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 authorised 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.
The year 1605 commenced, as had been the case each year since the peace,
with a succession of Court-festivals; tilts and tournaments, balls and
masquerades, occupied the attention of the privileged; presents of value
were exchanged by the sovereigns and princes; and during all this
incessant dissipation the Parliament was diligently employed upon the
trial of the conspirators.
On Saturday, the 29th of January, the Comte d'Auvergne was placed out
the sellette,[284] where L'Etoile[285] asserts that he communicated much
more than was required of him; while the Queen, anxious to secure the
condemnation of Madame de Verneuil, and at the same time to intimidate
the favourites by whom she might be succeeded, appeared in person as one
of the accusing witnesses. Nor did Henry, who had already decided upon
the pardon of the Marquise, attempt to dissuade her from this
extraordinary measure; and it is even probable that as the design of the
King was merely to humble the pride of the haughty Marquise, in order to
render her more submissive to his authority, he was by no means
disinclined to suffer Marie to give free vent to her indignation
and contempt.
The Parliament had nominated as its commissaries Achille de Harlay, the
first president,[286] and MM. Etienne Dufour and Philibert Turin,
councillors, to whose interrogatories, however, the Comte d'Auvergne at
first refused to reply, alleging as his reason the pardon which had been
accorded to him by Henry during the past year. In this emergency M.
Louis Servin,[287] the King's Advocate, was deputed to offer to his
Majesty the remonstrance of the commissaries, and to represent that as
the accused had already been convicted of conspiring, first with Maturin
Carterie, and subsequently with the Duc de Biron, he was unworthy of
pardon on this third occasion; while the most imperious necessity
existed that an example should be made, in order to secure the safety of
their Majesties and the Dauphin, which, moreover, as a natural
consequence, involved the tranquillity and welfare of the state.
To this appeal the King replied that the abolition accorded to the
accused on the two former occasions had been granted with a view of
inducing him to return to his allegiance, but that since it had failed
to produce the desired result it could form no pretext for his escape
from the penalties of this new crime, and that should he persist in
refusing to reply to the questions put to him by his judges his silence
must be construed into an acknowledgment of treason; upon which M.
d'Auvergne immediately endeavoured to redeem his error by revealing all
the details of the past plots, as well as those of the one in which he
was now implicated.
Madame de Verneuil, who had been summoned to appear at the same time,
excused herself upon the plea of indisposition; and it was asserted that
she had caused herself to be bled in order that the temporary delay in
her examination thus secured might enable her, ere she appeared before
the commissaries, to ascertain to what extent she had been implicated by
the revelations of her step-brother. She no sooner learnt, however, that
the Count had thrown all the odium of the conspiracy upon herself than
she hastened to obey a second summons, and presented herself with her
arm in a sling to undergo in her turn the necessary interrogatories. Her
manner was firm, and her delivery at once haughty and energetic. She
insisted upon the innocence of her father, declared that the whole cabal
had been organized by D'Auvergne, and admitted that feeling herself
wronged she had willingly entered into his views; but at the same time
she coupled with this admission the assurance that having nothing with
which to reproach herself she asked for no indulgence, and was quite
prepared to abide by the consequences of her attempt to do justice alike
to herself and to her children.
When the Comte d'Entragues was in his turn examined, he did not seek to
deny his participation in the plot, but placed in the hands of his
judges a written document, setting forth the services which he had
rendered to the King since his accession, and which had merely been
recompensed by the government of Orleans, a dignity of which he was
moreover shortly afterwards deprived in order that it might be conferred
upon another, although in his zeal for the monarch he had not only
exhausted his own resources but had even raised considerable loans which
still remained unliquidated. Yet, as he stated, he had uttered no
complaint, although he was reduced to poverty and deprived of the means
of suitably establishing his children, for he still had faith in the
justice and generosity of his sovereign; and with this assurance he had
retired to his paternal home, old, sick, and poor, to await as best he
might the happy moment in which his claims should be remembered. And
then it was, as he emphatically declared, that the last and crowning
misfortune of a long life had overtaken him. Then it was that the King
conceived that unfortunate attachment for his younger daughter, which
deprived him of the greatest solace of his old age and exposed him to
the raillery and contempt of his fellow-nobles, coupled with sarcastic
congratulations upon the advantages which he was supposed to have
derived from the dishonour of his child; an event which had clouded his
remnant of existence with shame and despair. He had, as he asserted,
several times requested of his Majesty that he might be permitted to
withdraw entirely from the Court and finish his days in retirement and
in the bosom of his family, but this favour had constantly been denied.
As a last effort he had then represented the deplorable state of his
health, and entreated that he might be permitted to travel in order to
regain his strength, leaving his wife and children at Marcoussis; a
favour which also was not only refused, but the refusal rendered doubly
bitter by a prohibition either to see or correspond with his daughter,
whose safety was at that moment endangered by the menaces of the Queen.
