The making of a king (39 page)

to the fact that he was advancing towards his majority, and that their best chance of retaining power after that event was to gain his ear before it. All was uncertain, the future largely dependent upon the development of a child's mind and tastes, and whilst every care was taken to shape them to the advantage of those in authority, the one factor which was to prove all-important in the coming years — namely, the influence of De Luynes — was unsuspected.

Notwithstanding the small amount of encouragement Louis had received to occupy himself with public questions, he was giving signs of having formed opinions of his own. Those opinions, with regard to the present crisis, were not in accord with his mother's. Under the influence of her chosen advisers, the Regent remained strongly in favour of her policy of conciliation. Louis would have adopted a bolder one ; and when the question of concessions was under discussion at the Council-board, he gave his voice against yielding to the demands put forward by Conde and his friends.

Those demands were indeed extravagant. A hundred thousand crowns were to indemnify the Prince for expenses incurred in what had been scarcely less than rebellion. A stronghold was to be placed in his hands ; another to be entrusted to Bouillon. None of the confederates were without a claim. Peace was to be bought at a high price.

Whoever might be willing to purchase it by these means, Louis was not. Entering unaccompanied the chamber where the Council were engaged in considering the matter, he addressed the Queen in language

making his wishes plain. Amboise, he said— the fortress coveted by the Prince—ought not to be made over to him. " If he wishes to come to terms," he said, " let him come to terms."

The Queen was manifestly displeased.

" Sire, who has advised you thus ?" she asked. "That man desires neither your welfare nor that of the kingdom."

Making no reply to the question, Louis reiterated his wishes.

" My mother," he said, " by no means give him that stronghold. Let the Prince do as he likes."

With these words he left the Council-chamber. "Such," says M. Zeller, "was the first official and deliberate manifestation of the political will of Louis XIII. The young King wanted unconditional obedience. He was ready to go and enforce it."

Paris, no more than the Regent, shared the King's views. With a vivid recollection of former civil strife, the capital longed for peace. Already the possibility of war had caused the price of provisions to rise. From the provinces came reports of devastation wrought by the soldiery. As the negotiations proceeded, anxiety intensified. In the churches the Blessed Sacrament was exposed, and the people prayed for a peaceful solution. Great was the joy and relief when it became known that a solution had been reached. On May 14 the Prince de Conde declared himself satisfied with the concession? obtained from the Queen, and the appeal to arms was at least postponed. After many resolutions and counter-resolutions and much discussion, a treaty had been signed embodying

the terms agreed upon. The States-General were to be called together ; a general disarmament was to take place on both sides, and the royal marriages were to be suspended. The future had once again been mortgaged for the sake of present tranquillity.

That night, when the King was in bed, Bellegarde whispered the news in his ear, the boy characteristically giving no sign of grief, joy, or satisfaction, and continuing his conversation as before. When, however, most of the company had withdrawn, he showed that he had not failed to appreciate the tidings at their true importance.

"Peace is made," he told the two attendants who had remained with him. " I think it is owing to the prayers of the Forty Hours."

When, on the following Sunday, an envoy arrived from the Prince bringing a letter addressed to the King in person, Louis again showed a sense of the gravity of the occasion. Causing M. de Souvre to be summoned, he had the messenger introduced into his presence in due form, receiving from him his master's missive, together with the assurance that the Prince kissed the King's hands and was his very humble servant.

Louis's answer was made in few words ; after which, having read the letter, he merely observed to Souvre that he wished to hear Vespers at the Cordeliers and left the palace without further speech with the envoy. He was learning discretion.

A fortnight later the young Due de Longueville— e was no more than nineteen — came to offer his submission to the King ; " making him some little

harangue," wrote Malherbe, " and the King a still briefer response." The Duke afterwards paid his respects to the Queen, .whose mask concealed from the curious any sentiments which might have been legible on her countenance as she received the ex-rebel. To his deep obeisances she responded by signing to him to rise ; asked whence he had travelled that day, and added that his beard was growing and should be cut. He was accorded a pension of 33,000 crowns and must have been satisfied with the result of his misdemeanours.

Mayenne came next, well escorted, was given a cordial welcome at Court and the promise of the hand of the King's sister, Catherine de Vendome, with a splendid dowry. He, too, had reason to be content.

