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Updated: June 14, 2025
The fiat had, however, gone forth; and the unfortunate Concini, whose tragical fate compels sympathy despite all his faults, entered the court of the Louvre at ten o'clock in the morning of the 24th of April 1617, there to meet his death.
The Queen showered gold like water upon her beloved Concini that he might purchase his Marquisate of Ancre, and the charge of first gentleman of the court from Bouillon; that he might fit himself for the government of Picardy; that he might elevate his marquisate into a dukedom.
Among the persons who surrounded Concini there chanced to be several who were acquainted with De Vitry, and greatly to his annoyance he was compelled to allow the Maréchal to pass on while he returned their greetings; in a few moments, however, he again found himself at liberty, when he discovered that amid the crowd he had lost sight of the Italian.
The king was kept in virtual captivity until he reached the age of seventeen, when, having asserted his rights, Concini was killed, and Marie's dominant power and influence came to an abrupt end. Louis XIII. reigned, with his minister, the Prince de Luynes, from 1617 to 1624, when he became reconciled to his mother and appointed her favorite, Richelieu, his minister.
As we have already stated, Concini had, although less openly, followed the same course; but, in the first instance, he had skilfully effected a reconciliation with his wife, and induced her to assist him in his endeavour to weaken the extraordinary influence which the Duc d'Epernon and the Guises were rapidly acquiring over the Regent, who willingly forgot, amid the constant amusement and adulation with which they surrounded her, the cares and anxieties of government.
In addition to these disreputable adventurers, De Luynes also introduced to the intimacy of his royal patron Déageant, the principal clerk of Barbin, whom he had won over by promises of aggrandizement should he succeed in effecting the disgrace of Concini, which, as a natural consequence, must also involve that of his master; and, finally, a private soldier, and one of the gardeners of the palace.
Sillery, to whom the Italian was peculiarly obnoxious, and who was the friend of the Duc de Bellegarde, made some difficulty when called upon to affix the official seal to these documents; upon which Concini hastened to complain to the Regent that the Chancellor was endeavouring to sacrifice him to his enemies; and Marie, indignant no less at the apparent injustice shown to her favourite than at the delay evinced in obeying her commands, made no attempt to disguise her displeasure.
The King had accordingly no sooner quitted her apartment than she desired Madame Concini to bring her kinsman the Nuncio Ubaldini to her private closet without losing an instant, a command which was so zealously obeyed by her favourite that she was enabled, after a prolonged conference with this ecclesiastic, to despatch a courier secretly to Spinola the same night to acquaint him with the projected design, and to entreat him to frustrate it should there yet be time.
Concini, finding that the Queen did not relax in her coldness towards himself and his wife, withdrew in great displeasure to Amiens; and at the same period Marie discovered that, despite his promise to the contrary, the Duc de Vendôme had joined the faction of Condé, and that they were conjointly endeavouring to win back M. de Guise.
It is probable, however, that, even despite the avowed abandonment of the Prince de Condé, Concini might have hesitated to quit his post had not the affair of Picard convinced him that his prosperity had reached its climax.
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