have I the least reason to anticipate that she will ever overcome so irrational an antipathy. Nor can she be won by kindness and indulgence. Not only have I ever treated her with the respect and deference due to the Queen of a great nation, but even in moments of pecuniary pressure I have been careful, not merely to supply her wants, but also to satisfy her caprices; and that too when I was aware that the sums thus bestowed were to be squandered upon the Italian rabble whose incessant study it has been to poison her mind against both myself and her adopted country. Would to Heaven, Rosny, that I had followed your advice on her arrival, and compelled the mischievous cabal to recross the Alps; but it is now too late for such regrets; and if you can indeed succeed in inducing the Queen to become more amenable to my wishes, and more indulgent to my errors, Ventre Saint-Gris! you will effect a good work, in which I shall be ready to second you. But mark, you must do this apparently upon your own responsibility, and be careful not to let her learn that I have authorized such a measure, or you will only defeat your own purpose, and render her more impracticable than ever." [237]
Such was the unsatisfactory result of the effort made by the minister to reconcile the royal couple; while, in addition to all his other anxieties, he found himself placed in a position at once so difficult and so dangerous that he was at a loss how to proceed, until a circumstance fortunately occurred of which he hastened to avail himself. In exchanging the petty Court of Florence for that of France, Marie had speedily emancipated herself from the compulsory economy to which she had been accustomed from her childhood, and had become reckless in her expenditure to an excess which constantly disturbed the equanimity of the prudent minister of finance. The current expenses of her household amounted annually to the sum of three hundred and forty-five thousand livres, an enormous outlay for that period; while she was so lavish to her favourites that she was constantly applying for further supplies; and on one occasion, when these were withheld, had actually pawned the crown jewels, which it was necessary to redeem by a disbursement from the public treasury. In addition to these resources, her income was also considerably increased by gratuities, bribes from contracting parties,[238] and edicts created in her favour; the last of which were peculiarly obnoxious to Sully, from the fact of their harassing the people without any national benefit; and it was accordingly with great reluctance, and frequently not without expostulation, that he was induced to countersign these documents.
The circumstance to which we have alluded as affording to Sully an opening for the delicate negotiation with which he was entrusted by the King, was an offer made to Marie de Medicis of the sum of eighty thousand livres in the event of her causing an edict to be issued in favour of the officials of the salt-works of Languedoc, which she forthwith despatched to the minister by M. d'Argouges,[239] with a request that he would use his influence to obtain it.
Having made himself acquainted with the nature and tendency of the edict, M. de Sully desired the messenger to inform her Majesty that he was of opinion that the sovereign might safely authorize its operation without any injury to the public interests; but added that he feared the moment was an unpropitious one as regarded the Queen herself, the King being still deeply offended by some of her recent proceedings; nor would he advise her to venture upon such an application until she had succeeded in disarming his anger; for which purpose he respectfully suggested that she should endeavour to conciliate her royal consort by some concession, which he would exert all his ability to enhance in the eyes of his master, and in every way endeavour to advance her interests as he had already done on several previous occasions.
Marie, eager to possess herself of the large sum thus proffered for her acceptance, consented to follow his advice; and decided upon addressing a letter to the King, expressive of her regret at the coldness which existed between them, and of her willingness to meet his wishes should he condescend to explain them.
This letter having been read and approved by the finance minister was forthwith forwarded from Fontainebleau, where Marie de Medicis was then residing, to the King at Paris; but it was not without a struggle that the Queen had compelled herself to such an act of self-abnegation, and her courier was no sooner despatched than she complained in bitter terms to M. de Sully of the humiliations to which she was subjected by the infatuation of the monarch for Madame de Verneuil; declaring that she could never submit to look with favour or indulgence upon a woman who had the presumption to institute comparisons between herself and her sovereign; who was rearing her children with all the pretensions of Princes of the Blood Royal, and encouraging them in demonstrations of disrespect towards her own person; and who was, moreover, fomenting sedition, by encouraging the discontented nobles to manifestations of disloyalty to their monarch; while the King, blinded by his passion, made no effort to rebuke, or even to restrain, her impertinence.
The minister listened calmly and respectfully to these outpourings of her indignation, but assured her in reply that it only depended upon herself to annihilate the influence of the favourite, by a system of consideration for the feelings of her royal consort of which she had not hitherto condescended to test the efficacy. He, moreover, implored her to make the trial; and represented so forcibly the benefit which must accrue to herself by a restoration of domestic peace, that she at length admitted the justice of his arguments, and pledged herself to accelerate, by every means in her power, a full and perfect reconciliation.
Gratified by this almost unhoped-for success, Sully shortly afterwards withdrew; and the reply of the King to the letter which she had addressed to him was delivered to Marie when she was surrounded only by her own private circle. It was at once courteous and conciliatory; and it is probable that, had it arrived before the departure of the Duke, it would have been acknowledged in the same spirit; but, unfortunately, the Queen had no sooner communicated its contents to her confidential friends than she was met by the assurance that the monarch had, on the receipt of her missive, carried it to the Marquise, where her credulity had excited great amusement, an assertion which was followed by other commentaries so distasteful to her pride, that, instead of persevering in the prudent course which she had been induced to adopt, she haughtily informed the royal courier by whom the letter had been brought that she should entrust him with no written reply, but should expect his Majesty on the following day according to his own appointment.
This marked and impolitic demonstration of disrespect excited anew the resentment of Henry, who openly expressed his indignation in the most unmeasured terms, and that so publicly, that within a few hours Marie was informed of every particular; and the breach which Sully had fondly flattered himself that he was about to heal became wider and more threatening than ever.[240]
Meanwhile the commerce of the King and the favourite was far from affording to the former all the gratification which he had anticipated from its renewal. The coquetry--to designate it by no harsher term--of Madame de Verneuil irritated the jealousy of the monarch, who could not forget that she had taunted him with his advancing age, and who saw her unblushingly encourage the admiration and attention of such of the courtiers as she could induce to brave his displeasure; while her lavish expenditure and unceasing demands, alike upon his patience and his purse, involved him in perpetual difficulties with his finance minister, which her extravagant attempts to assume the airs and to usurp the privileges of quasi-royalty did not tend to diminish.
The French King was, in fact, at this period, the victim of his own vices; the sovereign of a great and powerful nation, without a home or a hearth, a wifeless husband, and a discontented lover; tenderly attached to all his children, and yet unable to confer a favour upon the offspring of one mother without incurring the resentment of the other; and while feeling himself degraded by the thrall in which he lived, totally devoid of the moral courage necessary for his escape from so disgraceful a bondage.
It is in moments such as these that virtue and honour assert their well-earned privileges without even the effort of enforcing them. Weary of his perpetual discomfort, harassed by the heartless conduct of his mistress, and pining for the mental repose which he so greatly needed, Henry once more turned towards his wife as his only probable and legitimate haven of rest; but hopeless of success through his own agency, he again addressed himself to Sully for assistance and support.
Suddenly summoned by the monarch, the minister presented himself at the Tuileries, where he found Henry in the orangery, in which he had taken refuge from a shower of rain, pale, agitated, and anxious. The subject of his reconciliation with the Queen was