The retreat of the Prince was a great triumph for the warlike Bishop, who lost no time in proceeding to Tours (where the Court had already arrived), at the head of two hundred of his supporters, to entreat of their Majesties to proceed at once to Poitiers, in order to restore public confidence. His reception by the Regent was gracious in the extreme, nor did the young sovereign fail to express to the exulting prelate his own sense of obligation. At Poitiers the Court was met by the most enthusiastic acclamations: their Majesties honoured the election of the new mayor with their presence; and the lieutenant-generalship of the province was bestowed upon the Comte de la Rochefoucauld, an adherent of the Due de Guise.

From Poitiers the Court proceeded to Angers, on its way to Brittany; where, however, the Due de Vendome did not wait its arrival to make his submission. The inertness of the Government upon previous occasions not having prepared him for the energy now exhibited by the sovereign, his alarm was correspondingly increased; and he hastened to meet their Majesties accompanied by all the nobility of the province. On approaching the King he laid his sword at his feet; and, as he knelt beside it, entreated his forgiveness of his past errors, and expressed his determination thenceforward to give him no further subject of complaint; upon which Louis commanded him to rise, and granted him a free pardon, which was ratified by the Regent. Letters patent were despatched by which he was reinstated in his government, and made irresponsible for all the excesses committed by his troops; and once more the son of Gabrielle d'Estrees was restored to the favour, if not to the confidence, of his sovereigns.

The assembly of the States then took place at Nantes, presided over by the Duc de Rohan; and during its meetings the King was apprised by its members of the enormities of which the followers of Vendome had been guilty throughout the province, and respectfully solicited to exclude from the letters of abolition the authors of the frightful crimes of which the people had been made the victims. Among those of which they complained were the ransom of wives by their husbands, of daughters and young children by their parents, and of fields of grain by their owners. They, moreover, demanded justice for still greater enormities; and revealed to the Council the appalling fact that wealthy individuals had been subjected to torture, and in many instances even put to death, in order to obtain possession of their money; while others had been compelled to pay a heavy sum to save their dwellings and their property from the brand of the incendiary.

These frightful revelations excited the horror and indignation of Marie and her Council; and, in reply to their requisition, the complainants were assured that, although the King and his Government had preferred to pardon the injuries which they had personally sustained from the faction of M. de Vendome, rather than visit them with the vengeance that they had legally merited, neither the sovereign nor those who held office under him could permit crimes like those detailed in their remonstrance to be exercised with impunity upon the people, and those crimes would consequently be punished with the most extreme rigour.

The first independent act of the Duc de Vendome had thus greatly injured him in the estimation of the young monarch and his mother; nor did his afterlife tend to give them cause to alter the opinion which they then formed either as regarded his stability or his capacity. Even the marriage which his father, Henri IV, had with so much difficulty contracted for him with the heiress of the House of Mercoeur,[174] failed to produce the result that had been anticipated, as he squandered her wealth, without increasing his own political importance.[175]

On her triumphant return to the capital Marie de Medicis was apprised of the death of the Prince de Conti, which had taken place on the 13th of August; but the void was little felt, the infirmities under which he laboured, and the weakness of his intellect, having, despite his exalted rank, rendered him a mere cipher at the Court. By the nation his loss was totally unfelt; while this indifference was shared by his wife, whose violent passion for Bassompierre had long been notorious, and who shortly afterwards privately gave him her hand. Mademoiselle d'Entragues, the sister of the Marquise de Verneuil, to whom he had previously been betrothed, and who had made him the father of a son,[176] had in vain endeavoured in the law courts to compel him to fulfil his contract, and persisted in bearing his name; a fact which was so well known as to induce many persons to believe that she was in reality his wife. On one occasion, when he was in attendance upon the Queen, the royal carriage was detained for a moment by the crowd near that of Mademoiselle d'Entragues, whom Marie immediately recognized. "See," she said with a malicious smile, as she pointed towards the lady with her fan, "there is Madame de Bassompierre."

"That is merely a nom de guerre, Madame," was the ready reply, uttered in a tone sufficiently loud to reach the ears of the person named, who angrily exclaimed:

"You are a fool, Bassompierre!"

"If I be not," was the quiet rejoinder of the ungallant Lothario, "it has at least, Madame, not been your fault." [177]

Thus, after his union with the Princesse de Conti, Bassompierre, although claimed as a husband by two celebrated women, the one of a family notorious for the profligacy of its members, and the other a daughter of the proud house of Guise and, moreover, the widow of a Prince of the Blood, still continued to assume the privileges of a bachelor; resolutely disowning the one, while the other did not dare publicly to declare her marriage.[178]

A fortnight after the return of the Court to Paris it was followed by the Prince de Conde, who had been summoned to attend the sovereign to Parliament on the termination of his minority, which ended when he entered his thirteenth year. On the 1st of October, the day preceding that on which the ceremony of his recognition as actual monarch of France was to take place, Louis XIII issued a declaration confirmatory of the edict of pacification previously published, and renewing his prohibition against duelling and blasphemy. On the following morning the King ascended his Bed of Justice; and both the procession and the meeting were conducted with the greatest pomp. He was attended by the Queen-mother, Monsieur, and the Princes de Conde and de Soissons, the Ducs de Guise, d'Elboeuf, d'Epernon, de Ventadour, and de Montbazon, and upwards of eight hundred mounted nobles, all attired in the most sumptuous manner. On his arrival at the palace the King was received by two presidents and four councillors, by whom he was conducted to the great hall; and after all the persons present had taken their places, his Majesty briefly declared the purpose for which he had convened the meeting. Marie de Medicis then in her turn addressed the Assembly, declaring that she had resigned the administration of public affairs into the hands of the sovereign, who had some days previously attained his majority; and when she had ceased speaking Louis expressed his acknowledgments for the valuable services which she had rendered to the kingdom, his resolution still to be guided by her advice, and entreated her not to withhold from him her important assistance in the Government. The Chancellor, the First President,[179] and the Advocate-General[180] each delivered a harangue; after which the Chancellor pronounced the decree which declared the majority of the sovereign; and the declaration that he had forwarded to the Council on the previous day was duly registered. This act terminated the ceremony, and Louis XIII returned to the Louvre accompanied and attended as he had reached the Parliament, amid the acclamations of the populace.

The assembly of the States-General at Sens had been fixed for the 10th of September, and would consequently have been held before the King had attained his majority, had not this arrangement been traversed by the Regent, who apprehended that they would seize so favourable an opportunity of thwarting all her views; and would not only demand the dismissal of the ministers and the Marechal d'Ancre, but also, which was still more important, dissuade the sovereign, whose minority would terminate during their sitting, from permitting her to retain any share in the Government. The Prince de Conde and his partisans, whose interests undoubtedly demanded such a result, had, however, themselves been instrumental in the delay so earnestly desired by Marie; the hostile demonstrations of Vendome in Brittany, and the ill-judged movements of Conde himself in Poitou, having furnished her with a plausible pretext for deferring the opening of the States until the King could preside over them in person; when the public declaration made before the Parliament by the young sovereign of his intention still to be guided by the counsels of his mother at once freed her from all her apprehensions; and she accordingly lost no time in transferring the Assembly from Sens to Paris, and proroguing it till the 10th of October.

Nevertheless much was to be feared should the clergy, the nobility, and the people act unanimously; and in order to prevent such a coalition, neither Marie de Medicis nor her ministers spared any exertion. As much depended upon the presidents whom they might select, the first care of the Queen-mother was to ensure the election of persons favourable to her own interests; but as great caution was necessary with regard to the agent to whom she could entrust so delicate a mission as that of causing such individuals to be chosen, she hesitated for a time before she came to a decision. Ultimately, however, she fixed upon the young Comte de Brienne;[181] and so thoroughly did he justify her preference, that he eventually succeeded, without any appearance of undue interposition, in securing the election of three presidents, all of whom were favourable to the Court party.[182]

This important point gained, the Government recovered its confidence; and its next care was to awaken the jealousy of each order against its coadjutors, and thus to paralyze the influence of the Assembly. In this attempt it was perfectly successful; and the general welfare of the country was overlooked in the anxiety of the several parties to carry out their own individual views. The clergy demanded the publication of the decrees of the Council of Trent, and their unrestricted admission throughout the kingdom; the nobility asked that the privilege of the paulette should be abolished;[183] and the tiers-etat[184] solicited either the suppression or diminution of the pensions by which the public treasury was involved in debt.

