CHAPTER I

[Illustration: MARIE DE MEDICIS, SECOND QUEEN OF HENRY IV OF FRANCE.]

THE LIFE

OF

MARIE DE MEDICIS

Queen of France

CONSORT OF HENRI IV, AND REGENT OF THE

KINGDOM UNDER LOUIS XIII

BY

JULIA PARDOE

AUTHOR OF

'LOUIS XIV AND THE COURT OF FRANCE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY,'

'THE COURT AND REIGN OF FRANCIS THE FIRST,' ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOL. I

1890

TO

MR. AND MRS. CHARLES BECKET

(OF HEVER COURT, KENT)

These Volumes

ARE VERY AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

BY

THE AUTHOR

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

All the existing records of European royalty do not, probably, comprise

the annals of a life of greater vicissitude than that which has been

chosen as the subject of the present work. We find numerous examples in

history of Queens who have suffered exile, imprisonment, and death; but

we believe that the unfortunate Marie de Medicis is the only

authenticated instance of a total abandonment on the part alike of her

family and friends, which terminated almost in starvation. Certain it is

that after having occupied the throne of France, presided over its

Councils, and given birth to the ancestor of a long line of Princes, she

was ultimately indebted to the sympathy and attachment of a foreign

artist, of whom she had once been the zealous patron, for a roof under

which to terminate her miserable existence! The whole life of this

ill-fated Queen is, indeed, full of startling contrasts from which the

mind shrinks back appalled; and her entire career is so freighted with

alternate grandeur and privation that it is difficult to reconcile the

possibility of their having fallen to the share of the same individual;

and this too in an age when France, above all other nations, boasted of

its chivalry, and when some of the greatest names that have ever figured

in its annals gave grace and glory to its history.

The times were, moreover, as remarkable as the men by whom they were

illustrated; for despite the civil and foreign wars by which they were

so unhappily distinguished, the arts flourished, and the spread of

political liberty became apparent; although it is equally certain that

they were at the same time fatal alike to the aristocracy and to the

magistrature; and that they rapidly paved the way to the absolutism of

Louis XIV, to the shameless saturnalia of the Regency, and to the

dishonouring and degrading excesses of Louis XV, who may justly be said

to have prepared by his licentiousness the scaffold of his successor.

During several centuries the French monarchs had indulged in a blind

egotism, which rendered them unable to appreciate the effects of their

own errors upon their subjects. L'ÉTAT C'EST MOI had unfortunately been

practically their ruling principle long ere Louis XIV ventured to put it

into words. To them the Court was the universe, the aristocracy the

nation, and the Church the corner-stone of the proud altar upon which

they had enthroned themselves, and beyond which they cared not either to

look or listen. A fatal mistake fatally expiated! Yet, as we have

already remarked, the system, dangerous and hollow as it was, endured

for centuries--endured until crime was heaped on crime, and the fearful

holocaust towered towards Heaven as if to appeal for vengeance. And that

vengeance came! It had been long delayed; so long indeed that when the

brilliant courtiers of Versailles were told of disaffection among the

masses, and warned to conciliate ere it was too late the goodwill of

their inferiors, they listened with contemptuous carelessness to the

tardy caution, and scorned to place themselves in competition with those

untitled classes whom they had long ceased to regard as their

fellow-men. But the voice of the people is like the stroke of the hammer

upon the anvil; it not only makes itself heard, but, however great may

be the original resistance, finishes by fashioning the metal upon which

it falls after its own will.

During the reign of Louis XIII this great and fatal truth had not yet

been impressed upon the French nation, for the popular voice was stifled

beneath the ukase of despotism; and even the _tiers-état_--important as

the loyalty of that portion of a kingdom must ever be to its

rulers--were treated with disdain and contumely; but beneath all the

workings of his government (or rather the government of his minister,

for the son of Marie de Medicis was a monarch only in name), may be

traced the undercurrent of popular indignation and discontent, which,

gradually swelling and rising during the two succeeding reigns, finally

overthrew with its giant waves the last frail barrier which still

upreared itself before a time-honoured throne.

The incapacity of the King, the venality of the Princes, the arrogance

of the hierarchy, the insubordination of the nobles, the licentiousness

of the Court, the despotism of the Government; all the errors and all

the vices of their rulers, were jealously noted and bitterly registered

by an oppressed and indignant people; but it required time to shake off

a yoke which had been so long borne that it had eaten into the flesh;

nor, moreover, were the minds of the masses in that age sufficiently

awakened to a sense of their own collective power to enable them, as

they did in the following century, to measure their strength with those

upon whom they had been so long accustomed to look with fear and awe.

There cannot, moreover, exist the slightest doubt that the wantonness

with which Richelieu, in furtherance of his own private interests,

poured out so freely on the scaffold some of the proudest blood of

France, did much towards destroying that prestige which had hitherto

environed the high nobility. When Biron perished upon the block,

although his death was decreed by the sovereign, and that sovereign,

moreover, was their own idolized Henri IV, the people marvelled and even

murmured; but in after-years they learned through the teaching of the

Cardinal that nobles were merely men; while the exile of the persecuted

Marie de Medicis, and the privations to which she was exposed through

his agency, taught them that even royalty itself was not invulnerable to

the malice or vengeance of its opponents; and unhappily for those by

whom Richelieu was succeeded in power, the lesson brought forth its

fruits in due season.

Thus much premised, I shall confine myself to a brief explanation of the

manner in which I have endeavoured to perform my self-imposed task. For

one wilful, but as I trust excusable, inaccuracy, I throw myself on the

indulgence of my critics. Finding my pages already overloaded with

names, and that they must consequently induce a considerable strain upon

the memory of such readers as might not chance to be intimately

acquainted with the domestic history of the period under consideration,

I have, from the commencement of the work, designated the Duc de Sully

by the title which he ultimately attained, and by which he is

universally known, rather than confuse the mind of my readers by

allusions to M. de Béthune, M. de Rosny, and finally M. de Sully, when

each and all merely signified the same individual; and I feel persuaded

that this arrangement will be generally regarded as a judicious one,

inasmuch as it tends to lessen a difficulty already sufficiently great;

a fact which will be at once apparent on reference to the biographical

table at the head of each volume.

On the other hand I have, contrary to my previous system, but in justice

to myself, carefully, and even perhaps somewhat elaborately, multiplied

the footnotes, in order to give with precision the several authorities

whence I deduced my facts; and I must be excused should this caution

appear uselessly tedious or pedantic to the general reader, as I am

anxious on this occasion to escape the accusation which was once brought

against me when it was equally undeserved, of having "quoted at

secondhand," and even drawn my materials from "historical romances of

the time." It is, of course, easy to make assertions of this nature at

random; but when a writer feels that he or she has conscientiously

performed a duty voluntarily undertaken, it is painful to be misjudged;

especially when, as in the present instance, nearly three years have

been devoted to the work.

For the facsimile letters by which my volumes are enriched I am indebted

to the kindness of M. de la Plane, a member of the Institut Royal de

France, of whose extensive and valuable cabinet of ancient records they

now form a part; and by whom their publication was obligingly

authorized. The authenticity of these letters admits of no doubt, as it

is known that they originally formed a portion of the rich collection of

autographs in the possession of the Maréchal de Bassompierre, to whom

they were severally addressed; and that at his death they were

transferred to the library of the Fathers of the Oratory at St. Magloire

in Paris; whence (it is believed at the Revolution) they fell into the

hands of a member of that celebrated society, Le Père de Mevolhon,

formerly Canon and Vicar-General of the diocese of St. Omer, by whom

they were presented to M. de la Plane.

