, if possible, the almost
regal magnificence of her attire and her establishment, at the same time that
her deportment towards the Queen was marked by an insolent disrespect which
involved the whole Court in perpetual misunderstandings.
As it had already become only too evident that the
unfortunate Marie de Medicis possessed but little influence over the affections
of her husband, however he might be compelled to respect the perfect propriety
and dignity of her character, the cabal of the favourite daily increased in
importance; and the measure of the Queen’s mortification overflowed, when, soon
after the royal visit to Fontainebleau, Henry took leave of her in order to
visit Calais, and she ascertained that he had on his way stopped at the Château
de Verneuil, whither he had been accompanied by the Marquise. It was in vain
that M. de Sully--to whom the King had given strict charge to endeavour by
every method in his power to reconcile the Queen to his absence, and to provide
for her amusement every diversion of which she was in a condition to
partake--exerted himself to obey the command of the monarch; Marie was too
deeply wounded to derive any consolation from such puerile sources, nor was it
until the return of her royal consort, when his evident anxiety and increased
tenderness once more led her to believe that she might finally wean him from
his excesses and attach him to herself, that she once more became calm.
On the
11th of November the anticipated event took place, and the Queen gave birth to
her eldest daughter in the same oval chamber in which the
Dauphin first saw the light. The advent of Elisabeth de
France was not, however, hailed with the same delight by Marie as had been that
of her first-born; on the contrary, her disappointment was extreme on
ascertaining the sex of the infant, from the fact of her having placed the most
entire confidence in the assurances of a devotee named Soeur Ange, who had been
recommended to her notice and protection by the Sovereign-Pontiff, and who had,
before she herself became cognizant of the negotiations for her marriage,
foretold that she would one day be Queen of France. This woman, who still
remained in her service, had repeatedly assured her that she need be under no
apprehension of bearing daughters, as she was predestined by Heaven to become
the mother of three princes only; and after having, with her usual
superstition, placed implicit faith in the flattering prophecy, Marie no sooner
discovered its fallacy than she abandoned herself to the most violent grief,
refusing to listen to the consolations of her attendants, and bewailing herself
that she should have been so cruelly deceived, until the King, although he in
some measure participated in her annoyance, succeeded in restoring her to
composure by bidding her remember that had she not been of the same sex as the
child of which she had just made him the father, she could not have herself
realised the previous prediction of Soeur Ange; an argument which, coupled with
the probability that the august infant beside her might in its turn ascend a
European throne, was in all likelihood the most efficacious one which could
have been adopted to reconcile her to its present comparative insignificance.
CHAPTER IV
1603
A few
weeks after the birth of Madame Elisabeth the Court returned to Paris, where,
in honour of the little Princess, several ballets were danced and a grand
banquet was given to the sovereigns by the nobility; but the heart of the Queen
was too full of chagrin to enable her to assist with even a semblance of
gratification at the festivities in which those around her were absorbed. The
new-born tenderness lately exhibited by her husband had gradually diminished;
while the assumption of the favourite, who was once more in her turn about to
become a mother, exceeded all decent limits. The daily and almost hourly
disputes between the royal couple were renewed with greater bitterness than
ever, and when, on the 21st of January, Madame de Verneuil, like herself, and
again under the same roof, gave birth to a daughter, Marie
de Medicis no longer attempted to suppress the violence of her indignation; nor
was it until the King, alike chafed and bewildered by her upbraidings, declared
that should she persist in rendering his existence one of perpetual turmoil and
discomfort he would fulfil his former threat of compelling her to quit the
kingdom, that he could induce her to desist from receiving
him with complaints and reproaches. Henry was aware that he had discovered, by
the assertion of this resolve, a certain method of silencing his unfortunate
consort, who, had she been childless, would in all probability gladly have
sacrificed her ambition to her sense of dignity; but Marie was a mother, and
she felt that her own destiny must be blended with that of her offspring. Thus
she had nothing left to her save to submit; and deeply as she suffered from the
indignities which were heaped upon her as a wife, she shrank from a prospect so
appalling as a separation from the innocent beings to whom she had given life.
Meanwhile
the King, wearied alike of the exigencies of his mistress and the cold,
unbending deportment of the Queen, again made approaches to Mademoiselle de
Guise, upon whom he had already, a year or two previously, lavished all those
attentions which bespoke alike his admiration and his designs; but he was not
destined to be more successful with this lady than before, her intimacy with
the Queen, to whose household she was attached, rendering her still more averse
than formerly to encourage the licentious addresses of the monarch. The
excitement of this new passion nevertheless sufficed for a time to wean him
from his old favourite; and forgetting his age in his anxiety to win the favour
of the beautiful and witty Marguerite, he appeared on the 19th of February in a
rich suit of white satin in the court of the Tuileries, where he had invited
the nobles of his Court to run at the ring, and acquitted himself
so dexterously that he twice carried it off amid the acclamations of the
spectators.
From
this period until the end of the month the royal circle were engaged in one
continual succession of festivities, wherein high play, banquets, ballets,
balls (at the latter of which a species of dance denominated Braules,
and corrupted by the English into Brawls, which became afterwards so
popular at the Court of Elizabeth, was of constant occurrence, as well as the Corranto,
a livelier but less graceful movement), and theatrical representations formed
the principal features. An Italian company invited to France by the Queen,
under the management of Isabella Andrëini, also appeared before the Court, but
no record is left of the nature of their performance.
From
this temporary oblivion of all political anxiety Henry was, however, suddenly
aroused by a rumour which reached the Court of a revolt in the town of Metz,
which proved to be only too well founded. For some time previously great
discontent had existed among the citizens, who considered themselves aggrieved
by the tyranny of the two lieutenants of the Duc d'Epernon
their governor; and to such a height had their opposition to this delegated
authority at length risen that the Duke found himself compelled to proceed to
the city, in order, if possible, to reconcile the conflicting parties. This
intelligence had no sooner been communicated to the King than he
resolved to profit by so favourable an opportunity of repossessing himself, not
only of the town itself, but of the whole province of Messin, in order to
disable the Duc d'Epernon (against whom his suspicions had already been
aroused) from making hereafter a disloyal use of the power which his authority
over so important a territory afforded to him of contravening the measures of the
sovereign. The fortress was one of great importance to Henry, who was aware of
the necessity of placing it in the safe keeping of an individual upon whom he
could place the fullest and most perfect reliance; and the more so that M.
d'Epernon had, during the reign of Henri III, rather assumed in Metz the state
of a sovereign prince than fulfilled the functions of its governor, and that he
would, as the King at once felt, if not opposed, resist any encroachment upon
his self-constituted privileges. The revolt of the Messinese (for, as was soon
ascertained, the disaffection was not confined to the city, but extended
throughout the whole of the adjoining country) afforded an admirable opening
for the royal intervention, and Henry instantly decided upon visiting the
province in person, accompanied by his whole Court, before the two factions
should have time to reconcile their differences and to deprecate his
interference. At the close of February he accordingly commenced his journey,
despite the inclemency of the weather and the unfavourable condition of the
roads, which rendered travelling difficult and at times even dangerous for the
Queen and her attendant ladies; and pretexting a visit to
his sister the Duchesse de Bar, he advanced to Verdun, where he remained for a
few days ere he finally made his entry into Metz.
So
unexpected an apparition paralyzed all parties. M. d'Epernon having refused to
consent to the removal of Sobole, who was, as he knew, devoted to his
interests, had failed to appease the indignation of the Messinese, who were
consequently eager to obtain justice from the King; while Sobole himself, after
a momentary vision of fortifying the citadel and defying the royal authority,
became convinced that his design was not feasible; and he accordingly obeyed
without a murmur the sentence of banishment pronounced against him, gave up the
fortress unconditionally, and left the province.
Sobole
had no sooner resigned his trust than the King appointed M. de Montigny
lieutenant-governor of the province of Messin, and his brother, M. d'Arquien, lieutenant-governor of the town and fortress; while the
garrison was replaced by a portion of the bodyguard by which the monarch had
been accompanied from the capital.
The
vexation of the Duc d'Epernon was extreme, but he dared not expostulate,
although he at once perceived that his power was annihilated. So long as his
lieutenants had been creatures of his own, his dominion over the province had
been absolute; but when they were thus replaced by officers of the King's
selection, his influence became merely nominal; so great,
moreover, had been the tact of Henry, that he had found means to compel the
Duke himself to solicit the dismissal of Sobole and his brother, in order to
assure his own tenure of office; and he was consequently placed in a position
which rendered all semblance of discontent impossible, while the citizens,
delighted to find themselves thus unexpectedly revenged upon their oppressors,
and proud of the presence of the sovereigns within their walls, were profuse in
their demonstrations of loyalty and attachment.
A
slight indisposition having detained the King for a longer period than he had
anticipated at Metz, the Duchesse de Bar, the Duc de Lorraine, and the Duc and
Duchesse de Deux-Ponts, arrived on the 16th of March to welcome him to the
province. Thereupon a series of entertainments was given to these distinguished
guests which was long matter of tradition among the Messinese; and which
resulted in the betrothal of Mademoiselle de Rohan and the young Duc de
Deux-Ponts.
While
still sojourning at Metz, information reached Henry of the serious illness of
Elizabeth of England; a despatch having been forwarded to the monarch by the
Comte de Beaumont, his ambassador at the Court of London,
informing him of the apprehensions which were entertained that her Majesty
could not survive so grave a malady. The effect of this
intelligence was to induce the King to hasten his return to his capital, and he
accordingly prepared for immediate departure; but he was finally prevailed upon
to sojourn for a few days at Nancy, where Madame (his sister) had prepared a
magnificent ballet, which was accordingly performed, greatly to the admiration
of the two Courts. Henry, however, whose anxiety exceeded all bounds, caused courier
after courier to be despatched for tidings of the illustrious invalid, and took
little share in the festivities which were designed to do him honour. He was
probably on the eve, as he declared in a letter to the Due de Sully, of losing
an ally who was the enemy of his enemies, and a second self, while he was
totally ignorant of the views and feelings of her successor.
His
forebodings were verified, for ere the Court left Nancy, Elizabeth had breathed
her last; which intelligence was immediately conveyed to him, together with the
assurance that her council had secured the person of the Lady Arabella Stuart,
the cousin of the King of Scotland, and that there was consequently nothing to
fear as regarded the succession. The death of Elizabeth did not in fact in any
respect affect the relative position of the two countries, neither Henri IV nor
James I being desirous to terminate the good understanding which existed
between them; and on the 30th of July a treaty of confederation was concluded
between the two sovereigns by Sully, in which they were mutually pledged to
protect the United Provinces of the Low Countries against
their common enemy Philip of Spain.
But,
notwithstanding the apparent certainty of a continuance of his amicable
relations with England, whether it were that this fatal intelligence operated
upon the bodily health of the King, or that his hasty journey homeward had
overtaxed his strength, it is certain that on reaching Fontainebleau he had so
violent an attack of fever as to be compelled to countermand the council which
had been convened for the third day after his arrival. The Court physicians,
bewildered by so sudden and severe an illness, declared the case to be a
hopeless one; while Henry himself, believing that his end was approaching, caused
a letter to be written to Sully to desire his immediate attendance. So fully, indeed, did he appear to anticipate a fatal
termination of the attack, that while awaiting the arrival of the minister, he
caused the portrait of the Dauphin to be brought to him; and after remaining
for a few seconds with his eyes earnestly fixed upon it, he exclaimed, with a
deep sigh: “Ha! poor child, what will you have to suffer if your father should
be taken from you!”
Sully
lost no time in obeying the melancholy summons of the King; and, on arriving at
Fontainebleau, at once made his way to the royal chamber, where he indeed found
Henry in his bed, but with no symptoms of immediate dissolution visible either
in his countenance or manner. The Queen sat beside him with one of his hands
clasped in hers; and as he remarked the entrance of the Duke, he extended the
other, exclaiming: “Come and embrace me, my friend; I rejoice at your arrival.
Within two hours after I had written to you I was in a great degree relieved
from pain; and I have since gradually recovered from the attack. Here”, he
continued, turning towards the Queen, “is the most trustworthy and intelligent
of all my servants, who would have assisted you better than any other in the
preservation alike of my kingdom and of my children, had I been taken away. I
am aware that his humour is somewhat austere, and at times perhaps too
independent for a mind like yours; and that there would not have been many
wanting who might, in consequence, have endeavoured to alienate from him the
affections of yourself and of my children; but should it ever be so, do not
yield too ready a credence to their words. I sent for him expressly that I
might consult with both of you upon the best method to avert so great an evil;
but, thanks be to God, I feel that such a precaution was in this instance
unnecessary”.
Sully,
in describing this scene, withholds all comment upon the King's perfect
confidence in the heart and intellect of his royal consort; but none can fail
to feel that the moment must have been a proud one for Marie, in which she
became conscious that the nobler features of her character had been thoroughly appreciated by her husband. The vanity of the woman
could well afford to slumber while the value of the wife and of the Queen was
thus openly and generously acknowledged.
And
truly did Marie de Medicis need a remembrance like this to support her
throughout her unceasing trials; for scarcely had the King recovered sufficient
strength to encounter the exertion than he determined to remove to Paris; and,
having intimated his wish to the Queen, immediate preparations were made for
their departure. They arrived in the capital totally unexpected at nine o'clock
in the morning, and alighted at the Hôtel de Gondy, where Henry took a temporary
leave of his wife, and hastened to the residence of Madame de Verneuil, with
whom he remained until an hour after mid-day; thence he proceeded to the abode
of M. le Grand, with whom he dined; nor was it until a late hour that he
rejoined the Queen, who at once became aware that the
temporary separation between the monarch and his favourite, occasioned by the
journey to Metz, had failed to produce the effect which she had been sanguine
enough to anticipate.
Nor did
Marie deceive herself; for, during the sojourn of the Court at Paris, which
lasted until the month of June, Henry abandoned himself with even less reserve
than formerly to his passion for the Marquise; while the forsaken Queen--who
hourly received information of the impertinent assumption of that lady, and who
was assured that she had renewed with more arrogance, and
more openly than ever, her pretended claim to the hand of the sovereign--unable
to conceal her indignation, embittered the casual intercourse between herself
and her royal consort with complaints and upbraidings which irritated and
angered the King; and at length caused an estrangement between them greater
than any which had hitherto existed. There can be little doubt that this period
of Marie's life was a most unhappy one. Deprived even of the presence of her
children, who, from considerations of health, had been removed to St.
Germain-en-Laye, and who could not in consequence be the solace of every weary
hour, she found her only consolation in the society of her immediate household,
and the zealous devotion of Madame de Concini; to whose first-born child she
became joint sponsor with M. de Soissons, greatly to the annoyance of the King,
who watched with a jealous eye the ever-increasing influence of the Florentine
favourite.
Previously
to her marriage with the Duc de Bar, Madame, the King's sister, had affianced
herself to M. de Soissons; but the circumstance no sooner became known to Henry
than he expressed his extreme distaste at such an union, and directed the Due
de Sully to expostulate with both parties, and to induce them, should it be
possible, to abandon the project, and to give a written promise never to renew
their engagement. In this difficult and delicate mission the minister
ultimately succeeded; but since that period a coldness had existed between the two nobles which at length terminated in mutual
dissension and avoidance. It was, consequently, with considerable surprise that
while preparing for his embassy to England, where he was entrusted with the
congratulations of his own sovereign to James I on his accession, M. de Sully
found himself on one occasion addressed by the Prince in an accent of warmth
and friendliness to which he had long been unaccustomed from his lips; and
heard him cordially express his obligation for some service which, in his
official capacity, the minister had lately rendered him, and declare that
thenceforward he should never recur to the past, but rather trust that for the
future they might be firm and fast friends. Sully answered in the same spirit;
and thus a misunderstanding which had disturbed the whole Court, where each had
partisans who violently defended his cause, and thus rendered the schism more
serious than it might otherwise have been, was apparently terminated; but the
Duke had no sooner returned to France than it was renewed more bitterly than
ever, to the extreme annoyance of the King, who was reluctant to interfere; the
high rank of M. de Soissons on the one hand, and the eminent services of Sully
on the other, rendering him equally averse to dissatisfy either party.
In the
month of August 1603 the Comte de Soissons, whose lavish expenditure made it
important for him to increase his income by some new concession on the part of
the monarch, held an earnest consultation with Madame de
Verneuil, with whom he was on the closest terms of intimacy, as to the most
feasible method of effecting his object, and it was at length determined that
the Prince should solicit the privilege of exacting a duty of fifteen sous upon
every bale of cloth, either imported or exported throughout the kingdom; while
the Marquise pledged herself to exert her influence to induce the King to
consent to the arrangement, for which service she was to receive one-fifth of
the proceeds resulting from the tax. Extraordinary as such a demand must appear
in the present day, it was, according to Sully, by no means an unusual one at
that period; when, by his rigorous retrenchments, he had greatly reduced the
revenues of the Court nobles, and put it out of the power of the monarch to
bestow upon them, as he had formerly done, the most lavish sums from his own
privy purse; thus inducing them to adopt every possible expedient in order to
increase their diminished incomes. Sympathizing with the annoyance of his
impoverished courtiers, and anxious to silence their murmurs, the good-natured
and reckless sovereign seldom met their requests with a denial, and from this
abuse a number of petty taxes, each perhaps insignificant in itself, but in the
aggregate amounting to a heavy infliction upon the people, were levied on all
sides, and under all pretences; and the evil at length became so serious that
the prudent minister found it necessary to expostulate respectfully with his
royal master upon the danger of such a system, and to
entreat of him to discountenance any further imposts which had no tendency to
increase the revenues of the state, but merely served to encourage the
prodigality of the nobles.
It was
precisely at this unpropitious moment that M. de Soissons proffered his demand,
which was warmly seconded by Madame de Verneuil, who represented to the monarch
the impossibility of his refusing a favour of this nature to a Prince of the
Blood, when he had so frequently made concessions of the same nature to
individuals of inferior rank; and the certainty that, were his request
negatived, M. de Soissons would not fail to feel himself at once injured and
aggrieved. Still, mindful of the promise which had been extorted from him by
Sully, the King hesitated; but upon being more urgently pressed by the
favourite, he at length demanded what would be the probable yearly produce of
the tax, when he was assured by the Count that it could not exceed ten thousand
crowns; upon which Henry, who was anxious not to irritate him by a refusal
where the favour solicited was so comparatively insignificant, at once
signified his compliance; and as the subject had been cleverly mooted by the
two interested parties at Fontainebleau, while the minister of finance was
absent in the capital, Madame de Verneuil, by dint of importunity, succeeded in
inducing the monarch to sign an order for the immediate imposition of the duty
in favour of M. de Soissons; but before he was prevailed upon to do this, he
declared to the Prince that he should withdraw his consent
to the arrangement, if it were proved that the produce of the tax exceeded the
yearly sum of fifty thousand francs, or that it pressed too heavily upon the
people and the commercial interests of the kingdom. This reservation was by no
means palatable to M. de Soissons, who had, when questioned as to the amount
likely to be derived from the transaction, answered rather from impulse than
calculation; but as the said reservation was merely verbal, while the edict
authorizing the levy of the impost was tangible and valid, the Prince, after
warmly expressing his acknowledgments to the monarch, carried off the document
without one misgiving of success.
Henry,
however, when he began to reflect upon the nature of the concession which he
had been prevailed upon to make, could not suppress a suspicion that it was
more important than it had at first appeared; and, conscious that he had
falsified his promise to the minister, he resolved to ascertain the extent of
his imprudence. He accordingly, the same evening, despatched a letter to Sully,
in which, without divulging what had taken place, he directed him to ascertain
the probable proceeds of such a tax, and the effect which it was likely to
produce upon those on whom it would be levied.
So
unexpected an inquiry startled the finance minister, who instantly apprehended
that a fresh attack had been made upon the indulgence of the monarch; and he
forthwith anxiously commenced a calculation, based upon solid and
well-authenticated documents, which resulted in the
discovery that the annual amount of such an impost could not be less than three
hundred thousand crowns; while it must necessarily so seriously affect the
trade in flax and hemp, that it was likely to ruin the provinces of Brittany
and Normandy, as well as a great part of Picardy.
Under
these circumstances it was decided between Henry and his minister, that the
latter should withhold his signature to the order which had been extorted from
the King; without which, or a letter from the sovereign specially commanding
the registration of the edict by the Parliament, the document was invalid.
There can be no doubt that the most manly and dignified course which the
monarch could have adopted, would have been to inform M. de Soissons of the
result of the verification which had been made; and to have declared that, in
accordance with his expressed determination when conditionally conceding the
edict, he had resolved, upon ascertaining the magnitude of the sum which must
be levied by such a tax, not to permit its operation. This was not, however,
the manner in which Henry met the difficulty. He felt that his position was an
onerous one, and he gladly transferred his responsibility to M. de Sully; who
accordingly, upon the application of the Prince for his signature, in order
that the document might be laid before the Parliament and thus rendered
available, declined to accede to the request; alleging that the affair was one
of such extreme importance, that he dared not take upon
himself to forward it without the concurrence of the council.
M. de
Soissons urged and expostulated in vain; the minister was inflexible; and at
length the Prince withdrew, but not before he had given vent to his indignation
with a bitterness which convinced his listener that thenceforward all kindly
feeling between them was at an end.
But if
the Count thus suffered himself to be defeated by a first refusal, Madame de
Verneuil was by no means inclined to follow his example. Baffled but not
beaten, she resolved upon returning to the charge; and accordingly she drove to
the residence of the minister, and met him at the door of his closet as he was
about to proceed to the Louvre, in order to have an interview with the King.
There
was an expression of haughty defiance in the eye of the favourite, and a
heightened colour upon her cheek, which at once betrayed to Sully the purpose
of her visit; while he on his side received her with a calm courtesy which was
ill-calculated to inspire her with any hope of success; and she had scarcely
seated herself before he gave her reason to perceive that he was as little
inclined to temporize as herself. When they met he held in his hand a roll of
paper, which, even after she had entered the apartment, he still continued to
grasp with a pertinacity that did not fail to attract her attention.
“And
what may be the precious document, Monsieur le Ministre”,
she demanded flippantly, “of which you find it so impossible to relax your
hold?”
“A
precious document indeed, Madame”, was the abrupt reply, “and one in which you
figure among many others”. So saying, he unrolled the scroll, and read aloud a
list of edicts, solicited or granted, similar to that of the Comte de Soissons,
one of which bore her own name.
“And
what are you about to do with it?” she asked.
“To
make it the subject of a remonstrance to his Majesty”.
“Truly”,
exclaimed the Marquise, no longer able to control her rage, “the King will be
well-advised should he listen to your caprices, and by so doing affront twenty
individuals of the highest quality. Upon whom should he confer such favours as
these, if not upon the Princes of the Blood, his cousins, his relatives, and
his mistresses?”
“That
might be very well”, replied the minister, totally unmoved by her insolence, “if
the King could pay these sums out of his own privy purse; but that they should
be levied upon the merchant, the artizan, and the labourer, is entirely out of
the question. It is they who feed both him and us; and one master is enough,
without their being compelled to support so many cousins, relatives, and
mistresses”.
Madame
de Verneuil could bear no more; but rising passionately from her chair, she
left the room without even a parting salutation to the
plain-spoken minister, who saw her depart with as much composure as he had seen
her enter; and quietly rolling up the obnoxious document which had formed the
subject of discussion between them, he in his turn got into his carriage, and
proceeded to the Louvre.
Furious
alike at her want of success and at the affront which had been put upon her,
the Marquise drove from the Arsenal to the hotel of M. de Soissons; where,
still smarting under the rebuff of the uncompromising Duke, she did not scruple
sufficiently to garble his words to give them all the appearance of a
premeditated and wilful insult to the Prince personally. She assured him that
in reply to her remark that the relatives of the monarch possessed the greatest
claim upon his liberality, M. de Sully had retorted by the observation that the
King had too many kinsmen, and that it would be well for the nation could it be
delivered from some of them.
This
report so exasperated M. de Soissons, that on the following morning he demanded
an audience of the sovereign, during which he bitterly inveighed against the
arrogance and presumption of the minister, and claimed instant redress for this
affront to his honour and his dignity as a Prince of the Blood; haughtily
declaring that should the King refuse to do him justice, he would find means to
avenge himself.
The
unseemly violence of the Count, by offending the self-respect of the monarch,
could not have failed, under any circumstances, to defeat
its own object; but aware as he was that Sully had sought only the preservation
of his master's interests, Henry was even less inclined than he might otherwise
have been to yield to a dictation of this imperious nature. The very excess of
his indignation consequently rendered him calm and self-possessed, and thus at
once gave him a decided advantage over his excited interlocutor. Instead of
retorting angrily, and involving himself in an undignified dispute, he replied
to the intemperate language of the Count by calmly inquiring if he were to
understand that M. de Sully had addressed the obnoxious remark which was the
subject of complaint to the Prince himself, or if it had merely been reported
to him by a third person. To this question M. de Soissons impatiently replied
that the insult had not indeed been uttered to himself personally, but that the
individual by whom it was communicated to him was above all suspicion; while he
moreover considered that his assurance of its truth ought to suffice, as he was
incapable of falsehood.
“Were
it so, cousin”, said Henry coldly, “you would differ greatly from the other
members of your family, especially your elder brother; but since you appear to
place so perfect a reliance on the veracity of your informant, you have only to
name him to me, and to explain precisely what he alleges to have passed, and I
shall then understand what is necessary to be done, and will endeavour to
satisfy you as far as I can reasonably do so”.
M. de Soissons was not, however, prepared to involve
Madame de Verneuil in a quarrel which threatened the most serious results; and
he consequently declared that he had plighted his word not to divulge the
identity of his informant; a promise which he, moreover, considered to be
utterly unnecessary, as he was ready to pledge himself to the entire truth of
what he had advanced.
“So,
cousin”, said the King with an ambiguous smile, “you screen yourself under the
shadow of an oath from revealing to me what I desire to know; then I, in my
turn, swear not to believe one syllable of your complaint beyond what M. de
Sully may himself report to me; for I hold his veracity in as great estimation
as you do that of the nameless partisan to whom you are indebted for the fine
story you have inflicted upon me”.
It was
in somewhat the same frame of mind in which the Marquise had quitted the
finance minister that M. de Soissons, as the King rose and thus indicated the
termination of the interview, passed from the royal closet; nor did he retire
until he had indulged in such unrestrained threats of vengeance that Henry
considered it expedient to despatch Zamet without delay to the Arsenal to warn
Sully to be upon his guard against the impetuous Prince, and not to venture
abroad without a sufficient suite; while at the same time the messenger was
instructed to inquire if the obnoxious expression had indeed been used, and to
whom.
On
being apprised of the visit which had been paid by Madame
de Verneuil to the Duke, the King instantly comprehended the whole intrigue,
and at once declared that it was useless to search further; as he well knew
that she possessed both malice and invention enough to distort the words of the
minister to her own purposes; an admission which indicated for the moment a
considerable decrease of infatuation on the part of her royal lover.
That
this had, however, already become evident, was exemplified by the fact that
upon some rumour of the kind being addressed to the Duchesse de Rohan, coupled
with an inference that the infidelity of Madame de Verneuil had become known to
the King, the young Duchess had gaily replied: “What could he anticipate? How
was it possible for love to nestle between a mouth and chin which are always
interfering with each other?”
It is
scarcely doubtful that the present incautious proceeding of the Marquise tended
to shake the confidence which Henry had hitherto felt in an affection so
admirably simulated that it might have inspired trust in an individual of far
inferior rank. He could not overlook the fact that Madame de Verneuil had
presumed to declare herself hostile to his favourite minister, and had even
made a tool of one of the Princes of the Blood; an affront to himself which he
resented after his accustomed fashion, by withdrawing himself from her society,
and assiduously appearing in the private circle of the Queen.
On this occasion, however, week succeeded week, and
the monarch still continued to avoid the enraged favourite; and even
occasionally alluded to her with a contempt which stung her haughty and
presumptuous spirit beyond endurance. She saw her little Court melting away,
her flatterers dispersing, and her friends becoming estranged; nor could she
conceal from herself that if she failed shortly to discover some method of
estranging Henry from the Queen, and once more asserting her own influence, all
her greatness would be scattered to the winds. Her vanity was also as deeply
involved as her ambition, for she had hitherto believed her power over the
affections of the King to be so entire that he could not liberate himself from
her thrall; yet now, in the zenith of her beauty, in the pride of her
intellect, and in the very climax of her favour, she found herself suddenly
abandoned, as if the effort had not cost a single struggle to her royal lover.
Marie
de Medicis, meanwhile, was happy. She cared not to look back upon the past; she
sought not to look forward into the future; to her the present was all in all,
and she began to encourage bright dreams of domestic bliss, by which she had
never before been visited since the first brief month of her marriage. So
greatly indeed did her new-born happiness embellish the exulting Queen, that it
was at this period that the profligate monarch declared to several of his
confidential friends, that had she not been his wife, his greatest desire would have been to possess her as a mistress. The whole of her little Court felt the influence of her delight; she lavished
on all sides the most costly gifts; she surrounded the King with amusements of
every description, and day after day the heart of the irritated favourite was
embittered by the reports which reached her of the unprecedented gaiety and
splendour of the Queen’s private circle.
As the
dissension which had arisen between Sully and the Comte de Soissons rather
increased in intensity than yielded to the royal expostulation, Henry resolved
to give a public proof of his continued regard for the minister; and for this
purpose he caused him to be informed that on his way to Normandy (whither he
was about to proceed in order to investigate the truth of certain rumours which
had reached him of a meditated insurrection in that province) he would pass by
Rosny, and should claim his hospitality for one day with his whole Court. As
the King was on the eve of his departure, Sully at once left the capital, and
by travelling with great speed, he reached the château four days before his
expected guests, for whose reception he made the most magnificent preparations
of which so brief an interval would admit. As the approaches to the domain were
not yet completed, and it was necessary to level the road by which their
Majesties would arrive, the Duke, in order to accomplish this object,
incautiously caused a canal by which it was traversed, and over which the
bridge was still unbuilt, to be dammed up; and this
arrangement made, he directed his whole attention to the internal decorations
of the castle. Unfortunately, however, while his royal and noble guests were
still seated at the elaborate and costly banquet which had been prepared for
them, a terrific storm burst over the edifice, and information was brought to
the host that the waters had become so swollen as to have overflowed their
banks, while the pent-up canal which he had just driven back had inundated the
court, and was pouring itself in a dense volume through the offices. The alarm
instantly became general; the Queen, the Princesses, and the ladies of the
Court sought refuge in the upper rooms of the castle, whither, as the danger
momentarily increased, they were soon followed by Henry and his retinue; and
meanwhile Sully gave instant orders that workmen should be despatched to clear
the bed of the canal, and thus afford an escape for the invading element. This
was happily accomplished without any loss of life, and the accident entailed no
further evil consequence than the destruction of all the fruits and
confectionary by which the banquet was to have terminated. After this misadventure the Court proceeded to Caen, where at the close of a
patient investigation the King withdrew the government of the city from M. de
Crèvecoeur-Montmorency, who was accused of being engaged in a treasonable
correspondence with the Duc de Bouillon, the Comte d'Auvergne, and the Duc de
la Trémouille, his relative, and bestowed it upon M. de
Bellefonds. Thence the royal party removed to Rouen, where
Henry succeeded in re-establishing perfect order throughout the whole province
of Lower Normandy.
On his
return to Paris the King learnt that M. de Soissons, who had declined to
accompany him in his journey, so deeply resented his visit to Rosny, the
purpose of which he had comprehended upon the instant, that he had resolved in
consequence to quit the kingdom. As the voluntary expatriation of the Princes of
the Blood tended alike to weaken his resources and to undermine his authority,
Henry at once directed MM. de Bellièvre and de Sillery to wait upon the Count,
and to assure him that, so soon as he produced certain proof of the culpability
of the Duc de Sully, he should receive ample satisfaction for the alleged
affront, but that until such proof was furnished he should continue to protect
the minister, and to consider him innocent of the offence imputed to him. The
Chancellor was, moreover, instructed to inquire into the motive which had
induced the Prince to declare his intention of leaving France.
To this
message M. de Soissons coldly replied by observing that he had been insulted by
the Duke, to whom he had given no cause of offence; but that as it nevertheless
appeared by the statement to which he had just listened, that it was the
pleasure of his Majesty to defend the accused rather than the accuser, he
considered that he need not advance any further reason for absenting himself
from the kingdom. After the departure of MM. de Bellièvre
and de Sillery, however, the Prince requested the Duc de Montbazon and the Comte de St. Pol to wait upon
the sovereign, in order to explain to him his reason for quitting the country;
to assure him of the regret which he felt that recent circumstances had left
him no other alternative; and to entreat his Majesty to pardon him if he
ventured to take his leave through the medium of these his friends, rather
than, by appearing in person, incur the risk of aggravating his displeasure.
Having
seen the two nobles depart upon their mission, M. de Soissons mounted his horse
and at once proceeded to Paris, to make the necessary preparations for the
journey which he contemplated; but before he had taken any definite measures to
that effect he was rejoined by his friends, who had been directed by the King
to follow him with all speed, and to explain to him that he had altogether
mistaken the message entrusted to the Chancellor, as the only protection which
his Majesty had declared his intention of affording to M. de Sully was against
his own threats of personal violence; while in the second place they were
instructed to inform him that the King strictly enjoined him not to quit Paris,
as a want of obedience upon this point would prove very prejudicial to his
Majesty's interests; and finally, they were authorized to assure him that, in the event of his compliance with the royal wishes, he
should receive ample satisfaction for the affront of which he complained.
In
reply, M. de Soissons maintained that he had given no ground for the
apprehensions expressed by the monarch for the safety of his minister, and that
he had never entertained any design to injure the interests of the sovereign,
while the knowledge that his withdrawal from the country might have such a
tendency was a more powerful preventive to his departure than “though he had
been fettered by a hundred chains”; and that all he required from his adversary
was a public acknowledgment of the offence which he had committed against him.
This
concession of the irate Prince was followed by a still greater one on the part
of the minister, who, anxious to relieve the mind of his royal master from the
annoyance which he felt at a quarrel in which every noble of the Court had
taken part, and which threatened to become still more inveterate from day to
day, addressed a letter to M. de Soissons, wherein, although he explicitly
denied “having uttered the expression which was imputed to him”, he overwhelmed
the Prince with the most elaborate and hyperbolical assurances of respect and
devotion, declaring “that he would rather die than so forget himself”.
This
submissive letter was accepted as an apology, and a hollow peace between the
disputants was thus effected, which restored for a time the tranquillity of the
Court.
On the 2nd of February 1604 the Queen was invited to
participate in a ceremony which, had she been less happy and hopeful than she
chanced to be at that particular period, could not have failed to excite in her
breast fresh feelings of irritation and annoyance. This was the reception of
Alexandre-Monsieur, the second legitimated son of the monarch and Gabrielle
d'Estrées, into the Order of the Knights of Malta. The King having decided that
such should be the career of the young Prince, was anxious that he should at
once assume the name and habit of the Order, and he accordingly wrote to the
Grand Master to request that he would despatch the necessary patents, which
were forwarded without delay, accompanied by the most profuse acknowledgments
on the part of that dignitary. In order to increase the solemnity and
magnificence of the inauguration, Henry summoned to the capital the Grand
Commanders both of France and Champagne, instructing them to bring in their
respective trains as many other commanders and knights as could be induced to
accompany them; and he selected as the scene of the ceremony the Church of the
Augustines, an arrangement which was, however, abandoned at the entreaty of the
Commandeur de Villeneuf, the Ambassador of the Order, who deemed it more
dignified that the inauguration should take place in that of the Temple, which
was one of their principal establishments.
At the
hour indicated the two sovereigns accordingly drove to the Temple in the same
carriage, Alexandre-Monsieur being seated between them; and
on alighting at the principal entrance of the edifice, the King delivered the
little Prince into the hands of the Grand Prior who was there awaiting him,
attended by twelve commanders and twelve knights, by whom he was conducted up
the centre aisle. The church was magnificently decorated, and the altar, which
blazed with gold and jewels, was already surrounded by the Cardinal de Gondy,
the Papal Nuncio, and a score of bishops, all attired in their splendid
sacerdotal vestments. In the centre of the choir a throne had been erected for
their Majesties, covered with cloth of gold, and around the chairs of state
were grouped the Princes, Princesses, and other grandees of the Court,
including the ambassadors of Spain and Venice, the Connétable-Duc de
Montmorency, the Chancellor, the seven presidents of the Parliament, and the
knights of the Order of the Holy Ghost.
The coup
d'oeil was one of extraordinary splendour. The whole of the sacred edifice
was brilliantly illuminated by the innumerable tapers which lit up the several
shrines, and which casting their clear light upon every surrounding object,
brought into full relief the dazzling gems and gleaming weapons that glittered
on all sides. The organ pealed out its deepest and most impressive harmony; and
not a sound was heard throughout the vast building as the Grand Prior, with his
train of knights and nobles, led the youthful neophyte to the place assigned to
him. The ceremony commenced by the consecration of the
sword, and the change of raiment, which typified that about to take place in
the duties of the Prince by his entrance into an Order which enjoined alike
godliness and virtue. The mantle was withdrawn from his shoulders, and his
outer garment removed by the knights who stood immediately around him, after
which he was presented successively with a vest of white satin elaborately
embroidered in gold and silver, having the sleeves enriched with pearls, a
waist-belt studded with jewels, a cap of black velvet ornamented with a small
white plume and a band of large pearls, and a tunic of black taffeta. In this
costume the Prince was conducted to the high altar by the Duc and Duchesse de
Vendôme, followed by a commander to assist him during the ceremony, and they
had no sooner taken their places than Arnaud de Sorbin, Bishop of Nevers, delivered a short oration eulogistic of the greatness and
excellence of the brotherhood of which he was about to become a member. The
same prelate then performed a solemn high mass, and when he
had terminated the reading of the gospel, Alexandre-Monsieur knelt before him
with a taper of white wax in his hand, to solicit admission into the Order. He
had no sooner bent his knee than the King rose, descended the steps of the
throne, and placed himself by his side, saying aloud that he put off for awhile
his sovereign dignity that he might perform his duty as a parent, by pledging
himself that when the Prince should have attained his sixteenth year, he should
take the vows, and in all things conform himself to the rules of the
institution. The procession then passed out of the church in the same order as
it had entered, and the young Prince was immediately put into possession of the
income arising from his commandery, which was estimated at forty thousand annual
livres.
