The making of a king (25 page)

suit the King's humour. By November Henri's folly had reached such a height that, despairing of bringing him to reason, the Prince had taken the strong measure of removing his wife from temptation by carrying her off to Landrecies and placing himself under the protection of the Archduke, representative of the King's irreconcilable Spanish foes.

The step could not fail to rouse Henri to fierce anger. The world-wide publicity given to a private scandal to which he must have felt that disgrace attached ; the fact that it was in hostile territory that his cousin had taken refuge— all combined to embitter his wrath ; and his resentment was great towards the Power that had afforded shelter to the fugitives. To attribute, as some authorities are inclined to do, his decision to enter upon a European war to a frustrated intrigue is, however, another matter ; and is, to say the least, a manifest exaggeration. He was ready for war ; Sully was ready for war ; the finances of the country admitted of it ; and though the episode may have served to precipitate matters, it can have done no more.

Two parties, of course, existed in the State — a war and a peace party — the men who would have encouraged the King to pass his days in the inglorious pursuit of pleasure and those who, like Sully, contrasting his brilliant past with what had followed it, would have had their master vindicate his old reputation, and, almost singlehanded — a twelve years' truce had been concluded between Spain and the Netherlands—show that he was still the victor of Ivry and could withstand the tyranny the house of Austria was seeking to establish.

From an engraving by I'. Audonin, after the picture by Pourbus.

HENRI IV. P. 184]

A singular conversation is recorded, when Henri took Sully's advice as to the two courses open to him ; the minister assuring him, as he recommended the harder and steeper path, that should he elect to tread it and to declare war, sufficient funds were available to supply an army of forty thousand men for three years, without fresh taxes.

" Not wishing to interrupt you," the King asked, "how much money do I possess, for I have never known ? "

" Guess, Sire," replied the Minister of Finance. " How much do you think you have ? "

" Twelve millions ? " hazarded Henri.

" A little more," was the reply.

" Fourteen ?" said the King, raising the figure two millions at a time, until, when the sum of thirty had been reached, he embraced the Duke and refused to go further.

It was a proud moment for Sully as, demonstrating the amplitude of the funds at his disposal, he unfolded the great schemes he cherished. They might have been carried out had Ravaillac not intervened. One imagines that the heart of the great soldier must have

irnt within him as he contemplated the possibilities

war would afford. But a death on the battle-field r as to be denied him.

War was plainly a necessity, unless the house of

.ustria was to be permitted to establish the autocracy ;o which it aspired. The death of the Duke of Cleves had left, in Henri's phrase, all the world heir to his rich inheritance. In the absence of any one with a direct and undisputed right to the provinces he had

possessed, both the Emperor and certain of the German Protestant princes laid claim to them. It was not difficult to foresee that the matter would not be decided without recourse to arms, and to Henri the opponents of Spain looked, as to their natural leader. In spite of less worthy preoccupations, the King was deeply concerned with the question of the future. Sully was equally anxious ; and there were long conversations between the two when, leaning on the balcony at the Arsenal which overlooked the Seine and a large part of Paris, the King no doubt discussed with the minister the chances of the approaching struggle. Would the United Netherlands again throw themselves into the conflict ? What would be the attitude of the new Grand Duke of Tuscany, who, on succeeding his father, had lost no time in displaying his Spanish proclivities ?

With regard to such matters, King and minister must have been for the most part in full accord. Yet, if Malherbe is to be believed, and there is no reason to doubt it, a serious quarrel took place at this very time between them, caused, on this occasion, by a less creditable feature in Sully's character than the uncompromising rectitude which had at other times brought him into collision with his master. A certain office had fallen vacant, and Sully, having demanded the disposal of it, was referred by the King to young Vendome and his mother-in-law, to whom it had been already awarded, and who consented at once to relinquish their claims. Annoyed that the boy had treated a matter of importance so lightly, Henri expressed his displeasure ; whereupon Vendome retorted

that M. de Sully was too powerful to be refused, and that, had the post in question been worth double, he would have handed it over to him. A quarrel with the Duke followed, and the King, entering his wife's apartment, gave vent to his irritation. Sully, he said, had at last made himself insufferable, and could no longer be borne with. Once more the hopes of those who hated the minister were raised. Once more they were destined to be dashed to the ground. " On the morrow," records Malherbe, " the King gave him a better reception than ever."

In another direction Henri had at length made what appeared to be a permanent break with his past. Whether Madame de Verneuil would ever have regained her ascendancy cannot be determined. For the time she had lost it. In the same letter which mentions the passing quarrel with Sully, the poet stated that the Marquise had been a month at a village not more than a league from Paris, but that no meeting had taken place between her and the King. Her day was over. Did she, or did she not, avenge herself by making once again common cause with his enemies ? The question has never been satisfactorily answered.

