Chapter IV (2)

To this unexpected exordium the King replied, with considerable indignation, that he had more faith in the mercy of God than to believe that a Princess who had passed her life in the fulfilment of all her social duties was destined to be condemned from the nature of her creed, and that he himself entertained no doubt of her salvation.[230] After which he diverted the conversation into another channel, with a tone and manner sufficiently indicative to the Nuncio that he must not presume to recur to so delicate a subject.

The body of Madame was, at the King's desire, conveyed to Vendôme, and deposited beside that of her mother, a dispensation to this effect having been, after many delays, accorded by the Pope; although too late for the Duchess to have been made aware that this the earnest wish of her heart had been conceded.

At this period a new cause of uneasiness aroused the sovereign from his private grief. To his extreme surprise he had received intelligence from the Sieur de Barrault[231] that all the most secret deliberations of his council were forthwith communicated to the King of Spain, without a trace of the source whence this important information could be derived; and for a time the mystery defied all the investigations which were bestowed upon it by Henry and his ministers. At length, however, long impunity rendered the culprit daring, and it was ascertained that Philip III was in possession of copies of the several letters written by the French monarch to the King of England, the Prince of Orange, and other friendly powers, all inimical to Spain, a circumstance which at once rendered it apparent that this treachery must be the work of some official in whom the greatest confidence had hitherto been placed; and steps were forthwith taken to secure the identification of the traitor, which was effected through the agency of another equally unworthy subject of Henry himself. A certain native of Bordeaux, named Jean Leyré (otherwise Rafis), who had been one of the most violent partisans of the League, and who had been banished from France, had entered the Spanish service, and long enjoyed a pension from the sovereign of that country, in recompense of the zeal and ardour with which he rendered every evil office in his power to the kingdom whence he had been cast out.

Circumstances, however, tended to make Leyré less useful to Philip, who had, as we have shown, secured a much more efficient agent, and the ill-acquired pension had accordingly been diminished, while the traitor had no difficulty in perceiving that the favour which he had hitherto experienced from his new master was lessened in the same proportion, a conviction which determined him to make a vigorous effort to obtain the permission of his offended sovereign to return to France. In order to effect this object, Leyré attached himself to such of his countrymen as were, like himself, domiciliated in Spain, and finally he made the acquaintance of one Jean Blas, who in a moment of confidence revealed to him that a secretary of the Comte de Rochepot[232] (the predecessor of M. de Barrault as ambassador at the Court of Madrid), who had subsequently returned to the service of the Duc de Villeroy, still maintained a secret correspondence with the Spanish secretaries of state, Don Juan Idiaque Franchesez, and Prada, to whom, in consideration of a pension of twelve hundred crowns of gold, he betrayed all the most important measures of the French cabinet.

This man, whose name was Nicholas L'Hôte, was the son of an old and trusted follower of the Duc de Villeroy, to whose family his own ancestors had been attached for several generations, while he himself was the godson of the Duke, who had obtained for him the honourable office of secretary to M. de Rochepot, when that nobleman accepted the embassy to Spain. On the return of the Count to France, L'Hôte, whose services were no longer necessary to him, was dismissed, and upon an application to his old patron, was unhesitatingly received into his bureau; where, believing that his loyalty and devotion to himself were beyond all suspicion, he was employed by M. de Villeroy in deciphering his despatches; an occupation which afforded the traitor ample means of continuing his nefarious correspondence with his Spanish confederates.

Leyré had no sooner obtained this important information, and moreover convinced himself of its probability by various circumstances connected with L'Hôte which he was careful to learn from other sources, than he proceeded to the residence of M. de Barrault, and solicited an interview on business connected with his government. The ambassador, who was still striving by every method in his power to discover the author of the active and harassing treason by which his official measures were perpetually trammelled, with a vague hope that the object of this request might prove to be connected with the mystery which so disagreeably occupied his thoughts, at once granted the required audience; when Leyré, having explained his own position, and expressed the deepest contrition for his past disloyalty, together with his ardent desire to obliterate, by an essential service to his rightful sovereign, a fault which was now irreparable, proceeded to inform M. de Barrault that he was prepared to reveal a system of treachery which was even at that moment in operation to the prejudice of France; but added that, as in communicating this secret he should be compelled immediately to escape from Spain, he would not consent to do so until the ambassador pledged himself that he should be permitted to return to his own country with a free pardon, and a sufficient pension to secure him against want; and concluded by saying that should it be beyond the power of M. de Barrault to give such a pledge without the royal authority, and that should he consider it necessary to mention him by name, and to state the nature of the promised service to his government, he must entreat him to make this revelation solely to the monarch, and by no means to commit the affair to writing.

To these terms M. de Barrault readily agreed; but after the departure of Leyré, conceiving that the extreme mystery enjoined by that personage was merely intended to enhance the implied value of his revelation; and convinced, moreover, that the sovereign would immediately communicate such a circumstance to his ministers, he addressed himself, as he was in the habit of doing, to the Duc de Villeroy, from whom he shortly afterwards received the required promise of both pardon and pension.