This
ceremony was followed by a series of Court festivals, which were abruptly
terminated by the arrival of a courier from Lorraine with the intelligence of
the death of the Duchesse de Bar, an event which it was so well known would
deeply affect the King, that the principal personages of the Court, and the
members of his council, determined to go in a body to communicate it, in order
that they might offer him the best consolation in their power. This, however,
was a grief beyond their sympathy, the affection which Henry bore towards his
sister having been unshaken throughout their lives; and the distressing
intelligence was no sooner imparted to him than he burst into a passionate
flood of tears, and desired that every one should withdraw,
and leave him alone with God. He was no sooner obeyed than he caused the
windows of his closet to be closed, and admittance refused to all comers; after
which he threw himself upon his bed, and abandoned himself to all the
bitterness of a sorrow alike unexpected and irremediable. Several days passed
away in this ungovernable grief, and when its violence at length partially
subsided, the King issued an order that the whole Court should assume the
deepest mourning, and that no one should presume to approach him in any other
garb. Not only, therefore, were all the great officers of the Crown, and all
the Court functionaries, from M. le Grand to the pages and lacqueys in the
ante-chambers, clad in the same sable livery, but even the foreign ambassadors,
anxious alike to avoid giving offence to the monarch, and to escape the
inconvenience of being excluded from his presence and thus rendered incapable
of furthering the interests of their several sovereigns, adopted a similar
habit. The mourning of the Queen and her household more than satisfied all the
exigencies of the King; for Marie de Medicis not only sympathized deeply with
the sufferings of her royal consort, but also felt that in Madame Catherine she
had lost a sincere friend--that rarest of all luxuries to a crowned head!--and
it was not consequently in her outward apparel alone that she gave testimony of
her unfeigned regret, for in abandoning her usual garb, she also abandoned
every species of amusement, and forbade all movement in her
immediate circle beyond that which was necessitated by the service of her
attendants.
There
was, however, one exception to this general concession, and that one was
consequently so conspicuous as to excite instant remark. The Papal Nuncio had
exhibited no intention of conforming to the universal demonstration which had
draped the throne and palaces of France in sables; and the monarch no sooner
ascertained the fact than he caused it to be made known to the prelate that he
had no desire to oblige him to assume a garb repugnant to his feelings, but
that he requested to be spared his presence until the period of his own
mourning was at an end. This announcement greatly embarrassed the Nuncio, who
at once felt that by persisting in the course he had adopted he should be
deprived of the frequent audiences that were essential to the interests of the
Sovereign-Pontiff, and accordingly he resolved no longer to offer any
opposition to the express wishes of the King; but after having written to Rome
to explain that he had put on mourning simply to secure himself against the
threatened exclusion, and thereby to be enabled to watch over the welfare of
the Holy See, he ultimately followed the example of those around him, and
demanded permission in his turn to offer his compliment of condolence to the
monarch.
This he
did, however, in a manner little calculated to reconcile Henry to the
reluctance which he had exhibited in performing this duty; for after having declared his earnest sympathy with the grief of his Majesty,
he went on to remark that those who knew who he was, and for whom he spoke,
could not fail to be startled by such an assertion, although he on his part,
could assure his Majesty of his sincerity, as while others were weeping over
the body of Madame, who had died a Protestant and a heretic, his master and
himself were mourning for her soul.
To this
unexpected exordium the King replied, with considerable indignation, that he
had more faith in the mercy of God than to believe that a Princess who had
passed her life in the fulfilment of all her social duties was destined to be
condemned from the nature of her creed, and that he himself entertained no
doubt of her salvation. After which he diverted the
conversation into another channel, with a tone and manner sufficiently
indicative to the Nuncio that he must not presume to recur to so delicate a
subject.
The
body of Madame was, at the King's desire, conveyed to Vendôme, and deposited
beside that of her mother, a dispensation to this effect having been, after
many delays, accorded by the Pope; although too late for the Duchess to have
been made aware that this the earnest wish of her heart had been conceded.
At this
period a new cause of uneasiness aroused the sovereign from his private grief.
To his extreme surprise he had received intelligence from the Sieur de Barrault that all the most secret
deliberations of his council were forthwith communicated to the King of Spain,
without a trace of the source whence this important information could be
derived; and for a time the mystery defied all the investigations which were
bestowed upon it by Henry and his ministers. At length, however, long impunity
rendered the culprit daring, and it was ascertained that Philip III was in
possession of copies of the several letters written by the French monarch to
the King of England, the Prince of Orange, and other friendly powers, all
inimical to Spain, a circumstance which at once rendered it apparent that this
treachery must be the work of some official in whom the greatest confidence had
hitherto been placed; and steps were forthwith taken to secure the
identification of the traitor, which was effected through the agency of another
equally unworthy subject of Henry himself. A certain native of Bordeaux, named
Jean Leyré (otherwise Rafis), who had been one of the most violent partisans of
the League, and who had been banished from France, had entered the Spanish
service, and long enjoyed a pension from the sovereign of that country, in
recompense of the zeal and ardour with which he rendered every evil office in
his power to the kingdom whence he had been cast out.
Circumstances,
however, tended to make Leyré less useful to Philip, who had, as we have shown,
secured a much more efficient agent, and the ill-acquired
pension had accordingly been diminished, while the traitor had no difficulty in
perceiving that the favour which he had hitherto experienced from his new
master was lessened in the same proportion, a conviction which determined him
to make a vigorous effort to obtain the permission of his offended sovereign to
return to France. In order to effect this object, Leyré attached himself to
such of his countrymen as were, like himself, domiciliated in Spain, and
finally he made the acquaintance of one Jean Blas, who in a moment of
confidence revealed to him that a secretary of the Comte de Rochepot (the predecessor of M. de Barrault as ambassador at the
Court of Madrid), who had subsequently returned to the service of the Duc de
Villeroy, still maintained a secret correspondence with the Spanish secretaries
of state, Don Juan Idiaque Franchesez, and Prada, to whom, in consideration of
a pension of twelve hundred crowns of gold, he betrayed all the most important
measures of the French cabinet.
This
man, whose name was Nicholas L'Hôte, was the son of an old and trusted follower
of the Duc de Villeroy, to whose family his own ancestors had been attached for
several generations, while he himself was the godson of the Duke, who had
obtained for him the honourable office of secretary to M. de Rochepot, when
that nobleman accepted the embassy to Spain. On the return of the Count to France, L'Hôte, whose services were no longer necessary to
him, was dismissed, and upon an application to his old patron, was
unhesitatingly received into his bureau; where, believing that his loyalty and
devotion to himself were beyond all suspicion, he was employed by M. de
Villeroy in deciphering his despatches; an occupation which afforded the
traitor ample means of continuing his nefarious correspondence with his Spanish
confederates.
Leyré
had no sooner obtained this important information, and moreover convinced
himself of its probability by various circumstances connected with L'Hôte which
he was careful to learn from other sources, than he proceeded to the residence
of M. de Barrault, and solicited an interview on business connected with his
government. The ambassador, who was still striving by every method in his power
to discover the author of the active and harassing treason by which his
official measures were perpetually trammelled, with a vague hope that the
object of this request might prove to be connected with the mystery which so
disagreeably occupied his thoughts, at once granted the required audience; when
Leyré, having explained his own position, and expressed the deepest contrition
for his past disloyalty, together with his ardent desire to obliterate, by an
essential service to his rightful sovereign, a fault which was now irreparable,
proceeded to inform M. de Barrault that he was prepared to reveal a system of
treachery which was even at that moment in operation to the prejudice of
France; but added that, as in communicating this secret he
should be compelled immediately to escape from Spain, he would not consent to
do so until the ambassador pledged himself that he should be permitted to
return to his own country with a free pardon, and a sufficient pension to
secure him against want; and concluded by saying that should it be beyond the
power of M. de Barrault to give such a pledge without the royal authority, and
that should he consider it necessary to mention him by name, and to state the
nature of the promised service to his government, he must entreat him to make
this revelation solely to the monarch, and by no means to commit the affair to
writing.
To
these terms M. de Barrault readily agreed; but after the departure of Leyré,
conceiving that the extreme mystery enjoined by that personage was merely
intended to enhance the implied value of his revelation; and convinced,
moreover, that the sovereign would immediately communicate such a circumstance
to his ministers, he addressed himself, as he was in the habit of doing, to the
Duc de Villeroy, from whom he shortly afterwards received the required promise
of both pardon and pension.
These
were, however, no sooner placed in the hands of the astute Leyré, than,
perceiving that they bore the counter-signature of Villeroy, instead of that of
Loménie, which would have been the case had they been
forwarded through the personal medium of the King, he revealed the whole
transaction to M. de Barrault; representing that the traitor being under the
roof of the minister by whom they had been despatched, and entirely in his
confidence, must already be apprized of his danger, as well as fully prepared
to avert it by the destruction of his betrayer; and accordingly he declared
that, in order to save his life, he must at once get into the saddle, and
endeavour to distance the pursuit which could not fail to be made with a view
to seize his person.
This
reasoning was so valid that the ambassador not only consented to his immediate
departure, but also caused him to be accompanied by his own secretary, M.
Descartes, by whom he was to be introduced to the sovereign. The precaution
proved salutary, as no later than the following morning the officers of the law
were sent to the house of Leyré, and being unable to find him, forthwith
mounted in their turn and took the road to France. Fortunately for the
fugitives they had, however, already travelled a considerable distance; and
although hotly pursued, they were enabled to reach Bayonne without impediment,
whence they proceeded to Fontainebleau to report their arrival to the King.
Before
they reached their destination, they encountered the Duc de Villeroy, who was
on his way to his château of Juvisy, and to whom Descartes
considered it expedient to declare their errand, without concealing the name of
the culprit whom they were about to accuse. The Duke listened incredulously;
and when the travellers offered, should it meet with his approbation, to return
at once to Paris and arrest his secretary, in order that he might himself
deliver him up to the monarch, he declined to profit by the proposal, desiring
them to fulfil their mission as the service of the King required; and adding,
that he should shortly join them at Fontainebleau, where he was to be met on
the morrow by the accused party, when the necessary steps for ascertaining the
truth of the statement might be at once taken; but that until he had obtained
an audience of the monarch, and ascertained his pleasure, all coercive measures
would be premature.
With
this unsatisfactory reply Leyré and his companion were fain to content
themselves; and having, as they were desired to do, delivered into the hands of
the Duke the detailed despatch of M. de Barrault with which they had been
entrusted, they saw him calmly resume his way to Juvisy, while they continued
their route to Fontainebleau.
Early
the next day M. de Villeroy in his turn reached the palace, and at once
proceeded to the royal closet; where, at the command of the King, he began to
read aloud the papers which had been thus obtained; but he had not proceeded
beyond the name of the accused when Henry vehemently interrupted him by
exclaiming:
“And where is this L'Hôte, your secretary? Have you
caused him to be arrested?”
“I
think, Sire”, was the reply, “that he is at my hotel; but he is still at
liberty”
“How,
Sir!”, said the King still more angrily; “you think that he is at your hôtel,
and you have not had him seized? This is strange negligence! What have you been
about since you were informed of this act of treason, to which you should at
once have attended? See to it instantly, and secure the culprit”
The Duc
de Villeroy quitted the royal presence in anxious haste, and made his way to
the capital with all speed, feeling convinced that should he fail in arresting
his delinquent secretary he could not escape the suspicion of the King. L'Hôte
had, however, profited by the intervening time to explain his predicament to
the Spanish ambassador, who instantly perceived that not a moment must be lost.
Horses were accordingly provided, and the detected traitor, accompanied by the
steward of the ambassador, made the best of his way to Meaux, whence they were
to travel post to Luxembourg.
Orders
had, meanwhile, been despatched to all the postmasters not to supply horses to
any traveller answering the description of L'Hôte; but as he wore a Spanish
costume similar to that of his companion he might still have passed undetected,
had he not, while endeavouring to mount at Meaux, trembled so violently as to
fall from his saddle; a circumstance which attracted the attention of the groom who held his stirrup, and who immediately inferred that
he must be some criminal who was flying from justice. On re-entering the house
he related the incident to his master; and upon comparing the height, and bulk,
and features of the fugitive with the written detail furnished by the
authorities, both parties became convinced that they had suffered the very
individual whom they were commissioned to arrest to pursue his journey to the
frontier through their own agency; and thus impressed, the terrified postmaster
hastened to the Prévôt des Maréchaux, who lost no time in
following upon his track. The fugitives had, however, changed horses before the
anxious functionary and his attendants could arrive to interpose their
authority; but despite the darkness of the night, which prevented them from
obtaining even a glimpse of those whom they were endeavouring to overtake, they
persevered with confidence, being aware that before the close of the second
stage a ferry must be passed, which would necessarily detain the travellers.
The
event proved the accuracy of their calculation, the lateness of the hour
compelling L'Hôte and his companion to rouse the reluctant ferryman from his
rest, a process which involved considerable delay; and they were consequently
scarcely half way across the river when they heard the
clatter of horses' hoofs upon the bank, and the voice of the Maréchal hoarsely
shouting to their conductor instantly to return, or he should be hanged for his
disobedience.
The
fugitives at once felt that they were lost should they permit him to comply;
and accordingly the Spaniard drew his sword, threatening to bury it in the
heart of the affrighted ferryman should he retreat an inch; while L'Hôte, as
craven as he was traitor, could only urge the boat forward by the rope,
groaning at intervals: “I am a dead man! I am a dead man!”
On
gaining the opposite shore neither of the two attempted to remount; but,
abandoning their horses, they set off at their best speed on foot; while the
postilion by whom they had been accompanied had great difficulty, during the
return of the boat, in securing the three animals who were thus suddenly
committed to his sole charge.
L'Hôte,
terrified and bewildered by the voices of the Prévôt and his men, who had, in
their turn, passed the ferry, and unable in the darkness to discern any path by
which he might secure his escape, parted from his companion, and continued his
course along the river bank; until, attracted by some sallows which he supposed
to be an island in the middle of the stream, he threw himself into the water in
order to reach it; but soon getting beyond his depth, and being unable to
regain the shore, as well as alarmed by the rapid approach of his pursuers, he
perished miserably; and was found on the following morning not twenty yards
from the spot where he had abandoned the land.
The
Spanish steward, who was captured on the morrow in a hayloft about two leagues
from the river, was conducted to Paris with the corpse, which was consigned to
the prison of the Châtelet, where it was publicly exposed during two days, and
then drawn upon a hurdle to the place of execution, where it was torn asunder
by horses; the quarters of the body being subsequently attached to four wheels
which were placed in the principal roads leading to the capital.
The
ignominy with which the body was treated was, as Sully asserts, in accordance
with the earnest request of the Due de Villeroy, who could not disguise from
himself the difficulty of his own position; nor was it until after several
days' deliberation that Henry, remembering the extent of the confidence placed
by the Duke in the traitor by whom his interests had been so seriously
compromised, could sufficiently control his indignation to assure him that he
in no wise suspected him of complicity, but should continue to regard him with
the same trust and favour as heretofore. The people were, however, less
amenable; nor did they scruple to accuse M. de Villeroy of participation in the
crime of his follower. They could not forget that he had been an active member
of the League; and they looked with jealousy upon every transaction in which he
was involved; while, fortunately for the Duke, the King was ultimately
prevailed upon to believe in the sincerity of his regret,
and to remember that since he had attached himself to the royal cause he had
rendered essential service to the country; nor did the murmurs of his enemies,
who had begun to hope that the treason of his secretary must involve his own
ruin, induce the monarch to exhibit towards him either distrust or severity. So
lenient, indeed, did the King show himself, that after having being detained
for a short time in prison, the Spaniard who had been taken with L'Hôte was set
at liberty, as too insignificant for trial, and as the mere tool of his master.
While
this affair had monopolized the attention of the King, Madame de Verneuil,
enraged by a continual estrangement which threatened the most dangerous results
to herself, and resolved at all hazards to recall the attention of the monarch,
began to assert more openly and arrogantly than ever her claim upon his hand,
and the right of her son to the succession; while at the same time her brother,
the Comte d'Auvergne, pretexting a quarrel with M. de Soissons, quitted the
Court, and proceeded to the Low Countries, where he had for some time past been
actively engaged in organizing a conspiracy, in support of this extravagant and
hopeless pretension.
The
double personage enacted by the Marquise was one which necessitated the utmost
tact and caution, for she was aware that it involved her liberty,
if not her life; and consequently, in order to secure the sympathy of the
people, while she was at the same time exciting the passions of those
discontented nobles who being remnants of the League still retained an
unconquerable jealousy of the power by which they had been prostrated, she
affected the deepest and most bitter repentance for her past errors, and
solicited the permission of the King to retire from France with her children,
that she might expiate, by a future of retirement and piety, the faults of
which she had been guilty. To this request Henry, without a moment's
hesitation, replied by the assurance that she was at perfect liberty to
withdraw from the country whenever she saw fit to do so; adding, however, that
he would not permit the expatriation of her children, and that before her own
departure she must deliver into his hands the written promise of marriage,
which, although according to the decision of all the high ecclesiastics of the
kingdom totally void and valueless, she had nevertheless been so ill-advised as
to render a source of uneasiness and annoyance to the Queen.
This demand
was, however, arrogantly rejected, the Marquise declaring that she would
neither part with her children nor with a document that rendered her the legal
wife of the King; a decision which so incensed Marie de Medicis that she
vehemently reproached her royal consort for an act of weakness by which her
whole married life had been embittered, and refused to listen to any compromise
until the obnoxious paper should be restored.
Thus circumstanced, Henry at length resolved to exert
all his authority, and despairing of success through the medium of a third
person, he determined himself to visit the Marquise and to exact the
restitution of the document. At this period, however, Madame de Verneuil was
too deeply involved in the conspiracy of her brother to prove a willing agent
in her own defeat, and she accordingly received the monarch with an unyielding
insolence for which he was totally unprepared; violently declaring that the
promise had been freely given, and that the birth of her son had rendered it
valid. In vain did the King insist upon the absurdity of her pretensions; she
only replied by sneering at the extraction of the Queen, and asserting her own
equality with a petty Tuscan princess, whose gestures and language were, as she
declared, the jest of the whole Court. The King, outraged by so gross an
impertinence, imperatively commanded her silence upon all that regarded the
dignity or pleasure of his royal consort, a display of firmness which more and
more exasperated the favourite, who retorted by observing that since the
monarch had seen fit to retract a solemn engagement, and thus to brand herself
and her children with disgrace, it only remained for her to reiterate her
demand for permission to leave the country, with her son and daughter, and her
father and brother, both of whom were prepared to share her fortunes, gloomy as
they might be, the fear of God not permitting her to recur to the past without
the most profound repentance.
To this persistence Henry coldly answered that in his
turn he reiterated his declaration that she was at liberty to retire to England
whenever she thought proper to do so, and to place herself under the protection
of her kinsman, the Earl of Lennox, but that he would not suffer any other
member of her family to share her exile; nor should she herself be permitted to
reside either in Spain or the Low Countries, where the treasonable practices of
the Comte d'Auvergne and the party of the discontented nobles with whom she had
recently allied herself, had already given him just cause for displeasure.
Madame
de Verneuil, perfectly unabashed by this reproach, assured the King, with a
smile of haughty defiance, that she could be as firm as himself where her own
honour and that of her children was involved, and added that should he persist
in demanding the restoration of the written promise by which he had triumphed
over her virtue, he might seek it where it was to be obtained, as he should
never receive it from her hands; while as regarded her estrangement from
himself, it had ceased to be a subject of regret, as since he had become old he
had also become distrustful and suspicious, and his affected favour only tended
to render her an object of public jealousy and indignation.
Outraged
by this last insult, the King rose angrily from his seat, and without
vouchsafing another word to the imperious Marquise quitted the room. It was
not, however, in the nature of Henri IV to find himself once more in the
presence of his mistress unmoved, and although the
indignity to which he had been subjected throughout the interview just
described should have sufficed to inspire him only with disgust for the woman
who had thus emancipated herself from every observance of respect towards his
own person and decency towards the Queen, it is nevertheless certain that his
very anger was mingled with admiration; and that not even his sense of what was
due to him both as a monarch and as a man could overcome the attraction of
Madame de Verneuil. Their temporary separation, during which he had failed to
find any equivalent for her wit and vivacity, gave an added charm to every word
she uttered; he yearned to see her once more brilliant and happy, devoting her
intellect and her fascinations to his amusement; and even while complaining to
Sully of her impertinent and uncompromising boldness, he could not forbear
uttering a panegyric upon her better qualities, which convinced the minister
that their misunderstanding was not destined to be of long duration, an opinion
in which he was confirmed when the weak and vacillating Henry, at the close of
this enthusiastic apostrophe, proceeded to institute a comparison between the
Marquise and the Queen, in which the latter suffered on every point. The
earnest wish to please of the favourite was contrasted with the coldness of Marie
de Medicis, the wit of the one with the haughty superciliousness of the other;
in short, the longer that the King discoursed upon the subject, the more
perfect became the conviction of his listener that the late
meeting, tempestuous as it was, had sufficed to restore to Madame de Verneuil
at least a portion of her former power.
“I have
no society in my wife”, pursued the monarch; “she neither amuses nor interests
me. She is harsh and unyielding, alike in manner and in speech, and makes no
concession either to my humour or my tastes. When I would fain meet her with
warmth she receives me coldly, and I am glad to escape from her apartments to
seek for amusement elsewhere. My poor cousin De Guise is my only refuge; and
although she occasionally tells me some home-truths, yet she does it with so
much good humour that I cannot take offence, and only laugh at her sallies”.
It was
sufficiently evident at that moment that even the “poor cousin” of the monarch,
beautiful and accomplished though she was, faded into insignificance before the
pampered and presuming favourite.
“Perhaps”,"says
Sully, with a calm sententiousness better suited to some question of finance, “the
Queen had only herself to blame for not having released him from the snares of
her rival, and detached him from every other affair of gallantry, as he
appeared to me perfectly sincere when he urged me to induce her to conform to his
tastes and to the character of his mind”.
M. de
Sully, great as he was in his official capacity, evidently possessed little
knowledge of a woman’s nature, and the workings of a woman’s
pride. We have seen what were the “tastes” of Henri IV, and what was the “character
of his mind”; and although it would undoubtedly have proved both pleasant and
convenient to the harassed minister that Marie de Medicis should have devoured
her grief and mortification, and have received the mistresses of the King as
the intimates of her circle, it was a result little to be anticipated from a
pure-hearted wife, who saw herself the victim of every intriguing beauty whose
novelty or notoriety sufficed to attract the dissolute fancy of her consort.
Even at the very moment in which M. de Sully records this inferential reproach
upon the Queen, he admits that Henry was once more in the thrall of the Marquise,
and, moreover, the obsequious friend of Mademoiselle de Guise; and yet he seeks
to visit upon Marie the odium of a disunion which can only be, with any
fairness, attributed to the King himself, who, even while professing to return
to his allegiance as a husband, was openly indulging in a system of
licentiousness calculated to degrade him in the eyes of a virtuous and
exemplary woman.
That
Marie de Medicis had many faults cannot be denied by her most zealous
biographer, but that she was outraged both as a wife and as a mother is no less
certain; and adopting, as we have a right to do, the conjectural style of M. de
Sully,--perhaps, we say in our turn, had the Queen, from the period of her
marriage, been treated with the deference and respect which were her due, the
harsher features of her character might have become
softened, and the faults which posterity has been compelled to couple with her
name might never have been committed. Assuredly her period of probation was a
bitter one, and it may be doubted whether the axe of our own eighth Henry were
not after all more merciful in reality than the wire-drawn and daily-recurring
torture to which his namesake of France subjected the haughty and high-spirited
woman who was fated to find herself the victim of his vices.
The
foreboding of M. de Sully was verified, for within a few days of the interview
just recorded between the King and Madame de Verneuil, and during the
continuance of his estrangement from his wife, it soon became known that the
favourite had re-assumed her empire. In vain did the mortified minister protest
against this new weakness, and assure his royal master that it could not fail
to increase the anger and indignation of Marie de Medicis; Henry only replied
by asserting that when Sully should have succeeded in inducing the Queen to
change her humour and to exert herself to please him, instead of persisting in
closeting herself with her foreign followers, and permitting them to criticise
his conduct and to aggravate his defects, he would forthwith relinquish his liaison with the Marquise. Such an answer, however, did not check the zeal of his
anxious adviser; who, fearful lest this last schism should prove more important
than those by which it had been preceded, and undeterred even by the impatience
with which the King listened to his representations,
persisted in assailing him with arguments, remonstrances, and warnings,
peculiarly unpalatable at all times, but especially so at the very moment in
which he had effected a reconciliation with the favourite that promised a
renewal of the entertaining intercourse whence he derived so much
gratification.
“You
have now, Sire”, resolutely urged the undaunted counsellor, “an admirable
opportunity of terminating in a manner worthy of your exalted rank the
difficulty by which you are beset, and of ensuring your own future
tranquillity. Assume the authority which appertains to you as a sovereign;
compel the Queen to silence; above all, strictly forbid her any longer to
indulge in public in those idle murmurs and lamentations by which your dignity
suffers so severely in the eyes of your subjects; and visit with the most
condign punishment every disrespectful word of which others may be guilty
either towards yourself or her. This effort, Sire, will be insignificant beside
others which you have made, and in which your personal tranquillity was not
involved; be no less courageous in your own cause, and do not suffer your
reputation to be tarnished by a weakness incomprehensible in so great and
powerful a monarch. By exacting the consideration and obedience which are your
due, you are guilty of no tyranny; for it is the indisputable privilege of
every crowned head to enforce both. Let me then entreat of your Majesty at once
to assert yourself, and thus put a period to the domestic
differences by which the whole Court is convulsed”.
“Your
advice may be good”, was the evasive reply of the King, “but you do not yet
understand me, or you would be aware that I cannot bring myself to exercise
severity against persons with whom I am in habits of familiar intercourse, and
especially against a woman”.
“In
that case, Sire”, said Sully, “you have but one alternative. Exile your
mistress from the Court, and make the required concessions to the Queen”.
“I am
prepared to do so”, said Henry hastily, “if, in return for this sacrifice on my
part, she will pledge herself no longer to annoy me by her jealousy and
violence, and to meet me in the same spirit; but I have little hope of such a
result: she is perfectly unable to exercise the necessary self-command, and is
perpetually mistaking the impulse of temper for that of reason. Her intolerance
and rancour forbid all prospect of sincere harmony between us. She is
perpetually threatening with her vengeance every woman upon whom I chance to
turn my eyes; and even the children of Gabrielle, who were in being before her
arrival in the kingdom, are as hateful to her as though she had been personally
injured by their birth; nor have I the least reason to anticipate that she will
ever overcome so irrational an antipathy. Nor can she be won by kindness and
indulgence. Not only have I ever treated her with the respect and deference due
to the Queen of a great nation, but even in moments of
pecuniary pressure I have been careful, not merely to supply her wants, but
also to satisfy her caprices; and that too when I was aware that the sums thus
bestowed were to be squandered upon the Italian rabble whose incessant study it
has been to poison her mind against both myself and her adopted country. Would to
Heaven, Rosny, that I had followed your advice on her arrival, and compelled
the mischievous cabal to recross the Alps; but it is now too late for such
regrets; and if you can indeed succeed in inducing the Queen to become more
amenable to my wishes, and more indulgent to my errors, Ventre Saint-Gris! you
will effect a good work, in which I shall be ready to second you. But mark, you
must do this apparently upon your own responsibility, and be careful not to let
her learn that I have authorized such a measure, or you will only defeat your
own purpose, and render her more impracticable than ever”.
Such
was the unsatisfactory result of the effort made by the minister to reconcile
the royal couple; while, in addition to all his other anxieties, he found himself
placed in a position at once so difficult and so dangerous that he was at a
loss how to proceed, until a circumstance fortunately occurred of which he
hastened to avail himself. In exchanging the petty Court of Florence for that
of France, Marie had speedily emancipated herself from the compulsory economy
to which she had been accustomed from her childhood, and
had become reckless in her expenditure to an excess which constantly disturbed
the equanimity of the prudent minister of finance. The current expenses of her
household amounted annually to the sum of three hundred and forty-five thousand
livres, an enormous outlay for that period; while she was so lavish to her
favourites that she was constantly applying for further supplies; and on one
occasion, when these were withheld, had actually pawned the crown jewels, which
it was necessary to redeem by a disbursement from the public treasury. In
addition to these resources, her income was also considerably increased by
gratuities, bribes from contracting parties, and edicts
created in her favour; the last of which were peculiarly obnoxious to Sully,
from the fact of their harassing the people without any national benefit; and
it was accordingly with great reluctance, and frequently not without
expostulation, that he was induced to countersign these documents.
The
circumstance to which we have alluded as affording to Sully an opening for the
delicate negotiation with which he was entrusted by the King, was
an offer made to Marie de Medicis of the sum of eighty thousand livres in the
event of her causing an edict to be issued in favour of the officials of the
salt-works of Languedoc, which she forthwith despatched to the minister by M.
d'Argouges, with a request that he would use his influence
to obtain it.
Having
made himself acquainted with the nature and tendency of the edict, M. de Sully
desired the messenger to inform her Majesty that he was of opinion that the
sovereign might safely authorize its operation without any injury to the public
interests; but added that he feared the moment was an unpropitious one as
regarded the Queen herself, the King being still deeply offended by some of her
recent proceedings; nor would he advise her to venture upon such an application
until she had succeeded in disarming his anger; for which purpose he
respectfully suggested that she should endeavour to conciliate her royal
consort by some concession, which he would exert all his ability to enhance in
the eyes of his master, and in every way endeavour to advance her interests as
he had already done on several previous occasions.
Marie,
eager to possess herself of the large sum thus proffered for her acceptance,
consented to follow his advice; and decided upon addressing a letter to the
King, expressive of her regret at the coldness which existed between them, and
of her willingness to meet his wishes should he condescend
to explain them.
This
letter having been read and approved by the finance minister was forthwith
forwarded from Fontainebleau, where Marie de Medicis was then residing, to the
King at Paris; but it was not without a struggle that the Queen had compelled
herself to such an act of self-abnegation, and her courier was no sooner
despatched than she complained in bitter terms to M. de Sully of the
humiliations to which she was subjected by the infatuation of the monarch for
Madame de Verneuil; declaring that she could never submit to look with favour
or indulgence upon a woman who had the presumption to institute comparisons
between herself and her sovereign; who was rearing her children with all the
pretensions of Princes of the Blood Royal, and encouraging them in
demonstrations of disrespect towards her own person; and who was, moreover,
fomenting sedition, by encouraging the discontented nobles to manifestations of
disloyalty to their monarch; while the King, blinded by his passion, made no
effort to rebuke, or even to restrain, her impertinence.
The
minister listened calmly and respectfully to these outpourings of her
indignation, but assured her in reply that it only depended upon herself to
annihilate the influence of the favourite, by a system of consideration for the
feelings of her royal consort of which she had not hitherto condescended to
test the efficacy. He, moreover, implored her to make the
trial; and represented so forcibly the benefit which must accrue to herself by
a restoration of domestic peace, that she at length admitted the justice of his
arguments, and pledged herself to accelerate, by every means in her power, a
full and perfect reconciliation.
Gratified
by this almost unhoped-for success, Sully shortly afterwards withdrew; and the
reply of the King to the letter which she had addressed to him was delivered to
Marie when she was surrounded only by her own private circle. It was at once
courteous and conciliatory; and it is probable that, had it arrived before the
departure of the Duke, it would have been acknowledged in the same spirit; but,
unfortunately, the Queen had no sooner communicated its contents to her
confidential friends than she was met by the assurance that the monarch had, on
the receipt of her missive, carried it to the Marquise, where her credulity had
excited great amusement, an assertion which was followed by other commentaries
so distasteful to her pride, that, instead of persevering in the prudent course
which she had been induced to adopt, she haughtily informed the royal courier
by whom the letter had been brought that she should entrust him with no written
reply, but should expect his Majesty on the following day according to his own
appointment.
This
marked and impolitic demonstration of disrespect excited anew the resentment of
Henry, who openly expressed his indignation in the most unmeasured terms, and
that so publicly, that within a few hours Marie was
informed of every particular; and the breach which Sully had fondly flattered
himself that he was about to heal became wider and more threatening than ever.
Meanwhile
the commerce of the King and the favourite was far from affording to the former
all the gratification which he had anticipated from its renewal. The
coquetry--to designate it by no harsher term--of Madame de Verneuil irritated
the jealousy of the monarch, who could not forget that she had taunted him with
his advancing age, and who saw her unblushingly encourage the admiration and
attention of such of the courtiers as she could induce to brave his
displeasure; while her lavish expenditure and unceasing demands, alike upon his
patience and his purse, involved him in perpetual difficulties with his finance
minister, which her extravagant attempts to assume the airs and to usurp the
privileges of quasi-royalty did not tend to diminish.
The
French King was, in fact, at this period, the victim of his own vices; the
sovereign of a great and powerful nation, without a home or a hearth, a
wifeless husband, and a discontented lover; tenderly attached to all his
children, and yet unable to confer a favour upon the offspring of one mother
without incurring the resentment of the other; and while feeling himself
degraded by the thrall in which he lived, totally devoid of the moral courage
necessary for his escape from so disgraceful a bondage.
It is in moments such as these that virtue and honour
assert their well-earned privileges without even the effort of enforcing them.
Weary of his perpetual discomfort, harassed by the heartless conduct of his
mistress, and pining for the mental repose which he so greatly needed, Henry
once more turned towards his wife as his only probable and legitimate haven of
rest; but hopeless of success through his own agency, he again addressed
himself to Sully for assistance and support.
Suddenly
summoned by the monarch, the minister presented himself at the Tuileries, where
he found Henry in the orangery, in which he had taken refuge from a shower of
rain, pale, agitated, and anxious. The subject of his reconciliation with the
Queen was mooted on the instant, and he repeatedly called upon Sully for his
advice as to the best and surest method of effecting it. Conscious that his
counsels had hitherto been either disregarded or rendered abortive by the King
himself, the Duke endeavoured to escape this new demand upon his patience, but
Henry was peremptory.
“Since
then you command me to speak, Sire”, he said at length, “I will be frank. In
order to accomplish the object which you have in view, you can only pursue one
course. Put the sea between yourself and four or five individuals by whom you
are now beset, and cause as many others to pass the Alps”.
“Your
first suggestion is practicable”, was the reply; “there is nothing to prevent
me from banishing the malcontents who are conspiring in my
very Court, but I am differently situated with regard to the Italians; for, in
addition to the hatred which I should draw down upon myself from a nation
proverbially vindictive, the Queen would never forgive an affront offered to
her favourites. In order to free myself from these she must be induced herself
to propose their return to their own country, and I know no one more likely
than you, Rosny, to effect an object at once so desirable and so important.
Make the attempt, therefore; and should you succeed, I pledge myself from that
moment to abstain from every intrigue of gallantry. Reflect upon what I have
suggested in my turn, and consider the means by which this may be accomplished
with the least possible delay”.
So
saying, the King, after ascertaining that the weather had again cleared,
abruptly quitted the orangery, leaving M. de Sully perfectly aghast at the new
duty which had thus been suddenly thrust upon him.
As it
was utterly impossible to propose such a measure to Marie de Medicis as that of
dismissing her most favoured attendants until a perfect reconciliation had been
effected between the royal couple, it was to that object that the prudent
minister first turned his attention; and so successful did he ultimately prove,
that after a brief correspondence the King and Queen had an interview, during
which the whole of their recent misunderstanding was calmly discussed, and
declared by both parties to have been occasioned by the
ill-judged interference of those by whom they were severally surrounded; nor
did they separate until they had mutually pledged themselves to consign the
past to oblivion, and thenceforward to close their ears against all the
gossiping of the Court.
The
effect produced by this matrimonial truce (for it was unfortunately nothing
more, and lasted only for the short space of three weeks) was of the most happy
description. Nothing was seen or heard of save projects of amusement, which,
not content with absorbing the present, extended also into the future. This
calm, like those by which it had been preceded, was not, however, fated to
realize the hopes of either party. Henry was too much addicted to pleasure to
fulfil his part of the compact, while the Queen had, unhappily for her own
peace, so long accustomed herself to listen to the comments and complaints of
her favourites, that it was not long ere they found her as well disposed as she
had previously been to lend a willing ear to their communications. In Madame de
Verneuil they, of course, possessed a fruitful topic; and as Marie, despite all
her good resolutions, could not restrain her curiosity with regard to the
proceedings of this obnoxious personage, she ere long betrayed her knowledge of
the new affronts to which she had been subjected by the Marquise.
The
result of this unfortunate enlightenment was such as, from her impulsive
character, might justly have been anticipated. She no sooner found herself in the society of the King than she once more assailed him
with invectives and reproaches which he was of no temper to brook; and in this
new dilemma Sully resolved, as a last and crowning effort to establish peace,
to suggest to Marie that as her happiness had again been destroyed solely by the
evil tongues about her, she should secure to herself the gratitude and
affection of her royal consort by dismissing all her Italian household, and
surrounding herself entirely by French friends and attendants.
The
indignation of the Queen at this proposal was beyond the reach of all argument.
She declared herself to be sufficiently unhappy separated from her family, and
neglected by her husband, without driving from her presence, almost with
ignominy, the few persons who still remained faithful to her interests, and who
sincerely sympathized in her sufferings; and although the Duke ventured again
and again to recur to the subject, and always with the same earnestness, Marie
continued to reject his counsel as steadily as when it was first offered.
The new
attachment felt or feigned by the King for Mademoiselle de la Bourdaisière had
again awakened her jealousy; and she complained with equal reason that Henry,
even while indulging in this new passion, made no attempt to restrain the
arrogance and bitterness of the forsaken favourite. Nor was Madame de Verneuil
less indignant than the Queen; for even while affecting an
extreme devotion, and surrounding herself with ecclesiastics, who, not content
with labouring to effect her salvation, were also feeding her vanity with the
most fulsome panegyrics, she could ill brook to see herself so easily
forgotten; and once more she indulged in such indecent liberties with the name
of Marie de Medicis that the King, whose patience was the more easily exhausted
from the fact that he believed himself to be at last independent of her
fascinations, was again driven to resort to the assistance of M. de Sully, in
order to compel the restoration of the written promise of marriage which he had
been weak enough to place in her hands.
It was,
indeed, impossible for the sovereign of a great nation longer to temporize with
an insolence which at this period had exceeded all endurable limits; for not
only did the Marquise assert, as she had previously done, the illegality of the
King's union with his wife, but so thoroughly had her affected devotion wrought
upon the minds of the priests about her that several among them were induced to
support her pretended claim, and even publicly to declare the bans of marriage
between herself and the monarch. Among these, two
Capuchins, Father Hilaire of Grenoble and Father Archange, her confessors, the
last in France, and the first in Rome, attached themselves recklessly to her
interests, while at the same time numerous letters and
pamphlets were distributed in the capital, advocating her
cause; and so dangerously active had the cabal become in
the Eternal City that the Cardinal d'Ossat considered it expedient to address a
letter to the French Government upon the subject, which implicated in this wild
conspiracy both the King of Spain and the Duke of Savoy, who, through the
agency of Father Hilaire, were represented as upholding the pretensions of
Madame de Verneuil. These circumstances, and especially the notoriety of a fact
which involved alike the dignity of her husband and her own honour, so greatly
exasperated the temper of the Queen that she no longer attempted to control her
irritation; and on one occasion when, as was constantly the case, the pretended
claim of the Marquise became the subject of discord between the royal couple,
Marie so thoroughly forgot the respect which she owed to the King that she
raised her hand to strike him. Fortunately, however, for both parties, the Duc
de Sully, who was present during the altercation, and who
instantly detected her intention, sprang forward and seized her arm; but in his
haste he was compelled to do this so roughly that she afterwards declared he
had given her a blow, adding, however, that she was grateful to him for having
thus preserved her from a worse evil.