The speaker elected by the clergy was the Archbishop of Lyons; the nobility chose as their spokesman the Baron du Pont Saint-Pierre,[185] while the tiers-etat was presided over by M. Miron.[186] The two first-named orators addressed the King standing and bareheaded; but this privilege was considered too great for a body which could boast of neither hereditary nor ecclesiastical nobility; and the able diplomatist and rhetorician who upon that occasion pleaded before his sovereign the rights and immunities of the class which he had been called upon to represent, was compelled to address that sovereign upon his knees. Miron had, previous to the meeting of the States, excited the indignation of the more patrician orders by declaring that he regarded the three bodies of which it was composed as one family, of which the nobility and clergy represented the elder, and the tiers-etat the junior branches; while the Queen herself, even while she felt the importance of his support, did not hesitate to treat the deputies of his order with the greatest arrogance and discourtesy, although they distinguished themselves by a loyalty and devotion to the interests of the Crown which met with no response from the haughtier members of the Assembly. Ably, indeed, through the agency of Miron, did they persist in defending the royal prerogative, and demand that a principle should be established forbidding the deposition of their sovereigns on accusations of heresy; expressing their desire that the Crown should be recognized by law as completely independent of spiritual power; and although the clergy, through Cardinal Duperron, formally and strenuously opposed these propositions, so little was Miron affected by the adverse circumstances under which he appeared, that he replied with a logic and energy which compelled the States to defer their decision until the following year.[187]

Louis XIII, at this period, was in so delicate a state of health as to require constant care and attention, while his sullen and self-centred disposition demanded no less watchfulness. His first preceptor was M. Vauquelin des Ivetaux, a man of great talent, and quite equal to the task of forming the mind and intellect of a Prince, but of dissolute principles and sensual habits.[188] He, however, did not long remain about the person of the boy-King, having been replaced a year after the death of Henri IV by Nicolas Le Fevre,[189] who was distinguished alike for his learning and his piety. Unfortunately for the young Louis, this excellent man only lived a year after his appointment, and was, in his turn, replaced by M. de Rivault,[190] a celebrated mathematician, who had been educated with Guy, Comte de Laval.[191] Thus, however competent these several individuals might have been to conduct his education, it will be at once evident that the perpetual changes of method and purpose to which he was subjected greatly tended to impede the progress of the illustrious pupil; and it consequently ceases to be matter of surprise that at his majority he had by no means attained to the degree of knowledge common to his age. Louis XIII knew little Latin; cared nothing for literature; but although either irritable or inert when compelled to study, could develop great energy when he was engaged in gunnery, horsemanship, or falconry. The latter pursuit was his principal amusement, His purity of heart and propriety of language were extreme, and deserve the greater mention from the contrast which they afforded to the morals and manners by which he was surrounded. He would neither permit an oath nor an obscene expression to be uttered in his presence, and never failed to rebuke any violation of his pleasure in this respect. He was passionately attached to dogs, and conversed with them, according to a contemporaneous historian, in a peculiar language;[192] but as regarded his kingly duties he was utterly incompetent. With good intentions, a love of justice, and a deep sense of religion, he was vacillating and indolent; and cared little either to assert his privileges, or to take upon himself the cares and fatigues of government while he could transfer them to others, and thus secure time to abandon himself to more congenial pursuits.

In this circumstance were comprised all the errors of his reign; as even while deeply imbued with a sense of his dignity as the sovereign of a great nation, he exhibited the feeling only in acts of petty and obstinate opposition which tended to no result, and were productive only of a want of attachment to his person, and of respect for his opinions, which increased the arrogance of the great nobles, and fostered the ambition of his ministers.

It is now time that we should introduce an individual whose subsequent importance in the kingdom, humble as were his antecedents, was one source of the bitter trials to which the unfortunate Marie de Medicis was subjected during a long period of her life. The Comte de Lude had in his service a page, who was subsequently transferred to that of the young King; and it is the history of this apparently insignificant person which we are now called upon to detail to the reader. Albert de Luynes, his father, was the son of Guillaume Segur, a canon of the cathedral of Marseilles, and of the housekeeper of the said ecclesiastic; and derived the name of Luynes from a small tenement upon the bank of that river, between Aix and Marseilles, which was the property of the canon, who preferred that his son should adopt the appellation of his farm rather than his own. There was, however, an elder brother, on whom the little property belonging to the priest was exclusively bestowed, and Luynes accordingly discovered that he must become the architect of his own fortunes. With all the fearless confidence of youth he made his way, as he best could, to the capital, where he enlisted as an archer of the bodyguard, displayed great aptitude and courage, and finally obtained the governorship of Pont-St.-Esprit. While thus prospering in the world he married, became the father of seven children, of whom three were sons; and died without suspecting that his name would be handed down to posterity through the medium of one of these almost portionless boys, whose sole inheritance was a small dairy-farm of the annual value of twelve hundred livres.

Charles de Luynes, the elder of this numerous family, became, as already stated, the page of the Comte de Lude; and, as his brothers were totally without resources, he induced his patron to receive them gratuitously into his suite, in order that he might be enabled to share with them the four hundred crowns a year which, together with his slender patrimony, formed his own income. This favour had no sooner been conceded than the three young men discarded the modest names of Charles, Honore, and Leon d'Albert, by which they had previously been known, and assumed those of Luynes, Cadenet, and Brantes, from the field, the vineyard, and a small sandy island beside them, which composed their joint estate.[193] "Possessions," as Bassompierre facetiously observes, "over which a hare leapt every day." On the miserable pittance of the elder brother the three young adventurers, nevertheless, contrived with considerable difficulty to exist, although it was notorious that they had but one cloak, at that period an indispensable article of costume, among them; a circumstance by which two were compelled to avoid observation while the third fulfilled his duties; and so little, moreover, were their services valued by M. de Lude that he was in the habit of declaring that they were fit for nothing but "to catch green jays," a reproach which they owed to their skill in training sparrow-hawks to catch small birds; and to which he was far from supposing when he gave it utterance that they would ultimately be indebted for a prosperity almost fabulous.

Such, however, was fated to be the case. Charles de Luynes had not been long at Court before he ascertained the passion of the young King for falconry, and having carefully trained two of his miniature hawks, he caused them to be offered in his name to his royal master. Louis was delighted with their docility and skill, and desired that the donor should be presented to him; when he found that the page was deeply versed in all the mysteries of that sport to which he was himself so much attached; and thenceforward he constantly commanded his attendance whenever he pursued his favourite pastime in the gardens of the Tuileries.

At this period M. de Luynes had already attained his thirtieth year; and, with admirable self-government, he had so thoroughly controlled himself as to disguise the salient features of his character. No one consequently suspected either his latent ambition, or the violent passions which he had craft enough to conceal; and thus the very individuals who were the objects of his hatred regarded him merely as a shallow and superficial young man, whose whole soul was in the puerile sports to which he had addicted himself.

It was not, however, solely to take small birds that De Luynes aspired when he thus found himself the chosen companion of the Dauphin; he had other talents which he exerted so zealously that he ere long made himself indispensable. Gifted with a magnificent person, insinuating manners, and that ready tact by which an indolent nature is unconsciously roused to excitement, he soon obtained an extraordinary influence over his royal playmate by the power which he possessed of overcoming his habitual apathy, and causing him to enter with zest and enjoyment into the pleasures of his age. Henri IV, who perceived with gratification the beneficial effect produced upon the saturnine nature of his son, and who was, moreover, touched by the fraternal devotion of the page, transferred him to the household of the Dauphin, and augmented his income to twelve hundred crowns; and thenceforward he became at once the companion, counsellor, and friend of the young Louis; and at the desire of the Prince he was created Master of the Aviary.

Time passed on. The Dauphin succeeded to the throne of his murdered father; the Regency tottered under the machinations of the great nobles; faction grew out of faction; cabals and conspiracies kept the nation in one perpetual state of anxiety and unrest; but the influence of De Luynes continued undiminished; and neither Marie de Medicis nor her ministers apprehended any danger from an association that was fated to produce the most serious consequences; while the Princes were equally disinclined to disturb the amusements in which the young monarch was so entirely absorbed as to pay little attention to the important events which succeeded each other around him.

As he grew older Louis became still more attached to his favourite. His discontented spirit made him irritable under every disappointment, and vindictive towards those by whom his wishes were opposed: he detested alike explanation and remonstrance, and from De Luynes he never encountered either the one or the other. Under the remonstrances of his mother he became sullen; to the arrogant assumption of the Princes and the Marechal d'Ancre he opposed an apathetic silence which caused them to believe that it was unfelt; and it was only to De Luynes that he poured forth all his indignation, that he complained with bitterness of the iron rule of Marie, the insolence of his nobles, and the ostentatious profusion of the Italian: contrasting the first with his own helplessness, the second with the insignificance to which he was condemned, and the last with the almost penury to which he was compelled to submit.

No Prince had ever a more attentive or a more interested auditor. The enemies of the young Louis were also those of his favourite; for, as before remarked, the grandson of the reverend canon of Marseilles was alike vain and ambitious, and consequently inimical to all who occupied the high places to which he himself aspired. Moreover, the powerlessness and poverty of the young monarch necessarily involved those of his follower; and thus both by inclination and by interest De Luynes was bound to share the antipathies of his master.

Like all favourites, moreover, he soon made a host of personal adversaries; while, as these were far from suspecting the height to which he was ultimately destined to attain, they took little pains to dissemble their dislike and contempt of the new minion; and thus, ere long, De Luynes had amassed a weighty load of hatred in his heart. To him it appeared that all the great dignitaries of the kingdom, although born to the rank they held, were engrossing honours which, possessed as he was of the favour of the sovereign, should have been conferred upon himself; but the especial antipathy of the arrogant adventurer was directed against the Queen, the Marechal d'Ancre, and the President Jeannin. 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. Still, however, the game was an unequal one, of which the chances were all in his own favour; for the Marechal was playing away the present, while his adversary was staking upon the future. The President Jeannin was also, as we have stated, especially distasteful to De Luynes, as he made no secret of his dissatisfaction at the frivolous existence of the young sovereign, and his desire that he should exchange the boyish diversions to which he was addicted for pursuits more worthy of his high station; while at the same time he exhibited towards the favourite an undisguised disdain which excited all the worst passions of its object.