At the time when he so kindly entrusted to me the letters above named,

the same obliging friend also confided to my care, with full permission

to make whatever use of it I should see fit, an unpublished MS.

consisting of nearly twelve thousand pages closely written, and divided

into twenty-four volumes small quarto, all undeniably the work of one

hand. This elaborate MS. was entitled "Memoirs of M. le Commandeur de

Rambure, Captain of the regiment of French Guards, Gentleman of the

Bedchamber under the Kings Henri IV, Louis XIII, and Louis XIV surnamed

the Great, with all the most memorable events which took place during

the reigns of those three Majesties, from the year 1594 to that

of 1660."

The author of this voluminous MS., who, at the age of eighty-one,

inscribes his work to his _uncle_, Monseigneur de Rambure, Bishop of

Vannes, and who professes to have ventured thus tardily upon his

Herculean undertaking at the request, and for the instruction, of his

nephew the Marquis de Rambure, lays strict injunctions upon his

successors to keep the record of his life to themselves; alleging as his

reason a dread of injuring by his revelations the interests of the young

courtier, who had succeeded to his own post of Gentleman of the

Bedchamber; "and that," as he proceeds to say, "to the greatest King in

the world, by whom he has the honour to be loved and esteemed; therefore

I pray you that this writing may never be printed, in order not to make

him enemies, who are too ready to come without being sought by our

imprudence; and because I have only composed these Memoirs for myself

and my kindred." [1]

The author states that the work is not in his own handwriting, but in

that of his secretary, to whom he dictated during eleven years four

hours each day, two in the morning, and two in the afternoon--and that

he commenced his formidable task in the year 1664, when he was living in

retirement in his Commanderie of St. Eugène in Limousin; and, despite

his advanced age, "in possession of all his faculties as perfectly as

when he had only reached his twenty-fifth year."

It is but recently that the present proprietor of the Memoirs, rightly

judging that the time has elapsed in which the disclosures of the

chronicler in question could conduce to the injury of any one connected

with him, has consented to permit of their perusal; and that only by a

few literary friends, all of whom have been astonished by their

extraordinary variety of information, marvellous detail, and intimate

acquaintance, not only with the principal events of the seventeenth

century (the writer having lived to the patriarchal age of ninety-six

years), but also with the leading actors in each of them.

In conclusion, I may say that these volumes are, through the kindness of

MM. d'Inguimbert and de la Plane, enriched by numerous curious extracts

from these unpublished Memoirs, no part of which has previously

appeared in print.

LONDON, _May_ 1852.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This curious manuscript is at present the property of the Comte

d'Inguimbert d'Avignon; who, having lost his father at an early age, is

not aware of the precise manner in which it fell into the possession of

his family. Thus much, however, is certain, that it has for a

considerable length of time been religiously preserved by his ancestors;

and that the Countess his mother (sister of the last Comte de Bruges,

aide-de-camp to Charles X), who died a few years ago at an advanced age,

had never ventured, in obedience to the injunction above mentioned, to

entrust it to any one.--J.P.

CONTENTS

BOOK I

MARIE DE MEDICIS AS QUEEN

CHAPTER I

1572-99

Marriages of Henri IV--Marguerite de Valois--Her character--Her marriage

with the King of Navarre--Massacre of Saint Bartholomew--Henri, Duc

d'Anjou, elected sovereign of Poland--Death of Charles IX--Accession of

Henri III--Conspiracy of the Duc d'Alençon--Revealed by

Marguerite--Henry of Navarre escapes from the French Court--Henry of

Navarre protests against his enforced oath--Marguerite is imprisoned by

her brother--The Duc d'Alençon returns to his allegiance--Marguerite

joins her husband in Béarn--Domestic discord--Marriage-portion of

Marguerite--Court of Navarre--Dupin insults the Queen of

Navarre--Catherine de Medicis induces Marguerite to return to

France--The Duc d'Alençon again revolts--Marguerite arrests a royal

courier--She is banished with ignominy from the French Court--She is

deprived of her attendants--Henry of Navarre refuses to receive her in

the palace--Marguerite returns to Agen--Her licentiousness--Agen is

stormed and taken by the Maréchal de Matignon--Marguerite escapes to the

fortress of Carlat--The inhabitants of the town resolve to deliver her

up to the French King--She is made prisoner by the Marquis de Canillac,

and conveyed to Usson--She seduces the governor of the fortress--Death

of the Duc d'Alençon--Poverty of Marguerite--Accession of Henri IV--He

embraces the Catholic faith--His dissipated habits--The Duc de Bouillon

heads the Huguenot party--Henri IV proceeds to Brittany, and threatens

M. de Bouillon--Festivities at Rennes--Henri IV becomes melancholy--He

resolves to divorce Marguerite, and take a second wife--European

princesses--Henry desires to marry la belle Gabrielle--Sully

expostulates--Sully proposes a divorce to Marguerite--The Duchesse de

Beaufort intrigues to prevent the marriage of the King with Marie de

Medicis--She bribes Sillery--Diplomacy of Sillery--Gabrielle aspires to

the throne of France--Her death--Marguerite consents to a divorce--The

Pope declares the nullity of her marriage--Grief of the King at the

death of Gabrielle--Royal pleasures--A new intrigue--Mademoiselle

d'Entragues--Her tact--Her character--A love-messenger--Value of a royal

favourite--Costly indulgences--A practical rebuke--Diplomacy of

Mademoiselle d'Entragues--The written promise--Mademoiselle d'Entragues

is created Marquise de Verneuil.

CHAPTER II

1599-1601

Sully resolves to hasten the King's marriage--Ambassadors are sent to

Florence to demand the hand of Marie de Medicis--The marriage articles

are signed--Indignation of Madame de Verneuil--Revenge of her brother,

the Comte d'Auvergne--The Duke of Savoy visits Paris--His reception--His

profusion--His mission fails--Court poets--Marie de Medicis is married

to the French King by procuration at Florence--Hostile demonstrations of

the Duke of Savoy--Infatuation of the King for the favourite--Her

pretensions--A well-timed tempest--Diplomacy of Madame de Verneuil--Her

reception at Lyons--War in Savoy--Marie de Medicis lands at

Marseilles--Madame de Verneuil returns to Paris--The Duc de Bellegarde

is proxy for the King at Florence--He escorts the new Queen to

France--Portrait of Marie de Medicis--Her state-galley--Her voyage--Her

reception--Henry reaches Lyons--The royal interview--Public

rejoicings--The royal marriage--Henry returns to Paris--The Queen's

jealousy is awakened--Profligate habits of the King--Marie's Italian

attendants embitter her mind against her husband--Marie reaches

Paris--She holds a court--Presentation of Madame de Verneuil to the

Queen--Indignation of Marie--Disgrace of the Duchesse de

Nemours--Self-possession of Madame de Verneuil--Marie takes possession

of the Louvre--She adopts the French costume--Splendour of the

Court--Festival given by Sully--A practical joke--Court

festivities--Excessive gambling--Royal play debts--The Queen's

favourite--A petticoat intrigue--Leonora Galigaï appointed Mistress of

the Robes--Reconciliation between the Queen and Madame de Verneuil--The

King gives the Marquise a suite of apartments in the Louvre--Her rivalry

of the Queen--Indignation of Marie--Domestic dissensions--The Queen and

the favourite are again at war--Madame de Verneuil effects the marriage

of Concini and Leonora--Gratitude of the Queen--Birth of the

Dauphin--Joy of the King--Public rejoicings--Birth of Anne of

Austria--Superstitions of the period--Belief in astrology--A royal

anecdote--Horoscope of the Dauphin--The sovereign and the surgeon--Birth

of Gaston Henri, son of Madame de Verneuil--Public entry of the Dauphin

into Paris--Exultation of Marie de Medicis.