So
great, indeed, was her sense of the obligation thus conferred, that
thenceforward Marie regarded the finance minister with more favour than she had
hitherto done; and occasionally requested his advice during her
misunderstandings with the King. She could not have chosen a safer counsellor,
for although Sully does not, in any instance, attempt to disguise his dislike
to the Tuscan princess, he was incapable of betraying so sacred a trust; and
if, as generally occurs in such cases, his advice was frequently neglected, she
never once had cause to question its propriety.
A short
time subsequent to the scene we have just described the Queen sent to request
the presence of the minister in her closet, where he found her conversing with
Concini, and evidently much excited. On his entrance she informed him that she
was weary of the infidelities of the monarch; that the jealousy which he
constantly kept alive alike undermined her health and destroyed her happiness;
and that she had determined to follow the advice of her faithful servant, there
present, and to communicate to his Majesty certain advances which had been made
to her by some of the Court nobles, who were less
insensible to her attractions than the King himself.
This
communication startled M. de Sully; and while he was endeavouring to frame a
reply by which he might remain uncompromised, Concini with his usual
presumption followed up the declaration of the Queen by asserting his own
conviction that it was the wisest measure which she could adopt; as it would at
once convince her royal consort that she desired to keep nothing secret from
him in which he was personally interested.
This
interruption afforded time for the Duke to collect his thoughts, and heedless
of the interference of the Italian, he remarked in his turn that her Majesty
must pardon him if he declined to offer any opinion on so delicate a question,
as it was one entirely beyond his province; after which, resolutely changing
the tone of the discourse, he continued to converse with the Queen upon
indifferent topics until Concini had retired. Then, however, he voluntarily
reverted to the subject which she had herself mooted, and implored her to
abandon her design; assuring her that he had her interest too sincerely at
heart to see her without anxiety about to place herself in a position at once
false and dangerous, as such an assurance from her own lips could not fail to
excite in the breast of the King the greatest and most legitimate suspicions;
for every man of sense must at once feel that no individual, be his rank what
it might, would have dared to declare his passion to a person of her exalted condition without having previously ascertained that its
expression would be agreeable to her, and having been tacitly encouraged to do
so; while, on the other hand, so far from discovering any merit in such an
avowal, or regarding it as a proof of confidence, his Majesty would immediately
decide that the motive by which she had been actuated in making it must have
been either the fear of discovery, or a desire to rid herself of persons of
whom she had become weary, in order that she might be left at liberty to
encourage new suitors; or finally, that she had been urged to this unheard-of
measure by individuals who had obtained sufficient influence over her mind to
induce her to sacrifice her peace and her honour to their own views.
Happily
for herself, Marie de Medicis admitted the validity of these arguments, and
abandoned her ill-advised intention; and she was the more readily induced to do
this from the assurance which she received from M. de Sully that the
restoration of the promise given to Madame de Verneuil by the King was about to
be enforced, and that she would consequently be speedily relieved from the
anxiety by which she had been so long tormented. Nor was the pledge an idle
one, as immediate measures were adopted to effect this act of justice towards
the Queen. The negotiation was renewed by two autograph letters from the King
himself, addressed respectively to the Comte d'Entragues and the Marquise de
Verneuil, which were long preserved in the library of Joly
de Fleury, but are now supposed to be lost. Copies of both had been, however,
fortunately taken by the Abbé de l'Ecluse, and as they are
highly characteristic of the monarch, and cannot fail to prove interesting to
the reader, we shall insert them at length.
To M.
d'Entragues the King wrote as follows:
“M.
d'Entragues, je vous envoye ce porteur pour me rapporter la promesse que je
vous baillay a Malesherbes je vous prys ne faillir de me la renvoyer et si vous
voulez me la rapporter vous mesme je vous diray les raisons qui m'y poussent
qui sont domestiques et non d'estat par lesquelles vous direz que jay raison et
reconnaitrez que vous avez été trompé, et que jay un naturel plutost trop bon
que autrement, massurant que vous obeyrez à mon commandement, je finirai vous
assurant que je suis votre bon mestre”.
The
letter addressed to Madame de Verneuil bears the same date, and runs thus:
“Mademoiselle,
lamour, Ihonneur et les bienfaits que vous avez reçus de moi, eussent arrêté la
plus legere ame du monde si elle n'eut point été accompagnée d'un mauvais
naturel comme le vostre. Je ne vous picqueray davantage bien que je le peusse
et dusse fair, vous le savez: je vous prie de me renvoyer la promesse que savez
et ne me donnez point la peine de la revoir par autre voye: renvoyez moi aussi
la bague que je vous rendis l'autre jour: voilà le sujet de
cette lettre, de laquelle je veux avoir réponse à minuit”.
These
specimens of royal eloquence were unavailing; evasive answers were returned by
the King's messenger, and entreaties having proved ineffectual, threats were
subsequently substituted, upon which the arrogant Marquise was ultimately
induced to relinquish her claim to ascend the throne of France, on condition
that she should, at the moment of delivering up the document, receive in
exchange the sum of twenty thousand silver crowns and the promise of a
marshal's bâton for her father the Comte d'Entragues, who had never been
upon a field of battle. This condition, onerous as it appears, was accepted;
and the father of the lady finally, but with evident reluctance, restored the
pernicious document to the King in the presence of the Comte de Soissons and
the Duc de Montpensier, MM. de Bellièvre, de Sillery, de Maisse, de Jeannin, de Gêvres, and de
Villeroy, by whom it was verified, and who signed a declaration to this effect, although it was afterwards proved that
D'Entragues had only delivered into the hands of Henry a well-executed copy of
the paper, while he himself retained the original.
This
ceremony over, the Marquise was commanded to leave the Court, and for a short
time peace was perfectly restored. The King had already become weary of his new
conquest, and the hand of Mademoiselle de la Bourdaisière was bestowed upon a
needy and complaisant courtier; but still the absence of the brilliant
favourite, despite all her insolence, left a void in the existence of Henry
which no legitimate affection sufficed to fill, and it was consequently not
long ere he became enamoured of Mademoiselle de Bueil, a
young beauty who had recently appeared at Court in the suite of the Princesse
de Condé. The extraordinary loveliness of the youthful orphan at once riveted
the attention of the King, and her own inexperience made her, in so licentious
a Court as that of Henri IV, an easy victim, so easy, indeed, that the
libertine monarch did not even affect towards her the same
consideration which he had shown to his former favourites, although her
extraordinary personal perfections sufficed to render her society at this
period indispensable to him.
It was
not long ere the exiled favourite was apprised of this new infidelity, yet such
was her reliance upon her own power over the passions of the King that she
affected to treat it with contempt; but although she scorned to admit that she
could feel any dread of being supplanted by a rival, after-events tended to
prove that she was by no means so indifferent to the circumstance as she
endeavoured to appear, and being as vindictive in her hate as she was
unmeasured in her ambition, she could not forgive the double insult which had
been offered to her pride. Forgetting the excesses of which she had been
guilty, and the forbearance of the King, not only towards her faults, but even
towards her vices, she determined on revenge, and unhappily she felt that the
means were within her reach.
The
Comte d'Auvergne, although he had been a second time pardoned by Henry, who was
ever too ready to receive him into favour, and was wont to declare that
although he was a prodigal son he could never make up his mind to see
the offspring of his King and brother-in-law perish upon a scaffold, was devotedly attached to his sister, and of an intriguing
spirit which delighted in every species of cabal and conspiracy;
while François de Balzac d'Entragues, her father, overlooking the fact that he
had himself become the husband of a woman whose reputation was lost before
their marriage, talked loudly of the dishonour which the King had brought upon
his family, and moreover resented, with great reason, an attempt made by Henry
to seduce his younger daughter, Marie de Balzac.
For
this lady, who subsequently became the mistress of Bassompierre, the King
conceived so violent a passion that, although at that period in his fiftieth
year, he did not hesitate to assume the disguise of a peasant in order to meet
her in the forest of Verneuil. The appointment had, however, become known to M.
d'Entragues, who, exasperated by this second affront, and indignant at the
persevering licentiousness of the monarch, stationed himself with fifteen
devoted adherents in different quarters of the wood in order to take his life.
Happily for Henry, he was well mounted, and on being attacked, defended himself
so resolutely that he escaped almost by a miracle.
The
disappointment of M. d'Entragues at this failure was so great that he compelled
his daughter to propose another meeting in a solitary spot which he indicated,
and where he made every preparation to secure the assassination of the imprudent
monarch; but although she despatched the letter containing the assignation,
Marie de Balzac found means to apprise her royal lover of the reception which
awaited him, and he consequently failed to keep the
appointment. That the Comte d'Entragues, twice foiled in
his meditated vengeance, should lend himself willingly to any conspiracy
against the honour and life of his sovereign, is consequently scarcely
surprising, when we remember how many nobles had in turn caballed against Henri
IV with scarcely a pretext for their disloyalty; and meanwhile Madame de
Verneuil, fully conscious of the hatred of Philip of Spain for the French King,
had no sooner resolved upon revenge than she at once turned her attention
towards that monarch, and by exciting his worst passions succeeded in securing
his support. She found an able and zealous coadjutor in Don Balthazar de
Zuñiga, the Spanish Ambassador at the Court of France; while her step-brother,
the Comte d'Auvergne, was no less successful with the Duke of Savoy, who, like
Philip III, was never more happy than when he discovered and profited by an
opportunity of harassing the French sovereign.
This
conspiracy, as absurd as it was criminal, was, moreover, supported by many of
the discontented nobles who had never pardoned Henry for the suppression of the
League; and, wild as such a project cannot fail to appear in these days, we
have the authority of Amelot de la Houssaye for the fact that the Comte d'Auvergne had induced Philip by a secret
treaty to promise his assistance in placing Henri de Bourbon, the son of Henri
IV and Madame de Verneuil, on the throne of France, to the detriment of the
legitimate offspring of Marie de Medicis.
In the
act by which Philip bound himself thus to recognise the pretended claim of the Marquise,
he also gave a pledge to furnish her with five hundred thousand livres in
money, and to despatch the Spanish troops which at that moment occupied
Catalonia to support the disaffected French subjects who might be induced to
join the cabal in Guienne and Languedoc.
Report
also said that M. d'Auvergne, not satisfied with this attempt to undermine the
throne of Henri IV, had formed a design against his life, but the rumour
obtained no credit even from his enemies.
Whatever
extenuation may be found for Madame de Verneuil in such an attempt as this;
whatever indulgence may be conceded to a woman baffled in her ambition, misled
by her confidence in a supposititious claim, and urged on by a blind and
uncalculating affection for her children, it is difficult to find any excuse
for the persevering ingratitude of her step-brother. As regards M. d'Entragues,
we have already shown that he had more than sufficient cause for seeking
revenge upon a monarch who sacrificed every important consideration to the passion of the moment; but the Comte d'Auvergne had
experienced nothing save indulgence from Henry, and it was consequently in cold
blood that he organized a conspiracy, which, had it succeeded, must have
plunged the whole nation into civil war. He was, moreover, the more culpable
that he had, in order to secure a pardon for his previous participation in the
crime of Biron, assured the too-credulous monarch, that in the event of his
restoration to favour, he would, if permitted to continue his intercourse with Philip
of Spain as unrestrictedly as heretofore, profit by the facility thus afforded
to him to reveal to his Majesty all the secrets of the Spanish Government.
There
can be no doubt that such a proposal must have startled and even disgusted the
frank nature of the French King; but it was nevertheless too tempting to be
rejected; and he himself avowed to Sully, when the new conspiracy of D'Auvergne
became known to him, that it was less by the prayers of the culprit's sister,
and by his own consideration for the children whom she had borne to him, than
in the hope that he might, through the medium of the Count, be enabled to
counteract the measures of his most subtle and dangerous enemy, that he had
been induced on that occasion to pardon his disloyalty.
By this
unwise and ill-calculated concession the King had afforded an opportunity to
the restless and disaffected noble of pursuing a correspondence with Philip as dangerous as it was convenient. Couriers were
permitted to come and go unquestioned; and it was not long ere every measure of
the French Cabinet was as intimately known at Madrid as it was in the Privy
Council of Henry himself. This evil was, moreover, increased by the
unconditional pardon which had enabled M. d'Auvergne, after his strange and
degrading offer, to return to the Court; and he profited so eagerly by the
opportunity which was thus afforded to him that he had little difficulty in
convincing the false and vindictive Philip that the moment was at length come
in which he might overthrow the power of the sovereign whom he hated.
M. de
Loménie, however, who, unaware of the promise made by the Count to Henry,
became uneasy at the constant communication which the former maintained with
the Court of Spain, at length determined to satisfy himself as to its nature,
and for this purpose he intercepted some letters, by which he instantly became
convinced of the treason meditated against his royal master. Indignant at the
discovery which supervened, he suffered his displeasure to reach the ears of
the culprit, who forthwith quitted the capital, and hastened to secure himself
from arrest in Auvergne, of which province he was the governor, and where he
made instant preparations to leave the kingdom should such a step become
necessary.
It was
consequently in vain that the King, when informed of the circumstance,
despatched the Sieur d'Escures to
summon the Count to his presence in order that he might justify himself.
D'Auvergne resolutely refused to quit his retreat until he had received a
formal promise from the sovereign that he should be absolved from all blame of
whatever description, and received by his Majesty with his accustomed favour,
alleging as a pretext for making this demand, that he was on bad terms with all
the Princes of the Blood, with the Grand Equerry, and even with his sister,
Madame de Verneuil, and that he could not make head against such a host of
enemies except he were supported by the King.
The
expostulations of the royal messenger were fruitless, the Count being more
fully alive to the danger of his position than M. d'Escures himself; and to
every argument and denegation of the anxious envoy he consequently replied by
saying that it was useless to urge him to compromise his safety while he felt
certain that his ruin had been decided upon, a fact of which he was convinced
from the circumstance of his having received no letter from any of the intimate
friends of the King since he had withdrawn from the Court, while he was
sufficiently acquainted with the bad disposition of Madame de Verneuil to be
assured that in the event of her being enabled to effect a reconciliation with
the monarch at his expense, she would not scruple to sacrifice his interests to
her own.
The
embassy of M. d'Escures thus signally failed, and instead of furthering the purpose
for which it was intended, it produced a totally opposite
effect, as, warned by this attempt to regain possession of his person, it
induced M. d'Auvergne to adopt the most extraordinary precautions. He from that
moment not only refused to enter any town or village where he might be
surprised, but he also declined to hold any intercourse even with his most
familiar friends save on a highway, or in some plain or forest where the means
of escape were easy; and when hunting, a sport to which he was passionately
attached, and which was at that period the only relaxation he could enjoy with
safety, he caused videttes to be stationed upon the surrounding heights, who
were instructed to apprise him by a concerted signal of the approach of
strangers.
All his
caution was, however, vain, his capture being an object of too much importance
to the King, at the present conjuncture, to be readily relinquished, and
accordingly it was at length effected by a stratagem. By the advice of the Duc
de Sully, this enterprise was entrusted to M. Murat, who
associated with himself M. de Nérestan and the Vicomte de
Pont-Château, who, by his instructions, paid several visits to the Count at his
château of Borderon near Clermont, without, however,
inducing him to quit its walls.
These
gentlemen, nevertheless, made themselves so agreeable to the self-exiled
conspirator, and listened so patiently to his complaints, that their society
became at last necessary to him, and so thoroughly did they succeed in gaining
his confidence that they finally experienced little difficulty in persuading
him to be present at a review of the light cavalry of the Duc de Vendôme, of
which he was the colonel-general, and which was about to take place in a little
plain between Clermont and Nonant. He accordingly proceeded to the spot with
only two attendants, and he was no sooner seen approaching than M. de Nérestan
and the Vicomte de Pont-Château advanced from the ranks, apparently to welcome
him, but on reaching his side, the latter seized the bridle of his horse, while
his companion arrested him in the name of the King. Resistance was of course impossible, and thus the Comte d'Auvergne, despite all
his precautions, found himself a prisoner.
L'Etoile, with a naïveté well calculated to provoke a smile of
pity, calls this a “brave” and subtle stratagem; on its subtlety we may be
silent, but we leave alike its courage and its honesty to the judgment of our
readers. Sully admits that not only the two captors, but
even Murat himself, who had an ancient grudge against
D'Auvergne, spared no pains or deceit to insinuate themselves into his
confidence, while it is equally certain that it was to his perfect faith in
their professions that he owed his capture.
Having
secured their prisoner, M. Murat and his coadjutors caused him to deliver up
his sword, and to exchange the powerful charger upon which he was mounted for a
road-hack that had been prepared for him, upon which he proceeded under a
strong guard to Briare, whence he was conducted in a carriage to Montargis, and,
finally, conveyed in a boat to Paris. During this enforced journey his gaiety
never deserted him, nor did he appear to entertain the slightest apprehension
as to the result of his imprisonment; throughout the whole of the way he
jested, drank, and laughed, as though his return to the capital had been
voluntary; and when he was finally met at the gates of the city by M. de la
Chevalerie, the lieutenant-governor of the Bastille, he was in such exuberant
spirits that the astounded official deemed it expedient to remind him that they
had not come together to dance a ballet, but for a totally different purpose.
It was
only when he found himself conducted to the very chamber which had been
occupied by the Maréchal de Biron previous to his execution, that a shade of
anguish passed over the features of the Count. He could not but remember that
the traitor-Duke, who had rendered great and good service to his
sovereign, had suffered for the same crime of which he was in his turn accused
without any such plea for mercy, and it is therefore scarcely surprising that
he should have been startled upon finding himself installed as the successor of
the condemned marshal.
M.
d'Auvergne was not, however, of a temperament long to yield to gloomy ideas,
and consequently, while his unhappy wife was lost in
tears, and endeavouring by every exertion in her power to save him from a fate
which appeared inevitable, he availed himself to the utmost of the leniency of
his jailors, and indulged in every luxury and amusement which he was enabled to
command. Agonised by her apprehensions, the unhappy Countess at length resolved
to throw herself at the feet of the King, where, with a humility which
contrasted strangely with the unbending arrogance of her sister-in-law, Madame
de Verneuil, she besought in the most touching terms that Henry would spare the
life of her husband, and once more pardon his crime. Her earnest supplications
evidently affected the King, while Marie de Medicis, who was present, wept with
the heart-broken wife, and warmly seconded her petition, but the monarch, who
probably feared the result of such an act of mercy, having raised her from her
knees with a gentle kindness which made her tears flow afresh, led her to the
side of the Queen, upon whose arm he placed his hand as he
said firmly: “Deeply, Madame, do I pity you, and sympathize in your suffering,
but were I to grant what you ask, I must necessarily admit my wife to be
impure, my son a bastard, and my kingdom the prey of my enemies”.
All,
therefore, that the Countess could obtain was the royal permission to
communicate with her husband, a concession of which she hastened to take
advantage; when, in reply to her anxious inquiry as to what he desired of her,
she received by her messenger the heartless reply that she might send him a
good stock of cheese and mustard, and that she need not trouble herself about
anything else.
The
intercepted letters of the Comte d'Auvergne having also implicated his
stepfather M. d'Entragues, and his sister Madame de Verneuil, both were
subsequently arrested; the former by the Provost Defunctis in his castle of Marcoussis, and the latter at her residence in the Faubourg
St. Germain; while her children were taken from her, and sent, under a proper
escort, to the palace of St. Germain-en-Laye. So important did it, moreover,
appear to the French ministers to ascertain the exact extent of the conspiracy,
that the Provost was accompanied to Marcoussis by M. de Loménie, in order that
a search might be instituted upon the premises; the result of which tended to
prove, beyond all possibility of doubt, that the original engagement delivered by the father of the Marquise to the sovereign had,
in fact, not been restored, but had been skilfully copied by some able pen;
while the importance which was still attached to the real document by the
family of Madame de Verneuil may be gathered from the fact that it was
discovered by the Secretary of State in a glass bottle, carefully sealed and
enclosed within a second, which was laid upon a heap of cotton and built up in
a wall of one of the apartments. Nor was this the only object of importance
found in the possession of M. d'Entragues; as, together with the promise of
marriage which he had professed to restore to the King, M. de Loménie likewise
discovered, secreted with equal care, sundry letters, the treaty between Philip
of Spain and the conspirators, and the cypher which had been employed in their
correspondence.
From
these documents it was ascertained that the King of Spain had stipulated on
oath that, on the condition of Madame de Verneuil confiding her son to his
guardianship, he should be immediately recognized as Dauphin of France, and
heir to the throne of that kingdom; while five fortresses in the territory of
Portugal should be placed at his disposal, and subjected to his authority, as
places of refuge should such a precaution become necessary. A similar provision
was, moreover, made for the Marquise herself; and an income amounting to twenty
thousand pounds English was also promised to the quasi-Prince
for the support of his household.
Nor was
this domestic arrangement by any means the most important feature of the
conspiracy, as appointments, both civil and military, involving considerable
pecuniary advantages, were also promised to the Comte d'Auvergne and his
stepfather; and a simultaneous invasion was arranged by the Duke of Savoy in
Provence, the Condé de Fuentes in Burgundy, and Spinola in Champagne.
On the
11th of December M. d'Entragues was conveyed in a close carriage to the prison
of the Conciergerie at Paris, accompanied by his son M. de Marcoussis on
horseback, but without a single attendant; and he was in confinement for a
considerable time before he was allowed either fire or light; while on the same
day, Madame de Verneuil was placed under the charge of M. d'Arques, the
Lieutenant of Police, who was informed that he must answer with his life for
her safe-keeping, and who accordingly garrisoned her
residence with a strong body of his guards and archers.
The
Comte d'Entragues was no sooner incarcerated, than his wife, following the example of her daughter-in-law, obtained an
audience of Henry, in order to implore the pardon of her husband; but it was
remarked that, earnest as she was in his behalf, she never once, during the
whole of the interview, made the slightest allusion either to the Comte
d'Auvergne or Madame de Verneuil; doubtless feeling that in the one case the
well-known respect of the King for the blood of the Valois, and in the other
his passion for the Marquise, would plead more powerfully in their behalf than
the most emphatic entreaties. Like that of the Comtesse d'Auvergne, her
attempt, however, proved abortive, save that Henry accorded to her prayers a
mitigation of the rigour with which her husband had hitherto been treated.
Meanwhile
Madame de Verneuil, far from imitating the humility of her relatives, openly
declared that, whatever might be the result to herself, she should never regret
the measures which she had adopted to obtain justice for herself and her
children; and when on one occasion she was urged to make the concessions by
which alone she could hope for pardon, she answered haughtily: "I have no
fear of death; on the contrary, I shall welcome it. If the King takes my life,
it will at least be allowed that he sacrificed his own wife, for I was Queen
before the Italian woman. I ask but three favours from his Majesty: pardon for my father, a rope for my brother, and justice for
myself."
Her
reason for this expression may be found in the fact that during three examinations
which he underwent the Comte d'Auvergne finally acknowledged everything, and
threw the whole blame upon the Marquise; feeling convinced that, under every
circumstance, her life was safe; although he had previously (placing the most
entire reliance on the good-faith and secrecy of M. de Chevillard, to whom he had, in conjunction with his sister, confided the
original treaty with Spain, and never apprehending the discovery of the
documents deposited at Marcoussis), declared his innocence in the most solemn
manner; and he even concluded his address to the commissioners by saying: “Gentlemen,
show me one line of writing by which I can be convicted of having entered into
any treaty, either with the King of Spain or his ambassador, and I will
immediately sign beneath it my own sentence of death, and condemn myself to be
quartered alive”.
Nor was
the confidence placed by M. d'Auvergne in his friend misplaced; for when
Chevillard was in his turn taken to the Bastille as his accomplice, he so
carefully concealed the treaty in the skirt of his doublet that it escaped the
search of the officials; and on seeing himself treated as a prisoner of state,
he contrived by degrees to swallow it in his soup, in order
that it should not afterwards fall into their hands in the event of his
condemnation.
The
indignation of the Marquise may consequently be imagined, when, after such a
declaration as that which he had originally made, she ascertained that the
Count had not only confessed his guilt, but that he had, moreover, revealed the
most minute details of the plot; and in order to convince the King that he
placed himself entirely at his mercy, had even given up to him the mutual
promise made between himself and the Dues de Bouillon and de Biron on the
occasion of the previous conspiracy. Her arrogance was also encouraged by the
fact that Henry, anxious to find some pretext for pardoning her treachery, sent
secretly to inform her that if she would confess her fault and ask his
forgiveness, it should be granted in consideration of the past, and from regard
for their children; to which message the Marquise vouchsafed no further reply
than that those who had committed no crime required no pardon; and in addition
to this impertinence, on being informed that some of her friends, anxious to
save her in spite of her own obstinacy, had asserted that she had solicited the
clemency of the monarch, she bitterly reproached them for their interference,
declaring that they were liars and traitors, and that she would die rather than
submit to such a humiliation.
During
the exile of the Marquise, the King, whose passion for Mademoiselle de Bueil
had begun to decrease, and who discovered that mere
personal beauty offered no equivalent for the wit and fascinations of his old
favourite, resolved to provide for her, as he had previously done for
Mademoiselle de la Bourdaisière, by bestowing her upon a husband; and he
accordingly effected her marriage with Henri de Harlay, Comte de Chésy, a young
noble whose poverty, as well as his want of Court influence, gave every
security for his ready submission to all the exactions of his royal master.
The
monarch, whom absence had thus only sufficed to render more devoted than ever
to the Marquise, and who had resolved under all circumstances to pardon her, continued
to employ every method in his power to induce her to avow her error, although
in searching her papers numerous letters had been discovered which revealed an
amount of infidelity on her part that should have awakened his pride, and
induced him to abandon her to her fate; and at length, despairing that any
minor influence would suffice to alter her resolution, and to lower her pride,
he instructed M. de Sully to see her, and if possible to convince her of the
injury which she was doing to her own cause by the obstinacy with which she
rejected the suggestions of the King.
The
minister had no alternative save obedience; and he consequently presented
himself at the residence of Madame de Verneuil, whom he
found as self-possessed and as self-confident as in the palmiest days of her
prosperity. Instead of concessions she made conditions, and complained loudly
and arrogantly of the proceedings of the sovereign; by whom she declared that
she had been outraged in her honour, and from whom she sought redress rather
than indulgence. This tirade was seasoned by professions of piety and
repentance which were appreciated at their real value by her listener; who,
having suffered her to exhaust herself by her own vehemence, instead of
temporizing with her vanity as her friends had previously done, took up the
subject in his turn, and told her that she would do well to remember that she
was at that moment a prisoner under suspicion of treason, and that she might
consider herself very fortunate if she were permitted to expiate her crime by
self-exile to any country except Spain; bidding her remark, moreover, that this
lenity could not now be exhibited towards her until she had undergone a
criminal examination, and demanded the pardon of the King for her disobedience.
M. de
Sully next proceeded to upbraid her with her unbecoming conduct towards the
Queen; assuring her that every word or act of disrespect of which any were
guilty towards the wife of the sovereign was an offence against his own person,
and was likely to entail upon the culprit a very severe penalty. He then
reproached her for her indecent expressions; and especially for her having more than once declared that had she not been treated with
injustice, she should have been in the place occupied by “the fat banker’s
daughter”; and finally, he reprimanded her very severely for the impertinent
and absurd affectation with which she had presumed to place herself upon a
level with her royal mistress, and her children upon a par with the Dauphin of
France; reminding her, moreover, that the perpetual disunion of their Majesties
was to be solely attributed to her malignant and malicious insinuations, and
advising her to lose no time in requesting permission to throw herself at the
feet of the Queen, to entreat her pardon for the past and her indulgence for
the future.
To this
harangue, so different from the conciliatory and obsequious discourse of her
partisans, Madame de Verneuil listened without any display of impatience, but
with an ostentatious weariness which was intended to impress upon the minister
the utter inutility of his interference; and when he paused to take breath, she
assured him with a placid smile that she was obliged by his advice, but that
she must have time to reflect before she could decide upon such a measure. M.
de Sully, however, was not to be deceived by this well-acted composure; he had
not carefully studied the character of the Marquise without perceiving how ill
she brooked control or remonstrance; and, accordingly, she had no sooner ceased
speaking than he resumed the conversation by expatiating upon the enormity of her conduct in affecting the sudden devotion behind which she
had seen fit to entrench herself, while she was daily indulging alike her
jealousy and her hatred by endeavouring not only to ruin the domestic happiness
of the monarch, but even the interests of his kingdom; and when his offended
listener remarked, with chilling haughtiness, that he was in no position to
impugn her sincerity, he only answered the intended rebuke by persisting that
her assumed piety was a mere grimace, which could not impose upon any man of
sense; a fact which he forthwith proved by detailing all her past career, and
thus convincing her that no one incident of her licentious life had remained a
mystery to him.
“Can
you now tell me”, he asked, “that these adventures existed only in the jealous
imagination of the King, as you have so often assured his Majesty himself? And
will you persist in denying that you have deceived him in the most unblushing
manner? Believe me, Madame, if you had indeed become penitent for your past
errors, and had, from a sincere return to God, desired to withdraw from the
Court, you would at once have obtained permission to do so with honour to
yourself; but you have simply acted a part, and that so unskilfully as to have
deceived no one”.
At this
period of the interview Madame de Verneuil could not wholly suppress her
emotion, but she controlled it sufficiently to reply only by a condescending
bow, and the exclamation of, “Proceed, M. le Ministre!”
“I will do so, Madame”, said M. de Sully, “by a
transition from remonstrance to inquiry. Have you any legitimate subject of
complaint which you conceive to warrant your failure of respect towards their
Majesties?”
“If
this question was dictated to you by the King, Monsieur”, was the proud reply,
“he was wrong to put it, as he, better than any other person, could himself
have decided; and if it be your own suggestion you are no less so, since
whatever may be its nature, it is beyond your power to apply the remedy”.
“Then,
Madame, it only remains for me to be informed of what you desire from his
Majesty”.
“That
which I am aware will prove less acceptable to the King than to myself, M. le
Ministre; but which I nevertheless persist in demanding, since I am authorized
by your inquiry to repeat my request. I desire immediate permission to leave
France with my parents, my brother, and my children, and to take up my
permanent residence in some other country, where I shall have excited less
jealousy and less malevolence than in this; and I include my brother in this
voluntary expatriation because I now have reason to believe that he is
suffering entirely for my sake”.
Sully
was startled: he could not place faith in her sincerity, and he consequently
induced her to repeat her request more than once; until she at length added a
condition which convinced him that she was indeed perfectly serious in the
desire that she expressed.
“Do not, however, imagine, Monsieur”, she said, with a
significant smile, “that I have any intention of leaving the kingdom, and
taking up my abode with strangers, with the slightest prospect of dying by
hunger. I am by no means inclined to afford such a gratification to the Queen,
who would doubtlessly rejoice to learn that this had been the close of my
career. I must have an income of a hundred thousand francs, fully and
satisfactorily secured to me in land, before I leave France; and this is a mere
trifle compared with what I have a legal right to demand from the King”.
“I
shall submit your proposition to his Majesty, Madame”, said the minister as he
rose to take his leave; “and will shortly acquaint you with the result”.
Greatly
to the disappointment of M. de Sully, however, he found Henry decidedly averse
to the departure of Madame de Verneuil; nor could all the arguments by which he
endeavoured to convince the infatuated monarch that the self-exile of the
Marquise was calculated to ensure his own future tranquillity, avail to
overcome his distaste to the proposal. He was weary of his
purely sensual intercourse with Madame de Moret, whose extreme facility had
caused him from the first to attach but little value to her possession; while
her total want of intellect and knowledge of the world continually caused him
to remember with regret the dazzling although dangerous qualities of her
predecessor. Marie de Medicis, moreover, who had originally
looked with complacency upon his liaison with Mademoiselle de Bueil,
rejoicing in any event which tended to estrange his affections from the Marquise,
had, since her melodramatic marriage and her accession of rank, begun to
entertain apprehensions that another formidable rival was about to embitter her
future life; while the reproaches which she constantly addressed to the
monarch, and to which he was compelled to submit, on the subject of a woman who
had merely pleased his fancy without touching his heart, were another cause of
irritation, and only tended to make him look back upon the past with an ardent
longing to repair it. Thus he continued to employ all his most intimate
associates in an attempt to urge the Marquise to make such concessions as would
enable him to pardon her, with the earnestness of a repentant lover rather than
the clemency of an indulgent sovereign; and when the stern minister so signally
failed to convince her reason by his representations, the King endeavoured to
arouse her vanity and self-interest by the flatteries and inferences of the
more courtly Bassompierre, La Varenne, Sigogne, and others
in whom he placed confidence; but all this ill-disguised
anxiety only served to convince the wily favourite that she should prove
victorious in the struggle, for since Henry could not bring himself to consent
to her expatriation, there was no probability that he would ever be induced to
take her life.
And the
astute Marquise judged rightly: for she was not only safe herself, but the
palladium of her family. The King was no longer young; he had become satiated
with the tame and facile pleasures for which he was indebted to his sovereign
rank; and although opposition and haughtiness in a wife angered and disgusted
him, there was a piquancy and novelty in the defiance of a mistress by which he
was alike amused and interested. He could calculate upon the extent to which
the Queen would venture to indulge her displeasure; but he found himself quite unable to adjudge the limits of Madame de Verneuil’s
daring; and thus his passion was constantly stimulated by curiosity. In her
hours of fascination she delighted his fancy, and in those of irritation she
excited his astonishment. Like the ocean, she assumed a new aspect every hour;
and to this “infinite variety” she was in all probability indebted for the
duration of her empire over the sensual and selfish affections of her royal
lover.
Conscious
of her power, the Marquise continued inexorable; and finally, Henry found
himself compelled to include her in the public accusation brought against the
other conspirators, and to issue an order to the Parliament, as the supreme
criminal tribunal of the kingdom, to commence without further delay the
prosecution of the delinquents.
A new
anxiety at this time divided the attention of the King with that which he felt
for the vindication of the favourite. His permission had been asked by the
Huguenots to hold a meeting at Châtellerault, and this he had at once conceded;
but circumstances having arisen which induced the Council to apprehend that the
intrigues of the Duc de Bouillon, supported by MM. de la Trémouille, and du
Plessis-Mornay, were about to involve the kingdom
in new troubles, M. de Sully proceeded to Poitou under pretext of taking
possession of his new government, and by his unexpected appearance on the scene
of action counteracted the project of the conspirators; while a short time
subsequently the Due de la Trémouille fell into a rapid decline which
terminated his existence at the early age of thirty-four years, and deprived
the reform party of one of their most able and zealous leaders.
Meanwhile,
amid all the dissensions, both political and domestic, by which Henri IV had
latterly been harassed, his earnest desire to improve and embellish his good
city of Paris and its adjacent palaces had continued unabated. Henri III,
during whose reign the Pont Neuf had been commenced, had only lived long enough
to see two of its arches constructed, and the piles destined to support the
remainder raised above the river; this undertaking was now completed, and
numerous workmen were also constantly employed on the galleries of the Louvre,
and at the châteaux of St. Germain-en-Laye, Fontainebleau, and Monceaux; the
latter of which, as we have already stated, the monarch had presented
to the Queen on her arrival in Paris; while, emulating the royal example, the
great nobles and capitalists of the city were building on all sides, and
increasing alike the extent and splendour of the metropolis. It was at this period that Henry joined the Faubourg St. Germain to the city,
and caused it to be paved; constructed the Place Royale; repaired the Hôtel de
St. Louis for the purpose of converting it into a plague-hospital; and
commenced building the Temple Square.
Other
great works were also undertaken throughout the kingdom; the junction of the
Garonne with the Aude, an attempt which presented considerable difficulty and
which was only terminated during the reign of Louis XIV, was vigorously
commenced; other rivers, hitherto comparatively useless, were rendered
navigable; and the canal of Briare, with its two-and-thirty locks, although not
more than half completed at the death of Henry, had already cost the enormous
sum of three hundred thousand crowns. Numerous means of communication were
established by highways which had not previously existed; bridges were built,
and roads repaired; taxes which paralyzed the manufactures of the country were
remitted; the fabrication of tapestried hangings wrought in worsted, silk, and
gold, was earnestly encouraged; mulberry plantations were formed, and the
foundation laid for the production of the costly silks and velvets for which
Lyons has ever since been so famous. An imitation of the
celebrated Venetian glass was also introduced with great success; and, above
all, even in the midst of these expensive undertakings, a tax of four annual
millions of francs, hitherto raised by the customs upon the different classes
of citizens, was altogether abolished. Hope and energy were alike aroused by so
vigorous a measure; and thus the people ceased to murmur, and were ready to
acknowledge that the King had indeed begun to verify his celebrated declaration
that "if he were spared, there should not exist a workman within his realm
who was not enabled to cook a fowl upon the Sunday."
CHAPTER V
1605
The
year 1605 commenced, as had been the case each year since the peace, with a
succession of Court-festivals; tilts and tournaments, balls and masquerades,
occupied the attention of the privileged; presents of value were exchanged by
the sovereigns and princes; and during all this incessant dissipation the
Parliament was diligently employed upon the trial of the conspirators.
On
Saturday, the 29th of January, the Comte d'Auvergne was
placed out the sellette ( a very low wooden stool upon which accused persons
were formerly seated during their trial), where L'Etoile asserts that he communicated much more than was required of
him; while the Queen, anxious to secure the condemnation of Madame de Verneuil,
and at the same time to intimidate the favourites by whom she might be
succeeded, appeared in person as one of the accusing witnesses. Nor did Henry,
who had already decided upon the pardon of the Marquise, attempt to dissuade
her from this extraordinary measure; and it is even probable that as the design
of the King was merely to humble the pride of the haughty Marquise, in order to
render her more submissive to his authority, he was by no means disinclined to
suffer Marie to give free vent to her indignation and contempt.
The
Parliament had nominated as its commissaries Achille de Harlay, the first
president, and MM. Etienne Dufour and
Philibert Turin, councillors, to whose interrogatories, however, the Comte
d'Auvergne at first refused to reply, alleging as his reason the pardon which
had been accorded to him by Henry during the past year. In this emergency M.
Louis Servin, the King's Advocate, was deputed to offer to
his Majesty the remonstrance of the commissaries, and to represent that as the
accused had already been convicted of conspiring, first with Maturin Carterie,
and subsequently with the Duc de Biron, he was unworthy of pardon on this third
occasion; while the most imperious necessity existed that an example should be
made, in order to secure the safety of their Majesties and the Dauphin, which,
moreover, as a natural consequence, involved the tranquillity and welfare of
the state.
To this
appeal the King replied that the abolition accorded to the accused on the two
former occasions had been granted with a view of inducing him to return to his
allegiance, but that since it had failed to produce the desired result it could
form no pretext for his escape from the penalties of this new crime, and that
should he persist in refusing to reply to the questions put to him by his
judges his silence must be construed into an acknowledgment of treason; upon
which M. d'Auvergne immediately endeavoured to redeem his
error by revealing all the details of the past plots, as well as those of the
one in which he was now implicated.