Thus, insignificant as he appeared to those who were basking in favour, and who esteemed themselves too highly to waste one thought upon the obsequious dependent of a youthful and wayward sovereign, who suffered himself to be guided by those about him as though reckless of the result of their conflicting ambitions, it will be readily understood that De Luynes was laying up a store of antipathies which required only time and opportunity to develop themselves, and to bear the most bitter fruits; and already did the active favourite begin to enjoy a foretaste of the coming harvest. Ever earnest for right, Louis XIII never exhibited any personal energy to secure it, and consequently could effect nothing of himself; readily prejudiced, alike by his own caprices and by the representations of others, his very anxiety to act as became a monarch rendered him vulnerable to the intrigues of those whose interests tended to mislead his judgment; and as De Luynes, while sharing in his superstitious acts of overstrained devotion, or amusing his idleness by the futilities of falconry and other even less dignified sports, did not fail occasionally and cautiously to allude to more serious subjects, the boy-King listened eagerly to the recitals and opinions of his chosen friend, and finished by adopting all his views.

This fact soon became so obvious to Concini, that the wily Italian, who dreaded lest the day might not be far distant when the son of Marie de Medicis would shake off the yoke of her quasi-regency and assert his own prerogative, resolved to secure the good offices of De Luynes, and for this purpose he induced M. de Conde to restore to the King the government of Amboise; representing to the Prince the slight importance of such a possession to a person of his rank, and the conviction which its voluntary surrender must impress upon the ministers of his desire to strengthen the royal cause. Let it not be supposed, however, that, at the period of which we write, such a surrender could for a moment be effected gratuitously; and thus, when the first Prince of the Blood was at length induced to yield to the representations of his insidious adviser, the terms of the bargain were fully understood on both sides; but even when he had succeeded in obtaining the consent of M. de Conde himself to the arrangement, Concini had still to overcome the scruples of the Queen-mother, to whom he hastened to suggest that the vacant government should be bestowed upon Charles de Luynes.

As he had anticipated, Marie de Medicis was startled by so extraordinary a proposition. De Luynes was a mere hanger-on of the Court; the companion of the boyish pleasures of her son; and without one claim to honour or advancement. But these very arguments strengthened the position of the Marechal. The poverty of the King's favourite secured, as he averred, his fidelity to those who might lay the foundations of his fortune; and if, as the astute Italian moreover cleverly remarked, De Luynes were in truth merely the playmate of the monarch, he possessed at least the merit of engrossing his thoughts, and of thus rendering him less desirous to control or to criticize the measures of others. Marie yielded to this argument; she had begun to love power for its own sake; and she could not disguise from herself that her future tenure of authority must depend solely upon the will of the young sovereign. In order, therefore, to secure to herself the good offices of one so influential with his royal master as De Luynes, she consented to follow the advice of Concini, who forthwith, in her name, remunerated M. de Conde for his secession by upwards of a hundred thousand crowns, and the grandson of Guillaume Segur became governor of the city and fortress of Amboise.[195]

FOOTNOTES:

[170] Emmanuel de Gondy, Due de Retz, and General of the Galleys, was the grandson of the celebrated Marechal Gilles de Laval, Baron de Retz, who, under Charles VII, greatly contributed to the expulsion of the English from France, but who subsequently suffered strangulation by a decree of the ecclesiastical tribunal of Nantes for his frightful debaucheries. He was the father of the well-known Cardinal de Retz, the enemy of Mazarin, and one of the heroes of the Fronde.

[171] Richelieu, Hist. de la Mere et du Fils, vol. i. pp. 247-254. Mezeray, vol. xi. pp. 53-55.

[172] Bassompierre, Mem. pp. 94, 95.

[173] Henri de Chatiegnier de la Rocheposay.

[174] In 1598 Henri IV had marched against the Duc de Mercoeur, who still held part of Brittany; and as the Duke found himself, immediately on the appearance of the King, deserted by the nobility of the duchy, he gave himself up for lost. Opposition was of course useless; and he was about to surrender to the royal troops upon the best terms which he could obtain, when he saved himself by a lucky expedient. He was aware of the violent passion still felt by Henry for Gabrielle d'Estrees, and in order to escape the penalty of his rebellion he offered the hand of his only daughter, with the duchies of Estampes, Penthievre, and Mercoeur as her dowry, to the King's natural son Cesar de Vendome; a proposal which was at once accepted, as the monarch was aware that it would gratify the ambition of his mistress. Subsequently, however, after the death of her father, the family of Mademoiselle de Mercoeur had objected to the alliance, and it had required all the authority of Henry to compel its accomplishment.—Davila, Hist. of Modern Europe, London, 1794, book xv. vol. iii. p. 49.

[175] Richelieu, Hist. de la Mere et du Fils, vol. i. pp. 260-277. Mezeray, vol. xi. pp. 55-67. Le Vassor, vol. i. pp. 253-261. Brienne, Mem. vol. i. pp. 296, 297, edition Petitot.

[176] Louis de Bassompierre, who subsequently became Bishop of Saintes.

[177] Petitot, Avertissement sur M. de Bassompierre.

[178] Le Vassor, vol. i. p. 263.

[179] Nicolas de Verdun, First President of the Parliament of Paris, a devoted adherent of M. de Villeroy.

[180] Louis Servin, Councillor of State, Advocate-General of the Parliament of Paris, and one of the most able magistrates of his time, served with zeal and fidelity under Henri III, Henri IV, and Louis XIII. He died suddenly, at the feet of the latter monarch, on the 19th of March 1626, while remonstrating with him in the name of the Parliament, where he was holding his Bed of Justice, against certain financial edicts. He was the author of several legal writings, orations, and sundry other works.

[181] Henri Auguste de Lomenie, Comte de Brienne, was the son of Antoine de Lomenie and of Anne d'Aubourg, and was born in 1594. In 1609 he attracted the attention of Henri IV, who occasionally admitted him to his councils, in order to familiarize him with public affairs; and Marie de Medicis continued, after the death of that monarch, to honour him with her regard. In 1617 he became Master of the Ceremonies and Provost of the King's Orders. In 1621 he followed Louis XIII to Languedoc, where he distinguished himself at the siege of Clerac; and in the following campaign he served under the Prince de Conde with equal credit. After struggling successfully throughout the long and stormy administration of Richelieu, he incurred the displeasure of Louis XIII a short time after the death of that minister, and disposed of his office as secretary of state; but during the regency of Anne of Austria he was recalled; and until Louis XIV undertook to govern the nation in his own person, he retained great influence in the Council. Age was, however, creeping upon him; and a short time subsequent to the marriage of that monarch, having attained his sixty-seventh year, he retired from the Government. He died in 1666.

[182] Petitot, Notice sur le Comte de Brienne, p. 278.

[183] This privilege rendered the financial and judicial offices hereditary, on the payment of an annual tax of one-tenth of the sum at which they had been originally purchased; and the nobility were jealous of this hereditary tenure of the most lucrative civil appointments under the Crown, all of which were thus, as a natural consequence, engrossed by the tiers-etat. The paulette owed its name to Charles Paulet, who was the inventor of this extraordinary source of revenue.

[184] Tiers-etat, or middle state, was the name given to that portion of the French people who belonged neither to the aristocracy nor to the Church.

[185] Pierre de Roncherolles, Baron du Pont Saint-Pierre.

[186] Robert Miron, Provost of the Merchants, an able politician, whose zeal and talents were recompensed by the confidence and favour of Louis XIII, by whom he was, in 1625, entrusted with the embassy to Switzerland.

[187] Bonnechose, vol. i. pp. 451, 452. Mezeray, vol. xi. pp. 73-78. Le Vassor, vol. i. pp. 298-302.

[188] Marville, Melanges d'Histoire et de Litterature.

[189] Nicolas Le Fevre was born at Paris, in 1544, and devoted himself to literature. Henri IV entrusted to him the education of the Prince de Conde; and he subsequently became, under Marie de Medicis, the preceptor of Louis XIII. He died in 1612.

[190] David de Rivault, Sieur de Flurance, was born at Laval in 1571, and died at Tours in 1616. He was the author of several works, which elicited the admiration of Malherbe and other distinguished writers.

[191] Guy, Comte de Laval, was the brother of the Duc de la Tremouille.

[192] Bernard, Hist, de Louis XIII, book i.

[193] Sismondi, Hist. des Francais, vol. xxii. p. 296.

[194] Bernard, book iv. Additions aux Memoires de Castelnau, book vi. pp. 455-457. Richelieu, Hist, de la Mere et du Fils, vol. i. p. 284.

[195] Richelieu, Hist, de la Mere et du Fils, vol. i. pp. 284, 285.



CHAPTER VII

1615-16

Close of the States-General—The Bishop of Lucon—Declaration of the royal marriages—Ballet of Madame—State of the Court—Cabal of Concini—Death of Marguerite de Valois—Conde seeks to gain the Parliament—Distrust of Marie de Medicis—Conde leaves Paris—He refuses to accompany the King to Guienne—Perilous position of the Court party—The Marechal de Bois-Dauphin is appointed Commander-in-Chief—The Court proceed to Guienne—Illness of the Queen and Madame Elisabeth—The Court at Tours—Enforced inertness of M. de Bois-Dauphin—Conde is declared guilty of lese-majeste—He takes up arms—Murmurs of the royal generals—The Comte de St. Pol makes his submission—The Court reach Bordeaux—The royal marriages—Sufferings of the troops—Disaffection of the nobility—Irritation of the Protestants—Pasquinades—Negotiation with the Princes—The Duc de Guise assumes the command of the royal army—Singular escape of Marie de Medicis—Disgrace of the Duc d'Epernon—He retires to his government—The Queen and the astrologer.

