Marie de Médicis

“ Grand-Duchess her aunt, the Duchess of Mantua her sister, her brother Don Antonio, the Duke of Bracciano, and the French Ambassador, she set forth upon her journey to her new kingdom. [99]
Without being strictly beautiful, Marie de Medicis possessed a person at once pleasing and dignified. All the pride of her Italian blood flashed from her large dark eye, while the consciousness of her exalted rank lent a majesty to her deportment which occasionally, however, in moments of irritation, degenerated into haughtiness. ”

“ Bitterly, indeed, had Marie de Medicis deluded herself when she imagined that anything was to be hoped from the affection of Louis XIII, who was utterly incapable of such a sentiment; but who, in all the relations of life, whether as son, as husband, as friend, or as sovereign, was ever the slave of his own self-love.
On her arrival at Brussels, the Queen-mother had despatched M. de la Mazure to inform the Duc d'Orléans of her flight from France, and of the gracious reception which she had met from the Archduchess Isabella ”

“ While the Queen-mother was still writhing under this new indignity, the unfortunate Leonora, who had been apprised of the murder of her husband, rushed into the apartment, and flinging herself at the feet of her royal foster-sister, implored her protection for herself and her young son; but sudden adversity had steeled the heart of Marie de Medicis, and sternly upbraiding her former favourite as the cause of her own overthrow, she refused to afford her any aid, and commanded her instantly to retire. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 final arrangements were then discussed, and Marie de Medicis was left to her own thoughts until the hour of eight, when M. de Thémines was announced.
"Ha! you are come at length," she exclaimed joyfully; "I was awaiting you with impatience. The Council is about to open, and it is time that we were all prepared. Can you depend on those by whom you are accompanied?"
"They are my sons, Madame."
"Bravely answered!" said Marie forcing a smile, as she extended her hand, which the Marquis raised to his lips. "Go then, and remember that the fate of France and of her monarch are in your keeping." ”

“ Tell her, however, from me that I shall always honour her, and that I feel towards her all the sentiments of a good son; but God willed that I should be born a King, and I am resolved henceforth to govern for myself. It is desirable that the Queen should have no other guards but mine. Let her know that such is my will."
Marie de Medicis listened incredulously when, on his return to her apartment, the equerry announced the failure of his mission. ”

“ France must have lost her place among the European nations had she been longer permitted to prey upon her own vitals. One individual alone could have condemned her to this self-slaughter, and we have delivered her from the peril by committing that individual to the Bastille."
As the Queen-mother uttered these words her voice was drowned in the universal burst of fury and violence which assailed her on all sides; nobles, citizens, and people alike yelled forth their discontent, but the unquenchable spirit of Marie de Medicis did not fail her even at this terrible moment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then, indeed, the hall became a scene of confusion and uproar which baffles all description; voice was heard above voice; the clang of weapons as they were struck against the stone floor sounded ominously; and the terrified young King, after glancing anxiously towards De Luynes, who returned his look by another quite as helpless, fastened his gaze upon his mother as if from her alone he could hope for protection. Nor was his mute appeal made in vain, for although an expression of anxiety could be traced upon the noble features of Marie de Medicis, they betrayed no feeling of alarm. ”

“ Marie de Medicis sank back upon her seat, and silently held the insulting letter towards Rubens.
"There is indeed no time to lose, Madame," exclaimed the artist, as he glanced rapidly over its contents. "The spies of the Cardinal have tracked you hither, and you must quit Flanders without [pg 417] delay. Dare I hope that, in this emergency, your Majesty will deign to occupy a house which I possess at Cologne, until my return from Paris?"
"Rubens, you are my preserver!" faltered the wretched Queen. "Do with me as you will. You will meet your recompense in Heaven." ”

“ To account for his bitter feeling towards Marie de Medicis, it is only necessary to state that, blinded by his ambition, he had dared to display for the haughty Princess a passion which was coldly and disdainfully repulsed; and that he had vowed to revenge the overthrow of his hopes. [194]
His hatred of Concini is as easily explained; it being merely the jealousy of a rival favourite. The Italian was to the mother of the King precisely what De Luynes was to the King himself; and as Marie possessed more power than her son, so also was her follower more richly recompensed. ”

“ As, however, he in his turn delayed to forward them to Marie de Medicis, she became alarmed by the silence of the Duc d'Epernon, and believed that her friends had abandoned her to her fate; a conviction which reduced her to despair. Her hopes had latterly been excited; the representations and arguments of Suffren, seconded by her own desires, had quieted the scruples of her conscience; and this new check was bitter in the extreme. A thousand fears assailed her; treachery and hatred enveloped her on all sides ”