These were, however, no sooner placed in the hands of the astute Leyré, than, perceiving that they bore the counter-signature of Villeroy, instead of that of Loménie,[233] which would have been the case had they been forwarded through the personal medium of the King, he revealed the whole transaction to M. de Barrault; representing that the traitor being under the roof of the minister by whom they had been despatched, and entirely in his confidence, must already be apprized of his danger, as well as fully prepared to avert it by the destruction of his betrayer; and accordingly he declared that, in order to save his life, he must at once get into the saddle, and endeavour to distance the pursuit which could not fail to be made with a view to seize his person.

This reasoning was so valid that the ambassador not only consented to his immediate departure, but also caused him to be accompanied by his own secretary, M. Descartes, by whom he was to be introduced to the sovereign. The precaution proved salutary, as no later than the following morning the officers of the law were sent to the house of Leyré, and being unable to find him, forthwith mounted in their turn and took the road to France. Fortunately for the fugitives they had, however, already travelled a considerable distance; and although hotly pursued, they were enabled to reach Bayonne without impediment, whence they proceeded to Fontainebleau to report their arrival to the King.

Before they reached their destination, they encountered the Duc de Villeroy, who was on his way to his château of Juvisy, and to whom Descartes considered it expedient to declare their errand, without concealing the name of the culprit whom they were about to accuse. The Duke listened incredulously; and when the travellers offered, should it meet with his approbation, to return at once to Paris and arrest his secretary, in order that he might himself deliver him up to the monarch, he declined to profit by the proposal, desiring them to fulfil their mission as the service of the King required; and adding, that he should shortly join them at Fontainebleau, where he was to be met on the morrow by the accused party, when the necessary steps for ascertaining the truth of the statement might be at once taken; but that until he had obtained an audience of the monarch, and ascertained his pleasure, all coercive measures would be premature.

With this unsatisfactory reply Leyré and his companion were fain to content themselves; and having, as they were desired to do, delivered into the hands of the Duke the detailed despatch of M. de Barrault with which they had been entrusted, they saw him calmly resume his way to Juvisy, while they continued their route to Fontainebleau.

Early the next day M. de Villeroy in his turn reached the palace, and at once proceeded to the royal closet; where, at the command of the King, he began to read aloud the papers which had been thus obtained; but he had not proceeded beyond the name of the accused when Henry vehemently interrupted him by exclaiming:

"And where is this L'Hôte, your secretary? Have you caused him to be arrested?"

"I think, Sire," was the reply, "that he is at my hotel; but he is still at liberty."

"How, Sir!" said the King still more angrily; "you think that he is at your hôtel, and you have not had him seized? This is strange negligence! What have you been about since you were informed of this act of treason, to which you should at once have attended? See to it instantly, and secure the culprit."

The Duc de Villeroy quitted the royal presence in anxious haste, and made his way to the capital with all speed, feeling convinced that should he fail in arresting his delinquent secretary he could not escape the suspicion of the King. L'Hôte had, however, profited by the intervening time to explain his predicament to the Spanish ambassador, who instantly perceived that not a moment must be lost. Horses were accordingly provided, and the detected traitor, accompanied by the steward of the ambassador, made the best of his way to Meaux, whence they were to travel post to Luxembourg.

Orders had, meanwhile, been despatched to all the postmasters not to supply horses to any traveller answering the description of L'Hôte; but as he wore a Spanish costume similar to that of his companion he might still have passed undetected, had he not, while endeavouring to mount at Meaux, trembled so violently as to fall from his saddle; a circumstance which attracted the attention of the groom who held his stirrup, and who immediately inferred that he must be some criminal who was flying from justice. On re-entering the house he related the incident to his master; and upon comparing the height, and bulk, and features of the fugitive with the written detail furnished by the authorities, both parties became convinced that they had suffered the very individual whom they were commissioned to arrest to pursue his journey to the frontier through their own agency; and thus impressed, the terrified postmaster hastened to the Prévôt des Maréchaux,[234] who lost no time in following upon his track. The fugitives had, however, changed horses before the anxious functionary and his attendants could arrive to interpose their authority; but despite the darkness of the night, which prevented them from obtaining even a glimpse of those whom they were endeavouring to overtake, they persevered with confidence, being aware that before the close of the second stage a ferry must be passed, which would necessarily detain the travellers.

The event proved the accuracy of their calculation, the lateness of the hour compelling L'Hôte and his companion to rouse the reluctant ferryman from his rest, a process which involved considerable delay; and they were consequently scarcely half way across the river when they heard the clatter of horses' hoofs upon the bank, and the voice of the Maréchal hoarsely shouting to their conductor instantly to return, or he should be hanged for his disobedience.

The fugitives at once felt that they were lost should they permit him to comply; and accordingly the Spaniard drew his sword, threatening to bury it in the heart of the affrighted ferryman should he retreat an inch; while L'Hôte, as craven as he was traitor, could only urge the boat forward by the rope, groaning at intervals: "I am a dead man! I am a dead man!"

