the treaty of Paris; and who had rendered it evident that force of arms alone could compel him to resign the usurped marquisate. Even the monarch himself became at length convinced of the impolicy of further delay, and resolved forthwith to advance to Lyons, whither Sully had already despatched both troops and artillery.[91] M. de Savoie had, however, during his sojourn in France, made many partisans, who urged upon their sovereign the expediency of still affording to the Duke an opportunity of redeeming his pledge; and Henry, even against his better reason, listened the more complacently to their counsels that Madame de Verneuil was about to become a mother, and he shrank from the idea of separation from her at such a moment. Thus he delayed his journey until Sully, who was not long in discovering the cause of his inaction, renewed his expostulations with still greater emphasis, and finally induced him to make preparations for an immediate departure. As the hour arrived, however, he again wavered, until at length he declared his determination to be accompanied by the Marquise; but this arrangement was, from her state of health, soon found to be impossible; and after considerable difficulty he was persuaded to consent that she should await his return at Monceaux, whither he himself conducted her, with renewed protestations that he loved her well enough to resign even then the alliance with Marie de Medicis, and to make her his wife.[92] This was precisely what the favourite still hoped to accomplish. She was aware of the extraordinary influence which she had obtained over the mind of her royal lover, and she looked forward to the birth of a son as the one thing necessary to her success. Accordingly, before she suffered the King to depart, she compelled him to promise that he would be near her during her illness; and then she reluctantly saw him set forth to Moulins, where he was detained for a fortnight, his council not being able to agree as to the expediency of the campaign.
There can be little doubt that under other circumstances Henry would have found means to bring them to a decision; but as he was enabled during their discussions to receive daily intelligence of the Marquise, he submitted quietly to a detention which seconded his own wishes.
At length the period arrived in which Madame de Verneuil was about to enforce her claim upon the tenderness of her royal lover, and already he spoke of returning for a while to Monceaux; when a violent storm, and the falling of a thunderbolt in the very chamber of the invalid, so affected her nervous system, that she lost the infant upon which she had based all her anticipations of greatness; and although the King hastened to condole with her upon her disappointment, and even remained in constant attendance upon her sick-bed until she was partially convalescent, the great link between them was necessarily broken; a fact of which she was so well aware that her temper gave way beneath the trial, and she bitterly upbraided her royal lover for the treachery of which she declared him to have been guilty in permitting his ministers to effect his betrothal with Marie de Medicis, when she had herself, as she affirmed, sacrificed everything for his sake. In order to pacify her anger, the King loaded her with new gifts, and consoled her by new protestations; nor did his weakness end there, for so soon as her health was sufficiently re-established, he wrote to entreat of her to join him at Lyons; although not before she had addressed to him a most submissive letter, in which she assured him that her whole happiness depended upon his affection, and that as she had too late become aware that his high rank had placed an inseparable barrier between them, and that her own insignificance precluded the possibility of her ever becoming his wife, she at least implored of him to leave to her the happiness of still remaining his mistress, and to continue to feel for her the same tenderness, with so many demonstrations of which he had hitherto honoured her.[93]
This was an appeal to which the enamoured monarch willingly responded, and the nature of her reception at Lyons tended still further to restore peace between them. What the Lyonnese had previously done in honour of Diane de Poitiers, when, as the accredited and official mistress of Henri II, she visited their city, they repeated in honour of Madame de Verneuil, whose entrance within their gates was rather that of a crowned queen than a fallen woman; and this triumph was shortly afterwards augmented by her reception of the standards taken by the King at Charbonnières, which he caused to be conveyed to her as a proof of his devotion, and which she, with ostentatious pomp, transferred to the church of St. Just.
From Lyons, Henry proceeded to Grenoble, still accompanied by Madame de Verneuil, the Duke of Savoy having at length declared that rather than submit to the conditions which had been proposed to him, he would incur the hazard of a war. In consequence of this decision, immediate measures were taken by the French generals to march upon Saluzzo; and the Maréchal de Biron, although already strongly suspected of disaffection to his sovereign, having collected a body of troops, possessed himself of the whole territory of Brescia. The town of Bourg was stormed by Du Terrail,[94] and taken, with the exception of the citadel; while M. de Créquy[95] entered Savoy, and made himself master of the city of Montmelian, although the castle still held out.
Henry then resolved to enter Savoy in person; and having once more taken leave of the Marquise, who returned to Lyons, he marched upon Chambéry, which immediately capitulated; and thence he proceeded to possess himself of the citadels of Conflans and Charbonnières, which had hitherto been deemed impregnable. M. de Savoie, who had confided in the strength of his fortresses of Montmelian and Bourg, and who had continued to affect the most perfect indifference to the approach of the French troops, now became seriously alarmed, and made instant preparations to relieve the Marquis de Brandis, the governor of the former fortress, for which purpose he applied to Spain for assistance. This was, however, refused; and both places fell into the hands of the French monarch, who then successively took Chablais and Faussigny; after which he sat down before the fortress of St. Catherine, which the Savoyards had erected to overawe the Genevese.[96]
During the siege of Fort St. Catherine, intelligence reached the King of the arrival of the young Queen at Marseilles; and meanwhile the gratification of the Pope at an alliance so flattering to his pride had been of essential benefit to the French interest, as he had, in consequence, made no demonstration in favour of the Duke of Savoy, although it was not entirely without anxiety that he had seen the army of Henry approach his own dominions; but, satisfied that at such a conjuncture the French monarch would attempt no aggressive measures against Italy, he had consented to remain passive.
Madame de Verneuil was no sooner apprised of the landing of Marie de Medicis than, after having vehemently reproached the King for a haste which she designated as insulting to herself, she made instant preparations for her return to Paris, resolutely refusing to assist at the ceremonious reception of the new Queen; nor could the expostulations of Henry, even accompanied, as they were, by the most profuse proofs of his continued affection, induce her to rescind her determination. To every representation of the monarch she replied by reminding him that out of all the high nobles of his Court, he had seen fit to select the Duc de Bellegarde as the bearer of his marriage-procuration to the Grand Duke of Florence--thus indemnifying him to the utmost of his power for the mortification to which he had been subjected by the royal refusal to permit him to act personally as his proxy; while she assured him that she was not blind to the fact that this selection was meant as an additional affront to herself, in order to avenge the preposterous notion which his Majesty had adopted, that, after having previously paid his court to the Duchesse de Beaufort during her period of power, the Duke had since transferred his affections to the Marquise de Verneuil.
Under all circumstances, this accusation was most unfortunate and ill-judged, and should in itself have sufficed to open the eyes of the monarch, who had, assuredly, had sufficient experience in female tactics to be quite aware that where a woman is compelled mentally to condemn herself, she is the most anxious to transfer her fault to others, and to blame where she is conscious of being open to censure. Madame de Verneuil had not, however, in this instance at all miscalculated the extent of her influence over the royal mind; as, instead of resenting an impertinence which was well fitted to arouse his indignation, Henry weakly condescended to justify himself, and by this unmanly concession laid the foundation of all his subsequent domestic discomfort.
Madame de Verneuil returned to Paris, surrounded by adulation and splendour, and the King was left at liberty to bestow some portion of his thoughts upon his expected bride. It is probable, indeed, that the portrait of Marie
