A DELILAH OF THE COURT OF FRANCE
It was a cruel fate that snatched Gabrielle d'Estrées from the arms of
Henri IV., King of France and Navarre, at the moment when her long
devotion to her hero-lover was on the eve of being crowned by the bridal
veil; and for many a week there was no more stricken man in Europe than
the disconsolate King as he wailed in his black-draped chamber, "The
root of my love is dead, and will never blossom again."
No doubt Henri's grief was as sincere as it was deep, for he had loved
his golden-haired Gabrielle of the blue eyes and dimpled baby-cheeks as
he had never loved woman before. It was the passion of a lifetime, the
passion of a strong man in his prime, that fate had thus nipped in the
fullness of its bloom; and its loss plunged him into an abyss of sorrow
and despair such as few men have known.
But with the hero of Ivry no emotion of grief or pleasure ever endured
long. He was a man of erratic, widely contrasted moods--now on the peaks
of happiness, now in the gulf of dejection; one mood succeeding another
as inevitably and widely as the pendulum swings. Thus when he had spent
three seemingly endless months of gloom and solitude, reaction seized
him, and he flung aside his grief with his black raiment. He was still
in the prime of his strength, with many years before him. He would drink
the cup of life, even to its dregs. He had long been weary of the
matrimonial chains that fettered him to Marguerite of Valois. He would
strike them off, and in another wife and other loves find a new lease of
pleasure.
Thus it was with no heavy heart that he turned his back on Fontainebleau
and his darkened room, and fared to Paris to find a new vista of
pleasure opening to him at his palace doors, and his ears full of the
praises of a new divinity who had come, during his absence, to grace his
Court--a girl of such beauty, sprightliness, and wit as his capital had
not seen for many a year.
Henriette d'Entragues--for this was the divinity's name--was equipped by
fate as few women were ever equipped, for the conquest of a King. Her
mother, Marie Touchet, had been "light-o'-love" to Charles IX.; her
father was the Seigneur d'Entragues, member of one of the most
blue-blooded families of France, a soldier and statesman of fame; and
their daughter had inherited, with her mother's beauty and grace, the
clever brain and diplomatic skill of her father. A strange mixture of
the bewitching and bewildering, this daughter of a King's mistress seems
to have been. Tall and dark, voluptuous of figure, with ripe red lips,
and bold and dazzling black eyes, she was, in her full-blooded, sensuous
charms, the very "antipodes" to the childish, fairy-like Gabrielle who
had so long been enshrined in the King's heart. And to this physical
appeal--irresistible to a man of such strong passion as Henri, she added
gifts of mind which "baby Gabrielle" could never claim.
She had a wit as brilliant as the tongue which was its vehicle; her
well-stored brain was more than a match for the most learned men at
Court, and she would leave an archbishop discomfited in a theological
argument, to cross swords with Sully himself on some abstruse problem of
statesmanship. When Sully had been brought to his knees, she would rush
away, with mischief in her eyes, to take the lead in some merry escapade
or practical joke, her silvery laughter echoing in some remote palace
corridor. A bewildering, alluring bundle of inconsistencies--beauty,
savant, wit, and madcap--such was Henriette d'Entragues when Henri,
fresh from his woes, came under the spell of her magnetism.
Here, indeed, was an escape from his grief such as the King had never
dared to hope for. Before he had been many hours in his palace, Henri
was caught hopelessly in the toils of the new siren, and was intoxicated
by her smiles and witcheries. Never was conquest so speedy, so dramatic.
Before a week had flown he was at Henrietta's feet, as lovesick a swain
as ever sighed for a lady, pouring love into her ears and writing her
passionate letters between the frequent meetings, in which he would send
her a "good night, my dearest heart," with "a million kisses."
In the days of his lusty youth the idol and hero of France had never
known passion such as this which consumed him within sight of his
fiftieth birthday, and which was inspired by a woman of much less than
half his years; for at the time Henri was forty-six, and Henriette was
barely twenty.
He quickly found, however, that his wooing was not to be all "plain
sailing." When Henriette's parents heard of it, they affected to be
horrified at the danger in which their beloved daughter was placed. They
summoned her home from the perils of Court and a King's passion; and
when Henri sent an envoy to bring them to reason they sent him back with
a rebuff. Their daughter was to be no man's--not even a
King's--plaything. If Henri's passion was sincere, he must prove it by a
definite promise of marriage; and only on this condition would their
opposition be removed.
Even to such a stipulation Henri, such was his infatuation, made no
demur. With his own hand he wrote an agreement pledging himself to make
Demoiselle Henriette his lawful wife in case, within a certain period,
she became the mother of a son; and undertaking to dissolve his marriage
with his wife, Marguerite of France, for this purpose. And this
agreement, signed with his own hand, he sent to the Seigneur d'Entragues
and his wife, accompanied by a _douceur_ of a hundred thousand crowns.
But before it was dispatched a more formidable obstacle than even the
lady's natural guardians remained to be faced--none other than the Duc
de Sully, the man who had shared all the perils of a hundred fights with
Henri and was at once his chief counsellor and his _fidus Achates_.