Madame
de Verneuil, who had been summoned to appear at the same time, excused herself
upon the plea of indisposition; and it was asserted that she had caused herself
to be bled in order that the temporary delay in her examination thus secured
might enable her, ere she appeared before the commissaries, to ascertain to
what extent she had been implicated by the revelations of her step-brother. She
no sooner learnt, however, that the Count had thrown all the odium of the
conspiracy upon herself than she hastened to obey a second summons, and
presented herself with her arm in a sling to undergo in her turn the necessary
interrogatories. Her manner was firm, and her delivery at once haughty and
energetic. She insisted upon the innocence of her father, declared that the
whole cabal had been organized by D'Auvergne, and admitted that feeling herself
wronged she had willingly entered into his views; but at the same time she
coupled with this admission the assurance that having nothing with which to
reproach herself she asked for no indulgence, and was quite prepared to abide
by the consequences of her attempt to do justice alike to herself and to her
children.
When
the Comte d'Entragues was in his turn examined, he did not seek to deny his
participation in the plot, but placed in the hands of his judges a written
document, setting forth the services which he had rendered
to the King since his accession, and which had merely been recompensed by the
government of Orleans, a dignity of which he was moreover shortly afterwards
deprived in order that it might be conferred upon another, although in his zeal
for the monarch he had not only exhausted his own resources but had even raised
considerable loans which still remained unliquidated. Yet, as he stated, he had
uttered no complaint, although he was reduced to poverty and deprived of the
means of suitably establishing his children, for he still had faith in the justice
and generosity of his sovereign; and with this assurance he had retired to his
paternal home, old, sick, and poor, to await as best he might the happy moment
in which his claims should be remembered. And then it was, as he emphatically
declared, that the last and crowning misfortune of a long life had overtaken
him. Then it was that the King conceived that unfortunate attachment for his
younger daughter, which deprived him of the greatest solace of his old age and
exposed him to the raillery and contempt of his fellow-nobles, coupled with
sarcastic congratulations upon the advantages which he was supposed to have
derived from the dishonour of his child; an event which had clouded his remnant
of existence with shame and despair. He had, as he asserted, several times
requested of his Majesty that he might be permitted to withdraw entirely from
the Court and finish his days in retirement and in the bosom of his family, but
this favour had constantly been denied. As a last effort he had then represented the deplorable state of his health, and entreated
that he might be permitted to travel in order to regain his strength, leaving
his wife and children at Marcoussis; a favour which also was not only refused,
but the refusal rendered doubly bitter by a prohibition either to see or
correspond with his daughter, whose safety was at that moment endangered by the
menaces of the Queen. He then entered briefly into the circumstances of the
conspiracy, and concluded by declaring that no attempt upon the life either of
the sovereign or the Dauphin had ever been contemplated by himself or by any of
his accomplices.
Such
was the defence of the dishonoured old man who had placed himself beyond the
pale of sympathy by his own degrading marriage. Yet he was still a father; and
who shall decide that the shame which in his own case had been silenced by the
voice of passion, did not crush him with double violence when it involved the
reputation of his child? Who shall say that he had not, in the throbbing
recesses of his wrung heart, mourned with an undying remorse the fault of which
he had himself been guilty, and felt that it was visited in vengeance upon the
dearest object of his paternal love? Contemporary historians waste not a word
upon the ruined noble, the disappointed partisan, and the disgraced father; yet
the scene must have been a pitiable one in the midst of which he stood an
attainted criminal, blighted in every affection and in
every hope, the creditor of his King, and the victim of his paternal ambition.
The
sentence of the Parliament was pronounced on the 2nd of February. The Comtes
d'Auvergne and d'Entragues were condemned to death for the crime of lèse-majesté,
and Madame de Verneuil to imprisonment in the convent of Beaumont, near Tours,
until more ample information could be obtained of the exact extent of her
participation; and meanwhile she was to be prohibited from holding any
communication save with the sisterhood.
On the
same day, the sentence having been instantly communicated to Madame
d'Entragues, with the information that the King was about to repair to the
chapel of the palace to attend mass, she hastened, accompanied by her daughter
Marie de Balzac, to the Tuileries, where the two
unfortunate women threw themselves on their knees before Henry as he entered
the grand gallery, and with tears and sobs entreated mercy, the one for her
husband, and the other for her father. The monarch burst into tears as he saw
them at his feet. He could not forget that the mourners thus prostrate before
him were the mother and the sister of the woman whom he still loved, and as he
raised them from the ground he said soothingly: “You shall see that I am
indulgent--I will convene a council this very day. Go, and pray to God to
inspire me with right resolutions, while I proceed in my
turn to mass with the same intention”.
The
King kept his word. In the afternoon the Council again met, when he charged
them upon their consciences to deliberate seriously before they condemned two
of their fellow-creatures to an ignominious death; but they remained firm in
their decision, declaring that by extending pardon to crimes of so serious a
nature as those upon which judgment had just been passed, nothing but danger
and disorder could ensue; and that after the execution of the Duc de Biron, individuals
convicted of the same offence could not be suffered to escape with impunity
without endangering by such misplaced clemency the safety of the kingdom, while
a revocation of the sentence now pronounced would moreover tend to bring
contempt upon the judicial authority.
Henry
listened, but he would not yield; and before the close of the meeting, contrary
to the advice of all his Council, he announced that he commuted the pain of
death in both instances to perpetual imprisonment, and revoked the sentence
that condemned the Marquise to the cloister, which he superseded by an order of
exile to her own estate of Verneuil.
To
express the disappointment and mortification of the Queen when this decision
was announced to her would be impossible, as she instantly felt that any
further attempt to destroy the influence of the favourite must prove
ineffectual. She no longer exhibited any violence, but
became a prey to the deepest melancholy, weeping where she had formerly
reproached, and seeking her only consolation in prayer and in the society of
her chosen friends. Upon Henry, however, the effect of his extraordinary and
ill-judged leniency was far different. Although mercy, and even indulgence, had
been extended towards the Marquise without eliciting one word either of
entreaty or of acknowledgment, he felt convinced that so marked an exhibition
of his favour must be recompensed by a return of affection on her part; and
thus he continued to participate in the gaieties of the Court with a zest which
was strangely contrasted by the gloom and sadness of his royal consort, and
even derived amusement from the epigrams and satires which were circulated at
his expense among the people.
On the
13th of the month M. de Rohan was married
at Ablon to Marguerite de Béthune, the daughter of the Duc
de Sully, whom Henry had previously determined to bestow upon the Comte de
Laval, and not only did he confer the honour of his
presence upon the well-dowered bride, but he also signed her marriage contract
and presented to her ten thousand crowns for the purchase of her trousseau,
with a similar sum to her bridegroom to defray the expenses of the
wedding-feast. A singular ceremony followed upon the nuptial blessing, for M.
de Rohan had no sooner led his newly-made wife from the altar than his ducal
coronet was placed upon his brow, his ducal mantle flung upon his shoulders,
and in this pompous costume he was, at the close of the banquet, escorted to Paris by the princes and nobles who had been the
guests of M. de Sully.
Seldom
had the King evinced more gaiety of heart than at this particular period, or
appeared to derive greater amusement from the gossipry of the Court and the
gallantries of the courtiers; and he no sooner ascertained that Mademoiselle
d'Entragues had become the mistress of Bassompierre than he said laughingly to
the Duc de Guise: “D'Entragues despises us all in her idolatry of Bassompierre.
I have good grounds for what I state”.
“Well,
Sire”, was the reply, “you can be at no loss to revenge the affront; while for
myself I know of no means so fitting as those of knight-errantry, and I am
consequently ready to break three lances with him this afternoon at any hour
and place which your Majesty may be pleased to ordain”.
The
preparations for this combat are so graphically described by Bassompierre
himself, and so characteristic of the manners of the time, that we shall offer
no apology for giving them in his own words.
“The
King acceded to our wishes, as such encounters were by no means unusual, and
told us that the tilting should take place in the great court of the Louvre,
which he would cause to be covered with sand. M. de Guise selected as his
seconds his brother the Prince de Joinville and M. de Thermes; while I chose M. de Saint-Luc and the Comte de Sault. We all six dressed and armed ourselves at the house of
Saint-Luc, and as we had armour and liveries ready for every occasion, my party
wore silver-mail, with plumes of red and white, as were our silk stockings;
while M. de Guise and his troop, on account of the imprisonment of Madame de
Verneuil, of whom he was secretly the lover, were dressed and armed in black
and gold. In this equipage we arrived at the Louvre, myself
and my friends being the first upon the ground”.
Henry,
with his whole Court, both male and female, was present on the occasion, and
the lists were placed immediately beneath the windows of the Queen's
apartments; but the diversion was not fated to be of long duration, for at the
first encounter the lance of M. de Guise entered the body of his antagonist and
inflicted so formidable a wound that he was carried from the spot and laid upon
the bed of the Duc de Vendôme, apparently in a dying state. After his hurt had
been dressed, the Queen sent her sedan chair to convey him to his residence.
Although
Bassompierre, in the preceding column, assures his readers that “such
encounters were by no means unusual”, he goes on to state that directly he fell
the King not only forbade the continuance of the tourney, but would never
permit another to take place, and that this was the only one which had been
held in France for the preceding century.
“No one
can imagine”, says the wounded hero in continuation, “the multitude of visits
that I received, especially from the ladies. All the Princesses came to see me,
and the Queen on three occasions sent her maids of honour, who were brought to
me by Mademoiselle de Guise, and stayed during the whole afternoon”.
These
courtly diversions were abruptly terminated by the intelligence which reached
Paris of the death, on the 3rd of March, of Pope Clement
VIII. The piety of this distinguished Pontiff, and the
eminent services which he had rendered to the French King, caused his loss to
be deeply felt by Henry; but when, on the 1st day of April, Alessandro de
Medicis, the cousin of the Queen, was unanimously elected as his successor
under the title of Leo XI, nothing could exceed the joy which was manifested
throughout the country. Paris was illuminated, bonfires were lighted on the
surrounding heights, and salvos of artillery rang from the dark walls of the
Bastille. This demonstration proved, however, to be premature, as the next
courier who arrived in the French capital from Rome brought the fatal tidings
of his death. On the day succeeding his elevation he had made his solemn entry
into St. Peter’s; on Easter Sunday the triple tiara was placed upon his brow,
and the public procession to St. John de Lateran took place on the 17th; but on
returning from this ceremony the new Pontiff complained of indisposition, and
on the 27th he breathed his last; and was in his turn succeeded, on the Day of
Pentecost (29th of May), by Paul V.
About this time the King, wearied of the perpetual
coldness of Madame de Verneuil, which not even his excessive clemency had
sufficed to overcome, made a last attempt to compel her gratitude by forwarding
letters under the great seal, authorizing the Comte d'Entragues to retire to
his estate of Marcoussis, and re-establishing both himself and his son-in-law
in all their wealth and honours, save the posts which they had held under the
crown, and their respective governments. D'Auvergne, however, was still a
prisoner in the Bastille, where, after lashing himself into fury for a few
months, he adopted the more prudent and manly alternative of study, and thus
contrived to educe enjoyment even from his privations.
Yet
still the haughty spirit of the Marquise scorned to yield. She was indeed
living in her own house, the gift of the monarch against whom she exhibited
this firm and calm defiance, and surrounded by luxuries, the whole of which she
owed to his uncalculating generosity; but she could not, and would not, forget
that she was, nevertheless, an exile from the Court, and a prisoner within the
boundary of her estate, while the Queen, whom she had affected to despise, was
triumphing in her disgrace. Nor was it until the month of
September, when Henry, who was pining for her return, finally declared that no
proof of culpability having been brought against her, she must be forthwith
duly and fully acquitted of the crime with which she had been charged, that the
icy barrier was at last broken down, and the haughty Marquise condescended to
acknowledge herself indebted to her sovereign. The King did not satisfy himself
with this mere declaration, though he had caused it to be legally registered by
the Parliament; but, fearful lest some further revelations might be made, by
which she might become once more involved, he moreover strictly forbade his
Attorney-general to take any new steps whatever relating to the conspiracy, or
tending further to incriminate any of its presumed members.
The
jealousy which existed between the two houses of Bourbon and Lorraine, and
which Henry was anxious if possible to terminate, coupled perhaps with no small
feeling of wounded vanity, determined him to bestow the hand of Louise
Marguerite de Lorraine, Demoiselle de Guise (who, since she had been in the
household of the Queen, had lent a less willing ear than formerly to his
renewed gallantries), upon François, Prince de Conti; and accordingly the
marriage was celebrated with great pomp in the month of July, in the presence
of their Majesties and the whole Court. Madame de Conti herself asserts that
the Queen first suggested this union, and did everything in her power to effect
it; for which it is highly probable
that Marie had a double motive, as the antecedents of Mademoiselle de Guise
might well excuse her jealousy.
While
besieging Paris, and before his public liaison with Gabrielle d'Estrées,
Henry had sent to demand the portrait of Mademoiselle de Guise, giving her
reason to believe that so soon as the war should be terminated he was desirous
of making her his wife; a prospect which, as she very naively acknowledges, led
her to despise the addresses of the Comte de Giury, who
was her declared suitor, as well as those of the other nobles who sought her
favour. One day, however, during a brief truce of six hours, the Duchesse de
Guise and herself, accompanied by several other ladies, having ascended the
rampart to converse with such of their friends as were in the besieging army,
all the young gallants crowded to the foot of the walls to pay their respects
to the fair being whose presence offered so graceful a contrast to the objects
by which they were more immediately surrounded; and among the rest came Roger,
Duc de Bellegarde, at that period the handsomest man in France.
It was
the first occasion upon which Mademoiselle de Guise and the Duke had met; and
we have the authority of the lady for stating that the attraction was mutual.
M. de Bellegarde had long been the avowed lover of la belle Gabrielle;
but, inconstant as the fair D'Estrées herself, he at once
surrendered his previously-occupied heart to this new goddess. His prior
attachment was not, however, the only reason which should have deterred
Mademoiselle de Guise from thus suffering her fancy to overcome her better
feelings, as M. de Bellegarde was accused of having been accessory to the
assassination of her father; but neither of these considerations appears to
have had any weight with the young Princess. According to her own version of
the circumstance, Gabrielle conceived so violent a jealousy that the Duke was
compelled to condescend to every imaginable subterfuge in order to conceal the
truth; while the King, who soon became aware of the secret intelligence which
subsisted between the lovers, ceased to feel any inclination to raise
Mademoiselle de Guise to the throne of France; although, as we have seen, he
was by no means insensible either to the charm of her wit or the attraction of
her beauty.
In
order to follow up his great design of pacification, Henry, after having
re-established Philip of Nassau in his principality of Orange, also effected
his marriage with Eléonore de Bourbon, by which union he
secured another desirable ally.
During the development of the late conspiracy the
monarch had been indebted for much of the information which he had received
relative to the intrigues of the Comte d'Auvergne to the intelligence afforded
by the ex-Queen Marguerite, who, having come into possession of many facts
which could not otherwise have been known to the King, had assiduously imparted
to him every circumstance that she conceived to be of importance; a service for
which he had not failed to express his gratitude. That Marguerite had, however,
been in no small degree actuated in this matter by feelings of self-interest,
there can be no doubt, D'Auvergne having long enjoyed the proprietorship of the
county from whence he derived his title, and which had been bestowed on him by
Henri III, as well as several other estates which that monarch had inherited
from his mother, Catherine de Medicis, the said territories having formed a
portion of her dowry on her union with Henri II. Marguerite’s memories of her
brother, as the reader will readily comprehend, were not sufficiently attaching
to induce her to submit patiently to such a substitution, as she was aware
that, by the marriage contract, the property in question was settled upon the
female offspring of Catherine in default of male issue; and her lavish
expenditure and errant adventures having exhausted her means, she resolved to
exert every effort to establish her claim. She had already upon several
occasions solicited permission to return to the French capital; and, although
it had never been distinctly refused, it was so coldly
conceded that her pride had hitherto prevented her from availing herself of an
indulgence thus reluctantly accorded; but aware at the present moment that she
could so materially serve the King as to ensure a more gracious reception than
she might previously have anticipated, she resolved to seize the opportunity;
and accordingly, greatly to the surprise, not only of the whole Court, but of
the monarch himself, she arrived in Paris without having intimated her
intention, lest the permission should be revoked.
For
five-and-twenty years the last survivor of the illustrious house of Valois had
existed in obscurity and poverty among the mountains and precipices of the
inhospitable province of Auvergne, apparently forgetting for a time that world
by which she had been so readily forgotten; but Marguerite began at length to
yearn for a restoration of her privileges as a member of the great human
family. She could not have chosen a more judicious moment in which to hazard so
extreme a step; as in addition to the respect which, despite all her vices, she
could still command as the descendant of a long line of sovereigns, she had
latterly established many claims upon the gratitude of the King. It was
impossible for him not to feel, and that deeply, the generous self-abnegation
with which she had lent herself to the dissolution of their ill-omened
marriage, when not only his own happiness, but that of the whole nation,
required the sacrifice; nor could he fail to remember that while those upon
whom he lavished alike his affection and his treasure, had
constantly laboured to embitter his domestic life, and to undermine the dignity
of his Queen, the repudiated wife had never once evinced the slightest
disposition to withhold from her the deference and respect to which she was
entitled.
Thus
then, when her near approach to the capital was suddenly announced to him,
Henry lost not a moment in hastening, with his royal consort and a brilliant
retinue, to receive her before she could reach the gates; and gave orders that
the palace of Madrid in the Bois de Boulogne should immediately be prepared in
a befitting manner for her residence. Nor was Marie de Medicis less willing
than himself to welcome the truant Princess, to whom she was aware that she
owed many obligations; and the meeting was consequently a cordial one on both
sides. After the usual ceremonies had been observed, Marguerite, abandoning the
litter in which she had hitherto travelled, took her place in the state coach
beside their Majesties, by whom she was conducted to her appointed abode; nor
was it until repeated expressions of regard had been exchanged between the
ex-Queen and her successor, that the royal party returned to the Tuileries.
After a
sojourn of six weeks in the palace of Madrid, during which time Marguerite not
only revealed to the monarch all the details of the Verneuil conspiracy, but
also the particulars of another still more serious, as it involved the cession
of Marseilles, Toulon, and other cities to the Spaniards, she
became wearied of the forest villa, and established herself in the
archiepiscopal Hôtel de Sens; an arrangement to which the
King consented on condition that she should make him two promises, one of which
was that she would be more careful of her health, “and not turn night into day,
and day into night”, as she was accustomed to do; and the other, that she would
restrain her liberality, and endeavour to economize. To these requests the
Princess cheerfully answered that she would make an effort to obey his Majesty
upon the first point, although it would be a privation almost beyond endurance,
from the habit in which she had so long indulged of enjoying the sunrise before
she retired to rest; but with regard to the other she must
decline to give a pledge which she was certain to falsify, no Valois having
ever succeeded in such an attempt. It is probable that Henry, from a
consciousness of his own peculiar prodigalities, did not feel himself
authorized to insist upon a rigid observance of his expressed wish, as although
Marguerite had so frankly refused to regulate her expenditure with more
prudence, she was nevertheless permitted to remain in the asylum which she had
chosen; and this she continued to do until the 5th of April 1606, when she was
driven from it by a tragedy that rendered it hateful to her.
Slender
as was her retinue, it unfortunately included a young favourite named
Saint-Julien, who, from some private pique, had induced
her to discharge from her service two attendants who had from their earliest
youth been members of her household, the one as page, and the other as maid of
honour; and who had ultimately married with her consent and approbation, but
upon being thus cast off, had found themselves ruined, no noble house being
willing to receive the dismissed attendants of the dishonoured Queen. Of this
union a son had been born, possessed, however, of less patience and
self-control than his unhappy parents, who, after having clung to Marguerite
through good and evil fortune, now found themselves abandoned to all the
miseries of poverty and neglect. This youth, called by L'Etoile Vermond, and by Bassompierre Charmond, made his way to Paris as best he
might, and arrived in the capital after Marguerite had taken up her residence
as already stated in the Faubourg St. Antoine. There can be no doubt that the
utter destitution of his parents had made him desperate, for he could not
rationally indulge the slightest hope of impunity; suffice it, that as the
Princess was alighting from her coach on her return from attending mass at the
abbey of the Celestines, between mid-day and one o'clock on the 5th of April,
while her favourite stood beside the steps to assist her to descend, the
unhappy Vermond shot him through the head, and then, turning his horse towards
the gate of St. Denis, endeavoured to make his escape. He was, however, too
ill-mounted to succeed in this attempt, the carriage of the ex-Queen having
been followed by many of the nobles who were anxious to propitiate the favour
of the King by so easy a display of respect to the dethroned Marguerite; and
ere he reached the barrier the wretched young man found himself a prisoner.
The
body of his victim had, meanwhile, been conveyed to an apartment on the ground
floor of the hôtel, where on his arrival he was immediately confronted with it;
but no sign of remorse or regret was visible as he gazed upon the corpse. “Turn
it over”, he said huskily, after he had gazed for awhile upon the glazed eyes
and the parted lips. “Let me see if he be really dead”. His request was
complied with; and as he became convinced that life had indeed
departed from the already stiffening form, he exclaimed joyfully: “It is
well--I have not failed--my task is accomplished. Had it been otherwise I could
yet have repaired the error”.
When
this scene was reported to Marguerite, who, absorbed in the most passionate
grief, had retired to her appartment, she vowed that she would not touch food
until she had vengeance on the murderer; and she kept her word, as she
persisted in her resolution till, on the third day after he had committed the
crime, the unhappy young man was decapitated in front of the house, and almost
upon the very spot still reeking with the blood of his victim. But the nerves
of the ex-Queen could endure no further tension; and on the morrow she removed
to a new residence in the Faubourg St. Germain, where she was shortly
afterwards visited by Bassompierre, who was charged with the condolences of the
King on her late loss.
This
fact alone tends more fully to develop the manners and morals (?) of the age
than a thousand comments; and thus we have considered it our duty to place it
upon record.
Meanwhile
M. de Saint-Julien was far from having been the only favourite of the
profligate Marguerite, who divided her time between devotional exercises and
the indulgence of those guilty pleasures to which she was so unhappily
addicted; but while the citizens were not slow to remark her excesses, she
gained the love of the poor by a profuse alms-giving, and enjoyed a perfect
impunity of action from the real or feigned ignorance of the King relative to
the private arrangements of her household. She was, moreover, the avowed
patroness of men of letters, by whom her table was constantly surrounded; and
in whose society she took so much delight that she acquired, by this constant
intercourse with the most learned individuals of the capital, a facility not
only of expression, but also of composition, very remarkable in one of her sex
at that period. Carefully avoiding all political intrigue,
she made no distinction of persons beyond that due to their rank; and thus,
while her intercourse with the Queen was marked by an affectionate respect
peculiarly gratifying to its object, she was no less urbane and condescending
to the Marquise de Verneuil; who had, as may have been anticipated, already
regained all her former influence over the mind of the monarch, his passion
even appearing to have derived new strength from their temporary estrangement.
The
peculiar situation of the Queen, however, who was about once more to become a
mother, and whose tranquillity of mind he feared to disturb at such a moment,
rendered the monarch unusually anxious to conceal this fact; and it was
consequently not until some weeks afterwards that Marie de Medicis was apprised
of the new triumph of her rival.
The
month of December accordingly passed away without the
domestic discord which must have arisen had the Queen been less happily
ignorant of her real position; but it was nevertheless fated to be an eventful
one. The death of M. de la Rivière, the King's body-surgeon, a loss which was
severely felt by Henry, was succeeded by the execution of M. de Merargues, whose conspiracy to deliver up Marseilles to the Spaniards
was revealed to the monarch by Marguerite; and who, tried and convicted of lèse-majesté,
was decapitated in the Place de Grève, his body quartered and exposed at the
four gates of the capital, and his head carried to Marseilles, and stuck upon a
pike over the principal entrance to the city; while, on the very day of his
execution, as the King was returning from a hunt and riding slowly across the
Pont Neuf, at about five in the afternoon, a man suddenly sprang up behind him
and threw him backwards upon his horse, attempting at the same time to plunge a
dagger which he held into the body of his Majesty. Fortunately, however, Henry
was so closely muffled in a thick cloak that before the assassin could effect
his purpose the attendants were enabled to seize him and liberate their royal
master, who was perfectly uninjured. The consternation was
nevertheless universal; nor was it lessened by the calmness with which, when
interrogated, the assassin declared that his intention had been to take the
life of the sovereign. It was soon discovered, however, by the incoherency of
his language that he was a maniac; and although many of the nobles urged that
he should be put to death as an example to others, the King resolutely resisted
their advice, declaring that the man's family, who had long been aware of his
infirmity, were more to blame than himself; and commanding that he should be
placed in security, and thus rendered unable to repeat any act of violence. He
was accordingly conveyed to prison, where he shortly afterwards died.
At this
period, whether it were that the King hoped, by occupying her attention with
subjects of more moment, to be enabled to pursue his liaison with Madame
de Verneuil with less difficulty, or that his advancing age rendered him in
reality anxious to initiate her into the mysteries of government, it is certain
that he endeavoured to induce the Queen to take more interest than she had
hitherto done in questions of national importance; and revealed to her many
state secrets, not one of which, as he afterwards declared to Sully, did she
ever communicate, even to her most confidential friends. But Marie de Medicis
was far from evincing the delight which he had anticipated at his avowed wish
that she should share with him in the hopes and disappointments of royalty; her
ambition had not then been thoroughly awakened; she still felt as a wife and as a woman rather than as a Queen; and an insolence
from Madame de Verneuil occupied her feelings more nearly than a threatened
conspiracy. So great, indeed, was her distaste to the new character in which
she was summoned to appear, that when the King occasionally addressed her with
a gay smile as Madame la Régente, a cloud invariably gathered upon her
brow. Upon one occasion, when the royal couple were walking in the park at
Fontainebleau, attended by all the Court, and that the monarch, who led the
Dauphin by the hand, vainly endeavoured to induce him to jump across a little
stream which ran beside their path, Henry became so enraged by his cowardice
and obstinacy that he raised him in his arms to dip him into the pigmy current,
a punishment which was, however, averted by the entreaties of his mother; and
the King reluctantly consented that he should suffer nothing more than the
mortification of being compelled to exchange her care for that of his
governess, Madame de Montglat. As the child was led away the King sighed
audibly, but in a few seconds he resumed the conversation which had been thus
unpleasantly interrupted, and once more he addressed the Queen as Madame la
Régente.
“I
entreat of you, Sire, not to call me by that name”, said Marie; “it is full of
associations which cannot fail to be painful to me”.
The
King looked earnestly and even sadly upon her for a moment ere he replied, and
then it was in a tone as grave as that in which she uttered her expostulation. “You are right”, he said, “quite right not to
wish to survive me, for the close of my life will be the commencement of your
own troubles. You have occasionally shed tears when I have flogged your son,
but one day you will weep still more bitterly either over him or yourself. My
favourites have often excited your displeasure, but you will find yourself some
time hence more ill-used by those who obtain an influence over the actions of
Louis. Of one thing I can assure you, and that is, knowing your temper so well
as I do, and foreseeing that which his will prove in after years--you, Madame,
self-opinionated, not to say headstrong, and he obstinate--you will assuredly
break more than one lance together”.
Poor
Marie! She was little aware at that moment how soon so mournful a prophecy was
to become a still more mournful reality.
CHAPTER VI
1606
The
description given by M. de Sully of his interview with their Majesties on the
morning of the 1st of January 1606 is so characteristic of the time that we
cannot conscientiously pass it over, although the feeling of the present day
compels us to exclude many of its details. Early in the forenoon the Duke
proceeded to the Louvre to pay his respects to the august couple, and to
present the customary offerings; but on reaching the apartment of the King, he
was informed by MM. d'Armagnac and l'Oserai, the two
valets-de-chambre on duty, that his Majesty was in the chamber of the Queen,
who had been seriously indisposed during the night. He consequently proceeded
to the ante-room of his royal mistress, and as he found it vacant, advanced to
the door of the chamber itself, against which he scratched gently, in order to
attract the attention of Caterina Selvaggio or Mademoiselle de la Renouillère, her
favourite attendants, and to ascertain the state of her health without
awakening her. He had no sooner done so, however, than several voices loudly
inquired who was there, and among them the Duke recognized those of Roquelaure,
Frontenac, and Beringhen.
Having
declared his identity, and been announced to the King, he was immediately
summoned in a cheerful voice by Henry himself: “Come in, come in, Sully”, cried
the monarch; “you will think us very idle until you learn what has kept us in
bed so late. My wife has been ill all night; but I will tell you all about it
when there are not so many people present, and meanwhile let us see what you have
brought for us as New Year’s gifts, for I observe that your three secretaries
are with you laden each with a velvet bag”.
“It is
true, Sire”, answered the Duke. “I remembered that the last occasion upon which
I had seen your Majesties together you were both in excellent spirits, and
trusting to find it the case today, when we are all anticipating the birth of a second Prince, I have brought you some offerings which are
sure to please you, as they cannot fail to gratify those to whom they are
distributed in your name, a distribution which I trust may take place this
evening in your presence and that of the Queen”.
“Although
she says nothing to you”, laughed the King, “according to her custom of
pretending to be asleep, she is as thoroughly awake as myself, but she is very
angry with both of us. However, we will talk of that some other time. And now
let us see your presents”.
“They
are not perhaps, Sire”, said the Grand Master, “such as might be expected from
the treasurer of a wealthy and powerful monarch; but such as they are, I feel
convinced that they will afford more real gratification to those for whom they
are intended, and excite more gratitude towards your own person, than all the
costly gifts which you lavish upon individuals who, as I well know, only repay
your profuse liberality by ingratitude and murmurs”.
“I
understand you”, exclaimed the King; “it is useless to explain yourself
further; rather show us what you have brought”.
The
Duke made a signal to his secretaries to approach the bed. “Here, Sire”, he
said, “in my despatch-bag, are three purses filled with gold tokens, with a
device expressive of the love borne towards your Majesty by your people. One of
these I offer to yourself, another to the Queen, and the third
to Monseigneur le Dauphin, or rather I ought to say to Mamanga (Madame de Monglat), if her Majesty
does not retain it, as she has always done on similar occasions. In the same
bag are eight purses of silver tokens with the same device--two for yourself,
two for the Queen, and four for La Renouillère, Caterina Selvaggio, and any
other of the ladies who sleep in the chamber of her Majesty. The second bag
contains twenty-five purses of tokens in silver, to be distributed among
Monseigneur le Dauphin, Madame de Montglat, Madame de Drou, Mademoiselle de Piolant, the nurses and other attendants
of Monseigneur and his sister, and the waiting-maids of the Queen. In the third
bag there are thirty sacks, each containing a hundred crowns in half-franc
pieces, coined expressly for the purpose, and so large that they appear to be
of twice the value. These are intended for all the attendants of subordinate
rank attached to the household of her Majesty and the royal children, according
to your orders. I have left, moreover, in my carriage below, in the charge of
my people, two great bags, each containing a hundred crowns in twelve sous
pieces, making the sum of twelve thousand sous, for division among the poor and
sick upon the quays of the river near the Louvre, which are, as I am told,
already crowded; and I have in consequence sent twelve citizens upon whom I can rely to distribute the money conscientiously according to
the necessities of each applicant. All these poor people, and even the
waiting-women of her Majesty, exhibit more delight on receiving these trifling
coins, Sire, than you can well believe. They all say that it is not so much for
the value of the gift, as because it proves that you remember and regard them;
and, moreover, the attendants of the Queen prize them in consequence of their
being free to appropriate them as they think fit, while they are compelled to
employ their respective salaries according to the instructions which they
receive, as they thus have a hundred crowns to expend in any finery for which
they may take a fancy”.
“And do
you bestow all this happiness upon them without being rewarded even by a kiss?”
asked Henry gaily.
“Truly,
Sire”, answered the Duke, “since the day when your Majesty commanded them to
recognize their obligation in that manner, I have never found it necessary to
remind them of your royal pleasure, for they come voluntarily to tender their
acknowledgments according to order; while Madame de Drou, devout as she is,
only laughs during the performance of the ceremony”.
“Come
now, M. le Grand Maître”, persisted the King, “tell me the truth; which do you
consider to be the handsomest, and consequently the most welcome among them?”
“On my
word, Sire”, replied M. de Sully, “that is a question which I am unable to
answer, for I have other things to think of besides love
and beauty, and I firmly believe that they, each and all, pay as little
attention to my handsome nose as I do to theirs. I kiss them as we do relics,
when I am making my offering”.
Henry
laughed heartily. “How say you, gentlemen”, he exclaimed, addressing the courtiers
who thronged the chamber; “have we not here a prodigal treasurer, who makes
such presents as these at the expense of his master, and all for a kiss?”
Of
course the royal hilarity found a general and an immediate echo, which had no
sooner subsided than the King exclaimed: “And now, gentlemen, to your
breakfasts, and leave us to discuss affairs of greater importance”.
In a
few minutes all had left the room save Sully himself and the two waiting-women
of the Queen, and he had no sooner ascertained that such was the case than
Henry said affectionately: “And now, sleeper, awake, and do not scold any longer,
for I have, on my part, resolved not to think any more of what has passed,
particularly at such a time as this. You fancy that Sully blames you whenever
we have a difference, but you are quite wrong, as you would be aware could you
only know how freely he gives me his opinion on my own faults, and although I
am occasionally angry with him, I like him none the less; on the contrary, I
believe that if he ceased to love me, he would be more indifferent to all that
touches my welfare and honour, as well as the good of my people;
for do you see, ma mie, the best-intentioned among us require at times
to be supported by the wise advice of faithful and prudent friends, and he is
constantly reminding me of the expediency of indulgence towards yourself, and
of the necessity of keeping your mind at peace, in order that neither you nor
the Prince whom you are about to give to France--for the Duke feels satisfied
that it will be a Prince--may suffer from contradiction, or annoyance of any
kind”.
“I
thank M. le Grand Maître”, said the Queen at length, in a voice of great
exhaustion; “but it is impossible for me to feel either calm or happy while you
persist in preferring the society of persons who are obnoxious to me, to my
own. My very dreams are embittered by this consciousness, and doubly so because
I have reason to know that while I am their victim, they are false even to
yourself and, moreover, detest you in their hearts. You may doubt this”, she
added with greater energy, “but I appeal to the Duke himself, and he will tell
you if this is not the case”.
M. de
Sully, however, felt no inclination to offer his testimony to the truth of an
assertion of this nature--the position involved too great a responsibility to
be agreeable even to the experienced statesman himself; and he accordingly,
with his accustomed prudence, generalized the subject by declaring that he
experienced a heartfelt satisfaction in perceiving that their Majesties had at
length yielded to a feeling of mutual confidence, which could not
fail to put an end to all their domestic discomfort; adding that if he might
presume to offer his advice, he would suggest that should any new subject of
difference arise between them, they should immediately refer it to the
arbitration of a third person, upon whose probity and attachment they could
severally rely, and resolve to leave the whole affair totally in his hands,
without aggravating the evil by any personal interference, or even considering
themselves aggrieved by the remedy which he might suggest.
He then
offered, should they place sufficient confidence in his own judgment and
affection, to become himself the arbitrator whom he recommended; and he had no
sooner done so than the King eagerly declared himself ready to comply with his
advice, and to sign a pledge to that effect, but Marie de Medicis, who was as
well aware as her royal consort that the first step adopted by Sully would be
the exile of her Italian followers, was less willing to bind herself by such an
engagement, and she therefore merely remarked that the proposition had come
upon her so suddenly that she must have time to reflect before she thus placed
herself entirely in the hands of a third party. She then, as if anxious to
terminate the discussion, summoned her women, and the Duke, by no means reluctantly,
withdrew.
At this
period the King made a journey into Limousin, at the head of a body of troops,
in order to overawe the malcontents in that province; and while
at Orleans he withdrew the seals from Pomponne de Bellièvre, in order to bestow
them upon Sillery, the former, however, retaining the empty title of Chief of
the Privy Council. The pretext for this substitution was the failing health of
the Chancellor, but it was generally attributed to the influence of Madame de
Verneuil, in whose fortunes M. de Sillery had always exhibited as lively an
interest as he had previously done in those of the Duchesse de Beaufort. Let
it, however, have arisen from whatever cause it might, it is certain that the
veteran statesman deeply felt the indignity which had been offered to him. Thus
Bassompierre asserts that when he shortly afterwards visited M. de Bellièvre at
Artenay, and that the indignant minister commented with considerable bitterness
upon his recent deprivation, he vainly endeavoured to reconcile him to the
affront by reminding him that he was still in office, and would preside at all
the councils as chancellor, but Bellièvre immediately replied with emphasis: “My
friend, a chancellor without seals is an apothecary without sugar”.
On the
10th of February the Queen gave birth to a second daughter in the palace of the Louvre, to her extreme mortification, the astrologers whom
she had consulted having assured her that she was about to become the mother of
a Prince. The citizens of Paris were, however, delighted, as no royal child had been born in the capital for a great length of
time; while the princes and nobles, throughout the whole
of the following month, vied with each other in their efforts to entertain
their Majesties, and to cause them to forget their disappointment. It would
appear, indeed, that Marie herself soon became reconciled to the sex of the
infant Princess, as Bassompierre has left it upon record that even before she
was sufficiently recovered to leave her room she used to send for him to play
cards with her, an invitation which was always welcome to the handsome and
dissipated courtier. She no sooner appeared in public,
however, than other and more brilliant amusements were provided for her,
consisting of jousts and banquets, Italian comedies and Court balls; but all
these were exceeded in interest by a ballet that was performed on horseback in
the great court of the Louvre, which had been thickly strewn with sand and
surrounded by barriers, save at one opening opposite the seats prepared for
their Majesties, through which the four nobles by whom the entertainment had
been devised were to enter with their respective trains from the Hôtel de
Bourbon.
