The English monarch had, indeed, yielded to the entreaties of a wife to whom he was at that period devotedly attached, and had consented to exert all his influence in favour of the unhappy Princess, who now saw herself abandoned by both her sons; but the state of his own kingdom was too unsettled to permit of his enforcing terms which he consequently perceived to be hopeless. Nevertheless he acceded to her request, and forwarded to the Court of France the document which was delivered to him by her envoy, but it produced no effect; and while every other state-criminal was reinstated in the favour of the King, on tendering the required submission, and conforming to the stipulated conditions, the Queen-mother found herself excluded from all hope of recall and all prospect of reconciliation.
Richelieu was aware that necessity alone had induced her to pronounce his pardon, and that her wrongs were too great ever to be forgotten. No wonder, therefore, that he shrank from a struggle which, should the voice of popular favour once more be raised in her behalf, might tend to his overthrow; and that struggle, as he well knew, could take place only on the soil of France. Her exile was his safety; and the astute Cardinal had long determined that it should end only with her life.[218]
On every side the unfortunate Marie de Medicis saw herself surrounded by misfortune. Gaston, at the instigation of the Cardinal, had ceased to supply his neglected wife with the means of supporting, not merely her rank, but even her existence, and had left her dependent upon the generosity of the Spanish Government which he had so unblushingly betrayed. He had himself become a mere cypher in the kingdom over which he hoped one day to rule. He seldom appeared at Court; and when he was prevailed upon to do so, he was the obsequious admirer of Richelieu, and the submissive subject of the King. The Spaniards, since the departure of the heir-apparent to the French Crown, had ceased to evince the same respect towards the mother whom he had abandoned; and although they still accorded to her a pension that placed her above want, the munificence with which they had greeted her arrival had long ceased to call forth her gratitude. Her position was consequently desperate; and her only prospect of escaping from so miserable a fate as that by which she was ultimately threatened existed in the hope that should she voluntarily retire from Flanders, and place herself under the protection of England, she might yet succeed in enforcing her claims.
While she was still meditating this project, Christine, the widowed Duchess of Savoy, resolved to make a last effort to effect the recall of her persecuted mother to France; and for this purpose she despatched to Paris a Jesuit named Monod, who succeeded in establishing a friendship with Caussin, the King's confessor, whom he induced to second the attempt. As both one and the other, however, believed success to be impossible so long as Richelieu retained his influence over the mind of the sovereign, they resolved to undermine his favour. Caussin, like all his predecessors, had great power over the timid conscience and religious scruples of his royal penitent, and the two Jesuits were well aware that through these alone could Louis be rendered vulnerable to their entreaties; while they were, moreover, encouraged in their hopes by the circumstance that the Cardinal-Minister had never evinced the slightest distrust of Caussin, whom he believed to be devoted to his interests, and that the latter consequently possessed ample opportunities for prosecuting his object.
At the close of the year, therefore, the attempt was made; and, as the Jesuit had anticipated, Louis listened with submission and even respect to his expostulations. "Your minister misleads you, Sire," said his confessor, "where your better nature would guide you in the right path. He it is who has induced your Majesty to abandon your mother, who is not only condemned to exile, but reduced to the greatest necessity, and indebted to strangers for the very means of existence."
The King was visibly moved by this assertion, but he remained silent, and suffered the ecclesiastic to proceed. Emboldened by this attention, Caussin did not scruple to declare that the Cardinal had usurped an amount of power which tended to degrade the royal authority; that the subjects of France were reduced to misery by the exorbitant taxation to which they were subjected; and that the interests of religion itself were threatened by Richelieu, who was affording help to the Swedes and the Protestants of Germany.
"Shake off this yoke, Sire," concluded the Jesuit; "exert your royal prerogative, and dismiss the Cardinal-Duke from office. Be the sovereign of your own nation, and the master of your own actions. You will have a more tranquil conscience, and a more prosperous reign."
"You are perhaps right, Father," replied the King with emotion; "but you must give me time for reflection."
Caussin obeyed, auguring well of his mission; but his self-gratulation was premature, for he had scarcely left the closet of his penitent when he was succeeded by the Cardinal, who, perceiving the agitation of the King, experienced little difficulty in extorting from him the subject of the conversation in which he had just been engaged; and a few moments sufficed to restore alike the complacency of Louis and his confidence in his minister.