The Life of Marie de Medicis Volume III Part 18

Having succeeded by this crafty policy in inducing a general impression that the unfortunate Queen persisted from a spirit of obstinacy in remaining out of the kingdom, when she could at any moment return on advantageous conditions, the Cardinal next exerted himself to create a misunderstanding between Marie de Medicis and Monsieur, for which purpose he secretly caused it to be a.s.serted to the Prince and Puylaurens that the Queen-mother, anxious to make her own terms to the exclusion of Gaston, had despatched several messengers to the French Court with that object. Monsieur affected to discredit the report, but Puylaurens, who was weary of an exile which thwarted his ambition, eagerly welcomed the intelligence, and soon succeeded in inducing Gaston to give it entire credence. Thenceforward all confidence was necessarily at an end between the mother and the son; and the favourite, apprehensive that should Marie de Medicis conclude a treaty with the sovereign before his master had made his own terms, she might, in order to advance her own interests, sacrifice those of the Prince, hastened to despatch a trusty messenger to ascertain the conditions which Louis was willing to accord to his brother. The reply which Puylaurens received from the Cardinal was most encouraging; Richelieu being anxious that Monsieur should act independently of the Queen-mother, and thus weaken the cause of both parties, while his gratification was increased by the arrival of a second envoy accredited by Gaston himself, who offered in his name, not only to make every concession required of him should he be restored to the favour of the King, but even to allow the minister to decide upon his future place of abode; while Puylaurens, on his side, offered to resign his claim to the hand of the Princesse de Phalsbourg, the sister of the Duc de Lorraine, which had been pledged to him, if he could induce his Eminence to bestow upon him that of one of his own relatives.

In reply to the last proposition the Cardinal declared himself ready to secure to the favourite of Monsieur, should he succeed in making his royal patron fulfil the promises which he had volunteered, a large sum of money, and his elevation to a dukedom; but Puylaurens demanded still better security. He could not forget that if he still existed, it was simply from the circ.u.mstance that the minister had been unable to execute upon his person the violence which had been visited upon his effigy, and he accordingly replied:

"Of what avail is a dukedom, since his Eminence is ever more ready to cut off the head of a peer than that of a citizen?"

"If you are still distrustful," said the negotiator, "the Cardinal, moreover, offers you an alliance with himself as you propose; and will give you in marriage the younger daughter of his kinsman the Baron de Pontchateau."

"That alters the case," replied the young n.o.ble, "as I am aware that his Eminence has too much regard for his family to behead one of his cousins." [199]

One impediment, however, presented itself to the completion of this treaty, which proved insurmountable. Monsieur refused to consent to the annulment of his marriage with the Princesse Marguerite; while the King, who had just marched an army into Lorraine, and taken the town of Nancy, on his side declined all reconciliation with his brother until he consented to place her in his hands.

On his return from Lorraine Louis XIII halted for a time at Metz, and during his sojourn in that city an adventurer named Alfeston was put upon his trial, and broken on the wheel, for having attempted to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Cardinal. The culprit had only a short time previously arrived in Metz from Brussels, accompanied by two other individuals who had been members of the bodyguard of the Queen-mother, while he himself actually rode a horse belonging to her stud. As he was stretched upon the hideous instrument of torture, he accused Chanteloupe as an accessory in the contemplated crime; and the Jesuit, together with several others, were cited to appear and defend themselves; while, at the same time, the horse ridden by the princ.i.p.al conspirator was restored to its royal owner, with a request from the King that she would not in future permit such nefarious plots to be organized in her household, as "not only was the person of the Cardinal infinitely dear to him," but rascals of that description were capable of making other attempts of the same nature; and, not contented with thus insulting his unhappy and exiled mother, Louis, in order to show his anxiety for the safety of the minister, added to the bodyguard which had already been conceded to him an additional company of a hundred musketeers, the whole of whom he himself selected.[200]

The constant indignities to which Marie de Medicis was subjected by Monsieur and his haughty favourite at length crushed her bruised and wearied spirit. Outraged in every feeling, and disappointed in every hope, she became in her turn anxious to effect a reconciliation with the King, even upon terms less favourable than those to which she had hitherto aspired. Gaston seldom entered her apartments, nor was his presence ever the harbinger of anything but discord; while Puylaurens and Chanteloupe openly braved and defied each other, and the two little Courts were a scene of constant broils and violence. Monsieur, moreover, forbade his wife to see her royal mother-in-law so frequently, or to evince towards her that degree of respect to which she was ent.i.tled both from her exalted rank and her misfortunes. The gentle Marguerite, however, refused to comply with a command which revolted her better nature; and even consented, at the instigation of Marie de Medicis and Isabella--whose dignity and virtue were alike outraged by the dissolute excesses of the favourite--to entreat her husband to dismiss Puylaurens from his service.