On gaining the opposite shore neither of the two attempted to remount; but, abandoning their horses, they set off at their best speed on foot; while the postilion by whom they had been accompanied had great difficulty, during the return of the boat, in securing the three animals who were thus suddenly committed to his sole charge.

L'Hôte, terrified and bewildered by the voices of the Prévôt and his men, who had, in their turn, passed the ferry, and unable in the darkness to discern any path by which he might secure his escape, parted from his companion, and continued his course along the river bank; until, attracted by some sallows which he supposed to be an island in the middle of the stream, he threw himself into the water in order to reach it; but soon getting beyond his depth, and being unable to regain the shore, as well as alarmed by the rapid approach of his pursuers, he perished miserably; and was found on the following morning not twenty yards from the spot where he had abandoned the land.

The Spanish steward, who was captured on the morrow in a hayloft about two leagues from the river, was conducted to Paris with the corpse, which was consigned to the prison of the Châtelet, where it was publicly exposed during two days, and then drawn upon a hurdle to the place of execution, where it was torn asunder by horses; the quarters of the body being subsequently attached to four wheels which were placed in the principal roads leading to the capital.

The ignominy with which the body was treated was, as Sully asserts, in accordance with the earnest request of the Duc de Villeroy, who could not disguise from himself the difficulty of his own position; nor was it until after several days' deliberation that Henry, remembering the extent of the confidence placed by the Duke in the traitor by whom his interests had been so seriously compromised, could sufficiently control his indignation to assure him that he in no wise suspected him of complicity, but should continue to regard him with the same trust and favour as heretofore. The people were, however, less amenable; nor did they scruple to accuse M. de Villeroy of participation in the crime of his follower. They could not forget that he had been an active member of the League; and they looked with jealousy upon every transaction in which he was involved; while, fortunately for the Duke, the King was ultimately prevailed upon to believe in the sincerity of his regret, and to remember that since he had attached himself to the royal cause he had rendered essential service to the country; nor did the murmurs of his enemies, who had begun to hope that the treason of his secretary must involve his own ruin, induce the monarch to exhibit towards him either distrust or severity. So lenient, indeed, did the King show himself, that after having being detained for a short time in prison, the Spaniard who had been taken with L'Hôte was set at liberty, as too insignificant for trial, and as the mere tool of his master.[235]

While this affair had monopolized the attention of the King, Madame de Verneuil, enraged by a continual estrangement which threatened the most dangerous results to herself, and resolved at all hazards to recall the attention of the monarch, began to assert more openly and arrogantly than ever her claim upon his hand, and the right of her son to the succession; while at the same time her brother, the Comte d'Auvergne, pretexting a quarrel with M. de Soissons, quitted the Court, and proceeded to the Low Countries, where he had for some time past been actively engaged in organizing a conspiracy, in support of this extravagant and hopeless pretension.

The double personage enacted by the Marquise was one which necessitated the utmost tact and caution, for she was aware that it involved her liberty, if not her life; and consequently, in order to secure the sympathy of the people, while she was at the same time exciting the passions of those discontented nobles who being remnants of the League still retained an unconquerable jealousy of the power by which they had been prostrated, she affected the deepest and most bitter repentance for her past errors, and solicited the permission of the King to retire from France with her children, that she might expiate, by a future of retirement and piety, the faults of which she had been guilty. To this request Henry, without a moment's hesitation, replied by the assurance that she was at perfect liberty to withdraw from the country whenever she saw fit to do so; adding, however, that he would not permit the expatriation of her children, and that before her own departure she must deliver into his hands the written promise of marriage, which, although according to the decision of all the high ecclesiastics of the kingdom totally void and valueless, she had nevertheless been so ill-advised as to render a source of uneasiness and annoyance to the Queen.

This demand was, however, arrogantly rejected, the Marquise declaring that she would neither part with her children nor with a document that rendered her the legal wife of the King; a decision which so incensed Marie de Medicis that she vehemently reproached her royal consort for an act of weakness by which her whole married life had been embittered, and refused to listen to any compromise until the obnoxious paper should be restored.

Thus circumstanced, Henry at length resolved to exert all his authority, and despairing of success through the medium of a third person, he determined himself to visit the Marquise and to exact the restitution of the document. At this period, however, Madame de Verneuil was too deeply involved in the conspiracy of her brother to prove a willing agent in her own defeat, and she accordingly received the monarch with an unyielding insolence for which he was totally unprepared; violently declaring that the promise had been freely given, and that the birth of her son had rendered it valid. In vain did the King insist upon the absurdity of her pretensions; she only replied by sneering at the extraction of the Queen, and asserting her own equality with a petty Tuscan princess, whose gestures and language were, as she declared, the jest of the whole Court. The King, outraged by so gross an impertinence, imperatively commanded her silence upon all that regarded the dignity or pleasure of his royal consort, a display of firmness which more and more exasperated the favourite, who retorted by observing that since the monarch had seen fit to retract a solemn engagement, and thus to brand herself and her children with disgrace, it only remained for her to reiterate her demand for permission to leave the country, with her son and daughter, and her father and brother, both of whom were prepared to share her fortunes, gloomy as they might be, the fear of God not permitting her to recur to the past without the most profound repentance.

