The Life of Marie de Medicis, Queen of France, Consort of Henri IV, and Regent of the Kingdom under Louis XIII — Volume 1 · Chapter 91599 (3)
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Two days after their arrival at the Louvre, Henry conducted his Queen to the royal palaces of Fontainebleau and St. Germain; and on the 18th of the month, their Majesties, attended by the whole of their respective households, and accompanied by all the princes and great nobles then resident in the capital, partook of a superb banquet at the Arsenal, given by Sully in honour of his appointment as Grand-Master of the Artillery. At this festival the minister, casting aside the gravity of his functions and the dignity of his rank, and even forgetful, as it would appear, of the respect which he owed to his new sovereign, not satisfied with pressing upon his guests the costly viands that had been prepared for them, no sooner perceived that the Italian ladies of her Majesty's suite were greatly attracted by the wine of Arbois, of which they were partaking freely, quite unconscious of its potency, than he caused the decanters containing the water that they mingled with it to be refilled with another wine of equal strength, but so limpid as to be utterly undistinguishable to the eye from the purer liquid for which it had been substituted. The consequences of this cruel pleasantry may be inferred; the heat, the movement, and the noise by which they were surrounded, together with the increased thirst caused by the insidious draughts that they were unconsciously imbibing, only induced the unfortunate Florentines to recur the more perseveringly to their refreshing libations; and at length the results became so apparent as to attract the notice of the King, who, already prepossessed like Sully himself against the Queen's foreign retinue, laughed heartily at a piece of treachery which he appeared to consider as the most amusing feature of the entertainment.[133]
During the succeeding days several ballets were danced by the young nobles of the Court; and a tournament, open to all comers, and at which the Queen presented the prizes to the victors, was held at the Pont-au-Change.
At the close of Lent, the Duchesse de Bar, the King's sister, and her father-in-law, the Duc de Lorraine, arrived in France to welcome the new sovereign; who, together with her consort, met them at Monceaux, which estate, lately the property of la belle Gabrielle> Henry had, after her arrival in the capital, presented to his wife. Here the Court festivals were renewed; and had the heart and mind of Marie been at ease, her life must have seemed rather like a brilliant dream than a sober reality. Such, however, was far from being the case; for already the seeds of domestic discord which had been sown before her marriage were beginning to germinate. Madame de Verneuil was absent from the Court, and it was evident to every individual of whom it was composed, that the King rather tolerated than shared in the gaieties by which he was surrounded.
Bassompierre relates that during this sojourn at Monceaux, while Henry was standing apart with himself, M. de Sully, and the Chancellor, he suddenly informed them that the favourite had confided to him a proposal of marriage which she had received from a prince, on condition that she should be enabled to bring with her a dowry of a hundred thousand crowns; and inquired if they would advise him to sacrifice so large a sum for such a purpose. "Sire," replied M. de Bellièvre, "I am of opinion that you would do well to give the young lady the hundred thousand crowns in order that she may secure the match." And when Sully, with his usual prudence, remarked that it was more easy to talk of such an amount than to procure it, the Chancellor continued, heedless of the interruption: "Nay more, Sire; I am equally of opinion that you had better give two or even three hundred thousand, if less will not suffice. Such is my advice." [134]
It is needless to say that it was not followed.
