"Madame," replied Louis, "it was already my intention so to do. I am sincerely attached to M. de Condé, and to all his house; and every attention shall be paid to him until my government is perfectly established. I greatly regret that at the present moment I am prevented by circumstances from restoring him to liberty; but assure him from me that I will cause his liberation at the earliest opportunity."
Again and again did the delighted Princess utter her thanks; and after having been graciously dismissed by the King, she lost not a moment in proceeding, armed with the royal authority, to the Bastille, where, having constituted herself a prisoner, she hastened to impart her hopeful tidings to the Prince.
Despite the assurances which she had received, however, from the lips of Louis himself, four more weary months were passed by M. and Madame de Condé in the fortress, in that daily and hourly fever of expectation which is more agonizing than utter despair; and even at the close of that dreary time, instead of the liberty for which the husband and wife alike panted, an order arrived at the Bastille for the transfer of the deluded and unhappy couple to the Castle of Vincennes, which was communicated to them as a signal mark of the royal clemency; and in that citadel they were detained until the autumn of 1619.[310] The result of Madame de Condé's admirable self-abnegation was, however, a source of triumph for her woman-heart, as the Prince was not proof against so unequivocal a demonstration of attachment, and thenceforward evinced towards her a tenderness which amply repaid her sacrifice.
Shortly after the transfer of Madame d'Ancre to the Conciergerie she was put upon her trial; but as her mental hallucination, together with her estrangement from her husband, rendered it probable that sufficient proof of political delinquency could not be adduced against her to justify an extreme sentence, and as her escape from the scaffold must necessarily tend to render his tenure of the confiscated property of Concini (of which he had already obtained the reversion) difficult, if not impossible, De Luynes did not hesitate to tamper with her judges, and to induce them, alike by bribes and threats, to accomplish her death. For this purpose a second charge was coupled with that of lèse-majesté, which was brought conjointly against herself and her murdered husband. She was accused of sorcery as well as of conspiring against the state; of casting alike nativities to compass the destruction of the King, and cannon for the service of the disaffected Princes; together with a host of other crimes, none of which could be proved against her. So palpable, indeed, was the motive of her persecutors, that it excited the popular indignation; and the masses, who had so recently execrated the name of the unfortunate woman, began, ere the conclusion of her trial, to look upon her only as the victim of De Luynes. "You will see," said some of the citizens, as they learnt with what dignified calmness and logical precision she refuted the several charges brought against her, "that here the case of the Duc de Biron will be reversed—like her he was the victim of policy, but he died like a woman, while she will meet her fate like a man."
And they were correct in their conclusion. Whatever might have been her faults while she continued the favourite of fortune, Leonora Galigaï was grand in her adversity; and one of her judges was so much overpowered by his conviction of her innocence, that on recollecting the pledge which he had given to De Luynes to decide upon her guilt, he fainted and was carried from the Court. When accused of treason against the state, the prisoner replied by reminding her accusers of her total estrangement from her husband during the last two years, throughout which period he had been all-powerful with the Queen-mother, and her own consequent loss of influence; and when questioned as to the nature of the sorcery by which she had so long governed her royal mistress, she answered that it was simply the magic exercised by a strong mind over a weak one.[311] To the other charges she responded with equal composure and conclusiveness; and many among them were of so puerile a character that, despite the fearful position in which she was placed, she could not suppress a smile of mingled pity and amusement.
She was foredoomed, however; and on the 8th of July the sentence was pronounced. It was in truth a frightful one! Both the husband and the wife were declared guilty of lèse-majesté divine and human; and she herself was condemned to lose her head, and to be afterwards burned; their house was to be levelled with the ground; their property, not only in France, but also all that they possessed at Rome and Florence, was to be confiscated to the Crown; and their son deprived of his rank, and rendered incapable of holding any office in the kingdom.[312]
When this sentence was declared the wretched woman, who had never anticipated a more severe fate than exile, exclaimed in a piteous voice: "Oimè poveretta!" but shortly recovering herself, she resumed the same calm courage which she had previously evinced.
Perhaps the most merciful portion of her sentence was that which condemned her to suffer on the same day; and for this she was undoubtedly indebted to the impatience of De Luynes, who did not feel himself secure of the succession until she should have ceased to breathe. The revelations which she had made of the extent of her wealth during the preliminary examinations in the prison had sealed her fate, as they so far exceeded all his anticipations that they silenced every throb of compunction and negatived every other feeling; and they thus at least spared her a night of agony during which she might have brooded over the miserable prospects of her idolized son.
It is painful to reflect upon the position which the Marquise had filled, and to see her thus shaken and withered both in mind and body; abandoned by the protectress to whom she had clung so long and so confidingly; widowed by violence; separated from her only surviving child; and compelled to drain her cup of bitterness to the very dregs. Not a pang was, however, voluntarily spared to her. She might, in consideration of her rank as the wife of a Marshal of France, and out of respect for the Queen-mother, of whom she had not only been the foster-sister but also the familiar friend, have been conveyed to the place of execution in a covered carriage, and thus have been in some degree screened from the public gaze; but no such delicacy was observed. The criminal's cart, with its ghastly faggot for a seat, was her ordained conveyance; but her step did not falter as she stepped into the vehicle which had been previously tenanted by the vilest and most degraded culprits. Never had there been seen so dense a crowd in the Place de Grève; and as she glanced hurriedly around, unaware of the popular reaction of feeling, she cowered for an instant panic-struck, and murmured helplessly: "Oh, what a multitude to gaze upon a miserable woman!"
Not a word, not a gesture of vengeance or of hate, escaped, however, from the populace. Her deportment had been so dignified, her courage so great, her piety so perfect, that those who were once her bitterest enemies looked on her through their tears. Her charities had been unremitting and extensive; and those whom she had aided in their necessities had thronged, through a morbid and mingled feeling of gratitude and awe, to see her die.[313]