The Bourbon Kings of France

by Seward, Desmond

  Sully tells us that Henri’s life on campaign was so exhausting that sometimes the King slept in his boots. Unton grumbled, ‘we never rest, but are on horseback almost night and day.’ None the less, Henri continued to hunt whenever possible.

  The League was splitting into many factions. The Cardinal King, ‘Charles X’ had died in 1590, since when they had been unable to agree upon even a nominal candidate for the throne. The most formidable Catholic contender was the Infanta Isabella, daughter of Philip II of Spain—Guise, son of the murdered Duke, was to be her consort.

  In November 1591 the Royalists beseiged Rouen. Henri, hearing that Parma was on his way to its rescue, galloped off with 7,000 cavalry to stop him. On 3 February 1592, at Aumâle, he unexpectedly made contact with the Spaniards and had to beat a hasty retreat after being wounded by a bullet in the loins; he was carried in a litter for several days. Unton commented gloomily, ‘We all wish he were less valiant.’ Parma relieved Rouen in April. However, he and Mayenne were trapped by Henri at Yvetot. When all seemed lost for them, Parma—who had been wounded—rose from his bed and evacuated his troops over the Seine by night. This great general then returned to the Low Countries where he died at the end of the year, his wound proving mortal.

  One must admit that Henri IV lacked calibre as a soldier, compared with Parma. Though capable of fighting a defensive battle, as at Arques, the King was primarily a cavalry man—all his victories were won by the charge. His instincts as a captain of horse always came before his duty as a commander.

  During 1592 Henri, the League and Philip II accepted a stalemate. The Tiers Parti, a combination of Politiques and moderate Leaguers, now asserted itself. Their solution was that Henri should turn Catholic. More and more Huguenots were willing to settle for a Politique monarchy—many urged the King to let himself be converted. After carefully counting his followers’ reactions, Henri, in white satin from head to foot, was received into the Roman fold at Saint-Denis, on 23 July 1593. This conversion has too often been seen as an act of cynical statesmanship, summed up in the phrase ‘Paris vaut bien une messe’ (there is no proof that he ever said it). In fact Henri wept over the gravity of the step. Since childhood his personal beliefs had been fought over by the kingdom’s most persuasive theologians, and he must have become hopelessly confused. Within a fortnight, towns all over France were declaring for Henri, and on 25 February 1594 he was crowned King in Chartres Cathedral. The impact upon France was extraordinary—Henri’s putting on the Crown was accepted as both sacramental confirmation and seal of legality.

  On 18 March Henri entered Paris, sold to him by its governor, the Comte de Cossé-Brissac. The same afternoon the Spanish troops marched out of Paris. Henri watched them, saying, ‘My compliments to your King—go away and don’t come back.’

  The warlords still controlled most of France—Mayenne Burgundy, Joyeuse the upper Languedoc, Nemours the Lyonnais, Epernon Provence, and Mercoeur Brittany. But the bourgeoisie rallied to Henri. Town after town rebelled against the magnates; at Dijon, led by their mayor, armed citizens overcame Mayenne’s troops and handed the town over to the Royalists.

  Paris was still dangerous. Early in 1595, a young scholar, Jean Chastel, attacked Henri with a knife. Always agile, Henri recoiled so quickly that he escaped with only a cleft lip and a broken tooth.

  At the beginning of 1595 Henri formally declared war on Spain. He had not done so before, to avoid the onslaught of Philip II’s full military might, which was still directed against the Dutch. Soon the Spaniards were invading France on five fronts. In June Henri, operating in Burgundy, nearly lost his life in a cavalry skirmish at Fontenay-le-Français. With a small force of cavalry he found himself surrounded by the entire Spanish army. An enemy trooper slashed at him and was shot down only just in time by one of Henri’s gentlemen. Luckily, reinforcements came up and the Spaniards withdrew. Henri wrote to his sister Catherine, ‘You were very near becoming my heiress.’

  In September 1595 Clement VIII at last agreed to give Henri absolution (officially he was still excommunicated). Six days later Mayenne negotiated a truce with Henri; in return for his submission he received three million livres and the governship of the Ile de France. Soon, of the warlords, the Duc de Mercoeur in Brittany alone remained. Elsewhere every important French city had recognized Henry IV by the summer of 1596.