To this persistence Henry coldly answered that in his turn he reiterated his declaration that she was at liberty to retire to England whenever she thought proper to do so, and to place herself under the protection of her kinsman, the Earl of Lennox, but that he would not suffer any other member of her family to share her exile; nor should she herself be permitted to reside either in Spain or the Low Countries, where the treasonable practices of the Comte d'Auvergne and the party of the discontented nobles with whom she had recently allied herself, had already given him just cause for displeasure.

Madame de Verneuil, perfectly unabashed by this reproach, assured the King, with a smile of haughty defiance, that she could be as firm as himself where her own honour and that of her children was involved, and added that should he persist in demanding the restoration of the written promise by which he had triumphed over her virtue, he might seek it where it was to be obtained, as he should never receive it from her hands; while as regarded her estrangement from himself, it had ceased to be a subject of regret, as since he had become old he had also become distrustful and suspicious, and his affected favour only tended to render her an object of public jealousy and indignation.

Outraged by this last insult, the King rose angrily from his seat, and without vouchsafing another word to the imperious Marquise quitted the room. It was not, however, in the nature of Henri IV to find himself once more in the presence of his mistress unmoved, and although the indignity to which he had been subjected throughout the interview just described should have sufficed to inspire him only with disgust for the woman who had thus emancipated herself from every observance of respect towards his own person and decency towards the Queen, it is nevertheless certain that his very anger was mingled with admiration; and that not even his sense of what was due to him both as a monarch and as a man could overcome the attraction of Madame de Verneuil. Their temporary separation, during which he had failed to find any equivalent for her wit and vivacity, gave an added charm to every word she uttered; he yearned to see her once more brilliant and happy, devoting her intellect and her fascinations to his amusement; and even while complaining to Sully of her impertinent and uncompromising boldness, he could not forbear uttering a panegyric upon her better qualities, which convinced the minister that their misunderstanding was not destined to be of long duration, an opinion in which he was confirmed when the weak and vacillating Henry, at the close of this enthusiastic apostrophe, proceeded to institute a comparison between the Marquise and the Queen, in which the latter suffered on every point. The earnest wish to please of the favourite was contrasted with the coldness of Marie de Medicis, the wit of the one with the haughty superciliousness of the other; in short, the longer that the King discoursed upon the subject, the more perfect became the conviction of his listener that the late meeting, tempestuous as it was, had sufficed to restore to Madame de Verneuil at least a portion of her former power.

"I have no society in my wife," pursued the monarch; "she neither amuses nor interests me. She is harsh and unyielding, alike in manner and in speech, and makes no concession either to my humour or my tastes. When I would fain meet her with warmth she receives me coldly, and I am glad to escape from her apartments to seek for amusement elsewhere. My poor cousin De Guise is my only refuge; and although she occasionally tells me some home-truths, yet she does it with so much good humour that I cannot take offence, and only laugh at her sallies." [236]

It was sufficiently evident at that moment that even the "poor cousin" of the monarch, beautiful and accomplished though she was, faded into insignificance before the pampered and presuming favourite.

"Perhaps," says Sully, with a calm sententiousness better suited to some question of finance, "the Queen had only herself to blame for not having released him from the snares of her rival, and detached him from every other affair of gallantry, as he appeared to me perfectly sincere when he urged me to induce her to conform to _his tastes_ and to _the character of his mind_."

M. de Sully, great as he was in his official capacity, evidently possessed little knowledge of a woman's nature, and the workings of a woman's pride. We have seen what were the "tastes" of Henri IV, and what was the "character of his mind"; and although it would undoubtedly have proved both pleasant and convenient to the harassed minister that Marie de Medicis should have devoured her grief and mortification, and have received the mistresses of the King as the intimates of her circle, it was a result little to be anticipated from a pure-hearted wife, who saw herself the victim of every intriguing beauty whose novelty or notoriety sufficed to attract the dissolute fancy of her consort. Even at the very moment in which M. de Sully records this inferential reproach upon the Queen, he admits that Henry was once more in the thrall of the Marquise, and, moreover, the obsequious friend of Mademoiselle de Guise; and yet he seeks to visit upon Marie the odium of a disunion which can only be, with any fairness, attributed to the King himself, who, even while professing to return to his allegiance as a husband, was openly indulging in a system of licentiousness calculated to degrade him in the eyes of a virtuous and exemplary woman.

That Marie de Medicis had many faults cannot be denied by her most zealous biographer, but that she was outraged both as a wife and as a mother is no less certain; and adopting, as we have a right to do, the conjectural style of M. de Sully,--perhaps, we say in our turn, had the Queen, from the period of her marriage, been treated with the deference and respect which were her due, the harsher features of her character might have become softened, and the faults which posterity has been compelled to couple with her name might never have been committed. Assuredly her period of probation was a bitter one, and it may be doubted whether the axe of our own eighth Henry were not after all more merciful in reality than the wire-drawn and daily-recurring torture to which his namesake of France subjected the haughty and high-spirited woman who was fated to find herself the victim of his vices.

