The making of a king (33 page)

By one person at least the prospect thus opened out was eagerly welcomed. Louis's imagination caught fire at the chance of exchanging his favourite lead soldiers for troops of flesh and blood, and he declared

that it would seem a thousand years to him till he was in the saddle. Looking at his reflection in a mirror, he asserted that he had doubled in size since the war had been in question.

He was doomed to disappointment. The appeal to arms was not made, and a hollow pacification was arranged with the Duke of Savoy.

CHAPTER XX 1611

Parties at Court —The Saumur assembly—Louis's tutors —Departure of Alexandre de Venddme —Matrimonial projects—Death of the Due d'Orl6ans— His burial — The Spanish marriages—Louis and Conde —Charles d'Albert de Luynes.

DURING the year 1611 the situation, so far as the rival powers in the State were concerned, remained practically unchanged. The same conflict of opposed interests prevailed ; the same principle —every one for himself—was in fashion. The most important development, amongst the parties with which the Queen had to reckon, was that Conde and Soissons had arranged a treaty of peace, binding themselves to make common cause in case of the disagreement of either with the Regent. The comparative security implied by the fact that the Princes of the Blood were in opposition to one another was over ; and they were united in hostility to the house of Lorraine, on the whole loyal to the Crown and the Regent. The condition of the Court, in these years, resembles nothing so much as a kaleidoscope, presenting continually shifting combinations, as the units belonging to one group detach themselves from it to join another, to which they are attracted by the all-powerful magnet of self-interest. Truth, loyalty,

fidelity, are almost non-existent. The aged Mayenne

alone, head of the house of Guise, once Henri's foe and after his defeat consistently loyal, maintained a different attitude, telling those engaged in the scramble for place, power, or money, that it was fil done to put the King's minority to ransom ; they should consider it reward enough to have done their duty at a time when they could not be compelled to perform it.

He spoke to deaf ears, and the ignoble struggle went on. The Princes of the Blood, Conde, Conti, and Soissons ; the ministerial party, Sillery and Villeroy at their head ; the Concini couple and their dependents ; Bouillon, Epernon, the Due de Bellegarde, and the whole house of Lorraine, were alike engaged in the contest, at times making a single-handed attempt to compass thei r ends, or else forming alliances, to be dissolved as soon as more advantageous ones offered.

The general assembly of the Protestants, held at Saumur, supplied an additional element of anxiety. Sully's removal and the rumours of the projected arrangement with regard to Spain had given rise to serious uneasiness in Huguenot quarters, and furnished those belonging to the Religion with a legitimate cause for apprehension that a radical change in the late King's policy towards them was in contemplation. But the meeting dispersed without having, on the whole, justified the fears entertained.

The question of the Spanish marriages was predominant in the Queen's mind ; and, though the negotiations were ostensibly kept private, reports of what was going forward could not fail to get abroad, giving rise to dismay in some minds, satisfaction in others. That the person chiefly concerned was

becoming reconciled to the idea is indicated by his reply when Marie, saying lightly that she wanted to get him married, inquired of Louis which of the two, Spain or England, he liked best.

The boy only replied to his mother with a smile ; but, turning to a bystander—

" Spain," he said, " Spain."

As to marriage, or any other question of importance, his preferences would have had little weight. In some respects they operated in the opposite direction to that he would have desired. Any liking he displayed for those about him was a danger-signal, since the formation of a strong attachment on his part would have been a menace to the future of those who held the reins of government ; and the fact that Louis is said to have felt " deplaisir " when Des Yveteaux was informed that his services were to be dispensed with may have been at least an additional reason for getting rid of him.

Divers causes were assigned for the tutor's dismissal. His religious views were reported to be unsound. The Queen had from the first been opposed — not, it appears, without reason — to his appointment. He had also spoken indiscreetly of Concini, and made unwise allusion to the King's majority. At any rate, he was to go, and took leave of his pupil, observing with bitterness that he had had the trouble and others would have the credit.

M. le F&vre, who was to replace Des Yveteaux, was a earned gentleman, close upon seventy, whose influence in years to come would not be a cause of disquiet. He enjoyed his post scarcely more than a year, dying suddenly in November 1613. When

he was formally presented by the Queen to her son, Louis's behaviour left nothing to be desired. The ministers of State, with Souvre and Soissons, were present on the occasion, and *the Queen having introduced the tutor, the Chancellor pronounced his eulogy, making the King the comprehensive promise that he would soon render him learned "sans 1'ennuyer." The King, for his part, appears to have conceived a kindly -feeling for the old man ; and when it was proposed to give him the room formerly occupied by Des Yveteaux, he interposed, saying there would be too many stairs, and pointing out another more fitting.

In spite of natural impulses of courtesy or kindness, Louis was not a scholar inclined to smooth the path of his teachers and render their task agreeable. The instruction they bestowed upon him was tried on its own merits and was not accepted in the spirit of the model pupil,

" Fleurence will tell me some more follies," he said crossly, of an ecclesiastic who filled the office of sous-precepteur. The remark was heard by the tutor — as it was probably meant to be — and he answered with acrimony.

" I would rather, Sire/' he said, " that you should hate me as an honest man than love me as a bad one. I could gain my livelihood in Turkey as well as with your Majesty."

The assertion was a strong one, especially at the date when it was made, but it may have been not unjustified. The preceptor was clearly at the end of his patience.

