The affair of Montferrato--Intrigues of Concini with Charles
Emmanuel of Savoy--Arrest of Concini’s agent Maignan--Bassompierre
warns the Italian favourite of his danger and advises him to throw
himself on the clemency of the Queen-Mother--Concini follows his
advice, and is pardoned and shielded by Marie de’ Medici, while his
agent is executed--Bassompierre goes to Rouen, where the
d’Entragues’ action against him is to be heard--The Regent
recommends his cause to the judges--The d’Entragues object to the
constitution of the court, and the case is adjourned--Duplicity of
Concini--He intrigues to ruin Bassompierre with the
Queen-Mother--Semi-disgrace of Bassompierre--He is reconciled with
Marie de’ Medici--He is appointed Colonel-General of the Swiss--The
Princes surprise Mézières--Peace of Saint-Menehould--Bassompierre
accompanies Louis XIII and the Queen-Mother to the West.
In the spring trouble arose with Charles Emmanuel of Savoy, who was
disputing the claim of Ferdinando di Gonzaga to the throne of Mantua,
and had invaded Montferrato. The French Government, judging it dangerous
to allow the Duke of Savoy, an uncertain friend and a possible enemy, to
get possession of Casale, one of the strongest places in Italy,
announced its intention of supporting Ferdinando, and Concini, on the
pretext that it was desirable that France should present a united front
in the event of hostilities breaking out, persuaded Marie de’ Medici to
summon the Princes to Court. Spain, however, in order to prevent French
intervention in Italy, hastened to send orders to the Governor of the
Milanese to compel Charles Emmanuel to abandon his prey, and that
prince, recognising the impossibility of resistance, evacuated
Montferrato.
It was believed, for a moment, that the affair of Montferrato would
bring about the ruin of the Concini. The Duke of Savoy, to assure the
neutrality of France, had succeeded in corrupting the Italian
favourites of the Queen and several other prominent persons, and had
kept up an active correspondence with Concini, the agent employed by the
latter being a priest named Maignan. An intercepted letter caused the
arrest of this man, who, in the admissions that were extorted from him,
comprised Concini, his creature the advocate Dolet, and the Marquis de
Cœuvres.
On the day Maignan was arrested, Bassompierre, who was with the Court at
Fontainebleau, happened to sup with Zamet, where he met Loménie, the
Secretary of State. It had been Loménie’s duty to be present at the
first examination of the prisoner, and he told Bassompierre of the
serious admissions that the man had made and the names he had mentioned.
He added that he was to be examined further on the following morning,
when doubtless still more interesting revelations would be forthcoming.
Now, Bassompierre was on intimate terms with Concini, for, though he
would appear to have despised him heartily, the Italian’s influence with
the Queen made him a valuable friend, besides which he was in the habit
of winning large sums from him at play. He accordingly decided to warn
him of the danger which threatened him, and went that same night to his
house, but was told that he was in bed and could not be disturbed. He
had therefore to wait until the following day, when he stopped him as he
was about to enter the chapel to hear the Whit-Sunday sermon, invited
him to take a turn in the cloisters, and, so soon as they were alone,
inquired bluntly: “Who is Maignay?”
“At these words, utterly astounded, he said to me: ‘_Pourquoi,
Mousou, de Masnay? Que sol dir Magnat? Che cosa e Maignat?_’ ‘You
are deceiving me,’ I rejoined. ‘You know him better than I do, and
you pretend to know nothing about him.’ ‘_Per Dio, Mousou!_’ he
exclaimed, ‘I do not know Magnat; I do not understand what you
mean; I do not know who he is.’ ‘Monsieur, Monsieur,’ said I, ‘I
speak to you as your servant and friend, not as a judge or a
commissioner. Maignan was arrested yesterday and examined
forthwith, again in the evening, and this morning for the third
time. He was arrested in the act of posting a packet of letters,
which speaks of many things and mentions persons by their names. If
you are aware of it already, I have only lost time in telling you;
but, if you are not, I think that, as your servant, I gain much by
warning you of it, in order that you may extricate M. Dolet from
this affair, in which people will endeavour to involve him.’ He
said to me, very confused: ‘I, Mousou, I do not think that M. Dolet
knows who Magnat is. It is no concern of mine.’ ‘Monsieur,’ I
replied, ‘I shall only take in this affair the part which you wish
to give me in order to serve you; that is my sole object and
intention.’ He thanked me and left me abruptly.”
That afternoon the Queen went for a drive in the park, and Bassompierre
accompanied her, occupying a seat in the Grand Equerry’s coach. As they
were driving by the side of the canal, one of Concini’s gentlemen came
galloping up and informed Bassompierre that his master wished to see him
immediately, and he sprang from his horse and offered it him. “Ah! he
wants to win my money,” remarked Bassompierre, as he prepared to mount;
and when the Queen inquired where he was going, he replied that he was
going to play cards with the Marquis d’Ancre. He rode back to the
palace, and found Concini awaiting him in the Cour Ovale.