  But Philip II continued the war implacably. Henri was desperate for money: in April 1596 he wrote to Rosny (the future Duc de Sully) that he had not a horse on which to fight nor a suit of armour. ‘My shirts are all torn, my doublets out at elbow, my saucepan often empty. For two days I have been eating where I can—my quartermasters say they have nothing to serve at my table.’ The King summoned the old feudal Assemblée de Notables to meet at Rouen in October 1596—nineteen from the nobility, nine from the clergy and fifty-two from the bourgeoisie. He invited them to share the task of saving France, in a tactful and flattering speech, and the necessary supplies were voted. Even so the war was far from won. In 1597 Amiens, capital of Picardy, was captured by the Spaniards. It was a severe loss, as not only was the town the centre of Franco-Flemish trade, but also a supply depot filled with munitions. Henri in person led an army to recapture it. ‘I will have that town back or die,’ he promised. ‘I have been King of France long enough—I must become King of Navarre again.’

  During his siege of Amiens, Henri reorganized the army. He placed the three veteran corps of Picardy, Champagne and Navarre (also known as Gascony) on a permanent basis, together with that of Piedmont and new regiments from the northern provinces, each of 1,200 picked musketeers and pikemen. There were also the Royal Guards and the various regiments of mercenaries, Swiss and German. His 4,000 Gendarmes d’Ordonnance provided the heavy cavalry.

  Amiens surrendered on 25 September. Elsewhere the Spaniards were failing. The Dutch, still fighting the Spanish, were increasingly successful. Another Spanish Armada, destined for Ireland, was destroyed by storms. In March even Mercoeur surrendered. King Philip, in failing health, despaired and, on 2 May 1598 a treaty was signed at Vervins, by which France retained the frontiers of 1559 and regained any towns occupied by the Spaniards. (Queen Elizabeth of England was so furious that she called Henri the Anti-Christ of ingratitude.)

  Henri had also taken steps to ensure peace at home. The Edict of Nantes, promulgated in April 1598, gave the Huguenots liberty of conscience and guaranteed their safety with 200 fortified towns maintained at the Crown’s expense, though defended by their own Protestant garrisons. The Edict was not quite the triumph of common sense over bigotry that it seems to modern eyes. In reality it was little more than an armed truce. Protestant France could muster 25,000 troops led by 3,500 noblemen who constituted an experienced and highly professional officer corps. An English observer, Sir Robert Dallington, noted: ‘But as for warring any longer for religion, the Frenchman utterly disclaims it; he is at last grown wise—marry, he hath bought it somewhat dear!’ France could simply not afford another civil war. Even so Henri had to bully the Parlements into registering the Edict.

  Henri IV was now undisputed King of a France which was at peace for the first time for nearly half a century. At last he was able to enjoy Paris. He acquired new friends, like the fabulously rich tax farmer, Sebastien Zamet, an Italian from Lucca, who had begun his career as Catherine de Medici’s shoemaker and then made his fortune as court money-lender. The King often dined and gambled or gave little supper parties for his mistresses in Zamet’s hôtel in the Marais. Gabrielle became a familiar figure in the capital. She accompanied the King everywhere; they rode together hand in hand, she riding astride like a man, resplendent in her favourite green, her golden hair studded with diamonds; she presided over the court like a Queen. As tactful and kindly in manners as she was warm-hearted and generous by nature, Gabrielle had the miraculous gift of making no enemies. She had born Henri several children, notably César whom the King made Duc de Vendôme. Gabrielle was given increasingly greater rank, eventually becoming a
Peeress of France. Henri’s love deepened every day. Eventually he decided to marry her. In token of betrothal he gave her his coronation ring, a great square-cut diamond.

  Henri left her briefly in April 1598, when she was again big with child. Her labour began on Maundy Thursday, accompanied by convulsions. On Good Friday, her stillborn child was cut out of her; she suffered such agony that her face turned black. She died the following day, of puerperal fever. Henri buried her with the obsequies of a Queen of France—for a week he wore black, and then the violet of half-mourning. He wrote to his sister, ‘The roots of love are dead within me and will never revive.’

