The making of a king (10 page)

to be on her guard against their undue increase, and was in especial to prevent their acquiring a foothold on the frontiers.

If the measure had been taken by Henri partly in the hope of ensuring peace and quiet it was not destined to fulfil that object. He was to enjoy little respite from danger and anxiety, so far as public affairs were concerned.

At home a semi-breach with the Marquise de Verneuil might again have afforded Marie de Medicis a chance, had she known how to avail herself of it, of strengthening her own influence. Being, to quote M. Dussieux, " une des femmes les plus completement ennuyeuses et maladroites qui se puissent imaginer," she let the opportunity slip ; and by May 1604 the King, angry and distrustful of the Marquise, but incapable of freeing himself from her fetters, was bent upon summoning her to Fontainebleau and supplying her with every facility for clearing herself from the fresh doubts he entertained of her fidelity and of her complicity in the designs of his enemies. Furthermore, he required of the Queen that the Marquise and her children should be graciously received at the palace, and that the Dauphin and his sister should be brought thither from Saint-Germain to be present on the occasion.

It could not be expected that Marie should submit without a struggle. Apart from personal feeling, she

d good reason to refuse to countenance the King's infatuation. Ever on the watch to seize an advantage, her rival was doing her best, in view of Henri's death, and perhaps that of the Dauphin, form a party in the State which would support

her, should an opportunity occur. Sillery, about to become Chancellor, was gained over and could not be counted upon to oppose his master in any project, however prejudicial to his wife and heir ; and at the present moment Madame de Verneuil was engaged in the endeavour to induce the widowed Duchesse de Longueville — who betrayed iier to the Queen — to marry the young Duke to her little daughter. The boy was the representative of one of the first four houses of France, and a match between him and Catherine de Ven-dome had been in question. The living, however, the Marquise boasted, were of more account than the dead, and her daughter might well be preferred to Gabrielle's. Five great personages, she told the Duchess, had pledged themselves to forward her interests. At present their names were suppressed, but she promised to supply them were the marriage arranged. Though when the King broached the subject to Marie herself she merely replied that the donzella might seem over-young, she was none the less much disturbed, according to the Florentine envoy, both by the special matter at issue and by the small amount of affection displayed by the King for herself and her son.

She determined that, at all events, her children should not be brought to Fontainebleau to be placed on an equality with those of the Marquise, to suffer comparisons possibly to their disadvantage, and to run the risk of being treated with even less distinction by their father. Reports were current of the Marquise's boasts, and of how, when the Dauphin was discussed and praised in her presence, she declared her son was the handsomer of the two, and would have the

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Domestic Friction 71

tronger arms. The Queen resolved that the hildren should not meet, sending strict instructions that her boy should be detained at Saint-Germain on the pretext of a cold.

With regard to the Marquise's visit a sharp contest ensued. Henri was bent upon carrying his point and having her received at Fontainebleau ; the Queen was equally determined. Messages between husband and wife were exchanged through Sillery, who told Marie, on the King's behalf, that she was preparing the Dauphin's ruin by her conduct, since Madame de Verneuil would be in a position to plead the Queen's hatred of her and her children, and Henri would be compelled to guarantee her safety by according her the governments and strongholds she demanded.

To this menace Marie retorted by saying that, in the event of his carrying it out, it would be the King, rather than herself, who would work ruin to the Dauphin and the realm. Neither was inclined to yield, and in the end Henri mounted his horse and rode forth to meet the Marquise, on her way to the palace, leaving Rosny to intervene in the dispute and to endeavour to induce his wife to consent, if only for a day, to the proposed visit.

Such was the condition of things when Rosny, Sillery, and Villeroy, Secretary of State, met in consultation. The Privy Council, called together at Fontainebleau, were not unnaturally indignant that the transaction of public affairs should be thus interrupted. It was important to arrange an armistice,

not a lasting peace, between the domestic belligerents, ressure was brought to bear upon the Queen to

persuade her to give way and to abandon a line of conduct undeniably capable of being used by the Marquise to her detriment and that of her son.

Marie, thus pressed, submitted. Though under protest, she consented to receive her rival, for a single day, at the palace. The sacrifice was, after all, not demanded of her. Having met the Marquise at one of the stages of her journe*y, and too impatient to await the arrival of the courier who was to convey the Queen's decision, the King accompanied the travelling party to Paris, a visit to Saint-Germain serving as a transparent excuse for the journey.

