The making of a king (36 page)

During the summer the quarrels of the Queen with Vendome, and his absences from Paris, will have left Louis often without the companionship he was ac-

customed to find in him. For this he probably cared little. Lonely now, the King was destined to be lonely all his life. Yet some few there were amongst those around him whom he loved* and trusted. It has been seen that he was attached to Bellegarde. When, a year or two later, he was told of the death of the Chevalier de Guise, he turned pale and expressed his grief at the loss of a man closely associated with his daily life.

" He was always with me," he said. " I never went hunting without him."

Amongst his attendants at Saint-Germain he had singled out his first usher, Birat, and a soldier of the guard, named Descluseaux, as objects of affection ; and his principal valet, a German named Beringhen, had been in his service from his infancy. " He says M. de Beringhen's name very well," recorded Heroard when he was two years old, and twenty-seven years later, when he was thought to be dying and all around were waiting for the end and calculating its possible results, it was from Beringhen's hand alone that, distrustful of every one else, he would take nourishment —a melancholy proof of what those twenty-seven years were to hold for the boy at present the centre of so much thought and care.

Meantime, at eleven years old and with the dignity of an affianced husband added to his other claims to consideration, he continued to be subjected to strict discipline, and the whip was in force. If he preferred, at times, to abide the consequences of resistance to lawful authority than to obey, it may be that Souvre, remembering that his charge was advancing towards majority, called to mind an admonition Louis had

once addressed to him. Having declined to say his prayers, the Queen had directed the gouverneur to enforce devotion with the rod. It must be done, the King had admitted, with a fine show of impartiality, since such was his mother's command ; " but take care," he added, " not to hit me hard." On another occasion, somewhat later, the Due de Bouillon, as Marshal of France, was called upon to arrange a treaty of peace. Souvre and his pupil had had a quarrel, giving rise to just apprehension on the part of the latter that the whip would be applied. Alleging that Souvre was in a passion—which was not improbably true—Louis demanded that the Duke should cause him to take an oath that he would never more give way to anger and would forget all that was past.

Bouillon, with his own reservations, obeyed. " M. de Souvre, lift your hand," he ordered. "You promise never to be angry so long as the King conducts himself well ? "

The gouverneur's pledge given, Bouillon turned to Louis.

" And you, Sire, lift your hand. You promise always to conduct yourself well ? "

The King took the oath. It may be doubted whether it was kept by either gouverneur or pupil.

The rod was not the sole means by which his offences were brought home to the culprit ; and, when once he had firmly refused to take physic, he was quick to perceive in the hearing of those who attended his lever the result of the Queen's directions.

4 The Queen, my mother, has ordered that I am to be kept in disgrace (que Fon me fasse la mine)" he

grumbled to Mademoiselle de Vendome. "They would all be very much astonished if I were to keep them in disgrace " ; then, addressing himself in particular to the old Duchesse de Guise, " Eh bien ! Madame de Guise," he asked her, " are you one of those who are keeping me in disgrace P" and, making a face at her, turned away.

The year closed in peace. Louis and his sister spent New Year's Eve in making butter-cakes in Madame's apartment; and so 1612 ended. The opening of the New Year was marked by a bloody incident giving little promise of future tranquillity.

CHAPTER XXII 1613

Murder of the Baron de Luz— Its motives and its effect at Court— Marie reconciled with the Guises—Louis intervenes in a criminal case—His spirit of justice—d'Ancre in temporary disgrace—He is made Marshal of France—Peace or war ?

"'HE Baron de Luz killed by the Chevalier de Guise, at the entrance to the rue de Crenelle. The King has a French comedy performed." Thus runs the entry in Heroard's Journal for January 5, 1613. It is his solitary reference to an event which had set Paris aflame.

The Chevalier was the youngest of the Guise brothers, hot-headed and violent. Accounts of his performance differed, according as the writer inclined to the Guise faction or to their opponents. By some it was represented as a more or less fairly conducted fight, by others it was regarded rather in the light of an assassination. What was certain was that the affair had been deliberately planned. Luz had not lost his life owing to any outbreak of passion. It was also generally considered that he had not been given a fair chance of defending himself. It was affirmed that Guise, young, strong, armed, and accompanied, had laid wait for an old man with the purpose of putting him to death, and had accomplished the deed without

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allowing his antagonist time to draw his sword from the scabbard. If Malherbe, who recorded the occurrence on the day it happened, is to be trusted, this account of the matter was exaggerated, but it is plain that the Chevalier was considered to have taken his foe at a disadvantage ; and the Queen—no enemy to the Guises—was filled with horror and indignation, and spoke with sarcastic scorn of the courage shown in slaying a defenceless old man without so much as crying " Gare." Such, she said to Bassompierre, in an access of indiscreet wrath, were the tricks of the family.

