The Life of Marie de Medicis - Volume 1

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

1572

Marriages of Henri IV--Marguerite de Valois--Her character--Her marriage with the King of Navarre--Massacre of Saint Bartholomew--Henri, Duc d'Anjou, elected sovereign of Poland--Death of Charles IX--Accession of Henri III--Conspiracy of the Duc d'Alençon--Revealed by Marguerite--Henry of Navarre escapes from the French Court--Henry of Navarre protests against his enforced oath--Marguerite is imprisoned by her brother--The Duc d'Alençon returns to his allegiance--Marguerite joins her husband at Béarn--Domestic discord--Marriage-portion of Marguerite--Court of Navarre--Dupin insults the Queen of Navarre--Catherine de Medicis induces Marguerite to return to France--The Duc d'Alençon again revolts--Marguerite arrests a royal courier--She is banished with ignominy from the French Court--She is deprived of her attendants--Henry of Navarre refuses to receive her in the palace--Marguerite returns to Agen--Her licentiousness--Agen is stormed and taken by the Marshal de Matignon--Marguerite escapes to the fortress of Carlat--The inhabitants of the town resolve to deliver her up to the French King--She is made prisoner by the Marquis de Canillac, and conveyed to Usson--She seduces the governor of the fortress--Death of the Duc d'Alençon--Poverty of Marguerite--Accession of Henri IV--He embraces the Catholic faith--His dissipated habits--The Duc de Bouillon heads the Huguenot party--Henri IV proceeds to Brittany, and threatens M. de Bouillon--Festivities at Rennes--Henri IV becomes melancholy--He resolves to divorce Marguerite, and take a second wife--European princesses--Henry desires to marry la belle Gabrielle--Sully expostulates--Sully proposes a divorce to Marguerite--The Duchesse de Beaufort intrigues to prevent the marriage of the King with Marie de Medicis--She bribes Sillery--Diplomacy of Sillery--Gabrielle aspires to the throne of France--Her death--Marguerite consents to a divorce--The Pope declares the nullity of her marriage--Grief of the King at the death of Gabrielle--Royal pleasures--A new intrigue--Mademoiselle d'Entragues--Her tact--Her character--A love-messenger--Value of a royal favourite--Costly indulgences--A practical rebuke--Diplomacy of Mademoiselle d'Entragues--The written promise--Mademoiselle d'Entragues is created Marquise de Verneuil.

However celebrated he was destined to become as a sovereign, Henri IV of France was nevertheless fated to be singularly unfortunate as a husband. Immediately after the death of his mother, the high-hearted Jeanne d'Albret, whom he succeeded on the throne of Navarre, political considerations induced him to give his hand to Marguerite, the daughter of Henri II and Catherine de Medicis, a Princess whose surpassing beauty and rare accomplishments were the theme and marvel of all the European courts, and whose alliance was an object of ambition to many of the sovereign princes of Christendom.

Marguerite de Valois was born on the 14th of May 1552, and became the wife of Henry of Navarre on the 18th of August 1572, when she was in the full bloom of youth and loveliness; nor can there be any doubt that she was one of the most extraordinary women of her time; for while her grace and wit dazzled the less observant by their brilliancy, the depth of her erudition, her love of literature and the arts, and the solidity of her judgment, no less astonished those who were capable of appreciating the more valuable gifts which had been lavished upon her by nature. A dark shadow rested, however, upon the surface of this glorious picture. Marguerite possessed no moral self-government; her passions were at once the bane and the reproach of her existence; and while yet a mere girl her levity had already afforded ample subject for the comments of the courtiers.

HENRI DE LORRAINE.

Fortunately, in the rapid sketch which we are compelled to give of her career, it is unnecessary that we should do more than glance at the licentiousness of her private conduct; our business is simply to trace such an outline of her varying fortunes as may suffice to render intelligible the position of Henri IV at the period of his second marriage.

After the death of Francis II, when internal commotion had succeeded to the feigned and hollow reconciliation which had taken place between Charles IX and Henri de Lorraine, Duc de Guise, Marguerite and her younger brother, the Duc d'Alençon, were removed to the castle of Amboise for greater security; and she remained in that palace-fortress from her tenth year until 1564, when she returned to Court, and thenceforward became one of the brightest ornaments of the royal circle. Henri de Guise was not long ere he declared himself her ardent admirer, and the manner in which the Princess received and encouraged his attentions left no doubt that the affection was reciprocal. So convinced, indeed, were those about her person of the fact, that M. du Gast, the favourite of the King her brother, earnestly entreated His Majesty no longer to confide to the Princess, as he had hitherto done, all the secrets of the state, as they could not, he averred, fail, under existing circumstances, to be communicated to M. de Guise; and Charles IX so fully appreciated the value of this advice, that he hastened to urge the same caution upon the Queen-mother. This sudden distrust and coldness on the part of her royal relatives was peculiarly irritating to Marguerite; nor was her mortification lessened by the fact that the Duc de Guise, first alarmed, and ultimately disgusted, by her unblushing irregularities, withdrew his pretensions to her hand; and, sacrificing his ambition to a sense of self-respect, selected as his wife Catherine de Clèves, Princesse de Portien.

At this period Marguerite de Valois began to divide her existence between the most exaggerated devotional observances and the most sensual and degrading pleasures. Humbly kneeling before the altar, she would assist at several masses during the day; but at twilight she cast off every restraint, and careless of what was due, alike to her sex and to her rank, she plunged into the grossest dissipation; and after having played the guest at a riotous banquet, she might be seen sharing in the disgraceful orgies of a masquerade. A short time after the marriage of the Duc de Guise, the hand of the Princess was demanded by Don Sebastian, King of Portugal; but the Queen-mother, who witnessed with alarm the increasing power of the Protestant party, and the utter impossibility of inspiring confidence in their leaders save by some bold and subtle stroke of policy, resolved to profit by the presence of the Huguenot King of Navarre, in order to overcome the distrust which not even the edict of 1570 had sufficed to remove; and to renew the project which had been already mooted during the lifetime of Jeanne d'Albret, of giving Marguerite in marriage to the young Prince, her son.

The consciousness that she was sacrificing her daughter by thus bestowing her hand upon the sovereign of a petty kingdom might perhaps have deterred Catherine, had she not already decided upon the means by which the bonds of so unequal an alliance might be rent assunder; and it is even possible that the hatred which she bore to the reformed faith would in itself have sufficed to render such an union impossible, had not the crafty and compunctionless spirit by which she was animated inspired her with a method which would more than expiate the temporary sin....