The foreboding of M. de Sully was verified, for within a few days of the interview just recorded between the King and Madame de Verneuil, and during the continuance of his estrangement from his wife, it soon became known that the favourite had re-assumed her empire. In vain did the mortified minister protest against this new weakness, and assure his royal master that it could not fail to increase the anger and indignation of Marie de Medicis; Henry only replied by asserting that when Sully should have succeeded in inducing the Queen to change her humour and to exert herself to please him, instead of persisting in closeting herself with her foreign followers, and permitting them to criticise his conduct and to aggravate his defects, he would forthwith relinquish his _liaison_ with the Marquise. Such an answer, however, did not check the zeal of his anxious adviser; who, fearful lest this last schism should prove more important than those by which it had been preceded, and undeterred even by the impatience with which the King listened to his representations, persisted in assailing him with arguments, remonstrances, and warnings, peculiarly unpalatable at all times, but especially so at the very moment in which he had effected a reconciliation with the favourite that promised a renewal of the entertaining intercourse whence he derived so much gratification.

"You have now, Sire," resolutely urged the undaunted counsellor, "an admirable opportunity of terminating in a manner worthy of your exalted rank the difficulty by which you are beset, and of ensuring your own future tranquillity. Assume the authority which appertains to you as a sovereign; compel the Queen to silence; above all, strictly forbid her any longer to indulge in public in those idle murmurs and lamentations by which your dignity suffers so severely in the eyes of your subjects; and visit with the most condign punishment every disrespectful word of which others may be guilty either towards yourself or her. This effort, Sire, will be insignificant beside others which you have made, and in which your personal tranquillity was not involved; be no less courageous in your own cause, and do not suffer your reputation to be tarnished by a weakness incomprehensible in so great and powerful a monarch. By exacting the consideration and obedience which are your due, you are guilty of no tyranny; for it is the indisputable privilege of every crowned head to enforce both. Let me then entreat of your Majesty at once to assert yourself, and thus put a period to the domestic differences by which the whole Court is convulsed."

"Your advice may be good," was the evasive reply of the King, "but you do not yet understand me, or you would be aware that I cannot bring myself to exercise severity against persons with whom I am in habits of familiar intercourse, and especially against a woman."

"In that case, Sire," said Sully, "you have but one alternative. Exile your mistress from the Court, and make the required concessions to the Queen."

"I am prepared to do so," said Henry hastily, "if, in return for this sacrifice on my part, she will pledge herself no longer to annoy me by her jealousy and violence, and to meet me in the same spirit; but I have little hope of such a result: she is perfectly unable to exercise the necessary self-command, and is perpetually mistaking the impulse of temper for that of reason. Her intolerance and rancour forbid all prospect of sincere harmony between us. She is perpetually threatening with her vengeance every woman upon whom I chance to turn my eyes; and even the children of Gabrielle, who were in being before her arrival in the kingdom, are as hateful to her as though she had been personally injured by their birth; nor have I the least reason to anticipate that she will ever overcome so irrational an antipathy. Nor can she be won by kindness and indulgence. Not only have I ever treated her with the respect and deference due to the Queen of a great nation, but even in moments of pecuniary pressure I have been careful, not merely to supply her wants, but also to satisfy her caprices; and that too when I was aware that the sums thus bestowed were to be squandered upon the Italian rabble whose incessant study it has been to poison her mind against both myself and her adopted country. Would to Heaven, Rosny, that I had followed your advice on her arrival, and compelled the mischievous cabal to recross the Alps; but it is now too late for such regrets; and if you can indeed succeed in inducing the Queen to become more amenable to my wishes, and more indulgent to my errors, Ventre Saint-Gris! you will effect a good work, in which I shall be ready to second you. But mark, you must do this apparently upon your own responsibility, and be careful not to let her learn that I have authorized such a measure, or you will only defeat your own purpose, and render her more impracticable than ever." [237]

Such was the unsatisfactory result of the effort made by the minister to reconcile the royal couple; while, in addition to all his other anxieties, he found himself placed in a position at once so difficult and so dangerous that he was at a loss how to proceed, until a circumstance fortunately occurred of which he hastened to avail himself. In exchanging the petty Court of Florence for that of France, Marie had speedily emancipated herself from the compulsory economy to which she had been accustomed from her childhood, and had become reckless in her expenditure to an excess which constantly disturbed the equanimity of the prudent minister of finance. The current expenses of her household amounted annually to the sum of three hundred and forty-five thousand livres, an enormous outlay for that period; while she was so lavish to her favourites that she was constantly applying for further supplies; and on one occasion, when these were withheld, had actually pawned the crown jewels, which it was necessary to redeem by a disbursement from the public treasury. In addition to these resources, her income was also considerably increased by gratuities, bribes from contracting parties,[238] and edicts created in her favour; the last of which were peculiarly obnoxious to Sully, from the fact of their harassing the people without any national benefit; and it was accordingly with great reluctance, and frequently not without expostulation, that he was induced to countersign these documents.

