Henry, like one of his predecessors, had of bastards et bastardes une moult belle compagnie, but as yet no legitimate heir. A divorce from Marguerite of Valois and a politic marriage with the pope’s niece, Marie de’ Medici,[120] gave him a magnificent dowry, an additional bond to the papacy, and several children.
Henri Quatre, hero of Voltaire’s famous epic, is the most popular and romantic figure in the gallery of French kings. His statue on the Pont Neuf was spared for a while by the revolutionists, who made every passer-by in a carriage alight and bow to it. Born among the mountains, Henry was patient of fatigue and hardships. In good or evil fortune his gaiety of heart never failed him. Brave and generous, courteous and witty, he endeared himself to all his subjects, save a few fanatics, and won a desperate cause by sheer personal magic and capacity. Like all his race, Henry was susceptible to the charms of the daughters of Eve, but, unlike his descendants, he never sacrificed France to their tears and wiles. When the question of the succession was urgent he thought of marrying Gabrielle d’Estrées, whom he had created Duchess of Beaufort. But Sully opposed the union, and the impatient Gabrielle sought her royal lover, and used all her powers of fascination to compass the dismissal of the great minister. Henry, however, stood firm, and Gabrielle burst into passionate reproaches. It was of no avail. “Let me tell you,” answered Henry, calmly, “if I must choose between you and the duke, I would sooner part with ten mistresses such as you than one faithful servant such as he.”
In 1610 the king was making great preparations for a war with Austria, and, on the 14th May, desiring to consult Sully, who was unwell in his rooms at the Arsenal, he determined to spare him the fatigue of travelling to the Louvre, and to drive to the Arsenal.
With much foreboding the king had agreed to the coronation of Marie de’ Medici, which had been celebrated at St. Denis with great pomp. The ceremony was attended by two sinister incidents. The Gospel for the day, taken from Mark x., included the answer of Jesus to the Pharisees who tempted Him by asking—“Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife?”—the Gospel was hurriedly changed. And when the usual largesse of gold and silver pieces was thrown to the crowd not a voice cried, “Vive le roi,” or “Vive la reine.” That night the king tossed restless on his bed, pursued by evil dreams. On the morrow his counsellors begged him to defer his journey, but nineteen plots to assassinate him had already failed: he gently put aside their warnings, and repeated his favourite maxim that fear had no place in a generous heart. It was a warm day, and the king entered his open carriage, attended by the Dukes of Epernon and Montbazon and five other courtiers; a number of valets de pied followed him. In the narrow Rue de la Ferronnerie the carriage was stopped by a block in the traffic, and the servants were sent round by the cemetery of the Innocents. While the king was listening to the reading of a letter by the Duke of Epernon, one Francis Ravaillac, who had been watching his opportunity for twelve months, placed his foot on a wheel of the coach, leaned forward, and plunged a knife into the king’s breast. Before he could be seized he pulled out the fatal steel and doubled his thrust, piercing him to the heart. “Je suis blessé,” cried Henry, and never spoke again. The widened Rue de la Ferronnerie still exists; the tragedy took place opposite the present no. 3. The regicide was seized, and all the tortures that the most refined cruelty could invent were inflicted upon him. He was dragged to the Place de Grève, his right hand cut off and, with the fatal knife, flung into the flames; the flesh was torn from his arms, breast and legs; melted lead and boiling oil were poured into the wounds. Horses were then tied to each of his four limbs, and were lashed for an hour, when at length the body was torn to pieces and burnt to ashes. Some writers have inculpated the Jesuits for the murder, but it may more reasonably be attributed to the fury of a crazy fanatic. Certain it is that Henry’s heart was given to the Jesuits for the church of their college of la Flèche, which was founded by him.
The first Bourbon king has left his impress on the architecture of Paris. Small progress had been made during the reign of Henry II.’s three sons with their father’s plans for the rebuilding of the Louvre. The work had been continued along the river front after Lescot’s death in 1578 by Baptiste du Cercan, and Catherine de’ Medici had erected the gallery on the south, known as the Petite Galerie—a ground-floor building with a terrace on top, intended for a meeting-place and promenade and not for residence; she had also begun the palace of the Tuileries in 1564, but abandoned it on being warned by her astrologer, Ruggieri, that she should die under the ruins of a house near St. Germain.[121] Henry, soon after he had entered Paris, elaborated a vast scheme for finishing the Tuileries, demolishing the churches of St. Thomas and St. Nicholas, quadrupling the size of the old Louvre and joining the two palaces by continuing the Grande Galerie, already begun by Catherine, to the west. Towards the east the hôtels d’Alençon, de Bourbon and the church of St. Germain l’Auxerrois were to be demolished, and a great open space was to be levelled between the new east front of the Louvre and the Pont Neuf. At Henry’s accession Catherine’s architects, Philibert de l’Orme and Jean Bullant, had completed the superb domed central pavilion of the Tuileries, with its two contiguous galleries, and begun the end pavilions. The gardens, with the famous maze or dedalus and Palissy’s beautiful grotto, had been completed in 1476, and for some years were a favourite promenade for Catherine and her court. Henry’s plans were so far carried out that on New Year’s day, 1608, he could walk along the Grande Galerie to the Pavilion de Flore at the extreme west of the river front, and enter the south wing of the Tuileries which had been extended to meet it. The Pavilion de Flore thus became the angle of junction between the two palaces. An upper floor was imposed on the Petite Galerie, and adorned with paintings representing the kings of France. Henry intended the ground floor of the Grande Galerie for the accommodation of painters, sculptors, goldsmiths, tapestry weavers, smiths, and other craftsmen. The quadrangle, however, remained as the last Valois had left it—half Renaissance, half Gothic—and the north-east and south-east towers of the original château were still standing to be drawn by Sylvestre towards the middle of the seventeenth century.
Domenico da Cortona’s unfinished Hôtel de Ville was taken in hand after more than half-a-century and practically completed.[122] The larger, north portion of the Pont Neuf was built, the two islets west of the Cité were incorporated with the island to form the Place Dauphine and the ground that now divides the two sections of the bridge—a new street, the Rue Dauphine, being cut through the garden of the Augustins and the ruins of the college of St. Denis. The Place Royale (now des Vosges) was built, that charming relic of seventeenth and eighteenth century fashionable Paris, where Molière’s Précieuses lived.
