for the child of the Baron de Tour; after which he proceeded to St. Marcou, where he touched a number of persons suffering under the loathsome disease which it was the superstition of the age to believe could be removed by contact with the royal hand.
On the 30th of the month the Court returned to Paris, and was met at the Porte St. Antoine by the civic authorities, at the head of two hundred mounted citizens, amid a cannonade from the Bastille, and ceaseless flourishes of trumpets and hautboys. The Regent had, however, preceded her son to the city, and stood in a balcony at the house of Zamet to see him pass, where he no sooner perceived her than he withdrew his plumed cap, which he did not resume until having halted beneath the window he had saluted her with a profound bow. He then proceeded by torchlight to the Louvre, accompanied throughout his progress by the same acclamations of loyalty and enthusiasm as had greeted the ears of his dead father only a few months previously.
It had been a great relief to Marie de Medicis that before the departure of the Court for Rheims a reconciliation had been effected between the Prince de Condé and the Comte de Soissons; but her tranquillity was not destined to last, the attendants of the Cardinal de Joyeuse and those of the Marquis d'Ancre having had a violent altercation during the journey on the subject of the accommodation provided for their respective employers; and this quarrel was no sooner appeased than the new-made Marquis originated another with the Duc de Bellegarde, alleging that as First Lord of the Bedchamber he had a right to take precedence of the Duke, who was Grand Equerry of France. M. de Bellegarde, irritated by this presumption, complained loudly of the affront, and was supported in his indignation by the Duc d'Epernon and by the Comte de Soissons, who was becoming weary of the Italian adventurer.
Even the Queen herself could neither support nor justify such undue pretensions; and M. d'Ancre, reluctantly convinced that he had on this occasion swooped at too high a quarry, swallowed his mortification as best he might, and endeavoured to redeem his error; an attempt in which he was seconded by the Queen, in obedience to whose wishes M. le Grand somewhat contemptuously consented to forego any further demonstration of his resentment; while the Duc d'Epernon agreed, with even more facility, to follow his example. The Comte de Soissons was not, however, so easily to be appeased; and he accordingly, with the ever-wakeful policy for which he was proverbial, made his reconciliation with the mortified Marquis conditional upon his promise of assistance in his two darling projects of obtaining the hand of the heiress of Montpensier for his son the Comte d'Enghien, and of accomplishing the ruin of the Duc de Sully.
At this crisis the finance minister could ill afford to see a new antagonist enter the lists against him, surrounded as he already was by enemies eager for his overthrow. The Prince de Condé had neither forgotten nor forgiven his advice to Henri IV to order his arrest when he fled to Flanders to protect the honour of his wife; the Duc de Bouillon was jealous of his interest with the Huguenot party; while the Chancellor, Villeroy, and Jeannin were leagued against him, in order to support their own authority. To Concini, moreover, his very name was odious, and consequently the new adversary who had thus been evoked against him was the most dangerous of all, inasmuch as he was the most subtle and vindictive, and also because he possessed the ear of the Queen, who had so long accustomed herself to support him against what he saw fit to entitle the oppression of the French nobles, that she had ceased to question the validity of his accusations. The religion of Sully also tended to indispose the Queen towards him. Herself a firm adherent of the Church of Rome, she looked with an eye of suspicion upon a minister whose faith differed from her own; and this circumstance operated powerfully in adding weight to the accusations of his enemies. The Prince de Condé alone for a time refused to sanction the efforts which were made to ensure his political ruin, but he was in his turn eventually enlisted in the cause by the prospect which was held out to him of sharing in the profits resulting from the confiscation of the minister's public property; his retirement from office necessarily involving his resignation of all the lucrative appointments which he held under the Government.[91] It was at this precise moment that the Huguenots petitioned the Regent for the general assembly, as advised by the Due de Bouillon; a circumstance which could not have failed to prove fatal to the interests of Sully had he still desired to retain office, as the comments of the anti-Protestant party by which she was surrounded, seconded by her own personal feelings, tended to exasperate Marie against all who professed the reformed faith. She consequently received the appeal with considerable asperity, declaring that it was impossible to calculate the demands which would be made upon the indulgence of the Crown, although there was no doubt that they would prove both unjust and extravagant; but being unable to refuse to confirm the provisions of the edict, she finally instructed the ministers to suggest delay as the best means of delivering herself for a time from the consequences of compliance.
