de Lorraine, with the hope and intention of making her his wife; a fact which the licentious and frivolous King no sooner ascertained than he declared his inclination to effect an alliance between the disappointed suitor and his own mistress, Mademoiselle de Châteauneuf, for whom he was anxious to provide through this medium. He consequently proposed the arrangement to M. de Luxembourg on the day of his coronation, but received the cold and firm reply that the Count felt himself bound to congratulate Mademoiselle de Lorraine on her good fortune, since by changing her lover she had also been enabled to increase her dignity; but that, as regarded himself, since he could derive no benefit whatever from becoming the husband of Mademoiselle de Châteauneuf, he begged that his Majesty would excuse him from contracting such an alliance. The King, however, declared that he would admit of no refusal, and insisted upon his instant obedience; whereupon M. de Luxembourg demanded eight days to make the necessary preparations, to which Henry demurred, and it was finally arranged that he should be allowed three days for that purpose, after which he was to hold himself prepared to obey the royal command. These three days sufficed to enable the intended victim to make his escape, and he accordingly left the kingdom. His sarcasm against herself had so deeply irritated Queen Louise that after the death of her husband she entreated Henri IV to revenge her injured dignity upon her former suitor, but the monarch declined to aid in any further persecution of the unfortunate young noble. The married life of the Queen was a most unhappy one, and appeared to have entirely disgusted her with the world, as on becoming a widow she passed two years of seclusion and mourning at Chenonceaux, whence she removed to the château of Moulins, where she devoted herself to the most austere duties of religion. In her will, by which she bequeathed nearly the whole of her property to the Church and to charitable purposes, she left a large sum for the erection of a Capuchin convent at Bourges, where she desired that she might be ultimately interred; but by command of Henri IV the convent was built in the Faubourg St. Honoré, at Paris, and her body deposited in the chapel.
[68] Sully, Mém. vol. iii. p. 312.
[69] Saint-Edmé, p. 200.
[70] Equal, in the present day, to nearly five hundred thousand livres.
[71] Charles de Valois, the son of Charles IX and Marie Touchet, Dame de Belleville. He was subsequently Duc d'Angoulême and Grand Prior of France. He died in 1639.
[72] Dreux du Radier, vol. vi. pp. 62, 63. Saint-Edmé, pp. 201, 202.
[73] Sully, Mém. vol. iii. pp. 313, 314.
[74] Sully, Mém. vol. iii. p. 315.
[75] Mézeray, vol. x. p. 124.
CHAPTER II
1599
Sully resolves to hasten the King's marriage--Ambassadors are sent to Florence to demand the hand of Marie de Medicis--The marriage articles are signed--Indignation of Madame de Verneuil--Revenge of her brother, the Comte d'Auvergne--The Duke of Savoy visits Paris--His reception--His profusion--His mission fails--Court poets--Marie de Medicis is married to the French King by procuration at Florence--Hostile demonstrations of the Duke of Savoy--Infatuation of the King for the favourite--Her pretensions--A well-timed tempest--Diplomacy of Madame de Verneuil--Her reception at Lyons--War in Savoy--Marie de Medicis lands at Marseilles--Madame de Verneuil returns to Paris--The Duc de Bellegarde is proxy for the King at Florence--He escorts the new Queen to France--Portrait of Marie de Medicis--Her state-galley--Her voyage--Her reception--Henry reaches Lyons--The royal interview--Public rejoicings--The royal marriage--Henry returns to Paris--The Queen's jealousy is awakened--Profligate habits of the King--Marie's Italian attendants embitter her mind against her husband--Marie reaches Paris--She holds a court--Presentation of Madame de Verneuil to the Queen--Indignation of Marie--Disgrace of the Duchesse de Nemours--Self-possession of Madame de Verneuil--Marie takes possession of the Louvre--She adopts the French costume--Splendour of the Court--Festival given by Sully--A practical joke--Court festivities--Excessive gambling--Royal play debts--The Queen's favourite--A petticoat intrigue--Leonora Galigaï appointed Mistress of the Robes--Reconciliation between the Queen and Madame de Verneuil--The King gives the Marquise a suite of apartments in the Louvre--Her rivalry of the Queen--Indignation of Marie--Domestic dissensions--The Queen and the favourite are again at war--Madame de Verneuil effects the marriage of Concini and Leonora--Gratitude of the Queen--Birth of the Dauphin--Joy of the King--Public rejoicings--Birth of Anne of Austria--Superstitions of the period--Belief in astrology--A royal anecdote--Horoscope of the Dauphin--The sovereign and the surgeon--Birth of Gaston Henri, son of Madame de Verneuil--Public entry of the Dauphin into Paris--Exultation of Marie de Medicis.
The infatuation of the King for his new favourite decided M. de Sully to hasten by every means in his power the marriage of the sovereign with some European princess worthy to share his throne, and he accordingly instructed the royal agents at Rome to demand forthwith the hand of Marie de Medicis for the French monarch; while Henry, absorbed in his passion, permitted him to act as he saw fit, offering neither assistance nor impediment to a negotiation on which his domestic happiness was in future to depend. Nor was it until the Duke urged upon him the necessity of selecting such of his nobility as it was his pleasure to entrust with the management of the affair in conjunction with the ambassador whom the Grand Duke, her uncle, was about to despatch to Paris, that, by dint of importunity, he was induced to name M. de Sully himself, the Constable, the Chancellor, and the Sieur de Villeroy,[76] whose son, M. d'Alincourt, had previously been sent to Rome to offer the acknowledgments of Henry to his Holiness for the dissolution of his marriage with Queen Marguerite, and to apprise him of that which he was desirous to contract with Marie de Medicis. This duty performed, M. d'Alincourt solicited the permission of the Pope to accompany Sillery to Florence to pay his respects to the Princess and to negotiate the alliance; and having obtained the required sanction, the two nobles set forth upon their embassy, quite unaware that the preliminaries were already nearly concluded.[77] So determined, indeed, had been the minister that no time should be afforded to the King to redeem the pledge which he had given to the favourite that Joannini, the agent of the Grand Duke, had not been many days in Paris before the articles were drawn up and signed on both sides, and Sully was commissioned by the other contracting parties to communicate the termination of their labours to his royal master. The account given by the minister of this interview is highly characteristic.
"He had not," says the chronicler, "anticipated such expedition; and thus when I had answered his question of where I had come from by 'We come, Sire, from marrying you,' the Prince remained for a quarter of an hour as though he had been stricken by thunder; then he began to pace the chamber with long strides, biting his nails, scratching his head, and absorbed by reflections which agitated him so violently that he was a considerable time before he was able to speak to me. I entertained no doubt that all my previous representations were now producing their effect; and so it proved, for ultimately recovering himself like a man who has at length taken a decided resolution: 'Well,' said he, striking his hands together, 'well, then, so be it; there is no alternative, since for the good of my kingdom you say that I must marry.'" [78]
Such was the ungracious acceptance of the haughty Florentine Princess at the hands of her future bridegroom.
The indignation of Madame de Verneuil was unbounded when she ascertained that she had for ever lost all hope of ascending the throne of France; but it is nevertheless certain that she was enabled to dissimulate sufficiently to render her society indispensable to the King, and to accept with a good grace the equivocal honours of her position. Her brother, the Comte d'Auvergne, was, however, less placable; he had always affected to believe in the validity of her claim upon the King, and his naturally restless and dissatisfied character led him, under the pretext of avenging her wrongs, to
