Renaissance Murders

by Michael Hone

  We don’t know if Richelieu admired the boy’s gall, but he was stunned. Now, the position of Master of the Horse had been held by the Duc de Bellegarde who just happened to have been Henri III’s lover. In remembrance of his past love for Henri--and to honor love in general--the duke gave up his position when the king’s messenger, on his knees, begged him to do so. He also received 5,000 livres as a consolation. Childless, Bellegarde soon went to his grave alone, an inconvenience in same-sex love.

  Cinq-Mars took up again with Marion de Lormes and Louis, despite all he had done for the boy, found out. It even came to his ears that the liaison was so known that Marion was now called Madame la Grande by the court. The ingratitude, the immensity of the deception, left Louis speechless. For unknown reasons Louis seemed to have been afraid to confront Cinq-Mars on his shady sex life, so he centered his complaints on Cinq-Mars’s spending, as he had just bought, among many other things, a gold carriage, and also on the boy’s laziness (he slept a lot because of his need to recuperate). But when Cinq-Mars told Louis he would surrender nothing of his youthful ardor, and would never allow himself to be cloistered, Louis caved in, an old man on his knees.

  Louis went to Richelieu, pleading for his intervention, which had Richelieu foaming at the mouth in gratitude.

  The next day Fontrailles, who had free access to Cinq-Mars’ rooms, entered while the boy, naked, was being oiled with jasmine. The king entered, grasped the lad’s hand and, pushing him down on the bed, began kissing it. (‘’ Le Roi aimait éperdument Cinq-Mars. Une fois, le Roi se mit au lit dès sept heures, il envoya déshabiller Monsieur Le Grand “Couche-toi, couche-toi,” lui dit-il, impatient. Ce mignon n’était pas encore dedans que le roi lui baisait déjà les mains.’’) Presumably Richelieu had intervened. Presumably Fontrailles then left.

  The boy wanted balls and festivities and Louis even participated at one such extravaganza, but he was a puritan at heart, always in quest of appeasing God while seducing boys in general, boring Cinq-Mars to tears by what the French call his prêchi-prêcha ways--his sermonizing and moralizing. He wanted the boy constantly at his side, especially when he visited his dog kennels and aviaries, and during the hunt and campaigns while the boy dreamed of being naked with a naked girl.

  Cinq-Mars rode off nightly to be with Marion, presumably convincing her to attend the Libertine orgies in the Marais, before riding back to Saint-Germain and the king’s awakening. The resulting fatigue was said to have drained part of the beauty from his face. Richelieu wrote to Louis telling him that the only way he would get over his unhappiness with Cinq-Mars was to confront the boy head-on, imposing his wisdom over the lad’s empty-headedness.

  Richelieu tried again to make Cinq-Mars his spy, asking him to report the king’s every move to him in person. When Cinq-Mars refused, Richelieu reportedly said the following, brought to us by Erlanger: ‘’He told him how and why a dandy who had no greater claims to fame than a pretty face had been made to rise to the summit of favor, why he had been chosen and practically forced on the king. Henri d’Effiat was a total nonentity, an insignificant nothing, and Monsieur le Grand even less than nothing. The only existence he had was that of a servile instrument created in the interests of the cardinal.’’

  Cinq-Mars, sobbing, left Richelieu, decided to seal Richelieu’s fate, but as an inexperienced lad of only 20, he would seal only his own.

  Cinq-Mars’s hatred for Richelieu increased when he denied Cinq-Mars’s request to take over another general’s army, thusly doubling his own. As he was a boy without veritable fighting experience, Richelieu had refused--despite the fact that Cinq-Mars had been in the saddle, in the service of the king, since age 15. When Richelieu found out that the boy was badmouthing him--and every one at court knew how fatal that was to one’s career--he let it be known that Cinq-Mars had acted cowardly during the siege of Arras, the ultimate insult, which threw the boy into a rage, as Richelieu knew it would. On their shared pillow, Louis let Cinq-Mars known that he too was growing tired of Richelieu, and Cinq-Mars let him know in turn that the only way he would ever be uncontested king was with Richelieu dead. On the other hand, Louis allegedly told the boy that if ever he had to choose between the two, his favor would always go to Richelieu. The boy was warned, but what boy ever heeds advice contrary to his generous opinion of himself?

