The making of a king (18 page)

Such was the letter, summarised, sent to Henri at Chantilly. That Marie's complaint should have been, however reluctantly, endorsed by Sully testifies to the presence of a danger, if a shadowy one, still existing with regard to the rights of the royal children. It could, under these circumstances, be no matter of surprise that the Queen should protest ; that her remonstrance had been couched in terms of respect was something gained ; and Sully retired content with his afternoon's work. It had apparently not occurred to him that the wording of the communication would be likely to betray, to so acute an observer as Henri, that it was not the unassisted handiwork of his Italian wife. He was not long left in ignorance of the King's opinion of it.

" My friend," wrote Henri, " I have received the most impertinent letter possible from my wife. But [ am less offended with her than with the man who ictated it ; for I see very well that it is not written her own style. Therefore make inquiries and try to discover who is its author, for never again will I see him or love him."

On the receipt of this missive the Duke, as he himself observes, was a little startled and troubled. When the King returned to Paris he lost no time in visiting the Arsenal, demanding whether Sully had et gained the information he desired.

:

" I have no certainty on the subject as yet," returned the minister. " In two days, .however, I hope to give you a good account of it, and, did I know what were the contents of the letter, and your cause of offence, I should do so the sooner."

In reply Henri admitted that the letter was well written, full of good sen§e, humility, and submission, " mais qui me mord en riant, et me pique en me flattant." Taking it piece by piece, he could find nothing to object to ; but as a whole it angered him. It had, he was sure, been written maliciously and with the intention of causing him annoyance. Had his wife taken counsel with Sully himself, or another of his faithful servants, he would have been less offended. It would at all events have been done — as Sully had cautiously suggested— with a good intention.

Thus encouraged, the Duke made frank confession. He was the culprit by whom the letter had been composed, lest worse should have befallen. A prudent man, he had retained in his possession the original draft, and it was found, on comparing it with that received by the King, that Marie de Medicis, in copying it, had made certain alterations, rendering it less conciliatory and more calculated to produce irritation on the King's part. Henri had no desire to quarrel with Sully, and allowed himself to be pacified.

Sully was not to escape altogether the consequences of the incident. Since he was on the excellent terms it represented with the Queen, Henri desired to make further use of his services. He had been informed that on two occasions, when he himself had been absent on a hunting expedition, Marie had secretly visited the

Arsenal, had been shut up for more than an hour at a time with the minister in his wife's private apartment, issuing from the interview flushed and tearful, but in a manifestly friendly mood. As to the channel through which these facts had been made known to him—in case Sully might be inclined to dispute them—the King named as his informant the Duke's own daughter, the young Duchesse de Rohan, who had thought to gratify the King thereby. Sully was on no account to let the Duchess know that Henri had spoken of the affair, " for I should then no longer take the great pleasure I do in coming here, and she would tell me nothing more, did she know that I should repeat it to you. For I laugh and play with her as a child— though I do not find her like a child in intelligence, since she sometimes gives me very good advice, and is, besides, to be trusted to keep counsel; for I have confided several things to her, of which I have noticed that she has made no mention to you or to others."

What Sully thought of his domestic reporter is not recorded, any more than whether he yielded obedience to the King in concealing from the young Duchess his cognisance of her having acted in that capacity. He may, however, have regretted her communications ; since upon the strength of them he was now directed by Henri to use the influence he had acquired in the interests of peace.

In order to pave the way for a reconciliation with e Queen, Sully was first to approach Madame de Verneuil, in no wise as the King's representative or envoy, but as if acting on his own initiative, and to warn er—in the character of an anxious friend — that, did

9

she not amend her ways, she was incurring the risk of forfeiting the King's favour, in.which case he had reason to know that she would be deprived of her children and immured in a cloister. He was further to recount the principal delinquencies with which she stood charged—namely, that she spoke of the King himself with contempt, sought the*countenance and support of the house of Lorraine, and maintained a friendly intercourse with the traitors, her father and her brother, in spite of orders from the King to the contrary. Above all, she alluded to the Queen in improper terms, placed her son and daughter on a footing of equality with the royal children, and continued to allege, as her justification, the old promise of marriage declared null and void by the Parlement. These just causes of indignation to the Queen, giving rise as they did to constant quarrels, would no longer be tolerated by the King, and would drive him to transfer his affections elsewhere. A promise of amendment having been obtained from the Marquise, Sully was to proceed to the second portion of his task. Once again as of his own accord, he was to repair to the Queen, armed with her rival's submission ; to show her that conformity to the King's will was the best means of securing satisfaction to herself; in especial to represent the extreme objections entertained by her husband to the absolute domination exercised over her by the Concini—so embittering to the King's spirit that his other causes of complaint against her were thereby magnified; and to endeavour, by all the means in his power, to induce her to dismiss her Italian favourites. Should Sully succeed in this double enterprise, and

