Read Ebook: The Life of Marie de Medicis Queen of France Consort of Henri IV and Regent of the Kingdom under Louis XIII — Volume 2 by Pardoe Miss Julia

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The royal remains were then embalmed, and placed in a sumptuous coffin upon a bed of state, in one of the most spacious apartments of the Louvre, which was hung with the richest tapestry appertaining to the crown. A magnificent canopy of cloth of gold surmounted the bier, and on either side of the catafalque were placed two temporary altars; ten others having been erected in the state-gallery, at which the bishops and the cur?s of the several metropolitan parishes daily performed six high and one hundred low masses. Platforms covered with cloth of gold had been prepared for the cardinals and prelates; and at the foot of the royal body, cushions of black velvet were arranged for the Princes of the Blood and the higher nobility. A golden crucifix and a silver vase containing holy water were deposited on a table of carved oak; and at the extremity of the room were grouped enormous tapers of wax, near which stood two heralds-king-at-arms, in their splendid state costume, leaning upon their swords. The face of the corpse was exposed, the head covered by a cap of crimson velvet laced with gold, and the body attired in a vest of white satin, over which was flung a drapery of cloth of gold, having in the centre a cross elaborately embroidered in silver.

As the youthful mourner reached the death-couch, the kings-at-arms were about to present to him the aspergillus, in order that he might sprinkle the corpse with the consecrated water, when a movement among the nobles who stood near the entrance of the apartment caused them to pause; and in another moment a group of ladies, attired in deep mourning, appeared beneath the portico; where, separating into two ranks, they left a passage open for the widowed Queen; who, clad in violet velvet like her son, with a high ruff, and her head uncovered, advanced with an unsteady step and streaming eyes towards her children.

"Pray with me, my son," she murmured amid her sobs as she stood beneath the mortuary canopy; "there lies your happiness and mine. May it please God that our hopes may not also have expired with him who was but a few short hours ago the glory and the greatness of his kingdom! The sturdy tree has fallen, and the saplings are still weak and frail. The mission of the great Henry is accomplished, and the weight of sovereignty is transferred to your own brow. And you also, my beloved ones," she continued, glancing towards her younger sons, "come nearer to me, and let us kneel together beside the body of your august and lamented father."

The two young Princes relaxed their hold of the royal mantle, and placed themselves beside their mother. The illustrious widow and her orphans then sank upon their knees, and continued for a considerable time absorbed in silent and earnest prayer. At intervals a sob which could not be controlled broke upon the stillness, but at length the mourners rose; and Marie, taking the hand of the boy-King, drew him towards her, and murmured in his ear a few hurried words which were inaudible to all save himself. As she ceased speaking, Louis glanced up into her face for an instant; and then, extending his right hand towards the corpse, he said in a clear and steady voice--

"Mother, I swear to do so."

Even at that awful moment a strange light flashed from the eyes of the Queen, and a smile, which was almost one of triumph, played about her lips as she glanced at the assembled nobles; but the emotion, by whatever cause produced, was only momentary; and after having cast another long and agonized look upon the face of the dead monarch, and aspersed the body with holy water, she bent her head reverentially to the King, and withdrew, followed by her ladies.

Only a few moments had consequently elapsed ere a dense mass of the people choked almost to suffocation the gothic arches and the nave of the sacred edifice, while the aisles were peopled by the more exalted individuals who had composed the funeral procession. Upwards of three thousand nobles, and a great number of ladies, all clad in mourning dresses, and attended by their pages and equerries, blended their melancholy voices with the responses of the canons of the cathedral; the bishops of the adjacent sees, and the archbishops in their rich raiment of velvet and cloth of silver, carried in their hands tapers of perfumed wax; Oriental myrrh and aloes burned in golden censers, and veiled the lofty dome with a light and diaphanous vapour which gave an unearthly aspect to the building; the organ pealed forth its deep and thrilling tones; and amid this scene of excitement, splendour, and suffering, the Cardinal de Gondy celebrated the mass, and the Bishop of Aire delivered the funeral oration. The coffin was then raised, and the crowd, hurriedly escaping from the church, once more spread itself over the neighbouring streets until the procession should again have formed; after which all this immense concourse of people accompanied the body of their beloved monarch to St. Lazare, where the clergy halted and returned to Paris; while the nobles who were to escort the mortuary-car to St. Denis, and who had hitherto followed it on foot, either mounted on horseback, or entered their carriages, in order to reach the Leaning Cross at the same time as the corpse.

