THE MAKING OF A KING 
 
L( A is XIli.HAK LA GKAU- \A ,Un;\ ROY i )Kh<AM i . 1:1 ' i >f NAVAKK 
 
 )urgeon de Saincl Lov YS, & fils du Grand HENRY, 
 Qui doibs tes actions a ces deux prands excmples 
 Voy les Palmes de l'vn,<3c de lauu-elesTemples, 
 Et ibis par leurs vertus de ton Peuple chcry . 
 
 
THE MAKING 
 * OF A KING 
 
 By 
 
 I. A. TAYLOR 
 
 Author of " Lord Edward Fitzgerald," " Queen Henrietta 
 Maria," " Queen Hortense and her Friends," " Lady Jane 
 Grey and her Times," " Christina of Sweden," etc. 
 
 WITH 17 ILLUSTRATIONS, INCLUDING 
 A PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE 
 
 New York 
 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 1910 
 
T-3 
 
 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE nets of history have a terrible tendency to 
 let the little fishes through. It would indeed 
 be difficult to find a mesh strong enough to hold 
 captive the monsters of the deep, and at the same time 
 sufficiently delicate to catch the shining goldfish, or 
 even a moderate-sized trout. The great facts of a 
 man's life, when his life has mattered to the world, 
 can usually be trusted to take care of themselves ; but 
 the touches that give life to the picture, the puny 
 virtues and petty faults, the lovable weaknesses and 
 follies, have a precarious existence so far as posterity 
 is concerned. 
 
 And yet these evasive elements, these trifling inci- 
 dents, are often just the things best worth knowing. 
 Bones are well enough in their way, and doubtless 
 necessary to the human fabric ; but which of us, save 
 the ascetic, would choose a skeleton for contemplation ? 
 Its ephemeral clothing, the beauty and, not less, the 
 blemishes, of the garment which decently veils what 
 lies below this is what the ordinary man desires to 
 look at. 
 
 For this reason, quite as much as for their con- 
 spicuous position, or the influence they exercised over 
 the destinies of men, the lives of Kings and Queens 
 are usually more interesting than those of their 
 
 248924 
 
vi Preface 
 
 obscurer contemporaries. Other Elizabeths may have 
 existed, as great and as small as the last of the Tudors ; 
 but who would have found it worth his while to 
 chronicle, in merciless minuteness, their foibles, their 
 faults, their passions, and their caprices ? The search- 
 light is turned upon her only because she sat upon a 
 throne. There are women whose blotted records 
 might have vied in interest with Mary Stuart's had 
 any one cared to make a study of them. Other 
 nurseries, other schoolrooms, might present features 
 as curious as the nursery and schoolroom of the 
 children of Henri-Quatre ; but it is safe to say that 
 few, if any, have been laid, to an equal degree, open 
 to inspection. 
 
 To those attached to the household of the boy 
 who was first Dauphin, and afterwards Louis XIII. 
 to Maitre Jean Heroard, his domestic physician, in 
 particular, whose journal furnishes so much information 
 their charge was naturally the central figure. His 
 companions and attendants, the princes, nobles, 
 ministers of State, who visited him, were no more 
 than accessories, viewed in relation to the child whose 
 likes and dislikes, precocious sagacity, impulses of 
 generosity or anger, and melancholy comprehension 
 of the anomalies around him, are carefully portrayed. 
 Even the King, the great soldier, a chief factor in the 
 destinies of Europe, is merged in the father. Yet, so 
 long as he lived, it is Henri himself who must 
 necessarily, to us who look back, occupy the front of 
 the stage from which he is never long absent. His 
 children, he once told Sully, were the prettiest in the 
 world, and his happiest hours were spent in playing 
 
Preface 
 
 Vll 
 
 with them. During the first nine years of Louis's life 
 we watch his father at this pastime, and are admitted 
 to the vie intime of the King. 
 
 Those nine years were, outwardly, the most tranquil 
 of Henri's storm-tossed existence. Yet treachery was 
 all around him. Danger was in the air ; and the 
 Bearnois, gay, debonair, pleasure-loving, a man who 
 loved life and would fain have seen good days, 
 recognised, intermittently, his peril, and knew that the 
 assassin lay in wait. Again and again he showed the 
 consciousness that death was ready to spring upon 
 him ; and, ever prepared to face an open enemy, the 
 presence of a veiled doom, the memory of prophecies 
 of evil, haunted his imagination with a vague dread. 
 The catastrophe which justified those fears lends pathos 
 to the story of his intercourse with the son who was 
 soon to be called upon to fill, inadequately, his father's 
 place. 
 
 The four years of Louis's minority, following upon 
 the death of Henri-Quatre, contain the story of the 
 warring passions, the jealousies, ambitions, and hatreds 
 surging round the poor child who was the nominal 
 head of the State, and was already condemned to 
 experience in some sort the loneliness belonging to 
 sovereignty. During his father's lifetime the strong 
 hand over him, the severity combined with the love, 
 supplied at least one wholesome element to his 
 training. Henri gone, he was the prey of flatterers, 
 or of those who sought to make capital out of his 
 weakness. Traces of healthy and close companionship, 
 of familiar intercourse on equal terms, are rare. Signs 
 of strong affection, giveji or received, are rarer still. 
 
viii Preface 
 
 His mother, in her heavy, undemonstrative fashion, 
 may have loved him the fact has been questioned. 
 It is certain that her tenderness afterwards centred 
 on her younger son. On the other hand, any sign 
 on Louis's part of a preference was a danger-signal, 
 menacing the power of those who hoped to rule 
 through him, and a reason to compass, if possible, the 
 removal of the object of his likftig. In some dim way 
 the boy recognised the fact. 
 
 " They want to take him away because I love him/' 
 he cried with tears, when Alexandre de Vendome was 
 to be sent out of the country. Louis, as he once 
 said of himself, was not u grand parleur," but the 
 complaint, finding vent in a moment's passion of 
 sorrow, points to a grievance felt and resented at other 
 times in silence by the boy whose unwise clinging in 
 after years to worthless favourites indicates a special 
 craving for affection and companionship. 
 
 No attempt is made in this volume to read the man 
 into the child, or to interpret his early years by the 
 light of what followed them. To readers who may 
 desire to pursue the story, and to trace in Louis's after- 
 life the results and consequences of his training, the 
 means of doing so lie ready to their hand, both in 
 the memoirs and records of his contemporaries and 
 in the works of later writers. These pages are con- 
 cerned alone with the boy Louis, Dauphin and King 
 a small, helpless figure standing out against the sombre 
 background of intrigue, violence, passion, and treachery 
 by which he was surrounded. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 1601 
 
 The Court at Fontainebleau Awaiting the Dauphin's birth Cesar 
 de Vendome Birth of Louis XIII. Rejoicings The Dauphin's 
 horoscope pp. i-il 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 1 60 1 
 
 The King's marriage Difficulties in choosing a wife Gabrielle 
 d'Estrees Henriette d'Entragues The Florentine match Marie de 
 Medicis arrives in France Character of Henri-Quatre Domestic 
 discord .......... pp. 12-23 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 1602 
 
 Babyhood The Duchesse de Bar Biron's conspiracy: its phases 
 and development The Queen and the Marquise de Verneuil The 
 King at Saint-Germain ....... pp. 24-36 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 1602 
 
 Progress of Biron's conspiracy The traitors at Saint-Germain 
 Biron's letter Henri ready to pardon him He refuses to admit his 
 guilt Is arrested The King and Madame de Verneuil at Saint- 
 Germain s pp. 37-47 
 
x Contents 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 1602-1604 * 
 
 Biron's execution Pardon of Auvergne Madame's birth The 
 nursery at Saint-Germain The King's children Monseigneur the 
 Dauphin Domestic difficulties Concini and Leonora Rivalries at 
 Court The King's illness Talk of a Spanish marriage Henri com- 
 plains to Rosny of his wife And ofMadame de Verneuil Death of 
 his sister Rosny opposes the King The Dauphin's training Friction 
 between father and son pp. 48-64 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 1604 
 
 Recall of the Jesuits The Queen and Madame de Verneuil The 
 Marquise's children placed at Saint-GermainDiscovery of the plot of 
 d'Entragues The King's clemency pp. 65-77 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 1604 
 
 The Dauphin at Fontainebleau Life at the palace The King's 
 affection for his son Visit of the Comte de Sora Quarrel between 
 King and Dauphin Its results The conspirators Father and son 
 
 pp. 78-87 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 1605 
 
 Results of the conspiracy Rosny and his enemies Temporary 
 estrangement of the King Their reconciliation The Dauphin and 
 Rosny The Spanish match projected The Dauphin's love for his 
 father Visit of Queen Marguerite The King and Queen on good 
 terms The Marquise at Saint-Germain . . . -pp. 88-102 
 
Contents xi 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 1606 
 
 New Year's Day Rosny becomes Due de Sully Expedition against 
 Bouillon The Dauphin in Paris Bouillon reduced to submission 
 Brought to Saint-Germain The Dauphin's baptism . pp. 103-118 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 1607 
 
 Quarrels between King and Queen Sully and his enemies His 
 relations with Henri And with the Queen The Duke as mediator 
 
 pp. 119-131 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 1608 
 
 Henri's affection for his children The Dauphin's training Birth of 
 the Due d'Orleans Marie de Medicis' complaints Sully at Fontaine- 
 bleau The Turkish Ambassador and the Dauphin Madame's rebuke 
 
 pp. 132-143 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 1608 
 
 Marriage projects The Chevalier Guidi at Court Difficulties with 
 the Queen The Dauphin's fear of parsimony Betrothal of the Due 
 de Vendome Don Pedro de Toledo's mission . . pp. 144-160 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 1608-1609 
 
 Henri-Quatre preparing for war Conciliates Concini The Dauphin 
 removed to the Louvre His household The King at the Arsenal 
 Sully under suspicion His vindication Henri and the Jesuits 
 
 pp. 161-175 
 
xii Contents 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 1609-10 
 
 Henri and Mademoiselle de Montmorency The King's desire for 
 domestic peace His forebodings Henri and his son The Infanta's 
 portrait Chances of war Sully and the Dauphin . . pp. 176-190 
 
 
 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 pp. 191-198 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 1610 
 
 May 14, 1610 Henri and Guise The King's melancholy His last 
 hours His murder The scene at the Louvre Sully's ride through 
 Paris Effect of the murder Marie declared Regent Louis XIII. King 
 
 pp. 199-212 
 
 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 . pp. 213-225 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 1610 
 
 Rival forces in the State Cond6's return Lonis and his gouverneur 
 His position and training Unlikeness to his father His love for 
 him Pierrot at Court pp. 226-238 
 
Contents xiii 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 1610-11 
 
 Policy of the Government Unrest in Paris Concini dominant The 
 Duke de Feria's mission The King's coronation Louis and Cond6 
 Sully's dismissal Rumours of war ..... pp. 239-252 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 1611 
 
 Parties at Court The Saumur assembly Louis's tutors Departure 
 of Alexandre de Vendome Matrimonial projects Death of the Due 
 d'Orleans His burial The Spanish marriages Louis and Conde 
 Charles d'Albert de Luynes pp. 253-267 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 1612 
 
 The year 1612 The Spanish marriages finally arranged Truce with 
 the Princes Signature of the marriage contracts The Due de Belle- 
 garde and the magic mirror Death of the Comte de Soissons Louis 
 in disgrace pp. 268-282 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 1613 
 
 Murder of the Baron de Luz Its motives and its effects 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 ? pp. 283-294 
 
xiv Contents 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 1614 
 
 The Prince and his friends leave Paris Nevers seizes Mezieres 
 Contrary counsels Cond6's manifesto Negotiations Uneasiness at 
 Paris Louis at the Council-board Peace signed Vendome rebellious 
 The Prince at Poitiers Court to go to Orleans . . pp. 295-308 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 1614 
 
 The journey TheTrince de Cond6 loses strength The pleasures of 
 the road Louis as bon compagnon The Court at Orleans, Tours, 
 Poitiers, and Nantes Vendome makes his submission Return to 
 Paris Louis's majority pp. 309-320 
 
 PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES p. 321 
 
 INDEX PP- 323-329 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LOUIS xiii. ..... Photogravure Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 GABRIELLE D'ESTREES 14 
 
 JEAN HEROARD 26 
 
 LOUIS XIII. AT THE AGE OF THREE 62 
 
 MARGUERITE DE VALOIS 96 
 
 HENRIETTE D J ENTRAGUES 112 
 
 SULLY 124 
 
 HENRI IV. AND HIS FAMILY 132 
 
 MARIE DE MEDICIS 148 
 
 CONCINO CONCINI 162 
 
 HENRI IV 184 
 
 LOUIS XIII. ON THE DAY OF HIS ACCESSION . . .214 
 
 LOUIS XIII. AND THE REGENT 226 
 
 ANNE OF AUSTRIA 264 
 
 COMTE DE SOISSONS ........ 278 
 
 PRINCE DE COND 296 
 
 LOUIS XIII. ......... 304 
 
THE MAKING OF A KING 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 1601 
 
 The Court at Fontainebleau Awaiting the Dauphin's birth Cesar 
 de Vendome Birth of Louis XIII. Rejoicings The Dauphin's 
 horoscope. 
 
 IT was September 1601. The Court was at Fon- 
 tainebleau. Paris was on its knees. The devotion 
 of the Forty Hours was going on, and the people 
 thronged the churches. Those little given to prayer 
 prayed now, for a momentous issue was at stake. Was 
 France, by the mercy of God, to be granted, at long 
 last, an heir to the throne ; or was her tranquillity, her 
 future, to continue to be dependent on the slender 
 thread of a single life ? Would the child whose birth 
 was awaited fulfil the hopes and longings of the nation, 
 or were those hopes and longings destined to be 
 disappointed ? The question was on the point of 
 receiving an answer. 
 
 At the palace all was prepared for the welcome to 
 be given to a Dauphin. Henri-Quatre loved Fon- 
 tainebleau, where the event was to take place. There 
 
2 The Making of a King 
 
 he hunted ; there he spent leisure hours devising 
 additions to the mass of buildings successive centuries 
 had contributed to erect. Portions of the palace 
 begun by Francis I. had been finished by him ; fresh 
 features had been added. He had built the Galerie 
 des Cerfs, where the grim tragedy of Monaldesco's 
 murder was to be enacted some fifty years later. He 
 had fashioned the lake south of the Cour des Fon- 
 taines and the canal running the length of the park. 
 And to the great oval chamber where his son was now 
 to be born he afterwards added, in commemoration of 
 the day, the Porte Dauphine. 
 
 The Princes of the Blood so troublesome and 
 turbulent an element in the history of France had 
 been bidden to Fontainebleau, that they might be 
 witnesses, according to custom, of the birth of the 
 King's son. The Prince de Conti, by reason of his 
 infirmities a negligible element in political life, was at 
 the palace, as well as his more important cousin, the 
 Comte de Soissons. The Due de Montpensier, Mont- 
 morency, Constable of France, with a crowd of other 
 nobles, were in attendance ; Catherine, Duchesse de 
 Bar, the King's only sister, was there, and the Duchesse 
 de Nemours. And the nine-year-old Cesar de Ven- 
 dome, son to Henri-Quatre by Gabrielle d'Estrees, 
 whose succession to the throne of France had been 
 hitherto considered not out of the range of possibility, 
 was also keeping his father company. The post of 
 Lady-in-waiting to the Queen was filled by Antoinette 
 de Pons, Marquise de Guercheville the same who 
 had, before Henri's second marriage, been the object 
 for a brief space of his wandering affections, and had 
 
The Dauphin's Birth 3 
 
 refused to listen to his suit, saying with dignity 
 that, unfit by station to become his wife, she came 
 of too noble a race to occupy any other position. 
 Mademoiselle de Renouliere was first woman of the 
 bed-chamber. Madame Louise Boursier was to act as 
 sage-femme. 
 
 For the household of the Dauphin thought had 
 already been taken. The post of gouvernante to the 
 unborn infant had been conferred upon Madame de 
 Montglat, whose reign in the royal nursery was to 
 continue for many years. Maitre Jean Heroard, 
 Physician-in-Ordinary to the King, had been named 
 the child's domestic doctor, the appointment being 
 made by Henri in person at four o'clock on Sep- 
 tember 21. That afternoon, meeting Heroard in the 
 palace garden on returning from the hunt, the King 
 had announced to the man of medicine the honour 
 in store for him in language leaving no doubt that, 
 however it might be with others, the person chiefly 
 interested in the birth of an heir, refused to contem- 
 plate the possibility of disappointment. 
 
 " I have chosen you," Henri told Maitre H6roard, 
 " to place near my son. Serve him well." 
 
 All was therefore ready. France, the King, his 
 enemies and his friends, his loyal subjects, and the 
 men who hated him and were leagued together that 
 they might compass his downfall, were alike waiting 
 and watching for what was to come. 
 
 And the foreign Queen, a stranger amongst strangers, 
 unloved by her husband, distrusted by many of his 
 people, was also waiting, conscious, it may be, that 
 upon the question whether or not she would give 
 
4 The Making of a King 
 
 an heir to the throne might hang her future fortunes. 
 Her position might seem secure ; but she well knew 
 that hostile forces were at work against her, and 
 that the Marquise de Verneuil, insolent and ambitious, 
 by whom the King was held enthralled, had in her 
 possession a written promise of dangerous significance. 
 With a Dauphin born in lawful wedlock to strengthen 
 her hands, Marie de Medicis could trust to her power 
 of holding her own against her rival ; but how would 
 it be otherwise ? Might not she, like Marguerite de 
 Valois, the wife whose place she filled, be in her turn 
 discarded by the King ? 
 
 Thus, anxiously for all, the hours went by. Cesar 
 de Vendome C6sar Monsieur, as his father liked 
 him to be called ignorant of the change to be effected 
 in his position should a son of unchallengeable legiti- 
 macy be born to the King, was a sharer in the pre- 
 vailing excitement. Waylaying Madame Boursier as 
 she was passing through the palace, he put to her the 
 question in all men's minds. Would the infant, he 
 asked, be a boy or a girl ? 
 
 That, answered the sage-femme, playing with the 
 child's eagerness, would be as she pleased. 
 
 " Sage-femmc" pleaded the Duke, " sage-femme, since 
 it depends upon you, make it a boy." 
 
 " What will you give me if I do ? " she asked. 
 
 " All you want," he promised ; " or rather " 
 honestly limiting her expectations " all I have." 
 
 Little Vendome, with -the whole of France, was 
 to be granted his desire. At half-past ten on the 
 evening of September 27 Maitre Heroard vouches 
 for the hour, on the strength of his watch, made 
 
The Dauphin's Birth 5 
 
 by M. Plantard, of Abbeville the Dauphin was 
 born. 
 
 Not at once did Madame Boursier put an end to 
 the general anxiety. Apprehensive that joy might 
 prove as dangerous to the mother as grief, the sage- 
 femme kept the momentous fact at first to herself, 
 the King himself remaining ignorant that his hopes had 
 been crowned. Watching the nurse's face he imagined 
 indeed that upon it he read disaster, and that Heaven 
 had pronounced against him. Describing the scene a 
 few days later, after his light-hearted fashion, he told 
 his sister and the Princes of the Blood that never had 
 he seen, on the field of battle or elsewhere, so much 
 determination shown by man or woman. 
 
 " She had my son upon her knee," he said, " and 
 looked around her as coldly as if she held a thing 
 of nought. And it was a Dauphin, not seen in 
 France for eighty years ! " 
 
 It was a Dauphin. As she watched the King, 
 withdrawn to a distance, his countenance sad and 
 changed, Madame Boursier relented and sent him a 
 message intimating that all was well. Even with this 
 assurance Henri could scarcely believe in a joy so great. 
 Only when the tidings were corroborated by the sage- 
 femme in person did the colour return to his face. 
 
 " Sage-femme" he asked, as he again drew near, 
 " is it a son ? I beseech you not to give me false 
 hopes. It would kill me." Then, as a "petit 
 M. le Dauphin " was dispkyed to him, he lifted his 
 eyes to Heaven, and, with the great tears running 
 down, gave thanks. 
 
 " Ma mie" he said to the Queen, " God has done 
 
6 The Making of a King 
 
 us the great grace of giving us what we asked. We 
 have a fair son." 
 
 Anxiety, fear, anticipation were replaced by certainty. 
 France was no longer without an heir. In the eyes 
 of those who wished the King well all was as it should 
 be. Others perhaps, looking on, felt that the death- 
 blow had been dealt to their secret hopes, and that 
 thenceforth plots, plans, conspiracies must be arranged 
 upon a fresh basis. 
 
 The infant had, by Henri's orders, been handed 
 over to Madame de Montglat, as the woman to be 
 chiefly entrusted with his care. After the fashion of 
 the day, he was given a few drops of wine, the little 
 body being also washed with red wine and oil, and 
 the head with wine and oil of roses. It was probably 
 when all this had been done that his father solemnly 
 blessed him, placing the sword in the tiny hand, with 
 the prayer that it might be used for God's glory alone 
 and in the defence of the French people. 
 
 After which the King left the bedchamber, to an- 
 nounce the child's birth to the concourse of nobles 
 awaiting him in the adjoining apartment. A very 
 rapture of emotion greeted the tidings he had to 
 impart. Men, beside themselves with joy and relief, 
 crowded around him and flung themselves, almost 
 knocking him down, at his feet, as he bade them 
 give thanks to God. 
 
 " Prepare, each one of you," he said, " to do it," 
 proceeding to admit so great a throng into the very 
 presence of the Queen and her newborn baby that 
 it was scarcely possible to move. Madame Boursier, 
 concerned on account of the fainting mother, would 
 
The Dauphin's Birth 7 
 
 have protested ; but, putting his hand on her shoulder, 
 Henri imposed silence upon her. 
 
 " Hush, hush," he said. " This child belongs to 
 all the world. Let every one rejoice." 
 
 And thus began the life of Louis XIII. 
 
 Throughout the length and breadth of his father's 
 kingdom he was greeted as a supreme gift from 
 Heaven, a saviour from ruin and disorder and the 
 distraction of a disputed succession. Visiting the child 
 some months later, an aged general of the King's gave 
 voice to the prevailing enthusiasm. 
 
 " May it please God, to grant to Monseigneur the 
 Dauphin his father's good fortune, the valour of Char- 
 lemagne, and the piety of St. Louis," the old man 
 prayed as he fell, weeping, on his knees. " Let God 
 call me hence when it shall please Him. I have seen 
 the salvation of the world." 
 
 Success to some means of necessity defeat to others. 
 A scene significant of much of changing fortunes and 
 perished hopes is described by Madame Boursier. On 
 the day following upon the Dauphin's birth she en- 
 countered the Due de Vendome loitering about after 
 the manner of a neglected child. Holding by the 
 tapestry covering the entrance to the chamber through 
 which guests were passing in succession to inspect the 
 newborn heir, he had stopped short as if bewildered 
 when the nurse accosted him. 
 
 " He quoi y Monsieur," she said kindly. u What are 
 you doing there ? " 
 
 " I do not know," the boy answered vaguely. " No 
 one speaks to me. No one says anything to me 
 any more." 
 
8 The Making of a King 
 
 The good woman did her best to explain away the 
 defection of the courtiers. It was, she said, because 
 every one was going to see M. 'le Dauphin, who had 
 only just arrived. When all had greeted him, they 
 would talk to the little Duke as before. The incident 
 being reported to the Queen, Marie was very pitiful, 
 in the midst of her happiness, over the son of the 
 dead Gabrielle. It was enough to kill the poor child, 
 she said ; giving orders that he should receive even 
 more attention than usual. 
 
 u Every one,*' she observed, " is amusing themselves 
 with my son, and nobody thinks of him. It must 
 seem strange to the child. " 
 
 If Marie de Medicis has many sins and failings to 
 be laid to her charge, her tenderness for the son of the 
 woman Henri had loved should be allowed to weigh 
 in the balance on the other side. Nor, in spite of the 
 jealousy and indignation evoked in her by the King's 
 conduct, is this a solitary instance of her kindness 
 towards the children who shared their father's love with 
 her own. 
 
 Meantime the King was a happy man ; and will not 
 have grudged the thousand crowns won from him by 
 Zamet, the banker, who had wagered that the infant 
 would be a boy. Two thousand crowns had been 
 likewise won by the fortunate gambler from the 
 Queen, the child having been born, as he had pro- 
 phesied, on a Thursday ; so that he too had reason 
 to be well content. Te Deums were sung, and 
 the Pope was to be invited to be godfather, the 
 King desiring to present his son to God, "and 
 to incorporate him into the Church as worthily as 
 
The Dauphin's Horoscope 9 
 
 possible, so that he may tread in the footsteps of his 
 ancestors." 
 
 All went well ; and the Queen, joy and excitement 
 notwithstanding, was in so satisfactory condition that, 
 no more than two days after the birth, Henri was writ- 
 ing to tell Rosny that it was impossible to believe how 
 rapidly she was recovering that she had already done 
 her own hair and talked of leaving her bed. 
 
 "Elle a un naturel terriblement robuste et fort," 
 added the King. ..." I believe, as you do, in the 
 favour done me by God in giving me a son, and in 
 the part that you and all the good folk in my Kingdom 
 take in my joy. Yesterday, coming home from hunt- 
 ing a deer which had escaped me, I heard the firing of 
 the cannon in Paris." 
 
 It would have been better had the King been con- 
 tent with the present and had not striven to unveil the 
 future. An unwise curiosity clouded, if only for the 
 moment, his full satisfaction. Another physician be- 
 sides H6roard had been present at the birth one 
 M. de la Riviere, suspected of Huguenot proclivities. 
 This gentleman, versed in the art of astrology, had been 
 directed by the King to take careful note of the exact 
 hour and minute when the child first drew breath and 
 to cast his horoscope. The physician obeyed. Yet a 
 fortnight elapsed, and the King had heard nothing, till, 
 summoning him to his presence, he called him to 
 account for his silence. 
 
 " You have told me nothing as to the birth of 
 my son, the Dauphin," he said. " What did you 
 find ? " 
 
 Riviere replied with an affectation of carelessness. 
 
io The Making of a King 
 
 He admitted that he had begun something of the kind, 
 but had let it alone. He had ceased to amuse himself 
 with a science he had partly forgotten, and which was 
 frequently greatly at fault. 
 
 The King brushed his excuses curtly aside. Riviere, 
 he said, was not a man to indulge in scruples. He 
 was unwilling to speak, lest he should either be com- 
 pelled to lie or should give offence. On pain of 
 his displeasure he commanded the doctor to be open 
 with him. 
 
 Even when the King's orders had been issued, it was 
 not until after repeated refusals and then as if in 
 anger that Riviere obeyed and made known to him 
 what the stars had revealed. 
 
 " Your son," he said, c< will live to man's estate and 
 will reign longer than yourself; but he will differ from 
 you in all his tastes and humours. He will have 
 his own opinions and fantasies sometimes those of 
 other people. It will be a time to think rather than to 
 speak. . . . What has been set in order by you will be 
 undone. He will perform great things, be fortunate 
 in his designs, and be talked of in Christendom. He 
 will leave issue behind him, and things will become 
 afterwards worse. And this is all that you will know 
 from me." 
 
 " Upon which," says the narrator of the scene, 
 " the King, having fallen into a melancholy dream, 
 said : ' I see very well that you are in accord with 
 the Huguenots. You say this because you hold with 
 them/ 
 
 " ' Sire/ replied M. de la Riviere, c I am in accord 
 with anything you please. But you will know nothing 
 
The Dauphin's Horoscope n 
 
 more from me.' " And turning away, still as if in 
 anger, he went out. 
 
 When Riviere had withdrawn the King took Rosny, 
 who had been present, into a window apart and spoke 
 with him on the subject of the seer's prediction. But 
 what he said was known to none. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 1601' 
 
 The King's marriage Difficulties in choosing a wife Gabrielle 
 d'Estres Henriette d'Entragues The Florentine match Marie 
 de Medicis arrives in France Character of Henri-Quatre 
 Domestic discord. 
 
 IN order to understand the anomalous condition of 
 the royal household, and the atmosphere into 
 which Louis was born, it is necessary to go back to the 
 time, some three years earlier, when Henri-Quatre, 
 triumphant over his enemies, and at length at leisure 
 to take thought for the future, had determined upon 
 obtaining the annulment of his marriage with Marguerite 
 de Valois, the wife from whom he had been virtually 
 separated for fourteen years. 
 
 All were agreed as to the urgent need for the step, 
 if France were to be safe-guarded from the struggle 
 likely to follow should Henri chance to die leaving no 
 legitimate heir. His enemies themselves were clear 
 upon this point ; but, in their case, a fresh marriage 
 was not sufficient ; the wife he chose must be such as 
 to satisfy them. Either he must marry a Queen to their 
 liking, and who would serve to strengthen the interest 
 of Spain, or he should die : " Le tuer ou le marier " 
 so Michelet describes the alternatives they set before 
 them. 
 
 12 
 
HenrkQuatre's Marriage 13 
 
 It was not expected that much difficulty would attend 
 the dissolution of the one marriage which was a 
 necessary preliminary to entering upon another. There 
 was little doubt that Rome would consent. Marguerite 
 could be trusted not to oppose the measure. No one 
 would lose by it ; many would gain. King and people 
 were at one in desiring that Henri should be set free 
 to form new ties. The question as to who should 
 fill the place to be left vacant was less easily settled. 
 The rival parties in the State had each their views 
 on the subject, and the person chiefly concerned had 
 his own. When Henri first discussed the matter 
 with Rosny he enumerated every marriageable princess 
 in Europe, and, whilst praising some and pointing out 
 the disabilities of others, he found objections to all. 
 He desired to wed so the Minister sardonically 
 defined the situation when the list was complete 
 but could discover no woman upon earth fit to 
 become his wife. Rosny was tacitly declining to admit 
 as a possibility the match he was well aware was in his 
 master's mind, and was doggedly ignoring the fact that 
 Gabrielle d'Estrees, Duchesse de Beaufort, fulfilled in 
 Henri's eyes all the conditions necessary to satisfy him. 
 When the King broached the subject in plain words, 
 he made answer no less plainly, and the reply was not 
 such as to encourage Henri to place the crown upon 
 the head of the woman he loved, or to make her son 
 his heir. 
 
 Yet Henri was master, and, in spite of Rosny, in 
 spite of the mass of public opinion by which the 
 Minister was backed, Gabrielle's chances were not 
 small. She was genuinely and devotedly attached to 
 
14 The Making of a King 
 
 the King, whilst Henri repaid her by a love greater 
 than he had perhaps ever bestowed, or was to be- 
 stow, upon a woman. She was already the mother 
 of one son, and was soon to give birth to another. 
 Powerful friends were ready to support her claims. 
 The Princess of Orange, Coligny's daughter, was her 
 advocate ; those who wished for a French Queen, 
 and feared and dreaded a Spanish one, would have 
 rejoiced at the match. Marguerite de Valois, indeed, 
 indignant at the prospect of her place being filled 
 by a woman of Gabrielle's birth and antecedents, 
 might declare that, rather than permit the disgrace, 
 she would oppose the decree pronouncing her own 
 marriage void ; Rosny might contemptuously refuse 
 to allow the designation " enfants de France " to be 
 applied to the Vendome children in the account of the 
 expenses incurred at their baptism, saying that no such 
 children existed ; but Henri adored the mother, was 
 proud of his boy, and it was more than possible that 
 the one would become Queen and the other be 
 acknowledged heir to the throne. 
 
 So the case stood when, in Holy Week, 1600, 
 Gabrielle solved the question by dying. Whether 
 there had been foul play or not is of no conse- 
 quence here. It was undeniable that, whilst some 
 mourned her, more rejoiced. In the eyes of many 
 of the King's well-wishers a peril was averted. 
 His enemies felt that an influence adverse to their 
 aims and objects had been removed. Henri himself 
 lamented ; but those acquainted with him foresaw 
 that his grief would be short-lived. If brief, it was 
 bitter. 
 
GABRIELLE D'ESTREES, DUCHESSE DE BEAUFORT. 
 
 p. 14] 
 
Death of Gabrielle d'Estrees 15 
 
 u The root of love is dead in me," he wrote to his 
 sister. " It will throw out no more shoots." 
 
 He probably believed what he said. Yet almost at 
 once followed his passion for Henriette d'Entragues, 
 the cold, ambitious, unloving woman who held him 
 enslaved till close upon the end, and to whom the 
 unhappiness of his nine years of married life was 
 chiefly due. 
 
 Gabrielle gone, the question of the King's marriage 
 was simplified, and it soon became clear that his 
 choice of a wife would fall upon Marie de Medicis, 
 niece of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. 
 
 Henriette d'Entragues, indeed, aspired to the posi- 
 tion her predecessor had hoped to fill. Henri, wax in 
 the hands of an intriguing woman, had gone so far as 
 to sign a paper pledging himself to marry her should 
 she bear him a son within a year ; and though Rosny, 
 when his master placed the document in his hands, had 
 been bold enough to tear it across, nothing was easier 
 than to replace it. Nevertheless, whatever might have 
 been the case had Gabrielle lived, whatever promises 
 had been wrung from him by Henriette, Henri could 
 scarcely, in his saner moments, have deemed it possible 
 to make the object of his fresh passion Queen. 
 
 As a matter of policy and convenience the Florentine 
 match had much to recommend it. Marie de Medicis, 
 it was true, had been one of the ladies he had 
 mentioned to Rosny in terms of depreciation. The 
 Duke of Florence, he said, had a niece reported to be 
 good-looking. She came, however, of one of the least 
 of the princely houses of Christendom, and was besides 
 of the same race as Catherine, the late Queen-mother, 
 
1 6 The Making of a King 
 
 who had worked so much ill to France and to himself! 
 Yet, in spite of her disadvantages, Marie was fast 
 distancing her rivals. Henri was under obligations 
 especially money obligations to her uncle. He hoped, 
 should he wed the niece, to be relieved from a part of 
 his debts, and to obtain in addition more of the ready 
 money he urgently needed. Another war was inevitable 
 if the rights of France were to be vindicated, and a 
 war, even if a minor one, meant fresh needs and 
 necessities. The Duke of Savoy retained possession 
 of territory acquired during the time when France 
 was distracted by the League and its civil wars. His 
 promises of restitution or compensation were only 
 made to be broken or evaded ; it was becoming plain 
 that force must be used. Rosny, wise, prudent, and 
 fearless, was prepared for the struggle ; Henri was 
 never unwilling to unsheath the sword. In August 
 1600 the standard was raised at Lyons, and success 
 again attended upon the arms of the great captain. 
 Treachery, it was true, was one of the forces to be 
 contended with, but if the Due de Biron, Marshal of 
 the troops, was at heart a traitor, Rosny and his master 
 were at hand to counteract the effects of his double 
 dealing. The incompetent nobles in command of the 
 artillery were replaced by capable officers ; every re- 
 source of the country was brought into requisition to 
 ensure success, and once more the King was a victor. 
 
 In the meantime the last obstacle in the way of his 
 remarriage had been removed. A decree from Rome 
 had been obtained annulling his union with Marguerite; 
 Marie de Medicis was to be Queen of France. 
 
 Most people approved of the match. To one 
 
The King's Marriage 17 
 
 person it meant failure and disappointment, the down- 
 fall of inordinate aspirations and ambitions. Henrietta 
 d'Entragues, now Marquise de Verneuil, never forgot 
 that she had hoped to wear a crown and to be mother 
 of a Dauphin ; nor was she a woman to pardon her 
 supplanter. Anxious to propitiate her so far as it was 
 possible, the King delayed the marriage as long as he 
 could find excuses for delay ; but the respite could 
 only be short. Marie, as well as her uncle, was impatient. 
 Perhaps, at twenty-six, she was in truth half in love 
 with the great soldier she had never seen, and whom, 
 having seen, she was to love so little and to have so 
 little reason to love. In a letter she wrote when her 
 fate was decided there is a note of something more 
 than the conventional language of compliment. 
 
 " Since all my will and all my soul live but in you," 
 so it ran, " may your Majesty be assured of being ever, 
 I will not say loved by me, for that is very little; but, 
 if I may be permitted to say so, adored." 
 
 A time came when reasons for delay could be no 
 longer averred. Marie de Medicis and Henri-Quatre 
 were wedded, by proxy, with all the magnificence and 
 pomp due to the position of the bridegroom. The 
 bride was escorted to her new country, and her first 
 meeting with Henri took place at Lyons. 
 
 On this occasion all went well. Nevertheless, to 
 those who look back at the company gathered together, 
 germs of disintegration are perceptible already at work. 
 The King had brought a strange companion in the 
 little Due de Vendome, then a tall boy of seven, bright 
 and spirited. His hand was kissed by the Tuscan 
 ambassador, as though he had in truth borne the title 
 
 2 
 
1 8 The Making of a King 
 
 of enfant de France repudiated by Rosny, and upon 
 him Marie lavished caresses. With the new Queen 
 was her foster-sister, Leonora Galigai, soon to become 
 the wife of the notorious Concini, whose influence 
 was to be so important and disastrous an element in 
 the future, and for whom also at Lyons the King at 
 once conceived a marked dislike. 
 
 Upon the arrival of the Queen at Paris some six 
 weeks later, she was enlightened as to the mode of 
 existence she was to expect. The very evening that 
 she reached the capital the Duchesse de Nemours and 
 Mademoiselle de Guise, yielding reluctant obedience to 
 the King's command, presented to his bride the Marquise 
 de Verneuil, who, in Henri's own blunt words, having 
 been his mistress, now desired to become the Queen's 
 humble servant. 
 
 Without a change of countenance Marie de Medicis 
 endured the insult : she did not forget it. And thus 
 her married life was inaugurated. 
 
 From the first, given the characters of husband and 
 wife, it was doomed to failure. Henri was a great 
 King, a great soldier ; he was not a great man. 
 Nothing, says Michelet, summing up the case, was 
 solid in him save the soldierly element ; all else was 
 fluid, changeable as water. Lovable, kindly, affec- 
 tionate, gay, quick-witted, hot-tempered, impulsive, 
 he retained to the end something of the child a 
 child's longing for love and approval and sympathy ; 
 something, notwithstanding his abjuration of his early 
 creed, of a child's faith. Royalty in him had never 
 stiffened or overshadowed humanity ; but the moral 
 sense was absent. Like Esau, he would have bartered 
 
Character of Henri-Quatre 19 
 
 his inheritance, spiritual or temporal, for the mess of 
 pottage the moment offered. Yet there was a charm 
 in him hard to resist. Emotional and easily moved, 
 even to the point of tears, his anger was as short-lived 
 as it was sharp. It might almost be said that he did 
 not know how not to forgive, that he was incapable of 
 distrust. Entering Paris as a victor, he went to the 
 house of the Duchesse de Montpensier, his foe, and 
 asked for food. As it was set before him, she was 
 about, according to custom, to taste it before he ate, 
 when he stopped her. That ceremony, he said, was 
 not necessary. The Duchess, remembering the past, 
 demurred. 
 
 " What ! " she said, < have I not done enough to 
 render myself suspect ? " 
 
 " You are not so, ma tante" was the King's reply, 
 and the old enmity broke down, conquered by his 
 confidence. 
 
 " Ah," said his hostess, " one must be your servant" ; 
 and she kept her pledge. 
 
 Again, he had sworn that d'Aubigny, the friend 
 of Huguenot days, the opponent of later years, should 
 die. Nevertheless, when he placed himself in the 
 King's hands and, looking at the scar left upon Henri's 
 mouth by the blow of an assassin, told him sternly 
 that, having renounced God with his lips, He had 
 wounded him on the lips, and, should he renounce 
 Him with the heart, the heart would be pierced, Henri 
 only answered by placing his little son, Csar de 
 Vendome, with a smile, in the arms of the monitor. 
 A like master might be blamed ; he could not fail 
 to be loved. 
 
20 The Making of a King 
 
 Loved, that is, by friends and servants. It was a 
 different matter when a woman was concerned and a 
 woman whose fate it was to see her husband helpless 
 in the hands of a rival, blind to that rival's disloyalty, 
 ministering to her ambition, and ready to sacrifice to 
 her, not only his wife and her happiness, but the 
 interests of her children. Some women indeed might 
 have been capable of vindicating their position, and, 
 gaining the King's affections, have won the day. Marie 
 de Medicis was not such a woman. Perhaps she never 
 understood her husband sufficiently to render it pos- 
 sible. Henri wanted not only to be happy ; he wanted 
 to be gay. Henriette d'Entragues owed part of her 
 extraordinary ascendancy to the fact that she could 
 always make him laugh. Laughter was not easily 
 come at by means of intercourse with the Queen. 
 Ponderous, serious, injured, with an ever-present sense 
 of her grievances, she had no chance against the cold, 
 clever, unscrupulous Frenchwoman ; and from the first, 
 pitted against her, she played a losing game. u Spanish 
 in heart, Austrian in body, Flemish by birth," she could 
 offer little attraction to the brilliant, versatile Gascon 
 she had married ; and what poor chances might have 
 existed of domestic peace were minimised by the fact 
 that Leonora and Concini were in possession of her 
 ear. Had Henri persisted in the intention he had at 
 first evinced to insist upon Concini's return to France, 
 much subsequent trouble might have been avoided. 
 The Queen's foster-sister, should she remain in France, 
 was to have been married to a Frenchman, and the 
 danger arising from the combined influence of the two 
 foreign favourites would have been averted. Yielding 
 

 Concini and Leonora Galigai 21 
 
 to his wife's entreaties, Henri was weak enough to 
 permit both Italians to accompany her to Paris, con- 
 senting afterwards, though reluctantly, to bestow upon 
 Leonora the post and title of dame d'atour. The 
 interests of the pair having become one by their 
 subsequent marriage, the presence of husband and 
 wife, rapacious and scheming intriguers, could not fail 
 to prove disastrous at Court. 
 
 Leonora, low-born, ill-favoured, and totally deficient 
 in the qualities and gifts which would have fitted her 
 to take the place accorded her, was, strangely enough, 
 the one of the couple whose influence over Marie was 
 paramount. The fact of her mistress's love for her 
 was, it can scarcely be doubted, what had determined 
 Concini upon making her his wife. The Queen's 
 confidence in "cette femme de nant," to use the 
 language of the angry Grand-duke, her uncle, was 
 blind, her affection unchanging and tenacious. To 
 the foreign Queen Leonora, associated with her 
 childhood and youth, represented home and country. 
 
 Concini's antecedents were of a different nature. 
 Of a good Florentine family, his career at the 
 University of Pisa had been marked by no successes, 
 and, extravagant and ill-conducted, he had become 
 an outcast from the society of his native city at 
 the time when the King's marriage was projected. 
 Availing himself of the opportunity, an uncle who 
 occupied at that moment the position of Secretary 
 of State succeeded, in spite of opposition from the 
 Grand-duke and others, in including his nephew 
 in the train which was to accompany Marie to 
 France ; and the foundation of his future fortune 
 
22 The Making of a King 
 
 was thus laid. Such were the couple who ruled the 
 Queen. 
 
 Had the element of discord supplied by the Concini 
 been absent, any hopes of wedded happiness must, for 
 Henri and Marie, have been small. The King's con- 
 duct was from the first a matter of public scandal. 
 There had not been so much as a break in his inter- 
 course with the Marquise de Verneuil. The very 
 appointment of Leonora to her post in the royal house- 
 hold had been due to an interposition on the Marquise's 
 part, prompted by a desire both to display her power and 
 to gain a hold over so important an attendant on the 
 Queen. It soon became known that she was expecting 
 the birth of a child almost simultaneously with the 
 King's wife. There is a degree of misconduct that 
 the public taste finds it difficult, even in its idols, to 
 condone, and Henri's popularity suffered a momentary 
 eclipse. 
 
 Thus the first year of his marriage had gone by. 
 As autumn approached he had been called away by 
 worthier cares and duties. Spain was attacking Ostend ; 
 and the presence of her troops so close to the French 
 frontier rendered watchfulness and supervision neces- 
 sary. Near the scene of action, at Calais and Boulogne, 
 and within sound of the conflict, the King's finer 
 instincts awoke, and he wrote kindly to his wife. 
 
 " You know, ma mie," he said, " where I am going ; 
 but, with the help of God, I shall be back for your 
 confinement. Go to Fontainebleau. Nothing will be 
 lacking to you. You will have my sister, who is the 
 best of company," and others whom he enumerated. 
 
 During his absence he kept Marie constantly 
 
inl 
 lik 
 
 King and Queen 
 
 informed of his movements, telling her of his war- 
 like preparations, his occupations on the sea-coast, and 
 taking thought for her welfare at home. By Sep- 
 tember 19 he had hurried back to the palace, lest he 
 should fail to be present at the birth of his child. 
 Eight days later the Dauphin was born. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 1602 
 
 Babyhood The Duchesse de Bar Biron's conspiracy : its phases 
 and development The Queen and the Marquise de Verneuil 
 The King at Saint-Germain. 
 
 FOR the present it mattered little to the latest-born 
 descendant of St. Louis whether predictions of 
 disaster, such as those that had clouded the spirits of 
 the King, were hazarded concerning him ; or whether, 
 as by his father's old general, he was hailed as a 
 new Messiah. It was true that no time was lost 
 in pointing out his duties and responsibilities, and 
 before he was three months old Heroard had explained 
 to him that God had bestowed him on the world that 
 he might be a good, just, and righteous sovereign, 
 observing with satisfaction that the infant listened 
 very attentively to the admonition and greeted the 
 words with a smile. But Heroard took a favourable 
 view of the Dauphin's capacities. 
 
 Under the care of his adoring attendants, and visited 
 by those of his future subjects judged worthy of the 
 honour, he grew and prospered. The Duchesse de 
 Bar, as sister to the King, was privileged to give him, 
 for the first time, his shirt, the rocker directing her 
 to make the sign of the cross as she handed it to 
 
 him. 
 
 24 
 

 The Duchesse de Bar 25 
 
 " Make it for me," said the Duchess, smiling. " I 
 do not know how." 
 
 Seriousness underlay the lightness of the words. The 
 woman's injunction may not have been given without 
 malice. Every one knew the position of the King's 
 sister, and were aware that, in spite of the arguments 
 of theologians and her brother's entreaties, Catherine 
 had remained faithful to the precepts of their common 
 mother, Jeanne d'Albret, and was firm in her refusal 
 to follow Henri's example and abjure the creed of 
 her childhood. If her religion was prejudicial to 
 her husband's house that of Lorraine she offered, 
 with tears, to return to her home at Berne. But to the 
 King's threats that he, as well as the Duke, would 
 abandon her did she not accede to their wishes, she 
 replied that, were his Majesty and the whole world to 
 forsake her, she would serve God -as the poorest lady 
 upon earth rather than dishonour Him as a Queen. 
 
 Henri's menaces had been empty, and the sequel 
 was to show that his affections were in no wise alienated 
 by her obstinacy. On December 17 she went her way 
 back to Lorraine, accompanied on the first stage of her 
 journey by the King, " leaving the Catholic theologians 
 ill-contented and the ministers well satisfied." 
 
 By the middle of November the Dauphrn had been 
 removed to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, passing through 
 Paris on his way, where he received visits of inspection 
 from all the Princes and Princesses at Court. 
 
 At Saint-Germain the earlier years of his childhood 
 were, with short intervals, to be passed. Built on a 
 hill, on the edge of a wooded plateau, it may have been 
 considered that the high air would be conducive to 
 
26 The Making of a King 
 
 health. The freedom of the country life that could 
 be led there was an undoubted advantage ; and when, 
 later on, the Dauphin was transferred to the Louvre, 
 he is found longing to revisit his old haunts. 
 
 At Saint-Germain an early guest, probably by the 
 King's desire, presented herself. u The Marquise de 
 Verneuil," writes Heroard, " comes to see him. He 
 looks at her with attention and laughs graciously. 
 She was, as she said, much pleased at the honour he 
 did her." 
 
 The jest will have veiled no little bitterness. She 
 must have thought, as she watched the Queen's son, of 
 her own boy, born a few days later, and whom she was 
 accustomed boldly to term her Dauphin. Had her 
 hopes been fulfilled, her child would have been heir to 
 the throne. And storms were imminent. 
 
 Fortified by the possession of a son, Marie de 
 Medicis had resolved at this time upon abandoning 
 the attitude of submission she had at first adopted with 
 regard to the Marquise. Indignant at her rival's 
 insolence, she told the King that she refused for the 
 future to admit her to her presence. It was the 
 opening of a struggle which, though intermittent, was 
 carried on till the end. 
 
 Henri was beginning to reap, in discord and strife, 
 what he had sown. Nor were domestic troubles the 
 only ones by which he was threatened. If the Dauphin's 
 birth and the presence in the Saint-Germain nurseries 
 of an heir to the throne was a source of joy and comfort 
 to him, it was sorely needed. Outwardly, peace might 
 have succeeded to conflict, rest to struggle. The 
 storms and tempests by which the life of the Bearnois 
 
I. HEROAKD. S. D:\AVGRIGNEVSE 
 P'MEDECIN ovRoY Lovis xm. 
 
 From a contemporary engraving. 
 
 JEAN HEROARD, 
 
 Physician to I,ouis XIII. 
 P. 26] 
 
Biron's Conspiracy 27 
 
 had been hitherto tossed had subsided ; but none 
 knew better than the victor how precarious was this 
 tranquillity. Though Spain, his inveterate and relentless 
 enemy, might have owned herself defeated, he was not 
 ignorant that she was merely biding her opportunity, 
 and, in league with domestic foes, was gathering 
 strength for a final attack. 
 
 Henri was always ready for a struggle with an open 
 foe. War was his natural atmosphere, his delight. 
 It was a different matter when the antagonist was 
 a veiled one. To know that all around him was 
 treachery, that in his household, amongst his intimate 
 associates, in the men who stood nearest to the throne, 
 he had secret enemies, on the watch to take advantage 
 of an unguarded moment, was to lead a life of strain 
 and tension trying to the boldest spirit. Proof might 
 as yet be wanting, but Henri, shrewd and sagacious, 
 appraised the situation correctly. Who were numbered 
 amongst the traitors, how far the infection of treason 
 had spread, he might still be uncertain. Nevertheless, 
 as he waited the development of events he must have 
 felt that a crisis could not be far off. 
 
 The most powerful men in the kingdom were, in 
 fact, drawn into the nets of a conspiracy which had 
 been for years secretly maturing. The Constable of 
 France, Montmorency, Epernon, Bouillon all of them 
 possessing the greatest influence in different parts of 
 the country were in their several degrees involved 
 in it. The Comte d'Auvergne, Charles IX.'s illegi- 
 timate son, half-brother to the Marquise de Verneuil, 
 as well as the Marquise herself, were likewise implicated 
 in the plot. Above all, one man was steeped in guilt. 
 
28 The Making of a King 
 
 That man was the Marechal de Biron, owing more 
 to the King than perhaps any other of his servants. 
 
 The story of his treason is a strange one or would 
 be strange, were it not that, the obligations of friend- 
 ship and loyalty once forgotten and the downward 
 path entered, he who has most to be forgiven becomes 
 the man most reckless in his^ crime. Biron had been 
 the King's brother-in-arms ; had fought by his side 
 on battle-field after battle-field; had twice owed to him 
 his life ; and, it must be added, had for his part 
 sheltered Henri with his own body on more than 
 one occasion. He had done good service, attested by 
 thirty-two wounds ; and he had had his reward, good 
 measure, pressed down, and running over. He had 
 been made in turn Marshal, General-in-chief, Duke, 
 and Governor of the most important province of 
 France, Burgundy. More than this, he had been 
 repaid by his master's strong affection. Yet all had 
 not availed to keep him true. Inordinately vain, 
 proud of his exploits, and ambitious, his estimate of 
 the services he had rendered made it impossible to 
 satisfy him, and he lent a not unwilling ear to the 
 King's enemies when they sought to seduce him from 
 his allegiance. 
 
 An adventurer named La Fin, in the King's service, 
 was the chief channel of communication between Biron 
 and the politicians at Madrid, Brussels and Turin, 
 who were plotting Henri's ruin a man who, after 
 the fashion of his kind, was in the end to deliver 
 up to justice the dupes who had trusted him. Bribes 
 were offered to the Marshal. He was to be given 
 in marriage a daughter of the Duke of Savoy, richly 
 

 Biron's Conspiracy 29 
 
 dowered ; and to be placed in a position of power 
 and influence. On the other hand, half-measures were 
 not to suffice. With Henri living, no successes would 
 have been assured. The King was to die ; and when, 
 later on, his son was born, the child was included in 
 the murderous plot. How it was to be carried out 
 was of less importance. Biron might kill his master 
 out hunting ; the Comte d'Auvergne might contrive 
 his death through his sister, the Marquise ; a ball 
 might settle the business on the battle-field. 
 
 To what extent Biron was a party to the darker 
 features of the scheme is doubtful. He was said to 
 have listened to it favourably. He may have been 
 slandered ; he certainly had opportunities of performing 
 the deed assigned him, and did not make use of them. 
 It seems clear that he had his moments of repentance, 
 times when he would have drawn back from the path 
 he was treading. " Since God has given him a son/' 
 he is quoted as saying after the birth of the Dauphin, 
 "let us forget our dreams." But he did not forget 
 them. It is proverbially difficult for a man to retrace 
 his steps ; and, though perhaps flinching from the 
 thought of actual assassination, he was falling deeper 
 and deeper into the mire. 
 
 Madame de Verneuirs share in the scheme remains 
 likewise unproved. When the facts were in course 
 of being disclosed, and their proper degrees of guilt 
 brought home to the several participants in the con- 
 spiracy, Henri did what he could to shield the woman 
 he loved from exposure. So far as she is concerned, 
 therefore, it is difficult to form a clear judgment. 
 That she was in some measure an accomplice does 
 
30 The Making of a King 
 
 not admit of doubt. At the time the plot was first 
 hatching she had been embittered by her indignation 
 and disappointment at the Florentine marriage, and 
 would have been ready to take vengeance for what 
 she considered, not unjustifiably, the breach of the 
 King's promise that, should she bear him a son within 
 the year, he would make hej: his wife. She had been 
 told, and gave credit to the assertion, that Henri's 
 death would profit her and her unborn child more than 
 his life ; and, personally, her affection for him seems 
 from first to last to have been small. The event upon 
 which the King's promise had been conditional had 
 not come to pass, but the sense that she had been 
 betrayed remained. Nevertheless, the part she actually 
 played in the conspiracy is involved in obscurity. 
 
 The bribes offered to each conspirator were shaped 
 to meet their desires. Henri once removed, the spoil 
 was to be divided : France was to be split up, and 
 all concerned were to take their share. Savoy was 
 assigned a portion of the booty, Spain another. Biron 
 was to reap a rich reward. 
 
 Such was the condition of the plot already under- 
 mining the apparent prosperity of King and country 
 when the short and successful campaign of 1600 had 
 taken place. Savoy scarcely caring, in the transi- 
 tional state of affairs, to make a genuine resistance 
 was reduced to submission. Since Henri was to die 
 to-morrow, why spend men and money in circum- 
 venting him to-day ? 
 
 Biron's attitude at this stage was again ambiguous. 
 Some said he had engaged to lead the King into 
 danger ; others asserted that, had this been the case, 
 
Biron's Conspiracy 3 1 
 
 he repented and did not fulfil his promise. At Lyons, 
 when the war was over, he made to his master one 
 of those half-confessions sometimes serving to salve a 
 conscience, sometimes to disguise a crime. Resenting 
 the King's refusal to make over to him the citadel of 
 Bourg, he had, by his own account, indulged in evil 
 dreams. So he told Henri. The King listened to 
 the half, and took, or seemed to take, it for the whole. 
 With generous imprudence he forgave the penitent. 
 
 " Marshal," he said, " never call Bourg to mind 
 again ; and I also will never remember the past." 
 