"Should you succeed, Madame," said the Queen-mother, "you will save yourself from ruin. He is sold to the Cardinal; who, in addition to other benefits, has promised to give him his own cousin in marriage. But on what conditions do you imagine that he conceded this demand? Simply that Monsieur should unreservedly comply upon all points, and particularly on that which regards his marriage, with the will of Richelieu; that he should place you in the hands of the King, or leave you here, if it be not possible to convey you to France; that he should authorize an inquiry into the legitimacy of your marriage; and, finally, that Monsieur should abandon both myself and the King of Spain. Such are the terms of the treaty; and were they once accepted, who would be able to sustain your claims?"

The unfortunate Princess understood only too well the dangers of her position, and she accordingly exerted all her influence to obtain the dismissal of Puylaurens, but the brilliant favourite had become necessary to the existence of his frivolous master, far more so, indeed, than the wife who was no longer rendered irresistible by novelty; and the only result of her entreaties was a peevish order not to listen to any complaints against those who were attached to his person.

With a weakness worthy of his character, Gaston moreover repeated to his favourite all that had taken place; and the fury of Puylaurens reached so extreme a point that, in order to prove his contempt for the unhappy Queen--about to be deprived of the support and affection of her best-loved son, who had, like his elder brother, suffered himself to be made the tool of an ambitious follower--he had on one occasion the audacity to enter her presence, followed by a train of twenty-five gentlemen, all fully armed, as though while approaching her he dreaded a.s.sa.s.sination.

Marie de Medicis looked for an instant upon him with an expression of scorn in her bright and steady eye beneath which his own sank; and then, rising from her seat, she walked haughtily from the apartment. Once arrived in her closet, however, her indignant pride gave way; and throwing herself upon the neck of one of her attendants, she wept the bitter tears of humiliation and despair.

Nor was this the only, or the heaviest, insult to which the widow of Henri IV was subjected by the arrogant _protege_ of Monsieur, for anxious to secure his own advancement, and to aggrandize himself by means of Richelieu, since he had become convinced that his only hope of future greatness depended on the favour of the Cardinal, Puylaurens once more urged upon Gaston the expediency of accepting the conditions offered to him by the King. Weary of the petty Court of Brussels, the Prince listened with evident pleasure to the arguments advanced by his favourite; the fair palaces of St. Germain and the Tuileries rose before his mental vision; his faction in Languedoc existed no longer; with his usual careless ingrat.i.tude he had already ceased to resent the death of Montmorency; his beautiful and heroic wife retained but a feeble hold upon his heart; and he pined for change.

Under such circ.u.mstances it was, consequently, not long ere Puylaurens induced him to consent to a renewal of the negotiations; but, with that inability to keep a secret by which he was distinguished throughout his whole career, although urged to silence by his interested counsellor, it was not long ere Monsieur declared his intention alike to his mother and his wife, and terminated this extraordinary confidence by requesting that Marie de Medicis would give him her opinion as to the judiciousness of his determination.

"My opinion!" exclaimed the indignant Queen. "You should blush even to have listened to such a proposition. Have you forgotten your birth and your rank? What will be thought of such a treaty by the world? Simply that it was the work of a favourite, and not the genuine reconciliation of a Prince of the Blood Royal of France, the heir-presumptive to the Crown, with the King his brother. Your own honour and the interests of your wife are alike sacrificed; and should you ever be guilty of the injustice and cowardice of taking another wife before the death of Marguerite, who will guarantee that the children who may be born to you by the last will be regarded as legitimate? I do not speak of what concerns myself. When such conditions shall be offered to you as you may accept without dishonour, even although I may not be included in the amnesty, I shall be the first to advise you to accept them."

Gaston attempted no reply to this impa.s.sioned address, but it did not fail to produce its effect; and on returning to his own apartments he withdrew the consent which Puylaurens had extorted from him. The favourite, convinced that the answer of the Queen-mother had been dictated by Chanteloupe, hurried to her residence, insulted and menaced the Jesuit whom he encountered in an ante-room, and forcing himself into the chamber of Marie de Medicis, accused her in the most disrespectful terms of endeavouring to perpetuate the dissension of the King and his brother, in order to gratify her emnity towards Richelieu.

