BOOKS •
HENRY IV. AND MARIE DE MEDICI.*
THESE two volumes form only the second instalment of this work, the first part of which was published early last year. Part II. begins with the year 1594, and extends to 1602, within which space of time, though numerous events of great temporary importance took place, there is hardly enough of interesting incident to furnish out two such volumes as the present ones ; Henry's quarrel with the Jesuits and reconciliation with the Pope; the war with Spain; the various intrigues and jealousies of the king's mistresses, and his divorce from one wife and marriage to another,—these circumstances, flavoured with some admixture of conspiracy, form the staple product of Miss Freer's labours.
Shortly after Henry's triumphant entry into Paris, an attempt was made upon his life by a student of the Jesuit College, named Chat& It does not appear to what extent the Jesuits themselves were privy to this atrocity. The lawfulness of assassinating the king as a heretic and a usurper was indeed openly promulgated in the college ; but there is no evidence to show that Chatel communicated Ins intention of acting on this doctrine to any member of the fraternity. He was a young man, and his history is the history of three-fourths of the fanatics in the world. He had led a very dissolute youth, and had become convinced that lie was destined to eternal perdition unless he could perform some great action that would reconcile him with his Maker. The murder of the king seemed to his diseased imagination exactly the kind of action that would shorten his future punohment. He watched his opportunity, and on the occasion of the king's entry into Paris from St. Germain, on a visit to Gabrielle d'Estries, he contrived to mix himself up with the cortege, and, without attracting any notice, obtained admittance to the hotel. As the king was in the act of stooping forward to raise a kneeling courtier from the ground, the assassin struck at him with a knife. But Henry's courteous gesture was the means of preserving his life. Chatel aimed at his breast, but the knife fell upon his mouth and divided his lip in two. All was of course consternation in the room. Ga- brielle fainted. The doors were locked, and soon the trembling murderer was dragged from the corner where he crouched. After being rather roughly used, he was handed over to the officers of justice, .and his fate, of course, in those days, was sealed. He was condemned to execution and previous torture, which he bore with great fortitude, exculpating the Jesuits in his last moments, and declaring that he had no accomplices of any kind. On a search, however, being instituted in the college, so many treasonable papers were discovered, that Henry resolved on the expulsion of the Order from France. On the 8th of January, 1595, this resolution was carried into effect. "'The fathers retired principally to Avig- n and Douay, in the Low Countries, where the Order issued a ft nous manifesto, vindicating the teaching of the Jesuit fraternity of Paris; and proving that the assassination of heretic princes, or of princes at variance with the Holy See, was lawful and praiseworthy. I solemn appeal to Rome was made, and presented th- :nigh Aqua- viva, General of the Order, which proved a serious imps iiment in the negotiations of Henry's envoys to the Holy See." The Pope, indeed, could not openly defend the attempted assassina- tion; but he made the most of the fact that the Jesuits bad not been found privy to it. And it was not until the 17th of September in this year that the ceremony of absolution was performed. Even then, it is thought, that his Holiness would not have given way had it not been for the fact that Henry's successes in the Spanish war, and the consolidation of his power at home, had caused the Court of Rome to suspect that if the boon were not granted at once, it might perhaps cease to be requested. The Galilean Bishops showed symptoms of independence. Henry's envoy exhibited great indifference on the subject: and it became a common saying at Rome that Clement VII. had lost England because he was in too great a hurry to excommu- nicate Henry VIII., and that Clement VIII. would lose France be- cause he was too tardy in absolving Henry IV. At length, after being greatly exercised in his conscience, the Pope yielded, and in the midst of an imposing ceremonial, it was declared that Henri de Bour- bon, King of France, was absolved from ecclesiastical censures.