 There was more than Bourg that Biron would have 
 had to forget before he could accept, as freely as it was 
 offered, his master's quittance. Henri may have divined 
 it ; but, bent upon recapturing the wandering affections 
 of his old friend and comrade, he appears to have been 
 incapable of believing that he would fail in the end 
 to succeed. As, during the autumn weeks passed at 
 Calais before the Dauphin's birth, reports reached him 
 of the Duke's continued discontent ; of language used 
 concerning himself convicting the speaker of disloyalty, 
 he still adhered, with pathetic persistency, to his purpose 
 of winning him back by kindness and trust. Money 
 was given him a large sum, wrung from Rosny's 
 unwilling fingers. To the minister's warnings Henri 
 turned a deaf ear. Whilst admitting incriminating 
 facts and causes of complaint, he said lightly that 
 Biron's rhodomontades, his menaces and his boasts, 
 should not be taken too literally he was a man who 
 could not refrain from speaking ill of others and 
 bragging of himself. When he was in the saddle and 
 sword in hand, it was a different matter. And, in 
 
32 The Making of a King 
 
 spite of remonstrance, the King persisted in his attempt 
 to regain his friend, heaping fresh favours upon him, 
 and making him Envoy-extraordinary to England. 
 
 Perhaps, as Rosny imagined, Henri had not chosen 
 the Marshal for this last post without a motive. The 
 tragedy of Essex's treason and death was hardly a 
 year old, and the King ma)i have fancied that the fate 
 of Elizabeth's favourite might serve as a useful object- 
 lesson to the Duke. Whether or not the shrewd old 
 Queen divined Henri's intentions, she did her best 
 to second them and to drive the lesson home. It may 
 be that reports had made their way across the Channel, 
 not to Biron's advantage. 
 
 " He was lost through pride," she told the Ambassa- 
 dor, pointing to the head of the man she had loved 
 so well, still exposed to the public view. " He thought 
 himself indispensable. See what he gained by it. If 
 the King, my brother, believes me, he will do what 
 has been done in London. He will cut off the heads 
 of traitors." 
 
 What effect the. ghastly spectacle had on Biron is 
 not recorded. It did not deter him from the course 
 upon which he had entered. Bent upon his ruin, he 
 went his way, to take up once more the threads of the 
 wide-reaching conspiracy. Not long after the Dauphin's 
 birth proofs of the Marshal's guilt that the King could 
 not refuse to admit were in his hands. La Fin had 
 played the part of a double traitor and had delivered up 
 his accomplices. Leaning on the balcony at the Arsenal 
 in close converse with the only friend, perhaps, who 
 was unfalteringly true, Henri told Rosny what had 
 come to his knowledge. The story had a double 
 
: 
 
 The Queen and the Concini 33 
 
 edge ; Biron's persistent infidelity was his master's 
 defeat. Henri's patience and long-suffering had failed 
 to win him back. 
 
 Summoning La Fin to Fontainebleau, he gained 
 from him all the information he had to give. Yet 
 he was determined to do nothing in haste. La Fin 
 was at all events a liar he had gone so far as to 
 seek to incriminate Rosny himself and the King was 
 resolved that every charge should be sifted before he 
 struck. 
 
 Thus winter and spring went by. At Saint-Germain 
 the Dauphin lived and throve, an additional obstacle in 
 the way of the contemplated dismemberment of the 
 kingdom. And still the conspiracy spread, developing 
 new features. Not only was the child, as well as his 
 father, marked for death ; but none who, being of the 
 blood royal, might aspire to the succession, were to be 
 left alive. 
 
 The year, in spite of all Henri knew or suspected, 
 had opened cheerfully. It was true that less than a 
 month after his son's birth the King had braved his 
 wife's displeasure by an attempt to effect a modification 
 in the footing to which she had admitted her Italian 
 favourites. Finding them both conversing with the 
 Queen when she was in bed, he had told Leonora 
 sharply to confine herself to her duty of arranging her 
 
 istress's hair, adding that, as she had no sense 
 giudicio he would address himself to her husband. 
 Leonora had wept all the next day, the Queen also 
 shedding tears ; whilst Henri, by no means softened, 
 ad observed aloud, when at table, that if his wife 
 ould not have Princesses about her, and be served 
 
 3 
 
34 The Making of a King 
 
 by them, or by those who treated her as a Queen, she 
 would not be recognised as Queen. 
 
 To Giovannini, the Tuscan" Resident, Concini a 
 sign of his growing arrogance had behaved in such a 
 fashion that the envoy expressed his wish to be re- 
 called, to renounce all earthly courts, and to become 
 the courtier of God alone.. 
 
 Marie de Medicis was not a woman to submit 
 meekly to her husband's will, and her refusal to admit 
 the Marquise to her presence may have been a blow 
 struck in return for the King's attack upon her 
 favourites. She did not, however, persevere in the 
 determination she had announced ; and by the end 
 of January King, Queen, and Marquise were all 
 apparently on friendly terms, and were visiting the 
 Dauphin at Saint-Germain together. " The King and 
 Queen came [to the nursery] at one o'clock," records 
 Heroard, " the King and the Marquise at five. He 
 laughed much and played with them." 
 
 Again and again Henri is found enjoying at the 
 chateau a respite from the graver cares pressing upon 
 him with increasing urgency ; sometimes amusing the 
 child as he lies in his cradle ; watching him rocked ; 
 having him brought to be present at his supper ; 
 or walking with him on the terrace in the pleasant 
 spring weather. Yet in the background of his mind, 
 as he played with his little son, must have been the 
 thought of the traitors who were laying their plots for 
 his own destruction and that of his heir. Worse than 
 all, he cannot, loath as he was to admit it, have 
 escaped the suspicion that the Marquise was implicated 
 in their designs. Amongst her many sins over-caution 
 
The Queen and Madame de Verneuil 35 
 
 was not included, and some at least of the stories 
 current concerning her must have reached his ears, 
 affording him matter for reflection. 
 
 " The Florentine may have her son," she had 
 declared. " I have my Dauphin. The King was my 
 husband before he was hers," refusing also to accede to 
 Henri's desire that the small pretender should be placed 
 at Saint-Germain, to be the associate of "all the bastards 
 there." A singular feature of the case was the degree 
 of influence she was believed to exercise over matters 
 which might have been considered wholly beyond her 
 control. According to the Tuscan envoy she was 
 reported to have a voice in the arrangements of the 
 royal nursery, and was rumoured to have been instru- 
 mental in placing Madame de Montglat at its head. 
 He had been told by a competent authority, added the 
 Italian, that should the King die, and the Marquise's 
 son fall into powerful hands, trouble might come of it. 
 He further lamented a curious proof of the Queen's 
 policy at this moment the caresses lavished by Marie 
 on her rival, deploring the fact that no one had courage 
 to open her eyes. 
 
 If the Queen's eyes had not been opened by all that 
 had passed since her marriage it might have seemed 
 difficult to perform the feat. Giovannini, however, 
 was determined that she should not continue ignorant 
 of the true state of affairs, and took his measures 
 accordingly. An Italian priest, Torricello by name, 
 had undertaken to place Marie on her guard, and, 
 hether or not by means of his intervention, she 
 uickly changed her attitude of conciliation. By May 
 
 e had adopted the line she pursued, though inter- 
 
36 The Making of a King 
 
 mittently, to the end, had refused to admit the Marquise 
 to her presence, and had made complaint to the King 
 of her insolence with regard to herself and to the 
 Dauphin. 
 
 Irritated and angry, probably with both women 
 alike, Henri can scarcely have blamed his wife. But 
 at the present moment, engrossed by other and serious 
 subjects of preoccupation, he had little time to spare 
 for domestic cares. The conspiracy was drawing 
 towards a head, and it was clear that steps must soon 
 be taken to bring its promoters to justice. 
 
! 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 1602 
 
 Progress of Biron's conspiracy The traitors at Saint-Germain Biron's 
 letter Henri ready to pardon him He refuses to admit his guilt 
 Is arrested The King and Madame de Verneuil at Saint-Germain. 
 
 THE present condition of affairs had produced a 
 situation involving a severe strain upon the 
 temper and nerves of the man against whom so many 
 powerful enemies were leagued together. He knew 
 much, he suspected more ; but his policy was to 
 disguise both knowledge and suspicion until the time 
 should come when an effective blow could be struck. 
 Practically and morally assured of the guilt of men 
 with whom he was keeping up the semblance of 
 friendly intimacy, he was compelled to treat them, as 
 yet unconvicted of their crime, as if no suspicion of 
 their treason was harboured in his mind, and to permit 
 them to visit his heir. Now it is Epernon who has 
 brought his three sons to pay their respects to their 
 uture sovereign. All kiss the Dauphin's hands, and 
 e Duke, " regarding him with attention, speaks in 
 praise of him." A week or two later M. de Bouillon, 
 steeped in treachery, is one of the guests at Saint- 
 Germain. On the same day Hieronimo Taxis, Spanish 
 mbassador, representative of the Power most per- 
 istejit in hatred of the King and in league with all 
 
 37 
 
38 The Making of a King 
 
 his foes, comes bareheaded to wait upon the child, 
 explaining, as he bows low, that he had wished not to 
 leave the country without seeing "him. With Bouillon 
 and the men who had accompanied him to Saint- 
 Germain, Taxis watches the boy, and the possibility 
 of the Spanish marriage which eventually came to 
 pass is discussed, as though the guests had no know- 
 ledge of the plot laid to cut short the little life. 
 More singular still, towards the end of April the arch- 
 traitor, Biron himself, has the audacity to send his 
 brother-in-law to carry a letter from him to Madame 
 de Montglat, filled with professions of loyal attach- 
 ment. 
 
 " Madame," he wrote, " my desire to have news of 
 Monseigneur the Dauphin causes me to send this 
 messenger to entreat you to give me tidings of him . . . 
 for 1 have a passion and affection for him, hoping for 
 his happy growth ; being of those who believe him 
 to be given by God for the maintenance of this State. 
 He could not fail to be generous, virtuous, and for- 
 tunate, being born of the King, my master, who 
 possesses all these gifts more than any other King or 
 Prince has possessed them. For my own part, I figure 
 him to myself as the fairest, most amiable Prince that 
 ever was or ever shall be ; for all my inclination is to 
 love him ; and, besides the royalty the King will one 
 day bequeath to him, he will leave him good and 
 loyal subjects and servants. 1 should regret it if death 
 should overtake me before I have given proof of this 
 my ardent zeal, vowed to him as from the humble and 
 obedient servant of the King, his father." 
 
 A strange letter, with its gratuitous lies and pro- 
 
Visitors at Saint^Germain 39 
 
 fessions, to come from a man who could not have 
 been wholly base. Was it a mere blind, a clumsy 
 attempt to shield the writer from suspicion, the out- 
 come perhaps of a moment's panic ? Or was it the 
 expression of a mood of remorse ? Did the traitor 
 still conceive it possible to retrace his steps and to 
 recapture his past ? It is impossible to say. 
 
 Another visitor, the Comte d'Auvergne, Madame 
 de Verneuil's brother, who shared Biron's pre-eminence 
 in treason, was manifestly ill at ease in the presence 
 of his intended victim. " He remained a short half- 
 hour," says Heroard, " leaning against the balustrade, 
 his face half covered by his cloak, and speaking to 
 Madame de Montglat in confused and ill-chosen 
 language.'' 
 
 It may be that, in spite of the assumption of 
 innocence implied by his presence at the chateau, he 
 remembered uneasily that, a fortnight earlier, at Fon- 
 tainebleau, the King had given signs that he was on 
 his guard. As the two were riding together Auvergne 
 had fallen behind, and Henri, noting it, had bidden 
 him pass on in front, adding, in the ear of a com- 
 panion, that no one was more capable of venturing 
 on a vigliaccheria than the Count. Yet this man, 
 whom Henri believed might stab him in the back, 
 was permitted to pay his respects to the Dauphin. 
 His visit to Saint-Germain had been made on May 21. 
 Before more than a month had gone by he, with Biron, 
 was lodged in the Bastille. 
 
 The decisive step was taken on June 2 1 ; nor was 
 it without hesitation that even then it was resolved 
 upon. A curious amount of sympathy appears to have 
 
40 The Making of a King 
 
 been evoked by the great soldier who had fallen into 
 treason, the King telling Marie that, had he been 
 certain of his life outlasting that of the Marshal, he 
 would gladly have pardoned him and trusted to his 
 own vigilance to ward off evil ; but that he could not 
 leave her and his children a like thorn in their foot. 
 To himself the final determination to convict his 
 enemies of their designs must have put an end to 
 a condition of almost intolerable tension. 
 
 It was not only the scene with Auvergne at Fon- 
 tainebleau which shows that he was on the watch lest 
 a familiar associate should attempt his life. An inci- 
 dent recorded by the Tuscan envoy points to the same 
 sense of possible danger. Admitted to an audience 
 at the Tuileries, Giovannini heard the King desire all 
 present to withdraw to a distance, so that his view 
 of the great avenue planted by Catherine de Medicis 
 should be unimpeded. Then, signing to the Florentine 
 to approach, he disowned, with a laugh, the inter- 
 pretation that might be placed upon his order. It was 
 not, he said, because he was afraid, the very disclaimer 
 showing what was in his mind. Other and more secret 
 perils than open murder were apprehended. It had 
 been predicted that four persons would seek to destroy 
 the King by means of poison, and he was said to 
 be always attended by his physician, provided with 
 an antidote. 
 
 During April and May his usual visits to Saint- 
 Germain had been omitted. To safeguard his son's 
 inheritance perhaps his life demanded at the moment 
 his whole thought and care ; and he had been absent 
 jn the provinces, where his presence was needed to 
 
s 
 
 Biron's Conspiracy 4 1 
 
 counteract the intrigues of his enemies and to frustrate 
 their endeavours to create a spirit of discontent in the 
 country. 
 
 At Blois, whither he was accompanied by Epernon 
 and Bouillon, whilst refraining from making any direct 
 or specific charge, he spoke to both in a fashion to 
 sound them. The first, truly or falsely, succeeded in 
 satisfying the King of his comparative innocence. 
 Bouillon, interrogated separately, answered at length 
 in vague and confused terms. Although not wholly 
 convinced by his professions of loyalty, Henri for the 
 moment gave no indication of distrust. In neither 
 case was there definite proof of guilt, and, acting on 
 Rosny's advice, he determined to take no present action 
 with regard to them. 
 
 Biron had remained so far at a distance in his 
 province of Burgundy, the reiterated and friendly sum- 
 mons sent him by his master notwithstanding. Would 
 he in the end yield and report himself to the King, 
 or would he give colour to all the dark charges against 
 him by refusing obedience to the royal mandate ? 
 These must have been the questions in all men's minds 
 as they looked on and awaited the event. In spite of 
 what was known or suspected, he still occupied the 
 ostensible position of the King's trusted servant ; and 
 
 till Henri clung, strangely, persistently, to the hope 
 transforming the appearance into the reality, of 
 recapturing his old friend's former affection, and 
 bringing him back to the path of rectitude and 
 
 onour. 
 At Orleans he now gave him rendezvous, bidding 
 
 im repair thither for the feast of Corpus Christi, 
 
42 The Making of a King 
 
 But the feast was over and the King had left Orleans 
 before Biron determined on obedience ; so that, when 
 at last he set out to join the "Court, it was towards 
 Fontainebleau that he turned his steps. With what 
 fears and misgivings he came none can tell. He must 
 have become aware that resistance was impossible. 
 Rosny had taken his measures. On the pretext of 
 replacing old cannon by new, he had withdrawn the 
 artillery which had been under the Marshal's charge, 
 leaving him thus without means of defence. Bodies 
 of men, moreover, closing up behind him as he rode 
 towards Fontainebleau, cut off his retreat. He was 
 caught in a snare. 
 
 Yet never had captor been in a more merciful mood 
 than his injured master. Bent upon forgiveness, as a 
 man of a different temper might have been bent upon 
 revenge, Henri continued to cherish the hope of saving 
 the culprit from the consequences of his misdeeds. 
 
 " He is an unhappy man," he told Rosny ; " I 
 should like to pardon him, to forget all that is past, 
 and to be as good to him as ever. I pity him ; and it 
 goes against my heart to injure a brave man who has 
 served me so long, and with whom I have been on such 
 familiar terms. But I fear that, should I pardon him, 
 he will pardon neither me, my children, nor my realm ; 
 for he has confessed nought, and he treats me like a 
 man who harbours ill thoughts in his heart " ; adding 
 orders that Rosny should assure the Marshal that, if 
 only he would make a clean breast of the past, full 
 forgiveness awaited him. 
 
 In the meantime Biron's reception at the palace had 
 not tended to allay his apprehensions. He had found 
 
Biron at Fontainebleau 43 
 
 Henri in the courtyard ; and it was observed that 
 when little Vendome would have flung himself, after 
 his usual fashion, into the arms of his father's friend, 
 the King checked the child, placing him behind him 
 whilst he inclined his head in silent greeting. Mount- 
 ing the staircase, he reached an uncovered corridor 
 above the courtyard. Then, turning to Biron : 
 
 " Pass in," he said briefly, bidding the rest of the 
 company to wait outside. 
 
 That long-deferred interview proved decisive. La 
 Fin, the double traitor and informer, was also at Fon- 
 tainebleau, and had found an opportunity to whisper 
 in Biron's ear that nothing was known. Fortified by 
 this assurance, the Duke persisted in his fatal assump- 
 tion of injured innocence. He had nothing to tell, 
 nothing to confess. Rosny, acting on the King's 
 directions and striving to induce him to admit his guilt, 
 was met by the same dogged denial of the existence 
 of any subject-matter for confession, with the exception 
 of the intrigues already pardoned by Henri two years 
 earlier. 
 
 The unhappy man had sealed his fate. Hearing 
 Rosny's report of failure, the King's long patience 
 was exhausted ; and it was determined, at a consulta- 
 tion held between King, Queen, and minister, that 
 Biron, with the other chief conspirator, Auvergne, 
 should be arrested that night. Henri had been con- 
 vinced that clemency would be a crime. 
 
 " He said to a servant of his who repeated it to me," 
 wrote the Florentine Resident, " that he forgave all 
 their designs against his own person ; but that it would 
 be to fail in what he owed to himself were he not to 
 
 
44 The Making of a King 
 
 leave justice to deal with their machinations against the 
 Dauphin and the realm." 
 
 It may be that he had seen br heard of the letter 
 containing Biron's protestations of love and loyalty 
 towards his little son, and that the thought of the 
 unconscious victim at Saint-Germain steadied his hand 
 to strike the final blow. 
 
 The sole question was as to the conduct of the 
 affair. Henri would have liked to apprehend the 
 criminals in their beds. He recoiled from the thought 
 of a possible struggle and of bloodshed in the palace. 
 Rosny took a different view, and in the end Rosny 
 prevailed. 
 
 To the few who were aware of what was in con- 
 templation the evening was an anxious one. In his 
 small chamber apart, the minister awaited the event, 
 with an escort ready to convey the prisoners to Paris. 
 Midnight had come, and nothing had been done. In 
 the outer room Henri's guests played, conversed, or 
 slumbered. In his private apartment the King and 
 Biron had engaged in a game. The courtiers were 
 dispersing to their several lodgings, when it is believed 
 that Henri made an ultimate appeal to his old comrade 
 to save himself by speech. If so it was vain ; Biron 
 persisted in his fatal policy of silence. Then the King 
 bade him a last farewell. 
 
 "Adieu," he said, " Baron de Biron." 
 
 Upon the words, sinister in their brevity, curiously 
 different interpretations have been put. To Michelet 
 the reversion to the title under which Biron had fought 
 by his master's side during the years of storm and 
 stress they had faced together, represented a reminder 
 
K 1 
 
 Biron's Arrest 45 
 
 of the past a final call to repentance. To others 
 the farewell, " cruel et laconique," has seemed to express 
 the tardy harshness of a man betrayed. 
 
 It was not long before the interpretation of the 
 King's words was supplied to Biron. As he left the 
 royal presence Vitry, Captain of the Guard, laid his 
 hand upon his shoulder and demanded his sword. He 
 was a prisoner. 
 
 Auvergne, who had retired earlier to his apartment, 
 was arrested in his bed, and the captives, taken by 
 water to the Arsenal, were quickly lodged in the 
 Bastille. France and its heir were delivered from 
 the peril that had threatened them. With Biron 
 and Auvergne, the conspiracy was deprived of its 
 heads. 
 
 It was on a Wednesday that the stroke was dealt. 
 To the King, vacillating long between the dictates 
 of compassion and justice, the very fact that a de- 
 cision had been taken must have brought relief. On 
 the following Monday he snatched a few hours from 
 graver cares to visit Saint-Germain : " The King 
 arrives at midday, kisses [the Dauphin] and plays 
 with him. The Queen arrives at half-past one ; finds 
 Monseigneur the Dauphin at the foot of the grand 
 staircase. She turns suddenly very red, and kisses 
 im on the side of his forehead." Before the end of 
 he week Henri was again at the chateau, when a 
 ingular scene is recorded. There can be no doubt 
 that the Comte d'Auvergne's sister was implicated in 
 guilt, nor is it conceivable that the King could 
 ucceed in altogether blinding himself to this fact. 
 Yet on Saturday, June 22, there was a meeting at 
 
46 The Making of a King 
 
 Saint-Germain between Henri and Madame de Ver- 
 neuil, when he was in a mood as gay and debonair 
 as if no network of intrigue nad been escaped and 
 apparently untroubled by the thought that the woman 
 he loved was in league with his enemies. 
 
 Arriving alone, he found amusement in watching 
 the child eat his broth, himself drinking what was 
 left of it. " Should any one ask now what the King 
 is doing," he said, " it can be answered that he is 
 taking his broth." There was presently a second 
 arrival. It was the Marquise, who also visited the 
 nursery and caressed her rival's son, though, as those 
 who looked curiously on imagined, with effort. More- 
 over, when, that same evening, Henri started on his 
 return to Paris, nothing would content him but that 
 she should take the child in his coach to the end of 
 the courtyard, where he was surrendered to his lawful 
 guardians. 
 
 Incapable of freeing himself from the fetters that 
 bound him, Henri not only condoned the Marquise's 
 offences but was not ashamed to place in her arms 
 the child he loved, and whose ruin she would, if she 
 could, have compassed. He was, wrote the Florentine 
 envoy, completely enslaved by his passion. On another 
 occasion, about this time, he went still further, and 
 seated the Marquise next the Queen in the Queen's 
 own carriage. It was not strange that when it 
 further became clear that, whilst Biron was to pay 
 the uttermost penalty for his crime, the Comte 
 d'Auvergne was to escape, Marie de Medicis was 
 loud in her complaints. 
 
 "The King's life and that of his son is in 
 
The Escape of Auvergne 
 
 47 
 
 question," she cried bitterly, " and the mistress carries 
 the day." 
 
 She was justified in her charge. The significance 
 of the interruption of the course of justice was clear 
 as daylight to all the world. A commission was 
 issued to the Parlement for the trial of Biron, and 
 in it was no mention of Biron's chief accomplice, 
 Madame de Verneuil's brother, the Comte d'Auvergne. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 16021604 
 
 Biron's execution Pardon of Auvergne Madarae's birth The nursery 
 at Saint-Germain The King's children Monseigneur the Dauphin 
 Domestic difficulties Concini and Leonora Rivalries at Court 
 The King's illness Talk of a Spanish marriage Henri complains 
 to Rosny of his wife And of Madame de Verneuil Death of his 
 sister Rosny opposes the King The Dauphin's training Friction 
 between father and son. 
 
 " [ r T^HE Dauphin] is taken to see the deer hunted 
 ! by the King go by. ... He is carried to 
 the King in bed, hurt by a fall he had in chasing the 
 deer. He is holding a stick ; I take a twig from 
 the faggot and strike it against his stick, as in fencing. 
 The game pleases him, and he pursues me, laughing, 
 round the room. All the rest of the day he is peace- 
 ful and very gay. This day, at five o'clock, the head 
 of the Marechal de Biron was cut off at the Bastille." 
 
 So runs the entry for July 31 in Maitre Heroard's 
 journal. 
 
 The King, said the Spanish Ambassador, was so 
 defait after the execution, that he might have been 
 taken for the man who had been executed. The two 
 accounts are not irreconcilable. Amusing himself with 
 his little son, or hunting the deer, Henri may have 
 sought distraction from the sorrow of a man who 
 
 has been compelled to deliver up his friend to death. 
 
 4 8 
 
Biron Executed 49 
 
 " To-day I love none but you," he told Rosny, the 
 words marking the loss he had sustained. 
 
 Yet he had never wavered in his determination to 
 allow justice to take its course. Biron 's guilt was 
 clear. In one respect he showed himself a man of 
 honour. Striving to throw suspicion upon the guilt- 
 less, he remained true to his genuine accomplices. It 
 may be that his master was grateful for a silence 
 which made it possible to pardon what was not too 
 manifestly brought to light. The Constable Mont- 
 morency, Auvergne, Bouillon, and others above all, 
 the Marquise could be the more easily permitted to 
 escape the consequences of their guilt. The part 
 played by Spain and Savoy could be politicly ignored, 
 and only added to the secret reckoning against them, 
 to be settled at a future day. 
 
 It was curious that, by one of the caprices to which 
 the multitude is subject, the common people displayed 
 a strange anxiety to honour the memory of the arch- 
 traitor, Biron ; whilst Auvergne, faithless to most, 
 remained true to his friend, and swore to bring up 
 with his own an illegitimate child the Marshal had 
 left fatherless. 
 
 Auvergne himself made confession and received a 
 pardon. The Constable was likewise forgiven ; and 
 Bouillon would doubtless have been treated with no 
 less leniency had he not preferred to ensure his safety 
 by keeping at a distance. 
 
 To Biron's brother-in-law, the Due de la Force, 
 Henri wrote to express his continued affection, coupled 
 with a desire that the Duke's eldest son should 
 be placed near his person. Biron, he told him, had 
 
 4 
 
50 The Making of a King 
 
 died confessing his guilt, but neither asking pardon, 
 naming his confederates, nor praying to God. u I 
 believe," added the King, " he clid not know how. . . . 
 He begged, dying, that all the world might be told 
 that he had died a good Catholic, without being able 
 to say what a Catholic was." 
 
 Penitent or impenitent^ Biron was dead, and the 
 kingdom was consequently left in comparative tran- 
 quillity. The Prince de Joinville, it was true, started 
 a fresh intrigue with Spain ; but, treating it as " vraie 
 niaiserie d'enfant," the King punished the culprit no 
 more severely than by a few days' confinement to his 
 own house. Of Biron's accomplices, Auvergne soon 
 regained his place in his master's favour; Bouillon 
 nursed his disappointment at Castres and there hatched 
 new plots ; and the Marquise was, unfortunately, 
 too necessary to Henri's happiness to be kept in 
 disgrace. 
 
 In November Marie de Medicis gave birth to her 
 eldest daughter, afterwards married to Philip IV. of 
 Spain. 
 
 Belonging to the inferior sex, little Madame was 
 greeted with, at the best, resignation. The Queen 
 was said to have wept bitterly ; the King, though him- 
 self disappointed, did his best to comfort her by 
 saying lightly that, had she not been of her daughter's 
 sex, she would not have been Queen of France, and 
 that, thank God, they were not without means of 
 providing for the child. " My wife," he wrote to 
 Madame de Montglat, "was confined yesterday morning 
 at nine o'clock, with what it pleased God a girl." 
 A girl, however, opened the way to future possibilities 
 
The Children at Saint^Germain 51 
 
 the way of alliances, already taking shape in Henri's 
 lind. To the Grand-duke of Tuscany he wrote that 
 the Queen had been delivered of a fair daughter, u de 
 sorte que maintenant j'ai manage." 
 
 The more important question of a wife for the 
 Dauphin was also, if informally, under consideration, 
 those around him discussing the possibility of his 
 finding a bride in the Infanta, Anne of Austria, who 
 eventually became his wife. Heroard, taking as usual 
 a favourable view of his charge's intelligence, perceived 
 indications that the idea was not unwelcome to him. 
 " He listens to the stories Mademoiselle de Ventelet 
 tells him of the Infanta, and laughs at them. . . . He 
 was screaming violently. Mademoiselle de Ventelet 
 bids him good morning on behalf of the Infanta. He 
 is appeased at once, and begins to laugh." 
 
 A constant visitor at Saint-Germain at all times 
 when he could find leisure to resort thither, it was 
 a strangely assorted group that shared the King's 
 thought and care. Cesar de Vendome was only an 
 occasional guest at the chateau, being, by reason of 
 his age, more constantly attendant on his father. 
 But his brother, Alexandre, some three years older 
 than the Dauphin, as well as his sister, had their 
 home there ; and to these were presently to be added, 
 in spite of their mother's protests, the son and daughter 
 of the Marquise de Verneuil. Lastly, the children of 
 Marie de Medicis six in all were to take, one by 
 one, their places in the royal nurseries. 
 
 Over this motley little company Monseigneur the 
 Dauphin, as the years went by, was to reign supreme, 
 one amongst them venturing to dispute his sove- 
 
52 The Making of a King 
 
 reignty. Save when the King visited Saint-Germain, 
 his son was lord over all. When Henri was at the 
 chateau, on the other hand, he was punctilious, rough 
 soldier as he was, in demanding due respect from his 
 heir and in enforcing the obedience which others 
 found it difficult to exact from the spoilt child. 
 
 " Carried to the court-yard to meet the King/' re- 
 cords Heroard on one occasion, " he does not salute 
 him till the King pulls off his hat, putting it on again 
 when the King bids him, < Be covered, Monsieur/ 
 The Dauphin dances a branle, giving his hand to 
 Alexandre Monsieur, the King having bidden him 
 to do so." 
 
 Court etiquette was rigidly observed, and the day 
 ended with the baby's shirt being handed to him 
 by his cousin, the Comte de Soissons, Prince of the 
 Blood. On New Year's Eve, passed by the King and 
 Queen at Saint-Germain, the Dauphin was promoted 
 to offer his father his napkin at dinner, and so in peace 
 the year closed. 
 
 Making the best of what she must have felt from 
 many points of view to be a bad business, Marie de 
 Medicis appears to have reconciled herself temporarily 
 to the unsatisfactory conditions of her married life. 
 It would nevertheless have required no great insight 
 to perceive that, taking into consideration the characters 
 of husband and wife, and the impossibility that their 
 chosen favourites and counsellors should conduce to 
 peace, storms in the future were inevitable. On the 
 one side was the King, not without a determination to 
 do his duty by the mother of his children in matters 
 practical and material, but wholly destitute of affection 
 
Dissensions at Court 53 
 
 for her and liable to be made use of as the tool of 
 another woman. Over against him was Marie de 
 Medicis, with, as friends and confidants, Concini and 
 his wife, distrusted with justice by Henri, rapacious, 
 ambitious, and in all respects dangerous advisers. 
 Towards the end of the year Concini had been entrusted 
 by the Grand -duke with a mission to Spain, making 
 a mystery of the matter and giving out that he was 
 bound for England, though his true destination was 
 known to all. Marie herself was annoyed by the 
 incident, calculated to lessen the small amount of credit 
 she possessed with the King, who told her, with dis- 
 pleasure, that her uncle had treated him better before 
 they had become connected through his marriage. 
 The Florentine, Giovannini, reiterated his entreaty to 
 be recalled. The Queen, he said, did not trust him ; 
 Concini was his enemy ; old, weary, sick, he now 
 only wanted to be the servant of God. 
 
 The rivalries at Court found their reflection at 
 Saint-Germain. The attendants of the infant heir had 
 already inspired him with a marked dislike for his 
 father's special friend, Rosny ; against whom, as con- 
 trolling the finances, they had their private grievances. 
 On the other hand, a scene which took place at the 
 chateau on the occasion of a visit paid by Concini 
 seems to indicate that his mother's favourites were not 
 more popular. 
 
 Displaying his toys, the child pointed out some dolls, 
 representing in miniature the Queen, Madame and 
 Mademoiselle de Guise, with the Marquise de Guerche- 
 ville, all placed in one of the royal carriages. Leonora 
 was absent from the group. 
 
54 The Making of a King 
 
 " ' Monsieur,' asked Concini, noticing it, c where is 
 my wife's place ? ' 
 
 " Saying ' Ah ! ' he shows him an outside seat at the 
 back of the coach. He will not accept a piece of pre- 
 serve from the Sieur Concini, . . . draws back, looking 
 at him as if importune." 
 
 Another time, again not improbably interpreting 
 correctly the sentiments of those around him, it was 
 observed that when Madame de Verneuil brought her 
 son, a week or two younger than the Dauphin, to 
 pay a visit at the chateau, the boy regarded " M. de 
 Verneuil " with coldness ; and that though he had at 
 first received the mother graciously, he resented the 
 familiarity, when she ventured to touch his hair, with 
 a blow. A significant scene followed. 
 
 " Monsieur," asked one of little Verneuil's attendants, 
 "where is M. le Dauphin ? " 
 
 Striking his own breast the child pointed to himself, 
 " then, being rebuked, indicates M. le Dauphin/' whilst 
 his mother looked on with bitterness in her heart. 
 Had not her boy a better right to the title than the 
 son of Marie de Medicis an ugly piece of flesh and 
 bone, as she told some one about this time, with no 
 likeness to the King and resembling his mother's bad 
 race ? 
 
 It was in vain that she was advised to put restraint 
 upon herself and to do her duty by the Queen, since 
 God had given her to the King as his wife. "It was 
 not God who did it," she replied with a sigh. In 
 which she may have been right. 
 
 The most serious event of the year was the grave 
 illness of Henri, who was considered, though for not 
 
Illness of the King 55 
 
 more than a few days, to be in actual danger. To all 
 concerned these days brought home a sense of the pre- 
 carious condition of a kingdom depending for security 
 and tranquillity upon a single life. Henri gone, 
 what would ensue ? Who would grasp the sceptre 
 he would let fall ? Who would seize the reins of 
 government and rule in the name of the infant King ? 
 Soissons, turbulent and ambitious, Conti, feeble and 
 incapable, even the boy Conde might claim the 
 right to act as his guardian ; and the thought of the 
 child in the hands of unscrupulous men ready to 
 make capital out of his helplessness might well cause 
 the father to tremble. Sending for the boy's portrait, 
 he lamented, as he looked at it, that he should 
 be left so young and so defenceless. What steps 
 were possible to minimise the risk, should his illness 
 prove fatal, he lost no time in taking. Incompetent 
 as the Queen was in many respects, she could be 
 counted upon to watch over her son's safety and to 
 guard his inheritance ; and summonses were dispatched 
 to all provincial governors to bid them repair to 
 Fontainebleau, where the King then was, that they 
 might tender their oaths of obedience to Marie, as 
 guardian to her son. 
 
 In two days the present danger was at an end ; but 
 e memory of it served to quicken Henri's desire to 
 ovide against the contingency he had then contem- 
 ited, both by acquainting his wife with the manage- 
 lent of public affairs and by establishing a friendly 
 relationship between her and Rosny, whom he could 
 ly upon as a trustworthy adviser. She was also 
 given a place on the Council-board, and was en- 
 
56 The Making of a King 
 
 couraged to show a personal interest in what went 
 on there. 
 
 It maybe that the promptness *of the King's action in 
 assuring to her, in case of his death, the position belonging 
 to her as his lawful wife, had removed for the moment 
 the Queen's ever-recurrent apprehensions of practical 
 danger to herself and her son from the influence exer- 
 cised over the King by Madame de Verneuil, and was 
 the cause of a renewal of friendly relations between 
 the two women. At all events it appeared, from the 
 subsequent deposition of the Comte d'Auvergne, that 
 Marie had taken the singular step of inviting his sister 
 to Fontainebleau at the time that Henri was lying there 
 ill ; and that, upon his recovery, a species of reconcilia- 
 tion had taken place, the Marquise assuring the Queen 
 that she would have reason to be satisfied with her 
 future conduct ; Marie, for her part, promising her, 
 in that case, her affection. If a truce of this kind was 
 proclaimed it was not destined to continue long in 
 force. 
 
 In the meantime recent events had in no wise put 
 an end to the desire entertained in some quarters for a 
 Spanish alliance, and the Dauphin's attendants were 
 still doing what lay in their power to pave the way for 
 the marriage which eventually took place. In October 
 a visit was paid to Saint-Germain by Don Sanchez de 
 la Serta, on his way to Flanders, accompanied by de 
 Taxis, Resident Ambassador ; when the child received 
 his guests with gracious courtesy, was made to dance 
 before them, and drank to the health of the Infanta. 
 Here would be a servant for her one of these days, 
 observed his future gouverneur, M, de Souvre, to the 
 
Henri's Complaints of the Queen 57 
 
 Ambassador, as the two watched the boy at his dinner, 
 and the Spaniard responded with cordiality. 
 
 " As the world goes," he replied, " they are born for 
 each other." 
 
 The Queen had not been long in learning the precise 
 worth of Madame de Verneuil's promises, and the 
 tranquillity in the royal household following upon 
 Henri's illness had been short-lived. It could scarcely, 
 indeed, have been otherwise. The King's passion was 
 a perennial source of discord ; the Concini, whose 
 influence continued unabated, were not likely to 
 advocate a policy of conciliation, nor to further the 
 good relations the King had striven to establish 
 between his wife and Rosny ; nor was Marie a 
 woman to bow so far to necessity as to attempt by 
 gentle means to detach her husband from the influence 
 she feared and resented. Henri longed for a quiet 
 life ; for toleration, if not approval. From Marie 
 and she is hardly to be blamed for it he received 
 neither. Bitterly he complained to Rosny of his 
 domestic discomfort. 
 
 " I have neither companionship, nor pleasure, nor 
 comfort from my wife," he told the minister. "Either 
 she cannot, or she will not, be complaisant and gentle 
 in conversation ; nor will she conform herself in any 
 respect to my humour and temperament. When, 
 coming in, I approach in order to kiss her, to caress 
 her, and laugh with her, she looks so cold and dis- 
 dainful that I am constrained to depart in anger and 
 to seek my recreation elsewhere." His cousin of 
 ruise afterwards Princesse de Conti had been his 
 jfuge when she was at the palace. Though she told 
 
58 The Making of a King 
 
 him the truth mes verites it was so pleasantly done 
 that he took no offence. And he wished Rosny 
 would represent to the Queen that she was not going 
 the right way to keep him at home. 
 
 Rosny may well have doubted whether his interven- 
 tion would have availed to mend matters. Yet it was 
 a moment when a different policy from that pursued by 
 the Queen might have seemed to have a chance of 
 success. With justification enough and to spare for 
 remaining inaccessible to her husband's fitful advances, 
 her wisdom would have been to ignore her wrongs 
 and to attempt to profit by the opportunities afforded 
 her by Madame de Verneuil's conduct to win him 
 back. The Marquise, besides being suspected of 
 fresh intrigues with Spain, as well as of more personal 
 infidelities, was not at the pains to disguise her 
 lack of affection for the King, and met his reproaches 
 with angry insolence. Varying her methods, she would 
 at times irritate him by assuming the airs of a devote^ 
 in no way imposing upon a man never lacking in 
 sagacity and shrewdness ; and when taxed by Henri with 
 treasonable practices, she answered by a flat denial of 
 the charges brought against her, adding that, as he 
 grew old he had become so distrustful and suspicious 
 that it was impossible to live with him that their 
 connection brought her no advantage and much an- 
 noyance, including the hatred of his wife, to whom 
 she alluded in terms so outrageous that he came near, 
 as he told Rosny, to striking her on the cheek. 
 When, further, he attempted to induce her to sur- 
 render the promise of marriage in her possession, 
 she replied with a defiance. He might seek it else- 
 
__-!__ 
 
 The Son of the Marquise 59 
 
 where ; from her he would never obtain what he 
 wanted. Upon which they had parted, the King 
 swearing that she should be made to find it. 
 
 The document in question was a constant cause 
 of disquiet to the Queen. Henri, it is true, character- 
 ised the pledge it contained, hampered as it was with 
 unfulfilled conditions, as mere " niaiserie." But it con- 
 stituted, nevertheless, in some sort a serious menace to 
 the rights of the Queen and her son. The age was one 
 when promises of marriage, however irregular, had an 
 indeterminate binding force, and were dangerous weapons 
 in hostile hands. That Rosny and Villeroy, the King's 
 two chief officers of State, should have thought it 
 necessary about this time to assure the Queen that, 
 whatever befell, she and the Dauphin would have 
 their support, is proof that her fears were not wholly 
 chimerical. 
 
 There were other disquieting facts. Henri was 
 known to be attached to Madame de Verneuil's son, 
 appearing to make as much account of him as of the 
 Dauphin. He had called his wife's attention to a 
 resemblance between the two boys, and had resented 
 the Queen's cold reply that a likeness was impossible, 
 since her son resembled herself and her uncle the 
 Grand-duke. Henri had also been heard, caressing 
 the Marquise's child, to compare him favourably with 
 the Queen's. 
 
 " See how amiable this son of mine is, and how 
 like me," he had observed. a He is not a stubborn 
 child like the Dauphin ! " 
 
 It was indeed a curious fact, to which attention has 
 been drawn by M. Batifol, that, whilst the Vendome 
 
60 The Making of a King 
 
 brothers were far from inheriting the qualities of their 
 gentle-natured mother, the son and daughter of 
 Madame de Verneuil, cold, ill-tempered and masterful 
 as she was, were gentle and affectionate children, 
 commending themselves to all. The comparison in- 
 stituted by the King, no doubt repeated to Marie, 
 was not calculated to allay Apprehensions accentuated 
 by his behaviour in connection with the death of his 
 sister, which occurred early in 1604. 
 
 Henri had been deeply affected by the event, dis- 
 missing the nobles who had come, after the fashion 
 of the day, to offer him consolation, and facing his 
 sorrow alone. To the papal nuncio, who expressed 
 the Pope's regrets for the loss of the Duchess's soul, 
 he administered a stern rebuke. To think worthily 
 of God, he told the ecclesiastic, it must be believed 
 that grace was capable of fitting any sinner, even as 
 he drew his last breath, to enter heaven. He felt 
 no doubt of his sister's salvation. He would not 
 insist upon the nuncio wearing mourning for her a 
 difficulty had been made but without it he must not 
 present himself at Court. 
 
 So far Henri's conduct commands general sympathy. 
 It is a different matter with regard to other compli- 
 cations produced by the death of Catherine de Bar. 
 With more than questionable taste her brother divided 
 her French property between the Queen and Madame 
 de Verneuil, assigning to each one of the houses he 
 had presented to the Duchess. Worse followed, or 
 would have followed had the King not possessed in 
 Rosny a servant bold enough to withstand his 
 wishes ; for Henri was bent on bestowing upon 
 
King and Dauphin 61 
 
 the son of the Marquise no less a gift than the 
 county of Foix, with the duchy of Armagnac, ren- 
 dered available by his sister's death. Rosny was firm 
 in his resistance to the proposal. The thing, he 
 told the King plainly, could not be done ; neither 
 Council nor Parlement would consent. The appanages 
 in question belonged by right to the Dauphin, or, 
 should he die, to his sister. Henri, in spite of 
 anger and disappointment, had no alternative but to 
 give way. Defeated on one point, however, he started 
 a fresh scheme, no less detrimental to the claims of 
 his lawful son. The Due de Montpensier was in 
 a precarious state of health ; and at his death the 
 important government of Normandy, again usually 
 held by the heir to the throne, would become vacant. 
 Henri now proposed to confer it upon the son of the 
 Marquise, unfolding this fresh scheme to the Queen 
 herself, who met it with a just opposition. To have 
 carried it into effect would have been to lend colour 
 and substance to every claim put forward by Madame 
 de Verneuil on (behalf of her son, and Henri can- 
 not have been ignorant that such would be the 
 result. 
 
 The state of the King's mind indicated by his action 
 in these matters gave additional importance to the fact 
 that, in these early years, the will of the Dauphin and 
 that of his father were apt to come into sharp and 
 direct collision, the comparison he had made between 
 his two little sons, to the disadvantage of his heir, 
 being thereby explained. The effect of training and 
 discipline is quickly apparent, and already the poor 
 child at Saint-Germain was showing it. 
 
62 The Making of a King 
 
 Confided to the care of a coarse-minded and violent 
 woman, most unfit for her post, severity alternated 
 with over-indulgence. Corporal punishment, intimi- 
 dation, and menaces, were the means taken to enforce 
 obedience. A mason would be introduced, who pre- 
 pared to carry the child away in his hod ; a locksmith 
 displayed the instruments of his craft, telling him that 
 they were used to drive nails into those who were 
 stubborn. Worse still, a bunch of birch rods were 
 let down through the chimney, and he was given to 
 understand that an angel had brought them from 
 heaven. At the same time he was never permitted 
 to forget that he was a person of importance, was 
 encouraged to domineer over his brothers, sisters, 
 and attendants ; was flattered by all, and was the 
 centre of attention. It was scarcely possible that 
 he should not be self-willed, and bent upon having 
 his own way ; if he was afraid of the whip, ad- 
 ministered almost from the cradle, it could not be 
 expected to exercise a moral influence, and served 
 rather to rouse and strengthen his resistance than 
 to reduce him to penitence. Heroard, combining 
 with a dog-like devotion to his little master and an 
 inordinate estimate of his gifts and qualities a clear 
 perception of his faults and failings, displays from 
 time to time regret for the methods in use ; but 
 except in the matter of health his opinions were of 
 small account, and Madame de Montglat reigned 
 supreme. 
 
 The child and his usual surroundings being what 
 they were, it was natural that when father and son 
 were brought into close contact friction should ensue. 
 
f de PalUs g&rJa lengutnutU Trtrf, > tamii* qu'ellt vjut le Grec n sn eut la %n 
 Ctpendatqut ia. France aura a (her Daulp'n-n La France aux eftragm nt ferula J< ^\-^-" 
 
 row an engraving by P. Firens, after a drawing by G. le Pileur. 
 
 LOUIS XIII. AS DAUPHIN, AT THE AGE OF THREE YEARS. 
 ,62] 
 
JW1 
 
 King and Dauphin in Collision 63 
 
 : 
 
 wl 
 
 I 
 
 Both were strong-willed, both indisposed to yield. 
 Henri's ideas of discipline were those of a soldier. 
 Obedience must be prompt at the moment he was 
 disposed to exact it ; though, that moment past, his 
 orders could be safely disregarded. " It will be ob- 
 served," wrote Malherbe of some fresh court regu- 
 lation, " in the same way as the command he issued 
 lately that all the world, even in his absence, should 
 be bareheaded in his chamber. An hour later every- 
 body was covered there, including the servants them- 
 selves." In the same way, there were times when 
 the Dauphin's ill-temper might be tolerated by ^his 
 father, or even afford him amusement ; whilst at others 
 he would punish the child's defiance of authority with 
 undue severity. 
 
 " The King comes to see him," wrote Heroard in 
 January 1604, when the boy was not yet two and 
 a half, "and plays with him gaily. The Dauphin is 
 put into such a bad temper that he nearly bursts himself 
 with screaming, and all was in so great confusion that 
 I had not the courage to observe what he was doing, 
 except that, crying very much, he wanted to beat all 
 the world. Long afterwards, he is whipped." Again, 
 in March, " Taken to the King's chamber, he threatens 
 him with the whip. He grows stubborn, wishes to go 
 to his own room. Brought to that of the Queen, he 
 ntinues the same. The King orders him to be 
 whipped. He is whipped by Madame de Montglat. 
 nly quieted by preserve given him by the Queen, 
 ving tried to beat and scratch the Queen. Taken 
 the new buildings, he is roughly handled by the 
 King." 
 
64 The Making of a King 
 
 To the mother, looking on and aware that the child, 
 as well as herself, had a rival in his father's affections, 
 scenes of this kind, unimportant in themselves, may 
 have been invested with significance, and she may have 
 felt that her boy's baby passions were working against 
 him. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 1604 
 
 Recall of the Jesuits The Queen and Madame de Verneuil The 
 Marquise's children placed at Saint-Germain Discovery of the 
 plot of d'Entragues The King's clemency. 
 
 IN the winter of 1603-4 Henri-Quatre committed 
 what has been widely regarded as a grave blunder. 
 This was the readmission of the Jesuits to France. 
 
 Their expulsion from the kingdom had been the 
 consequence of the attempt made, in 1594, upon the 
 King's life, ascribed, rightly or wrongly, to their 
 influence. It is clear from the circular letter written 
 by Henri after his escape that he, no less than others, 
 held the Order responsible for the danger he had run. 
 No information, he observed, had been extracted from 
 the culprit, save the fact that he had passed three years 
 at the Jesuit college, where it was to be presumed that 
 he had received this good instruction. The King, the 
 Parlement, the Sorbonne, and the University of Paris 
 were agreed in their determination to make use of the 
 opportunity to expel the Society from France, and 
 for close upon ten years Henri had been firm in 
 resisting the endeavours made to induce him to re- 
 consider his decision and to consent to their return. 
 If he had two lives, he once said lightly, he would 
 
66 The Making of a King 
 
 willingly sacrifice one of them to satisfy his Holiness. 
 Having but one, he must preserve it for the Pope's 
 service and for the welfare of his people. 
 
 In the years that had elapsed since Jean ChUtel's 
 blow had been struck the King's attitude had under- 
 gone a notable change, and, in the teeth of the 
 opposition offered to the measure, he had now deter- 
 mined upon readmitting the Society. His motives 
 in doing so were doubtless mixed. Those to whom, 
 judging him by the change of creed by which he 
 won a throne, he pre-eminently represents the principle 
 of indifference or opportunism in religious matters, 
 will naturally regard his action as a concession to 
 political expediency. Yet there may have been another 
 explanation. By the testimony of contemporaries, 
 confirmed by the evidence afforded by his life and 
 language, the desire he testified to reconcile conflicting 
 parties was combined not only with a simple faith in 
 God, but with unquestioning and unwavering loyalty 
 to the Church of his adoption. His correspondence, 
 says the editor of his " Lettres Intimes," proves that 
 he was very religious ; in familiar intercourse he dis- 
 played sentiments that were never paraded. His boy 
 was carefully and strictly trained in the observance 
 of the rites of the Church and in the knowledge of its 
 tenets, was taken to confession when still walking in 
 leading-strings, the King himself listening to his repeti- 
 tion of the Paternoster. Henri was moreover curiously 
 anxious to make converts. His endeavours to induce 
 his sister to follow his example have been seen. Upon 
 Sully, too, he brought to bear all the pressure possible 
 alike as master and friend ; whilst a few days before 
 
Re-admission of the Jesuits 67 
 
 his death he was apparently engaged in controversy 
 with M. de la Force, also a Huguenot. 
 
 " My friend," he is quoted as saying, " the Roman 
 religion is not so full of idolatry as I formerly believed." 
 
 With loyal adherence to the Church he had joined 
 a strong spirit of religious toleration was combined. 
 The Edict of Nantes proved it on the one side ; 
 and if policy and diplomacy had their share in deter- 
 mining his present line of conduct, there is no reason 
 to disbelieve his own assertion that he was actuated by 
 worthier motives. A Jesuit, named Cotton, had also 
 acquired considerable influence over him ; giving rise 
 to the mot that, now that the King had his ears full 
 of cotton, he listened to no one. 
 
 From whatever cause, he was resolute in carrying 
 out his purpose ; his reply to the protests of the 
 Parlement being made in a tone proving that remon- 
 strance would be useless. It contained an emphatic and 
 curious vindication coming from the ex-Huguenot 
 of the Order so generally unpopular. How could men, 
 he demanded, be charged with ambition who were 
 pledged to refuse dignities or bishoprics ? The opposi- 
 tion offered to them by ecclesiastics was due to the 
 quarrel existing from all time between ignorance and 
 knowledge. Two classes of men, in particular, were 
 adverse to the proposed measure Churchmen of evil 
 life and those belonging to the Protestant religion : a 
 fact, added the King, increasing the estimation in which 
 he held the Order. If the Sorbonne had condemned 
 them it was without knowing them. The University 
 had occasion to regret their absence, since it had 
 become a desert in consequence of it ; and scholars, in 
 
68 The Making of a King 
 
 spite of all decrees to the contrary, had sought them, 
 both in France and abroad. If one Jesuit had been 
 involved in the attempt upon his* life, was that a reason 
 that all should suffer ? Should every one of the 
 apostles have been driven away because of a single 
 Judas ? It was said that they were employed by 
 Spain. France also shouLJ make use of them, and 
 God had reserved for him the glory of effecting their 
 re-establishment. 
 
 To Rosny, strongly adverse to the proposed measure, 
 Henri adopted another line of argument. Two courses, 
 he told his friend, lay before him : either he should 
 admit the Order on the strength of their protestations 
 of loyalty, or he must exclude them with greater severity 
 than heretofore, using all possible rigour so as to 
 keep them at a distance, " in which case there is no 
 doubt that they will be rendered desperate, and will 
 make attempts upon my life, rendering it so wretched 
 and languishing, always in dread of poison or assassin- 
 ation . . . that I should be better dead." 
 
 Rosny yielded. His judgment might be against 
 the re-establishment of the Order as a political step, 
 but he loved his master. Rather than that the King 
 should be reduced to the condition he described, he 
 said, let the Jesuits or any other sect be established 
 in the realm ! The Council submitted to the King's 
 will, and the thing was done. 
 
 That he acted not without a knowledge of perils 
 to which the measure might give rise is indicated by 
 the instructions he is said to have given the Queen 
 as to her conduct with regard to the Society in case 
 of his death. She was to treat them well, but was 
 
Domestic Friction 69 
 
 to be on her guard against their undue increase, and 
 was in especial to prevent their acquiring a foothold 
 on the frontiers. 
 
 If the measure had been taken by Henri partly in 
 the hope of ensuring peace and quiet it was not 
 destined to fulfil that object. He was to enjoy little 
 respite from danger and anxiety, so far as public affairs 
 were concerned. 
 
 At home a semi-breach with the Marquise de Verneuil 
 might again have afforded Marie de Medicis a chance, 
 had she known how to avail herself of it, of strengthen- 
 ing her own influence. Being, to quote M. Dussieux, 
 " une des femmes les plus completement ennuyeuses et 
 maladroites qui se puissent imaginer," she let the 
 opportunity slip ; and by May 1604 the King, angry 
 and distrustful of the Marquise, but incapable of freeing 
 himself from her fetters, was bent upon summoning 
 her to Fontainebleau and supplying her with every 
 facility for clearing herself from the fresh doubts 
 he entertained of her fidelity and of her complicity in 
 the designs of his enemies. Furthermore, he required 
 of the Queen that the Marquise and her children 
 should be graciously received at the palace, and that 
 the Dauphin and his sister should be brought thither 
 from Saint- Germain to be present on the occasion. 
 
 It could not be expected that Marie should submit 
 without a struggle. Apart from personal feeling, she 
 
 d good reason to refuse to countenance the King's 
 infatuation. Ever on the watch to seize an ad- 
 vantage, her rival was doing her best, in view 
 of Henri's death, and perhaps that of the Dauphin, 
 form a party in the State which would support 
 
70 The Making of a King 
 
 her, should an opportunity occur. Sillery, about to 
 become Chancellor, was gained over and could not 
 be counted upon to oppose his master in any project, 
 however prejudicial to his wife and heir ; and at the 
 present moment Madame de Verneuil was engaged 
 in the endeavour to induce the widowed Duchesse de 
 Longueville who betrayed iier to the Queen to marry 
 the young Duke to her little daughter. The boy was 
 the representative of one of the first four houses of 
 France, and a match between him and Catherine de Ven- 
 dome had been in question. The living, however, the 
 Marquise boasted, were of more account than the dead, 
 and her daughter might well be preferred to Gabrielle's. 
 Five great personages, she told the Duchess, had 
 pledged themselves to forward her interests. At present 
 their names were suppressed, but she promised to supply 
 them were the marriage arranged. Though when the 
 King broached the subject to Marie herself she merely 
 replied that the donzella might seem over-young, 
 she was none the less much disturbed, according to 
 the Florentine envoy, both by the special matter at 
 issue and by the small amount of affection displayed 
 by the King for herself and her son. 
 