The only amusement in which Henri IV indulged freely and earnestly was play; and he was so reckless a gamester, that at no period has the Court of France been so thoroughly demoralized by that frightful vice as throughout his reign. Not only did his own example corrupt those immediately about him, but the rage for gaming gradually pervaded all classes. The nobility staked their estates where money failed; the citizens trafficked in cards and dice when they should have been employed in commerce or in science; the very valets gambled in the halls, and the pages in the ante-chambers. Play became the one great business of life throughout the capital; and enormous sums, which changed the entire destiny of families, were won and lost. One or two traits will suffice to prove this, and we will then dismiss the subject. In the year 1607, M. de Bassompierre relates in his Memoirs, that being unable from want of funds to purchase a new and befitting costume in which to appear at the christening of the Dauphin, he nevertheless gave an order to his tailor to prepare him a dress upon which the outlay was to be fourteen thousand crowns; his actual resources amounting at that moment only to seven hundred; and that he had no sooner done so, than he proceeded with this trifling sum to the hotel of the Duc d'Epernon, where he won five thousand; while before the completion of the costume, he had not only gained a sufficient amount to discharge the debt thus wantonly incurred, but, as he adds, with a self-gratulation worthy of a better cause, "also a diamond-hilted sword of the value of five thousand crowns, and five or six thousand more with which to amuse myself." [135]
In 1609, only one Year later, L'Etoile has left on record a still more astounding and degrading fact. "In this month" (March), he says, "several academies of play have been established, where citizens of all ages risk considerable sums, a circumstance which proves not only an abundance of means, but also the corruption of morals. The son of a merchant has been seen at one sitting to lose sixty thousand crowns, although he had only inherited twenty thousand from his father; and a man named Jonas has hired a house in the Faubourg St. Germain, in order to hold one of these academies for a fortnight during the fair, and for this house he has given fourteen hundred francs." [136]
D'Aubigny and several other chroniclers bear similar testimony; and while Bassompierre boasts of having won five hundred thousand pistoles in one year (each pistole being little inferior in value to our own sovereign), he nevertheless gives us plainly to understand that the King was a more reckless gamester than himself, a fact corroborated moreover by Sully, who tells us in his Memoirs, "The sums, at least the principal ones, that I employed on the personal expenses of Henry, were twenty-two thousand pistoles, for which he sent to me on the 18th of January 1609, and which he had lost at play; a hundred thousand livres to one party, and fifty-one thousand to another, likewise play debts, due to Edward Fernandès, a Portuguese.... A thousand pistoles for future play; Henry at first took only five hundred, but he subsequently sent Beringhen for the remainder for a different purpose. I carried him a thousand more for play when I went with the Chancellor to Fontainebleau." [137]
Only a short time subsequent to the establishment of the Court at the Louvre, what neither the desire and authority of the King himself nor the arts of his mistress had been able to accomplish, was achieved through the agency of the Queen's favourite attendant, Leonora Galigaï,[138] who had accompanied her royal mistress and foster-sister from Italy at the period of her marriage. On the formation of the Queen's household, Henry had, among other appointments, honoured Madame de Richelieu[139] with the post of Mistress of the Robes; but Marie de Medicis having decided on bestowing this charge upon Leonora, refused to permit the Countess to perform the duties of her office, and requested the King to transfer it to her Italian protégée. This, however, was a concession to which Henry would not consent; and while the Queen persisted in not permitting the services of Madame de Richelieu, her royal bridegroom as pertinaciously negatived the appointment of parvenue lady of honour. The high-born countess bore the affront thus offered to her with the complacent dignity befitting her proud station; but such was far from being the case with the ambitious and mortified Leonora, who had not been a week at the French Court ere she became aware that all the Italian followers of the Queen were peculiarly obnoxious both to the King and his minister; and who felt that should she fail to push her fortunes upon the instant, she might one day be compelled to leave France as poor and as powerless as she had entered it. Not contented, therefore, with urging her royal mistress to persevere in her resolution of rejecting the attendance of Madame de Richelieu, she began to speculate upon the most feasible measures to be adopted in order to secure her own succession to the coveted dignity; and after considerable reflection, she became convinced that this could only be accomplished through the assistance of the Marquise de Verneuil. Once assured of the fact, Leonora did not hesitate; but, instead of avoiding, as she had hitherto done, the advances of the favourite--who, aware of her unlimited power over the mind of the Queen, had on several occasions treated her with a courtesy by no means warranted by her position at the Court--she began to court the favour of the Marquise in as marked a manner as she had previously slighted it; and ere long the intrigue of the two favourites was brought to a successful issue. Each stood in need of the other, and a compact was accordingly entered into between them. Madame de Verneuil, whose pride was piqued by her exclusion from the royal circle, was desirous to gain at any price the countenance of Marie, and to be admitted to her private assemblies, where alone she could carry out her more extended plan of ambition; while the wily Italian, rendered only the more pertinacious by difficulty, and anxious moreover to secure a post which would at all times enable her to remain about the person of the Queen, thought no price too great, even the dishonour of her royal foster-sister, to obtain her object, and thus a mutual promise was made; the Marquise pledging herself that, in the event of the Queen recognizing her right to attend her receptions, and treating her with the courtesy and consideration due to the rank conferred upon her by the King, she would effect the appointment courted by Leonora; while the Signora Galigaï, with equal confidence, promised in her turn that she would without delay cause Madame de Verneuil to receive a summons to the Queen's presence.