The assembly of the States-General occupied the commencement of the year 1615; and was closed on the 22nd of February, by their Majesties in person, with extreme pomp. When the King and his august mother had taken their seats, and the heralds had proclaimed silence, Armand Jean du Plessis, Bishop of Lucon,[196] presented to the sovereign the requisition of the clergy; and after a long harangue, in which he detailed their several demands, he entered into an animated eulogium of the administration of the Queen, exhorting his Majesty to continue to her the power of which she had so ably availed herself during his minority. He spoke fluently, but in a broken and uncertain voice, and with an apparent apathy, which, according to contemporaneous authors, gave no indication of the extraordinary talents that he subsequently displayed.

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.

"It is necessary," she said, "that my daughter should give a public festival before her departure for Spain, and that the Parisians should remember a Princess who is about to be lost to France."

That the worthy citizens were on their part most anxious so to do, is evident from the testimony of Bassompierre, who states that the Court officials, being unprepared for so great a crowd as that which presented itself upon the occasion, had not taken proper precautions, and it was subsequently found necessary to postpone the amusement for some days, and to arrange that no one should enter the Salle de Bourbon without a ticket; which the Duc d'Epernon and himself were entrusted to receive.[197]



This entertainment was followed by another of a similar description at the Hotel de Conde; but although they affected to be equally engrossed by the festivities in which they shared, neither the Queen nor the Prince were so indifferent to their personal interests as they endeavoured to appear. 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 Conde was as eager as ever to undermine her power. The Marechal 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. Thus the gilded surface of the Court concealed a mass of hatred, jealousy, and unrest, which threatened every instant to reveal itself, and to dispel an illusion as false as it was flattering: and while the foreign guests of the young monarch danced and feasted, and the native nobility struggled to surpass them in magnificence and frivolity, the more thoughtful spectators of the glittering scene trembled at its instability, and every instant anticipated an outbreak.

The attempt of Concini proved successful, and the deportment of Marie towards M. de Villeroy became so chilling that he withdrew from the Court, without seeking to ascertain the cause of his disgrace.

On the 27th of March the ex-Queen Marguerite breathed her last, but for some time previously she had appeared so seldom at Court that her death did not tend to disturb the gaieties of the royal circle, who had almost ceased to remember her existence. She had outlived even the reputation of her vices.

When the Prince de Conde and his faction demanded a meeting of the States they were far from anticipating its results; the unanimous loyalty of the deputies having greatly subserved the interests of the Queen, and thus weakened their own position. Aware too late of the error which they had committed, they were consequently compelled to seek elsewhere for support, and it was at length decided that they should excite the disaffection of the Parliament, by representing that all the services which its members had rendered to Marie on her assumption of the regency had been repaid by ingratitude and neglect; and that they no longer commanded that authority in the Government to which they were justly entitled. Coupled with these insidious arguments were profuse offers of assistance to enable them to enforce their rights, and the object of the faction was at once gained; the ambition and the vanity of the Parliament being alike engaged in a question which involved their own influence and importance. Strong in the support of the Princes, they, however, overacted the part assigned to them, and proceeded so arrogantly to remonstrate with the sovereign upon what they termed the abuses of the Government, that the King issued a decree in Council, by which he abrogated both their own decree and their remonstrances, declaring that they had exceeded the power accorded to them by the law; and commanding that those documents should be cancelled, torn from the registers, and delivered to his Majesty on the receipt of the royal decree. The Parliament, however, expostulated, and although they were again commanded to deliver up the obnoxious records, they failed to obey; and thus, by their determination, overruled the will of the sovereign.

During this struggle for power the Prince de Conde had absented himself from Paris, in order to avert any suspicion of connivance; but previous experience had rendered the Queen distrustful of his movements, and she was consequently prepared to counteract his subsequent intrigues. The Council had, accordingly, no sooner annulled the decree of the Parliament, than she sent to forbid him, in the name of the King, from assisting in their deliberations; upon which the Prince availed himself of so specious a pretext for abandoning the Court, alleging that he no longer considered it safe to remain in the capital.[198]

In accordance with this declaration he left Paris by the Porte St. Antoine, followed by the acclamations of the populace, who, weary of the rule of the Queen, and exasperated by the arrogance of her favourites, regarded M. de Conde as a victim, and thus rendered his retreat a new subject of anxiety to the Court party. Nor was their annoyance decreased when they ascertained that throughout his journey to Creil, where he possessed an estate on the banks of the Oise, he was met by numerous bodies of armed citizens from Senlis, Mantes, Beaumont, and other towns, and was accompanied by the Duc de Longueville and the nobles attached to his cause. Within a league of Creil the harquebusiers were drawn up to receive him, with drums beating and colours flying, and thus escorted he finally entered the city.

On learning these circumstances Marie de Medicis became apprehensive that he might avail himself of so favourable an opportunity to raise an army, and enter into open rebellion against the Crown; and in order to avert this contingency, she lost no time in despatching a messenger who was instructed to invite him to return to Paris, and to accompany the Court in their approaching journey to Guienne. M. de Conde was, however, aware of the advantage which he had gained, and resolutely refused to retrace his steps until the King reformed the Council, replied to the remonstrances of the Parliament, and redressed the alleged wrongs of himself and his friends; demanding in his own name the presidency of the Council, and the ministry of finance which had been promised to him; while the Marechal de Bouillon, in his turn, asked as the price of his obedience the office of Connetable de France vacant by the death of the Duc de Montmorency.[199]

These demands not being conceded, the Prince de Conde refused to accompany the King to Guienne, an example which was followed by many of the high nobility; and the faction became ere long so formidable that a civil war appeared inevitable.

Nevertheless, the Marechal d'Ancre and his adherents affected to treat the warlike demonstrations of the adverse party with contempt, and assured Marie de Medicis that all the efforts of the Prince must prove abortive while the King possessed a strong army and able generals to oppose the forces of the malcontents; and, in support of his assertion, the Ducs de Guise and d'Epernon alike offered their services to her Majesty. In the former, however, Marie dared not confide; his near relative, the Duc de Mayenne, being the ally of Conde, while De Guise himself was the avowed enemy of Concini. Of M. d'Epernon's sincerity she felt more assured; but she was aware that she could not bestow upon him the command of the royal army without exciting the jealousy of Guise, and thus opening up a newsource of difficulty. Desirous of proceeding to Guienne without further delay, the Queen consequently urged her advisers to suggest some other individual to whom so serious a responsibility might be entrusted; and after considerable deliberation the Duc d'Epernon, the Chancellor, and his son the Chevalier de Sillery proposed to the Marechal d'Ancre that he should become a candidate for the command, offering at the same time to exert all their influence with the Queen to ensure his success.[200]

Blinded by vanity, Concini, who was a soldier only in name, did not fail to listen with greedy ears to this unexpected proposition; and while his seeming friends were speculating upon his ruin, and calculating that during his absence they should have time to impress upon Marie de Medicis that, by the sacrifice of her favourite, she might reconcile the disaffected Princes. Concini himself foresaw that the increase of influence which so important a command could not fail to secure to him must tend to diminish that of the Duc d'Epernon, whose overthrow had been for some time his greatest wish. Moreover, by quartering his troops in the neighbourhood of M. de Conde, an opportunity would present itself of effecting his reconciliation with that Prince, which he ardently desired; and this end accomplished, he flattered himself with the hope that his vision of becoming first minister of France could not fail to be realized.

Unfortunately, however, for the ambitious Italian, it was not long ere D'Epernon and Sillery recognized the error into which they had been led by their eagerness to injure him. They suddenly remembered that Concini had already once joined the faction of the Princes, and they were aware that the Duc de Bouillon had made more than one subsequent effort to induce him to abandon the royal cause; and they were no sooner convinced of the fault which they had committed, than they hastened to represent to the Queen that the appointment of the Marechal d'Ancre to the command of the King's armies had caused great dissatisfaction throughout the capital; the citizens affirming that the troops of a sovereign of France ought not to be led against the enemy by a man who was ignorant of the art of war, and who was, moreover, a foreigner, detested by the people to an extent which rendered it probable that, should Concini be invested with the command, they would open the gates of Paris to M. de Conde, in the event of his marching upon the city. Marie de Medicis yielded to these reasons, and simply replied by reminding Sillery that if she had committed an error in accepting the proposal of the Marechal d'Ancre, she had done so at his own instigation; but that as he considered it desirable to appoint some other individual to the command, she would offer no opposition. Concini was accordingly superseded, and the veteran Marechal de Bois-Dauphin was selected as his successor, with the title of lieutenant-general.[201] Indignant at the disappointment to which he had been subjected, Concini left Paris, and proceeded to his government at Amiens, vowing vengeance against the Duc d'Epernon and Sillery.

The impatience of the Queen to conclude the double alliance with Spain was so great that she disregarded the advice of Jeannin and Villeroy; who, in conjunction with Concini and his wife, had endeavoured to induce her to delay her departure for Guienne, and to proceed either to Laon or St. Quentin, in order to secure the Isle of France and Picardy, and to prevent the Prince de Conde and his adherents from concentrating their forces in the vicinity of the capital; while, on the contrary, she was urged by the Chancellor and his brother, the Commandeur de Sillery, who was her first-equerry and gentleman-usher, to carry out her original design. The 17th of August had been already fixed for the commencement of the royal journey; and Marie eagerly availed herself of their advice to persist in her purpose; contenting herself with giving orders to the Marechal de Bois-Dauphin to cover Paris, to impede the approach of the disaffected forces, and, at all risks, to avoid coming to an engagement. She then withdrew from the Bastille eight hundred thousand crowns for the purpose of defraying the expenses of the Court during its progress.

