The making of a king (22 page)

Don Pedro had not made a successful beginning. Finding the King in no pliable humour, he had recourse to the Queen. Though Marie would doubtless have been glad to further Spanish interests, she received no encouragement from Henri to interfere in the matter. Let her not concern herself with it, he said ; he alone would settle this business. And when Don Pedro, making one blunder after another, gave a hint that sounded like a threat that Philip might make peace with the Netherlands in order to be at liberty to turn his arms against France, Henri's retort was ready. He would be in the saddle before the King of Spain had his foot in the stirrup.

It was clear that he was not to be induced, by menace or persuasion, to abandon his allies, and Don Pedro's mission was wholly unsuccessful. Some months later he left Paris by night, in order to escape from his creditors. Thus ended the visit of the solemn idiot.

Yet it was not without one result. It had placed King and Queen in definite opposition upon an

important question. At the moment it seemed that Henri had vindicated his authority and that his wife had little chance of seeing her favourite scheme carried out. But, as the sequel was to prove, the negotiations begun at the time of Don Pedro's mission were to end in the double marriage she desired.

CHAPTER XIII 1608 — 1609

Henri-Quatre preparing for war — Conciliates Concini —The Dauphin removed to the Louvre — His household — The King at the Arsenal — Sully under suspicion — His vindication — Henri and the Jesuits.

HENRI had asserted his determination to remain true to his pledges. He was neither to be bribed nor to be induced by threats to abandon the cause of the United Netherlands. The overtures of Spain having been rejected, it remained to make ready for a renewal of hostilities ; nor was Henri unwilling to face that contingency. To the autumn of this year belongs a characteristic letter to Sully, showing him preparing for what was to come with a quiet confidence in the righteousness of the cause in which, if fighting was to ensue, he would fight.

" I am always," he wrote, " in the same faith that God will perform a coup de sa main in this business, which men will not have expected, and in contravention to all their designs. I have seen this happen for thirty years, and ever to my advantage. May it continue thus with reference to this affair, and may my faults and my ingratitude not serve as a hindrance ! "

The next letter shows him supplementing the divine assistance he invoked by a careful watch upon

domestic foes.

161

" Since M. de Mayenne and those of Antibe," he told Sully, " desire to overcharge me for their lands, I will permit them to sell to whomsoever they will. But I will put a Governor into the fortress who, devoted to me, will give them some, uneasiness in the enjoyment of their possessions."

Firm and upright where public interests were concerned, the contrast presented by his conduct in private affairs is thrown into the more vivid and melancholy relief. In such matters he was destitute of the moral sense, as well as of a regard for what was due to his position and dignity. It was matter of increasing notoriety that the position held by the Queen's Italian favourites was a source, if not of danger, of scandal, and that their influence could not fail to be productive of trouble. Had Henri acted upon Sully's suggestion, and determined, by the simple exercise of sovereign power, to dismiss them, he would have had all the wisdom of France on his side. Even his enemies could not have found a pretext for condemnation. If he had been personally blameless it can scarcely be doubted that he would have adopted this method of securing a better chance of domestic peace and concord. But, underlying resentment at his wife's conduct, a consciousness that he had deprived himself of a moral right to interpose, may, co-operating with a fear of retaliation on her part, have prevented him from taking the sole dignified course. He resorted, instead, to the unworthy expedient of bribing the man he hated and despised. The insinuation of the Italian Resident that, were it not for s the opposition of the French nobles, the j King might have bestowed

Conchino de Conchnnm Vifconte, .^__...... _

!E>arm dcLisigmJdarcchdl dc Trance.- GouuemcurjwurS(L Maiefttdcf Ttiles ct Gtadefar ddmieruX

From an engraving by B. Mov.tornet.

CONCINO CONCINI, MARQUIS D*ANCRE. p. 162]

The King and Concini 163

a post of as much importance as a government upon Concini, as well as his consent to act as sponsor to his child, finds an explanation in a further report that, despairing of persuading the Queen by other means to admit the Marquise to Court, he had abased himself to conciliate her favourite, in the hope of thus obtaining his object.

The terms upon which the two appear to have been in August of this year tend to corroborate the discreditable report. The Court was at Fontainebleau when Concini, perceiving, or imagining that he perceived, a coolness in the King's demeanour towards him, did not hesitate to demand an explanation.

" Your Majesty," he complained, has something against me, since you do not show me your accustomed favour. This does not matter, as in whatever way you may treat me I am honoured. It is the cause that makes me uneasy, for it cannot but be false. For this reason I entreat you to inform me of it, that truth may triumph."

