The making of a king (8 page)

" 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

more than a few days, to be in actual danger. To all concerned these days brought home a sense of the precarious 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-

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 exercised 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 reconciliation 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

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 disdainful 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

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 intervention 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 annoyance, 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 surrender the promise of marriage in her possession, she replied with a defiance. He might seek it else-

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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, characterised the pledge it contained, hampered as it was with unfulfilled conditions, as mere " niaiserie." But it constituted, 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

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 instituted 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, dismissing 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 complications 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

the son of the Marquise no less a gift than the county of Foix, with the duchy of Armagnac, rendered 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 cannot have been ignorant that such would be the result.