Yet what Vaucelas told him in that letter was that certain agents at the court of Spain, chief among whom was the Florentine ambassador, acting upon instructions from certain members of the household of the Queen of France, and from others whom Vaucelas said he dared not mention, were intriguing to blast Henry’s designs against the house of Austria, and to bring him willy-nilly into a union with Spain. These agents had gone so far in their utter disregard of Henry’s own intentions as to propose to the Council of Madrid that the alliance should be cemented by a marriage between the Dauphin and the Infanta.
That letter sent Henry early one morning hot-foot to the Arsenal, where Sully, his Minister of State, had his residence. Maximilien de Bethune, Duke of Sully, was not merely the King’s servant, he was his closest friend, the very keeper of his soul; and the King leaned upon him and sought his guidance not only in State affairs, but in the most intimate and domestic matters. Often already had it fallen to Sully to patch up the differences created between husband and wife by Henry’s persistent infidelities.
The King, arriving like the whirlwind, turned everybody out of the closet in which the duke—but newly risen—received him in bed-gown and night-cap. Alone with his minister, Henry came abruptly to the matter.
“You have heard what is being said of me?” he burst out. He stood with his back to the window, a sturdy, erect, soldierly figure, a little above the middle height, dressed like a captain of fortune in jerkin and long boots of grey leather, and a grey hat with a wine-coloured ostrich plume. His countenance matched his raiment. Keeneyed, broad of brow, with a high-bridged, pendulous nose, red lips, a tuft of beard and a pair of grizzled, bristling moustachios, he looked half-hero, half-satyr; half-Captain, half-Polichinelle.
Sully, tall and broad, the incarnation of respectability and dignity, despite bed-gown and slippers and the nightcap covering his high, bald crown, made no presence of misunderstanding him.
“Of you and the Princesse de Conde, you mean, sire?” quoth he, and gravely he shook his head. “It is a matter that has filled me with apprehension, for I foresee from it far greater trouble than from any former attachment of yours.”
“So they have convinced you, too, Grand-Master?” Henry’s tone was almost sorrowful. “Yet I swear that all is greatly exaggerated. It is the work of that dog Concini. Ventre St. Gris! If he has no respect for me, at least he might consider how he slanders a child of such grace and wit and beauty, a lady of her high birth and noble lineage.”
There was a dangerous quiver of emotion in his voice that was not missed by the keen ears of Sully. Henry moved from the window, and flung into a chair.
“Concini works to enrage the Queen against me, and to drive her to take violent resolutions which might give colour to their pernicious designs.”
“Sire!” It was a cry of protest from Sully.