CHAPTER III

1602

Court festivities--The Queen's ballet--A gallant prelate--A poetical

almoner--Insolence of the royal favourite--Unhappiness of the

Queen--Weakness of Henry--Intrigue of Madame de Villars--The King

quarrels with the favourite--They are reconciled--Madame de Villars is

exiled, and the Prince de Joinville sent to join the army in

Hungary--Mortification of the Queen--Her want of judgment--New

dissension in the royal ménage--Sully endeavours to restore

peace--Mademoiselle de Sourdis--The Court removes to Blois--Royal

rupture--A bewildered minister--Marie and her foster-sister--Conspiracy

of the Ducs de Bouillon and de Biron--Parallel between the two

nobles--The Comte d'Auvergne--Ingratitude of Biron--He is betrayed--His

arrogance--He is summoned to the capital to justify himself--He refuses

to obey the royal summons--Henry sends a messenger to command his

presence at Court--Precautionary measures of Sully--The President

Jeannin prevails over the obstinacy of Biron--Double treachery of La

Fin--The King endeavours to induce Biron to confess his crime--Arrest of

the Duc de Biron and the Comte d'Auvergne--The royal soirée--A timely

caution--Biron is made prisoner by Vitry, and the Comte d'Auvergne by

Praslin--They are conveyed separately to the Bastille--Exultation of the

citizens--Firmness of the King--Violence of Biron--Tardy

repentance--Trial of Biron--A scene in the Bastille--Condemnation of the

Duke--He is beheaded--The subordinate conspirators are pardoned--The Duc

de Bouillon retires to Turenne--Refuses to appear at Court--Execution of

the Baron de Fontenelles--A salutary lesson--The Comte d'Auvergne is

restored to liberty--Revolt of the Prince de Joinville--He is treated

with contempt by the King--He is imprisoned by the Duc de Guise--Removal

of the Court to Fontainbleau--Legitimation of the son of Madame de

Verneuil--Unhappiness of the Queen--She is consoled by Sully--Birth of

the Princesse Elisabeth de France--Disappointment of the

Queen--Soeur Ange.

CHAPTER IV

1603-4

Court festivities--Madame de Verneuil is lodged in the palace--She gives

birth to a daughter--Royal quarrels--Mademoiselle de Guise--Italian

actors--Revolt at Metz--Henry proceeds thither and suppresses the

rebellion--Discontent of the Duc d'Epernon--The Duchesse de Bar and the

Duc de Lorraine arrive in France--Illness of Queen Elizabeth of

England--Her death--Indisposition of the French King--Sully at

Fontainebleau--Confidence of Henri IV in his wife--His recovery--Renewed

passion of Henry for Madame de Verneuil--Anger of the Queen--Quarrel of

the Comte de Soissons and the Duc de Sully--The edict--Treachery of

Madame de Verneuil--Insolence of the Comte de Soissons--A royal

rebuke--Alarm of Madame de Verneuil--Hopes of the Queen--Jealousy of the

Marquise--The dinner at Rosny--The King pacifies the province of Lower

Normandy--The Comte de Soissons prepares to leave the kingdom--Is

dissuaded by the King--Official apology of Sully--Reception of

Alexandre-Monsieur into the Order of the Knights of Malta--Death of the

Duchesse de Bar--Grief of the King--The Papal Nuncio--Treachery near the

throne--A revelation--The Duc de Villeroy--A stormy audience--Escape of

L'Hôte--His pursuit--His death--Ignominious treatment of his

body--Madame de Verneuil asserts her claim to the hand of the King--The

Comte d'Auvergne retires from the Court--Madame de Verneuil requests

permission to quit France--Reply of the King--Indignation of Marie--The

King resolves to obtain the written promise of marriage--Insolence

of the favourite--Weakness of Henry--He asks the advice of

Sully--Parallel between a wife and a mistress--A lame apology--The two

Henrys--Reconciliation between the King and the favourite--Remonstrances

of Sully--A delicate dilemma--Extravagance of the Queen--The "Pot de

Vin"--The royal letter--Evil influences--Henry endeavours to effect a

reconciliation with the Queen--Difficult diplomacy--A temporary

calm--Renewed differences--A minister at fault--Mademoiselle de la

Bourdaisière--Mademoiselle de Bueil--Jealousy of Madame de

Verneuil--Conspiracy of the Comte d'Auvergne--Intemperance of the

Queen--Timely interference--Confidence accorded by the Queen to Sully--A

dangerous suggestion--Sully reconciles the royal couple--Madame de

Verneuil is exiled from the Court--She joins the conspiracy of her

brother--The forged contract--Apology of the Comte d'Entragues--Promises

of Philip of Spain to the conspirators--Duplicity of the Comte

d'Auvergne--He is pardoned by the King--His treachery suspected by M. de

Loménie--D'Auvergne escapes to his government--Is made prisoner and

conveyed to the Bastille--His self-confidence--A devoted wife--The

requirements of a prisoner--Hidden documents--The treaty with Spain--The

Comtesse d'Entragues--Haughty demeanour of Madame de Verneuil--The

mistress and the minister--Mortification of Sully--Marriage of

Mademoiselle de Bueil--Henry embellishes the city of Paris and

undertakes other great national works.

CHAPTER V

1605

Trial of the conspirators--Pusillanimity of the Comte

d'Auvergne--Arrogant attitude assumed by Madame de Verneuil--She refuses

to offer any defence--Defence of the Comte d'Entragues--The two nobles

are condemned to death--Madame de Verneuil is sentenced to imprisonment

for life in a convent--A mother's intercession--The King commutes the

sentence of death passed on the two nobles to exile from the Court and

imprisonment for life--Expostulations of the Privy Council--Madame de

Verneuil is permitted to retire to her estate--Disappointment of the

Queen--Marriage of the Duc de Rohan--Singular ceremony--A tilt at the

Louvre--Bassompierre is dangerously wounded--His convalescence--Death of

Clement VIII--Election of Leo XI--His sudden death--Election of Paul

V--The Comte d'Entragues is authorized to return to Marcoussis--Madame

de Verneuil is pardoned and recalled--Marriage of the Prince de

Conti--Mademoiselle de Guise--Marriage of the Prince of Orange--The

ex-Queen Marguerite--She arrives in Paris--Gratitude of the King--Her

reception--Murder at the Hôtel de Sens--Execution of the

criminal--Marguerite removes to the Faubourg St. Germain--The King

condoles with her on the loss of her favourite--Her dissolute

career--Her able policy--Death of M. de la Rivière--Execution of M. de

Merargues--Attempt to assassinate Henri IV--Magnanimity of the

monarch--Henry seeks to initiate the Queen into the mysteries of

government--_Madame la Régente_--A timely warning.