The
balconies and windows of the palace were crowded with splendidly dressed nobles
and courtiers of both sexes, while a dense mass of people occupied every
available spot of ground beyond the enclosure, where platforms had also been
erected for the more respectable of the citizens and their families. The King and Queen were seated in the balcony of the centre
window, which was draped with crimson velvet, having on their right and left
several of the Princes of the Blood and ladies of the highest rank, while
immediately behind them were placed the great officers of the Crown and the
captains of the bodyguard. The hour selected for this novel and extraordinary
exhibition was ten at night, and hundreds of lamps and double the number of
torches were affixed to the façade of the palace, towards which every
eye was upturned from the compact crowd below. The ballet was designed to
represent the four primary Elements, and the appointed moment had no sooner
arrived than a flourish of trumpets announced the approach of the Due de
Bellegarde, who with his party were to personate Water. The procession was opened
by twenty-four pages habited in cloth of silver, each attended by two
torch-bearers; these were followed by twelve Syrens playing on hautboys, who
were in their turn succeeded by a pyramid whose summit was crowned by a
gigantic figure of Neptune, surrounded by water-gods and marine divinities and
insignia of every description. This stupendous machine paused for a moment
beneath the window of their Majesties, and the aquatic deities having made
their obeisance, it passed on, and gave place to twenty-four other pages,
habited and attended like the former ones. These preceded the Duke himself at
the head of twelve young and brilliant nobles, all clad in cloth of silver,
with plumes of white feathers in their jewelled caps, and
their horses richly caparisoned in white and silver. Having made the tour of
the court, the whole party drew closely together in one angle of the enclosure,
in order to make way for the second troop, but not before they had exhibited
their equestrian skill, and elicited not only the approving comments of the
courtly groups who contemplated them from above, but also the vociferous
acclamations of the admiring thousands by whom they were hemmed in. The Duc de
Bellegarde and his train had no sooner taken up their station than a second fanfare greeted the approach of the powers of Fire, who were ushered in by twenty-four
pages dressed in scarlet, closely followed by four blacksmiths dragging an
anvil, upon which, when they reached the centre of the court, they began to
strike with great violence, and at every blow discharged such a shower of
rockets into the air that many a fair dame crouched behind her neighbour for
protection from the falling sparks; while the lamps and torches which lit up
the palace walls were momentarily eclipsed. As the last rush of rockets burst,
and fell back in a Danaëan shower, a train of salamanders, phoenix, and other
anti-inflammable creatures appeared in their turn, and were followed by the Duc
de Rohan, attired as Vulcan, with his twelve companions in the garb of
Parthians, all similarly dressed, and armed with lances, swords, and shields,
on which their arms were splendidly emblazoned. Renewed feats of dexterous
horsemanship were exhibited by this brilliant band, after
which, as their predecessors had previously done, they established themselves
in an angle of the lists, and made way for the representatives of Air. First
came the pages, forming an escort to the goddess Juno, with her attendant eagle
and a multitude of other birds, all skilfully imitated and grouped; and when
the feathered pageant had passed on, appeared the Comte de Sommerive and his noble band, all wearing the same costume and bearing
the same arms. Lastly came Earth, in which the pages were succeeded by two
enormous elephants, artistically constructed, and bearing upon their backs
small towers filled with musicians, who, as they advanced, poured out a volume
of sweet sound, to which several horses, draped with cloth of gold and led by
Moors, moved in cadence like the grooms by whom they were conducted. Then
followed more pages, and a band of trumpeters whose occasional flourishes
overpowered the softer instruments of those who marched in front; and finally,
twelve Moorish knights, led by the Duc de Nevers, all
resplendent with gold and jewels, closed the procession, and fell back to the
remaining extremity of the enclosure. A combat then commenced between the
knights of Earth and those of Water, first single-handed, then in couples, and finally troop against troop, and so soon as this had terminated,
the cavaliers of Air and Fire went through the same evolutions; when each
having exhibited his dexterity in the manège and his skill in arms, the
whole of the four bands joined in the mêlée, shivering their lances,
their arrows, and their shields, and then each of the combatants seized a torch
which had been prepared for him, and after having ridden round and round each
other, making the wandering lights assume the appearance of meteors, the entire
company formed once more into order and returned to the Hôtel de Bourbon like a
long line of fire.
These
were precisely the entertainments that Henri IV was eager to encourage, as they
involved an expenditure which frequently crippled the means of those by whom
they were exhibited for several years; and he was accustomed to declare that it
was frequently to the poverty of his nobles that he was indebted for their
fidelity, as they no sooner found themselves in a position to arm a few
retainers and assume the offensive, than they forthwith began to organize a cabal.
The
King having, in the month of March of this year, determined upon proceeding in
person to quell the disturbances in the provinces, and to compel the Duc de
Bouillon, who was known as the instigator of these disorders, to obedience,
made preparations on an extensive scale for this purpose, and raised a powerful
army in order to prove his resolution to terminate all
similar attempts. In this project he was warmly encouraged by the Queen, who
was to accompany him in his journey, the Duc de Sully having urged her with the
most earnest arguments to suggest to his Majesty that although he was able
personally, from his prowess and authority, to resist the insidious aggressions
of M. de Bouillon, the case would be widely different were the infant Prince, by
any sudden dispensation of Providence, to be called upon to supply his place. “The
rebel Duke, Madame”, said the prudent and upright minister, “would prove a
formidable enemy to a woman and a child; and this should be looked to while
your royal consort is still in the plenitude of health and strength”.
Marie
de Medicis at once felt the force of this reasoning; and although the caution
might probably appear to her as somewhat premature, she nevertheless lost no
time in entreating the King to make such an example of the restless and
ambitious Bouillon as might deter others from following in his track.
“You
are at once right and wrong, ma mie”, replied Henry with his usual
promptitude. “There can be no doubt that the temper and projects of this man
tend to disturb the peace of the kingdom, and that were he to lose his head a
great peril would be escaped; but we must not forget that he is a Prince of the
Blood, and that he may be severely punished through his pride. I have resolved
to take Sedan out of his hands, and to humble him upon the very threshold of his power; and this vengeance upon his rebellion
will be ample, as he has taught himself to believe that I dare not attack him
in his stronghold. Once subdued he will be undeceived, and I shall then be
enabled to pardon him without having my clemency mistaken for fear, and I will
take such measures as shall ensure his future submission”.
On the
15th of the month, the Court of Parliament, on a summons from the sovereign,
proceeded to the Louvre, where Henry explained to them his reasons for
besieging the Maréchal de Bouillon in Sedan, and possessing himself of the town
and citadel. “A failure”, he concluded, “is impossible; and as an earnest of
success the Queen will accompany me. Tomorrow we commence our journey; but do
not conceive that I set forth against the Duke with any preconceived design of
vengeance. My arms will be open to him should he acknowledge his error, for I
have been his benefactor, and have made him what he is. But should he decline
to offer his submission and to recognize my authority, I trust that God will
favour my arms. Above all things, during my absence, I entreat of you to
administer the strictest justice; and I leave in your hands the Dauphin, my
son, whom I have caused to be removed from St. Germain to Paris, in order to
place him under your protection; and I do so with the most entire confidence,
as next to myself he should be to you the most sacred trust on earth”.
On the
morrow, accordingly; the King and Queen set forth, accompanied by a brilliant
retinue, and closely followed by the Duc de Sully with fifty pieces of ordnance
and twenty-five thousand men; a fact which was no sooner ascertained than the
rebel Marshal despatched messengers to Torcy, the frontier village of France,
who were authorized to pledge themselves that the Duke was willing to deliver
up the citadel of Sedan for the space of ten years, if at the termination of
that period his Majesty would consent to restore it, should he, in the interim,
have become satisfied of his loyalty and devotion. He, however, annexed another
condition to his surrender, which was that an act of oblivion should be passed,
and that he should never thenceforward be subjected to any injury, either of
property or person, for whatever acts of disobedience to the royal authority he
might have previously been considered responsible, and should be left in
untroubled possession of all his honours, estates, and offices under the Crown.
Having
carefully perused this treaty, the King at once consented to the proposed
terms, on the understanding that the Marshal should on the following morning
present himself at Donchéry, where the Court were to halt that night, before
their Majesties should have risen. This he accordingly did on the 21st, when
upon his knees beside the royal couch he repeated and ratified the pledges of
fidelity contained in his appeal for pardon, and had the honour of kissing
hands with both sovereigns; the King assuring him as he did
so that he valued the citadel of Sedan far less than the recovery of so valued
a friend and subject.
Their
Majesties then made a solemn entry into the city, attended by a train of
princes and nobles, and were received with loud and long-continued shouts of “Long
live the King! Long live the Queen and the Dauphin!” Salvos of artillery were
fired from the ramparts of the town and the citadel, and the whole progress of
the royal cortège through the streets resembled a triumphal procession.
In the evening the entire city was illuminated; and the vociferous cheering of
the excited people testified their delight at the bloodless and peaceful
termination of an expedition from which they had anticipated for themselves
only danger and distress.
The
whole population was in a state of delirium; the royal equipages as they traversed
the streets were followed by admiring crowds; the gay and gaudy nobles were
watched by bright eyes, and welcomed by rosy lips; the civic authorities dreamt
only of balls and banquets; and, in short, the rock-seated city, bristling as
it was with cannon, and frowning with fortifications, appeared to have become
suddenly transformed into the chosen abode of the Loves and Graces.
Having
remained five days at Sedan, the King appointed a new governor and returned to
Paris, whither he was accompanied by the whole of the royal party, which was
moreover augmented by the presence of the Duc de Bouillon, who, according to Bassompierre, was as much at his ease, and as arrogant in his
deportment, as though he had never incurred the risk of the headsman as a rebel
and a traitor. The Court dined at La Roquette, and it was near dusk when they
reached the Barrière St. Antoine, where they were met by the corporate bodies.
Henry himself rode on horseback, preceded by eight hundred nobles in full
dress, and followed by four Princes of the Blood, in whose train came other
princes, dukes, and officers of the Court, among whom were the Maréchal de
Bouillon and Prince Juan de Medicis. The Queen occupied her state coach, having
beside her the Duchesses de Guise and de Nevers, and the Princesse de Conti. As
the royal party halted at the barrier, the Civil Lieutenant, M. de Miron,
provost of the merchants, delivered a congratulatory address to the King in the
name of the city; but this loyal effusion was rendered inaudible by the booming
of the cannon from the Bastille, and the crashing and whizzing of the rockets
and other fireworks, which, by order of the Duc de Sully, were let off
immediately that the monarch had passed the gates. So soon
as the address was terminated, the gorgeous procession resumed its march, Sully
riding on the left hand of the King, by whom this enthusiastic reception had
been deeply felt; nor did his gratification suffer any decrease on observing as
he passed on that every window upon his way was crowded with fair and animated
faces. As he glanced towards the Bastille, the minister
attracted his attention to the Comtesse d'Auvergne, who had latterly been
permitted to visit her husband, and who was gazing wistfully from one of the
narrow casements. As Henry recognized her, he withdrew his plumed cap, and bent
his head with a courtesy and kindness which was remarked and commented upon by
those around him; but his most gracious recognition was vouchsafed to the
Comtesse de Moret, who was seated at a window in the Rue St. Antoine,
surrounded by a bevy of beauties, who only served to render her own loveliness
the more conspicuous.
Thus,
amid the deafening report of the artillery and the enthusiastic plaudits of the
people, Henry and his Queen at length reached the Louvre, and terminated their
bloodless campaign.
On the
30th of May the law courts, after three long and patient sittings, declared the
ex-Queen Marguerite to be the lawful heir to the counties of Auvergne and
Clermont, the barony of La Tour, and other estates which had appertained to the
late Queen Catherine de Medicis; asserting that they had hitherto been unjustly
possessed by Charles de Valois, who had also wrongfully derived his title of
Comte d'Auvergne from one of them; and directed that the said territories
should forthwith be transferred to the ex-Queen Marguerite, to whom they
rightfully belonged. When this decision was pronounced, the Princess was
assisting at the celebration of mass in the church of St. Saviour, whither M. Drieux, her chancellor, at once proceeded with the glad
tidings, which he had no sooner imparted, than, overjoyed by the intelligence,
she rose from her knees before the service was concluded, and leaving the
church, hastened to the monastery of the Cordeliers, where she caused a Te Deum
to be chanted in gratitude for her success.
A few
days subsequently, while at the Louvre, the ex-Queen, in the presence of Marie
de Medicis, made a donation of the recovered estates to the Dauphin, on
condition that they should be annexed to the Crown, and never under any
consideration, or upon any pretext, alienated. Marguerite, however, reserved to
herself the income derivable from these possessions during her life; and she no
sooner found her means adequate to the undertaking than she commenced the
enlargement of the hotel which she had previously purchased in the Faubourg St.
Germain, near the Pré aux Clercs, and the embellishment of the spacious gardens
which swept down to the bank of the river opposite the Louvre.
Here it
was, under the very shadow of the palace which should have been her home, that
Marguerite held her little court; passing from her oratory to scenes of vice
and voluptuousness which, happily, are unparalleled in these times; one day
doing penance with bare feet and a robe of serge, and the next reposing upon
velvet cushions and pillowed on down--now fasting like an anchorite, and now
feasting like a bacchante; one hour dispensing charity so lavishly as to call
down the blessings of hundreds on her head, and the next
causing her lacqueys to chase with ignominious words and blows from beneath her
roof the honest creditors who claimed their hard-earned gains. Extreme in
everything, she gave a tithe of all that she possessed to the monks, although
she did not shrink from confessing that her favourites cost her a still larger
annual sum; and while she encouraged and appreciated the society of men of
letters, and profited largely by their companionship, she condescended to the
most frivolous follies, and abandoned herself to the most licentious pleasures.
The
insipidity of Madame de Moret soon counteracted the spell of her beauty; and
although on his return from Sedan the King had appeared to be more fascinated
by her extraordinary loveliness than even at the first period of their acquaintance,
it was not long ere he listened with a patience very unusual to him to the
indignant remonstrances of the Queen on this new infidelity, and even assured
her that her reproaches were misplaced. Marie, who perceived the prodigality
with which the King lavished upon the frail fair one the most costly gifts, and
who saw her, through the mock marriage which she had contracted, assume a place
at Court which occasionally even brought her into contact with herself, could
not so readily lay aside her suspicions; and although she had at first rejoiced
to find that the fancy of the monarch could be diverted from Madame de
Verneuil, she had never anticipated that the liaison would have endured so long. Henry, however, profited by this mistake; and while
the Queen was still jealously watching the proceedings of Madame de Moret, he
renewed with less secrecy his commerce with the witty and seductive Marquise,
unconscious that she was at that period encouraging the addresses of the Duc de
Guise. Nor did this partial desertion tend to wound the vanity of Madame de
Moret, or to excite her ire against her rival; for once more the Prince de
Joinville, who appeared to take a reckless pleasure in braving the anger of the
monarch, had found favour in the eyes of one of his mistresses, and was
established as the admitted lover of the facile Countess. Thus deceived on both
sides, Henry had no annoyance to apprehend from either of the frail rivals; but
such could not long remain the case with the Queen. There were too many eyes
and ears about her ever open to discover and to retain the gossipy of the
Court, and too many tongues ready to reveal all which might at the moment
appear acceptable to her wounded feelings and insatiable desire to dwell upon
the details of her unhappiness.
Princes
should pause before they err, for they are a world’s beacon. Every eye turns
towards them for example and for support; and thus, where the one is evil, and
the other wanting, the results of the failure may prove incalculable. The flaw
in the diamond, the alloy in the gold, the stain in the purple, the blot upon
the ermine--all these are detected upon the instant; the value of the jewel is decreased, the price of the metal is deteriorated, the glory
of the hue is tarnished, the purity of the mantle is sullied; and where minor
imperfections may pass unperceived, a mighty social lens is for ever bearing
upon the great.
Angered
and disappointed, the Queen, who had passed a short time in comparative
tranquillity, once more found herself a prey to mortification and neglect; and
so greatly did she resent the renewed intercourse between Henry and his
favourite, that for upwards of a fortnight not a word was exchanged between the
royal pair. At length, however, through the intervention
of Sully, Sillery, and the other ministers, a sort of hollow peace was
effected, and the Court removed to St. Germain, where the royal children
constantly resided. Here they remained until the 9th of June, on which day,
notwithstanding the unfavourable state of the weather, they set forth on their
return to the capital. Their Majesties occupied a coach, in which, together
with themselves, were the Princesse de Conti and the Dues de Vendôme and de
Montpensier; other carriages followed
with the ladies of the Queen's retinue; and a numerous train of nobles and
attendants on horseback preceded the bodyguard. At that period no bridge
existed at Neuilly, where the river was crossed in a ferry-boat which was
waiting to receive the royal party, who, in consequence of the heavy rain, were
driven on board; but unfortunately the beating of the water against the side of
the frail bark, occasioned by the swollen state of the stream and the violence
of the wind, so terrified the leaders of the royal coach, that it had no sooner
left the land than they swerved so violently as to destroy the equilibrium of
the boat, which instantly capsized, when the carriage was upset into the water,
and immediately filled. The King, who was an excellent swimmer, was soon
rescued by the attendants, a score of whom threw themselves from their horses
into the river to afford assistance; but he no sooner reached the bank than he
once more swam back to the rescue of the Queen and her companions. Marie,
however, was already in safety, having been with considerable difficulty
carried to land by the Baron de la Châtaigneraie, who was
compelled to seize her by her hair, to prevent her from being carried down by
the current, and who, having placed her under the care of her ladies, returned
to the assistance of the Duc de Vendôme, whom he also succeeded in saving. The
Princesse de Conti and M. de Montpensier, having been
immersed on the landward side of the carriage, were rescued with comparative
ease; but the peril had nevertheless been great, and the consternation general.
Marie de Medicis, when brought on shore, was in a state of insensibility, and
it was a considerable time before she recovered consciousness; nor had she yet
opened her eyes when she gasped out an agitated inquiry for the King. Finally, however, all the party were enabled to take
possession of one of the carriages of the suite, and to pursue their journey;
but not before the Queen had desired that the person by whom she had been saved
should be requested to attend her; upon which M. de la Châtaigneraie presented
himself, with the water pouring from his embroidered mantle; and it was with no
little surprise and gratification that their Majesties ascertained that not
only the gallant La Châtaigneraie, but also several other members of the royal
escort, had flung themselves into the river without waiting to throw off either
their cloaks or swords. Marie made her acknowledgments to
the gallant young noble with an earnest courtesy which would in itself have
been a sufficient recompense for his exertions; but while speaking, she also
detached from her dress a magnificent diamond cluster, valued at four thousand
crowns, which she tendered to him with the intelligence that he was from that moment the captain of her bodyguard, and that she
should thenceforward further his fortunes.
“And
now, gentlemen”, said the King gaily, as the agitated and grateful young
courtier knelt to kiss the hand which was extended towards him, “let us resume
our journey. When we left St. Germain I was, as you all know, suffering agonies
from toothache, which is now cured; this bath has been the best remedy I have
ever applied; and if any of us dined too heartily upon salt provisions, we have
at least the satisfaction of feeling that we have been enabled to drink freely
since”.
A few
hours after his arrival in the capital, the King paid a visit to the Marquise
de Verneuil, to whom he related the escape of himself and his companions; but even on so serious an occasion as this, and one which
had threatened such tragical consequences to the Queen, the insolent favourite
could not comment without indulging in the sarcastic and bitter pleasantry
which she always affected in making any allusion to her royal mistress. After
feeling or feigning great anxiety on the subject of Henry's own escape, she said
with malicious gaiety: “Had I been there, when once I had seen you safe, I should have exclaimed with great composure, ‘The Queen
drinks’.”
Unfortunately
the King, taken by surprise, laughed heartily at this sally, a circumstance
which was duly reported to Marie de Medicis, and which greatly increased her
irritation. This new cause of offence was so grave that she could not forgive
the levity of the King more readily than the heartless insolence of his
mistress; and she carried her resentment to so extreme a pitch that she refused
to receive him in her apartments. Such a determination was naturally productive
of serious confusion in the palace, as it infringed upon all the accustomed
etiquette of the Court, and created great perplexity among the officers of
state; but remonstrances were vain. Marie, stung to the soul by the insult to
which she had been subjected, and which her royal consort had not only suffered
to pass unrebuked, but to which he had in some degree contributed, would not
rescind her resolution; while the King was, in his turn, equally violent. In
vain did the Duec de Villeroy, Sully, and others of the great nobles, endeavour
to mediate between them: reason was lost in passion on both sides; and once
more Henry declared his determination to exile the Queen to one of his palaces.
From this extreme measure he was, however, dissuaded by his
ministers; and at length, after the estrangement between the royal couple had
lasted nearly three weeks, a partial reconciliation was effected; but Marie,
although she was induced by the representations of her advisers to restrain her
indignation, was from that hour alienated in heart from her husband, by whom
she felt that her dignity had been compromised both as a Queen and as a wife.
Profiting,
however, by this partial calm, several of the nobility proposed to add to the
amusements of the Carnival, in commemoration of the recent escape of their
Majesties, a ballet in which the Queen consented to appear; and the
preparations were already far advanced when the King solicited her permission
to include Madame de Moret among the performers, but Marie, who had previously
condescended to associate herself in a similar exhibition with the Marquise de
Verneuil, had been rendered less amenable by recent circumstances, and she
peremptorily refused to appear in such intimate association with another of her
husband's mistresses. The concession was not one upon which Henry could insist
with any propriety, a fact of which the Queen was so well aware, that in order
to terminate the affair as gracefully as possible she declined altogether
either to assist in the entertainment or even to witness it, a decision which
caused it to be abandoned altogether. This mortification
was, however, compensated to the Countess by a donation
from the King of eighty-five thousand five hundred francs.
At the
commencement of July the King had accredited the Maréchal de Bassompierre as
his ambassador-extraordinary to Lorraine, to be present at the marriage of the
Duc de Bar, his brother-in-law, with the daughter of the Duke of Mantua, the
Queen's niece; and had also furnished him with instructions to invite the
Duchess of Mantua to become the godmother of the Dauphin,
and the Duc de Lorraine to act as sponsor to the younger Princess. The marriage
took place at Nancy, where M. de Bassompierre, as the representative of his
sovereign, was magnificently and gratuitously entertained. Numerous balls were given, and a joust concluded the festivities; which were no
sooner terminated than the courtly envoy communicated the royal invitation,
which was received “with proper respect and honour”; and he then hastened his
return to Paris in order to prepare the gorgeous dress already alluded to
elsewhere as having been defrayed by his gains at play.
Towards
the close of the month, the two illustrious sponsors reached Villers-Cotterets,
where they were met by the King and Queen, with the whole Court, and thence
conducted to Paris. The Duchess arrived in a state coach of such extreme
magnificence as to attract immediate notice, but with so
slender a retinue as to provoke the sarcasms of the courtiers, who declared
that they recognized her rank only by the carriage in which she rode; and the
Mantuan suite accordingly became a favourite topic with the idle and the censorious.
Great preparations were made at Notre-Dame for the ceremony, which was to take
place on the 14th of September, and meanwhile nothing was thought of save
pleasure and preparation. Bassompierre gives an amusing account of the distress
of the tailors and embroiderers of the capital, who were unable to comply with
the demands of their employers, and many of whom were kidnapped and carried off
by persons of the highest rank in order to secure themselves against
disappointment. All Paris was in turmoil; the great were busy in devising
costumes which were to transcend all that had previously been seen at the
French Court, and the operatives were equally occupied in executing the orders
which they received.
In the
midst of this excitement, however, the plague, which had long existed in the
capital, declared itself more fatally; several officers of Queen Marguerite’s
household died under her roof, and the alarm became so great that the King
removed his Court to Fontainebleau, where the baptismal ceremonies were
performed with great magnificence on the day previously appointed.
These
ceremonies were so curious and characteristic that we shall offer no apology to
our readers for giving them in detail.
Each of the royal children had been privately baptized
a few days after its birth, but the public christening had been hitherto
deferred in order that it might be celebrated with becoming splendour. The
desire of the King had always been that the Sovereign-Pontiff should act as
sponsor to the Dauphin, the eldest son of France being, as he declared, the
eldest son of the Church, and the successive deaths of Clement VIII and Leo XI had accordingly delayed the
celebration of the ceremony. Paul V was, however, no sooner apprised of the
wishes of the French monarch than he despatched a brief to the Cardinal de
Joyeuse for registration in the Court of Parliament, by which that prelate was
constituted Papal Legate and representative, and instructed in all things to
support the holiness and dignity of the Apostolical See.
The
turret-court at Fontainebleau was selected as the most appropriate spot for the
construction of the temporary chapel, the great hall of the palace being
totally inadequate to contain the thousands who had collected from every part
of the country to witness the ceremony.
This
immense area was completely enclosed by the costly gold-woven tapestry of which
the manufacture had been, as we have stated, introduced and
encouraged by the King, and had in its centre a square space, thirty feet in
extent, surrounded by barriers, and similarly hung and carpeted with tapestry.
In the front of this enclosure stood an altar magnificently ornamented with the
symbols of the Order of the Holy Ghost, and a table gorgeously draped, both
being surmounted by canopies. Behind the table stood a platform raised three
steps from the floor, and in the midst of this was placed a column covered with
cloth of silver, upon which rested the font, protected by a superb
christening-cloth and a lofty canopy. On each side of the altar a gallery had
been erected which was filled with musicians, and beneath that upon the right
hand was a tapestried bench for the archbishops, bishops, and members of the
Council, while immediately in front of the shrine were placed the seats of the
Cardinal de Gondy, who was to perform the baptismal ceremonies, and the
almoners and chaplains of his suite. The whole of the court was lined by the
Swiss Guards, each holding a lighted torch, whose rays were reflected by the
myriad jewels that adorned the persons of the courtly spectators. All the
Princes of the Blood and great nobles wore their mantles clasped and
embroidered with precious stones, their plumed caps looped with diamonds, and
their sword-hilts encrusted with gems. That of the Duc d'Epernon was estimated at
more than thirty thousand crowns, and several others were of almost equal
value. The attire of the Princesses and ladies of the Court
was, however, still more splendid, many of them standing with difficulty under
the weight of the closely-jewelled brocade of which their dresses were
composed, and wearing upon their heads masses of brilliants which might have
ransomed a province. The Queen, whose dowry, as we have elsewhere shown, in a
great measure consisted of costly ornaments, appeared on this occasion with a
magnificence almost fabulous, her robe of cloth of gold and velvet being
studded with no less than thirty-two thousand pearls and three thousand
diamonds.
While
their Majesties and their illustrious guests took possession of their
respective seats, the prescribed ceremonial of preparation was in progress with
the royal children, who had all been placed in state beds covered with ermined
draperies under canopies of crimson velvet. Madame Elisabeth, the elder
Princess, being surrounded by the ladies who were privileged to assist at her
levée, the outer coverlet of her bed was withdrawn by the Comtesse de Sault and
the Comtesse de Guissen; she was then lifted from it by Madame de Lavardin,
undressed by Madame de Randan, and robed in her state costume by the Marquise
de Montlor.
Madame
Christine, the younger Princess, was meanwhile uncovered by the Duchesse de
Guise and Mademoiselle de Mayenne, lifted in the arms of Mademoiselle de
Vendôme, undressed by the Duchesse de Rohan, and robed by the Duchesse de Sully.
The
Dauphin underwent the same ceremonies, but he was attended
only by Princesses of the Blood. It was the Princesses de Conti and de Soissons
who drew off the ermined quilt, the Princesse de Condé and the Duchesse de
Montpensier by whom he was undressed, and Mademoiselle de Bourbon who adjusted
his state robes.
When
all the royal children were attired, the procession was formed. The Swiss
Guards moved first, each carrying a lighted torch, and on arriving within the
court they defiled, and, as before mentioned, lined the walls; the hundred
gentlemen on duty in the palace followed, and these were succeeded by the
ordinary members of the household and the gentlemen of the bedchamber all
carrying tapers of white wax. After them came the drums, fifes, hautboys, and
trumpets, together with nine heralds, behind whom walked the Grand Provost of
the palace, the Knights of the Holy Ghost, and finally, the Children of France
with their respective retinues. The first group consisted of the train of the
younger Princess, in which the Baron de la Châtre bore the
vase, M. de Montigny the basin, the
Comte de la Rochepot the cushion, M. de Chemerault the taper, M. de Liancourt the christening-cap, and the Maréchal de Fervaques the salt-cellar. The Marquis de Bois-Dauphin carried the infant in his arms, and Madame de Chemerault bore her train. She
was followed by a suite of twelve nobles, each bearing a flambeau in his hand;
and after these came the Duc de Lorraine as godfather, with Don Juan de
Medicis, son of the Grand Duke Ferdinand of Tuscany, as proxy for the Grand
Duchess of Florence, the other sponsor, the ladies who had assisted at the
Princess’s levée closing the train.
This
party had no sooner taken possession of the place assigned to them than the
second group began to enter the enclosure. First came the Maréchal de Lavardin with the ewer, then the Duc de
Sully with the cushion, next the Duc de Montbazon with the
taper, then the Duc d'Epernon with the christening-cap, and finally, the Duc
d'Aiguillon with the salt-cellar. The Prince de Joinville carried the Princess,
whose ermine train was borne by Mademoiselle de Rohan. There was no godfather,
and the Duchesse d'Angoulême walked alone as the proxy of
the Archduchess Elisabeth of Flanders, immediately behind Madame,
followed by Mademoiselle de Montmorency as her train-bearer, and the ladies who
had assisted at the levée.
Finally
appeared the third and last division of the procession,
headed by the Prince de Vaudemont, carrying the taper; and then followed in
succession the Chevalier de Vendôme with the christening-cap, the Duc de
Vendôme with the salt-cellar, the Duc de Montpensier with the ewer, the Comte
de Soissons with the basin, and the Prince de Conti with the cushion; the Sieur
Gilles de Souvry carried the Dauphin, whose right hand was held by the Prince
de Conti, while the train of his velvet mantle, edged with ermine, was borne by
the Duc de Guise, behind whom followed twenty great nobles holding lighted
flambeaux. These were succeeded by the Cardinal-Legate de Joyeuse, who
represented Paul V as sponsor, and the Duchess of Mantua, the godmother, the
Princesses of the Blood who had assisted at the levée closing the procession.
The
Dauphin having been placed upon the table, the Cardinal approached him and demanded:
“Sir, what do you ask?”
“The
sacramental ceremonies of baptism”, replied the little Prince, according to the
instructions which he had received from the Almoner of Boulogne.
“Have
you already been baptized?” again inquired the prelate.
“Yes,
thank God”, said the Dauphin firmly. To all the other
interrogations of the Cardinal he simply answered, “Ab renuncio”
After
the unction, when questioned on his belief according to the ordinary form, the
little Prince responded audibly, “Credo”; and finally, he recited without
error or hesitation the Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the Creed.
The
Princesses were then successively placed upon the table, when the elder was
named Elisabeth, after her illustrious godmother the Archduchess of Flanders,
and the younger Christine.
The
baptismal ceremonies were followed by a grand banquet served upon four
different tables. The attendants at that of the King were the Princes de Condé,
de Conti, and de Montpensier; while the Queen was waited on by the Ducs de
Vendôme, de Guise, and de Vaudemont; the Legate by the Comte de Candale and the
Marquis de Rosny; and the Duchess of Mantua by the Baron
de Bassompierre and the Comte de Sault.
On the
following day the morning was occupied by the courtiers in tilting at the ring,
the prizes being distributed by the Queen and the Duchess of Mantua; and at
dusk the whole of the royal party proceeded to the wide plain which lies to the
east of Fontainebleau, in the centre of which the Duc de Sully had caused a
castellated building to be erected, which was filled with
rockets and other artificial fireworks, and which was besieged, stormed, and
taken by an army of satyrs and savages. This spectacle greatly delighted the
Court, while not the least interesting feature of the exhibition was presented
by the immense concourse of people (estimated at upwards of twelve thousand)
who had collected to witness the magnificent pyrotechnic display, and who rent
the air with their acclamations of loyalty.
All
further rejoicings were, however, rendered unseasonable by the rapid increase
of the plague, which having declared itself with great virulence at
Fontainebleau, induced the hasty departure of the Court; and the illustrious
guests having taken leave of the King and Queen laden with rich presents, their
Majesties, with a limited retinue, repaired for a time to Montargis.
These
baptismal festivities had not, meanwhile, been without alloy to the dissipated
monarch. Despite the fascination of the wily Marquise, and the charms of the
Comtesse de Moret, Henry was by no means insensible to the attractions of the
many beautiful women who followed in the suite of the Queen at the august
ceremony just described; and, among others, he especially honoured with his
notice the Duchesses de Montpensier and de Nevers.
In neither case, however, was he destined to be
successful, both these ladies possessing too much self-respect to accord any
attention to his illicit gallantries; and this failure, especially with the
latter, of whom he had become seriously enamoured, only tended to re-engage him
with Madame de Verneuil. Throughout all the period occupied by the christening
festivities, Madame de Nevers had been the object of his
special pursuit; but so carefully did she avoid all occasions of private
conversation, that the King, unaccustomed to so decided a resistance, became
irritated to a degree which induced her to escape from the Court as soon as the
found it practicable; and accordingly, on the very day after the festivities,
she left Fontainebleau without any previous intimation of such a design,
resisting all the efforts made by the sovereign to detain her. Nor did she
yield to his subsequent endeavours for her recall, but on the appointment of
her husband during the following year to the embassy at Rome, she accompanied
him thither; and several months elapsed ere she reappeared in France, where her
duty having compelled her to pay her respects to the Queen on her return, Henry
was so little master of himself as to display his mortification
by inquiring who she was, and on her name being announced, to exclaim loud enough
for her to hear his reply: “Ha! Madame la Duchesse de Nevers! She is terribly
altered”.
The
shaft fell harmless. The lady evinced the most perfect composure under the
royal criticism, and having fulfilled her duties as a subject towards her
sovereigns, she once more withdrew from the Court, and terminated her life as
she had commenced it, without scandal or reproach.
CHAPTER VII
1607
Despite
the presence of the pestilence the gaieties of the past winter had surpassed,
alike in the Court and in the capital, all that had hitherto been witnessed in
France. The profusion of the nobles, whom no foreign war compelled to disburse
their revenues in arming their retainers, and in preparing themselves
to maintain their dignity and rank in the eyes of a hostile nation, was
unchecked and excessive; while, as we have already shown, the monarch felt no
inclination to control an outlay by which they thus voluntarily crippled their
resources.
The
year 1607 commenced, with the exception of the fatal scourge which still
existed in and about Paris, in the greatest abundance, and the most perfect
peace. The Court celebrated the New Year at St. Germain-en-Laye, and on the
following day proceeded to Fontainebleau, where during the carême-prenant a ballet was danced, and several magnificent entertainments
were given to their Majesties by the great nobles of the household. These
festivities were, however, unfortunately interrupted by an event which created
universal consternation and anxiety. The most glaring evil of the reign of
Henri IV had long been the prevalence of duelling, which he had in the first
instance neglected to discountenance; and which had, in consequence, reached an
extreme that threatened the most serious results, not only to the principal
personages of the kingdom, but even to those whose comparative insignificance
in society should have shielded them from all participation in so iniquitous
and senseless a practice. L'Etoile computes the number of individuals who lost
their lives in these illicit encounters at several thousands; nor did the tardy edicts issued by the King produce a cessation of the
custom. On the 4th of February, the Prince de Condé, conceiving himself
aggrieved by some expression used by the Duc de Nevers, sent him a challenge,
to which the Duke instantly responded; and he was already on the ground
watching the approach of his antagonist, when a company of the King’s bodyguard
arrived, who, in the name of his Majesty, forbade the conflict, and escorted
the two quasi-combatants to the royal presence, where, “more in sorrow than in
anger”, Henry reprimanded both Princes; reminding them of their disobedience to
his expressed commands, of the fatal example which their want of self-government
would afford to their inferiors, and of the loss which the death of either
party would have inflicted upon himself. He then more particularly addressed M.
de Nevers, and reproached him severely for having evinced so little respect for
the Blood Royal of France as to accept, under any circumstances, a challenge
from a relative of his sovereign, who should have been sacred in his eyes.
Whether the arguments of the King convinced the two
nobles, or their loyalty sufficed to render them conscious of their error, is
unimportant. Henry had the satisfaction of removing the misunderstanding
between them, and from the royal closet they proceeded to the apartments of the
Queen, in order to allay an anxiety which, from her friendship and affection
for Madame de Nevers who was then absent on one of her
estates, had been painfully great.
The
expressed displeasure of the King at these encounters did not, however, as we
have already stated, suffice to prevent their frequent occurrence; and on the
22nd of the same month another hostile meeting took place between the Duc de
Soubise and M. de Boccal, which had nearly proved fatal to
the former; but it having been explained to the monarch that the antagonist of
M. de Soubise had long withstood the provocation of the Duke, declaring that he
dare not raise his hand against one so nearly connected with the throne, and
that he had not yielded until the impetuous and intemperate violence of his
antagonist had left him no other resource, Henry, with his usual clemency,
forgave the crime.
In addition to these occurrences, which were moreover
succeeded by others of the same description during the month, the anger of the
King was excited by a discovery which he made of the infidelity of Madame de
Moret. Indulgent to his own profligacy to a degree which rendered him
insensible to his self-abasement, Henry was peculiarly alive
to the degradation of sharing with a rival the affections, or perhaps it were
more fitting to say the favours, of his mistresses. He readily forgot the fact
that he had himself been the first to initiate them into the rudiments of
vice--to induce them to abnegate their self-respect, and to brave the opinion
of the world and their own reproaches--while he could not brook that they
should reduce him to a level with one of his own subjects, and that they should
so far emancipate themselves as to feel a preference for younger and more
attractive men when they had been honoured by his notice. The dissolute monarch
did not pause to reflect that with women the national proverb, il n'y a que
le premier pas qui coûte, is but too often realized, and that he was, in
fact, the architect of his own mortification.
Madame
de Moret had long been attached to the Prince de Joinville; who, young,
reckless, and impetuous, returned her passion, and scarcely made any effort to
conceal his rivalry with the monarch. Courtiers have, moreover, sharp eyes, and
it was not long ere the King was apprised of the intrigue. Bassompierre relates
that he hastened to warn the imprudent lovers of their danger, but that
believing him to have some personal motive for his interference, they
disregarded the caution; and the fact of their mutual
passion at length became so well authenticated, that Henry, whose pride rather
than his heart was wounded by the levity of the Countess, reproached her in the
most insulting terms with her misconduct. Madame de Moret did not attempt to deny her attachment to the Prince, but
excused herself by reminding the monarch that, honoured as she was by his
preference, she could not forget that she was merely his mistress, and could
anticipate no higher destiny, while M. de Joinville was prepared to make her
his wife.
“In
that case, Madame”, said the King, “you are forgiven. I can permit my subjects
to espouse my mistresses, but I cannot allow them to play the gallants to those
ladies whom I have distinguished by my own favour. You shall not be
disappointed in your expectations, and this marriage shall have my sanction
without delay”.
It can
scarcely be doubted that this ready assent must have been no slight
mortification to the vanity of Madame de Moret, while it is equally certain
that it was perfectly sincere on the part of the King, although from a cause
altogether independent of the Countess herself. In fact, the Prince de Joinville
having previously rendered himself obnoxious to the monarch by his marked
attentions to the Marquise de Verneuil, the latter was anxious to see him
married, and thus to rid himself of a dangerous rival. Such an alliance must,
moreover, as he at once felt, deeply wound the pride of the Guises, whom it was
his interest to humble by every means in his power; and accordingly he hastened
upon leaving Madame de Moret to summon the young Prince to his presence, and to
insist upon the fulfilment of his promise.
Startled by so unexpected an order, M. de Joinville
feigned a ready compliance, but on his dismissal from the royal closet he
expressed his indignation in no measured terms, declaring that had any other
than the sovereign proposed to him so disgraceful an alliance, whatever might
have been his rank, he would have resented the insult upon the instant; while
no sooner did the Duchess his mother become apprised of the circumstance, than
she hastened to throw herself at the feet of the King, beseeching him rather to
take her life than to subject her son to such dishonour.
“Rise,
Madame”, said Henry gravely; “yours is a petition which I cannot grant, as I
never yet took the life of any woman, and have still to learn the possibility
of doing so”.
“A
Guise, Sire”, pursued the haughty Duchess, as she once more stood erect before
him, “cannot marry the mistress of any man, even although that man should
chance to be his monarch”.
“Every
man, Madame”, retorted the King, “must pay the penalty of seeking to humiliate
his sovereign, even although that man be a Guise”.
“M. de
Joinville, Sire, shall never become the husband of Jacqueline de Bueil”.
