1635-38
Richelieu resolves to accomplish the disgrace of Puylaurens--Gaston
proceeds to Paris during the Carnival, and his favourite is arrested in
the Louvre--He is conveyed to Vincennes, where he dies--The Queen-mother
and Madame take up their abode at Antwerp--Marie de Medicis solicits the
protection of the Pope--Her letter is coldly received--She is accused by
Richelieu of favouring the Spanish cause--She endeavours to dissuade
Louis XIII from a war with Spain, and her arguments are haughtily
repulsed--Her envoy is ordered to quit the capital--The Queen-mother
once more appeals to the Sovereign-Pontiff, who declines to excite
against himself the enmity of the Cardinal-Minister--Louis XIII pursues
the war with Spain--Monsieur and the Comte de Soissons enter into a
conspiracy to assassinate Richelieu--The Queen-mother joins the
faction--The plot is betrayed---Gaston returns to his allegiance--Marie
de Medicis induces the Comte de Soissons to enter into a treaty with
Spain--The intrigue is discovered by the Cardinal--The Queen-mother once
more solicits an asylum in England--Charles I accedes to her request,
and endeavours to effect her reconciliation with the French
King--Richelieu determines Louis to reply by a refusal--Monsieur
abandons his wife, who becomes dependent for her support upon the
Spanish Government--Insignificance of Gaston--The Duchess of Savoy
endeavours to effect the recall of her royal mother to France--The three
Churchmen--Pregnancy of Anne of Austria--Renewed hopes of the
Queen-mother--She is again urged to reside in Tuscany--She proceeds to
Holland, and is magnificently received--The Prince of Orange intercedes
in her behalf with the French King--Richelieu reiterates his wish that
she should retire to Florence--The Dutch request her to leave the
country--Marie de Medicis embarks for England--She is received at
Gravesend by Charles I--Takes up her abode in St. James's
Palace--Meeting between the two Queens--Precarious position of the
English King--The Court of the Queen-mother--The French Ambassador is
instructed to abstain from all intercourse with the royal exile--A last
appeal--Obduracy of the Cardinal--Richelieu, his sovereign, and his
benefactress.
Richelieu, however, was far from intending that the Duc d'Orléans should
remain unmolested in his retreat. Puylaurens was the first individual
who had dared to dictate his own terms, and to enforce their observance;
and although his Eminence had a great affection for his niece, he was by
no means inclined to pardon the arrogance of her husband. An opportunity
of revenge soon presented itself. The attractions of the Carnival proved
too great for the prudence of Gaston, who accordingly proceeded to the
capital, in order to share in its delights; and when, on the 14th of
February 1635, he reached the Louvre, where he was expected to attend
the rehearsal of a ballet, his favourite, by whom he was accompanied,
was arrested in the royal closet by the captain of the guard, and
conveyed to Vincennes. This act of severity was as unexpected at the
moment as it remained unexplained in the sequel. Suffice it that
Monsieur did not permit the disgrace of his chosen and trusted friend to
interfere with his own amusement and gratification at so exciting a
season, although he could not fail to feel that, once in the grasp of
the Cardinal, the unhappy Puylaurens was doomed.
The result proved the truth of this apprehension; nobler and prouder
lives than that of the spoiled favourite of Gaston had been sacrificed
to the enmity of Richelieu. The tears and supplications of the
heart-broken bride were disregarded; and four months after his arrest
Puylaurens expired in his prison of, as it was asserted, typhus
fever--the same disease to which, by an extraordinary coincidence, two
former enemies of the Cardinal, the Maréchal d'Ornano and the
Grand-Prieur de Vendôme, had both fallen victims when confined at
Vincennes.[215]
During this time the unhappy Queen-mother, who found herself abandoned
on every side, had retired to Antwerp with the Princesse Marguerite, in
order to escape the mortifications to which she was constantly subjected
by the increasing coldness of her Spanish allies; and thence she wrote
earnestly to the Sovereign-Pontiff entreating his interference to effect
her reconciliation with the King, and begging him to exert his influence
to avert the war with Spain which the Cardinal was labouring to provoke.
The answer which she received to this despatch was cold and
discouraging, but she still persevered; and in a second letter upon the
same subjects she apprised his Holiness that she had appointed the Abbé
de Fabbroni (one of her almoners) her resident at the Court of Rome; and
had despatched another gentleman of her household to the Emperor of
Germany to enforce a similar request. She, moreover, wrote to inform
Mazarin, who was at that period nuncio-extraordinary in France, that she
had addressed her son-in-law Philip of Spain for the like purpose, and
requested him to deliver into the hands of Louis XIII a despatch by
which his own was accompanied. Her selection of an agent on this
occasion was, however, an unfortunate one, as Mazarin was devoted to the
interests of the Cardinal-Minister, to whom he immediately transferred
the packet, when the first impulse of Richelieu was to suppress it; but
having ascertained that the Queen-mother had caused several copies to be
made, and that she could not ultimately fail to secure its transmission,
he endeavoured to weaken the effect of her remonstrances by accusing her
of an attempt to corrupt the loyalty of the Duc de Rohan, and to induce
him to adopt the interests of Spain.