CHAPTER VI

1606

New Year's Day at Court--The royal tokens--A singular audience--A

proposition--Birth of the Princesse Christine--Public festivities--A

ballet on horseback--The King resolves to humble the Duc de

Bouillon--Arguments of the Queen--Policy of Henry--The Court proceeds to

Torcy--Surrender of Bouillon--The sovereigns enter Sedan--Rejoicings of

the citizens--State entry into Paris--The High Court of Justice assigns

to the ex-Queen Marguerite the county of Auvergne--The "Te

Deum"--Marguerite makes a donation of her recovered estates to the

Dauphin--Inconsistencies of Marguerite--The Queen's jealousy of Madame

de Moret--Increasing coldness of the King towards that lady--The frail

rivals--Princely beacons--Indignation of the Queen--Narrow escape of the

King and Queen--Gratitude of the Queen to her preserver--Insolent

pleasantry of the Marquise de Verneuil--A disappointment

compensated---Marriage of the Duc de Bar--The King invites the Duchess

of Mantua to become sponsor to the Dauphin, and the Duc de Lorraine to

the younger Princess--_The Mantuan suite_--Preparations at

Notre-Dame--The plague in Paris--The Court removes to Fontainebleau--The

royal christenings--Increase of the plague--Royal disappointments--The

Duchesse de Nevers--Discourtesy of the King--Dignity of the Duchess.

CHAPTER VII

1607-8

Profuse expenditure of the French nobles--Prevalence of duelling under

Henri IV--Meeting of the Prince de Condé and the Duc de Nevers--They are

arrested by the King's guard--Reconciliation of the two nobles--The Duc

de Soubise is wounded in a duel--Profligacy of Madame de Moret--The King

insists upon her marriage with the Prince de Joinville--Indignation of

the Duchesse de Guise--A dialogue with Majesty--The Prince de Joinville

is exiled--Madame de Moret intrigues with the Comte de Sommerive--He

promises her marriage--He attempts to assassinate M. de Balagny--He is

exiled to Lorraine--Mademoiselle des Essarts--Birth of the Duc

d'Orléans--Peace between the Pope and the Venetians--The Queen and her

confidants--Death of the Chancellor of France--Death of the Cardinal de

Lorraine--Royal rejoicings--The last ballet of a dying Prince--Betrothal

of Mademoiselle de Montpensier to the infant Duc d'Orléans--Sully as a

theatrical manager--The Court gamester--Death of the Duc de

Montpensier--The ex-Queen Marguerite founds a monastery--Influence of

Concini and Leonora over the Queen--Arrogance of Concini--Indignation of

the King--A royal rupture--The King leaves Paris for Chantilly--Sully

and the Queen--The letter--Anger of the King--Sully reconciles the King

and Queen--Madame de Verneuil and the Duc de Guise--Court

gambling--Birth of the Duc d'Anjou--Betrothal of the Duc de Vendôme and

Mademoiselle de Mercoeur--Reluctance of the lady's family--Celebration

of the marriage--Munificence of Henry--Arrival of Don Pedro de

Toledo--His arrogance--Admirable rejoinder of the King--Object of the

embassy--Passion of Henry for hunting--Embellishment of Paris--Eduardo

Fernandez--The King's debts of honour--Despair of Madame de

Verneuil--Defective policy--A bold stroke for a coronet--The

fallen favourite.

CHAPTER VIII

1609-10

Death of the Grand Duke of Tuscany--The Queen's ballet--Mademoiselle de

Montmorency--Description of her person--She is betrothed to

Bassompierre--Indignation of the Duc de Bouillon--Contrast between the

rivals--The Duc de Bellegarde excites the curiosity of the King--The

nymph of Diana--The rehearsal--Passion of the King for Mademoiselle de

Montmorency--The royal gout--Interposition of the Duc de

Roquelaure--Firmness of the Connétable--The ducal gout--Postponement of

the marriage--Diplomacy of Henry--The sick-room--An obedient

daughter--Henry resolves to prevent the marriage--The King and the

courtier--Lip-deep loyalty--Henry offers the hand of Mademoiselle de

Montmorency to the Prince de Condé--The regal pledge--The Prince de

Condé consents to espouse Mademoiselle de Montmorency--Invites

Bassompierre to his betrothal--Royal tyranny--A cruel pleasantry--The

betrothal--Court festivities--Happiness of the Queen--Royal presents to

the bride--The ex-Queen's ball--Jealousy of the Prince de

Condé--Indignation of the Queen--Henry revenges himself upon M. de

Condé--Madame de Condé retires from the Court--The King insists on her

return--The Prince de Condé feigns compliance--The Prince and Princess

escape to the Low Countries--The news of their flight reaches

Fontainebleau--Birth of a Princess--Unpleasant surprise--Henry betrays

his annoyance to the Queen--He assembles his ministers--He resolves to

compel the return of the Princess to France--Conflicting counsels--M. de

Praslin is despatched to Brussels--Embarrassment of the Archduke

Albert--He refuses an asylum to M. de Condé, who proceeds to

Milan--The Princess remains at Brussels--She is honourably

entertained--Interference of the Queen--Philip of Spain promises his

protection to the Prince de Condé--He is invited to return to

Brussels--The Marquis de Coeuvres endeavours to effect the return of the

Prince to France--His negotiation fails--Madame de Condé is placed under

surveillance--Her weariness of the Court of Brussels--The Duc de

Montmorency desires her return to Paris--M. de Coeuvres is authorized to

effect her escape from Brussels--The plot prospers--Indiscretion of the

King--The Queen informs the Spanish minister of the conspiracy--Madame

de Condé is removed to the Archducal palace--Mortification of the

King--The French envoys expostulate with the Archduke, who remains

firm--Henry resolves to declare war against Spain and Flanders--Fresh

negotiations--The King determines to head the army in person--Marie de

Medicis becomes Regent of France--She is counselled by Concini to urge

her coronation--Reluctance of the King to accede to her request--He

finally consents--"The best husband in the world"--Fatal

prognostics--Signs in the heavens--The Curé of Montargis--The Papal

warning--The Cardinal Barberino--The Sultan's message--Suspicious

circumstances--Supineness of the Austrian Cabinet--Prophecy of Anne de

Comans--Her miserable fate--The astrologer Thomassin--The Béarnais

noble--The Queen's dream--Royal presentiments--The hawthorn of the

Louvre--Distress of Bassompierre--Expostulation of the King--Melancholy

forebodings.

NOTE

_A brief memoir, with a portrait on steel, of Miss Pardoe will be found

prefixed to "The Court and Reign of Francis the First_."

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

OF

THE FIRST VOLUME

Duc de Guise (Henri de Lorraine, _Le Balafré_).

Duchesse de Guise.

Prince de Condé (Henri I. de Bourbon).

Ambroise Paré.

Mlle. de Torigni.

Duchesse de Bar.

Duc de Joyeuse.

Le Père Ange.

Maréchal de Matignon.

Marquis de Canillac.

Comtesse de Guiche.

Gabrielle d'Estrées (Duchesse de Beaufort).

Duc de Bouillon.

Comte d'Aubigny.

Isabella, Infanta of Spain.

Princess Arabella Stuart.

Isabeau de Bavière.

Prince Maurice of Orange.

Marie de Medicis.

Mlle. de Guise.

Mlle. de Mayenne.

Mlle. d'Aumale.

Mlle. de Longueville.

Mlle. de Rohan.

Mlle. de Luxembourg.

Mlle. de Guéménée.

Cardinal de Marquemont.

Cardinal d'Ossat.

Cardinal Duperron.

Duc de Piney-Luxembourg.

M. de Sillery.

Duc de Bellegarde.

Duc de Lude.

M. de Thermes.

Marquis de Castelnau.

Marquis de Montglat.

M. de Frontenac.

Baron de Bassompierre.

Marquise de Verneuil.

Queen Louise.

Comte d'Auvergne.

M. de Villeroy.

Duke of Savoy.

Duc de Biron.

Sebastian Zamet.

M. du Terrail.

Marquis de Créquy.

Duc de Montmorency (Henri I.).

Duc de Nemours.

Duc de Ventadour.

