A few days subsequently, after he had received urgent letters from the King, by which he was commanded to avoid in every emergency a rupture between the two countries, Bassompierre again waited upon the Queen, and explained to her the stringent orders of her royal brother; but Henriette persisted in declaring that her actual position was not appreciated at the French Court; and while she was maintaining this argument, despite all the asseverations of the bewildered envoy, the arrival of the King was announced. Charles had no sooner entered the apartment than a violent quarrel arose, which threatened such serious consequences that Bassompierre interposed, assuring the imprudent Princess that should she not control her temper, and acknowledge her error, he would on the following day take leave of his Britannic Majesty, and on his return to Paris explain to the sovereign and the Queen-mother that he had been compelled to abandon his mission entirely through her obstinate and uncompromising violence.
As this threat produced an evident effect upon Henriette, the King had no sooner retired than the Maréchal, with admirable tact and temper, represented to the young Queen that at the age of sixteen she was incompetent to appreciate the measures of her royal consort; while by her intemperate language and strong prejudices she was seriously injuring her own cause. Henriette, during her paroxysms of petulance, was deaf to all his remonstrances; but on this occasion she listened with greater patience, and even admitted that she had gone too far; a concession which once more restored the hopes of Bassompierre.
Meanwhile he continued to receive constant letters of encouragement, both from Louis XIII and Richelieu, urging him to persevere until he should have succeeded in effecting a perfect reconciliation not only between the King and Queen, but also between the Queen and the Duke of Buckingham; and assuring him of their perfect satisfaction with the measures which he had already adopted. Marie de Medicis was, however, less placable; and much as she deprecated the idea of hostilities with England, she nevertheless openly applauded the resistance of her daughter to what she designated as the tyrannical presumption of Buckingham, and the blind weakness of Charles, who sacrificed the domestic happiness of a young and lovely bride to the arrogant intrigues of an overbearing favourite. The English Duke himself was peculiarly obnoxious to the Queen-mother, who could not forgive his insolent admiration of Anne of Austria, and the ostentatious manner in which he had made the wife of her son a subject of Court scandal; while, at the same time, she deeply resented the fact that Henriette had not even been permitted to retain her confessor, but was compelled to accept one chosen for her by the minister.
While, therefore, Bassompierre constantly received directions from both the King and the Cardinal to ensure peace at any price, and to prevail upon the young Queen to make the concessions necessary for producing this result, Marie de Medicis as continually wrote to entreat of the Maréchal to uphold the interests of the French Princess, and to assure her of her perfect satisfaction at the spirit which she had evinced; though it is doubtful if, when these messages were entrusted to the royal envoy, they were ever communicated to the excitable Henriette.
Finally, to his great satisfaction, Bassompierre succeeded in carrying out the wishes of his sovereign; and he at length took his leave of the English Court, laden with rich presents, after having received the warm acknowledgments of all parties for the patience and impartiality with which he had acted throughout; and the gratification of feeling that a better, and as he hoped a lasting, understanding existed between the royal pair. The household of Henriette had been re-organized, and although upon a more reduced scale than that by which she had been accompanied from France, it was still sufficiently numerous to satisfy even the exigencies of royalty; and thus, estimated by its consequences, this embassy was probably the most brilliant event of Bassompierre's whole career; as from the period of his residence at the Court of England, the young Queen possessed both the heart and the confidence of her royal husband, whose affection for his beautiful and accomplished consort thenceforward endured to the last day of his existence.[101]
In the month of November France lost another of her marshals in the person of M. de Lesdiguières, who had passed his eightieth year; while the subsequently celebrated court roué, the Duc de Saint-Simon, became the accredited favourite of the changeful and capricious Louis, without, however, attaining any influence in the government, which had at this period become entirely concentrated in the hands of Richelieu and the Queen-mother.
The pregnancy of the Duchesse d'Orléans, which was formally announced at the close of this year, was a source of great exultation to her husband, who received with undisguised delight the congratulations which were poured out upon him from every side; nor did he seek to disguise his conviction that, should the Queen continue childless, there was nothing to which he might see fit to aspire, which, with the assistance of the Guises and their faction, he would find it impossible to attain. A general hatred of Richelieu was the ruling sentiment of the great nobles, who were anxious to effect his overthrow, but the Cardinal was too prudent to be taken at a disadvantage; and he at once felt that in addition to the blow which he had aimed at the power of the barons by depriving them of their fortified places, he still possessed the means of maintaining his position, and even of increasing his authority, by labouring to accomplish the destruction of the Protestants; a policy which was eagerly adopted by Louis, whose morbid superstition, coupled with his love of war for its own sake, led him to believe that the work of slaughter which must necessarily supervene could not but prove agreeable to Heaven; counselled as it was, moreover, by a dignitary of the Church.
While Richelieu was thus seeking to involve the nation in a renewal of that intestine warfare by which it had already been so fearfully visited, simply to further his own ambitious views, the princes and nobles whom he had irritated into a thirst for vengeance were no less eager to attain the same object in order to effect his ruin; and for this purpose they endeavoured to secure the co-operation of Gaston, deluding themselves with the belief that the heir-apparent to the throne, who had encouraged their disaffection, and for the maintenance of whose interests Ornano and Chalais had already suffered, would not refuse to them at so critical a moment the support of his name, his wealth, and his influence. But these sanguine malcontents had not yet learned to appreciate the egotistical and ungrateful nature of the young Prince, who kept no mental record of services conferred, and retained no feeling of compunction for sufferings endured in his cause; but who ever sought to avail himself of both, while he continued utterly unable to appreciate either.
The appeal was consequently made in vain. Enriched by the careful policy of the Cardinal, Gaston sought only to profit by his suddenly-attained wealth; and despite the entreaties of his wife, whose youth, beauty, and accomplishments might well, for a time at least, have commanded his respect, he plunged into the most puerile and degrading pleasures, and abandoned himself to a life of alternate indolence and dissipation. The immense fortune of the Duchess, which had moreover been greatly increased by the accumulated interest of a long minority, was wasted in the most shameful orgies, amid dissolute and unseemly associates; and even while he was awaiting with undisguised anxiety the birth of a son who, as he fondly trusted, would one day fill the throne of France, no sentiment of forbearance towards the expectant mother could induce him to sacrifice his own selfish passions.[102]
On the 29th of May the desired event took place, but to the extreme mortification of the Duc d'Orléans it was announced that the Duchess had given birth to a daughter--the Princess who subsequently became famous during the reign of Louis XIV under the title of La Grande Mademoiselle. Nor was this the greatest trial which Gaston was destined to endure, as four days subsequently the unfortunate Duchess breathed her last, to the regret of the whole Court, to whom she had become endeared by her gentleness and urbanity; and to the deep grief of the Queen-mother, who saw in this deplorable event the overthrow of her most cherished prospects. Louis XIII was, however, far from participating in the general feeling of sorrow, nor did he seek to conceal his exultation.