While he was thus engaged, the Prince, who soon discovered from the altered demeanour of the King that he should be unable to prevent the conclusion of a peace, resolved to absent himself from the army. He had been apprised by his emissaries of the recall of Lesdiguieres, and he at once comprehended that the presence of the Connetable could be required for no other purpose than that of weakening his own authority, and of thwarting his own views; and acting upon this conviction, he did not hesitate to inform Louis that he was aware of the projected return of the veteran noble; adding that, as he could not bring himself to obey the orders of an individual so greatly his inferior in birth, he preferred retiring for a time to Italy, should his Majesty graciously accord him permission to absent himself. Louis required no entreaties to concede this favour to his arrogant kinsman; and, accordingly, to the undisguised satisfaction of the harassed army, the Prince departed for Rome; the Duc de Lesdiguieres replaced him in his command; and, finally, the King having acceded to the conditions demanded by the citizens of the beleaguered town, they consented to receive him within their walls, provided that at his departure he withdrew the whole of his troops.

All the terms of the treaty were observed save this last demand. An edict of pacification was duly signed and registered; and Louis, in the month of November, quitted Montpellier with the bulk of his army, but left two regiments in garrison within the very heart of the city. The Protestants were, however, too weary of warfare, and too much exhausted by suffering, to resent this infraction of their rights; and they consequently saw the King set forth for Lyons without expostulation or remonstrance.[76] Had they been enabled to make a final effort, it is probable that they might have imposed still more favourable conditions, as after the departure of Conde Louis relapsed into his usual helplessness; for although perfectly competent to direct the manoeuvres of a body of troops on a review-ground, he was totally unequal to the command of an army; and with the littleness of a narrow mind, he was at the same time jealous of his generals; neither was he able to comprehend either the precise political position of his own kingdom, or that of Europe; and thus, although he assumed an appearance of authority, so soon as the controlling influence of the paramount favourite was withdrawn, his powers were paralyzed, and he no longer possessed any defined principle of action.

The entry of the King at Lyons was celebrated with the utmost magnificence. Had he achieved the conquest of half Europe he could not have been greeted with more enthusiasm than awaited him on this occasion, when his hand still reeked with the blood of hundreds of his own subjects, and the shrieks of injured women and slaughtered children were still appealing to Heaven for vengeance. Triumphal arches, ecclesiastical and municipal processions, salvos of artillery, flourishes of trumpets, all the pomp and circumstance of war blent with the splendour of triumph, awaited him on his arrival in that city. The two Queens with their separate Courts, and the Duke and Duchess of Savoy with a brilliant retinue, were assembled to give him welcome; and while the houseless inhabitants of Montpellier and of the smouldering villages of Guienne were wandering about the ruins of their once happy and prosperous homes, the streets of Lyons swarmed with velvet-clad courtiers and jewelled dames, hurrying from ball to banquet, and wholly absorbed in frivolity and pleasure. Theatrical performances took place every evening; and on the 12th of November the three Courts assisted at the marriage of Mademoiselle de Verneuil and the Marquis de la Valette, the second son of the Duc d'Epernon, which was celebrated with great pomp. The King presented to his sister a dowry of two hundred thousand crowns, to which the Marquise, her mother, added one hundred thousand more. This union was followed by that of Madame de Luynes with the Prince de Joinville; and the two marriages were followed by Italian comedies, fireworks, and public illuminations.[77]

The most important event, however, which occurred during the sojourn of the King at Lyons, was the admission of the Bishop of Lucon to the Conclave. The long-coveted hat was forwarded to the French sovereign by Gregory XV, from whose hands it was received by Richelieu. The Queen-mother triumphed; but neither Louis nor his ministers felt the same exultation as Marie and her favourite; for guardedly as the new Cardinal had borne himself while awaiting this honour, his spirit of intrigue had already become notorious, and his extraordinary talents excited alarm rather than confidence. The death of the Cardinal de Retz, which had occurred while the King was with the army in Languedoc, had created two important vacancies; one in the Holy College, and the other in the royal Council, to both of which the astute Richelieu aspired; but Louis, urged by his ministers, decidedly refused to admit him to the Privy Council, and he was fain to content himself for the moment with the honours of the scarlet hat, while M. de la Rochefoucauld was appointed to the vacant seat in the Council.

The President Jeannin had died in the month of October, at the ripe age of eighty-two; a demise which was followed by those of De Vic, the Keeper of the Seals, and the Duc de Bouillon; and thus three stumbling-blocks had been removed from the path of Richelieu, whose professions of attachment to Marie de Medicis became more fervent than ever; while he was meanwhile carefully measuring the strength of those to whom he was opposed, studying the foibles of the King, and gradually forming a party at Court which might enable him to secure his own ultimate elevation, and to render himself independent of Marie's protection.

The ceremony of his admission to the Conclave had no sooner been concluded in the chapel of the Archbishop's palace, than Richelieu hastened to place the symbol of his new dignity at the feet of his benefactress.

"Madame," he said, at the close of a harangue full of the most exaggerated declarations of devotion to her person, "this honour, for which I am indebted to the benevolence of your Majesty, will ever cause me to bear in mind the solemn vow I have made to shed my blood in your service."

Marie listened and believed; and in addition to the scarlet hat, and the dignity of Minister of State which it involved, the deceived Princess in the short space of a few months bestowed upon her future enemy the enormous sum of nine hundred thousand crowns, besides sacerdotal plate to an almost incredible amount. No timely presentiment warned her how the "solemn vow" was to be observed; and the influence of the selfish and unprincipled churchman became greater than ever.[78]

The King did not return to Paris until the 10th of January (1623), and shortly after his arrival another change took place in the ministry. Schomberg had excited the animosity of the Chancellor Sillery, his son the Marquis de Puisieux (who, since the death of De Luynes, had risen greatly in the favour of Louis), and the Marquis de Caumartin,[79] who, on the demise of M. de Vic, had been appointed Keeper of the Seals. He was also avowedly obnoxious to M. de la Vieuville,[80] the adjutant-general of the royal army; and these nobles combined to effect his ruin. As, however, M. de Schomberg was protected by the Prince de Conde, the conspirators were for a time compelled to forego their purpose, but the Prince had no sooner taken his departure for Italy than they hastened to poison the mind of the King against his finance minister; an attempt in which they so easily succeeded, that although Schomberg undertook to prove the fallacy of every charge which was brought against him, Louis refused to admit his justification, and he was dismissed from his charge, which was conferred upon De la Vieuville; while by the death of De Caumartin, which shortly afterwards occurred, Sillery once more found himself in possession of the seals. His triumph was, however, of short duration, the King having conceived an extraordinary aversion to the Chancellor, although he was aware that he could not safely dispense with his services; and accordingly, a short time subsequently, the seals were again reclaimed, and bestowed upon M. d'Aligre.[81]

On the return of Louis XIII to the capital Anne of Austria organized two magnificent ballets, one of which was danced in the apartments of the King, and the other in her own. It was hinted that these splendid entertainments were given in order to impress Lord Holland with a high idea of the splendour of the French Court, that nobleman having been instructed by James I. to endeavour to effect a marriage between the Prince of Wales and Madame Elisabeth; and great was the astonishment of the royal party when they ascertained that the Prince himself, attended by the Duke of Buckingham, had been present incognito, both personages being disguised with false beards and enormously bushy wigs; and that, after only remaining one day in Paris, they had pursued their journey to Spain, where Charles was about to demand the hand of the Infanta. It was, moreover, afterwards ascertained that having arrived in the French capital on the evening before that of the royal ballet, the Prince and his companions had gone disguised to the Louvre to see the Queen-mother at table, and had introduced themselves as travelling nobles into a gallery in which Louis was walking surrounded by his courtiers; after which they had induced the Duc de Montbazon to allow them to enter the hall in which the festival was to take place. There Charles saw for the first time the young Queen of Louis XIII, with the portrait of whose sister he had become enamoured, and also Madame Henriette, who was subsequently destined to become his wife. But it would appear that the French Princess whom he so tenderly loved in after-years made, on this occasion, no impression upon his mind; as, still eager to convince himself that the Spanish Infanta was as beautiful as the miniature in his possession, he set forth on the following day for Madrid, as he had originally intended.[82]

La Vieuville and his party (at the head of which figured the Queen-mother, who could not brook that Louis should retain about his person a minister whose influence counterbalanced her own) began in the spring of 1624 to make new efforts to effect the disgrace of the veteran Chancellor and his son M. de Puisieux; both of whom had, moreover, incurred the hatred of Richelieu by their endeavours to oppose his admission to the Conclave; and the continual representations of the cabal soon produced so marked an alteration in the bearing of the King towards Sillery, that the latter resolved not to await the dismissal which he foresaw would not be long delayed. Pretexting, therefore, his great age—for he had attained his eightieth year—and his serious sufferings from gout, by which he was disabled from following his Majesty in his perpetual journeys to the provinces, he entreated permission to retire from the Government, an indulgence which was conceded without difficulty; and the seals transferred, as we have already stated, to M. d'Aligre; and although Louis continued to treat De Puisieux with studied courtesy, the rival faction soon discovered that his favour was at an end. On several occasions the King gave audiences to the different foreign ambassadors without desiring his presence, although as Secretary of State it had hitherto been considered indispensable; and finally, both father and son were informed that they were at liberty to quit the Court.