 She determined that, at all events, her children 
 should not be brought to Fontainebleau to be placed 
 on an equality with those of the Marquise, to suffer 
 comparisons possibly to their disadvantage, and to 
 run the risk of being treated with even less distinction 
 by their father. Reports were current of the Marquise's 
 boasts, and of how, when the Dauphin was discussed 
 and praised in her presence, she declared her son 
 was the handsomer of the two, and would have the 
 
LC 
 
 ; ; 
 
 Domestic Friction 71 
 
 tronger arms. The Queen resolved that the 
 hildren should not meet, sending strict instructions 
 that her boy should be detained at Saint-Germain 
 on the pretext of a cold. 
 
 With regard to the Marquise's visit a sharp contest 
 ensued. Henri was bent upon carrying his point 
 and having her received at Fontainebleau ; the Queen 
 was equally determined. Messages between husband 
 and wife were exchanged through Sillery, who told 
 Marie, on the King's behalf, that she was preparing 
 the Dauphin's ruin by her conduct, since Madame 
 de Verneuil would be in a position to plead the 
 Queen's hatred of her and her children, and Henri 
 would be compelled to guarantee her safety by according 
 her the governments and strongholds she demanded. 
 
 To this menace Marie retorted by saying that, in 
 the event of his carrying it out, it would be the King, 
 rather than herself, who would work ruin to the 
 Dauphin and the realm. Neither was inclined to 
 yield, and in the end Henri mounted his horse 
 and rode forth to meet the Marquise, on her way to 
 the palace, leaving Rosny to intervene in the dispute 
 and to endeavour to induce his wife to consent, if only 
 for a day, to the proposed visit. 
 
 Such was the condition of things when Rosny, 
 Sillery, and Villeroy, Secretary of State, met in con- 
 sultation. The Privy Council, called together at 
 Fontainebleau, were not unnaturally indignant that 
 the transaction of public affairs should be thus in- 
 terrupted. It was important to arrange an armistice, 
 
 not a lasting peace, between the domestic belligerents, 
 ressure was brought to bear upon the Queen to 
 
 
72 The Making of a King 
 
 persuade her to give way and to abandon a line of 
 conduct undeniably capable of being used by the 
 Marquise to her detriment and that of her son. 
 
 Marie, thus pressed, submitted. Though under pro- 
 test, she consented to receive her rival, for a single 
 day, at the palace. The sacrifice was, after all, not 
 demanded of her. Having met the Marquise at one 
 of the stages of her journe*y, and too impatient to 
 await the arrival of the courier who was to convey the 
 Queen's decision, the King accompanied the travelling 
 party to Paris, a visit to Saint-Germain serving as a 
 transparent excuse for the journey. 
 
 On his return to Fontainebleau the Queen was in 
 a more placable mood. Having behaved with dignity 
 and self-restraint in an intolerable position, she had 
 enlisted public opinion on her side, and the con- 
 sciousness of support may have softened her. Rosny, 
 showing himself in especial her friend, told his master, 
 in his usual plain language, that had he not to deal 
 with any one as good and prudent as the Queen, he 
 would find that his neglect of her, for the sake of a 
 woman who had no other object save that of troubling 
 the realm and injuring the Dauphin, was calculated to 
 operate to his own disadvantage. The Queen's be- 
 haviour, he added, had won her praise and consideration 
 from all. 
 
 Thus admonished, Henri admitted that the Marquise 
 indulged mischievous plans and ideas, and assured the 
 minister that he had no thought of entrusting her with 
 governments or strongholds. Peace was restored, and 
 for a brief space tranquillity reigned at the palace. 
 The King had finally determined upon the step 
 
Fresh Treason 73 
 
 always urged by Marie of removing the Verneuil 
 children from their mother's hands and placing them 
 at Saint-Germain, where the boy would no longer be 
 available as an instrument for those hatching treason- 
 able schemes. The events of the summer were to prove 
 that the measure was not unnecessary. 
 
 During the month of June facts were brought to 
 light rendering certain what had been matter of 
 suspicion namely, the plot called by the name of 
 its chief promoter, the Sieur d'Entragues, father to the 
 Marquise. The main feature of this fresh conspiracy 
 was an arrangement with de Taxis, late Spanish 
 Ambassador at Paris, to the effect that the unfortunate 
 promise of marriage, now in the hands of d'Entragues, 
 should be consigned to King Philip, who was to act 
 as protector of the Marquise's son and to recognise 
 in him the heir to the French throne. ^Child and 
 mother were to take refuge in the Spanish Netherlands ; 
 whilst the lives of the King and the Dauphin were to 
 be attempted by the once-pardoned traitor, Auvergne. 
 
 The plot was discovered in time, and was promptly 
 exposed. Conducted through an English agent named 
 Morgan, it came to the ears of James I., was re- 
 vealed by him to Henri without delay, and was thus 
 Kistrated. 
 As to the guilt of d'Entragues and Auvergne there 
 uld be no question. Both, indeed, in turn avowed 
 Madame de Verneuil was brazen in her denial 
 complicity, but no one believed her. Yet Henri, 
 helpless in the hands of a woman he knew in his heart 
 to be false in every sense of the word, again strove to 
 ,ve her and her kin from the consequences of their 
 
74 The Making of a King 
 
 crimes. The Council would have shown a wholesome 
 seventy and have put the culprits to death ; but the 
 King barred the way. Should 'her father and brother 
 lose their lives even were the Marquise herself per- 
 mitted to escape what connection would be possible 
 in the future between her and the man who had acted 
 as their executioner ? If they were to live, however, 
 one step was proved to be absolutely necessary, and 
 this the King took. Formally, and before witnesses, 
 d'Entragues was forced to surrender the document 
 which had been the cause of so much trouble. The 
 promise of the King to marry her rival was at last 
 placed in the Queen's hands, and a principal weapon 
 was wrested from her rival. By the formal legitimation 
 of the Verneuil children Henri also accentuated the 
 irregularity of their birth. 
 
 Once again his enemies had failed in their attempts 
 to destroy him. Nevertheless the discovery of their 
 intrigues had been a shock ; and in a mood of de- 
 jection the King spoke to the Due de Montpensier of 
 the designs upon his life and the chances that his 
 wife and son would be left unprotected ; embracing 
 the Duke with tears in his eyes when he gave him 
 the assurance that, in case of disaster, his life and 
 fortune would be placed at the feet of the Dauphin and 
 his mother. 
 
 Meantime little Verneuil, the unconscious figure- 
 head of the conspiracy, was relegated to a place of safety. 
 By the middle of June he and his sister were installed 
 at Saint-Germain, where the King and Queen were 
 staying at the time. 
 
 The introduction of his new playfellows to the 
 
Daup 
 
 The de Verncuils at the Chateau 75 
 
 auphin took place one evening when supper was in 
 progress. 
 
 " Monsieur/' some one told him, " here is another 
 fefe [brother] come to see you." 
 
 " Yet another /#?? " he replied. Where is he ? " 
 
 He looked hard at the new-comers as they were 
 brought in. Then, lifted down from his chair, he 
 advanced coldly to bestow a greeting upon the little 
 boy, who, perhaps tired by his journey, and ill at ease in 
 his new surroundings, remained leaning against the arm 
 of a chair, his eyes on the ground, refusing to respond 
 to his host's advances. And thus the acquaintance was 
 inaugurated. 
 
 The Queen had carried her point. The small pre- 
 tender was in safe keeping his mother deprived, to 
 quote the Tuscan resident, of " la mercanzia della sua 
 bottega." Yet the arrangement was not unattended 
 by disadvantages, and the very fact that the Marquise's 
 children and their servants were under the same roof 
 as her own son and daughter occasioned the Queen 
 no little disquiet. It was known that, to ensure her 
 children's welfare, Madame de Verneuil had done her 
 best to propitiate those in charge of the Dauphin ; and 
 Marie was haunted by alarm lest opportunities should 
 offer to work ill to the boy. The apprehension, in 
 days when poison was freely used, was not altogether 
 chimerical, and a letter addressed to her by a devote, 
 amed the Madre Passitea, had quickened her fears. 
 Twice, according to this lady, had the Dauphin, 
 through the mercy of God, escaped this special peril. 
 The same danger now threatened him, and none could 
 
 Ki what result. 
 
7 6 The Making of a King 
 
 Notwithstanding the terrors by which the Queen 
 was tormented, she was not inclined to fail in kind- 
 ness towards the new inmates of the chateau. On 
 the morning after their arrival she had the Dauphin 
 and the little Verneuil brought to her together, and 
 made them both " bonne chere." For the future the 
 two boys, almost exactly of an age, were constant 
 playmates ; though the advantage to the Dauphin of 
 the companionship was neutralised in great measure 
 by the recognition on his own part and that of all 
 around him of the difference in their position. To 
 the Marquise's son the Dauphin was "mon maitre," 
 whilst the Dauphin would allude to his half-brother 
 as "petit Vaneuil." 
 
 The proceedings against the conspirators were 
 strangely delayed. Not until the end of the year were 
 d'Entragues and Auvergne in confinement ; and from 
 the first it was feared by those in a position to judge 
 that the Marquise would be allowed to escape the 
 chastisement of her crime. The Chancellor, Sillery, 
 whose eyes had been opened to her true character, 
 sent for the Florentine envoy and expressed his appre- 
 hensions that no just severity would be used towards 
 the offenders ; requesting Giovannini to counsel the 
 Queen as to her course of conduct and to acquaint her 
 with the danger involved to herself and her son. 
 
 Sillery was probably anxious to clear himself 
 indirectly in Marie's eyes from any suspicion of 
 complicity ; for there could be little doubt that she 
 was fully aware of the importance of the issues at 
 stake ; she had indeed done her best to represent the 
 matter in its true light to the King, though her inter- 
 
venti< 
 
 The Marquise at Saint'Germain 77 
 
 ention had not been attended with success. Henri had 
 made excuses, and had given evasive answers ; telling 
 her plainly, in the end, that she was too vindictive. He 
 was, in fact, determined to shut his eyes to the full 
 extent of the Marquise's guilt ; and, at all times in- 
 clined to pardon, it could scarcely be anticipated that 
 he would prove implacable when the woman he loved 
 was in question. There was no appeal against his 
 decision ; in July Madame de Verneuil was not only 
 at large but had been allowed to visit her children at 
 Saint-Germain, being admitted to the presence of the 
 Dauphin, against whom the plot had been laid. 
 
 On this occasion she apparently did her best to 
 propitiate the favour of the child, who showed no 
 liking for his guest. Refusing, until compelled to 
 perform the act of courtesy by his gouvernante, to give 
 her his hand in farewell, he was only induced with 
 manifest reluctance to assure her that he would love 
 hisfefe, her son. 
 
 " And he will be your servant," was the reply of the 
 Marquise, made, as may well be believed, with no less 
 reluctance. It was not as the servant of Marie de 
 Medicis' son that she regarded her own. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 > 
 
 1604 
 
 The Dauphin at Fontainebleau Life at the palace The King's 
 affection for his son Visit of the Comte de Sora Quarrel 
 between King and Dauphin Its results The conspirators 
 Father and son. 
 
 DURING this year the Dauphin paid his first visit 
 to his birthplace, Fontainebleau. It was the 
 custom with the King and Queen to spend the autumn 
 months there. Marie, no less than her husband, liked 
 the place, and it offered a welcome variety after life in 
 Paris. The Louvre, it was true, was no longer what 
 it had been when Henri brought his bride thither, and, 
 looking with half incredulous wonder at the worn 
 furniture and faded hangings of the dimly lighted 
 chambers, the daughter of the Medici had questioned 
 whether this could in truth be the palace of the French 
 Kings. Marie had quickly transformed her new 
 dwelling-place into an abode more in harmony with 
 the traditions of her race ; had had the walls painted 
 in delicately tinted arabesques, laid down rich carpets, 
 and worked such other changes as were necessary to 
 make it a fit setting for the royalty of France. But 
 Fontainebleau had attractions of its own ; and at such 
 times as the Louvre was handed over to be cleaned, 
 
 78 
 
or when 
 
 Fontainebleau 79 
 
 CL 
 
 F 
 
 r when the country invited a visit, King and Queen 
 equally rejoiced to resort to it. 
 
 In what Henri termed u nos delicieux deserts de 
 ontainebleau," comparative freedom from the con- 
 ventional restraints of court life was enjoyed. Only 
 a limited number of the household could be lodged 
 there, guests being at times requested to bring their 
 own beds and other necessaries. Few dresses sufficed 
 Marie on these occasions, and the straw hats sent her 
 from Italy were brought into requisition, as, sheltered 
 from the sun by a great parasol, she fed the birds 
 or looked on at the fishing for carp. Two of these 
 remarkable fish had been captured, she wrote once 
 to a friend, one of them at least eight hundred years 
 old, if not much more the other numbering some 
 three or four centuries. " I ate the head of the fish," 
 she added, " and enjoyed rummaging in it, as if it 
 had been some fine cabinet." 
 
 Men and women alike hunted in the forest, sharing 
 the King's favourite pastime. 
 
 Into the pleasures of this holiday resort the Dauphin 
 was to be initiated ; passing through Paris on his 
 way thither, where the greeting of the crowd may 
 have owed part of its enthusiasm to the remem- 
 nce of the plots lately laid against his life, 
 spite of the failure of the conspiracy, its features 
 re fresh in all men's minds ; and to the King in 
 pecial the events of the summer must have helped to 
 ing home the thought of the activity of the hostile 
 rces at work, and convinced him did he need con- 
 cing that not alone for him, but for his child, the 
 assassin lay in wait. 
 
8o The Making of a King 
 
 Yet the autumn weeks passed pleasantly at Fontaine- 
 bleau, notwithstanding ebullitions of temper on the 
 part of the Dauphin accustomed to rule at Saint- 
 Germain which may have again served to make the 
 Queen fear that comparisons might be instituted to 
 his disadvantage. Already, at the chateau, he had 
 developed a spirit of angry jealousy with regard to the 
 children who shared the King's attention, indignant at 
 one moment because his father had kissed Alexandre 
 Monsieur now, by virtue of his admission into the 
 Order of the Knights of Malta, termed M. le Chevalier 
 again, keeping Cesar de Vendome at a distance, and 
 rubbing his hand angrily on his frock when the boy 
 presumed to kiss it. The cushions on which the 
 Chevalier and his sister knelt at their prayers had to 
 be removed " Pray God on the ground," he bade 
 them. Even his own little sister was only per- 
 mitted the honour of kissing his foot, and when the 
 King had inadvertently seated himself in the place 
 the Dauphin was accustomed to occupy at Mass he 
 was at once turned out. " He is in my place. Get 
 out of it," ordered the infant autocrat ; and the King 
 obeyed. 
 
 The temper thus displayed was not unlikely to bring 
 him into collision with his father, and to cause anxiety 
 to those about him when the two were in daily inter- 
 course. The visit to Fontainebleau, nevertheless, began 
 well. On reaching the palace the King was found 
 awaiting the travellers at the entrance of the pavilion, 
 receiving his heir with kisses and embraces ; and on 
 the following day the child was introduced to all the 
 entertainment the place could be made to supply. 
 
Father and Son 81 
 
 Flinging aside for the moment all cares of state, 
 Henri devoted himself to exhibiting the gardens in 
 person to the new-comer ; took him in the early morning 
 to wakkn the Queen ; and during the following days 
 did his best to minister to his little son's amusement. 
 The various birds were displayed by the King swans, 
 pheasants, ducks ; the child being given bread to throw 
 to them. The fountains, too, were a special delight, 
 the Dauphin turning the water off and on with his own 
 hands, and wetting his father as he did so. He would 
 have been hard to please had he not been satisfied with 
 the entertainment provided for him ; and though 
 fretful and ill-tempered at times, and still apt to resent 
 any attention paid to his companions, all on the whole 
 went well. 
 
 Again and again Heroard's narration calls up pictures 
 not without pathos when it is remembered how short 
 was the time that father and son were to be together. 
 " At five the King comes home from hunting. [The 
 Dauphin] goes running to meet the King, who grows 
 pale with joy and gladness, kisses and holds him long 
 embraced ; leads him into his cabinet, walks up and 
 down, holding him by the hand, only changing the 
 hand when he turns, without saying a word, whilst he 
 listens to M. de Villeroy making his reports to the 
 King. He cannot leave the King, nor the King him. 
 
 . . Put to bed at half-past eight, the King comes and 
 kisses him. The King exceedingly happy." Such 
 incidents, often repeated, are curious interludes in the 
 life of danger, care, anxiety, and coarse pleasure led by 
 Henri. 
 
 scene of another kind must have struck those 
 
 6 
 
82 The Making of a King 
 
 looking on at it strangely, with its superficial pretence 
 of amity, whilst in the minds of all must have been 
 present the blow that had been so lately aimed at 
 father and son. 
 
 A Spaniard, the Count de Sora, Equerry to the 
 Archduke, and on his way to Spain, is presented to 
 the Dauphin by his father.. 
 
 " My son," asks Henri, " what will you send to 
 Spain by M. le Comte? " 
 
 " I kiss her hands/' says the child, falling at once 
 into his part. 
 
 " Is [the Infanta] your mistress ? Do you love 
 her well?" 
 
 "Like my heart," replies the Dauphin, repeating his 
 lesson ; and M. le Comte, perhaps conscious that the 
 King is laughing in his sleeve, takes leave of the child 
 who, had the plot in which Spain was implicated been 
 crowned with success, would have died by the traitor's 
 hand. 
 
 Notwithstanding the boy's real and increasing affec- 
 tion for his father an affection growing with his 
 years the visit was not destined to prove altogether 
 successful ; and towards the end of October a serious 
 quarrel took place ; the episode showing the King in 
 i new light " tres-tendre," to quote the editors of the 
 doctor's journal, " tres-taquin, tres-emporte, et tres- 
 enfant." 
 
 Absorbed in a favourite toy a drum working by 
 springs the boy had been taken to his father against 
 his will, and trouble at once ensued. Having omitted 
 to uncover in the King's presence, Henri ordered him 
 sharply to take off his hat ; and, when the child found 
 

 A Quarrel 83 
 
 a difficulty in obeying, removed it with his own hands. 
 Already pre-disposed to wrath, nothing more was 
 needed to put the Dauphin into a thoroughly bad 
 temper. 
 
 " He is angry. Then the King takes away his 
 drum and drum-sticks. This was still worse. ( My 
 hat, my drum, my drumsticks/ The King, to annoy 
 him, puts the hat on his own head. * I want my hat/ 
 The King strikes him with it on the head. He is 
 angry, and the King is angry with him. The King 
 takes him by the wrists, and lifts him into the air, 
 extending his little arms in a cross. * He I you hurt 
 me ! HI ! my drum ! Ht ! my hat ! ' The Queen 
 gives him back his hat ; then his drumsticks. It was 
 a little tragedy." 
 
 Carried away still enraged, he could neither be 
 comforted nor quieted in spite of all that could be 
 done. Having been whipped, he kicked and scratched 
 Madame de Montglat. At last his nurse, possibly 
 more pitiful than the gouvernante y took him apart and 
 reasoned with him gravely. 
 
 " Monsieur," she said, " you have been very 
 stubborn. You must not be so. You must obey 
 papa." 
 
 " Kill Mamanga" l he said with a great sigh, " she 
 is wicked. I will kill all the world. I will kill 
 God/' 
 
 Ah, no, Monsieur," replied the nurse. u You 
 drink His blood every day when you drink wine." 
 
 The child stopped short. 
 
 "I drink the blood of the good God?" he 
 1 Madame de Montglat. 
 
84 The Making of a King 
 
 asked. " Then He must not be killed," and, 
 in spite of sobbing sighs, allowed himself to be 
 appeased. 
 
 The effect of the incident did not pass off for some 
 time. The Dauphin, hurt and strained by the King's 
 rough usage, was at first ill and nervous ; and, when 
 recovered, continued to nurs his resentment. Sent for 
 by his father, it was necessary to compel him to obey 
 the summons ; he was quiet and sullen in his presence, 
 and anxious to escape from it, parading his indifference 
 to the King's movements. When all were crowding 
 to the windows to watch Henri set forth to hunt, he 
 remained in his place, merely asking coldly if papa 
 were going hunting? His free and fearless bearing 
 was replaced by shrinking and timidity, and, taken 
 with Verneuil to visit the King and Queen in bed, he 
 withdrew in sulky silence to his mother's side, leaving 
 his father, contrary to his custom, to his half-brother. 
 When Verneuil, however, would have in turn ap- 
 proached the Queen the Dauphin made it clear that this 
 would not be permitted, giving the boy, still without 
 a word, a blow which caused him, also in silence, to 
 retire discomfited. With the Queen at least Verneuil 
 was to have no dealings. 
 
 Even after the children had quitted Fontainebleau 
 and were again at Saint-Germain the Dauphin con- 
 tinued, with singular tenacity, to cherish the remem- 
 brance of his wrongs. Hearing that the King and 
 Queen were expected at the chateau, he expressed his 
 regret, and displayed an unwillingness to be taken to 
 meet them, and though Heroard set himself, by means 
 of a combination of promises and threats, to produce a 
 

 Auvergne in Prison 85 
 
 better frame of mind, his efforts were not attended 
 with success. 
 
 " You will, then, not have the fine drum and beautiful 
 drumsticks that [the King] is bringing you," he warned 
 him. " He will give them to M. de Verneuil. Eh 
 bien ! " as the child flung himself upon him in an access 
 of fury, " eh bien ! you beat me. What do you wish 
 papa to do with that drum ? " 
 
 " * Let him give it to Moucheu de Veneuil,' he 
 replied, shaking his head as if it was a thing he 
 despised. He cannot forget the rough treatment at 
 Fontainebleau." 
 
 The child's demeanour was a vexation to Henri, 
 who, probably conscious that he himself had been to 
 blame, was inclined to lay the responsibility for his 
 son's prolonged resentment on others. But he can 
 have had no more than a divided attention to bestow 
 upon the Dauphin's ill-humour ; and more serious 
 subjects were weighing on his mind. The first tardy 
 step had been taken towards meting out justice to 
 the traitors concerned in the late conspiracy : the 
 Comte d'Auvergne had been captured and was in 
 prison, his fate uncertain. Having remained for some 
 time at a safe distance in his own province of 
 Auvergne, he had ventured to quit his place of refuge 
 on the occasion of some military display, and was at 
 once arrested. The King, observed some one in the 
 Dauphin's presence, knew how to catch his enemies. 
 
 " Are my enemies taken ? " asked the boy, identify- 
 ing himself, notwithstanding recent passages of arms, 
 with his father. " Where are they ? " learning that 
 they were lodged in the Bastille. 
 
86 The Making of a King 
 
 D'Entragues was, shortly after, placed in confine- 
 ment in the Conciergerie, and -his daughter, though 
 undergoing no regular imprisonment, was kept under 
 supervision in the faubourg Saint-Germain, carefully 
 guarded. 
 
 She was no coward, and met the situation with 
 proud defiance. She did not, she said, fear death ; 
 on the contrary, she desired it. But, should the King 
 cause her to die, it would always be said that he had 
 slain his wife. , She, rather than Marie, was Queen. 
 Three things she asked of his Majesty : a pardon 
 for her father, a rope for her brother who, it may 
 be mentioned, had in dastardly fashion sought to 
 throw the blame of his treason on his sister and 
 d'Entragues and justice for herself. Nor could she 
 be brought to sue for the forgiveness which Henri 
 was only too anxious to bestow. Where offence was 
 none there was no subject-matter for a pardon, she 
 said, and if the King had been told that she desired 
 one it was false. "With which his Majesty was very 
 ill satisfied." When the Comtesse d'Auvergne, on 
 the other hand, threw herself at his feet, imploring 
 his clemency on behalf of her husband, the King, 
 whilst treating her personally with courtesy, and ex- 
 pressing his compassion, explained taking the Queen's 
 arm as he spoke that to listen to her entreaties would 
 be equivalent to a declaration that his marriage was 
 void and his son a bastard. 
 
 The objects of the conspiracy had been defeated ; 
 its promoters were in the King's hands ; the present 
 danger had been averted. Domestic peace had also 
 been restored at Saint-Germain. "Le petit valet de 
 
A Reconciliation 
 
 papa," as the Dauphin was learning to call himself, 
 was beginning to show self-restraint and to control 
 his temper. Father and son were once more on good 
 terms. When, shortly before the close of the year, 
 the King gave audience to a deputation from the 
 States of Normandy, the boy was at his side, and was 
 presented to them as their future King. He would 
 leave behind him, Henri said, in concluding his 
 speech, a son who would carry out the measures he 
 had set on foot for their benefit. 
 
 The Dauphin had listened attentively to what 
 went on. 
 
 " Grand merci, papa" he said coldly, as he heard 
 the promise given. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 
 
 1605 
 
 Results of the conspiracy Rosny and his enemies Temporary es- 
 trangement of the King Their reconciliation The Dauphin and 
 Rosny The Spanish match projected The Dauphin's love for 
 his father Visit of Queen Marguerite The King and Queen on 
 good terms The Marquise at Saint-Germain. 
 
 IN the end the King's clemency again triumphed over 
 the counsels of those who would have made an 
 example of the promoters of the latest attempt to 
 subvert his government. The Marquise and her 
 father escaped chastisement, and the capital penalty 
 was, in Auvergne's case, commuted into an imprison- 
 ment lasting over several years. His attempts to shift 
 the blame upon others, and his demeanour at his trial, 
 showed him to be worthy of little compassion. 
 
 The conspiracy had, at all events, resulted in the 
 destruction of the notorious promise of marriage which 
 had been so dangerous an engine in the hands of the 
 Queen's enemies ; the menace it had contained to 
 her rights and those of the Dauphin was at an end, 
 and, not less important to the domestic peace of the 
 palace, the King had been temporarily emancipated 
 from the control of the Marquise. 
 
 If, however, there were those who indulged the 
 hope that, his eyes having been once opened to her 
 

 Rosny and his Enemies 89 
 
 true aims and ambitions, the estrangement would prove 
 permanent, they were doomed to disappointment ; a 
 note written in February 1 605 proving that her delin- 
 quencies were already on the way to be, if not for- 
 gotten, forgiven. She was to be permitted to see her 
 father by this time set at liberty though enjoined 
 to pass no more than a day with him, " for his con- 
 tagion is dangerous." She was likewise to be allowed 
 to visit her children at Saint-Germain, and a meeting 
 was to be arranged with the King himself. The 
 letter displays the injured man in an attitude which 
 must have caused surprise to those who knew him 
 best. 
 
 Such being the case, it was perhaps not unnatural 
 that his friendship with Rosny, who never pandered 
 to what was worst in his master, who never shrank 
 from pointing out his failings, or stooped to flattery, 
 should have undergone a momentary eclipse. There 
 were many who would have rejoiced in the minister's 
 disgrace. The man who controlled the King's expen- 
 diture, public and private, who checked his extravagance 
 or his reckless liberality, was certain to be the object 
 of the hostility of every person averse to economical 
 aims and methods, and the ultimate failure of their 
 efforts to detach Henri from the love and trust he 
 had bestowed upon his servant is perhaps a greater title 
 to honour than any other to be found in his record. 
 
 Reviewing the position, Rosny saw ranged against 
 him divers classes of the community. There were 
 the great officers of the Crown, jealous of his as- 
 cendancy ; the Catholics, distrustful of the Huguenot 
 minister, and many of them attached to the Spanish 
 
9 The Making of a King 
 
 interest ; the idlers about Court and palace, conscious 
 of his contempt ; the turbulent and seditious, seeking 
 to disturb the tranquillity of the realm ; and above 
 all others, those who owed a grudge to the states- 
 man who held the purse-strings. 
 
 Straws show which way the wind blows, and the 
 sentiments entertained with regard to Rosny continued 
 to find their reflection in the nursery at Saint-Germain. 
 Almost in babyhood, the Dauphin received his father's 
 friend with coldness, refusing to permit him to kiss 
 his hand. Again, when a letter was brought from 
 the minister, he would have had it thrown out of 
 the window, notwithstanding an accompanying gift 
 of toys. Later, visited by Rosny in person, and 
 enjoined by Madame de Montglat to ask him for 
 money in order that, by giving it away, he might 
 escape the charge of miserliness, he refused. 
 
 " It is not his it is papas" the child answered 
 sulkily. 
 
 Incidents of the kind, trivial as they are, indicate 
 the aspect in which the minister was regarded at 
 Saint-Germain, no less than in the King's own environ- 
 ment, where no method was left untried to poison 
 Henri's mind against him. 
 
 In the spring of 1605 it seemed that his foes had 
 obtained their wish, and the change in his master's 
 deportment called forth a letter in which he begged 
 to be informed of the King's causes of displeasure. 
 The dryness of Henri's answer cannot have been 
 reassuring. 
 
 " I should require more time and leisure than I have 
 at present," he wrote, " were I to reply to the dis- 
 
Rosny in Disgrace 91 
 
 courses, reasoning, and complaints of your letter of 
 March 13. I will, therefore, permit you to speak of 
 it when next I see you and am at leisure. Mean- 
 time, I would advise you to act according to the 
 counsels you offer me when I give way to anger with 
 regard to those who blame my conduct that is, to 
 let the world say what it pleases without tormenting 
 yourself about the matter, and to act always better 
 and better. Thus you will show the strength of your 
 mind, will make your innocence apparent, and will 
 preserve my good-will, of which you may be as well 
 assured as ever." 
 
 Rosny was strong and patient, and may have felt 
 that, confident in his innocence, he could afford to 
 wait. He made no attempt to hasten the promised 
 opportunity of exculpation, though as the weeks 
 went by matters between himself and the King went 
 from bad to worse. Those who looked on may well 
 have believed that the minister's fall was at hand, 
 when Henri said in their hearing that a day might 
 come when he would work more ill to the State than 
 Coligny himself. His enemies were busily at work. 
 Slanders were poured into the King's ears ; written 
 libels were placed in his hands. Nor was it until 
 May that an explanation took place. Even then 
 it was not by the minister that it was invited. In- 
 trenched in his silence, he went his way, making 
 no attempt to regain his master's trust, and leaving 
 it to the King to decide when the " leisure " of which 
 he had spoken should give him an opportunity to 
 make his vindication. 
 
 Whether his course were dictated by policy or pride, 
 
92 The Making of a King 
 
 it was wholly successful. Henri, possibly not insensible 
 to the mute rebuke contained in the deportment of the 
 man who had served him so well, and whom he had 
 now, unheard, shut out from his confidence, at last 
 broke the silence ; and when, one day, Rosny was 
 taking leave of him and returning to Paris, he called 
 him back. 
 
 " Have you nothing whatever to say to me ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " For the present, nothing," was the answer. 
 
 " Well, I have much to say to you," retorted the 
 King. Taking him by the hand, he led him to an 
 alley secure from eaves-droppers, further ensuring 
 secrecy by placing at its entrance a couple of Swiss 
 guards ignorant of the French language. There for 
 no less than four hours the two walked up and down 
 in earnest converse. If the anxious courtiers were 
 debarred from hearing what passed, they could com- 
 mand a view of the alley, and could see that Henri 
 embraced his friend, as he confessed that, remember- 
 ing twenty-three years of affectionate intercourse, he 
 had found the coldness and reserve of the past weeks 
 intolerable. " For, to speak truth," he said, " if I 
 have not communicated all my fancies to you as I have 
 been accustomed to do, I think you also have concealed 
 many of your own from me." A remedy was to be 
 applied to this state of things, and the malice of 
 Rosny's enemies was to be defeated. The King had 
 decided, so he said, to impart to him all the fine tales 
 he had been told to his discredit ; " for I desire that 
 you and I should come out of this, our hearts clear 
 from any suspicion, and content with one another. . . . 
 
Restored to Favour 93 
 
 I will open my heart to you, praying that you will 
 conceal from me nothing that is in your own." 
 
 Henri kept his word. The falsehoods invented by 
 slanderous tongues were faithfully repeated to the man 
 they concerned ; a libellous document was handed 
 over for his perusal. Reading it carefully from end 
 to end, without change of colour, Rosny made his 
 defence, refuting the charges brought against him one 
 by one, rendering with every word his triumph more 
 complete. Then, his vindication made, he would have 
 tendered his solemn oath of fidelity at his master's 
 feet had not Henri, perceiving at once the interpreta- 
 tion that would be put upon the action by the curious 
 and malevolent spectators who were watching the scene 
 from a distance, been quick to prevent him from 
 assuming an attitude which might be understood as 
 accompanying a prayer for pardon. Expressing his 
 entire conviction of the minister's innocence, he took 
 him by the hand and led him out from the alley, to 
 meet the whole Court awaiting him at its entrance. 
 
 Finding, on inquiry, that four hours had elapsed 
 whilst the interview had been carried on, and that it 
 was close upon one o'clock, the King observed, not 
 without malice, that since some persons had doubtless 
 found the time pass more slowly than himself, he 
 would tell them, for their consolation, that he loved 
 Rosny more than ever, and that, between himself and 
 his minister, it was for life and death. With which 
 defiance to the men who would have severed him 
 from his friend, the King dismissed him to his dinner. 
 
 Rosny 's enemies were for the time defeated. That 
 they continued to indoctrinate the Dauphin with their 
 
94 The Making of a King 
 
 hostility is shown by a scene taking place at Saint- 
 Germain a month later ; when the minister having 
 brought the child a purse full" of coins he refused 
 the gift. 
 
 " I do not want it," he said ungraciously. " It is 
 not a pretty one ; it is ugly. If you give it me I will 
 throw it into the moat," and even when the shining 
 " dauphins " and half-crowns were poured out he 
 refused to be propitiated. " Allez, vilaine," he said, 
 restoring the coins to the purse and flinging it away. 
 
 It may be that, on this occasion, those about the 
 boy regretted that he had learnt his lesson so well ; 
 it would have been no part of their plan that he 
 should decline any largesse proffered by the Super- 
 intendent of Finance. But no rebuke or punishment 
 is recorded as following upon his ill-humour and 
 bad manners. 
 
 It is curious that, at a time when the enmity of 
 Spain and its readiness to make common cause with 
 Henri's domestic adversaries had been once again em- 
 phatically manifested, the idea of a marriage between 
 the Dauphin and the Infanta continued to be a favourite 
 project at the French Court ; and that the King himself, 
 resolute in his opposition to the plan at a later date, 
 is found alluding to the possibility of its being carried 
 into effect. 
 
 " I should like you and the Infanta to have a little 
 Dauphin like yourself," he once told his son, playing 
 with the subject. 
 
 " Non pas, s'il vous plait, papa" returned the child, 
 lifting his hand in military salute. 
 
 Again and again his attendants strove to accustom 
 
The Dauphin and Spain 95 
 
 their charge, thus early, to think of Anne as his future 
 bride, sometimes finding him ready to lend a favourable 
 ear to their suggestions, sometimes encountering opposi- 
 tion. Did he not love Spaniards ? some one asked, 
 demanding his reasons when he answered in the 
 negative. 
 
 " Because they are papa s enemies/' answered the 
 boy. Instinctively he had divined the fact that they 
 were to be regarded with suspicion. 
 
 " Spaniards ? " he said, when told that some Spanish 
 nobles were asking to be admitted to his presence. 
 "Spaniards ? Then give me my sword." 
 
 Since she was of that nation, he would have none of 
 the Infanta, so he declared. When, however, it was 
 explained that she would make him King of Spain, 
 becoming herself Queen of France, he smiled, and on 
 the occasion of a second visit from the Count de Sora, 
 now on his way back from Spain, he consented to make 
 a gracious response to the greetings he brought. 
 
 " Because they are papa s enemies." More and 
 more the Dauphin was acquiring the love for his 
 father which had grown so strong before their final 
 parting ; more and more he was learning to submit 
 his childish will to the will of the King. Henri was 
 master ; his wishes were law ; gladly and willingly the 
 boy had begun in spite of occasional moods of re- 
 bellion to recognise his supremacy. Trifling incidents 
 showed the change. As the children marched to Mass 
 in military array, the Chevalier carrying a blue banner, 
 the Dauphin armed with his arquebus, he bade little 
 Verneuil uncover. 
 
 'You must not wear your hat in my presence," 
 
96 The Making of a King 
 
 he told him. Learning that it was by the King's 
 orders, he was prompt in rescinding his directions. 
 
 " Put it on, put it on," he said hurriedly. " Le 
 petit valet de papa " was eager to display his loyalty 
 towards the single person he acknowledged to be 
 his superior. Watching the soldiers on parade, he 
 insisted upon tendering, lik* them, his oath of fidelity 
 to the King, administering it himself to his brothers 
 in their turn. 
 
 " Fefe" he asked, " do you promise to serve papa 
 well?" 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur." 
 
 " And I too," repeated the Dauphin. 
 
 During the summer of 1605 a visit was paid to the 
 chateau by Marguerite de Valois, come thither to 
 make the acquaintance of her successor's son. Far 
 from owing Marie de Medicis any grudge, she was 
 anxious to maintain the rights of a woman in part of 
 her own blood and race. That she was thus friendlily 
 disposed was of the greater importance, as it was 
 currently reported that the Due de Bouillon who had 
 never made his submission since Biron's execution, but 
 held aloof, a constant menace to the tranquillity of the 
 country had conceived the design of obtaining posses- 
 sion of her person, with the object of bringing pressure 
 to induce her to declare, in case of the King's death, 
 that her acquiescence in the divorce had been obtained 
 by force. A statement of this kind would have con- 
 stituted a real danger to the Dauphin. Marguerite, 
 however, had no intention of playing into the hands of 
 the Huguenots, and her reappearance at Court made 
 her disposition clear. 
 
Photo by A . Giraudon, after a drawing by F. Clonet in the Biblioiheque Nation 
 
 MARGUERITE DE VALOIS, CALLED QUEEN MARGOT. 
 96] 
 
- 
 
 Marguerite de ValoiS 97 
 
 She came with the avowed intention of constituting 
 the Dauphin her heir, and was cordially received by his 
 father and the Queen at Monceaux the estate bestowed 
 by Henri upon his wife at the Dauphin's birth. During 
 the month of July her visit to Saint-Germain was paid, 
 presenting a curious picture of the manners and customs 
 of the times, and in particular of the household of 
 Henri-Quatre. 
 
 The approaching event had been naturally a subject 
 of discussion at the chateau, a question having been 
 raised as to the mode of address to be adopted by the 
 Dauphin towards the woman who had once occupied 
 his mother's place. To the suggestion that he should 
 call her aunt he demurred. Madame, he said, could 
 use that name ; he would call her sister. 
 
 The discussion was terminated by a message from 
 Marie to the effect that her son was to give Marguerite 
 her own title of maman. Two days later the boy is 
 found employing it, on the occasion of a visit from the 
 Queen's maitre cChotel^ sent to greet him and to make 
 his mistress's excuses for delaying her visit to Saint- 
 Germain till she had recovered from the fatigue of her 
 journey. 
 
 " I humbly thank her," answered the well-drilled 
 child. " I am her servant. How is maman ? " 
 
 By August 6 King and Queen were also at Saint- 
 Germain, awaiting the arrival of the guest ; and that 
 afternoon the whole party of children were sent to 
 
 eet and welcome her. As she drew near, the Dauphin 
 was taken out of his carriage, the Queen descending 
 
 om her litter. Bareheaded, the boy was lifted up by 
 is body-servant to kiss her, discarding in his greeting 
 
 7 
 
9& The Making of a King 
 
 the prescribed formula and using a name he had him- 
 self devised. 
 
 " Welcome to you," he said, " maman ma file" 
 
 " Monsieur," replied the Queen, " I thank you. 
 I have long desired to see you." 
 
 Again she kissed him, whilst, pretending to be 
 abashed, he hid his face with his hat. 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! " she exclaimed. " How handsome 
 you are ! You have indeed the royal bearing befitting 
 the sovereignty one day to be yours." 
 
 After which, the other children having been duly 
 greeted, the party turned homewards, the Dauphin 
 falling asleep half-way and being carried into the 
 chateau in that condition. 
 
 The visit was a success. Upon her successor's 
 children Marguerite lavished gifts and caresses ; with 
 the King and his wife her intercourse was friendly 
 and intimate. " I have my sister, Queen Marguerite, 
 here with me," the King wrote in a letter of this date, 
 " who bears herself after a fashion very pleasing 
 to me." 
 
 Perhaps the most singular scene recorded was when 
 one morning the Dauphin, taken to visit his mother in 
 bed, found the King seated upon it, Margot on her 
 knees at the Queen's side ; whilst the child, completing 
 the group, was lifted up and sat on the bed playing 
 with a little dog. 
 
 That some at least of those less immediately con- 
 cerned did not view the guest with favour is to be 
 inferred from an incident apparently taking place later 
 on, when the Dauphin had been transferred to the care 
 of his gouverneur, M. de Souvre. 
 
Margot at Paris 99 
 
 " How handsome and well-made he is ! " cried 
 Margot, when the boy was brought to visit her 
 by Souvre and his subordinate, Pluvenal. " How 
 happy is the Cheiron who has the bringing up of 
 this Achilles ! " 
 
 "Did I not tell you," grumbled Pluvenal to his 
 chief, failing to catch the classic allusion, "that this 
 m&chante femme would insult us ? " 
 
 Marguerite's visit to Saint-Germain over, she pro- 
 ceeded to Paris, there to take up her residence. It 
 was reported that Henri had proffered two requests : 
 the first that she would refrain from turning day into 
 night, as she had done formerly ; secondly, that she 
 would put a restraint upon her excessive liberality 
 and become mhagere. To the first admonition she 
 promised obedience, so far as in her lay, confessing 
 that long habit might interpose a difficulty in the way 
 of its observance. As to the other matter she declined 
 to pledge herself. Liberality ran in her blood ; nor 
 could she live in any other fashion. Meantime, to the 
 Parisians, who had not had an opportunity of studying 
 her at close quarters for twenty-four years, she was an 
 object of interest and curiosity. Ardent, kindly, clever, 
 unprincipled and impulsive, she would insist upon 
 holding at the font an infant to whom a poor Irish- 
 woman had chanced to give birth at the church doors, 
 inducing the Constable of France, who was at hand, 
 to act the part of her fellow-sponsor. Again, Paris 
 would look on at her passionate grief for the violent 
 death of one of her favourites. Swearing neither to 
 eat nor drink until he should have been avenged, she 
 was present the following day at the execution of the 
 
ioo The Making of a King 
 
 man who had shot him ; and left the Hotel de Sens, 
 where she had lodged, that same night, declaring she 
 would re-enter it no more. The criminal, for his part, 
 died gaily, regretting nothing since his foe was slain ; 
 whilst Mesnard, by Margot's command, published, in 
 commemoration of the dead, his "Regrets Amoureux," 
 which were carried about by the Queen and recited 
 evening by evening ; the King consoling her with the 
 assurance that as brave and gallant squires as Saint- 
 Julien were still to be found in his Court, and that, 
 should she desire it, more than a dozen should be 
 provided for her. 
 
 In September Henri's presence was required in the 
 Limousin, where fresh disturbances were apprehended. 
 The Queen accompanied him, and all went well. The 
 Due de Bouillon, though retaining an attitude of 
 injured innocence, remained personally at a safe dis- 
 tance ; the fortresses against which the expedition was 
 directed being placed by his orders in the hands of the 
 King. The Queen had not been with her husband 
 during the latter part of his absence, but his letters 
 were full of affection. Writing to her, he expressed 
 his joy in the anticipation of a speedy return, and 
 mentioned that every one's spirits were rising as 
 they turned their faces towards " la douce France." 
 In another of the love-letters which he could not 
 refrain from addressing even to his wife, he told her, 
 after giving an account of some passing malady, that 
 in a week he would be holding her in his arms and 
 she should cure him. By November Fontainebleau 
 had been regained ; King and Queen arriving, though 
 from different directions, at the same moment, "de quoi 
 
King and Queen at Peace 101 
 
 ils re^urent grand contentement." A happier chapter 
 of domestic life seemed to be opening for both. 
 
 Such intervals in her life of discord may have taught 
 Marie what an existence spent with Henri might, 
 under other circumstances, have been like. When 
 time had softened the memory of her wrongs, and 
 the past was, perhaps, invested with some degree of 
 glamour, she told Richelieu that, their quarrels over 
 for the moment, the King, rejoicing in fair weather, 
 would behave " avec tant de douceur " as to cause her 
 to look back with pleasure upon the time passed 
 with him and upon his kindness. It is not incon- 
 ceivable that she spoke the truth. To those un- 
 acquainted with the King's incredible weakness it 
 may well have appeared that, in spite of the signs of 
 relenting he had shown, the partial rupture with 
 Madame de Verneuil resulting from her com- 
 plicity in her father's treason must be, in a measure 
 at least, lasting. But these hopes were doomed to 
 disappointment, and at the end of the year those 
 who had indulged them must have augured ill from 
 the fact that she was visiting Saint-Germain, where 
 her daughter had contracted some infectious complaint. 
 The King's orders were that, whilst the other children 
 were kept apart in the new buildings to which they 
 had been removed, the Marquise's son was to be per- 
 mitted to pass his time with his mother in the old 
 chateau. The Dauphin, it would appear, did not 
 approve of an arrangement depriving him of his usual 
 playfellow. 
 
 " Where have you been ? " he demanded of Ver- 
 neuil on his return, 
 
102 The Making of a King 
 
 " Mon maitre" answered the boy, " I have been to 
 see maman mignonne" 
 
 " She is yours, not mine," was the contemptuous 
 reply. 
 
 A week later the King, come back from the Limou- 
 sin, paid a visit to the chateau. Walking with his 
 son in the gardens, old memories woke within him, 
 and he told how, more than five-and- twenty years 
 ago, he had been a prisoner within those walls. The 
 captive now reigned supreme, had triumphed over his 
 enemies, and counted perhaps on many years of life. 
 But the end was not far off. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 1606 
 
 New Year's Day Rosny becomes Due de Sully Expedition against 
 Bouillon The Dauphin in Paris Bouillon reduced to sub- 
 mission Brought to Saint-Germain The Dauphin's baptism. 
 
 WHEN Rosny, followed by three secretaries each 
 bearing a velvet bag, arrived at the Louvre 
 on the morning of New Year's Day, 1606, he found 
 a certain amount of confusion prevailing in the 
 palace. The Queen, who was expecting before 
 long the birth of her third child, had not been 
 well the preceding evening ; the King had been 
 occupied in tending her most of the night also, 
 it would appear, in quarrelling with her had scarcely 
 slept, and had been consequently late in awaking. 
 Marie, for her part, was either still asleep which 
 would have been strange, since Henri was apparently 
 receiving many guests in her bed-chamber or was, 
 as her husband was inclined to believe, shamming 
 slumber. 
 
 Rosny was in any case secure of a welcome, for 
 one of his objects in visiting the palace was to deliver 
 over to the King the purses, filled with coinage of 
 varying value, to be distributed amongst the members 
 of the royal household and that of the Dauphin as 
 New Year's gifts. 
 
104 The Making of a King 
 
 It might have obviated some discontent at Saint- 
 Germain had Madame de Mqntglat and her sub- 
 ordinates been aware that their claims had not been 
 overlooked. At the chateau bits of blue ribbon 
 were all that the little master had to bestow an 
 expedient invented because the child had seemed 
 ashamed to have nothing to*give to those who begged 
 from him, as he went from one to the other with 
 empty hands and saying in jest, though shamefaced, 
 and giving each petitioner a little blow, c< Tenez, here 
 is your New Year's gift." 
 
 At the Louvre, meanwhile, Rosny was exhibiting 
 with pride the provision he had made for the King's 
 liberalities. The device upon the coins was a sprig 
 of laurel, with the motto Mihi plebis amor, designed 
 to express the confidence felt by Henri, in spite of 
 conspiracies and treason, in his people's affection. 
 Followed by his laden secretaries, the minister had 
 been readily admitted to the royal chamber, receiving 
 an explanation from the King of his apparent sloth. 
 When the Queen had awakened that morning, he 
 further informed him, it had been with sighs and 
 tears, of which he would tell his friend the reason 
 when fewer persons were present. Then, turning 
 to more cheerful subjects, he entreated, with the 
 eagerness of a boy, to be made acquainted forthwith 
 with the contents of the velvet bags. 
 
 Rosny's tone was somewhat apologetic as, respond- 
 ing to his master's demand, he prepared to produce 
 them. When last he had seen the King and Queen 
 together they had been so marvellously gay that, 
 in the anticipation that he would find them in a like 
 

 New Year's Day 105 
 
 humour to-day, he had devised New Year's gifts 
 fitted to move them to laughter in thinking of the 
 pleasure of those upon whom they were to be bestowed. 
 He had also wished that both should be present when 
 they were displayed. 
 
 If the Queen was present she gave no sign of 
 taking note of what went on. Henri, however, 
 observed that, though she was pretending to be asleep 
 and had bestowed no greeting upon Rosny, he was 
 sure she was in truth awake. She was angry with 
 himself and the minister for reasons, he repeated, 
 Rosny should hear later on. Pending indications of 
 wakefulness, the gifts were exhibited, Rosny laying 
 particular stress upon the gratification to be afforded 
 to the maids of honour by the hundred crowns he 
 had allotted to each. The money supplied to them 
 for dress had to be used as was intended. This 
 sum, on the other hand, might be expended, according 
 to their fancy, on babioles. Whereupon the King 
 inquired flippantly of the grave minister whether he 
 would not exact kisses in return, and Rosny did his 
 best to chime in with Henri's humour. 
 
 Presently, having turned out most of the company, 
 Henri gave the Queen a gentle push. 
 
 " Awake, sleeper," he bade her. " Kiss me, and be 
 angry with me no longer. For my part, all my little 
 ill-temper is gone." Did she only know, he added, 
 how freely Rosny told him the truth, she would not 
 charge the latter with flattery. 
 
 Marie had no alternative but to resign herself to 
 be wakened. A bad dream, she explained, con- 
 firming a report of language used by the King, had 
 
106 The Making of a King 
 
 disturbed her. He gave people reason to believe 
 that he took more pleasure in m the company of others 
 than in her own persons who were disloyal and hated 
 him in their hearts. And she was ready to hear what 
 Rosny had to say. 
 
 It was not difficult to supply the names of the 
 "persons" to whom the* Queen made anonymous 
 allusion, and Rosny, between King and Queen, must 
 have felt in a difficulty. Called upon by Henri to 
 speak, and probably well aware of the new points at 
 issue, he hazarded the singular suggestion that he 
 should himself be empowered by both to act on his 
 own authority and without the cognisance of either. 
 If so, he was confident that he would be enabled to 
 make a settlement according to their joint wishes, and 
 conducive to peace and concord. 
 
 Henri, after his gay and reckless fashion, would 
 have freely given his friend carte-blanche. The Queen, 
 more cautious, and with comprehensible reluctance to 
 pledge herself to unknown paths, demanded time for 
 consideration. Thus the scene ended, and King and 
 Queen were left to complete their tardy toilettes. 
 
 Though occasional storms were liable to disturb the 
 tranquillity of the royal household, amicable terms at 
 this time prevailed. The desire felt by Marie de 
 Medicis to promote a good understanding with the 
 house of Austria by means of a double marriage 
 was, however, taking shape, and was destined to prove 
 a fruitful subject of discord. At present the quarrel 
 with Spain was in abeyance, whilst a more important 
 matter as regarded domestic peace the Marquise had 
 not yet regained the position she had held before she 
 
Rosny made Due de Sully 107 
 
 was implicated in the treasonable designs of the King's 
 enemies. 
 
 The pressing necessity of the moment was to take 
 measures to stamp out the remnants of discontent in 
 France. One rebel was still unforgiven, because un- 
 repentant. In spite of Henri's craving to be at peace 
 with all, and especially with his own subjects, the Due 
 de Bouillon remained, protestations of loyalty and 
 obedience notwithstanding, a centre of disaffection. 
 In the spring of 1606 the King determined to put an 
 end to a state of things which could not be allowed 
 to continue without detriment to his authority, and to 
 proceed in person to effect the reduction of Sedan, 
 Bouillon's place of retreat. 
 
 Before starting to bring his recalcitrant vassal to 
 an attitude of submission, he bestowed a well-earned 
 reward upon as faithful a servant as a sovereign ever 
 possessed. Rosny was made duke and peer, the 
 formalities being completed on February 12. 
 
 On that day Sully, as he was henceforth to be called, 
 had bidden a great company to dinner at the Arsenal. 
 Returning thither with his guests, he found yet another 
 awaiting him. Henri had arrived to grace the occasion 
 with his presence, explaining that, though uninvited, 
 he had come to the banquet. 
 
 " Shall I dine badly ? " he asked. 
 
 " That may well be, Sire," replied Sully, " since I 
 did not anticipate so great an honour. " 
 
 "Now I assure you it will not be the case," answered 
 Henri merrily ; " for, whilst awaiting you, I have visited 
 your kitchens, where I saw the finest possible fish and 
 ragouts much to my taste. Even, since you tarried too 
 
io8 The Making of a King 
 
 long to please me, I have eaten some of your little 
 oysters and drunk of your wine the best that ever 
 I drank." 
 
 And so the promotion of the minister was gaily 
 celebrated. 
 
 On the following day came the discussion of grave 
 affairs of State ; and in 'especial of the projected 
 expedition against Bouillon, and the means provided 
 by Sully to dislodge him from Sedan. 
 
 It was March when the arrangements had finally 
 been made, and the King took his departure from 
 Paris. Before he did so the Dauphin was summoned 
 to the capital, for the ostensible purpose of returning 
 thanks to Marguerite of Valois for the inheritance 
 she was to bequeathe him. The King may likewise 
 have desired to introduce his son to the citizens of 
 Paris. The child's entry was publicly made, the 
 Prince de Conde, the Constable of France, and other 
 nobles meeting him at Neuilly ; and on the very day 
 of his arrival the King in person commended his heir 
 to the gentlemen of the robe as a charge he left them 
 during his approaching absence. 
 
 At the Tuileries the Dauphin had been met by his 
 father and taken to visit the Queen, who had lately 
 given birth to her second daughter, Christine ; and on 
 the following day his visit to Queen Margot was paid 
 in the company of the King. Henri's departure had 
 been fixed for two days later, and on the eve of it 
 he received the farewells of Messieurs de la Cour, 
 again charging them with the care of his son. He 
 was going to Sedan, he told them summing up the 
 situation his arms open to receive M. de Bouillon, 
 

 The Dauphin in Paris 109 
 
 should such be the Duke's will. If not, he went to 
 teach him his duty. Early the next morning came 
 the leave-taking of father and son. 
 
 " Adieu, my son," said the King as he kissed the 
 boy. " Pray God for me. Adieu, I give you my 
 blessing." 
 
 " Adieu, papa," replied the child, " tout etonne et 
 comme interdit de paroles." 
 
 If he was awed by the unusual solemnity of the 
 King's manner and words, the impression will have 
 been quickly effaced during the days passed amidst 
 his new surroundings. Visits were to be paid, sights 
 to be seen. Taken, doubtless by the King's orders, to 
 the Arsenal, he was led through the galleries of arms 
 to the ramparts, and thence to the Bastille, where, 
 standing in the courtyard, he was greeted from a tower 
 above by the Comte d'Auvergne. 
 
 " Good evening, Monsieur," cried the captive, " I 
 am your very humble servant." 
 
 " God keep you, M. le Comte," replied the child, 
 with natural courtesy. 
 
