In every society throughout history, there has always been a conservative or conventional party that opposes all new ideas as violations of tradition. This party prefers the known routine to an unknown future: that is to say, progress. The adherents of the status quo, favoring stagnation over movement, death versus life, saw in Richelieu a revolutionary whose efforts to reform society would just cause unrest. And Richelieu was not just the enemy of the conservatives, but of the entire Catholic world. Without him, Europe would have been at peace: Savoy, Spain, Austria, and Rome, all seated at the same table, would take turns plucking the leaves of the artichoke of Italy. Austria would have Mantua and Venice, Savoy would get Montferrat and Genoa, Spain would have Milan, Naples, and Sicily, and Rome would rule Tuscany and the minor duchies—while France, uninvited to the feast, could keep to herself on the other side of the Alps. Who opposed this peace? Richelieu, Richelieu alone. That’s what the pope implied; that’s what Philip IV and the Emperor proclaimed; that’s what the choir of Queens Marie de Médicis, Anne of Austria, and Henriette of England all sang.
Beside these great voices who cried “Anathema!” against the minister were ranged lesser voices, such as that of the Duc de Guise, who’d hoped to lead the armies and had withdrawn, disgruntled, to his governance of Provence; that of Créqui, the Governor of Dauphiné, who thought he had the right to inherit the Sword of the Constable from his stepfather; of Lesdiguières and Montmorency, who at different times had been promised that sword, the latter now afraid it had slipped from his hands since he’d refused to abduct the Duke of Savoy for the cardinal; and all the Great Nobles, such as Soissons, Condé, Conti, and Elbeuf, who hated the cardinal’s systematic dismantling of the rights and privileges of the dukes and princes.
Despite all these voices, or rather because of them, Louis was determined to leave Paris and keep the promise he’d made to his minister to join him in Italy. It goes without saying that this resolution, which would place the king under the influence of the cardinal, had been opposed with great outcry by the two queens, who declared that if the king went to Italy, they had no choice but to follow. For this they had the usual excuse, their fear for the king’s health.
Despite these objections, the king had sent the cardinal notice of his intent to depart, and in fact had left for Lyon on February 21. His route would take him through Champagne and Burgundy; the two queens and the King’s Council were to join him in Lyon.
But events didn’t unfold quite so smoothly. The day after the king had left Paris, his brother Gaston, who until then hadn’t dared to stray from his city of Orléans, left his post and marched with a great to-do to the capital, entering the city at about nine in the evening. He went straight to the palace of the queen mother, where she was holding court.
Marie de Médicis rose, astonished, and, feigning anger, dismissed her ladies and shut herself up in her study with Gaston. Queen Anne joined them a few moments later, entering by a secret door.
There they renewed the pact, continually proposed by Queen Marie, that Monsieur would marry Queen Anne in the event of the king’s death. This marriage would have been for Marie de Médicis a sort of prolonged regency, and she would gladly forgive God for carrying off her eldest son if that was her compensation. Blinded by her interests, Queen Marie was the only one who’d entered the pact honestly, as she couldn’t see beyond her immediate desires.
The Duc d’Orléans had conflicting commitments to the Duc de Lorraine, whose sister he was in love with. He was in no hurry to marry his brother’s widow, who was seven years his senior and who’d had, moreover, that deplorable affair with Buckingham. Queen Anne, for her part, hated Monsieur, despised him even more than she hated him, and didn’t trust a word he said. Nevertheless, everyone repeated their promises.
No one outside really knew what happened in that chamber, and gossips, unaware of the presence of Queen Anne, spread the rumor the next day that the Duc d’Orléans had come to Paris to tell his mother of his undying love for Princesse Marie de Gonzague, and to take advantage of his brother’s absence to marry her. This report seemed confirmed when, immediately after the duke’s arrival, Marie de Médicis sent for the young princess and had her detained at the Louvre, where she was kept, to all intents, a prisoner.
