1636: The Cardinal Virtues (2 page)

Chapter 2

August, 1635

Paris

On the morning of the Feast of Saint Louis, the king of France awoke in the darkness. He was unable to sleep any longer. By the time he rose and shrugged into his robe, his ever-attentive valet Beringhien was already in his bedchamber, building up the fire to help his master ward off the unexpected late summer chill.

Beringhien knew better than to ask Louis why he was up and about at this hour. The king had long since ceased to observe the hours an adult man would normally keep. The
lever
and the
coucher
took place at the appointed times, so that the gentlemen who had the honor of assisting with the royal robing and disrobing could be present as needed. But what took place behind the door of the king’s cabinet was entirely different.

This was a special morning. Beringhien had laid out some of the king’s wardrobe when he retired just before Matins, and as soon as he dealt with the fireplace he retired without a word to complete the task, leaving Louis to attend to his duty with the chamber pot.

In his dressing chamber, the king yawned, removing his robe and dropping it on the ground so that he could stand in his small-clothes. As he noted the attire that his valet had chosen he favored Beringhien with a slight smile. Even in the chilly predawn dark it warmed the valet’s heart to see it. So little brought his royal master to smile these days, with the press of duty and the swirl of intrigues and the weight of the crown upon Louis’ brow.

“Send word to Father Caussin that I desire to have him hear my confession,” the king said when he was done. “And present my respects to my lady, my lady the queen and inform her that I wish to call upon her when she is ready to receive me.”

“Majesty—” Beringhien began to reply, and then saw the expression on his master’s face: excitement, tinged perhaps with impatience. “Sire. It is two hours before dawn.”

“You do not think that my confessor will be ready to serve me at this hour?”

“No, Sire . . . but the queen . . .”

“When my spiritual duty is done she shall receive me. See to it, see to it,” he said, waving the valet off.

“As you wish, Your Majesty,” Beringhien answered, and bowed himself out of the king’s presence.

◊ ◊ ◊

The stern voice of Père Nicolas Caussin, the king’s Jesuit confessor, pronounced the absolution upon the king as he knelt in the confessional. After a few polite words thanking His Majesty for his piety and his goodness in setting an example, Caussin withdrew from his side of the screen, leaving the king alone.

The king offered up a private prayer and rose, stepping back into his private chapel, and then made his way along a corridor, just beginning to brighten with the first rays of sunlight. Three of his gentlemen-in-waiting kept a respectful distance from the king as they followed. In the distance, the first lauds-bells were chiming across the city, calling the faithful to prayer.

Presently he came to the apartments in the Louvre set aside for the queen. The outer door was already open. As he walked through, he received a low bow from François de Crussol, the duke of Uzès, gentleman-in-ordinary to the queen. He was of an age with the king and had been in Anne’s service for a dozen years, attending her before and at the
lever
—when she rose from bed and emerged to greet her courtiers. He had received word from Beringhien, and though he appeared to have scarcely performed his morning toilet, was alert and ready to receive the king.

“Sire,” Uzès said. “Her Majesty humbly begs her pardon as she is not yet ready to receive you, but asked that I present you in just a few minutes.”

“Very well, very well. It is—it is quite early.”

“Indeed so, my lord. I trust you rested well, Sire?”

“I could hardly sleep. A great day, a great day, Uzès.” The king shifted from foot to foot, then turned suddenly to his entourage. “My good
gentilhommes
, your service is not required—I shall call for you at once if you are needed.”

The three young noblemen offered deep bows and withdrew, scarcely concealing their delight in being released from the royal presence. They knew not to stray far, since the king’s mood might suddenly change, but they were clearly eager to be away from his sight.

The king turned again. “And how do you, Monsieur le duc? Are you well this fine day?”

“I thank Your Majesty for asking. I am quite well.”

“And the queen?”