This accusation sufficed to render Louis insensible alike to the
entreaties and the arguments of his mother; and when Mazarin, in order
to maintain appearances, requested a reply to the letter with which he
had been entrusted, the King declined to furnish one, asserting that
should he concede any answer to so seditious, so Spanish, and so
hypocritical a missive, while the Queen was engaged in endeavouring to
alienate one of his great nobles, he should be compelled to represent to
her the crime of which she was guilty towards the state; and that the
affectation with which she had dwelt upon the desire of the late King to
maintain a good understanding with Spain was merely an expedient for
vilifying his own government, indulging her hatred of the Cardinal, and
seeking to create a rebellion among his subjects. He added, moreover,
that when the Queen should see fit to act as became his mother, he would
honour her as such; and that it was in order not to fail in his respect
towards her that he forbore to reply to her communication, although the
Nuncio was at liberty to do so in his name should he consider it
expedient.[216]
Nor was this the only mortification to which Marie de Medicis was
subjected by her attempt to preserve the peace of Europe; for Richelieu,
irritated by her interference, no sooner became aware that she had
despatched the Abbé de Fabbroni to Rome, than he instructed the French
Ambassador at that Court to complain to his Holiness of so unprecedented
an innovation; and to remind him that the Queen-mother was not a
sovereign, but a subject, and consequently did not possess the privilege
of appointing a resident at any foreign Court; but must, on every
occasion when treating with his Holiness, avail herself of the services
of the accredited envoy of the King her son.
To this expostulation, however, Urban replied that the circumstance was
not without precedent, as bishops had agents at the Papal Court; but,
notwithstanding the apparent firmness with which he withstood the
arguments of the Cardinal, it is asserted that he privately intimated
to M. de Fabbroni the expediency of his immediate departure; a
suggestion which was obeyed upon the instant.[217]
The indignation of Marie de Medicis at this new insult was unbounded.
Again she addressed the Sovereign-Pontiff, and inveighed bitterly on the
persecution of which she was the victim; but beyond the mere expression
of his sympathy the Pope declined all interference between herself and
the minister, whose gigantic power rendered his enmity formidable even
to the head of the Church. Once more the widow of one of the most
vaunted sovereigns of France was compelled to bow in silence to the
enmity of an individual whom she had herself elevated to influence and
dignity; and while France was engaged in a war which not only riveted
the attention but also involved the interests of the whole of Europe,
history is silent as to her sufferings. All that can be gathered
concerning her is the fact that the Spaniards, resenting the reverses to
which they were subjected by the armies of Louis XIII, became less than
ever inclined to sympathize in her sufferings when they discovered her
utter helplessness; nor was it until the Duc d'Orléans and the Comte de
Soissons entered into a conspiracy (in 1636) to overthrow the Cardinal,
that she was once more involved in public affairs.
Meanwhile the piety of the Queen-mother had degenerated into
superstition; she had applied to the Pope to authorize the canonization
of an obscure nun of Antwerp; and, in accordance with the directions of
Suffren her confessor, and Chanteloupe her confidant, she had abandoned
herself to the most rigorous observances of her faith. But ambition was
"scotched, not killed," in the soul of Marie de Medicis; and she no
sooner saw the Princes in open rebellion against the power of Richelieu
than her hopes once more revived, and she made instant preparations to
join their faction. The design was, however, betrayed, and thus rendered
abortive; upon which Gaston, according to his wont, soon submitted to
the terms dictated by the minister, and returned to his allegiance,
abandoning M. de Soissons, who proved less complying, to the displeasure
of the King; when (in 1637) the Queen-mother, whose hopes had been
nearly extinguished by the defeat of the Spaniards at Corbie, and their
retreat beyond the frontiers of Picardy, wrote to the Count, tendering
to him the most advantageous offers, both from the Spanish monarch and
Prince Thomas of Savoy, and offering personally to enter into the
treaty. This proposition was eagerly accepted by M. de Soissons, and
reciprocal promises of assistance and good faith were exchanged; while
the Cardinal Infant, on his side, made a solemn compact with the exiled
Queen that the Catholic King should conclude neither peace nor truce
with France until Marie de Medicis and the Comte de Soissons were
re-established in their rights; that the Queen-mother should reject all
conditions of reconciliation until after the death or disgrace of
Richelieu; that, should either one or the other event occur before the
existing dissension between France and the House of Austria was
adjusted, the Queen-mother, the Comte de Soissons, and all their French
adherents should remain neutral during the space of four months, which
were to be employed by all parties in endeavours to secure a general
peace; that, in the event of its not being concluded at the expiration
of that period, Marie de Medicis and Soissons should be free to effect
their reconciliation with the French King, without incurring the blame
of forfeiting their faith to Philip of Spain; that the last-named
monarch should furnish two hundred and fifty thousand livres in ready
money, and an equal sum a month later in property equivalent to specie;
and that if the Comte de Soissons were compelled to retire from France,
the King of Spain should afford him his protection, and furnish him with
sufficient means to live according to his birth and rank.