He then entered briefly into the circumstances of the conspiracy, and
concluded by declaring that no attempt upon the life either of the
sovereign or the Dauphin had ever been contemplated by himself or by any
of his accomplices.[288]
Such was the defence of the dishonoured old man who had placed himself
beyond the pale of sympathy by his own degrading marriage. Yet he was
still a father; and who shall decide that the shame which in his own
case had been silenced by the voice of passion, did not crush him with
double violence when it involved the reputation of his child? Who shall
say that he had not, in the throbbing recesses of his wrung heart,
mourned with an undying remorse the fault of which he had himself been
guilty, and felt that it was visited in vengeance upon the dearest
object of his paternal love? Contemporary historians waste not a word
upon the ruined noble, the disappointed partisan, and the disgraced
father; yet the scene must have been a pitiable one in the midst of
which he stood an attainted criminal, blighted in every affection and
in every hope, the creditor of his King, and the victim of his
paternal ambition.
The sentence of the Parliament was pronounced on the 2nd of February.
The Comtes d'Auvergne and d'Entragues were condemned to death for the
crime of _lèse-majesté_, and Madame de Verneuil to imprisonment in the
convent of Beaumont, near Tours, until more ample information could be
obtained of the exact extent of her participation; and meanwhile she was
to be prohibited from holding any communication save with the
sisterhood.
On the same day, the sentence having been instantly communicated to
Madame d'Entragues, with the information that the King was about to
repair to the chapel of the palace to attend mass, she hastened,
accompanied by her daughter Marie de Balzac,[289] to the Tuileries,
where the two unfortunate women threw themselves on their knees before
Henry as he entered the grand gallery, and with tears and sobs entreated
mercy, the one for her husband, and the other for her father. The
monarch burst into tears as he saw them at his feet. He could not forget
that the mourners thus prostrate before him were the mother and the
sister of the woman whom he still loved, and as he raised them from the
ground he said soothingly: "You shall see that I am indulgent--I will
convene a council this very day. Go, and pray to God to inspire me with
right resolutions, while I proceed in my turn to mass with the same
intention." [290]
The King kept his word. In the afternoon the Council again met, when he
charged them upon their consciences to deliberate seriously before they
condemned two of their fellow-creatures to an ignominious death; but
they remained firm in their decision, declaring that by extending pardon
to crimes of so serious a nature as those upon which judgment had just
been passed, nothing but danger and disorder could ensue; and that after
the execution of the Duc de Biron, individuals convicted of the same
offence could not be suffered to escape with impunity without
endangering by such misplaced clemency the safety of the kingdom, while
a revocation of the sentence now pronounced would moreover tend to bring
contempt upon the judicial authority.
Henry listened, but he would not yield; and before the close of the
meeting, contrary to the advice of all his Council, he announced that he
commuted the pain of death in both instances to perpetual imprisonment,
and revoked the sentence that condemned the Marquise to the cloister,
which he superseded by an order of exile to her own estate of Verneuil.
To express the disappointment and mortification of the Queen when this
decision was announced to her would be impossible, as she instantly felt
that any further attempt to destroy the influence of the favourite must
prove ineffectual. She no longer exhibited any violence, but became a
prey to the deepest melancholy, weeping where she had formerly
reproached, and seeking her only consolation in prayer and in the
society of her chosen friends. Upon Henry, however, the effect of his
extraordinary and ill-judged leniency was far different. Although mercy,
and even indulgence, had been extended towards the Marquise without
eliciting one word either of entreaty or of acknowledgment, he felt
convinced that so marked an exhibition of his favour must be recompensed
by a return of affection on her part; and thus he continued to
participate in the gaieties of the Court with a zest which was strangely
contrasted by the gloom and sadness of his royal consort, and even
derived amusement from the epigrams and satires which were circulated at
his expense among the people.
On the 13th of the month M. de Rohan[291] was married at Ablon[292] to
Marguerite de Béthune, the daughter of the Duc de Sully, whom Henry had
previously determined to bestow upon the Comte de Laval,[293] and not
only did he confer the honour of his presence upon the well-dowered
bride, but he also signed her marriage contract and presented to her ten
thousand crowns for the purchase of her _trousseau_, with a similar sum
to her bridegroom to defray the expenses of the wedding-feast. A
singular ceremony followed upon the nuptial blessing, for M. de Rohan
had no sooner led his newly-made wife from the altar than his ducal
coronet was placed upon his brow, his ducal mantle flung upon his
shoulders, and in this pompous costume he was, at the close of the
banquet, escorted to Paris by the princes and nobles who had been the
guests of M. de Sully.
Seldom had the King evinced more gaiety of heart than at this particular
period, or appeared to derive greater amusement from the gossipry of the
Court and the gallantries of the courtiers; and he no sooner ascertained
that Mademoiselle d'Entragues had become the mistress of Bassompierre
than he said laughingly to the Duc de Guise: "D'Entragues despises us
all in her idolatry of Bassompierre. I have good grounds for what
I state."
"Well, Sire," was the reply, "you can be at no loss to revenge the
affront; while for myself I know of no means so fitting as those of
knight-errantry, and I am consequently ready to break three lances with
him this afternoon at any hour and place which your Majesty may be
pleased to ordain."
The preparations for this combat are so graphically described by
Bassompierre himself, and so characteristic of the manners of the time,
that we shall offer no apology for giving them in his own words.