The rest of the chief confederates remained at a distance, though profuse in their professions of loyalty. It was said that Conde did not intend to return to Paris until the attainment of the King's majority. Vend6me was openly dissatisfied with the turn affairs had taken. He had held aloof from the peace conferences, and, though included in the general pacification, stayed in his government of Brittany, having put himself still further in the wrong by opening dispatches addressed to the Due de Montbazon, thus making himself, in the words of the Regent, guilty of high treason for the sake of a piece of paper. Disregarding the terms of the treaty concluded between the Queen and the Prince, he continued to carry on a species of guerilla warfare in his government; and, writing to Marie in no penitent spirit, said that he asked

From an engraving by L. Messager.

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Vendome Obstinate 305

neither favours nor graces, but simply not to be driven to desperation by the antagonism of his irreconcilable foes. If he had opened Montbazon's dispatches, it had been in conformity with his duty, as governor of Brittany, of examining all papers dealing with that province.

Vendome's conception of his duty was not likely to be shared at Paris. The King in especial, never over-fond of him, was indignant at the insolence of the action. Overheard talking in his sleep of the Bastille and asked what he had been dreaming of, he answered that he had been demanding why his brother of Vend6me had not been placed there.

" He opened the dispatches I sent to M. de Mont-bazon," he added with anger.

Vendome, young and hot-headed, was at this juncture more opposed to peace than the rest of his party ; and it is curious to contrast his attitude with the forecasts his father had hazarded as to his character and future, when discussing the matter shortly before his death. The position and training of the lad had been such that, according to the King's too sanguine anticipations, his conduct would always be good, he government of Brittany had been bestowed upon im in order to render him the stronger in the service the King, and Henri had granted him precedence er Nemours, Guise, Nevers, and Longueville, so t he might be attached the more straitly to his vereign. Should he ever forget himself, that day he should lose the distinction he enjoyed and should walk behind every one of them. The forecast was scarcely more than four years old. But Henri was

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gone, and, his strong hand removed, every one, Vendome included, did as seemed right in their own eyes.

Ostensibly, the dispute between the Prince and the Court was ended. Amboise—against the King's wishes — had been made over to Conde and he had been paid the money he demanded. The country, nevertheless, continued in a disquieting condition, and, whilst the Prince answered for Vendome's obedience, he supported him in demands to which the Regent was not disposed to agree. More complications followed, and before long a bitter complaint was received from the Prince himself. An envoy he had sent with a letter to Poitiers had not only been fired upon by the inhabitants under the leadership of the Bishop, but had been detained in confinement and threatened with death. Worse still, Conde having gone thither in person, he had been insolently refused entrance into the town, the militant Bishop again playing a principal part in the affair. The Queen's name had been freely used, and he called upon her to avenge the insult offered him.

When the Prince's letter reached the Queen, the Court was at Saint-Germain, where Louis was in full enjoyment of his favourite amusement of hunting ; and it was at the chateau that the question of the measures to be taken to re-establish order more effectually than had hitherto been done was debated. The Council was again divided, but on this occasion—influenced possibly by the fact that Leonora d'Ancre was not at hand to press upon her counsels of peace—the Regent sided with those who were in favour of vigorous action,

and who urged that, without further loss of time, the King and his mother should proceed, accompanied by an armed escort, to Orleans, where they would be near the scene of the disturbances. It was known that rumours were afloat in the provinces to the effect that Louis was delicate, that it was necessary to keep him in cotton-wool, and that for this reason he could never be at a distance from Paris, where he was constantly undergoing medical treatment. Appearances, it was said, pointed to the probability that his life would not be prolonged. The uncertainty as to the future thus engendered was a manifest evil, and Villeroy urged that he should be taken to visit the centres of sedition. The sight of him would dispel the mischievous reports ; the loyal would rally round him and the disaffected would withdraw. The presence of the King in person, at the head of an army, in the troubled districts would in itself produce a reassuring effect.

The arguments set forth prevailed, in spite of the opposition of d'Ancre and Sillery. The Queen had had experience of the lack of success attending the conciliatory methods she had hitherto employed. Peace might have been thereby nominally restored ; but the hollowness of the pacification was demonstrated by the fact that, at the present moment, Conde, pending the arrival of her answer to his complaint, was executing what he called justice in the district which had offended him, and Vendome, still holding aloof in Brittany, had given no sign of submission. It was obvious that something must be done, and at a sitting of the Council July i it was finally determined that the journey