Volume I Part 14 (1/2)
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 n.o.bles, 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 a.s.serting 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; a.s.suring 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 a.s.surance 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 pa.s.sion 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 a.s.surance 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 Abbe 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 ete trompe, et que jay un naturel plutost trop bon que autrement, ma.s.surant que vous obeyrez a mon commandement, je finirai vous a.s.surant que je suis votre bon mestre.”
The letter addressed to Madame de Verneuil bears the same date, and runs thus:
”Mademoiselle, lamour, Ihonneur et les bienfaits que vous avez recus de moi, eussent arrete la plus legere ame du monde si elle n'eut point ete accompagnee d'un mauvais naturel comme le vostre. Je ne vous picqueray davantage bien que je le peusse et dusse fair, vous le savez: je vous prie de me renvoyer la promesse que savez et ne me donnez point la peine de la revoir par autre voye: renvoyez moi aussi la bague que je vous rendis l'autre jour: voila le sujet de cette lettre, de laquelle je veux avoir reponse a minuit.”
These specimens of royal eloquence were unavailing; evasive answers were returned by the King's messenger, and entreaties having proved ineffectual, threats were subsequently subst.i.tuted, upon which the arrogant Marquise was ultimately induced to relinquish her claim to ascend the throne of France, on condition that she should, at the moment of delivering up the doc.u.ment, receive in exchange the sum of twenty thousand silver crowns and the promise of a marshal's _baton_ for her father the Comte d'Entragues, who had never been upon a field of battle.
This condition, onerous as it appears, was accepted; and the father of the lady finally, but with evident reluctance, restored the pernicious doc.u.ment to the King in the presence of the Comte de Soissons and the Duc de Montpensier, MM. de Bellievre, de Sillery, de Maisse,[247] de Jeannin, de Gevres,[248] and de Villeroy, by whom it was verified, and who signed a declaration to this effect,[249] although it was afterwards proved[250] that D'Entragues had only delivered into the hands of Henry a well-executed copy of the paper, while he himself retained the original.
This ceremony over, the Marquise was commanded to leave the Court, and for a short time peace was perfectly restored. The King had already become weary of his new conquest, and the hand of Mademoiselle de la Bourdaisiere was bestowed upon a needy and complaisant courtier; but still the absence of the brilliant favourite, despite all her insolence, left a void in the existence of Henry which no legitimate affection sufficed to fill, and it was consequently not long ere he became enamoured of Mademoiselle de Bueil,[251] a young beauty who had recently appeared at Court in the suite of the Princesse de Conde. The extraordinary loveliness of the youthful orphan at once riveted the attention of the King, and her own inexperience made her, in so licentious a Court as that of Henri IV, an easy victim, so easy, indeed, that the libertine monarch did not even affect towards her the same consideration which he had shown to his former favourites, although her extraordinary personal perfections sufficed to render her society at this period indispensable to him.
It was not long ere the exiled favourite was apprised of this new infidelity, yet such was her reliance upon her own power over the pa.s.sions of the King that she affected to treat it with contempt; but although she scorned to admit that she could feel any dread of being supplanted by a rival, after-events tended to prove that she was by no means so indifferent to the circ.u.mstance as she endeavoured to appear, and being as vindictive in her hate as she was unmeasured in her ambition, she could not forgive the double insult which had been offered to her pride. Forgetting the excesses of which she had been guilty, and the forbearance of the King, not only towards her faults, but even towards her vices, she determined on revenge, and unhappily she felt that the means were within her reach.
The Comte d'Auvergne, although he had been a second time pardoned by Henry, who was ever too ready to receive him into favour, and was wont to declare that although he was a _prodigal son_ he could never make up his mind to see the offspring of his King and brother-in-law perish upon a scaffold,[252] was devotedly attached to his sister, and of an intriguing spirit which delighted in every species of cabal and conspiracy; while Francois de Balzac d'Entragues, her father, overlooking the fact that he had himself become the husband of a woman whose reputation was lost before their marriage, talked loudly of the dishonour which the King had brought upon his family, and moreover resented, with great reason, an attempt made by Henry to seduce his younger daughter, Marie de Balzac.
For this lady, who subsequently became the mistress of Ba.s.sompierre, the King conceived so violent a pa.s.sion that, although at that period in his fiftieth year, he did not hesitate to a.s.sume the disguise of a peasant in order to meet her in the forest of Verneuil. The appointment had, however, become known to M. d'Entragues, who, exasperated by this second affront, and indignant at the persevering licentiousness of the monarch, stationed himself with fifteen devoted adherents in different quarters of the wood in order to take his life. Happily for Henry, he was well mounted, and on being attacked, defended himself so resolutely that he escaped almost by a miracle.
The disappointment of M. d'Entragues at this failure was so great that he compelled his daughter to propose another meeting in a solitary spot which he indicated, and where he made every preparation to secure the a.s.sa.s.sination of the imprudent monarch; but although she despatched the letter containing the a.s.signation, Marie de Balzac found means to apprise her royal lover of the reception which awaited him, and he consequently failed to keep the appointment.[253] That the Comte d'Entragues, twice foiled in his meditated vengeance, should lend himself willingly to any conspiracy against the honour and life of his sovereign, is consequently scarcely surprising, when we remember how many n.o.bles had in turn caballed against Henri IV with scarcely a pretext for their disloyalty; and meanwhile Madame de Verneuil, fully conscious of the hatred of Philip of Spain for the French King, had no sooner resolved upon revenge than she at once turned her attention towards that monarch, and by exciting his worst pa.s.sions succeeded in securing his support. She found an able and zealous coadjutor in Don Balthazar de Zuniga, the Spanish Amba.s.sador at the Court of France; while her step-brother, the Comte d'Auvergne, was no less successful with the Duke of Savoy, who, like Philip III, was never more happy than when he discovered and profited by an opportunity of hara.s.sing the French sovereign.