Louis had a special distaste for the lengthy sermons

inflicted upon him. Sometimes, it was true, he could strike a bargain with the preacher and induce him to place a limit to his eloquence. But this was not always in his power ; and the Feast of the Assumption, 1611, is an example of the religious observances imposed upon a child of nine. Taken to confession to Pere Cotton, he was kept an hour by the priest in the confessional ; after which he drove to the Augustines, received Holy Communion, and heard Mass, before touching four hundred and fifty sick for the King's Evil. The heat was intense ; and, almost fainting, so that his hands had to be bathed with wine, the boy was brought home and allowed a short respite in bed. In the afternoon he was again taken to church—this time to Saint-Andre-des-Arcs— to hear a sermon from the Abbe de Bour-geuil ; when, overcome by fatigue, he slept throughout the discourse, in spite of attempts to rouse him, asking plaintively whether there were no means of bringing his bed to the sermon. Nor were the day's devotions over till he had heard Vespers at the Cordeliers.

Shortly after Des Yveteaux's dismissal, another more grievous parting was to be inflicted on the boy. He had always loved Alexandre de Vendome; and his grief at the prospect of a separation had been allowed to prevail during the previous year, the Chevalier remaining at Paris. Now, however, it had been decided that he was to be removed, the Queen making a pretext of sending him to the headquarters of his Order at Malta. Her reasons were well understood, and when Conde, in conflict with her later, demanded that the Chevalier should be recalled, it was believed that his motive was not so

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much affection for the lad or the desire alleged to give pleasure to the King, as the injury to be thereby inflicted on the Queen, who had removed him from Court because his brother loved him.

Louis was at Saint-Germain when the blow fell. Since his transference to the Louvre his visits there had been few and short ; but he was fond of his little brothers and sisters — " mes enfants," as he would call them — and the comparative freedom of life at the chateau may have allured him. In July he had entreated his mother to allow him to spend a day there ; and Marie consented, though a deputation from the Protestant assembly demanded his presence in Paris, and he had, moreover, been guilty of a blunder in begging the Duchesse de Guise to add her supplications to his own. The Queen, as she told him reproachfully, would do it for love of him ; and what she would do for him she would do for no other person.

He gained his point ; the prisoner of State had a day's leave of absence, and the next morning he was early on the road. In August a longer visit was paid, and it was at Saint-Germain that he learnt that he was to be deprived of his favourite companion.

The day had begun ill. Having arranged a set of silver figurines as a miniature fair of Saint-Germain, he had been forced, in high dudgeon, to quit the game and go to his studies; when presently the Chevalier arrived at the chateau in tears, to fling himself on his knees before the King, begging that the Queen's orders that he should start for Malta might be rescinded.

" Have pity on me, Sire," he cried lamentably, " the

Queen wishes to remove me from your Majesty, and to send me to Malta."

" Ht \ " said Louis, manifestly startled. " What have you done to the Queen, my mother ?"

" Nothing, Sire," was the reply.

" What ! You will go upon the sea ?" asked Louis.

" Yes, Sire."

" Take good care of yourself," ordered the King. " Be the strongest when you go to war, and write to me often/'

It is easy to see that the boy recognised the futility of protest ; it had been his rule, from nursery days, to make no request that would meet with a refusal, and he was too proud to offer a useless resistance. But he wept bitterly. " It was great pity," says Heroard, " to hear his lamentations and tears, out of the affection he bore him." Calling him Zagaye — some childish nickname—he showed that, young as he was, he had divined the real motive at work.

"They want to take him away," he said, " because I love him."

There was no help for it. An hour later the Chevalier was gone; nor did the brothers meet again till four years had passed by.

The Queen was busy that summer. She was an inveterate match-maker; and, not content with disposing of her own children, she was bent upon arranging marriages for her Italian cousins. The Grand-duke of Tuscany had four daughters, and on their behalf, as well as on that of a daughter of her sister, the Duchess of Mantua, her efforts were indefatigable.

Young Montmorency, son to the Constable, was specially eligible. Henri had wished in vain to secure him for Gabrielle's daughter; he had gone through a form of marriage, afterwards annulled, with another bride ; and, being sixteen and a handsome lad, it was the Regent's desire to wed him to one of the Medicis sisters ; doing her best, when this scheme was abandoned, to present him with her Mantuan niece. Her brain was teeming with matrimonial projects. Her second daughter, Christine, might become Princess of Wales. Another Medicis could be wedded to the Duke of Savoy's heir, cheated by the Spanish scheme of his French bride.

In October an important addition was made to the crowned or royal personages crowding the marriage market. Margaret of Austria, Queen of Spain, died in childbirth, and Philip was a widower. His Ambassador at Paris received from him a letter " which would make stones weep," and the choice of another wife was at once discussed. Why, asked Campiglia, the Florentine envoy, should not Marie fill the dead Queen's place ? The question was put to her by the Tuscan less than a month after Margaret's death.

It was not the first time that the idea of remarriage had been broached to the Queen. An astrologer who was said to have predicted Henri's death to his master, the Duke of Savoy, had added that his highness would marry the King's widow and administer the government of France. Informed of the prediction shortly after the murder, Marie had dismissed the idea of any second marriage — even, as she added, should the King of Spain become a widower. Now that the

contemplated contingency had occurred, she treated the question lightly. She was, she told Campiglia, too well pleased with her present position to have any wish to change it. Even when the minority should be nominally over, she would remain for years mistress in France ; and would afterwards have become too old.

Meantime, death was busy amongst those connected with her. In September her sister died. Always attached to her family, it was a heavy blow ; and was followed by a heavier. Towards the close of the year the first gap was made in the group of children brought up together at Saint-Germain by the death of the little Due d'Orleans, whose health had been so constant a source of anxiety to his father.