Charles d’Albert de Luynes was now a man of eight-and-thirty. He was the eldest son of a small land-owner in Provence, and took his territorial name from a fief near Aix, which was his mother’s dowry. His two younger brothers, Honoré and Léon, who shared his marvellous fortunes—one becoming Duc de Chaulnes, the other Duc de Piney-Luxembourg—were known in their earlier days as Seigneurs de Cadenet and de Brantes; Cadenet being a small island in the Rhône, Brantes a farm and vineyard on a hill at Mornas. The three brothers, all clever and amiable, caring for each other with an unselfish affection rare in those days, began life as pages to François de Daillon, Comte du Lude, a very great man in his own province of Anjou, and a witty and audacious courtier. He and his friend M. de la Varenne advanced the three young southerners to the service of King Henry IV., who gave them appointments in the Dauphin’s household. Even then the three, generally liked and esteemed, says Richelieu, had but one pony and one good coat amongst them.
It was not only his skill in falconry and all other kinds of sport which endeared Luynes to his young master. From the first he made himself his friend. He was a really good-natured man, as well as a fine sportsman and an ambitious courtier, and he laid himself out to give freedom and happiness to the oppressed, stammering boy. Louis learned, from a child, to fly to Luynes in all his troubles. He was his constant companion through the day, his chief playmate, the organiser of his leisure time. At night in his dreams, often restless and feverish, the boy would cry out for Luynes.
This high favour did not pass unnoticed, of course, by the Queen-mother and Concini. They might have crushed Luynes in the early days, but they took the line of propitiating him—a very great and fatal mistake, according to Richelieu. Marie gave him the government of Amboise, resigned by the Prince de Condé in 1615. She thought thus to make Luynes her creature; and the Maréchal d’Ancre, who had watched him anxiously for a short time, was deceived by his retiring manners into thinking him a man of no real account except among birds, but probably a useful friend, having the ear of the King.
Through this summer of 1616, the Bishop of Luçon was steadily advancing in favour. Marie de Médicis appointed him her private secretary, with a handsome pension, and employed him on several political missions. One of these was of real importance and led to striking results.
In spite of the treaty of Loudun and all its advantages, the Prince de Condé and his friends were still in a sulky frame of mind. Instead of coming at once to Paris, the Prince lingered in his new province of Berry, where the discontented showed signs of gathering round him once more. This temper of his caused much anxiety to Marie, her new Ministers, and the Maréchal d’Ancre. It seemed to them necessary that the Prince should come to Paris. Any fresh disloyalty would be less formidable there, and his support of the present government, if he chose to give it, would be more valuable.
The Bishop of Luçon was sent to negotiate with the Prince at Bourges. “The Queen sent me to him,” he says, “believing that I should have sufficient fidelity and skill to dissipate the clouds of suspicion which evil minds had falsely raised against her.” Her belief was justified. Her envoy not only made the most of the promises with which he was laden—promises from herself, from the Maréchal d’Ancre, and last, not least, from Leonora—but he worked on the Prince’s mind by his own clever and flattering persuasions, assisted probably by the influence of Père Joseph and his brother, M. du Tremblay, who were partisans of Condé.
The Prince came to Paris, and was honourably received by their Majesties at the Louvre. Immediately all Paris was at his feet. “The Louvre was a solitude,” says Richelieu; “his house was the old Louvre”—on the site of part of the fortress of Philippe Auguste—“and one could not approach the door for the multitude of people crowding there. All who had any affair on hand addressed themselves to him; he never entered the Council but his hands were full of petitions and memoirs which had been presented to him, and which were granted at his will.”
At first Condé enjoyed his new popularity and used his power with moderation. Had he been a wise man, he might have kept it long; but he was weak, dissipated, and fiercely ambitious, saying openly that he had as much right to the throne as the King himself. The other princes, especially the restless and intriguing Duc de Bouillon, worked upon his discontent. Naturally, their first object was the ruin of the Maréchal d’Ancre. Each of them had grievances of his own. Even the Ducs de Guise and d’Épernon, loyal to the Crown, were ready to draw their swords on the favourite. The former Ministers, the Parliament, the people of Paris, were all on the same side, and Concini’s life, darkly plotted against in high places, was openly threatened in the street. One day, going alone to visit the Prince, who was entertaining the English ambassador, Lord Hay, he had a narrow escape of being killed by the servants.
Concini was a brave man, but he realised his danger, and both he and his wife were on the eve of escaping from France. Suddenly, however, the whole face of things changed. The Queen-mother, solemnly warned by the Duc de Sully, saw that some bold step was necessary if she was to save herself, her friends, even the young King, from serious peril. For there were again grumblings of civil war in the provinces, where the Duc de Longueville was attacking the last fortress in Picardy which remained in Concini’s hands.
The Ministers Barbin and Mangot, with the Bishop of Luçon, advised a coup d’état, and it was carried out with extraordinary ease. The Prince de Condé was arrested and imprisoned in the Bastille. The other princes fled, and Concini triumphed once more; but the people of Paris showed their hatred by sacking his palace in the Rue de Tournon, full of treasures worth 200,000 crowns.