A treaty of this nature, so formidable in its conception, and so
threatening in its results, could not long remain a secret to the
Cardinal-Minister; and accordingly he did not fail to be apprised of the
intrigue before it had time to produce its effect, and resolved to
conciliate the Comte de Soissons, even were it only for the present
moment. Of Marie de Medicis he had long ceased to feel any apprehension,
and he consequently made no effort to include her in the amnesty; a
demonstration of contempt which so deeply wounded the exiled Princess
that she resolved to despatch a messenger to the Court of London to
solicit the interposition of Charles I. and Henriette in her behalf; but
despite all her disappointments the Queen-mother still sought to obtain
conditions which past experience should have sufficed to prove that
Richelieu never would accord.
The English monarch had, indeed, yielded to the entreaties of a wife to
whom he was at that period devotedly attached, and had consented to
exert all his influence in favour of the unhappy Princess, who now saw
herself abandoned by both her sons; but the state of his own kingdom was
too unsettled to permit of his enforcing terms which he consequently
perceived to be hopeless. Nevertheless he acceded to her request, and
forwarded to the Court of France the document which was delivered to him
by her envoy, but it produced no effect; and while every other
state-criminal was reinstated in the favour of the King, on tendering
the required submission, and conforming to the stipulated conditions,
the Queen-mother found herself excluded from all hope of recall and all
prospect of reconciliation.
Richelieu was aware that necessity alone had induced her to pronounce
his pardon, and that her wrongs were too great ever to be forgotten. No
wonder, therefore, that he shrank from a struggle which, should the
voice of popular favour once more be raised in her behalf, might tend to
his overthrow; and that struggle, as he well knew, could take place only
on the soil of France. Her exile was his safety; and the astute Cardinal
had long determined that it should end only with her life.[218]
On every side the unfortunate Marie de Medicis saw herself surrounded by
misfortune. Gaston, at the instigation of the Cardinal, had ceased to
supply his neglected wife with the means of supporting, not merely her
rank, but even her existence, and had left her dependent upon the
generosity of the Spanish Government which he had so unblushingly
betrayed. He had himself become a mere cypher in the kingdom over which
he hoped one day to rule. He seldom appeared at Court; and when he was
prevailed upon to do so, he was the obsequious admirer of Richelieu, and
the submissive subject of the King. The Spaniards, since the departure
of the heir-apparent to the French Crown, had ceased to evince the same
respect towards the mother whom he had abandoned; and although they
still accorded to her a pension that placed her above want, the
munificence with which they had greeted her arrival had long ceased to
call forth her gratitude. Her position was consequently desperate; and
her only prospect of escaping from so miserable a fate as that by which
she was ultimately threatened existed in the hope that should she
voluntarily retire from Flanders, and place herself under the protection
of England, she might yet succeed in enforcing her claims.
While she was still meditating this project, Christine, the widowed
Duchess of Savoy, resolved to make a last effort to effect the recall of
her persecuted mother to France; and for this purpose she despatched to
Paris a Jesuit named Monod, who succeeded in establishing a friendship
with Caussin, the King's confessor, whom he induced to second the
attempt. As both one and the other, however, believed success to be
impossible so long as Richelieu retained his influence over the mind of
the sovereign, they resolved to undermine his favour. Caussin, like all
his predecessors, had great power over the timid conscience and
religious scruples of his royal penitent, and the two Jesuits were well
aware that through these alone could Louis be rendered vulnerable to
their entreaties; while they were, moreover, encouraged in their hopes
by the circumstance that the Cardinal-Minister had never evinced the
slightest distrust of Caussin, whom he believed to be devoted to his
interests, and that the latter consequently possessed ample
opportunities for prosecuting his object.
At the close of the year, therefore, the attempt was made; and, as the
Jesuit had anticipated, Louis listened with submission and even respect
to his expostulations. "Your minister misleads you, Sire," said his
confessor, "where your better nature would guide you in the right path.