 Some months later he showed that, though he might 
 be silent about it, he was not unacquainted with the 
 offence the Count was expiating by his confinement. 
 
 " Is the Comte d'Auvergne still in the Bastille?" 
 he asked, proceeding to inquire into the cause of his 
 captivity. It was because he had been very stub- 
 born, some one replied, improving the occasion. 
 
 " It was not that," the Dauphin answered briefly. 
 Then, pressed to give the true reason, " It is because 
 he wished to make war on -papa," he said, after con- 
 sidering the matter. 
 
no The Making of a King 
 
 u But, Monsieur," it was objected, " he is only one 
 man. How could he make war ? " 
 
 " With fifty thousand men,* he answered ; nor 
 would he say from whom he had the information. 
 
 The Due de Vendome, now about fourteen, and the 
 King's constant companion, was to join him ; and 
 the letter he carried from the Dauphin has been pre- 
 served. He had been a great pleasure to his mother, 
 he informed the King, had made war in her room, and 
 had wakened the enemy there with his drum. He 
 had visited the Arsenal, and would pray God for the 
 King. He was very sleepy, and Fef Vendome would 
 tell the rest. Two days later his visit to Paris ended. 
 
 The King's campaign was short and successful. He 
 had left Paris on March 15. On April 4 news 
 reached the capital of the surrender of Sedan and the 
 submission of the Due de Bouillon. 
 
 " Ma cousine" wrote Henri to the Princess of Orange, 
 " I will say, like Caesar, Veni, vidi, vici ; or like the 
 song, ' Trois jours durerent mes amours et se finissent 
 en trois jours,' so much was I in love with Sedan." 
 The Princess would judge whether he was better ac- 
 quainted with the condition of the stronghold than 
 those who had foretold that it would take him three years 
 to reduce it. M. de Bouillon had promised to serve him 
 well and faithfully for the future, and he had promised- 
 he was always ready to do it to forget the past. To 
 the Queen, who seems to have demurred, he charac- 
 teristically explained why he could not have acted 
 otherwise. Bouillon was in no condition to resist, so 
 that every one would understand that his pardon was 
 due to clemency alone. 
 
Bouillon reduced to Submission in 
 
 On April 28 the King made his triumphant entry 
 into Paris, accompanied by a train of nobles and princes, 
 and bringing with him the defeated Bouillon, ver^y 
 plainly dressed and sad of countenance. 
 
 One other ceremony remained to be performed, 
 when the rebel Duke was brought by Henri to Saint- 
 Germain, to kiss the hand of his heir. Thus the last 
 remnant of disaffection was, if not removed, driven 
 underground. 
 
 The King's successes had been joyfully celebrated by 
 the Dauphin and his household. Yet the visit paid 
 by Henri and the Duke was clouded for the child by 
 one of the fits of jealousy to which he was subject. 
 Angered by the attention his father had paid to the 
 Verneuil children, he suddenly retired to his own apart- 
 ments ; where, seating himself on a coffer, he bade the 
 usher shut the door, and admit no one, " for fear," as 
 he explained, "papa may see me weep." 
 
 A melancholy little figure, withdrawn from the 
 merry-making, he had learnt that Henri- Quatre, 
 his own emotional character notwithstanding, had no 
 liking for tears. In spite of the strong affection 
 uniting father and son, there was scant resemblance 
 between the child of Marie de Medicis and the gay, 
 brilliant, passionate Gascon. Never, says Heroard, was 
 child more like father. One sees what one desires 
 to see ; but with some superficial similarity in tastes 
 a love of outdoor pursuits and of soldiering there 
 was little in Louis XIII. to recall the great Henri. 
 Brown-eyed, dark-haired, with the heaviness of feature 
 inherited from his mother's race, he might, as 
 Michelet observes, have been rather taken for a 
 
ii2 The Making of a King 
 
 Spaniard or an Orsini, a prince of the Italian deca- 
 dence, his unlikeness to his father giving rise in 
 some quarters to an urtfoundeH doubt whether he 
 was in truth his son. 
 
 In childhood there was apparent in him at times a 
 certain unsocial instinct totally at variance with Henri's 
 habits, and foreshadowing the moods of melancholy to 
 which he was subject later on. One evening this 
 summer, when he had been dancing for the entertain- 
 ment of King and Queen, he suddenly climbed on to 
 his nurse's knee, seemed to fall asleep, and was put to 
 bed. After the company had withdrawn, maman 
 Doundoun, watching him, perceived that he was awake. 
 
 " Monsieur," she said, charging him with the decep- 
 tion, " you are not asleep." 
 
 " No," admitted the child, very low. " Is papa 
 
 ?> > 
 & ~~~ . 
 
 " Yes, Monsieur. Why did you pretend to be 
 asleep ? " 
 
 " Because papa would not have gone away," was 
 the reply, " and there were so many people, and I 
 was hot." 
 
 In that same month of June an event took place, 
 attended by no serious consequences at the time, yet 
 not without its effect upon the royal household. In 
 returning to Paris after a visit to Saint-Germain, the 
 King and Queen had a narrow escape from drowning. 
 The road was slippery ; at Neuilly the horses lost their 
 footing, and the royal coach and its occupants were 
 precipitated into the water. 
 
 The King had been lying at full length, asleep; Cesar 
 de Vend6me, the Princesse de Conti, and others were 
 
Li qderumier'nul. ttmuy ne rom>e 
 Ainii JittelJti 'le our&eia I 
 
 Tlc.ktfu.fe. 
 7 rom an engraving by Tho de Leu, after a painting by F. QuesneL 
 
 HENRIETTE D'ENTRAGUES. 
 
Escape from Drowning 113 
 
 there, and for a moment the danger was not small. 
 The King was seized by an attendant, who con- 
 trived to draw him out of the water, Henri himself 
 saved his son, whilst a servant caught the Queen by 
 her headdress, and, with the King's help, placed her in 
 safety, the Princesse de Conti being the last to reach 
 dry land. The most serious result of the misadventure 
 was the use made of it by the Marquise de Verneuil, 
 who, under cover of congratulations upon the King's 
 escape, contrived to renew relations with him, and 
 drew him once more into her nets. Secure in her 
 power, she visited him in order to express her rejoicing, 
 and did not fail to turn the incident to good account 
 by pointing out how deplorable would have been her 
 condition should she and her children have been left by 
 his death in the hands of the Queen. Eager to for- 
 give, Henri fell into the snare, forgot his just causes 
 of resentment, again sought to induce his wife to 
 admit the Marquise to Court, and the old condition 
 of domestic conflict was renewed. 
 
 At every point, in every direction, the influence of 
 the clever, unscrupulous, quick-witted Frenchwoman 
 was working against the Queen, unequipped by nature 
 to contend against her. Even those upon whose sup- 
 port Marie might have chiefly reckoned were liable to 
 succumb to Madame de Verneuil's wiles. Amongst 
 them was a kinsman of her own, Don Giovanni dc 
 Medicis, illegitimate brother of her uncle, the Grand- 
 duke, whose presence in Paris, hailed at first with 
 satisfaction by his niece, was to prove in the sequel a 
 source rather of trouble than of rejoicing. On his 
 arrival in July the Queen had been anxious to do 
 
 8 
 
iH The Making of a King 
 
 him honour ; whilst his brilliant record as a soldier 
 although his laurels had been wo$ in the service of Spain 
 commended him to the King's favour. By both he 
 was made cordially welcome, an ample income was 
 assigned him ; and hopes were held out of high office 
 in France. 
 
 The position he took up "at first with regard to the 
 royal household was a prudent one. Upon receiving 
 some hazardous confidence from Henri, he showed 
 with blunt straightforwardness, real or assumed, that 
 he had penetrated the object with which it was made, 
 and let the King know that he was not disposed to 
 carry it out. 
 
 " If your Majesty," he said, " tells me this in order 
 that I should repeat it to the Queen, you deceive your- 
 self, as would also be the case should the Queen 
 command me to give a like message to your Majesty. 
 ... I am here to serve you. I will do so gladly, and 
 will give my life and blood for your Majesty, your 
 children, and your State." As an intermediary he 
 declined to act. 
 
 Had Don Giovanni's career at court corresponded 
 to this fair beginning, he might have played a useful 
 part there. Unfortunately, he was to fall under 
 Madame de Verneuirs influence ; nor was it long 
 before Marie demanded that he should be recalled 
 to Florence. 
 
 The day was approaching when the ceremonies 
 omitted from the private baptism of the Dauphin, 
 ondoye at birth, were to be performed, and the boy 
 was at length to be given a name. He would himself 
 have liked to be called after his father ; but it had 
 
The Dauphin's Baptism 115 
 
 been determined that he should bear the name of the 
 old Kings of France. The rite was to have taken 
 place in Paris, and to have been the occasion of public 
 festivities ; the presence of the plague in the capital, 
 however, necessitated a change of plans, and Fon- 
 tainebleau was selected as the scene of the solemnity. 
 
 Those in charge of the Dauphin at Saint-Germain 
 did their best to impress him with a sense of the 
 importance of the function in which he was to be the 
 central figure, and with the necessity that he should 
 conduct himself with propriety. He must be very 
 good, some one told him, lest another Dauphin instead 
 of himself should be presented for baptism. The 
 admonition roused him rather to a spirit of revolt 
 than of submission. 
 
 " I should not care," he replied perversely; " I should 
 be very glad of it. I should then go where I pleased, 
 and no one would follow me." 
 
 On September 9 the journey to Fontainebleau was 
 begun, and on the I4th, dressed in white, the Dauphin 
 was presented at the font by the Cardinal de Joyeuse, 
 representing Pope Paul V., and his mother's sister, 
 the Duchess of Mantua. The ceremony took place 
 in the keep of the castle, in the presence of a multitude 
 who repaired thither to witness it, and who vied with 
 each other in doing honour to the occasion by the 
 magnificence of their apparel. The Queen was said 
 to have worn thirty-two thousand pearls and three 
 thousand diamonds ; and Bassompierre, at the moment 
 possessed of no more than seven hundred crowns, 
 ordered a dress which was to cost fourteen thousand, 
 ifraying the cost of it afterwards at the gaming-table. 
 
n6 The Making of a King 
 
 Notwithstanding his recalcitrance beforehand, the 
 boy's behaviour left nothing to-be desired, as he made 
 the due responses to the questions addressed to him. 
 His two little sisters, sharing in the ceremony, received 
 the names of Elizabeth and Christine, and the day 
 closed with a banquet and a ball. 
 
 The visit to Fontainebleau passed off without the 
 friction by which the former one had been marked. 
 A change had come over the boy. If he feared his 
 father, he also loved him with a child's passionate 
 affection, jealous of any attempt he so much as sus- 
 pected to infringe, in his own interest, upon the 
 authority and pre-eminence of the King. Tenacious 
 of his rights where others were concerned, he was 
 eager to disavow them when they might be supposed 
 to compete with those of his father. 
 
 " He, that belongs to papa," he protested, when 
 at a Twelfth Night celebration the title of King was 
 to be given him ; nor would he consent to assume 
 it until the matter had been duly explained. All, in 
 fact, belonged to his father, nothing to himself. 
 
 " Mon wait re" asked little Verneuil as the two 
 were playing at making card castles, " does this 
 house" they were still at Fontainebleau "belong 
 
 3 
 
 to you r 
 
 " No," answered the child. " I have none It 
 belongs to papa." 
 
 " I have one, I," returned Verneuil, bragging. 
 
 " What is it ? " asked the Dauphin. 
 
 " Verneuil," was the reply. 
 
 " You are a liar," retorted Louis angrily ; " it does 
 not belong to you, it belongs to your maman" 
 
Louis' Love for his Father 117 
 
 It was always the same. 
 
 " 1 have been playing away all your property, my 
 son," the King told him with a kiss, when he had lost 
 money at the gaming-table. 
 
 " Excuse me, papa" he answered. " It is not mine, 
 it is yours/* 
 
 As if oppressed by a presentiment of the tragedy 
 by which he was so early to be placed in possession 
 of his inheritance, he could not bear to be told by 
 flatterers of the day when he would fill the King's 
 place. 
 
 " Let us not speak of that," he said shortly, when 
 reminded of his future sovereignty. The King's 
 enemies were his enemies ; and when the Chaplain 
 was instructing him upon the commandments, the 
 injunction not to kill gave him pause. 
 
 " Not Spaniards ? " he objected. " Ho, ho, I shall 
 kill Spaniards, who are papas enemies. I shall turn 
 them well into dust." 
 
 " Monsieur," replied the Chaplain in rebuke ; 
 "Spaniards must not be killed. They are Christians." 
 
 "But they are papa's enemies," persisted the boy. 
 
 "They are nevertheless Christians," repeated the 
 priest, not improbably belonging to the Spanish faction. 
 Louis gave in. 
 
 " I will then go and kill Turks," he said regretfully. 
 
 In his estimate of Spain, the child's instinct was 
 a true one. Hostility might be, for the moment, 
 quiescent ; it was no more. From this year 1606 
 the year marked by Henri's triumph over the 
 remains of open opposition in France Michelet dates 
 the development of the plot he believes to have 
 
n 8 The Making of a King 
 
 resulted in the King's murder. Whatever the truth 
 as to the actual end may be, it is undeniable that he 
 stood in a sense alone, a single figure barring the way 
 to the universal dominion aimed at by Spain. And 
 upon the side of his enemies were secretly ranged 
 many who should have been his defenders. His foes 
 were too often those of his own household ; and the 
 thought of their intrigues and of his hurrying doom 
 lends pathos to the side-scenes of these last years. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 1607 
 
 Quarrels between King and Queen Sully and his enemies His rela- 
 tions with Henri And with the Queen The Duke as mediator. 
 
 FOR part at least of the dangers gathering around 
 him Henri himself was responsible. From the 
 time when, with eyes that must have been opened 
 to the perfidy of the Marquise, he was recaptured by 
 her, the Queen was his enemy. She and her children 
 on one side, a faithless husband and an insolent rival 
 on the other such was the position ; and she can 
 scarcely be considered blameworthy if she attempted to 
 meet intrigue by intrigue, endeavouring by every 
 means in her power to defeat the machinations of her 
 foe, and falling increasingly under the influence of the 
 Italian favourites who could be trusted to support 
 her cause. 
 
 In June 1606 the accident had occurred which 
 furnished the opportunity for a renewal of intercourse 
 between the King and Madame de Verneuil. A series 
 of letters belonging to the October of that year show 
 him entirely under the old yoke. The prudent policy 
 of the Marquise, who, playing a cautious game, was 
 again alleging conscientious scruples as a reason for 
 keeping Henri at a distance, had succeeded, and her 
 >way over him was once more established. 
 
 119 
 
120 The Making of a King 
 
 Outwardly there may have been little change in the 
 aspect of the Court. The undercurrents of jealousy and 
 hatred, the dreams of a possible vengeance, were covered 
 by the conventional courtesies of common life ; the 
 combination of jest and grim earnest, the heartburnings 
 under the laughter, giving its distinctive character 
 to this period, when the final scene was already in 
 preparation. At times, indeed, glimpses are to be 
 caught of what seem like amicable relations between 
 King and Queen ; and Marie appears, in spite of what 
 is sometimes stated to the contrary, to have been 
 strangely tolerant of the children brought up with her 
 own. " Our daughter," wrote Henri to Madame de 
 Verneuil of the three-year-old Gabrielle, " entertained 
 my wife and myself and all the company for three 
 hours this evening, and nearly made us die of laughing. 
 Maitre Guillaume " his fool " is nothing to her." 
 
 But Marie's letters to her uncle show the bitterness 
 and the indignation working within. 
 
 The special matters upon which King and Queen 
 were at issue the infidelity of a servant of Marie's, 
 his imprisonment at her request by the Grand-duke, 
 the efforts and counter-efforts made for or against him 
 these are of little interest. The attitude, however, 
 of the Queen during the following years is of import- 
 ance, considered in conjunction with the catastrophe, 
 and the suspicions entertained in some quarters that 
 she connived at it. 
 
 Finally separated from his wife, so far, that is, as 
 any remnant or possibility of genuine affection was 
 concerned, with the Court divided into parties, and 
 unable to count with certainty upon the fidelity of 
 
Sully and the King 121 
 
 most of the principal princes or nobles, one element 
 of good fortune remained to Henri, in the possession 
 of a friend as uncompromising in his views, as strong, 
 as faithful, and as devoted as Sully. In his wife's 
 animosity Henri reaped the just reward of his conduct 
 towards her. In the loyal affection of the minister 
 he also received his deserts. For, failing in his duty 
 towards the woman he had married, he was worthy, 
 as a friend, of all love and honour. 
 
 If the discomfiture of Sully's foes had been com- 
 plete, their hatred for the man who had triumphed 
 over them was not thereby lessened, and his control 
 over the King's expenditure could not fail to continue 
 an ever-present source of irritation. Neither did he 
 lay himself out either to win popularity or to cause 
 what was stigmatised as niggardliness to be condoned 
 by reason of any graciousness in his manner of 
 practising it. Rough to discourtesy, he disdained the 
 arts of conciliation. Moreover, the fact that, whilst 
 serving the King with zeal and integrity, he had not been 
 neglectful of his personal interests or omitted to build 
 up his private fortune, did not tend to diminish the 
 dislike felt for him. 
 
 Nor had his enemies lost hope of final success. 
 Again and again, as they saw their master roused to 
 anger by the plain speech of the one man who dared 
 to oppose his wishes, and to tell him unpalatable truths, 
 fresh expectations were raised in the minds of the 
 courtiers surrounding him that, notwithstanding past 
 disappointment, the fall of the minister was at hand ; 
 but, though impatient of Sully's reprimands, veiled in 
 the language of a courtier, Henri ever overcame his 
 
122 The Making of a King 
 
 momentary resentment, and remained true to his old 
 love and trust. 
 
 One scene out of many may serve to give a picture 
 of the singular relationship established between the 
 two. On this occasion master and servant had strongly 
 disagreed on the subject of some project upon which 
 the King was bent ; and, Amoved to hot indignation, 
 Henri had parted from his monitor in anger ; observing, 
 as he left the chamber where the discussion had taken 
 place, in a voice plainly audible to the courtiers await- 
 ing him outside, that he would no longer bear with 
 the Duke's behaviour that he did nothing but con- 
 tradict him and think ill of all he wished to do, 
 adding that he would not see him again for a 
 fortnight. 
 
 The access of passion on the King's part was 
 eagerly noted by those whose hopes would have been 
 crowned had a permanent breach ensued. Was it 
 possible that at length Sully had gone too far, and 
 that the efforts to compass his ruin, hitherto futile, 
 were to prove successful ? It is easy to imagine the 
 excitement produced at Court ; but a surprise awaited 
 the expectant courtiers. 
 
 Early the next morning the King had risen. By 
 seven o'clock he was again at the Arsenal, going 
 unannounced to knock at the door of the Duke's 
 own chamber. When it was opened Sully was dis- 
 covered already seated at a great table covered with 
 papers. The King proceeded to make inquiries as 
 to his occupation. 
 
 " What were you doing ? " he asked. 
 
 Sully' s answer was ready. He had been engaged in 
 
Sully and the King 123 
 
 writing letters, and making memoranda concerning 
 matters connected with the royal service, together with 
 an agenda of all the business to be transacted that day, 
 by himself or by his secretaries. 
 
 " Since when have you been thus occupied ? " was 
 Henri's next question. 
 
 " Since three o'clock this morning," replied the 
 minister. 
 
 Henri turned to one of the men by whom he had 
 been accompanied. 
 
 "Well, Roquelaure," he asked, "what would you 
 take to lead a like life ? " 
 
 Roquelaure confessed that not the contents of the 
 royal treasury would suffice to bribe him, and was, 
 with the rest of Henri's attendants, dismissed ; the 
 King remaining to discuss matters of business with 
 the Duke. Their nature is unrecorded. It is not 
 impossible that, hoping by kindness to win Sully's 
 consent to the projects he had at heart, Henri had 
 renewed the conversation which had ended so ill upon 
 the preceding day ; for when the minister replied 
 he observed coldly that his Majesty having examined 
 into the facts, made up his mind, and his judgment 
 being superior to that of any of his subjects, nothing 
 more remained to be said. Obedience must be rendered 
 his orders, together with approval of all that was 
 :o be done, without reply or remonstrance, since by 
 
 <' ese last the King was displeased. 
 The transparent humility and perfunctory tribute 
 his superior wisdom were in no wise gratifying to a 
 an who rated them, as no doubt Sully intended him 
 o do, at their true value. Tapping the Duke upon 
 
 ***^i 
 
 : 
 
124 The Making of a King 
 
 the cheek, Henri displayed a thorough comprehension 
 of the meaning of his unwonted subservience. 
 
 " Oho/' he said, " you are still angry at what occurred 
 yesterday. Now I am no longer angry. Embrace 
 me, and treat me with as much freedom as usual. 
 If you acted otherwise, it would be a sign that you 
 had ceased to take thought for my affairs ; and even 
 if it makes me angry at times, I desire that you will 
 continue, for I do not love you the less. Did you 
 cease to contradict me, I should believe you bore me 
 no more affection." 
 
 The master deserved the servant, the servant the 
 master, and, in spite of what was afterwards alleged in 
 some quarters, it can hardly be doubted that Henri 
 was true to the minister to the end. Sully's office 
 however was no sinecure. Not only was he over- 
 whelmed with public business, but in the disputes 
 becoming daily more embittered between the King and 
 his wife he was frequently called upon to act the 
 ungracious part of mediator, not without risk of incur- 
 ring the resentment of both belligerents. Talking the 
 matter over at a later date with Mezeray, Sully told 
 him that he had never known a week pass without a 
 quarrel, and that the Queen's passion on one occasion 
 reached such a height that, afraid that she would strike 
 the King, he himself had forced down with less 
 respect than he could have wished the hand she had 
 lifted ; adding that, though Marie had charged him 
 with having given her a blow, she had afterwards 
 acknowledged that he had done right. 
 
 It appears that, no less than Henri, she testified 
 a fitful desire to avail herself of the Duke's advice as 
 
From an engraving by W . Holl. 
 
 24] 
 
 MAXIMILIEN DE BETHUNE, 
 Due de Sully. 
 

 Sully and the Queen 125 
 
 to her dealings with her husband ; and that she would 
 consult him upon the most private questions is shown 
 by a curious incident related by Richelieu, who had 
 learnt it from Sully himself. 
 
 On this occasion she took counsel with the Duke 
 as to whether it would be well to act upon a sugges- 
 tion hazarded by Concini, and inform Henri that 
 certain persons attached to the Court had made love 
 to her. The favourite had been present when she 
 broached the subject, and so long as he assisted at the 
 conference Sully declined to give an opinion. The 
 affair, he said roughly, was of a nature so different from 
 those of which he had the care that he was incapable 
 of tendering any advice upon it. When the Italian 
 had withdrawn, however, he adopted another tone, 
 warning the Queen strongly against the proposed 
 step, as being one calculated to rouse the King's 
 suspicions. Every one knew, he told her bluntly, that 
 a man did not make love to a woman of her rank 
 without having first made sure that she would not 
 dislike it, and unless she had come half-way to meet 
 him. The King might either imagine she had ac- 
 quainted him with the matter lest he should learn it 
 elsewhere ; or that she had tired of the men she accused 
 because others had been found more to her liking. 
 Marie was convinced by the Duke's reasoning and 
 remained silent. 
 
 Early in the year 1607 the ^domestic contest had 
 reached a crisis. The King, in anger, had left the 
 palace without taking leave of his wife. Before quit- 
 ting Paris for Chantilly, he visited Sully at the Arsenal, 
 told him what had occurred, and presumably invited 
 
126 The Making of a King 
 
 the intervention of the minister, as that afternoon 
 the Duke repaired to the Louvre to seek an interview 
 with the Queen. 
 
 He found her shut up in her chamber. Leonora 
 Concini, who was seated outside it, asleep, her head 
 leaning on her elbow, informed the visitor, when he 
 roused her, that she had been unable to gain access 
 to her mistress's presence. Sully was more successful. 
 Admitted to Marie's apartment, she proved to be 
 engaged in inditing a letter to her husband, in 
 no wise adapted to further the cause of peace. In 
 deference to his remonstrances, she consented that the 
 Duke should draw up an epistle containing her senti- 
 ments couched in less offensive language, to be then 
 sent to the King as her own. When this had been 
 done Sully, with an approving conscience, withdrew, 
 congratulating himself upon the dispatch of a missive 
 with which it would have been difficult to find fault. 
 
 Yet the matter of it, whatever might be the form, 
 was not calculated to commend itself to the King. 
 Well worded and dignified, it contained a protest 
 against the King's subjection to a woman constituting 
 a danger, not only to the Queen and to her children, 
 but to the tranquillity of the State, which was dependent 
 upon the legitimacy of the royal children, called in 
 question by the Marquise and her adherents. Should 
 Marie, by no other means, be enabled to induce the King 
 to change his present line of conduct, she warned him 
 of her intention, as a last resource, of bringing his son 
 and daughters to fling themselves, with their mother, 
 at his feet in the attempt to make their supplications 
 heard. Were Henri to listen to their prayer, the Queen 
 
Sully and the Queen 127 
 
 added a solemn undertaking that she would abandon, 
 for her part, any idea of vengeance ; would never 
 work, or permit to be worked, any evil to her rival 
 or her children, and would endeavour to please the 
 King in every respect. 
 
 Such was the letter, summarised, sent to Henri at 
 Chantilly. That Marie's complaint should have been, 
 however reluctantly, endorsed by Sully testifies to the 
 presence of a danger, if a shadowy one, still existing 
 with regard to the rights of the royal children. It 
 could, under these circumstances, be no matter of 
 surprise that the Queen should protest ; that her 
 remonstrance had been couched in terms of respect 
 was something gained ; and Sully retired content with 
 his afternoon's work. It had apparently not occurred 
 to him that the wording of the communication would 
 be likely to betray, to so acute an observer as Henri, 
 that it was not the unassisted handiwork of his Italian 
 wife. He was not long left in ignorance of the King's 
 opinion of it. 
 
 " My friend," wrote Henri, " I have received the 
 most impertinent letter possible from my wife. But 
 [ am less offended with her than with the man who 
 ictated it ; for I see very well that it is not written 
 her own style. Therefore make inquiries and try 
 to discover who is its author, for never again will I see 
 him or love him." 
 
 On the receipt of this missive the Duke, as he 
 himself observes, was a little startled and troubled. 
 When the King returned to Paris he lost no time in 
 visiting the Arsenal, demanding whether Sully had 
 et gained the information he desired. 
 
 : 
 
128 The Making of a King 
 
 " I have no certainty on the subject as yet," returned 
 the minister. " In two days, .however, I hope to give 
 you a good account of it, and, did I know what were 
 the contents of the letter, and your cause of offence, I 
 should do so the sooner." 
 
 In reply Henri admitted that the letter was well 
 written, full of good sene, humility, and submission, 
 " mais qui me mord en riant, et me pique en me 
 flattant." Taking it piece by piece, he could find 
 nothing to object to ; but as a whole it angered him. 
 It had, he was sure, been written maliciously and with 
 the intention of causing him annoyance. Had his wife 
 taken counsel with Sully himself, or another of his 
 faithful servants, he would have been less offended. 
 It would at all events have been done as Sully had 
 cautiously suggested with a good intention. 
 
 Thus encouraged, the Duke made frank confession. 
 He was the culprit by whom the letter had been com- 
 posed, lest worse should have befallen. A prudent 
 man, he had retained in his possession the original 
 draft, and it was found, on comparing it with that 
 received by the King, that Marie de Medicis, in 
 copying it, had made certain alterations, rendering it 
 less conciliatory and more calculated to produce irrita- 
 tion on the King's part. Henri had no desire to 
 quarrel with Sully, and allowed himself to be pacified. 
 
 Sully was not to escape altogether the consequences 
 of the incident. Since he was on the excellent terms 
 it represented with the Queen, Henri desired to make 
 further use of his services. He had been informed 
 that on two occasions, when he himself had been absent 
 on a hunting expedition, Marie had secretly visited the 
 
Sully as Mediator 129 
 
 Arsenal, had been shut up for more than an hour at a 
 time with the minister in his wife's private apartment, 
 issuing from the interview flushed and tearful, but in a 
 manifestly friendly mood. As to the channel through 
 which these facts had been made known to him in 
 case Sully might be inclined to dispute them the 
 King named as his informant the Duke's own daughter, 
 the young Duchesse de Rohan, who had thought to 
 gratify the King thereby. Sully was on no account to 
 let the Duchess know that Henri had spoken of the 
 affair, " for I should then no longer take the great 
 pleasure I do in coming here, and she would tell me 
 nothing more, did she know that I should repeat it to 
 you. For I laugh and play with her as a child 
 though I do not find her like a child in intelligence, 
 since she sometimes gives me very good advice, and 
 is, besides, to be trusted to keep counsel ; for I have 
 confided several things to her, of which I have noticed 
 that she has made no mention to you or to others." 
 
 What Sully thought of his domestic reporter is not 
 recorded, any more than whether he yielded obedience 
 to the King in concealing from the young Duchess his 
 cognisance of her having acted in that capacity. He 
 may, however, have regretted her communications ; 
 since upon the strength of them he was now directed 
 by Henri to use the influence he had acquired in the 
 interests of peace. 
 
 In order to pave the way for a reconciliation with 
 e Queen, Sully was first to approach Madame de 
 Verneuil, in no wise as the King's representative or 
 envoy, but as if acting on his own initiative, and to warn 
 er in the character of an anxious friend that, did 
 
 9 
 
130 The Making of a King 
 
 she not amend her ways, she was incurring the risk of 
 forfeiting the King's favour, in. which case he had reason 
 to know that she would be deprived of her children and 
 immured in a cloister. He was further to recount 
 the principal delinquencies with which she stood 
 charged namely, that she spoke of the King himself 
 with contempt, sought the*countenance and support of 
 the house of Lorraine, and maintained a friendly inter- 
 course with the traitors, her father and her brother, in 
 spite of orders from the King to the contrary. Above 
 all, she alluded to the Queen in improper terms, placed 
 her son and daughter on a footing of equality with the 
 royal children, and continued to allege, as her justifica- 
 tion, the old promise of marriage declared null and 
 void by the Parlement. These just causes of indigna- 
 tion to the Queen, giving rise as they did to constant 
 quarrels, would no longer be tolerated by the King, 
 and would drive him to transfer his affections elsewhere. 
 A promise of amendment having been obtained from 
 the Marquise, Sully was to proceed to the second 
 portion of his task. Once again as of his own 
 accord, he was to repair to the Queen, armed with 
 her rival's submission ; to show her that conformity 
 to the King's will was the best means of securing 
 satisfaction to herself; in especial to represent the 
 extreme objections entertained by her husband to 
 the absolute domination exercised over her by the 
 Concini so embittering to the King's spirit that his 
 other causes of complaint against her were thereby 
 magnified ; and to endeavour, by all the means in his 
 power, to induce her to dismiss her Italian favourites. 
 Should Sully succeed in this double enterprise, and 
 
Sully as Mediator 131 
 
 gain the victory over the two women, Henri protested 
 that he would attach a greater value to the service 
 than if he had captured, with all his cannon, the town 
 and castle of Milan. 
 
 The unfortunate minister may well have felt that 
 the last would have been the easier feat. Making 
 fitting acknowledgment of the honour conferred by 
 the tokens of his master's trust and confidence, he 
 added that, should success attend his efforts, it would be 
 by the favour of Heaven, rather than owing to his own 
 wisdom and efforts ; adding that, in his opinion, a simpler 
 method would be best that the exercise of the royal 
 authority nje le 'Deux from the King's own lips would 
 be a more certain means of obtaining what he desired. 
 That means Henri could not be persuaded to take, and 
 in the end little amelioration was effected in the 
 condition of affairs. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 
 
 1608 
 
 Henri's affection for his children The Dauphin's training Birth of 
 the Due d'Orleans Marie de Medicis' complaints Sully at Fon- 
 tainebleau The Turkish Ambassador and the Dauphin Madame's 
 rebuke. 
 
 WHEN the Queen, in the letter which had given 
 her husband so much offence, had dwelt upon 
 the endangered condition of her "poor children," 
 adding the menace that, in case of necessity, they 
 should be brought to add their entreaties to her own, 
 and should seek, at their father's feet, the justice 
 denied to herself, she displayed a comprehension of the 
 arguments most likely to appeal to the man she 
 addressed. If there were lucid intervals when Henri 
 became dimly aware that Marie de Medicis had reason 
 and right upon her side, his apprehension of her 
 grievances had the coldness of an unloving husband. 
 In the case of his children it was a different matter, 
 and it was by pleading in their name that her best hope 
 of success lay. The one meeting-point of husband 
 and wife was supplied by the royal nursery. In the 
 presence of the little group who inhabited it, it almost 
 seemed that a truce was proclaimed, and a more har- 
 monious atmosphere replaced the discordant and 
 disintegrating elements at work elsewhere. Quick- 
 
 132 
 
From an engraving, after the painting by Van Dyck. 
 
 HENRI IV. AND HIS FAMILY. 
 
 32] 
 
Nursery Discipline 133 
 
 witted as the Dauphin was, there was no sign that he 
 had been allowed to discover that his father and 
 mother were not at one, and the child loved them both. 
 If the King's figure naturally loomed largest in his 
 eyes, he was also manifestly fond of his mother. Both 
 were his <c good friends." " May God/' he prayed, 
 " give good life to my father, my good friend, and 
 to my mother, my good friend." Would maman, he 
 asked, not write to him ? " Papa has told me," he 
 added, " that she makes a multitude of blots ; but, 
 were she to write to me, I would take good care of the 
 letter, blotted though it might be." 
 
 The boy was in his sixth year, and growing to be 
 of an age when the training he received was of 
 increasing importance. To bring up a child well 
 whose sense of his importance was necessarily brought 
 home to him daily would, in any case, have been no 
 easy task and in Madame de Montglat an unfortunate 
 choice of a gouvernante had been made. Incapable of 
 inspiring respect, she relied upon the use of the rod 
 to enforce discipline. 
 
 In this it must be admitted that she and the King 
 were in full accord. " I must complain of you," 
 he once wrote most unjustly, as Heroard's journal 
 proves " that I have not heard from you that 
 you have whipped my son. For it is my will, and I 
 command that he shall be whipped every time that he 
 is stubborn or in any way ill-behaved ; being well 
 aware personally that nothing in the world is so 
 profitable, as I know by experience, for at his age I was 
 
 ich whipped. Therefore, I desire you, to do it, and 
 
 make him understand." 
 
134 The Making of a King 
 
 The admonition was unnecessary. The poor little 
 Dauphin was " made to Understand " thoroughly 
 well, the treatment he received at the hand of the 
 gouvernante presenting a striking contrast to the de- 
 ference shown by those who came to pay their respects 
 
 to the heir to the throne. 
 
 
 
 Whilst Queen and King were quarrelling at Paris, 
 the children were staying at Fontainebleau, where on 
 March I the boy, in an edifying mood, announced 
 his intention of retiring into a corner to say his 
 Paternoster whensoever he should be inclined to be 
 wilful, so that the wicked angel might be put to flight. 
 It had been a fleeting fit of virtue. On the very 
 next morning Heroard, entering his charge's bed- 
 chamber, found him undergoing corporal punishment 
 at the hands of Madame de Montglat, " who was 
 in a passion with him," said the doctor, adding 
 significantly, " and sorry that I had found the door 
 open." A few hours later all had been rearranged 
 with a view to effect, and the delinquent, as if he 
 had never been acquainted with the whip, was 
 receiving, in royal fashion, an envoy from the Elector 
 Palatine, who was the bearer of a letter from his 
 master containing his proffers of service and expressing 
 the hope that the writer might merit the honour of the 
 Dauphin's favour. 
 
 By the end of March peace had outwardly been 
 restored to the royal household, and King and Queen 
 had returned to Fontainebleau, where Easter was to be 
 kept by a gay company and the birth of yet another 
 child was expected. 
 
 Of Easter observances not the least important was 
 
Birth of the Due d'Orteans 135 
 
 the customary ceremony of Maundy Thursday, when 
 the King in person was wont to wash the feet of 
 thirteen poor men. On this occasion, incapacitated by 
 sickness it has been observed that this was curiously 
 often the case Henri desired that his son should 
 represent him; but a serious difficulty occurred. Con- 
 ceiving a pronounced dislike for the task, Louis at 
 first replied by a flat refusal ; although, when his father 
 personally explained his wishes, he was induced to 
 promise unwillingly to carry them out. Moreover, 
 when the moment arrived for his obedience to be put 
 to the proof, repulsion again gained the day. Con- 
 ducted to the ballroom, which was to be the scene of 
 the function, attended by the Princes of the Blood, 
 and compelled to ascend the platform where the 
 expectant poor were seated, his indignation was further 
 roused when he became aware that his own basin 
 had been brought into requisition ; and, drawing back, 
 with tears, he obstinately refused to perform the 
 office required of him, the chaplain being ultimately 
 forced to take it upon himself. It may be that 
 Henri was not without a certain sympathy for his 
 son's recalcitrance, for no mention is made of the use 
 of the rod on this occasion. The Dauphin, for 
 his part, when asked why he had objected to do what 
 was done by the King himself, replied by pointing out 
 composedly that he was not King, and leaving it to 
 be inferred that duties should be accompanied by 
 compensations. 
 
 On Easter Monday, April 16, the King's second son 
 was born a little figure who, notwithstanding a 
 loroscope predicting for him a great future, did no 
 
136 The Making of a King 
 
 more than pass across the stage, disappearing from it 
 before the completion of his fifth year. " The King," 
 wrote the court poet, Malherbe, " was extraordinarily 
 rejoiced at the birth, the more so, perhaps, by reason of 
 the child's extreme likeness to himself." 
 
 It had been at first Henri's intention that the infant 
 should bear the simple title of Monsieur, belonging to 
 the brother next in age to the Dauphin ; a certain 
 income being assigned to him, to be increased should 
 he serve his brother loyally. But the people, by 
 common consent, had decided otherwise, and the name 
 of Due d'Orlans was so promptly and generally 
 bestowed upon the new-comer that the King bowed to 
 the popular will, and endorsed it by conferring the 
 title upon him. 
 
 Princes of the Blood, princesses and nobles, had 
 gathered together as usual for the event, or visited 
 the palace in order to pay their respects to the new- 
 born infant ; and a curious light, in the form of a 
 luminous bird, observed by the soldiers on guard at 
 night, was accepted by Henri as a good omen for 
 the enterprises he had in view. He had often, he 
 said, noticed similar phenomena on the eve of battles 
 and sieges, and they had ever been the heralds of 
 good fortune. 
 
 Outwardly all seemed to promise well for the 
 prosperity of the royal house. But Marie de Medicis 
 was brooding over her wrongs, and casting about for a 
 means of safe-guarding herself and her four children 
 from their foes. 
 
 Her correspondence with the Grand-duke shows 
 that, even at this moment, the King had brought 
 
Marie and her Wrongs 137 
 
 pressure upon her to send a request to her uncle that 
 he would release the man who, as her enemy, he still 
 detained in captivity. In appearance Marie yielded ; 
 the letter dictated by her husband was written. But 
 in anticipation of a like occasion, when she might 
 not be acting as a free agent, Marie had taken her 
 measures beforehand. A second letter, early in June, 
 explained that the first had been sent by constraint, and 
 expressed her hope that by the absence of a private 
 countersign agreed upon between uncle and niece the 
 Grand-duke would have understood that the demand 
 it contained did not proceed from her. She also gave 
 vent to her dissatisfaction with Don Giovanni ; who, 
 as her kinsman, should have contributed to her peace 
 of mind, and had on the contrary worked her more 
 ill than all her enemies. 
 
 " I have no other passion, no other care," she added, 
 " than is concerned with the Marquise, and whoever 
 declares himself on her side declares himself my enemy. 
 Where I can, at any hour and at any time, I will 
 severely avenge myself. Let your Highness come, 
 in any way possible, to my assistance. Consider that 
 to none other but yourself can I have recourse. With 
 tears in my eyes I commend myself to you in all my 
 present sorrows. ..." And a trembling postscript 
 tells that the letter was written at three different times 
 and in secret, in consequence of the King's prohibition. 
 
 Such was the bitter complaint of the mother of 
 Henri's four children, and the condition to which 
 she had been reduced by a man as kind-hearted and 
 as reluctant to give pain as Henri. 
 
 Whilst courtiers regarded the state of the royal 
 
138 The Making of a King 
 
 household with curiosity or indifference, Sully, visiting 
 Fontainebleau the day after the Due d'Orleans' birth, 
 must have looked at the matter with sadder eyes, 
 despairing of the restoration of the domestic peace 
 he had laboured to promote. 
 
 He appears, during his visit, to have made an 
 attempt to propitiate the ood opinion of his master's 
 son. Again there is visible in the child's demeanour 
 the reflection of the animosity felt for the minister 
 by those around him. 
 
 " Do you want anything ? " the Duke inquired 
 kindly. "Ask me for it." 
 
 The boy must have known well that there were 
 those at hand ready, on so fair an opportunity, to 
 prompt him with petitions. Yet, after a moment, he 
 replied in the negative. 
 
 " Nothing," he said, in cold response to the 
 friendly invitation. 
 
 " I have asked him so often," he said afterwards, 
 when chidden by maman Doundoun, his nurse, for not 
 having proffered some request on her behalf, <c and 
 he does nothing." 
 
 It was probably an excuse. Louis had a dis- 
 taste, often apparent, for making demands or asking 
 favours ; and when induced, a day or two later, to 
 beg that the nurse's desire should be gratified, it was 
 only by constraint. Listening to Madame de Mont- 
 glat's solicitations on behalf of others of his household, 
 his indifference was manifested so plainly that the 
 Duke noticed it. 
 
 " Monsieur cares nothing about it," he said, ob- 
 serving him. 
 
Louis and the Turks 139 
 
 " Si fait/* said Louis, waking up to the conscious- 
 ness that he was damaging the chances of his servants ; 
 but Sully had noted his attitude, and was at no loss 
 to explain his ungraciousness. 
 
 More especially under present circumstances it was 
 the Queen's policy to cause her son to take his place 
 publicly as heir to the throne, and before the party 
 at Fontainebleau dispersed and the children returned 
 to Saint-Germain the Dauphin received in audience 
 the Turkish Ambassador, treating his guest with distant 
 courtesy, and accepting the gifts he brought with 
 coldness. Saying by his interpreter that the poor, 
 unable to make great gifts, offered their affection, the 
 envoy kissed the child's hand, praying that he might 
 preserve the amity existing between his father and 
 Turkey. The conversation that evening was not 
 adapted to pave the way for the fulfilment of these 
 hopes. 
 
 " Monsieur," said his doctor, " you must one day 
 go to Constantinople with five hundred thousand 
 men." 
 
 c Yes," answered the Dauphin with alacrity, "I 
 will kill all the Turks, and this one as well." 
 
 Heroard demurred. Having taken the trouble to 
 visit him and bring him gifts, the Ambassador, in his 
 opinion, should be spared in the general slaughter. 
 The boy was unconvinced. 
 
 " The Turks do not believe in God," he asserted 
 doggedly ; and, though it was explained to him that 
 this was too sweeping a statement, he refused to 
 relent. 
 
 "I will kill them all," he reiterated; "but I will 
 
140 The Making of a King 
 
 have Mass said before this one, and will have him 
 afterwards baptized." 
 
 Another guest at Fontainebleau was Guise, whose 
 visit was the occasion of an object-lesson on the 
 danger of speaking too freely before a child who 
 listened to all that went^ on around him. Finding 
 the Dauphin playing with a toy monkey, the King 
 had unwisely hazarded the remark that it bore a 
 resemblance to the Due de Guise. Shortly after Guise 
 himself, paying his respects to his master's son, made 
 some inquiry as to the puppet. 
 
 " It is your likeness," answered Louis, whether in 
 malice or innocence. 
 
 " How do you know that ? " asked the Duke. 
 
 " Papa said so," was the conclusive reply. 
 
 His ideas upon religion were clear, and he had 
 been instructed with care, showing a keen interest in 
 what he was taught. He would point out in chapel 
 the prayers he wished his little sister to say, and 
 listened eagerly to Bible stories. 
 
 " I will learn them and relate them to papa" he said 
 proudly. " My sister will tell stories of the wasp who 
 stung the goat, which are not true ; but I shall tell 
 those which are true/' 
 
 On the other hand, a writer who appears to have 
 owed a grudge to the future Louis XIII. cites in- 
 stances of perversity. The child would waken in 
 the morning refusing to say his prayers, or would 
 threaten that he would leave Saint-Germain and go 
 to Paris should his devotional exercises be unduly 
 prolonged, adding airily that he told God all he ought 
 when he went to sleep. Scenes of a disorderly character 
 
. 
 
 Madame's Rebuke 
 
 also took place in the chapel, if affairs were not 
 conducted there to the satisfaction of the infant despot. 
 Accustomed to bear rule in the nursery, it was difficult 
 for him to assume a subordinate position elsewhere. 
 It was true that occasions occurred when he received 
 rebuffs in unexpected quarters. 
 
 "/#/ Monsieur," said his little sister, Madame, 
 not yet five years old, one day when, at dinner, 
 her brother had given way to an ebullition of ill- 
 temper, " you should not act thus. You would not 
 so much as be known to be the son of the King. 
 One must not take fancies ; one must not give way 
 to tempers, Monsieur. Mamanga will whip you." 
 
 Accustomed to assume a tone of masculine superi- 
 ority in his intercourse with his sister, the Dauphin, 
 cowed by this unexpected attack, remained speechless. 
 Madame completed her admonitions. 
 
 " One does not speak thus to gouvern antes" she said 
 in conclusion. " It is not pretty, Monsieur." 
 
 Whether the Dauphin was benefited by his sister's 
 spirited protest does not appear. It was seldom in- 
 deed that any of his companions ventured to lift their 
 oices in remonstrance. 
 
 In July the nursery was thrown into temporary 
 mourning by the death of Madame de Montglat's 
 husband. After the fashion of children, Louis caught 
 
 e contagion of tears, and wept abundantly. After 
 
 e fashion of children, he also wearied of the sight 
 of grief. Asking on the following day to be taken to 
 visit Mamanga^ relieved for the moment from her duties, 
 e added a desire that she should not weep, repeating 
 
 is wish to her in person when the meeting took place. 
 
i4 2 The Making of a King 
 
 " Good-night, Mamanga" he said. " I wish you 
 not to cry. Laugh." 
 
 The King, who retained his misplaced confidence in 
 the gouvernante, wrote her a kindly letter of condolence, 
 proceeding to enumerate "in a lighter tone the con- 
 solations remaining to her : 
 
 " Believe that, if God has deprived you of one good 
 husband, He has given you, at the same time, another, 
 and has also left you a good King and a good master 
 who will take care of you. " My son will be hence- 
 forth your husband, and I your good King and master, 
 and will show how much to my taste your services 
 have been, and still are. I have commanded in especial 
 the Sieur de la Chesnaye, who takes you this letter, 
 and whom I have expressly sent to visit you, to 
 assure you of this, and to say that the affection you 
 have hitherto shown for my son, and the care you 
 have taken of him and of my other children, causes 
 me to forbid you to go into retreat for the 
 quarantaine, which is to give yourself up to weeping 
 and mourning, since the care of my children rests upon 
 you, and will serve you as an excuse and as consolation 
 in your just grief." 
 
 The autumn of this year was passed at Noisy, owing 
 to the appearance of the plague at Saint-Germain. 
 At the chateau, as soon as it was considered safe to 
 return thither, the Verneuil brother and sister were 
 christened, the names chosen for them being, strangely 
 enough, Henri and Gabrielle the King's own name 
 and that of the woman whose place their mother 
 filled in his affections. When the matter first came 
 to the Dauphin's ears he had uttered a vehement 
 
Baptism of the Verneuil Children 143 
 
 protest with regard to the honour done to his half- 
 brother. 
 
 " I will not have it ! " he cried. " 1 will not call 
 him Henri. He will have more than I. I am called 
 Louis." 
 
 With difficulty he was pacified. Hroard, however, 
 took an opportunity to recount the story of St. Louis, 
 now a saint in heaven, and who had borne his name 
 on earth. The child's objections were overcome, and 
 he and little Madame stood sponsors for the children 
 of the Marquise. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 1608 
 
 Marriage projects The Chevalier Guidi at Court Difficulties with the 
 Queen The Dauphin's fear of parsimony Betrothal of the Due 
 de Vendome Don Pedro de Toledo's mission. 
 
 DURING the year 1608 Henri was much engaged 
 in arranging marriages for his children. Whether 
 or not his anxiety in the matter resulted from a con- 
 viction of the insecurity of his own tenure on life, 
 he appears to have been eager to provide without 
 delay for those whom his death would leave without 
 a protector. Who, their father removed, would care 
 for the fortunes of Gabrielle's children, or what would 
 befall the son and daughter of the Marquise ? 
 
 The more important political question of the 
 marriages of his legitimate children had also to be 
 dealt with ; and in the course of the summer the 
 Spanish project, hitherto scarcely more practical than 
 that which assigned the King's eldest daughter to the 
 Prince of Wales, was to become a serious possibility. 
 At present little Madame had been taught to speak 
 of England as her future home, her brother kindly 
 holding out hopes that he would visit her there, 
 although dissenting emphatically from the suggestion 
 
 that he might sometimes cross the Channel in secret. 
 
 144 
 
The Spanish Marriage Question 145 
 
 Papa y Louis objected, would in that case whip him 
 when he came back. Nothing must be done without 
 the King's permission. 
 
 The infant Due d'Orleans was already betrothed, 
 his promised bride being Mademoiselle de Mont- 
 pensier, one of the wealthiest heiresses of France, 
 who eventually became the wife of Henri's third 
 son, and was the mother of La Grande Made- 
 moiselle. The engagement of the Duke was made 
 use of by the Dauphin's attendants to raise the question 
 of his own marriage, and to renew their efforts to 
 excite his interest in the Infanta. Would he not, 
 some one inquired, like to be married as well as his 
 younger brother ? The Infanta, he was further in- 
 formed, had his portrait in her possession. A Breton 
 gentleman who paid a visit to Saint-Germain on his 
 way home from Spain had wonderful tales to recount 
 both of the Princess's beauty and of her affection for 
 Monseigneur the Dauphin tales to which Louis, in 
 spite of an assumption of indifference, was observed 
 to lend an attentive ear. It was said that she desired 
 to put on a disguise that she might see him ; and 
 again, that she had been forbidden by the King of 
 Spain to speak of her love for Monseigneur. 
 
 Louis's interest was by this time fully roused. 
 
 " I will beat that King of Spain well," he exclaimed. 
 
 " When I am fourteen," he said some weeks later, 
 " they will talk of marrying me." And again his 
 attendants took advantage of the opening to reintro- 
 duce the subject of Spain, and to repeat a story he 
 much approved to the effect that, playing at a game 
 where ambassadors came from all parts of the world 
 
 10 
 
H 6 The Making of a King 
 
 to wait upon her, the Infanta was accustomed to dis- 
 tinguish Louis's representative beyond all the rest, by 
 causing him to be seated and covered in her presence. 
 
 Whilst it was thus plainly the object of the Dauphin's 
 household to prepare his mind to look favourably on 
 the prospect of the Spanish match, the King, if in no 
 way disposed to fall unreservedly into the project, 
 appears at this time to have lent it a certain amount of 
 countenance. In February he looked on, in the company 
 of two Jesuits one of whom was a Spaniard at a 
 ballet performed by his children, his pride and pleasure 
 finding vent in tears of joy ; and the Spanish priest 
 was further entrusted with a gift for the Infanta, in 
 the shape of an autograph maxim u Le sage coute le 
 conseil qu'on lui donne " in Louis's own handwriting. 
 
 The future of Henri de Verneuil was also being 
 cared for ; there was indeed no fear that his mother 
 would allow him to be overlooked. For him the 
 Church was to provide a career ; and it was hoped that 
 when a dispensation from Rome should have overcome 
 the obstacles presented by his youth and by the irregu- 
 larity of his birth, he would be placed without delay in 
 possession of the Bishopric of Metz. The Marquise 
 was continually pressing for the completion of the 
 transaction, and by February the Cathedral chapter had 
 been dealt with so successfully that a deputation from 
 that body waited upon the little Marquis and recognised 
 in him their future head. 
 
 Another of the King's projects was doomed to failure. 
 He had conceived a desire to marry his daughter, 
 Catherine de Vendome, to Sully's son, for whom he 
 cherished a fatherly affection, and who would furthermore 
 
Sully's Religious Views 147 
 
 inherit the large fortune the minister was amassing. Two 
 hindrances barred the way. Young Rosny was already 
 betrothed. It was, moreover, desirable that, before so 
 close an alliance took place with the royal house, Sully 
 himself, as well as his son, should abjure his Protestant- 
 ism and embrace the Catholic faith. Eager for the 
 accomplishment of his wishes, neither hindrance appeared 
 to Henri insuperable, and he set himself with ardour to 
 clear them from his path. He, the King, had found 
 his way into the Catholic fold ; why then, he may 
 have questioned, should not his faithful friend and 
 servant follow him ? Sully, though stiff in his up- 
 rightness, was not supposed to be inaccessible to bribes, 
 and Henri's offers were liberal. Marriage and con- 
 version granted, the Duke was to be promised the 
 reversion of the posts of Constable and of the govern- 
 ment of Normandy. 
 
 The position taken up by the minister was clearly 
 defined. With regard to the marriage he seems to 
 have felt no scruple in setting aside, at his master's 
 behest, the engagements into which he had entered. He 
 was, he said, ready to make the King a present of his 
 son ; let him do with him what he would. He would 
 counsel the young man to yield obedience to the royal 
 command. Religion was a different matter. To 
 Henri's envoy, the Cardinal du Perron, Sully frankly 
 confessed that he had long ago done his best to be- 
 come a Catholic. His efforts had been vain ; and, 
 though the singular toleration he had always shown in 
 ecclesiastical matters, the fairness and justice of his 
 dealings where Catholic interests were concerned, had 
 roused his co-religionists to suspicion and caused them 
 
148 The Making of a King 
 
 to entertain fears that he might follow his master's 
 example, he had remained firm in his principles. For 
 reasons he now detailed to the Cardinal he had found 
 it impossible to reconcile to his satisfaction the 
 Gospel and the Church, an3 he held out no hopes that 
 his convictions would be shaken. Henri, though 
 regretfully, shifted his ground. Since Sully cherished 
 more affection for the Huguenots than for the King, 
 he told him reproachfully, he would say no more on 
 that point ; reiterating, however, his demand that he 
 would order his son to embrace the Catholic faith. 
 Again Sully refused. His son was in Henri's hands, 
 he repeated, to do what he would with him, nor would 
 he dissuade him from yielding obedience in the matter 
 at issue. But he must leave him free to make his own 
 decision. Young Rosny showed no disposition to 
 defer to the King's wishes in theological affairs, and the 
 marriage negotiation collapsed. 
 
 In March Don Giovanni, the Queen's uncle, who 
 had, irregularly and so much to his niece's dissatisfac- 
 tion, filled the post of the Grand-duke's representative 
 for the last eighteen months, took his departure. His 
 sudden request for permission to quit the French 
 Court was proffered on his return from an enter- 
 tainment given by Concini in honour of the baptism 
 of a daughter to whom the King himself, with the 
 Princesse de Conde, had acted as sponsor. It was 
 imagined in some quarters that his departure was due 
 to this fresh proof of favour, accorded to a countryman 
 for whom he had little liking. To the Queen his 
 departure will have brought relief; and he could be 
 the better spared in consequence of the arrival of a 
 
Photo by Levy et ses fils, after the painting by Rubens. 
 
