Five years later (1605) Marguerite returned from the castle of Usson and held her Court in Paris at the hôtel de Sens (which still exists) and at her various châteaux in Languedoc; no longer, alas! the Reine Margot of our ill-regulated affections, and somewhat open to the malicious comments of Tallemant des Reaux, but appearing at times with all her wonted spirit and regal dignity. These were the days when she kept a brigade of golden-haired footmen who were shorn for the wigs; and the story goes that her gowns were made with many pockets, in each of which she kept the mummied heart of a lover. But such tales must be taken for what they are worth, and a better chronicler than the satirists of the Valois has given us ocular proof of her last majestic presence at a public ceremony five years before her death.
In 1610, Henri IV. preparing to leave France for the war in Germany, and wishing to appoint Queen Marie de’ Medici regent, it became necessary to have the latter crowned. This was done in the cathedral of Saint-Denis, May 13, 1610. The Queen of Navarre, as Marguerite, daughter of France and first princess of the blood, was required to be present at the ceremony. Rubens’ splendid picture (reproduced in this volume) gives the scene. Marie de’ Medici, kneeling before the altar, is being crowned by Cardinal de Joyeuse, assisted by his clergy and two other cardinals; beside the queen are the dauphin (Louis XIII.) and his sister, Élisabeth, afterwards Queen of Spain. The Princesse de Conti and the Duchesse de Montpensier carry the queen’s train; the Duc de Ventadour, his back to the spectator, bears the sceptre, and the Chevalier de Vendôme the sword of Justice. To the left, leading the cortège of princesses and nobles, is the Queen of Navarre, easily recognized by her small closed crown, all the other princesses wearing coronets. In the background, to right, in a gallery, sits Henri IV. viewing the ceremony. As he did so he turned with a shudder to the man behind him and said: “I am thinking how this scene would appear if this were the Last Day and the Judge were to summon us all before Him.” Henri IV. was killed by Ravaillac the following morning, while his coach stood blocked in the streets by the crowds who were collecting for the public entry of Marie de’ Medici into Paris.
The young Élisabeth, eldest daughter of the king and Marie de’ Medici, who appears at the coronation of her mother, was afterwards wife of Philip IV. of Spain, and mother of the Infanta Maria Theresa, wife of Louis XIV, also of Carlos II., at whose death Louis XIV. obtained the crown of Spain for his grandson, the Duc d’Anjou, Philip V. This Élisabeth of France, Queen of Spain, is the original of Rubens’ magnificent portrait reproduced in this chapter.—Tr.]
Queen Marguerite returned from Usson to Paris in 1605; and here we find her in her last estate, turned slightly to ridicule by Tallemant, the echo of the new century. Eighteen years of confinement and solitude had given her singularities, and even manias; they now burst forth in open day. She still had adventures both gallant and startling: an equerry whom she loved was killed at her carriage door by a jealous servant, and the poet Maynard, a young disciple of Malherbe, one of Marguerite’s beaux-esprits, wrote stanzas and plaints about it. During the same period Marguerite had many sincere thoughts that were more than fits of devotion. With Maynard for secretary, she had also Vincent de Paul, young in those days, for her chaplain. She founded and endowed convents, all the while paying learned men to instruct her in philosophy, and musicians to amuse her during divine service and at hours more profane. She gave many alms and gratuities and did not pay her debts. It was not precisely good sense that presided over her life. But amidst it all she was loved. “On the 27th day of the month of March” (1615), says a contemporary, “died in Paris Queen Marguerite, sole remains of the race of Valois,—a princess full of kindness and of good intentions for the good and the peace of the State, who did no harm to any but herself. She was greatly regretted. She died at the age of sixty-two.”
Certain persons have attempted to compare her for beauty, for misfortunes, for intellect, with Marie Stuart. Certainly, at a point of departure there was much in common between the two queens, the two sisters-in-law, but the comparison cannot be maintained historically. Marie Stuart, who had in herself the wit, grace, and manners of the Valois, who was scarcely more moral as a woman than Marguerite, and was implicated in acts that were far more monstrous, had, or seemed to have, a certain elevation of heart, which she acquired, or developed, in her long captivity crowned by her sorrowful death. Of the two destinies, the one represents definitely a great cause, and ends in a pathetic legend of victim and martyr; the reputation of the other is spent and scattered in tales and anecdotes half smutty, half devout, into which there enters a grain of satire and of gayety. From the end of one comes many a tearful tragedy; from that of the other nought can be made but a fabliau.
That which ought to be remembered to Marguerite’s honour is her intelligence, her talent for saying the right word; in short, that which is said of her in the Memoirs of Cardinal de Richelieu: “She was the refuge of men of letters; she loved to hear them talk; her table was always surrounded by them, and she learned so much from their conversation that she talked better than any other woman of her time, and wrote more elegantly than the ordinary condition of her sex would warrant.” It is in that way, by certain exquisite pages which form a date in our language, that she enters, in her turn, into literary history, the noble refuge of so many wrecks, and that a last and a lasting ray shines from her name.
C. A. Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi (1852).