"Never," exclaimed the Queen-mother, quivering with indignation, "did even my enemy the Cardinal thus fail in respect towards me! He was far from daring to address me with such an amount of insolence as this.

Learn that should I see fit to say a single word, and to receive him again into favour, I could overthrow all your projects. Leave the room, young madman, or I will have you flung from the windows. It is easy to perceive that your nature is as mean as your birth." [201]

Puylaurens retired; but thenceforward the existence of the Queen-mother became one unbroken tissue of mortification and suffering; and so bitterly did she feel the degradations to which she was hourly exposed, that she at length resolved to despatch one of the gentlemen of her household to the King, to ascertain if she could obtain the royal permission to return to France upon such terms as she should be enabled to concede. In the letter which she addressed to her son she touchingly complained of the indignities to which she was subjected by Monsieur and his favourite, and implored his Majesty to extricate her from a position against which she was unable to contend.

In his reply Louis a.s.sured her that he much regretted to learn that the Duc d'Orleans had been wanting in respect towards her person, but reminded her that such could never have been the case had she followed his own advice and that of his faithful servants; and terminated his missive by an intimation that in the event of her placing in his power all her evil counsellors, in order that he might punish them as they deserved, and of her also pledging herself to love, as she ought to do, the good servants of the Crown, he might then believe that she was no longer so ill-disposed as she had been when she left France.

The disappointed Queen-mother at once recognized the hand of the Cardinal in this cold and constrained despatch, which was merely a renewal of her sentence of banishment; as Richelieu well knew that the high heart and generous spirit of the Tuscan Princess would revolt at the enormity of sacrificing those who had clung to her throughout her evil fortunes, in order to secure her own impunity.

Unfortunately, alike for Marie de Medicis and Gaston d'Orleans, the amiable Infanta, who had proved so patient as well as so munificent a host--and who had, without murmur or reproach, seen her previously tranquil and pious Court changed by the dissipation and cabals of her foreign guests into a perpetual arena of strife and even bloodshed--the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, whose very name was reverenced throughout the whole of the Low Countries, expired on the 1st of December at the age of sixty-eight, after having governed Flanders during thirty-five years.

This event was a source of alarm as well as of sorrow to the royal exiles, who could not antic.i.p.ate an equal amount of forbearance from the Marquis d'Ayetona,[202] by whom she was provisionally replaced in the government; and who had long and loudly expressed his disgust at the perpetual feuds which convulsed the circles of the Queen-mother and her son, and declared that they had caused him more annoyance than all the subjects of the King his master in the Low Countries.[203] In this extremity both Marie and Monsieur became more than ever anxious to procure their recall to France; and Gaston soon succeeded in ascertaining the conditions upon which his pardon was to be accorded.

Letters of abolition were to be granted for his past revolt: his several appanages were to be restored to him: the sum of seven hundred thousand crowns were to be paid over to meet his immediate exigences: he was to be invested with the government of Auvergne, and to have, as a bodyguard, a troop of gendarmes and light-horse, of which the command was to be conferred upon Puylaurens, to whom the offer of a dukedom was renewed; and, in the event of Monsieur declining to reside at Court, he was to be at liberty to fix his abode either in Auvergne or in Bourbonnais, as he saw fit; while, in any and every case, he was to live according to his own pleasure alike in Paris or the provinces.

And--in return for this indulgence--Monsieur was simply required to abandon his brother-in-law Charles de Lorraine to the vengeance of the King, without attempting any interference in his behalf; to detach himself wholly and unreservedly from all his late friends and adherents both within and without the kingdom of France; to resign all alliance either personal or political with the Queen-mother; to be guided in every circ.u.mstance by the counsels of the Cardinal-Minister; and to give the most stringent securities for his future loyalty.

Such were the conditions to which the heir-presumptive to the Crown of France ultimately consented to affix his name, although for a time he affected to consider them as unworthy of his dignity; and meanwhile as the year drew to a close, a mutual jealousy had grown up between the mother and son which seconded all the views of Richelieu, whose princ.i.p.al aim was to prevent the return of either to France for as long a period as he could succeed in so doing.

FOOTNOTES:

[189] Gaston d'Orleans, _Mem_. p. 148.

[190] Le Clerc, vol. ii. pp. 86, 87. Le Va.s.sor, vol. vii. pp. 249, 250.

[191] Mezeray, vol. xi. p. 418.

[192] Le Va.s.sor, vol. vii. pp. 442-445. Le Clerc, vol. ii. pp. 92-94.