“Neither,
Madame”, said the King angrily, “shall he ever become her gallant. This is not
the first occasion upon which he has had the insolence to interpose between me
and my favourites. I have not yet forgotten his intrigue with Madame de
Verneuil; and if I pardoned him upon that occasion, it was
not on his own account, but from respect for the relationship which exists
between us. Neither, Madame, has it escaped my memory that the House of Guise
endeavoured to wrest from me the crown of France; and, in short, finding myself
so ill-requited for my indulgence, I am weary of exercising a lenity which has
degenerated into weakness. Your son is at perfect liberty to marry my mistress,
since he has seen fit to desire it, and he shall do so, or repent his obduracy
in the Bastille, where he will have time and leisure to learn the respect which
he owes to his sovereign”.
“It is
your Majesty who is wanting in respect to yourself”, said the Duchess
haughtily.
“Madame!”
exclaimed the King; “do not give me cause to forget that you are my aunt. I can
hear no more until you assume a tone better suited to our relative positions.
You have heard my resolve, and may retire”.
Thus
abruptly dismissed, Madame de Guise withdrew, and hastened to apprise her son
of the impending peril, upon which he escaped from the capital before the order
issued for his arrest could be put into execution; while his relatives
endeavoured by humility and submission to obtain his forgiveness. Henry,
however, had been too deeply wounded, alike by the levity of the son and the
overbearing haughtiness of the mother, to yield to their entreaties, and the
only concession which he could be induced to make was a conditional pardon involving the perpetual exile of the culprit.
Nor was
the King, who at once discovered that he had been duped, less inclined to visit
upon Madame de Moret the consequences of her falsehood, and he openly declared
that she should also have been compelled to quit the country had she not been
on the eve of becoming a mother.
This
event shortly afterwards took place, but, although during the following year
Henry legitimated her son, he ever afterwards treated her
with the greatest coldness; nor did the birth of the child in any way affect
her position, as had been the case with the Duchesse de Beaufort and the
Marquise de Verneuil, the King contenting himself by sending to her a present
of money and jewels, but evincing no disposition to raise her rank.
It
would appear, moreover, that the indifference was mutual, as only a short time
subsequently she encouraged the assiduities of the Comte de Sommerive, from
whom, according to Sully, there could be no doubt that she did actually obtain
a written promise of marriage; and the King was no sooner apprised of the
circumstance than he expressed, as he had previously done in the case of the
Prince de Joinville, his perfect willingness to consent to the alliance,
merely desiring M. de Balagny, a gentleman of his
household upon whom he could rely, to watch the proceedings of the lovers, and
to acquaint him with every particular, should he have cause to suspect that the
intentions of the Count were equivocal. M. de Sommerive, however, who soon
discovered that he was an object of espionnage, became so much
exasperated that, having on one occasion encountered the royal confidant at a
convenient moment for the purpose, he drew his sword and attacked him so
vigorously that his intended victim was compelled to save himself by flight.
In this
instance Henry, who had ceased to feel any interest in Madame de Moret,
contented himself by reprimanding the culprit, branding him with the name of
assassin, and finally exiling him to Lorraine, with strict orders not to leave
that province without his express permission.
We will
here terminate the history of the ex-favourite, who has already occupied only
too much space. After this last adventure she ceased to make any figure at
Court, her influence over the monarch having entirely ceased; and seven years
subsequent to his death she became the wife of Réné du Bec, Marquis de Vardes,
and the mother of two sons, the elder of whom, François Réné, Comte de Moret,
was afterwards famous during the reign of Louis XIV under the title of Marquis
de Vardes.
The estrangement of the monarch from Madame de Moret,
coupled with his increasing coldness towards the Marquise de Verneuil, once
more at this period restored the unhappy Queen to a comparative peace of mind,
which she was not, however, long fated to enjoy; as at the close of the year a
new candidate for the royal favour presented herself in the person of
Mademoiselle des Essarts. This lady, who was a member of
the household of the Comtesse de Beaumont-Harlay, had accompanied her mistress
to England, whither M. de Beaumont-Harlay had been
accredited as ambassador; and on the return of her patroness to France she
appeared in her suite at Court, where she instantly attracted the attention of
the dissolute King. Her reign was happily a short one, and at the close of two
years she retired with the title of Comtesse de Romorantin, having previously
been privately married to the Archbishop of Rheims.
We
shall pass over in silence the other liaisons of the monarch, as they
were too transitory greatly to affect the tranquillity of the Queen, until we
are once more compelled to return to them in order to record
his unhappy passion for the beautiful Princesse de Condé--a passion which at
one period threatened to involve a European war.
On the
6th of April Marie de Medicis gave birth to her second son, who received the
title of Duc d'Orléans, that duchy having always since the time of Philip VI
been the appanage of a Prince of the Blood, or one of the first nobles of the
kingdom. The public rejoicings were universal, and the satisfaction of the King
without bounds. The little Prince was privately baptized by the Cardinal de
Gondy, until the state ceremonies of his christening could take place; and on
the 22nd of the month he was invested by the sovereign with the insignia of St.
Michael and the Holy Ghost, in the presence of the Cardinals, and the
Commanders and Knights of those Orders, with great pomp; after which a banquet
was given by the King in the great hall at Fontainebleau, and at nightfall the
park was illuminated in all directions by immense bonfires, and a pyrotechnic
display, which was witnessed by admiring and exulting thousands.
The
intelligence which reached Paris on the following day that peace had been
restored between the Pope and the Venetians, through the intervention of the
French monarch; that the Papal excommunication which had been fulminated
against that republic had been repealed, and a general absolution accorded,
excited the enthusiasm of the French people to its greatest height. They
augured from this fact a brilliant future for the little Prince, who had come into the world at the very moment when the great work
had been achieved; and this feeling was shared by the august parents of the royal
infant. So little can human foresight fathom the designs of the Almighty
Disposer of all things! Men congratulated each other in the public street; and,
forgetting the Huguenot origin of Henry, considered him only as the champion of
the Romish faith; while they coupled his name and that of the Queen with every
endearing epithet of which they were susceptible.
The
remainder of the summer was occupied by the monarch in the embellishment of the
capital, in high play, and in his rapidly-waning passion
for Madame de Verneuil; while the Court resided alternately at Fontainebleau
and St. Germain; the Queen confining herself more and more to the society of
her children and her immediate favourites, listening with jealous avidity to
every rumour of infidelity on the part of her royal consort, and occasionally
renewing those unhappy differences by which the whole of their married life had
been embittered.
The
kingdom was at peace, but anarchy still reigned within the walls of the palace.
It is true that the advancing age of the monarch appeared to offer a sufficient
guarantee for his moral reformation, but the daily experience of the Queen
sufficed to convince her that she must never hope for domestic happiness; and
this conviction doubtless tended to place her more thoroughly in the power of
those treacherous advisers who, in order to strengthen their own influence, did
not hesitate to exaggerate (where exaggeration was possible) the painful errors
of her husband. She saw herself idolized by the people, who regarded her with
earnest affection as the mother of two Princes whom they looked upon as pledges
for the safety and prosperity of France, while she found herself at the same
time an object of indifference to the monarch whom they were destined to
succeed; and who, while he lavished upon his children incessant tokens of
tenderness, sacrificed her personal happiness to every passing fancy, even at
the time when he affected to reproach her with a coldness of which he was
himself the cause.
Again
we fearlessly repeat that the historians of the time have not done Marie de
Medicis justice. They expatiate upon her faults, they enlarge upon her
weaknesses, they descant upon her errors; but they touch lightly and carelessly
upon the primary influences which governed her after-life. She arrived in her
new kingdom young, hopeful, and happy--young, and her youth was blighted by
neglect; hopeful, and her hopes were crushed by unkindness; happy, and her
happiness was marred by inconstancy and insult. Her woman-nature, plastic as it
might have been under more fortunate circumstances, became indurated to
harshness; and it is not they who strive to work upon the most solid marble who
should complain if the chisel with which they pursue their
purpose become blunted in the process.
On the
5th of September of this year died M. de Bellièvre, the Chancellor of France,
whose probity and justice had rendered him dear to the people, in whose eyes
the withdrawal of his Court favour only tended to enhance his valuable
qualities. He was, as a natural consequence, succeeded by Brulart de Sillery,
who had already superseded him as Keeper of the Seals; and his body was
attended to the church of St. Germain-l'Auxerrois by a vast concourse of the
citizens.
His
demise was, in November, followed by that of the Cardinal de Lorraine, who, with the usual superstition of the age, was declared to
have been bewitched because his malady had baffled the skill of his physicians;
while that which renders the circumstance the more melancholy, is the fact that
the individual accused of his destruction was burned alive at Nancy, after
having been previously subjected to a course of lingering torture.
The Court meanwhile, according to Sully, was more dissipated than it had been during any previous
winter since the arrival of Marie de Medicis in France; while the account given
of the state of morals throughout the capital by L'Etoile, is one which will
not bear transcription. The new year (1608) commenced in the same manner.
Ballets were danced both at the Louvre and at the residences of the great
nobles. The ex-Queen Marguerite gave an entertainment in honour of the birth of
the young Prince, which terminated with a running at the ring, where the prizes
were distributed by herself and her successor; and, finally, the King commanded
that an especial ballet for the amusement of the Duc de Montpensier, to whose
daughter he was about to affiance the infant Duc d'Orléans, should be executed
by the Duc de Vendôme, the Marquis de Bassompierre, the Baron de Thermes, and
M. de Carmail, the four nobles of the Court who were distinguished by the
appellation of “les Dangereux”. The august party accordingly proceeded to the
hotel of that Prince, who was then nearly at the point of death, having
languished throughout two years in a low decline which had gradually sapped his
existence; but notwithstanding the state of debility to which he was reduced,
the Duke left his bed, and received his royal and noble guests in the hall
wherein the ballet was performed. It may be doubted,
however, whether M. de Montpensier did not make this
supreme effort in consequence of the proposed alliance, and his anxiety to
evince to their Majesties his sense of the honour which was about to be
conferred upon himself and his family, rather than from any amusement which he
could hope to derive from such an exhibition. Be that, however, as it may, the
most magnificent preparations had been made for the reception of Henry and his
Queen, who were met at the foot of the great staircase by the Duchess, followed
by her women, and escorted by a score of pages bearing lighted tapers, and thus
conducted to the canopied dais beneath which their ponderous chairs, covered
with cloth of gold, had been placed, with low stools behind and on either side
of the throne, for the use of such of the other guests as were privileged to
seat themselves in the presence of the sovereign.
The
ballet, save as regarded the dying condition of the ducal host, was executed
under the happiest auspices. The King, to whom the proposed marriage of the two
children was agreeable under every aspect, was in one of his most condescending
and complacent moods; while Marie de Medicis, whose affection for all her
offspring amounted to passion, was radiant with delight as she remembered that
by the will of the Duke all his property and estates devolved upon the young
Prince, even should his betrothed bride not live to become
his wife.
On the following day the affiancing, of which this
entertainment had been the prelude, took place with great solemnity. The most
costly presents were exchanged, not only by the betrothed children, but also by
their royal and noble relatives. This ceremony, owing to the failing health of
the Duke, was also performed at the Hôtel Montpensier, and was succeeded by
amusements of every description; among which those prepared for the occasion at
the Arsenal by Sully afforded the most marked gratification to their Majesties.
The minister had caused a spacious theatre to be constructed, in which the
Italian actors who had been summoned to France by the Queen gave their
representations. This pit or salle de spectacle was, as he himself
informs us, arranged amphitheatrically, while above were galleries divided into
separate boxes, each approached by a different staircase and entered by a different
door. Two of these galleries were reserved entirely for the ladies who were
admitted to the performance, and no man, upon any pretext whatever, was
permitted to enter them; an arrangement which appears to be strikingly at
variance with the lax morality of the time. So resolved, nevertheless, was
Sully to enforce this restriction, that he adds with a gravity curious enough
upon such a subject: “This was one of my regulations which I would not suffer
to be violated, and of which I did not consider it beneath me personally to
compel the observance”.
To
impress, moreover, upon his readers the strength of this
determination, he relates an anecdote of which we cannot resist the
transcription:
“One
day”, he says, “when a very fine ballet was represented in this hall, I
perceived a man leading a lady by the hand, with whom he was about to enter the
women’s gallery. He was a foreigner, and I moreover easily recognized by his
sallow complexion to what country he belonged. ‘Monsieur’, I said to him, ‘you
will be good enough to look for another door; for I do not think that with your
skin you can hope to pass for a lady’. ‘My lord’, replied he in very bad
French, ‘when you ascertain who I am, you will not, I can assure you, refuse to
have the politeness of permitting me to enter with these fair and lovely
ladies, however dark I may be. My name is Pimentello; I am well received by his
Majesty, and have frequently the honour of playing with him’. This was true,
and too true. This foreigner, of whom I had frequently heard, had won immense
sums from the King. ‘How, ventre de ma vie! I exclaimed, affecting
extreme anger; ‘you are then, I perceive, that great glutton of a Portuguese
who daily wins the money of the King. Pardieu, you are by no means
welcome here, as I neither affect nor will receive such guests’. He was about
to reply, but I thrust him back, saying at the same time, ‘Go, go; find another
entrance, for your jargon will fail to make any impression upon me’. The King
having subsequently inquired of him if he had not thought the ballet
magnificent and admirably executed, Pimentello replied that
he was anxious to have witnessed it, but that he had been encountered at the
door by his finance minister, who had met him with a negative and shut him out;
an adventure which so much amused the monarch that he not only laughed heartily
himself, but made the whole Court participators in his amusement”.
Banquets,
running at the ring, and balls in which the Queen occasionally condescended to
join, varied the entertainments; which were, however, suddenly terminated by
the death of the Duc de Montpensier, which occurred on the 28th of the month;
and so much was the King affected by his demise, that he forbade all the
customary diversions during the ensuing Carnival.
Nothing
could exceed, save in the case of a sovereign, the splendour of the funeral ceremonies
observed after the Duke’s decease. He had no sooner expired than his body was
carried into a hall richly hung with tapestry, and surrounded by seats and
benches covered with cloth of gold, elaborately embroidered with fleurs-de-lis, intended for the accommodation of the prelates, nobles, knights, and gentlemen
of the Duke's household who were appointed to watch beside the corpse. The body
lay upon a state bed covered with cloth of gold which swept the floor, and was
bordered with ermine. He wore his ducal robes, with a coronet, and the great
collar of St. Michael; and had his white-gloved hands crossed upon his breast.
At the foot of the bier stood a small table upon which was
a massive silver crucifix; and near it a second supporting a vase of holy
water. In this state the deceased Duke remained during eight days; the officers
of his household waiting upon him in the same manner, and with the same
ceremonies as when he was alive. A prelate said the grace; the water, in which
while in existence the Prince had been accustomed to lave his hands previously
to commencing a meal, was presented to his vacant chair; the different courses
were placed upon the table by the proper officers; a silver goblet was prepared
at the same moment in which he had formerly been in the habit of taking his
first draught; and, finally, the same prelate uttered a thanksgiving, to which
he added a De profundis, and the
prayer for the dead; when the food that had been served up was distributed to
the poor.
At the
termination of the eight days the funeral service was performed at Notre Dame,
in the presence of the Knights of the Holy Ghost, all wearing their collars.
The chief mourners were the Prince de Condé and the Comte de Soissons, the
cousins of the deceased Duke; and his funeral oration was delivered by M. de
Fenouillet, Bishop of Montpellier. The body was then conveyed to Champigny in
Poitou, where the Duke was laid to rest with his ancestors.
Having
strictly forbidden all public festivities, Henry removed
the Court to Fontainebleau; and Marguerite, whose unblushing libertinism was a
byword in Paris, seized the moment to erect an alms-house and convent upon a
portion of the grounds of her hotel. It was stated that the ex-Queen during her
residence at Usson, where, as we have already seen, her career was one of the
most degrading profligacy, had made a vow that should she ever be permitted to
revisit Paris, she would support a certain number of monks who should daily
sing the praises of the Deity; and she accordingly gave to the chapel attached
to the convent the name of the Chapel of Praise, while the house itself was
designated the Monastery of the Holy Trinity. It was no sooner built than it
was given by the foundress to the reformed and bare-footed Fathers of St.
Augustine; but after having solicited in their favour various privileges which
were accorded by the Sovereign-Pontiff, she dispossessed them in the year 1613,
and established in their place the Augustine Fathers of the Congregation of
Bourges.
Meanwhile
the influence of Concini and his wife over the mind of the Queen unhappily
increased with time, until the arrogance of the former became so great that he
had the insolence to enter the lists at a grand tilting at the ring which was
publicly held in the Rue St. Antoine in the presence of the monarch and his
Court; a piece of presumption which was rendered still more unpalatable to
Henry by the fact that the Italian, who was well skilled in such
exercises, bore away the prize for which the whole of his own nobility had
contended.
So
arrogant, indeed, had he become, and so inflated with the consciousness of
wealth--Marie de Medicis having been lavish even beyond her means both to his
wife and himself--that he entered into a negotiation for the purchase of La
Ferté, a property estimated at between two and three hundred thousand crowns;
and he no sooner ascertained that the Duchesse de Sully had waited upon the
Queen to entreat of her Majesty to forbid the transfer, as such an acquisition
made by an individual who was generally known to be penniless only a few years
previously would necessarily excite the public disaffection towards herself,
than he had the audacity to proceed to the Arsenal and to upbraid that lady for
her interference in the most unmeasured and insulting terms, declaring that he
was independent both of the King of France and of his subjects, whatever might
be their sex and rank; and that whoever thwarted him in his projects might live
to rue the day in which they braved his anger.
This
intemperance having come to the ears of the King, his indignation was
excessive; but, as on previous occasions, he lacked the moral courage to assert
his dignity; and satisfied himself by bitter complaints to Sully of the fatal
hold which her two Italian attendants had secured upon the affections of the
Queen, and by replying to the reproaches of Marie upon the subject of his new
attachment for Charlotte des Essarts, and the continued insolence of Madame de Verneuil, with vehement upbraidings on the
vassalage in which she lived to the indecent caprices and shameless extortions
of a waiting-woman and her husband.
Marie
de Medicis, who had hoped that the rank in her household which had been
conceded to Leonora would protect her for the future against allusions to the
obscurity of her origin, was greatly incensed by the tone of contempt still
maintained by the King whenever he made any allusion either to Leonora or
Concini; and eventually these recriminations attained to such a height that
Henry abruptly quitted the Louvre (where the delicate health of his royal
consort had induced him to establish his temporary residence), and proceeded to
Chantilly, without taking leave of her. On his way, however, he alighted at the
Arsenal, where he informed Sully of the reason of his sudden departure; and the
minister became so much alarmed at this unequivocal demonstration of
displeasure on the part of the monarch, that he resolved not to lose a moment
in advising the Queen to some concession which might cause the King to return
to the capital. After the midday meal he accordingly repaired to the Louvre,
accompanied only by a secretary who was to await him in an antechamber, and
made his way to the apartments of Marie. On reaching the saloon adjoining the
private closet of the Queen, he found Madame Concini seated at the door with
her head buried in her hands, evidently absorbed in thought. She started up,
however, when he addressed her and in reply to his request that she would
announce him to her royal mistress, she replied that she would do so willingly,
although she apprehended that her Majesty would not receive him, as she had
refused entrance to herself. She had, however, no sooner raised the tapestry,
and scratched upon the door, than Marie, on learning who was without, desired
that M. de Sully should be instantly admitted. When the Duke entered he found
the Queen seated at a table, busily engaged in writing; and as he approached
her with the customary obeisance, she hastily motioned to him to place himself
upon a stool immediately in front of her.
“You
are right welcome, M. le Ministre”, she said in a tone that was not altogether
steady, although she struggled to suppress all outward emotion. “You are
doubtless already apprised that the King has withdrawn from the capital in
anger, but you have yet to learn that he has left me no whit more satisfied
than himself. I was unprepared for so abrupt a departure; and as I had still
much to say to him on the subject of our disagreement, I find myself compelled
to the exercise of my clerkly skill, and am now occupied in telling him in
writing all that I had left unsaid. There is the letter”, she continued with a
bitter smile, as she threw the ample scroll across the table; “read it, and
tell me if I have not more than sufficient cause to consider myself both
aggrieved and outraged”.
“Madame”,
said the incorruptible minister, when he had perused the document
thus submitted to him, “you must pardon me if I venture to declare that you
must never suffer that letter to meet the eye of your royal consort: it
contains matter to induce your eternal separation”.
“Can
you deny one assertion which I have made?” demanded the Queen impatiently.
“I
sympathize in all the trials and troubles of your Majesty”, was the evasive
reply. “I would leave no effort untried to terminate them; a fact of which you
have long, I trust, Madame, felt convinced; and thus I cannot see you about to
wilfully destroy every chance of happiness, without imploring of you to reflect
deeply and calmly before you take so extreme a measure as that which you now
contemplate. The King is already incensed against you; and if spoken words have
thus angered him, I dare not contemplate the consequences of such as these
before me, written hours after your contention. I therefore beseech you to
suppress this letter; and both for your own sake, and for that of the French
nation, rather to seek a reconciliation with His Grace your husband than to
increase the ill-feeling which so unhappily exists”.
“You
make no allowance for me, Monsieur, as a woman and a wife; you only argue with
the Queen”.
“Madame”,
persisted Sully, “in this instance it is rather to the woman and the wife that
I address myself than to the Queen. As a woman, the bitterness and invective of
this missive”, and he laid his spread hand emphatically upon the paper, “would suffice to cover you with blame and to deprive you of
sympathy, while as a mother it would authorize your separation from your
children. Let me entreat of you therefore to forego your purpose”.
Marie
de Medicis sat silent for a few moments, and then making a violent effort over
herself, she said slowly: “I will in so far follow your counsel, M. le Duc,
that I will destroy this letter, although the saints bear witness that it has
cost me both time and care to prepare it, but I will yield no further. I am
weary of being made the puppet of an unfaithful husband and his band of
unblushing favourites, who receive, each in succession, some high-sounding
title by which they are enabled to thrust themselves and their shame upon me in
the very halls of the palace. I must and will tell the King this”.
“Then,
Madame, if such be unfortunately your decision”, said her listener, “at least
let me urge you to do it in gentler terms”.
“I am
in no humour to temporize”.
Sully
made no reply.
“Do not
wrap yourself up in silence, Monsieur”, exclaimed the Queen after waiting in
vain for his reply. “I believe that you wish to serve me, and you cannot better
do so than by putting these unpalatable truths into a less repulsive form. Here
are the means at hand, but, mark me, I will not suffer one particular to be
omitted”.
Under
this somewhat difficult restriction the minister proceeded to obey her command,
but she argued upon every sentence, and cavilled at every
paragraph, which tended to soften the harsher features of the letter. At
length, however, the task was completed, and nothing remained to be effected
save its transcription by the Queen. The letter was long and elaborate, as Sully
had skilfully contrived to terminate every reproach by some reasoning which
could not fail to touch the feelings of the King. Thus, after upbraiding her
husband with his perpetual infidelities, Marie was made to say that if she
complained, it was less for herself, than because, in addition to her anxiety
to be the sole possessor of his heart, she could not coldly contemplate the
injury which he inflicted upon his person and dignity by becoming the rival of
his own subjects, and thus compromising his kingly character; and that if she
insisted with vehemence upon the exile of Madame de Verneuil, her excuse must
be found in the fact that in no other way could her peace and honour be
secured, or the welfare of her children be rendered sure--those children of whom
he was the father as well as the sovereign, and whom she would cause to fall at
his feet to implore compassion for their mother. She then reminded him of the
numerous promises which he had made to her that he would cease to give her
cause of complaint, and terminated the missive by calling God to witness that
should he still be willing to fulfil them, she would, on her side, renounce all
desire for vengeance upon those by whom she had been so deeply, wronged.
Certain, however, it is that, even with these
modifications, the letter gave serious offence to Henry, who, shortly after its
receipt, wrote to apprise Sully of what he denominated the impertinence of his wife, but declared that he was less incensed against her than against
the individual by whom the epistle had been dictated, as the style was not
hers, and that he had consequently discovered the agency of a third person,
whose identity he left it to Sully to ascertain, as he had resolved never again
either to serve or even to see him, be he whom he might, so long as he had
life.
With a
truth and frankness which did him honour, the finance minister, despite this
threat, did not hesitate when subsequently urged upon the subject by the King
to admit the authorship of the obnoxious document, and in support of his
assertion to place in the hands of Henry the original draft which he had
retained. On comparing this with the autograph letter of the Queen, however,
Sully at once perceived that she had been unable to repress her anger
sufficiently to adhere to his advice, and that the interpolations were by no
means calculated to advance her interests. It was evident,
nevertheless, that much of the King’s indignation had subsided, and that the
delicate health of his royal consort was not without its influence over his
mind. Sully adroitly profited by this circumstance to impress upon Henry the
danger of any agitation to the Queen, whose impressionable nature occasioned constant solicitude to her physicians, and reminded him that
her late violence had been principally induced by the rumours which had reached
her of a liaison between Madame de Verneuil and the Duc de Guise, an
indignity to his own person which she had declared herself unable to brook with
patience. In short, so zealously and so successfully did Sully exert himself,
that he at length induced the monarch to return to the Louvre, and the Queen to
disclaim all intention of exciting his displeasure, in which latter attempt he
was greatly aided by being enabled to confide to her that instant measures were
to be taken for the disgrace of the Marquise, could it be proved that her
friendship with the Duc de Guise had exceeded the limits of propriety.
In the
beginning of March the Court removed to Fontainebleau, where, while awaiting
the accouchement of the Queen, Henry indulged in the most reckless gaming; nor
did he pursue this vice in a kingly spirit, for even his devoted panegyrist
Péréfixe informs us that at this period he knew not how to answer those who
reproached his royal pupil with too great a love for cards and dice, of itself
a taste little suited to a great and powerful sovereign; and that, moreover, he
was an unpleasant player, eager for gain, timid when the stake was a high one,
and ill-tempered when he was a loser. In support of this
reluctant testimony, Bassompierre relates that, being anxious to assist at the
opening of the States of Lorraine in compliance with the invitation of the Duke, he solicited the permission of Henry to that effect on
two or three different occasions, but as he always played on the side of the
King, and universally with great success, he was constantly refused.
Resolved
to carry his point, however, the spoiled courtier at length set forth without
any leave-taking; a fact which was no sooner ascertained by the monarch than he
despatched two of the exempts of his guard to arrest him and bring him
back. This they did without difficulty, as Bassompierre did not travel at
night; but as the gallant Marquis had no ambition to be conveyed to
Fontainebleau in the guise of a prisoner, he despatched a letter to M. de
Villeroy requesting to be liberated from the presence of his captors, and
pledging himself to return instantly to Court. On his arrival the King laughed
heartily at the idea of his disappointment, which he, however, lightened by
pledging himself that in ten days he should be left at liberty to depart.
On the
25th of April Marie de Medicis became the mother of a third son, upon whom,
after some contestation between his illustrious parents, was bestowed the title
of Duc d'Anjou. The Queen was desirous that he should be called Prince of
Navarre, but Henry preferred the former designation, from the fact that it had
been that of many of the French Princes who had been sovereigns of Jerusalem
and Sicily. The birth of another Prince to
their beloved sovereign filled up the measure of joy in France; the citizens of
Paris made costly gifts to the Queen, and the circumstance of the infant having
come into the world on the anniversary of St. Louis increased the general
enthusiasm. As the convalescence of the royal invalid was
less rapid upon this than on previous occasions, the Court remained during the
spring and a portion of the summer at Fontainebleau, where every species of
amusement was exhausted by the courtiers. Once only, at the beginning of May,
the King resided for a few days in the capital, and on his return Marie
manifested such undisguised satisfaction that he accorded to her the sum of
twelve thousand crowns for the embellishment of her château at Monceaux.
So
early as the year 1598, during the journey of the sovereign to Brittany, a
marriage had been arranged between his son, the Duc de Vendôme, and
Mademoiselle de Mercoeur, but the mother and grandmother of the young lady had succeeded in inspiring her
with such a hatred of the legitimated Prince, that she would not allow his name
to be mentioned in her presence; and when she ascertained that the monarch had
resolved upon the fulfilment of the contract, she withdrew to the Capuchin
Convent, declaring that sooner than become the wife of M. de Vendôme she would
take the veil. The Duchesse de Mercoeur and her mother had been anxious to
marry the young heiress to the Prince de Condé, or failing in this project, to
some relative of their own, in order to retain her large possessions in the
family; but the King had resolved upon securing them to his son by enforcing
the promise made by the deceased Duke. He accordingly adopted conciliatory
measures by which he succeeded in effecting his object, and before the
conclusion of the rejoicings on the birth of the infant Prince, the marriage
was finally celebrated in the chapel of Fontainebleau with all the pomp and
magnificence of which the ceremony was susceptible, while the King appeared
beside his son at the altar blazing with jewels of inestimable price, and
joined in the festivities consequent upon the alliance with a zest and
enjoyment which were the theme of general comment.
The
arrival of Don Pedro de Toledo, the ambassador
of Philip III of Spain, at this precise juncture gave further occasion for that
display of splendour in which Henry had latterly delighted, and after his
public reception at Fontainebleau the Court removed to Paris, where the
ambassador had been sumptuously lodged at the Hôtel de Gondy. His arrogance,
however, soon disgusted the French King; nor did he hesitate to exhibit the
same unbecoming hauteur towards his kinswoman the Queen, who having despatched
a nobleman of her household to welcome him to France in that character, was
informed by her envoy that the only answer which he returned to the compliment
was conveyed in the remark that crowned heads had no relatives; they had only
subjects.
The
sole occasion upon which he laid aside his morgue, and then to all
appearance involuntarily, was while driving through the streets of the capital
in the carriage of the King. He had previously visited Paris, and as he
contrasted its present magnificence with the squalor, filth, and disorder which
it had formerly exhibited, he could not suppress an exclamation of astonishment.
“Why should you be surprised, Monsieur?” demanded Henry; “when you last saw my
good city of Paris, the father of the family did not inhabit it; and now that
he is here to watch over his children, they prosper as you see”.
The
object of this embassy was kept a profound secret; some historians assert that
it was undertaken with a view to effect a marriage between the Dauphin
and the Infanta of Spain, while others lean to the belief that Philip had
instructed Don Pedro to endeavour to prevail upon Henry to abandon his alliance
with the Dutch. Whatever were its motive, the ambassador, who had reached Paris
on the 7th of July, quitted the capital on the 22nd of the same month, having
only succeeded in irritating the King by his overbearing and supercilious demeanour.
It
would appear that during the present year Henri IV indulged his passion for
field sports to such an excess as tended seriously to alarm those who were
anxious for his preservation; and it indeed seems as though, at this period,
his leisure hours were nearly divided between his two favourite diversions of
hunting and high play. Sully informs us, however, that the King busied himself
with the embellishments of Fontainebleau, and in erecting the Place Dauphine at
Paris; but adds that these great works, which were necessary to the convenience
of the people, might have been carried much further if the monarch would have
followed his advice and been less profuse in his personal expenditure,
particularly as regarded his gambling transactions. He advances, as a proof of
this assertion, that he was called upon on one occasion to deliver to Eduardo
Fernandez, a Portuguese banker (who, according to Bassompierre, had made a
visit of speculation to the French Court, and who unhesitatingly provided the
nobles with large sums, either on security or at immense
interest), the enormous amount of thirty-four thousand pistoles, for which the
reckless monarch had become his debtor. “I frequently received similar orders”,
he proceeds to say, “for two or three thousand pistoles, and a great many
others for less considerable sums”.
It is
scarcely doubtful that the ennui occasioned by the waning passion of
Henri IV for Madame de Verneuil at this period induced him, even more than
formerly, to seek amusement and occupation at the gaming-table, where he was
emulated by his profuse and licentious nobles, while even his Queen and the
ladies of the Court entered with avidity into the exciting pastime. We have
frequent record of the habitual high play of Marie de Medicis, who found in it
a solace for her sick-room and a diversion from her domestic annoyances, and
thus the dangerous propensity of the monarch was heightened by the presence of
the loveliest women of the land and the charm and fascination of wit and
intellect.
Madame de
Verneuil was in despair; the coveted sceptre was sliding from within her grasp,
and with the ill-judged hope of regaining the affections of her royal lover by
exciting his jealousy, she encouraged the attention of the Duc de Guise, who,
undismayed by the previous attempt of his brother to divert the affections of
another of the royal favourites and its unfortunate result, at length openly
avowed himself the suitor of the brilliant Marquise, and even promised
to make her his wife; while the scandalous chroniclers of the time do not
hesitate to affirm that the Prince de Joinville himself had previously done the
same, but that his proverbial fickleness had protected him from so gross a mésalliance.
In the
case of the Duke, however, the affair wore a more serious aspect; and so
earnest did he appear in his professions that Madame de Verneuil, anxious at
once to secure an illustrious alliance and to revenge herself upon the monarch,
caused the banns of marriage between the Prince and herself to be published with
some slight alteration in their respective names, which did not, however,
suffice to deceive those who had an interest in subverting her project; and the
fact was accordingly communicated to the King, upon whom it produced an effect
entirely opposite to that which had been contemplated by the vanity of the
lady, who had been clever enough to procure from M. de Guise a written promise
similar to that which she had formerly extorted from the monarch. Four years
previously the knowledge of such a perfidy on her part would have overwhelmed
Henry with anxiety, jealousy, and grief, but his passion for the Marquise had,
as we have seen, long been on the decline, and his only feeling was one of
indignation and displeasure. To the Marquise herself he simply expressed his
determined and unalterable opposition to the alliance, but to the Duke he was
far less lenient, reminding him of the former offences of himself and his
family, and forbidding him to pursue a purpose so
distasteful to all those who had his honour at heart This was a fatal blow to
Madame de Verneuil, and one which she was never destined to overcome. Clever as
she was, she had suffered herself to forget that youth is not eternal, and that
passion is even more evanescent than time; and thus, by a last impotent effort
to assert a supremacy to which she could no longer advance any claim, she only
succeeded in extinguishing in the heart of the King the last embers of a latent
and expiring attachment
CHAPTER VIII
1609
In the
year upon which we are now about to enter the subject of our biography
occupies, unfortunately, but a small space, destined as it was to give birth to
the most violent and the most dangerous passion of the whole life of Henri IV,
and that which left the most indelible stain upon his memory, both as a man and
as a monarch.
On the
7th of February the Court went into mourning for the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the
uncle of the Queen, to whom she was ardently attached, and all the Carnival
amusements were consequently suspended, but not before the Queen had resolved
upon the performance of the ballet which she had previously refused to
sanction, when her royal consort had proposed as one of its performers the
Comtesse de Moret, his late favourite. The rehearsal of this entertainment took
place on the 16th of January, and the nymphs of Diana were represented by the
twelve reigning beauties of the Court, among whom the most lovely was Charlotte
Marguerite de Montmorency. So extraordinary, indeed, were
her personal attractions, combined with a modesty of demeanour more than
unusual at the Court in that age, that even the most experienced of the great
nobles were compelled to confess that they had never heretofore seen any person
who could compete with her. "The purity of her complexion," says
Dreux du Radier, quoting from one of the old chroniclers, "was admirable;
her eyes, lively and full of tenderness, inspired passion in the most careless
hearts; she had not a feature in her face which was not gracefully moulded. The
tones of her voice, her bearing, her slightest movements, had a charm which
compelled admiration, and it was yielded the more willingly that it was
elicited by no artifice on her part, but was a tribute to her natural merits.
Nature had, indeed, done everything for her, and she had no occasion to resort
to any adventitious aid however innocent."
This
lady, thus richly gifted with youth, beauty, and high birth, had been, even
before her appearance at Court, promised in marriage by her father to the
Maréchal de Bassompierre, to whom indeed he had himself offered her hand, but she was no sooner seen by Henry in the circle of the
Queen than he became violently enamoured of her person, and resolved to prevent
the alliance; a determination in which he found himself
strengthened by the remonstrances of the Duc de Bouillon, the nephew of the
Connétable, and consequently the cousin of the young beauty, whose favour
Bassompierre had, in the excess of his happiness, neglected to conciliate, and
who represented to the King that he could not conceal his astonishment on
ascertaining that his Majesty was about to permit the union of Mademoiselle de
Montmorency with a mere noble, however deserving of such distinction, when the
Prince de Condé had attained to a marriageable age, and that it would be
imprudent to countenance his alliance with a foreign princess; while as regards
himself, he could not discover another eligible match save his cousin or
Mademoiselle du Maine; and he was inclined to believe that none of the advisers
of his Majesty would counsel him to authorize his own marriage with the latter,
while the remnant of the League continued so formidable as to threaten a still
more forcible and dangerous demonstration should they once find themselves
under a leader with the power which he possessed to further their cause. He
then represented that his alliance with Mademoiselle de Montmorency would
involve no such results, as the allies and interests of the Connétable were his
own, and concluded by entreating that his Majesty, before he sanctioned the
marriage of Bassompierre with his cousin, would give the matter ample
reflection.
This
contention, there can be no doubt, piqued the curiosity of
the King, who in the course of the day mentioned the circumstance to the Duc de
Bellegarde. The chance of the rivals in the favour of the lady herself could
scarcely be doubtful, as the Duc de Bouillon, Prince of the Blood though he
was, possessed few personal attractions, while the gay, the gallant, the
magnificent Bassompierre was the cynosure of all eyes; superb in person, he was
moreover of high birth, great wealth (although his profusion occasionally
fettered his means), in high favour with the monarch, and celebrated alike for
his wit and his attainments. Unfortunately, however, for his interests, M. le
Grand had already seen Mademoiselle de Montmorency, and the animated
description which he volunteered to the King of the coveted beauty was far from
proving favourable to the views of Bassompierre, as Henry, before he came to
any decision upon so important a question, resolved to decide for himself the
value of the prize which he was about to adjudge to one or other of the
contending parties. For this purpose he therefore joined the evening circle of
the Queen, where he first saw the daughter of the Connétable, but apparently
without the effect which had been anticipated by the Duc de Bellegarde.
On the
morrow, however, he proved less insensible to the surpassing loveliness of the
young maid of honour; her modest dignity in a private salon offering, in
all probability, little attraction to the licentious monarch who was accustomed
to see every eye turned towards himself, and every art exerted
to fascinate his notice; but on the day of the rehearsal, when the graceful and
blushing nymph of Diana was presented to him in her classic garb, her quiver at
her back and her spear in her hand, he at once acknowledged the potency of the
spell by which others had been previously subjugated. The rehearsal took place
in the great hall of the Louvre, where Henry was attended only by the Due de
Bellegarde, and Montespan, the captain of his bodyguard.
The
extraordinary loveliness of the young Princess, combined with her exquisite
grace and dignified bearing, at once fascinated the King, who declared to the
Duc de Bellegarde that he had never before beheld so faultless a face and form;
to which assurance M. le Grand replied, says Bassompierre, "according to
his usual manner of extolling everything that was novel, and particularly
Mademoiselle de Montmorency, who was indeed worthy of all admiration; and thus
infused into the mind of the King, always ready to yield to a new fancy, the
passion which subsequently caused him to commit so many extravagances."
