Volume III Part 17 (1/2)
[188] Sismondi, vol. xxiii. pp. 212, 213. Le Clerc, vol. ii. pp. 84-86.
Mezeray, vol. xi. pp. 417, 418. Le Va.s.sor, vol. vii. pp. 421-427. Siri, _Mem. Rec_. vol. vii. p. 578. Capefigue, vol. v. pp. 195-201.
CHAPTER X
1633
Monsieur returns to Flanders--The Queen-mother retires in displeasure to Malines--Influence of Chanteloupe--Selfishness of Monsieur--Death of Gustavus Adolphus--Richelieu seeks to withdraw the Queen-mother and her son from the protection of Spain--Marie is urged to retire to Florence--The Tuscan envoy--Two diplomatists--Mortification of the Queen-mother--She desires to seek an asylum in England--Charles I.
hesitates to grant her request--Helpless position of Marie de Medicis--The iron rule of Richelieu--The Cardinal-dramatist--Gaston avows his marriage to the King--Louis enters Lorraine, and takes Nancy--Madame escapes to the Low Countries--Her reception at the Court of Brussels--Marie de Medicis takes up her residence at Ghent--Serious indisposition of the Queen-mother--She solicits the attendance of her physician Vautier, and is refused--Hypocrisy of the Cardinal--Indignation of the dying Queen--She rejects the terms of reconciliation offered by the King--Attachment of her adherents--Richelieu negotiates the return of Gaston to France--The favourite of Monsieur--Gaston refuses to annul his marriage--Alfeston is broken on the wheel for attempting the life of the Cardinal--The Queen-mother is accused of instigating the murder--The bodyguard of the Cardinal-Minister is increased--Estrangement of Monsieur and his mother--Madame endeavours to effect the dismissal of Puylaurens--Insolence of the favourite--Heartlessness of Monsieur--Marie solicits permission to return to France--She is commanded as a condition to abandon her followers, and refuses--Death of the Archd.u.c.h.ess Isabella--Gaston negotiates, and consents to the most humiliating concessions.
After having forwarded his manifesto to the King, Gaston d'Orleans proceeded without further delay to the Low Countries, and once more arrived in Brussels at the close of January 1633, where he was received by the Spaniards (who had borne all the expenses of his campaign, whence they had not derived the slightest advantage) with as warm a welcome as though he had realized all their hopes. The princ.i.p.al n.o.bles of the Court and the great officers of the Infanta's household were commanded to show towards him the same respect and deference as towards herself; he was reinstated in the gorgeous apartments which he had formerly occupied; and the sum of thirty thousand florins monthly was a.s.signed for the maintenance of his little Court.[189] One mortification, however, awaited him on his arrival; as the Queen-mother, unable to suppress her indignation at his abandonment of her interests, had, on the pretext of requiring change of air, quitted Brussels on the previous day, and retired to Malines, whither he hastened to follow her. But, although Marie consented to receive him, and even expressed her satisfaction on seeing him once more beyond the power of his enemies, the wound caused by his selfishness was not yet closed; and she peremptorily refused to accompany him back to the capital, or to change her intention of thenceforth residing at Ghent. In vain did Monsieur represent that he was compelled to make every concession in order to escape the malice of the Cardinal, and to secure an opportunity of rejoining her in Flanders; whenever the softened manner of the Queen-mother betrayed any symptom of relenting, a word or a gesture from Chanteloupe sufficed to render her brow once more rigid, and her accents cold.
As the unhappy exile had formerly been ruled by Richelieu, so was she now governed by the Oratorian, whose jealousy of Puylaurens led him to deprecate the prospect of a reconciliation between the mother and son which must, by uniting them in one common interest, involve himself in a perpetual struggle with the favourite of the Prince. The monk affected to treat the haughty _parvenu_ as an inferior; while Puylaurens, who had refused to acknowledge the supremacy of individuals of far higher rank than the reverend father, on his side exhibited a similar feeling; and meanwhile Marie de Medicis and Gaston, equally weak where their favourites were concerned, made the quarrel a personal one, and by their constant dissensions weakened their own cause, wearied the patience of their hosts, and enabled the Cardinal to counteract all their projects.[190]
Unable to prevail upon the Queen to rescind her resolution, Monsieur reluctantly returned alone to Brussels, where he was soon wholly absorbed by pleasure and dissipation. All his past trials were forgotten. He evinced no mortification at his defeat, or at the state of pauperism to which it had reduced him; he had no sigh to spare for all the generous blood that had been shed in his service; nor did he mourn over the ruined fortunes by which his own partial impunity had been purchased. It was enough that he was once more surrounded with splendour and adulation; and although he applied to the Emperor and the sovereigns of Spain and England for their a.s.sistance, he betrayed little anxiety as to the result of his appeal.
Meanwhile the unfortunate Queen-mother, who had successively witnessed the failure of all her hopes, was bitterly alive to the reality of her position. She was indebted for sustenance and shelter to the enemies of France; and even while she saw herself the object of respect and deference, as she looked back upon her past greatness and contrasted it with her present state of helplessness and isolation, her heart sank within her, and she dreaded to dwell upon the future.
The death of Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, who was killed at the battle of Lutzen at the close of the previous year, had produced a great change in the affairs of Europe; and, fearing that the Austrian Cabinet might profit by that event, Richelieu represented to the Council the necessity of raising money at whatever cost, and of using every endeavour to effect a continuance of the hostilities in Germany and Flanders, without, however, declaring war against Austria. For this purpose he stated that more troops must necessarily be raised, but that the forfeited dowry of the Queen-mother and the appanage of the Duc d'Orleans would furnish sufficient funds for their maintenance; an expedient which was at once adopted by the Council.[191]
In the event of either war or peace, however, the Cardinal was equally uneasy to see the mother of the King and the heir-presumptive to the Crown in the hands of the Spaniards, as their influence might tend to excite an insurrection on the first check experienced by the French army; while, should a general peace be negotiated during their residence in the Low Countries, the Emperor and the King of Spain would not fail to stipulate such conditions for them both as he was by no means inclined to concede; and he was therefore anxious to effect, if possible, their voluntary departure from the Spanish territories. That he should succeed as regarded Gaston, Richelieu had little doubt, that weak Prince being completely subjugated by his favourites, who, as the minister was well aware, were at all times ready to sacrifice the interests of their master to their own; but as regarded Marie de Medicis the case was widely different, for he could not conceal from himself that should she entertain the most remote suspicion of his own desire to cause her removal from her present place of refuge, she would remain rooted to the soil, although her heart broke in the effort. Nor was he ignorant that all her counsellors perpetually urged her never to return to France until she could do so without incurring any obligation to himself; and this she could only hope to effect by the a.s.sistance of the Emperor and Philip of Spain.
One circ.u.mstance, however, seemed to lend itself to his project, and this existed in the fact that the Queen--mother had, during the preceding year, requested her son-in-law the King of England to furnish her with vessels for conveying her to a Spanish port; and this request, coupled with her departure from Brussels, led him to believe that she was becoming weary of the Low Countries. He accordingly resolved to ascertain whether there were any hopes of inducing her to retire for a time to Florence; but the difficulty which presented itself was how to renew a proposition which had been already more than once indignantly rejected.
After considerable reflection the Cardinal at length believed that he had discovered a sure method of effecting his object; and with this conviction he one day sent to request the presence of M. de Gondi, the envoy of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, when after having greatly extolled the prudence of the Grand Duke throughout the misunderstanding between Louis XIII and his mother, and made elaborate protestations of the sense which that monarch entertained of his moderation and equity, he conversed for a time on the affairs of Italy, and then, as if casually, he reverted to the subject of the Queen-mother.
”_a-propos_;” he said, ”speaking of _the poor woman_, certain persons are endeavouring, I understand, to induce her to visit Florence. What do you think of the project?”
”Your Eminence,” replied Gondi, ”is the first person by whom I have been informed of this intention on the part of her Majesty; I never heard that she had adopted such a resolution.”
”Then I must initiate you into the mystery,” pursued Richelieu. ”The bad advice of that madman Chanteloupe has been the cause of all the errors of which she has been guilty. The King had requested the Infanta to deliver the man up to him; a demand by which he was so incensed that he forthwith urged the Queen to leave the Low Countries, declaring that she would no longer be safe there, should Isabella, whose health is failing fast, chance to die. The poor woman, listening to this interested counsel, accordingly resolved to go to England, but Charles would not receive her without the consent of her son. Thereupon she asked for some vessels to convey her to Spain, to which the English monarch replied that he would furnish her with a fleet, provided that his brother-in-law approved of her intention, and that Philip would consent to her remaining in his dominions. His Catholic Majesty has already given the required pledge, but I am not yet aware of the determination of my own sovereign. You see to what a pitiable state she is reduced; she does not know which way to turn; and I really feel for her. I wish with all my heart that I could help her; but so far from seeing her position in its right light, she continues so headstrong that she feels no regret for the past, and declares that she never shall do so.”
M. de Gondi remained silent; and after pausing an instant Richelieu resumed: ”As the Queen-mother really wishes to change her place of abode, would to G.o.d that she would select some country where the King could prove to her the extent of his affection without endangering the interests of the state; and where nothing might prevent me from testifying towards her my own grat.i.tude and respect. Charles of England cannot well refuse the use of his s.h.i.+ps after her request, but I cannot bring myself to believe that she actually desires to reside in Spain.
Should she ultimately incline towards Florence, and antic.i.p.ate a good reception from the Grand Duke, do you apprehend that she would be disappointed in her hope?”
”Monseigneur,” cautiously replied the envoy, who was not without a suspicion of the motive which urged the Cardinal to hazard this inquiry, and who had received no instructions upon the subject, ”I know nothing of the projects of her Majesty, nor do I believe that the Grand Duke is better informed than myself. The Court of Florence entertains such perfect confidence in the affection of the King of France for his mother, that it leaves all such arrangements to the good feeling of his Majesty.”
”The aspect of affairs has greatly changed within the last few months,”
observed Richelieu, ”and I am of opinion that the King would be gratified should the Grand Duke consent to receive his niece, in the event of her desiring to pa.s.s a short time under his protection, until a perfect reconciliation is effected between them; but you will see that should she once set foot in England, she will never leave it again, and will by her intrigues inevitably embroil us with that country.”
Again did M. de Gondi protest his entire ignorance alike of the movements of the exiled Queen and of the wishes of his sovereign, with a calm pertinacity which warned the Cardinal that further persistence would be impolitic, as it could not fail to betray his eagerness to effect the object of which he professed only to discuss the expediency; and, accordingly, the interview terminated without having produced the desired result.[192]
Richelieu had, however, said enough to convince the Tuscan envoy that should the Grand Duke succeed in persuading the Queen-mother to reside at his Court, he would gratify both Louis and his minister; but neither he himself nor Marie de Medicis had ever contemplated such an arrangement. It was true, as the Cardinal had stated, that she had applied to Charles of England for s.h.i.+pping, but she had done so with a view of proceeding by Spain to join the Duc d'Orleans in Languedoc, little imagining that his cause would so soon be ruined. Mortified to find herself left for so long a period in a state of dependence upon Philip and Isabella, and deprived of any other alternative, she had next sought to secure an asylum in the adopted country of her daughter, where her near relations.h.i.+p to the Queen gave her a claim to sympathy and kindness which she was aware that she had no right to exact from strangers; and she consequently felt that the obligation which she should there incur would prove less irksome to support than that which was merely based on political interests; and, which, however gracefully conferred, could not be divested of its galling weight.
Henriette, who had always been strongly attached to her royal mother, and who, in her brilliant exile, pined for the ties of kindred and the renewal of old a.s.sociations, welcomed the proposal with eagerness; but Charles I., who was apprehensive that by yielding to the wishes of the Queen, he should involve himself in a misunderstanding with the French Court; and who, moreover, disliked and dreaded the restless and intriguing spirit of Marie de Medicis, as much as he deprecated the outlay which her residence in the kingdom must occasion, hesitated to grant her request.
Such was the extremity to which the ingrat.i.tude and ambition of a single individual, whose fortunes she had herself founded, had, in the short s.p.a.ce of eighteen months, reduced the once-powerful Queen-Regent of France; whose son and sons-in-law were the most powerful sovereigns in Europe.