Nor did either of these ladies over-estimate the amount of her influence; for the monarch no sooner learnt that the reception of his mistress by the haughty and indignant Princess could be purchased by a mere slight to Madame la Grande Prévoste, than he consented to sanction the appointment of the Italian suivante of Marie to the post of honour; while Leonora soon succeeded by her tears and entreaties in wringing from her royal mistress a reluctant acquiescence to her request.
Thus then, as before stated, a hollow peace was patched up between the unequal rivals; and Madame de Verneuil at length found herself in possession of a folding-seat in the Queen's reception room; while her coadjutress triumphantly took her place among the noblest ladies of the land; but scarcely had this result been accomplished, when Henry, profiting by so unhoped-for an opportunity of gratifying the vanity of the favourite, assigned to her a suite of apartments in the Louvre immediately above those of the Queen, and little, if at all, inferior to them in magnificence.
This, however, was an affront which Marie de Medicis could not brook; and she accordingly, with her usual independence of spirit, expressed herself in no measured terms upon the subject, particularly to such of her ladies as were likely to repeat her comments to the Marquise. The latter retorted by assuming all the airs of royalty, and by assembling about her a little court, for which that of the Queen herself was frequently forsaken, especially by the monarch, who found the brilliant circle of the favourite, wherein he always met a warm and enthusiastic welcome, infinitely more to his taste than the formal etiquette and reproachful frowns by which his presence in that of his royal consort was usually signalized.
Nor could the annoyance of the proud Florentine Princess be subject of astonishment to any rightly-constituted mind. The position was a monstrous and an unnatural one. Both the wife and the mistress were about to become mothers; and the whole Court was degraded by so unblushing an exhibition of the profligacy of the monarch. Still, however, the French ladies of the household forebore to censure their sovereign; and even sought to persuade the outraged Queen that when once she had given a Dauphin to France the favourite would be compelled to leave the palace; but Marie's Italian followers were far less scrupulous, and expressed their indignation in no measured terms. The Queen, wounded in her most sacred feelings, became gradually colder to the Marquise, who, as though she had only awaited this relapse to sting her still more deeply than she had yet done, retorted the slights which she constantly received by declaring that "the Florentine," as she insolently designated her royal mistress, was not the legal or lawful wife of the King, whose written promise, still in her possession, he was, as she asserted, bound to fulfil should she bear him a son. This surpassing assurance no sooner reached the ears of Marie de Medicis than she once more forbade Madame de Verneuil her presence; but the Marquise, strong in her impunity, merely replied by an epigram, and consoled herself for her exclusion from the Queen's private circle by assuming more state and magnificence than before, and by collecting in her saloons the prettiest women and the most reckless gamblers that the capital could produce. Thus attracted, the infatuated monarch became her constant guest; and his neglected wife, in weak health, and with an agonised heart, saw herself abandoned for a wanton who had set a price upon her virtue, and who made a glory of her shame.