For the
moment, however, Henry was unable to pursue his unworthy purpose, being
attacked the same evening by a violent fit of the gout, to which he had been occasionally subject for the last four years, and
which declared itself on this occasion with so much acuteness that during
fifteen days he was compelled to keep his bed. Meanwhile, the Duc de Bouillon
was not idle. Considering himself aggrieved by the Connétable in not having
been selected as the husband of his daughter, he complained loudly and bitterly
of the slight, and even induced the Duc de Roquelaure to exert his influence
with M. de Montmorency to withdraw his promise from Bassompierre, and to bestow
the hand of the Princess upon himself. The Connétable, however, remained firm,
declaring that he had already the honour to be the great-uncle of M. de
Bouillon, a degree of kindred which quite satisfied his ambition; and that his
daughter, being pledged to Bassompierre, could no longer be an object of
pursuit with any prospect of success to any other noble, however great might be
his rank; while, in pursuance of this resolution, the Duke caused preparations
to be made for the celebration of the marriage in the chapel of his palace at
Chantilly. Bassompierre was consequently at the summit of happiness; his
ambition and his heart were alike satisfied, and he received the
congratulations of those around him with an undisguised delight, which, in so
proverbially gay and gallant a cavalier, could not fail to prove highly
flattering to the object of his attachment.
Unfortunately,
before the ceremony could be performed, M. de Montmorency was in his turn attacked by gout, and, greatly to the mortification of the
expectant bridegroom, the marriage was necessarily deferred. Still, relying on
the assurance of the Connétable that nothing should induce him to rescind his
resolution, Bassompierre endeavoured to await with what patience he might the
termination of the inopportune illness of the generous Prince; and in the
interim he shared with M. le Grand and the Duc de Grammont the honour of
passing the night in the royal chamber, where the three nobles alternately read
or conversed with the King during his sleepless hours. Throughout the day the
monarch received the visits of the Queen and the Princesses of the Blood, among
whom the most welcome was the Duchesse d'Angoulême, who was on every occasion
accompanied by her niece Mademoiselle de Montmorency, whom Henry did not fail
to engross whenever the Duchess was engaged in conversation with the members of
the Court circle. Still, however, the King was careful not to betray to the
young lady herself the peculiar feeling with which she had inspired him, but
treated her with a kindness which was almost paternal, alluding without any
apparent reluctance to her betrothal to Bassompierre, and assuring her that she
should be as dear to him as a daughter, and that during the tour of duty of her
husband, as First Lord of the Bedchamber, she should have a suite of apartments
appropriated to her use in the Louvre; but in a few days, when he had
accustomed her to converse freely with him upon the subject, Henry put a leading question which must, after all these gracious
promises, have tended to startle Mademoiselle de Montmorency, by demanding to
know if she personally desired the marriage, as, should it be otherwise, she
need only confess the truth with frankness, when he would break off the match,
and procure for her an alliance more to her taste; adding that he was even
willing to bestow her hand upon his own nephew the Prince de Condé. In reply
the Princess modestly but firmly assured his Majesty that as her union with M.
de Bassompierre was the wish of her father, she felt convinced that her destiny
would be a happy one; and there can be no doubt that she said this more
emphatically than she had intended, as, from that moment, Henry became
convinced that she really loved her intended husband, and he resolved in
consequence to prevent the marriage.
Unhappily
for all parties, the monarch appeared to have forgotten that he had reached his
fifty-sixth year, that he was rapidly becoming a martyr to the gout, and that
he was no longer calculated to enter into a successful rivalry with his younger
and more attractive nobility; a delusion which was unfortunately encouraged,
according to Mézeray, by his confidential friends, the relatives of the lady,
and even the members of the Queen's household, who, in the hope of at length
triumphing over his former favourites, exerted themselves to increase his
passion for the daughter of the Connétable; a passion
which they moreover doubtless imagined could not, from the
high rank and peculiar position of Mademoiselle de Montmorency, exceed the
limits of propriety. The intentions of Henry himself were, however, as was
subsequently proved, of a far less innocuous tendency than those for which
others so erroneously gave him credit. At eight o'clock on the following
morning he sent for Bassompierre, and having caused the attendants to leave the
room, he motioned him to kneel down upon the cushion beside his bed, when he
assured him that he had been thinking seriously of the propriety of his taking
a wife.
"Ah!
Sire," said the delighted courtier, perfectly unsuspicious of the real
meaning of the monarch, "had not the same unlucky disease under which your
Majesty is also suffering attacked the Connétable, I should ere this have been
a husband."
"No,"
was the hurried reply, as the King looked steadfastly at his intended victim,
"such is not my meaning. What I desire is to bestow upon you the hand of
Mademoiselle d'Aumale, and by this means to revive the duchy of Aumale in your
favour."
"But
I am betrothed, Sire, and cannot take a second wife!"
"Bassompierre,"
said Henry with an emotion which he was unable to conceal, "I have become
passionately attached to Mademoiselle de Montmorency. If you marry her and she
loves you, you will be the object of my hatred; while should I, under such
circumstances, induce her to love me, you would hate me in
your turn. You are aware of my attachment towards yourself, and it will be far
better to avoid this risk by not placing either party in so trying a position.
As regards the lady, I have resolved upon uniting her to my nephew the Prince
de Condé, and keeping her at Court. Her presence and intercourse will be the
charm and amusement of the old age which is fast creeping upon me. I shall give
to my nephew, who is young and who prefers a thousand times a hunt to a lady's
love, a hundred thousand francs a year with which to amuse himself, and all
that I shall ask of his wife in return will be the affection of a child."
The
habits and manners of the Court at that age admitted but of one reply to this
cold and selfish declaration. Bassompierre pressed his lips upon the hand which
lay upon the velvet coverlet, and assured the King that it had ever been the
desire of his life to find an opportunity of sacrificing his own happiness to
that of his Majesty; that he did not seek to deny the extent of his
disappointment; but that he nevertheless voluntarily pledged himself never
again to renew a suit which counteracted the views and wishes of his sovereign,
and trusted that this new passion might be productive of as much delight to his
Majesty as the loss of such a bride must have grieved himself, had he not been
amply consoled by the consciousness of having merited the confidence of his
King.
"Then,"
he says, with a naïveté at which it is impossible to suppress a smile,
"the King embraced me, and wept, assuring me that he
would further my fortunes as though I were one of his natural children, that he
loved me dearly, as I must be well assured, and that he would reward my
frankness and friendship."
On
quitting the royal presence, the discomfited courtier hastened to confide his
sorrows to M. d'Epernon, who endeavoured to console him with the assurance that
the King's passion for Mademoiselle de Montmorency was a mere passing caprice,
as well as his declared intention of marrying her to the Prince de Condé;
reminding him, moreover, that as the admiration of the monarch for the young
lady had already become matter of notoriety, it was highly improbable that M.
de Condé would, under the circumstances, accept her as a wife. The worthy
minister had, however, forgotten that the Prince was entirely dependent upon
his royal relative; that he had not yet been invested with any government or
official post; and that he was young, ambitious, and high-spirited.
Bassompierre bears testimony to his possession of the latter quality by his
assurance that, important as the favour of the monarch could not fail to be to
the young Prince in his peculiar position, he did not finally give his personal
consent to the alliance until he had obtained a solemn declaration from Henry
of the perfect purity of his proffered bride.
It is
very singular that throughout all the details given of this affair by
contemporary writers, no mention is made of the measures
adopted by the King to induce or to enforce the violation of the plighted word
of the Connétable to Bassompierre. Even he himself is totally silent upon the
subject, whence we are compelled to infer that the will of the sovereign was
considered to be beyond appeal, and that his sole pleasure exonerated the Duc
de Montmorency from his voluntary engagement. The whole transaction, indeed, is
so entangled and incomprehensible, particularly when the high rank of all the
persons concerned in it is considered, that it betrays an amount of
recklessness and tyranny on the part of the King which it is difficult to
realize in our own times.
Mézeray
asserts that it was in order to compel the affections of Mademoiselle de
Montmorency through her gratitude, that Henry resolved to unite her to the
first Prince of the Blood, and thus elevate her to the highest rank at Court
save that of the Queen. Be this as it may, it is certain
that he prevailed over the reluctance of both parties, and that a week
subsequently to the interview described the Prince de Condé declared his
willingness to accept the bride proposed to him by the sovereign; while having
a short time afterwards met a number of the great nobles at the levée of the
King, he personally invited them to assist at his betrothal that same evening.
Among others he thus addressed Bassompierre, who replied only by a low and
ceremonious salutation. Henry had, however, remarked the
circumstance, and beckoning the Marquis to his side, he inquired what had
passed between them.
"Monseigneur
suggested, Sire, a step which I am not inclined to take."
"And
what was that?" demanded the King.
"That
I should accompany him to witness his betrothal. Is he not old enough to go
alone? and can he not be affianced without my presence? For thus much I can
answer, that if he have no other companion than myself, his suite will be a
small one."
"Nevertheless,
Bassompierre, you must be there," said Henry imperiously.
"I
cannot, Sire," expostulated his companion. "I entreat of you not to
insist on my compliance, as I shall be driven to disobey you. Let it suffice
that I have sacrificed a passion which had become the very principle of my
existence in order to secure your peace and happiness, and do not ask me to
become the witness of my own bitter disappointment."
"The
King, who was the best of men," pursues the chronicler, "simply
replied: 'I plainly see, Bassompierre, that you are angry, but I feel sure that
you will not fail when you remember that it was my nephew, the first Prince of
the Blood, by whom you were invited.'"
Further
expostulation was impossible, and Bassompierre saw himself compelled to drain
even to the very dregs his cup of mortification. The ceremony took place in the
gallery of the Louvre with almost fabulous pomp. Mademoiselle de Montmorency
was attended by all the Princesses of the Blood, and took
her place immediately beside the Queen, while the Prince stood upon the right
hand of the King; who, being still feeble, with a refinement of cruelty which it
is equally difficult to explain and to justify, selected Bassompierre upon whom
to lean, and thus kept him throughout the whole of the ceremonial in the
immediate vicinity of the affianced pair.
A few
days after the ceremony a ballet was danced at the Arsenal in honour of the
event, at which their Majesties and all the Court were present; and on Shrove
Tuesday a tilting at the ring took place, where Mademoiselle de Montmorency
delivered the prize to the victor. The Queen, who had remarked with apprehension
the growing passion of her royal consort for the young Princess, was overjoyed
at the contemplated marriage, believing as she did that she must have been
self-deluded, as it was beyond credibility that, had she been correct in her
surmises, Henry would have sought to unite the object of his preference to his
own nephew. Thus, therefore, she overwhelmed the bride-elect with the most
condescending kindness, and even arranged a ballet in her honour in which she
herself appeared. "It was," says Bassompierre, "at once the most
beautiful and the last in which she ever danced."
On
Tuesday the 10th of March the marriage took place at Chantilly in the presence
of their Majesties and the whole Court; and if the cheek of the bride were
pale, and the lip of the gallant Bassompierre trembled,
during the ceremony which made Charlotte de Montmorency the wife of another,
all the other actors in the brilliant drama were too fully occupied with their
respective parts to heed the silent emotion of the sufferers. The King presented
as his offering to the lady two thousand crowns for the purchase of her trousseau,
and jewels of the value of eighteen thousand livres; while he gave to the
Prince a large amount both in plate and money. The Queen
was also profuse in her generosity, and several days were spent in the most
splendid festivities, after which the royal party returned to Paris, whither
they were shortly followed by the Prince and Princesse de Condé, on whose
arrival a grand ball was given by the ex-Queen Marguerite, where Henry was once
more enthralled by the exquisite dancing of the graceful bride, and so
unequivocally betrayed his admiration as to renew all the slumbering
apprehensions of the unfortunate Queen.
It was
soon evident, however, that M. de Condé was by no means prepared to
lend-himself to the licentious views of the King, and he maintained so strict a
guard over his beautiful young wife that neither sarcasm nor reproach could
induce him to relax his vigilance. This opposition only served to aggravate the
unhappy passion of the monarch, while the indignation of the Prince and the
anger of the Queen were, although from a different motive, similarly excited;
and in the month of July, during the festivities which took
place on the marriage of the Duc de Vendôme with Mademoiselle de Mercoeur, the
advances of the monarch to the wife of his nephew became so undisguised that
the latter openly resented so great an insult to his honour; a crime for which
he was immediately punished by the revocation of all the grants made to him on
the occasion of his marriage, and he was thus reduced to comparative poverty. This extreme and wanton severity produced a diametrically
opposite effect to that which had been anticipated by the King, the Prince
instantly feeling that he had been wronged as well as insulted; while the
Queen, alarmed by the evident progress of this new and fatal passion, which
must, should it ultimately prove successful, overwhelm the monarch with
disgrace and remorse from the near consanguinity of the parties, did not fail
to urge upon M. de Condé in the most energetic manner the necessity of
preserving alike his own honour and that of the King by removing his wife from
the Court. This advice found support on all sides, as those who made it a
matter of conscience trembled at the idea of the scandal which must ensue;
while others, who merely sought to annoy the sovereign without any regard for
his reputation, still saw their purpose answered by the proposed departure of
the Princess.
Difficult
as it was for the Prince to consent to a separation from his beautiful young
bride, the perseverance of Henry soon convinced him that he had no other alternative, and he accordingly caused her to quit
the capital, and to take up her temporary abode at Saint-Valery; but the remonstrances
of the monarch were so earnest, and he succeeded so thoroughly in concealing
his indignation against M. de Condé personally, that for a time he flattered
himself that he should be enabled to effect her recall. Upon this point,
however, the Prince was firm; and as day after day went by without eliciting
the obedience which he had anticipated, the entreaties of the King were
exchanged for threats. Nor did Henry rest satisfied even with this show of
displeasure towards his young kinsman, for, resolved to ascertain if he should
not be more favourably received by the Princess herself, he assumed a disguise,
and proceeded with a few attendants to the place of her retreat in order to
obtain an interview. On ascertaining this fact M. de Condé removed her to
Muret, but the pursuit of the King was so resolute that the harassed bridegroom
ultimately found himself compelled to choose between his ruin and his
dishonour.
His
first measure was to change the residence of the Princess from Saint-Valery to
his château at Breteuil, and to expostulate with her upon the encouragement
which she gave by her levity to the advances of the monarch; but as some time
passed without any further cause for alarm, the Prince at length began to feel
greater confidence, and in the month of November joined a hunting expedition which compelled him to absent himself from his wife, a
circumstance that was forthwith communicated to Henry, who immediately assumed
a second disguise and proceeded to Breteuil. M. de Condé had, however, been careful
to establish a strict watch over his household, and being apprised in his turn
of the royal visit, he suddenly returned, and the disappointed monarch was
compelled to leave the château.
Madame
de Verneuil, to whom the adventure was soon made known, and who, despite the
extreme precariousness of her position, never failed to revenge herself upon
the King whenever an opportunity presented itself, related the whole story in
his presence during a Court reception, only suppressing the name of the adventurous
lover; an indiscretion which so offended and alarmed the Prince that he
determined to emancipate himself from the threatened disgrace.
He felt
that he had but one alternative, for he was too high-spirited to condescend to
disgrace, whatever might be the penalty of his resistance; and driven at length
to an expedient which wounded his pride, but which he found it impossible to
reject, he affected to be determined by the anger of the monarch, and requested
permission to go in person to conduct the Princess back to Court. This was
instantly and joyfully conceded, and M. de Condé no sooner found himself free
to act than he set forth; but, instead of returning to Paris as Henry had anxiously anticipated, he took the precaution to have
relays of post-horses secretly secured all along the road to the Low Countries.
On his
arrival at Muret the Prince lost not a moment in causing the Princess to enter
a carriage drawn by eight horses which he had provided for the purpose, and at
once proceeded to Flanders by way of Artois. The dread of dishonour, coupled
with the fear of arrest upon the road, lent wings to his speed; and without
once alighting the Prince and his fair companion reached Landrecies; the entire suite of the first Prince and Princess of the
Blood comprising on this occasion only Messieurs de Rochefort and de Tournay,
and Mademoiselle de Certeau, with a valet and a femme-de-chambre, who followed
on horseback.
The
news of their flight reached Fontainebleau on the following evening, while the
Queen was still convalescent (having given birth to her third and last
daughter, Henriette Marie, on the 26th of November), and the King was
endeavouring to employ the interval which must ensue before the arrival of the
Princess by pursuing with renewed ardour his favourite pastime. Pimentello, the
hated of Sully, had returned to Court, and the play was consequently "fast
and furious." It was in the very height of this maddening excitement, when
he was surrounded by piles of gold, and devotees as earnest as himself at the
same shrine discreetly assembled in his private closet,
that Henry, whose spirits were exalted by his hopes, and who was risking sum
after sum with a recklessness which would have taken away the breath of his
finance minister, received from M. d'Elbène, and
subsequently from his lieutenant of police, the important and mortifying
intelligence that his destined prey had escaped him. The agitation which the
King exhibited when convinced of the truth of this report exceeded any that he
had hitherto evinced even upon the most important occasions, and hastily rising
from the table, he murmured in the ear of Bassompierre who was seated next to
him, "Ah! my friend, I am lost. The man has taken his wife into the depths
of a forest. I know not if it be to escape with her from France, or to put her
to death. Take care of my money, and keep up the play until I have procured
more certain and detailed information."
From
his closet Henry proceeded to the last place on earth which might, under the
circumstances, have been anticipated. He went straight to the chamber of the
Queen, where her Majesty was still unable to leave her bed, and there he gave
full scope to the anguish under which he was labouring. "Never," says
Bassompierre, "did I see a man so lost or so overcome." In the room
were also assembled the Marquis de Coeuvres, the Comte de Cramail, and MM. d'Elbène and de Loménie, with whom he
unscrupulously discussed, in the presence of his outraged wife, the readiest
means of compelling the immediate return of the fugitives. As may naturally be
anticipated, the advice likely to prove the most flattering to his wishes was
offered on all sides, and a thousand expedients were suggested and discussed
only to be found unfeasible, until the King, in despair, notwithstanding the
lateness of the hour, resolved upon summoning his ministers. Accordingly MM. de
Sillery, de Villeroy, de Jeannin, and de Sully soon joined the party, which
had, moreover, been augmented by the presence of several of the most
confidential friends of the monarch, among others by De Gêvres, De la Force, and La Varenne; and once more the King sought a solution of the difficulty. Here, however, the
judgment and policy of the several councillors differed upon every point. The
Chancellor gave it as his opinion that a strong declaration should be made
against the step taken by the Prince himself, and another equally stringent
against those by whom he should be aided and abetted in his evasion; M. de
Villeroy advised that despatches should forthwith be forwarded to the several
ambassadors of the French King at foreign Courts to warn the sovereigns of
those states against receiving the fugitive Prince within their territories,
and to exhort them to take measures for enforcing his return to France; M. de
Jeannin declared that the most expeditious method of compelling obedience, and
forestalling the inconvenience and scandal of the self-expatriation of the
first Prince of the Blood, would be to cause him to be immediately followed by
a captain of the bodyguard, instructed to expostulate with him on his
disloyalty and imprudence, and to threaten instant war against any state by
whom he should be harboured; while when Sully at length spoke it was only to
deprecate each and all of these measures, by which he insisted that the monarch
would give an importance to the departure of the Prince that his enemies would
but too gladly turn to their own account; whereas, if he made no comment upon the flight of M. de Condé, and treated it as a
matter without importance, he would at once render him insignificant in the
eyes of those sovereigns who would fain look upon him as a martyr, and use him
as a means to harass and annoy his own monarch.
Henry
was, however, too much excited to defer to the sober reasonings of his finance
minister, and declared that he would suffer no petty prince to harbour the
first noble of his kingdom without resenting so gross an affront. The advice of
Jeannin suited his views far better, and he accordingly despatched M. de
Praslin on the following day to Landrecies with a peremptory order for the
return of the fugitives. His messenger was met by a firm refusal on the part of
the Prince; upon which, finding that his expostulations were of no avail, he
proceeded, as he had been ordered, to Brussels, where, in an interview with the
Archduke Albert, he delivered to him the message of his
sovereign, and explained the danger of the position in which he would
personally be placed should he venture to oppose the royal will.
This intelligence greatly embarrassed the Archduke,
who had already given to M. de Rochefort an assurance of the readiness with
which he would offer an asylum to the princely fugitives; but as M. de Praslin
continued to press upon him the certain indignation of the French monarch
should he venture to receive them at his Court, his previous resolution gave
way; and he hastened to despatch a messenger to Landrecies to decline the
honour proffered to him by M. de Condé, but at the same time to assure him of a
safe passage through his territories. On the receipt of this unexpected
prohibition the self-exiled Prince, who had gone too far to recede, had no
other alternative than to proceed through the duchy of Juliers to Cologne; in
which, being a free city, and perfectly neuter in the affairs of France and Spain,
the chief magistrate granted him permission to reside.
Although
the Prince de Condé had been refused a retreat in Flanders, the Archduke
willingly yielded to the request of the Princess that she might be permitted to
reside for a time in Brussels, until the final abode of her husband should be
decided; and she accordingly arrived in that city under his escort, where the
illustrious couple were received with great ceremony and cordiality by the
Papal Nuncio and the other dignitaries of the town. Their arrival was no sooner
known than Philip of Orange and his Princess (the sister of M. de Condé)
hastened from Breda to welcome them; and they were followed a few days
afterwards by the Archduke and Archduchess, by whom the
royal fugitives were entertained with all the honour due to their exalted rank,
and their unmerited misfortunes. The Prince then took his departure for
Cologne, while the fair cause of his flight remained in the Flemish capital
under the protection of her new friends.
Marie
de Medicis had, meanwhile, no sooner ascertained that the embassy of M. de
Praslin had been successful, and that the self-expatriated pair had been denied
a refuge in the Low Countries, than she addressed a letter to the Marquis de
Spinola, entreating him to cause a revocation of the denial, and representing
how entirely her domestic peace depended upon the absence of the Princesse de
Condé; an absence which could not fail to be abridged by the necessity of
residing in a city like Cologne, where the ardent spirit of the Prince could
not but revolt at the tedium around him. The effect of her appeal was all that
she had anticipated, strengthening as it did the preconceived measures of the
confidential minister of Philip III, who hastened to represent to that monarch
the gross error into which the Archduke had fallen, and the favourable
opportunity which he had thus lost of retorting upon Henry the protection that
he had accorded to Don Antonio Perez, a traitor to his sovereign and to his
country; and of securing to the Court of Spain the advantage which it must have
derived from having in its power, and securing to its interests, the first
Prince of the Blood in France. His arguments proved conclusive, the jealousy of Philip always prompting him to lend a willing ear
to every project by which he might be enabled to accomplish any triumph over
the French monarch; and accordingly instructions were forwarded to the Archduke
to repair his fault without delay, by inviting the Prince to rejoin his bride
at Brussels. Little as the sovereign of the Low Countries was disposed to
involve himself in a war with France, he did not hesitate to comply with the
injunction. He placed so firm a reliance on the support of Spain in the event
of hostilities, and had been so long accustomed to conform to her counsels,
that he immediately made known to M. de Condé his change of resolution, and
declared himself ready to receive him whenever he should see fit to return to
his territories; while at the same time he wrote to apprise the French King of
what he had done, assuring him that the permission granted to the fugitive
Prince involved no want of respect for himself or of deference to his wishes,
but had been accorded in the full persuasion of his ultimate approval.
The
Spanish minister also despatched a messenger to the Prince, declaring that he
was at liberty to take up his abode in the Low Countries, where he would be
treated in a manner worthy of his birth and dignity, and, under the protection
of the King his master, be assured of safety and respect. M, de Condé gladly
availed himself of this permission, and a short time subsequently established
himself in the palace of his sister, the Princess of Orange.
Enraged at this open violation of his wishes, and
still reluctant to commence a war which he was conscious would rather owe its
origin to private feeling than to national expediency, Henry resolved, as a
last resource, to invest M. de Coeuvres with full powers to treat with the
revolted Prince; and for this purpose he furnished him with an autograph
letter, in which he assured the fugitive of an unreserved pardon in the event
of his immediate return to France; but threatened, should he persist in his
contumacy, to declare him guilty of the crime of lèse-majesté. M. de
Condé simply replied to this missive by a declaration of his innocence, and his
respect for the person of the King, and by protesting against all that might be
done to prejudice his interests; nor did the interviews which took place
between himself and the royal envoy prove more satisfactory, although the
Marquis exerted all his eloquence to induce him to comply with the will of the
sovereign. Moreover, the letter of Henry, instead of exciting his confidence,
had rendered the Prince more suspicious than ever of the designs of the monarch;
and he accordingly left Brussels, where he no longer considered himself safe,
at the end of February (1610), and took refuge at Milan with the Condé de
Fuentes, the governor of that city.
More
than one rumour had meanwhile reached the Archduchess that Madame de Condé was
by no means so indifferent to the degrading passion of the King as was
befitting to her honour, and the Princess was accordingly soon made sensible
that her sojourn at Brussels had degenerated into a species
of ceremonious imprisonment. Naturally vain and volatile, dazzled by the
consciousness that she had become a sort of heroine, and moreover saddened by
her memories of the brilliant existence from which she had been so suddenly
shut out, the widowed bride would gladly have followed her husband to the gayer
city of Milan, even wounded as she was by his indifference and coldness, rather
than remain at the austere Court of the pious Infanta, where she was aware that
her words and actions were subjected to the closest scrutiny; but the will of
her father compelled her to remain at Brussels, the Connétable being
apprehensive, from the marked neglect and suspicion evinced towards her by the
Prince, that this latter might endeavour to remove her beyond the reach of her
friends in order to hold her more completely in his power. Under this
impression her father had consequently insisted upon her residence at the
Archducal Court, and had instructed her to solicit the influence of the
Infanta, and to employ every means in her own power, to prevent M. de Condé
from effecting her removal in the event of his finding it himself expedient to
leave Flanders.
Not
satisfied with this precaution, moreover, M. de Montmorency also demanded an
audience of the King, in which he laid before him the apprehensions that he
entertained; and finally he entreated his Majesty's permission to compel his
daughter to return to France, and to take up her residence with the Duchesse
d'Angoulême, her aunt. Henry made a ready and gracious
reply to this request, and before he finally retired from the royal closet, the
Connétable asked and obtained the royal sanction to authorize the Marquis de
Coeuvres to concert with him some scheme for carrying off the Princess.
M. de
Coeuvres had no sooner received these instructions than he admitted to his
confidence Madame de Berny, the wife of the French Ambassador at the Flemish
Court (who from political reasons was himself kept in ignorance of the plot),
and M. de Châteauneuf, who was at that period residing in
Brussels on a special mission from his Government; and the quasi-conspirators
were not long ere they flattered themselves that their success was certain.
Near
the palace of the Prince of Orange, in which Madame de Condé had taken up her
residence, was a breach in the city wall by which it was easy to descend into
the moat; and it was decided that the Princess should effect her escape from
this point during the night. Saddled horses were to be prepared for herself and
her retinue near the outer bank of the ditch, and nothing remained undecided
save the moment of her evasion. She was to proceed at all speed to Pontarmé,
where a relay of fresh horses and an armed escort were to await her arrival,
and similar arrangements were to be made throughout the whole of the route to
Rocroy. Finally, the precise night of her flight was
decided on; and this had no sooner been determined than M. de Coeuvres
despatched a courier to the Connétable, informing him that there now remained
no doubt of the immediate return of the Princess to his protection.
This
intelligence reached Paris on the Wednesday, and the following Saturday was the
period fixed for the projected evasion, a fact which M. de Montmorency had no
sooner ascertained than he hastened to communicate the success of M. de
Coeuvres to the King. Henry was overjoyed, and in the fulness of his
satisfaction was guilty of an indiscretion which was fated to overthrow his
hopes; for, believing that in so short a time no effectual measures could be
taken to frustrate the plot, he was incautious enough to confide the whole
conspiracy to the Queen, who was still an invalid, not having yet recovered
from the birth of her third daughter. Agitated and
alarmed, Marie listened to the narrative with an earnest attention, which only
tended to render her royal consort more communicative than he might otherwise
have been; and, in the excess of his self-gratulation, he moreover exhibited
such unequivocal proofs of the interest which he personally felt in the result
of the evasion, that she at once resolved to prevent the reappearance of the
Princess in France. The King had accordingly no sooner
quitted her apartment than she desired Madame Concini to bring her kinsman the
Nuncio Ubaldini to her private closet without losing an instant, a command
which was so zealously obeyed by her favourite that she was enabled, after a
prolonged conference with this ecclesiastic, to despatch a courier secretly to
Spinola the same night to acquaint him with the projected design, and to
entreat him to frustrate it should there yet be time.
The
royal messenger travelled so rapidly that he reached Brussels at eleven o'clock
on the morning of Saturday, and Spinola had no sooner read the despatch than he
hastened to communicate its contents to the Archduke and the Infanta, who
instantly sent a company of the light horse of the bodyguard to possess
themselves of all the approaches to the palace of the Prince of Orange. This
done, their Imperial Highnesses next caused several state carriages to be
prepared, which were placed under the charge of one of the principal officers
of their household, who received directions to invite Madame de Condé in their
joint names to take immediate possession of a suite of rooms in the Archducal
palace which they desired to appropriate to her use and that of her suite, as
better suited to the dignity of her high rank than those which she then
inhabited. He was, moreover, instructed to accept no denial, but to insist upon
the compliance of the Princess; and thus armed the courtier proceeded to the
Hôtel d'Orange, where he communicated the subject of his mission to Madame de Condé in the presence of her two confidants. The
consternation of the whole party may be imagined when, just as they conceived
themselves secure of success, they thus discovered that their design had been
betrayed; nor was it until the Princess had exhausted every subterfuge she
could invent that she found herself compelled to accompany the Archducal envoy.
It was in vain that she represented the greater propriety of her residence
under the roof of her husband's sister during that husband's absence; she was
assured that she would find the palace equally eligible and far more worthy of
her occupation. She then pleaded her reluctance to intrude further upon the
splendid hospitality of her princely hosts; her objection was met by an
assurance that so eager were the sovereigns to receive her as a guest that they
were even at that moment waiting in the greatest anxiety to bid her welcome, an
intimation which served to convince Madame de Condé that she had no alternative
save to submit to this polite tyranny, and that upon the instant. She
accordingly summoned her attendants, and without having been permitted to hold
any private communication with her equally discomfited friends, she entered the
carriage assigned to her, and was rapidly driven-to the palace.
The
indignation of the Prince de Condé equalled the mortification of the King when
he learnt the failure of the projected evasion; while the Marquis de Coeuvres and M. de Berny demanded an audience of the Archduke,
at which they loudly complained of the insults to which the Princess had been
subjected, and which were, as they alleged, calculated to strengthen the odious
suspicions that had already been generated against the King their master. M. de
Berny, who was entirely ignorant of the plot, was naturally the loudest in his
denunciations of the violence offered to Madame de Condé, and the species of
captivity to which she was condemned, when she had been led to expect nothing
but consideration for her rank and sympathy for her misfortunes. He, moreover,
assured the Archduke that nothing could be more wild and absurd than the idea
of her flight, warmly demanding wherefore she was likely to leave a capital
wherein she had hitherto been so well and so generously received.
The
genuine indignation of the Ambassador produced as little effect upon the
Archduke as the laboured arguments of M. de Coeuvres, and he contented himself
by courteously regretting that an attention, intended to convey to the Princess
the extent of the respect and friendship with which she had inspired him,
should have been so ill-interpreted, adding, moreover, that far from
disapproving the step which he had taken, he felt convinced that the French
King would recognize in it only his earnest desire to do honour to the first
Princess of the Blood. Further argument was useless, the imperturbable
composure of the Archduke totally overpowering the wordy violence of his
interlocutors, who were eventually compelled to withdraw
without having effected the restoration of Madame de Condé. On the return of
the Marquis de Coeuvres to Paris, Henry, still believing that the Archduke
would not venture to brave his displeasure by any further opposition to his
will, accredited M. de Preau to the Court of Brussels,
with instructions to demand the immediate return of the Princess in the joint
names of the Duke her father and Madame d'Angoulême her aunt; but this new
procuration was met by the Austrian Prince with the announcement that he had
pledged himself to M. de Condé not to permit the Princess to leave Brussels
without his consent, and that he consequently could not without dishonour
forfeit his plighted word.
Exasperated
by a firmness for which he was unprepared, and satisfied that the support of
the Spanish Cabinet could alone have induced the Archduke thus to drive him to
extremities, Henry at once resolved no longer to delay the hostilities which he
had long meditated against Spain, and to which he was now urged as much by
private feeling as by state policy. A sufficient pretext offered itself,
moreover, in the efforts which had been made by several of the German Princes
to possess themselves of the duchies of Clèves and Juliers; the death of Jean
Guillaume, Duc de Clèves, Juliers, and Bergh, Comte de la Mark, and Lord of
Ravenstein, which had occurred on the 25th of March, and the numerous claims made upon his succession, having rendered the ultimate
disposition of his duchy a matter of extreme importance to Henry, who was
reluctant to strengthen the power of Austria by permitting this increase of
territory to pass definitely into her hands, as it had
already partially done, the Emperor having hastened to place the duchy under
sequestration.
The
petty sovereigns thus despoiled protested energetically against such an
usurpation, and several among them had even entreated the protection of France,
to the great gratification of Henri IV, who thus found himself doubly armed, as
his interference on behalf of the aggrieved Princes assured their cooperation
in his own project of recovering from the Emperor the provinces of
Franche-Comté and Flanders, which had been in the possession of Spain since the
time of Charles V, and which had formed, as we have elsewhere stated, the dowry
of the Infanta on her marriage with the Archduke Albert. Thus in the eyes of
Europe the French King was about to engage in this new war simply to enforce
justice to himself and his allies; but it was so evident to all who considered
the subject that these pretensions might have been put down at once by the
slightest show of resistance on his own part, and that so comparatively
unimportant a campaign might prudently have been entrusted to one of his many
able generals, that when it became known that an army of forty thousand
infantry, six thousand Swiss, the bodyguard, and a corps of four thousand mounted nobles, together with a strong park
of artillery, were about to take the field under the command of the King in
person, there were few individuals acquainted with the circumstances which we
have just narrated who did not feel convinced that the monarch was rather about
to undertake a crusade for the deliverance of the Princesse de Condé than a war
for the preservation of his territories.
This
opinion was, moreover, strengthened by the fact that throughout all these
hostile preparations Henry did not discontinue his negotiations for the return
of Madame de Condé to France. He pleaded the authority of her father, the
anxiety of her more than mother the Duchesse d'Angoulême, his own authority
over his subjects, the inclination of the Princess herself to be once more
under the protection of her family; but all these pretexts signally failed. Yet
neither Henry nor his agent M. de Preau would yield to discouragement; passion
on the one hand, and ambition on the other, lent them strength to persevere;
and having exhausted their first scheme of attack, they next represented the
necessity of her presence at the approaching coronation of the Queen, where it
was important that she should occupy the position suited to her rank as first
Princess of the Blood; and next they alleged the impossibility of furthering
her views in the separation from her husband which she was about to demand,
unless she were enabled personally to expose her reasons to the Parliament.
Moreover, Madame de Condé had written to the French ministers to complain of
violence and imprisonment, and the King insisted upon the necessity of her
liberation.
De
Preau, however, zealous as he was, made no impression upon the firmness of the Archduke.
The Spanish Cabinet had rendered itself responsible for his opposition, and he
defied the menaces of France, a circumstance which decided Henry upon immediate
war. The resolution which he had taken of heading the army in person determined
him, before his departure from France, solemnly to invest the Queen with the
title of Regent during his absence; but the precautions which he took to name
an efficient Council by whom she was to be assisted in the government of the
kingdom excited the indignation and resentment of her personal favourites,
especially of Concini, who thus saw himself rendered powerless when he had
hoped to assert his influence and to improve his fortunes; and under the
pressure of this disappointment he hastened to represent to his royal mistress
the utter emptiness of the dignity with which Henry proposed to invest her.
"You
are an uncrowned Queen," he said, "and you are about to become a
powerless Regent. Thus, Madame, you will be known by two high-sounding titles,
neither of which will in reality appertain to you. Cause yourself to be
crowned, and then you will indeed possess the authority which is your due and
the honour of which you have heretofore been unjustly deprived. Cease to be a
puppet in the hands of a faithless husband, and at least compel this coming
war, undertaken for the recovery of new mistress, to be the means of
establishing your own rightful position."
This
advice was eagerly accepted by Marie, whose ambition had at length been aroused
by a consideration of the failing health and advanced age of the King and the
prospect afforded by the extreme youth of the Dauphin of a protracted minority,
and she consequently hastened to express to Henry her earnest desire to feel
herself in reality Queen of France before his departure from the kingdom, in
order that she might not have to apprehend any neglect of her legitimate
authority upon the part of the ministers whom he had selected to share with her
the burthen of state affairs. The monarch, who had hitherto refused to listen
to every suggestion which had been made to him of the propriety of showing this
mark of consideration to his royal consort, was even less inclined to make the
concession at this particular moment, when the expenses of his meditated
campaign had been estimated at twelve hundred and fifty livres a month for the
support of his own troops and an equal sum for those of his allies; and he replied with considerable warmth that she had chosen
her time for such a request most injudiciously, since she must be aware that he
had neither the time nor the funds necessary to the indulgence of so puerile a
vanity. The Queen, however, urged by her advisers, resolutely returned to the
charge, declaring that she could assume no prominent position in the temporary
government of the kingdom while her own remained so vague
and undefined. She reminded him, moreover, of the uncomplaining patience with
which she had awaited his pleasure upon this particular; a patience which, as
she asserted, she could still have exercised had he not been about to cross the
frontier, but which, under existing circumstances, she now considered as weak
and pusillanimous in the mother of three princes.
"At
length, however," says Bassompierre, whose own more than questionable
morality did not permit him to enact the censor upon his sovereign, "as he
was the best husband in the world, he finished by giving his consent, and
delayed his departure until she should have made her public entry into the
capital."
On
retiring to his closet the King declared to one or two of his confidential
friends, as he had already done on former occasions when the same question had
been mooted, that the actual cause of the repugnance which he felt to accede to
the wishes of the Queen arose from a firm conviction that her coronation would
cost him his life, and that he should never leave Paris in safety, as his
enemies could only hope to triumph by depriving him of existence.
"Assuredly,"
pursues the quaint old chronicler from whom we have just quoted, "heaven
and earth had given us only too many prognostics of what was to happen to him:
it was in the year 1608 that a great eclipse nearly covered
the whole body of the sun; in the preceding year 1607 that the terrible comet
appeared; after which some three months or thereabout we had two earthquakes;
then several monsters born in divers provinces of France; bloody rains that
fell at Orleans and at Troyes; the great plague that afflicted Paris in the
past year 1609; the furious overflowing of the Loire; next the Curé of Montargis
found upon the altar, when he went to celebrate the mass, a scroll by which he
was informed that his Majesty would be killed by a determined blow, and the
said Curé of Montargis carried the paper to the Due de Sully. Several
conspiracies," he goes on to say, "must have been formed against the
life of this good King, since from twenty quarters he received notice of it.