M. du Vair.

Le Père Suarés.

M. Albert de Bellièvre.

M. de Roquelaure.

Cardinal de Joyeuse.

Cardinal de Gondy.

Cardinal de Sourdis.

Marquis de Gondy.

Duchesse de Nemours.

Leonora Galigaï (Marquise d'Ancre).

Madame de Richelieu.

Concini (Maréchal d'Ancre).

Charles I., Cardinal de Bourbon.

Charles II, Cardinal de Bourbon.

M. de la Rivière.

Duc de Verneuil.

Duc de Vendôme.

M. de Berthault.

Prince de Joinville.

Mademoiselle de Sourdis.

Caterina Selvaggio.

Duc de la Trémouille.

Duc d'Epernon.

Condé de Fuentes.

Baron de Luz.

M. de la Fin.

M. Descures.

M. Jeannin.

Comte de Soissons (Charles de Bourbon-Conti).

Marquis de Vitry.

Marquis de Praslin.

Maréchal de Montigny.

M. de Montbarot.

Baron de Fontenelles.

Duc de Mayenne.

Duc de Guise (Charles de Lorraine).

Madame Elisabeth de France.

Mademoiselle de Bourbon.

M. de Sobole.

M. d'Arquien.

Duc de Deux-Ponts.

Comte de Beaumont.

M. de Bellefonds.

Comte de St. Pol.

Bishop of Nevers.

M. de Barrault.

Comte de Rochepot.

Comte de Brienne.

M. d'Argouges.

M. de Maisse.

M. de Gêvres.

Mademoiselle de Bueil.

M. de la Houssaye.

M. Murat.

M. de Nérestan.

Comtesse d'Auvergne.

M. Defunctis.

Marquis de Spinola.

Comtesse d'Entragues.

M. de Chevillard.

M. de la Varenne.

M. du Plessis-Mornay.

M. Achille de Harlay.

M. Servin.

Mademoiselle d'Entragues.

Duc de Rohan.

Comte de Laval.

Baron de Thermes.

M. de Saint-Luc.

Comte de Sault.

Clement VIII.

Paul V.

Comte de Giury.

Princess of Orange.

Bishop of Bourges.

M. de Merargues.

Madame de Drou.

Mademoiselle de Piolant.

Madame Christine de France.

Comte de Sommerive.

Duc de Nevers.

Duc de Montpensier.

Baron de la Châtaigneraie.

Duchess of Mantua.

Leo XI.

Baron de la Châtre.

Comte de Liancourt.

Maréchal de Fervaques.

Marquis de Bois-Dauphin.

Marquis de Lavardin.

Duc de Montbazon.

Duchesse d'Angoulême.

Prince de Vaudemont.

Marquis de Rosny.

Duchesse de Montpensier.

Duchesse de Nevers.

Duc de Soubise.

Comte de Moret.

M. de Balagny.

Mademoiselle des Essarts.

Comte de Beaumont-Harlay.

Cardinal de Guise.

Cardinal de Lorraine.

Mademoiselle de Montpensier.

Gaston Jean Baptiste de France.

Mademoiselle de Mercoeur.

Don Pedro de Toledo.

Mademoiselle de Montmorency.

Seigneur de Montespan.

Comte d'Elbène.

Marquis de Coeuvres.

Marquis de Gêvres.

Duc de la Force.

Archduke of Austria.

M. de Châteauneuf.

Madame Henriette de France.

M. de Preau.

ILLUSTRATIONS

VOL. I

1. MARIE DE MEDICIS, SECOND QUEEN OF HENRY IV OF FRANCE.

2. HENRI DE LORRAINE, DUC DE GUISE. Engraved by Hopwood.

3. THE EVE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW. Engraved by Follet from a Painting by

Raffet.

4. GABRIELLE D'ESTRÉES.

5. MARÉCHAL DE BIRON. Engraved by Colin from the Original by Gallait.

6. DUC DE SULLY. Engraved by Hopwood.

7. MARIE DE MEDICIS.

BOOK I

MARIE DE MEDICIS AS QUEEN

THE LIFE

OF

MARIE DE MEDICIS

CHAPTER I

1572

Marriages of Henri IV--Marguerite de Valois--Her character--Her marriage

with the King of Navarre--Massacre of Saint Bartholomew--Henri, Duc

d'Anjou, elected sovereign of Poland--Death of Charles IX--Accession of

Henri III--Conspiracy of the Duc d'Alençon--Revealed by

Marguerite--Henry of Navarre escapes from the French Court--Henry of

Navarre protests against his enforced oath--Marguerite is imprisoned by

her brother--The Duc d'Alençon returns to his allegiance--Marguerite

joins her husband at Béarn--Domestic discord--Marriage-portion of

Marguerite--Court of Navarre--Dupin insults the Queen of

Navarre--Catherine de Medicis induces Marguerite to return to

France--The Duc d'Alençon again revolts--Marguerite arrests a royal

courier--She is banished with ignominy from the French Court--She is

deprived of her attendants--Henry of Navarre refuses to receive her in

the palace--Marguerite returns to Agen--Her licentiousness--Agen is

stormed and taken by the Marshal de Matignon--Marguerite escapes to the

fortress of Carlat--The inhabitants of the town resolve to deliver her

up to the French King--She is made prisoner by the Marquis de Canillac,

and conveyed to Usson--She seduces the governor of the fortress--Death

of the Duc d'Alençon--Poverty of Marguerite--Accession of Henri IV--He

embraces the Catholic faith--His dissipated habits--The Duc de Bouillon

heads the Huguenot party--Henri IV proceeds to Brittany, and threatens

M. de Bouillon--Festivities at Rennes--Henri IV becomes melancholy--He

resolves to divorce Marguerite, and take a second wife--European

princesses--Henry desires to marry la belle Gabrielle--Sully

expostulates--Sully proposes a divorce to Marguerite--The Duchesse de

Beaufort intrigues to prevent the marriage of the King with Marie de

Medicis--She bribes Sillery--Diplomacy of Sillery--Gabrielle aspires to

the throne of France--Her death--Marguerite consents to a divorce--The

Pope declares the nullity of her marriage--Grief of the King at the

death of Gabrielle--Royal pleasures--A new intrigue--Mademoiselle

d'Entragues--Her tact--Her character--A love-messenger--Value of a royal

favourite--Costly indulgences--A practical rebuke--Diplomacy of

Mademoiselle d'Entragues--The written promise--Mademoiselle d'Entragues

is created Marquise de Verneuil.

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.

[Illustration: HENRI DE LORRAINE. Paris Richard Bentley and Son 1890]

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,[2] 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.[3]

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.[4] 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;[5] 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.[6]

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.[7] 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.[8]

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.

[Illustration: THE EVE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEU Paris: Richard Bentley and

Son 1890.]

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,[9] 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,[10] 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.[11]

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;[12] 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;" [13] 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,[14] 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." [15]

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,[16] 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,[17] and terminated his invectives by commanding her

instantly "to quit Paris, and rid the Court of her presence." [18]

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,[19] 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." [20] 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.[21] 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[22] in the name of Henri III.[23]

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,[24] who conveyed her

to the fortress of Usson.[25] 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?" [26]

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;[27] 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,[28]

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_[29] 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,[30] notwithstanding the

concessions which he had made to the Protestant party, had been recently

engaged, in conjunction with D'Aubigny[31] 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,[32] 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,[33] 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[34] 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;[35] 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,[36] 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;[37] 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,[38] of Aumale,[39] and of Longueville,[40]

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,[41] de Luxembourg,[42] or de Guéménée[43] 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."