The circumstance to which we have alluded as affording to Sully an opening for the delicate negotiation with which he was entrusted by the King, was an offer made to Marie de Medicis of the sum of eighty thousand livres in the event of her causing an edict to be issued in favour of the officials of the salt-works of Languedoc, which she forthwith despatched to the minister by M. d'Argouges,[239] with a request that he would use his influence to obtain it.

Having made himself acquainted with the nature and tendency of the edict, M. de Sully desired the messenger to inform her Majesty that he was of opinion that the sovereign might safely authorize its operation without any injury to the public interests; but added that he feared the moment was an unpropitious one as regarded the Queen herself, the King being still deeply offended by some of her recent proceedings; nor would he advise her to venture upon such an application until she had succeeded in disarming his anger; for which purpose he respectfully suggested that she should endeavour to conciliate her royal consort by some concession, which he would exert all his ability to enhance in the eyes of his master, and in every way endeavour to advance her interests as he had already done on several previous occasions.

Marie, eager to possess herself of the large sum thus proffered for her acceptance, consented to follow his advice; and decided upon addressing a letter to the King, expressive of her regret at the coldness which existed between them, and of her willingness to meet his wishes should he condescend to explain them.

This letter having been read and approved by the finance minister was forthwith forwarded from Fontainebleau, where Marie de Medicis was then residing, to the King at Paris; but it was not without a struggle that the Queen had compelled herself to such an act of self-abnegation, and her courier was no sooner despatched than she complained in bitter terms to M. de Sully of the humiliations to which she was subjected by the infatuation of the monarch for Madame de Verneuil; declaring that she could never submit to look with favour or indulgence upon a woman who had the presumption to institute comparisons between herself and her sovereign; who was rearing her children with all the pretensions of Princes of the Blood Royal, and encouraging them in demonstrations of disrespect towards her own person; and who was, moreover, fomenting sedition, by encouraging the discontented nobles to manifestations of disloyalty to their monarch; while the King, blinded by his passion, made no effort to rebuke, or even to restrain, her impertinence.

The minister listened calmly and respectfully to these outpourings of her indignation, but assured her in reply that it only depended upon herself to annihilate the influence of the favourite, by a system of consideration for the feelings of her royal consort of which she had not hitherto condescended to test the efficacy. He, moreover, implored her to make the trial; and represented so forcibly the benefit which must accrue to herself by a restoration of domestic peace, that she at length admitted the justice of his arguments, and pledged herself to accelerate, by every means in her power, a full and perfect reconciliation.

Gratified by this almost unhoped-for success, Sully shortly afterwards withdrew; and the reply of the King to the letter which she had addressed to him was delivered to Marie when she was surrounded only by her own private circle. It was at once courteous and conciliatory; and it is probable that, had it arrived before the departure of the Duke, it would have been acknowledged in the same spirit; but, unfortunately, the Queen had no sooner communicated its contents to her confidential friends than she was met by the assurance that the monarch had, on the receipt of her missive, carried it to the Marquise, where her credulity had excited great amusement, an assertion which was followed by other commentaries so distasteful to her pride, that, instead of persevering in the prudent course which she had been induced to adopt, she haughtily informed the royal courier by whom the letter had been brought that she should entrust him with no written reply, but should expect his Majesty on the following day according to his own appointment.

This marked and impolitic demonstration of disrespect excited anew the resentment of Henry, who openly expressed his indignation in the most unmeasured terms, and that so publicly, that within a few hours Marie was informed of every particular; and the breach which Sully had fondly flattered himself that he was about to heal became wider and more threatening than ever.[240]

Meanwhile the commerce of the King and the favourite was far from affording to the former all the gratification which he had anticipated from its renewal. The coquetry--to designate it by no harsher term--of Madame de Verneuil irritated the jealousy of the monarch, who could not forget that she had taunted him with his advancing age, and who saw her unblushingly encourage the admiration and attention of such of the courtiers as she could induce to brave his displeasure; while her lavish expenditure and unceasing demands, alike upon his patience and his purse, involved him in perpetual difficulties with his finance minister, which her extravagant attempts to assume the airs and to usurp the privileges of quasi-royalty did not tend to diminish.

The French King was, in fact, at this period, the victim of his own vices; the sovereign of a great and powerful nation, without a home or a hearth, a wifeless husband, and a discontented lover; tenderly attached to all his children, and yet unable to confer a favour upon the offspring of one mother without incurring the resentment of the other; and while feeling himself degraded by the thrall in which he lived, totally devoid of the moral courage necessary for his escape from so disgraceful a bondage.

It is in moments such as these that virtue and honour assert their well-earned privileges without even the effort of enforcing them. Weary of his perpetual discomfort, harassed by the heartless conduct of his mistress, and pining for the mental repose which he so greatly needed, Henry once more turned towards his wife as his only probable and legitimate haven of rest; but hopeless of success through his own agency, he again addressed himself to Sully for assistance and support.