This great event at once cut the ground from under the French rebels, who could no longer represent their cause as the cause of the holy Catholic Church. But the war with Spain still continued, with various success, to the peace of Vervins, in 1598, by which Henry recovered possession of all the places seized by Spain daring the course of the civil war, and obtained leisure to pursue the internal amelioration of his kingdom. The peace which he had obtained for his people he did not, however, enjoy himself. The queen, Mar- guerite de Valois whose infidelities had driven her husband to the necessity of applying for a divorce, declared her intention of resisting it to the uttermost, unless the king would give a solemn promise not to marry Gabrielle d'Estrees. To this demand Henry was unwilling to accede, and it would almost seem, from a conversation between himself and M. de Rosny (Sully), that he had fully made up his mind to the marriage. The difficulty was solved, however, by the death of the favourite, not without strong suspicions of poison, in the year 1599. And deeply as Henry !warned her, it was not long before he consoled himself with another mistress. Mademoiselle d'Entragues was the lady who now attracted his attention. She was only twenty years of age, extremely beautiful, and of a much more ambitious temper than
• Henry IV. and Marie de Medici. By Martha Walker Freer. In two volume& London: Hurst and Blackett. Gabrielle had been. She looked forward to nothing less, from the first, than to being Queen of France; and she so worked on Henry's passions that she obtained from him, as a condition of becoming his mistress, a written document, by which he bound himself to marry her in case she found herself likely to be a mother. Henry's feelings in this instance, however, were not at all o( the same kind as he had entertained for his late mistress. He had loved Gabrielle d'Estrees; he had merely a sensual passion for Henriette d'Entragnes. He soon, it would appear, grew tired of her ; and when she demanded the fulfilment of his promise, was met not only with a blank refusal, but even with threats and reproaches. It is impossible to acquit the king of some want of chivalry in this matter, though we may feel no pity for the young lady. The emergencies of his position, no doubt, made it necessary that he should marry Marie de Medici, and not the abandoned daughter of a French subject. But the promise and the breach of it leave an ugly stain on the otherwise splendid reputation of Henry the Great. Henry's marriage with his new queen took place in the year 1600. It is said that he was averse to an affiance with the House of Medici, because it had already brought so many sorrows on the kingdom of France. The second Queen of France of that name had not indeed the violent passions, nor was she stained by the horrid crimes, of her predecessor. But in the influence which she exercised over her son, the future Louis XIII., lay some of the germs of that mighty change in French society, which has been thought by the best judges to have paved the way for the Revolution. Had Louis XI II. conciliated his nobles, as henry the Fourth had done, there might have been no necessity for the centralizing policy of Richelieu.That he did not do so was partly owing to nature, which had denied him the frank and engaging qualities of his father, but more to the influence of the queen, under whose sole charge he was brought up, and whose notions of statecraft were entirely inapplicable to the state of France in the beginning of the seventeenth century. A portrait of her is prefixed to the second of these two volumes, which contrasts most unfavourably with that of Marguerite de Valois prefixed to the first one. She is fat and clumsy, with a wretchedly bad figure. But contemporary accounts say that her deportment was queenly ; that her figure was magnificent, her eyes sparkling, and her complexion good, unaided by rouge or powder. The husband and wife were at first sell satisfied with each other, and a carious account of their first interview, by a gentleman of the bedchamber, is still ex- tant, of which Miss Freer has judiciously availed herself. Henry was absent, fighting the Duke of Savoy, when Marie first arrived in France; and their meeting was arranged at the city of Lyons. All through the day of the 10th of December Henry was expected to arrive. At ten o'clock the queen sat down to supper ; and while she was so engaged, the king reached the bishop's palace where she lodged. He had been detained for some time at the bridge, where the soldiers, who did not know him, refused to let him in. The king, amused at the adventure, humoured their ignorance, and stood for a long time "chaffing" them, as we should say now, till an officer of the guard recognized him, and ordered the drawbridge to be lowered. Wishing, hoe ever, to have a glimpse of his new wife before his first formal interview, he stole into the supper-room behind the back of M. de Bellegarde, a man of gigantic stature. But he was recognized by the courtiers, who, unaware of his design, allowed her majesty to perceive that something unusual had occurred. The king hurried out of the room vain. The queen turned pale, and retired to her own apartments. °Here, however, she was soon joined by the king, who introduced himself in his usual frank and pleasant way, and all constraint was soon at an end between them. Henry, however, shortly discovered to his sorrow that he " had married discord in his noble wife." Her Italian followers gave mortal offence to the French court. Brawls were of frequent occurrence. But the queen took the part of her countrymen with that imperious spirit which showed that she was a true Medici; and the king continued to be troubled with the embers of this early grievance almost to the end of his life.
The concluding event of these volumes is the conspiracy of the Due de Bison. There seems to be no doubt of the duke's guilt. And his execution was imperatively demanded by the safety and stability of the Government. Henry did all that justice, generosity, and the remembrance of past services could dictate, to save the duke's life; but he could not give him a free pardon, after his solemn trial and conviction, without arming every traitor in France, and their name was still legion, against his life and throne.
It has been the fashion with some bitter Protestants to deny the king's title to the character of a great statesman. But if Henry the Fourth was not a great statesman, what are the tokens of that cha- racter P He pacified and consolidated a kingdom torn by civil and religious feuds. He raised the French exchequer from bankruptcy to wealth ; and this during a period of war. He restored the old boundaries of France, and wrenched fortress after fortress from the tenacious grasp of the Spaniards. He conceived a scheme for the readjustment of European States which has survived for nearly three centuries, and the adoption of which, with certain minor modifica- tions, is considered, even at the present day, to be the distinguishing mark of political enlightenment. To ask after this if Henry was a great king, is worthy only of those who would ask if Charles the First was a weak one. But his social gallantry and spiritual flexibility have arrayed a certain class of fanatics against him, by whom the temptations of passion and the interests of civilization are as little understood or appreciated as by monks or savages. In our eyes he was one of the kilt's of men as well as of Frenchmen. And we only trust that some day or other a better life of him may be written
than we can expect from idly lady, however conscientious and la- borious. Miss Freer, indeed, does full justice to Henry's personal qualities. But neither the character of her genius nor the vigour of her style is such as to qualify her for the office of an historian. Like the rest of her sex, she has no method, and her diction, though sometimes pictorial, lacks both nerve and fluency.
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