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'Orléans; 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 Maréchal 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 Mézeray, "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 Maréchal d'Ornano expired in his prison; a fate which was shared on the 28th of February 1629 by the Grand Prieur de Vendôme, 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'Orléans, 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 rôle 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 naïve 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 Maréchal, 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 Maréchal 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 Lesdiguières, who had passed his eightieth year; while the subsequently celebrated court roué, 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'Orléans, 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'Orléans 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 Rhé, 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 Rhé were placed under the command of the Maréchal 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'Orléans, 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].
The vigorous defence of the Rochelais, however, and the extreme severity of the winter, did not fail to produce their effect upon the King, who became weary of a campaign which exacted more mental energy than physical courage, and who was anxious to return to the capital. He declared his constitution to be undermined, and asserted that he should die if he remained in the camp; but as he feared that his reputation might suffer should he appear to abandon the army at his own instigation, he was desirous that Richelieu should suggest his departure, and thus afford him an opportunity of seeming resistance; while the minister, who was unsuspicious of the truth, did not hesitate to assure him that his absence at so important a juncture might prove fatal to his interests, and could not fail to tarnish his fame as a general. Incensed by this opposition to his secret wishes, Louis retorted so bitterly that the Cardinal at once perceived his error, and hastened to repair it; nor did he do this an hour too soon, as the exasperation of the King was so great that he even talked of dispensing with his services; but the able policy of Richelieu once more saved him, and he so skilfully convinced the King only a few hours subsequently that his presence was necessary in the capital in order to counteract the intrigues of the Queen-mother and the Duc d'Orléans, that the ruffled pride of the weak monarch was soothed, while a plausible pretext for his departure was supplied of which he hastened to avail himself; and having taken leave of the troops, he at length set forth for Paris on the 10th of February.
Louis was rendered, moreover, the more earnest to regain the capital by the constant information which he received of the gaieties in which the two Queens and Monsieur were constantly indulging while he was devoured by melancholy under the walls of the beleaguered city; nor had he been indifferent to a rumour which had reached him of the marked inclination evinced by the Prince his brother for the beautiful and accomplished Marie de Gonzaga, the daughter of the Duc de Nevers, who shortly afterwards became Duke of Mantua.[106]
Coupled with his disinclination to see Gaston again placed in a position to give an heir to the French throne, Louis had sufficiently profited by the lessons of Richelieu to feel the whole extent of the danger by which he would be threatened should Gaston succeed in acquiring allies beyond the frontiers; and he accordingly hastened to express to the Queen-mother his displeasure at the intelligence of this new passion, with a coldness which immediately tended to convince her that a great change had taken place in his feelings towards herself. Alarmed by this conviction, and anxious to discover the cause of so marked a falling-off in his confidence, Marie de Medicis exerted all her energies to ascertain through whose agency her influence had thus been undermined; nor was it long ere she became assured that Richelieu had availed himself of her absence to renew all the old misgivings of the King, and by rendering her motives and affection questionable, to make himself entirely master of the mind of the jealous and suspicious monarch.
Once satisfied of this fact, the Queen-mother resolved to profit in her turn by the absence of the Cardinal, whose ingratitude was so flagrant as thenceforward to sever every link between them; and the opportunity afforded by the open demonstrations of affection which Gaston lavished upon the Mantuan Princess was consequently eagerly seized upon in order to counteract the evil offices of the minister. Marie had watched the growing passion of the Duc d'Orléans with an annoyance as great as that of the King himself, for she had never forgotten the animosity displayed towards her by the Duc de Nevers; and she was, moreover, anxious, as we have already stated, to effect an alliance between her second son and a Princess of Tuscany; but aware of the capricious and unstable character of Gaston, she had hitherto confined herself to expostulations, which had produced little effect. Now, however, she resolved to derive the desired benefit from a circumstance which she had previously deprecated, and, summoning Monsieur, she readily persuaded him to affect the most violent indignation at her opposition, while she, on her side, would evince an equal degree of displeasure against himself. To this arrangement Gaston readily consented, as he delighted in intrigue, and was aware that by pursuing Marie de Gonzaga with his addresses he should alarm Richelieu as well as annoy the King. An open rupture accordingly appeared to take place between the mother and son; and while the Duke continued to visit the young Princess, and to enact the impassioned lover, Marie de Medicis expressed her indignation in the most unmeasured terms, and threatened him with her unrelenting anger should he persist in his suit. So well indeed did she perform her self-imposed part, that not only Louis himself, but the whole Court were thoroughly deceived by the stratagem; and meanwhile the unsuspecting Princess became the victim of the dissembling Queen and her capricious and heartless suitor.[107]
As the Cardinal had laboured to impress upon the King that Marie de Medicis was anxious to effect the second marriage of her younger son in order to secure the succession to his children, Louis had arrived in the capital fully possessed by this idea; and his surprise was consequently great when he perceived that the Queen-mother resented the projected alliance as an insult to her own dignity; nor did he hesitate to express his satisfaction at the misunderstanding which it had caused between them. His moody brow relaxed; his suspicions were for awhile laid at rest; and after having devoted some time to the pleasures of the chase, he once more left the capital and returned to La Rochelle.