  Perhaps fortunately for his sanity, he was soon busy with Savoy. Its Duke, Charles Emmanuel, who dreamt of restoring the ancient Kingdom of Arles, delayed the surrender of Saluzzo and intrigued with Henri’s courtiers; there was even a plot to poison the King. In late 1600 Henri invaded the Duchy. Snow made it a difficult campaign and Henri complained of the hardship—‘France owes a lot to me, for what I suffer on her behalf.’ By the peace of Lyons, signed in January 1601, Henri gained Savoyard territories on the Rhône which all but blocked communications between the Spanish Netherlands and Spain’s possessions in northern Italy. It was the end of Henri’s career as a soldier. Few monarchs have handled a pike or pistolled their way through a cavalry mêlée with such gusto.

  He now had the task of rebuilding his ruined kingdom, a land of deserted villages and overgrown fields, of roads infested by highwaymen. Henri has been criticized for not giving France a new system of government and for restoring the traditional structure, the Ancien Régime which went down in 1789. But this is to ask that he should have been a man before his time. His education and outlook were those of the later Renaissance, not of the Enlightenment, and the Renaissance always looked to the past.

  His chief minister was Maximilien de Béthune, Baron de Rosny, whom he made Duc de Sully and a Peer of France. Born in 1560, Sully belonged to the lesser nobility of Picardy and was a Huguenot. Bald, with a long beard like a patriarch, eccentric, avaricious and ill-mannered, he was also tireless in his master’s service. He and he alone was able to work the archaic taxation system.

  Henri’s first concern was to tame the nobility, and he waged merciless war on the robber barons who plagued France. It took a full scale cavalry battle to defeat ‘Captain Guillery’s’ band of outlaw noblemen in 1604. In 1607 the King lent cannon to a gentleman whose daughter had been abducted by a neighbour, so that he could batter down the walls of her kidnapper’s château. He forbade nobles to ride over ripening crops. Formerly, provincial governorships had been tantamount to semi-independent fiefs, but Henri insisted on appointing every town governor and garrison commander. To the Duc d’Epernon who objected he wrote, ‘Your letter is that of an angry man—I am not so yet and I pray you don’t make me.’ Fear of the over-mighty subject also dictated his harsh treatment of his sister, Catherine, now an eccentric old maid who had clung stubbornly to her Protestant faith, and still hoped to marry her cousin, the Comte de Soissons. Henri forced her to marry the Duke of Lorraine, who refused to allow her to practise her religion. Poor Catherine died three years later, ‘of sadness and melancholy’.

  In 1599, he met the last of his three great concubines, Henriette d’Entragues, daughter of the Governor of Orléans. A slim brunette, with a disturbing bosom and flashing black eyes, she at once infatuated Henri with her provoking airs and savage wit. She was a girl who knew just how to exploit the King’s wild jealousies. He had been ready to marry Gabrielle d’Estrées, so she saw no reason why he should not make her his Queen instead. She blew hot and cold until at last Henri, frantic with lust, literally bought her from her father with the title of Marshal (although the man had never seen a battle), a large down payment in cash and a written promise that, should Henriette have a son by him, he would marry her as soon as he was divorced. A furious Sully sent the money in silver—it took many cartloads to deliver it.

  However, Henri was just as capable of playing a double game in love as in war. When Rome obligingly annulled his marriage to Marguerite, he sought the hand of Marie de Medici, the twenty-seven-year-old daughter of the late Grand Duke Francesco I of Tuscany. In June 1600, Henriette, far gone with child, was resting in her bedchamber at Fontainebleau when the room was struck by lightning which actually passed under her bed. Terror made her miscarry. The King now regarded his promise as invalid, even if Mme de Verneuil (he had made Henriette a Marquise) did not. In October 1600 he married Marie by proxy.

  From a political point of view Marie de Medici was thoroughly desirable—her uncle Grand Duke Ferdinand, was anti-Spanish and fabulously rich. Personally she was less desirable, a large, fat, stupid blonde with a vile temper. However, during the consummation of the marriage at Lyons she performed so well that afterwards the King boasted of her prowess. After a month’s marital bliss he lovingly rejoined Henriette in Paris. When his wife arrived at the capital, the King insisted on presenting Henriette to her, saying, ‘She has been my mistress—now she is going to be your most biddable and obedient servant.’ Henriette refused to curtsey and the King had to push her on to her knees before the infuriated Queen. He continued to sleep with both. On 27 September 1601 the Queen gave birth to a Dauphin.