At the close of the lugubrious ceremony the iron gates of the house of death swung hoarsely upon their hinges. The "De Profundis" pealed from the high altar, and Henry the Great was gathered to his ancestors.

FOOTNOTES:

L'Etoile, vol. iv. pp.17, 18. Montfaucon, vol. v. p.429.

Matthieu, vol. 9361 of the royal manuscripts, p. 804.

Dupleix, p. 403.

L'Etoile, vol. iv. p. 30.

Charles de Bourbon-Conti, Comte d'Anquien, son of the Comte de Soissons.

Marie de Luxembourg, the daughter of S?bastien de Luxembourg, Duc de Penthi?vre and Vicomte de Martigues, and wife of Philippe Emmanuel de Lorraine, Duc de Mercoeur.

Antoinette de Pons, Marquise de Guercheville, whose second husband was Charles du Plessis, Seigneur de Liancourt, First Equerry, and Governor of Paris.

Andr?e d'Al?gre, Comtesse and Mar?chale de Fervaques, was the widow of Guy de Coligny, Comte de Laval, de Montfort, etc., and the wife of Guillaume de Hautemer, Comte de Grancy, Seigneur de Fervaques, and Mar?chal de France.

Madeleine de Silly, Comtesse du Fargis, was the daughter of Antoine, Comte de la Rochepot, and the wife of Charles d'Angennes, Seigneur du Fargis, ambassador in Spain from 1620 to 1624. She became the confidential friend and favourite of Anne of Austria, and in 1636 was entrusted with the keeping of the crown jewels. Madame du Fargis was considered to be one of the most beautiful women at the French Court; but her spirit of intrigue rendered her a dangerous companion for a youthful and neglected Queen, and her morals were unfortunately not above suspicion.

The Cross of Trahoir was a small irregularly shaped space, surrounded by miserable hovels, with high pointed roofs, most of which were in a state of dangerous dilapidation; the broken casements in every instance replaced by rags or straw; the doors ill-hung and swinging upon their rusty hinges, and the whole of the buildings lost in dirt and wretchedness. The inhabitants of this filthy nook were of the lowest and most depraved description, and no other tenants could indeed have been found to make their dwelling there; as in addition to the squalor of the buildings themselves, the deeply-sunk and humid soil, which in fact formed an open sewer that drained the adjacent streets, supported several permanent gibbets arranged in the form of a cross; while the thoroughfares by which it was approached were foul and fetid lanes, breathing nothing save disease and infection.

M?zeray, P?r?fixe, and Daniel say that it was the Due de Montbazon whose arm warded off the blow.

Fran?ois Ravaillac was a native of Angoul?me, the son of a lawyer, and was about thirty-two years of age. He was a descendant through the female line of Poltrot de M?r?, the assassin of the Due de Guise. He had been originally destined to follow the profession of his father, but the loss of a lawsuit having reduced his parents to beggary, he took refuge in the monastery of the Feuillants, where he entered upon his novitiate. His weakness of intellect and extreme irritability caused him, however, to be rejected by that community; and he returned to his native province, where he was imprisoned for twelve months as an accomplice in a case of manslaughter. During his confinement he had, as he affirmed, visions connected with the conduct of the King which determined him to take his life; and for three years he had persisted in this horrible design, in furtherance of which he had thrice visited Paris. Upon the last of these occasions he had reached the capital during the Easter festivals, but he determined to delay his purpose until after the coronation of the Queen.

M?zeray, vol. x. p. 397.

P?r?fixe, vol. ii. pp. 498, 499.

BOOK II

MARIE DE MEDICIS AS REGENT

The news of the King's decease had no sooner been communicated to Marie de Medicis than, profiting by the advice of the Chancellor, she made a violent attempt at composure; and although still with streaming eyes and ill-suppressed sobs, she gave her assent to the suggestions of her councillors. The Ducs de Guise and d'Epernon were instructed to mount upon the instant, and to assemble as many of the nobles as were within reach, whom they were to accompany through the streets of the city, declaring upon their way that the King was not dead, although grievously wounded; the city gates were ordered to be closed, the keys delivered to the lieutenant of police, and strict commands issued to prevent all gatherings of the populace in the thoroughfares; while the guards who were distributed through the faubourgs were hastily concentrated in the environs of the Parliament, in order, should such a measure become necessary, to enforce the recognition of the Queen as Regent of the kingdom.

