CHAPTER X
1633
Monsieur returns to Flanders--The Queen-mother retires in displeasure to Malines--Influence of Chanteloupe--Selfishness of Monsieur--Death of Gustavus Adolphus--Richelieu seeks to withdraw the Queen-mother and her son from the protection of Spain--Marie is urged to retire to Florence--The Tuscan envoy--Two diplomatists--Mortification of the Queen-mother--She desires to seek an asylum in England--Charles I. hesitates to grant her request--Helpless position of Marie de Medicis--The iron rule of Richelieu--The Cardinal-dramatist--Gaston avows his marriage to the King--Louis enters Lorraine, and takes Nancy--Madame escapes to the Low Countries--Her reception at the Court of Brussels--Marie de Medicis takes up her residence at Ghent--Serious indisposition of the Queen-mother--She solicits the attendance of her physician Vautier, and is refused--Hypocrisy of the Cardinal--Indignation of the dying Queen--She rejects the terms of reconciliation offered by the King--Attachment of her adherents--Richelieu negotiates the return of Gaston to France--The favourite of Monsieur--Gaston refuses to annul his marriage--Alfeston is broken on the wheel for attempting the life of the Cardinal--The Queen-mother is accused of instigating the murder--The bodyguard of the Cardinal-Minister is increased--Estrangement of Monsieur and his mother--Madame endeavours to effect the dismissal of Puylaurens--Insolence of the favourite--Heartlessness of Monsieur--Marie solicits permission to return to France--She is commanded as a condition to abandon her followers, and refuses--Death of the Archduchess Isabella--Gaston negotiates, and consents to the most humiliating concessions.
After having forwarded his manifesto to the King, Gaston d'Orléans proceeded without further delay to the Low Countries, and once more arrived in Brussels at the close of January 1633, where he was received by the Spaniards (who had borne all the expenses of his campaign, whence they had not derived the slightest advantage) with as warm a welcome as though he had realized all their hopes. The principal nobles of the Court and the great officers of the Infanta's household were commanded to show towards him the same respect and deference as towards herself; he was reinstated in the gorgeous apartments which he had formerly occupied; and the sum of thirty thousand florins monthly was assigned for the maintenance of his little Court.[189] One mortification, however, awaited him on his arrival; as the Queen-mother, unable to suppress her indignation at his abandonment of her interests, had, on the pretext of requiring change of air, quitted Brussels on the previous day, and retired to Malines, whither he hastened to follow her. But, although Marie consented to receive him, and even expressed her satisfaction on seeing him once more beyond the power of his enemies, the wound caused by his selfishness was not yet closed; and she peremptorily refused to accompany him back to the capital, or to change her intention of thenceforth residing at Ghent. In vain did Monsieur represent that he was compelled to make every concession in order to escape the malice of the Cardinal, and to secure an opportunity of rejoining her in Flanders; whenever the softened manner of the Queen-mother betrayed any symptom of relenting, a word or a gesture from Chanteloupe sufficed to render her brow once more rigid, and her accents cold.
As the unhappy exile had formerly been ruled by Richelieu, so was she now governed by the Oratorian, whose jealousy of Puylaurens led him to deprecate the prospect of a reconciliation between the mother and son which must, by uniting them in one common interest, involve himself in a perpetual struggle with the favourite of the Prince. The monk affected to treat the haughty parvenu as an inferior; while Puylaurens, who had refused to acknowledge the supremacy of individuals of far higher rank than the reverend father, on his side exhibited a similar feeling; and meanwhile Marie de Medicis and Gaston, equally weak where their favourites were concerned, made the quarrel a personal one, and by their constant dissensions weakened their own cause, wearied the patience of their hosts, and enabled the Cardinal to counteract all their projects.[190]
Unable to prevail upon the Queen to rescind her resolution, Monsieur reluctantly returned alone to Brussels, where he was soon wholly absorbed by pleasure and dissipation. All his past trials were forgotten. He evinced no mortification at his defeat, or at the state of pauperism to which it had reduced him; he had no sigh to spare for all the generous blood that had been shed in his service; nor did he mourn over the ruined fortunes by which his own partial impunity had been purchased. It was enough that he was once more surrounded with splendour and adulation; and although he applied to the Emperor and the sovereigns of Spain and England for their assistance, he betrayed little anxiety as to the result of his appeal.
Meanwhile the unfortunate Queen-mother, who had successively witnessed the failure of all her hopes, was bitterly alive to the reality of her position. She was indebted for sustenance and shelter to the enemies of France; and even while she saw herself the object of respect and deference, as she looked back upon her past greatness and contrasted it with her present state of helplessness and isolation, her heart sank within her, and she dreaded to dwell upon the future.