On his return to Fontainebleau the Queen was in a more placable mood. Having behaved with dignity and self-restraint in an intolerable position, she had enlisted public opinion on her side, and the consciousness of support may have softened her. Rosny, showing himself in especial her friend, told his master, in his usual plain language, that had he not to deal with any one as good and prudent as the Queen, he would find that his neglect of her, for the sake of a woman who had no other object save that of troubling the realm and injuring the Dauphin, was calculated to operate to his own disadvantage. The Queen's behaviour, he added, had won her praise and consideration from all.

Thus admonished, Henri admitted that the Marquise indulged mischievous plans and ideas, and assured the minister that he had no thought of entrusting her with governments or strongholds. Peace was restored, and for a brief space tranquillity reigned at the palace. The King had finally determined upon the step—

always urged by Marie—of removing the Verneuil children from their mother's hands and placing them at Saint-Germain, where the boy would no longer be available as an instrument for those hatching treasonable schemes. The events of the summer were to prove that the measure was not unnecessary.

During the month of June facts were brought to light rendering certain what had been matter of suspicion—namely, the plot called by the name of its chief promoter, the Sieur d'Entragues, father to the Marquise. The main feature of this fresh conspiracy was an arrangement with de Taxis, late Spanish Ambassador at Paris, to the effect that the unfortunate promise of marriage, now in the hands of d'Entragues, should be consigned to King Philip, who was to act as protector of the Marquise's son and to recognise in him the heir to the French throne. ^Child and mother were to take refuge in the Spanish Netherlands ; whilst the lives of the King and the Dauphin were to be attempted by the once-pardoned traitor, Auvergne.

The plot was discovered in time, and was promptly exposed. Conducted through an English agent named Morgan, it came to the ears of James I., was revealed by him to Henri without delay, and was thus Kistrated. As to the guilt of d'Entragues and Auvergne there uld be no question. Both, indeed, in turn avowed Madame de Verneuil was brazen in her denial complicity, but no one believed her. Yet Henri, helpless in the hands of a woman he knew in his heart to be false in every sense of the word, again strove to ,ve her and her kin from the consequences of their

crimes. The Council would have shown a wholesome seventy and have put the culprits to death ; but the King barred the way. Should 'her father and brother lose their lives—even were the Marquise herself permitted to escape—what connection would be possible in the future between her and the man who had acted as their executioner ? If they were to live, however, one step was proved to be absolutely necessary, and this the King took. Formally, and before witnesses, d'Entragues was forced to surrender the document which had been the cause of so much trouble. The promise of the King to marry her rival was at last placed in the Queen's hands, and a principal weapon was wrested from her rival. By the formal legitimation of the Verneuil children Henri also accentuated the irregularity of their birth.

Once again his enemies had failed in their attempts to destroy him. Nevertheless the discovery of their intrigues had been a shock ; and in a mood of dejection the King spoke to the Due de Montpensier of the designs upon his life and the chances that his wife and son would be left unprotected ; embracing the Duke with tears in his eyes when he gave him the assurance that, in case of disaster, his life and fortune would be placed at the feet of the Dauphin and his mother.

Meantime little Verneuil, the unconscious figurehead of the conspiracy, was relegated to a place of safety. By the middle of June he and his sister were installed at Saint-Germain, where the King and Queen were staying at the time.

The introduction of his new playfellows to the

Daup

The de Verncuils at the Chateau 75

auphin took place one evening when supper was in progress.

" Monsieur/' some one told him, " here is another fefe [brother] come to see you."

" Yet another/#?? " he replied. « Where is he ? "

He looked hard at the new-comers as they were brought in. Then, lifted down from his chair, he advanced coldly to bestow a greeting upon the little boy, who, perhaps tired by his journey, and ill at ease in his new surroundings, remained leaning against the arm of a chair, his eyes on the ground, refusing to respond to his host's advances. And thus the acquaintance was inaugurated.

The Queen had carried her point. The small pretender was in safe keeping— his mother deprived, to quote the Tuscan resident, of " la mercanzia della sua bottega." Yet the arrangement was not unattended by disadvantages, and the very fact that the Marquise's children and their servants were under the same roof as her own son and daughter occasioned the Queen no little disquiet. It was known that, to ensure her children's welfare, Madame de Verneuil had done her best to propitiate those in charge of the Dauphin ; and Marie was haunted by alarm lest opportunities should offer to work ill to the boy. The apprehension, in days when poison was freely used, was not altogether chimerical, and a letter addressed to her by a devote, amed the Madre Passitea, had quickened her fears. Twice, according to this lady, had the Dauphin, through the mercy of God, escaped this special peril. The same danger now threatened him, and none could