When at last he summoned up courage to place the document in Sully's
hands, he awaited the verdict as nervously as any schoolboy in the
presence of a dreaded master. Sully read through the paper, was silent
for a few moments, and then spoke. "Sire," he said, "am I to give you my
candid opinion on this document, without fear of anger or giving
offence?" "Certainly," answered the King. "Well then, this is what I
think of it," was Sully's reply, as he tore the document in two pieces
and flung them on the floor. "Sully, you are mad!" exclaimed Henri,
flaring into anger at such an outrage. "You are right, Sire, I am a weak
fool, and would gladly know myself still more a fool--if I might be the
only one in France!"
It was in vain, however, that Sully pointed out the follies and dangers
of such a step as was proposed. Henri's mind was made up, and leaving
his friend, in high dudgeon, he went to his study and re-wrote his
promise of marriage. The way was at last clear to the gratification of
his passion. Henriette was more than willing, her parents' scruples and
greed were appeased, and as for Sully--well, he must be left to get over
his tantrums. Even to please such an old and trusted friend he could not
sacrifice such an opportunity for pleasure and a new lease of life as
now presented itself!
Halcyon months followed for Henri--months in which even Gabrielle was
forgotten in the intoxication of a new passion, compared with which the
memory of her gentle charms was but as water to rich, red wine. That
Henriette proved wilful, capricious, and extravagant--that her vanity
drained his exchequer of hundreds of thousands of crowns for costly
jewellery and dresses, was a mere bagatelle, compared with his delight
in her manifold allurements.
But Sully had by no means said his last word. The decree for annulling
Henri's marriage with Marguerite de Valois was pronounced; and it was of
the highest importance that she should have a worthy successor as Queen
of France--a successor whom he found in Marie de Medicis.
The marriage-contract was actually sealed before the King had any
suspicion that his hand was being disposed of, and it was only when
Sully one day entered his study with the startling words, "Sire, we have
been marrying you," that the awakening came. For a few moments Henri sat
as a man stunned, his head buried in his hands; then, with a deep sigh,
he spoke: "If God orders it so, so let it be. There seems to be no
escape; since you say that it is necessary for my kingdom and my
subjects, why, marry I must."
It was a strange predicament in which Henri now found himself. Still
more infatuated than ever with Henriette, he was to be tied for life to
a Princess whom he had never even seen. To add to the embarrassment of
his position, the condition of his marriage promise to Henriette was
already on the way to fulfilment; and he was thus pledged to wed her as
strongly as any State compact could bind him to stand at the altar with
Marie de Medicis. One thing was clear, he must at any cost recover that
fatal document; and, while he was giving orders for the suitable
reception of his new Queen, and arranging for her triumphal progress to
Paris, he was writing to Henriette and her parents demanding the return
of his promise of marriage agreement--to her, a pleading letter in which
he prays her "to return the promise you have by you and not to compel me
to have recourse to other means in order to obtain it"; to her father, a
more imperious demand to which he expects instant obedience.
As some consolation to his mistress, whose alternate tears, rage, and
reproaches drove him to distraction, he creates her Marquise de Verneuil
and promises that, if he should be unable to marry her, he will at least
give her a husband of Royal rank, the Due de Nevers, who was eager to
make her his wife.
But pleadings and threats alike fail to secure the return of the fatal
document, and Henri is reduced to despair, until Henriette gives birth
to a dead child and his promise thus becomes of as little value as the
paper it was written on. The condition has failed, and he is a free man
to marry his Tuscan Princess, while Henriette, thus foiled in her great
ambition, is in danger not only of losing her coveted crown, but her
place in the King's favour. The days of her wilful autocracy are ended;
and, though her heart is full of anger and disappointment, she writes to
him a pitiful letter imploring him still to love her and not to cast her
"from the Heaven to which he has raised her, down to the earth where he
found her." "Do not let your wedding festivities be the funeral of my
hopes," she writes. "Do not banish me from your Royal presence and your
heart. I speak in sighs to you, my King, my lover, my all--I, who have
been loved by the earth's greatest monarch, and am willing to be his
mistress and his servant."
To such humility was the proud, arrogant beauty now reduced. She was an
abject suppliant where she had reigned a Queen. Nor did her pleadings
fall on deaf ears. Her Royal lover's hand was given, against his will,
to his new Queen, but his heart, he vowed, was all Henriette's--so much
so that he soon installed her in sumptuous rooms in his palace adjoining
those of the Queen herself.
Was ever man placed in a more delicate position than this King of
France, between the rival claims of his wife and mistress, who were
occupying adjacent apartments, and who, moreover, were both about to
become mothers? It speaks well for Henri's tactfulness that for a time
at least this _ménage à trois_ appears to have been quite amiably
conducted. When Queen Marie gave birth to a son it was to Henriette that
the infant's father first confided the good news, seasoning it with "a
million kisses" for herself. And when Henriette, in turn, became a
mother for the second time, the double Royal event was celebrated by
fêtes and rejoicings in which each lady took an equally proud and
conspicuous part.