He it is who has induced your Majesty to abandon your mother, who is not
only condemned to exile, but reduced to the greatest necessity, and
indebted to strangers for the very means of existence."
The King was visibly moved by this assertion, but he remained silent,
and suffered the ecclesiastic to proceed. Emboldened by this attention,
Caussin did not scruple to declare that the Cardinal had usurped an
amount of power which tended to degrade the royal authority; that the
subjects of France were reduced to misery by the exorbitant taxation to
which they were subjected; and that the interests of religion itself
were threatened by Richelieu, who was affording help to the Swedes and
the Protestants of Germany.
"Shake off this yoke, Sire," concluded the Jesuit; "exert your royal
prerogative, and dismiss the Cardinal-Duke from office. Be the sovereign
of your own nation, and the master of your own actions. You will have a
more tranquil conscience, and a more prosperous reign."
"You are perhaps right, Father," replied the King with emotion; "but you
must give me time for reflection."
Caussin obeyed, auguring well of his mission; but his self-gratulation
was premature, for he had scarcely left the closet of his penitent when
he was succeeded by the Cardinal, who, perceiving the agitation of the
King, experienced little difficulty in extorting from him the subject of
the conversation in which he had just been engaged; and a few moments
sufficed to restore alike the complacency of Louis and his confidence in
his minister.
There is sufficient evidence to prove that the French King never
bestowed his regard upon Richelieu; as a boy he had evinced towards him
an undisguised aversion which he never overcame, but he had learnt to
fear him; the feeble mind of the monarch had bowed before the strong
intellect of the minister; the sovereign could not contend against the
statesman; the crown of France rested upon the brows of the one, but her
destinies were poised in the hand of the other; and the strength of
Richelieu grew out of the weakness of his master.
As a natural consequence of his imprudence Caussin was shortly
afterwards arrested, and banished to Brittany; and the Cardinal no
sooner ascertained the complicity of Monod than, despite the reluctance
of the Duchess of Savoy to abandon a man who had hazarded his life in
her cause, he was, in his turn, condemned to expiate his error by a
rigorous captivity.[219]
The unhoped-for pregnancy of Anne of Austria at this period once more
revived the hopes of Marie de Medicis, who trusted that on such an
occasion a general amnesty would necessarily supervene. She deceived
herself, however; for although Richelieu professed the greatest desire
to see her once more in France, he was in reality as earnest as ever in
creating obstacles to a reconciliation so inimical to his own interests.
In vain did the unhappy Queen-mother remind him of her advancing age and
her increasing necessities; and plead that, whatever might have been her
former errors, they must now be considered as expiated by seven weary
years of exile; the minister only replied by expressions of his profound
regret that the internal politics of the kingdom did not permit him to
urge her recall upon the sovereign; and his extreme desire to see her
select a residence elsewhere than within the territory of his enemies,
where she was subjected to perpetual suspicion; while, should she
determine to fix her abode at Florence, his Majesty was prepared to
restore all her forfeited revenues, and to confer upon her an
establishment suited to her rank and dignity.
As Richelieu was well aware, no proposal could be more unpalatable than
this to the haughty Princess. Eight-and-thirty years had elapsed since
Marie de Medicis, then in the full pride of youth and beauty, had
quitted her uncle's court in regal splendour to ascend the throne of
France; and now--how did the heartless minister urge her to return?
Hopeless, friendless, and powerless; with a name which had become a
mockery, to a family wherein she would be a stranger. At Florence her
existence was a mere tradition. All who had once loved her were
dispersed or dead; no personal interest bound her to their survivors;
and where long years previously she might have claimed affection, she
could now only anticipate pity or dread contempt. The perpetual
illnesses of the King, moreover, rendered her averse to such a measure;
every succeeding attack had produced a more marked effect upon the
naturally feeble constitution of Louis; the astrologers by whom she was
surrounded continued to foretell his approaching death; and she yet
indulged visions of a second regency, during which she might once more
become all-powerful.