"The King acceded to our wishes, as such encounters were by no means
unusual, and told us that the tilting should take place in the great
court of the Louvre, which he would cause to be covered with sand. M. de
Guise selected as his seconds his brother the Prince de Joinville and M.
de Thermes;[294] while I chose M. de Saint-Luc[295] and the Comte de
Sault.[296] We all six dressed and armed ourselves at the house of
Saint-Luc, and as we had armour and liveries ready for every occasion,
my party wore silver-mail, with plumes of red and white, as were our
silk stockings; while M. de Guise and his troop, on account of the
imprisonment of Madame de Verneuil, of whom he was secretly the lover,
were dressed and armed in black and gold. In this equipage we arrived
at the Louvre, myself and my friends being the first upon the
ground." [297]
Henry, with his whole Court, both male and female, was present on the
occasion, and the lists were placed immediately beneath the windows of
the Queen's apartments; but the diversion was not fated to be of long
duration, for at the first encounter the lance of M. de Guise entered
the body of his antagonist and inflicted so formidable a wound that he
was carried from the spot and laid upon the bed of the Duc de Vendôme,
apparently in a dying state. After his hurt had been dressed, the Queen
sent her sedan chair to convey him to his residence.
Although Bassompierre, in the preceding column, assures his readers that
"such encounters were by no means unusual," he goes on to state that
directly he fell the King not only forbade the continuance of the
tourney, but would never permit another to take place, and that this was
the only one which had been held in France for the preceding
century.[298]
"No one can imagine," says the wounded hero in continuation, "the
multitude of visits that I received, especially from the ladies. All the
Princesses came to see me, and the Queen on three occasions sent her
maids of honour, who were brought to me by Mademoiselle de Guise, and
stayed during the whole afternoon."
These courtly diversions were abruptly terminated by the intelligence
which reached Paris of the death, on the 3rd of March, of Pope Clement
VIII.[299] The piety of this distinguished Pontiff, and the eminent
services which he had rendered to the French King, caused his loss to be
deeply felt by Henry; but when, on the 1st day of April, Alessandro de
Medicis, the cousin of the Queen, was unanimously elected as his
successor under the title of Leo XI, nothing could exceed the joy which
was manifested throughout the country. Paris was illuminated, bonfires
were lighted on the surrounding heights, and salvos of artillery rang
from the dark walls of the Bastille. This demonstration proved, however,
to be premature, as the next courier who arrived in the French capital
from Rome brought the fatal tidings of his death. On the day succeeding
his elevation he had made his solemn entry into St. Peter's; on Easter
Sunday the triple tiara was placed upon his brow, and the public
procession to St. John de Lateran took place on the 17th; but on
returning from this ceremony the new Pontiff complained of
indisposition, and on the 27th he breathed his last; and was in his turn
succeeded, on the Day of Pentecost (29th of May), by Paul V.[300]
About this time the King, wearied of the perpetual coldness of Madame
de Verneuil, which not even his excessive clemency had sufficed to
overcome, made a last attempt to compel her gratitude by forwarding
letters under the great seal, authorizing the Comte d'Entragues to
retire to his estate of Marcoussis, and re-establishing both himself and
his son-in-law in all their wealth and honours, save the posts which
they had held under the crown, and their respective governments.
D'Auvergne, however, was still a prisoner in the Bastille, where, after
lashing himself into fury for a few months, he adopted the more prudent
and manly alternative of study, and thus contrived to educe enjoyment
even from his privations.
Yet still the haughty spirit of the Marquise scorned to yield. She was
indeed living in her own house, the gift of the monarch against whom she
exhibited this firm and calm defiance, and surrounded by luxuries, the
whole of which she owed to his uncalculating generosity; but she could
not, and would not, forget that she was, nevertheless, an exile from the
Court, and a prisoner within the boundary of her estate, while the
Queen, whom she had affected to despise, was triumphing in her
disgrace. Nor was it until the month of September, when Henry, who was
pining for her return, finally declared that no proof of culpability
having been brought against her, she must be forthwith duly and fully
acquitted of the crime with which she had been charged, that the icy
barrier was at last broken down, and the haughty Marquise condescended
to acknowledge herself indebted to her sovereign. The King did not
satisfy himself with this mere declaration, though he had caused it to
be legally registered by the Parliament; but, fearful lest some further
revelations might be made, by which she might become once more involved,
he moreover strictly forbade his Attorney-general to take any new steps
whatever relating to the conspiracy, or tending further to incriminate
any of its presumed members.[301]
The jealousy which existed between the two houses of Bourbon and
Lorraine, and which Henry was anxious if possible to terminate, coupled
perhaps with no small feeling of wounded vanity, determined him to
bestow the hand of Louise Marguerite de Lorraine, Demoiselle de Guise
(who, since she had been in the household of the Queen, had lent a less
willing ear than formerly to his renewed gallantries), upon François,
Prince de Conti; and accordingly the marriage was celebrated with great
pomp in the month of July, in the presence of their Majesties and the
whole Court. Madame de Conti herself asserts that the Queen first
suggested this union, and did everything in her power to effect it;[302]
for which it is highly probable that Marie had a double motive, as the
antecedents of Mademoiselle de Guise might well excuse her jealousy.