It was inevitable, however, that a woman so favoured by the King, and of
so imperious a nature, should have enemies at Court; and it was not long
before she became the object of a conspiracy of which the Duchesse de
Villars and the Queen were the arch-leaders. One day a bundle of letters
was sent anonymously to Henri, letters full of tenderness and passion,
addressed by his beloved Marquise, Henriette, to the Prince de
Joinville. The King was furious at such evidence of his mistress's
disloyalty, and vowed he would never see her again. But all his storming
and reproaches left the Marquise unmoved. She declared, with scorn in
her voice, that the letters were forgeries; that she had never written
to Joinville in her life, nor spoken a word to him that His Majesty
might not have heard. She even pointed out the forger, the Duc de
Guise's secretary, and was at last able to convince the King of her
innocence.
The Duchesse de Villars and Joinville were banished from the Court in
disgrace; the Queen had a severe lecture from her husband; and Henriette
was not only restored to full favour, but was consoled by a welcome
present of six thousand pounds.
But the days of peace in the King's household were now gone for ever.
Queen Marie, thus humiliated by her rival, became her bitter enemy and
also a thorn in the side of her unfaithful husband. Every day brought
its fierce quarrels which only stopped on the verge of violence. More
than once in fact Henri had to beat a retreat before his Queen's
clenched fist, while she lost no opportunity of insulting and
humiliating the Marquise.
It is impossible altogether to withhold sympathy from a man thus
distracted between two jealous women--a shrewish wife, who in her most
amiable mood repelled his advances with coldness and cutting words, and
a mistress who vented on him all the resentment which the Queen's
insults and snubs roused in her. Even all Sully's diplomacy was
powerless to pour oil on such vexed waters as these.
The Queen, however, had not long to wait for her revenge, which came
with the disclosure of a conspiracy, at the head of which were
Henriette's father and her half-brother, the Comte d'Auvergne, and in
which, it was proved, she herself had played no insignificant part.
Punishment came, swift and terrible. Her father and brother were
sentenced to death, herself to perpetual confinement in a monastery.
But even at this crisis in her life, Henriette's stout heart did not
fail her for a moment. "The King may take my life, if he pleases," she
said. "Everybody will say that he killed his wife; for I was Queen
before the Tuscan woman came on the scene at all." None knew better than
she that she could afford thus to put on a bold front. Henri was still
her slave, to whom her little finger was more than his crown; and she
knew that in his hands both her liberty and her life were safe. And thus
it proved; for before she had spent many weeks in the Monastery of
Beaumont-les-Tours, its doors were flung open for her, and the first
news she heard was that her father was a free man, while her brother's
death-sentence had been commuted to a few years in the Bastille.
Thus Henriette returned to the turbulent life of the palace--the daily
routine of quarrels and peacemaking with the King, and undisguised
hostility from the Queen, through all of which Henri's heart still
remained hers. "How I long to have you in my arms again," he writes,
when on a hunting excursion, which had led him to the scene of their
early romance. "As my letter brings back the memory of the past, I know
you will feel that nothing in the present is worth anything in
comparison. This, at least, was my feeling as I walked along the roads I
so often traversed in the old days on my journey to your side. When I
sleep I dream of you; when I wake my thoughts are all of you." He sends
her a million kisses, and vows that all he asks of life is that she
shall always love him entirely and him alone.
One would have thought that such a conquest of a King and such triumph
over a Queen would have gratified the ambition of the most exacting of
women. But the Marquise de Verneuil seems to have found small
satisfaction in her victories. When she was not provoking quarrels with
Henri, which roused him to such a pitch of anger that at times he
threatened to strike her, she received his advances with a coldness or a
sullen acquiescence calculated to chill the most ardent lover. In other
moods she would drive him to despair by declaring that she had long
ceased to love him, and that all she wanted from him was a dowry to
carry in marriage to one or other of several suitors who were dying for
her hand.
But Madame's day of triumph was drawing much nearer to an end than she
imagined. The end, in fact, came with dramatic suddenness when Henri
first set eyes on the radiantly lovely Charlotte de Montmorency. Weary
at heart of the tempers and exactions of Henriette, it needed but such a
lure as this to draw him finally from her side; and from the first
flash of Charlotte's beautiful eyes this most susceptible of Kings was
undone. Madame de Verneuil's reign was ended; the next quarrel was made
the occasion for a complete rupture, and the Court saw her no more.
Already she had lost the bloom of her beauty; she had grown stout and
coarse through her excessive fondness for the pleasures of the table,
and the rest of her days, which were passed in friendless isolation, she
spent in indulging appetites, which added to her mountain of flesh while
robbing her of the last trace of good-looks. When the knife of Ravaillac
brought Henri's life and his new romance to a tragic end, the Marquise
was among those who were suspected of inspiring the assassin's blow; and
although her guilt was never proved, the taint of suspicion clung to her
to her last day.
After fruitless angling for a husband--the Duc de Guise, the Prince de
Joinville, and many another who, with one consent, fled from her
advances, she resigned herself to a life of obscurity and gluttony,
until death came, one day in the year 1633, to release her from a world
of vanity and disillusionment.