whom Madame de Villars, from circumstances which require no comment, had hitherto been comparatively a stranger. Marie de Medicis, who had experienced little sympathy from the great ladies of the Court, having thrown herself principally upon her Italian followers for society, had in consequence been cold and distant in her deportment to the French members of her circle; who, on their side, trammelled by the rigorous propriety of her conduct, were quite satisfied to be partially overlooked, in order that their own less scrupulous bearing might pass unnoticed by so rigid a censor; and thus, when, upon the earnest request of Madame de Villars to be introduced to the more intimate acquaintance of the Queen, the Princess succeeded in obtaining for her the privilege of the petites entrées (unaware of the powerful passport to favour which she possessed), she found it difficult to account for the eagerness with which the ordinarily unapproachable Marie greeted the appearance and courted the society of the astute Duchess; nor did she for an instant dream that by facilitating the intercourse between them, she was undermining the fortunes of a brother whom she loved.
It appears extraordinary that of all the ladies about the Queen, Madame de Villars should have selected the sister of the Prince de Joinville to enable her to effect her purpose; but let her have acted from whatever motive she might, it is certain that day by day her favour became more marked; and the circumstance which most excited the surprise of Madame de Conti, was the fact that her protégée was often closeted with the Queen when, for reasons sufficiently obvious, she herself and even Leonora Galigaï were excluded. In encouraging the vengeance of her new friend, Marie was well aware that she was committing an imprudence from which the more far-seeing Florentine would have dissuaded her; and thus, with that impetuosity which was destined through life to be her scourge, she resolved only to consult her own feelings. The secret of this new discovery was consequently not divulged to her favourite; and as her cheek burned and her eye flashed, while lingering over the insults to which she had been subjected by the unscrupulous mistress of the monarch, she urged Madame de Villars to lose no time in communicating the contents of the obnoxious letters to her sovereign.
The undertaking was difficult as well as dangerous; and in the case of the Duchess it required more than usual tact and caution. She had not only to encounter the risk of arousing the anger of Henry by accusing the woman whom he loved, but also to combat his wounded vanity when he should see his somewhat mature passion made a subject of ridicule, and, at the same time, to conceal her own motive for the treachery of which she was guilty. This threefold trial, even daring as she was, the Duchess feared to hazard. In communicating the fatal letters to the Queen, she had calculated that the indignation and jealousy of the Italian Princess would instigate her to take instant possession of so formidable a weapon against her most dangerous enemy, and to work out her own vengeance; but Marie had learnt prudence from past experience, and she was anxious to conceal her own agency in the cabal until she could avow it with a certainty of triumph. Perceiving the reluctance of Madame de Villars to take the initiative, she hastened to explain to her the suspicion which would naturally be engendered in the mind of the King, should he imagine that the affair had been preconcerted to satisfy her private animosity; and moreover suggested that the Duchess should, in her interview with the monarch, carefully avoid even the mention of her name. Encouragement and entreaties followed this caution; while a few rich presents sufficed to convince her auditor--and ultimately, Madame de Villars (who had too long waited patiently for such an opportunity of revenge to shrink from her purpose when it was secured to her), having gained the favour and confidence of the Queen at the expense of her rival, resolved to terminate her task.
The pretext of urgent business easily procured for her a private interview with the King, for the name of D'Estrées still acted like a spell upon the mind and heart of Henry, and the Duchess was a consummate tactician. Notice was given to her of the day on which the sovereign would visit St. Denis; and as she presented herself in the lateral chapel where he had just concluded his devotions, Henry made a sign for his attendant nobles to withdraw, when the Duchess found herself in a position to explain her errand, and to assure him that she had only been induced to make the present disclosure from her affection for his person, and the gratitude which she owed to him for the many benefits that she had experienced from his condescension. Having briefly dwelt on the contents of the letters which she delivered into his keeping, she did not even seek an excuse for the means by which they had come into her own possession, but concluded by observing: "I could not reconcile it to my conscience, Sire, to conceal so great an outrage; I should have felt like a criminal myself, had I been capable of suffering in silence such treason against the greatest king, the best master, and the most gallant gentleman on earth." [163]
Henry was not proof against this compliment. He believed himself to be all that the Duchess had asserted, but he liked to hear his own opinion confirmed by the lips of others; and, although smarting under the mortification of wounded vanity occasioned by the contents of the letters of his perfidious mistress, he smiled complacently upon Madame de Villars, thanking her for her zeal and attachment to his person, and assuring her that both were fully appreciated.
She had no sooner retired than, as the Queen had previously done, he repeatedly read over each letter in turn until his patience gave way under the task; when hastily summoning the Duc de Lude, he desired him to forthwith proceed to the apartments of the Marquise, and inform her in his name that "she was a perfidious woman, a monster, and the most wicked of her sex; and that he was resolved never to see her again." [164]
At this period Madame de Verneuil had quitted the palace, and was residing in an hôtel in the city, which had been presented to her by the King: a fortunate circumstance for the envoy, who required time and consideration to enable him to execute his onerous mission in a manner that might not tend to his own subsequent discomfiture; but on the delivery of the royal message, which even the courtly De Lude could not divest of its offensive character, Madame de Verneuil (who was well aware that the King, however he might yield to his momentary anger, was even less able to dispense with her society than she herself was to lose the favour which alone preserved her from the ignominy her conduct had justly merited) did not for an instant lose her self-possession. "Tell his Majesty," she replied, as calmly as though a sense of innocence had given her strength, "that being perfectly assured that I have never been guilty of word or deed which could justly incur his anger, I cannot imagine what can have induced him to treat me with so little consideration. That some one has traduced me, I cannot doubt; but I shall be revenged by a discovery of the truth." [165]
She then rose from her seat, and retired to her private room, much more alarmed and agitated than she was willing to betray. De Lude had, during the interview, suffered a few remarks to escape him from which she was enabled to guess whence the blow had come; and conscious of the enormity of her imprudence, she lost no time in confiding to her most confidential friends the difficulty of her position, and entreated them to discover some method by which she might escape its consequences.
As had been previously arranged with the Queen, Madame de Villars, at her audience of the King, had carefully abstained from betraying the share which his consort had taken in the intrigue, and had assumed to herself the very equivocal honour of the whole proceeding; and it was, consequently, against the Duchess alone that the anger of the favourite was excited. Even the Prince de Joinville was forgiven, when with protestations of repentance he threw himself at the feet of the Marquise, and implored her pardon--he could scarcely fail to be understood by such a woman, when he pleaded the extremes to which passion and disappointment could urge an ardent nature--while the Duc de Bellegarde was no sooner informed by the Princesse de Conti that the fortune, and perhaps even the life, of her brother were involved in the affair, than he devoted himself to her cause.
We have already stated that the time was not one of unnecessary scruple, and the peril of the Marquise was imminent. The letters not only existed, but were in the hands of the King: no honest or simple remedy could be suggested for such a disaster; and thus, as it was imperative to clear Madame de Verneuil from blame in order to save the Prince, it was ultimately determined to deny the authenticity of the documents, and to attribute the forgery to a secretary of the Duc de Guise, who was celebrated for his aptitude in imitating every species of handwriting. The attempt was hazardous; but the infatuation of Henry for the fascinating favourite was so well known, that the conspirators were assured of the eagerness with which he would welcome any explanation, however doubtful; and