This opportunity soon presented itself. On the 14th of August the Prince gave a banquet to the English envoy, which was attended by all the principal nobility of the Court, but from which the Maréchal d'Ancre had been excluded. While the guests were still at table, however, Concini, on the pretext of paying his respects to Lord Hay, entered the banqueting-hall, attended by thirty of those gentlemen of his household whom he arrogantly called his conios di mille franchi.[237]
He had no sooner seated himself than Mayenne, Bouillon, and others of the cabal which had been formed against him proposed that so favourable an opportunity should not be lost of taking his life, and thus ridding the country of the incubus by which it had so long been oppressed in the person of an insolent foreigner; but the project was no sooner communicated to M. de Condé than he imperatively forbade all violence beneath his own roof. Meanwhile Concini, although he did not fail to perceive by what was taking place about him that he had placed himself in jeopardy by thus braving his enemies, nevertheless maintained the most perfect self-possession, and was suffered to depart in safety. On the following morning, however, he received a communication from the Prince, who, after assuring him that he had experienced great difficulty in restraining the Princes and nobles into whose presence he had forced himself on the preceding day from executing summary justice upon him in order to avenge their several wrongs; and that they had, moreover, threatened to abandon his own cause should he persist in according his protection to an individual whom they were resolved to pursue even to the death, concluded by declaring that it would thenceforward be impossible for him to maintain the pledge which he had given, and advising him to lose no time in retiring to Normandy, of which province he was lieutenant-general.[238]
Although exasperated by the bad faith of M. de Condé, Concini was nevertheless compelled to follow this interested suggestion; but, before he left the field open to his enemies, he resolved to strike a parting blow; and he had accordingly no sooner dismissed the messenger of the Prince than he proceeded to the Louvre, where, while taking leave of the Queen-mother, he eagerly impressed upon her that she was alike deceived by Condé and trifled with by Bouillon, and that all the members of their faction were agreed to divest her of her authority; an attempt of which the result could only be averted by the seizure of their persons.[239]
It is probable, however, that, even despite the avowed abandonment of the Prince de Condé, Concini might have hesitated to quit his post had not the affair of Picard convinced him that his prosperity had reached its climax. Even the Queen-mother, indignant as she expressed herself at the insult to which he had been subjected, betrayed no inclination to resent it; and so entire was his conviction that his overthrow was at hand, that there can be no doubt but that thenceforward he began seriously to meditate a return to his own country.[240]
Nearly at the moment in which the Maréchal d'Ancre was thus unexpectedly compelled to leave Paris, his untiring enemy the Duc de Longueville made himself master of the three towns of Péronne, Roye, and Montdidier in Picardy, which, by the Treaty of Loudun, had been secured to Concini. Publicly the Princes blamed this violation of the treaty, and exhorted the Duke to relinquish his conquests; but being in reality delighted that places of this importance, and, moreover, so immediately in the neighbourhood of the capital, should be in the possession of one of their own allies, they privately sent him both men and money to enable him to retain them.[241]
Meanwhile Marie de Medicis made no effort to compel the restitution of the captured towns; the insult to which Concini had been subjected by Picard remained unavenged, and the Italian could no longer conceal from himself that he had outlived his fortunes. It is scarcely doubtful, moreover, that, with the superstition common to the period, the prediction of Luminelli had pressed heavily upon his mind; as from that period he became anxious to abandon the French Court, and to retire with his enormous wealth to his native city. It was in vain, however, that he sought to inspire Leonora with the same desire; in vain that he represented the prudence of taking the initiative while there was yet time; the foster-sister of Marie de Medicis peremptorily refused to leave Paris, alleging that it would be cowardly to abandon her royal mistress at a period when she was threatened alike by the ambition of the Prince de Condé and the enmity of De Luynes, whose power over the mind of the young sovereign was rapidly making itself felt.
At this precise moment a new and grave misfortune tended to augment the eagerness of the Maréchal d'Ancre to carry out his project. His daughter, through whose medium he had looked to form an alliance with some powerful family, and thus to fortify his own position, was taken dangerously ill, and in a few days breathed her last. His anguish was ungovernable; and while his wife wept in silence beside the body of her dead child, he, on the contrary, abandoned himself to the most vehement exclamations, strangely mingling his expressions of fear for his future fate with regret for the loss which he had thus sustained. "Signore," he replied vehemently to Bassompierre, who vainly attempted to console him, "I am lost; Signore, I am ruined; Signore, I am miserable. I regret my daughter, and shall do so while I live; but I could support this affliction did I not see before me the utter ruin of myself, my wife, my son, and my whole house, in the obstinacy of Leonora. Were you not aware of my whole history I should perhaps be less frank, but you know that when I arrived in France, far from owning a single sou, my debts amounted to eight hundred crowns; now we possess more than a million in money, with landed property and houses in France, three hundred thousand crowns at Florence, and a similar sum in Rome. I do not speak of the fortune accumulated by my wife; but surely we may be satisfied to exist for the remainder of our lives upon the proceeds of our past favour. Had you not been well informed as to my previous life I might seek to disguise it from you, but you cannot have forgotten that you saw me at Florence steeped in debauchery, frequently in prison, more than once in exile, generally without resources, and continually lost in disorder and excess. Here, on the contrary, I have acquired alike honour, wealth, and favour, and I would fain disappoint my enemies by leaving the country without disgrace; but the Maréchale is impracticable; and were it not that I should be guilty of ingratitude in separating my fortunes from those of a woman to whom I owe all that I possess, I would forthwith leave the country and secure my own safety and that of my son." [242]
The allusion made by Concini to the growing ambition of the Prince de Condé was unfortunately not destitute of foundation; and suspicions were rapidly gaining ground that he meditated nothing less than a transfer of the crown of France to his own brow, on the pretext that the marriage of Henri IV with the Tuscan Princess was invalid, his former wife being still alive, and his hand, moreover, solemnly pledged to the Marquise de Verneuil. On more than one occasion, when he had feasted his friends, their glasses had been emptied amid cries of Barre à bas; a toast which was interpreted as intended to signify the suppression of the bar-sinister which the shield of Condé bore between its three fleurs-de-lis.[243] Neither Sully, who had recently returned to Court, nor the Duc de Guise could be induced to join in so criminal a faction; and the former had no sooner been informed of the dangerous position of the King than, dissatisfied as he was with the treatment which he had personally received, he demanded an audience of the young sovereign and his mother, in order to warn them of their peril. In vain, however, did Marie, touched by this proof of loyal devotedness, urge him to suggest a remedy.
"I am no longer in office, Madame," he replied proudly; "and you have your chosen counsellors about you. I have done my duty, and leave it to others to do theirs."