  As quarrels resumed between Louis and Cinq-Mars, Richelieu drew up an extraordinary treaty between both, that both signed, the translation of which comes from Erlanger. It’s truly one of the strangest documents in French history: ‘’Today, the ninth of May, 1640, at Soissons, His Majesty is pleased to promise Monsieur le Grand that during the entire campaign he will not be angry with him, and if Monsieur le Grand gives his Majesty reason for complaint, his Majesty will appeal to the Cardinal, without harshness, so that the Cardinal can ask Monsieur le Grand to correct his ways in order to not displease his Majesty, and thusly His Majesty’s subjects may continue to find their peace of mind in that of His Majesty. These terms have been agreed by the King and my said Sieur le Grand in the presence of His Eminence.

  Signed: Louis

  Effiat de Cinq-Mars’’

  (Aujourd’hui, neuvième mai 1640, le roi étant à Soissons, Sa Majesté a eu agréable de promettre à M. le Grand que de toute cette campagne, elle n’aura aucune colère contre lui et que, s’il arrivait que ledit sieur le Grand lui en donnât quelque léger sujet, la plainte en sera faite par Sa Majesté à M. le Cardinal sans aigreur, afin que par l’avis de Son Eminence ledit sieur le Grand se corrige de tout ce qui pourrait déplaire au roi et qu’ainsi toutes ses créatures trouvent leur repos dans celui de Sa Majesté. Ce qui a été promis réciproquement par le roi et Son Eminence.)

  The man who would see Cinq-Mars to an early grave was the king’s own brother Gaston, an arrogant, brainless fool who had continually revolted against Louis, and sought Louis’ death; had begged his forgiveness on his knees, multiple times; and would soon sacrifice Cinq-Mars by turning traitor. The worthless rake was now in love with Marie Gonzaga, Duchesse de Nevers, whose pedigree, and that of her ancestors, would fill a library. As the queen mother was against the marriage--for reasons known only to her mind, a mind as convoluted as Gaston’s--Louis too turned against the marriage because he continued to love and support his mother, for reasons just as convoluted. Richelieu weighed in on the king’s side because he was nothing without Louis, the ‘’nothing’’ he had accused Cinq-Mars of being. Louis and Richelieu’s positions reinforced Gaston’s hatred for them both. To say the least, another panier de crabes was in the making.

  Cinq-Mars decided he was now too mighty for the likes of Marion de Lormes so he put his sights on Marie Gonzaga, the woman Gaston wanted to marry, knowing that a marriage to Gonzaga, now 29 and past her first freshness, would make him a prince in an aristocratic line that, as said, would fill books. (As Marion will now leave these pages, her destiny: Following the death of Cinq-Mars she opened an elegant salon [whorehouse] for what France and England had in imminent writers and politicians. Incredibly, we don’t know what happened to her in later years, nor when she died. Eugene de Mirecourt wrote the Confessions de Marie Delorme in 1856 and Alfred de Vigny popularized her in his novel Cinq-Mars. Victor Hugo wrote Marion Delorme and two operas had her as their heroine, one by Amilcare Ponchielli and one by Giovanni Bottesini.)

  As for Gonzaga, Cinq-Mars was her key to Louis’ inner court, with Cinq-Mars’s ardent loins an agreeable adjunct, an adjunct that would also put an end to her purported virginity (at age 29, which deserves repeating). All of Cinq-Mars’s friends, Ruvigny, de Thou and Fontrailles, were in favor of his advancement, thanks to a marriage with Gonzaga, but Richelieu, who wanted more than anything else to maintain peace between the king and his boy, was ferociously against, which earned him Gonzaga’s hatred [although, like nearly all of the nobles, she had already despised Richelieu for years]. His friends suggested that Cinq-Mars make himself worthy of Gonzaga by having the king make him a duke and a noble. Cinq
-Mars went to Richelieu to ask him not to oppose the request he was going to make to Louis. Richelieu was said to have been speechless for the first time in his life at the boy’s audacity. Cinq-Mars’s mother approved of his raising the stature of his entire family, all of whom would soon have wealth and chateaux--or so she imagined--as had Luynes’ extended family. Richelieu said publicly that he couldn’t believe Gonzaga, of such rich heritage, would stoop so low as to wed Cinq-Mars.