[Illustration: GABRIELLE D'ESTRÉES. [Paris Richard Bentley and Son

1890]]

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." [44]

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,[45] d'Ossat,[46] and Duperron,[47] 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[48] 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,[49] 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.[50]

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 annullation 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,[51] 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[52] 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." [53]

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,[54] 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.[55]

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![56]

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[57], the Comte de Lude[58], MM. de Thermes[59],

de Castelnau[60], de Calosse, de Montglat,[61] de Frontenac,[62] and de

Bassompierre,[63] 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." [64]

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;[65] 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.[66]

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[67] at Chenonceaux, become

enamoured of Mademoiselle la Bourdaisière, one of her maids of

honour[68], 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.[69]

This _ultimatum_ amounted to no less than a hundred thousand crowns;[70]

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[71] 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;[72] 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." [73]

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!" [74] 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.[75]

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Henri de Lorraine, Duc de Guise, was the brother of Charles, Duc de

Mayenne, and of Louis, Cardinal de Guise. He was the chief of the

League, and excited a popular revolt on the day of the Barricades, in

the hope of possessing himself of the crown. Henri III caused him to be

assassinated at Blois, in the year 1588. He was distinguished as _le

Balafré_ by the people, in consequence of the deep scar of a wound

across the face by which he was disfigured.

[3] Catherine was the second daughter of François de Clèves, Duc de

Nevers, and of Marguerite de Bourbon-Vendôme, the aunt of Henri IV. Her

dower consisted of the county of Eu, in Normandy. She was twice married;

first to Antoine de Croi, Prince de Portien, by whom she had no issue;

and secondly, to Henri de Lorraine, Duc de Guise. She died in 1633, at

the age of eighty-five years.

[4] She heard three masses every day, one high and two low ones, and

took the holy communion each week on the Thursdays, Fridays, and

Sundays.--_Letters of Etienne Pasquier_, book xxii. letter v. col. 666,

of the folio edition.

[5] By some extraordinary presentiment they always imagined that they

saw a King of France in the Prince of Navarre, even at a time when the

greatest obstacles were opposed to such an idea.--Dreux du Radier,

_Mémoires des Reines et Régentes de France_, vol. v. p. 130. See also

_Mémoires de Sully_, vol. i. pp. 60-67.

[6] Dreux du Radier, vol. v. p. 182.

[7] _Hist. des Reines et Régentes de France_, vol. ii. p. 4.

[8] Henri de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, first Prince of the Blood, and

Grand Master of France, was born in 1552, and succeeded his father, the

Comte Louis, who was killed at the battle of Jarnac, on the 13th of May

1569, in the command of the Protestant party, conjointly with the King

of Navarre (Henri IV). He made a levy of foreign troops in 1575,

distinguished himself at Coutras in 1587, and died by poison the

following year at St. Jean d'Angély.

[9] Ambroise Paré was born at Laval (Mayenne), in 1509. He commenced his

public career as surgeon of the infantry-general Réné de Montejean; and

on his return to France, having taken his degrees at the College of St.

Edmé, he was elected Provost of the Corporation of Surgeons. In 1552,

Henri II gave him the appointment of body-surgeon to the King, a post

which he continued to fill under Francis II, Charles IX, and Henri III.

Charles IX, whose life he saved when he had nearly fallen a victim to

the want of skill of his physician Portail, who, in opening a vein, had

inflicted a deep and dangerous wound in his arm, repaid the benefit by

concealing him in his own chamber during the massacre of St.

Bartholomew. Paré was a zealous Calvinist. He died in 1590. His

published works consist of one folio volume, divided into

twenty-eight books.

[10] Gillone Goyon, dite de Matignon, demoiselle de Torigni, was the

daughter of Jacques de Matignon, Marshal of France, and of Françoise de

Daillon, who was subsequently married to Pierre de Harcourt, Seigneur

de Beuvron.

[11] Lévi Alvarès, _Hist. Clas. des Reines et Régentes de France_, p.

185.

[12] Dupleix, _Hist. de Louis XIII_, p. 53.

[13] Sully, _Mémoires_, vol. i. p. 45.

[14] Catherine de Bourbon, Princesse de Navarre, and sister of Henri IV,

was born at Paris in 1558. After his accession to the throne of France,

Henry gave her in marriage to Henri de Lorraine, Duc de Bar. She refused

to change her religion, even when her brother had done so, and died,

without issue, in 1604, at Nancy.

[15] _Mémoires de Marguerite_, pp. 176, 177.

[16] Anne, Duc de Joyeuse, Admiral and Peer of France, first gentleman

of the bedchamber, and Governor of Normandy, was born in 1561. He was

one of the _mignons_ of Henri III, who, in 1582, gave him in marriage

Marguerite de Lorraine, the sister of the Queen Louise de Vaudemont. He

commanded the troops in Guienne against the Huguenots, where he

exercised the greatest cruelties; and having been defeated at the battle

of Coutras in 1587, he was put to death by the conquerors.

[17] This child, called by Bassompierre _le Père Archange_, and by

Dupleix _le Père Ange_, was the son of Jacques de Harlay de Chanvallon,

known at Court as "the handsome Chanvallon," and was the individual who,

as the confessor of the Marquise de Verneuil, became one of the most

active agents in the conspiracy which was formed against Henri IV and

the French Princes.

[18] Dreux du Radier, vol. v. p. 176.

[19] Mézeray, vol. iii. p. 546. Varillas, _Histoire de Henri III_, book

vii.

[20] D'Aubigny, _Hist_. vol. ii. book v. ch. iii. (1583). _Confession de

Sancy_, ch. vii. p. 447. Duplessis-Mornay.

[21] Duplessis-Mornay, _Mém_. p. 203.

[22] Jacques Govon de Matignon, Prince de Mortagne, was the

representative of a family of Brittany which traced its descent from the

thirteenth century, and had been established in Normandy towards the

middle of the fifteenth. Born at Lonray in 1526, he was appointed

Lieutenant-General of Normandy in 1559, where he made himself

conspicuous by his persecution of the Huguenots. Henri III recompensed

his services, in 1579, by the _bâton_ of a maréchal, and the collar of

his Order. He subsequently became Commander-in-Chief of the army in

Picardy, then Lieutenant-General of Guienne, and finally, Governor of

that province. He died in 1597.

[23] Lévi Alvarès, p. 187.

[24] Governor of Auvergne.

[25] The fortress of Usson, which had been a state prison under Louis

XI, was demolished by Louis XIII, in 1634.

[26] Brantôme, _Dames Illustres, Marguerite de France, Reine de

Navarre_, Dis. v. p. 275.

[27] "There are three things," Henri IV was wont to say, "that the world

will not believe, and yet they are certainly true: that the Queen of

England (Elizabeth) died a maid; that the Archduke (Albert, Cardinal and

Archduke of Austria) is a great captain; and that the King of France is

a very good Catholic."--L'Etoile, _Journ. de Henri IV_, vol. i. p. 233.

[28] Diane d'Andouins, Vicomtesse de Louvigni, dame de l'Escun, was the

only daughter of Paul, Vicomte de Louvigni, Seigneur de l'Escun, and of

Marguerite de Cauna. While yet a mere girl, she became the wife of

Philibert de Grammont, Comte de Guiche, Governor of Bayonne, and

Seneschal of Béarn. The passion of Henri IV for this lady was so great

that he declared his intention of obtaining a divorce from Marguerite de

Valois, for the purpose of making her his wife; a project from which he

was dissuaded by D'Aubigny, who represented that the contempt which

could not fail to be felt by the French for a monarch who had degraded

himself by an alliance with his mistress, would inevitably deprive him

of the throne in the event of the death of Henri III and the Duc

d'Alençon.