 MARIE DE MEDICIS. 
 P- 148] 
 
 
The Chevalier Guidi H9 
 
 certain Chevalier Camillo Guidi di Volterra, as accredited 
 envoy from Florence. 
 
 A practised diplomatist, the new agent had been 
 supplied with careful and detailed instructions, more 
 especially as to the line of conduct he was to enjoin 
 upon the Queen. She was to be urged to subordinate 
 her private and domestic grievances to the welfare of 
 the State ; to induce the King to take all possible care 
 of his life ; and, though with dignity, not to refuse to 
 lend herself to the furtherance of his pleasures. By so 
 doing she would increase his afFection for herself and 
 defeat the malice of her enemies. The favour she 
 showed towards Concini and his wife had called forth 
 the Grand-duke's strongest disapproval, and he alluded 
 to it with severity. It was, he said, odious, if not 
 scandalous. 
 
 On Guidi's introduction to the Court he may 
 have reasonably imagined that the difficulties of his 
 mission had been painted in unduly dark colours. 
 If the King, inclined to resent the Grand-duke's 
 attitude with regard to Spanish affairs, showed at 
 first some coldness towards the envoy, it quickly wore 
 off ; and, politics having been dismissed, he became gay 
 and friendly, drawing the Chevalier's attention more 
 than once to the brightness displayed by the Dauphin 
 or by others of the children present at the audience, 
 and making inquiries as to what he thought of the 
 Queen. 
 
 " Does she not seem to you in good health ? " he 
 demanded. " Is she not looking well ? Have I not 
 taken good care of her for you ? " 
 
 The Tuscan, as in duty bound, replied with enthusi- 
 
150 The Making of a King 
 
 asm in the affirmative, rendering thanks to God and to 
 his Majesty. After which, perceiving that the King 
 had business to transact, he withdrew discreetly to a 
 distance ; whence he watched, with admiration, the ease 
 of Henri's manners and the freedom of his intercourse 
 with those around him. 
 
 The audience concluded, King and Queen went out 
 driving together in friendly fashion ; and the envoy 
 paid a visit to Louis, to whom he presented letters 
 from the Grand-duke, his wife, and his son. 
 
 If Signor Guidi had flattered himself that he 
 would experience no great difficulty in the fulfilment 
 of his master's directions, he was quickly undeceived ; 
 nor was it long before the favourable impression 
 created by his first visit to Court was modified. He 
 was soon to discover that to perform his duty as 
 prescribed by the Grand-duke and at the same time 
 to please the Queen would be no easy task. Marie 
 had become, as he wrote, " non poco ombrosa e col- 
 lerica." Though resenting the King's conduct towards 
 herself, the coolness between her uncle and Henri had 
 affected her sentiments towards the Grand-duke ; she 
 was no longer inclined to render him obedience, 
 and refused to be treated as a child. Queen of 
 France and mother of four children, she declared 
 she would not continue to submit to this species 
 of discipline. 
 
 There was no more to be said. The lips of the 
 Tuscan Ambassador were closed, and his counsels of 
 prudence rejected ; the Concini couple flattered their 
 mistress, encouraged her in her unwisdom, and were 
 daily increasing in power and prosperity. There 
 
Louis' Horror of Parsimony 151 
 
 was even talk, reported the envoy, of a government 
 being bestowed upon the favourite. The King, how- 
 ever, would not venture on that step, in the face 
 of the indignation it would evoke. In the mean- 
 time, he had been appointed First Equerry to the 
 Queen. 
 
 The visit of the Dauphin to Paris, where he had 
 been present at Guidi's reception, had lasted no more 
 than a week, but had been spent in learning royal 
 ways. So large a number of the nobles had met him 
 on his arrival that the King had been left almost 
 deserted in the palace. Louis also received in audience 
 the Venetian Ambassador, who came to take leave of 
 him and to introduce his successor. Sully was visited, 
 and the Arsenal inspected by the young heir, to whom 
 the Duke presented a gift of a hundred crowns, half 
 that sum being given to Madame and twenty-five 
 crowns to Catherine de Vend6me. The Verneuil 
 brother and sister received nothing. 
 
 The boy appears about this time to have conceived 
 a horror of parsimony, probably instilled into him 
 by those who hoped to profit by his liberality. 
 Making purchases in Paris, he would insist upon 
 paying more than was demanded, would give 
 three crowns when one had been named as the price 
 of some article ; and when fifteen were to have been 
 the purchase-money of an attractive cart moved by 
 springs, he refused to take possession of the toy until 
 fifty had been handed over to the fortunate owner. 
 
 If it was desirable that the future King should be 
 indoctrinated with the principle that generosity is a 
 royal virtue, Madame de Montglat appears to have 
 
i5 2 The Making of a King 
 
 found at times that her lesson had been too well 
 mastered. 
 
 " Monsieur," she remonstrated, when the child 
 demanded four crowns to bestow upon the porters 
 who had carried his luggage to Fontainebleau, " would 
 not two crowns be enough ? " 
 
 " He ! no, mamanga" he pleaded ; " they are so 
 poor/' And the gouvernante gave way. 
 
 Towards the poor he was always pitiful. Towards 
 others every means was taken to teach him to assume 
 from the first the place to which he was entitled as 
 heir to the throne. It was Louis who, in the King's 
 absence, took the watchword from his mother and 
 passed it on to the captain of the guard, making 
 minute inquiries as to the arrangements for the night. 
 It was he who wrote, on the Queen's behalf, when she 
 herself was ill, to his father. Nor was there any 
 danger that the boy would forget his position. 
 
 c< My place is everywhere," he replied loftily, when 
 Cesar de Vend6me had bidden him take his place in a 
 ballet. 
 
 The pleasure the King took in his children was in 
 some measure counterbalanced by the anxiety they 
 caused him. Not only were they, and especially the 
 Dauphin, threatened with danger from those whose 
 interests would have been served by their removal, 
 but health was a recurrent source of anxiety in the 
 royal nursery. The little Due d'Orleans had been 
 delicate from his birth ; and the detailed bulletins sent 
 by his father to Sully bear witness to the close and 
 personal watch he kept upon the child, his spirits 
 fluctuating in accordance with the changes in the 
 
Betrothal of Vendome 153 
 
 patient. " I am as gay to-day," he wrote, when 
 amendment could be reported, " as I was sad yester- 
 day " ; and again and again the same note is 
 repeated. 
 
 In April a fifth child had been added to those Marie 
 had borne to the King, in the person of Gaston, to 
 become, on his brother's death, Due d'Orleans. The 
 birth of a third son was a matter of rejoicing in which 
 the Dauphin cordially joined. " I am glad," he said ; 
 " there are now three of us." His brother, Gaston, 
 was to give him little reason to regard him with 
 affection. 
 
 On the whole matters were going well with the 
 King. During the month of July he succeeded in 
 carrying out, in spite of strong and persistent opposi- 
 tion, the betrothal of his eldest son, Cesar de Vendome, 
 to Mademoiselle du Mercoeur, a project upon which 
 his heart was set. 
 
 Attached to all his children, Henri had ever shown 
 particular affection for the young Duke. He was his 
 eldest son ; he was also the son of Gabrielle ; and the 
 boy had been his constant companion. With regard 
 to his nature and disposition he cherished illusions 
 which death left undispelled. Louis's instinct was 
 truer, and he had never liked his half-brother. The 
 coming years were to show that he was right, and that 
 there was little in Vendome to command admiration or 
 trust. 
 
 For this lad Henri was bent upon obtaining 
 the hand of one of the great heiresses of the 
 house of Lorraine, but there were difficulties in the 
 way. The nobles of France, allied with the royal 
 
1 54 The Making of a King 
 
 house, and proud of their lineage and descent, 
 were not unnaturally inclined to resent the King's 
 endeavours to wed their sons and daughters with his 
 illegitimate children. In some cases his overtures were 
 flatly rejected. When he attempted, a little later, to 
 marry Gabrielle de Verneuil to the son of the Due de 
 Montmorency, Constable of France, the Duke bluntly 
 refused to consent to the match ; and at first it 
 seemed that the Due de Mercoeur would be equally 
 unyielding. The women of the family were likewise 
 in arms. Vendome was no more than fifteen, and 
 looked younger. The girl was somewhat older, and> 
 supported by her mother and grandmother, was violent 
 in her opposition. She would, she declared, not only 
 rather become a nun, but would be buried alive sooner 
 than consent. Young Vend6me, for his part, was not 
 less reluctant. But the King, as his letters to Sully 
 show, was bent upon the arrangement. 
 
 " Send me word,'* he wrote, " if that woman (the 
 Duchesse de Mercceur)is not frightened ; tell me what 
 you have learnt ; how the affair is going on. ... I am 
 told she is a little softened, but that she has determined, 
 in consultation with those nearest to her, to gain time. 
 Therefore she must be hurried, so that we may see 
 light." In three or four days he recurs to the 
 subject. The Bishop of Verdun was to be employed 
 as intermediary : " I will give him all the fine phrases 
 I can think of." 
 
 Sully not, one imagines, without congratulating 
 himself that religion had afforded his own son a 
 way of escape set himself to further the King's 
 scheme as best he might. Three expedients were 
 
Betrothal of Vend6me 155 
 
 possible. The first was the exercise of the King's 
 sovereign authority which would be the most rapid. 
 The second, and the more just and desirable, would be 
 the use of gentleness and persuasion. The third was 
 to proceed by means of common law the longest and 
 most vulgar. Sully advocated the second, a method 
 already employed by Pere Cotton, the King's Jesuit 
 confessor, more adapted, in the Duke's opinion, than 
 any other man to carry it to perfection, " for if eccle- 
 siastics and those who deal with cases of conscience do 
 not know how by these means to bring grandmother, 
 mother, and daughter to a better state of mind, I know 
 not how any other method can succeed." 
 
 Cotton, and others, were successful. The King's 
 will was accomplished, and on July 16 the Dauphin 
 assisted at the ceremony of the betrothal ; the King, 
 as Guidi wrote, " having been so determined and in 
 such a fury on the subject that any one would have 
 been dismissed who had opposed it." The unwilling 
 pair were to be allowed a year's respite before their 
 marriage, and the boy was to be sent to his govern- 
 ment of Brittany. They appear, however, to have 
 quickly become resigned to the inevitable, and the 
 Tuscan Resident reported, not a fortnight later, that 
 they were perfectly happy, and only anxious that the 
 time of probation should pass swiftly. 
 
 This affair brought to a successful conclusion, Henri 
 was at liberty to turn to his favourite amusements, and 
 in particular to the completion of the improvements he 
 had set in hand at Fontainebleau. 
 
 <c Here is a means to have my canal finished," he 
 said, when informed of the death of some official the 
 
156 The Making of a King 
 
 sale of whose vacant post would bring in a considerable 
 sum, " for you must know," wrote Malherbe, " that 
 this canal is at present his predominant passion, and 
 that, with all this heat excessive if ever it was so 
 he was usually seated on*a stone from five or six in the 
 morning until midday, without parasol or any sort of 
 shade, watching his masons at work." 
 
 The canal and kindred interests afforded a welcome 
 distraction from serious business. Vendome's future 
 might be secured, but the more important question 
 of the Spanish marriages was now to be pressed 
 forward. 
 
 Four days after he had assisted at the betrothal of 
 his half-brother the Dauphin received an important 
 visit. The guest on this occasion was Don Pedro de 
 Toledo, sent to France on a special mission, who, 
 coming to salute the Dauphin, " kisses his hand, and 
 says he is very glad to see that he is so handsome and 
 gentil a prince, praying God for his prosperity." 
 
 That same day Don Pedro had been accorded a 
 formal audience by the King, preparatory to entering 
 upon the discussion of the business that brought him 
 to Paris. The negotiation was intended to pave the 
 way for no less than three intermarriages between the 
 houses of France and Spain. Having failed to effect 
 the subjugation of the revolted provinces of the 
 Netherlands, Philip III. had devised this scheme in 
 the hope of thereby detaching Henri from the cause 
 of his rebellious subjects, and depriving them of the 
 support, moral and material, they had hitherto never 
 failed to receive from him. 
 
 With the object of furthering this project Don 
 
Don Pedro de Toledo's Mission 157 
 
 Pedro had been sent. The envoy proved to have 
 been singularly ill-chosen. Described by the King as a 
 solemn idiot, his line of conduct and the arguments by 
 which he sought to convince Henri of the wisdom of 
 acceding to his master's wishes displayed a deplorable 
 lack of diplomatic skill and ability. What was wanting 
 in these respects he strove to supply by pomp and 
 magnificence, his retinue numbering upwards of a 
 hundred persons. 
 
 The first meeting of King and envoy did not, 
 according to Lestoile, promise well for the future. 
 Greeting the guest with courtesy, Henri expressed a 
 fear that his reception had not corresponded with his 
 deserts. 
 
 "Sire," replied the Ambassador, "I have been so 
 well received that I regret the misunderstanding that 
 may cause me to return with an army, in which case I 
 should not be equally welcome/' 
 
 " Ventre Saint-gris^ exclaimed the King. " Come 
 whensoever your master may please, and you shall not 
 yourself lack a welcome. In the event of what you 
 speak of coming to pass, your master and all his forces 
 will find obstacles in their way at the frontier, which I 
 may possibly not allow him leisure to inspect.' 1 
 
 To Don Pedro's complaints of breaches of 
 Henri's engagements with Spain, in the shape of 
 assistance afforded to the Low Countries, the King was 
 able to retort by pointing out that his alleged offences 
 had been as nothing in comparison with the injuries 
 inflicted upon himself. Yet, though differing, as was 
 perhaps inevitable, upon matters of fact, this first 
 interview was on the whole not otherwise than amicable, 
 
 
158 The Making of a King 
 
 the King afterwards praising the humility and patience 
 displayed by the envoy. 
 
 What Don Pedro thought of Henri of his sagacity, 
 quickness, and command of language may be inferred 
 from a remark he is quoted as making, to the effect that 
 his master had not sent him to a King, but rather to a 
 devil, " for," he added, " he knows more than the great 
 Devil and all the other devils.' 1 
 
 On the other hand, meeting one day a servant who 
 was bearing the King's sword, he begged to be per- 
 mitted to examine and handle it, and, after turning it 
 every way, kissed the weapon before giving it back, 
 happy, as he explained, to have seen and held the sword 
 of the greatest, best, most valiant and magnanimous 
 monarch alive. 
 
 It was one thing to pay exaggerated compliments ; 
 it was quite another to conduct a difficult mission 
 with success. Preliminary courtesies over, the true 
 object of Don Pedro's embassy was introduced at a 
 subsequent audience, his manner of dealing with it 
 leaving much to be desired. In blundering fashion 
 he explained that his master had been informed from 
 Rome that Henri was desirous of effecting the mar- 
 riages in question, adding that, should Philip lend 
 a favourable ear to the proposal, it would be con- 
 ditional upon Henri's undertaking to bring about 
 the submission of the United Provinces. The Pope 
 had pressed the scheme, but Henri's conduct with 
 regard to the Netherlands caused the King of Spain 
 to hesitate. 
 
 Such was the substance of Don Pedro's discourse, such 
 the means by which he strove to carry his point. To a 
 
Don Pedro de Toledo's Mission 159 
 
 sensitive, proud, and hot-tempered man it was little 
 short of insulting, and not once or twice Henri gave 
 the envoy the lie direct. " Ce n'est pas vrai," he said 
 again and again. With regard to the intervention of 
 Rome he declared that, whilst venerating the Pope as 
 the successor of St. Peter, he made no account of him 
 in connection with public affairs. He had neither 
 thought nor said what was reported. It was a singular 
 notion that he would have offered his children to any 
 person in the world. They would only be accorded 
 if demanded in due form. 
 
 Don Pedro had not made a successful beginning. 
 Finding the King in no pliable humour, he had 
 recourse to the Queen. Though Marie would doubt- 
 less have been glad to further Spanish interests, she 
 received no encouragement from Henri to interfere in 
 the matter. Let her not concern herself with it, he 
 said ; he alone would settle this business. And when 
 Don Pedro, making one blunder after another, gave a 
 hint that sounded like a threat that Philip might make 
 peace with the Netherlands in order to be at liberty to 
 turn his arms against France, Henri's retort was ready. 
 He would be in the saddle before the King of Spain 
 had his foot in the stirrup. 
 
 It was clear that he was not to be induced, by 
 menace or persuasion, to abandon his allies, and 
 Don Pedro's mission was wholly unsuccessful. Some 
 months later he left Paris by night, in order to escape 
 from his creditors. Thus ended the visit of the solemn 
 idiot. 
 
 Yet it was not without one result. It had placed 
 King and Queen in definite opposition upon an 
 
160 The Making of a King 
 
 important question. At the moment it seemed that 
 Henri had vindicated his authority and that his wife 
 had little chance of seeing her favourite scheme carried 
 out. But, as the sequel was to prove, the negotiations 
 begun at the time of Don Pedro's mission were to end 
 in the double marriage she desired. 
 

 CHAPTER XIII 
 1608 1609 
 
 Henri-Quatre preparing for war Conciliates Concini The Dauphin 
 removed to the Louvre His household The King at the Arsenal 
 Sully under suspicion His vindication Henri and the Jesuits. 
 
 HENRI had asserted his determination to remain 
 true to his pledges. He was neither to be 
 bribed nor to be induced by threats to abandon the 
 cause of the United Netherlands. The overtures of 
 Spain having been rejected, it remained to make ready 
 for a renewal of hostilities ; nor was Henri unwilling 
 to face that contingency. To the autumn of this year 
 belongs a characteristic letter to Sully, showing him 
 preparing for what was to come with a quiet confi- 
 dence in the righteousness of the cause in which, if 
 fighting was to ensue, he would fight. 
 
 " I am always," he wrote, " in the same faith that 
 God will perform a coup de sa main in this business, 
 which men will not have expected, and in contravention 
 to all their designs. I have seen this happen for thirty 
 years, and ever to my advantage. May it continue 
 thus with reference to this affair, and may my faults 
 and my ingratitude not serve as a hindrance ! " 
 
 The next letter shows him supplementing the divine 
 assistance he invoked by a careful watch upon 
 
 domestic foes. 
 
 161 
 
1 62 The Making of a King 
 
 " Since M. de Mayenne and those of Antibe," he 
 told Sully, " desire to overcharge me for their lands, I 
 will permit them to sell to whomsoever they will. But 
 I will put a Governor into the fortress who, devoted to 
 me, will give them some, uneasiness in the enjoyment 
 of their possessions." 
 
 Firm and upright where public interests were 
 concerned, the contrast presented by his conduct 
 in private affairs is thrown into the more vivid 
 and melancholy relief. In such matters he was 
 destitute of the moral sense, as well as of a regard for 
 what was due to his position and dignity. It was 
 matter of increasing notoriety that the position held by 
 the Queen's Italian favourites was a source, if not of 
 danger, of scandal, and that their influence could not 
 fail to be productive of trouble. Had Henri acted 
 upon Sully's suggestion, and determined, by the simple 
 exercise of sovereign power, to dismiss them, he would 
 have had all the wisdom of France on his side. Even 
 his enemies could not have found a pretext for 
 condemnation. If he had been personally blameless it 
 can scarcely be doubted that he would have adopted 
 this method of securing a better chance of domestic 
 peace and concord. But, underlying resentment at his 
 wife's conduct, a consciousness that he had deprived 
 himself of a moral right to interpose, may, co-operating 
 with a fear of retaliation on her part, have prevented 
 him from taking the sole dignified course. He 
 resorted, instead, to the unworthy expedient of bribing 
 the man he hated and despised. The insinuation of 
 the Italian Resident that, were it not for s the opposition 
 of the French nobles, the j King might have bestowed 
 
Conchino de Conchnnm Vifconte, .^__ ...... _ 
 
 !E>arm dcLisigmJdarcchdl dc Trance.- Gouuemcurjwur S(L 
 Maiefttdcf Ttiles ct Gtadefar ddmieruX 
 
 From an engraving by B. Mov.tornet. 
 
 CONCINO CONCINI, MARQUIS D*ANCRE. 
 p. 162] 
 

 The King and Concini 163 
 
 a post of as much importance as a government upon 
 Concini, as well as his consent to act as sponsor to his 
 child, finds an explanation in a further report that, 
 despairing of persuading the Queen by other means to 
 admit the Marquise to Court, he had abased himself to 
 conciliate her favourite, in the hope of thus obtaining 
 his object. 
 
 The terms upon which the two appear to have been 
 in August of this year tend to corroborate the dis- 
 creditable report. The Court was at Fontainebleau 
 when Concini, perceiving, or imagining that he per- 
 ceived, a coolness in the King's demeanour towards 
 him, did not hesitate to demand an explanation. 
 
 " Your Majesty," he complained, has something 
 against me, since you do not show me your accustomed 
 favour. This does not matter, as in whatever way 
 you may treat me I am honoured. It is the cause 
 that makes me uneasy, for it cannot but be false. 
 For this reason I entreat you to inform me of it, that 
 truth may triumph." 
 
 Answering that the Italian was mistaken, that 
 his thoughts had merely been otherwise occupied, 
 Henri gave him a fresh proof of good- will by according 
 him, for the first time, the honour of a seat in his 
 carriage ; and later on in the year he is found dining 
 at the palace Concini had caused to be erected in 
 Paris. 
 
 Yet he was keenly alive to the situation and the con- 
 
 quences that might result from it. 
 
 u You see that man ? " he once said to those around 
 when the favourite, having been sent by the Queen to 
 im on some matter of business, had withdrawn. " It 
 
164 The Making of a King 
 
 is he who will govern when I am gone, and things will 
 not go the better for it." 
 
 Weary, perhaps, of strife, he had, however, ceased to 
 combat what he recognised as a danger. The policy 
 of conciliation he adopted was successful, so far, at 
 least, as outward appearances went ; and the Queen's 
 open indignation was replaced by an attitude of tolera- 
 tion and acquiescence. 
 
 " I showed your letter to my wife," wrote Henri to 
 Madame de Verneuil in September, " asking her advice 
 as to my reply " in reference to a demand on the part 
 of the Marquise that her children should be allowed 
 to visit her. " I watched her face to see whether she 
 would display emotion whilst she read your letter, as I 
 had perceived was the case on other occasions when 
 you were spoken of. She answered, without any 
 change of countenance, that it appeared to her that I 
 ought to indulge you in this. All the rest of the 
 evening she was very cheerful." 
 
 During the same month he wrote again in the same 
 sense. Mischief-makers found that the Queen would 
 no longer listen to them. She had inquired after 
 Henri de Verneuil who had apparently been ill and 
 had said that his mother must have been very 
 uneasy. 
 
 The Queen's new departure is capable of more than 
 one interpretation. It might be the result of lassitude ; 
 she also, tired of fighting a losing battle, might have 
 abandoned the struggle. On the other hand, there 
 are those who explain it in a more sinister fashion. 
 " This profound dissimulation alarms me," writes 
 M. Dussieux. " I fear that the idea of vengeance had 
 
The Dauphin's Companions 165 
 
 at this time entered into the heart of the Queen and 
 her too-dear Concini ; and that the latter was already 
 preparing that of which his contemporaries, the friends 
 of the King, loudly accused him." 
 
 At Saint-Germain, meanwhile, the Dauphin was 
 passing the last months of the period when, as a child, 
 he would be left to the care of women. He had 
 been provided with the companionship of a group of 
 boys of his own age, the sons of nobles, who, with 
 their respective tutors, were placed at the chateau. 
 Of this little company Louis was the head, regulating 
 the management of his household according to his own 
 ideas of justice. " You are their master," Heroard 
 told him. " When they do wrong you must rebuke 
 them, and for their punishment tell them that, unless 
 they are good, you will love them no longer. The 
 King has placed them here with you in order that 
 they may learn to love and serve you. They all belong 
 to great and wealthy houses." 
 
 To threaten his companions with the loss of his 
 affection did not appear, to the disciplinarian of seven, 
 a sufficient penalty for their misdeeds. He had him- 
 self been trained by means of corporal punishment, and 
 he was not disinclined to enforce the use of it in the 
 case of lesser delinquents. Torigny, in the course of 
 a game, had given a blow to a playmate. It was true, 
 Torigny might plead that he had not done it inten- 
 tionally ; but he must be taught to be more careful. 
 
 " Whip the Comte de Torigny," the Dauphin said, 
 issuing his orders to the culprit's tutor. " You must 
 have the whip, Comte de Torigny," he added, ad- 
 dressing him with the formality becoming the gravity 
 
1 66 The Making ol a King 
 
 of the occasion. It was useless to point out that the 
 offence had been unpremeditated. He adhered to his 
 verdict. 
 
 " But," pleaded Heroard, " you will command his 
 tutor not to whip him, on condition he does it no 
 more." 
 
 Louis was relentless. 
 
 " I do it," he said, " in order that it may not 
 happen again." 
 
 The companionship of the boys carried with it 
 drawbacks, and there were times when the Dauphin's 
 unsocial instincts asserted themselves, and he wearied 
 of being the centre of the group. 
 
 u Let me go into your room, mamanga, and write," 
 he once asked, ceasing to play. " They do nothing 
 but pester me. One pulls me ; the other pushes me ; 
 another whispers in my ear. I know not where to 
 turn." 
 
 At the miniature Court there were also rivalries as 
 to the favour of the master, treated by Louis with 
 discretion. 
 
 " Which do you like best, Monseigneur," asked 
 the little Marquis de Mortemart " M. de Liancourt 
 or me ? " 
 
 " I like you both," he replied impartially. " Stand 
 you there, and you there, Liancourt." 
 
 The milestones marking life at Saint-Germain were 
 the visits of the King. The boy's affection for his 
 father, if less demonstrative than in earlier days, was 
 growing and strengthening. 
 
 " What, my son ? " Henri asked, when, as he was 
 quitting the chateau on one occasion, Louis conducted 
 
A Parting 167 
 
 him in silence to the stairs ; " you have not a word 
 
 to say ? You do not kiss me when I am leaving 
 
 ii 
 you. 
 
 A crowd was around them. Quietly, and concealing 
 his tears lest they should be observed, the child wept. 
 As Henri saw it his face changed, and, himself not 
 far from weeping, he took him in his arms, kissed and 
 embraced him. 
 
 " I will say, as God says in the Holy Scriptures," 
 he told the boy, f< c My son, I rejoice to see those 
 tears ; I will have regard to them.' ' 
 
 The King gone, Louis returned hastily to his 
 apartments, still unwilling that his emotion should be 
 observed. To Heroard's question as to the King's 
 farewell words he returned a short answer : 
 
 " He told me to shoot with the arquebus," he said ; 
 nor could anything more be extracted from him. 
 
 The time of a final parting, with no farewell taken, 
 between father and son was approaching. The dislike 
 of the boy to the idea of his own sovereignty was 
 once more apparent when, at the opening of the year 
 1609, the celebration of Twelfth Night was again 
 under discussion. 
 
 " I will not be the King," he said ; " I will not. 
 Put in no bean," he added in a whisper to one of his 
 attendants, " so that there may be no King." 
 
 " Monsieur," explained his nurse, " if God is King, 
 you must fill His place." 
 
 " I will not do it," he reiterated obstinately. 
 
 " What, Monsieur ! you refuse to fill God's place ? " 
 
 He stopped short, evidently startled. 
 
 " He ! that is for papa to do," he said ; and only 
 
1 68 The Making of a King 
 
 on receiving the explanation that at Saint-Germain the 
 duty devolved upon him would he consent to perform 
 the part. 
 
 A fortnight later the contemplated change was 
 accomplished. The bojf was removed from the 
 chateau to the Louvre, and transferred from the tute- 
 lage of Madame de Montglat to that of the gouverneur, 
 M. de Souvre. Louis was to put away childish things, 
 to be weaned from his toys, to discard the term papa ; 
 and, seated in dignity at his father's table, to be served 
 by his own page. 
 
 In some verses published " by permission " and 
 entitled, " L' Adieu de Monseigneur le Dauphin partant 
 de Saint-Germain/' the event was celebrated : 
 
 Adieu done, sans adieu, fideles Germaniques, 
 
 Jamais je n'oublieray le chateau ny le lieu, 
 
 Ou j'ai 6t6 nourri sous les lois pacifiques 
 
 De mon Prince et mon roi que j'honore apres Dieu. 
 
 " La sage Montglat," having instructed him in the 
 faith, was now to surrender her charge to the brave 
 Souvre to be taught valour. 
 
 Of the boy's prosaic sentiments with regard to the 
 change little indication is given save the fact that, 
 asked some months earlier by the Queen whether 
 he would be marri at being removed from mamanga 
 he answered laconically in the negative. 
 
 As his tutor he had been given a certain Des Yveteaux, 
 who enjoyed a specially bad reputation, and was en- 
 dowed, says Lestoile ironically, with all the good 
 qualities required to make a true and perfect courtier 
 of that day. The appointment had been made by 
 Henri, in spite of all that could be said to dissuade 
 
Louis at the Louvre 169 
 
 him, and notwithstanding the Queen's tearful entreaties. 
 Des Yveteaux had, Henri said, educated Cesar de 
 Vendome well, and would do still better by the 
 Dauphin. Remonstrance was useless ; nevertheless, 
 when the tutor returned thanks, as in duty bound, to 
 the Queen, she told him plainly that no acknowledg- 
 ments were due to her ; had she been believed, he 
 would not have obtained his post. 
 
 Souvre, on the contrary, was held to be not unworthy 
 of the charge bestowed upon him, being one of the 
 most accomplished and well-conducted men attached to 
 the Court. 
 
 The change from Saint-Germain to the Louvre must 
 have been great. Not Madame de Montglat alone, but 
 Louis's brothers and sisters were left behind, meetings 
 taking place only for the future when they were 
 brought to Paris for a few days or he paid them a brief 
 visit at the chateau. The comparative freedom of the 
 country was replaced by the restraints of a city. The 
 Dauphin was not, however, deprived of the companion- 
 ship of playmates of his age, and was surrounded in 
 Paris by the same band of enfants fhonneur as before, 
 boys drawn from the most illustrious houses of France, 
 who formed a miniature household upon which he 
 continued to rehearse the art of ruling, jealous of any 
 attempt to interfere with the exercise of his authority. 
 Out riding, his " little gentlemen " marched before 
 him, two and two, taking rank by their length of 
 service ; he reviewed the company, armed, before the 
 King, who took a "singular pleasure" in the show, 
 and kept the roll-call of his comrades, written in his 
 >wn hand. A precocious disciplinarian, he permitted 
 
170 The Making of a King 
 
 no discourtesy between the boys ; and what Heroard 
 terms u la premiere justice de sa chambre " was held 
 when one of them had given the other the lie, and was 
 made to expiate the insult by a whipping. On other 
 occasions he would protest against too summary a 
 method of dealing with their delinquencies. 
 
 " It is their gouverneurs who flatter them," he said, 
 when, two of the boys having been detected dicing with 
 some lacqueys, M. de Souvre pronounced them in- 
 corrigible and would have had them sent back to their 
 homes ; " they must be told of it." Louis himself 
 had no love of flattery ; and possibly, even at eight, 
 he had learnt to appraise it at its just value. 
 
 No outsider was permitted to chastise those belonging 
 to his household. 
 
 " You are not my equerry," he told the Due de 
 Longueville sharply, when that young gentleman, aged 
 fourteen, offered his services to correct the enfants 
 d'honneur. " See how bold he is," he added in an 
 aside to a bystander. " He is no equerry of mine." 
 
 Louis was himself, in spite of his new dignities, by 
 no means exempted from the discipline of the rod. 
 The birch had been brought into requisition, and 
 though he received his chastisement with an air of 
 bravado, and declared he felt no pain, it is evident 
 that he stood in no little terror of its application. 
 
 More important than his studies was the recurrent 
 question, as the boy grew older, as to the influences 
 under which he was to be brought. Of the King's 
 desires upon this point there can be no doubt, nor 
 can it be questioned that it would have been to the 
 one friend to whom he gave his entire confidence that 
 
The King and Sully 171 
 
 he would have wished his son to turn. In spite of 
 visits to the Arsenal, however, the same dislike of Sully 
 as formerly is apparent in the boy. " He was at the 
 Arsenal three or four days ago," wrote Malherbe. " I 
 heard a gentleman who was there say that M. de Sully 
 gave him a great reception ; but that, whatever he did, 
 he paid him no attention, and scarcely so much as 
 looked at him." 
 
 It may be that the sentiments instilled and fostered 
 by Louis's early training were supplemented by the 
 jealousy always a marked feature of his character. 
 For the King's affection for his minister was ever 
 strengthening. Quarrels, of course, continued to take 
 place with a man so hot-tempered as Henri it could 
 not have been otherwise ; and Guidi, always bitterly 
 hostile to the Duke, reported one such incident in 
 particular which had threatened to end in Sully's 
 resignation. The King, resenting what he considered 
 undue favour shown by the minister to the Guises, had 
 sent to remind him of Biron, and, further, had hinted 
 that he was in the vicinity of the Bastille, where 
 Auvergne was still expiating his treason in captivity. 
 The violence of the rebuke, if truly reported, stamped 
 it as the outcome of a mood of blind passion ; and a 
 few days later all was as before. Guidi might continue 
 to believe that the Duke's favour was on the decline, 
 and remonstrate with the Queen for acting as his 
 protectress, saying she was nourishing a poisonous 
 serpent who would in time prove a danger to herself, 
 the Dauphin, and the realm ; but Guidi was a 
 stranger, and saw what he desired to see. In truth, 
 the Arsenal was more and more becoming to the 
 
i? 2 The Making of a King 
 
 King a retreat, where he could find a refuge from 
 the pomp and ceremony inseparable from life in the 
 palace, from the need of guarding his lips from any 
 word capable of being turned to his disadvantage, and 
 from the private annoyances ever recurrent in the 
 neighbourhood of his wife. 
 
 " You are the only man to whom I open my heart," 
 he wrote to the minister in the course of this last 
 autumn of his life, " and from whose counsels 1 draw 
 most comfort." 
 
 That same autumn, too, he was present when the 
 contract of marriage between young Rosny and 
 Mademoiselle de Cr6quy was signed ; thus showing 
 that he owed the young man no ill-will for his refusal 
 to change his faith at his dictation in order to wed 
 his own daughter. Both King and Queen affixed their 
 signatures to the document, " which was all that passed," 
 says Malherbe, "save that the King commanded the 
 lovers to kiss each other." 
 
 Apart from the wisdom upon which Henri had 
 learnt to rely, and the never-failing sympathy at 
 his service, the grave statesman was capable, to a re- 
 markable extent, of adapting himself to the humour 
 of the soldier of fortune who retained to the end 
 something of the boy ; and during this last year Henri 
 had shown his appreciation of the entertainment he 
 found at the Arsenal by causing rooms to be set apart 
 for his use whensoever he should be disposed to lodge 
 there for a few days. On these occasions no officers 
 of his household were to accompany him ; there was 
 to be none of the burden and formality of State ; Sully 
 providing what was necessary and receiving a certain 
 
Henri at the Arsenal 173 
 
 sum yearly to defray the expenses of his royal 
 guest. 
 
 The arrangement had come about in an unpre- 
 meditated fashion. On a certain day in March a 
 lacquey had arrived from Chantilly, where Henri 
 then was, with a note from his master to bid Sully 
 expect him on the following morning, and begging 
 that he would provide dinner, with fish, for a dozen 
 persons. 
 
 Sully was familiar with his master's tastes. He 
 made ready ragouts such as Henri loved ; and, 
 moreover, when the company rose from table, cards 
 and dice were produced, with a purse of four thousand 
 pistoles for the King, and a like sum, as a loan, to 
 defray the gambling expenses of his attendants. Henri 
 showed that his preferences in food and amusement 
 had been correctly divined. 
 
 " Come and embrace me, Grand-Mai tre," he said, 
 " for I love you, as I ought, and I am so well pleased 
 with being here that I will likewise sup and sleep ; 
 for I will not go to the Louvre to-day, for reasons 
 I will tell you when I have finished playing.'* 
 
 He would, he added, take a drive, and desired that, 
 on his return, he should find no one at the Arsenal 
 save those he himself brought or sent. Nor did his 
 satisfaction end here, resulting in the retreat afforded 
 by the Arsenal being made at all times available. 
 
 No doubt Sully was proud of the position he filled, 
 and possibly, by an unwise display of a consciousness 
 of power, he threw down a challenge to his enemies 
 they were not slow, as soon as his master was gone, 
 to take up. It was said that he had told Queen 
 
174 The Making of a King 
 
 Marguerite that she, like the rest of France, was under 
 his jurisdiction ; only three persons being exempt from 
 it, namely, the King, the Queen, and the Dauphin. 
 " Thus," added Malherbe, " may the fortunate speak ; 
 but to do so is to forget nhe power of Fortune, and 
 her threats of last winter." 
 
 So far chance, as well as his master, had favoured 
 the Duke, and an incident in particular which might 
 have come near to being fatal to the confidence re- 
 posed by the King in his minister had, by a happy 
 chance, produced the opposite effect, and had turned 
 to Sully's advantage. The facts were these. Certain 
 matters, believed by Henri to have been mentioned 
 by him to the minister alone, had become public 
 property ; and, in spite of Sully's asseveration, upon 
 oath, that he had not been guilty of divulging them, 
 it was hardly possible that a doubt should not have 
 remained in his master's mind, not of his friend's 
 fidelity, but of his discretion and prudence. The 
 affair was in this condition when, by a piece of 
 singular good luck, it was placed in the Duke's power 
 to clear himself from all suspicion and to bring home 
 the guilt to the true culprit. A letter addressed by 
 the King's friend and confessor, Cotton, to a brother 
 Jesuit came into the minister's possession ; wherein 
 was contained all the information in question. Putting 
 the incriminating document into Henri's hands at their 
 next meeting, Sully made his justification. It was 
 entirely successful. Unable to deny that he had 
 spoken openly to the priest, the King, after reading 
 the letter twice over, made a significant comment upon 
 its contents. 
 
Pfcre Cotton 175 
 
 " I confess," he said, " that there is more of loyalty 
 and honour in you, and of truth in your words wicked 
 Huguenot that you are than in many Catholics, even 
 ecclesiastics, devout and scrupulous as they appear. 
 And I will say no more to you upon this subject." 
 
 Whether by reason of his indiscretion or from 
 other causes, the influence of Pere Cotton suffered, 
 according to Guidi, a temporary eclipse. It did not 
 prove lasting ; and, having gone twice running 
 to hear Mass in the Jesuit church, the King gave 
 those about him to understand that it had not been 
 done without a purpose, but " that the world might 
 know that he loved Pere Cotton and his Order more 
 than ever." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 1609 10 
 
 Henri and Mademoiselle de Montmorency The King's desire for 
 domestic peace His forebodings Henri and his son The 
 Infanta's portrait Chances of war Sully and the Dauphin. 
 
 ON March 2, 1610, the Dauphin was present at a 
 ceremony forming part of an episode displaying 
 the King in his least worthy aspect. This was the 
 betrothal, to be followed shortly by the marriage, of 
 the Prince de Conde and Charlotte de Montmorency, 
 daughter of the Constable who had refused to allow 
 his family shield to be blemished by a match between 
 his son and the King's daughter. 
 
 The story of Henri's latest passion, his infatuation 
 for young Bassompierre's destined bride, scarcely 
 emerged from childhood, is too well known to call for 
 more than a passing notice. Bassompierre, a courtier 
 by profession and taste, warned that he had to choose 
 between his promised wife and the King's favour, made 
 little difficulty in relinquishing his claim to the first ; 
 and Henri bestowed her upon his cousin, Conde, first 
 Prince of the Blood, counting upon the young man's 
 indifference to throw no obstacle in his path ; and 
 anticipating that Conde, ill-favoured, of bad reputation, 
 and addicted to wine, would not prove a formidable 
 
 rival in the girl's affections. 
 
 176 
 
The King's Troubles 177 
 
 And yet it is singular that, almost at this moment, 
 Henri had been contemplating the possibility of a 
 compromise whereby, if Marie de Medicis would, for 
 her part, agree to the dismissal of her Italian favourites, 
 he would himself engage to give her no further cause 
 for complaint. Whether he would, at this stage, 
 have kept his pledge is questionable ; that it was 
 offered in good faith cannot be doubted. Weary of 
 a continual condition of domestic strife, he was un- 
 feignedly anxious to arrange a basis of agreement. 
 
 If this ultimate phase of a great man's existence is 
 painful to those to whom he is a hero, it was probably 
 in many ways no less painful to the hero himself. To 
 Henri's happiness love and approval were, as some one 
 has pointed out, specially necessary ; and the sense that 
 by many of those around him he was neither loved nor 
 approved cannot have failed to be bitter. Underlying, 
 too, his natural gaiety, was the melancholy not seldom 
 accompanying it, and the latter at times gained the 
 upper hand. To Montigny and Cicogne, two of his 
 friends and companions, he once said that he would 
 rather be dead ; and when they strove to prove how 
 small was his reason for desiring death, he remained 
 unconvinced. 
 
 " You are happier than I," he told them. 
 
 Troubled in mind and spirit, he was oppressed by 
 public as well as domestic cares. Rumours of intrigues 
 with Spain disquieted him the more owing to their 
 vagueness. Concini and his wife were known to be 
 in communication with the enemy ; hints were thrown 
 out of other traitors whose names were withheld. 
 Who was false, who true ? Who could tell ? That 
 
 12 
 
The Making of a King 
 
 the Queen's sympathies were increasingly enlisted on the 
 Spanish side was certain. More and more the marriage 
 scheme had possession of her mind. An alliance with 
 his old antagonist, to replace his engagements with 
 Protestant princes, was urged upon the King, and whilst 
 he was firm in adherence to his pledges, the difference of 
 opinion between himself and his wife on a question 
 of vital importance will have accentuated their chronic 
 condition of discord. The distrust of her husband 
 with which the Queen had been inspired by the 
 Concini had increased to so great a degree that she 
 entertained suspicions wounding alike to his honour 
 and to his good sense ; declined to eat what he sent 
 her from his table, and even caused her food to be 
 prepared in the apartments of the Italian couple. 
 
 Swayed by the influence of her favourites, Marie 
 was also bent upon obtaining from the King that which 
 she had long desired namely, her own coronation, to 
 be accompanied by every adjunct of ceremonial magnifi- 
 cence, with the object of finally asserting her position 
 and that of her children, and of making it known to 
 the world. 
 
 This last demand was both comprehensible and 
 pardonable. That she was still, after more than ten 
 years of marriage, uncrowned, might have supplied 
 a weapon to be used against her in hostile hands. 
 War was imminent ; the King was to be once more in 
 the field, and Marie was to fill the place of Regent in 
 his absence. It was of the last importance that no 
 shadow of doubt should be allowed to rest upon her 
 position. That she was not to possess undivided 
 authority, but was to share it with a Council of State, 
 
Apprehensions of Disaster 179 
 
 was regarded by her as an insult, and she was the 
 more urgent in requiring that her Sacre should take 
 place before Henri quitted Paris. 
 
 With this demand, reasonable though it was, the 
 King was most unwilling to comply. In spite of 
 his sagacity and shrewdness, reiterated warnings of 
 coming calamity had made their impression upon his 
 mind. He was haunted by the memory of prophecies 
 according to which he was not destined to survive his 
 fifty-eighth year ; and was oppressed in particular by 
 forebodings that, should he yield to the Queen's im- 
 portunities and permit her coronation to take place, 
 misfortune would ensue. 
 
 It was in this mood of melancholy that the idea of 
 restoring domestic concord by means of mutual con- 
 cession had occurred to him. Nothing came of it ; 
 Marie did not close with his offer, and a last and 
 disgraceful chapter was unhappily to be added to 
 his record. The true tragedy was not the catastrophe 
 of May 14, 1610. The day that Ravaillac's knife 
 did its work was no more than the consummation, the 
 climax, of the tragedy enacted during Henri's last years, 
 when the greatness of the great King had struggled 
 for mastery with his littleness, and the last had not 
 seldom got the upper hand ; when, to quote Michelet, 
 the man, " loved and lovable, whose strength was 
 invoked by all the world, but in whom the principle 
 of duty was absent, and who was weak and changeable, 
 declined and sank." Irresponsible, strangely devoid 
 of the moral sense, one questions whether he was so 
 much as conscious of his fall. Of that fall the episode 
 rhich filled so important a place in the history of 
 
i8o The Making of a King 
 
 his last year was proof, had proof been needed. Duty, 
 morality, pride, dignity, self-respect, were all to be 
 sacrificed to an emotion. It must have been difficult 
 even for those who loved him, and they were many, 
 not to feel something approaching to contempt. 
 
 Where public matters did not conflict with his 
 personal interests he continued firm, refusing to yield 
 to the pressure brought to bear upon him in reference 
 to the disposal of his children. Madame, if he 
 could compass it, was to become the wife of the 
 Prince of Wales a gallant lad who talked of nothing 
 but learning the art of war under Henri himself; the 
 Dauphin was destined to be married to the heiress of 
 Lorraine, and in the summer young Bassompierre 
 was dispatched on a secret embassy with the object of 
 sounding the Duke, her father, on the subject. The 
 King, as it fell out, was to have no voice in the 
 settlement of these matters. 
 
 " I pray God," he told Louis, as he drank to him 
 on his eighth birthday, " I pray God that, in twenty 
 years' time, I may be able to give you the whip." 
 
 "Pas, s'il vous plait," was the Dauphin's reply. 
 
 u What ! " said the King in mock protest, " You 
 would not have me able to give it to you ? " 
 
 " Pas, s'il vous plait," repeated the child. 
 
 There was no fear of it. Eight months later 
 Henri was dead. 
 
 In graver moods the King would look on to the 
 future, when he would have been removed from the 
 scene of action, and would make his forecasts as to 
 the course of events. Calling his wife, in jesting fashion, 
 Madame la Regente, he admitted, in answer to her 
 
Henri's Forecast 181 
 
 protests, that she might be right in desiring, in her 
 own interest, the lengthening of his life. The words 
 were spoken when, once more, his will had been 
 brought into collision with that of his heir, and he had 
 again recognised the strain of obstinacy in the boy's 
 nature. 
 
 The quarrel had taken place over a mere trifle 
 a question of jumping over a ditch a foot and a half 
 wide in the park at Fontainebleau. The boy had 
 leapt it standing, without " making any difficulty. 
 Bidden by his father to attempt it running, he answered 
 by a dogged refusal ; afraid lest, miscalculating his 
 distance, he should fall in and become an object of 
 the derision from which he shrank with the sensitive- 
 ness not uncommon in children. The King, unused 
 to disobedience, was roused to anger so violent 
 that, had he not been prevented, he would have im- 
 mersed the boy in the water ; but all was of no avail. 
 Threatened with the whip, Louis replied that he 
 would prefer it to taking the required leap ; accepting 
 his punishment administered in spite of a tardy offer 
 of compliance with defiance and protesting that he 
 was not hurt. 
 
 In the scene which followed between King and Queen 
 Henri gave utterance to a prediction as to the future 
 awaiting his wife. 
 
 " You wept," he told her sternly, " because I have 
 had your son whipped a little severely. You will one 
 day weep much more for his misfortunes or for your 
 own. . . . Of one thing I can assure you that you 
 being of the temper I know, and foreseeing what will 
 his you being self-willed, not to say headstrong, 
 
1 82 The Making of a King 
 
 and he stubborn, you will certainly have a bone to pick 
 with one another." 
 
 In which Henri was to prove, to Marie de Medicis' 
 cost, right. 
 
 If, with regard to his heir, Henri's system of dis- 
 cipline was sharp, he acted with deliberate intention. 
 His other children, Marie once complained, would not 
 have been treated with a like severity ; nor did he 
 deny the charge, giving his reasons for what might wear 
 the guise of injustice. Should they play the fool, he 
 said, they would not escape punishment. No one 
 would whip the Dauphin. 
 
 During these last years of Henri's life the struggle 
 of contending aims at Court found expression in the 
 fact that, in spite of his well-known sentiments, efforts 
 were persistently renewed to rouse and keep alive 
 Louis's interest in the Infanta. Did he not consider 
 her beautiful ? asked the Marquis de Gudalesta, visit- 
 ing the Dauphin on the way to Spain. Would he not 
 like to possess her portrait ? 
 
 Though answering politely in the affirmative, the boy 
 was careful to reassert his loyalty to national traditions. 
 His heart, he added, was French. Yet, notwithstand- 
 ing the proviso, the attempts of his mother and her 
 friends to instil their ideas into his mind had not been 
 fruitless." 
 
 " There is my wife," he told his playmates one day, 
 as he pointed to a picture of Anne hanging in the 
 Queen's chamber. " One must go and take her," 
 he said, when M. de Souvre observed that the Spaniards 
 might not consent to surrender their Princess. 
 
Concte's Marriage 183 
 
 Meantime, the engagement of the Prince de Conde 
 and Mademoiselle de Montmorency had been followed 
 by their marriage, notwithstanding certain misgivings 
 as to the future which had caused the bridegroom-elect 
 to suggest to the King that the arrangement should be 
 cancelled. Henri had been fully determined to carry 
 it out ; the Prince, poor, young, of doubtful legitimacy, 
 and accustomed to maintain an attitude of submissive 
 docility towards the King, was in no position to assert 
 his independence ; and, reassured by Henri, he con- 
 sented to allow matters to proceed. The wedding 
 accordingly took place quietly at Chantilly, the bride's 
 home, during the month of May. 
 
 Not many weeks had elapsed before the Prince's 
 apprehensions were justified, and it had been made 
 plain to him that, were his wife's honour to be safe- 
 guarded, she would be best kept at a distance from 
 Court. Showing more spirit than had been expected of 
 him, he acted upon this conviction, in spite of the fact 
 that both the Princess herself and her father, dazzled 
 by the possibilities contained in the King's passion, 
 testified a disposition to play into Henri's hands, and 
 a paper demanding that the marriage should be annulled 
 received the signature of the bride. 
 
 The King's indignation at Conde's conduct was as 
 great as if he had undoubted right on his side. 
 
 " I beg you to believe," he wrote to the Constable in 
 June, " that my nephew, your son-in-law, behaves like 
 the devil here. It will be necessary that you and I 
 should speak to him together, so that he may be 
 good." 
 
 Conde was in no wise disposed to amend his ways to 
 
184 The Making of a King 
 
 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 pro- 
 tection 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 em- 
 bitter 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] 
 
War Expected 185 
 
 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 avail- 
 able 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 
 
1 86 The Making of a King 
 
 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 de- 
 cided 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 con- 
 versations 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 un- 
 compromising 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 ex- 
 pressed his displeasure ; whereupon Vendome retorted 
 
A Quarrel with Sully 187 
 
 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 
 
1 88 The Making of A King 
 
 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. 
 
The Dauphin's Training 189 
 
 " 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 posses- 
 sion 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 
 
190 The Making of a King 
 
 without raising his voice or- intermitting his occupa- 
 tion, " 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 pro- 
 pitiate 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 in- 
 differently, without giving it a glance. 
 
 " C'est un glorieux," he said, angered by the ex- 
 clusion of some of his attendants from an entertain- 
 ment 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. 
 
 191 
 
i9 2 The Making of a 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 pre- 
 parations for war would be fruitless. 
 
 " I know not why," he once said to Bassompierre, 
 " but I cannot persuade myself that I shall go to 
 Germany," and to others besides Bassompierre he spoke 
 on several occasions of his conviction that death was 
 near. Most of all to Sully he opened his mind on the 
 subject. 
 
 " Ah, my friend," he would say, " how displeasing to 
 me is this Sucre \ I know not why, but my heart 
 warns me that evil will come of it." 
 
 Seating himself in a low chair provided for his use 
 in the minister's apartment at the Arsenal, he sank into 
 a melancholy reverie ; then, rousing himself, he rose 
 suddenly to his feet. 
 
 " By God ! " he exclaimed, " I shall die in this city, 
 and shall never leave it. They will kill me, for well do 
 I see that my death is the only remedy to the danger 
 that threatens them. Cursed Sacre, you will be the 
 cause of my death ! " 
 
 Impressed, in spite of himself, by the strength of the 
 King's apprehensions, the Duke, though attempting to 
 make light of them as mere fancies, suggested that, 
 under the circumstances, it might be well to put an end 
 not only to the dreaded ceremonial but to the war, 
 the King's journey all. Let Henri give the word and 
 it should be done. 
 
 With regard at least to the coronation, it seemed 
 that Henri was disposed at one moment to act on the 
 suggestion. Were the Sacre abandoned, his mind 
 
Henri's Forebodings 193 
 
 would be at rest, and he would start for the war 
 fearing nought. " For, to hide nothing from you," he 
 said, opening his heart entirely to his friend, " I have 
 been told that I shall be killed at my first great cere- 
 monial, and that I shall die in a coach. It is this which 
 renders me so fearful/' 
 
 More and more infected by the King's misgivings, 
 Sully proposed a new plan. Let Henri leave Paris at 
 once, on the morrow, neither returning to the capital 
 nor entering a coach for a prolonged period, The 
 Duke was ready to cause all the workmen employed 
 in preparations to cease from their labours. 
 
 Henri hesitated. 
 
 " I am willing enough," he admitted, " but what will 
 my wife say ? She is wonderfully bent upon this 
 Sacrer 
 
 " Let her say what she will," answered Sully bluntly ; 
 he could not believe that, aware how the King re- 
 garded the matter, she would persist in her desire. 
 
 Henri knew better. Unable to face what would 
 follow should the minister's advice be taken, he decided 
 to allow the affair to take its course, and the workmen 
 continued their operations. 
 
 The ceremony was to take place on Thursday, 
 May 13. On the ensuing Monday, when the solemnities 
 following upon it were concluded, Henri was to start 
 for the seat of war. He had written to the Arch- 
 duke formally announcing his intention of assisting 
 his allies in the vindication of their rights in the matter 
 of the succession of Cleves and Juliers, and asking 
 whether, since his route lay through Flanders, he was 
 
 enter that territory as friend or as enemy. All was 
 
194 The Making of a King 
 
 completed ; the troops were already on the march. 
 The great soldier was once again to take the field. 
 There was nothing more to wait for save the Sacre. 
 
 As the day appointed for^it approached the spirit of 
 uneasiness and unrest abroad continued. On May 
 Day the King, returning with Guise and Bassompierre 
 from the Tuileries to the Louvre, quitted his com- 
 panions for a few minutes in order to hasten the Queen 
 in dressing for dinner, lest he should be kept waiting. 
 
 Pending his return, the two were leaning idly over 
 the balustrade overlooking the courtyard of the palace, 
 when the " mai " set up in the centre of it crashed 
 down without apparent cause and lay pointing towards 
 the small staircase leading to the King's apartment. 
 
 Bassompierre, with a strain of German blood in his 
 veins and inclined to superstition, called the attention 
 of Guise to the fallen branches. 
 
 " I would give much that it had not happened," he 
 told him. " It is a very ill omen. God protect the 
 King the * mai ' of the Louvre ! It would be made 
 more of in Italy or Germany," he added, as the Duke 
 uttered a contemptuous protest, " than here. God 
 preserve the King and all belonging to him ! " 
 
 Unperceived by either, Henri had drawn near, and, 
 overhearing Bassompierre's words, took the answer 
 upon himself. They were fools, he told them, to pay 
 attention to prognostications. Astrologers and char- 
 latans had predicted danger to him for thirty years. 
 When the time of his death should arrive, the prophecies 
 touching that particular year would be remembered, all 
 the others forgotten. 
 
 It was doubtless true. But the mind is not governed 
 
Prophecies and Omens 195 
 
 by reason, and no one reading Sully's memoirs could 
 fail to perceive that Henri was far from being unmoved 
 by what he affected to treat with contempt. 
 