While besieging Paris, and before his public _liaison_ with Gabrielle
d'Estrées, Henry had sent to demand the portrait of Mademoiselle de
Guise, giving her reason to believe that so soon as the war should be
terminated he was desirous of making her his wife; a prospect which, as
she very naively acknowledges, led her to despise the addresses of the
Comte de Giury,[303] who was her declared suitor, as well as those of
the other nobles who sought her favour. One day, however, during a brief
truce of six hours, the Duchesse de Guise and herself, accompanied by
several other ladies, having ascended the rampart to converse with such
of their friends as were in the besieging army, all the young gallants
crowded to the foot of the walls to pay their respects to the fair being
whose presence offered so graceful a contrast to the objects by which
they were more immediately surrounded; and among the rest came Roger,
Duc de Bellegarde, at that period the handsomest man in France.
It was the first occasion upon which Mademoiselle de Guise and the Duke
had met; and we have the authority of the lady for stating that the
attraction was mutual. M. de Bellegarde had long been the avowed lover
of _la belle Gabrielle_; but, inconstant as the fair D'Estrées herself,
he at once surrendered his previously-occupied heart to this new
goddess. His prior attachment was not, however, the only reason which
should have deterred Mademoiselle de Guise from thus suffering her fancy
to overcome her better feelings, as M. de Bellegarde was accused of
having been accessory to the assassination of her father; but neither of
these considerations appears to have had any weight with the young
Princess. According to her own version of the circumstance, Gabrielle
conceived so violent a jealousy that the Duke was compelled to
condescend to every imaginable subterfuge in order to conceal the truth;
while the King, who soon became aware of the secret intelligence which
subsisted between the lovers, ceased to feel any inclination to raise
Mademoiselle de Guise to the throne of France; although, as we have
seen, he was by no means insensible either to the charm of her wit or
the attraction of her beauty.
In order to follow up his great design of pacification, Henry, after
having re-established Philip of Nassau in his principality of Orange,
also effected his marriage with Eléonore de Bourbon,[304] by which union
he secured another desirable ally.[305]
During the development of the late conspiracy the monarch had been
indebted for much of the information which he had received relative to
the intrigues of the Comte d'Auvergne to the intelligence afforded by
the ex-Queen Marguerite, who, having come into possession of many facts
which could not otherwise have been known to the King, had assiduously
imparted to him every circumstance that she conceived to be of
importance; a service for which he had not failed to express his
gratitude. That Marguerite had, however, been in no small degree
actuated in this matter by feelings of self-interest, there can be no
doubt, D'Auvergne having long enjoyed the proprietorship of the county
from whence he derived his title, and which had been bestowed on him by
Henri III, as well as several other estates which that monarch had
inherited from his mother, Catherine de Medicis, the said territories
having formed a portion of her dowry on her union with Henri II.
Marguerite's memories of her brother, as the reader will readily
comprehend, were not sufficiently attaching to induce her to submit
patiently to such a substitution, as she was aware that, by the marriage
contract, the property in question was settled upon the female offspring
of Catherine in default of male issue; and her lavish expenditure and
errant adventures having exhausted her means, she resolved to exert
every effort to establish her claim. She had already upon several
occasions solicited permission to return to the French capital; and,
although it had never been distinctly refused, it was so coldly
conceded that her pride had hitherto prevented her from availing herself
of an indulgence thus reluctantly accorded; but aware at the present
moment that she could so materially serve the King as to ensure a more
gracious reception than she might previously have anticipated, she
resolved to seize the opportunity; and accordingly, greatly to the
surprise, not only of the whole Court, but of the monarch himself, she
arrived in Paris without having intimated her intention, lest the
permission should be revoked.
For five-and-twenty years the last survivor of the illustrious house of
Valois had existed in obscurity and poverty among the mountains and
precipices of the inhospitable province of Auvergne, apparently
forgetting for a time that world by which she had been so readily
forgotten; but Marguerite began at length to yearn for a restoration of
her privileges as a member of the great human family. She could not have
chosen a more judicious moment in which to hazard so extreme a step; as
in addition to the respect which, despite all her vices, she could still
command as the descendant of a long line of sovereigns, she had latterly
established many claims upon the gratitude of the King. It was
impossible for him not to feel, and that deeply, the generous
self-abnegation with which she had lent herself to the dissolution of
their ill-omened marriage, when not only his own happiness, but that of
the whole nation, required the sacrifice; nor could he fail to remember
that while those upon whom he lavished alike his affection and his
treasure, had constantly laboured to embitter his domestic life, and to
undermine the dignity of his Queen, the repudiated wife had never once
evinced the slightest disposition to withhold from her the deference and
respect to which she was entitled.
Thus then, when her near approach to the capital was suddenly announced
to him, Henry lost not a moment in hastening, with his royal consort and
a brilliant retinue, to receive her before she could reach the gates;
and gave orders that the palace of Madrid in the Bois de Boulogne should
immediately be prepared in a befitting manner for her residence. Nor was
Marie de Medicis less willing than himself to welcome the truant
Princess, to whom she was aware that she owed many obligations; and the
meeting was consequently a cordial one on both sides. After the usual
ceremonies had been observed, Marguerite, abandoning the litter in which
she had hitherto travelled, took her place in the state coach beside
their Majesties, by whom she was conducted to her appointed abode; nor
was it until repeated expressions of regard had been exchanged between
the ex-Queen and her successor, that the royal party returned to the
Tuileries.