Suddenly summoned by the monarch, the minister presented himself at the Tuileries, where he found Henry in the orangery, in which he had taken refuge from a shower of rain, pale, agitated, and anxious. The subject of his reconciliation with the Queen was mooted on the instant, and he repeatedly called upon Sully for his advice as to the best and surest method of effecting it. Conscious that his counsels had hitherto been either disregarded or rendered abortive by the King himself, the Duke endeavoured to escape this new demand upon his patience, but Henry was peremptory.

"Since then you command me to speak, Sire," he said at length, "I will be frank. In order to accomplish the object which you have in view, you can only pursue one course. Put the sea between yourself and four or five individuals by whom you are now beset, and cause as many others to pass the Alps."

"Your first suggestion is practicable," was the reply; "there is nothing to prevent me from banishing the malcontents who are conspiring in my very Court, but I am differently situated with regard to the Italians; for, in addition to the hatred which I should draw down upon myself from a nation proverbially vindictive, the Queen would never forgive an affront offered to her favourites. In order to free myself from these she must be induced herself to propose their return to their own country, and I know no one more likely than you, Rosny, to effect an object at once so desirable and so important. Make the attempt, therefore; and should you succeed, I pledge myself from that moment to abstain from every intrigue of gallantry. Reflect upon what I have suggested in my turn, and consider the means by which this may be accomplished with the least possible delay."

So saying, the King, after ascertaining that the weather had again cleared, abruptly quitted the orangery, leaving M. de Sully perfectly aghast at the new duty which had thus been suddenly thrust upon him.

As it was utterly impossible to propose such a measure to Marie de Medicis as that of dismissing her most favoured attendants until a perfect reconciliation had been effected between the royal couple, it was to that object that the prudent minister first turned his attention; and so successful did he ultimately prove, that after a brief correspondence the King and Queen had an interview, during which the whole of their recent misunderstanding was calmly discussed, and declared by both parties to have been occasioned by the ill-judged interference of those by whom they were severally surrounded; nor did they separate until they had mutually pledged themselves to consign the past to oblivion, and thenceforward to close their ears against all the gossiping of the Court.

The effect produced by this matrimonial truce (for it was unfortunately nothing more, and lasted only for the short space of three weeks) was of the most happy description. Nothing was seen or heard of save projects of amusement, which, not content with absorbing the present, extended also into the future. This calm, like those by which it had been preceded, was not, however, fated to realize the hopes of either party. Henry was too much addicted to pleasure to fulfil his part of the compact, while the Queen had, unhappily for her own peace, so long accustomed herself to listen to the comments and complaints of her favourites, that it was not long ere they found her as well disposed as she had previously been to lend a willing ear to their communications. In Madame de Verneuil they, of course, possessed a fruitful topic; and as Marie, despite all her good resolutions, could not restrain her curiosity with regard to the proceedings of this obnoxious personage, she ere long betrayed her knowledge of the new affronts to which she had been subjected by the Marquise.

The result of this unfortunate enlightenment was such as, from her impulsive character, might justly have been anticipated. She no sooner found herself in the society of the King than she once more assailed him with invectives and reproaches which he was of no temper to brook; and in this new dilemma Sully resolved, as a last and crowning effort to establish peace, to suggest to Marie that as her happiness had again been destroyed solely by the evil tongues about her, she should secure to herself the gratitude and affection of her royal consort by dismissing all her Italian household, and surrounding herself entirely by French friends and attendants.

The indignation of the Queen at this proposal was beyond the reach of all argument. She declared herself to be sufficiently unhappy separated from her family, and neglected by her husband, without driving from her presence, almost with ignominy, the few persons who still remained faithful to her interests, and who sincerely sympathized in her sufferings; and although the Duke ventured again and again to recur to the subject, and always with the same earnestness, Marie continued to reject his counsel as steadily as when it was first offered.[241]

The new attachment felt or feigned by the King for Mademoiselle de la Bourdaisière had again awakened her jealousy; and she complained with equal reason that Henry, even while indulging in this new passion, made no attempt to restrain the arrogance and bitterness of the forsaken favourite. Nor was Madame de Verneuil less indignant than the Queen; for even while affecting an extreme devotion, and surrounding herself with ecclesiastics, who, not content with labouring to effect her salvation, were also feeding her vanity with the most fulsome panegyrics, she could ill brook to see herself so easily forgotten; and once more she indulged in such indecent liberties with the name of Marie de Medicis that the King, whose patience was the more easily exhausted from the fact that he believed himself to be at last independent of her fascinations, was again driven to resort to the assistance of M. de Sully, in order to compel the restoration of the written promise of marriage which he had been weak enough to place in her hands.

