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Updated: May 3, 2025
It was no sooner built than it was given by the foundress to the reformed and bare-footed Fathers of St. Augustine; but after having solicited in their favour various privileges which were accorded by the Sovereign-Pontiff, she dispossessed them in the year 1613, and established in their place the Augustine Fathers of the Congregation of Bourges.
The advent of Elisabeth de France was not, however, hailed with the same delight by Marie as had been that of her first-born; on the contrary, her disappointment was extreme on ascertaining the sex of the infant, from the fact of her having placed the most entire confidence in the assurances of a devotee named Soeur Ange, who had been recommended to her notice and protection by the Sovereign-Pontiff, and who had, before she herself became cognizant of the negotiations for her marriage, foretold that she would one day be Queen of France.
The desire of the King had always been that the Sovereign-Pontiff should act as sponsor to the Dauphin, the eldest son of France being, as he declared, the eldest son of the Church, and the successive deaths of Clement VIII and Leo XI had accordingly delayed the celebration of the ceremony.
It was true that Clement VIII, in his desire to maintain the peace of Europe, had readily entered into the arguments of MM. de Marquemont, d'Ossat, and Duperron, whom the Duke had, by command of the monarch, entrusted with this difficult and dangerous mission, when they represented that the birth of a dauphin must necessarily avert all risk of a civil war in France, together with the utter hopelessness of such an event unless their royal master were released from his present engagements; and that the sovereign-pontiff had even expressed his willingness to second the washes of the French monarch.
At the conclusion of the magnificent repast which awaited him, the legate, in the presence of his royal host, of the Dukes of Mantua and Bracciano, the Princes Juan and Antonio de Medicis, and the Sieur de Bellegarde, announced to the young Queen the entire satisfaction of the Sovereign-Pontiff at the union upon which he was about to pronounce a blessing: to which assurance she replied with grace and dignity.
This pretension was, however, opposed by the Pope, who declared that all monies confiscated within the Roman states must necessarily revert to himself; and Louis XIII, after having in vain endeavoured to induce the Sovereign-Pontiff to rescind this declaration, found himself ultimately compelled to make a donation of the five hundred thousand francs claimed by his favourite to the cathedral of St.
Marie de Medicis, however, felt no inclination to quarrel with this indecent haste, as she trusted that by giving her daughter to the son of a Protestant sovereign, she should conciliate the Huguenots, whom she had greatly alienated by concluding the double alliance with Spain; but the Sovereign-Pontiff was no sooner apprised of the offer of James, and of the gracious reception afforded to it by the Regent, than he expressed his extreme displeasure, and refused to listen to any arguments, declaring that no question of state policy should sanction a contract the observance of which must prove detrimental to the interests of the Church.
This announcement greatly embarrassed the Nuncio, who at once felt that by persisting in the course he had adopted he should be deprived of the frequent audiences that were essential to the interests of the Sovereign-Pontiff, and accordingly he resolved no longer to offer any opposition to the express wishes of the King; but after having written to Rome to explain that he had put on mourning simply to secure himself against the threatened exclusion, and thereby to be enabled to watch over the welfare of the Holy See, he ultimately followed the example of those around him, and demanded permission in his turn to offer his compliment of condolence to the monarch.
He represented in earnest terms the exceptional position of the Prince, whose rank as the first subject of the realm justified him in aspiring to a throne filled by a mere boy, who could be considered only as a puppet in the hands of an ambitious woman; following up his arguments by an offer of efficient aid from his own monarch to enable M. de Condé to enforce his pretensions; and while he was thus endeavouring to shake the loyalty of his guest, the Spanish Ambassador at the Court of Rome was engaged with equal zeal in seeking to impress the necessity of the same policy upon Paul V. Both were, however, destined to fail in their efforts, the Sovereign-Pontiff declining to interfere in so extreme a case, and the Prince resolutely refusing to adopt the course thus treacherously suggested.
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