Nevertheless, she could not conceal from herself that by persistently
remaining in a country at open war with France, she strengthened the
hands of Richelieu without advancing her own interests; and although
she felt that she could ill dispense with the generosity of her
son-in-law Philip of Spain, who, even at a period when he frequently
found himself unable to meet the demands of his army, still continued to
treat her with a munificence truly royal, she resolved to withdraw from
the Low Countries; and, accordingly, on the 10th of August, alleging
that she was about to remove to Spa for the restoration of her health,
she took her leave of the Court of Brussels; and, suddenly changing her
route, proceeded to Bois-le-Duc, where she placed herself under the
protection of the Prince of Orange.[220]
The arrival of the Queen-mother in Holland excited universal
gratulation, as the Dutch did not for an instant doubt that it was a
preliminary to a reconciliation with her son; and once more she found
herself the object of universal homage. Municipal processions and civic
banquets were hastily arranged in her honour; every hôtel-de-ville was
given up for her accommodation; burgomasters harangued her, and citizens
formed her bodyguard; while so enthusiastic were the self-deceived
Hollanders that even Art was enlisted in her welcome, and engravings
still exist wherein her reception is commemorated under the most
extravagant allegories; one of which represents the aged and
broken-hearted Queen as the goddess Ceres, drawn by two lions in a
gilded car. But her advent in Holland was, unhappily, not destined to
ensure to her either the power or the abundance with which she was thus
gratuitously invested by the pencil of the painter; for on her arrival
at the Hague, when, in compliance with her entreaty, the Prince of
Orange personally solicited her restoration to favour and her return to
France, pledging himself in her name that she would never again
interfere in the public affairs of the kingdom, nor enter into any cabal
either against the state or the Cardinal-Minister, his application was
totally disregarded by Louis XIII; and only elicited an official reply
from Richelieu to the effect "that his Majesty could not receive the
said lady and Queen into his realm, inasmuch as he had just reason to
fear that she would continue under his name, and perhaps unknown to him,
to create factions and cabals, not only in his own kingdom, but in those
of his allies; but that should it please the said lady and Queen to
retire to Florence, where the malcontents could not exert their
influence over her mind, or injure either himself or his allies, his
Majesty again offered her, as he had already done, a position at once
more honourable and inure opulent than that with which she had contented
herself in Flanders." [221]
This answer was, as Richelieu had intended that it should be, perfectly
decisive to the Prince, who was aware that Marie de Medicis would have
preferred death to a return to the banks of the Arno under her present
circumstances; while the so-lately enthusiastic Hollanders, on
ascertaining that the French Ambassador at the Hague had received
orders not to wait upon or recognize their new guest, began to apprehend
that her presence in their country might injure their interests with
France; while, at the same time, the great outlay necessary for the
maintenance of her establishment alarmed their economy; and it was
consequently not long ere they respectfully intimated to her Majesty
their trust that she would not prolong her sojourn among them.
This was a new outrage upon her dignity which struck to the very soul of
the royal exile, who resolved no longer to defer her departure for
England; and, accordingly, on the 19th of November she embarked for that
country. Still, however, misfortune appeared to pursue her, for the
winter proved one of great severity, and she narrowly escaped shipwreck,
after having been tempest-tossed for several days. Her reception,
nevertheless, compensated for this temporary suffering, as Charles
himself travelled in state to Gravesend to escort her to London, where
the most magnificent preparations had been made for her accommodation
and that of her retinue in St. James's Palace. The fifty apartments
which were appropriated to her use had been arranged under the personal
superintendence of her daughter Henrietta of England, and were replete
with every luxury which could conduce to the well-being of the
illustrious exile; while, as if to compensate alike to her persecuted
mother and to herself for the tardiness of their meeting (the advanced
pregnancy of the English queen having rendered it inexpedient that she
should be exposed to the fatigue of travelling), she no sooner
ascertained, by the trumpet-blast which announced its appearance, that
the carriage containing her royal consort and his illustrious guest had
entered the principal court of the palace, than she hastened, surrounded
by her children, to bid them welcome; and as her unhappy parent
descended from the coach supported on the arm of the King, Henriette
threw herself upon her knees before her, and seizing her hands, pressed
them convulsively to her heart, and bathed them with her tears. Marie de
Medicis, tutored as she had been in suffering, was scarcely less moved;
and thus the meeting between the august mother and daughter was most
affecting: Henriette had so long yearned for the companionship of her
kindred, while Marie de Medicis had, on her side, been for so great a
period cut off from all the ties of family affection, that as they wept
in each other's arms, the one was unable to articulate a welcome, and
the other to express her acknowledgments for the warm greeting which she
had experienced.
Immediately on her arrival in England, Charles I. awarded to the exiled
Queen a pension of a hundred pounds a day on the civil list; but her
advent had, nevertheless, occurred at an inauspicious moment for the
English sovereign, whose resources were crippled, and who abstained
from levying subsidies upon his subjects in order not to assemble a
Parliament; while he moreover dreaded that the presence of his royal
mother-in-law, with her numerous train of priests, would tend to
exasperate the spirit of the people, who were already greatly excited
against the Roman Catholics.