The exultation of Marie de Medicis at their dismissal was undisguised, and she immediately took measures to secure the admission of Richelieu to the ministry; for which purpose she endeavoured to secure the interests of La Vieuville. For a time, however, the finance minister declined to second her views, as neither he nor his colleagues were desirous of the co-operation of a man whom they distrusted; but Marie, who would suffer no repulse, at length succeeded in overcoming his repugnance, and he was ultimately induced to urge upon the King the expediency of compliance with the wishes of his mother; although under certain restrictions which might tend to curb the intriguing and ambitious spirit of the enterprising candidate.

At this period the Court was sojourning at Compiegne; and on one occasion, as Louis, according to his custom, paid his morning visit to the Queen-mother in her sleeping-apartment, he announced, to her extreme delight, that he had appointed the Cardinal de Richelieu Councillor of State; warning her, however, that he must rest satisfied with a subordinate authority, and not permit himself to suggest measures which had not previously been considered by the King himself.

That Louis nevertheless made this concession with reluctance is evidenced by the fact that he forthwith wrote to M. de Conde, who was then residing at Bourges, to invite him to return to Court in order to counterbalance the influence of the Queen-mother, which the admission of her favourite to the Privy Council could not fail greatly to augment. The appeal was, however, fruitless; the Prince considering himself aggrieved not only by the elevation of an individual to whom he justly attributed his imprisonment in the Bastille, but also by the increased power of Marie de Medicis, and he consequently coldly returned his thanks for the desire evinced by his royal kinsman to see him once more near his person, but declared his intention of remaining in his government.[83]

From this period the prominent figure upon the canvas of the time is Richelieu. He it was who negotiated the marriage of the Prince of Wales with Madame Henriette, after the alliance with Spain had been abandoned by James I. To him the Marquis de la Vieuville owed his disgrace, and by his representations the Queen-mother enlisted the young Prince Gaston d'Anjou in his interests. All bent, or was crushed, before him; he had affected to accept office reluctantly; pleaded his physical weakness, even while he admitted his mental strength, declaring that his bodily infirmities incapacitated him from collision with the toil and turmoil of state affairs; and coquetted with the honours for which he had striven throughout long years until he almost succeeded in inducing those about him to believe that he sacrificed his own inclinations to the will of the sovereign and his mother.[84] But history has proved that having once possessed himself of the supreme power, and moulded the mind of his royal master to his own purposes, he flung off all restraint, and governed the nation like a monarch, while its legitimate sovereign obeyed his behests, and made peace or war, as the necessity of either measure was dictated to him by his imperious minister.

And amid all this pomp of power and pride of place, how did the purple-robed politician regard the generous benefactress who had furthered his brilliant fortunes? It cannot be forgotten that the wretched Concini had been his first patron, and that when one word of warning from his lips might have saved the Marechal from assassination, those lips had remained closed; that he had even affected to slumber with the death-warrant of the victim beneath his pillow, and had striven to rise upon his ruin. The after-career of Richelieu did not belie its commencement. The glorious talents with which Heaven had gifted him festered into a curse beneath his ambition; he became the marvel of the whole civilized world, and the scourge of those who trusted in his sincerity.

That Marie was as eager as Richelieu himself for the alliance with England is undoubted; for while the latter, whose enlarged political views led him to seek through this medium to curb the growing power of Austria and Spain, looked only to the aggrandizement of the nation which he served, the Queen-mother was equally anxious to secure for herself a safe asylum in the event of any new reverse; and consequently on this particular subject they acted in unison, the Cardinal openly striving to attain his own object, and Marie de Medicis secretly negotiating at the Court of St. James's to effect a marriage by which she believed that she should ensure her future safety.

The difference of religion between the contracting parties necessarily induced considerable difficulties, but as these were never, at that period, suffered to interfere with any great question of national policy, Richelieu unhesitatingly undertook to obtain the consent of the Sovereign-Pontiff, who, as the minister had foreseen, finally accorded the required dispensation. Nor was he deterred from his purpose by the opposition of the Spanish monarch, who caused his ambassador to assure Marie de Medicis that, in the event of her inducing the King to bestow the hand of the Princesse Henriette upon the Infant Don Carlos, he would secure to that Prince the sovereignty of the Catholic Low Countries on the demise of the Archduchess Isabella, and meanwhile the royal couple could take up their abode at Brussels under the guardianship of that Princess.[85]

The Queen-mother, however, placed no faith in the sincerity of this promise, while Richelieu met it by an instant negative, declaring that "every one was aware that Spain was like a canker which gnawed and devoured every substance to which it attached itself." [86] And meanwhile Louis, glad to have once more found an individual alike able and willing to take upon himself the responsibility of government, suffered the Cardinal to pursue his negotiation with England. The dowry demanded by James with the Princess was eight hundred thousand crowns, half of which was to be paid down on the eve of the marriage, and the remainder within eighteen months, while it was further stipulated that, in the event of her dying before her husband, and without issue, a moiety only of the entire sum was to be repaid by the Prince.

During the progress of this treaty, the Marquis de la Vieuville, whose rapid elevation had created for him a host of virulent and active enemies, was suddenly dismissed. Although not gifted with remarkable talents, M. de la Vieuville was a man of uprightness and integrity, who commenced his office as Superintendent of Finance by reducing the exorbitant salaries and pensions of the great officers of state and other nobles. This was not, however, his worst crime. Well aware of the constitutional timidity of the monarch, he had assumed an authority which rendered him odious to all those whose ambition prompted them to essay their own powers of governing, and among these, as a natural consequence, was the Cardinal de Richelieu, who, despising the abilities of the finance minister, chafed under his own inferiority of place, and did not fail to imbue the Queen-mother with the same feeling. La Vieuville was accused of arrogating to himself an amount of authority wholly incompatible with his office, and it is impossible to suppress a smile while contemplating the fact that this accusation was brought against him by the very individual who, only a few months subsequently, ruled both the monarch and the nation with a rod of iron.

The desired end was, however, attained. Weak and vain, as well as personally incompetent, Louis XIII was easily led to fear those upon whom he had himself conferred the power of lessening his own authority; and as so many interests were involved in the overthrow of De la Vieuville, it was soon decided. Fearful of betraying his own personal views, Richelieu took no active measures in this dismissal, nor were any such needed; as, in addition to his other errors, the finance minister had, by a singular want of judgment, excited against himself the indignation of Monsieur by committing his governor, Colonel d'Ornano, to the Bastille, upon the pretext that he had instigated the Prince to demand admission to the Council in order that he might obtain a knowledge of public affairs, but with the sole intention of procuring his own access to the Government. The jealousy of Louis was at once aroused by this assurance; and the arrest of his brother's friend and confidant had, as a natural consequence, resulted from the minister's ill-advised representation, an insult which Gaston so violently resented that he forthwith entered into the cabal against De la Vieuville, and thus seconded the views of the Queen-mother, who was anxious to replace the obnoxious minister by the Cardinal de Richelieu.

True to his character, on being apprised of the powerful faction formed against him, De la Vieuville resolved to tender his resignation, and thus to deprive his enemies of the triumph of causing his disgrace, for which purpose he proceeded to declare to the King his desire to withdraw from the high office which had been conferred upon him. Louis XIII simply replied: "Make yourself perfectly easy, and pay no attention to what is going forward. When I have no longer occasion for your services, I will tell you so myself; and you shall have my permission to come and take leave of me before your departure."

On the following day De la Vieuville accordingly presented himself as usual during the sitting of the Privy Council, when the King abruptly exclaimed: "I redeem the promise which I made to tell you when I could dispense with your services. I have resolved to do so; and you are at liberty to take your leave." The ex-minister, bewildered by so extraordinary a reception, attempted no rejoinder, but hastened to quit the royal presence. He had, however, no sooner reached the gallery than he was arrested by the Marquis de Thermes, and conveyed as a prisoner to the citadel of Amboise, whence he made his escape a year afterwards.[87]

The result of this arrest was a total change in the aspect of the Court. M. de Marillac[88] succeeded to the vacant superintendence of finance; the Comte de Schomberg was recalled to the capital, and made a member of the Privy Council; D'Ornano was liberated from the Bastille, restored to his position in the household of the Duc d'Anjou, and honoured with a marshal's baton; while, to complete the moral revolution, Richelieu was appointed chief of the Council, and became, as the Queen-mother had anticipated, all-powerful over the weak and timid mind of the King under his new character of Minister of State.