After a sojourn of six weeks in the palace of Madrid, during which time
Marguerite not only revealed to the monarch all the details of the
Verneuil conspiracy, but also the particulars of another still more
serious, as it involved the cession of Marseilles, Toulon, and other
cities to the Spaniards, she became wearied of the forest villa, and
established herself in the archiepiscopal Hôtel de Sens[306]; an
arrangement to which the King consented on condition that she should
make him two promises, one of which was that she would be more careful
of her health, "and not turn night into day, and day into night," as she
was accustomed to do; and the other, that she would restrain her
liberality, and endeavour to economize. To these requests the Princess
cheerfully answered that she would make an effort to obey his Majesty
upon the first point, although it would be a privation almost beyond
endurance, from the habit in which she had so long indulged of enjoying
the sunrise before she retired to rest; but with regard to the other
she must decline to give a pledge which she was certain to falsify, no
Valois having ever succeeded in such an attempt. It is probable that
Henry, from a consciousness of his own peculiar prodigalities, did not
feel himself authorized to insist upon a rigid observance of his
expressed wish, as although Marguerite had so frankly refused to
regulate her expenditure with more prudence, she was nevertheless
permitted to remain in the asylum which she had chosen; and this she
continued to do until the 5th of April 1606, when she was driven from it
by a tragedy that rendered it hateful to her.
Slender as was her retinue, it unfortunately included a young favourite
named Saint-Julien,[307] who, from some private pique, had induced her
to discharge from her service two attendants who had from their earliest
youth been members of her household, the one as page, and the other as
maid of honour; and who had ultimately married with her consent and
approbation, but upon being thus cast off, had found themselves ruined,
no noble house being willing to receive the dismissed attendants of the
dishonoured Queen. Of this union a son had been born, possessed,
however, of less patience and self-control than his unhappy parents,
who, after having clung to Marguerite through good and evil fortune, now
found themselves abandoned to all the miseries of poverty and neglect.
This youth, called by L'Etoile Vermond, and by Bassompierre Charmond,
made his way to Paris as best he might, and arrived in the capital after
Marguerite had taken up her residence as already stated in the Faubourg
St. Antoine. There can be no doubt that the utter destitution of his
parents had made him desperate, for he could not rationally indulge the
slightest hope of impunity; suffice it, that as the Princess was
alighting from her coach on her return from attending mass at the abbey
of the Celestines, between mid-day and one o'clock on the 5th of April,
while her favourite stood beside the steps to assist her to descend, the
unhappy Vermond shot him through the head, and then, turning his horse
towards the gate of St. Denis, endeavoured to make his escape. He was,
however, too ill-mounted to succeed in this attempt, the carriage of the
ex-Queen having been followed by many of the nobles who were anxious to
propitiate the favour of the King by so easy a display of respect to the
dethroned Marguerite; and ere he reached the barrier the wretched young
man found himself a prisoner.
The body of his victim had, meanwhile, been conveyed to an apartment on
the ground floor of the hôtel, where on his arrival he was immediately
confronted with it; but no sign of remorse or regret was visible as he
gazed upon the corpse. "Turn it over," he said huskily, after he had
gazed for awhile upon the glazed eyes and the parted lips. "Let me see
if he be really dead." His request was complied with; and as he became
convinced that life had indeed departed from the already stiffening
form, he exclaimed joyfully: "It is well--I have not failed--my task is
accomplished. Had it been otherwise I could yet have repaired
the error."
When this scene was reported to Marguerite, who, absorbed in the most
passionate grief, had retired to her appartment, she vowed that she
would not touch food until she had vengeance on the murderer; and she
kept her word, as she persisted in her resolution till, on the third day
after he had committed the crime, the unhappy young man was decapitated
in front of the house, and almost upon the very spot still reeking with
the blood of his victim. But the nerves of the ex-Queen could endure no
further tension; and on the morrow she removed to a new residence in the
Faubourg St. Germain, where she was shortly afterwards visited by
Bassompierre, who was charged with the condolences of the King on her
late loss.[308]
This fact alone tends more fully to develop the manners and morals (?)
of the age than a thousand comments; and thus we have considered it our
duty to place it upon record.
Meanwhile M. de Saint-Julien was far from having been the only favourite
of the profligate Marguerite, who divided her time between devotional
exercises and the indulgence of those guilty pleasures to which she was
so unhappily addicted; but while the citizens were not slow to remark
her excesses, she gained the love of the poor by a profuse alms-giving,
and enjoyed a perfect impunity of action from the real or feigned
ignorance of the King relative to the private arrangements of her
household. She was, moreover, the avowed patroness of men of letters, by
whom her table was constantly surrounded; and in whose society she took
so much delight that she acquired, by this constant intercourse with the
most learned individuals of the capital, a facility not only of
expression, but also of composition, very remarkable in one of her sex
at that period.[309] Carefully avoiding all political intrigue, she made
no distinction of persons beyond that due to their rank; and thus, while
her intercourse with the Queen was marked by an affectionate respect
peculiarly gratifying to its object, she was no less urbane and
condescending to the Marquise de Verneuil; who had, as may have been
anticipated, already regained all her former influence over the mind of
the monarch, his passion even appearing to have derived new strength
from their temporary estrangement.