 As the days went by warnings and omens increased 
 and multiplied. Now it was a nun who was afflicted 
 by a startling vision of death and murder ; an image of 
 St. Louis was said to have shed tears ; bells tolled with- 
 out visible agency ; a little shepherdess, bringing home 
 her flock at night, asked the meaning of the word 
 " King." A voice, she said, had cried in her ears that the 
 King was slain. A general condition of nervous appre- 
 hension prevailed. Things of small account in them- 
 selves were afterwards remembered. The King had 
 been heard more than once, as if by accident, to allude 
 to his wife as the Regent. Again, two days before his 
 death, he had shown the Dauphin to the nobles present, 
 saying, " Here is henceforth your master." Had all 
 gone well, these trifles would have been buried in 
 oblivion. The King dead, they became part of the 
 multitude of incidents that had seemed to prepare the 
 way for the tragedy and usher it in. 
 
 At length the long-anticipated ceremony took place. 
 On Wednesday, May 12, the Court slept at Saint- 
 Denis, all the royal children being brought from Saint- 
 Germain for the occasion. The Comte de Soissons had 
 left Paris owing to a quarrel concerning the dress to 
 be worn by the young Duchesse de Vend6me, con- 
 sidered by him to infringe upon the rights of the 
 Princes of the Blood ; Conde and his wife were still 
 finding shelter with the King's enemies ; Sully, pleading 
 sickness as his excuse, was absent ; but, with few 
 exceptions, all the French nobles, dignitaries of the 
 
196 The Making of a King 
 
 Church, and officers of State assisted at the Queen's 
 tardy triumph. 
 
 The hour of midday on the Thursday had been fixed 
 for the Sacre. On that morning Henri appeared to 
 have thrown off his melancholy, and was unusually 
 gay. Yet, as he passed from the brilliant spring sun- 
 shine outside into the dimly-lighted church, thronged 
 from end to end with a silent and expectant crowd, he 
 observed to those around him that he was reminded of 
 the scene of the last great Judgment for which might 
 all men prepare. 
 
 To Marie de Medicis that moment was the proudest 
 of a life marked by not a few humiliations. To-day 
 she not the King was the central figure of the 
 pageant ; she had achieved the object of her legitimate 
 desire. Nothing was wanting to complete her satis- 
 faction. The account of the show, as she gave it 
 later on to a Tuscan envoy, indicates the attention 
 she had paid to its details and the gratification it 
 afforded her to recall them even after the tragedy which 
 might have blotted them out from her memory. The 
 sight, she told her countryman, had been as fair a one 
 as was possible in France. Dwelling upon its salient 
 features, she described the arrangement of the seats, 
 princes, princesses, cardinals, bishops, and officers of 
 State being placed in their several orders and degrees 
 below her. It was, she agreed adopting the simile 
 suggested by the obsequious Italian like Paradise, 
 the choirs of angels being represented by the tiers 
 of spectators. 
 
 One incident had occurred to which, as to others, 
 an ominous significance had been attached. The 
 
The Queens Sacre 197 
 
 stone marking the place of sepulchre of the Kings 
 of France had cracked across in a manner rendering 
 it necessary to close the fissure with lime. But Marie 
 had been kept ignorant of the mishap, and, with this 
 exception, all had gone well. If the heavy crown, set 
 insecurely on the Queen's head, had come near to 
 falling, she had steadied it so effectually with her 
 two hands that it remained firmly fixed in its place, 
 and the ceremony concluded without misadventure. 
 The Dauphin, with no knowledge of the past heart- 
 burnings, doubts, suspicions, fears, lending its chief 
 importance to what was no less his triumph than 
 that of his mother, played a leading part in the show. 
 Dressed in cloth of silver, and covered with diamonds, 
 he preceded the Queen in the procession, and with 
 his little sister, Madame, assisted in placing the crown 
 inefficiently, as it appeared upon her head. 
 Every one of her children were present, Gaston, 
 Due d'Anjou, and Henriette Marie, Charles I.'s 
 future wife, being carried in the arms of their 
 attendants. 
 
 As Marie de Medicis left the church, the long rite 
 concluded, her position was vindicated. Whatever 
 the future might have in store for her, no one could 
 dispute her right to be considered the lawful wife 
 of Henri-Quatre, or her son's position as his heir. 
 In the plenitude of her satisfaction, she felt she could 
 afford to laugh at presages of misfortune ; and, meeting 
 one of the astrologers who had foretold that the 
 festivity was destined to end in weeping, she is said 
 to have taxed him gaily with his error. 
 
 " Madame," replied the soothsayer, " your entree 
 
198 The Making of a King 
 
 has not yet been made. God grant my science may 
 be at fault." 
 
 Henri, on leaving Saint-Denis, had likewise met 
 an acquaintance. In his* case it was a Jesuit, whom 
 he accosted in friendly fashion. 
 
 " Eh bien ! mon pere" he said. u I go to join my 
 army. Will you not pray God for us here ? " 
 
 " H, Sire," replied the priest, " how could we 
 pray God for you, who are going to a country full 
 of heretics, in order to exterminate the little handful 
 of Catholics who remain there ? " 
 
 Henri's indomitable good-humour was undisturbed. 
 
 " It is zeal," he said, with a laugh, " which carries 
 this good man away, and causes him to speak like 
 this," and proceeded on his way. 
 
 Regaining the palace before his wife had reached it 
 and watching her approach from an upper window, he 
 scattered some drops of water on her as she passed 
 below. Meeting her afterwards at the foot of the 
 staircase, he joined in the banquet given to celebrate 
 the event before returning with the Court to the 
 Louvre. And so the long day ended. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 1610 
 
 May 14, 1 6 10 Henri and Guise The King's melancholy His last 
 hours His murder The scene at the Louvre Sully 's ride through 
 Paris Effect of the murder Marie declared Regent Louis XIII. 
 King. 
 
 THE history of the tragedy of Friday, May 14, 
 has been often told. Yet, from a narrative of 
 which it is a central and determining event, it cannot 
 be omitted, and the various accounts of contemporaries 
 make it possible to follow the King in detail through 
 the last hours of his life. 
 
 He rose that morning after a sleepless night. All 
 through the hours of darkness, as Marie afterwards 
 told the Tuscan envoy, a night-bird had circled round 
 and round the palace, disturbing the inmates with its 
 mournful cries. It was remarked that the King spent 
 a longer time than usual at his devotions ; but, though 
 feeling the effects of his wakefulness, he preserved 
 the cheerfulness he had displayed on the preceding day ; 
 and as he walked home after hearing Mass at the 
 Feuillants, the Due de Guise, who, with Bassompierre, 
 had gone to meet him, congratulated him on his wit. 
 He was one of the most amusing men in the world, 
 the Duke said ; had he been born in a different sphere 
 of life he would have considered no price too high 
 
 199 
 
200 The Making of a King 
 
 to pay in order to secure his services. Since he had 
 been made a great King, Guise could not have been 
 aught but his servant. 
 
 It was a tribute Henri .liked, and he embraced the 
 speaker. His answer showed that the thought of death 
 had not ceased to haunt his imagination. 
 
 " You do not know me now/' he said, probably 
 between jest and earnest, " but one of these days I 
 shall die, and when you have lost me you will know 
 what I am worth, and how greatly I differ from other 
 men/' 
 
 Bassompierre, young and light-hearted, took upon 
 himself to chide his master. When, he asked, would 
 the King cease to disquiet his friends by talk of his 
 approaching death ? with God's help, he had still many 
 good years of life before him of a life there was 
 so much to render desirable. The King sighed as he 
 listened to the enumeration of his earthly posses- 
 sions. 
 
 " My friend," he said, "all that must be left behind." 
 The cheerfulness of the morning was gone ; his fore- 
 bodings had presumably gained once more the upper 
 hand. 
 
 Returned to the palace, he had his two youngest 
 children, Gaston and Henriette, brought to his apart- 
 ments and spent some time playing with them, striving, 
 it may be, to dispel his melancholy. It must have 
 seemed causeless enough. All was as usual at the 
 Louvre, and it was noted that the Dauphin was " fort 
 gai " that morning, excited no doubt by the events of 
 the previous day. In the afternoon the Queen retired 
 to rest in her chamber, Louis was taken in his carriage 
 
May 14th 201 
 
 to inspect the preparations made for his mother's 
 entr&e, and quiet settled over the palace. 
 
 That morning Sully had received a summons from 
 the King to meet him at the Tuileries, where he wished 
 to speak with him alone. But the sickness serving 
 as an excuse for his absence from the coronation had 
 been no mere pretext ; he was undergoing a course 
 of treatment by means of baths, and when the King 
 learnt the condition in which his messenger had found 
 him he cancelled his orders, forbidding the minister, 
 on the contrary, to leave the house. The next morn- 
 ing, Saturday, he would himself visit the Arsenal at 
 five o'clock, when final arrangements should be made 
 for his departure from Paris on the Monday. A kindly 
 injunction was added to the effect that the Duke was 
 not to be dressed to receive him on his early visit. 
 
 Henri, upon second thoughts, must have changed 
 his plans, and, as his friend could not come to the 
 palace, must have determined to seek him at home. 
 Dinner over, he at first attempted to repair the wake- 
 fulness of the night ; then, unable to sleep, and having 
 again said some prayers, he acted upon the advice of 
 the officer on guard, who counselled him to seek the 
 open air. 
 
 Possibly he had forgotten, possibly had decided to 
 disregard, the premonition he had felt of impending 
 calamity, associated with a coach ; since he ordered his 
 own to be brought, with the intention of visiting the 
 Arsenal, declining the attendance of Vitry, the captain 
 of the guard, or of his men. 
 
 " I want neither you nor your guards," he told him. 
 " I want no one round me." 
 
202 The Making of a King 
 
 Even now he wavered, and Ravaillac's opportunity 
 might have been lost. 
 
 " Ma mie" he said repeatedly to the Queen, c< shall 
 I go ? shall I not go ? " leaving the room two or three 
 times only to return and raise the question again. 
 Then, having at last made up his mind, he kissed 
 Marie more than once, with the longing for the demon- 
 strations of affection so characteristic of him, as he bade 
 her adieu. 
 
 " I shall do no more than go and come," he said, 
 " and shall be back immediately." 
 
 And so the two parted, for the last time. 
 
 Accompanied by Epernon, Montbazon, and some 
 five other courtiers, he quitted the palace. As he 
 entered the coach a recollection of the current 
 prophecies would seem to have recurred to his memory. 
 Turning to one of his companions, he demanded the 
 day of the month. 
 
 " To-day is the i fth, Sire," was the reply. 
 
 " No," said some one else in correction, " it is the 
 I 4 th." 
 
 "True," answered the King, "you are best ac- 
 quainted with your almanack " ; then, with a laugh, 
 " Between the I3th and the I 4 th . . . ," he added as he 
 drove away. To what he alluded remains uncertain. 
 
 The coach reached the Rue de la Ferronnerie ; a 
 cart, blocking the way, obliged the driver to slacken 
 his speed ; a man who had been standing before a 
 shop it was named the " Coeur Couronne perc6 d'une 
 Fl&che " threw himself upon the King and stabbed 
 him twice. 
 
 Accounts as to what followed differed. Some said 
 
The King's Murder 203 
 
 he spoke ; but only to say " it was nothing." Then 
 his voice died away into silence, and all was over. 
 
 The Queen, meanwhile, had been resting from the 
 fatigue of the previous day, the Duchesse de Mont- 
 pensier her companion. A sound of many tramp- 
 ling feet, reaching her ears, was her first intimation 
 that something unusual had occurred, and her thoughts 
 flying, with swift terror, to the Dauphin, she sent the 
 Duchess to inquire into the cause of the disturbance, 
 awaiting her report with growing anxiety. 
 
 " Your son is not dead it is nothing," said Madame 
 de Montpensier, returning ; but the assurance was 
 given with a countenance so pallid and terror-stricken 
 that, her mistress's fears unallayed, she opened the 
 door of her room and issued forth to make personal 
 investigation. 
 
 A scene of horror and confusion confronted her. 
 Two hundred men, with drawn swords, were gathered 
 outside. In the midst of them lay the dead King. 
 
 " Oh, Madame," cried Praslin, one of the captains 
 of the guard, as he perceived her, " we are lost." 
 
 " Fearing the truth," she afterwards wrote, " I felt 
 my forces fail and should have fallen fainting to the 
 ground had Madame de Montpensier and others of 
 my women not supported me. They brought me 
 back to the couch in my chamber. M. d'Epernon and 
 others sought to comfort me by the assurance that the 
 King, though severely wounded, was not dead, and 
 might recover." 
 
 The terrible tidings had quickly reached the 
 Arsenal. Sully had obeyed his master's orders and 
 had remained at home as those about him remarked, 
 
204 The Making of a King 
 
 in a melancholy mood when a cry, raised in the house, 
 startled him in his chamber. The King was not indeed 
 slain, so it was said, but was desperately wounded. 
 All was lost and France ruined such was the lament 
 of those around. Better than any other, the Duke 
 recognised its truth. 
 
 " If he is dead/* he said there was still the doubt 
 " sen est fait all is over." 
 
 In any case, his place was at his master 's side, dead 
 or living, and he prepared to ride to the palace. 
 Bassompierre, appointed by Henri to meet him at 
 the Arsenal, and who had been awaiting him there 
 when the news was brought, was beforehand with the 
 minister. " I ran like a madman," he wrote, " taking 
 the first horse I found, and galloped to the Louvre." 
 Passing the barriers, already closely guarded, he 
 reached the King's chamber, finding the dead man 
 lying upon his bed. M. de Vic, one of the State 
 Council, had placed a cross upon his lips and was 
 speaking to him of God " lui faisoit souvenir de 
 Dieu." Though doctors surrounded him and surgeons 
 were dressing the wound it was too plain that there 
 was nothing to be done. Life was extinct. 
 
 M. le Grand, Grand Equerry, who had entered 
 with Bassompierre, knelt by the bed, holding and 
 kissing one of his master's hands ; Bassompierre, fling- 
 ing himself at his feet, was in tears. 
 
 Meantime, as Sully rode towards the palace his train 
 was increasing in numbers, till he was followed by 
 some three hundred horsemen. As he traversed the 
 streets they were filled with a mourning crowd who 
 made no sound, nor uttered, for the most part, any cry, 
 
The King's Murder 205 
 
 weeping silently, as if stunned by the suddenness 
 of the calamity, the magnitude of which was uncertain. 
 Warning after warning was given Sully significant of 
 the interpretation put, in some quarters at least, 
 upon the deed, viewed not in the light of an isolated 
 crime, but as part of a preconcerted plot. Wariness 
 was enjoined upon the minister with regard to those 
 in whose hands the supreme power would now be 
 placed. 
 
 " It is over," thus ran a note thrown to the Duke 
 as he rode by, " I have seen him dead. If you enter 
 the Louvre neither will you escape." 
 
 His fears for his master confirmed, great tears fell 
 from Sully's eyes. He was not to be turned back. 
 Dead or alive, he would see the King. Again a 
 warning voice was raised. 
 
 " Our ill is beyond remedy," said a gentleman, 
 meeting him ; " I know it, for I have looked upon it. 
 Think of yourself, for this blow will have terrible 
 results." 
 
 And still Sully pursued his way. At the entrance to 
 the Rue Saint-Honore a note similar to the first was 
 flung to him ; regardless of it, he was continuing to 
 advance when Vitry, captain of the guard, stopping 
 him, threw himself, in broken-hearted fashion, into his 
 arms. The King, their good master, he cried, was 
 dead. France was ruined there was nothing to do 
 but to die. What was Sully about ? Not more 
 than some two or three of his attendants would be 
 permitted to enter the Louvre, and unaccompanied 
 he counselled him not to go thither. There was 
 method in what had been done, or Vitry was mistaken ; 
 
206 The Making of a King 
 
 " for I have seen those " he was careful to mention no 
 names " who have apparently suffered great loss, but 
 who cannot conceal that they are not so sad at heart as 
 they should be. I have been bursting with indignation, 
 and, had you seen what I have seen, you would be 
 enraged." Let Sully go back ; there was enough to 
 do without entering the Louvre. And Sully at length 
 consented to turn his horse's head towards the Arsenal, 
 sending a message to the Queen to offer his services 
 and to demand her orders. 
 
 At the palace panic had at first prevailed; there, 
 too, it had not been known how far-reaching was the 
 plot of which the assassination might be only a single 
 feature. Repairing to the Queen's presence, the Chan- 
 cellor and Villeroy took counsel with her as to the 
 immediate steps to be taken. 
 
 " The King is dead," cried Marie. 
 
 " Pardon me, Madame," replied the Chancellor, 
 " the Kings of France never die. Restrain your tears 
 till you have ensured your own safety and that of your 
 children." 
 
 Bassompierre and le Grand had been summoned 
 from their mournful watch by their dead master ; the 
 Duke de Guise had been also called into counsel. To 
 Bassompierre orders were given to collect the Light 
 Horse he commanded, and to ride through Paris at their 
 head, thus to quiet tumult and suppress sedition. Le 
 Grand was to remain in charge of the King's body and 
 to guard, should protection prove necessary, the person 
 of the Dauphin. 
 
 As Bassompierre executed the commands he had 
 received he encountered Sully ; who, having by this 
 
Sull/s Conduct 207 
 
 time abandoned his intention of seeking the palace, 
 administered an admonition to the younger man with 
 regard to his duty, exhorting him and his comrades to 
 take an oath of fidelity to the new King, and to swear 
 to spend blood and life in avenging his father. 
 
 The minister's address, somewhat sententious in 
 tone, did not find favour with Bassompierre, by whom 
 Sully had probably never been liked. 
 
 " Monsieur," he answered hotly, u it is we who are 
 administering that oath to others, nor is there any need 
 that we should be exhorted to a thing so binding 
 upon us." 
 
 Whereupon Sully, turning away, repaired to the 
 Bastille, where he shut himself up, having provisioned 
 the place with as much bread as could be obtained ; 
 dispatching a messenger to his son-in-law, Rohan, to 
 instruct him to march, with the six thousand Swiss he 
 commanded, to Paris. An order which reached him from 
 the Queen to the effect that he should proceed to the 
 Louvre and confer with her upon matters of import- 
 ance was ignored. 
 
 Whether or not Sully was well-advised in testifying his 
 distrust of those in power after a fashion that scarcely 
 admitted of misconception, the fact that Epernon 
 was taking the chief part in the direction of affairs 
 at the Louvre was not calculated to inspire him with 
 confidence, fipernon, the Queen afterwards said, had 
 behaved admirably. He had certainly been prompt and 
 efficient. Henri-Quatre had been murdered at about 
 four o'clock. Before five Marie had been declared 
 Regent, and the new Government had been established. 
 " M. d'Epernon," says Bassompierre, " who, after 
 
208 The Making of a King 
 
 having given the necessary orders to the French guards 
 before the Louvre " he was colonel-general of the 
 infantry "had come to kiss the hands of the King 
 and the Queen his mother, was sent by her to the 
 Parlement, to represent to it that the Queen had letters 
 of Regency from the late King . . . and that the 
 urgency of the affair demanded that it should be settled 
 without delay." 
 
 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 move- 
 ments of the Parlement : there were no grounds 
 
After the Murder 209 
 
 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. 
 
210 The Making, of a King 
 
 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 sugges- 
 tion 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, 
 
Various Theories 211 
 
 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 pre- 
 sence 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 
 
2i2 The Making of a King 
 
 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 1 5 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 helpless- 
 ness 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. 
 
 213 
 
214 The Making .of a King 
 
 " 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 pro- 
 ceedings, 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 t<jo o. 2>fjottis Clemens i^ape fie ftomf.et 
 " ftpr-a nomine jLoituis tyyueiif * 
 
 e /' "' / / </ 
 LOUIS XIII. ON THE DAY OF HIS ACCESSION. 
 
 P- 214] 
 
Louis and the Parlement 215 
 
 " 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 coun- 
 sels 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 deter- 
 mined 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 
 
 condemn. Dead, says Michelet, " the people per- 
 jived that they loved Henri-Quatre." 
 
 The old order of things, with the rapidity of a 
 
 h of lightning, had been swept away ; the new, 
 
 four-and- twenty hours, was definitely established. 
 
216 The Making of a King 
 
 Yet a scene taking place that afternoon might have 
 seemed to promise well for the future. Sully, con- 
 quering his reluctance to enter the Louvre in its 
 present condition, overcoming also, it may be, some 
 lingering apprehension as to the risk he might thereby 
 incur, had come thither at length to wait upon the 
 Queen in deference to her command. As he entered 
 the building, unaccompanied save by his personal 
 attendants, the inferior officers of the royal household, 
 the archers and soldiers of the guard, vied with each 
 other in doing honour to their dead master's favoured 
 servant, recognising and welcoming in him a fellow 
 mourner. Many amongst those of higher rank, on 
 the other hand, were observed to be in no wise cast 
 down, but on the contrary of cheerful counten- 
 ance. 
 
 The Duke was cordially received by the Queen. 
 Mingling her tears with his, she sent for Louis, and 
 admonished him dramatically to love the man who 
 had been one of his father's best servants. As Sully 
 held the boy in his close embrace it may be that, for 
 a moment, he cherished the hope that, as he had served 
 the father, so he might be permitted to serve the 
 son. He was to be speedily undeceived. 
 
 The long day the first of Louis's reign was 
 drawing to a close. In the mortuary chamber to 
 which he had been removed the dead King lay. The 
 night before he had been served, in accordance with 
 the strange ritual prescribed by tradition, as he had 
 been accustomed to be served in his life-time. The 
 Due de Mayenne had given him his shirt ; Bellegarde, 
 Grand Equerry, and Bassompierre, representing the 
 
Sorrow and Rejoicing 217 
 
 Due de Bouillon, had assisted at the ghastly ceremony. 
 A deputation composed of twelve Jesuits now waited, 
 first upon Louis, then upon his mother, to proffer, 
 on behalf of their Society, their services ; and, further, 
 to advance their claim to the heart of Henri, which 
 they asserted he had bequeathed as his legacy to the 
 Order. Varenne, high in the late King's confidence, 
 corroborated their statement, and the relic was ac- 
 cordingly delivered over to them, to be carried to 
 La Fleche. And so the reign of Louis XIII. was 
 inaugurated. 
 
 The days went by. As in Paris and in France, 
 so at the Louvre, genuine sorrow and conventional 
 mourning covering and disguising satisfaction con- 
 fronted and jostled each other. In the State apart- 
 ments all the pomp and paraphernalia of woe were 
 displayed. Sable hangings draped the walls ; the 
 decencies of desolation were carefully observed. Yet 
 in the very chants of the requiems it was noticed that, 
 whilst the voices of some of the choristers were broken 
 with sobs, others found no difficulty in showing off 
 their powers to the best advantage. In the entre-sol 
 below the muted chambers, life was carried on as usual. 
 To the indignation of the few faithful to the memory 
 of the past, laughter echoed through the rooms where 
 Marie held secret converse with the men who enjoyed 
 her confidence Concini and his wife, the papal nuncio, 
 Epernon, the Spanish Ambassador, Villeroy, and others. 
 The accredited Council of State might hold its delibera- 
 tions elsewhere ; but the Queen-mother hitherto 
 almost a negligible quantity in politics ruled supreme ; 
 
 
2i8 The Making pf a King 
 
 her will was law. Such was the strange transformation 
 effected by Ravaillac's knife. 
 
 To Marie de Medicis all must have had at first 
 somewhat of the unreality of a dream. It is only 
 possible to guess at the sentiments underlying her 
 decent assumption of woe during these early days of 
 widowhood. Setting aside as unproved the dark 
 suspicions that connected her directly or indirectly 
 with the catastrophe, it may be that she has been too 
 harshly judged ; that, with little to attract or to com- 
 mand sympathy or admiration, harder measure has been 
 meted out to her than might have been the case with 
 a woman of a more winning character. As was 
 perhaps inevitable, in the face of her conduct before 
 and after her husband's death, the populace and others 
 insisted on associating her name with that of the man 
 she had so unwisely favoured, and regarded Concini 
 as her lover. Of this, again, there is no proof; 
 but in her blemished reputation she received the 
 deserts of her blind infatuation for the Florentine 
 couple. 
 
 For the rest, human nature is full of contradictions, 
 and it may be that her mourning for the dead King 
 was not wholly a tribute to the requirements of con- 
 vention. Regret does not infrequently follow upon 
 the severance of a tie that has seemed to give scanty 
 cause for it ; the prosperous can afford to be pitiful ; 
 and, with the future opening before her, crowded with 
 possibilities she rated at their full value, she may 
 have been touched at times by tenderness or com- 
 passion for the dead man now powerless to wrong 
 her ; may have remembered that, in spite of his 
 
Sully's Picture of the Queen 219 
 
 weakness, his infirmities, and his sins, he was, as she 
 once told the Tuscan envoy, "di dolce natura," and 
 have not been totally devoid of affectionate remem- 
 brance. 
 
 That it would be unreasonable, as well as idle, to 
 look for more genuine sorrow, posterity will readily 
 admit ; but the fact was not so easily acknowledged 
 by those to whom Henri had been master and friend, 
 the object, in spite of all his shortcomings, of their 
 deepest love and devotion. Of these Sully was chief. 
 Recalling, in after-days, the period following upon the 
 King's death, full of melancholy, and weighted with 
 the sense of irreparable loss, the Duke afterwards drew 
 a picture of the Queen as she then appeared, in which 
 the reader cannot fail to discover, beneath the language 
 of the courtier, the bitterness of sarcasm. 
 
 Dwelling, in the first place, in terms of perfunctory 
 and highly coloured panegyric, upon her outward 
 charms, her industry and skill in winning hearts, her 
 magnanimity and constancy in the endurance of sorrow 
 and trouble, he proceeded to dilate upon her conduct 
 at this crisis, bereft in a moment of her dearest 
 delights in the companionship, Jove, and society of 
 a husband for whose loss it must not be doubted 
 Sully had it on good authority she felt all the 
 grievous and acute regret corresponding to the great- 
 ness of that loss. 
 
 So far, notwithstanding the exaggeration of his 
 praise, little in accordance with Sully's custom, the 
 description might have come from the pen of her 
 husband's friend, sincerely convinced that she was a 
 fellow-mourner. In what follows the irony breaks 
 
 
220 The Making of a King 
 
 through its thin disguise. So different, he goes on 
 to say, are appearances often from reality, that, sur- 
 mounting all grief and subduing the violence of her 
 sufferings, she allowed no sign of them to appear 
 in public, forcing her eyes to restrain their tears, 
 and, the more to conceal her desolation, curbing her 
 inclination to seek those places of sadness and melan- 
 choly where alone she could find pleasure, and re- 
 maining almost all day with Court and Council in a 
 decorated chamber glittering with gold and silver and 
 purple ; where she was compelled to listen to outbursts 
 of laughter and shouts of rejoicing from those who 
 hoped to profit by the calamity. To all she was an 
 object of admiration, owing to the control she exercised 
 over her suffering spirit, scarcely a trace of it appearing 
 in countenance or words. 
 
 Whilst his mother passed her days in the fashion 
 thus indicated, the shock of his father's murder had 
 produced upon the imagination of the little King an 
 effect not easily effaced, and he continued to be haunted 
 by the suggestion it contained of danger to himself. 
 Taken to church on Sunday, he directed the guards 
 by whom he was accompanied to place themselves on 
 either side of his carriage, appealing to them to attend 
 to their duty. 
 
 " Guard me well/' he would entreat, " lest they 
 should kill me as they have killed the King, my 
 father." 
 
 At night, too, dreams of assassination would visit 
 the nervous child ; and, waking, he would fall into 
 reveries attracting the attention of his attendants. 
 
 " C'est que je songeois," he told his nurse, when 
 
Louis's Fears 221 
 
 she strove to rouse him from one of these fits of 
 abstraction. Then, after another pause, " Doundoun, 
 it is that I would that the King, my father, had 
 lived for twenty years. Ah, the m&chant who killed 
 him ! " " I wish " he said another time wistfully 
 to Madame de Montglat " I wish I had not so soon 
 become King, and that the King, my father, were still 
 alive." 
 
 It was not unnatural that fears for his personal 
 safety should have clouded the child's mind and 
 mingled with less selfish regrets. Not only was Paris 
 pervaded by a curious terror, as if the murder had 
 affected men's nerves ; but a common result of a 
 notorious crime others had been, so to speak, fired by 
 Ravaillac's example, and had been set musing on like 
 achievements. A knife bearing the inscription, " I will 
 do it in my turn," was found in the possession of a 
 freemason said to be in communication with the 
 Archduke. A soldier belonging to the palace guard, 
 rendered reckless by losses at the gaming-table, was 
 heard to boast that, had Henri not been already dead, 
 he would have slain both King and Queen ; and a 
 comrade was arrested on the charge of having declared, 
 pointing to Louis, that he wished his dagger were in 
 the heart of the last of the race. 
 
 Stories such as these due probably to the vagaries 
 of drunkards or of madmen whose diseased imagination 
 had been coloured by the event which was in all men's 
 mouths may easily, coming to the ears of the boy, 
 have caused him to ponder anxiously over the dangers 
 he ran as he played as usual with his toys, or took his 
 lace, with a gravity and patience surprising to foreign 
 
222 The Making of a King 
 
 ambassadors, at his mother's side, giving audience to 
 envoys and nobles, and sharing with decorum in the 
 pageantry of State. 
 
 However well he mtght perform his part, the 
 services of the soothsayers who were so busily plying 
 their trade would not have been necessary to enable 
 an observer to predict coming trouble under the new 
 system of government. It is true that, in the initiation 
 of her rule, Marie de Medicis took those who watched 
 her by surprise, and displayed qualities for which few 
 would have given her credit, exhibiting an energy and 
 determination not to be expected from a woman so 
 little experienced in the transaction of public business. 
 But that very determination and energy could not fail 
 to bring her into conflict with others claiming to 
 exercise an influence in public affairs. Having attained 
 the summit of her ambition and possessing supreme 
 power in the State, she did not intend to barter it 
 for ease or tranquillity, nor to act the part as she 
 told the Comte de Soissons plainly of a mere Madame 
 de Montglat, charged with the care of her son's 
 person and leaving it to others to steer the vessel. 
 Marie de Medicis meant to rule. 
 
 There were, however, obstacles in the way of the 
 accomplishment of her purpose. The attitude assumed 
 by Soissons himself, who had hurried back to the capital 
 on receiving tidings of the catastrophe, and the con- 
 cessions he had wrung from her, was an earnest of 
 the difficulties with which a woman wholly unused to 
 the conduct of weighty affairs or to the management 
 of men would be forced to contend. Professing, with 
 tears, his loyalty to the Queen and her son, the Count 
 
The Princes of the Blood 223 
 
 had at once advanced a demand to be made the King's 
 Lieutenant-General throughout the realm, and, though 
 Marie was resolute in her refusal to accede to his 
 desire, she unwisely sought to propitiate him by the 
 post of Governor of Normandy, usually held by the 
 Dauphin, and vacated by Louis's accession to the throne; 
 his son was promised the government of Dauphiny, and 
 large sums of money were allotted for the payment of 
 his debts. 
 
 The result was at once apparent. Conde had not 
 had time to return from Milan, where the news had 
 found him ; but Conti, Soissons's elder brother, was 
 enraged, and Guise, with all the house of Lorraine, 
 took the Prince's part with so much violence that it 
 was necessary to keep the palace guard under arms, 
 lest discontent should burst into open violence. Paris, 
 moreover, always an uncertain factor in party strife, was 
 soon to develop a causeless and disquieting liking for 
 Conde, chief of the Princes of the Blood. 
 
 Meantime, whilst the struggle for the sceptre he had 
 dropped went on, Henri-Quatre lay unburied. On 
 June 25 the first ceremony connected with his 
 bsequies took place ; and, having been taken to 
 
 e Hotel de Longueville at midday, Louis walked 
 k in procession to the Louvre, to sprinkle his 
 
 ther's body with holy water as it lay in state in 
 the lower hall of the palace. 
 
 As he passed on, the central figure in the pageant, 
 dressed in purple and the long train of his hooded 
 cloak borne by the Princes of the Blood, it was observed 
 that, though his little brothers, terrified by the funeral 
 array, never ceased sobbing, he did not shed a tear. 
 
224 The Making of a King 
 
 Yet the impression stamped upon the boy's mind by 
 the ceremony was shown by his entreaty when, a year 
 or two later, little Orleans had gone to join his father, 
 that he might not be obliged to perform a similar office 
 by him. 
 
 Four days afterwards the body of the King was 
 removed from the palace on its way to his place of 
 sepulture, the occasion being disgraced by brawls within 
 the precincts of the Louvre itself, which testified to the 
 absence of discipline and authority reigning there. 
 
 " The body of the late King was to be taken away," 
 records Hroard with graphic simplicity. " There was 
 much dissension amongst the hundred gentlemen and 
 the bodyguard, who nearly came to blows. The King 
 comes out on to a balcony leading from the small 
 staircase to the great hall, and looks on for more than 
 half an hour at what was doing in the courtyard. His 
 guide [sic] was told of it, and he is removed. M. de 
 Gondi, Bishop of Paris, disputes precedence with the 
 Court of Parlement ; the Court at last pushes him in 
 front. The body leaves the Louvre at half-past six ; 
 arrives at nine at Notre Dame." 
 
 On the following day the body of Henri-Quatre 
 was borne to his last resting-place amongst the Kings 
 of France at Saint-Denis. 
 
 " The King is dead. Pray God for his soul ! " the 
 herald cried in mournful accents from the vault to 
 which the body was lowered, and, as the proclamation 
 was heard, almost all present were moved to tears. 
 Then, from the same herald, still below, rose the cry, 
 " Long live Louis XIII., King, by the grace of God, of 
 France and of Navarre." Caught up by a second voice 
 
Proclamation of Louis XIII 
 
 225 
 
 in the choir above, the words were greeted by a blare 
 of trumpets and fifes, with the beating of drums, and 
 all was over. 
 
 The King was dead. Much had died with him. 
 The wise administration, the great reign, of Henri- 
 Quatre was over. France was to be, to use Michelet's 
 phrase, " retournee comme un gant." 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 1610 
 
 Rival forces in the State Condi's return Louis and his gouverneur 
 His position and training Unlikeness to his father His love for 
 him Pierrot at Court. 
 
 reversal of the late King's policy was the natural 
 A and inevitable result of the Queen's supremacy. 
 Italian by blood, Spanish in sympathy, dominated by 
 Tuscan favourites to whom France was merely a means 
 of fortune and rank, the welfare of the country could 
 not fail to be subordinated to her personal interests 
 and tastes tastes and interests in almost every respect 
 differing from those of Henri-Quatre. 
 
 In setting to work to carry out the projects she had 
 at heart, Marie de Medici probably under-estimated 
 the difficulties she would encounter, indulging that 
 happy confidence in her own powers and capabilities 
 commonly found in those who have never been 
 called upon to put them to a practical test. She had 
 to learn that the art of government does not consist 
 alone in the possession of a strong will and a deter- 
 mination to rule. To command is one thing ; to 
 enforce obedience is another and a harder matter. 
 
 The management of the forces at work in France 
 
 during the period following upon Henri's death 
 
 226 
 
t>'rotn an engraving bv Nicolas de Mathoniere, after a painting by F. Quesnei 
 
 LOUIS XIII. AND THE REGENT MARIE DE MEDICIS. 
 
 226] 
 
228 The Making of a King 
 
 he come as a friend or an enemy ? The question was 
 at least provisionally answered on July 16, when at six 
 o'clock in the evening he entered Paris, attended 
 by ' some two hundred* horsemen, and met, with 
 the Queen's permission, by the Due de Bellegarde 
 and the Due d'Epernon, each with a considerable train. 
 The windows of the houses, as he rode through the 
 streets, were crowded with spectators. He had left 
 Paris a fugitive, almost a rebel. He returned in 
 triumph ; stopping on his way to visit Saint-Denis and 
 have Mass said there for the man who had, in effect, 
 driven him forth. And so, peace having been made 
 with his vanquished enemy, he entered the capital. 
 
 At the Louvre he was anxiously awaited. As the 
 little King noted the crowd that went forth to meet 
 his cousin the old spirit of jealousy awakened within 
 him. Was the Chevalier de Vendome also going ? 
 he inquired as he accorded permission to some other 
 of his household who had come to ask it ; receiving 
 the Chevalier's contemptuous disclaimer of any such 
 intention with manifest satisfaction. " You give me 
 pleasure when you speak like that," he told him. 
 
 All was ready for the Prince, whether he came in 
 amity or in hostility. The oath had been adminis- 
 tered afresh to the marshals ; the captains of the 
 guard had been enjoined to take no orders save from 
 the King, the Queen, or their own colonels ; the 
 citizens had been directed to arm. Precautions proved 
 unnecessary. Without waiting so much as to change 
 his dress, the Prince repaired to the palace, and was 
 there received by the King and his mother. In 
 the presence of a throng of courtiers, he bent .the 
 
Return of Concte 229 
 
 knee so low that some said it had touched the ground, 
 and was embraced twice over by both. The formal 
 meeting over, the Queen led the way into her private 
 chamber and there continued for a few minutes in 
 converse with him, Soissons, Vendome and the few 
 who had been admitted remaining discreetly out of 
 earshot ; with the exception of the Cardinal de Sourdis, 
 who approached the speakers more closely. 
 
 " Go and tell that Prince of your blood to take him- 
 self off/' said Soissons, jesting, to Vendome, connected 
 with the Cardinal through his mother. 
 
 The interview over, Marie directed the Prince to go 
 and unboot himself and to return to the palace. That 
 night, as first Prince of the Blood, he gave the King 
 his shirt. The fears he had roused were allayed. The 
 Queen was at least to be permitted to take breath 
 before being called upon to grapple with the leader of 
 the rival forces in the State. 
 
 With the dead King, the single figure possessing 
 intrinsic greatness, or making an appeal to the imagina- 
 tion, had passed from the French stage. Amongst 
 those who remain, Sully excepted, it is difficult to 
 discover any single character commanding admiration 
 or respect ; and this fact should be taken into account 
 in considering the position of the new sovereign. His 
 father gone great, in spite of his littleness there 
 seems to have been none near to whom Louis would 
 naturally have looked up. 
 
 From first to last he was indeed singularly unfor- 
 tunate in this respect. Few there were he could respect, 
 whom he could love. Whether or not, in chile}- 
 
230 The Making "of a King 
 
 hood, he loved his mother is difficult to determine. 
 Even between mother and son a barrier was interposed 
 by court etiquette. Signs of tenderness on her part 
 appear to have been rare, since Balzac was told by 
 a courtier that, during the four years covered by the 
 Regency, she had never once kissed him. The state- 
 ment may or may not have been accurate ; in any case 
 that it should have been credible is significant of the 
 terms existing between the two. True affection, how- 
 ever, may be combined with a minimum of demonstra- 
 tion, and it should be remembered that Henri would 
 charge his wife in jest, with being the least caressing of 
 women. Of her solicitude concerning her son's health 
 and safety there can be no question. He was constantly 
 under her own eye, and, from the time of his father's 
 murder, slept in her bedchamber. But she was a 
 stern woman, and the severity of her discipline, 
 coupled with the absence of signs of affection, was 
 not calculated to endear her to the victim. 
 
 With regard to others, it has been seen that Louis's 
 training at Saint-Germain had not been of a sort to 
 foster the habit of respect for lawful authority ; nor 
 in his relations with his gouverneur is much trace of 
 amendment to be found. If he yielded him obedience 
 it was rather because it was enforced by the rod than 
 from more worthy reasons ; and there were outbreaks 
 of insolence on the boy's part indicative of an under- 
 current of dislike kept in check by fear. Nor does 
 Souvre appear to have been a man to inspire respect. 
 It is true that the editors of Heroard's journal 
 point with satisfaction to his condemnation of a coarse 
 expression used by one of Louis's boy companions ; 
 
The King and his Qouoerneur 231 
 
 but though he may have been strict as to manners, 
 the nature of the influence he was likely to exert 
 in matters of taste and morality may be inferred 
 from a conversation on the subject of certain songs 
 the boy had caused to be sung to him ; the 
 gouverneur inquiring whether he had not called for 
 those commemorating his dead father's loves for the 
 Princesse de Conde and others. 
 
 " No," replied Louis, adding brusquely, pressed for 
 his reasons, " I do not like them." 
 
 He had an instinctive distaste singular when the 
 fashion of his bringing up and the customs of the day 
 are remembered for coarseness. 
 
 " Ouy les vilaines ! " he said, turning his back with 
 a look of anger on Concini, who had hazarded a jest 
 of the kind. " Serium et pudiceum responsum," wrote 
 Heroard approvingly, as he noted the occurrence. 
 
 If Souvre was not a man to fall into the mistake 
 made by the Italian in outraging his charge's natural 
 instincts of refinement, trifling incidents constantly 
 prove the unsatisfactory nature of their relationship. 
 Thus Louis is found taking a seat beside the gouverneur 
 with the sole object of forcing him, in deference to 
 court etiquette, to rise ; Souvre's irritation, on the 
 repetition of the trick, showing that he divined and 
 resented its motive. 
 
 " You have come to make me stand up," he told 
 the boy ; " but I shall not do it, for all that." 
 
 " You should not equal yourself to me," replied 
 Louis, loftily if inapropos. 
 
 " You have your hat on," he told Souvre sharply on 
 Another occasion. 
 
232 The Making of a King 
 
 " Yes, and I shall not take it off to you now," 
 answered the gouverneur^ with an undignified display 
 of temper. " It is not that I do not know what I owe 
 you, which is a thousand limes more. You can com- 
 plain to the Queen." 
 
 Frequently the same lack of cordiality is apparent. 
 
 c< One would have to be a great fool to believe 
 that,'* returned Louis, with contemptuous insolence, 
 when his inquiries as to Souvre's skill as a marksman 
 had elicited what sounded like a boast. Nor would 
 he, another time, mount his horse, lest the gouverneur 
 should ride his second nag. 
 
 If Souvre had failed to win the affections of his 
 charge, Louis displayed a certain liking for his tutor, 
 Des Yveteaux. Yet, though he may have condoned 
 his shortcomings, it would seem that he had detected 
 and taxed him with them ; for, put upon his defence, 
 the tutor is found observing, with manifest acrimony, 
 that though he might not be amongst the most learned, 
 neither was he common or vulgar, or he would not 
 have held his present position. 
 
 Saint- Simon asserts that the boy was kept purposely 
 ignorant. The charge is unsupported. As he grew 
 older, the Queen, anxious to retain the direction of 
 affairs, may have discouraged him from taking an 
 interest in serious business. But he was steadily, if not 
 rigorously, compelled to apply himself to his studies ; 
 and if Des Yveteaux was not a competent instructor, 
 it was Henri-Quatre, and not his wife, who had chosen 
 him for the post. 
 
 Looked at from almost any point of view, the fate 
 of a child who is an important asset in a great game of 
 
Childhood Shortened 233 
 
 hazard is a melancholy one. It was the obvious interest 
 of those in power to exclude from Louis's life all ties 
 of intimacy or affection liable to endanger their personal 
 supremacy in the future to narrow, in the words of 
 Saint-Simon, his prison and render him more and more 
 inaccessible to others. At the same time, and some- 
 what inconsistently, his childhood was relentlessly 
 shortened. He loved toys and playthings save in 
 the matter of hunting and painting he was, in the 
 words of a contemporary observer, " enfant, enfan- 
 tissime." Again and again Souvre is found reproaching 
 him with his childishness ; and on one occasion, reluc- 
 tantly assenting to the justice of the gouverneurs 
 reproofs, he made up his cherished possessions into a 
 package, to be handed over to his little brother. Childish 
 games were also, if not forbidden, discouraged by 
 Souvre, and Louis bowed to the decision. 
 
 " But one must do something," he added, rather 
 pitifully. " Tell me what to do, and I will do it." 
 
 This, it is true, was a year later ; but his father 
 was no sooner dead than it was the endeavour of 
 those in authority that he should leave childhood 
 behind. 
 
 " They want to make a man of him," reported the 
 Tuscan Secretary, Scipione Ammirato, " and as he has 
 many little children of his own age as companions, 
 they wish to remove them, which will annoy him very 
 much at first, as he has been used to amuse himself 
 with them." 
 
 Marie de Medicis, one would have thought, had little 
 reason to desire to curtail the period of her supremacy ; 
 she told him, one evening as he was being put to 
 
234 The Making- of a King 
 
 bed, that she wished she could pull out his arms and 
 legs so as to make him grow faster. 
 
 14 A quoi bon ? " answered Louis, with precocious 
 wisdom, " since my mind would not grow at the same 
 time." 
 
 Already he was treated as if his voice was of weight 
 in the conduct of affairs ; already, also, he was learning 
 caution in the expression of his opinion. The young 
 Due de Rohan, taking leave of him before joining the 
 forces sent with a show of carrying out the late King's 
 intentions to assist the Protestant princes in gaining 
 possession of Cleves and Juliers, asked for a message 
 to take to the Commander-in-Chief. 
 
 " Tell him to do the best he can," was the boy's 
 reply, wisely vague. 
 
 u But, Sire," persisted the questioner he was Sully's 
 son-in-law, and would have his heart in the fight " is 
 it your pleasure that he should give battle ? ' 
 
 Louis still refused to commit himself to a definite 
 opinion. 
 
 " Let him do the best he can," he repeated. 
 
 He may have shrewdly divined that his pleasure 
 would have little to do with the operations to be carried 
 on in the field. Clear-sighted and sagacious, in spite 
 of the incense habitually offered him, he was not 
 easily taken in by flattery. When his tutor in- 
 structed him, in courtly fashion, that, according to 
 Plato, the gods were above Kings in the same way 
 that Kings were above other men, he was quick to 
 point out the difference. 
 
 44 There is only one God," he answered sharply, 
 * c there are many Kings " ; and again, a passage in a 
 

 
 Louis's Dislike of Flattery 235 
 
 Roman newspaper having been read aloud to him com- 
 mending his own intelligence and gifts, he put the 
 suggestion that he should hear it a second time 
 impatiently aside. To himself words did not come 
 easily. " You know very well that I am not a great 
 talker " grand parleur he said, when M. de Souvre 
 would complain of his lack of admiration for what 
 was beautiful. 
 
 Of his rank, of his station, of the respect due to 
 him, he thought much ; there is no evidence that he 
 over-estimated himself personally ; and he detected, with 
 some humour, the emptiness of the outward tokens 
 of reverence paid him. He would rather have fewer 
 obeisances and not be whipped, he observed, corporal 
 punishment having been administered by his mother's 
 orders, the Queen afterwards receiving him with the 
 exaggerated signs of deference she never failed to 
 show. 
 
 Not only at Rome, but elsewhere, the gifts, character, 
 and tendencies of the little King were discussed with 
 interest by those they might in the future affect. 
 Cioli, the Florentine envoy, sent home minute accounts. 
 Though Louis might outwardly resemble his mother, 
 it was the Italian's opinion that he displayed a 
 likeness in other ways to his dead father. Heroard, 
 with more opportunities for forming a judgment, 
 thought the same. Yet, save in a boy's natural 
 leaning towards outdoor pursuits, hunting or hawking, 
 
 e absence of any inclination to idleness, his inde- 
 
 tigable energy, and a liking for warlike games 
 nd lead soldiers, it is difficult to see where the 
 
 milarity lay. 
 
236 The Making of a King 
 
 A certain dignity of demeanour, quiet and cold, 
 remarkable in so young a child, was certainly not 
 inherited from Henri-Quatre. He could show 
 himself capable of keeping order, and of making his 
 authority felt ; and voices having been unduly raised 
 in the presence-chamber on one occasion, he told 
 the nobles who filled it to make less noise, and his 
 command was obeyed. 
 
 " Eh bien / M. le Cardinal de Sourdis," he said 
 another time, his eminence, on entering, having made 
 obeisance only to the Queen, " you look upon me, then, 
 as a child ? " 
 
 Nor were these incidents mere accidents. A scene 
 taking place a year or two later shows that the tendency 
 they indicated was growing to be a settled purpose. 
 Souvre, when the boy was to go for a drive, had 
 inquired whom he wished to share his carriage ? 
 " The King makes no reply. Asked the same question 
 several times, still the same silence. M. de Souvre 
 says at last, < Sire, here is M. de la Force, captain of 
 the guard. Is it your pleasure that he should enter ? * 
 The King says not a word. ( Sire, the captains of 
 your guard used to do this in the time of the late 
 King, your father.' * They accustomed themselves to 
 do it, little by little. Little by little, I will make them 
 lose the habit.' ' Such was the boy's reply. 
 
 The anecdote presents him in a light contrasting 
 curiously with the careless friendliness of Henri's bear- 
 ing towards his servants ; though the line he took up in 
 this particular instance may have been partly explained 
 by the instinctive craving for a certain amount of 
 solitude which he had already shown. 
 
Louis's Affections 237 
 
 Like or unlike his father, the love he had borne 
 him was not quickly forgotten. More than a year 
 after Henri's death a year crowded with new interests 
 and excitement he was listening, with the Due de 
 Vendome, to music, a song alluding to the late King 
 having been chosen. At the words 
 
 Dessous la loi 
 D'un si grand roi 
 
 Louis turned away in tears. Vendome, too, was 
 weeping. 
 
 Notwithstanding his capacity for strong attachments, 
 he had hitherto displayed little preference for any 
 person about the Court, with the exception of the 
 younger Vendome brother. The Chevalier he loved, 
 and though, in the course of the summer following upon 
 his father's death, Alexandre was to have gone to join 
 his brother in Brittany, Louis wept so bitterly that the 
 arrangement was cancelled. His own little brothers 
 and sisters remained at Saint-Germain, and meetings 
 were comparatively rare. That he clung to the 
 memory of the childish years passed at the chateau 
 was shown when, one August day, a peasant lad 
 named Pierrot, with whom he had then been accus- 
 tomed to play, suddenly appeared at the Tuileries, 
 where Louis was standing, surrounded by courtiers, 
 watching the pond. 
 
 Pierrot, it seemed, had made his way from Saint- 
 Germain to Paris with the express purpose of visiting 
 " M. le Dauphin," and bringing him a gift of some 
 sparrows. Recognising his old playmate, Louis ran up 
 
 the boy, threw his arms round him and kissed him. 
 
238 The Making of a King 
 
 Proper clothes, he said, should be given him, and he 
 should remain at Court. The boy, however, declined 
 the proffered honour. He must go home ; otherwise 
 he would be beaten, for his father and mother had 
 not been willing that he should go to Paris to see 
 M. le Dauphin ; and Louis, who had doubtless hoped 
 to secure a playfellow, had no alternative but to let 
 him go. 
 
 Such was the boy a mixture of sagacity, precocious 
 knowledge of the world, reserve, pride, coldness, self- 
 consciousness, and childishness who, at eight years old, 
 was deprived of the guidance and authority of his 
 father, and left to the care of Marie de Medicis and 
 the counsellors she gathered about her. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 1610-11 
 
 Policy of the Government Unrest in Paris Concini dominant The 
 Duke de Feria's mission The King's coronation Louis and 
 Cond6 Sully's dismissal Rumours of war. 
 
 THE coronation of Louis XIII. was to take place 
 in October. Meantime the views of those ad- 
 ministering the government in his name were becoming 
 increasingly clear. Summoned to a meeting of the 
 secret council on a certain morning, Sully found a 
 debate going on well calculated to enlighten him, had 
 he needed enlightenment, as to what the future had in 
 store. The question at issue had reference to the 
 course to be pursued towards Savoy. That State, in 
 consequence of the persuasions of the late King, and 
 relying upon his support, had taken the step of declaring 
 openly against Spain, and Sully now expressed himself, 
 with uncompromising directness, as to the duty of France 
 towards her ally. The conception of the Queen and 
 her other counsellors of that duty did not coincide with 
 his. The matter, Marie informed him, had been under 
 discussion, and she, with those present, had determined 
 that, care being taken not to destroy the hopes of 
 the Duke of Savoy until the proper moment, an 
 :tempt should be made to establish peaceful relations 
 r ith Spain by means of the double marriage. 
 
 239 
 
240 The Making of a King 
 
 It was more natural than prudent that, to this 
 exposition of a nascent policy so wholly at variance 
 with his dead master's views, as well as with his loyal 
 and straightforward methods,Sully should have at first 
 merely replied by a shrug of his shoulders. Pressed 
 to speak by the Queen, he repeated his opinion that 
 good faith should be kept with Savoy. But the time 
 was past when either a shrug of the shoulders or 
 reasoned arguments on the part of Sully would avail to 
 alter the course of events. 
 
 In the meantime Paris was pervaded by a spirit of 
 uneasiness and unrest. Everybody was alarmed. No 
 one could precisely specify their cause of fear. The 
 weak-minded were once again terrified by vague 
 prophecies of coming catastrophes. The Paris militia 
 was placed under arms, the palace was closely guarded. 
 The Princes of the Blood rode through the streets 
 strongly escorted. Some people apprehended a fresh 
 St. Bartholomew. Bouillon believed, or affected to 
 believe, that it was necessary for his safety to sleep 
 under Conde's roof. Sully had hundreds of armed 
 men at hand in case of need. 
 
 Whilst the citizens of Paris had been eager to give 
 proof of their loyalty towards the son of their dead 
 King, other classes of the community had been more 
 remiss. Conde was popular at the moment, and nobles 
 and courtiers showed so great a disposition to attach 
 themselves by preference to the royal Princes that it 
 was observed that the King was, in comparison, thinly 
 attended a state of things his mother set herself at 
 once, with success, to remedy. It was essential to 
 maintain the prestige of the Crown. 
 
Concini's Advancement 241 
 
 Concini's power and influence was becoming more 
 and more apparent as the weeks of that hot summer 
 went by. His ambition, it was true, was more personal 
 than political. He wanted power ; he wanted perhaps 
 more money. Therefore he wished the Queen to 
 have her way ; he was jealous of any one who could 
 be suspected of exercising a counter-influence, either 
 over her or the little King. The great issues at stake, 
 the destinies of France or of Europe, were of minor 
 importance. 
 
 At present there was no one who could compete 
 with him, or rather, with him and his wife. His 
 position had been secured by his admission into 
 the Council of State, at which his attendance had 
 hitherto been of an informal character ; in August he 
 was to become Marquis d'Ancre, and was, further, 
 to obtain the government of Peronne, Roye, and 
 Montdidier. He had, indeed, aspired to the charge 
 of Calais, but there were difficulties in the way. A 
 claimant with a better right to the post, and determined 
 not to abandon it to a foreign adventurer, stated openly 
 that he would first perform his religious duties and 
 then proceed to kill Concini, were he to find him in 
 the Queen's arms. Marie took the hint; the important 
 post was not entrusted to her favourite. 
 
 Though, however, the Italian might be said to have 
 no friends in France save the Queen, there were few 
 who, at this juncture, did not consider it necessary to 
 disguise their hatred. The King's minority would not 
 last for ever ; and, apart from this, history had taught 
 those astute enough to learn patience from it that 
 the prosperity of a favourite is not likely to be 
 
 16 
 
242 The Making of a King 
 
 prolonged. It was, therefore, safest to dissemble and 
 to await developments. 
 
 If the rule of a Regent was, by the nature of things, 
 temporary, its consequences rtfight be made lasting, and 
 from the first it was the Queen's endeavour to lay the 
 foundations of that alliance with Spain upon which she 
 had been always bent. When, in September, the Duke 
 de Feria arrived from Spain as Envoy-extraordinary, 
 entrusted with the duty of presenting the belated 
 condolences of his master upon the late King's murder, 
 nothing was wanting on her part to do him honour. 
 By the public the guest was regarded with mingled 
 feelings. The choice of the Ambassador had not been 
 fortunate, so far as Parisian sentiment was concerned, 
 and Lestoile remembered, and so did doubtless others, 
 that Feria was son to the Duke of that name who had 
 commanded the Spanish troops at the time of the 
 League, and had been expelled by Henri from the city. 
 Crowds, nevertheless, love pageants, and the envoy's 
 entry was greeted with acclamation. From Concini's 
 house Marie de Medicis watched the procession in 
 person, herself unseen, the favourite being deputed to 
 wait upon the Duke and to make him welcome 
 upon her behalf. 
 