  Meanwhile Sully laboured tirelessly. When he became Superintendent of Finances he found the Crown in debt to the sum of £3 million. By 1608 he had paid off nearly half the debt, by redeeming mortgaged Crown revenues and increasing the yield from taxation. The principal direct tax was the taille, an arbitrarily assessed percentage of farm income or a specified percentage of a man’s actual property. The chief indirect tax was the gabelle, an exorbitant duty on salt which caused much resentment. There were also duties on wine, besides customs levied at internal as well as external frontiers. Much of Sully’s success was due to his reduction of profiteering by the tax farmers and of corruption in general.

  As the nobility and clergy were exempt from taxation and many bourgeois purchased exemption, the taxes fell mainly on the peasantry, causing much hardship. Yet Henri cared for his peasants. In 1600 he told the Duke of Savoy, ‘Should God let me live longer I will see that no peasant in my realm is without the means to have a chicken in his pot.’ This wish for a chicken in every pot every Sunday is one of the most enduring of the legends about him. In the eighteenth century Henri IV was described as the only French King whose memory was kept green by the poor.

  Another source of revenue was the paulette (named after a lawyer called Paulet). This was the sale of offices and titles in return for an annual payment of one-sixtieth of the purchase price. An office conferred nobility, including tax exemption, and in consequence a new aristocracy was created to balance the old feudal nobility. Before the Revolution almost every rich self-made man bought a title.

  Henri knew that if France was to prosper, something more was needed than efficient methods of taxation. The country’s chief source of wealth was crops and livestock, so he encouraged new methods of agriculture. Companies were founded to improve arable land, and Dutch experts were brought in to drain fen land. But peaceful conditions were quite sufficient for the French peasant and by 1608 France was exporting grain. Waterways and canals were dug and roads repaired. In 1601 a Chamber of Commerce was founded, which investigated and encouraged horse breeding, linen manufacture, ship building, glass blowing and many other industries. The silk industry was revived, mulberry trees and skilled weavers being imported from Italy. Other luxury industries were founded, notably the Gobelin tapestry looms, and the Savonnerie carpet factory. Mineral resources were scientifically investigated, Henri creating the office of Grand Master of the Mines. Abroad, a spectacularly profitable treaty with Turkey obtained valuable facilities in the Levant for French merchants, while there were commercial treaties with England and the German Hansa. In Canada Samuel de Champlain established a tiny but enduring settlement of fur traders at Quebec. New edicts directed at increasing the country’s prosperity were promulgated every month, e
dicts which the King not only read but helped to draft. Despite his hunting and whoring, Henri IV was his own first minister.

  Sully, who combined the functions of Minister of Finance, Minister of the Interior, Minister of Transport and Minister of Works, was responsible for implementing all these reforms. But one must not underestimate Henri’s contribution. He did far more than merely encourage his Minister, who lacked his enthusiastic response to new ideas. It was Henri who preached agricultural revolution, whose interest was largely responsible for the re-establishment of the silk industry, who supported the Canadian enterprise.

  Henri’s employment of Sully enabled him to avoid much of the odium incurred by unpopular policies. Sully’s committees of privilege examined the nobles’ rights to pensions and exemptions, to Crown lands and revenues, demanding full restitution where these had been usurped. These, together with his harshness and gauche arrogance, made him the most hated man in France. Soissons tried to dispose of him by a duel but backed down when Henri announced that he would act as Sully’s second.

  By 1602 the French nobility was thoroughly disenchanted. The hub of the opposition was the Maréchal de Biron, an old comrade-in-arms of Henri. During the Savoy campaign he intrigued with the enemy, plotting the King’s murder. An atheist and a student of witchcraft, there was something Satanic about Biron. He plotted a general uprising; Spain and Savoy were to invade while the Marshal and his friends would raise disaffected areas of the kingdom. Henri discovered the plot, but was reluctant to destroy such an old friend; three times he offered Biron a pardon if he would confess his treason, but was rebuffed. During his trial Biron raved and ranted, shrieking that Henri owed his throne to him. At his execution he had to be dragged to the block. The King commented, ‘I would have given 200,000 crowns for him to have made it possible to pardon him; he did me good service though I saved his life three times.’