“A Jupiter six feet high, with the face of the late King, a crown on his head and a sceptre in his hand, dressed as Jupiter à l’antique.
“A Juno of the same size, with the face of the Queen, the eyes slightly turned towards heaven, to which she will point with one hand.
“A god Terminus, nine feet high, made after the sculptor’s fancy, to be set on a column in the midst of the garden.
“A Hercules eight or nine feet high, holding up his club in the air, pierced so that it may throw out water.”
And so forth. In his reply, M. des Roches was bold enough to question his patron’s taste on several points; remarking, for instance, that though water might spring forth from Samson’s jawbone of an ass, it could hardly do so from the club of Hercules.
Water played a great part in the garden decoration of those days. Canals, cascades, lakes, fountains glittered and splashed everywhere; and keen amusement was found in the various tricks played by unexpected jets d’eau. At Rueil the Cardinal had a wonderful grotto with a cavern into which he used to beguile his unlucky guests.
“An infinity of little jets d’eau spring out of the ground; figures of animals, of every kind, spurt water on every side; and when one tries to hurry out to escape all this water, the doors are blockaded by heavy water-falls; and outside the grotto other spouting figures complete the soaking of those who have passed through all this water.”
Such was the delightful humour of the time. And it was not only ladies and gentlemen, finely dressed, who were subjected to these little “surprises.” Walls were painted with marvellous perspectives which deceived the very birds of the air. They met their death while flying, as they thought, in the blue firmament of heaven.
Rueil was the Cardinal’s favourite residence outside Paris. His town house at this time was in the fashionable Place Royale; two or three years later he moved to the Petit-Luxembourg, a charming hôtel in the Rue Vaugirard, close to Marie de Médicis’ new palace. While high in her favour he had much to do with the artistic decoration of the Luxembourg. He superintended her financial affairs, and her builders, painters, furnishers worked to some extent under his orders. De Brosse, her architect, was supplied with money by his authority. Rubens, who was now painting the magnificent series of pictures in her honour; Poussin and Philippe de Champagne, young artists not yet famous, employed in smaller work about the palace, were dependent on him. We find him inquiring through M. des Roches if Guido Reni of Bologna, then at the height of his glory, will come to France for a couple of years to paint the late King’s battles in a gallery of the Queen’s new palace. But the Pope and all the Italian princes were struggling for Guido, and he did not care at this time to leave his own country.
While Richelieu and the Queen-mother waited and looked on, se ménageant, as a French writer says, and amusing themselves with matters of art, the confusion in State affairs went on deepening. The weakness and irresolution of the Ministers were destroying, day by day, French influence in Europe, while the power of Spain and Austria went on growing. Old allies of France were biting the dust. The progress of the war in Germany was against the Protestants; the Elector Palatine, King of Bohemia, had been driven from his dominions, and James I., his father-in-law, saw no wiser course than to bid for the help of Spain by marrying his heir to the Infanta; it was in this very year 1623 that Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham visited Paris on their way to Madrid. Such an alliance might have sealed the fate of France and almost made her a vassal of Spain; she was indeed approaching that state, in the helpless hands of Sillery and Puisieux.