Fully occupied as the Cardinal might have found himself by the foreign wars into which his ambition ere long plunged his royal master, he was nevertheless compelled to turn his attention to the intrigues of certain great ladies of the Court, which threatened internal dissension, and in which the two Queens ultimately became involved. The young Duc d'Anjou, whose prepossessing manners and handsome person had rendered him universally popular, began about this time to awaken the distrust and jealousy of the King; a feeling which was heightened by the marked preference evinced by Marie de Medicis for her younger son. The marriage of the Prince with the wealthy heiress of Montpensier, whose mother had espoused the Duc de Guise, had long been decided; but as Gaston had hitherto evinced the utmost indifference towards his destined bride, the subject had elicited little attention. Suddenly, however, this indifference gave place to the most marked admiration; and it became evident that he was seriously contemplating an alliance with the Princess who had been designed for him by his father. In so trivial and dissolute a Court as that of France at this period, it is needless to remark to how many fears and regrets such a resolution immediately gave birth; nor was it long ere two separate cabals were formed—the one favouring, and the other seeking to impede, the marriage. Passion and party-feeling overthrew every barrier of decency and dignity; and from this moment may be traced that insurmountable aversion which Louis XIII subsequently exhibited alike towards the Queen his wife and the Prince his brother.

It no sooner became apparent to the Court circle that the Princesse de Conti gave perpetual entertainments, in order to afford to Gaston constant opportunity for conversing with Mademoiselle de Montpensier, than the enemies of the Guises leagued together to inspire the King with their own fears, declaring that such an accession of influence as must accrue to that haughty house by an alliance with the heir-presumptive threatened the stability of the throne; representations which were rendered the more powerful by the extraordinary fact that the Duchesse de Joyeuse, who was herself the wife of a younger brother of the Guises, and the Marquise de la Valette, whose husband was a near relation of the Princesse de Montpensier, were both loud in their entreaties that the brother of the King should not be permitted to contract the alliance which he contemplated. But while Louis was bewildered by this seeming contradiction, Richelieu thoroughly appreciated its real motive, being well aware of the enmity which existed between Mesdames de Joyeuse and de la Valette and the Princesse de Conti, who had long ceased to dissemble their dislike; and who were consequently overjoyed to oppose any undertaking to which the adverse party was pledged.

The two former ladies, who were the most confidential friends of the young Queen, found little difficulty in exciting her alarm, and in inducing her to assist them in their endeavours to thwart a marriage by which, as they asserted, her own personal interests were threatened; nor did they scruple to remind her that in the event of the King's demise, an occurrence which his feeble constitution and frequent indisposition rendered far from improbable, it was necessary for her own future welfare that the heir-presumptive to the Crown should remain unmarried as long as possible.

"What must be your fate, Madame," they insidiously urged, "should his Majesty die without issue? Should you be willing to retire to a cloister while Mademoiselle de Montpensier took your place upon the throne? Or, even supposing that the King survives, and that you continue childless while the Prince becomes the father of a son, whom all France will regard as its future sovereign, how will you be able to brook the comparative insignificance to which you must be reduced? You will do well to consider these things; and to remember that, in the event of your widowhood, your interest requires that the successor of your present consort should be in a position to secure to you the same station as that which you now hold."

These artful representations produced the desired effect upon the mind of Anne of Austria, who, alike haughty and vain, could not brook to anticipate any diminution of her dignity; and she accordingly lost no time in impressing upon Louis the danger to which he would expose himself by allowing his brother to form an alliance that could not fail to balance his own power in the kingdom. Naturally jealous and distrustful, the King listened eagerly to her reasoning; and while the young Prince continued to pay his court each day more assiduously to the noble and wealthy heiress, the adverse faction, under the sanction of the sovereign, were labouring no less zealously to contravene his views. In conjunction with the Queen, there were not wanting several individuals who, moreover, pointed out to the monarch that should Gaston be permitted to accomplish the contemplated marriage, he would be thus enabled to gain over the still existing leaders of the League, and the party of the Prince de Conde, who, already disaffected towards his own person, would not fail to embrace the interests of his brother. More and more alarmed by each succeeding argument, Louis forthwith summoned M. d'Ornano to his presence, and peremptorily commanded him to put an immediate stop to the intrigues which were going on upon the subject of the projected alliance; and to forbid the Prince, in his name, to form any engagement with Mademoiselle de Montpensier.[89]

Few orders could have been more agreeable to the governor of Gaston, who, aware that both Richelieu and the Queen-mother ardently desired the accomplishment of a marriage which, while it must greatly enrich the Prince and augment his influence, would nevertheless still render him amenable to their authority, was on his side eager to effect his alliance with a foreign princess, for the express purpose of emancipating him from a dependence which interfered with his own influence, and threatened his personal ambition. Meanwhile the Prince himself was divided between his affection for the beautiful heiress and his desire to shake off the yoke of the Cardinal-Minister, to which he submitted with ill-disguised impatience; and thus, although less ostensibly, each faction continued to intrigue as busily as ever.

FOOTNOTES:

[61] Mercure Francais, 1621. Bernard, book v.

[62] Mezeray, vol. xi. pp. 221, 222.

[63] Richelieu, Mem. book xii. pp. 118-128. Rohan, Mem. book ii. pp. 183-185. Bazin, vol. iii. pp. 132-138.

[64] Bassompierre, Mem. vol. ii. pp. 493, 494.

[65] Le Vassor, vol. ii. p. 421. Sismondi, vol. xxii. pp. 492, 493. Bassompierre, Mem. vol. ii. p. 358.

[66] Le Vassor, vol. ii. p. 421. Mercure Francais, 1621.

[67] Sismondi, vol. xxii. pp. 497, 498.

[68] Mezeray, vol. xi. pp. 230-232.

[69] Marguerite de Souvre, Marquise de Sable, was the wife of Philippe Emmanuel de Laval-Montmorency. She died in 1678, in her seventy-sixth year.

[70] Motteville, Mem. vol. i. pp. 340-342.

[71] Bassompierre, Mem. vol. ii. p. 376. Sismondi, vol. xxii. pp. 499, 500.

[72] Mezeray, vol. xi. pp. 232, 233. Sismondi, Hist. des Francais, vol. xxii. p. 501.

[73] Le Vassor, vol. ii. p. 457.

[74] Bassompierre, Mem. vol. ii. p. 389.

[75] Sismondi, vol. xxii. pp. 504-506.

[76] Sismondi, vol. xxii. pp. 510-512. Mezeray, vol. xi. pp. 238-240.

[77] Bassompierre, Mem. vol. ii. p. 492. Brienne, Mem. vol. i. p. 371. Mezeray, vol. xi. pp. 242, 243.

[78] Le Vassor, vol. ii. p. 525.

[79] Louis Le Febvre, Marquis de Caumartin, President of the Privy Council, and Keeper of the Seals in 1622, died in the following year at the age of seventy-two. He was a man of great talent, and an able politician.

[80] Charles de la Vieuville, subsequently created duke.

[81] Etienne d'Aligre was a native of Chartres, and owed his advancement in life solely to his great talents. He became successively steward of the household to the Cardinal Charles de Bourbon, Councillor of State, Keeper of the Seals, and subsequently, on the death of M. de Sillery, Chancellor of France. Two years afterwards, having resigned the seals, he retired to one of his estates, where he died on the 11th of December 1635, at the age of seventy-five years.

[82] Brienne, Mem. vol. i. pp. 373, 374. Bassompierre, Mem. vol. iii. p. 6. Le Vassor, vol. ii. pp. 546, 547.

[83] Mezeray, vol. xi. pp. 260-263. Sismondi, vol. xxii. p. 534.

[84] Richelieu, Mem. book xv. pp. 284-286.

[85] Le Vassor, vol. ii. p. 615. Siri, Mem. Rec. vol. v. pp. 595, 596.

[86] Richelieu, Mem. book xv. p. 296.

[87] Mezeray, vol. xi. pp. 267-269. Le Vassor, vol. ii. p. 621.

[88] Michel de Marillac was born in 1563. He was successively Councillor in the Parliament of Paris, Master of the Court of Requests, Councillor of State, Superintendent of Finance, and Keeper of the Seals (1626). Four years subsequently he was involved in the disgrace of his brother the Marechal de Marillac, and was compelled to resign the seals (1630). He was then conveyed to the fortress of Caen, whence he was finally removed to that of Chateaudun, where he died of grief on the 7th of August 1632. He was the author of the Code Michau, a translation of the Psalms into French verse, and several other works.

[89] Le Vassor, edit. 1717, vol. v. pp. 110-112. Bassompierre, vol. iii. pp. 13-15. Sismondi, vol. xxiii. p. 12. Fontenay-Mareuil, vol. ii. p. 4.



