But the balorda, as Leonora Galigai called her, paid no attention to the humble Spaniard, and saw in him only a paltry adventurer—a subaltern without future prospects. Did she even notice Monsieur d'Alvimar's real or feigned passion? That is something that history does not divulge and that D'Alvimar himself never knew.
It is not an unreasonable supposition that he would have been capable of pleasing the Regent by his wit and the charms of his person, had not her thoughts been occupied by Concini. The favorite was of even lower origin, and was not half so intelligent as he. But D'Alvimar had within himself an obstacle to his attainment of the exalted fortune enjoyed by the successful courtiers of the day—an obstacle which his ambition could not overcome.
He was a bigoted Catholic, and he had all the faults of the intolerant Catholics of the Spain of Philip II. Suspicious, restless, vindictive, implacable, he had abundance of faith nevertheless; but faith without love and without light, faith falsified by the passions and hatreds of a political system which identified itself with religion, "to the great displeasure of the merciful and indulgent God, whose kingdom is not so much of this world as of the other;" that is to say, if we apprehend aright the thought of the contemporary author to whom we look for information from time to time, the God whose conquests are supposed to extend through the moral world by charity, and not through the material world by the use of violence.
It is impossible to say that France would not have been subjected in some degree to the régime of the Inquisition, in the event that Monsieur d'Alvimar had obtained possession of the Regent's heart and mind; but such was not the case, and Concini, whose sole crime was that he was not noble enough by birth to be entitled to rob and pillage as freely as a genuine great nobleman of those days, remained until his tragic death the arbiter of the Regents uncertain and venal policy.
After the murder of the favorite, D'Alvimar, who had compromised himself seriously in his service in the affair of the Paris serjean,[1] was compelled to disappear to avoid being involved in the prosecution of Leonora.
He would have been very glad to insinuate himself into the service of the new favorite, the king's favorite, Monsieur de Luynes, but he could not bring it about; and, although he had no more scruples than "most courtiers of his time, he felt that he could not stoop to the shuffling of the royal party, whose policy was to yield many points to the Calvinists, whenever they saw reason to hope that they could purchase the submission of the princes who made use of the Reformed religion to forward their ambition."
When Queen Marie was in open disgrace, Sciarra d'Alvimar considered it to be for his interest to display his fidelity to her cause. He reflected that parties are never without resources, and that they all have their day. Moreover, the queen, even though she were to remain in exile, might still make the fortunes of her faithful adherents. Everything is relative, and D'Alvimar was so poor that the gifts of a royal personage, however nearly ruined she might be, offered an excellent chance for him.
He exerted himself, therefore, to assist in planning the escape from the château of Blois, even as he had been employed, several years before, in the third or fourth rôles in the various political dramas evolved sometimes by the diplomatic manœuvres of Philip III., sometimes by those of Marie de Médicis, their aim being to bring about the marriages.[2]
This Monsieur d'Alvimar was, generally speaking, sufficiently shrewd in the interests of others, discreet and ready for work; but he was often reproached with having a mania for giving his advice "where he should have been content to follow that of other people," and for exhibiting an ability of which he should have been content to leave the credit to his superiors, "being as yet only an unimportant personage."
Thus, despite his zeal, he did not succeed in drawing upon himself the queen mothers attention, and, at the time of Marie's retirement to Angers, he was lost to sight among the subaltern officers, tolerated rather than popular.