Despite the absence of the Princes, the royal retinue was magnificent and numerous. The troops by whom the august travellers were attended consisted of a thousand horsemen, and the royal bodyguard amounted to three thousand men, who were placed under the command of the Duc de Guise, who was also to accompany Madame Elisabeth to the frontier of the kingdom, and to receive the Infanta, whom he was to conduct to the capital of Guienne, where their Majesties were to await her. The King left Paris soon after dawn; the Queen followed some hours subsequently, having previously caused the arrest of M. Le Jay,[202] in order to intimidate the Parliament; and finally, in the course of the afternoon, Madame took leave of the municipal authorities, and departed in her turn. The Marquise d'Ancre having in vain endeavoured to dissuade her royal foster-sister from this journey, became so thoroughly dispirited by the disappointment of her husband, and the evident decline of her own influence, that she resolved to excuse herself from accompanying the Court, and to remain in the capital; a project from which she was, however, dissuaded by MM. de Villeroy and Jeannin, who represented to her the impolicy of incurring the displeasure of her Majesty, and thus insuring her own ruin. She was consequently induced to join the royal suite, but she did so with a heavy heart, and without one hope of resuming her original empire over the mind of Marie.

The Court reached Orleans on the 20th of August, and Tours on the 30th, whence their Majesties proceeded to Poitiers, at which city they arrived on the 9th of September; but the anxieties of Marie de Medicis were not yet to terminate. Madame was attacked a day or two subsequently with small-pox, while the Queen herself was confined to her bed by a severe illness, which compelled the constant attendance of Madame d'Ancre in her sick-room, where, by her affectionate assiduity, she soon succeeded in recovering the good graces of her royal mistress. She had secured to her interests a Jewish physician, in whose astrological talent Marie de Medicis placed the most implicit confidence; and eager to revenge her husband upon Sillery, who, as she was well aware, had been the cause of his losing the coveted command, she instructed this man, whom the Queen had hastened to consult, to persuade the credulous invalid that she had been bewitched by the Chevalier de Sillery. Strange as it may appear, Leonora was perfectly successful; and believing herself to have been the victim of the Chancellor and his party, Marie entered earnestly into the views of her favourite, consenting to withdraw her confidence from Sillery, and to follow thenceforward the counsels of Villeroy and Jeannin.[203]

The delay consequent upon the recovery of the Queen and her daughter enabled the Prince de Conde to strengthen his party, and to advance towards Paris, with an army of five thousand infantry and two thousand horse. His troops were, however, badly armed, and might at once have been beaten or dispersed by the Marechal de Bois-Dauphin, had that general marched against them; but, fettered by the stringent orders which he had received not to give battle to the enemy, he remained inactive; and the Duc de Bouillon profited by his inertness to seize Chateau Thierry, whence he marched to Mere-sur-Seine.

Meanwhile M. de Conde ascertained that the King had issued on the 10th of September a proclamation of lese-majeste against himself and his adherents; to which he replied by another, wherein he affirmed that he had taken up arms for the sole purpose of preventing a foreign invasion. He then crossed the Seine, with the intention of possessing himself of the town of Sens; a project in which he, however, failed, Bois-Dauphin and his adjutant-general, the Marquis de Praslin, having already garrisoned the place.[204]

The two armies were at this period in such close juxtaposition that an engagement appeared inevitable; but whether it were that Bois-Dauphin was deficient in ability, or that he had resolved, whatever might be the result of his inaction, to obey implicitly the instructions of the Queen, he vacated Sens after a few slight skirmishes. Be the real cause of his supineness what it might, it excited the indignation of Bassompierre, Praslin, the Marquis de Coeuvres, and the other leaders of the royal army, who did not scruple to accuse him of incapacity; declaring, moreover, that he had harassed the troops far more than if he had led them into action.[205]

On the arrival of the Court at Angouleme the Queen was agreeably surprised by the appearance of the Comte de Saint-Pol,[206] who, she had been led to believe, had joined the faction of Conde with his nephew the Duc de Longueville; and her exultation was increased when, with assurances of his fidelity to the Crown, he placed under her orders the two fortresses of Fronsac and Caumont.[207]

Profiting by the retreat of the Marechal de Bois-Dauphin, the Duc de Bouillon had made all haste to pass the Loire, and to reach the confines of Touraine and Poitou; nor would it have been possible for their Majesties to have reached Bordeaux in safety, had it not been for the secession of the Comte de Saint-Pol from the faction of the Princes, together with the impossibility of marching the rebel troops upon Poitou in so short a space of time. Thanks to this combination of circumstances, however, the Court arrived without accident in the capital of Guienne on the 7th of October; where the King and his august mother were received with great magnificence, and enthusiastically welcomed by all classes of the citizens, whom the Marechal de Roquelaure, lieutenant-general for the King in Guienne, and Mayor of Bordeaux, had adroitly gained, by his representations of the honour conferred upon them by the sovereign in selecting their city as the scene of his own marriage and that of his sister, the future Queen of Spain.[208]

It had been arranged that the royal marriages should be celebrated on the same day (the 18th of October), at Bordeaux and Burgos; and accordingly the Duc de Guise, as proxy for the Prince of Spain, espoused Madame Elisabeth, with whom, accompanied by the Duchesse de Nevers and the ladies of her household, he immediately departed for the frontier, after a painful leave-taking between the young Princess and her family; while the Duque d'Usseda[209] performed the same ceremony for Louis XIII, with the Infanta Anna Maria of Austria. The exchange of the two Princesses took place on the 9th of November, in the middle of the Bidassoa, with a host of petty and futile observances which excite mirth rather than admiration; but at the same time with a magnificence surpassing all that had ever previously been exhibited on such an occasion; the two Courts of France and Spain vying with each other in splendour and profusion. De Luynes, to whom such a mission appeared peculiarly adapted, presented to the Infanta the letters of welcome with which he had been entrusted by Louis XIII and his mother, and which were received by the Princess with an undisguised delight that the favourite did not fail to report to his royal master.

The guard with which the Duc de Guise had conducted Madame Elisabeth to the frontier consisted of fifteen hundred horse, four thousand infantry, and four pieces of ordnance; and it was with the same troops that he escorted the newly made Queen of France to Bordeaux, who, previously to her departure from Burgos, had signed a formal renunciation, written entirely by her own hand, of all her claims to the Spanish succession.[210] On her arrival at Bordeaux on the 21st of November, the young Queen was received with all the splendour of which the circumstances were susceptible, and the marriage ceremony was immediately repeated by the Bishop of Saintes; after which, on the 17th of December, the Court, under the escort of a strong body of troops, left the capital of Guienne for Tours, which latter city they did not, however, reach for five weeks, owing to the long halts that they were compelled to make in the several towns through which they passed, where every species of entertainment had been prepared for the reception of the august travellers. Meanwhile the army suffered fearfully from exposure to the cold, from sickness, and from want of provisions and forage; numbers of the men died, and the progress of the royal party consequently resembled a disastrous retreat rather than a triumphant procession.

In addition to this misfortune the Queen-mother had other and still more serious motives for anxiety. Although her personal ambition had been gratified by the accomplishment of that close alliance with Spain which she had so long and so earnestly desired, she could not conceal from herself that as regarded the nation over which she had been called to govern, the irretrievable step thus taken was one of extreme impolicy. On every side she was surrounded by difficulties. The first Prince of the Blood, and nearly the whole of the high nobility, were not only disaffected, but actually in arms against the Crown. The Protestants, to whom she had repeatedly promised that she would observe the Edict of Nantes, incensed by her breach of faith, had revolted against her authority; her troops had failed to offer any effective resistance; and meanwhile foreign soldiers had traversed Champagne, and advanced into Berry to join Conde, without any impediment from the royal army. The intelligence that she received from Paris was equally alarming; scarcely a day passed in which pamphlets and pasquinades of the grossest description were not published and circulated among the population, assigning the most foul and degrading motives for her journey to Guienne under the protection of the Ducs d'Epernon and de Guise; while her anxiety for the Spanish alliance was represented as arising from her desire to conciliate those who were accused of being the assassins of her husband.

Angered as she was by these insults, Marie de Medicis still pined to return to the capital. She was wearied alike by the exacting and arrogant temper of M. d'Epernon, and by the monotony of the provincial cities, where she saw herself surrounded only by aldermen and citizens with whom she had no feeling or habit in common; and as the several individuals of her circle were equally ill at ease in so novel a position, far from allaying her impatience, they aggravated the ennui which she did not attempt to disguise, until she eventually brought herself to attach all the blame of her own disappointment and mortification upon those who had advised her to leave the capital; and to evince the greatest eagerness to follow the counsels of their adversaries.[211]

The Court left Bordeaux at the close of the year 1615; and in the month of January following proceeded to take up its abode at Tours, there to await the close of a negotiation into which the Queen-mother had entered with the Princes; while at the same time her agents secretly exerted all their efforts to induce the allies of M. de Conde to abandon his cause. The command of the troops was taken from the Marechal de Bois-Dauphin and conferred upon the Duc de Guise, with the title of lieutenant-general of the King's army; and an immediate attempt was made to gain over the Duc de Mayenne and the Marechal de Bouillon, as being the most influential of the revolted nobles. James I offered to Marie de Medicis his services as a mediator on the occasion; they were gratefully accepted, and the English Ambassador was forthwith despatched to the Prince de Conde at St. Jean-d'Angely, with instructions to avert, by every argument in his power, the horrors of a civil war. Convinced that no better opportunity could possibly occur for securing to himself and his party the advantageous conditions which he coveted, Conde received the royal envoy with great courtesy, declaring that he had acted throughout the whole affair solely in the interests of his country, and that he was ready to write respectfully to his Britannic Majesty, to offer to him the same assurance.

