The making of a king (28 page)

The messenger was well chosen. Repairing to the Augustines, where the Parlement was then sitting, Epernon executed the Queen's behests.

" It is still in the scabbard," he said insolently, as he indicated his sword. " Should the Queen not be declared Regent before the assembly disperses, it must be drawn, and I foresee that blood will be shed." It was no time for deliberation. The thing must be done without delay.

Taken by surprise, the Parlement maintained at first a gloomy silence. They were required to give their consent to an unprecedented arrangement, in conferring supreme power upon the Queen alone, to the exclusion of Princes of the Blood and officers of the Crown. But in the end they yielded, and, Epernon having left the hall in order to give the semblance of greater freedom to their decision, it was resolved to do Marie's bidding and declare her Regent during the minority of her son. Not only was she to rule ; by the words "avec toute puissance et autorite," her power was made absolute.

The fear lest the murder should prove part of a wide-spread conspiracy may have accelerated the movements of the Parlement : there were no grounds

for the apprehension. Paris remained quiet, nor was there any sign of riot or disorder. Louis was King. As the tidings of the catastrophe spread, he had been hurried back to the palace, breaking into weeping, and exclaiming that, had he been with his father, he would have slain the murderer with his sword. That evening he was served by his attendants on their knees. Surprised by the novelty, he first gave a laugh ; then, as the significance of the ceremonial became apparent to him, burst into tears.

cc I would I were not King," he cried. " I would it were my brother. I fear they will kill me, as they have killed the King, my father."

Little Orleans, hardly more than three, whom Louis would have liked to take his place, had shown a spirit beyond his years ; asking for a dagger, and crying out that he would not outlive his papa. The Queen described the scene at her dinner-table, and the story leaked out and was repeated in Paris ; where it was also said that astrologers predicted a great future for the second son of the dead King ; he would succeed his brother, and would avenge his father, as he was ever speaking of doing. He was likewise to be the Pope's foe — to ruin Rome and to drive his Holiness out of it. Which, being repeated to his mother, she said that, did God give her life, she would prevent this prediction from coming to pass.

When Louis—reported not to be of so high a spirit as his brother, though generous and soldierly — was undressed that night and prepared for bed, he begged to be permitted to sleep with M. de Souvre.

" Lest dreams should come to me," he said fearfully.

Lest dreams should come. Surely, throughout his life, the memory of that fourteenth of May, and of the dead father he loved so well, will have haunted his imagination like a nightanare.

His request was granted, and in the room of the gouverneur he slumbered till past eleven, when the Queen, anxious to have all her children under her eye, sent to fetch him to her chamber, where his brothers and sisters were gathered together, closely guarded. It is to be noted, as a curious trait of kindness on her part towards the son of the woman who had wrought her so much ill, that Marie directed that Henri de Verneuil, who had borne Louis company, should be likewise brought to her apartments, thus associating him with her care for her own children.

For Marie, as for her son, a fresh period of life had been opened by the King's death. Into the much-debated question of the complicity or connivance of mo"e important personages in Ravaillac's crime there is no space to enter at length. Theories are numerous; hypotheses abound ; and it would take a volume to deal with them in any complete fashion. The suggestion has been hazarded that, apart from the murderer and destitute of any collusion with him, a conspiracy existed which might have done the work had he failed to accomplish it, in which Epernon, the Marquise, and others were implicated. What is certain is that there were many to whose designs Henri was an obstacle, and to whom he barred the way to success. To Spain, he was the one great opponent of her ambitious schemes. To adherents of the ancient faith he represented, his personal Catholicism notwithstanding,

the leader and chief support of the Protestant party in Europe. Madame de Verneuil will have bitterly resented his defection. His wife had little reason to mourn him. To her favourites his death left the road to unlimited wealth and power open. But the fact that any person was benefited by the crime is no proof that they lent a hand to compass it; and other evidence of their guilt must be sought.

Neither is the sentence dictated by popular prejudice conclusive. Upon the Jesuits, for instance, disliked and distrusted, suspicion could not fail to fall ; and the tone of Lestoile's journal in itself is sufficient to indicate the view taken in the capital. " Pere Cotton," he writes, " with a truly courtier-like and Jesuitical exclamation, cried, c Who is the villain who has slain this good prince, this holy King, this great King ? Was it a Huguenot ? ' ' No/ was the answer, ' it was a Roman Catholic/ * Ah ! what pity if it be so,' he said, signing himself immediately, in Jesuit fashion, with three great signs of the cross. A voice was audible, coming from some one present who had heard Pere Cotton's question, saying, ' The Huguenots do not strike these blows.' '

How wide-spread was the implied accusation charging the Society with complicity in the murder, is curiously proved by a scene taking place in the house of the Comte de Soissons; when the Prince, in the presence of from twenty to thirty guests, threatened to stab the first of them bold enough to assert that the Order had been instrumental in procuring the King's death. He was aware, he added, that this was language common in the mouths of many ; the first

who should venture to use it in his presence should lose his life.

