In reply to this letter Louis XIII wrote thus: "You will allow me, if you please, Madame, to say that the act which you have just committed, together with what has occurred for some time past, clearly discovers to me the nature of your intentions, and that which I may in future expect from them. The respect which I bear towards you prevents me from being more explicit." [158]
The other letters of the Queen-mother, although calculated to excite upon their publication a general hatred of the Cardinal, availed her personal cause as little as that which she had addressed to the monarch. Her flight was blamed by all classes throughout the country; and not the slightest movement was made in her favour either by the Parliament or the people. Richelieu was triumphant. He had at length succeeded in throwing suspicion upon her movements, and in compelling her to share the odium which he had hitherto borne alone; and although she saw herself the honoured guest of the Princes with whom she had taken refuge, the unfortunate Marie de Medicis soon became bitterly conscious that she had lost her former hold on the affections of that France over which she had once so proudly ruled. It is true that with the populace the ill-fated Princess yet retained her popularity, but she owed a great portion of this still-lingering affection to the general aversion of the masses towards the Cardinal; and while they mourned and even wept over her wrongs, they made no effort to enforce her justification.
On the invitation of the Prince d'Epinoy, Marie de Medicis, after a short sojourn at Avesnes, proceeded to Mons, where she was welcomed with salvos of artillery, and found all the citizens under arms in honour of her arrival; and it was in the midst of the rejoicing consequent upon her entry into that city, that she received the cold and stern reply of Louis, of which we have quoted a portion above, and to which she hastened to respond by a second letter, wherein she bitterly complained of the harshness with which she had been treated; and refused to return to France until the Cardinal should have been put upon his trial for "his crimes and projects against the state." The letter thus concludes: "I am your subject and your mother; do me justice as a King, love me as a son. I entreat this of you with clasped hands."
The reception of the self-exiled Queen by the Archduchess Isabella, whose noble and generous qualities have been extolled by all the contemporary historians, was as warm and as sincere as though she had welcomed a sister. The two Princesses wept together over the trials and sufferings of the ill-fated Marie; nor was the sympathy of the Archduchess confined to mere words. Every attention which the most fastidious delicacy could suggest was paid to the wants and wishes of the royal fugitive; and after a few days spent in the most perfect harmony in the capital of Hainault, the Court removed to the summer palace of Marimont, whence they ultimately proceeded to Brussels, where the French Queen made her entry with great pomp, and was enthusiastically received by all classes of the population.
From Brussels the illustrious ladies visited Antwerp, on the occasion of the annual kermesse, or fair, where the inhabitants vied with each other in doing honour to their distinguished guests. Six thousand citizens, magnificently apparelled, were under arms during their stay; and from the galleries of the quaint and picturesque old houses hung draperies of damask, tapestry, and velvet, which blended their rich tints with those of the banners that waved above the summits of the public buildings, and from the masts of the shipping in the harbour.
Little could the unfortunate Marie de Medicis anticipate, when she thus saw herself surrounded by the most unequivocal exhibition of respect and deference ever displayed towards greatness in misfortune, that she should but a few short years subsequently enter the city in which she was now feasted and flattered, a penniless wanderer, only to be driven out in terror and sickness, to seek a new shelter, and to die in abject despair!
Ever sanguine, the Queen-mother even yet hoped for a propitious change of fortune. She would not believe that Richelieu could ultimately triumph over the natural affection of a son, evil as her experience had hitherto proved; and when Isabella, in order to comply with the necessary observances of courtesy, wrote to assure Louis XIII that so far from intending any disrespect towards him by the reception which she had given to his mother, she begged him rather to regard it as a demonstration of her deference for himself; and at the same time offered to assist by every means in her power in effecting a reconciliation between them, Marie de Medicis deceived herself into the belief that such a proposition coming from such a source would never be rejected; while it is probable that had Louis been left to follow the promptings of his own nature, which was rather weak than wicked, her anticipations might at this period have been realized; but the inevitable Richelieu was constantly beside him, to insinuate the foulest suspicions, and to keep alive his easily-excited distrust of the motives of the Queen-mother.
The despatches of Isabella were, moreover, entrusted to the Abbé Carondelet, Deacon of the Cathedral of Cambrai, who, as the Cardinal was well aware, considered himself aggrieved by the refusal to which he had been subjected on his application for the bishopric of Namur; and who would in consequence, as he did not fail to infer, be readily prevailed upon to abandon the interests of the fugitive Queen. The event proved the justice of his previsions. Carondelet was not proof against the extraordinary honours which he received at the French Court, nor the splendid presents of the King and his minister; and the man to whose zeal and eloquence Isabella had confidently entrusted the cause of her royal guest was, after the lapse of a few short days, heart and soul the creature of Richelieu.[159]
The Cardinal found little difficulty in persuading the monarch that Marie de Medicis must have had a full and perfect understanding with the Spanish Cabinet before she would have ventured to seek an asylum within their territories; an assertion which was so faintly combated by the treacherous envoy of the Archduchess, that thenceforward the protestations of the Queen-mother were totally disregarded, and the triumph of Richelieu was complete. In consequence of this conviction, Louis XIII published, in the month of August, a declaration which was most injurious alike towards Marie de Medicis and Gaston d'Orléans. Among other accusations, it asserted that "the evil counsellors of his brother had driven him, contrary to the duty imposed by his birth, and the respect which he owed to the person of his sovereign, to address to him letters full of calumnies and impostures against the Government; that he had accused, against all truth and reason, his very dear and well-beloved cousin the Cardinal de Richelieu of infidelity and enterprise against the person of his Majesty, that of the Queen-mother, and his own; that for some time past the Queen-mother had also suffered herself to be guided by bad advice; and that on his having entreated of her to assist him by her counsels as she had formerly done, she had replied that she was weary of public business; by which he had discovered that she was resolved to second the designs of the Duc d'Orléans, and had consequently determined to separate from her, and to request her to remove to Moulins, to which request she had refused to accede; that having subsequently left Compiègne, she had taken refuge with the Spaniards, and was unceasingly disseminating documents tending to the subversion of the royal authority and of the kingdom itself; that for all these reasons, confirming his previous declarations, he declared guilty of lèse-majesté and disturbers of the public peace all those who should be proved to have aided the Queen-mother and the Duc d'Orléans in resisting his authority, and of having induced them to leave the kingdom, as well as those who had followed and still remained with them; and that it was his will that proceedings should be taken against them by the seizure of their property, and the abolition of all their public offices, appointments, and revenues."
By this arbitrary act not only were the adherents of Marie de Medicis and Gaston d'Orléans deprived of their property, but their own revenues were confiscated to the Crown, and they at once found themselves without pecuniary resources.[160] The calculations of Richelieu had been able, for the faction of the fugitives was instantly weakened by so unexpected an act of severity. Crippled in means, they could no longer recompense the devotion of those individuals who had followed their fortunes, many of whom had done so from a hope of future aggrandizement, and who immediately retired without even an attempt at apology, in order to secure themselves from ruin. When the unfortunate Queen would have sacrificed her jewels to liquidate the claims which pressed the most heavily upon her, she found the measure impossible, lest the King should redemand them as the property of the Crown; and she consequently soon saw herself reduced to the undignified expedient of subsisting upon the generosity of the powers from whom she had sought protection.