These arrangements made, MM. de Guise, d'Epernon, de Villeroy, and de Lavardin demanded an audience of the august widow, at which, kneeling before her, they kissed her hand, and assured her of their unalterable devotion. Their example was imitated by all the great nobles of the Court, with the sole exception of the Duc de Sully, who was encountered by Bassompierre in the Rue St. Antoine, accompanied by about forty mounted followers, and evidently in a state of intense agitation. "Gentlemen," he exclaimed, as the two parties met, "if the loyalty which you each vowed to the monarch whom we have just been unhappy enough to lose is as deeply impressed upon your hearts as it should be upon those of all faithful Frenchmen, swear at this precise moment to preserve the same fidelity towards the King his son and successor, and that you will employ your blood and your life to avenge him."

"Sir," haughtily replied Bassompierre, who had probably more deeply mourned the death of his royal master and friend than any other individual of the Court, and who was consequently revolted by the imperious tone of this address, "it is we who have been enjoined to enforce this oath upon others, and we do not need any exhortations to do our duty."

Sully regarded the speaker gloomily for an instant, and then, as though overcome by some sudden apprehension, he coldly saluted the group of nobles, and retraced his steps to the Bastille, where he forthwith closed the gates; having previously, on his way thither, caused his attendants to carry off all the bread which they could collect either in the shops or markets. He, moreover, no sooner thus found himself in safety than he despatched a courier to his son-in-law, the Duc de Rohan, who was with the army in Champagne at the head of six thousand Switzers, desiring him to march straight upon Paris; an indiscretion which he was subsequently destined to expiate, from the heavy suspicion which it necessarily entailed upon him. Vainly did MM. de Praslin and de Cr?quy, who were sent to summon him to the presence of the young King, endeavour to induce him to lose no time in presenting himself at the Louvre; the only concession which he could be prevailed upon to make, was to desire the Duchess, his wife, to hasten to the palace, and to offer to the Regent and her son his sincere condolence upon their irreparable misfortune.

The Duc d'Epernon, after having stationed the guards at the palace, was instructed by the Queen to proceed at once to the Parliament, which was then assembled, and to inform its members that her Majesty had in her possession a decree signed and sealed by the late King, conferring upon herself the regency of the kingdom during the minority of her son; entreating them at once to ratify the appointment in order to ensure the public tranquillity. She also privately despatched a messenger to the President de Harlay, whom she knew to be attached to her interests, and to be at once able and zealous, to instruct him to assemble the Court without delay, and to use all his influence to enforce her rights. De Harlay, who on receipt of her message was confined to his bed by gout, immediately caused himself to be dressed, and proceeded in a chair to the Augustine monastery; where he had scarcely arrived when the Duc d'Epernon entered the hall, and declared the will of the late King, and the confidence felt by the Queen that the Parliament would, without repugnance, recognize her right to the dignity thus conferred upon her. This they immediately did; and owing to the absence of the Prince de Cond? and the Comte de Soissons, both of whom aspired to the high office about to be filled by Marie de Medicis, without the slightest opposition or disturbance.

This happy intelligence was conveyed to the Queen by M. d'Epernon, who returned to the palace accompanied by one of the members of the Parliament, when the latter, after having been presented to his royal mistress, on whose right hand sat the young King bewildered by what was passing about him, bent his knee before their Majesties, and tendered to Marie a scroll, which having been returned by her to the accredited envoy of the supreme court, was read aloud as follows:--

"THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL, having represented to the Parliament in full assembly that the King having just expired by the act of a most cruel, most inhuman, and most detestable regicide committed upon his sacred person, it became necessary to provide for the safety of the reigning monarch and of his kingdom, required that an order should be promptly issued concerning his safety and that of the state, which could only be ruled and governed by the Queen during the minority of the said Lord her son; and that it should please the said Court to proclaim her Regent, in order that it might, through her, administer the affairs of the realm; The subject having been duly considered, the said Court declared, and still declares, the said Queen, the King's mother, Regent of France, to be entrusted with the administration of all matters of state during the minority of the said Lord her son, with all power and authority.

"Done in Parliament, this 14th of May, 1610.

" DU TILLET."

During the course of the day guards had been sent to the residence of the several foreign ambassadors, in order to protect them from the violence of the populace, and especially to that of the Spanish minister, who was peculiarly obnoxious to the Parisians. The governors of provinces and fortresses who chanced to be at that moment sojourning in the capital were ordered to repair without delay to their several commands, to maintain tranquillity within their separate jurisdictions; and, save the audible lamentations which throughout the night broke the silence of the mourning city, all was calm and quiet, except in the immediate neighbourhood of the Augustine monastery, where the Attorney-General had authorized the workmen to prepare the great hall for the reception of the young King, and where the necessary preparations for his presence on the following day were continued until dawn.