This conspiracy, as absurd as it was criminal, was, moreover, supported by many of the discontented n.o.bles who had never pardoned Henry for the suppression of the League; and, wild as such a project cannot fail to appear in these days, we have the authority of Amelot de la Houssaye[254] for the fact that the Comte d'Auvergne had induced Philip by a secret treaty to promise his a.s.sistance in placing Henri de Bourbon, the son of Henri IV and Madame de Verneuil, on the throne of France, to the detriment of the legitimate offspring of Marie de Medicis.
In the act by which Philip bound himself thus to recognise the pretended claim of the Marquise, he also gave a pledge to furnish her with five hundred thousand livres in money, and to despatch the Spanish troops which at that moment occupied Catalonia to support the disaffected French subjects who might be induced to join the cabal in Guienne and Languedoc.
Report also said that M. d'Auvergne, not satisfied with this attempt to undermine the throne of Henri IV, had formed a design against his life, but the rumour obtained no credit even from his enemies.[255]
Whatever extenuation may be found for Madame de Verneuil in such an attempt as this; whatever indulgence may be conceded to a woman baffled in her ambition, misled by her confidence in a supposit.i.tious claim, and urged on by a blind and uncalculating affection for her children, it is difficult to find any excuse for the persevering ingrat.i.tude of her step-brother. As regards M. d'Entragues, we have already shown that he had more than sufficient cause for seeking revenge upon a monarch who sacrificed every important consideration to the pa.s.sion of the moment; but the Comte d'Auvergne had experienced nothing save indulgence from Henry, and it was consequently in cold blood that he organized a conspiracy, which, had it succeeded, must have plunged the whole nation into civil war. He was, moreover, the more culpable that he had, in order to secure a pardon for his previous partic.i.p.ation in the crime of Biron, a.s.sured the too-credulous monarch, that in the event of his restoration to favour, he would, if permitted to continue his intercourse with Philip of Spain as unrestrictedly as heretofore, profit by the facility thus afforded to him to reveal to his Majesty all the secrets of the Spanish Government.
There can be no doubt that such a proposal must have startled and even disgusted the frank nature of the French King; but it was nevertheless too tempting to be rejected; and he himself avowed to Sully, when the new conspiracy of D'Auvergne became known to him, that it was less by the prayers of the culprit's sister, and by his own consideration for the children whom she had borne to him, than in the hope that he might, through the medium of the Count, be enabled to counteract the measures of his most subtle and dangerous enemy, that he had been induced on that occasion to pardon his disloyalty.[256]
By this unwise and ill-calculated concession the King had afforded an opportunity to the restless and disaffected n.o.ble of pursuing a correspondence with Philip as dangerous as it was convenient. Couriers were permitted to come and go unquestioned; and it was not long ere every measure of the French Cabinet was as intimately known at Madrid as it was in the Privy Council of Henry himself. This evil was, moreover, increased by the unconditional pardon which had enabled M. d'Auvergne, after his strange and degrading offer, to return to the Court; and he profited so eagerly by the opportunity which was thus afforded to him that he had little difficulty in convincing the false and vindictive Philip that the moment was at length come in which he might overthrow the power of the sovereign whom he hated.
M. de Lomenie, however, who, unaware of the promise made by the Count to Henry, became uneasy at the constant communication which the former maintained with the Court of Spain, at length determined to satisfy himself as to its nature, and for this purpose he intercepted some letters, by which he instantly became convinced of the treason meditated against his royal master. Indignant at the discovery which supervened, he suffered his displeasure to reach the ears of the culprit, who forthwith quitted the capital, and hastened to secure himself from arrest in Auvergne, of which province he was the governor, and where he made instant preparations to leave the kingdom should such a step become necessary.
It was consequently in vain that the King, when informed of the circ.u.mstance, despatched the Sieur d'Escures[257] to summon the Count to his presence in order that he might justify himself. D'Auvergne resolutely refused to quit his retreat until he had received a formal promise from the sovereign that he should be absolved from all blame of whatever description, and received by his Majesty with his accustomed favour, alleging as a pretext for making this demand, that he was on bad terms with all the Princes of the Blood, with the Grand Equerry, and even with his sister, Madame de Verneuil, and that he could not make head against such a host of enemies except he were supported by the King.
The expostulations of the royal messenger were fruitless, the Count being more fully alive to the danger of his position than M. d'Escures himself; and to every argument and denegation of the anxious envoy he consequently replied by saying that it was useless to urge him to compromise his safety while he felt certain that his ruin had been decided upon, a fact of which he was convinced from the circ.u.mstance of his having received no letter from any of the intimate friends of the King since he had withdrawn from the Court, while he was sufficiently acquainted with the bad disposition of Madame de Verneuil to be a.s.sured that in the event of her being enabled to effect a reconciliation with the monarch at his expense, she would not scruple to sacrifice his interests to her own.
The emba.s.sy of M. d'Escures thus signally failed, and instead of furthering the purpose for which it was intended, it produced a totally opposite effect, as, warned by this attempt to regain possession of his person, it induced M. d'Auvergne to adopt the most extraordinary precautions. He from that moment not only refused to enter any town or village where he might be surprised, but he also declined to hold any intercourse even with his most familiar friends save on a highway, or in some plain or forest where the means of escape were easy; and when hunting, a sport to which he was pa.s.sionately attached, and which was at that period the only relaxation he could enjoy with safety, he caused videttes to be stationed upon the surrounding heights, who were instructed to apprise him by a concerted signal of the approach of strangers.[258]