Answering that the Italian was mistaken, that his thoughts had merely been otherwise occupied, Henri gave him a fresh proof of good-will by according him, for the first time, the honour of a seat in his carriage ; and later on in the year he is found dining at the palace Concini had caused to be erected in Paris.

Yet he was keenly alive to the situation and the con-

quences that might result from it.

u You see that man ?" he once said to those around when the favourite, having been sent by the Queen to im on some matter of business, had withdrawn. " It

is he who will govern when I am gone, and things will not go the better for it."

Weary, perhaps, of strife, he had, however, ceased to combat what he recognised as a danger. The policy of conciliation he adopted was successful, so far, at least, as outward appearances went; and the Queen's open indignation was replaced by an attitude of toleration and acquiescence.

" I showed your letter to my wife," wrote Henri to Madame de Verneuil in September, " asking her advice as to my reply "—in reference to a demand on the part of the Marquise that her children should be allowed to visit her. " I watched her face to see whether she would display emotion whilst she read your letter, as I had perceived was the case on other occasions when you were spoken of. She answered, without any change of countenance, that it appeared to her that I ought to indulge you in this. All the rest of the evening she was very cheerful."

During the same month he wrote again in the same sense. Mischief-makers found that the Queen would no longer listen to them. She had inquired after Henri de Verneuil —who had apparently been ill—and had said that his mother must have been very uneasy.

The Queen's new departure is capable of more than one interpretation. It might be the result of lassitude ; she also, tired of fighting a losing battle, might have abandoned the struggle. On the other hand, there are those who explain it in a more sinister fashion. " This profound dissimulation alarms me," writes M. Dussieux. " I fear that the idea of vengeance had

at this time entered into the heart of the Queen and her too-dear Concini ; and that the latter was already preparing that of which his contemporaries, the friends of the King, loudly accused him."

At Saint-Germain, meanwhile, the Dauphin was passing the last months of the period when, as a child, he would be left to the care of women. He had been provided with the companionship of a group of boys of his own age, the sons of nobles, who, with their respective tutors, were placed at the chateau. Of this little company Louis was the head, regulating the management of his household according to his own ideas of justice. " You are their master," Heroard told him. " When they do wrong you must rebuke them, and for their punishment tell them that, unless they are good, you will love them no longer. The King has placed them here with you in order that they may learn to love and serve you. They all belong to great and wealthy houses."

To threaten his companions with the loss of his affection did not appear, to the disciplinarian of seven, a sufficient penalty for their misdeeds. He had himself been trained by means of corporal punishment, and he was not disinclined to enforce the use of it in the case of lesser delinquents. Torigny, in the course of a game, had given a blow to a playmate. It was true, Torigny might plead that he had not done it intentionally ; but he must be taught to be more careful.

" Whip the Comte de Torigny," the Dauphin said, issuing his orders to the culprit's tutor. " You must have the whip, Comte de Torigny," he added, addressing him with the formality becoming the gravity

of the occasion. It was useless to point out that the offence had been unpremeditated. He adhered to his verdict.

" But," pleaded Heroard, " you will command his tutor not to whip him, on condition he does it no more."

Louis was relentless.

" I do it," he said, " in order that it may not happen again."

The companionship of the boys carried with it drawbacks, and there were times when the Dauphin's unsocial instincts asserted themselves, and he wearied of being the centre of the group.

u Let me go into your room, mamanga, and write," he once asked, ceasing to play. " They do nothing but pester me. One pulls me ; the other pushes me ; another whispers in my ear. I know not where to turn."

At the miniature Court there were also rivalries as to the favour of the master, treated by Louis with discretion.

" Which do you like best, Monseigneur," asked the little Marquis de Mortemart—" M. de Liancourt or me ? "

" I like you both," he replied impartially. " Stand you there, and you there, Liancourt."

The milestones marking life at Saint-Germain were the visits of the King. The boy's affection for his father, if less demonstrative than in earlier days, was growing and strengthening.

" What, my son ? " Henri asked, when, as he was quitting the chateau on one occasion, Louis conducted

him in silence to the stairs ; " you have not a word

to say ? You do not kiss me when I am leaving

ii you.

A crowd was around them. Quietly, and concealing his tears lest they should be observed, the child wept. As Henri saw it his face changed, and, himself not far from weeping, he took him in his arms, kissed and embraced him.

" I will say, as God says in the Holy Scriptures," he told the boy, f< c My son, I rejoice to see those tears ; I will have regard to them.''

The King gone, Louis returned hastily to his apartments, still unwilling that his emotion should be observed. To Heroard's question as to the King's farewell words he returned a short answer :