For his part, Gaston loudly declared that such was his dearest desire. All the malcontents began to gather around him, insinuating that if, in the king’s absence, he would openly declare against Richelieu, he would find himself at the head of a large and powerful party, one that would support him not only against the cardinal, but against Louis XIII, whose fall might well follow that of his minister. Many chose to believe that Gaston had accepted these proposals. The Cardinal de La Valette, son of the Duc d’Épernon, and the Cardinal of Lyon, that brother of the Duc de Richelieu who led so bravely during the plague, arrived together to call upon the Duc d’Orléans; the latter paid a thousand compliments to Cardinal de La Valette, but the Cardinal of Lyon was left waiting in the hall without a word.
The day after Gaston’s arrival in Paris, the queen mother wrote to Louis XIII to inform him of his brother’s unexpected return—though it had probably been expected by her. Of course, nothing was said of the meeting and pact between her son and her stepdaughter, but she went on at length about Gaston’s love for Marie de Gonzague.
Louis, who was already in Troyes when he received the letter from Marie de Médicis, announced that he would return to Paris; but at Fontainebleau he was met by a letter informing him that Gaston, hearing news of his return, had withdrawn to his estate at Limours.
Three days later came the news that the king, instead of continuing his journey south, would spend Easter at Fontainebleau.
What was behind the king’s latest decision? We shall tell you.
The night of the meeting in Luxembourg Palace between the queen mother, Gaston d’Orléans, and Queen Anne, Madame de Fargis returned home from Spain, where she’d gone to support her husband’s political efforts, which had appeared shaky. With the war between France and Piedmont seemingly over, her support was no longer needed in Madrid, and Madame de Fargis, to the great satisfaction of Anne of Austria, had been recalled to Paris.
When the queen saw her, she uttered a cry of joy, and as the lady ambassador knelt to kiss her hand, Anne lifted her up and embraced her.
“I see,” Madame de Fargis said with a smile, “that my long absence hasn’t cost me Your Majesty’s good graces.”
“On the contrary, dear heart,” said the queen, “your absence just made me appreciate your loyalty all the more—and I’ve never had as much need for it as tonight.”
“My arrival is timely, then, and I hope to prove to my sovereign that, far or near, I’ll take care of her. But what’s happened to make the presence of your humble servant so necessary?”
The queen told her of the king’s departure, of Gaston’s arrival, and of the pact they’d just renewed.
“So Your Majesty trusts her brother-in-law?” asked Madame de Fargis.
“Not for an instant; this pact is meant to quell my suspicions and keep me waiting off to the side.”
“Has the king grown worse?”
“Morally, yes—but physically, no!”
“To the king, morality is all, as you know, Madame.”
“What shall I do?” asked the queen. Then, in a lower voice: “You know, my dear, the astrologers claim that the king can’t last beyond the next rise of Cancer.”
“My lady,” said Madame de Fargis, “you recall that I proposed a certain plan to Your Majesty.”
The queen blushed. “But you know I could never go through with it,” she said.
“That’s a shame, because it’s the surest method, and I even got the approval of the King of Spain, Philip IV.”
“Dear God!”
“Or would you rather trust the word of a man who has never once kept his word?”
The queen was silent for a moment. “But, my dear Fargis,” she said, resting her head on her confid
ante’s chest, “even supposing I had the permission of my confessor—oh, just thinking about it makes me ashamed!—surely the plan you proposed should be the last resort, after we’ve tried everything else?”
“Will you allow me, dear mistress,” said Madame de Fargis, taking advantage of the queen’s position to drape an arm around her neck and gaze into her face, her eyes sparkling like diamonds, “to relate to you a story of the court of King Henri II, which says something about Queen Catherine de Médicis?”
“Speak, dear heart,” said the queen, relaxing with a sigh upon the siren to whose voice she so unwisely listened.
“Eh bien! Now, the story goes that Queen Catherine de Médicis arrived in France at the age of fourteen, where she was married to the young King Henri II, and went, like Your Majesty, eleven years without children.”
“I’ve been married for fourteen years!” said the queen.
“Well,” Madame de Fargis smiled, “Your Majesty’s marriage may have taken place in 1616, but it wasn’t consummated until 1619.”