Poor Marie! whatever were her faults as a woman, they were bitterly expiated both as a wife and as a mother!
Vain were all the efforts of the King on the one hand and those of Leonora on the other to terminate this new misunderstanding; the Queen was coldly resolute, and the Marquise insolently indifferent; nor would a reconciliation, in all probability, ever again have taken place, had not the interests of the Mistress of the Robes once more required it, when her influence over the mind of her royal foster-sister sufficed to overcome every obstacle.
Among the numerous Florentines who composed the suite of Marie de Medicis was Concino Concini,[140] a gentleman of her household, whose extreme personal beauty had captivated the heart of Leonora; while she saw, as she believed, in his far-reaching ambition and flexile character the very elements calculated, in conjunction with her own firmer nature and higher intellect, to lead her on to the most lofty fortunes. It is probable, however, that had La Galigaï continued to attend the Queen in her original and obscure office of waiting-woman, Concini, who was of better blood than herself, and who could not, moreover, be supposed to find any attraction in the diminutive figure and sallow countenance of his countrywoman, would never have been induced to consent to such an alliance; but Leonora was now on the high road to wealth and honour, while his own position was scarcely defined; and thus ere long the consent of the Queen to their marriage was solicited by Concini himself.
Marie, who foresaw that by this arrangement she should keep both parties in her service, and who, in the desolation of a disappointed spirit, clung each day more closely to her foreign attendants, immediately accorded the required permission; but it was far otherwise with the King, who had no sooner been informed of the projected union than he sternly forbade it, to the great indignation of his consort, who was deeply mortified by this new interference with her personal household, and saddened by the spectacle of her favourite's unaffected wretchedness. In vain did the Queen expostulate, and, urged by Leonora and her suitor, even entreat of Henry to relent; all her efforts to this effect remained fruitless; and she was at length compelled to declare to the sorrowing woman that she had no alternative save to submit to the will of the King.
Such, however, was far from being the intention of the passionate Italian. Too unattractive to entertain any hope from her own pleadings with Henry himself, she once more turned in this new difficulty to Madame de Verneuil, who, in order to display how little she had been mortified or annoyed by the coldness of the Queen, and at the same time to prove to her that where the earnest entreaties of the latter had failed to produce any effect, her own expressed wish would suffice to ensure success, immediately bade Leonora dry her eyes and prepare her wedding-dress, as she would guarantee her prompt reception of the royal consent upon one condition, and that one so easy of accomplishment that she could not fail to fulfil it.
Marie de Medicis had been heard to declare that in the event of her becoming the mother of a Dauphin, she would, at the earliest possible period, dance a ballet in honour of the King, which should exceed in magnificence every exhibition of the kind that had hitherto been attempted; and the condition so lightly treated by the favourite was no less than her own appearance in the royal ballet, should it indeed take place. Even La Galigaï herself was startled by so astounding a proposition; but she soon discovered, from the resolute attitude assumed by the Marquise, that her powerful intercession with the King was not otherwise to be secured; and it was consequently with even less of hope than apprehension that the agitated Mistress of the Robes kissed the hand of Madame de Verneuil, and assured her that she would leave no effort untried to obtain the consent of her royal mistress to her wishes. But when she had withdrawn, and was traversing the gallery which communicated with the apartments of Marie, she began to entertain serious misgivings: the pretension of the Marquise was so monstrous, that, even conscious as she was of the extent of her own influence over her foster-sister, she almost dreaded to communicate the result of her interview, and nearly despaired of success; but with the resolute perseverance which formed so marked a feature in her character, she resolved to brave the utmost displeasure of the Queen rather than forego this last hope of a union with Concini. It was, nevertheless, drowned in tears, and with a trembling heart, that she presented herself before Marie as the voluntary bearer of this new and aggravated insult; while, incomprehensible as it must appear in this age, whatever may have been the arguments and entreaties of which she was clever enough to avail herself, it is at least certain that they were ultimately successful; and that she was authorized by the Queen to communicate to Madame de Verneuil her Majesty's willingness to accede to her request, provided that the Marquise pledged herself in return to perform her portion of the contract.
