CHAPTER XIX
Luynes succeeds to the power and wealth of Concini—Trial and execution of Concini’s widow, Leonora Galigaï—Luynes begins to direct affairs of State—His marriage to Marie de Rohan—Conduct of the Duc d’Epernon—His quarrel with Du Vair, the Keeper of the Seals—His disgrace—He begins to intrigue with the Queen-Mother—Escape of the latter from Blois—Treaty of Angoulême—The Court at Tours—Arnauld d’Andilly’s account of Bassompierre’s lavish hospitality—Favours bestowed by the King on Bassompierre—Meeting between Louis XIII and the Queen-Mother—Liberation of Condé—Bassompierre entertains the King at Monceaux—He is admitted to the Ordre du Saint-Esprit.
The heir of the power of Concini was Luynes. He was, as we have mentioned, a gentleman of Provence—a very unimportant gentleman the Court had thought him before he had contrived to insinuate himself into the good graces of the young King. His father, an officer of fortune, the fruit, if we are to believe Richelieu, of a liaison between one d’Albert, a canon of Marseilles, and a chambermaid, was the owner of the Château of Luynes, near Aix, the vineyard of Brantes, and the islet of Cadenet in the middle of the Rhone, seigneuries, says Bassompierre, which a hare could jump over, but which, in default of revenues, furnished titles for his three sons. Charles Albert, the eldest, had begun life as page to the Comte du Lude, and was afterwards placed by Henri IV with the Dauphin. Both he and his younger brothers, Brantes and Cadenet, were exceedingly good-looking men, skilled in all bodily exercises, well-educated and possessed of ingratiating manners; but there were no limits to their ambition or their greed, and they did not intend to allow any little scruples to stand in the way of their advancement.
Despite the adage:
“Devrait-on hériter de ceux qu’on assassine,”
Luynes inherited, not only the power of Concini, but also the greater part of his charges and possessions: lieutenancy-general of Normandy, government of the Pont-de-l’Arche, domain of Ancre (the name of which was changed to Albert), his post of First Gentleman of the Chamber, his hôtel in Paris, his estate of Lesigny, and so forth. When people saw the confiscated property of the Concini pass straight from the royal demesne into the greedy hands of the new favourite, they began to ask themselves whether the country was after all likely to gain much by the change that had taken place.
But the confiscation of the property of the Florentine couple, though it might suffice, for the moment, the cupidity of Luynes, did not suffice his policy. He desired to widen the gulf which he had opened between Louis XIII and his mother,[127] by dragging the name of the latter through the mire of a criminal court; and, at his instigation, the Maréchale d’Ancre was brought to trial as a sorceress who had bewitched the Queen-Mother by her arts,[128] and on July 8, 1617, condemned to be burned alive in the Place de Grève for the crime of lèse-majesté human and divine.
It was with great difficulty, however, that Luynes succeeded in obtaining this verdict. The Advocate-General, Lebret, at first refused to demand the death penalty, and it was only on Luynes giving him his word that the prisoner would be pardoned after the decree that he consented to do so. But the only clemency that the unfortunate woman was able to obtain was that her head should be cut off before her body was committed to the flames. She died with great courage and resignation.