In this attempt she, however, failed; the Duc de Bouillon being well aware that should the prescribed period be suffered to elapse without some pledge upon the part of the Government, the demand would be evaded by a declaration that the allotted time was past; and accordingly the Protestants persisted in their claim with so much pertinacity that the Regent found herself compelled to authorize their meeting at Saumur in the course of the ensuing year.
Under these circumstances it is scarcely matter of surprise that despite the opposition of the finance minister, M. de Villeroy succeeded in effecting the establishment of a garrison at Lyons; and the misunderstanding was shortly afterwards renewed between the two functionaries by a demand on the part of the State Secretary that the maintenance of the troops should be defrayed from the general receipts of the city. The Orientals have a proverb which says, "it is the last fig that breaks the camel's back," and thus it was with Sully. Exasperated by this new invasion of his authority, he lost his temper; and after declaring that the citizens of Lyons were at that moment as competent to protect themselves as they had ever been, and that it was consequently unreasonable to inflict so useless an outlay upon the King, he accused the Chancellor, who had favoured the pretensions of Villeroy, of leaguing with him to ruin the Crown; a denunciation which, as it equally affected all the other ministers who had espoused the same cause, sealed his own overthrow.[92]
Satisfied of a fact so self-evident, Sully resolved no longer to breast the torrent of jealousy and hatred against which he found himself called upon to contend, but without further delay to resign at once the cares and dignities of office; a design which was vehemently opposed not only by his own family, but also by his co-religionists, the whole of whom, save only such of their leaders as had private reasons for seeking his dismissal, were keenly sensible of the loss which their cause must necessarily sustain from the want of his support. The Duke, however, firmly withstood all their expostulations; wearied and disgusted by the inefficiency of his endeavours to protect the interests of the sovereign against the encroachments of extortionate nobles, and the machinations of interested ministers, he felt no inclination to afford a new triumph to his enemies by awaiting a formal dismissal; and he accordingly took the necessary measures for disposing of his superintendence of the finances, and his government of the Bastille (the most coveted because the most profitable of his public offices), in order that he might be permitted in his retirement to retain the other dignities which he had purchased by a long life of labour and loyalty.[93]
While this important affair was in progress, the Duke paid a visit to M. de Rambure, during which he said with evident uneasiness: "The Bishop of Fenouillet was with me yesterday, and assured me that in the morning a secret council had been held at the residence of the Papal Nuncio, at which were present the Chancellor, the Marquis d'Ancre, Villeroy, the Bishop of Béziers, and the Duc d'Epernon; and that after a great deal of unseemly discourse, in which the memory of the late King was treated with disrespect and derision, it was decided that everything should be changed, that new alliances should be formed, new friendships encouraged, and new opinions promulgated. It was, moreover, arranged that a letter should be forthwith sent to the Pope, informing him that it was the intention of France to be guided in all things by his advice, while every guarantee should be given to the Duke of Savoy until the conclusion of a proposed alliance with Spain; and finally, that all persons adverse to this line of policy should be compelled to resign their places, especially those who professed the Protestant faith. Thus then, my good De Rambure," he added bitterly, "if I am wise I shall quietly dispose of my places under Government, making as much money of them as I can, purchase a fine estate, and retain the surplus, in order to meet such exigencies as may arise; for I foresee that all the faithful servants of the late King who may refuse to defer to the authority of the Marquis d'Ancre, will have enough upon their hands. As for me," he pursued vehemently, "I would rather die than degrade myself by the slightest concession to this wretched, low-born Italian, who is the greatest rascal of all those concerned in the murder of the King." "Which," adds Rambure for himself, "he truly is." [94]