That her partiality for her early friend induced Marie de Medicis to make, in this instance, a most unbecoming concession, is certain; while it is no less matter of record that, probably to prevent any opportunity of retractation on the part of Madame de Verneuil, she lavished upon her from that day the most flattering marks of friendship, and publicly treated her with a distinction which was envied by many of the greatest ladies at Court, even although it excited the censure of all.[141]
The comparative tranquillity which succeeded this new adjustment of the differences between the Queen and the Marquise continued until the month of September, on the 17th day of which Marie became the mother of a Dauphin (subsequently Louis XIII), at the palace of Fontainebleau, where, as had already been the case at the Louvre, the apartments of the favourite adjoined her own. Nothing could exceed the delight of Henry IV at the birth of his heir. He stood at the lower end of the Queen's apartment, surrounded by the Princes of the Blood, to each of whom the royal infant was successively presented; and this ceremony was no sooner terminated than, bending over him with passionate fondness, he audibly invoked a blessing upon his head; and then placing his sword in the tiny hand as yet unable to grasp it, "May you use it, my son," he exclaimed, "to the glory of God, and in defence of your crown and people." [142] He next approached the bed of the Queen: "M'amie" he said tenderly, "rejoice! God has given us what we asked." [143] Mézeray and Matthieu both assert that the birth of the Dauphin was preceded by an earthquake, which, with the usual superstition of the period, was afterwards declared to have been a forewarning of the ceaseless wars by which Europe was convulsed during his reign.[144]
Rejoicings were general throughout the whole country, and were augmented by the fact that more than eighty years had elapsed since the birth of a successor to the crown who had been eligible to bear the title of Dauphin,--Francis II having come into the world before his father Henri II was on the throne, who had himself only attained to that title after the death of his elder brother Francis, who was born in 1517.[145] "Te Deums" were chanted in all the churches; salvos of artillery were discharged at the Arsenal; fireworks, bonfires, and illuminations made a city of flame of Paris for several successive nights; while joyous acclamations rent the air, and the gratified citizens congratulated each other as they perambulated the streets as though each had experienced some personal benefit. The fact that Anne of Austria, the daughter of Philip III of Spain, was born only five days previous to the Dauphin, was another source of delight to the French people, who regarded the circumstance as an earnest of the future union of the two kingdoms, a prophecy which was afterwards fulfilled by the marriage of the two royal children.
We have already made more than one allusion to the belief in magic, sorcery, and astrology which at this period had obtained in France, and by which many, even of the most enlightened of her nobles and citizens, suffered themselves to be trammelled and deluded; and however much we of the present day may be inclined to pity or to despise so great a weakness, we shall do well to remember that human progress during the last sixty years has been more marked and certain than that which had taken place in the lapse of the three previous centuries. It is true that there were a few strong-minded individuals even at the period of which we treat who refused to submit their reason to the wild and illogical superstitions which were rife about them; but these formed a very small portion of the aggregate population, and from the peasant in his hovel to the monarch on his throne the plague-spot of credulity had spread and festered, until it presented a formidable feature in the history of the time. It is curious to remark that L'Etoile, the most commonplace and unimaginative of chroniclers, who might well have been expected in his realism to treat such phantasies as puerile and absurd, seems to justify to his own mind the extreme penalties of the scaffold and the stake as a fitting punishment for sorcerers and magicians: declaring them, as he records in his usual terse and matter-of-fact style, to be dictated by justice, and essential to the repression of an intercourse between men and evil spirits.