CHAPTER V

1625-28

Death of James I.—The Princesse Henriette is married by proxy to Charles I.—The Duke of Buckingham arrives in France to conduct his young sovereign to her new country—An arrogant suitor—Departure of the English Queen—Indisposition of Marie de Medicis—Arrival of Henriette in London—Growing power of Richelieu—Suspicions of the Queen-mother—Influence of the Jesuit Berulle over Marie de Medicis—Richelieu urges Monsieur to conclude his marriage with Mademoiselle de Montpensier—Character of Gaston—He refuses to accept the hand of the lady—Arrest of M. d'Ornano—Vengeance of Richelieu—Indignation of Monsieur—Alarm of the Queen-mother—Pusillanimity of Gaston—Arrest of the Vendome Princes—Edicts issued against the great nobles—Sumptuary laws—Execution of the Comte de Bouteville—The reign of Richelieu—Policy of Marie and her minister—Distrust of the King—Conspiracy against the Cardinal—Richelieu threatens to retire from office—A diplomatic drama—Triumph of the Cardinal—Execution of Chalais—Heartlessness of Gaston—Monsieur consents to an alliance with Mademoiselle de Montpensier—A royal marriage—The victims of Richelieu—Marie de Medicis and the Cardinal endeavour to increase the dissension between Louis XIII and his Queen—Exile of the Duchesse de Joyeuse—Accusation against Anne of Austria—She becomes a state prisoner—Subtlety of Richelieu—Anticipated rupture with England—Embassy of Bassompierre—Death of the Duc de Lesdiguieres—Favour of Saint-Simon—Pregnancy of the Duchesse d'Orleans—Dissolute conduct of Monsieur—Birth of Mademoiselle—Death of Madame—Marie de Medicis seeks to effect a marriage between Monsieur and a Florentine Princess—Buckingham lands in France, but is repulsed—Illness of Louis XIII—Disgust of the Duc d'Orleans—Louis wearies of the camp—He is incensed against the Cardinal—The King returns to Paris—Monsieur affects a passion for the Princesse Marie de Gonzaga, which alarms the sovereign—His distrust of the Queen-mother—Marie de Medicis withdraws her confidence from the Cardinal—Mother and son—Louis returns to La Rochelle—The city capitulates—Triumphal entry of Louis XIII into Paris—Exhortation of the Papal Nuncio.

The death of James I. and the succession of Charles, Prince of Wales, to the English throne, at the commencement of the year 1625, excited the greatest uneasiness at the Court of France, where all parties were alike anxious for the arrival of the Papal dispensation. Nor was the new monarch himself less desirous of completing the contemplated alliance, as only three days were suffered to elapse after the demise of his royal father ere he hastened to ratify the treaty, and to make preparations for its immediate fulfilment.[90]

On the arrival of the long-expected courier from Rome the dispensation was delivered into the hands of Marie de Medicis by Spada, the Papal Nuncio; and on the 8th of May the Duc de Chevreuse, whom Charles had appointed as his proxy, signed the contract of marriage, conjointly with the Earl of Carlisle and Lord Holland, who officiated as Ambassadors Extraordinary from the Court of St. James's. At the ceremonial of the marriage, which took place on the 11th of May, the difference of religion between the English monarch and the French Princess compelled the observance of certain conventional details which were all scrupulously fulfilled. The Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld, Grand Almoner of France, pronounced the nuptial benediction on a platform erected before the portal of Notre-Dame, after which the Duc de Chevreuse and the English Ambassadors conducted the young Queen to the entrance of the choir, and retired until the conclusion of the mass, when they rejoined Louis XIII and their new sovereign at the same spot, and accompanied them to the great hall of the archiepiscopal palace, where a sumptuous banquet had been prepared.[91]

Some days subsequently, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, arrived unexpectedly in Paris, to urge the immediate departure of the Princess for her new kingdom, and to express the impatience of the King his master to welcome her to his dominions. The extraordinary magnificence displayed by Buckingham on this occasion was the comment of the whole Court, while the remarkable beauty of his person excited no less admiration than the splendour of his apparel; nor was it long ere the scandal-mongers of the royal circle whispered that it had not failed in its effect upon the fancy, if not upon the heart, of Anne of Austria, who received his homage with an evident delight which flattered the vanity of the brilliant visitor. High in favour with his sovereign, and anxious to profit by so favourable an opportunity of enhancing his own personal attractions, Buckingham appeared at the Court festivals attired in the Crown jewels, and indulged in a reckless profusion which enriched all with whom he came into contact, and soon rendered him a general favourite. Aware of the impression that he had produced, the English Duke, whose ambition was as great as his gallantry, soon suffered himself to be betrayed into an undisguised admiration of the French Queen, which led him to commit a thousand unbecoming follies; while Anne was on her side so imprudent that her most partial biographer deemed it necessary to advance an apology for her levity by declaring that "it should excite no astonishment if he had the happiness to make this beautiful Queen acknowledge that if a virtuous woman had been able to love another better than her husband, he would have been the only person who could have pleased her." [92]

Fortunately, alike for the thoughtless Anne and the audacious favourite, this dangerous intercourse was abruptly terminated by the departure of Madame Henrietta, who left the capital in great pomp, accompanied by the King her brother (who was to proceed only as far as Compiegne), and by the two Queens, from whom she was not to separate until the moment of her embarkation at Boulogne, where the vessels of Charles awaited her arrival. On reaching Amiens, however, Marie de Medicis was attacked by sudden indisposition; and as, after a delay of several days, it was found impossible that she should continue her journey, the English Queen was compelled to take leave of her august mother and sister-in-law in that city, and to proceed to the coast under the escort of Monsieur, who was attended by the Ducs de Luxembourg and de Bellegarde, the Marechal de Bassompierre, the Marquis d'Alencourt, and the Vicomte de Brigueil. On the 22nd of June the royal fleet set sail, and in twenty-four hours Queen Henrietta reached Dover; where she was met by her impatient consort, who, on the following day, conducted her to Canterbury; and in the course of July she made her entry into London, whence, however, she was immediately removed to Hampton Court, the prevalence of the plague in the capital rendering her sojourn there unsafe.

Having witnessed the departure of the royal bride for her new kingdom, Monsieur and his brilliant train returned to Amiens; and on the recovery of the Queen-mother the whole of the august party retraced their steps to Paris, whence they shortly afterwards proceeded to Fontainebleau.[93]

At this period Richelieu had become all-powerful He possessed the entire confidence alike of the King and of the Queen-mother. He had been appointed chief of the Council, and possessed such unlimited authority that he opened the despatches, and issued orders without even asking the sanction of Marie de Medicis, whose influence was rapidly becoming merely nominal; and whose favour he treated so lightly that he never appeared at Court during the absence of the King lest the jealousy of Louis should be aroused, and he should be induced to believe that the wily minister still acknowledged the supremacy of his ancient benefactress;[94] while he flattered the ambition of the war-loving monarch by attributing to him personally all the success which attended his own measures alike in the foreign and civil contests which were at that period writing the history of the French nation in characters of blood.



Marie de Medicis was, however, slow to discover the falling-off of her long-cherished favourite. She still dwelt upon the years in which he had, as she fondly believed, devoted himself to her interests, when others in whom she had equally trusted had shrunk from all participation in her altered fortunes; and she was, moreover, conscious that to his counsels she was indebted for much of the prudence and ability which she had displayed on occasions of difficulty. It was, consequently, painful and almost impossible to suspect that now, when she was once more restored to the confidence of her son, and had resumed that position in the government which she had so long coveted in vain, he could sacrifice her to his own ambition. But Marie de Medicis, subtle politician as she esteemed herself, was utterly incapable of appreciating the character of Richelieu. She had now reached her fifty-third year; she was no longer necessary to the fortunes of the man whose greatness had been her own work, and she had ceased to interest him either as a woman or as a Queen. She had, moreover, become devout; and her increasing attachment for the Jesuit Berulle (for whom she subsequently obtained a seat in the Conclave) rendered her less observant of the neglect to which she was subjected by the minister; while her superstition, together with the prejudices and jealousies in which she indulged, occupied her mind, and blinded her to the efforts which the Cardinal was hourly making to reduce her to absolute insignificance.

Perhaps no greater proof of the unbounded influence which Richelieu had obtained over the mind of the King at this period can be adduced than is afforded by the fact that although, as we have shown, Louis had stringently forbidden all further mention of his brother's marriage with Mademoiselle de Montpensier, and Gaston had at length consented to relinquish his claim to her hand, the Cardinal found little difficulty in inducing the sovereign to rescind this order, and to instruct M. d'Ornano to determine the weak and timid Prince to renew his addresses to the heiress, and to hasten the completion of the marriage ceremonies.

Gaston d'Anjou had attained his seventeenth year; and although of more robust temperament than the King, he was constitutionally indolent and undecided. His after-history proves him to have been alike an incapable diplomatist, a timid leader, and a false and fickle friend; but as yet no suspicion of his courage or good faith had been entertained by any party, and he was consequently the centre around which rallied every cabal in turn. He was moreover, as we have already stated, the favourite son of the Queen-mother, who saw in him not only a cherished child but also a political ally. By securing the support of Gaston, Marie believed that she should be the more readily enabled to maintain her influence, and to protect herself against any future aggression on the part of Louis, with whom she felt her apparent reconciliation to be at once hollow and unstable; and as the vain and vacillating character of the Prince readily lent itself to the projects of each cabal in succession, so long as it did not interfere with his pleasures, every party in turn believed him to be devoted to its especial interests, and calculated upon his support whenever the struggle should commence. Thus, while himself jealous of Louis, whose crown he envied, Gaston d'Anjou was no less an object of distrust and terror to the King; who, whatever may have been his other defects, was never found deficient in personal courage; and who could not consequently comprehend that with every inclination to play the conspirator, the young Prince was utterly incapable of guiding or even supporting any party powerful and honest enough openly to declare itself.