The peculiar situation of the Queen, however, who was about once more to
become a mother, and whose tranquillity of mind he feared to disturb at
such a moment, rendered the monarch unusually anxious to conceal this
fact; and it was consequently not until some weeks afterwards that Marie
de Medicis was apprised of the new triumph of her rival.
The month of December accordingly passed away without the domestic
discord which must have arisen had the Queen been less happily ignorant
of her real position; but it was nevertheless fated to be an eventful
one. The death of M. de la Rivière, the King's body-surgeon, a loss
which was severely felt by Henry, was succeeded by the execution of M.
de Merargues[310], whose conspiracy to deliver up Marseilles to the
Spaniards was revealed to the monarch by Marguerite; and who, tried and
convicted of _lèse-majesté_, was decapitated in the Place de Grève, his
body quartered and exposed at the four gates of the capital, and his
head carried to Marseilles, and stuck upon a pike over the principal
entrance to the city; while, on the very day of his execution, as the
King was returning from a hunt and riding slowly across the Pont Neuf,
at about five in the afternoon, a man suddenly sprang up behind him and
threw him backwards upon his horse, attempting at the same time to
plunge a dagger which he held into the body of his Majesty. Fortunately,
however, Henry was so closely muffled in a thick cloak that before the
assassin could effect his purpose the attendants were enabled to seize
him and liberate their royal master, who was perfectly uninjured. The
consternation was nevertheless universal; nor was it lessened by the
calmness with which, when interrogated, the assassin declared that his
intention had been to take the life of the sovereign. It was soon
discovered, however, by the incoherency of his language that he was a
maniac; and although many of the nobles urged that he should be put to
death as an example to others, the King resolutely resisted their
advice, declaring that the man's family, who had long been aware of his
infirmity, were more to blame than himself; and commanding that he
should be placed in security, and thus rendered unable to repeat any act
of violence. He was accordingly conveyed to prison, where he shortly
afterwards died.
At this period, whether it were that the King hoped, by occupying her
attention with subjects of more moment, to be enabled to pursue his
_liaison_ with Madame de Verneuil with less difficulty, or that his
advancing age rendered him in reality anxious to initiate her into the
mysteries of government, it is certain that he endeavoured to induce the
Queen to take more interest than she had hitherto done in questions of
national importance; and revealed to her many state secrets, not one of
which, as he afterwards declared to Sully, did she ever communicate,
even to her most confidential friends. But Marie de Medicis was far from
evincing the delight which he had anticipated at his avowed wish that
she should share with him in the hopes and disappointments of royalty;
her ambition had not then been thoroughly awakened; she still felt as a
wife and as a woman rather than as a Queen; and an insolence from Madame
de Verneuil occupied her feelings more nearly than a threatened
conspiracy. So great, indeed, was her distaste to the new character in
which she was summoned to appear, that when the King occasionally
addressed her with a gay smile as _Madame la Régente_, a cloud
invariably gathered upon her brow. Upon one occasion, when the royal
couple were walking in the park at Fontainebleau, attended by all the
Court, and that the monarch, who led the Dauphin by the hand, vainly
endeavoured to induce him to jump across a little stream which ran
beside their path, Henry became so enraged by his cowardice and
obstinacy that he raised him in his arms to dip him into the pigmy
current, a punishment which was, however, averted by the entreaties of
his mother; and the King reluctantly consented that he should suffer
nothing more than the mortification of being compelled to exchange her
care for that of his governess, Madame de Montglat. As the child was led
away the King sighed audibly, but in a few seconds he resumed the
conversation which had been thus unpleasantly interrupted, and once more
he addressed the Queen as _Madame la Régente_.
"I entreat of you, Sire, not to call me by that name," said Marie; "it
is full of associations which cannot fail to be painful to me."
[Illustration: MARIE DE MEDICIS. Paris: Richard Bentley and Son 1890.]
The King looked earnestly and even sadly upon her for a moment ere he
replied, and then it was in a tone as grave as that in which she uttered
her expostulation. "You are right," he said, "quite right not to wish
to survive me, for the close of my life will be the commencement of your
own troubles. You have occasionally shed tears when I have flogged your
son, but one day you will weep still more bitterly either over him or
yourself. My favourites have often excited your displeasure, but you
will find yourself some time hence more ill-used by those who obtain an
influence over the actions of Louis. Of one thing I can assure you, and
that is, knowing your temper so well as I do, and foreseeing that which
his will prove in after years--you, Madame, self-opinionated, not to say
headstrong, and he obstinate--you will assuredly break more than one
lance together." [311]
Poor Marie! She was little aware at that moment how soon so mournful a
prophecy was to become a still more mournful reality.
FOOTNOTES:
[284] A very low wooden stool upon which accused persons were formerly
seated during their trial; an arrangement deemed so great a degradation
by persons of condition that many attainted nobles indignantly appealed
against it.
[285] L'Etoile, vol. iii. p. 256.