Mezeray, vol. xi. pp. 422, 423.

[193] _Extrait des Registres du Parlement de Bourgogne_, Annee 1633.

MSS. de la Bibliotheque Royale.

[194] Pierre Seguier, a nephew of Pierre Seguier (the president _a mortier_ of the Parliament of Paris), born in 1588, made Keeper of the Seals in 1633, and died in 1672. [By a clerical oversight in the first edition this honour was conferred upon his uncle fifty-three years after his death!]

[195] Mezeray, vol. xi. pp. 423-425.

[196] Gaston d'Orleans, _Mem_. pp. 149-152.

[197] Siri, _Mem. Rec_. vol. vii. pp. 685-687. Le Va.s.sor, vol. vii. pp.

1-4.

[198] Le Va.s.sor, vol. vii. pp. 6-9. Mezeray, vol. xi. pp. 428, 429. Le Clerc, vol. ii. pp. 122, 123.

[199] Capefigue, vol. v. pp. 223, 224.

[200] Le Clerc, vol. ii. pp. 123, 124.

[201] Le Va.s.sor, vol. vii. book x.x.xv. pp. 248-251.

[202] Francisco de Moncade, Marques d'Ayetona, Conde d'Osuna, was born at Valencia in 1586; he was successively Councillor of State, Governor of the Low Countries, and generalissimo of the Spanish armies. He died in 1635.

[203] Sismondi, vol. xxiii. p. 240.

CHAPTER XI

1634

Increasing trials of the exiled Queen--Her property is seized on the frontier--She determines to conciliate the Cardinal--Richelieu remains implacable--Far-reaching ambition of the minister--Weakness of Louis XIII--Insidious arguments of Richelieu--Marie de Medicis is again urged to abandon her adherents--Cowardly policy of Monsieur--He signs a treaty with Spain--The Queen-mother refuses to join in the conspiracy--Puylaurens induces Monsieur to accept the proffered terms of Richelieu--He escapes secretly from Brussels---Gaston pledges himself to the King to "love the Cardinal"--Gaston again refuses to repudiate his wife--Puylaurens obtains the hand of a relative of the minister and becomes Duc de Puylaurens--Monsieur retires to Blois.

The early months of the year 1634 were pa.s.sed by Marie de Medicis in perpetual mortification and anxiety. The pa.s.sport which she had obtained for the free transport of such articles of necessity as she might deem it expedient to procure from France was disregarded, and her packages were subjected to a rigorous examination on the frontier; an insult of which she complained bitterly to Louis, declaring that if the Cardinal sought by such means to reduce her to a more pitiable condition than that in which she had already found herself, and thus to bend her to his will, the attempt would prove fruitless; as no amount of indignity should induce her to humble herself before him.

The unhappy Princess little imagined that in a few short weeks she should become a suppliant for his favour! Meanwhile[204] the struggle for pre-eminence continued unabated between Puylaurens and Chanteloupe; and the life of the former having been on one occasion attempted, the faction of Monsieur did not hesitate to attribute the contemplated a.s.sa.s.sination to the adherents of the Queen-mother; whence arose continual conflicts between the two pigmy Courts, which rendered unavailing all the efforts of the Marquis d'Ayetona to reconcile the royal relatives. Moreover, Marie was indignant that the Marquis constantly evinced towards her son a consideration in which he sometimes failed towards herself; and, finding her position becoming daily more onerous, she at length resolved to accomplish a reconciliation, not only with the King, but even with the minister, on any terms which she could obtain. In pursuance of this determination she gave instructions to M.

Le Rebours de Laleu, her equerry, to proceed to Paris with her despatches, which consisted of three letters, one addressed to the sovereign, another to the Cardinal, and the third to M. de Bouthillier,[205] all of which severally contained earnest a.s.surances of her intention to comply with the will and pleasure of the King in all things, and to obey his commands by foregoing for the future all emnity towards Richelieu. In that which she wrote to the minister himself she carefully eschewed every vestige of her former haughtiness, and threw herself completely on his generosity. "Cousin"--thus ran the letter of the once-powerful widow of Henri IV to her implacable enemy--"the Sieur Bouthillier having a.s.sured me in your name that my sorrows have deeply affected you, and that, regretting you should for so long a time have deprived me of the honour of seeing the King, your greatest satisfaction would now be to use your influence to obtain for me this happiness, I have considered myself bound to express to you through the Sieur Laleu, whom I despatch to the King, how agreeable your goodwill has been to me.