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Updated: May 14, 2025
The queen-mother still hesitated to see her son; but, at his entreaty, she at last sent off the Bishop of Lucon from Angouleme to make preparations for the interview, and, five days afterwards, she set out herself, accompanied by the Duke of Epernon, who halted at the limits of his own government, not caring to come to any closer quarters with so recently reconciled a court.
In the private cabinet meetings in the entresol of the Louvre, where the Nuncius and the Spanish ambassador held counsel with Epernon and Villeroy and Jeannin and Sillery, the tone was merry and loud; the double Spanish marriage and confusion to the Dutch being the chief topics of consultation. But the anarchy grew day by day into almost hopeless chaos.
It was strange that all the devotees of Spain Mary de' Medici, and Epernon, as well as James I. and his courtiers should be thus embittered against the man who had sold the Netherlands to Spain. At last the Prince told the French ambassadors that the "people of the Provinces considered their persistent intercessions an invasion of their sovereignty." Few would have anything to say to them.
The queen is very well, thank God. Whilst Richelieu was thus behaving towards the favorite with complaisance and modesty, Mary de' Medici, whose mouthpiece he appeared to be, assumed a different posture, and used different language; she complained bitterly of the slavery and want of money to which she was reduced at Blois; a plot, on the part of both aristocrats and domestics, were contrived by those about her to extricate her; she entered into secret relations with a great, a turbulent, and a malcontent lord, the Duke of Epernon; two Florentine servants, Ruccellai and Vincenti Ludovici, were their go-betweens; and it was agreed that she should escape from Blois and take refuge at Angouleme, a lordship belonging to the Duke of Epernon.
Meantime the great chief of the 'politiques, the hated and insolent Epernon, had been appointed governor of Normandy, and Henry had accompanied his beloved minion a part of the way towards Rouen. A plot contrived by the Montpensier to waylay the monarch on his return, and to take him into the safe-keeping of the League, miscarried, for the King reentered the city before the scheme was ripe.
They shall just be named here pell-mell, whether members or relatives of the royal family or merely great lords the Condes, the Contis, the Enghiens, the Dukes of Epernon, Guise, Elbeuf, Mayenne, Bouillon, and Nevers, great names and petty characters encountered at every step under the regency of Mary de' Medici, and, with their following, forming about her a court-hive, equally restless and useless.
She greeted me with a sneering face, and was preparing, I was sure, to put some slight upon me a matter wherein she could always count on the applause of her Italian servants when the entrance of the King took her by surprise. He advanced up the gallery with a listless air, and, after saluting her, stood by one of the fireplaces talking to Epernon and La Force.
There was between the king, the queen-mother, Albert de Luynes, the Duke of Epernon and their agents, an exchange of letters and empty promises which deceived scarcely anybody, and which destroyed all confidence as well as all truthfulness between them.
"Now I am king!" cried Henry, on receiving the news, so generally was Marseilles even then regarded as the queen of the Mediterranean. The Duke of Epernon, who had attempted to make of Provence an independent principality for himself, was obliged to leave it and treat with the king, ever ready to grant easy terms to those who could give up to him or sell him any portion of his kingdom.
"I saw there," said the Duke of Mayenne as he went away from it, "only a very old and very faithful servant very badly paid for so many services;" and, in spite of the king's letter, the Duke of Epernon sent word to Mornay that he still took him for a gentleman of honor, and still remained his friend.
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