[286] Achille de Harlay was the representative of a distinguished
family, many of whose members were celebrated during four centuries both
as magistrates and ecclesiastics. He was born on the 7th of May 1536,
and was the son of Christophe de Harlay, President _de Mortier_ of the
Parliament of Paris, one of the most learned and upright magistrates of
his time. Achille was a parliamentary councillor at the age of
twenty-two years, president of the Parliament of Paris at thirty-six,
and succeeded his father-in-law, Christophe de Thou, as first president
in 1582. During the time of the League under Henri III he made to the
Duc de Guise the celebrated answer which covered him with glory and
paralyzed the strength of the malcontents: "My soul belongs to my God
and my heart to my King, although my body is in the power of rebels." He
was imprisoned for a time by the chiefs of the League, after which he
returned to the service of the King. He resigned his office in favour of
Nicolas de Verdun, and died on the 23rd of October 1616 at the age of
eighty years.
[287] Louis Servin distinguished himself from an early age by his
extraordinary learning and his extreme attachment to his sovereign. He
was indebted for the rank of King's Advocate to the Cardinal de Vendôme,
and acquitted himself so admirably of the duties of his office as to
justify the confidence of his patron.
[288] L'Etoile, vol. iii. pp. 255-257. Mézeray, vol. x. pp. 277-279.
Daniel, vol. vii. p. 456.
[289] Marie de Balzac d'Entragues, in pursuit of whom the King incurred
the risk of assassination.
[290] Richer, _Mercure Français,_ Paris, 1611, year 1605, pp. 9-11.
[291] Henri, Duc de Rohan, Prince de Léon, was the eldest son of Réné,
second Vicomte de Rohan, and was born at Blein, in Brittany, in 1579. He
made his first campaign under Henri IV, by whom he had been adopted, and
who had declared his intention of making him his successor on the French
throne should Marie de Medicis fail to give him a son. Henry created him
duke and peer in 1603, and Colonel-general of the Swiss Guards in 1605;
but after the death of the King he entered into a struggle with the
Court, declared himself the head of the Protestant party, and sustained
three campaigns against Louis XIII, the last of which was terminated by
his compelling that monarch (in 1629) to sign for the second time a
confirmation and re-establishment of the Edict of Nantes. He next
entered into a negotiation with the Porte for the purchase of the island
of Cyprus, and subsequently became Generalissimo of the Venetians
against the Imperialists, then General of the Grisons, and finally,
displeased and disgusted with the French Court, he withdrew to the
territories of the Duke of Saxe Weimar, in whose service he was killed
in 1638. He left an only child, Marguerite, who married Henri de Chabot,
and whose descendants took the name of Rohan-Chabot.
[292] Ablon was a small village upon the Seine, distant about three
leagues from the capital, where the Protestants celebrated their worship
before they built the church at Charenton, which was subsequently
destroyed.
[293] Guy, Comte de Laval, was one of the richest and most accomplished
noblemen of his time. He not only inherited all the wealth of his
father, but also that of his grandfather François de Coligny, a fact
which, after his death, caused a lawsuit between the family of La
Trémouille and the Duc d'Elboeuf. His qualities, both physical and
mental, were worthy of his extraordinary fortune, and his devotion to
literature and the fine arts was unwearied. M. de Laval had been reared
in the Protestant faith, but to the great regret of the reformed party,
who had hoped to find in him as zealous a defender as they had found in
his ancestors, he embraced the Romish religion. His valour as a soldier
was as remarkable as his attainments, and he had scarcely reached his
twentieth year when he asked and obtained from the King the royal
permission to serve under the Archduke Matthias in Hungary against the
Turks. Accompanied by fifteen or sixteen gentlemen, and attended by a
retinue befitting his rank and wealth, he eminently distinguished
himself by the manner in which he effected the retreat after the siege
of Strigonia; but his first triumph was fated to be his last, as during
the struggle he received a gunshot wound of which he died a few days
subsequently, deeply regretted by the Prince in whose cause he had
fallen and by the troops, to whom he had already endeared himself by his
noble qualities.
[294] César Auguste de St. Larry, Baron de Thermes, was the son of Jean
de St. Larry and of Anne de Villemur, and was the younger brother of
Roger de St. Larry, Duc de Bellegarde, Grand Equerry of France. He was
first created Knight of Malta and Grand Prior of Auvergne, and
subsequently, on the dismissal of the Duc de Bellegarde, Grand Equerry
in his stead. Having incurred the displeasure of Marie de Medicis he was
compelled to leave the Court, when he proceeded to Holland, where he was
warmly welcomed by Prince Maurice, a welcome which was not lessened by
the fact of his being accompanied by forty gentlemen. The anger of the
Queen having subsided he returned to France, where, as previously
stated, he succeeded to the honours of his brother, was made Knight of
St. Michael and the Holy Ghost, and died of a wound which he had
received at the siege of Clérac in July 1621.