“That’s so,” said the queen. “But what explains Queen Catherine’s sterility? King Henri II didn’t have the same . . . aversions as King Louis XIII, as proven by his mistress, Diane de Poitiers.”
“He had no aversion to women, true—only to his wife.”
“Do you think, Fargis, that the king’s aversion to me is . . . personal?” the queen gasped.
“What, for Your Majesty? Ventre-saint-gris, as the king his father used to say! And as the sweet Comte de Moret still does, to whom Your Majesty should pay more attention. Anyway, don’t even think it!”
Then, casting an eye like Sappho on her queen, anxious and piqued by doubt, she said, “And where would he find such eyes as yours, such a mouth, such lovely hair?” She ran her hand along the queen’s arched neck. “Where would he find . . . such skin? No, Madame—no, my Queen, you are the loveliest of all, the beauty of beauties. But unfortunately for Queen Catherine, she had none of this. On the contrary, born of a diseased father and mother, she had the cold, slimy skin of a snake.”
“Is this true, dear heart?”
“It’s true. So when the young king, used to the pale and silky skin of Madame de Brézé, felt at his side a living corpse, he cried that he hadn’t been sent a flower from the Pitti Gardens, but a worm from the Médicis tombs.”
“Hush, Fargis! You give me a chill.”
“So, my beautiful Queen, this revulsion King Henri II had for his wife, who was it helped him to overcome it? One who always had his interest at heart: that same Diane de Poitiers, she who, if the king died childless, would have fallen under the power of another Duc d’Orléans, one not much better than yours.”
“Where are you taking this?”
“To here: if the king fell in love with a woman who he knew was devoted to you, a woman with the same religious convictions as the king, why, he would return from seeing her to Your Majesty, and then . . .”
“Well?”
“Well, a child would make the Duc d’Orléans beholden to us, rather than us to him.”
“Ah, but my dear Fargis,” said the queen, shaking her head, “King Henri II was a man.”
“As King Louis XIII may yet be. . . .”
The queen replied with a sigh, “But where would you find a woman both pure and devoted?”
“I already have,” Fargis said.
“One more beautiful than . . .?” The queen stopped, biting her lip. She’d almost said, “One more beautiful than me?”
Fargis understood. “More beautiful than you, my Queen? Impossible! But one with beauty of another kind. You are the rose at the peak of its bloom, Madame; she, she is a bud, but with such a glow that her family and friends all call her the Aurora.”
“And this marvel,” said the queen, “is she at least of noble blood?”
“Of the highest class, Madame: she’s the granddaughter of Madame de la Flotte, the queen mother’s chief maid of honor, and the daughter of Monsieur de Hautefort.”
“And you say this young lady is devoted to me?”
“She would give her life for Your Majesty,” and she added, smiling, “maybe more.”
“Is she aware of the role we want her to play?”
“Yes.”
“And she accepts with resignation?”
“With enthusiasm, Madame—in the interest of the Church! We have her confessor on our side, who compares her to Judith of Bethulia, and the king’s doctor. . . .”
“What does Bouvard have to do with it?”
“He will persuade the king your husband that he’s sick due to chastity!”
“For a man who purges and bleeds him two hundred times a year, that will be difficult!”
“He’ll manage it.”
“So it’s all arranged?”
“It lacks nothing but your consent.”
“But I’d at least like to see and speak to this amazing Aurora!” “Nothing simpler, Madame—she’s here!”
“And she—she’ll do it?”
“Yes, Madame.”
The queen gave Fargis a look with just a touch of suspicion. “You arranged all this since your arrival tonight?” she said. “Truly, you don’t waste any time, dear heart.”
“I arrived three days ago, Madame, but I waited to see Your Majesty until everything was ready.”
“And now everything is prepared?”
“Yes, Madame. But if Your Majesty prefers to adopt the first means I proposed, we can abandon this one.”
“Not at all, not at all,” the queen quickly said. “Perhaps you should bring in your young friend.”
“Command your faithful servant, Madame.”