Gabrielle d'Estrées was the dupe, if, indeed, not the victim, of her firm faith in astrology. She had been assured that "a child would prevent her from attaining the rank to which she aspired;" [146] and the predisposition of an excited nervous system probably assisted the verification of the prophecy. The old Cardinal de Bourbon,[147] whom the Leaguers would fain have made their king, was seduced from his fidelity to the illustrious race from which he sprang by his weak reliance upon the predictions of soothsayers, who thus degraded him into the tool of the wily Duc de Guise;[148] while his nephew, Charles II, also a Cardinal,[149] even more infatuated than himself, had been impelled to believe that the disease which was rapidly sapping his existence was the effect of the machinations of a Court lady by whom he had been bewitched! Traitors found excuse for their treason in the assertion that they had been deluded by false predictions or ensnared by magic;[150] princes were governed in their political movements by astral calculations;[151] a grave minister details with complacency, although without comment, various anecdotes of the operation of the occult sciences,[152] and even makes them a study; while a European monarch, strong in the love of his people and his own bravery, suffers the predictions of soothsayers and prophets to cloud his mind and to shake his purposes, even while he declares his contempt for all such delusions.[153]
That such was actually the case is proved by De Thou, who relates an extraordinary speech made by the King at the Louvre, in 1599, on the occasion of the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes, to the deputies of the Parliament of Paris, in the course of which he declared that, twenty-six years previously, when he was residing at the Court of Charles IX, he was about to cast the dice with Henri de Lorraine, Duc de Guise, his relative, amid a large circle of nobles, when at the instant in which they were prepared to commence their game drops of blood appeared upon the table, which were renewed without any apparent agency as fast as they were wiped away. Each party carefully ascertained that it could not proceed from any of the individuals present; and the phenomenon was so frequently repeated that Henry, as he averred, at once amazed and disturbed, declined to persevere in the pastime, considering the circumstance as an evil omen.[154] Whatever may be the opinion of the reader as to the actual cause of this apparent prodigy, it is at least certain that it was verified by subsequent events, as well as the extraordinary and multiplied prophecy that the King himself would meet his death in a coach.
Under these circumstances, combined with the almost universal credulity of the age and nation which he governed, it is scarcely matter of surprise that Henri IV, on so momentous an occasion as the birth of his son, should have sought, even while he feigned to disregard the result, to learn the after-destiny of the royal infant; and accordingly, a few days subsequently, he commanded M. de la Rivière,[155] who publicly professed the science of judicial astrology, to draw the horoscope of the Dauphin with all the accuracy of which the operation was susceptible. The command was answered by an assurance from La Rivière that the work was already in progress; but as another week passed by without any communication from the seer, Henry became impatient, and again summoned him to his presence in order to inquire the cause of the delay.
"Sire," replied La Rivière, "I have abandoned the undertaking, as I am reluctant to sport with a science whose secrets I have partially forgotten, and which I have, moreover, frequently found defective."
"I am not to be deceived by so idle a pretext," said the King, who readily detected that the alleged excuse was a mere subterfuge; "you have no such scruples, but you have resolved not to reveal to me what you have ascertained, lest I should discover the fallacy of your pretended knowledge or be angered by your prediction. Whatever may be the cause of your hesitation, however, I am resolved that you shall speak; and I command you, upon pain of my displeasure, to do so truthfully."
Still La Rivière excused himself, until perceiving that it would be dangerous to persevere in his pertinacity, he at length reluctantly replied: "Sire, your son will live to manhood, and will reign longer than yourself; but he will resemble you in no one particular. He will indulge his own opinions and caprices, and sometimes those of others. During his rule it will be safer to think than to speak. Ruin threatens your ancient institutions; all your measures will be overthrown. He will accomplish great deeds; will be fortunate in his undertakings; and will become the theme of all Christendom. He will have issue; and after his death more heavy troubles will ensue. This is all that you shall know from me, and even this is more than I had proposed to tell you."
The King remained for a time silent and thoughtful, after which he said coldly: "You allude to the Huguenots, I see that well; but you only talk thus because you have their interests at heart."