On the 16th of October the city, exhausted by famine, and decimated by the artillery of the royal army, was compelled to capitulate; and on the 30th of the same month it was garrisoned by its conquerors. So soon as a fitting residence could be prepared for him, Richelieu took up his abode within its walls; and on the 1st of November the King made a triumphal entry into the late stronghold of Protestantism in France, whose subjugation had cost the lives of upwards of forty thousand of his subjects.[108]
La Rochelle was no sooner in possession of the royal forces than the Cardinal determined to protect Mantua against the aggression of Austria, a measure which he proposed in the Council, where it met with considerable opposition. Richelieu, however, persisted in his purpose, alleging that he had pledged himself to the Italian states to come to their support immediately that the campaign against the reformed party should have been successfully concluded; and he even urged the King to head the army in person. Louis, who was naturally brave, and who, moreover, prided himself upon his prowess in the field, and loved to contrast it with the pusillanimity of Philip IV of Spain, whose person was scarcely known to his troops, listened eagerly to the suggestion; but it was peculiarly obnoxious to Marie de Medicis, who did not fail to declare that the sole object of the Cardinal was to separate her from the King, and thus to weaken her influence. She consequently opposed the project with all the energy of her naturally impetuous character, asserting that her tenderness as a mother would not permit of her consenting thus constantly to see her son exposed to the vicissitudes of war, or his feeble health overtaxed by exertions and fatigues to which he was unequal.
The Cardinal listened to her representations with an impassibility as respectful as it was unbending. He had no faith in the reasons which she advanced, although he verbally accepted them, for the time had not yet arrived when he could openly brave her power; but it was at this period that the moral struggle commenced between them of which the unfortunate Queen was destined to become the victim.[109]
The exultation of Louis XIII at the fall of La Rochelle was considerably lessened by a violent attack of gout which immediately succeeded, and by which he was detained a prisoner within its gates until the 19th of November, when he departed for Limours, where he was met by the two Queens and Monsieur. Thence the Court proceeded to St. Germain in order to enjoy the diversion of hunting, and subsequently to Versailles, to await the completion of the ceremonial of the solemn and triumphal entry of the King into his capital, which took place on the 23rd of December with great pomp and magnificence. All the approaches to the city were crowded by dense masses of the population of the adjacent country, while the streets were thronged with the citizens who rent the air with acclamations. Triumphal arches were erected at intervals along the road by which the royal procession was to travel; the balconies of the houses were draped with silks and tapestry; and nearly eight thousand men, splendidly armed and clothed, awaited the King a league beyond the gates in order to escort him to his capital. The Parliament, and all the municipal bodies, harangued him as he reached the walls, and exhausted themselves in the most fulsome and servile flatteries; and finally, he received the congratulations of all the foreign ambassadors, as well as the compliments of the Papal Nuncio, by whom he was exhorted in the name of the Pope to persist in the great work which he had so gloriously commenced, until he had accomplished the entire extermination of the Protestants of France.[110]
FOOTNOTES:
[90] Lingard, vol. ix. p. 326.
[91] Mézeray, vol. xi. pp. 283, 286.
[92] Motteville, Mém. vol. i. p. 342 note.
[93] Mercure Français, 1625. Siri, Mém. Rec. vol. v, pp. 849, 850.
[94] Brienne, Mém. vol. i. p. 422.
[95] Sismondi, vol. xxiii. pp. 14, 15. Capefigue (Richelieu, Mazarin, etc.), vol. iv. p. 8.
[96] Henri de Talleyrand, Prince de Chalais, was a younger son of the illustrious house of Talleyrand, whose personal attractions had secured to him the favour of Louis XIII, by whom he was appointed Grand Master of the Wardrobe.
[97] Mézeray, vol. xi. pp. 317-319.
[98] Sismondi, vol. xxiii. pp. 21, 22. Bassompierre, Mém. vol. iii. p. 56. Brienne, Mém. vol. i. p. 432. Gaston, Duc d'Orléans, Mém. vol. i. p. 56. Le Vassor, vol. v. pp. 471-500.
[99] Capefigue, vol. iv. p. 34.
[100] Sismondi, vol. xxiii. p. 22. Capefigue, vol. iv. p. 35. Bassompierre, Mém. vol. iii. p. 57.
[101] Capefigue, vol. i. pp. 324-327. Bassompierre, Mém. vol. iii. pp. 60-76.
[102] Mézeray, vol. xi. p. 334.
[103] Mercure Français, 1627.
[104] Louis de Marillac was Gentleman in ordinary of the Bedchamber to Henri IV, and greatly distinguished himself by his valour alike under that sovereign and his successor Louis XIII. He was created Marshal of France in 1629; and was arrested in the camp of Felizzo, in Piedmont, in 1632, for having, as was asserted, volunteered to assassinate Richelieu with his own hand, when he voted against him in the assembly known as the "Day of Dupes." On the 8th of May in the same year he was condemned to lose his head; a sentence which was carried into execution in the Place de Grève; but his character was subsequently vindicated by a decree of the Parliament after the death of the Cardinal.
[105] Mézeray, vol. xi. pp. 338, 339.
[106] Charles, Duc de Nevers, succeeded Vincent II, Duke of Mantua, who, dying without issue on the 24th of December 1628, solemnly appointed him his heir.
[107] Le Vassor, vol. v. p. 736. Mézeray, vol. xi. p. 339. Gaston d'Orléans, Mém. édit. Petitot, vol. xxxi. p. 86. Sismondi, vol. xxiii. pp. 60, 61.
[108] Mézeray, vol. xi. pp. 355-357.
[109] Sismondi, vol. xxiii. p. 94.
[110] Le Vassor, vol. v. pp. 907, 908.