Under these circumstances, however, it is not surprising that the marriage of the heir-apparent should have excited the most absorbing interest not only at the French Court, but throughout all Europe. The health of Louis XIII continued feeble and uncertain; he rallied slowly and painfully after each successive attack; and since the visit of the Duke of Buckingham to Paris his repugnance to Anne of Austria had become more marked than ever; while the young Queen in her turn resented his neglect with augmented bitterness, and loudly complained of the injustice to which she should be subjected were the children of Gaston d'Anjou to inherit the throne of France. The Princes of the Blood supported Anne in this objection; for neither Conde nor the Comte de Soissons could, as a natural consequence, regard with favour any measure which must tend to diminish the chances of their own succession; while the latter, moreover, desired to become himself the husband of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, and the Princesse de Conde aspired to unite her own daughter, still a mere infant, to the brother of the King. The other great nobles were also disinclined to see the young Prince form so close an alliance with the Duc de Guise; and the Duke of Savoy was eager to bestow on him the hand of Marie de Gonzaga, the heiress of Montferrat, and thus to secure to himself a powerful ally against the perpetual aggressions of his numerous enemies.

D'Ornano, as we have seen, had been commanded to renew the negotiation of marriage between Gaston and the bride destined for him by Henri IV, but private reasons decided him against the measure; and, in consequence of his representations, the Prince formally refused to obey the expressed wishes of the King. The moment was a favourable one for Richelieu, who had long sought a pretext for ridding himself of Monsieur's favourite friend and counsellor; and he accordingly lost no time in impressing upon Louis that, as the young Prince was entirely governed by M. d'Ornano, no concession could be expected from him until that individual had been removed from about his person. Nor was the Marechal alone an object of suspicion and uneasiness to the minister, for it was not long ere he ascertained that the party of the Prince was hourly becoming more formidable, and that were the cabal not crushed in its infancy, it might very soon tend to endanger at once the safety of the sovereign and the tranquillity of the kingdom; while he also learned through his emissaries that his own security was no less involved in the issue than that of Louis himself.

Under these circumstances Richelieu at once felt that the only method by which he could hope to control Gaston was by proceeding with the utmost severity against all such persons as should be convicted of endeavouring to excite the mind of the Prince against his royal brother; a policy which Louis eagerly adopted. In accordance with this resolution, during the sojourn of the Court at Fontainebleau in the month of May, the King on his return from a hunting-party, after having retired to rest, suddenly rose again, dressed himself, and at ten o'clock at night summoned M. d'Ornano to his presence, whom he entertained for a time with an account of the day's sport, and other inconsequent conversation, until Du Hallier, the captain of the bodyguard, made his appearance at the head of his archers, and approaching the Marechal, announced to him that he was his prisoner; requesting him to withdraw from the royal apartment, whence he conducted him to the chamber in which the Duc de Biron had been confined twenty-four years previously,[95] while Madame d'Ornano at the same time received an order to quit Paris upon the instant, and the two brothers of the disgraced courtier, together with MM. Deageant, Modena, and other partisans of the Marechal, were also arrested.

By this bold stroke of policy the Cardinal effectually paralyzed the power of Monsieur; although this conviction was far from allaying his personal apprehensions. Among the favourites of the Prince he had equally marked for destruction the young Prince de Chalais,[96] the Duc de Vendome, and his brother the Grand Prior; but Richelieu feared by venturing too much to lose all, for his authority had not at that period reached its acme; and he felt all the danger which he must incur by adopting measures of such violence against two Princes of the Blood.

The indignation of Monsieur was, moreover, thoroughly excited, and he did not scruple either to reproach his royal brother, or to utter threats against those who had aided in the arrest of the Marechal, whose restoration to liberty he vehemently demanded; and as his representations failed to produce the desired effect, he indulged in a thousand extravagances which only tended to strengthen the hands and to forward the views of Richelieu, who found no difficulty in widening the breach between Louis and the imprudent Prince by whom his authority was openly questioned. In vain did Marie de Medicis endeavour to impress upon him the danger of such ill-advised violence, Gaston persisted in upholding his favourite; until the King, irritated beyond endurance, exhibited such marked displeasure towards his brother that the weak and timid Prince began to entertain fears for his own safety, and became suddenly as abject as he had previously been haughty; abandoned D'Ornano to his fate; and after signing an act, in which he promised all honour and obedience to the sovereign, carried his condescension so far as to visit the Cardinal at his residence at Limours, whither he had retired on the pretext of indisposition.

Richelieu triumphed: and ere long the Duc de Vendome and his brother were arrested in their turn, and conveyed to the citadel of Amboise. The Comte de Soissons, the second Prince of the Blood, fled the Court in alarm, and took refuge in Savoy; while edict after edict was fulminated against the nobles, which threatened all their old and long-cherished privileges. The costume of each separate class was determined with a minuteness of detail which exasperated the magnificent courtiers, who had been accustomed to attire themselves in embroidery and cloth of gold, in rich laces, and plumed and jewelled hats, and who suddenly found themselves reduced to a sobriety of costume repugnant to their habits; the Comte de Bouteville, of the haughty house of Montmorency, who had dared to disregard the revived law against duelling, lost his head upon the scaffold; and all castles, to whomsoever belonging, which could not aid in the protection of the frontiers, or of the towns near which they were situated, were ordered to be demolished.

The reign of Richelieu had commenced.

Meanwhile the Court had taken up its residence at Fontainebleau; where Louis, deaf to the murmurs of his great nobles, passed his time in hunting, a sport of which he was passionately fond; while Marie de Medicis and the Cardinal endeavoured, by every species of dissipation, to lull him into acquiescence with the perilous measures they were adopting.

Always sickly and querulous, Louis was a prey to dark thoughts and fearful anticipations of early dissolution; and even while he suffered himself to be amused by the hawking, dancing, and feasting so lavishly provided for his entertainment, he was never at fault, during his frequent fits of moroseness and ill-humour, for subjects of complaint. His brother, Gaston d'Anjou, whom he at once feared and hated, was a constant theme of distrust; while the Comte de Soissons, the Duc de Montmorency, and the Prince de Chalais, his sworn adherents, were at times equally obnoxious to the suspicious and gloomy young sovereign. Then he bewailed the treachery of the Queen, whom he believed, through the agency of Richelieu, to be engaged in an intrigue with Spain dangerous to his own interests; mourned over himself because he had weakly suffered his authority to be usurped by a subject, and had not moral courage to redeem the error; and in his most confidential moments even inveighed against Richelieu with the bitterness of a sullen schoolboy, declaring that it was he who had poisoned the mind of his brother, estranged him from his wife, and deprived him of the support of the Princes of the Blood; forgetting, or wilfully overlooking the fact, that a single effort on his own part must have sufficed for his emancipation from this rule of iron.

On the departure of the Court for Fontainebleau, the Cardinal, according to his usual custom, had excused himself on the plea of ill-health from following the King; while Gaston d'Anjou, who, despite the concession that he had made, still deeply resented the affront to which he had been subjected by the arrest of his favourite, had remained in Paris. Richelieu, was, however, far from inactive in his retreat; but, while he was occupied in further schemes of self-aggrandizement, the partisans of the Prince were equally busy in devising the means of ridding themselves of a thrall so obnoxious to their pride; and after mooting several measures which were successively abandoned from their apparent impracticability, it was at length decided that, under the pretext of a hunting-party, nine of the conspirators should proceed to Fleury, and there assassinate their common enemy. Of this number was the unfortunate Chalais; who, however, before the execution of the project, confided it to a friend, by whom he was warned against any participation in so dangerous an attempt, and advised immediately to apprise the Cardinal of his danger. As the young Prince hesitated to follow this counsel, the Commandeur de Valence, who was anxious to save him from, as he believed, inevitable destruction, assured him that should he fail to communicate the conspiracy to the minister, he would himself instantly reveal it; upon which Chalais, intimidated by the threat, consented to accompany him to Richelieu, and to confess the whole.

Having listened attentively to all the details of the plot, the Cardinal courteously thanked his informants, and requested them to proceed to Fontainebleau, and to repeat what they had told him to the King. He was obeyed; and an hour before midnight Louis despatched a body of troops to Fleury, with instructions to obey the orders of the minister whatever might be their nature; while Marie de Medicis at the same time commanded the officers of her household and a number of the nobility to accompany the royal guards.