It was, indeed, impossible for the sovereign of a great nation longer to temporize with an insolence which at this period had exceeded all endurable limits; for not only did the Marquise assert, as she had previously done, the illegality of the King's union with his wife, but so thoroughly had her affected devotion wrought upon the minds of the priests about her that several among them were induced to support her pretended claim, and even publicly to declare the bans of marriage between herself and the monarch.[242] Among these, two Capuchins, Father Hilaire of Grenoble and Father Archange, her confessors, the last in France, and the first in Rome, attached themselves recklessly to her interests,[243] while at the same time numerous letters and pamphlets were distributed in the capital, advocating her cause;[244] and so dangerously active had the cabal become in the Eternal City that the Cardinal d'Ossat considered it expedient to address a letter to the French Government upon the subject, which implicated in this wild conspiracy both the King of Spain and the Duke of Savoy, who, through the agency of Father Hilaire, were represented as upholding the pretensions of Madame de Verneuil. These circumstances, and especially the notoriety of a fact which involved alike the dignity of her husband and her own honour, so greatly exasperated the temper of the Queen that she no longer attempted to control her irritation; and on one occasion when, as was constantly the case, the pretended claim of the Marquise became the subject of discord between the royal couple, Marie so thoroughly forgot the respect which she owed to the King that she raised her hand to strike him. Fortunately, however, for both parties, the Duc de Sully, who was present during the altercation, and who instantly detected her intention, sprang forward and seized her arm; but in his haste he was compelled to do this so roughly that she afterwards declared he had given her a blow, adding, however, that she was grateful to him for having thus preserved her from a worse evil.

So great, indeed, was her sense of the obligation thus conferred, that thenceforward Marie regarded the finance minister with more favour than she had hitherto done; and occasionally requested his advice during her misunderstandings with the King. She could not have chosen a safer counsellor, for although Sully does not, in any instance, attempt to disguise his dislike to the Tuscan princess, he was incapable of betraying so sacred a trust; and if, as generally occurs in such cases, his advice was frequently neglected, she never once had cause to question its propriety.

A short time subsequent to the scene we have just described the Queen sent to request the presence of the minister in her closet, where he found her conversing with Concini, and evidently much excited. On his entrance she informed him that she was weary of the infidelities of the monarch; that the jealousy which he constantly kept alive alike undermined her health and destroyed her happiness; and that she had determined to follow the advice of her faithful servant, there present, and to communicate to his Majesty certain advances which had been made to her by some of the Court nobles, who were less insensible to her attractions than the King himself.

This communication startled M. de Sully; and while he was endeavouring to frame a reply by which he might remain uncompromised, Concini with his usual presumption followed up the declaration of the Queen by asserting his own conviction that it was the wisest measure which she could adopt; as it would at once convince her royal consort that she desired to keep nothing secret from him in which he was personally interested.

This interruption afforded time for the Duke to collect his thoughts, and heedless of the interference of the Italian, he remarked in his turn that her Majesty must pardon him if he declined to offer any opinion on so delicate a question, as it was one entirely beyond his province; after which, resolutely changing the tone of the discourse, he continued to converse with the Queen upon indifferent topics until Concini had retired. Then, however, he voluntarily reverted to the subject which she had herself mooted, and implored her to abandon her design; assuring her that he had her interest too sincerely at heart to see her without anxiety about to place herself in a position at once false and dangerous, as such an assurance from her own lips could not fail to excite in the breast of the King the greatest and most legitimate suspicions; for every man of sense must at once feel that no individual, be his rank what it might, would have dared to declare his passion to a person of her exalted condition without having previously ascertained that its expression would be agreeable to her, and having been tacitly encouraged to do so; while, on the other hand, so far from discovering any merit in such an avowal, or regarding it as a proof of confidence, his Majesty would immediately decide that the motive by which she had been actuated in making it must have been either the fear of discovery, or a desire to rid herself of persons of whom she had become weary, in order that she might be left at liberty to encourage new suitors; or finally, that she had been urged to this unheard-of measure by individuals who had obtained sufficient influence over her mind to induce her to sacrifice her peace and her honour to their own views.[245]

Happily for herself, Marie de Medicis admitted the validity of these arguments, and abandoned her ill-advised intention; and she was the more readily induced to do this from the assurance which she received from M. de Sully that the restoration of the promise given to Madame de Verneuil by the King was about to be enforced, and that she would consequently be speedily relieved from the anxiety by which she had been so long tormented. Nor was the pledge an idle one, as immediate measures were adopted to effect this act of justice towards the Queen. The negotiation was renewed by two autograph letters from the King himself, addressed respectively to the Comte d'Entragues and the Marquise de Verneuil, which were long preserved in the library of Joly de Fleury, but are now supposed to be lost. Copies of both had been, however, fortunately taken by the Abbé de l'Ecluse,[246] and as they are highly characteristic of the monarch, and cannot fail to prove interesting to the reader, we shall insert them at length.

To M. d'Entragues the King wrote as follows:

"M. d'Entragues, je vous envoye ce porteur pour me rapporter la promesse que je vous baillay a Malesherbes je vous prys ne faillir de me la renvoyer et si vous voulez me la rapporter vous mesme je vous diray les raisons qui m'y poussent qui sont domestiques et non d'estat par lesquelles vous direz que jay raison et reconnaitrez que vous avez été trompé, et que jay un naturel plutost trop bon que autrement, massurant que vous obeyrez à mon commandement, je finirai vous assurant que je suis votre bon mestre."

The letter addressed to Madame de Verneuil bears the same date, and runs thus: