Miss Pardoe

“ 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 ”

“ What were to Richelieu the memories of the past? Mere incentives to the ambition of the future. Concini had been his first friend, and he had abandoned him to the steel of the assassin so soon as his patronage had become oppressive. Marie herself had overwhelmed him with benefits, but she had now lost her power, and he, who had won, was resolved to keep it. He had dared to talk of passion to the wife of his sovereign, by whom he had been repulsed, and fearfully had he resented the affront. ”

“ The Princesse de Condé--to win whose love Henri IV had been about to provoke a European war--deceived by the treacherous policy of the Cardinal, threw herself at his feet to implore him to exert his influence over the monarch, and to induce him to spare the life of her beloved brother; but Richelieu, instead of responding to this appeal, in his turn cast himself on his knees beside her, and mingled his tears with hers, protesting his utter inability to appease the anger of his royal master. ”

“ Such was the extremity to which the ingratitude and ambition of a single individual, whose fortunes she had herself founded, had, in the short space of eighteen months, reduced the once-powerful Queen-Regent of France; whose son and sons-in-law were the most powerful sovereigns in Europe.
Since the execution of the Duc de Montmorency all the nobility of France had bowed the head before the power of Richelieu; the greatest and the proudest alike felt their danger, for they had learnt the terrible truth that neither rank, nor birth, nor personal popularity could shield them from his resentment ”

“ Little could the unfortunate Marie de Medicis anticipate, when she thus saw herself surrounded by the most unequivocal exhibition of respect and deference ever displayed towards greatness in misfortune, that she should but a few short years subsequently enter the city in which she was now feasted and flattered, a penniless wanderer, only to be driven out in terror and sickness, to seek a new shelter, and to die in abject despair! ”

“ The Duc d'Epernon bore her company to the extreme frontier of his government, where they parted with mutual manifestations of affection and goodwill. As the Duke, who had alighted from the carriage where he had hitherto occupied a place beside her Majesty, stood near the door expressing his last wishes for her prosperity, and was about to raise her hand to his lips, Marie, who was drowned in tears, drew a costly diamond from her finger, which she entreated him to wear as a mark of her gratitude for the signal services that he had rendered to her in her need ”

“ High in favour with his sovereign, and anxious to profit by so favourable an opportunity of enhancing his own personal attractions, Buckingham appeared at the Court festivals attired in the Crown jewels, and indulged in a reckless profusion which enriched all with whom he came into contact, and soon rendered him a general favourite. Aware of the impression that he had produced, the English Duke, whose ambition was as great as his gallantry, soon suffered himself to be betrayed into an undisguised admiration of the French Queen, which led him to commit a thousand unbecoming follies ”

“ The disappointed Queen-mother at once recognized the hand of the Cardinal in this cold and constrained despatch, which was merely a renewal of her sentence of banishment; as Richelieu well knew that the high heart and generous spirit of the Tuscan Princess would revolt at the enormity of sacrificing those who had clung to her throughout her evil fortunes, in order to secure her own impunity. ”

“ The shouts of "Vive le Roi!" were as energetic as those of "Vive la Reine!" had been only a few weeks previously; and thus, through the selfish treason of two ambitious and unprincipled individuals, Marie de Medicis, who at once felt that all further opposition must be fruitless, saw the powerful faction which it had cost her so much difficulty and so hard a struggle to combine, totally overthrown, and herself reduced, even while she still possessed an army of thirty thousand men in Poitou, Angoumois, and Guienne, to accept such conditions as it might please the King to accord to her. ”

“ Marie de Medicis looked for an instant upon him with an expression of scorn in her bright and steady eye beneath which his own sank; and then, rising from her seat, she walked haughtily from the apartment. Once arrived in her closet, however, her indignant pride gave way; and throwing herself upon the neck of one of her attendants, she wept the bitter tears of humiliation and despair. ”

“ France, and the widow of her former monarch, can alike dispense with the good services of Armand de Richelieu, the false friend, the treacherous servant, and the ambitious [pg 216] statesman. It is time that both were delivered from his thrall. Do not fear, Sir, that our noble nation can produce no other minister as able as, and at the same time more trustworthy than, the man who, when he bends his knee before you, is in heart clutching at your crown. ”

“ The situation of Marie de Medicis was desperate. Day after day she solicited a private interview with the monarch, and on every occasion of their meeting she found Richelieu in the royal closet, invulnerable alike to her disdain and to her sarcasm. One word from the King would of course have compelled him to withdraw, but that word was never uttered; for with the timidity inherent to a weak mind, Louis dreaded to be left alone with his destined victim. ”

“ Prematurely old, ruined in constitution, ever dreading the knife of the assassin and the pen of the satirist, greedy of gold and power, wrapping himself lovingly in the purple and fine linen of earth, while conscious that ere long the sumptuous draperies of pride must be exchanged for a winding-sheet, Richelieu looked with a jaundiced eye on all about him, and appeared to derive solace and gratification only from the sufferings of others. ”