“He led me,” he writes, “into the Queen’s gallery, shut the door
upon us and walked to the end of it without speaking a word. At
length, drawing himself up, he said: ‘M. _Bassompier_, my good
friend, I am undone; my enemies have gained the ascendancy over the
Queen’s mind, in order to ruin me.’ Thereupon he began to utter
strange blasphemies and wept bitterly. I allowed him to rave a
little, and then said to him: ‘Monsieur, it is no time to swear and
to weep when affairs press; you must open your heart and reveal
the wound to the friend to whom you desire to entrust its cure. I
imagine that you sent for me to tell me of the evil, not to bewail
it.’ ‘The Ministers have reduced me to extremities,’ he replied;
‘they desire to ruin me and M. Dolet likewise.’”
Bassompierre told him that he had many remedies against the enmity of
the Ministers, of which the most efficacious were the good graces of the
Queen, which he would undoubtedly possess when he returned to his duty
and abandoned all practices which were not agreeable to her Majesty. He
had also, he continued, his innocence to plead for him, and, if that
were not as complete as might be desired, it would be advisable to
interview, and come to some arrangement with, the commissioners who had
the examination of Maignan in hand (for he did not doubt that that was
his present difficulty), and “to have recourse to the kindness and
compassion of the Queen, who would receive him, he felt assured, with
open arms, provided he spoke to her with sincerity of heart and an
entire resignation to her will.”
Concini followed his advice and proceeded to throw himself upon the
clemency of the Queen, “in whom he found all kinds of gentleness and
kindness.” Marie de’ Medici, indeed, was unable to dispense with either
the husband or the wife. “The one,” observes Henri Martin, “dominated
her by habit and by the superiority of an active and restless mind over
a mind indolent and dull; the other probably by a warmer feeling.”[98]
She accepted all their excuses; the two commissioners by whom Maignan
was tried suppressed everything which might compromise Concini and his
accomplices;[99] and while the unfortunate agent was condemned to death
and broken on the wheel, the man who had employed him--this precious
rascal who had sought to betray the country upon which he had so long
been battening--was raised to new honours. The Queen only exacted from
him that he should be reconciled with the Ministers and definitely
abandon the party of the Princes. And, as the price of his obedience,
she gave him, in the following November, the bâton of a marshal of
France![100]
* * * * *
Towards the end of May, Bassompierre went to Rouen to make arrangements
for the conduct of his case in the action which the d’Entragues were
bringing against him, and which, on various pretexts, he had succeeded
in delaying until now. He found, to his disgust, however, that the
plaintiff had stolen a march upon him, for, though he applied in turn to
all the chief advocates of the Parlement of Rouen, not one of them would
undertake the case, the reason being that they had all been consulted by
the other side, which, of course, rendered it impossible for them to
hold a brief for the defence.
He returned to Paris and complained bitterly to Marie de’ Medici of the
sharp practice of which the d’Entragues had been guilty. Upon which she
said: “_Mon Dieu!_ Bassompierre, the Procurator of the Estates of
Nantes, who is so eloquent, is eligible to plead your cause, for he was
formerly an advocate of Rouen. He is here now.” And she sent for him and
ordered him to undertake the case, which he did very ably.
At the beginning of June, Bassompierre returned to Rouen, “accompanied
or followed by over 200 gentlemen,” and accompanied, too, by the good
wishes of the Queen, who did not confine her good offices to providing
him with an advocate. She wrote to the Maréchal de Fervacques, the
Governor of Rouen, “to assist him in all that he might demand of him”;
she ordered her own company of light horse, which was in garrison at
Évreux, to come to meet him and escort him to Rouen; she sent one of her
gentlemen with letters recommending his cause to all the presidents and
counsellors of the Parlement; and every other day she despatched a
courier to ascertain how the case was proceeding.
All Normandy appears to have flocked to Rouen to attend this _cause
célèbre_, and seldom had the old city been so gay.
“Numbers of ladies who were there, many strangers who came, and the
band of nobles whom I had brought, made all the time I spent at
Rouen, where I remained a month, pass like the Carnival, with
continual banquets, balls and assemblies.”
There can be little doubt that, in this breach of promise, popular
sympathy was with the faithless gallant rather than the injured lady.
But Bassompierre’s friends were denied the pleasure of applauding his
victory at the Palais de Justice, for, after the case had been in
progress for some time, the d’Entragues, seeing that the day was likely
to go against them, succeeded in obtaining an adjournment for six
months, to enable the King’s Council to decide whether the Court was
impartially constituted; their contention being that some of the judges
were related to the defendant on his mother’s side.
* * * * *
Not long after Bassompierre’s return to Court, the post of
lieutenant-governor of Poitou became vacant, and, as he was anxious to
secure this office for his brother-in-law Saint-Luc, he solicited
Concini’s good offices with the Queen, thinking, not unnaturally, that,
after the service he had lately rendered him, the Italian would be only
too ready to oblige him. Concini assured both Bassompierre and his
brother-in-law that he would do everything in his power for them, and
appeared delighted at the opportunity of discharging the obligation
under which the former had placed him. Nevertheless, the post was given
to Condé’s favourite, the Baron de Rochefort, at Concini’s earnest
entreaty, the Queen told Bassompierre, as she herself preferred
Saint-Luc.
So much for the favourite’s sense of gratitude! But this was not all:
“The Marquis d’Ancre told me the same day that he was in despair
that the Queen had given that place to Rochefort, and he begged me
to assure M. de Saint-Luc that he had done all he could in his
favour, but that the authority of _Monsieur le Prince_ had
prevailed. I, who knew what the Queen had told me, replied that,
when he wanted me to impose upon some indifferent third person, I
was very much at his service; but that, when it was a question of
deceiving my own brother-in-law, I begged him to employ someone
else, since we were too nearly related.”
After this, Saint-Luc, as was only to be expected, was somewhat cold in
his manner towards Concini, whereupon that worthy, persuaded that this
was due to his brother-in-law’s influence, determined to be avenged and,
says Bassompierre, “assisted by his wife, began to instill into the
Queen’s mind the belief that I boasted of the kindness which she showed
me, and that people were talking about it; and they told her that I was
estranging her servants from her, and that I was turning everyone
against her.”
This intrigue was only too successful, and on Bassompierre’s return to
Fontainebleau from a visit to Paris, whither he had been sent by the
Queen to settle a quarrel between the Duc de Montbazon and the Maréchal
de Brissac, he perceived a change in her Majesty’s manner towards him,
which seemed rather less cordial than usual. This continued for some
days and was succeeded by an “entire coldness.”[101]
Bassompierre remained in this state of semi-disgrace for about a month,
when, his patience exhausted, he “resolved to quit the Court of France
and the service of the King and Queen, although several beautiful ladies
performed the impossible to turn him from this design.” He accordingly
asked Sauveterre, the usher of the Queen’s cabinet, to obtain for him an
audience of her Majesty, in order that he might request her permission
to retire from the Court and France, which Sauveterre did. But, no
sooner was he in the royal presence than, to his astonishment and
relief, the Queen, addressing him with all her old cordiality, said:
“Bassompierre, I am going to-morrow to Paris. [She was going to visit
her younger son, the Duc d’Orléans--_Monsieur_, as he was called--who
was lying ill at the Louvre.] I have ordered everyone to remain here;
but, as for you, if you wish to come, I give you permission. But do not
go by the same road, so that they may not say that I have made an
exception to the general rule.”
Next day, Bassompierre went to Paris, accompanied by Créquy and
Saint-Luc, and awaited the Queen’s arrival at the Louvre, where he
assisted her to alight from her coach and escorted her to _Monsieur’s_
apartments. “The others then retired,” says he, “and I remained until
she was in her cabinet, when I had full leisure to speak to her, and
left her with the assurance that she did not believe any of the things
which they had tried to persuade her to believe against me, concerning
which I gave her a complete explanation.”
Early in 1614, Condé and the other Princes who, in the preceding year,
had been allied with Concini, indignant at the latter’s reconciliation
with the Ministers and jealous of his increasing favour, retired from
Court and assumed so threatening an attitude that Marie de’ Medici
decided to raise an army without delay, and applied to the Swiss Cantons
for a levy of 6,000 men, who were intended to form the nucleus of this
force. Now, the Colonel-General of the Swiss in the French service, who
would, of course, take command of the new levy, was the Duc de Rohan, a
nobleman of whose loyalty the Regent was exceedingly suspicious, and
with good reason, since, when hostilities broke out, he entered into an
alliance with the Princes. She therefore resolved to purchase this post
from him and to appoint in his place someone in whom she had absolute
confidence.
At a meeting of the Council called to decide the question of Rohan’s
successor, Villeroy suggested that the post should be given to the Duc
de Longueville, by which means, he assured the Queen, she would
certainly draw him away from the party of the Princes, which he seemed
more than half-inclined to join. Her Majesty, however, very sensibly
preferred to bestow it on someone who would not regard his appointment
as in the nature of a bribe to do his duty, and proposed that
Bassompierre should be the new Colonel-General, “both on account of the
German tongue, which he had in common with the Swiss, and because he was
their neighbour.” Upon this, Villeroy pointed out that, by the ancient
conventions of the Kings of France with the Swiss Cantons, it was
expressly provided that the Colonel-General should be a prince of the
Blood Royal of France or, at any rate, a prince of some other royal
house.[102] The Queen then proposed the Chevalier de Guise, who was a
prince of the House of Lorraine; but to this Villeroy objected, on the
ground that the Guises had already been overwhelmed with benefits and
that to add to them would be bound to create a great deal of jealousy.
And the Council rose without any decision having been arrived at.
“As she returned to her cabinet,” writes Bassompierre, “she said to
me: ‘Bassompierre, if you had been a prince, I would have given you
to-day a fine appointment.’ ‘Madame,’ I replied, ‘if I am not a
prince, it is not because I should not have been very glad to be
one. Nevertheless, I can assure you that there are princes who are
greater fools than myself.’ ‘I should have been very pleased if you
had been one,’ said she, ‘because that would have saved me from
seeking for a suitable person for the post I speak of.’ ‘Madame,
may I ask what it is?’ ‘To appoint a Colonel-General of the Swiss,’
said she. ‘And why, Madame, can I not be Colonel-General, if it is
your wish?’ On which she told me that the Swiss had a convention
with the King according to which no one but a prince could be their
Colonel-General.”
Bassompierre saluted her Majesty and withdrew, anathematizing the
wretched convention which stood between him and one of the highest
offices under the Crown, and wondering whether by any possibility the
obstacle could be overcome. Of that there seemed but little chance, as
time pressed, and perhaps by the morrow the post would have been filled.
Fortune favoured him, however, for, as he was on his way to dinner, he
happened to meet Colonel Gaspard Gallaty, a veteran Swiss officer in the
service of France,[103] with whom he was on very friendly terms. To him
he related what the Queen had just told him, when Gallaty said that he
believed he possessed sufficient influence with his countrymen to
persuade them to accept him as their Colonel-General, notwithstanding
the convention. And he offered to set out at once for Switzerland to
obtain their consent, and begged Bassompierre to return to the Queen and
tell her that, if she wished to give him the post, the Swiss would
consent.
“She [the Queen] said to me, ‘I give you a fortnight; nay, I will
give you three weeks, for this; and if you can obtain the consent
of the Swiss, I will give you the post. Then I spoke to Gallaty,
who asked me to obtain permission for him to go to his own country,
saying that he would set out in two days’ time. And this he did,
and, within the time that he had promised me he sent me a letter
from the Cantons, who were assembled at Soleure, to authorise the
levy which the King was demanding from them, by which they informed
the King that, if it pleased him to honour me with this charge,
they would accept me as willingly as any prince whom he might give
them.”
By the Queen’s orders, Bassompierre then communicated with Rohan, who
was in Poitou, and, as he feared that it might be some little time
before the Treasury saw its way to pay the large sum demanded by that
nobleman for the surrender of his post, he himself offered to advance
it; and on March 12, 1614, he took the oath as Colonel-General of the
Swiss.
Two days later, news arrived that the Princes had surprised Mézières,
from which place Condé despatched a lengthy memorial to the Queen,
setting forth the grievances of himself and his party, protesting
against the Spanish marriage and demanding the convocation of the
States-General. The seizure of Mézières was followed by that of
Sainte-Menehould, but the arrival of the Swiss, in two regiments, each
3,000 strong, of whom Bassompierre at once went to take the command,
greatly perturbed the rebels, and there can be no doubt that at the
cost of a little bloodshed the Regent could easily have crushed the
insurrection. Instead of doing so, she preferred to treat, and the
result of the negotiations which ensued was the Peace of
Sainte-Menehould (May 15, 1614), which stipulated that the
States-General should be convoked; that Condé should hold Amboise, as a
place of surety, until the meeting of the States, and receive a sum of
450,000 livres; that Mayenne, who was already Governor of the
Île-de-France, should have the reversion of the government of Paris,
together with 300,000 livres; Longueville 100,000 livres, and Bouillon
“the doubling of his gendarmes.” It was a direct incentive to the
Princes to take up arms again on the first convenient opportunity.
As the Duc de Vendôme, who had retired into his government of Brittany,
showed himself discontented with the peace and had, not only refused to
dismantle the fortifications of Lamballe and Quimper, as he was required
to do by the treaty, but had even seized upon Vannes, Marie de’ Medici,
on the advice of Villeroy, decided to show the young King to his people,
and to “go in person to pacify the western provinces.” Bassompierre
accompanied her, with one of the two regiments of Swiss, the other
having been disbanded on the signing of peace, and was employed in
superintending the razing of the fortifications which Vendôme had
erected. The appearance of the young King aroused great enthusiasm in
the West, and Vendôme soon decided to make his submission.
Louis XIII returned to Paris, and on October 2 proceeded in great state
to the Parlement to declare his majority. He thanked his mother “for
having taken so many pains on his behalf, and begged her to continue to
govern and command as heretofore.” “I desire and I order,” he added,
“that you be obeyed in everything and everywhere, and that you be after
me the chief of my Council.”