  Cinq-Mars was perhaps not clever enough to act in any way but by instinct. At the same time ‘’the king’s love for him was so strong that all that should have destroyed it only increased it,’’ wrote Erlanger. Gaston’s servant said that Louis l’aimait ardemment (loved him fervently), while Tallemant des Réaux (see Sources) wrote that Louis l’aimait esperdument (loved him passionately). Yet Cinq-Mars tried in a thousand ways to perturb his relationship with the king, systematically doing the opposite of whatever would have given Louis pleasure, which of course deeply hurt the king, especially as the traumas during his youth, the lack of a mother’s love and the loss, so young, of the father he’d adored--the essential ingredient in a boy’s formation--had already taken its toll. Added to this were the humiliations Louis had undergone: Concini who ridiculed him in the presence of others, showing him contempt at every occasion, his mother turning him out of the council, in front of his father’s former loyal advisors--as well as God alone knows what other humiliations have not come down to us--poisoned the heart of the lad Louis had been, and there are few things worse in a boy’s and a man’s life than humiliation. Each additional abasement wrought by Cinq-Mars must have been true daggers to Louis’ heart, yet he surely, sincerely loved the boy, an inextricable situation because Cinq-Mars was too young to act with Richelieu-like cunning. Cinq-Mars had nonetheless his own life to lead, and that life was in opposition to most of Louis’ wishes. Cinq-Mars felt that he had to be faithful to himself and his life choices, yet the source of everything he had, down to the gold and silver buttons on his doublets, were gifts of the king his master. The boy was decided to never become Louis’ slave, he was independent, he had a full sense of honor, even if he did have to bend a little to Louis’ needs, but what he grudgingly gave Louis he had in spades to offer his girls--the physical potential of a boy like Cinq-Mars being quasi limitless. Some writers maintain that Louis liked Cinq-Mars in part for his masochistic torments, others deplore Cinq-Mars’s childishness, perhaps forgetting how they themselves strutted across the world stage when they were a mere 20.

  Several months after the pact they had both signed, Louis wrote to Richelieu a letter brought to us by Erlanger: ‘’I have kept my peace until now before writing to you, to see if Monsieur le Grand’s ill humor might pass. But seeing that nothing has changed, although I have been twice to his chamber to beg him to forget anything I may have said or done to displease him, he insists that I do not love him because, when he requests something which is unjust or contrary to justice or good usage, I refuse him. I can no longer stand his airs. He considers everything unworthy of him and refuses to see or talk to anyone. I would prefer not to importune you, but you are the only person I can wholly trust and to whom I can turn in my discontent. Louis.’’

  Louis continued to berate the boy for both his slothfulness and laziness, about which we know nothing, stating that a man (Cinq-Mars) who wants to lead armies can be neither. Cinq-Mars retorted that he wanted nothing more than to be Cinq-Mars, and that Louis could take the title he had given him as Monsieur le Grand and … basically … shove it. At times Cinq-Mars would tell Louis’ servant to arrange a meeting between them. Louis would wait until receiving a message from Cinq-Mars telling Louis that he was indisposed. Cinq-Mars pushed his impertinence to writing Richelieu, asking him to no longer blame him for every sin Louis accused him of committing because he was indeed guilty of them all, even though, he added, he had no idea of what he was being accused. Louis, continued Cinq-Mars, was therefore free to offer him no more gifts or advancements, and Richelieu, now that Cinq-Mars had pleaded guilty to it all, could keep his reproaches to himself in the future. Cinq-Mars was indeed a teigne, as the French say, a little bastard, one who can only incite one’s admiration--if the consequences of his recklessness were not to be so great.

  Things came to a head when Cinq-Mars met with Gaston at the Hôtel de Venice, a hôtel being a whole building owned by one person, in this case Gaston’s squire, where Gaston stabled his horses (the post of squire had cost the lad a fortune, but now he owned his own building in the heart of Paris, the Marais).