As Chalais had asserted, at three o'clock on the following morning the clerks of the kitchen to the Duc d'Anjou arrived at Fleury, and immediately commenced their preparations for the dinner of the Prince; upon which Richelieu caused them to be informed that he should leave the house at the entire disposal of Monsieur; and, escorted by the armed party that had been sent for his protection, he set out at once for Fontainebleau, where he had no sooner arrived than he went without the delay of a moment to the apartment of the King's brother. Gaston was in the act of leaving his bed, and was evidently alarmed by the sudden appearance of so unexpected a visitor; but the Cardinal, affecting not to perceive his embarrassment, merely reproached him in the most courtly terms for the precaution which he had taken, assuring him that he should have felt honoured had he relied upon his hospitality; but adding that, since his Highness had shown himself desirous of avoiding all restraint, he was happy to be at least enabled to offer him the use of his residence. The Prince, taken by surprise, and utterly disconcerted at the failure of so well organized a plot, could only stammer out his acknowledgments; and the Cardinal had no sooner heard them to an end than he requested admission to the King, where, having briefly expatiated upon his escape, he requested permission with ably-acted earnestness to retire from the Court.

As we have shown, Louis was by no means slow in deprecating the self-constituted authority of Richelieu; but he was nevertheless so well aware of his own incapacity, that the idea of being thus abandoned by a minister whose grasp of intellect and subtle policy had complicated the affairs of government until he was compelled to admit his own utter powerlessness to disentangle the involved and intricate mesh, terrified him beyond expression; nor was Marie de Medicis, whom he hastened to summon on perceiving the apparently resolute position assumed by Richelieu, less alarmed than himself.

Had the scene been enacted by three individuals of mean station, it would have been merely a painful and a degrading one, for each was alike deceiving and deceived; but as they stood there, a crowned King, a Princess born "under the purple," and a powerful minister, it presented another and a more extraordinary aspect. Stolid and resolute as were alike the mother and the son, they were totally unable to cope with the superior talent and astuteness of the man whom they had themselves raised to power; and before the termination of the interview Richelieu had convinced both that his counsels and services were essential to their own safety.

This point conceded, the wily Cardinal was enabled to make his own terms. He received the most solemn assurances of support, not only against the brother of the sovereign, but also against the Princes of the Blood and all the great nobles; while a promise was moreover made, and ratified, that he should have immediate information of every attempt to injure him in the estimation of the King; and, finally, he was offered a bodyguard, over which he was to possess the most absolute control.

This exhibition of royal weakness strengthened the hands of the haughty minister, who thus became regal in all save name and blood; and encouraged him to pursue his system of dissimulation. As mother and son vied with each other in opening before him the most brilliant perspective ever conceded to a subject, he feigned a reluctance and a humility which only tended to render their entreaties the more earnest and the more pressing; until at length, although with apparent unwillingness, he was prevailed upon to retain his post, and to crush his enemies by the exhibition of a splendour and authority hitherto without parallel in the annals of ministerial life.[97]

It was not to be anticipated that under such circumstances as these the imprudent Chalais could retain one chance of escape. Aware of his favour with the King, his fall at once relieved Richelieu of a rival, and taught the weak and capricious monarch to quail before the power of the man whom he had thus invested with almost unlimited authority; and the natural result ensued. Unwilling to admit that he sought to revenge an attempt against his own person, the Cardinal caused the unfortunate young noble to be accused of a conspiracy against the life of the King himself, and a design to effect a marriage between Anne of Austria and the Duc d'Anjou. Judges were suborned; a court was assembled; the gay and gallant Chalais, whose whole existence had hitherto been one round of pleasure and splendour, and who was, as we have fully shown, too timid and too inexperienced to enact, even with the faintest chance of success, the character of a conspirator, was put upon his trial for treason, and condemned to die upon the scaffold; nor did the efforts of his numerous friends avail to avert his fate.

Louis forgot his former affection for his brilliant favourite in his fear of the minister who sought his destruction; while the heartless and ungrateful Gaston, wilfully overlooking the fact that it was in his service that the miserable young man had become compromised, actually appeared as one of his accusers; his relatives were forbidden to intercede in his behalf; and finally, when some zealous friends succeeded in hiding away not only the royal executioner, but also the city functionary, in the hope of delaying his execution, the emissaries of the Cardinal secured the services of a condemned felon, who, on a promise of unconditional pardon, consented to fill the office of headsman; and who, between his inexperience and his horror at his unwonted task, performed his hideous functions so imperfectly that it was only on the thirty-fourth stroke that the head of the martyred young man was severed from his body.[98]

During the progress of this iniquitous trial (which took place in the city of Nantes, whither Louis had proceeded to convoke the States of that province) both Marie de Medicis and Richelieu were assiduously labouring to accomplish the marriage of Gaston with Mademoiselle de Montpensier; nor does there remain the slightest doubt that it was to the splendid promises held out by his mother and her minister on this occasion, that the cowardly and treacherous conduct of the Prince towards his unfortunate adherent must be ascribed. A brilliant appanage was allotted to him; he was to assume the title of Duc d'Orleans; to occupy a post in the Government; and to enjoy a revenue of a million of francs.

Prospects far less flattering than these would have sufficed to purchase Gaston, whose besetting sin throughout his whole life was the most disgusting and inordinate selfishness; but when his consent had been obtained, a new difficulty supervened on the part of the King, whose distrustful character would not permit him to perceive the eagerness with which the Cardinal urged forward the alliance without misgivings which were fostered by his immediate friends. Richelieu, however, soon succeeded by his representations in convincing the suspicious monarch of the policy of thus compelling his brother to a thorough subjection to his own authority, which could not have been enforced had Monsieur allied himself to a Princess of Austria or Spain; an argument which was instantly appreciated, and a royal command was accordingly despatched to the elected bride to join the Court at Nantes, under the escort of the Duc de Bellegarde, the Marechal de Bassompierre, and the Marquis d'Effiat.

In accordance with this invitation, Mademoiselle de Montpensier arrived at Nantes on the 1st of August; and on the 5th of the same month, while the wretched and deserted Chalais was exposed to the most frightful torture, the marriage took place. "There was little pomp or display," says Mezeray, "either at the betrothal or at the nuptial ceremony." Feux de joie and salvos of artillery alone announced its completion. The mass was, however, performed by Richelieu himself; and so thoroughly had he succeeded in convincing Louis of the expediency of the measure, that the delight of the young King was infinitely more conspicuous than that of the bridegroom. The satisfaction of Marie de Medicis, although sufficiently evident, was calm and dignified; but the King embraced the bride on three several occasions; and no one could have imagined from his deportment that he had for a single instant opposed a marriage which now appeared to have fulfilled his most sanguine wishes.[99]

The reign of blood had nevertheless commenced. The head of Chalais fell on the 19th of August; and on the 2nd of September the Marechal d'Ornano expired in his prison; a fate which was shared on the 28th of February 1629 by the Grand Prieur de Vendome, both of these deaths being attributed to poison. Be the fact as it may, thus much is at least, certain, that the Cardinal, not daring to drag two legitimated Princes of the Blood to the scaffold, had gradually rendered their captivity more and more rigorous, as if to prove to the nation over which he had stretched his iron arm that no rank, however elevated, and no name, however ancient, could protect its possessor.

Having accomplished the marriage of the Duc d'Orleans, Richelieu and the Queen-mother next laboured to widen the breach between Louis XIII and his wife; for which purpose they represented that she had taken an active part in the lately detected conspiracy, and was secretly intriguing with Spain against the interests of her royal husband; an attempt in which she had been aided and abetted by her confidential friends.

The first consequence of this accusation was the arrest of Madame de Chevreuse, who, after having undergone a formal examination, was exiled from the Court; and this order had no sooner been obeyed than Anne of Austria was summoned to the presence of the King, whom she found seated between the Queen-mother and the Cardinal, and there solemnly accused, on the pretended revelations of Chalais while under torture, of having intrigued to procure the death of her husband, and her own marriage with his brother. To this accusation the Spanish Princess disdainfully replied that "she should have gained so little by the exchange, that the absurdity of the charge must suffice for its refutation;" but her haughty and indignant retort produced no effect upon her judges. She was commanded thenceforward to reside exclusively at the palaces of the Louvre and St. Germain; without the privilege of receiving a single guest, not even excepting the ambassador of the King her brother, or the Spanish attendants who had accompanied her to France, and, moreover, forbidden all correspondence beyond the limits of the kingdom; while, at the same time, as if to complete her humiliation, she was strictly prohibited from receiving any male visitor in her apartments during the absence of the King.[100]

Although, as we have stated, Richelieu was present at this degrading scene, he nevertheless professed to be perfectly independent of what he thought proper to designate as mere family dissensions, entirely beyond the functions of a minister; and thus the whole odium of the proceedings fell upon Louis XIII and the Queen-mother, while the Cardinal himself remained ostensibly absorbed in public business. Neither the great nobles nor the people were, however, deceived by this assumed disinterestedness; but all felt alike convinced that the total alienation which supervened between the royal couple was simply a part of the system by which Richelieu sought one day exclusively to govern France. Henriette Marie had left Paris after her betrothal, accompanied by a numerous retinue of French attendants of both sexes, and by several of the priests of the Oratory, attired in their black gowns; and on her arrival at Whitehall she had been permitted to have the services of her religion performed in one of the apartments of that palace; but this concession did not, unhappily, serve to satisfy the exactions of the girl-Queen, who, even during the first days of her residence in England, suffered herself to betray all her antipathy to the heretical country which was hereafter to be her home. At the public ceremonial of her marriage, when the venerable Abbey of Westminster was crowded with princes, bishops, and barons, she refused to receive her crown from the hands of a Protestant prelate, or to bend her knee before the Lord Primate; while at the same time, relying on her youth and the effect which her extreme beauty had produced upon her royal consort, she endeavoured to obtain an ascendency over him that excited the jealousy and distrust of the English Court; a feeling which was not lessened by the fact that she succeeded in extorting from the King his sanction to erect a chapel for the more solemn observance of the rites and ceremonies of her faith. Acting under the influence of Richelieu, who at frequent intervals despatched missionaries to London upon futile errands, with instructions that she should retain them about her person, she moreover soon taught herself to believe that she had a great mission to accomplish; and under this impression she carried her imprudence so far as to authorize a public procession through the streets of London, in which she herself appeared mounted upon a mule, surrounded and followed by all her household, and a crowd of Roman Catholic ecclesiastics.

So wanton a disregard for the feelings of her new subjects excited the indignation of the Parliament, and made them distrustful of the Duke of Buckingham, through whose agency and influence the alliance with France had been formed; while it laid the foundation of those accusations against him which were so warmly refuted by the sovereign. The Parliament was dissolved, and the necessity of raising subsidies engaged the minister in measures which became hostile to the French interests. An anti-Catholic reaction was declaring itself; and Buckingham at once felt that he could not more effectually satisfy both the Parliament and the people than by suppressing without delay that spirit of religious defiance which was arising in the very palace of the King.

With this conviction he accordingly declared to the young Queen, a few days after the public pilgrimage which she had made, that she must immediately send back to France, not only the members of her household, but also all the ecclesiastics who had induced her so ostentatiously to insult the faith of the nation by which she had been received and welcomed with a warmth that merited more consideration on her part. Indignant at so peremptory an order, Henriette exhibited an amount of violence which in a mere girl failed to produce the effect that she had anticipated. The Duke continued calm and resolute, while she, on her side, vehemently refused to comply with his directions; and after having reproached the sovereign in the most bitter terms for what she designated both as a breach of faith and as an act of tyranny, she summoned the Bishop of Mende, the French Ambassador, to the palace, and instructed him to apprise the King her brother of the insult with which she was threatened.

The prelate approved her resistance: and loudly declared that neither the individuals composing her household, nor the ecclesiastics who were attached to it, should leave England without an order to that effect from their own sovereign; and he forthwith despatched couriers to Paris, to inform the Court of the position of the English Queen; to which Louis replied by insisting that the persons who had accompanied his royal sister to her new kingdom should be permitted to remain about her; in default of which concession he should thenceforward hold himself aggrieved, and become the irreconcilable enemy of the British Government.

The Duke of Buckingham nevertheless persisted in his resolution, and the foreign attendants of Henriette were compelled to return to France, to the excessive indignation of Marie de Medicis, who refused to see in the extreme munificence of Charles towards the exiled household any extenuation of the affront which had been put upon her favourite daughter; while Henriette on her part, far from endeavouring to adapt herself to circumstances, and to yield with dignified submission to a privation which it was no longer in her power to avert, gave way to all the petulance of a spoiled girl, and overwhelmed the minister with reproaches and even threats. So unmeasured, indeed, were her invectives that at length, when she had on one occasion exhausted alike the temper and the endurance of Buckingham, he so far forgot the respect due to her rank and to her sex, as well as his own chivalry as a noble, as to retort with an impetuosity little inferior to her own that she had better not proceed too far, "for that in England queens had sometimes lost their heads;" a display of insolence which Henriette never forgot nor forgave, and which was immediately communicated to the French Court.

Time, far from lessening the animosity of the young Queen towards the favourite, or the consequent schism between herself and the King, appeared rather to increase both; and Richelieu, after having for a while contemplated a war with England conjointly with Philip of Spain, ultimately abandoned the idea as dangerous and doubtful to the interests of France. M. de Blainville and the Marquis d'Effiat were despatched to the Court of London with orders to attempt a compromise; but both signally failed; and Louis had no sooner returned to Paris than the Cardinal, who was aware that Buckingham was as anxious to commence hostilities as he was himself desirous to maintain peace, induced the King to despatch Bassompierre as ambassador-extraordinary to the Court of Whitehall with stringent instructions to effect, if possible, a good understanding between the two countries.

On his arrival in England, however, Bassompierre discovered to his great consternation that the coldness existing between the English monarch and his Queen was even more serious than had been apprehended at his own Court; and he was met on the very threshold of his task by a declaration from the Duke of Buckingham that Charles would only consent to give him a public audience on condition that he should not touch upon the subject which had brought him to England; as he felt that it was one which must necessarily make him lose his temper, which would be undignified in the presence of his Court and with the Queen at his side; who, angered by the dismissal of her French retinue, would not, as he felt convinced, fail in her turn to be guilty of some extravagance, but would probably shed tears before everybody; and that consequently, without this pledge on the part of the French envoy, he would accord him merely a private interview. Bassompierre hesitated for a time before he could bring himself to consent to such a compromise of his own dignity and that of his royal master; but, aware of the importance attached by Richelieu to the result of his mission, he at length declared that after having delivered the letters with which he was entrusted, he would leave it to his Majesty to determine the length of the audience, which might be easily abridged by a declaration that the subjects upon which they had to treat would require more time than his Majesty could then command, and that he would consequently appoint an earlier hour for seeing him in private.

This delicate affair having been thus satisfactorily arranged, the public audience took place at Hampton Court. Bassompierre was introduced into the royal presence by the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Carlisle, and on entering he found the King and Queen seated upon a raised dais, surrounded by a brilliant Court, but both sovereigns rose as he bent before them. Having presented his letters, together with the royal message, Charles, as had been previously arranged, pleaded want of leisure to enter upon public business; upon which the envoy proceeded to pay his respects to the Queen, who briefly replied that his Majesty having given her his permission to return to the capital, she should be able when there to discourse with him at greater length. Bassompierre then withdrew, and was escorted by all the great nobles to his carriage.

This commencement, as will be at once apparent, was sufficiently unpromising, but the French envoy was in a position of such responsibility that he dared not suffer himself to be discouraged; nor had he been long in England ere he became painfully convinced that the petulance and want of self-control in which Henriette wilfully indulged, daily tended to widen a schism that was already too threatening. Nevertheless, Bassompierre remained firmly at his post. Matrimonial feuds in high places were no novelty to the brilliant courtier of Henri IV and the confidant of Marie de Medicis; and he at once felt that he must enact at St. James's the same role as Sully had formerly represented at Fontainebleau and the Louvre; nor did his experience of the past fail, moreover, to convince him of the policy of endeavouring in the first instance to effect a reconciliation between the Queen and the favourite. This was, however, no easy task; but at length the zealous Marquis succeeded in the attempt, as he informs us in his usual naive style.

"On Sunday the 25th," he says, "I went to fetch the Duke and took him with me to the Queen, where he made his peace with her, which I had accomplished after a thousand difficulties. The King afterwards came in, who also made it up with her and caressed her a great deal, thanking me for having restored a good understanding between the Duke and his wife; and then he took me to his chamber, where he showed me his jewels, which are very fine."

On the morrow, however, when Bassompierre went to pay his respects to Henriette at Somerset House, he discovered that he had personally lost considerably in her favour, as she vehemently complained that he sacrificed her dignity as a Princess of France to expediency; and had espoused the cause of her adversary instead of upholding her own. To these reproaches the French envoy replied by explaining the difficulty of his position, and the earnest desire of his sovereign to maintain peace; but this reasoning did not avail to satisfy the wounded vanity of the girl-Queen; who finally, by her violence, compelled Bassompierre to remind her that her headstrong egotism was endangering the interests of her royal brother. Incensed at this accusation, Henriette at once wept and recriminated; and finally the French courtier retired from her presence, and hastened to forward a courier to Paris to solicit the interference of the King and his minister, and to request further instructions for his guidance.

A few days subsequently, after he had received urgent letters from the King, by which he was commanded to avoid in every emergency a rupture between the two countries, Bassompierre again waited upon the Queen, and explained to her the stringent orders of her royal brother; but Henriette persisted in declaring that her actual position was not appreciated at the French Court; and while she was maintaining this argument, despite all the asseverations of the bewildered envoy, the arrival of the King was announced. Charles had no sooner entered the apartment than a violent quarrel arose, which threatened such serious consequences that Bassompierre interposed, assuring the imprudent Princess that should she not control her temper, and acknowledge her error, he would on the following day take leave of his Britannic Majesty, and on his return to Paris explain to the sovereign and the Queen-mother that he had been compelled to abandon his mission entirely through her obstinate and uncompromising violence.

