1615-16
Close of the States-General—The Bishop of Luçon—Declaration of the royal marriages—Ballet of Madame—State of the Court—Cabal of Concini— Death of Marguerite de Valois—Condé seeks to gain the Parliament— Distrust of Marie de Medicis—Condé leaves Paris—He refuses to accompany the King to Guienne—Perilous position of the Court party— The Maréchal de Bois-Dauphin is appointed Commander-in-Chief—The Court proceed to Guienne—Illness of the Queen and Madame Elisabeth —The Court at Tours—Enforced inertness of M. de Bois-Dauphin— Condé is declared guilty of lèse-majesté—He takes up arms—Murmurs of the royal generals—The Comte de St. Pol makes his submission—The Court reach Bordeaux—The royal marriages—Sufferings of the troops— Disaffection of the nobility—Irritation of the Protestants—Pasquinades —Negotiation with the Princes—The Duc de Guise assumes the command of the royal army—Singular escape of Marie de Medicis—Disgrace of the Duc d'Epernon—He retires to his government—The Queen and the astrologer.
The assembly of the States-General occupied the commencement of the year 1615; and was closed on the 22nd of February, by their Majesties in person, with extreme pomp. When the King and his august mother had taken their seats, and the heralds had proclaimed silence, Armand Jean du Plessis, Bishop of Luçon,[196] presented to the sovereign the requisition of the clergy; and after a long harangue, in which he detailed their several demands, he entered into an animated eulogium of the administration of the Queen, exhorting his Majesty to continue to her the power of which she had so ably availed herself during his minority. He spoke fluently, but in a broken and uncertain voice, and with an apparent apathy, which, according to contemporaneous authors, gave no indication of the extraordinary talents that he subsequently displayed.
The States-General had no sooner closed than Marie de Medicis resolved to terminate the double alliance which had been concluded with Spain, and in honour of this event she determined that Madame, the promised bride of Philip, should appear in a ballet, which by the sumptuousness of its decorations, the beauty of its machinery, and the magnificence of its entire arrangements, should eclipse every entertainment of the kind hitherto exhibited at the French Court.
"It is necessary," she said, "that my daughter should give a public festival before her departure for Spain, and that the Parisians should remember a Princess who is about to be lost to France."
That the worthy citizens were on their part most anxious so to do, is evident from the testimony of Bassompierre, who states that the Court officials, being unprepared for so great a crowd as that which
RICHELIEU.