 It was true that, to the uninitiated, it may have 
 seemed singular that a person no higher in rank than 
 the " Sieur Concini " had been chosen to represent 
 Marie de Medicis upon so important an occasion, but 
 an inquiry from one of the new-comers elicited from 
 the resident Spanish Ambassador a full explanation of 
 the situation. Concini was, he informed his country- 
 man, the Queen's major-domo, her chief courtier, the 
 
The Duke de Feria 243 
 
 man she favoured and heaped with benefits. " In 
 short," he ended, " he is her Duke of Lerma. What 
 can I say more ? " proceeding to dwell upon the 
 necessity of showing every courtesy to the favourite. 
 
 On September 1 1 the audience of the Duke took 
 place. On the preceding day a Spaniard belonging to 
 his suite had paid Louis a more informal visit ; when 
 the boy, not without a suggestion of malice, had selected 
 as a subject of conversation the recent capture of Juliers 
 by the allied Powers, displaying to his guest a map of 
 the town, and pointing out the disposition of the several 
 forces. Lestoile was no doubt repeating the current 
 gossip when, comparing the King's conduct towards 
 the Spanish and English envoys, he observed that he 
 seemed to have sucked in hatred of Spain with the 
 milk from the breast. 
 
 In the speech Louis made at the State reception of the 
 envoy the same hint of an undercurrent of unfriendli- 
 ness might be detected. Greeting the Duke in the 
 presence of a crowd of nobles and courtiers, he begged 
 that he would assure his master that he would entertain 
 for him "the same affection as the late King his father." 
 On this occasion, as on others of the like kind, the 
 dignity and self-possession of the child of eight appears 
 to have struck the foreigners, no less than his own 
 countrymen, with surprise, and if Louis and all present 
 were aware that Henri had ever hated Spain, no 
 exception could be taken to the ambiguous terms of 
 his speech. 
 
 To the Parisians, traditionally hostile to Spain, the 
 supposed animosity of their boy-King to that country 
 was dear, and the evidences of it were eagerly reported. 
 
244 The Making of "a King 
 
 Amongst the stories current was one which told how, 
 finding Louis pensive, Pere Cotton had asked him the 
 reason. 
 
 "I shall take care not to* tell it to you," the child 
 was said to have answered, " for you would write it 
 to Spain at once." 
 
 The reply was too significant to be overlooked ; and 
 Cotton, repeating it to the Queen, complained that her 
 son was being prejudiced by those about him against 
 the Society. Rebuked by his mother, Louis remained 
 impenitent, if not defiant, observing that he would 
 not always be little, and that it might afterwards be 
 remembered how he had been reprimanded. It is 
 not recorded how the Queen received what sounded 
 like a menace. She may afterwards have recalled it. 
 
 The date fixed for the coronation was approaching. 
 It was to take place at Rheims, with the customary 
 solemnities. There was a lull in the struggle between 
 the rival claimants for place and power, and the 
 function was to be graced by the presence of all the 
 nobles and princes of importance in the realm, save 
 those whose duties detained them elsewhere. 
 
 " You will witness," Marie boasted to the Tuscan 
 envoy, "what you have never yet seen, and what I 
 shall never care to see again." 
 
 Louis was impatient for the ceremony in which he 
 was to play the leading part. Speaking of his mother's 
 Sacre, he complained that at Saint-Denis the worst 
 lodging had been allotted to him, that his apartment 
 had included a well and a cellar, and that a stable 
 and a duck-pond had been below it. There was no 
 danger that he would suffer these indignities now. 
 
Louis's Coronation 245 
 
 Wherever he might go, he was a personage of 
 importance, and was treated as such. He will have 
 appreciated the change. Yet his position must often 
 have entailed weariness and fatigue. The long journey 
 towards Rheims had been begun on October 2 ; and, 
 as the Court proceeded on its way, the Queen once 
 asked the boy whether he would undertake it again 
 for a second coronation. 
 
 " Yes, Madame," answered Louis readily ; " for 
 another kingdom, not otherwise." 
 
 During the days passed at Rheims and in the intervals 
 of more serious avocations, a healthy survival of child- 
 hood a childhood those around him were doing their 
 best to crush is at times apparent, alternating with 
 attention to religious rites and to the duties belonging 
 to his station. He listens patiently to the harangues 
 greeting his arrival in the Norman city ; is confirmed 
 on the eve of his coronation by the Cardinal de 
 Joyeuse ; and that same afternoon " enfant en- 
 fantissime " plays at horses with his boy companions, 
 driving them, harnessed, before him. 
 
 At the coronation ceremony lasting two hours and 
 a quarter he conducted himself, on the whole, " fort 
 vertueusement." But ebullitions of boyish spirits 
 nevertheless broke out. The anointing over, he 
 was undergoing the ordeal of being kissed by each 
 peer, and, discerning a familiar face, bestowed a gay 
 little box on the ear to the Due d'Elbeuf ; and again 
 varied the solemnity of the scene by an attempt to tread 
 upon the train of the Marechal de la Chatre as he 
 preceded him up the church. When Epernon, on the 
 other hand, offered him the prescribed salute, he was 
 
246 The Making of a King 
 
 observed and those who distrusted the Duke took 
 note of it to raise both hands to steady the crown 
 upon his head. 
 
 At last the long rite was over and, put to bed that 
 he might rest, France's anointed sovereign lay contentedly 
 playing with his favourite lead soldiers and fashioning 
 engines out of cards. 
 
 Other functions followed. Made a Knight of the 
 Holy Ghost, he admitted, in his turn, the Prince de 
 Conde into the Order. On October 19 the journey 
 homewards was begun, and two days later, at Saint- 
 Marcoul, he performed the distasteful duty of touching 
 nine hundred sick for the King's Evil. The days when 
 he had refused to replace his father in washing the feet 
 of the poor were gone by. He accomplished his 
 present task steadily and dexterously, turning a little 
 pale as the work proceeded, but refusing to admit 
 that he was weary. 
 
 At nightfall on October 30 Paris was reached, the 
 King's first entry into his capital being greeted by a 
 hundred salutes from a hundred cannon, as, a gallant 
 little scarlet-clad figure, " stately and bold," he rode on 
 his great white horse through the torch-lit streets. 
 
 Amongst the great officers and servants of the 
 Crown one place had been empty. Sully had not 
 assisted at the coronation of his master's son. Illness 
 was the ostensible cause of his absence ; but, though 
 this was no mere pretext, other reasons had contributed 
 to make him crave permission of the Queen to visit 
 his own estates rather than accompany the Court to 
 Rheims. He was, in fact, contemplating retirement 
 from public life, so long as the present condition of 
 
The King and Condi 247 
 
 affairs should last one giving him no hope of exer- 
 cising a beneficial influence. The time, however, was 
 not yet come when he could be spared, and pressure 
 was successfully brought upon him by the Queen to 
 induce him to resume his duties at Paris. It was not 
 until the following January that he finally abandoned 
 his post. 
 
 Meanwhile the autumn was occupied by incessant 
 struggles between the Princes of the Blood, at variance 
 with each other as well as with the great house of 
 Lorraine, each claiming the pre-eminence such pre- 
 eminence as could be hoped for, Marie being 
 Regent and a foreign adventurer directing the per- 
 formance from behind the scenes. How much Louis 
 understood of what was going forward is uncertain. 
 "The King," observes Heroard, "listens to every- 
 thing, remembers everything, knows everything, and 
 gives no sign of it." Perhaps Heroard was right ; 
 Louis, as he said himself, was not " grand parleur." 
 A scene taking place in January, graphically described 
 by the physician, may indicate that he was on the 
 watch for an absence of respect on the part of Conde, 
 one of the chief offenders in the matters in dispute. 
 
 A meeting was being held in the Queen's private 
 cabinet, with a view of adjusting the differences be- 
 tween the Princes, when the first Prince of the Blood 
 entered brusquely and with no sign of deference. 
 Covering himself at once, with no special salutation 
 to the King, he took a seat, and addressed M. de 
 Bouillon. The King went to M. de Souvre, and 
 indignantly complained. 
 
 " Mousseu de Souvre," he said, " Look, look at 
 
248 The Making of a King 
 
 Mousseu le Prince. He has seated himself in my 
 presence ; he is insolent." 
 
 " Sire," replied M. de Souvre soothingly, " it is that 
 he is speaking to M. de Bouillon, and does not see 
 you." 
 
 The King was not content with the excuse. 
 
 " I will go and place myself near him," he said, 
 <c and see if he rises." 
 
 The test was applied. Conde retained his seat, 
 disregarding the approach of the sovereign. Louis 
 returned to the gouverneur. 
 
 " You saw that he did not rise ? " he asked. " He 
 is very insolent." 
 
 Signs were not wanting that the boy was growing 
 older. His life was one to foster rapid develop- 
 ment. Already the thought of the impression he 
 would make weighed upon him. Retiring to his private 
 room to play with his " little toy-men," he would 
 forbid his attendants to mention his occupation ; and, 
 more than once, when he considered that his slumbers 
 had been unduly protracted, he would complain, almost 
 with tears, of having been allowed to sleep so long ; 
 it would be said that he was lazy. 
 
 More significant was his bearing when told that 
 Sully it will be remembered he had never shown any 
 liking for him was in January deprived of his posts. 
 Louis was manifestly disturbed. 
 
 " They have taken away the finances from M. de 
 Sully ? " he asked his gouverneur. 
 
 " Yes, Sire," was the reply. 
 
 " Why ? " he inquired, with a startled air. 
 
 " I am ignorant of the reasons," answered Souvre 
 
Sally's Dismissal 249 
 
 discreetly. " But the Queen has not done it without 
 much cause, as she always acts after great considera- 
 tion. Are you sorry ? " 
 
 " Yes," answered Louis laconically. 
 
 He may have remembered that the minister had 
 been his father's friend. He may, with a child's 
 instinct, have divined that he was more true and loyal 
 and wise than the courtiers who treated him with 
 flattery and adulation. The expression of regret is, 
 in any case, in curious contradiction to the dislike he 
 had displayed towards the Duke in former days. 
 
 If the King had more cause than he knew to be 
 " marri," there were singularly few who shared his 
 sentiments. Sully was hated on all hands. The 
 roughness of his manners and bearing, amounting to 
 positive discourtesy, the duties appertaining to his 
 office, his State economies, the necessity of constantly 
 opposing obstacles to rapacity and ambition, combined 
 with the favour shown him by the late King, to render 
 him odious ; the fact that, in serving his master, he had 
 not omitted to serve himself, and had amassed, though 
 with the King's knowledge, an enormous fortune, 
 adding an edge, comprehensible if not justifiable, to the 
 animosity of his enemies. 
 
 Into the causes of his fall, the rivalries and intrigues 
 at work to ensure it, it is not necessary to enter. To 
 have remained at his post under the changed circum- 
 stances would have been, sooner or later, an impossi- 
 bility, unless he had been prepared to buy office by an 
 absolute sacrifice of principle. The man who had been 
 Henri's friend and confidant, and had shared his views 
 and projects, foreign and domestic, could not act as 
 
25 The Making of a" King 
 
 the instrument of a government aiming at a reversal, 
 in almost every respect, of the policy of the late reign. 
 
 Marie told Richelieu, it is true, and Richelieu 
 believed, or pretended to belieVe, that Henri, wearying 
 at length of Sully's ill-temper and perversity, had 
 contemplated at the time of his death his removal from 
 the management of the finances ; and it has been seen 
 that Malherbe described a quarrel which had for a brief 
 moment raised the hopes of the minister's foes. But 
 that Henri seriously intended his dismissal is incon- 
 ceivable. The cloud, whether it was that alluded to 
 by the poet or another, would have been dispersed ; a 
 storm, as often before, would have cleared the air, and 
 the statesman would have retained both his post and 
 the affection of the King. It is also abundantly clear 
 that, up to the very last, the two were on confidential 
 terms. Marie's interest was, however, to make it 
 appear that she had done no more than carry out her 
 husband's intention in dispensing with the services of 
 the man he trusted most. 
 
 The parting took place ostensibly on terms of amity. 
 A farewell gift of 300,000 crowns was presented to 
 the Duke ; and, though deprived of the charge of the 
 finances and the Bastille, he retained the governorship 
 of Poitou and other subordinate posts. Nevertheless, 
 to a man of his powers, and accustomed to exercise 
 them, his forced withdrawal from public life could 
 not be otherwise than bitter. 
 
 " I know of no one capable of doing what I have 
 done," he told Elb&ne, the Queen's maitre d' hot el. 
 The statement could not have been controverted ; but 
 of his services Louis was to be deprived. 
 
War Possible 251 
 
 The public, looking on, drew its own conclusions as 
 to the causes dictating the minister's dismissal. Of 
 those conclusions a placard affixed to the Arsenal is 
 an indication : " A house to be let for the Easter 
 quarter " thus it ran " apply to the Marquis d'Ancre, 
 at the Faubourg Saint-Germain." 
 
 The Queen might have hesitated to deprive herself 
 of the services of so practised and skilled a financier. 
 Yet, the step once taken, his absence must have been 
 a relief; for she could not doubt that she would 
 find him irreconcilably opposed to the scheme she had 
 most at heart namely, the Spanish marriages and 
 alliance. Through all the months which had elapsed 
 since Henri's death negotiations, proposals, counter- 
 proposals, had gone on, Spain now hanging back, now 
 showing herself fully prepared to fall in with the 
 project. The chief obstacle in the way had been 
 Savoy. Promised by the late King the hand of his 
 eldest daughter for his heir, the Duke protested in 
 vain against the breach of faith in contemplation. 
 But, though indignant, he was helpless. At one 
 moment, indeed, war. had appeared possible. Savoyard 
 troops had menaced Geneva, whose existence as an 
 independent republic had been guaranteed by the 
 treaties of Vervins and Lyons. The Queen talked of 
 taking her son to the latter city, where, should hostilities 
 ensue, his presence with the army would have obviated 
 the* necessity of entrusting its command to Conde. 
 
 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 
 
252 The Making of a' King 
 
 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 1 6 1 1 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 develop- 
 ment, 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 kaleido- 
 scope, 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 
 
 253 
 
254 The Making of a King 
 
 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 fur- 
 nished 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 pre- 
 dominant 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 
 
Louis's Tutors 255 
 
 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 bitter- 
 ness 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 in- 
 fluence 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 
 
256 The Making of a King 
 
 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 intro- 
 duced 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 un- 
 justified. The preceptor was clearly at the end of his 
 patience. 
 
 Louis had a special distaste for the lengthy sermons 
 
Prolonged Devotions 257 
 
 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, 161 1, 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 head- 
 quarters 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 
 
 17 
 
258 The Making of a King 
 
 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 en- 
 treated 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 
 
Departure of the Chevalier 259 
 
 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. 
 
260 The Making of a King 
 
 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 aban- 
 doned, 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 Am- 
 bassador 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 
 
Death of the Due d'Orleans 261 
 
 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. 
 
 The end can have taken few by surprise. Visiting 
 the Louvre after Louis's coronation, Sully had found 
 all the royal children at the palace, a each, according to 
 their age, receiving him very well and with great 
 caresses." On his return to the Arsenal, he had pre- 
 dicted, tears in his eyes, that his master's second son 
 would not live long. 
 
 None of the children had lately been well ; and 
 Marie had conceived the idea of bringing the younger 
 ones to the Luxembourg, where they would be to a 
 greater extent under her own eye, and in the hope that 
 change of air would prove beneficial. She was herself, 
 with Louis, at Saint-Germain when little Orleans's short 
 life came to an end. 
 
 Louis had started from Paris, on November 14, in 
 high spirits, prepared to display his new accomplish- 
 ments to an admiring feminine circle. 
 
 My sisters," he told Heroard, " will be very glad 
 
262 The Making of 3 King 
 
 to see me shoot with the arquebus. . . . Mamanga will 
 ask M. de Souvre how he can allow me to shoot, and 
 will go and say so to the Queen, my mother." 
 
 By the time he reached fhe chateau his brother's 
 condition was already causing anxiety. The Duke had 
 been suffering from slight convulsions, accompanied by 
 a species of lethargy. Waking, however, he responded 
 to Louis's greeting with ready courtesy and the respect 
 ever shown to the elder brother. 
 
 " Good-night, mon petit papa" he said, " you do me 
 too much honour in taking the trouble to come and 
 
 see me." 
 
 Bursting into tears, Louis left the room. It was the 
 brothers' last meeting. 
 
 " Is there no means of saving him ? " the King 
 asked M. de Souvre the following day. 
 
 The gouverneurs answer was not reassuring. The 
 doctors were doing all they could. The King must 
 pray. 
 
 Louis was ready and willing. But was there nothing 
 else to be done ? he persisted anxiously. 
 
 A votive offering to our Lady of Loretto, taking 
 the form of a silver image of the height of the sick 
 child, was suggested. Louis caught at the idea. 
 
 "Send to Paris at once," he ordered; "let them 
 make haste" ; then fell, with tears, to saying his 
 prayers. 
 
 On the night of November 16, the King, waking at 
 one o'clock, asked for news of his brother ; then not 
 being informed that all was over slept again. Almost 
 at that very hour the child had passed away. " A 
 short time before," records Heroard, " he said that he 
 
Death of the Due d'Orleans 263 
 
 had seen in a dream an angel, who told him that 
 his good papa wished to see him, and that he would 
 see him soon. { Je 1'embrasserai si fort,' he said 
 gaily." 
 
 Henri-Quatre was not forgotten by his children. 
 
 When the news was broken by Concini to Louis 
 on the following morning he received it with manifest 
 distress and loss of colour. Then, with a child's im- 
 patience of grief, he tried his best to amuse himself, 
 begging M. de Souvre to ask the Queen not to insist 
 upon his sprinkling the body with holy-water. The 
 ceremonies and the horror attending his father's death 
 were not obliterated from his memory, nor was it 
 without reluctance that he was induced to occupy the 
 great chamber at the Louvre where he had seen 
 Henri lying dead. 
 
 To what degree the Queen would be inconsolable 
 for the loss of her son God alone knew, wrote the 
 Tuscan Secretary, Ammirato, whether using the words 
 equivocally or not. Richelieu, writing of the event 
 at a later date, mentions that he had been told that, 
 on a former occasion, Marie had been so little moved 
 by a serious illness of the Duke's that Henri always 
 an anxious father had considered it strange, and had 
 taxed her with lack of affection for her children. The 
 difference now, observed the Cardinal easily, was that 
 the child's life was more essential to her interests, 
 since by her husband's death she was debarred from 
 having other sons. Richelieu was perhaps right, and 
 political exigencies may have increased the Queen's 
 sorrow. But it is more charitable to believe that 
 Marie was not by temperament an anxious woman, 
 
264 The Making of a King 
 
 and that notwithstanding the Duke's delicacy, she 
 had never contemplated the contingency of his death. 
 
 Yet it is singular to note the absence of pomp and 
 ceremony with which the nameless child he had not 
 yet received public baptism who was yet next heir 
 to the throne, was laid to rest in Saint-Denis, his 
 " petit papa " being apparently not present at the 
 funeral. The fact that it was taking place may have 
 been withheld from the boy, with a view of sparing 
 him emotion ; for in the record of the day no 
 trace is to be discerned of any consciousness on his 
 part of what was going forward ; and the contrast 
 is a singular one between the one brother, carried 
 to his grave with bare decorum, and the other lying 
 contentedly in bed playing with his favourite toys, 
 whilst music was performed in his chamber. It is 
 true that his pleasure was alloyed by the entrance 
 of the Cardinal de Gonzaga, come to listen to the 
 songs. Regard for his dignity constrained the King 
 to relinquish his playthings so long as the Cardinal 
 was present, returning with open delight to his 
 miniature cannon when the visitor had withdrawn. 
 So ended the burial day. On the next, Louis " gave 
 audience to five ambassadors on his brother's decease." 
 Another scene, also connected with the dead child, 
 is half-piteous, half-comic ; when his baby affianced- 
 bride, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, for whose hand 
 suitors were contending, was brought to visit the 
 Queen, clad in a widow's deep mourning. Touched 
 and compassionate, Marie dispensed her from the 
 necessity of wearing her weeds ; promising, besides, 
 that Anjou should take his brother's place, though 
 

 Ge front, ces jeux sereins, a e maiejle rempli.s, , 
 
 Gmpo^edenT le coewrlu Mmartpede-pmce. 
 
 ^s prwuttint mm jour, no: s^vceux aaorrwlis, 
 
 <T\ J 11 1 .A ^ .o V_J ' 
 
 JjeceMarj ef demons', naisfniJw.stre esperancL, 
 
 " *~ *~ ' ~~ -* 
 
 r . *i^r ^ 
 
 From an engraving by N. de Mathonier. 
 
 p. 264] 
 
 ANNE OF AUSTRIA. 
 
The Spanish Marriages arranged 265 
 
 confessing that she was unable to guarantee that he 
 would treat her with as much respect. Orleans had 
 never presumed to kiss her without first asking per- 
 mission. Anjou, his mother feared, would not at 
 three years old be equally discreet. 
 
 By the middle of December the great wish of 
 Marie's heart was granted, and the double Spanish 
 marriages were definitely arranged. Some discussion 
 took place as to the date at which the Infanta and 
 Madame were to be exchanged, the Queen pleading 
 that the fact that Anne was motherless was a 
 reason for hastening, rather than retarding, her trans- 
 ference to France, where she herself would act the 
 part of a mother. But Philip declined to part with 
 his daughter till, in two years' time, she should have 
 completed at least her twelfth year, and Marie was 
 fain to be content. 
 
 The Princes of the Blood on their return to Paris, 
 from which they had absented themselves, were less 
 so. The affair had been settled without their advice 
 or concurrence ; and, though they were not in a 
 position to oppose the arrangement openly, it was 
 another item added to their reckoning against the 
 Regent. More and more they stood over against 
 her, a hostile and menacing force. 
 
 " M. le Chancelier," said Louis one day, as, alert 
 and suspicious, he watched his mother and Conde in 
 conversation, and drew his conclusions from her 
 changing colour and the Prince's gestures, " M. le 
 Prince is chiding the Queen, my mother. It should 
 not be endured. I will not have it." 
 
 Neither did he respond with cordiality when his 
 
266 The Making of a King 
 
 cousins showed a desire to deal with him directly, 
 and not through untrustworthy channels. Taking 
 him apart one day, Conde bade him not to believe 
 that the Princes of his own blood had any thought 
 of carrying him off a report of the kind appearing 
 to have been in circulation. To risk their lives for 
 him was their sole desire. 
 
 Louis received the protestation coldly. 
 
 c< Je ne m'en soucie pas," he said ungraciously. 
 
 If there was little chance that he would be disposed 
 to attach himself to the party led by the Princes, 
 another danger, as yet unsuspected, was preparing. 
 About this time a scene is recorded, trifling in 
 itself, yet not unimportant when interpreted by the 
 light of future events. 
 
 Louis lay half-asleep and dreaming. 
 
 " Ho, how beautiful . . . how beautiful, is the 
 lure ! . . . the lure ! . . . Luynes . . . Luynes," he 
 murmured between sleeping and waking. 
 
 Charles d' Albert, Seigneur de Luynes, was the 
 King's falconer. He was to become, as many would 
 know to their cost, his favourite. The manner of 
 his obtaining the post which was the first rung of 
 the ladder is curious ; the very means taken to obviate 
 the danger of the King's contracting an inconvenient 
 affection having led to the connection that proved in 
 the end fatal to his mother's sway. 
 
 Knowing Louis's passion for falconry, it had occurred 
 to the younger Vitry, now captain of the guard in 
 his father's place, and to a comrade of his, de la 
 Curee, that could a dependent of their own be ap- 
 pointed to take charge of the King's birds, hitherto 
 
The Promotion of Luyncs 267 
 
 under the care of a mere servant, it would prove to 
 their interest. Having selected a guardsman skilled 
 in the art as their candidate, they took the oppor- 
 tunity when, dinner ended, Louis was almost alone, 
 to suggest to him, in a low voice, that it was not 
 fitting that his hawks should remain in the hands of 
 a peasant, and, reminding him of instances of their 
 protege's skill, recommended him for the post. The 
 King listened favourably, though, according to his 
 wont, committing himself to no decided opinion. All 
 might have gone according to their wishes had not a 
 young attendant of Louis's, Fontenay by name, over- 
 heard the conversation, and, having taken counsel with 
 the son and nephew of Souvre just then ill and con- 
 fined to his bed hurried to thegouverneur, and disclosed 
 to him what was going forward. Fontenay suggested 
 further that, instead of the proposed soldier, who was 
 believed to be in the interest of the Concini party, 
 Luynes would be a fit person to minister to the 
 King's pleasure, and, owing his appointment to Souvre, 
 would be likely to show himself grateful. Souvre 
 fully concurred ; Luynes was put forward, and, 
 Louis having a liking for him, placed him at once 
 in his new post. Into no one's imagination had it 
 entered as a possibility that Luynes, thirty-five years of 
 age and possessed of no remarkable intelligence, would 
 become a favourite, and all was considered to have 
 been put on a safe and satisfactory footing, the King's 
 " oiseaux de cabinet " so called because he always 
 kept some of them in his apartments and to distinguish 
 them from those belonging to the Grand Falconer's 
 charge remaining under the care of his new attendant, 
 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 1612 
 
 The year 1612 The Spanish marriages finally arranged Truce with 
 the Princes Signature of the marriage contracts The Due de 
 Bellegarde and the magic mirror Death of the Comte de Soissons 
 Louis in disgrace. 
 
 THERE is little to distinguish the year 1612, in its 
 main features, from what had preceded it. The 
 same passions were at work, the same motives con- 
 tinued to direct conduct. Fresh cabals were formed, 
 one combination replaced another : that was all. If 
 a difference is discernible it is chiefly that the ascendancy 
 of the Marquis d'Ancre and his wife was not so 
 complete and uninterrupted as before, and that upon 
 occasion the Queen vindicated her independence by 
 a refusal to act upon Concini's advice. Upon the 
 whole, however, he and his wife continued to be 
 the most powerful factors at Court. When the Marquis 
 seemed to have fallen into temporary disgrace, sceptical 
 observers questioned whether the reality corresponded 
 to the outward appearance. 
 
 The Comte de Soissons, until his death towards the 
 end of the year, supplied a constant cause of disquiet 
 to the Government. His restless ambition forbade 
 him to remain content with the concessions he obtained ; 
 
 268 
 
The Spanish Marriages 269 
 
 his position being further strengthened by the league 
 uniting him and Conde, and by intrigues he carried on 
 with d'Ancre. Any sympathy that might have been 
 felt for the great French nobles in their resistance of 
 foreign influence is destroyed by the readiness they 
 testified to make terms with the enemy when it was 
 their personal interest to do so. 
 
 During the spring the Regent's supreme desire was 
 accomplished, and the Spanish marriages were finally 
 settled. On January 26, in a speech from the Chancellor, 
 the announcement was made to the assembled Council, 
 consisting of the Princes of the Blood and the officers 
 of the Crown. Save by Conde and Soissons, no dis- 
 sentient voice was raised, but the attitude of the two 
 was at once made clear. 
 
 " Mon frere," said Soissons, turning to his cousin, 
 u what do you think of this kind of Council ? See 
 what account is made of us, and how we are 
 treated ! " 
 
 The Queen, overhearing, as she was meant to over- 
 hear, the words, was observed to flush, and would 
 have replied. The Chancellor, however, interposed 
 to prevent it, and nothing further passed on the sub- 
 ject. Whether the Princes approved or not, it was 
 clear that the Regent did not intend to be turned from 
 her purpose ; and two months later, on March 25, in 
 the absence of both Conde and Soissons, the necessary 
 preliminaries were gone through and Don Innigo de 
 Cardenas, Spanish Ambassador, formally recognised 
 Madame as Princess of Spain. 
 
 Everything had been done to lend importance to 
 the occasion. The Court was present, with the officers 
 
 
 
270 The Making of 'a King 
 
 of the Crown, the Marshals of France, and many pre- 
 lates. Madame, dressed in the Spanish fashion, wore 
 a gown of cloth of silver, embroidered in gold ; the 
 King was also dressed in gold and silver. Kneeling 
 before little Elizabeth, Cardenas rendered her the 
 homage due to the bride of his Prince. In the sight 
 of the entire Court the conclusion of the affair was 
 declared. 
 
 The announcement was made in another fashion to 
 the general public. Carousels, entertainments, festi- 
 vities of all kinds, illuminations and fireworks, celebrated 
 the betrothal of the King ; and Louis, wherever he 
 appeared, was greeted with enthusiastic acclamation. 
 The man in the street might not, on reflection, approve 
 of the implied reversal of the late King's foreign policy, 
 but he loved amusement, and nothing so magnificent 
 had ever been witnessed in Paris. " Night was turned 
 into day, darkness into light, and the streets into 
 amphitheatres." 
 
 The Princes of the Blood did not share in the 
 festivities. If not categorically refusing their consent 
 to the marriages, they had betaken themselves, sulking, 
 to the provinces. Conde had refused to return ; 
 Soissons, saying that he intended to spend Easter at 
 his own castle at Dreux, promised vaguely to render 
 obedience later on to the King's summons. The fact 
 that the two were together was not reassuring to the 
 Government ; and, though resolute in her determina- 
 tion to hold her own and to withstand the extravagant 
 demands which the Comte de Soissons, in particular, 
 was always making, the Queen thought it well to 
 attempt a policy of conciliation. The Marquis 
 
Rival Forces 271 
 
 d'Ancre was therefore sent to visit the Count on her 
 behalf; the ministerial party, opposed to the favourite 
 and distrustful of his methods, deputing Villeroy to 
 share his mission and to keep watch over his pro- 
 ceedings. 
 
 At the time when Villeroy was to start it appears 
 that the Regent was, for some reason, ill content with 
 the Parlement ; since to his inquiry as to when he was 
 to leave Paris she replied sharply that it would be so 
 soon as that body had executed her commands. 
 
 " Madame," said the King, overhearing what was 
 said, and confident of his own powers of persuasion, 
 " Madame, tell them to assemble, and send me to 
 them. They will not refuse me." 
 
 The Queen may have acted on the suggestion. At 
 all events, Villeroy started on his mission with d'Ancre ; 
 and the two were so far successful that a species of 
 treaty was concluded with the Princes. The Regent 
 engaged to abstain from taking action for the future 
 without their consent and promised to each the posses- 
 sion of a stronghold in their governments ; they con- 
 sented to return to the capital and to renew amicable 
 relations with the Queen. By a private arrangement 
 between d'Ancre and Soissons both were further 
 pledged to do what lay in their power to abase the 
 ministerial party, and though all must have known 
 that the reconciliation of the Regent and the Princes 
 was a hollow one, the alliance was likely to continue 
 so long as the favourite could hope by its means to 
 compass the ruin of his enemies. 
 
 Meanwhile peace was ostensibly restored. On Ascen- 
 sion Day Conde and Soissons rode into Paris, escorted 
 
272 The Making of a King 
 
 by some seven or eight thousand horsemen, and, in the 
 absence of the King and Queen, paid their respects to 
 the two youngest representatives of the royal family, 
 Gaston and Henriette, at the Louvre. Soon after- 
 wards they repaired to Fontainebleau, where the Court 
 was residing, and gave formal consent to the Spanish 
 marriages. The last obstacle in the way of the Queen's 
 cherished project was removed. Young Mayenne 
 the loyal old Duke was dead was dispatched, with a 
 brilliant retinue, to conclude the betrothal at Madrid, 
 and the Duke of Pastrana was expected to arrive, 
 with a similar object, in Paris. By August all 
 measures had been taken to seal, so far as marriage 
 was concerned, Louis's fate. 
 
 The boy himself had little voice in the matter. 
 
 " My son, I want to marry you," the Queen said to 
 him lightly. " Do you wish it ? " 
 
 u je le veux bien, Madame," was the reply. Yet 
 signs were not wanting which indicated, to observant 
 eyes, that his old prejudice with regard to his 
 father's former opponent was not wholly extinct. It 
 was true that the Tuscan envoy, who plumed himself 
 upon having been instrumental in bringing the match 
 about, reported that the boy was accustomed to gaze, 
 <c as if in love," at the portraits of the Prince of Spain 
 and the Infanta which had been hung facing his 
 mother's bed ; but the evidence is not conclusive. 
 
 " Let us not speak of that," Louis answered shortly, 
 when, on the eve of the day fixed for the signing of 
 the contracts, Souvre told him that he was to be married 
 on the morrow ; and it was noticed that, in replying 
 in the prescribed terms to the Ambassador's address, 
 
Signature of the Marriage Contracts 273 
 
 rendering thanks to Philip for his good-will, and giving 
 the assurance that he would honour him as a father 
 and love him as a brother, he omitted, whether by 
 accident or design, the further dictated promise that 
 he would make use of his good counsels. 
 
 It had been on August 13 that the envoy from 
 Spain had entered Paris an earnest of the drawbacks 
 attending the return of the Princes to Court being 
 experienced at his first audience. Something approach- 
 ing to a brawl took place in the Queen's presence 
 owing to their refusal to admit the right of the Due de 
 Nevers to share their bench. Ten days later, on the 
 feast of St. Louis, the solemn signature of the con- 
 tracts of marriage took place. 
 
 In the King's presence-chamber -which that morning 
 he had personally helped to prepare for the ceremony 
 of the evening the momentous business was trans- 
 acted. Princes, princesses, officers of State, ambas- 
 sadors, crowded the room as the contract was read, all 
 uncovering whensoever the name of King or Queen 
 occurred. Then came the affixing of the signatures, 
 Louis signing first, followed by his mother and 
 Madame whom he jogged with his elbow as she 
 inscribed her name. Queen Marguerite came next ; and 
 the Ambassadors, the Nuncio, and the Princes in turn 
 added their autographs. Marie, obstinate, determined, 
 headstrong, had triumphed ; her will had been executed. 
 
 At Madrid all had prospered, save that Mayenne 
 had permitted pleasure to follow upon business, and 
 had paid overmuch attention to Spanish ladies to 
 please Spanish taste. Anne had testified no reluctance 
 to be married. 
 
 18 
 
274 The Making of a King 
 
 "Say that 1 am very impatient to see him/' she told 
 Mayenne, who, taking his departure the articles duly 
 signed had inquired if sjie had any orders to give 
 him with regard to the King, his master. 
 
 " Eh, Madame," remonstrated her gouvernante, as 
 she heard the child's message ; " what will the King 
 of France think when M. le Due tells him that you 
 are so anxious to be married ? " 
 
 Anne was impenitent. 
 
 "You have taught me," she retorted, "that the 
 truth must always be spoken, and I am acting on that 
 lesson." 
 
 She also sent Louis a scarf, made with her own 
 hands an honour he totally failed to appreciate. 
 It was a day of magnificent presents. His mother 
 was having a diamond necklace of immense value 
 made for her future daughter-in-law ; informing her 
 own daughter, with complacency, that it would show 
 Spaniards that she came of a good family which 
 was perhaps a not unnatural view for a Medicis to take 
 of the evidences of race. Madame herself had been 
 presented with a splendid box, covered with diamonds, 
 on behalf of the Prince of Spain ; and when Louis 
 received for his share, on the same day, a gift possess- 
 ing a merely sentimental value, he was in no wise 
 gratified. 
 
 In spite of the lull in the hostilities between the 
 Princes and the Regent, Paris continued to be far from 
 tranquil. Every man's hand was against every man 
 where rival interests conflicted ; nor was any means 
 of injuring an enemy despised, whether it took the 
 form of stabbing a foe in the open streets or recourse 
 
The Due de Bellcgarde 275 
 
 was had to more secret and unobtrusive methods. The 
 Due de Bellegarde, Grand Equerry, more commonly 
 called M. le Grand, was, if report did him no wrong, 
 engaged about this time in a private enterprise of his 
 own, of this last kind, directed against the Concini 
 couple. 
 
 Bellegarde was a prominent figure at Court. A 
 close attendant upon the late King, he had been a 
 frequent guest at Saint-Germain in Louis's childish 
 days, and the strong liking entertained for him by the 
 boy would in itself have sufficed to render him an 
 object of suspicion. 
 
 " Here is an honest man," Louis had remarked, 
 taking hold of the Duke's beard with a laugh, as he 
 received the formal salutations of the Knights of the 
 Holy Ghost at Rheims ; and Heroard notes that, on 
 the return of the Grand Equerry, after an absence, 
 in the course of the present year, the King made him 
 welcome cc avec transport." 
 
 These facts alone would have caused him to be 
 regarded with jealousy by other aspirants to Louis's 
 favour ; it was also natural that, as an attached servant 
 of Henri's, Bellegarde should, for his part, have been 
 in opposition to Concini and his wife, and anxious 
 to combat their influence. Despairing, as Richelieu 
 surmised, of compassing his purpose by legitimate 
 and human means, he resolved to resort to diabolical 
 methods. There was at Paris a certain Moisset who, 
 from a simple tailor, had risen to wealth and opulence, 
 and was likewise understood to indulge in illicit practices. 
 This gentleman was said to have offered to put Belle- 
 garde into communication with persons who, by means 
 
276 The Making of a King 
 
 of an enchanted mirror, would supply him with 
 accurate information as to the degree of favour en- 
 joyed by the Marquis and his wife, and who would 
 moreover enable him to secure the like for himself. 
 The Duke was reported to have fallen in readily 
 with the suggestion ; but, before it had been put into 
 operation, the Concini had got wind of the affair, 
 apparently through the very dealers in the black art 
 who were to have been employed against them ; the 
 matter was taken up by the Queen, and for a time 
 the ruin of the Grand Equerry appeared imminent. 
 
 Such was one account of the matter. The Tuscan 
 Secretary, Ammirato, gave a more definite colour to 
 the transaction. According to him the plot, whatever 
 it was, had been revealed to the Regent and the 
 Chancellor by a Spaniard introduced by the papal 
 Nuncio. This man reported that certain persons he 
 named were implicated in a design, by means of a 
 mirror, to inspire the Queen with love, and thus to 
 gain control over her will. Moisset and Bellegarde 
 were denounced as guilty ; and Guise, at this time 
 closely allied to the latter, hurried to Normandy, 
 where his friend was, to bring him to Paris to 
 answer to the charge. Bellegarde, as might have been 
 expected, indignantly asserted his innocence, and, going 
 with Guise to the Queen, told her plainly that his 
 birth and position should have safeguarded him from 
 doubts which were mere inventions of his enemies, 
 and that, should his honour be attacked, he would 
 know how to take vengeance. 
 
 Guise, in still more violent language, declared that 
 M. le Grand's true offence lay in the fact that he was 
 
Charge against Bellegarde 
 
 his friend ; that if this was to be the way in which 
 affairs were conducted and his ruin projected, he would 
 die sword in hand, and others should be involved in his 
 destruction, with more of the same kind ; and though, 
 some days later, he made a species of apology for the 
 lack of respect he had shown the Regent, it was accom- 
 panied by reiteration of his complaints and of his 
 determination that others should suffer by his ruin. 
 
 His impassioned partisanship of Bellegarde, as well 
 as his violent denunciation of the forces at work 
 against himself, was of course a declaration of war against 
 Marie, and as such the Queen, as she answered him 
 coldly, must have understood it. 
 
 In the end the question of sorcery was passed 
 over, the charge against Moisset was made to deal with 
 the more material crime of false coinage, and that 
 against the Grand Equerry tacitly withdrawn. The 
 Parlement had taken cognisance of the affair ; but 
 that body was not to be trusted where d'Ancre was 
 concerned ; and he was ultimately persuaded that 
 it was more to his interest to allow the matter to drop 
 than to risk an adverse verdict. The suit was removed 
 from the official records and burnt. There was no 
 further question of consulting the magic mirror M. 
 Zeller believes it may have been a case of hypnotic 
 suggestion and Bellegarde continued to fill his post 
 in the King's household as before. 
 
 An incident occurring in the course of the affair had 
 shown the excitable condition of the Paris of that day. 
 A soldier of the guard, accused of connection with the 
 coiners, had taken flight, pursued by those charged 
 with the duty of apprehending him. The words they 
 
278 The Making of" a King 
 
 shouted after the fugitive were misunderstood ; it was 
 said that the King had been killed like his father ; in 
 a moment the streets were filled with a weeping and 
 sobbing crowd ; the gates of the city were shut and an 
 immense multitude collected at the Louvre. Even at 
 the palace itself the report was widely believed ; Louis 
 was out driving at the moment ; his mother, though 
 affecting incredulity, was terror-struck ; nor was it until 
 the King reached home and was heard demanding that 
 his dinner should be brought in forthwith that her 
 anxiety was allayed. On the following morning the 
 boy was taken to Mass at Notre Dame, that he might 
 be shown, safe and sound, to the people, who received 
 him with affectionate acclamation. 
 
 For the rest, the whole episode had done no more 
 than show the violent antagonism of the various 
 parties at Court. Moisset was acquitted of the charges 
 brought against him ; and the fact that, with a total 
 lack of decency and decorum, d'Ancre had, before 
 the trial took place, put in a claim to the property 
 of the accused in case of his condemnation, increased 
 the dislike entertained for him. The Queen, too, 
 was considered to have shown partiality, and for- 
 feited a portion of the popularity she could ill spare. 
 Hints of coming trouble were thrown out in the 
 communications of the Tuscan Resident to his 
 Government ; and, quoting the opinion of men ac- 
 quainted with Louis's disposition and character, he 
 looked forward to a time, not more than four or five 
 years distant, when his mother would have lost all 
 authority over him. Hasty, hot-tempered, and wilful, 
 it was thought not impossible that, under the influence 
 
Photo by A. Giraudon, after a contemporary drawing in the Bibliotheque National. 
 
 CHARLES DE BOURBON, 
 Comte de Soissons. 
 
Death of the Comte de Soissons 279 
 
 of the Princes or others opposed to the Queen, he 
 would evince a desire to take the government upon 
 himself. 
 
 u In an interview I had with the Marquise d'Ancre," 
 he added, " I divined that neither she nor the Queen 
 is far from entertaining some such suspicion." The 
 suspicion was to be amply justified. 
 
 The autumn was stormy ; all the great nobles were 
 malcontent. Most of them, after their fashion if 
 they felt they had a special grievance against the 
 Regent, were withdrawing to the provinces ; another 
 cause for anxiety was supplied by the attitude of the 
 Protestant party, who, their apprehensions quickened 
 by the Spanish alliance, were showing a spirit of in- 
 subordination, if not sedition. Nothing was incredible 
 to the common people ; the expulsion of the adherents 
 of the Religion from France was believed by them to 
 be in contemplation, and the Huguenot nobles had 
 their own reasons for distrust. Things were in this 
 condition when one chief factor of disquietude was 
 removed by the death of the Comte de Soissons from 
 smallpox. With him the most turbulent spirit passed 
 away and the party of the Princes of the Blood was 
 deprived of its practical head. His son was a child ; 
 Conti was of no account ; and only Conde remained. 
 The important government of Normandy, which 
 Soissons had held, was reclaimed by the Regent in the 
 name of her second son, and she could breathe more 
 freely. 
 
 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- 
 
28o The Making of a King 
 
 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 melan- 
 choly 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 
 
Discipline 281 
 
 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 de- 
 manded 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 
 
282 The Making of a King 
 
 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 
 
 283 
 
284 The Making of a King 
 
 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, belong- 
 ing 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, de- 
 claring 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 
 
286 The Making of a King 
 
 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 respect- 
 ing 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 
 
Murder of de Luz 287 
 
 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. 
 
 Such was the bitter complaint of the brother of the 
 murderer. Bassompierre felt that something must be 
 done. Belonging to no party save that of King 
 and Queen, " paroissien de celui qui sera cure," he 
 was a fit go-between, and, having made his report to 
 the Regent, was commissioned by her to offer a pro- 
 pitiatory gift to Guise of 100,000 crowns, to which, 
 upon his suggestion, she added the recall of La Roche- 
 foucauld banished from Paris on account of his hot 
 partisanship of the Chevalier an important gift for his 
 sister, the Princesse de Conti, and, stranger still, the 
 Lieutenant-Generalship of Provence for the Chevalier. 
 Guise allowed himself to be persuaded, on these terms, 
 
 t consent to a reconciliation with the Court ; the 
 nisters were included in the pacification ; Epernon, 
 marked contrast to most of the participants in the 
 angement, agreed to forget his grievances since 
 the Queen was wife and mother of his two masters, 
 dead and living only stipulating that nothing should 
 be offered him in return, and that the Regent 
 should treat her faithful servants better for the future. 
 11 were satisfied, save the Prince de Conde, his 
 rsonal adherents, the Concini, and the young Baron 
 
288 The Making of a King 
 
 de Luz, who, seeing little hope of obtaining justice, 
 took the matter into his own hands, sent a challenge 
 to his father's murderer^, and, meeting him in fair 
 fight, was slain. 
 
 The result of this supplementary tragedy was 
 singular. Guise became forthwith a hero in public 
 estimation, and was, in the language of a contemporary, 
 lauded as a Mars. Even Bassompierre was taken by 
 surprise by the suddenness of the reaction in his favour. 
 The Chevalier having slain the father, the Parlement had 
 been ordered to take cognisance of the deed, to inquire 
 into it, and to set on foot an action against him. Less 
 than a week later, with the blood of the dead man's 
 son in addition on his hands, the Queen sent to visit 
 him and to learn how his wounds were progressing. 
 
 Throughout the affair the Due de Guise had dis- 
 played prudence and moderation ; had shown, or pre- 
 tended, disapproval of his brother's conduct, and had 
 risen in the estimation of the world to a degree causing 
 no little uneasiness to the Regent. The episode is 
 worth recording in detail, representing as it does 
 the main character and features of this stage of the 
 Regency. 
 
 At the very time that Bassompierre was hurrying 
 from the Queen to Guise, and from Guise to Sillery and 
 his colleagues, in the endeavour to compose matters, 
 the boy-King, in his part of the palace, was also pre- 
 occupied by a criminal case which had likewise been 
 referred to the decision of the Parlement. In the eyes 
 of the Court it would have been of the smallest possible 
 consequence, the question being merely whether an 
 insignificant country-woman should or should not 
 
Louis Intervenes 289 
 
 suffer the capital penalty. But Louis took a different 
 view of the affair. 
 
 Riding home from hunting on a certain January 
 day, not a week after de Luz's murder, a woman, 
 probably on her way to the prison to which she was 
 to be consigned, flung herself at his feet, imploring 
 mercy. Condemned at Senlis, on the charge of having 
 caused the death of her unborn child, she had appealed 
 to the Parlement, and had consequently been brought 
 to Paris to abide its sentence. 
 
 Having listened to her story and weighed the facts 
 in a judicial spirit remarkable in a child of eleven, the 
 King gave his orders. She was to be kept in a place 
 apart, and not taken to the Conciergerie until such 
 time as he had conferred with his mother. 
 
 u The Parlement would put her to death," he told 
 Souvre, and was, likely enough, right. 
 
 Louis was determined that, if he could compass it, 
 she should be saved. Nor was he acting upon any 
 blind impulse of compassion ; judging and considering 
 the evidence, so far as he was acquainted with it, with 
 care. The proofs of the death were not, he said, 
 certain ; the woman had been condemned upon con- 
 jecture. Lest his influence with the Queen should 
 not be sufficient, he begged that Souvre and Bassom- 
 pierre would likewise add their intercessions, and sent 
 his nurse to ask the Marquise d'Ancre to persuade his 
 mother to bestow a pardon upon the culprit. 
 
 He had put forward the arguments in her favour 
 earnestly, " avec passion," and, having taken his 
 measures, remained wrapped in uneasy thought. 
 
 " Ceci me met en peine," he told Souvre suddenly 
 
 19 
 
290 The Making of a King 
 
 and almost with tears ; continuing for some days his 
 efforts to effect his purpose, and, after they had been 
 attended with success, m taking care that money was 
 supplied to his protge, and that she was enabled to 
 return to her home in the country. 
 
 The trouble and thought Louis expended on the 
 affair were curiously at variance with the spirit of the 
 Court. Nor was it a solitary instance of that love of 
 justice and fair dealing afterwards winning him the 
 title of le Juste. He refused to recognise, as those 
 around him would have had him do, the privilege of 
 a King to override the rights of his subjects. Thus, 
 the owner of some pigeons having declined to give them 
 up, Luynes would have had him take them by force. 
 Everything, urged other courtiers present, belonged 
 to the King. Let him have the birds seized. 
 
 The boy listened, according to his wont, in silence. 
 When at length he spoke, it was not to express his 
 acquiescence in the course suggested. 
 
 " Take an archer," he ordered Luynes, " and bid 
 that man bring me four pigeons. Say I will pay him 
 more than their value." 
 
 Willingly or unwillingly, the command was obeyed. 
 The recalcitrant possessor of the birds was introduced 
 into the King's presence, and, instead of the forty sous 
 at which he valued them, received a crown. 
 
 The partial pacification following upon the pardon 
 of the Chevalier de Guise left the Court merry. 
 There were plays and ballets and dancing, the Prince's 
 cabal alone holding aloof. Bassompierre, as the instru- 
 ment of the Queen's reconciliation with the house of 
 
Paris Gay 291 
 
 Lorraine and with Epernon, was in special favour with 
 her, and, when Conde left him out from an enter- 
 tainment to which all the rest of the Court was bidden, 
 Marie invited him to a private party of her own. It 
 was true that he had to pay for her kindness by 
 declining to attend a ball at the house of the Due de 
 Longueville to which the Regent herself had not been 
 asked ; but, though he felt the price to be heavy, there 
 were manifest advantages to be reaped from the enjoy- 
 ment of the favour of the head of the Government. 
 D'Ancre, under a temporary cloud, had retired, at the 
 Queen's suggestion, to his post as Governor of Amiens ; 
 and she sent him a message that she would teach 
 him obedience ; adding that, were it not for his wife, 
 he would have gone to a place he would not have 
 been able to quit at his will. If sceptics doubted 
 whether the Queen's severity was genuine or assumed, 
 the disgrace of the favourite, real or pretended, 
 contributed to the gaiety of those he left behind. 
 
 During the summer the Queen was afforded a 
 welcome distraction from cares of State by the success 
 of one of the matrimonial arrangements in which she 
 was always engaged. Having failed to marry young 
 Montmorency to any of her Italian nieces, she had 
 succeeded in contriving a match between him and the 
 daughter of her kinsman, Virgilio Orsini, Duke of 
 Bracciano. Married in Italy by proxy, the bride was 
 sent to France and consigned to the care of the Queen 
 until the arrival in Paris of the bridegroom two or 
 three weeks later. Marie's satisfaction was great. A 
 rumour had been afloat, ascribed by her to the malice 
 of Conde, to the effect that the Princess was deformed, 
 
292 The Making of a King 
 
 and relief possibly mingled with her gratification when 
 the story proved to be false. Though endowed with 
 no remarkable beauty, if was the general opinion that 
 age and development would improve the girl's appear- 
 ance, and Montmorency, on his arrival, showed no 
 dissatisfaction with his bride, who had meantime been 
 arrayed in French fashion so that she might appear to 
 advantage. The Queen and King were present at the 
 introduction of bride and bridegroom, and all went 
 well, save that the little Chevalier de Souvre, having 
 intruded himself surreptitiously where he was not 
 wanted, underwent corporal punishment in conse- 
 quence. 
 
 A more important matter claimed Marie's attention 
 whenever she had leisure to bestow upon it. This was 
 the projected betrothal of her own daughter Christine 
 to the Prince of Wales ; but though ambassadors came 
 and went, and the preliminaries of the match were 
 much under discussion, the affair made little progress. 
 
 In the meantime the species of disgrace in which 
 d'Ancre had remained at Amiens had suddenly come 
 to an end, and he had returned to resume his place 
 at Court. A reconciliation with Epernon and Guise 
 followed, and it was plain that he had fully re- 
 gained his former place in the Queen's favour. On 
 November 19 the seal was put to a matter of public 
 scandal and he took the oath as Marshal of France 
 an honour conferred upon him by the Regent with 
 a total disregard of the sentiments aroused by the 
 appointment to the highest dignity in the French army 
 of a foreigner who not only had never served in it, 
 but in view of whose antecedents it was necessary 
 
Louis's Moods of Dejection 
 
 abolish the ancient custom of reciting before the 
 Parlement his titles to the distinction. 
 
 No one had power to gainsay the will of the Queen ; 
 and in the presence of the young King, who had never 
 disguised his dislike for his mother's favourite, d'Ancre 
 took the oath, making a speech in humble acknow- 
 ledgment of the benefits conferred upon a foreigner 
 who had come empty-handed to France. The King 
 listened and, perhaps, contemplated a day when the 
 dignity of France would be no longer prostituted as 
 at present. 
 
 It had been observed, with some uneasiness, by those 
 about him during the previous months, that Louis had 
 become subject to a melancholy unnatural at his age, 
 and efforts were made to provide him with amuse- 
 ment to distract his mind. Whether the illuminations 
 and displays of fireworks had the desired effect does 
 not appear ; it was perhaps partly in consequence of 
 his moods of depression that the Queen was beginning 
 
 reconsider the sentence of banishment she had passed 
 upon the Chevalier de Vendome, and to contemplate 
 recall before Louis's majority should enable him, 
 no grace of her own, to recover the society of his 
 vourite playmate. It was not, however, till three 
 ears later that the Chevalier was to return to Court. 
 
 It would be tedious, as well as impossible within the 
 
 its of the present volume, to follow in detail the 
 shifting combinations of parties at this period. If 
 one element of turbulence had been removed in 
 Soissons, Conde, avaricious and grasping and anxious 
 to accumulate as much wealth as possible during the 
 King's minority, was always advancing fresh demands, 
 
 j 
 
294 The Making of a King 
 
 and was pressing for the important governments of 
 Bordeaux and Chateau-Trompette. The grants of 
 money intended to soften the refusal of posts which, 
 had they passed into his possession, would have 
 strengthened his position to a dangerous degree, did 
 not avail to propitiate him and his party. They there- 
 fore withdrew in a body to their several provinces, 
 whence they only returned when the important question 
 of peace or war arose and rendered their presence in 
 Paris necessary. 
 
 That question had been raised in consequence of a 
 dispute between Mantua and Savoy, following upon 
 the death of the Duke of Mantua. The Regent took 
 the side of the former, connected with her family, 
 and at one moment it seemed likely that recourse 
 would be had to arms, and that France would be 
 involved in the struggle. Assisting at a Council held 
 for the consideration of the matter, Louis listened to 
 his mother as she gave her voice in favour of a warlike 
 policy and expressed his concurrence. 
 
 " Madame," he said, " I am very glad. War must 
 be made." 
 
 His hopes were, however, again doomed to dis- 
 appointment, and, by France at least, the affair was 
 allowed to drop. It must have been plain that her 
 present condition was not one rendering it desirable 
 that she should intervene in foreign quarrels. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 " 
 
 1614 
 
 The Prince and his friends leave Paris Nevers seizes Mezieres 
 Contrary counsels Condi's manifesto Negotiations Uneasiness 
 at Paris Louis at the Council-board Peace signed Vendome 
 rebellious The Prince at Poitiers Court to go to Orleans. 
 