The parliamentary envoy having quitted the palace, and the crowd of nobles, by whom its spacious halls and galleries had been filled, having retired, Marie was at length left at liberty to indulge her grief, rendered only the more poignant from the constraint to which she had been so long subjected. Her first impulse was to command that the bed of the young sovereign should be removed to her own chamber, and this done, she abandoned herself to all the bitterness of her sorrow.

She had, indeed, legitimate cause for tears. With a son still almost a child, ambitious nobles jealous of her power, and a great nation looking towards herself for support and consolation, she might well shrink as she contemplated the arduous task which had so suddenly devolved upon her. Moreover, death is the moral crucible which cleanses from all dross the memories of those who are submitted to its unerring test; and in such an hour she could not but forget the faults of the husband in dwelling upon the greatness of the monarch. Who, then, shall venture to follow her through the reveries of that fatal night? Who shall dare, unrebuked, to assert that the ambition of the woman quenched the affection of the wife? or that Marie, in the excess of her self-gratulation, forgot the price at which her delegated greatness had been purchased? That some have been found bold enough to do this says little for their innate knowledge of human nature. The presence of death and the stillness of night are fearful chasteners of worldly pride, and with these the daughter of the Medici was called upon to contend. Her position demanded mercy at the hands of her historians, and should not have sought it in vain.

From one reproach it is, however, impossible to exonerate her, and that one was the repugnance which she evinced to encourage any investigation into the real influence under which Ravaillac had committed the murder of the King. In vain did she receive communications involving individuals who were openly named; she discouraged every report; and although among these the Duc d'Epernon made a conspicuous figure, she treated the accusation with indifference, and continued to display towards him an amount of confidence and favour to which he had never previously attained.

Indignant at this extraordinary supineness, the President de Harlay only increased his own efforts to unravel so painful a mystery; and refusing all credence to the assertion of the regicide that he had been self-prompted--an assertion to which he had perseveringly adhered amid torture, and even unto death, with a firmness truly marvellous under the circumstances--the zealous magistrate carefully examined every document that was laid before him, and interrogated their authors with a pertinacity which created great alarm among the accused parties, of whom none were so prominent as Madame de Verneuil and the Duc d'Epernon.

The latter, indeed, considered it expedient to wait upon the commissioners appointed by the Parliament to investigate these reports, in order to urge the condemnation of their authors; these being, as he asserted, not only guilty of defaming innocent persons, but also of exciting a dangerous feeling among the people, at all times too anxious to seek the disgrace and ruin of their superiors. He found, however, little sympathy among those whom he sought to conciliate; and on addressing himself to the President, whom he entreated to inform him of the details of the accusation made against himself, that magistrate, without any effort to disguise his feeling of repulsion towards the applicant, coldly replied, "I am, Sir, not your prosecutor, but your judge."

"I ask this of you as my friend," was the retort of the Duke.

"I have no friend," said the uncompromising minister. "I shall do you justice, and with that you must content yourself."

So uncourteous a reception excited the indignation of M. d'Epernon, who forthwith hastened to the Louvre to complain to the Regent of the insult to which he had been subjected; and Marie had no sooner been apprised of the affair than, with a want of caution highly detrimental to her own reputation, she despatched a nobleman of her household to M. de Harlay, to inform him that she had just learnt with extreme regret that he had failed in respect to the Duke, and that she must request that in future he would exhibit more deference towards a person of his quality and merit. This somewhat abrupt injunction, addressed to the first magistrate of the kingdom, and under circumstances so peculiar, only tended, however, to arouse M. de Harlay to an assumption of the dignity attached to his office, and he replied with haughty severity to the individual who had been charged with the royal message:--

So marked an exhibition of the opinion entertained by the Parliament on the subject of the complicity of the Duke in the crime then under investigation, did not fail to produce a powerful effect upon all to whom it became known, but it nevertheless failed to shake the confidence of Marie de Medicis in the innocence of a courtier who had, in the short space of a few days, by his energy and devotion, rendered himself essential to her; while thus much must be admitted in extenuation of her conduct, reprehensible as it appeared, that every rumour relative to the death of her royal consort immediately reached her, and that two of these especially appeared more credible than the guilt of a noble, who could, apparently, reap no benefit from the commission of so foul and dangerous a crime. In the first place, the Spanish Cabinet had been long labouring to undermine the power of France, in which they had failed through the energy and wisdom of the late King, whose opposition to the alliance which they had proposed between the Dauphin and their own Infanta had, moreover, wounded their pride, and disappointed their projects; and there were not wanting many who accused the agents of Philip of having instigated the assassination; while another rumour, less generally disseminated, ascribed the act of Ravaillac to the impulse of personal revenge, elicited by the circumstance that Henry had first dishonoured and subsequently abandoned a sister to whom he was devotedly attached.