“I believe she does well also. I—”

His reply was interrupted by the opening of the inner door of the chamber and the appearance of Marie-Aimée de Rohan, the duchess of Chevreuse, the principal lady-in-waiting for the queen. The king disliked the duchess. At one time they had been very close, when she was married to Charles d’Albert, duc de Luynes—the king’s falconer and favorite, who had died fifteen years before. Since then she had descended into various intrigues, primarily aimed at Cardinal Richelieu. She had even been dismissed and exiled at one point, only to be reinstated earlier this year at the request of his queen.

As in so many things, Louis felt that circumstances had trapped him into such a decision—but it would soon be of no matter.

“Madame,” the king said, removing his hat. “Is Her Majesty ready to receive me?”

“Yes, Sire,” the duchess answered. “She has just risen from her bed and made her morning prayer. She begs to receive you in her cabinet.”

“Splendid, splendid,” Louis said. “I would speak with her alone.”

The duchess de Chevreuse let one eyebrow drift upward, as if it were the strangest thing in the world for husband and wife—king and queen—to be alone together. But she had no inclination to gainsay her sovereign, and merely stood aside as the king entered the chamber. Uzès remained without, and the duchess closed the door behind her and looked at him.

“Do you have any idea—” she began.

“I have found that it is best not to ask, madame,” the duke answered. “I am sure that if it is intended that I know, that I shall learn in due time.”

“Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

“Do you wish the polite answer or the truth?”

“The truth, of course.”

“I am insanely curious. The king here, at dawn? I have no idea why he might come, and then seek private audience with our mistress. But it is his right. Perhaps they want to—”

“On a feast-day? Really, François—”

The duke shrugged, with a slight smile at her shocked look. He thought she was being quite disingenuous. When they were much younger they had both seen the loose morality of the court when Louis’ father was king. There had been eight
légitimés
, the recognized offspring of Henry IV with his various mistresses, and God only knew how many other by-blows that had never been brought to court.

“The calendar is stuffed with feast-days, Marie. I rather think the saints turn a blind eye to it all.”

She gave him another shocked look, which he continued to disregard. She reached for the door handle as if preparing to stalk back into the queen’s inner chambers, then, realizing the order for privacy, let her hand drop to her side, and settled with as much dignity as she could manage into a chair.

◊ ◊ ◊

Louis stood just inside the doorway for several seconds. Anne—who at court was called
Anne of Austria
though she was a Spanish princess—his wife of more than twenty years, sat at her toilet-table, her back to him; her long tresses lay loosely on her shoulders rather than being bundled up in a
chignon
or elaborately pinned in a coiffure, as she preferred and as court style demanded. She was dressed in a long plain underdress, and was examining herself in the mirrors at the back of the table.

She had seen him there; but it was some sort of game for her to pretend she had not. At another time, with an audience, this was something she might have prolonged to keep him waiting—to make sure he understood that he moved in
her
realm, that in these rooms he followed an orbit around her rather than she about him. But the time for such artifice and entertainment was past, if indeed it had ever been the true course she had wished to follow.

“Madame, I—”

“Sire.” She turned on her backless chair, affecting to see him for the first time, and allowed herself to fall to one knee. “I beg your pardon. I did not hear you come in.”

“It is nothing. A few moments.” In a few steps he was before her and extended his hand, which she took. He assisted her to rise.

“I do not wish Your Majesty to think me discourteous or ill-bred.” She smiled.

“I could not imagine such an accusation. You are my queen, my betrothed, and . . .” It was his turn to smile. “A true daughter of Hapsburg. I am pleased that you would receive me so early.”

“I am at Your Majesty’s service, as he knows.”

“Yes. I know.” He let go of her hand and walked slowly toward the patio doors, closed against late summer chill. Beyond, a beautiful day beckoned, the leaves on the trees in the enclosed garden just beginning to turn.

She followed, stopping at a respectful distance.

“We have not spoken for some time,” Louis said. “Not like—like this. The two of us. No courtiers, no cardinal. No confessors or—or—others.”

“As you wish.”

“Not as I wish: not, not just as
I
wish, Anne. I would have wished otherwise, I think, if things had been different.” He turned to face her. “I have reached the conclusion after many years that—that you have been ill-used. Perhaps I have been as well. When we married . . . when we were first together . . . we were not ready. Neither of us.”