As this threat produced an evident effect upon Henriette, the King had no sooner retired than the Marechal, with admirable tact and temper, represented to the young Queen that at the age of sixteen she was incompetent to appreciate the measures of her royal consort; while by her intemperate language and strong prejudices she was seriously injuring her own cause. Henriette, during her paroxysms of petulance, was deaf to all his remonstrances; but on this occasion she listened with greater patience, and even admitted that she had gone too far; a concession which once more restored the hopes of Bassompierre.

Meanwhile he continued to receive constant letters of encouragement, both from Louis XIII and Richelieu, urging him to persevere until he should have succeeded in effecting a perfect reconciliation not only between the King and Queen, but also between the Queen and the Duke of Buckingham; and assuring him of their perfect satisfaction with the measures which he had already adopted. Marie de Medicis was, however, less placable; and much as she deprecated the idea of hostilities with England, she nevertheless openly applauded the resistance of her daughter to what she designated as the tyrannical presumption of Buckingham, and the blind weakness of Charles, who sacrificed the domestic happiness of a young and lovely bride to the arrogant intrigues of an overbearing favourite. The English Duke himself was peculiarly obnoxious to the Queen-mother, who could not forgive his insolent admiration of Anne of Austria, and the ostentatious manner in which he had made the wife of her son a subject of Court scandal; while, at the same time, she deeply resented the fact that Henriette had not even been permitted to retain her confessor, but was compelled to accept one chosen for her by the minister.

While, therefore, Bassompierre constantly received directions from both the King and the Cardinal to ensure peace at any price, and to prevail upon the young Queen to make the concessions necessary for producing this result, Marie de Medicis as continually wrote to entreat of the Marechal to uphold the interests of the French Princess, and to assure her of her perfect satisfaction at the spirit which she had evinced; though it is doubtful if, when these messages were entrusted to the royal envoy, they were ever communicated to the excitable Henriette.

Finally, to his great satisfaction, Bassompierre succeeded in carrying out the wishes of his sovereign; and he at length took his leave of the English Court, laden with rich presents, after having received the warm acknowledgments of all parties for the patience and impartiality with which he had acted throughout; and the gratification of feeling that a better, and as he hoped a lasting, understanding existed between the royal pair. The household of Henriette had been re-organized, and although upon a more reduced scale than that by which she had been accompanied from France, it was still sufficiently numerous to satisfy even the exigencies of royalty; and thus, estimated by its consequences, this embassy was probably the most brilliant event of Bassompierre's whole career; as from the period of his residence at the Court of England, the young Queen possessed both the heart and the confidence of her royal husband, whose affection for his beautiful and accomplished consort thenceforward endured to the last day of his existence.[101]

In the month of November France lost another of her marshals in the person of M. de Lesdiguieres, who had passed his eightieth year; while the subsequently celebrated court roue, the Duc de Saint-Simon, became the accredited favourite of the changeful and capricious Louis, without, however, attaining any influence in the government, which had at this period become entirely concentrated in the hands of Richelieu and the Queen-mother.

The pregnancy of the Duchesse d'Orleans, which was formally announced at the close of this year, was a source of great exultation to her husband, who received with undisguised delight the congratulations which were poured out upon him from every side; nor did he seek to disguise his conviction that, should the Queen continue childless, there was nothing to which he might see fit to aspire, which, with the assistance of the Guises and their faction, he would find it impossible to attain. A general hatred of Richelieu was the ruling sentiment of the great nobles, who were anxious to effect his overthrow, but the Cardinal was too prudent to be taken at a disadvantage; and he at once felt that in addition to the blow which he had aimed at the power of the barons by depriving them of their fortified places, he still possessed the means of maintaining his position, and even of increasing his authority, by labouring to accomplish the destruction of the Protestants; a policy which was eagerly adopted by Louis, whose morbid superstition, coupled with his love of war for its own sake, led him to believe that the work of slaughter which must necessarily supervene could not but prove agreeable to Heaven; counselled as it was, moreover, by a dignitary of the Church.

While Richelieu was thus seeking to involve the nation in a renewal of that intestine warfare by which it had already been so fearfully visited, simply to further his own ambitious views, the princes and nobles whom he had irritated into a thirst for vengeance were no less eager to attain the same object in order to effect his ruin; and for this purpose they endeavoured to secure the co-operation of Gaston, deluding themselves with the belief that the heir-apparent to the throne, who had encouraged their disaffection, and for the maintenance of whose interests Ornano and Chalais had already suffered, would not refuse to them at so critical a moment the support of his name, his wealth, and his influence. But these sanguine malcontents had not yet learned to appreciate the egotistical and ungrateful nature of the young Prince, who kept no mental record of services conferred, and retained no feeling of compunction for sufferings endured in his cause; but who ever sought to avail himself of both, while he continued utterly unable to appreciate either.

The appeal was consequently made in vain. Enriched by the careful policy of the Cardinal, Gaston sought only to profit by his suddenly-attained wealth; and despite the entreaties of his wife, whose youth, beauty, and accomplishments might well, for a time at least, have commanded his respect, he plunged into the most puerile and degrading pleasures, and abandoned himself to a life of alternate indolence and dissipation. The immense fortune of the Duchess, which had moreover been greatly increased by the accumulated interest of a long minority, was wasted in the most shameful orgies, amid dissolute and unseemly associates; and even while he was awaiting with undisguised anxiety the birth of a son who, as he fondly trusted, would one day fill the throne of France, no sentiment of forbearance towards the expectant mother could induce him to sacrifice his own selfish passions.[102]

On the 29th of May the desired event took place, but to the extreme mortification of the Duc d'Orleans it was announced that the Duchess had given birth to a daughter—the Princess who subsequently became famous during the reign of Louis XIV under the title of La Grande Mademoiselle. Nor was this the greatest trial which Gaston was destined to endure, as four days subsequently the unfortunate Duchess breathed her last, to the regret of the whole Court, to whom she had become endeared by her gentleness and urbanity; and to the deep grief of the Queen-mother, who saw in this deplorable event the overthrow of her most cherished prospects. Louis XIII was, however, far from participating in the general feeling of sorrow, nor did he seek to conceal his exultation.

"You weep, Madame," he said coldly to Marie de Medicis, whom he found absorbed in grief; "leave tears to your son, who will soon be enabled to drown them in dissipation. You will do well also not to expose him for some time to come to the chance of a second disappointment of the same nature; he is scarcely fitted for a married life, and has signally failed in his first attempt at domestic happiness." The Queen-mother offered no reply to this injunction; but while the King and Richelieu were absorbed by the invasion of Buckingham, and the persecution of the Protestants, she commenced a negotiation with the Grand Duke of Florence which had for its object an alliance between the widowed Gaston and one of the daughters of that Prince.

Buckingham had been repulsed by the French troops before the Island of Rhe, but had ultimately effected a landing; and on the 28th of June the King left Paris in order to join the army at La Rochelle, and to prevent a junction between the English general and the reformed party. He had already been threatened by symptoms of fever, but his anxiety to oppose the enemy was so great that he disregarded the representations and entreaties of those about him, and proceeded to Beaulieu, where he slept. Shortly after his arrival in that town his malady increased, but he still refused to follow the advice of his physicians, and on the morrow advanced as far as Villeroy, where, however, he was compelled to remain, being utterly incapable of further exertion.

This intelligence no sooner reached the Queen-mother than she hastened to rejoin the royal invalid; an example which was followed a few days subsequently by Anne of Austria, the Keeper of the Seals, and the whole Court. The indisposition of the King, which for some days threatened the most fatal results, was, however, ultimately conquered by his physicians; and on the 15th of August the royal patient was declared convalescent.[103]

During the illness of the sovereign the entire control of public affairs had, by his command, been formally confided to Marie de Medicis and the Cardinal; and he was no sooner in a state to resume his journey than he hastened to La Rochelle, which was blockaded by his forces under the orders of Monsieur; while the troops destined to succour the Island of Rhe were placed under the command of the Marechal de Schomberg, and Louis de Marillac,[104] the brother of Michel de Marillac, the Keeper of the Seals (who, through the influence of Richelieu, had succeeded M. d'Aligre in that dignity), by whom Buckingham was compelled, after a siege of three months, to evacuate the island, and to retreat in confusion, and not without severe loss, to the vessels which awaited him.

This victory created immense exultation in France; the Duc de Saint-Simon was instructed to convey the colours and cannon taken from the English with great pomp to the capital, and public rejoicings testified the delight with which the citizens of Paris received the welcome trophies. One individual alone took no share in the general triumph, and that one was the Duc d'Orleans, who had been deprived of his command by the King, in order that it might be conferred upon the Cardinal de Richelieu, and who had so deeply resented the indignity that he instantly retired from the army and returned to Paris, leaving Louis and his minister to continue the siege[105].