Cardinal de Richelieu

by Eleanor C. Price

It was the sharpest grief that ever touched Richelieu. The two had been much drawn together of late years, and they seemed at this very time to be starting together on a fresh and brilliant career.

The Marquis de Thémines disappeared in disgrace from the Queen’s circle, but others of his party were ready to snatch at the government of Angers and the command of the guards. They were disappointed. Marie de Médicis replaced the dead Richelieu by his uncle, Amador de la Porte, Commander of the Order of Malta, the worthy and gallant man to whom young Armand de Richelieu owed his early education as collegian and cadet. The captaincy of the guard was given to the Marquis de Brézé, whose son Armand, afterwards Duc de Fronsac, was born about this time.

Rucellai and his partisans, seeing themselves out-generalled, vanished one by one and left a clear field to the Bishop of Luçon, whose commanding influence grew every day stronger with the Queen.

A meeting and formal reconciliation between herself and her son became now the question of the moment. In preparation either for this or for the chance of civil war the Court had already moved from Paris, with a strong escort of troops, to the Loire. The first stopping-place was Amboise, where the King received news that the treaty had been concluded. At Angoulême bonfires blazed and a Te Deum was sung; at Tours, where the Court proceeded to establish itself for the summer, things were taken more quietly, perhaps more cynically, for the royal interview was put off from month to month, and Luynes found that he had a formidable person to deal with in the Queen’s chief counsellor. Though the treaty might be signed, there were further arrangements to be made before Richelieu would allow his royal mistress to meet her son.

In the meanwhile there was going and coming between Tours and Angoulême, where the Prince of Piedmont and his young wife, with his brother, Prince Thomas of Savoy, visited the Queen-mother and were magnificently received by her loyal friend the Duc d’Épernon.

The long hot summer dragged slowly on. The young King and Queen, Monsieur (Gaston, Duc d’Orléans, a boy of eleven), the little Princess Henriette, the Duc de Luynes and the whole Court, passed the time as best they could among the woods and rivers of Touraine and Anjou. They visited La Flèche, where the heart of Henry IV. lay in the chapel of the Jesuit College founded by him—and where its ashes are still preserved, the embalmed heart itself having been burnt by patriots in the Revolution. They made a progress among stately sun-baked châteaux, lingering at Le Lude, the owner of which, formerly the patron of Luynes and his brothers, now held the important post of governor to Monsieur. Some of the courtiers, such as Bassompierre, found reasons for riding backwards and forwards, post-haste, between Tours and Paris. The Ministers there needed watching, being apt to sell rich military appointments on their own authority.

At length Richelieu could delay no longer. He had gained for the Queen-mother some additional advantages beyond the April treaty, and he had extracted from Luynes a kind of vague promise, or at least an understanding, that he should be recommended to the Pope for a Cardinal’s Hat. At present this was his chief object and desire.

At the end of August Marie de Médicis left Angoulême to rejoin her son. She was accompanied to the frontier of the Angoumois by the Duc d’Épernon, from whom she parted with tears, and she was escorted on her journey by Hercule de Rohan, Duc de Montbazon, father-in-law of Luynes, whose château of Couzières, near Tours, had been chosen for the royal meeting. It was not large or important, being rather a country-house than a castle; but its woods and gardens were beautiful, and never, in a history not lacking in romance, was Couzières the scene of so much splendour.

The Queen-mother arrived there in the evening, with her train of ladies and gentlemen, among whom were the Archbishop of Toulouse and the Bishop of Luçon. The King left Tours the next morning on horseback, attended by five hundred princes, lords and gentlemen.

“He arrived at the said Couzières before the Queen-mother had ordered her dinner; he entered by the park gate, and the Queen at once came forth to receive him. She met him in the garden, and there they saluted and embraced each other with a great appearance of contentment on both sides; the Queen-mother wept for joy.”