The crime was ascribed to various causes. Guise himself alleged, as a pretext, that de Luz had boasted that he had had a share in the murder of the Duke, his father. Others asserted that the Baron had been in possession of dangerous secrets of the Guise party, and was judged best out of the way; it was stated, again, that he had incurred the resentment of Bellegarde and his adherents, in league with the house of Lorraine, by intrigues with d'Ancre, and that the Chevalier was chosen as the instrument of vengeance. The murder has been also considered the result of jealous passion. According to Malherbe, a lady to whom the Chevalier appears to have been paying court described a scene taking place the previous evening ; when, making love to her at the palace, young Guise had boasted that he was the wood of which Marshals of France were fashioned, the lady replying lightly that it was very dry wood. Later on, she had noticed that he was watching de Luz with a malevolent eye, and had asked him what was the matter. The Baron, she added, in jest or earnest, was her lover, and the Chevalier must do him no harm.

Murder of de Luz

" I would rather have an arm broken than that he should wed you," Guise had answered hotly.

Possibly Madame la Comtesse was one of the women who would willingly believe themselves the motive of a crime. Possibly jealousy had in truth its share in the murder, and had combined with other causes to direct the Chevalier's conduct. It remained—a more important question so far as the public was concerned— to determine upon the treatment of the culprit, belonging as he did to a house well able to safeguard its members from punishment. Upon this question opinions naturally differed widely. The foes of the house of Lorraine were eager to avail themselves of the opportunity to damage it, even advising that the outrage should be avenged upon the persons of the Dukes of Epernon and Guise—the one the ally, the other the brother, of the delinquent — when they presented themselves at the palace. Such counsels savoured of madness, and were at once rejected by the Queen, who resolved, more wisely, to proceed against the Chevalier by legal methods.

Meantime, notwithstanding the Due de Guise's disavowal of his brother's action and his protestations that he had known nothing of it, violence of language on one side was met by equal violence on the other. Conde and d'Ancre, to whose party the dead man had belonged, and who were at the time in opposition to the Guises, were urgent in their demand for vengeance. The Guise faction made a parade of indifference, declaring openly that the Chevalier had done no more than his duty in putting to death a man concerned in his father's death. The dowager Duchess, indignant at

reflections upon her son, spoke with so much insolence of or to the Queen herself that Madame de Guerche-ville bade her boldly have a care — the Queen was her mistress, no less than the mistress of others. To which the Duchess replied, with more fury than before, that she had no mistress save the Virgin Mary.

The Queen had no doubt acted prudently in leaving the law to take its course. The misfortune was that the law did not take it. The ministers responsible for putting its machinery in motion, though willing enough to do their duty, were well aware of the strength of the party opposed to them ; and delay after delay was interposed, rousing the Regent to so much anger that she contemplated removing the great seal from Sillery and placing it in more efficient and less timid hands. There was also talk of Epernon's arrest. Had d'Ancre and his friends struck whilst the iron was hot, the ministers might have fallen. But disputes arose respecting the choice of a successor to the Chancellor, should he be removed, and the opportunity was lost.

The situation was critical. The Regent presently found that she stood almost alone, alienated alike from her ministers and from Epernon, once her chief support, whilst Guise had succeeded in making up his quarrel with Conde and his party, and boasted that, when the Queen should in future be angry, the Prince would no longer be a rod wherewith to chastise him. Even d'Ancre had ranged himself on the side of the cabal, and, if she opposed its members, was against her.

This was the condition of things a week after the Baron de Luz's murder. At that time Guise, meeting

Bassompierre, told him that the Queen's hardness of heart had frozen his own, hitherto impassioned in her service. She could have made him do more by a word than the rest of the world by benefits. He had, however, suffered overmuch neglect, and had changed his master and taken another — namely, the Prince and his cabal. One day the Queen would learn her mistake, and it would only be at a high price that she would buy him back.