[29] Gabrielle d'Estrées was the daughter of Antoine d'Estrées, fourth

of the name, Governor, Seneschal, and first Baron of Boulonnois, Vicomte

de Soissons and Bersy, Marquis de Coeuvres, Knight of the Orders of the

King, Governor of La Fère, Paris, and the Isle of France; and of

Françoise Babou, second daughter of Jean, Seigneur de la Bourdaisière,

and of Françoise Robertet. She married at an early age, by the desire of

her father, who was anxious to protect her from the assiduities of the

King, Nicolas d'Armeval, Seigneur de Liancourt, who was, alike in birth,

in person, and in fortune, unworthy of her hand. This ill-assorted union

produced the very result which it was intended to avert, for Henry found

means to separate the young couple immediately after their marriage, and

to attach Gabrielle to the Court, where she soon became the declared

favourite. On the birth of her first child (César, Duc de Vendôme),

Madame de Liancourt abandoned the name of her husband, from whom she

obtained a divorce, and assumed that of Marquise de Monceaux, which she

derived from an estate presented to her on that occasion by the King;

and on the legitimation of her son in January 1595, she already aspired

to the throne, and formed a party, headed by M. de Sillery, by whom her

pretensions were encouraged. She was subsequently created Duchesse de

Beaufort, and became the mother of Catherine-Henriette, married to the

Duc d'Elboeuf, and of Alexandre de Vendôme, Grand Prior of France, who

were likewise legitimated. She died in childbirth, but not without

suspicion of poison, on Easter Eve, in the year 1599.

[30] Henri de la Tour, Vicomte de Turenne, Duc de Bouillon, Peer and

Marshal of France.

[31] Théodore Agrippa d'Aubigny was the son of Jean d'Aubigny, Seigneur

de Brie, in Xaintonge, and of Catherine de Lestang, and was born on the

8th of February 1550. At the age of six years he read with equal

facility the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages; and eighteen months

afterwards translated the _Crito_ of Plato. The persecutions of the

Huguenots, which he witnessed in his early youth, and the solemn

injunctions of his father to revenge their wrongs, rendered him one of

the most zealous and uncompromising reformers under Henri IV. He died at

Geneva on the 20th of April 1630, aged eighty years, and was buried in

the cloisters of St. Pierre. D'Aubigny left behind him not only his own

memoirs, which are admirably and truthfully written, but also the biting

satire known as the _Aventures du Baron de Foeneste_, and the still more

celebrated _Confession de Sancy_.

[32] Isabella Clara Eugenia, Infanta of Spain, was the second daughter

of Philip II. She was the Gouvernante of the Low Countries; and although

no longer either young or handsome, she possessed an extraordinary

influence over her royal father, who was tenderly attached to her.

[33] Arabella Stuart, daughter of Charles, Earl of Lennox, the grandson

of Margaret of Scotland, sister to Henry VIII.

[34] Isabeau de Bavière, Queen of Charles VI.

[35] Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange, second son of William, and of

Anne, the daughter of Maurice, Elector of Saxony.

[36] Marie de Medicis was the daughter of Francis, Grand Duke of

Tuscany, and of Jane, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary,

daughter of the Emperor Ferdinand.

[37] Louise-Marguerite de Lorraine was the daughter of Henri, Duc de

Guise, surnamed _le Balafré_, and of Catherine of Clèves, subsequently

Duchesse de Nemours. She was celebrated alike for her extreme beauty,

her brilliant wit, and her great intellect. She wrote admirably for that

age, and was the author of the _Histoire des Amours du Grand Alcandre_,

and of some _Court Chronicles_, which she published under the patronymic

of Dupilaust. Mademoiselle de Guise married François, Prince de Conti,

son of the celebrated Louis, Prince de Condé, who was killed at Jarnac.

[38] Catherine de Lorraine, daughter of Charles, Duc de Mayenne, and of

Henriette de Savoie-Villars, who became in February 1599 the wife of

Charles de Gonzague, Duc de Nevers, and subsequently Duke of Mantua. She

died on the 8th of March 1618, at the age of thirty-three years; and was

consequently, at the period referred to in the text, only seventeen

years old.

[39] Anne, daughter and heiress of Charles, last Duc d'Aumale, by whom

the duchy was transferred to the house of Savoy.

[40] Mademoiselle de Longueville was the sister of Henri d'Orléans,

first Duc de Longueville.

[41] Catherine de Rohan, second daughter of Réné II, Vicomte de Rohan,

and of Catherine, the daughter and heiress of Jean de Parthenay,

Seigneur de Soubise. When she had subsequently become the wife of the

Duc de Deux-Ponts, Henry IV was so enamoured of her as to make

dishonourable proposals, to which she replied by the memorable answer:

"I am too poor, Sire, to be your wife, and too well-born to become your

mistress."

[42] Diane de Luxembourg, who, in 1600-1, gave her hand to Louis de

Ploësqueler, Comte de Kerman, in Brittany.

[43] Mademoiselle de Guéménée was the daughter of Louis de Rohan, Prince

de Guéménée, first Duc de Montbazon.

[44] Sully, _Mém_. vol. iii. pp. 162-174.

[45] Denys de Marquemont, Archbishop of Lyons, and subsequently cardinal

(1626). He did not, however, long enjoy this dignity, to obtain which he

had exerted all his energies, as he died at the close of the same year.

He was a truckling politician, and an ambitious priest.

[46] Arnaud d'Ossat was born in 1536 at Cassagnaberre, a small village

of Armagnac, near Auch. His parents lived in great indigence during his

infancy, and at nine years of age he became an orphan, totally

destitute. He was placed as an attendant about the person of a young

gentleman of family, whose studies he shared with such success that,

from the fellow-student of his patron, he became his tutor. After some

time he accompanied his employer to Paris, where by persevering industry

he completed his education, and was enabled to give lessons in

philosophy and rhetoric. He then proceeded to Bourges, where he studied

legal jurisprudence under the famous Cujas. Paul de Foix, Archbishop of

Toulouse, when about to proceed as ambassador to Rome, engaged him as

his secretary; and while there, he embraced the ecclesiastical

profession, and rendered himself perfectly conversant with the whole

policy of the Papal Court. Henri III bestowed upon him the Abbey of

Notre-Dame de Varennes, but, as his claim was contested, he immediately

resigned it. Subsequently he was raised to the bishopric of Rennes, was

created a cardinal in 1598, and some time afterwards was appointed to

the see of Bayeux. His untiring devotion to the interests of France was

ultimately recognized by his elevation to the dignity of minister

under Henri IV.

[47] Jacques Davy Duperron was born at Berne in 1556, and being learned

in mathematics, Greek, Hebrew, and philosophy, he became a professor of

those sciences in Paris, where he obtained the appointment of reader to

Henri III. Having embraced the ecclesiastical profession, he received

from Henri IV (in 1591) the bishopric of Evreux, as a recompense for his

devotion to the interests of Gabrielle d'Estrées. It was Duperron who

obtained from the Pope the removal of the interdict fulminated against

France. He ultimately became a cardinal, and Archbishop of Sens, and

died in 1606.

[48] Henri de Luxembourg, Duc de Piney, was the descendant of the

celebrated Comte de Saint-Pol, and that branch of the family became

extinct in his person. He died in 1616.