Anne looked down at her hands, folded in front of her. She wanted to say,
I was ready: I was trained to be ready. You were . . .

You were your mother’s son,
she thought to herself. Marie de Medici, the domineering, controlling, manipulative queen mother who was Regent of France during Louis’ minority had done everything in her power to make sure she maintained that situation, even as she stunted the maturity of the king of France. Indeed, they fought two wars in the space of a year, his partisans on one side and hers on the other. But it took a personal, direct conflict to make him decide between mother and minister.

And to many,
she thought,
you simply became the cardinal’s creature. Weak, indecisive, tongue-tied . . . and even now without an heir of your body, or mine.

I was ready,
she thought. But she did not say it.

“Things have not gone as planned, Sire,” she said at last.

“Louis.”

“Louis,” she repeated, and though she spoke French very well it still sounded like
Luis
. “My king. I consented to this arrangement so that there might be a future for the royal house, but it would not have been my decision if it had not been decided for me. The . . . cardinal, your servant, saw it as a practical solution, and I allow that it is so.”

“It was his arrangement, Anne,” he said. “But it is—it is my will.”

She looked down again at her folded hands. “I know it is your will, Sire. But you asked my consent—or, rather, your . . . servant . . . asked it, and I gave it. It is my choice to participate.”

“My servant loves France, and so do I.”

“And so do
I
, Louis. I am its queen. Though you sometimes doubted it, though there have been times that my actions and words have not truly convinced you that it is true, I love France.” She was not looking down now: she was looking directly into his eyes. She had not meant to be so emotional, but she felt that it was time for truth. After all of the intrigue, all of the scheming, all of the failed pregnancies and petty jealousies and court rivalries—after all of that—it was time for truth.

“I want—I want to believe you.”

“Do you not?” She continued to stare at him. “I cannot imagine what I must do to convince you that I speak the truth. Words fail me. Only deeds will do.” She reached forward and took his hand in both of hers. He did not pull away: there was no one to see the gesture, no one to titter at her sentimentality or at his discomfort. Perhaps Madame de Chevreuse or one of the other ladies of her chamber was watching the scene—or perhaps one of the cardinal’s spies, for that matter: they said that his eyes and ears were everywhere. She had already decided that she did not care. “We will undertake this and we will do it for France. For you, Sire, and even for . . . for your servant.”

“It is not for him.”

“Then it is for France, my lord.”

“I can accept that. We do this for France, my lady. For the France that will be—not what the up-timers speak of in their mysterious future past, but for our, for our France of the near future. I ask for a son, Anne, who will be king after me—another Louis. Louis the Fourteenth, when I am in my tomb.”

“I pray that is far from now, Sire. After all of this time you deserve to see that son, and perhaps many more.”

He smiled slightly, wistfully. “The nation has not always done well when there are many sons.”

She lifted the hand she still held between her own, and softly kissed it. His lip trembled as she did so, but he did not pull it away.

“For France,” she repeated, and let go of his hand, offering him a deep curtsey that would have made the sternest instructor in Madrid beam with delight.

◊ ◊ ◊

“Inde vero, morte suae matris audita, reversus in Franciam, sic sanctitatis insistebat operibus quod ut ipsius jejunia vigilias et disciplinas multimodas pretereamus.

“Plura monseria et pauperum hospitalia constuxit, infirmos et decumbentos inibi visitando personalieter, et minibus propriis ac flexo genu eis cibaria ministrando. . . .”

Cardinal Gondi, archbishop of Paris, droned on, reciting Joinville’s account of the great deeds of the king’s blessed namesake: of his crusades against the infidel and of piety and devotion to works of humility, particularly after the death of his mother. The ceremony was held in the great church of Paris’ patron saint and his great church. When the
oriflamme
went abroad with King Louis IX—and others—the French knights had rallied to the cry of
“Montjoie! Saint-Denis!”
Montjoie
meant “showing the way,” and Saint Denis was the bishop and martyr who had so alarmed the pagan priests of the Parisii that they beheaded him on the highest hill nearby, the
mons martyrius
—thus
Montmartre
.