That M. d'Epernon was politic enough to impress upon the mind of the Queen the extreme probability of either or both of these facts, there can be little doubt, as it would appear from the testimony of several witnesses that the intention of the murderer was known for some time before the act was committed; and nothing could be more rational than the belief that if the agents of Spain were indeed seeking to secure a trusty tool for the execution of so dark a deed, they would rather entrust it to one who could by the same means satiate his own thirst for private revenge, than to a mere bravo who perilled life and salvation simply from the greed of gain.

Day by day, moreover, the ministers were overwhelmed by accusations which pointed at different individuals. Those who had opposed the return of the Jesuits to France openly declared that they were the actual assassins; while even in the provinces several persons were arrested who had predicted before its occurrence the death of the King, and the means by which it was to be accomplished; and finally the affair became so involved that, with the exception of the woman De Comans to whom allusion has been elsewhere made, and who was condemned to imprisonment for life, all the suspected persons were finally acquitted.

At eight o'clock on the morning succeeding the assassination of the King all the members of the different Chambers assembled in their scarlet robes and capes, the presidents wearing their cloaks and mortar-shaped caps; and half an hour afterwards the Chancellor, accompanied by several masters of the Court of Requests, and dressed from head to foot in black velvet, took his place below the First President in the great hall of the Augustine monastery, where the young King was to hold his Bed of Justice, the ordinary place of meeting being still encumbered with the costly preparations which had been made for the state-reception of the Queen. This ceremonial was essential to the legal tenure of the regency by his mother, which required the ratification of the sovereign; and his assent in the presence of his princes, dukes, peers, and officers of the Crown, to her assumption of entire and complete control over his own education, and the administration of the government during his minority, as well as his approval of the decree delivered on the previous day by the Parliament.

Then arrived in rapid succession the Duc de Mayenne, the Conn?table de Montmorency, the cardinals, prelates, and other great dignitaries; who were finally succeeded by the King himself, habited in a suit of violet velvet, and surrounded and followed by a numerous retinue of princes, dukes, nobles, and high officers of the Court. Louis himself was mounted on a white palfrey, but all the members of his suite, whatever their rank, were on foot. The Queen came next in her coach, attended by the Princesses of the Blood and the other great ladies of her household; not as she had anticipated only two days previously, blazing with jewels and clad in royal robes, but covered with an ample mourning drapery of black crape.

The necessary ceremonies having been observed, the King at length took his place upon the Bed of Justice, having the Queen upon his right hand; while below their Majesties were seated the Prince de Conti, the Comte d'Enghien, who represented his father, M. de Soissons, the Duc de Guise, the Duc de Montmorency, the Duc d'Epernon, the Duc de Sully, all peers of France, and the Mar?chaux de Brissac, de Lavardin, and de Bois-Dauphin; while the other dignitaries of the State and Church were arranged upon either hand of the young monarch, and the body of the hall was occupied by the members of the several Courts.

When all had taken their places, and silence was restored, the Queen, rising from her seat, and throwing back her veil, proceeded to address the assembly, but for a time her voice was inaudible, and choked with sobs. At length, however, she mastered her emotion, and with a gesture full of mournful dignity, she besought all present to continue to her son and to herself the same loyalty and devotion which they had exhibited towards the monarch of whom the state had been so cruelly bereft; assuring them that it should be her study to induce the King to be guided by their counsels in all things, and imploring of them to afford him such advice as should on all occasions be compatible with his own dignity and the welfare of the country over which he was called upon to rule.

Short as was this harangue, it was not without considerable difficulty that she accomplished its utterance. More than once, suffocated by her grief, she was compelled to pause until she could regain her voice; and when at its close she drew her veil once more over her head, and prepared to leave the hall, the assembly rose simultaneously, and implored of her to honour the meeting by her presence until it should be dissolved. Exhausted and wretched, Marie strove to utter her thanks, and to retire; but the opposition offered to this resolution was so great and so unanimous that she was at length prevailed upon to resume her seat; and she had no sooner done so than Louis, raising for a moment the cap from his head, in his turn addressed the Court.

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