gain the victory over the two women, Henri protested that he would attach a greater value to the service than if he had captured, with all his cannon, the town and castle of Milan.

The unfortunate minister may well have felt that the last would have been the easier feat. Making fitting acknowledgment of the honour conferred by the tokens of his master's trust and confidence, he added that, should success attend his efforts, it would be by the favour of Heaven, rather than owing to his own wisdom and efforts; adding that, in his opinion, a simpler method would be best—that the exercise of the royal authority— nje le 'Deux from the King's own lips—would be a more certain means of obtaining what he desired. That means Henri could not be persuaded to take, and in the end little amelioration was effected in the condition of affairs.

CHAPTER XI

•

1608

Henri's affection for his children —The Dauphin's training—Birth of the Due d'Orleans— Marie de Medicis' complaints—Sully at Fon-tainebleau—The Turkish Ambassador and the Dauphin—Madame's rebuke.

WHEN the Queen, in the letter which had given her husband so much offence, had dwelt upon the endangered condition of her "poor children," adding the menace that, in case of necessity, they should be brought to add their entreaties to her own, and should seek, at their father's feet, the justice denied to herself, she displayed a comprehension of the arguments most likely to appeal to the man she addressed. If there were lucid intervals when Henri became dimly aware that Marie de Medicis had reason and right upon her side, his apprehension of her grievances had the coldness of an unloving husband. In the case of his children it was a different matter, and it was by pleading in their name that her best hope of success lay. The one meeting-point of husband and wife was supplied by the royal nursery. In the presence of the little group who inhabited it, it almost seemed that a truce was proclaimed, and a more harmonious atmosphere replaced the discordant and disintegrating elements at work elsewhere. Quick-

From an engraving, after the painting by Van Dyck.

HENRI IV. AND HIS FAMILY.

32]

witted as the Dauphin was, there was no sign that he had been allowed to discover that his father and mother were not at one, and the child loved them both. If the King's figure naturally loomed largest in his eyes, he was also manifestly fond of his mother. Both were his

The boy was in his sixth year, and growing to be of an age when the training he received was of increasing importance. To bring up a child well whose sense of his importance was necessarily brought home to him daily would, in any case, have been no easy task and in Madame de Montglat an unfortunate choice of a gouvernante had been made. Incapable of inspiring respect, she relied upon the use of the rod to enforce discipline.

In this it must be admitted that she and the King were in full accord. " I must complain of you," he once wrote—most unjustly, as Heroard's journal proves—" that I have not heard from you that you have whipped my son. For it is my will, and I command that he shall be whipped every time that he is stubborn or in any way ill-behaved ; being well aware personally that nothing in the world is so profitable, as I know by experience, for at his age I was

ich whipped. Therefore, I desire you, to do it, and

make him understand."

The admonition was unnecessary. The poor little Dauphin was " made to Understand" thoroughly well, the treatment he received at the hand of the gouvernante presenting a striking contrast to the deference shown by those who came to pay their respects

to the heir to the throne.

•

Whilst Queen and King were quarrelling at Paris, the children were staying at Fontainebleau, where on March I the boy, in an edifying mood, announced his intention of retiring into a corner to say his Paternoster whensoever he should be inclined to be wilful, so that the wicked angel might be put to flight. It had been a fleeting fit of virtue. On the very next morning Heroard, entering his charge's bedchamber, found him undergoing corporal punishment at the hands of Madame de Montglat, " who was in a passion with him," said the doctor, adding significantly, " and sorry that I had found the door open." A few hours later all had been rearranged with a view to effect, and the delinquent, as if he had never been acquainted with the whip, was receiving, in royal fashion, an envoy from the Elector Palatine, who was the bearer of a letter from his master containing his proffers of service and expressing the hope that the writer might merit the honour of the Dauphin's favour.