The Pope Paul V sent him a courier express to warn him to be upon his guard, as
very high and powerful ladies and some of the greatest nobles of his Court were
involved in a plot against his life."
What
reason the King may have supposed himself to possess for considering his own
death to be consequent upon the coronation of Marie, or whether he did actually
so combine the two events in his own mind, it were impossible for posterity to
decide; but it is at least certain that Rambure himself is not singular in
adducing extraordinary coincidences and in lending his support to these
superstitious terrors, for it is on record that Cardinal Barberino, who
subsequently (in 1623) became Pope under the title of Urban
VIII, and who was, at the period of which we now write, celebrated for his
acquaintance with the occult sciences, as well as for his skill in astrology,
sent a message to the King in the month of January, by which he cautioned him
not to sojourn in any large city throughout the whole of the year, but more
especially during the months of March, April, May, June, and July; declaring
that, should he disregard the warning, he would be assassinated by an unfrocked
monk of saturnine temperament born in his own kingdom; and adding that he would
do well carefully to ascertain whether any individual answering to this
description were then residing within his dominions, in order that should such
an one be discovered, he might be closely watched; and he, moreover, concluded
by assuring the monarch that if he would submit to absent himself from all the
great cities of his kingdom during the months specified, he (the Cardinal)
would answer with his life that he should escape the threatened peril.
This
intimation, extraordinary as it seems, was, however, insignificant beside
another which reached Henry at the same period through the Marquis Dufresne,
his ambassador at the Court of Constantinople, who was instructed by the Sultan
to desire him to take off the heads of the six principal nobles of his nation
immediately on the receipt of his letter, and to be upon his guard against the
greatest lady in his dominions, as well as against three persons who were in her
confidence, whom he advised him to imprison during their
lives, the whole of them being implicated in the plot.
Both
these communications may, however, find a probable solution in the circumstance
of their having been made by individuals who had obtained information of a
conspiracy against the life of the French King, a supposition rendered the more
rational by the fact that although aware of the formidable army then organized
in France, the Austrians made no preparation to resist a force which they were
conscious was to be used against themselves; an inertness which could only be
accounted for by the supposition that they were about to employ other and surer
methods of evading the threatened evil. But in addition to
these probably political prophecies, others of a still more singular nature
were made to Henry of his approaching fate. A young female named Anne de Comans
voluntarily declared that a fatal conspiracy had been organized, whose avowed
object was to terminate the existence of the monarch by violence, and even
after his death she persisted in maintaining the truth of her assertion, not
only orally but in writing; for which persistence she was pronounced to be
insane, and so closely confined in an asylum for lunatics as actually to become
in a few months the madwoman which she had been represented, although it would
appear that great doubts were entertained as to her previous hallucination. Six months before his death the King being in the house of Zamet retired immediately that he had dined to a private
apartment, whence he sent to summon Thomassin, one of the most celebrated
astrologers of the time, whom he interrogated respecting his own future destiny
and that of his kingdom. In reply he was warned as usual to beware of the
approaching month of May, and at length, irritated by his scepticism, the
professor of the black art predicted to him not only the day but the very hour
which was to terminate his existence.
A short
time subsequently a nobleman of Béarn arrived in Paris and requested an audience
of the King, which he had no sooner obtained than he informed him that he had
been instructed in a vision to seek his presence in order to warn him of his
approaching death. Henry, however, who piqued himself in public upon denying
credence to these supernatural revelations, and who, moreover, imagined that
the object of his countryman was to obtain a recompense for his zeal, treated
the matter lightly and ordered three hundred crowns to be presented to the
stranger to defray his travelling expenses. This present he, however,
respectfully refused, protesting that he had acted only upon a principle of
duty, and that he should be amply recompensed should his warning suffice to
induce the monarch to adopt such precautions as would enable him to escape the threatened
peril.
Only a
few nights previous to her coronation the Queen suddenly awoke from a profound
slumber uttering a piercing shriek and trembling in every
limb. Alarmed by her evident state of agony, the monarch, having at length
succeeded in restoring her to a state of comparative composure, urged her to
explain the cause of her terror, but for a considerable time she refused to
yield to his entreaties. Overcome at last, however, by his evident anxiety and
uneasiness, she informed him that she had just had a frightful dream, in which
she had seen him fall under the knife of an assassin.
Two
remarkable coincidences also demand mention, particularly as they occurred at a
distance from the capital. On the day of the King's assassination his shield,
bearing his blazon, which was attached to the principal entrance of the château
of Pau in Béarn, fell heavily to the ground and broke to pieces; while
immediately afterwards the cows of the royal herd, which had previously been
grazing quietly in the park, began to low in a frightful manner, and suddenly
the bull known as the king rushed violently against the gate whence the
trophy had fallen and then sprang into the moat, where it was drowned. The
effect produced upon the inhabitants of the district was instantaneous; loud
and lamentable shouts of "The King is dead!" arose on all sides, and
within two hours every Béarnais felt convinced that his beloved monarch had
ceased to exist
It is
useless to multiply these strange tales; but it is certain that they did not
fail in their effect upon the mind of the monarch, however he might struggle to conceal the feelings which they excited, for Bassompierre
relates that during the preparations which were making for the coronation of
the Queen, Henry repeatedly alluded to his approaching death with a sadness
which evinced his entire belief in the predictions that had reached him.
"I
know not wherefore, Bassompierre," he said on one occasion, "but I am
persuaded that I shall never again see Germany, nor do I believe that you will
go to Italy. I shall not live much longer."
On the
1st of May, when returning from the Tuileries by the great gallery to the
Louvre, supported in consequence of his gout by the Due de Guise and the
narrator himself, he said on reaching the door of the Queen's closet to his two
attendants, "Wait for me here. I will hasten the toilet of my wife that
she may not keep my dinner waiting." He was of course obeyed, and the Duke
and Bassompierre, in order to while away the time, walked to the balcony that overhung
the court of the Louvre, against which they leant watching what passed below,
when suddenly the great hawthorn which occupied the centre of the area swayed
for an instant and then fell to the earth with a loud crash in the direction of
the King's private staircase without any apparent agency, as not a breath of
air was stirring, nor was any one near it at the time.
The
impressionable imagination of Bassompierre was deeply moved. "Would,"
he exclaimed to his companion, "that any sacrifice on my part could have averted so dire a presage as this. God preserve the
King!"
"You
are mad," was the reply of the Duke, "to connect the fortunes of the
King with the fall of a tree."
"It
may be so," was the melancholy rejoinder; "but neither in Italy nor
in Germany would this circumstance fail to produce alarm. Heaven guard the
monarch, and all who are near and dear to him!"
"You
are two fools to amuse yourselves with these absurd prognostics," said
Henry, who had approached them unheard during their momentary excitement.
"For the last thirty years all the astrologers and mountebanks in the
kingdom, as well as a host of other impostors, have predicted at given
intervals that I was about to die, so that when the time comes some of these
prophecies must prove correct and will be quoted as miracles, while all the
false ones will be studiously forgotten."
The
young nobles received the rebuke in silence; but the inexplicable accident
which had just occurred was sufficient in so superstitious an age to arouse the
liveliest forebodings in the minds of those by whom it was witnessed.
Having
resolved that the coronation of the Queen should take place before his
departure for Germany, and being anxious to commence the projected campaign
with the least possible delay, Henry named the 5th of May as the day on which
the ceremony was to be performed; but having learnt from a private despatch
that the Archduke had resolved at the eleventh hour not to incur the hazard of
a war with France upon so frivolous a pretext as the forcible
retention of a Princess, who moreover, remained under his charge against her
own free will, and that Madame de Condé was accordingly about to return to the
French Court, he resolved to defer the pageant until the advent of the fair
fugitive who would, as he felt, constitute its brightest ornament. The
succeeding courier from the Low Countries, however, dispelled this brilliant
vision. Whatever might have been the personal inclination of the Archduke,
Philip of Spain determined to retain his hostage; and the return of the
Princess to France was interdicted. Enraged by the deceit which had been
practised upon him, but unwilling to forfeit his word to the Queen, Henry had
no alternative save to order the instant renewal of the preparations which he
had himself suspended; and despite the entreaties of the municipal authorities
of Paris, who represented the impossibility of completing their arrangements
before the end of the month, he persisted in his resolution of causing the
Queen to be crowned on the 13th, and commanded her public entry into Paris for
the following Sunday.
On the
11th (Tuesday) he said to those around him, "I shall sleep at St. Denis
tomorrow night, and return to Paris on Thursday; I shall arrange all my private
affairs on Friday; on Saturday I shall drive about the city; Sunday will be the
state entry of the Queen; on Monday my daughter De Vendôme will be married; on
Tuesday the banquet will take place; and on Wednesday I mount for
Germany."
The Court
accordingly slept at St. Denis on the night of the 12th, in order to be in
readiness for the ceremony of the morrow; and the morning of the eventful day
which was to witness the crowning triumph of Marie de Medicis at length dawned.
A brilliant spring sun robed the earth in brightness; but nowhere did it light
up a scene of greater magnificence than when, filtered through the windows of
stained glass, it poured itself in a living mosaic over the marble pavement of
the cathedral, and flashed upon the sumptuous hangings and golden draperies
which were distributed over the spacious area of the edifice. Immediately in
front of the high altar a platform had been erected eleven feet in height, and
upwards of twenty feet square, in the centre of which was a daïs richly
carpeted, supporting the throne of the Queen, covered with crimson velvet
embroidered with fleurs-de-lis in gold, and overshadowed by a canopy of
the same material. On either side of this throne two other platforms were
appropriated to the Princes of the Blood, the Knights of the several Orders,
the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, the great nobles, the foreign ambassadors, and
the ladies of the Queen's household. Within the altar-rail on the left hand, a
bench draped with cloth of gold was prepared for the cardinals; and behind this
was a second bench reserved for the archbishops, bishops, and other
ecclesiastics who were to assist at the ceremony; while on the same side of the
shrine stood a table overlaid by a costly drapery, upon which were to be deposited
the crown, the coronet, the sceptre, the hand of justice, and the ring destined
to be employed during the ceremony. On the right hand of the altar was placed a prie-dieu covered with violet velvet bordered and fringed with gold,
upon which were placed two cushions of the same material for the use of the
Cardinal de Joyeuse, who was to officiate; and behind this was a table
corresponding with that on the left, and covered by a similar drapery,
supporting the bread, wine, and waxen tapers which the master of the ceremonies
was instructed to deliver to the ladies who were selected to make the offering
for the Queen.
The
floor of the choir extending from the principal platform to the high altar was
carpeted with crimson velvet edged with gold; and above this was stretched a
second drapery of cloth of gold for the passage of her Majesty; myriads of
lights were grouped about the lateral shrines, the carved columns of the
venerable edifice were veiled by magnificent hangings, and the gorgeous
vestments of the prelates cumbered the open presses of the sacristy.
An hour
after dawn a compact crowd peopled the vast interior of St. Denis; persons of
all ranks, from the artizan to the petty noble and his family, rushed
tumultuously towards the sacred edifice, in order to secure a sight of the
august solemnity; and great was the surprise of all to find themselves already
preceded by the King, who came and went throughout the early part of the
morning, superintending every arrangement in person, and apparently overlooking
his bodily ailments in the extraordinary excitement under which he laboured.
The
Dauphin, Madame the elder Princess, the ex-Queen Marguerite, the Princes of the
Blood, and great dignitaries who were summoned to assist at the ceremony,
accompanied by the Cardinals de Gondy and de Sourdis, proceeded at an early
hour to the Louvre to conduct the Queen to the cathedral; and it was no sooner
announced that her Majesty was prepared to set forth than the procession
formed.
The
ceremonial had not, however, been definitively arranged without considerable
difficulty. Marguerite, who, whatever might be her errors, could not
contemplate her presence at this solemnity as a mere spectator without
considerable heart-burning, considered herself aggrieved by the fact that
instead of following immediately behind the Queen, she was to be preceded by
Madame Elisabeth, still a mere child; and so great was her indignation at this
discovery, that she was very reluctantly induced to abandon her intention of
pretexting illness, and absenting herself entirely from the pageant. The
earnest remonstrances of her friends, who represented to her the certainty of
the King's serious displeasure, alone determined her to sacrifice her dignity;
and although she ultimately consented to submit to an arrangement which she
considered as an encroachment upon her rights as the daughter of a long line of
sovereigns, rather than draw down upon herself the resentment of the monarch,
she wept bitterly while she prepared to swell the retinue of her successor. The Comte de Soissons was less compliant; for it was
no sooner announced to him that the Duchesse de Vendôme, the wife of the King's
natural son, was to appear in a mantle embroidered with fleurs-de-lis similar to those worn by the Princesses of the Blood, than he loudly declared
that he would not countenance so disgraceful an innovation; and having ordered
his household to prepare for an instant departure from Paris, he left the
capital with the Princess his wife, and retired to one of his country seats.
Despite
this secession, however, the suite of Marie de Medicis was one of supreme
magnificence. The procession was opened by the Swiss Guards, habited in velvet
vests of her own colours, tawny, blue, crimson, and white; then followed two
companies, each composed of a hundred nobles, the first wearing habiliments of
tawny-coloured satin braided with gold, and the second pourpoints of white
satin and breeches of tawny colour; these were succeeded by the Lords of the
Bedchamber, chamberlains, and other great officers of the royal household,
superbly attired; who were, in their turn, followed by the Knights of the Holy
Ghost wearing the collar of their Order. A body of trumpeters walked after them
richly dressed in blue velvet; and then came the heralds in full armour, and
the Ushers of the Chamber with their maces.
When
these had passed the more important personages of the procession issued from
the gates of the Louvre; and the glorious spring sun flashed upon the jewelled
caps and capes of the Princes of the Blood, glistened over their vests of cloth
of gold, and toyed with the gemmed hilts of their diamond-studded weapons.
Preceding the Queen were the Prince de Conti and the Comte d'Anquien; while immediately before her walked the Dauphin clad
in a habit of cloth of silver, profusely ornamented with precious stones; and
then came Marie herself, in the full glory of conscious dignity and triumph,
wearing a coronet of jewels, a richly-gemmed stomacher, a surcoat of ermine,
and a royal mantle seven French ells in length, composed of purple velvet
embroidered with fleurs-de-lis in gold and diamonds, and bordered with
ermine, which was borne on either side of her by the two Cardinals, and at its
extremity by the Dowager Princess of Condé, the
Princesse de Conti, the Dowager Duchess of Montpensier, and the Duchesse de
Mercoeur; whose trains were in like manner supported by four nobles habited in
cloth of gold and silver, and covered with jewels.
Then
followed Madame Elisabeth de France and the ex-Queen Marguerite, wearing
mantles covered with fleurs-de-lis embroidered in gold, carried by four
nobles richly attired, with their capes and caps laced with jewels; and the
gorgeous train was finally closed by the Princesses of the Blood and Duchesses,
whose trains were in like manner borne by some of the principal noblemen of the
Court. All these ladies wore their coronets enriched with pearls and diamonds,
save such as were widows, to whom the use of gems was interdicted by the
fashion of the age.
To
these succeeded the ladies of the Queen's household, among whom the Marquise de
Guercheville and Madame de Concini excited the most
curiosity; the latter from the high favour which she enjoyed, and the
extraordinary elevation to which it had conduced; and the former from a cause
infinitely more honourable to her as a woman. While the widow of her first
husband, Henri de Silly, Comte de la Rochepot, her grace and beauty attracted
Henri IV, who pertinaciously endeavoured to win her affections. His degrading
suit was, however, so resolutely although respectfully rejected, that the King,
impressed by her merit, on one occasion declared that the title which would be
the most applicable to her would be that of a lady of honour, and that such she
should become whenever another Queen ascended the throne of France. The
Marquise curtsied her thanks, without attaching any importance to so very
prospective a distinction; but six years subsequently, when the Court of Marie
de Medicis was formed, the promised appointment was conferred upon her; and she
fulfilled the duties of her office with a dignified and unobtrusive zeal which
secured to her the esteem and respect of her royal mistress.
Thus
escorted, Marie de Medicis entered the cathedral; where, having been conducted
to the front of the high altar, she knelt upon a cushion near which stood the
Cardinal de Joyeuse in his pontifical robes, surrounded by a group of high
ecclesiastical dignitaries, and supported by the Cardinal Duperron. When the
Queen had concluded her prayer, and kissed the reliquary which was presented to
her by Mgr. de Joyeuse, she was led to her throne in the same state as that
with which she had approached the altar; and she had no sooner taken her place
than the Dauphin seated himself in the chair which had been prepared for him;
and Madame and the ex-Queen, followed by the Princesses of the Blood and the
great ladies of the Court, after having successively made a profound curtsey to
the Queen, followed his example. This done, the Cardinals de Gondy and de
Sourdis descended from the platform, and took up their position on the left of
the altar, while the Princes were marshalled to their places by the royal
ushers; and meanwhile the musicians of her Majesty performed divers melodies
suited to the place and the occasion.
After
the lapse of a few moments the two Cardinals again ascended the platform to
reconduct her Majesty to the altar, which she reached in the same order as she
had previously done, save that the Dauphin now walked on her right hand and
Madame Elisabeth upon her left. Having knelt as before in silent prayer, she
was ultimately raised by the Prince and Princess, and stood with her head bowed
upon her breast while the Cardinal de Joyeuse commenced the appropriate
orisons, and received from the hand of two of the bishops the vase containing
the holy oil, and the platen. Having poured out a portion of the former, the
prelate anointed the Queen upon the head and chest; after which he received
from a third bishop the consecrated ring, which he placed upon her finger.
The
sceptre and the hand of justice were then tendered to him, and transferred to
the august recipient; and finally the crown of state was presented upon a
cushion, and held above her head by the Dauphin and Madame Elisabeth, by whom
it was subsequently consigned to the keeping of the Prince de Conti, while
another of smaller size, enriched with a profusion of diamonds, rubies, and
pearls of immense value, was placed upon her brow; and Marie de Medicis at
length stood in the midst of her assembled Court the crowned and anointed Queen
of France.
A
vigorous flourish of trumpets proclaimed the termination of the ceremony. Marie
resigned the sceptre and the hand of justice to the two Princes who stood next
to her, and once more ascended the throne; where she was no sooner seated than
M. de Conti placed before her the crown of state which he had carried upon a
stool covered with cloth of gold, and knelt beside it. The Prince who bore the
sceptre then assumed the same attitude on the right hand of the Queen, and his
companion carrying the hand of justice upon her left. A solemn high mass was
next performed, and at its close the herald-at-arms cast, in the Queen's name,
a shower of gold and silver coin among the crowds who thronged the church;
while Marie herself, descending from the platform, and attended as before,
slowly left the sacred edifice and returned to the robing-room.
The
King, who had witnessed the whole ceremony from his private tribune, was more
rapid in his movements, and hastened to regain his chamber; whence he watched
the brilliant procession as it advanced with an undisguised delight that was
inexplicable to those who were aware of the reluctance with which he had
yielded to the desire of the Queen, and who had consequently anticipated no demonstration
on his part save one of irritation and annoyance. Greatly, therefore, were they
surprised when, as she passed beneath the window at which he had taken up his
station, they saw him scatter some perfumed water on her head in order to
induce her to look up; after which he hurriedly descended the great staircase
to receive and welcome her, and with every possible exhibition of affection and
respect conducted her to the hall in which the banquet had been prepared.
Throughout
this sumptuous repast the gaiety of the monarch excited the comments of all by
whom he was surrounded; and it was generally remarked that he had not for many
months yielded to such an effervescence of spirits. At length, however, the
festival drew to its close; lords and ladies were alike overwhelmed by the
fatigues of the past day; and their Majesties, having taken a gracious leave of
their illustrious guests, entered one of the royal carriages and proceeded to
the Louvre.
The
numerous foreigners who had assembled from every part of Europe in order to
witness the ceremony were lost in astonishment at the profusion of jewels
displayed upon the occasion, declaring that they had never before witnessed
such a spectacle; and that even at the world-famed entry of the Spanish Queen
into Madrid, where Italy and Spain had alike exhibited all their riches, they
could not be compared with those possessed by the French Court alone; nor was
their surprise diminished when they learnt that on the following Sunday, when
Marie de Medicis was to enter Paris in state, they would be convinced that they
had not as yet seen a tithe of the splendour which the great nobles and ladies
of the kingdom were enabled to display upon such occasions.
From
the moment in which the King decided upon personally superseding the Maréchal
de Lesdiguières in his command of the army in
Champagne, he had been unwearied in his advice to the Queen for the efficient
government of the country. He exhorted her to great caution in changing her
ministers, earnestly impressing upon her the danger of entrusting state affairs
to individuals whose probity and experience were not well assured, or of
displacing others without great and serious cause. He, moreover, especially
besought her never to permit the interference of foreigners in the internal
economy of the kingdom, as by such ill-placed confidence she could not fail to
alienate from herself the affections of all true Frenchmen; to uphold the
authority of the Parliament, but on no account to countenance its dictation,
confining its operations to their legitimate sphere, and enforcing its
submission to her own delegated supremacy; never to suffer herself to be misled
by her passions or prejudices, but to weigh all her measures maturely before
she insisted upon their enforcement; to protect the Jesuits, but at the same
time to be careful not to allow them to increase their numbers, or to form
establishments upon the frontiers; to attach the nobility by favours which
could not endanger the interests of the throne, but to be cautious in her
concessions where they might tend to any undue aggrandizement of their former
power and influence; and, above all, not rashly to undertake any war against
the Huguenots until she had received full assurance of being enabled to
terminate it successfully. As regarded the Dauphin, he declared that his
greatest desire was to see him the husband of Mademoiselle de Lorraine,
provided the Duke should not have other children; as, in such case, the French
nation would be aggrandized by the territories of a state from which it had
received much and grievous injury. He expressed, moreover, the greatest
repugnance to the proposed marriage between Madame Elisabeth and the Infant of
Spain, alleging as his reason the perpetual rivalry of the two powers, and the
circumstance that the prosperity of the one must necessarily involve the
abasement of the other; and finally he declared that were he compelled to give
the hand of his daughter to a Spanish Prince, it should be to a younger brother
who might be declared Duke of Flanders, and not to the heir to the throne.
The
Queen, while listening to these counsels, did not cease her entreaties that he
would abandon his intention of quitting the kingdom, and leave the conduct of
the campaign to his generals. She represented her own inexperience in state
affairs, the extreme youth of the Dauphin, and the long life which he himself
might still enjoy if he did not voluntarily place himself in situations of
peril, which was the less required of him as he had already established his fame
as a soldier throughout the whole of Europe. Henry answered only by a jest.
Love and ambition alike lured him on; and beneath their baneful influence
prudence and reason were silenced.
On the
morning succeeding the coronation of his royal consort, the King attended mass
at the church of the Feuillants, where he was accompanied by the Duc de Guise
and M. de Bassompierre; and as he was still in the same exuberant spirits as on
the preceding day, a great deal of light and desultory conversation took place during
their return to the palace; which was, however, abruptly terminated by Henry,
whose countenance became suddenly overcast as he said in reply to a gay remark
made by M. de Guise—
"Even
you do not understand me now; but one of these days, when I am dead, you will
learn my value."
"My
God! Sire," exclaimed Bassompierre, "will you never cease to pain us
by these constant allusions to your approaching death? These are things which
should not be said. You will live, please God, long and happy years. What fate
can be more enviable than your own? You are now in the prime of life, strong
and healthy; surrounded by honour and respect; in tranquil possession of the
most flourishing kingdom upon earth; adored by your subjects; rich in money,
palaces, and lands; wooed by fair women; loved by handsome favourites; with a
host of noble children growing up about you. What can you require beyond this,
and what more do you wish?"
"My
friend," replied the King with a long-drawn sigh, "I must resign all
these things."
As he uttered
these words, the usher on duty threw open the door of his closet; and extending
his hand to his two companions, which they successively raised to their lips,
he disappeared.
As the
Queen was to dance a branle and to appear in a ballet that evening at
the Louvre, she was on the King's return closeted with the Princesse de Conti,
the Maréchale de Fervaques, the Comtesse du Fargis, and Madame Concini, her ladies of honour, busied in
the selection of the costume in which she purposed to appear. Having ascertained
this fact, Henry remained alone in his apartment, until it was announced to him
that the Duc de Vendôme solicited the honour of a private audience. He was
instantly admitted; and after having excused himself for thus intruding upon
the privacy of the monarch at a moment when, as he was well aware, the mind of
the King was occupied by subjects of importance both to himself and to the
state, he informed his royal father that La Brosse, a famous astrologer, had
declared that the constellation under which his Majesty was born threatened him
with imminent danger during that particular day; and that he consequently
implored of him to be more than usually cautious until its close.
"Pshaw!"
exclaimed the King gaily; "La Brosse is an old sharper who is anxious to
obtain some of your money; and you are a young fool to believe him. My days are
numbered before God."
When he
had dined Henry threw himself upon his bed, but he tried in vain to sleep; he
then rose and paced gloomily about the room for a considerable time, after
which he once more lay down; but the result proving the same, he again sprang
to his feet, and turning abruptly to the exempt of the guard, he
demanded to know the time.
"It
is just four o'clock, Sire," replied the officer; "and I would venture
to suggest to your Majesty to try the effect of the open air, as you appear
harassed and out of spirits."
"You
are right," said the King; "cause my coach to be prepared, and I will
go to the Arsenal and visit the Duc de Sully, who is unwell, and takes a bath
to-day."
When
the carriage was announced, the King stepped into it, followed by the Ducs de
Montbazon and d'Epernon, the Maréchaux de Lavardin and de Roquelaure, the
Marquises de Mirabeau and de la Force, and M. de Liancourt, his first equerry.
Being
anxious to obtain a good view of the preparations which were making for the
entry of the Queen, Henry desired that the leathern curtains, which were at
that period the clumsy substitute for windows, should be looped back; and
during this operation M. de Vitry presented himself, with the intention of
escorting the royal equipage with his company of the bodyguard.
"No,
no," said the King impatiently; "remain in the palace, and see that
everything goes on as I have ordered, and with as much speed as possible."
"At
least, Sire, suffer my guards to attend you," urged De Vitry.
"I
will neither take you nor your guards," was the abrupt reply; "I want
no one near me."
And
upon this command the disappointed courtier was compelled to withdraw.
"Drive
from the palace," shouted the monarch in a tone of excitement; "in
the direction of the Hôtel de Longueville." The carriage started at a
rapid pace, and it had no sooner reached the spot indicated, than he again
exclaimed, "And now to the Cross of Trahoir." Arrived
at this wretched nook, he next desired to be driven to the Cemetery of the
Innocents, for which purpose it was necessary to pass from the Rue St. Honoré
into that of La Ferronnerie, which was at that period extremely narrow, and
rendered still more so by the numerous shops built against the cemetery wall.
On reaching this point the progress of the royal carriage was impeded by two
heavily-laden waggons, and the footmen who had hitherto run beside it pressed
forward towards the end of the thoroughfare in order to rejoin it at the other
extremity of the street. Two attendants only remained at their station, one of
whom was employed in hastening the movements of the embarrassed waggoners,
while the other was engaged in arranging some portion of his dress which had become
displaced. At this moment a man advanced towards the King's equipage, wrapped
in a wide mantle, and carefully picked his way between the trading-booths and
the carriage, which he had no sooner reached than, placing one of his feet on a
spoke of the wheel, and the other on a doorstep, he plunged a knife into the
side of the King, who was at that moment engaged in reading a letter.
As he
felt the blow Henry exclaimed, "I am stabbed!" While he uttered the
words, he flung up his arms, an action by which the assassin profited to take a
surer and more fatal aim; and before the horror-stricken companions of the
unfortunate monarch could make a movement to prevent it, a second thrust
pierced the lobe of his heart. The blood gushed in torrents from his mouth, and
from the wound itself, when again the remorseless knife descended, but only to
become entangled in the sleeve of the Duc d'Epernon; while with one thick and choking sob Henri IV fell back a corpse.
No one
had seen by what hand the King had fallen; and had the regicide flung away his
weapon, he might have stood unquestioned among the crowd which instantly
collected upon seeing the six nobles who had accompanied the sovereign spring
to the ground, with loud exclamations of dismay; but Ravaillac stood firm, with his reeking and two-edged knife still
in his hand, and avowed his crime with a boldness which in a better cause would
have savoured of heroism.
Meanwhile
one of the royal party, perceiving that Henry remained perfectly motionless,
while the carriage was inundated with his blood, incautiously exclaimed,
"The King is dead!" upon which a loud wail arose from the assembled
spectators; and the agitation of the crowd became so excessive that the Duc
d'Epernon called loudly for a draught of wine, asserting that his Majesty was
faint from a hurt, and required refreshment. A number of the inhabitants of the
adjacent houses thereupon hastened to procure the desired beverage; while the
companions of the monarch, profiting by the movement, let fall the leathern curtains
of the coach, and informed the populace that they must immediately convey his
Majesty to the Louvre in order to secure proper assistance. This was done with all speed, while as they passed
through the city the attendants replied to the inquiries which were made on
every side that the King was merely wounded; and on arriving at the palace the
body was stretched upon a bed, without having been cleansed or clothed, and in
this state it remained for several hours, exposed to the gaze of all who thought
proper to visit the chamber of death.
During
this time the Queen, fatigued by her previous exertions, was lying upon a sofa
in her private cabinet, in order to recruit her strength against the evening,
which was, as we have shown, to have been one of gaiety and gala, when her
affrighted attendants hastened to convey to her the fatal tidings of her
widowhood. In a paroxysm of uncontrollable anguish she rushed towards the door
of the closet, and was about to make her way to the chamber in which the royal body
had been deposited, when she was met by the Chancellor, to whom the fearful
news had already been communicated, and who obstructed her passage.
"Let
me pass, Sir," she faltered out, "the King is dead."
"Pardon
me, Madame," said Sillery, still impeding her purpose, "the Kings of
France never die. Return, I implore of you, to your apartment. Restrain your
tears until you have insured your own safety and that of your children; and
instead of indulging in a grief which can avail you nothing, exert all your energies
to counteract the possible effects of this disastrous and lamentable
event."
M. de
Vitry was immediately instructed to assemble all the royal children in the same
apartment, and not to permit any one, whatever might be his rank or authority,
to have access to them; an order which was implicitly obeyed; and meanwhile
six-and-twenty physicians and surgeons, who had been hastily summoned to the
palace, commenced opening the corpse, which was discovered to be so universally
healthy as to promise a long life. The intestines were, according to the
prescribed custom, at once forwarded to St. Denis; while the Jesuits demanded
the heart, in order to convey it to their church of La Flèche; and it was no
sooner removed from the body, and placed in a silver basin, than it was eagerly
pressed to the lips of all the nobles who assisted at the operation; each of
those who carried away traces of the blood which issued from it upon his
moustachios, esteeming himself highly honoured by the vestiges of the contact.
The
royal remains were then embalmed, and placed in a sumptuous coffin upon a bed
of state, in one of the most spacious apartments of the Louvre, which was hung
with the richest tapestry appertaining to the crown. A magnificent canopy of
cloth of gold surmounted the bier, and on either side of the catafalque were
placed two temporary altars; ten others having been erected in the
state-gallery, at which the bishops and the curés of the several metropolitan
parishes daily performed six high and one hundred low masses. Platforms covered
with cloth of gold had been prepared for the cardinals and prelates; and at the
foot of the royal body, cushions of black velvet were arranged for the Princes
of the Blood and the higher nobility. A golden crucifix and a silver vase
containing holy water were deposited on a table of carved oak; and at the
extremity of the room were grouped enormous tapers of wax, near which stood two
heralds-king-at-arms, in their splendid state costume, leaning upon their
swords. The face of the corpse was exposed, the head covered by a cap of
crimson velvet laced with gold, and the body attired in a vest of white satin,
over which was flung a drapery of cloth of gold, having in the centre a cross
elaborately embroidered in silver.
On the
day which succeeded the embalmment, while the clergy were praying in suppressed
voices at the several altars, a distant sound was heard, which gradually
approaching nearer and nearer to the death-chamber, became ere long blent with
their murmured orisons; and as they looked towards the entrance of the
apartment, they saw the young King standing upon the threshold, attended by a
numerous suite of Princes and nobles. Louis XIII was wrapped in a mourning
cloak of violet-coloured velvet; his vest was of dark silk; and his pale and
melancholy face was half-hidden by the hood which had been drawn over his head.
The high dignitaries who composed his retinue wore mantles of black velvet, and
were entirely without arms. The two younger sons of France, the Ducs d'Orléans
and d'Anjou, walked on either side of the new-made sovereign, each grasping a
fold of his heavy cloak; and immediately behind them came the Cardinals de
Joyeuse and de Sourdis. The Prince de Condé, the Comte de Soissons, the Duc de
Guise, the Prince de Joinville, and the Duc d'Elboeuf bore the royal train; and
were in their turn succeeded by the prelates who assisted at the ceremony, each
wearing his mitre, and carrying his crozier. In the rear followed a crowd of
nobles and great officers of the household, who, however, advanced only a few
yards from the doorway, while Louis and his immediate attendants slowly
approached the bier. The scene was an affecting one: the boy-King, timid and
trembling, surrounded by the flower of his nation's chivalry and greatness, moved
with a faltering step towards the resting-place of that father who had so
lately wielded like a toy the sceptre which he was himself still too impotent
to bear, and whose bold spirit had been quenched while it was yet strong within
him. On every side the vanity of human pride, which will not learn a lesson
even under the stern teaching of death, was contrasted with the awe that sat
upon the faces of the assistants, and with the immobility of the livid
countenance which gleamed out pale and ghastly from amid its glittering
drapery!
As the
youthful mourner reached the death-couch, the kings-at-arms were about to
present to him the aspergillus, in order that he might sprinkle the corpse with
the consecrated water, when a movement among the nobles who stood near the
entrance of the apartment caused them to pause; and in another moment a group
of ladies, attired in deep mourning, appeared beneath the portico; where,
separating into two ranks, they left a passage open for the widowed Queen; who,
clad in violet velvet like her son, with a high ruff, and her head uncovered,
advanced with an unsteady step and streaming eyes towards her children.
"Pray
with me, my son," she murmured amid her sobs as she stood beneath the
mortuary canopy; "there lies your happiness and mine. May it please God
that our hopes may not also have expired with him who was but a few short hours
ago the glory and the greatness of his kingdom! The sturdy tree has fallen, and
the saplings are still weak and frail. The mission of the great Henry is
accomplished, and the weight of sovereignty is transferred to your own brow.
And you also, my beloved ones," she continued, glancing towards her
younger sons, "come nearer to me, and let us kneel together beside the
body of your august and lamented father."
The two
young Princes relaxed their hold of the royal mantle, and placed themselves
beside their mother. The illustrious widow and her orphans then sank upon their
knees, and continued for a considerable time absorbed in silent and earnest
prayer. At intervals a sob which could not be controlled broke upon the
stillness, but at length the mourners rose; and Marie, taking the hand of the
boy-King, drew him towards her, and murmured in his ear a few hurried words
which were inaudible to all save himself. As she ceased speaking, Louis glanced
up into her face for an instant; and then, extending his right hand towards the
corpse, he said in a clear and steady voice—
"Mother,
I swear to do so."
Even at
that awful moment a strange light flashed from the eyes of the Queen, and a
smile, which was almost one of triumph, played about her lips as she glanced at
the assembled nobles; but the emotion, by whatever cause produced, was only
momentary; and after having cast another long and agonized look upon the face of
the dead monarch, and aspersed the body with holy water, she bent her head
reverentially to the King, and withdrew, followed by her ladies.
When
the whole of the royal party had paid this last mark of respect to the remains
of the deceased sovereign, the coffin was finally closed; and the death-room,
in which the corpse was to remain for the space of eighteen days, was opened to
the public from ten o'clock in the morning until six in the evening. Then,
indeed, as the vast crowds succeeded each other like the ceaseless waves of an
incoming sea, the bitter wail of universal lamentation rang through the halls
and galleries of the palace. Henri IV had been essentially the King of the
People; and, with few and rare exceptions, it was by the people that he was truly
mourned; for his sudden decease had opened so many arenas to ambition, hatred,
jealousy, and hope, that the great nobles had no time to waste in tears, but
were already busily engaged in the furtherance of their own fortunes.
During
the exposition of the body the necessary preparations had been completed for
the interment of the deceased King, which exceeded in magnificence all that had
previously been attempted on a similar occasion; and this pomp was rendered
even more remarkable by the privacy with which his predecessor Henri III had
been conveyed to St. Denis only a week previously, the remains of the latter
sovereign having hitherto been suffered to remain in the church of St. Camille
at Compiègne, whence they were removed under the guard of the Ducs d'Epernon
and de Bellegarde, his former favourites; the etiquette in such an emergency
not permitting the inhumation of the recently deceased King in the vaults of
the royal abbey until his predecessor should have occupied his appointed place.
The
first stage of the funeral procession was Notre-Dame; and as the gorgeous cortège approached the church, all its avenues, save that which was kept clear by the
Swiss Guards, were thronged by the citizens and artizans of the capital; sounds
of weeping and lamentation were to be heard on every side; yet still, divided
between grief and curiosity, the crowd swept on; and as the last section of the
melancholy procession disappeared beneath the venerable portals of the
cathedral, its vast esplanade was alive with earnest and eager human beings,
who, fearful of exclusion from the interior of the building, pressed rudely
against each other, overthrowing the weak and battling with the strong in their
anxiety to assist at the awful and solemn ceremony which was about to be
enacted.
Only a
few moments had consequently elapsed ere a dense mass of the people choked
almost to suffocation the gothic arches and the nave of the sacred edifice,
while the aisles were peopled by the more exalted individuals who had composed
the funeral procession. Upwards of three thousand nobles, and a great number of
ladies, all clad in mourning dresses, and attended by their pages and
equerries, blended their melancholy voices with the responses of the canons of
the cathedral; the bishops of the adjacent sees, and the archbishops in their
rich raiment of velvet and cloth of silver, carried in their hands tapers of
perfumed wax; Oriental myrrh and aloes burned in golden censers, and veiled the
lofty dome with a light and diaphanous vapour which gave an unearthly aspect to
the building; the organ pealed forth its deep and thrilling tones; and amid
this scene of excitement, splendour, and suffering, the Cardinal de Gondy
celebrated the mass, and the Bishop of Aire delivered the funeral oration. The coffin
was then raised, and the crowd, hurriedly escaping from the church, once more
spread itself over the neighbouring streets until the procession should again
have formed; after which all this immense concourse of people accompanied the
body of their beloved monarch to St. Lazare, where the clergy halted and
returned to Paris; while the nobles who were to escort the mortuary-car to St.
Denis, and who had hitherto followed it on foot, either mounted on horseback,
or entered their carriages, in order to reach the Leaning Cross at the same
time as the corpse.
There,
the grand prior and the monks of the royal abbey, in their mourning hoods,
received the body of Henri IV from the hands of De Gondy, the Archbishop of
Paris; and on the following day the Cardinal-Duc de Joyeuse celebrated a solemn
mass and performed the funeral service of his late sovereign.
At the
close of the lugubrious ceremony the iron gates of the house of death swung
hoarsely upon their hinges. The "De Profundis" pealed from the high
altar, and Henry the Great was gathered to his ancestors.