Nor were these his only causes of anxiety, as many of the French
malcontents who had fled their country in order to escape the enmity of
Richelieu had selected London as their place of refuge, relying upon the
friendship of Henriette (a circumstance which had increased the coldness
that already existed between the two Courts); and these at once rallied
round Marie de Medicis as their common centre. Among these illustrious
emigrants the most distinguished were the Duchesse de Chevreuse and the
Ducs de Soubise and de la Valette, all of whom were surrounded by a
considerable number of exiles of inferior rank; and as the Queen-mother
saw them gathered about her, she easily persuaded herself that their
voluntary absence from France was a convincing proof of the general
unpopularity of her own arch--enemy Richelieu. Her personal suite,
moreover, included no less than two hundred individuals; and thus the
palace of the Stuarts presented the anomalous spectacle of a French
Court, where the nobles of a hostile land, and the priests of a hostile
faith, held undisturbed authority, to the open dissatisfaction of the
sturdy citizens of London. Murmurs were rife on all sides; and the
Queen-mother was regarded as a harbinger of misfortune. Henriette
herself was obnoxious to the Puritans, but they had been to a certain
degree disarmed by her gentleness of demeanour, and the prudence and
policy of her conduct; she was, moreover, the wife of the sovereign, and
about to become the mother of a prince; but Marie de Medicis possessed
no claims on their forbearance, and they did not hesitate to attribute
to her views and designs which she was too powerless to entertain.
At this period the Queen-mother was subjected to the mortification of
learning that M. de Bellièvre, the ambassador-extraordinary of her son
at the Court of England, had received stringent instructions to abstain
from all demonstration of courtesy towards her person; and even to avoid
finding himself in her presence, whenever the etiquette of his position
would permit of his absenting himself from the royal circle; a command
which he so scrupulously obeyed, that although, in her anxiety to enlist
him in her cause, she had more than once endeavoured to address him, she
had constantly failed; until Lord Holland, at her entreaty, on one
occasion contrived to detain him in the great gallery at Whitehall,
where Marie de Medicis entered accompanied by the King and Queen.
As the royal party passed near him, Bellièvre bowed low, without looking
towards the mother of his sovereign. Escape was impossible; and he
consequently remained silent and motionless.
"Monsieur l'Ambassadeur," said a well-remembered voice, "I wish to
exchange a few words with you."
Charles and Henriette moved on; Lord Holland withdrew; and the
Queen-mother at length found herself face to face with the French envoy,
who had no alternative but to assume an attitude of profound respect,
and to extricate himself from this unexpected difficulty as best
he might.
Marie de Medicis was painfully agitated. Her future fate in all
probability hinged upon this long-coveted interview, and some seconds
elapsed before she could utter a syllable. She continued standing,
although her emotion compelled her to lean for support upon a table; and
Bellièvre, courtier though he was, could scarcely have looked unmoved
upon the wreck of pride and power thus placed before him. Years and
sorrows had furrowed the lofty brow, and dimmed the flashing eyes, of
the once beautiful Tuscan Princess, but she still retained all that
dignity of deportment for which she was celebrated on her arrival in her
adopted country. She was a fugitive and an exile, but she was yet every
inch a Queen; and her very misfortunes invested her with an interest
which no true and honest heart could fail to feel.
"Sir," she said at length, "I have for some time past endeavoured by
every means in my power to impress upon the Cardinal de Richelieu my
earnest desire to return to France by his interposition; but all my
attempts have been useless. I have received no reply."
"Madame," interposed Bellièvre, "I humbly entreat of your Majesty to
permit me to explain that although I have the honour to be the
representative of my sovereign at this Court, I am not authorized to
appear in that character towards yourself. It is possible that your
Majesty has the intention of entrusting me with some message, in which
case I entreat of you to excuse me when I decline to undertake its
transmission. I have express orders not to interfere in anything
connected either with the person or with the concerns of your Majesty."
"You have probably not been forbidden to hear what I desire to say,"
exclaimed the Queen, with a burst of her former spirit.
"I confess it, Madame," conceded the ambassador; "but since I was not
commanded to do so, I beg that I may be forgiven should I decline to
obey you in the event of your requiring me to make any written
communication from yourself to the King my master."
"Enough!" said Marie de Medicis, with a gesture of impatience. "Listen.
The afflictions which I have undergone since I took refuge in the Low
Countries have inspired me with very different feelings from those with
which I left Compiègne. I beg you to inform the Cardinal that I entreat
of him to deliver me from the miserable position in which I now find
myself, and from the bitter necessity of soliciting my bread from my
sons-in-law. I desire to be once more near the King. I do not ask for
either power or authority; all that I require is to pass the remainder
of my days in peace, and in preparing myself for death. If the Cardinal
cannot obtain the permission of the King for my return to Court, let him
at least request that I may be allowed to reside in some city within the
kingdom, and be restored to the possession of my revenues. I offer to
dismiss from my household all such individuals as may be obnoxious to
his Majesty, and to obey him in all things without comment. His orders
and the advice of the Cardinal shall regulate my conduct. This is all
that I require you to communicate to the latter; as I fear that those to
whom I have hitherto addressed myself have been deficient either in
courage or in will to perform the errand entrusted to them."