“Bring her in!”
Madame de Fargis went to a side door and opened it. “Come in, Marie de Hautefort,” she said. “Our beloved queen consents to receive your homage.”
The young woman gave a cry of joy and rushed into the room.
The queen, seeing her, gasped in admiration and astonishment.
“Do you think her beautiful enough, Madame?” asked Lady Fargis.
“Maybe too beautiful,” replied the queen.
LXXIV
The Letter and the Lure
And indeed, Mademoiselle Marie de Hautefort was wonderfully beautiful. She was a blonde of the South, with rose-petal skin and shining hair, and, as Madame de Fargis had said, she was called “Aurora.”
It was Vautier who had discovered her on a trip to Périgord, and then come up with the scheme, remembering a look he’d seen the king give Mademoiselle de Lautrec one day. He had the idea that this invalid king, bled white as a ghost, might be susceptible to the infection of love. He’d arranged everything in advance, making sure no parent, lover, or friend would object to the young woman’s commitment to the cause, but delayed, on the advice of Queen Marie, until the return of Madame de Fargis, who would coat the rim of the glass with honey before presenting the absinthe to the queen.
We’ve already seen how eager the queen was to swallow it.
But when she saw the beautiful girl at her feet, arms outstretched and crying “I would give my all, my everything for you, my Queen!”—she saw this delicate bud, heard that sweet voice that couldn’t lie, and gently raised her up. That very evening, all was decided. Mademoiselle de Hautefort would do everything she could to make the king love her, and, once she was loved, use all her influence to urge him to reconcile with the queen and to dismiss Cardinal Richelieu.
They just had to set the stage for the enchanting scene that would captivate Louis XIII.
The queens announced that, as the king was at Fontainebleau, they would join him there for Easter. And in fact, they arrived on the eve of Palm Sunday.
The next day, the king attended services in the château chapel, and everyone was summoned to hear mass with His Majesty.
Just a few paces from the king, lit by a ray of sunlight through a stained-glass window that bathed her in a halo of gold and purple, was a young woman kneeling on the bare flo
or. He, the king, had his knees softly cradled on a gold-tasseled cushion. His chivalric instincts were awakened; he was ashamed to have a cushion under his knees when this beautiful girl had none. He had a page take it to her.
Mademoiselle de Hautefort blushed, considering herself unworthy to place her knees on a cushion where the king had knelt. She stood up, bowed to His Majesty, and respectfully placed the cushion on a chair, all with the innocent and virginal air of one of the noblest daughters of the South.
The king was moved by her grace. He’d been moved thus once before in his life, taken by surprise even more suddenly, which helps to explain the impression Mademoiselle de Hautefort made on this enigmatic man. On a journey to the provinces, he had, in a small town, attended a ball. Toward the end of the performance, one of the dancers, a certain Gau the Courtesan, had stepped gracefully onto a chair and raised a wooden candlestick holding a simple tallow candle. The king, when chaffed about his distaste for women, always recounted this story, saying this young woman had performed this act with such delicacy that he fell in love with her on the spot and, upon leaving the city, had sent her thirty thousand livres for her virtue.
Only he didn’t say whether he sent her the thirty thousand livres because he wanted to defend her virtue, or possess it for himself.
The king was taken no less suddenly by the lovely Marie de Hautefort than he’d been by the virtuous Gau the Courtesan.
Upon returning to the château, he inquired as to who was the ravishing person he’d seen in the chapel, and learned she was the granddaughter of Madame de la Flotte, arrived that day in the household of Queen Marie de Médicis to be one of her maidens.
And that very day, to the astonishment of everyone, and to the great satisfaction of those involved in the matter, he made a complete change in the royal routine. Instead of staying locked in his darkest room, as he’d done for a month in the Louvre, and for the last week at Fontainebleau, he went out and about, in his carriage or walking in the park, as if seeking someone. And in the evening he came to visit the queens—as he hadn’t done since the departure of Mademoiselle de Lautrec—to spend the evening chatting with the lovely Marie, and to inquire where she’d be the following day.
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