His proposal was accepted; the letter was forthwith prepared; and the Baron de Thianges was entrusted with its delivery into the hands of the English monarch. A reply was returned by the same messenger; and finally a conference was decided on, which was to take place at Loudun on the 10th of February.[212]

While preparations were making for this important event, the Queen-mother, on the 29th of January, summoned the nobles of her Court to her apartment, in order to discuss the necessary measures to be adopted for securing the allegiance of the disaffected Princes; and on this occasion she nearly lost her life by a singular accident. The young Comte de Soissons, the Ducs de Guise and d'Epernon, Bassompierre, Jeannin, and many others who held office about the Court or in the Government were scarcely assembled when the flooring of the room gave way, and twenty-eight persons were precipitated into the hall beneath. The arm-chair of Marie herself had fortunately been placed above a beam which held firm, and to which the President Jeannin resolutely clung, thus breaking his fall; but MM. de Soissons, d'Epernon, de Bassompierre, de Villeroy, and several others were less fortunate, and all were more or less gravely injured. With great presence of mind the Queen retained her seat; and with the help of the Duc de Guise ultimately contrived to reach her bed, over which she passed, and thus escaped into an adjoining apartment; and meanwhile the unfortunate victims of the accident were conveyed to their respective residences, where her Majesty caused them to be immediately visited by one of the officers of her household, who was commissioned to inquire into their condition, and to express her regret at the event.

There was one exception, however, to this royal act of sympathy and consideration, and that one was the Duc d'Epernon; who, although the greatest sufferer on the occasion, was entirely overlooked; a marked and threatening want of courtesy on the part of the Queen-mother, which convinced the arrogant courtier that his period of favour was past, and that his enemies had triumphed. This conviction at once determined him to retire voluntarily from the Court before he should be compelled to do so by an order which he felt satisfied would not be long delayed; and he was accordingly no sooner sufficiently recovered to leave his bed than he waited upon their Majesties to take leave, alleging that his shattered health having received so violent a shock, he felt it necessary to withdraw for a time from all participation in public affairs, and to endeavour by perfect repose to overcome the effects of his accident.

His reasons were graciously accepted both by the King and Queen, who assured him of their deep sorrow at his sufferings, and expressed the most flattering wishes for his recovery; but the Queen-mother uttered no word either of regret or sympathy. With the most chilling indifference she returned his parting salutation; and M. d'Epernon quitted her apartment with a demeanour almost as haughty as her own.[213]

Marie de Medicis, who possessed the most implicit confidence in the so-called science of astrology, and who was always anxious to penetrate the mystery of the future, having been informed on her return to Paris that a certain Giorgio Luminelli, a native of Ragusa who was celebrated as a soothsayer, had recently arrived in the capital, and taken up his abode in the Place Royale, immediately expressed a wish to consult him; for which purpose she despatched a messenger to his residence, by whom he was invited to wait upon a person of high rank who, attracted by his renown, was desirous of testing his skill. To this somewhat imperious summons Luminelli, however, simply replied by declaring that he never quitted his own apartments for any one, whatever might be the station of the person who required his services; but that those, who sought his aid were at liberty to visit him whenever they saw fit to do so. This answer only increased the eagerness of the Queen-mother; nevertheless, previously to seeking him in person, she requested M. de Crequy, the Duc de la Force, Bassompierre, and Rambure to go to his house in disguise, in order to ascertain whether he were indeed worthy of the reputation by which he had been preceded.

While they were making the necessary arrangements, and deciding to exchange dresses with their confidential valets in the hope of being enabled to mystify the necromancer, to whom they were entirely unknown, the Marechal d'Ancre arrived to pay his respects to his royal mistress; and, upon being made acquainted with the project, he determined to join the party in the character of a Venetian noble, of whom there were at that moment several residing in Paris. On the completion of their preparations the merry masquers set forth, and soon reached the abode of Luminelli; where, on their arrival, they found a servant stationed at the door, as if awaiting the advent of expected guests, who no sooner saw them pause beside him than, addressing Concini and the disguised serving-men, he politely requested them to follow him; coupling the invitation with an assurance that his master had desired him to watch for the arrival of five great nobles who were about to consult his art. Lavallee, the lackey of M. de Bassompierre, assuming an air of importance, expressed both for himself and his companions their sense of this attention; and then, somewhat startled by the coincidence, for as such they simply considered it, the whole party followed their guide upstairs.

On reaching the apartment of the astrologer the four disguised courtiers remained respectfully upon the threshold, while their unliveried representatives advanced to the middle of the room; and courteously saluting their host, informed him that they had been induced by his great renown to solicit a display of his skill, and to claim from him a knowledge of their future fortunes. Lavallee was once more their spokesman; and the eyes of Luminelli remained fixed upon him until the conclusion of his address, when he turned away abruptly, without vouchsafing any reply, and drew back a curtain behind which was placed a large globe of polished steel. He looked earnestly upon this for a few moments; and then rising, he put on a cap of dark velvet which lay beside him, took Lavallee by the hand, and approaching Bassompierre placed his valet a few paces behind him, saying as he did so:

"Monseigneur, why should you thus have assumed a disguise? You are already a great noble, but your fortunes have not yet reached their acme. You will one day be Marechal de France, and the dignity will be conferred upon you on the other side of the Rhone. Beauty has great influence over you; but with those whom you seek to please your purse has even more charms than your person. You will ere long have immense success at the gaming-table, far beyond any which you have yet achieved. You have been engaged in a lawsuit against an unmarried woman.[214] You hold one of the highest offices in the kingdom.[215] You are not by birth a Frenchman, but a German. One of the greatest ladies in the world will cause you considerable misfortune,[216] through the medium of a red animal.[217] You will, however, finally triumph over your troubles, although the trial will be a long and a severe one."

Luminelli then consulted his magic globe a second time; led the lackey of M. de Crequy to the rear of his master; made a profound salutation to the latter; and addressing him in his turn, detailed, as he had previously done in the case of Bassompierre, all the leading events of his past and future life. He next went through the same ceremony with the Duc de la Force and M. de Rambure; and ultimately he turned towards the Marechal d'Ancre, exclaiming:

"You, Sir, are no Venetian, although you have sought to appear such; but it would be well for you if you were so. As it is, if you will follow my advice, you will leave Paris to-morrow for Venice; for should you long delay your departure, it will be too late to effect it. When you arrived in France you were alike poor and obscure, although you are now rich both in gold and honours. Leave the country, nevertheless, or these advantages will avail you nothing. With few exceptions, you are detested by all classes; and you will find your native air of Florence more wholesome than that of the country which you have adopted. You possess governments, and wield the baton of a Marechal de France, but your tenure of these dignities is unstable; and you will do well to save yourself while you have yet the opportunity. You place your reliance on the favour of a crowned head, but that very favour shadows forth your ruin."

As Concini stood motionless before him, the astrologer took him by the hand, and leading him towards the globe, by a slight touch caused it to revolve. As he gazed upon the polished surface of the mysterious instrument, the colour of the Italian came and went so rapidly that his companions believed him to be attacked by sudden indisposition; and depositing a heavy purse of gold upon the table, they urged him to withdraw. Before they could effect their object, however, Luminelli thrust the purse from him, having previously withdrawn from it a single pistole which he flung to his attendant. He then cast himself back upon his chair; the heavy curtain again fell before the globe; and he appeared totally unconscious of the continued presence of his visitors, whose departure was retarded for a few seconds by the utter incapacity of Concini to leave the room. With a powerful effort the Italian, however, suddenly suppressed his emotion, although he still trembled so violently that he was compelled to lean upon Bassompierre for support; nor did the attack, as had been anticipated, yield to the influence of the external air, for the Marechal continued throughout the entire space of two hours wholly unable to control its violence; while not all the eager questioning of his companions could induce him to reveal the cause of his frightful agitation; a fact by which they were firmly persuaded that the astrologer had revealed to him an intimate acquaintance with past events which justified his warning, or had foreshadowed a future well calculated to arouse alarm.[218] Be this as it might, it appears at least certain that the five nobles were each and all deeply impressed by the scene through which they had just passed, by whatever agency it might have been effected; and that the report which they made on their return to Marie de Medicis effectually indisposed her from seeking any further knowledge of Giorgio Luminelli.



CHAPTER VIII

1616

Conference of Loudun—Venality of the Princes—Mutual concessions—Indisposition of M. de Conde—He signs the treaty—Concini is insulted by a citizen of Paris—The Court return to the capital—Schism in the cabal—The seals are transferred to M. du Vair—Disgrace of the ministers—Triumph of Concini—Mangot is appointed Secretary of State, and Barbin Minister of Finance—The young sovereigns—Court costumes—Anne of Austria and Marie de Medicis—Puerility of Louis XIII—The Marechal de Bouillon and the Duc de Mayenne return to Court—They seek to ruin Concini—The Prince de Conde effects a reconciliation with the Queen-mother—James I. sends an embassy to Paris to negotiate a marriage between the Prince of Wales and the Princesse Christine—Gorgeous reception at the Louvre—Court festivities—Concini returns to Paris—He is abandoned by the Prince de Conde—He is compelled to retire—His forebodings—He endeavours to induce Leonora to leave France—She refuses—Increasing influence of De Luynes—Death of Mademoiselle d'Ancre—Despair of Concini—Ambitious projects of the Prince de Conde—Devotion of Sully—His advice is disregarded—Popularity of Conde—Marie de Medicis resolves to arrest him—He disbelieves the rumour—The other Princes withdraw from the capital—The King is induced to sanction the arrest—Dissimulation of Louis XIII—Arrest of Conde—Fearless reply of M. du Vair—The Prince is conveyed to the Bastille—A batch of Marshals—Noble disinterestedness of Bassompierre—The Dowager Princess of Conde endeavours to excite the populace to rescue her son—The mob pillage the hotel of the Marechal d'Ancre—The Queen-mother negotiates with the Guises—The council of war—The seals are transferred from Du Vair to Mangot—Richelieu is appointed Secretary of State—Concini returns to Court—The Marechale d'Ancre becomes partially insane—Popular execration of the Italian favourites—Subtle policy of Richelieu—Threatening attitude assumed by the Princes.

The famous Conference of Loudun assembled on the 13th of February 1616; but as the Prince de Conde presented no less than thirty-one articles for consideration, many of which required careful examination, it was mutually agreed that the truce should be prolonged until the decision of his Majesty might be formed. The position of the Court was, moreover, rendered more difficult from the fact that several great nobles, who had not hitherto openly espoused the faction of the rebels, hastened to swell their ranks, not with the intention of caballing against the Government, but simply of being included in the concessions to which it was evident that the Council would be compelled in order to accomplish a peace. Among others the Duc de Vendome, who had so recently solicited his pardon, and declared his intention of adhering to the royal cause, was conspicuous in the ranks of the enemy; together with the young Duc de Candale, the son of D'Epernon, who had embraced the reformed faith, the Duc de Piney-Luxembourg, and the Dowager Countess of Soissons, who withdrew from the Court at Tours, and joined her son at Loudun. This example, contemptible as it was, proved contagious, and was followed by two of the greatest Princesses of the Blood, the Dowager Princesses of Conde and Longueville,[219] to the extreme annoyance of the Queen-mother, who was aware of the extent of their influence, and quite alive to its probable consequences.

Meanwhile both armies were suffering so severely from extreme cold and scarcity of provisions, that more than ten thousand men fell victims to exposure and famine; and the bodyguard of the King became at length so much weakened that he found himself compelled to summon the Swiss under Bassompierre for the protection of his person.

The demands with which Conde and his partisans opened the Conference were such as required little deliberation; but as the proceedings advanced they became more and more onerous; until, finally, as the Council had foreseen, they all resolved themselves into questions of individual interest. The Duc de Longueville claimed full authority over all the fortresses in his government of Picardy which were held by the Marechal d'Ancre, and refused to accede to any terms with the Crown until they were given up; while the other Princes and nobles asked either gratuities for themselves, or vengeance upon their enemies; and all agreed in claiming the payment of their troops by the royal treasury before they would consent to lay down their arms.[220]

Finally, on the 5th of May, the Conference was closed; several of the articles presented by M. de Conde having been conceded, others deferred, and the remainder conditionally agreed to. In the meantime, however, the Prince had been taken seriously ill, and the fear that he might not survive so threatening an attack determined the leaders of his faction to accept whatever terms the Court should decide to offer. While the disease was at its height, the Princes and royal commissioners assembled about his bed, where the English Ambassador also presented himself; but, although he had taken so active a part in the reconciliation about to be effected between the Crown and the rebel nobles, M. de Villeroy vehemently refused to permit him to remain, declaring that upon such an occasion it was impossible to allow a foreigner to interfere between a sovereign and his subjects. This dispute was followed by a second, the deputies of La Rochelle having demanded a continuance of their assembly; a demand which was opposed with such warmth and violence that M. de Conde, unable to support the disturbance, weakened as he was by the fever which preyed upon him, commanded instant silence; and desiring that a pen might be brought to him, together with the edict of pacification which had been drawn up, he forthwith affixed his signature to the document, declaring that those who loved him would do the same, while such as refused to follow his example should be compelled to do so. He then pronounced a short prayer, in which he thanked God for the cessation of hostilities, after which he desired to be left alone; and on the morrow preparations were commenced for disbanding the rebel troops.[221]

This apparent precipitation did not, however, involve any sacrifice either on the part of the Prince himself or on that of his principal adherents, since Richelieu has recorded that the peace for which M. de Conde so piously uttered his thanksgiving cost Louis XIII upwards of six millions of livres;[222] every individual of mark having cause to feel satisfied with the result of the Conference save the Protestants, who, as a body, derived no benefit whatever from the treaty.[223]

Concini, who had remained in Paris during the absence of the Court, had meanwhile been subjected to a mortification which, to his haughty spirit, far exceeded a more important evil. The citizens who had continued to keep watch and ward, despite the cessation of hostilities that had taken place, persevered in requiring that all who entered or quitted the capital should be provided with passports; a formality with which the arrogant Italian considered it unnecessary to comply; and, accordingly, when on one occasion he was about to proceed to his house in the faubourg attended by some of the gentlemen of his suite, he had no sooner reached the Porte de Bussy, where a shoemaker named Picard was on guard, than this man compelled his carriage to stop, and demanded his passport. Enraged by such a mark of disrespect, the Marechal imperiously ordered his coachman to proceed, but this was rendered impossible by the threatening attitude of the well-armed guardian of the gate.

"Rascal!" shouted Concini, showing himself at the door of the carriage; "do you know who I am?"

"Right well, Sir," was the unmoved reply; "and nevertheless you shall not stir a step beyond the walls without a passport."

The Italian was pale with indignation, but he dared not resent the insult, as a crowd was rapidly collecting from whom he was aware that he could expect no mercy; and he accordingly restrained himself sufficiently to despatch a messenger for an order of egress, which promptly arrived. His southern blood, however, beat and burnt in his veins, and he awaited only an opportunity of revenge. A few days subsequently, unable any longer to control his rage, he desired his equerry to proceed to the residence of Picard with two valets, and to repay his insolence by a sound cudgelling; an order which was so implicitly obeyed that the unfortunate shoemaker narrowly escaped with his life; while a mob, attracted by the uproar, seized the two serving-men—who, confiding in the power of their master, treated their menaces with contempt—and hanged them before the door of the house in which they had committed the outrage. The equerry, who had also fallen into the hands of the populace, was put upon his trial, and it was only by means of a heavy bribe that the discomfited Marechal, alarmed by what had taken place, was enabled to induce Picard to withdraw his accusation against him.[224]

At the close of the Conference of Loudun the Court returned to Paris, where the reception of their Majesties was enthusiastic, while that of Marie de Medicis was cold and constrained, although it was well known that M. de Conde had all but obtained the presidency of the Council, and that the Queen-mother had made other concessions which she had previously repelled with considerable haughtiness at Tours; such as granting to the Duc de Longueville the exclusive authority in Picardy, which deprived the Marechal d'Ancre of his cherished fortresses; while on the other hand, despite the advantages which they had reaped from the weakness of the Government, the discontented nobles had separated in no better spirit. The Ducs de Rohan and de Sully loudly complained that they had been deceived by the Prince; M. de Longueville, who had vainly sought to obtain the government of Normandy, and who was afraid to return to Picardy until convinced that he had nothing to fear from the resentment of the Marechal d'Ancre, considered himself aggrieved; and such, in short, was the general jealousy and distrust exhibited by the lately coalesced nobles that, with the exception of the Duc de Mayenne and the Marechal de Bouillon, who found themselves involved in one common interest—that of destroying the influence of the Ducs d'Epernon and de Bellegarde—the whole of the late cabal appeared by mutual consent to have become inimical to each other.[225]

On the arrival of the Court in Paris the seals were taken from the Chancellor, and delivered into the keeping of Guillaume du Vair, who was at that period in his sixtieth year, on the pretext that so important a charge must be oppressive to M. de Sillery at his advanced age; a subterfuge which could not have failed to excite the discontent of the people had they not distrusted his cupidity as much as Marie was wearied of his services. Certain it is, however, that his dismissal occasioned no regret, and was speedily forgotten.[226] Villeroy and Jeannin were the immediate agents of his dismissal from office, as they ascribed to him their own previous discredit at Court, and had long been secretly labouring to repay him in kind; but their triumph was destined to be short-lived. Concini had effected the disgrace of his old and hated rival the Duc d'Epernon; and that feat accomplished, he next resolved to rid himself of the two veteran ministers who were the most formidable stumbling-blocks upon his path of ambition. Aware of the distrustful nature of the Queen-mother, whose experience had made her suspicious of all by whom she was surrounded, he at once decided upon his plan of action; and it was not long ere he induced her to believe that they had acted in the interests of the Prince de Conde, rather than her own, during the Conference of Loudun; while such plausible proofs did he adduce of this assertion, that once more Marie de Medicis consented to exclude them from the Council.

