As for Concini, he was more in favour at Court than ever; nevertheless, his position was not altogether an enviable one, since, though he was temporarily reconciled with Condé, Mayenne and Bouillon were breathing fire and slaughter against him and were quite capable of putting their threats into execution should a favourable occasion present itself; while he had rendered himself odious to the Parisians by an act of intolerable insolence.
It happened that, one night during the war, Concini had wished to leave Paris by the Porte de Bussy, in order to go to Saint-Germain. But, as he had neglected to provide himself with the necessary passport—such trifles being, of course, beneath the notice of so great a man—the officer of the citizen militia in charge of the gate, who, when not girded with a sword, followed the peaceful occupation of a shoemaker, had refused to let him out. The shoemaker was only doing his duty, but Concini was furious, and, so soon as peace was signed, determined to be revenged, and accordingly sent two of his lackeys to chastise the impertinent fellow who had dared to put such an affront upon a marshal of France. The sequel was a tragedy, for the shoemaker shouted for help with all the strength of his lungs; the people came running from all directions to his assistance, seized the unfortunate lackeys, and, after keeping them locked up for some days, hanged them in front of the shoemaker’s shop, vowing that they would serve their master in the same way when they could lay their hands on him.
All things considered, it is not surprising that the marshal should have decided that the air of Paris was just then unsuited to his health and remained at his country seat at Lesigny, though even there he appears to have been far from safe from his enemies, since Bassompierre tells us that “MM. de Mayenne and de Bouillon made an attempt to blow him up with a petard, but did not succeed.”
However, on July 20 Condé returned to Paris, to be received with enthusiasm by the people, though surely no one was ever less deserving of popular acclamations than this vain, greedy, and meddlesome young man, who had not scrupled to plunge his country into the miseries of civil war to serve his own selfish ends! Unwilling to offend the prince by failing to pay him his respects, Concini thereupon decided to go to Paris, even at the risk of his life, and wrote to Bassompierre, who had apparently quite forgiven him for the shabby way he had behaved two years before, asking him to meet him at the Porte Saint-Antoine at three o’clock on the following afternoon, with as many friends as he could muster.
At the appointed hour Bassompierre proceeded to the Porte Saint-Antoine, accompanied by thirty horse, passing on the way the Hôtel de Mayenne, which stood at the corner of the Rue Saint-Antoine and the Rue du Petit-Musc. Presently, Concini appeared, riding in his gilded coach, which was surrounded by forty mounted retainers, all, of course, armed to the teeth. The marshal alighted, and mounted a horse which Bassompierre had brought for him, and the two cavalcades joined forces and proceeded through the streets to the Louvre. Here they waited while Concini entered to salute the Queen, and then made their way to the Hôtel de Condé, in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. By this time the marshal’s escort, swollen by the accession of friends of his own and Bassompierre’s, amounted to over one hundred horse; but it seemed as though even this force might be insufficient to protect him, as the first person whom they saw on entering the courtyard of the Hôtel de Condé was Concini’s enemy the shoemaker. His presence in that aristocratic mansion was no doubt accounted for by the fact that it was part of Monsieur le Prince’s policy to court the leaders of the populace, as the Guises had done so effectively in days gone by.
No sooner did the shoemaker catch sight of Concini, than he hurried away, shouting out that he was going to raise the people of his quarter against the Italian. The latter, greatly alarmed, paid his respects to Condé as briefly as etiquette would permit, and then he and his escort turned their horses’ heads towards the river. On this occasion, Bassompierre and his followers rode some two hundred paces ahead of Concini, as it had been decided that if, as was fully expected, they found the Pont-Neuf occupied by an armed mob too numerous to allow of them cutting their way through, the vanguard should hold the enemy in check, while the marshal, under the protection of the rest, retreated to the shelter of the Hôtel de Condé. To their relief, however, the bridge was unoccupied—apparently the shoemaker had not had sufficient time to mobilise his quarter—and they reached the Porte Saint-Antoine in safety, where Concini reentered his coach and returned to Lesigny.
After Condé’s return to Paris, the management of affairs fell almost entirely into his hands, and his hôtel was besieged at all hours by petitioners and sycophants. “Almost all the grandees,” says Bassompierre, “were of his party and his cabal, and even MM. de Guise[104] joined him, under pretext of dissatisfaction with the Maréchal d’Ancre and his wife.”
At the beginning of August, Concini returned to his