[49] Nicolas Brulart, Seigneur de Sillery, was the elder son of Pierre

Brulart, president of the Court of Requests at Paris. He obtained the

office of court-councillor in 1573, and subsequently that of master of

the Court of Requests. Henry IV, after his accession to the throne of

France, appointed him ambassador to Switzerland; and on his return from

that country, made him sixth president, that dignity having become

vacant by the death of Jean Le Maître. In 1598 he was one of the

deputies by whom the peace of Vervins was concluded; and from thence he

proceeded to Brussels with the Duc de Biron, to be present when the

Archduke swore to the observance of the treaty. He next visited Italy as

ambassador extraordinary to the Pope, where he negotiated the marriage

of the King with Marie de Medicis. In 1604 Henri IV created in his

favour the office of keeper of the seals of France; and finally, on the

death of the Chancelier de Bellièvre, he became his successor.

[50] Sully, _Mém_. vol. iii. pp. 189, 190.

[51] "Comme s'il fût revenu d'extase," says Péréfixe, vol. ii. p. 300.

[52] In April 1599.

[53] Bernard de Montfaucon. _Les Monumens de la Monarchie Française_,

Paris, 1733, in folio, vol. v. p. 396.

[54] Horace del-Monte.

[55] Mézeray, vol. x. p. 123.

[56] Maintenon, _Mém_., Amsterdam, 1756, vol. ii. p. 115.

[57] Roger de St. Larry, Duc de Bellegarde, was the favourite of three

successive sovereigns. Henri III appointed him master of his wardrobe,

and subsequently first gentleman of the chamber, and grand equerry.

Henri IV made him a knight of his Orders in 1595; and ultimately Louis

XIII continued to him an equal amount of favour. The preservation of

Quilleboeuf, which he defended with great gallantry during the space of

three weeks, with only forty-five soldiers and ten nobles, against the

army of the Duc de Mayenne, acquired for him a renown which he never

afterwards forfeited.

[58] Henri, Comte, and subsequently Duc, de Lude, was the last male

representative of his family. He was appointed grand-master of the

artillery in 1669, and died without issue in 1685.

[59] Jean de St. Larry de Thermes, brother of the Duc d'Aiguillon.

[60] Jacques, Marquis de Castelnau, subsequently Marshal of France, who,

in 1658, commanded the left wing of the army at the battle of the Dunes,

and died the same year, at the early age of thirty-eight.

[61] François de Paule de Clermont, Marquis de Montglat, first maître

d'hôtel to the King.

[62] M. de Frontenac was one of the officers of Henry IV who, before his

accession to the throne of France (in 1576), had a quarrel with M. de

Rosny, during which he told him that if he were to pull his nose, he

could only draw out milk; a taunt to which the future minister replied

by an assurance that he felt strong enough to draw blood out of that of

his adversary with his sword. The peculiarity of this quarrel existed in

the fact that, although De Rosny was a Protestant, and Frontenac a

Catholic, M. de Turenne nevertheless espoused the cause of the latter;

upon which M. de Lavardin, a Catholic, declared himself ready to second

the arms of the adverse party.

[63] François, Baron de Bassompierre, was the son of Christophe de

Bassompierre and Louise de Radeval, and was born on the 12th of April

1579, at the château of Harouel, in Lorraine. He became at an early age

the intimate companion and favourite of Henri IV, by whom he was

appointed colonel-general of the Swiss troops. In the year 1603 he was

made Marshal of France, and obtained great influence over both Marie de

Medicis and her son Louis XIII. Richelieu, who became jealous of his

favour, caused him to be imprisoned in the Bastille in 1631, where he

remained for twelve years. He was an able diplomatist, a distinguished

general, and a polished, though dissolute, courtier. He acquitted

himself with great distinction in several sieges, and at his death,

which occurred in 1646, he bequeathed to posterity his personal memoirs,

which are among the most curious in the rich collections possessed by

his countrymen.

[64] Rambure, unpublished _Mém_., 1599, vol. i. pp. 151, 152.

[65] Catherine Henriette de Balzac d'Entragues, subsequently known as

the Marquise de Verneuil, was the elder daughter of the celebrated Marie

Touchet, who, after having been the mistress of Charles IX, became the

wife of François de Balzac, Seigneur d'Entragues, de Marcoussis and de

Malesherbes, Governor of Orleans, who was, in 1573, elected a knight of

St. Michael by Henri III. Henriette, as her name implies, was, together

with her two sisters, the issue of this marriage; while her half-brother

the Comte d'Auvergne, subsequently Duc d'Angoulême, was the son of

Charles IX.

[66] Saint--Edmé, _Amours et Galanteries des Rois de France_, Brussels,

vol. ii. pp. 199, 200.

[67] Louise Marguerite de Lorraine, the widow of Henri III, was the

elder daughter of Nicolas de Lorraine, Duc de Mercoeur, Comte de

Vaudemont, and of the Marquise d'Egmont, his first wife. Henri III

having seen her at Rheims, during his temporary residence in that city,

became enamoured of her person, and their marriage took place on the 5th

of February 1575. François de Luxembourg, of the House of Brienne, had

for some time paid his addresses to Mademoiselle de Lorraine, with the

hope and intention of making her his wife; a fact which the licentious

and frivolous King no sooner ascertained than he declared his

inclination to effect an alliance between the disappointed suitor and

his own mistress, Mademoiselle de Châteauneuf, for whom he was anxious

to provide through this medium. He consequently proposed the arrangement

to M. de Luxembourg on the day of his coronation, but received the cold

and firm reply that the Count felt himself bound to congratulate

Mademoiselle de Lorraine on her good fortune, since by changing her

lover she had also been enabled to increase her dignity; but that, as

regarded himself, since he could derive no benefit whatever from

becoming the husband of Mademoiselle de Châteauneuf, he begged that his

Majesty would excuse him from contracting such an alliance. The King,

however, declared that he would admit of no refusal, and insisted upon

his instant obedience; whereupon M. de Luxembourg demanded eight days to

make the necessary preparations, to which Henry demurred, and it was

finally arranged that he should be allowed three days for that purpose,

after which he was to hold himself prepared to obey the royal command.

These three days sufficed to enable the intended victim to make his

escape, and he accordingly left the kingdom. His sarcasm against herself

had so deeply irritated Queen Louise that after the death of her husband

she entreated Henri IV to revenge her injured dignity upon her former

suitor, but the monarch declined to aid in any further persecution of

the unfortunate young noble. The married life of the Queen was a most

unhappy one, and appeared to have entirely disgusted her with the world,

as on becoming a widow she passed two years of seclusion and mourning at

Chenonceaux, whence she removed to the château of Moulins, where she

devoted herself to the most austere duties of religion. In her will, by

which she bequeathed nearly the whole of her property to the Church and

to charitable purposes, she left a large sum for the erection of a

Capuchin convent at Bourges, where she desired that she might be

ultimately interred; but by command of Henri IV the convent was built in

the Faubourg St. Honoré, at Paris, and her body deposited in the chapel.

[68] Sully, _Mém_. vol. iii. p. 312.

[69] Saint-Edmé, p. 200.

[70] Equal, in the present day, to nearly five hundred thousand livres.

[71] Charles de Valois, the son of Charles IX and Marie Touchet, Dame de

Belleville. He was subsequently Duc d'Angoulême and Grand Prior of

France. He died in 1639.

[72] Dreux du Radier, vol. vi. pp. 62, 63. Saint-Edmé, pp. 201, 202.

[73] Sully, _Mém_. vol. iii. pp. 313, 314.

[74] Sully, _Mém_. vol. iii. p. 315.

[75] Mézeray, vol. x. p. 124.