Bellièvre hesitated for a moment. There was a tearful tremor in the
voice of the persecuted Princess which it required all his diplomacy to
resist; but he soon rallied. "Madame," he replied calmly, "your Majesty
shall have no reason to visit the same reproach on me, for it is with
extreme regret that I protest my utter inability to serve you on this
occasion."
"I fully comprehend the value of your frankness, M. de Bellièvre," said
the Queen-mother, as she raised herself to her full height, and fixed
upon him her dark and searching eyes. "Such is the usual style of
ambassadors. They decline to undertake certain commissions, but they
nevertheless report all that has taken place. I had experience of that
fact more than once during my regency."
Having uttered these biting words, Marie de Medicis turned from the
discomfited courtier, and approached the window to which Charles I. and
his Queen had retired; followed, however, by Bellièvre.
"Your Majesties must permit me," he said firmly, "to repeat in your
presence what I have already declared to the mother of my sovereign. I
dare not undertake the mission with which she desires to honour me. You
will, without doubt, remember, Madame," he added, turning towards
Henriette, whose emotion was uncontrollable, "that you have on several
occasions commanded me to write in your name in behalf of the
Queen-mother; and that I have always entreated of your Majesty not to
insist on my obedience, in consequence of the stringent orders which I
have received to avoid all interference in an affair of which the King
my master desires to reserve the exclusive management."
"I do not deny it, sir," said Henriette with dignity; "but since my
royal brother will not consent to listen to any solicitations in favour
of the Queen my mother, my husband and myself have conceived that the
only alternative which remains to her is to compel an explanation with
his ministers, with the participation of the several European Courts in
which she may see fit to reside."
Again M. de Bellièvre declared his utter inability to meet the wishes of
the persecuted Marie; upon which Charles, coldly bending his head to the
French envoy, offered a hand to each of the agitated Queens, and led
them from the gallery.
Despite all his professions of neutrality, however, Bellièvre, as Marie
de Medicis had predicted, lost no time in communicating all the details
of the interview to Richelieu,[222] who forthwith dictated a private
despatch, to which he obtained the signature of Louis, to repulse the
demand of the Queen-mother. The Cardinal had passed the Rubicon. He
could no longer hope that his persecuted benefactress would ever again
place confidence in his protestations, or quietly permit him to exert
the authority which he had so arrogantly assumed; and thus he readily
persuaded the weak monarch--who had, moreover, long ceased to reason
upon the will of his all-powerful minister--that the return of the
ill-fated Marie to France would be the signal of intestine broil and
foreign aggression. In vain did Henrietta of England address letter
after letter to her royal brother, representing the evil impression
which so prolonged a persecution of their common parent had produced
upon the minds of all the European princes; the fiat of Richelieu had
gone forth; and the only result obtained by the filial anxiety of the
English Queen was a series of plausible replies, in which she was
complimented upon her good intentions, but at the same time requested
not to interfere in the private arrangements of the King her brother.
Desirous, nevertheless, of escaping the odium of so unnatural and
revolting an abandonment of his royal benefactress, the Cardinal caused
a council to be assembled to consider her demand, and to deliberate upon
the measures to be adopted in consequence; declaring his own intention
to maintain a strict neutrality, and instructing the several members to
deliver to him their opinions in writing. All had, however, been
previously concerted; before the meeting assembled Richelieu informed
his coadjutors that the King had voluntarily declared that no reliance
was to be placed upon the professions of the Queen-mother, as she had on
many previous occasions acted with great dissimulation, and that it was
not in her nature long to remain satisfied with any place in which she
might take up her abode; that she could not make herself happy in
France, where she was both powerful and honoured; that she had been
constantly discontented in Flanders, although she had adopted that
country as her own; that she had lived in perpetual hostility with the
Duc d'Orléans after having induced him to quit the kingdom; and that she
was even then at variance with the Princesse Marguerite, although she
had countenanced her marriage with Monsieur in opposition to the will of
the sovereign; that she had not gone to Holland without some hostile
motive to himself and his kingdom; and that she was already becoming
weary of England.