In addition to cares of State ; to the necessity of taking thought for the coming campaign ; to the resistance he was opposing to the pressure brought to bear upon him by his wife and others with regard to the Spanish proposals ; to private annoyances and vexations, Henri was also, as ever, ceaselessly confronted by the spectre of treachery. Stories — some false, some true—were afloat. A book in gilt binding and containing signatures written in blood had been

caught sight of. Quickly concealed, it had not become known to what the signatories were pledged; but sinister explanations were suggested. And, again, a band of men, armed and mgunted, were said to have been seen in the forest near Saint-Germain. Taken separately, such rumours might have been disregarded. Viewed in conjunction with other circumstances, and interpreted by the light of current prophecies, they were not without their effect upon men's minds and nerves.

The year 1610 was come. It was the last spring that father and son were to spend together; and, pending the separation the coming campaign would bring, it is evident that they were constant companions. The subject of the projected war was in all men's thoughts, and was freely discussed in the schoolroom at the Louvre.

" If the King, my father, should go to Flanders, would the King of Spain seize upon France ?" asked the Dauphin, interrupting a lesson in history to apply its teaching to questions of more immediate interest.

" What insolence!" he exclaimed, another time, when the Chevalier de Vendome, bragging, asserted that he alone was to accompany the King to the field of battle. "None but he to go ! " It would be seen that it would be otherwise— that Louis himself would ride forth on the white horse given him by M. le Grand, and would take the Prince de Conde prisoner.

Pending the opportunity of sharing in practical warfare, the Dauphin was fain to be content with playing with his toy soldiers at home.

" You will always be a child, Monsieur," Souvre told him once.

" It is you who keep me one," retorted the boy, with anger.

The charge was more likely to be true of others than of the gouverneur. Souvre was plainly anxious, now and afterwards— perhaps over-anxious—to induce his pupil to put away childish things. But there were doubtless those, especially at a later date, who would have preferred that Louis should confine his attention to toys rather than direct it to matters of greater importance. In some degree and measure they were successful, but if he was childish in some respects, he was not without considerable natural intelligence, and was keenly observant of what went on around him. He might resign himself, for the time, to be ruled "by those placed over him ; he looked forward, none the less, to a day of emancipation.

As he lay in bed, apparently engrossed by the miniature engines with which he was playing, he listened to a dispute between Madame de Montglat, representing the past, and M. de Souvre, in the possession of the present; his comment indicating the trend of his reflections.

" I may say," asserted the ex-gouvernante, " that Monseigneur the Dauphin belongs to me. The King gave him to me at his birth, saying, * Madame de Montglat, here is my son, whom I give you. Take him.' "

" He belonged to you for a time," admitted Souvre. " Now he is mine."

" And I hope," put in the small bone of contention

without raising his voice or-intermitting his occupation, " I hope that one day I may be my own."

Again and again, during these last months of his father's life, his old dislike of Sully is displayed. At the Arsenal he was a frequent visitor, at the Arsenal he made his first appearance in a public ballet, dancing before the assembled Court ; but to Sully personally he was as ungracious as before, notwithstanding the minister's evident wish to propitiate the good-will of his master's son.

" Monsieur, would you like some money ?" he asked his little guest as he was walking in the garden one spring day. " But tell me if you would," he urged, as the boy answered contemptuously in the negative.

" If you wish to give any, let it be taken to M. de Souvre," answered Louis coldly, refusing to accept the personal favour, and gathering some blossoming sprays from a tree near at hand.

The Duke declined to be discouraged.

" When you come here again, Monsieur," he said, " you will find a hundred purses full of crown pieces upon that tree which you admire."

" It will be a fine tree," answered the boy indifferently, without giving it a glance.

" C'est un glorieux," he said, angered by the exclusion of some of his attendants from an entertainment at the Arsenal.

Louis was wrong. Sully was no braggart. If he was proud he had much to be proud of. The end of his wise administration, the close of the toil that had done so much for France and for its King was at hand.

CHAPTER XV 1610

The spring of 1610—Predictions of evil —The Queen's approaching Sacre — Henri's fears— Omens of misfortune—Marie de Medicis crowned at Saint-Denis.

THAT spring of 1610, as it advanced, was a time of excitement and unrest. The air was full of contradictory expectations and reports. All had been made ready for a great and decisive struggle for European supremacy. The combatants stood over against each other, leaning as it were upon their swords, until the signal should be given for the fight to begin. Men, in all lands, were looking forward, with hope and fear, to the result.

At Paris, and throughout France, a curious sense of uncertainty prevailed, and a consciousness of impending disaster was widely diffused. The atmosphere was thick with prophecies of evil. It was pre-eminently an age of soothsayers, and reiterated forecasts of calamity were remembered when the blow had fallen and the King was dead. Nor can it be denied that a singular unanimity prevailed, amongst the seers who claimed to interpret omens and to discern the future, as to some danger, now vague, now more sharply defined, overhanging France and its King.

More and more was the King's mind becoming clouded by presentiments of doom, by forebodings that, so far as he was personally concerned, the preparations for war would be fruitless.