This was the moment for which the Italian favourite had so long sighed. From the death of Henri IV he had exerted all his energies to overthrow the Princes of the Blood, and to replace the old ministers by creatures of his own; but so hopeless did the attempt appear that more than once he had despaired of ultimate success. Now, however, he found himself pre-eminent; the Queen-mother, harassed and worn-out by the cabals which were incessantly warring against her authority, and threatening her tenure of power, threw herself with eagerness into the hands of the adventurer who owed all to her favour, and implicitly followed his advice, in the hope that she might thus escape the machinations of her enemies. Mangot,[227] whose devotion to the Marechal d'Ancre was notorious, was appointed Secretary of State, in which dignity he replaced M. de Puisieux;[228] while the administration of finance was conferred upon M. Barbin,[229] although Jeannin nominally retained office.[230]

While these changes were convulsing the Cabinet, irritating the great nobles, and exciting the apprehensions of all those who desired the welfare of the nation, the young sovereigns, whom they more immediately concerned, were either ignorant or careless of their consequences. The girl-Queen, surrounded by her Spanish attendants, spent her time in the enjoyment of the pleasures congenial to her age. According to Madame de Motteville,[231] she was strikingly handsome, but rather Austrian than Spanish in her style of beauty, with an abundance of fair hair which she wore in ringlets about her face. On her arrival in France she retained the national costume; and discarding the tapestried chests common at the period, made use of a pile of cushions as her seat. The Marquise de Morny (quoted by Madame de Motteville) described her on the occasion of her own presentation as reclining upon this Moorish sofa in the midst of her attendants, habited in a dress of green satin embroidered with gold and silver, with large hanging sleeves looped together at intervals by diamond buttons; a close ruff, and a small cap of green velvet with a black heron-feather.[232]



At once regal and elegant as such a costume must have been, it is deplorable to contrast it with those which she adopted in after-years, when the most monstrous caprices were permitted at her Court; and when it was by no means uncommon to see women of the highest rank, about to ride on horseback, present themselves in the royal circle in dresses reaching only to the knee, with their legs encased in tight pantaloons of velvet, or even in complete haut-de-chausses; while the habitual attire of the sex was equally bizarre and exaggerated. There were the vasquines or rollers which encircled the waist and extended the folds of the petticoats, thus giving additional smallness to the waist; the brassards-a-chevrons or metallic braces for expanding the sleeves; and the affiquet of pearls or diamonds coquettishly attached to the left breast, and entitled the assassin. Added to these absurdities there were, moreover, bows of ribbon, each of which had its appropriate name and position; the galant was placed on the summit of the head; the mignon on the heart; the favori under and near the assassin; and the badin on the handle of the fan. Short curls upon the temples were designated cavaliers; ringlets were garcons; while a hundred other inanities of the same description compelled the great ladies of the period to adopt a slang which was perfectly unintelligible to all save the initiated; and when we add to these details the well-authenticated fact that the royal apartments were fumigated with powdered tobacco (then a recent and costly importation into France), in lieu of the perfumes which had previously been in use for the same purpose, it will scarcely be denied that caprice rather than taste dictated the habits of the Court under Louis XIII.

To revert, however, to the earlier years of Anne of Austria, it would appear that the troubles of the royal bride did not await her womanhood. Like Marie de Medicis, she clung to all which appeared to link her to her distant home, and caused her to forget for a time that it was hers no longer; and under this impulse it was by no means surprising that she attached herself with girlish affection to the individuals by whom she had been followed in her splendid exile; but even as her predecessor had been compelled to forego the society of her native attendants, so was Anne of Austria in her turn deprived of the solace of their presence. With the exception of Dona Estefania, her first waiting-woman, to whom she was tenderly attached, and who had been about her person from her infancy, all were dismissed by Marie de Medicis, who, anxious to retain her authority over the wife of her son, dreaded the influence of Anne's Spanish followers.

Nor was this her only disappointment. We have already shown with what eagerness she looked forward to her first meeting with her intended bridegroom, whose grave but manly beauty so fully realized all her hopes that, as she ingeniously confessed, she could have loved him tenderly had he possessed a heart to bestow upon her in return. But she soon discovered that such was not the case; and that Louis XIII saw in her nothing more interesting than a Princess who was worthy by her rank and quality to share with him the throne of France.

This was a sad discovery for a lovely girl of fifteen years of age, who had anticipated nothing less than devotion on the part of a young husband by whom she had been so eagerly met on her arrival; nor did she fail to contrast his coldness with the ill-disguised admiration of many of his great nobles, and to weep over the wreck of her fondest and fairest visions. But, young and high-spirited, she struggled against the isolation of soul to which she was condemned; and probably resented with more bitterness the coercion to which she was subjected by the iron rule of her royal mother-in-law than even the coldness of the husband to whom she had been prepared to give up her whole heart.[233]

Louis, on his side, although the sovereign of a great nation, was also exposed to privations; merely physical, it is true, but still sufficiently irritating to increase his natural moroseness and discontent. While the Marechal d'Ancre displayed at Court a profusion and splendour which amounted to insolence, the young King was frequently without the means of indulging the mere caprices common to his age; but although he murmured, and even at times appeared to resent the neglect with which he was treated, he easily consoled himself amid the puerile sports in which he frittered away his existence; and attended by De Luynes and his brothers, found constant occupation in waging war against small birds, and in training their captors. In such pursuits he was moreover encouraged by the Queen-mother and her favourites; who, anxious to retain their power, did not make any effort to awaken him to a sense of what he owed to himself and to the kingdom over which he had been called upon to rule. The only occasions upon which he appeared to feel the slightest pleasure in the society of his beautiful young wife was when he engaged her to share in his rides and hawking-parties, in order to excite her admiration of his skill, an admiration of which Anne was lavish, as she trusted by flattering his vanity to awaken his affection; while she moreover enjoyed, with all the zest of girlhood, so agreeable an escape from the etiquette and formalities of a Court life.

The treaty of Loudun was no sooner concluded than the revolted nobles separated, each dissatisfied with the other, and all murmuring at the insufficiency of the recompense by which their several concessions had been met. The Prince de Conde, on his convalescence, withdrew to Berry, which government had been given to him in exchange for that of Guienne; Sully retired to Poitou, and the Duc de Rohan returned to La Rochelle; while of all the lately disaffected leaders the Marechal de Bouillon and the Duc de Mayenne alone proceeded to Court, in order to claim the immunities promised in requital of their secession from the interests of the Prince de Conde. The King and the two Queens were residing at the Louvre on their arrival, where they had every reason to be satisfied with their reception; and the Marechal d'Ancre, who, terrified by the undisguised hostility of the Parisians, had not ventured to accompany his royal mistress, no sooner ascertained the return of the two nobles to the capital than he hastened to make them the most brilliant offers in the event of their consenting to espouse his interests. Neither the Marechal nor the Duke were, however, disposed to second his views, and only profited by his advances to swell the ranks of his enemies. This was a task of comparatively slight difficulty, as all classes in the kingdom considered themselves aggrieved by his unparalleled prosperity; and thus, ere long, the Duc de Guise was prevailed upon to join the new cabal, into which it was only further deemed necessary to enlist M. de Conde. Bouillon, who possessed great influence over the Prince, exerted himself strenuously to prevent his return to Court, in order to increase his own consequence in the estimation of the Queen-mother; but his efforts proved ineffectual, as M. de Conde believed it to be more compatible with his own interests to effect a reconciliation with the Crown; and, acting upon this impression, he pledged himself to support Concini, on condition that he should be appointed chief of the Council of Finance, and take a share in the government. His proposal was accepted, and to the great annoyance of M. de Bouillon, the Prince once more appeared at Court. His reception by the citizens was, however, so enthusiastic that Marie de Medicis became alarmed, until she was assured by Richelieu, then the open and zealous ally of the Marechal d'Ancre, that the King had nothing to fear from a popularity which would only tend to render M. de Conde a more efficient ally; an assurance which afforded so much gratification to the Queen-mother, that she repaid it by appointing the Bishop of Lucon Almoner to the young Queen, and shortly afterwards Councillor of State.[234]

Ten days subsequently to the return of M. de Conde to Paris a new embassy arrived from James I., to renew the negotiation of marriage between the Prince of Wales and Madame Christine de France, upon which occasion the Court of Louis XIII displayed all its magnificence, without, however, eclipsing that of the English nobles to whom the embassy had been entrusted. The hotel of the late Queen Marguerite was prepared for their reception, where they were visited by all the great nobles and foreign ministers; and finally, on the following Sunday, they were received in state at the Louvre. Lord Hay (afterwards Earl of Carlisle) was the accredited ambassador; while Mr. Rich (subsequently Lord Holland), Goring, and other individuals of mark contributed to increase the splendour and importance of his mission.

Nothing could be more sumptuous than the spectacle which was presented by the Louvre upon this occasion. The halls and galleries were alike thronged by all that was noble and beautiful at the Court of France. Princes of the Blood, nobles, marshals, and prelates were mingled with the great ladies of the household in their state dresses, rustling in silks, velvets, and cloth of gold and silver, and glittering with diamonds. Amid this galaxy of magnificence the Queen-mother shone conspicuous. Still remarkable for her stately beauty and dignified deportment, she had left no means untried to enhance their effect, and she had been eminently successful. She was attired in a long robe of amaranth velvet, of which the wide and open sleeves were slashed with white satin, and looped together by large pearls, save at the wrists and elbows, where they were fastened by immense brilliants. Her ruff of rich Alencon lace rose half a foot in height at the back of her neck, whence it decreased in breadth until it reached her bosom, which was considerably exposed, according to the fashion of the period. A coronet of diamonds surmounted her elaborately curled hair, which was drawn back, so as to exhibit in its full dimensions her broad and lofty brow; and the most costly jewels were scattered over her whole attire, which gave back their many-coloured lights at every movement of her person.