The success of the royal army exceeded the most sanguine expectations of the young sovereign, and awakened in him that passion for war by which he was subsequently distinguished throughout the whole of his reign. The Ducs de Longueville and de Vendôme, alarmed by a manifestation of energy for which they were not prepared, and fearing the effects of further resistance, scarcely made an effort to oppose him; and thus, in an incredibly short space of time, he possessed himself of Rouen, Caen, Alençon, and Vendôme; and advanced upon the Loire at the head of his whole army.
This unlooked-for celerity caused the greatest consternation in the party of Marie, who had anticipated that the conquest of Normandy would have occupied the royal forces during a considerable period, and relying on this contingency, had not yet completed the defences of Angers. The Queen herself, however, continued to refuse all overtures of reconciliation, and after having vainly demanded a month's truce, she turned her whole attention to the formation of such an army as might enable her to compete with that by which she saw herself assailed. Her forces already amounted to fifteen hundred horse and eight thousand infantry, and she was anticipating a strong reinforcement, which was to be supplied by the Duc de Rohan and the Comte de Saint-Aignan. Her first care was to garrison the town and citadel of Angers, in order to secure her personal safety; but this precaution did not satisfy the Duc de Mayenne, who urged her to retire to Guienne, where he had collected a force of ten thousand men, and thus to place herself beyond all possibility of capture. The Duc d'Epernon, on the other hand, who was jealous of the influence which such a step must necessarily give to his rival, strongly dissuaded the Queen from condescending to retreat before the royal army; and suggested that M. de Mayenne would more effectually serve her cause and uphold her honour by marching his troops to Angers, and thus strengthening her position. This suggestion, by whatever motive it were prompted, was one of sound policy; nor can there be any doubt that it would have been readily adopted by Marie de Medicis, had there not been a traitor in the camp, whose covert schemes must have been foiled by such an addition to the faction of his royal mistress.
That traitor was Richelieu, by whom every movement in the rebel army, and every decision of the Queen-mother's Council, was immediately revealed to De Luynes. The wily Bishop, faithful to his own interests, and lured onward by the vision of a cardinal's hat, no sooner saw the impression produced upon the mind of Marie by the proposal of Epernon than he hastened to oppose a measure which threatened all his hopes, and succeeded with some difficulty in persuading her that both these great nobles could more effectually serve her in their own governments than by adding a useless burthen to her dower-city, which was already gorged with troops, and which, in the event of a siege, might suffer more from internal scarcity than external violence.
Bewildered by the uncertainty of the struggle which was about to supervene, Marie de Medicis was readily induced to believe in the wisdom of securing two havens of refuge in case of defeat, and to renounce the peril of hazarding all at one blow. The arguments of Richelieu were specious; she had the most perfect faith in his attachment and fidelity; and thus, despite the most earnest remonstrances of her other counsellors, she decided upon following the suggestions of the man who was seeking to build up his own fortunes upon the ruin of her hopes.[53]
Neither Richelieu nor De Luynes were deceived as to the feeling which thus induced them to make common cause. There was no affectation of regard or confidence on either side; their mutual hatred was matter of notoriety, but they were essential to each other. Without the aid of the favourite, the Bishop of Luçon could never hope to attain the seat in the Conclave which was the paramount object of his ambition; while De Luynes, on his side, was apprehensive that should the army of the King be defeated, his own overthrow must necessarily result, or that, in the event of success, the Prince de Condé would become all-powerful: an alternative which presented the same danger to his own prospects. Thus both the one and the other, convinced that by stratagem alone they could carry out their personal views, eagerly entered into a secret negotiation, which terminated in a pledge that Richelieu should succeed to a cardinalate provided he delivered up his too confiding mistress to the royal troops when they marched upon the Fonts de Cé.
This fortress, which protected the passage to Anjou, was only a league distant from Angers, where the Queen-mother had taken up her residence; and Richelieu, to whom its safety had been confided, no sooner effected a final understanding with De Luynes than he removed all the ammunition from the fortress, and placed his own relatives and friends in command of the garrison, with full instructions as to the part which they were to enact when confronted with the troops of the sovereign.
Although wholly unsuspicious of the treachery of which she was thus destined to become the victim, the alarm of the Queen-mother was excited by the rapid approach of her son, and she at length resolved to attempt a tardy reconciliation; for which purpose she despatched the Duc de Bellegarde, the Archbishop of Sens, and the Jesuit Bérulle to the King with an offer to that effect. Louis received her envoys with great courtesy, and declared himself ready to make every concession as regarded Marie personally, and even to extend his pardon to the Comte and Comtesse de Soissons; but he peremptorily refused to include the other disaffected nobles in the amnesty; when the Queen, on her side, declined every arrangement which involved the abandonment of her followers; and thus the negotiation failed in its object, while the royal army continued to advance.[54]
On reaching La Flèche the King convened a council, at which it was proposed to besiege the city of Angers; but Louis, who was aware of the plot that had been formed between De Luynes and Richelieu, declared that his respect for his mother would not permit him to attack a town in which she had taken up her abode; while he even instructed the Duc de Bellegarde to propose to her fresh conditions of peace, and to assure her that his intention in approaching so near to her stronghold was simply to secure an interview, and to induce her to return with him to the capital.
This assurance produced the desired effect upon Marie de Medicis, who was becoming alike wearied and disgusted by the perilous position in which she had been placed by the unexpected energy of her son; and she consequently hastened to sign the treaty. But the concession came too late. On the previous day, Bassompierre, Créquy, and several other officers of rank marched to Sorges, within a league of the Fonts de Cé, at the head of their men, for the mere purpose of skirmishing; they, however, met with no opposition, and they finally reached the bridge, where five thousand troops of the Queen-mother were entrenched. These they attacked; and at the third charge the whole body fled in such confusion that the royal forces entered with them pell-mell into the city. The command of the fort had been given to the Duc de Retz, who, apprised by the Cardinal his uncle that the Queen-mother had been betrayed, hastily effected his escape, and the castle was surrendered at the first summons. In vain did the Duc de Bellegarde represent that the town had been taken after the Queen had signed the treaty of reconciliation, and complain that this outrage had been committed subsequently to the conclusion of a peace proposed by the sovereign; the Prince de Condé, desirous of mortifying Marie de Medicis, only replied that the messenger should have made greater haste to deliver so important a document, as the King's officers were not called upon to divine the nature of the Queen's decision.[55]