 T T must have been clear to the least observant that 
 the continual friction between the Regent and 
 the nobles would not be long in assuming a more 
 acute character ; that open and avowed conflict was 
 not far off, when the smouldering animosity of the 
 Prince and his adherents would burst into flame. 
 The policy hitherto pursued by Marie " yielding 
 the waves to avoid the shipwreck " had been a 
 desperate one. It could not, moreover, be carried 
 on for an indefinite period. Posts, honours, money, 
 ad been given as sops to the malcontents, and still 
 they were not satisfied. The Treasury, filled by the 
 economies of Henri-Quatre and Sully, had been 
 emptied, and emptied to no purpose ; it would soon 
 no longer possible to offer bribes of sufficient value 
 o quiet Conde and his partisans. Force would be 
 necessary as a last resort, and the question was who 
 would prove strongest. 
 
 In the coming struggle Conde, by position and rank, 
 ould hold the position of leader of those opposed 
 
 295 
 
296 The Making of a King 
 
 to the Government. The Regent on the one side, 
 the Princes of the Blood of whom Conde was for 
 the moment practically the sole representative on the 
 other this was the situation ; and an almanack, appear- 
 ing at the beginning of the year 1614, struck the 
 note of warning. The King's death was predicted, 
 misfortunes were to befall the Queen ; and prosperity 
 awaited the Prince de Conde. The conjunction of the 
 three prophecies was not reassuring. Timid people 
 took alarm. It was not a time when such matters 
 could be treated with contempt ; and the author of 
 the forecasts expiated his imprudence in the galleys. 
 Conde was known to be acquainted with the culprit ; 
 and Louis, having heard of the book, was said to have 
 complained of it bitterly to the Prince. 
 
 In the autumn the King's minority would end ; time 
 was therefore short, if his mother were to be coerced 
 and intimidated into acceding to the demands of the 
 opposition. Early in the year, accordingly, the Prince 
 and his adherents decided upon repeating, in an accen- 
 tuated form, the step by which they were wont to mark 
 their dissatisfaction with the conduct of affairs, and 
 withdrew in a body to the provinces. Conde, Mayenne, 
 and Nevers went first, taking leave of King and Queen 
 with due decorum ; the Prince adding a perfunctory 
 pledge, imposing on no one, that he would return 
 whensoever the King might summon him. Bouillon, 
 left behind to offer an explanation to the Chancellor 
 before following his confederates, used plain language. 
 He told Sillery that the Prince and his friends 
 were forced, by the bad government of the country, to 
 put an end to the ill before it should grow incurable ; 
 
r 1} OYRBON Prmtf dc Conde. DM <l/U?wt rfO^nwucprmirr Kna- du nmg.Sc 
 frnttifr Pair df France Gotturrneur SC J^eutniant^ml p^ le Roy rn sfs Pais ttDvchei df Bry 
 Bm,rb< 
 
 From an engraving by Huret. 
 
 .296] 
 
 HENRY DE BOURBON, 
 Prince de Conde. 
 

 Revolt of the Nobles 297 
 
 and that Conde had determined to make a representation 
 on the subject to the Regent, and would, with that 
 object, hold an unarmed assembly of those who shared 
 his views, and submit their protest to her. After which, 
 and before he could be arrested, in accordance with the 
 determination arrived at, Bouillon hastened to join his 
 friends. The lad, Longueville, followed ; and lastly 
 Vendome who had been placed under surveillance at 
 the Louvre, in the expectation that he would not 
 remain behind escaping from the guard who had him 
 in charge, fled to his government of Brittany, where, 
 supported by the Due de Retz, a local potentate, he set 
 to work to collect troops and to fortify one or two 
 of the strongholds of the province ; writing to the 
 King to recapitulate his grievances and to justify his 
 conduct. 
 
 He had been bidden, he said, by the Queen, in 
 Louis's presence not to leave Paris without permission ; 
 had obeyed, but had nevertheless been subsequently 
 made a prisoner. Ten days later God, treating him 
 according to the purity of his intentions, had set him 
 at liberty and, taking him by the hand, had enabled 
 him to reach his own domains, where he found him- 
 self threatened with being deprived of his government. 
 
 All of which the Duke felt that he had a right to 
 resent. 
 
 The next move was made by Nevers, who took 
 forcible possession of the citadel of Mezieres, on the 
 plea of his rights as governor of the province. Over- 
 coming the resistance opposed to him, he sent to 
 inform the Queen of its capture, as though it had been 
 rescued from the enemy ; announcing his purpose of 
 
298 The Making of a King 
 
 holding the fortress for the King, and declaring that he 
 was ready to surrender it to any one Louis should 
 appoint. 
 
 Notwithstanding his expressions of loyalty and sub- 
 mission, the act could not be interpreted otherwise 
 than as displaying an intention of preparing for a 
 struggle, and when the news reached Paris excitement 
 was great. Marie, seized with panic, had thoughts of 
 resigning the Regency. Some of the Council were in 
 favour of the step, others against it. Amongst these 
 last d'Ancre was naturally prominent. Were power to 
 pass from the Queen he must have known that his day 
 would be over ; and it was determined that she should 
 continue to hold the reins of government. 
 
 It had next to be decided whether the rebels 
 should be approached by means of negotiation and 
 diplomacy or resort should be had to arms. Marie 
 spoke of proceeding to Mezieres with troops, of 
 setting forth at once with the King to reduce Nevers to 
 submission. Villeroy and the President Jeannin, who 
 had succeeded Sully in the charge of the finances, were 
 in favour of active measures. Sillery, the Chancellor, 
 advocated conciliation. The Queen, he pointed out, 
 save for the Guises and fipernon, stood almost alone ; 
 the Huguenots were powerful, and, a woman and a 
 child being at the head of affairs, caution was necessary. 
 Supported by the Concini, the Chancellor prevailed. 
 
 The Prince, meanwhile, had issued a manifesto justify- 
 ing his conduct as an attempt to reform the disorders of 
 the kingdom, to be accomplished, if possible, by peace- 
 ful methods, recourse to be had to arms solely should 
 that step be necessary in the interests of the King ; 
 
Civil War Imminent 299 
 
 and demanding, in conclusion, that the States-General 
 should be convened. Under these circumstances, the 
 Queen made the grave mistake of parleying with the 
 rebels. It was true that warlike preparations were also 
 in progress ; fresh levies of Swiss were made, and the 
 reserves were called out. But, pending the completion 
 of military arrangements to take effect in case con- 
 ciliation should fail de Thou was dispatched to 
 confer with Conde and his partisans, taking leave of 
 the King on March i. 
 
 " Go and tell ces messieurs-la to be very good," said 
 the boy, placing his two hands upon the shoulders of 
 the envoy, as he bade him adieu. It would have been 
 better to have taken steps to enforce their good 
 behaviour. 
 
 Civil war seemed within measurable distance. The 
 two parties were armed, and were showing every dis- 
 position to increase their strength. It was easy for the 
 Princes to use the language of loyalty, to hoist the 
 white flag and cross, and to declare that, if they took 
 up arms, or even went further, it was only to serve the 
 King ; their meaning was well understood, and the 
 fact that the Huguenots appeared to be inclined to 
 give them their support was a dangerous feature of the 
 struggle. 
 
 The Regent was taking her measures, and on April 10 
 the King reviewed in person the two companies of 
 cavalry usually commanded by Nevers, now confided 
 to the more trustworthy hands of Praslin. Paris 
 itself was not considered safe, and orders were issued 
 that when Louis left the palace he should be accom- 
 panied by an armed escort. Informed that such was 
 
joo The Making of a King 
 
 his mother's command, the boy was manifestly dis- 
 turbed. 
 
 " The Parisians will think that I am afraid," he said. 
 " I am not afraid. I do not fear them " meaning the 
 confederated nobles. cc If they should come, should 
 we not beat them ? " 
 
 " Sire," was the answer, <c they would take us at great 
 disadvantage. It would be to oppose a cloth doublet 
 to one of steel." 
 
 After some thought, the King bowed to necessity. 
 
 " Eien" he said, " but tell them to wear their cloaks 
 over their arms as they pass through the city." 
 
 Louis was eager for the resort to force which his 
 mother and her advisers were so anxious to avoid. 
 <c The King," Malherbe had written in February, 
 " displays an extreme desire to go to war, and the day 
 before yesterday he had himself armed at all points, 
 and felt so much satisfaction at finding himself thus 
 equipped that, on being put to bed, he would not take 
 off his helmet, and argued for long that he would 
 sleep better thus than wearing his night-cap. At 
 length, however, he yielded to remonstrance and took 
 it off." His little cousin, Soissons, was no less eager 
 to be up and doing. He wished to go and fight, but 
 would, he said, obey none but the King. To his 
 mother's representations that he was not yet strong 
 enough, he replied that war was nothing but knowing 
 how to kill a man, and he was well able to do that. 
 
 Changes were taking place in the conduct of affairs. 
 Louis was beginning to appear at the Council-board. 
 The ministers, as well as the Queen, though they might 
 have been slow to desire his presence there, had awakened 
 
Louis at the Council-board 301 
 
 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 uncer- 
 tain, 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-im- 
 portant 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 con- 
 ciliation. Louis would have adopted a bolder one ; 
 and when the question of concessions was under dis- 
 cussion 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 
 
302 The Making of a King 
 
 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 obedi- 
 ence. 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 pro- 
 ceeded, 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 
 
A Temporary Peace 303 
 
 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, how- 
 ever, 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 
 
304 The Making of a King 
 
 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 mis- 
 demeanours. 
 
 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 con- 
 ferences, and, though included in the general pacifica- 
 tion, 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. Dis- 
 regarding 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. 
 
MJ 
 
 u 
 
 hi 
 
 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 fore- 
 casts 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 
 
 20 
 
3o6?J] The Making of a King 
 
 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, 
 
Strong Measures Decided Upon 307 
 
 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 
 
308 The Making of a King 
 
 should be undertaken. Three thousand disciplined 
 Swiss troops were at hand, and it was arranged that, 
 together with his guards, they should accompany the 
 King. By July 3 the Court had returned to Paris, 
 preparatory to setting out, two days later, on the way to 
 Orleans. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 1614 
 
 The journey The Prince de Conde loses strength The pleasures of 
 the road Louis as bon compagnon The Court at Orleans, 
 Tours, Poitiers, and Nantes Vendome makes his submission 
 Return to Paris Louis's majority. 
 
 HER determination reached, the Queen refused to 
 be turned from it. At Paris, as at Saint-Germain, 
 it roused much opposition. During the day passed in 
 the capital a remonstrance was presented to Louis by 
 the Parlement, begging that he would not leave the 
 capital, where his person was in greater security than 
 elsewhere. Louis and his mother were, however, in 
 11 accord. Thanking the Parlement for its care and 
 anxiety, he added that he desired to visit the country 
 districts, and was resolved upon doing so. Supported 
 by the Regent, no one had power to oppose him, and 
 n the morrow he quitted Paris under the escort of 
 bur hundred horsemen. Epernon, in command of the 
 guards, was to follow without delay ; Mayenne was 
 dispatched to announce to his former confederate, 
 nde, that Queen and King were on their way to 
 Orleans and to summon him to meet them there. 
 
 For once Marie displayed boldness and resolu- 
 tion, and, if not free from misgivings, she did not 
 waver in her purpose. As for the young King, the 
 
 309 
 
 Vt 
 
 fa 
 
 D 
 
 j 
 
 U.1O 
 
 Co 
 
310 The Making of a King 
 
 expedition must have been hailed with delight by a 
 boy of twelve who, save on the solitary occasion of 
 his coronation, had scarcely left the neighbourhood of 
 Paris. Besides which, ignorant as he may have been 
 of the full importance of the issues at stake, he knew 
 enough of the situation to add the element of excite- 
 ment to the pleasure of novelty. War, if not probable, 
 was possible, and for war in any shape Louis had 
 always shown a boy's eagerness. 
 
 To be ready for a fight was the best method of 
 rendering it unlikely ; and full preparations had been 
 made for the contingency of a resort to arms. It was 
 computed that, in case of necessity, twenty thousand 
 men could be placed, without delay, in the field. 
 Munitions of war had been brought from Paris. Orleans 
 possessed cannon of its own. The result of the 
 measures taken was quickly apparent, the suddenness 
 of the Queen's action rendering it the more effective. 
 No one was, at the moment, in a position to resist the 
 royal forces, and even Vendome, the most contu- 
 macious of the confederated nobles, showed signs of 
 submission. 
 
 It was true that Conde continued to maintain an 
 ambiguous attitude, posing as an injured man with a 
 right to demand justice. It was further known that 
 he was instrumental in circulating reports damaging 
 to the King, whom he described as hardly capable of 
 mounting a horse and in no wise a sovereign to be 
 desired. But his influence was manifestly on the 
 decline, and, having obeyed the Queen's summons 
 and reached Orleans the day before the Court was 
 expected there, his reception was so cold that, without 
 
Conde Losing Strength 311 
 
 awaiting the King's arrival, he turned his back upon 
 the town and betook himself elsewhere. Moreover, 
 when, as Governor of Guienne, he wrote to say that he 
 was to be looked for at Bordeaux the royal lieutenant 
 commanding in that city, in conclave with bishop and 
 magistrates, determined that, should he come, the 
 gates should be shut against him. It was clear that 
 the tide had turned and that, for the moment, the Prince 
 had no chance against the authority of the Queen- 
 Regent. Accepting his defeat, he disbanded the 
 troops he had collected around him, and announced 
 his intention of paying his respects to Louis and his 
 mother, either on their return to Paris, or when the 
 States-General should assemble. Such was the initial 
 success attending the royal progress, and it must have 
 gone far to strengthen the Queen's conviction that 
 the step had been a wise one. 
 
 On the day after Conde had left Orleans in dudgeon, 
 Louis made his entry into the city, on horseback, sur- 
 rounded by nobles and greeted by joy-bells, salutes 
 from the cannon, and illuminations. Not only at 
 Orleans, but wherever he went he received a cordial 
 welcome from the loyal amongst the provincial 
 nobility ; the sight of the boy, as he rode through the 
 towns which lay in his route and showed himself to the 
 populace, was sufficient to give the lie to many of 
 the mischievous reports concerning him. It was true 
 that Sillery still urged retreat, endeavouring to persuade 
 the Regent to return to Paris ; but, listening to wiser 
 counsels, she determined to push forward and to con- 
 tinue her march through the regions where discontent 
 had lately prevailed. 
 
312 The Making of a King 
 
 On leaving Orleans she directed her steps towards 
 Tours, passing through Blois on her way. The journey 
 was made by easy stages, and, enlivened by little 
 adventures, afforded the King a pleasant variety to 
 the ordinary routine of Court life. Brought up in a 
 palace, and hedged round by conventional restraints, 
 the most commonplace incidents being wakened in 
 the morning by the sounds of country traffic, or even 
 the abuse levelled at each other by waggoners as 
 they passed had all the charm and amusement of 
 novelty. The comparative freedom of the open road 
 was a new experience, and the boy's spirits rose. 
 Recalling, it may be, stories told of his father, and 
 striving to emulate the gay bonhomie which had been 
 one of Henri's characteristics Louis, less fitted by 
 nature for the part, would at times attempt to imitate 
 him and to play the bon compagnon. Thus, passing 
 one day an encampment, and learning that a certain 
 Sieur de PIsle Rouet was entertaining al fresco "the 
 gormandizers of the Court," he announced his intention 
 of making one of the party. 
 
 " Ca," he said, descending from his coach, " j'en 
 veux etre des goinfres de la cour " proceeding to 
 make away with two partridges, two breasts of chicken, 
 and some tongue, before, with a gay "Adieu, mon 
 hote," to the giver of the feast, the uninvited guest 
 re-entered his carriage and resumed his journey. 
 
 In more important matters all prospered. With 
 every day it was becoming more certain that the 
 Queen-Regent's tardy decision to show fight was 
 destined to prove more efficacious in crushing dis- 
 affection than the policy of conciliation she had hitherto 
 
The Royal Progress 313 
 
 pursued. Conde, lately regarded as a grave menace 
 to the royal authority, was increasingly isolated. He 
 had attempted to renew relations with Sully, but Sully 
 had only good advice to bestow upon him ; and, whilst 
 he was attended by no more than four or five gentle- 
 men, the Court was crowded by those who flocked to 
 do honour to the King. The Huguenot party, ceasing 
 to regard the Prince as a possible leader, paraded 
 their loyalty as Louis traversed the district where they 
 were in force. Roquelaure, lieutenant in Guienne, 
 visited Tours with a thousand horse ; the militant 
 Bishop of Poitiers, who had held that town against 
 Conde, waited upon the King at the head of three 
 hundred horsemen, and begged that he would repair 
 to the scene of the late dispute. 
 
 The Queen resolved to accede to the Bishop's 
 request, and Poitiers was made the next stage of the 
 royal progress. Wherever the Court passed loyalty 
 continued to revive ; the sovereign who had hitherto 
 been no more than a name had suddenly assumed 
 flesh and blood. He was the son of Henri-Quatre, 
 and the very youth and helplessness of the fatherless 
 boy may have made a successful appeal to the imagina- 
 tion of those of his subjects who had fallen under 
 alien influences. " Toutes ces humeurs poitevines," 
 recorded the "Mercure Fransais," " qui avaient tant 
 ete esmeues, se calmerent en les voyant." Vendome 
 n to foresee that submission in more than pro- 
 fession would ultimately be necessary, but contented 
 himself with sending messages conveying the assurance 
 of his affection, fidelity, and obedience. Louis was 
 not to be propitiated by mere verbiage. 
 
3 H The Making of a King 
 
 " What sort of obedience ? " he asked contemptu- 
 ously. " He has not yet disarmed." 
 
 Refusing to do the Duke the honour of receiving 
 the letter his envoy had brought, he caused it to be 
 handed to M. de Souvre, by whom it was read. From 
 his rebel brother the King would personally accept no 
 communication. 
 
 Nantes, being the capital of Vendome's government, 
 was a place of special importance. The provincial estates 
 were also about to meet there, and it was decided that 
 the Court should proceed thither. The journey was 
 once more a triumphal progress, the Huguenots 
 continuing foremost in their demonstrations of loyal 
 devotion. The keys of their strongholds were presented 
 to the King ; it was suggested that he should visit 
 La Rochelle. Rohan, Sully's son-in-law, and one of the 
 chiefs of the reformed religion, came with his wife to 
 Court. Even Sully was expected. 
 
 It was on July u that Nantes was reached. The 
 journey had been made partly by water, and as Louis 
 passed down the Loire, the country folk gathered on 
 the banks of the river to greet and welcome, with tears 
 of emotion and joyful acclamation, their little King. 
 At Nantes the success of the expedition was to be 
 crowned by the long-deferred submission of Vendome. 
 He must have been aware that he had no alternative. 
 The young Governor of Brittany had not gone the way 
 to make his position sure nor to win popularity in the 
 province entrusted to him by his father. The country 
 had been ravaged and laid waste by the troops in his 
 pay, and when the Estates opened by Louis in person 
 met, the light in which he was regarded was made 
 
Vendomes Submission 315 
 
 clear. In the remonstrance they drew up the iniquities 
 perpetrated during the last six months of his rule were 
 laid bare, and it was entreated that the Duke should be 
 deprived of his post. 
 
 To this length the Regent was not prepared to go. 
 Vendome, discredited as he was, was still the son of 
 Henri- Quatre and safeguarded by his blood from the 
 justice which might have been dealt out to a lesser 
 offender. She was, nevertheless, determined that he 
 should be reduced to obedience, and that order should 
 be restored to the province. Vendome was wise enough 
 to perceive that further resistance would be vain ; 
 though it was not until the Court had spent a fortnight 
 at Nantes that he came thither to tender his homage. 
 
 De Retz had preceded his comrade by some days. 
 As, making obeisance to the King, he proffered his 
 excuses for his tardy arrival, they were received by 
 Louis in absolute silence; the General of the Galleys, 
 present at the interview, hinting to the Duke that more 
 was expected of him, and that pardon for his past 
 conduct must be craved before he would be admitted 
 favour. Retz having acted upon the suggestion, the 
 King made reply, not ungraciously. When repentance, 
 he said, should have been proved by deeds he would 
 give him his affection. 
 
 Four days later arrived Retz's principal, Vend6me. 
 The meeting between the brothers is graphically de- 
 scribed in Heroard's journal. 
 
 Upon the Duke's entrance the King bowed coldly in 
 greeting, as to any indifferent guest, leaving Vendome 
 to speak first, which he accordingly did. 
 
 u Sire,'' he began, " I could not fail to come and seek 
 
316 The Making of a King 
 
 your Majesty, as soon as your first summons reached 
 me, that I might give you the assurance that I have no 
 other desire than to be your very humble and very 
 obedient servant ; desiring to testify it by the sacrifice 
 of my life." 
 
 Louis's face was white with passion. It may be that 
 the rancour of half-forgotten childish years, the old 
 jealousy, supplemented and embittered the just indigna- 
 tion of the present moment. 
 
 " Serve me better in the future than you have done 
 in the past," he said, his voice trembling, " and know 
 that the greatest honour you have in the world is to be 
 my brother." 
 
 " I believe it to be so," was the answer of Gabrielle's 
 son. Yet he may have remembered, with not inexcusable 
 bitterness, that there had been a time when it seemed 
 possible that he should have occupied the place filled 
 by Louis. However that might be, the game was for 
 the present played out ; and when the Court turned its 
 face towards Paris he accompanied it. 
 
 There was no further reason to prolong its absence. 
 The object of the expedition had been accomplished. 
 The King's authority was established throughout the 
 disturbed districts. Conde* and his friends had been 
 discredited and reduced to submission. The King 
 might return to his capital a victor, and on September 1 7 
 he entered its gates. 
 
 The Queen had reached the city on the previous day, 
 and Louis, as he rode in, dressed in white, was the 
 central figure of the pageant. A brilliant reception had 
 been prepared for him. The artillery had been brought 
 from the Arsenal ; the citizens had been placed under 
 
Louis's Return to Paris 3 T 7 
 
 arms ; members of the Parlement and other Orders 
 joined in the welcome. All the city went forth to 
 meet its King, returning to declare himself of an 
 age to administer the government in person. In 
 ten days he would enter upon his fourteenth year, 
 the date fixed for the legal majority of the Kings of 
 France. 
 
 The question that every one was asking was, what 
 would be the attitude of the Prince de Conde ? Would, 
 or would he not, be present when the approaching 
 ceremonial took place ? One excuse after another had 
 served him as a pretext for refusing obedience to the 
 reiterated summons of the Regent. Would he still 
 remain aloof, and would the function be accomplished 
 in the absence of the first Prince of the Blood ? No 
 one could tell. 
 
 Paris was filling fast. Epernon had arrived; Longue- 
 ville had followed ; the Prince de Joinville was there, 
 with many others. On September 29 the doubts 
 concerning Conde were set at rest. That evening he 
 reached Paris. 
 
 The long-deferred meeting between the King and 
 his cousin took place informally. As Conde entered 
 the city Louis chanced to be returning from the hunt, 
 and the Prince, received into the royal carriage, accom- 
 panied him tcr the Louvre. There he was given a 
 friendly reception by the Queen. The past was to be, 
 if not forgotten, ignored. Cond6 remarked upon the 
 King's height, Louis replying somewhat defiantly that 
 he had grown in body but more in courage. And thus 
 peace was, temporarily, made. 
 
 The ceremony of the King's public declaration of 
 
3i 8 The Making of a King 
 
 his majority had been fixed to take place on Octo- 
 ber 2. On September 27 the minority had come 
 to an end. His little brother, not yet seven, watch- 
 ing the preparations for the event, wished to know 
 when he too would be pronounced of age, and, 
 hearing that this was only done in the case of kings, 
 asked whether there were no other kingdoms save 
 France. Being told that all were already provided with 
 sovereigns, he made particular inquiries as to Turkey, 
 with the intention of establishing his claim to that 
 realm when he should be older. At a later date he 
 would have liked to possess himself of a crown nearer 
 home. 
 
 On October i Louis held his first Council as reign- 
 ing monarch. To the morrow he seems to have 
 looked forward with some nervous trepidation ; and, 
 when put to bed in the evening, he made a vow to 
 Notre Dame des Vertus, on condition that he should 
 be able to pronounce the words he was to utter on his 
 majority without mistake. 
 
 On the following day the ceremony putting a formal 
 end to his childhood took place. Arrayed in gold 
 tissue and covered with diamonds including the 
 magnificent collar his mother had had made for his 
 future bride he set forth from the Louvre, sur- 
 rounded by the great nobles and officers of State ; 
 and before the assembled Parlement presented himself 
 as ready to take the government into his own hands. 
 The speech which had caused him anxiety on the 
 previous night was uttered firmly, loudly, and without 
 hesitation. 
 
 " Messieurs," he said, " having attained my majority, 
 
The King's Majority 3 I 9 
 
 I have come hither to let you know that, being of age, 
 I intend to govern my kingdom by means of good 
 counsel, with piety and justice. From all my subjects 
 I expect the respect and obedience due to the sovereign 
 power and the royal authority placed by God in my 
 hands. They may likewise anticipate from me the 
 protection and favour to be looked for from a good 
 King, who desires above all things their peace and 
 welfare. You will hear my intentions more fully from 
 the Chancellor." 
 
 Turning to the Queen, he made her his acknow- 
 ledgments. 
 
 c< Madame, I thank you for the trouble you have 
 taken for me. I beg you will continue to do so, and 
 to govern and command as hitherto. It is my will and 
 intention that you should be obeyed in all things and in 
 all places, and that, after myself, and in my absence, you 
 should be head of my Council.'* 
 
 Certain formalities followed a speech from the 
 Chancellor, one from the Queen ; the registering of 
 decrees directed against duelling and blasphemy. The 
 edict of Henri-Quatre in favour of the Protestants was 
 renewed ; and, with the endorsement of what had passed 
 y the voice of the assembly and the thanks of the 
 Queen for the position conferred upon her, the pro- 
 ceedings were brought to a close. 
 
 It had been a bad day's work. The government of 
 Marie de Medicis was to continue, established upon 
 its new footing, to her own ruin, as well as to the 
 detriment of the kingdom. Whatever might be the 
 wishes of those in power, Louis would not always 
 emain a child. 
 
320 The Making of a King 
 
 The momentous transaction concluded, he returned 
 to the palace, very gay, but no doubt tired out by the 
 function, which had lasted no less than four hours. 
 Put to bed, he had his toys brought to him there, 
 amusing himself by painting upon little wooden boxes, 
 until, the long day over, he fell asleep to the sound of 
 music. 
 
 And thus the personal government of Louis XIII. 
 was inaugurated. 
 
PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES 
 
 " Henri-Quatre et Marie de Medicis." B. Zeller. 
 
 "Marie de Medicis et Sully." B. Zeller. 
 
 "Marie de Medicis et Villeroy." B. Zeller. 
 
 "(Economies Royales." Sully. 
 
 " Lettres Intimes de Henri-Quatre." Dussieux. 
 
 "Journal de Jean Heroard." 
 
 " Memoires de Richelieu." 
 
 " Negotiations Diplomatiques de la France avec la Toscane." 
 
 A. Desjardins. 
 
 " Histoire de France." Michelet. 
 "Lettres de Malherbe." 
 " Ecrits Inedites de Saint-Simon." Faugere. 
 " Memoires de Bassompierre." 
 ''Memoires de Fontenay Mareuil." 
 " Memoires de Lestoile." 
 " Memoires de Pontchartrain." 
 "Galerie de FAncienne Cour." 
 " Memoires du Marechal d'Estre'es." 
 " Decade commengant 1'Histoire du Roi Louis XIII." J. B. 
 
 Legrain. 
 
 " Louis XIII. avant Richelieu." Rossignol. 
 " Histoire de la Mere et du Fils." Eudes de Mezeray. 
 "Vie Intime d'une Reine." L. Batifol. 
 " Memoires de Louise Boursier." 
 
 21 
 
INDEX 
 
 Albret, Jeanne d', 25 
 
 Amboise, made over to Conde, 306 
 
 Ammirato, Scipione, Tuscan Sec- 
 retary, 233, 263, 276 
 
 Ancre, Concino Concini, Marquis 
 d', created Marquis, 241 ; his 
 influence and advancement, 
 ibid. ; 292 ; 243, 251, 254, 271, 
 275 ; his cupidity, 278 ; 286, 
 287, 291 ; made Marshal, 292 ; 
 293, 298, 307. See Concini 
 
 Ancre, Leonora Galigai, Marquise 
 d', 279, 289, 306. See Concini 
 
 Anne of Austria, Infanta of Spain, 
 51, 82, 94, 95, 145, 146, 182, 265, 
 272, 273, 274 
 
 Aubigny, d', 19 
 
 Auvergne, Comte d', his treason, 
 27 seq. ; visits Louis, 39 ; 40 ; 
 arrested, 45 ; Henri's clemency 
 to, 46, 47 ; 49 ; 56 ; conspires 
 afresh, 73 ; in the Bastille, 85, 
 88 ; 109, no 
 
 Auvergne, Comtesse d', 86 
 
 Balzac, quoted, 230 
 
 Bar, Catherine, Duchesse de, 2 ; 
 her Protestantism, 24, 25 ; her 
 death, 59 
 
 Bassompierre, 115, 176, 180, 194, 
 199, 200, 206, 207, 284, 287, 288, 
 290, 291 
 
 Batifol, M., quoted, 230 
 
 Bellegarde.Ducde, Grand Equerry , 
 commonly called M. le Grand, 
 204, 206, 228, 254 ; Louis's 
 affection for, 275 ; charges 
 against him, 275-277 ; 284, 
 303 
 
 Beringhen, M. de, Louis's first 
 valet, 280 
 
 Birat, usher at Saint-Germain, 280 
 
 Biron, Due de, his treason, 16, 27 
 seq. ; envoy to England, 32 ; 
 his letter, 38 ; at Fontainebleau, 
 42, 43 ; arrested, 44 ; executed, 
 48 seq. 
 
 Blois, Henri at, 41 ; Louis at, 312 
 
 Bouillon, Due de, conspires 
 against Henri, 27 ; visits the 
 Dauphin, 37, 38 ; 41, 49, 50, 
 96, 100 ; Henri's expedition 
 against, 108 seq. ; reduced to 
 submission, no ; at Saint- 
 Germain, in ; 240, 247, 254, 
 281, 296, 301 
 
 Boulogne, Henri at, 22 
 
 Boursier, Madame Louise, the 
 Queen's nurse, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 
 
 Bracciano, Virgilio Orsini, Duke 
 of, 291 
 
 Calais, Henri at, 22, 31 
 Campiglio, Tuscan envoy, 260, 
 
 261 
 Cardenas, Don Innigo de, Spanish 
 
 ambassador, 269, 270 
 Chatel, Jean, his attempt to 
 
 murder Henri IV., 66 
 Chatre, Marechal de la, 245 
 Christine de France, birth of, 108 ; 
 
 baptism, 116 ; 260, 292 
 Cicogne, M. de, 177 
 Cioli, Florentine envoy, 235 
 Cleves, Duke of, his death, 185 
 Concini, Concino, 18, 20-22, 33, 
 
 53, 54, 57, 125, 148, 149, 163, 
 
 164, 177, 215, 217, 227, 231. 
 
 See Ancre 
 
 323 
 
324 
 
 Index 
 
 Concini, Leonora Galigai, married 
 to Concini, 18, 20, 21, 33, 53, 
 54. 57. 177. 217. See Ancre 
 
 Conde, Prince de, 55, 108, 176 ; 
 marriage of, 183 ; 184, 195, 214, 
 223, 227 ; returns to Paris, 228, 
 229 ; popularity of, 240 ; 246, 
 247, 248, 251, 253, 254, 257, 
 265, 266, 279, 287 ; leader of 
 confederated nobles, 295 seq. ; 
 leaves Paris, 296 ; his demands, 
 301, 302 ; letter to Louis, 303 ; 
 complaints, 306 ; at Orleans, 
 310, 311 ; loses strength, 313 
 seq. ; returns to Paris, 317 
 
 Conde, Charlotte de Montmorency, 
 Princesse de, 148 ; marriage, 
 183, 195 ; 231 
 
 Conti, Prince de, 2, 55, 214, 223, 
 254. 279 
 
 Conti, Mademoiselle de Guise, 
 Princesse de, 112, 113, 227 
 
 Cotton, Pre, Confessor to Henri 
 IV., 67, 155, 174, 175, 211, 244, 
 
 257 
 Crequy, Mademoiselle de, 172 
 
 Descluseaux, soldier of the Guard, 
 
 280 
 Des Yveteaux, Louis's tutor, 168, 
 
 169, 232 ; dismissed, 255 
 Doundoun, Maman, Louis's nurse, 
 
 83, 112, 167, 220 
 Dussieux, M., quoted, 164, 165 
 
 ElbSne, the Regent's maitve d 'hotel, 
 250 
 
 Elbeuf, Due d', 245 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 32 
 
 Elizabeth of France, daughter of 
 Henri IV., her birth, 50 ; 80 ; 
 baptism, 116; rebukes Louis, 
 141 ; marriage projects for, 
 144 ; recognized as Princess of 
 Spain, 269 seq. ; 273, 274 
 
 Entragues, the Sieur d', his con- 
 spiracy, 73, 74, 76 ; 86, 88 
 
 Entragues, Henriette d'. See Ver- 
 
 , neuil 
 
 Epernon, Due d', 27 ; visits the 
 
 Dauphin, 37 ; 202, 203, 207, 
 208, 214, 217, 227, 228, 245, 254, 
 285, 287, 292, 298, 317 
 Estrees, Gabrielle d', Duchesse de 
 Beaufort, 2 ; Henri wishes to 
 marry her, 13, 14 ; her death, 
 J 4 15 
 
 Feria, Duke de, Spanish envoy, 
 
 242, 243 
 
 Fevre, M. le, Louis's tutor, 255, 256 
 | Fleurence, M. de, Louis's sous- 
 
 precepteur, 256 
 | Fontaine bleau, i, 2, 78, 79 
 Fontenay, 267 
 Force, Due de la, Henri IV. 's 
 
 letter to, 49, 50 ; 67 
 Force, M. de la, Captain of the 
 
 Guard, 236 
 Francis I., King of France, 2 
 
 Galigai, Leonora. See Concini 
 
 and Ancre 
 Gaston, Due d'Anjou, afterwards 
 
 Due d'Orleans, son of Henry IV., 
 
 birth of, 153 ; at the Queen's 
 
 Coronation, 197 ; 200, 272, 318 
 Giovannini, Tuscan envoy, 35, 40, 
 
 43, 44, 46, 53, 70, 76 
 Gondi, Bishop of Paris, 224 
 Gonzaga, Cardinal de, 264 
 Grand, M. le. See Bellegarde 
 Gudalesta, Marquis de, 182 
 Guercheville, Antoinette de Pons, 
 
 Marquise de, 2, 53, 286 
 Guidi. See Volterra 
 Guise, Chevalier de, 280 ; kills 
 
 the Baron de Luz, 283 seq. ; 287 
 Guise, Due de, 140, 194, 199, 200, 
 
 206, 276, 277, 285, 286, 287, 292 
 Guise, Duchesse de, 53, 258, 282, 
 
 286 
 Guise, Mademoiselle de, 18, 53, 
 
 57. See Conti 
 
 H 
 
 Harlay, President of the Parle- 
 
 ment, 215 
 Henri IV., King of France, his 
 
 love for Fontainebleau, i, 2 ; 
 
Inde: 
 
 3 2 5 
 
 interview with Heroard, 3 ; 
 his son's birth, 5-9 ; has his 
 horoscope cast, 9-11 ; question 
 of his divorce, 12 seq. ; the 
 choice of a second wife, 13-15 ; 
 passion for Henriette d'En- 
 tragues, 15 ; war with Savoy, 
 1 6 ; marriage, 17 ; his character, 
 18-20 ; at Calais, 22 ; 25, 26, 
 27 ; Biron's conspiracy, 27 seq. ; 
 dislike of the Concini, 23 ; 
 visits to Saint-Germain, 34, 45, 
 46, 52 ; dealings with the con- 
 spirators, 40 seq. ; 48, 49 ; his 
 daughter's birth, 50 ; serious 
 illness, 54, 55 ; complains of 
 his wife, 57, 58 ; affection for 
 Madame de Verneuil's son, 59 ; 
 his sister's death, 60 ; conduct 
 with regard to it, 60, 61 ; 
 friction with the Dauphin, 63, 
 64 ; recalls the Jesuits, 65 seq. ; 
 relations with the Queen and 
 the Marquise de Verneuil, 69-73 ; 
 recovers his written promise of 
 marriage ; leniency towards the 
 conspirators, 76, 77 ; relations 
 with the Dauphin, 80, 82 ; 
 their quarrel, 83-87 ; estrange- 
 ment from Rosny, and recon- 
 ciliation, 90-93 ; the Dauphin's 
 affection, 95, 116; receives 
 Marguerite de Valois at Saint- 
 Germain, 97, 98 ; expedition to 
 the Limousin, 100 ; at Saint- 
 Germain, 102, in ; New Year's 
 Day at the Louvre, 103-106 ; 
 dines with Sully, 107, 108 ; 
 expedition against Bouillon, 
 108-110; escape from drown- 
 ing, 112 ; the Marquise restored 
 to favour, 113, 119, 121 ; 
 quarrels with Sully, 122-124, 
 J 36, 137 ; with the Queen, 
 124-131; severe towards Louis, 
 133 ; birth of his second son, 
 135 ; arranges marriages for his 
 children, 144-148 ; gives audi- 
 ence to Tuscan envoy, 149, 150, 
 152 ; betroths the Due de 
 Vendome, 153, 155 ; receives 
 Don Pedro de Toledo, 156 ; 
 true to his pledges, 161 ; letters 
 to Sully, 161, 162, 172 ; con- 
 
 ciliates Concini, 163 ; his opin- 
 ion of him, 164 ; letter to the 
 Marquise, 164 ; relations with 
 the Dauphin, 167, 180, 182 ; 
 and with Sully, 171, 186, 187 ; 
 at the Arsenal, 172, 173 ; 174, 
 175 ; his passion for Mademoi- 
 selle de Montmorency, 176 ; 
 marries her to Conde, ibid. ; his 
 decline, 177-180 ; anger with 
 Conde, 183 ; prepares for war, 
 184-186 ; breach with Madame 
 de Verneuil, 187 ; forebodings, 
 192, 193 ; 194 ; at the Queen's 
 Coronation, 196, 198 ; his last 
 hours, 199 seq. ; his murder, 
 202 seq. ; different theories 
 concerning it, 201-212 ; his 
 heart carried to La Fleche, 216 ; 
 his obsequies, 223, 224 ; re- 
 membered by his sons, 237, 263 
 
 Henriette Marie, daughter of 
 Henri IV., 197, 200, 272 
 
 Heroard, Maitre Jean, Physician 
 to Louis, 3, 4, 9, 24, 26, and 
 constantly quoted 
 
 J 
 
 James I., King of England, 73 
 
 Jeannin, President, 298 
 
 Jesuits, re-admitted to France, 
 65 seq. ; accused of complicity 
 in Henri IV.'s murder, 211 
 
 Joinville, Prince de, 50, 317 
 
 Joyeuse, Cardinal de, 115, 245 
 
 La Fin, traitor and informer, 28, 
 
 Landrecies, Conde flies to, 184 
 
 Lerma, Duke of, 243 
 
 Liancourt, M. de, 166 
 
 Longueville, Due de, 70, 170, 291 
 joins the malcontents, 297 
 makes his submission, 303, 304 
 
 317 
 
 Longueville, Duchesse de, 70 
 Louis, first Dauphin, afterwards 
 Louis XIII., King of France 
 his birth, 4-7 ; horoscope, 9-11 
 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 25 
 conspiracy against him, 29, 73 
 
326 
 
 Index 
 
 visitors at Saint-Germain, 26, 
 
 34. 37> 3 8 . 39, 45, 4<5 ; 4 8 ', his 
 companions, 51, 52 ; "reflects 
 court jealousies, 53, 54 ; com- 
 pared with the son of the Maf- 
 quise, 59 ; early training, 62, 
 *33, J 34 ; friction with his 
 father, 63, 64 ; 69, 71 ; rela- 
 tions with his half-brother, 
 75-77, 101 ; visits Fontaine- 
 bleau, 78 ; his father's affec- 
 tion, 8 1 ; visit of the Count de 
 Sora, 82 ; quarrel with his 
 father, 83-85 ; reconciled to 
 him, 87 ; dislike for Rosny, 90, 
 93, 138 ; for Spaniards, 95, 117 ; 
 love for his father, 95, 96, 116, 
 117, 133 ; meets Marguerite de 
 Valois, 97, 98 ; 102 ; 104 ; 
 visit to Paris, 108, no; parts 
 with his father, 109 ; his 
 jealousy, in ; and unsocial 
 moods, 112 ; his public bap- 
 tism, 114, 116 ; conduct on 
 Maundy Thursday, 135 ; wishes 
 to kill Turks, 139 ; receives Due 
 de Guise, 140 ; is rebuked by 
 Madame, 141 ; 142 ; jealous of 
 Henri de Verneuil, 143 ; talks 
 of the Spanish marriage, 145 ; 
 149 ; horror of parsimony, 151, 
 152 ; 153 ; visited by Don 
 Pedro de Toledo, 156 ; his 
 companions, 165 ; and his 
 discipline, 165, 166, 169, 170; 
 lie and his father, 167 ; at the 
 Louvre, 168 ; 180 ; the King's 
 severity, 181, 182 ; looks on 
 the Infanta as his wife, 182 ; 
 rivalry between gouverneiir and 
 gouvernante, 189, 190 ; at his 
 mother's coronation, 197 ; 200 ; 
 203 ; after his father's murder, 
 209 seq. ; accession, 213-215 ; 
 216; his fears, 220, 221 ; assists 
 at his fa/Eher's obsequies, 223, 
 224 ; is proclaimed, 224 ; 
 jealousy of Conde, 228 ; receives 
 him, ibid. ; relations with the 
 Queen, 230 ; and with the 
 gouverneur, 230-232 ; his 
 childhood shortened, 233 ; 
 character and conduct, 234-236 ; 
 love of his father, 237 ; a visit 
 
 from Pierrot, 237, 238 ; re- 
 ceives the Duke de Feria, 243 ; 
 supposed hostility to Spain, 
 
 243, 244 ; journey to Rheims, 
 
 244, 245 ; coronation, 245, 246 ; 
 Paris entered, ibid. ; complains 
 of Conde, 247, 248, 265 ; re- 
 grets Sully's dismissal, 249 ; 
 desire for war, 251, 252, 294 ; 
 his tutor changed, 255 ; religi- 
 ous observances, 257 ; parted 
 from the Chevalier de Vendome, 
 2 57-259 ; death of his brother, 
 261 seq. ; takes Luynes as 
 falconer, 266, 267 , his marriage 
 arranged, 269, 272-274 ; liking 
 for Bellegarde, 275 ; his first 
 valet, 280 ; his mother's dis- 
 cipline, 280-282 ; intervenes to 
 save a woman's life, 288-290 ; 
 love of justice, 290-293 ; civil 
 war imminent, 299 ; armed es- 
 cort necessary in Paris, 299, 
 300 ; eager for war, ibid. ; at 
 the Council-board, 302 ; anger 
 with the Due de Vendome 305, 
 314; taken to the disturbed 
 districts, 308 seq. ; at Orleans, 
 311; plays the bon compagnon, 
 312 ; at Nantes, 314 ; receives 
 Vendome's submission, 315, 
 316 ; entry into Paris, 316 ; 
 attainment of his majority, 318; 
 its declaration before the Par- 
 lement, 318-320 
 
 Luynes, Charles d'Albert de, 266, 
 
 267, 289, 301 
 Luz, Baron de, the father, his 
 
 death, 283 seq. 
 Luz, Baron de, the son, killed in 
 
 a duel, 288 
 Lyons, first meeting between 
 
 Henri IV. and Marie de Medicis 
 
 at, 17, 18 
 
 M 
 
 Malherbe, the poet, quoted, 63, 
 156, 171, 172, 174, 1 86, 187, 284, 
 285, 300, 303 
 
 Mantua, Duchess of, 115, 259 
 
 Mantua, Duke of, 294 
 
 Margaret of Austria, Queen of 
 Spain, death of, 260 
 
Index 
 
 3 2 7 
 
 Marguerite de Valois, Queen, 12 ; 
 her divorce, 13 seq. ; 96 ; visits 
 Saint-Germain, 97 seq. ; in 
 Paris, 99, 100 ; 108 ; 174 ; 273 
 
 Marie de Medicis, Queen of 
 France, 3 ; her position, 4 ; 
 gives birth to Louis XIII., 5 
 seq. ; recovery, 9 ; marriage to 
 Henri IV., 15 seq. ; arrival in 
 Paris, 1 8 ; character and des- 
 tiny, 20 ; her favourites, 20-22 ; 
 her son's birth, 23 ; domestic 
 dissensions, 26 ; 43, 45 ; her 
 complaints, 46 ; her daughter's 
 birth, 50 ; 52, 53 ; 63, 64 ; 
 fresh quarrels, 69 seq. ; 75-77, 
 84 ; at peace with her husband, 
 100, 101 ; relations with Rosny, 
 103-106 ; birth of her second 
 daughter, 108 ; domestic dis- 
 cord, 120 ; birth of her second 
 son, 135 ; complains to her 
 uncle, 137 ; 149, 150, 164, 165 ; 
 Henri proposes a compromise, 
 X 77. J 79 ; ms warnings, 181, 
 182 ; question of her corona- 
 tion, 192 ; it takes place, 
 196-198 ; 200 ; the King's 
 murder, 201, seq. ; Marie de- 
 clared Regent, 207, 208 ; 209 ; 
 her power confirmed by the 
 Parlement, 214, 215 ; conduct 
 after the murder, 218 ; Sully 's 
 description of her, 219, 220 ; 
 beginning of her rule, 222, 226 
 seq. ; relations with Louis, 230, 
 233 234 ; her policy, 239, 240 ; 
 makes Concini Marquis d'An- 
 cre, 241 ; 242 ; at Louis's coro- 
 nation, 244 seq. ; dismisses 
 Sully, 250, 251 ; anxiety for 
 the Spanish marriage, 251, 254, 
 255 ; sends away the Chevalier 
 de Vendome, 257-259 ; a match- 
 maker, 259, 260 ; question of 
 her re-marriage, 260, 261 ; her 
 son's death, 263-265 ; concludes 
 the Spanish marriages, 269, 270, 
 273 ; makes peace with the 
 Princes, 271, 272; 276-278; her 
 severity to Louis, 281 ; angry 
 at de Luz's murder, 284 seq. ; 
 condones it, 287 ; her cousin's 
 marriage, 291 ; 293 ; in favour 
 
 of war, 294 ; breach with the 
 nobles, 295 seq. ; thinks of 
 resigning Regency, 298 ; par- 
 leys with the rebels, 299 ; 
 scene at Council-board, 301, 
 302 ; makes peace, 302 seq. ; 
 Conde's complaints, 306 ; de- 
 cides on strong measures, 307- 
 310 ; progress through the 
 provinces, 310 seq. ; return to 
 Paris, 316 ; receives Conde, 
 317 ; is confirmed in her 
 authority, 319 
 
 Mayenne, Due de, 162 ; his 
 loyalty, 253 
 
 Mayenne, Due de, the younger, 
 272, 273, 274 ; with the con- 
 federate nobles, 296 ; submits, 
 304 ; 308 
 
 Medicis. See Marie 
 
 Medicis, Don Giovanni de, 113, 
 114, 148 
 
 Mercoeur, Due de, 154 
 
 Mercceur, Duchesse de, 154 
 
 Mercoeur, Mademoiselle de, mar- 
 ried to Due de Vendome, 153- 
 
 155 
 Mesnard, his Regrets Amoureux, 
 
 100 
 Metz, Henri de Verneuil to be 
 
 Bishop of, 146 
 Mezidres, taken by Due de Nevers, 
 
 297 
 Michelet, quoted, 12, 18, 44, 179, 
 
 215, 225 
 
 Moisset, charges against, 275-278 
 Monaldesco, murdered at Fon- 
 
 tainebleau, 2 
 
 Montbazon, Due de, 202, 304, 305 
 Montglat, Madame de, gouver- 
 
 nante to the Dauphin, 3, 6 ; 
 
 35. 3 8 > 39, 50; her system of 
 
 training, 62; 63; 83, 133, 134, 
 
 141, 142, 151, 152, 168, 221, 222, 
 
 263 
 
 Montigny, M. de, 177 
 Montmorency, Charlotte de. See 
 
 Conde 
 Montmorency, Due de, Constable 
 
 of France, 2, 27, 49, 99, 154, 
 
 176 ; Henri's letter to, 183 
 Montmorency, Henri de, 260 ; 
 
 marriage of, 291, 292 
 Montpensier, Due de, 2, 61, 74 
 
3 28 
 
 Index 
 
 Montpensier, Duchesse de, 19, 203 
 Montpensier, Mademoiselle de, 
 
 betrothed to the Due d'Orleans, 
 
 145, 264, 265 
 
 Morgan, treasonable agent, 73 
 Mortemart, Marquis de, 166 
 
 N 
 
 Nantes, Louis at, 314 seq. 
 Nemours, Duchesse de, 2, 18 
 Neuilly, Accident at, 112, 113 
 Nevers, Due de, 273 ; with the 
 confederated nobles, 296, 297 
 
 Orange, Louise de Coligny, Prin- 
 cess of, 14 
 
 Orleans, Due d', birth of, 135, 
 136; betrothed, 145; 209; his 
 death, 261-263 ; and funeral, 
 264 
 
 Orleans, Henri IV. at, 4 ; Louis 
 at, 311 seq. 
 
 Orsini. See Bracciano 
 
 Passitea, the Madre, 75 
 
 Paul V., Pope, 115 
 
 Perron, Cardinal du, 147 
 
 Philip III., King of Spain, 73, 156, 
 
 265, 273 
 
 Pierrot, at the Tuileries, 237, 238 
 Pluvenal, sous-precepteur to Louis, 
 
 99 
 
 Poitiers, Bishop of, 306, 313 
 Poitiers, Louis at, 313 
 Praslin, Captain of the Guard, 
 
 203, 299 
 
 Ravaillac, 179 ; murders Henri 
 IV., 202 ; different theories as 
 to the crime, 210, 211 ; 221 
 
 Renouliere, Mademoiselle de, 3 
 
 Retz, Due de, 297, 315 
 
 Rheims, Louis at, 245, seq. 
 
 Richelieu, Cardinal, quoted, 101, 
 125, 250, 263, 275 
 
 Riviere, M. de la, casts Louis's 
 horoscope, 9-11 
 
 Rohan, Due de, 207, 234, 314 
 
 Rohan, Duchesse de, 129 
 
 Rosny, Marquis de, Sully 's son, 
 
 127 seq., 172 
 Rosny. See Sully 
 Roquelaure, M. de, Lieutenant of 
 
 Guienne, 313 
 Rouet, Sieur de 1'Isle, 312 
 
 Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 25, 26 
 Saint Julien, favourite to Queen 
 
 Marguerite, 100 
 Savoy, Duke of, 16, 239, 251, 252, 
 
 260 
 Serta, Don Sanchez de la, visits 
 
 the Dauphin, 56 
 Sillery, Chancellor, 70, 71, 76, 206, 
 
 254, 256, 265, 269, 286, 288, 
 
 296, 298, 307, 311 
 Soissons, Comte de, 2, 52, 55, 195, 
 
 211, 212, 222, 223, 229, 253, 
 
 254, 256, 268, 269, 270, 271 ; 
 his death, 279 
 
 Soissons, Comte de, the younger, 
 300 
 
 Sora, the Count de, 82 
 
 Sourdis, Cardinal de, 236 
 
 Souvre, Chevalier de, 292 
 
 Souvre, M. de, gouverneur to Louis, 
 168, 170, 182, 209, 210, 230-233 ; 
 235, 236 ; 247-249, 256, 262, 
 267, 272, 282, 289, 303 
 
 Sully, Maximilien de Bethune, 
 Marquis de Rosny, then Due 
 de, Henri IV.'s letter to, 9 ; n, 
 13-16, 32, 33, 42-44 ; Henri's 
 affection for, 49, 53, 55 ; Henri's 
 confidences to, 57, 58, 61, 71, 
 72 ; his enemies, 89, 90 ; Louis's 
 dislike for, 90, 94, 171, 190 ; 
 in disgrace, 90-92 ; restored to 
 favour, 92, 93 ; at the Louvre, 
 103 seq. ; created Due de Sully, 
 107 ; Henri at the Arsenal, 
 107, 108 ; relations with King 
 and Queen, 121-130, 171 seq. ; 
 Henri's letters to, 161, 162 ; 185, 
 186, 192, 193; 186, 187; 201; 
 hears of Henri's murder, 214 
 seq.; 215; describes the Queen, 
 219, 220 ; 227 ; 239, 240, 246, 
 247 ; his dismissal, 248-250 ; 
 261, 313, 315 
 
Index 
 
 329 
 
 Taxis, Hieronimo, Spanish am- 
 bassador, 37, 38, 56, 73 
 Thou, de, 299 
 Toledo, Don Pedro de, his mission, 
 
 156-159 
 
 Torigny, Comte de, 165, 166 
 Torricello, a priest, 35 
 Tours, Louis at, 313 
 Tuscany, Grand Duke of, 15, 21, 
 
 51, 120, 149, 150 
 
 Varenne, in Henri IV.'s confid- 
 ence, 217 
 
 Vendome, Alexandre de, Cheva- 
 lier of Malta, son of Gabrielle 
 d'Estrees, 51, 52, 80, 95, 228, 
 237. 257-259, 293 
 
 Vendome, Catherine de, daughter 
 of Gabrielle d'Estrees, 51, 70, 
 146, 147, 151, 260 
 
 Vendome, Cesar, Due de, son of 
 Gabrielle d'Estrees, 2, 4, 7, 
 8 ; meets Marie de Medicis at 
 Lyons, 17; 19, 51, 80, no, 112, 
 113, 152, 153 seq. ; 169; 229, 
 237, 279 ; escapes from the 
 Louvre, 297 ; in Brittany, 304 ; 
 his father's estimate of him, 305, 
 306, 307, 313-316 
 
 Ventelet, Mademoiselle de, 51 
 
 Verdun, Bishop of, 154 
 
 Verneuil, Gabrielle de, 60, 70, 74, 
 101, 120, 143, 151, 154 
 
 Verneuil, Henri de, 54 ; com- 
 pared by Henri IV. with the 
 Dauphin, 59 ; 60, 61, 73 ; his 
 legitimation, 74 ; at Saint- 
 Germain, 74 seq. ; 84, 85, 95, 
 101, 102, 116, 143, 147, 151 
 
 Verneuil, Henriette d'Entragues, 
 Marquise de, 4, 15 ; resents 
 Henri IV.'s marriage, 17 ; pre- 
 sented to the Queen, 18 ; 20, 
 22 ; her treason, 27, 29, 30, 34 ; 
 visits the Dauphin, 26, 34, 46, 
 54 ; . 35. 36, 77. 56, 58 seq. ; 69 ; 
 intrigues of, 70, 71 ; fresh 
 treason, 73, 74, 86 ; regains her 
 ascendency over the King, 113, 
 119, 120; 129, 130; Henri's 
 letter to, 164 ; Henri estranged 
 from, 187 
 
 Vic, M. de, 204 
 
 Villeroy, Secretary of State, 59, 
 71, 80, 217, 254, 271, 298, 307 
 
 Vitry, Captain of the Guard, 45, 
 201, 205 
 
 Vitry, the younger, Captain of the 
 Guard, 266 
 
 Volterra, Chevalier Camillo Guidi 
 di, 149, 150, 155, 171, 175 
 
 Zamet, the banker, 8 
 Zeller, M. Berthold, quoted, 212, 
 277, 302 
 
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