Moreover, as the Cardinal further informed them, Louis XIII had himself
asserted that since her Majesty had failed to content herself with the
exalted position which she had at one time filled in France, it was not
to be anticipated that she would rest satisfied with that which, should
she return, she must hereafter occupy; but would once more become a
rallying point for all the malcontents who were formerly her
adherents.[223]
Thus prompted, the members of the council readily came to the conclusion
"that the King could not with safety decide upon the proposition of the
Queen-mother until the establishment of a solid peace had placed the
intentions of that Princess beyond suspicion, being aware of her
intelligence with the enemies of his kingdom; and that, from the same
motive, as well as from the apprehension that she might be induced to
make an ill use of her revenues, they were of opinion that they should
only be restored to her on the condition that she should fix her future
residence at Florence." [224]
This was, as we have already shown, the invariable expedient of
Richelieu, who was aware that the prospect of the Queen-mother's return
to France was not more repugnant to himself than the idea of retiring in
disgrace and dishonour to her birthplace had ever been to his unhappy
victim; and the proposal was accordingly repeated at every opportunity,
because the minister was aware that it would never be accepted; while it
afforded, from its apparent liberality, a pretext for casting the whole
odium of her prolonged exile upon Marie de Medicis herself.
In order to carry out the vast schemes of his ambition, the Cardinal
had, at this period, reduced the monarch to a mere cypher in his own
kingdom; but he could not, nevertheless, blind himself to the fact that
Louis XIII, who was weak rather than wicked, had frequent scruples of
conscience, and that during those moments of reflection and remorse he
was easily influenced by those about him; while, whenever this occurred,
he evinced a disposition to revolt against the ministerial authority
which alarmed the Cardinal, and compelled him to be constantly upon his
guard. After having throughout fifteen years successfully struggled
against the spread of Calvinism, and that remnant of feudal anarchy
which still lingered in France; humbled the House of Austria, his most
dreaded rival; and, in order to aggrandize the state he served, sowed
the seeds of revolution in every other European nation, and thus
compelled their rulers to concentrate all their energies upon
themselves, he was now constrained to descend to meaner measures, and to
enact the spy upon his sovereign; lest in some unlucky moment the
edifice, which it had cost him so mighty an amount of time and talent
to erect, should be overthrown by a breath.
True, Marie de Medicis was an exile and a wanderer; the royal brothers,
through his means, alienated in heart; discord and suspicion rife
between the monarch and his neglected wife; while even the first passion
of the King's youth had been quenched by Richelieu's iron will. The
affection of Louis XIII for Mademoiselle de la Fayette--an affection
which did equal honour to both parties from its notorious and
unquestioned propriety, but which has been too frequently recorded to
require more than a passing allusion--had been crossed and thwarted; the
fair maid of honour loved and respected Anne of Austria as much as she
feared and loathed the Cardinal-Minister; and she was accordingly an
obstacle and a stumbling-block to be removed from his path. She also was
immured in a cloister, and was consequently no longer dangerous as a
rival in the good graces of the King; yet still Richelieu was far from
tranquil; and the _petit coucher_ of the King was to him a subject of
unceasing apprehension. He was well aware that Louis was as unstable as
he was distrustful; and thus a new mistress, a new favourite, or even a
passing caprice, might, when he was totally unprepared for such an
event, suffice to annihilate his best-considered projects.
Poor Marie! Under such circumstances as these all her efforts at
conciliation were vain; and it is probable that she would have sunk
under the conviction, had not her failing courage been sustained by the
affectionate and earnest representations of her daughter, Henrietta
of England.
FOOTNOTES:
[215] Le Clerc, vol. ii. pp. 197, 198. Sismondi, vol. xxiii. pp. 253,
254. Siri, _Mém. Rec_. vol. viii. p. 354.
[216] Siri, _Mém. Rec_. vol. viii. p. 272. Le Clerc, vol. ii. pp.
202-207.
[217] Le Vassor, vol. viii. pp. 516, 517.
[218] Le Vassor, vol. ix. pp. 154-160.
[219] Mézeray, vol. xi. pp. 489, 490.
[220] Siri, _Mém. Rec_. vol. viii. p. 639. Sismondi, vol. xxiii. pp.
362, 363.
[221] Bibliothèque Royale. MSS. de Colbert, entitled _Affaires de
France_, No. 2, 1638.
[222] Despatch of Bellièvre of the 29th of December. MSS. de Colbert,
No. 26.
[223] _MSS. de Béthune_, quoted by Capefigue.
[224] Bazin, vol. iv. p. 130. Le Vassor, vol. ix. pp. 35-40. Capefigue,
vol. v. pp. 342-346. Sismondi, vol. xxiii. pp. 367-369. Mézeray, vol.
xi. pp. 499-501. Le Clerc, vol. ii. pp. 352-354.