[295] François d'Espinay, second of the name, was the son of François
d'Espinay, Seigneur de Saint-Luc, Knight of St. Michael and of the Holy
Ghost, and Grand Master of Artillery, who was killed at the siege of
Amiens in 1597. In the preceding year, at the early age of fourteen, the
young Saint-Luc had a quarrel with Emmanuel-Monsieur, the son of the Duc
de Mayenne, by whom he conceived that he had been insulted, and who,
upon his demanding whether the affront were intended as a jest or
designed as an insult, replied that he might interpret it as he pleased,
inquiring at the same time if he were not aware who he was. "Yes, I know
you," was the reply of the high-spirited boy; "you are the son of the
Duc de Mayenne, and you are in your turn aware that I am the son of
Saint-Luc, a loyal gentleman who has always served his country with
fidelity and never borne arms against his lawful sovereign." This
quarrel between two mere youths having reached the ears of the King, he
forbade the disputants to proceed further; but the young Saint-Luc had
thus already, alike by his courage and his ready wit, given ample
promise of his future loyalty and prowess.
[296] Guillaume de Sault (or Saulx) was the son of the celebrated
Gaspard de Saulx, Maréchal de Travannes. He married Chrétienne
d'Aguirre, the daughter of Michel d'Aguirre, a celebrated jurisconsult
of the diocese of Pampeluna, was created Lieutenant-Governor of
Burgundy, and died in 1633.
[297] Bassompierre, _Mém_. p. 43.
[298] _Idem_.
[299] Ippolito Aldobrandini, subsequently Clement VIII, was a Florentine
by birth, who, in the year 1585, was made Grand Penitentiary and
Cardinal by Pope Sixtus V. His diplomatic talents caused him to be sent
as legate to Poland to arrange the difficulties between Sigismund of
Sweden and the Archduke Maximilian, who had both been elected King of
Poland by their several partisans. On the death of Innocent IX,
Aldobrandini was raised to the pontifical chair (1592), which he
occupied during thirteen years.
[300] Camillo Borghese was a native of Rome, whose family were
originally from Sienna. Clement VIII called him to a seat in the
conclave in 1598. After his elevation to the pontifical chair he
quarrelled with the republic of Venice, the result of the difference
between the two states being the expulsion of the Jesuits from the
Venetian territories. He succeeded in effecting the union of the
Nestorians of Chaldea with the Church of Rome, and in appeasing for a
time several controversial differences between members of his own
communion. Paul V greatly embellished the city of Rome; and also
completed the façade of St. Peter's, and the palace of the Quirinal. He
died in 1621, at the age of sixty-nine years.
[301] Mézeray, vol. x. p. 280.
[302] _Amours du Grand Alcandre_, p. 47.
[303] Anne d'Anglure, Seigneur de Giury, who subsequently married
Marguerite Hurault, daughter of Philippe Hurault, Comte de Chiverny,
Chancellor of France under Henri III and Henri IV.
[304] Eléonore de Bourbon was the daughter of Henri I. de Bourbon,
Prince de Condé, who succeeded his father in the command of the
Calvinist party, conjointly with the King of Navarre, afterwards Henri
IV. This prince raised a body of foreign troops in 1575, and
distinguished himself greatly at Coutras in 1587. He died in the
following year, having, as was asserted, been poisoned by his wife,
Charlotte de la Trémouille, at St-Jean-d'Angély.
[305] Montfaucon, vol. v. p. 418.
[306] This hôtel was the property of the Bishop of Bourges, known as M.
de Sens, who died in September 1606 at the age of seventy-nine years,
and who was interred at Notre-Dame, at his own request, without pomp or
ceremony of any description. This prelate had been involved in so many
delicate, but withal conspicuous affairs, that he had become the object
of very general curiosity and slander. At the commencement of the reign
of Henri IV a satire made its appearance, entitled, "Library of Madame
de Montpensier, brought to light by the advice of Cornac, and with the
consent of the Sieur de Beaulieu, her equerry," in which mention was
made of a supposititious work called, "The Art of not Believing in God,"
by M. de Bourges, in which an attempt was made to convict the prelate of
atheism. This book was attributed to the reformed party; while the libel
was strengthened by the indignation felt by the Court of Rome at the
circumstance of M. de Bourges having taken upon himself to absolve Henri
IV without the Papal authority, on his conversion to the Roman Catholic
faith. The manner of his death, however, gainsayed the calumny; although
so slight had been the respect felt for his sacred office, that the
ex-Queen Marguerite had no sooner taken possession of his hôtel, than
the following placard was found affixed to the entrance-gate:
"Comme Reine, tu devais être
En ta royale maison;
Comme ----, c'est bien raison
Que tu loge an logis d'un prêtre."
[307] Bassompierre calls him Saint-Sulliendat, _Mém_. p. 46.
[308] L'Etoile, vol. iii. pp. 353, 354. Bassompierre, _Mém_. p. 46.
[309] Richelieu, _La Mère et le Fils_, vol. i. p. 326.
[310] Louis de Lagon de Merargues was a nobleman of Provence, who
claimed to descend from the Princes of Catalonia or Aragon. His position
of procureur-syndic of the province, and the importance of the relatives
of his wife, who was closely connected with the Duc de Montpensier,
together with the command of two galleys which he held from the King,
enabled him at any moment to possess himself of the port; while his
office of _Viguier_, or royal provost, gave him great authority over
the citizens.
[311] Richelieu, _La Mère et le Fils_, vol. i. pp. 19, 20.