Suspicion, however wide-spread, is far from being evidence, and the questfon whether the assassin was a mere religious maniac, acting upon his sole initiative, in delivering, as he believed, the Church from her chief foe, or an instrument in the hands of others has never been satisfactorily determined. Ravaillac, whose avowal would have solved the mystery once for all, uttered no word, under torture or otherwise, that could elucidate it. He incriminated none. A passage of M. Zeller's—than whom no man is more qualified to pronounce an opinion — may be accepted as summarising the whole matter :

"All has been said with regard to the death of Henri-Quatre ; we will not repeat it. Whatever may be the mystery enveloping this fatal event, and however little belief may be accorded to vague or ill-founded theories, it can be said that Spain profited by the King's death, and that it secured the triumph of Marie de Medicis's personal policy, favourable to that Power. Further than this no document authorises us to go."

1 " Henri IV. et Marie de Medicis," p. 309.

CHAPTER XVII 1610

Louis's Accession—The scene in the Parlement—Sully at the Louvre— The Queen as Regent —The King's fears—Claims of the Comte de Soissons—Burial of Henri-Quatre —Louis proclaimed.

LOUIS was King. He might as yet be a cipher ; he was a cipher upon which hung the destinies of France. Yesterday he had been of practical importance to none save his immediate surroundings ; to-day the eyes of the whole nation were fixed upon him.

In the early morning of May 15 he was awakened that he might be prepared to play his part in the ceremonial of the day ; and before he rose M. de Souvre had instructed him in the speech he was to make to the assembled Parlement, which was to be asked to confirm the hurried decree of the previous day, and formally to declare the Queen-mother Regent.

Nobles and princes and officers of State had collected at the palace, preparatory to accompanying the new King to the Augustines. As the boy rode through the streets, surrounded by his brilliant escort and mounted on a little white nag, the youth and helplessness of the fatherless child appealed to the throng, and shouts of " Vive le roi ! " greeted him on every side. Bewildered and confused, he listened to the cries.

" Who is the King ?" he asked, turning to one of his attendants. " Who is the King ? "

All was accomplished according to the Queen's most sanguine anticipations. Ity a singular chance—fortunate so far as she was concerned—two of the three Princes of the Blood were absent from Paris. Conde was at a distance ; Soissons was also in the country. Conti was a nonentity. No one was at hand of sufficient weight to contest the claim of the King's mother to be invested with undivided authority. It has been seen that Epernon had set himself with passion to vindicate her claims. Sully, in default of the necessary support, was powerless to oppose them ; and, having reluctantly yielded obedience to reiterated summonses from the Queen, he assisted, sad at heart, at the inauguration of what he knew too well would prove the ruin of the labours of a life-time.

The ceremony was decorously carried through. Louis was seated on the throne ; his mother—an empty space between them—at his right hand. Souvre knelt on the steps below, and the great nobles were ranged on either side. Amid the silence of the expectant crowd the Queen opened the proceedings, pronouncing her speech with difficulty, her voice broken by sobs, and shedding great tears, "irreproachable witnesses of her inward mourning for her dear and well-beloved husband." Her speech concluded, she made as though she would have withdrawn ; then, yielding to the entreaties of those present, resumed her place; whilst her son, " with truly royal grace and gravity," addressed the great assembly.

Sleynt ce ft daunt eft 'Aariftae ta /t an tfjottis Clemens i^ape fie ftomf.et " ftpr-a nomine jLoituis tyyueiif *

e /' "'/• • / <£/ LOUIS XIII. ON THE DAY OF HIS ACCESSION.

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" Messieurs," he said, Ct it has pleased God to call to Himself our good King, my lord and father. I remain, as his son and by the law of this realm, your King. I hope that God will give me grace to imitate his virtues and to follow the good counsels of my good servants, as the Chancellor will tell

ii you.

Sully, listening mournfully to the little set harangue, will have told himself, as he told others, that Henri's death was rather a sign that the Almighty had determined upon the destruction of France. If those were present who secretly agreed with him no dissentient voice was raised. The decree already promulgated received formal confirmation ; and the Queen was declared Regent. One short passage of arms, not without significance, interrupted the proceedings. At a certain stage in them, Concini observed aloud that it was time for the Queen to leave her place.

"It is not for you to speak here," said the first President, Harlay, in stern rebuke. It was soon to be seen that it would be difficult to limit the insolence of the man the Queen delighted to honour.

Amidst the tearful acclamations of the crowd Louis rode homewards. The King's words, spoken on the morning of the day which saw his murder, had come true. The people, now that he was gone, knew what they had lost. Living, they might have found much