  Cinq-Mars told Gaston that Louis had had enough of Richelieu and wanted to free himself so he, Louis, could finally reign unhampered. Cinq-Mars told Gaston that all the quarrels with the king had simply been staged, their plan to put Richelieu’s natural mistrust to sleep. Louis had also promised that anyone who could negotiate a peace treaty with Spain would reap rewards. Gaston promised he would support Cinq-Mars to the bitter end, and agreed that the destruction of Richelieu had become essential. Gaston then went to see the queen, Anne, who hated Richelieu and needed Gaston to assure her reign as regent at the time of Louis’ death, Louis who was always in more or less bad health. She knew she was smarter than Gaston and so did not hesitate to encourage him. Fontrailles, present at the meeting, suggested that de Thou be sent to Sedan to recruit the Duc de Bouillon, a man in on all plots aimed at destroying Richelieu. Here he was needed to promise them all refuge in case the conspiracy failed, as Sedan was a principality and Protestant. (It would later be handed over to Louis by Bouillon in exchange for his life, becoming part of France.) For the moment, therefore, the plot consisted of Gaston, Cinq-Mars, de Thou, Gonzaga, the queen, Fontrailles and the queen mother whom Gaston forewarned. Queen Anne’s favorite, La Rochefoucauld, whose Mémoires reveal so much of the times, was implicated when Anne sent de Thou to inform him of the planned assassination of Richelieu, a man La Rochefoucauld knew only by sight. La Rochefoucauld was introduced to Anne by none other than Madame de Chevreuse, who collected handsome boys like La Rochefoucauld.

  Bouillon came to Paris to see Cinq-Mars in person. He told Cinq-Mars that he could not offer sanctuary in Sedan because three of Louis’ armies were in the region, capable of destroying Bouillon and taking Sedan when they chose. So Bouillon simply suggested that someone be sent to Spain to enlist Philip IV’s troops, an incredible act of treason. Philip’s role was to see to it that Gaston was placed on the throne because all knew that Louis, ill, would soon be dead. Gaston would then make eternal peace with Spain.

  The consequences of a Cinq-Mars success have been debated. Without Richelieu France would have sued for peace everywhere, as it was Richelieu the motor of French expansion. France would perhaps today be smaller and there would have been no absolute monarchy under Louis XIV, but as a result of peace thousands of young soldiers would have lived to produce children and watch them grow. One wonders too if the assassination of Richelieu would have aided in Cinq-Mars’s ascension. Louis was old at 40 and Cinq-Mars, despite the trouble he caused the king, was a source of movement and life, and despite his misbehavior he had progressively become Louis’ confident. Richelieu seemed to have realized this because he told Cinq-Mars that he had no more advice for him. Cinq-Mars was now a man, continued Richelieu, who had become wise enough to straighten out his disagreements with Louis without Richelieu’s intervention. Richelieu even told Cinq-Mars to put himself at the service of others, giving them a helping hand up as Richelieu had done for Cinq-Mars himself. Queen Anne had never been jealous of Cinq-Mars and so he had nothing to fear from her regency, when the time came. He could marry Gonzaga whom he apparently worshipped, reign supreme over the court as its first noble, a bottomless cornucopia. With Louis’ death Richelieu would have been disposed of, legally, in one-way or another. In reality, Richelieu would die before Louis, and Cinq-Mars would have seen his 23rd birthday in opulence--had he just been a bit more patient. The strength of the young is their youth. He had only needed to rely on that
eternal fact.

  Louis had made it clear to Cinq-Mars on numerous occasions that he and the people were tired of Richelieu, the people because they witnessed the luxury of his carriages, his gorgeously attired musketeers, his palace that was perhaps not equal in grandeur to the Louvre but was in any case infinitely more extended, the people who hurt under his taxes and died due to his wars, fighting them or victims to them. Time and again Louis had accused Richelieu for being the true king, leaving him, Louis, in the shadows. He blamed Richelieu for the conflicts on every French border. Naturally, Richelieu had done nothing without the full consent of Louis. One wonders to what point Cinq-Mars blamed the old head on his pillow for not taking matters in hand, since a single order would put anyone in the kingdom at the mercy of the executioner, as Cinq-Mars himself would learn.

  War in and around France was waged during this time. Alsace and Artois were annexed and Louis and his army headed towards Barcelona to free the Catalans. Holland, Sweden and Protestant Germany joined the French. On the way south Louis stopped over at Cinq-Mars’s chateau where he was welcomed sumptuously. It was around that time that Fontrailles was sent to Madrid to see the Spanish minister Olivares and present him with a document signed by Gaston, asking for Spain’s aid in helping Gaston assume the throne. Gaston also gave King Philip the news that Louis’ doctors said Louis had no more the six months to live. Louis’ mother’s help was requested too. Cinq-Mars’s mother Marie was in Cologne, having left England because of the conspiracies threatening the reign of Charles I.

  Now old, she wandered from place to place, continually robbed by her servants until at Cologne her health gave out and she died, at age 70. She had ordered the horoscope of her son Louis, and was so certain he would die before her that she had bought mules and new clothing in order to make an appearance in style when she entered Paris, after eleven years of exile.