“ Or think you that Marie de Medicis fears to emulate Elizabeth? You have mistaken both yourselves and me. My forbearance has not hitherto grown out [pg 379] of fear; but the lion sometimes disdains to struggle with the tiger, not because he misdoubts his own strength, but because he cares not to lavish it idly. I also feel my strength, and when the fitting moment comes, it shall be put forth. To your war-cry I will answer with my war-cry; to your leaders I will oppose my leaders; and when you shout Condé and Mayenne! I will answer triumphantly Louis de France and Gaston d'Orléans! ”

“ This surpassing assurance no sooner reached the ears of Marie de Medicis than she once more forbade Madame de Verneuil her presence; but the Marquise, strong in her impunity, merely replied by an epigram, and consoled herself for her exclusion from the Queen's private circle by assuming more state and magnificence than before, and by collecting in her saloons the prettiest women and the most reckless gamblers that the capital could produce. Thus attracted, the infatuated monarch became her constant guest ”

“ But Marie de Medicis was far from evincing the delight which he had anticipated at his avowed wish that she should share with him in the hopes and disappointments of royalty; her ambition had not then been thoroughly awakened; she still felt as [pg 328] a wife and as a woman rather than as a Queen; and an insolence from Madame de Verneuil occupied her feelings more nearly than a threatened conspiracy. ”

“ Had the King been less unscrupulously inconstant, there is, however, no doubt that Marie de Medicis, from the strict propriety of her conduct to the last, and under every provocation, would ultimately have become an attached and devoted wife. Her ambition was satisfied, and her heart interested, in her maternal duties; but the open and unblushing licentiousness with which Henry pursued his numerous and frequently ignoble intrigues, irritated her naturally excitable temper, and consequently tended to throw her more completely into the power of the ambitious Italians by whom she was surrounded ”

“ Marie de Medicis, who had not yet forgiven the royal declaration in favour of the Prince de Condé, was additionally irritated that these honours should have been conceded without her participation; for she immediately perceived that the intention of the favourite had been to reserve to himself the credit of obtaining so signal a distinction for the noblemen and gentlemen upon whom it was conferred, and to render her own helplessness more apparent. ”

“ Marie de Medicis was striving to discover some means of frustrating the cabals which were perpetually thwarting her designs, and threatening her authority, while M. de Condé was as eager as ever to undermine her power. The Maréchal d'Ancre was intriguing to effect the disgrace of the ministers, particularly that of Villeroy, whose alliance he no longer coveted; and the great nobles were busied in searching for some pretext sufficiently plausible to cause the ruin of the domineering favourite who presumed to treat them rather as inferiors than as equals. ”

“ As regards Marie de Medicis herself, she had long ceased to derive any gratification from the splendid festivities of which she was one of the brightest ornaments; her ill-judged indulgence, far from exciting the gratitude of Madame de Verneuil, having rendered the insolent favourite still more arrogant and overbearing. To such an extent, indeed, did the Marquise carry her presumption, that she affected to believe herself indebted for the forbearance of the Queen to the conviction of the latter that she had a superior claim upon the monarch to her own ”

“ Remonstrances and arguments were alike unavailing; the boy-King declined to listen to either; and Marie ultimately commanded that he should undergo the [pg 061] chastisement of the rod. The order was given, but no one volunteered obedience; the vengeance of the man might hereafter compensate for the mortification of the child; and the son of Marie de Medicis, stolid and gloomy though he was, had already imbibed a full sense of the respect due to his sovereign rank.
"How now, M. de Souvré!" [50] exclaimed the Queen; "is the frown of a wayward boy more dangerous than the displeasure of a mother? ”

“ 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 ”

“ They are playing a hazardous game. If they believe that by exhausting the royal treasury they will succeed in rendering themselves masters of the kingdom, they are deceived; the Queen-mother watches alike over the life and the crown of her son. Once more I say, let them be warned in time; not a plot, not a cabal shall escape my knowledge; and should they disregard the caution which I now condescend to give them through yourself, they will learn too late what it is to incur the vengeance of Marie de Medicis. ”

“ We have frequent record of the habitual high play of Marie de Medicis, who found in it a solace for her sick-room and a diversion from her domestic annoyances, and thus the dangerous propensity of the monarch was heightened by the presence of the loveliest women of the land and the charm and fascination of wit and intellect. ”

“ The States-General had no sooner closed than Marie de Medicis resolved to terminate the double alliance which had been concluded with Spain, and in honour of this event she determined that Madame, the promised bride of Philip, should appear in a ballet, which by the sumptuousness of its decorations, the beauty of its machinery, and the magnificence of its entire arrangements, should eclipse every entertainment of the kind hitherto exhibited at the French Court. ”

“ The remains of the ill-fated Marie de Medicis were, in a few hours after her decease, transported to the Cathedral of Cologne, where they lay in state an entire week, during which period Rosetti, the Papal Nuncio, whose dread of Richelieu had caused him to absent himself from the dying bed, as he had previously done from the wretched home, of the persecuted Princess, each day performed a funeral service for the repose of her soul. ”