LOUIS had not long to wait; scarcely a moment passed before Marie de’ Medici appeared. She entered hastily; marks of violent agitation were on her countenance; her brows were knit; her eyes flashed. She was in the prime of middle life, but grown stout and unwieldy; her delicate complexion had become red and coarse, and her voice was loud and harsh; but her height, and the long habit of almost absolute command, gave her still an imposing presence. Louis involuntarily shuddered at her approach; he had been long accustomed to tremble at her frown. His first impulse was to fly by the same door through which Mademoiselle de Hautefort had vanished. He rose, however, bowed low before her, and offered her a seat.

“My son,” she cried in a husky voice, walking straight up to him, “I have come to request you instantly to banish Richelieu. If you do not, I shall return to Florence. The insolence of that villain whom I have made your minister is intolerable. He has disobeyed my express commands!”

“What has Richelieu done, madame?”

“Is it not enough that I, your mother, who have governed France almost from your birth, should declare to you my pleasure? Would you prefer a lackey to your own mother?”[21] “Let it suffice that Richelieu has offended me past forgiveness. Sit down, my son”—and she seized on the terrified Louis, and almost forced him into a chair beside the table—“here are my tablets; write instantly an order that within twenty-four hours Richelieu leaves France forever.”

Louis took the tablets, but his trembling hands could not hold them. The jewelled leaves of ivory, set in gold, fell on the ground with a crash. There was a pause.

“What! Louis, you hesitate to obey me?” and the Queen’s fierce eyes darted a look of fury at the King, whose slender figure positively seemed to shrink as she laid her hand upon him.

“My mother,” he said, in a faltering voice, “you have told me nothing. A great minister like Richelieu cannot be dismissed on the instant.”

“Yes, he can, if there be another to replace him, a better than he; one who knows the respect due to the Queen-dowager of France, the widow of Henry the Great, your mother, and still Regent of the kingdom.”

“But, Madame, what has Richelieu done to offend you?” and the King had the courage to meet his mother’s glance unmoved.

“He has dared to disobey my positive orders. I had appointed the Duc d’Epernon governor of Poitiers. He has placed there a creature of his own. After this insult, you will understand, I can never again sit at the Council with Richelieu.”

“Well, Madame, and suppose you do not!” rejoined the King, whose nervous dread was rapidly giving place to resentment at his mother’s arrogance. “I shall still be King of France, and Richelieu will be my minister.”

“Undutiful boy!” exclaimed Marie de’ Medici, and she raised her hand as if to strike him; “You forget yourself.”

“No, Madame, it is you who forget that, if I am your son, I am also your king. You may strike me, if you please, Madame,” added he in a lower voice, “but I will not sign the exile of Richelieu.” The countenance of Louis darkened with growing passion; the threatening aspect of his mother standing before him with upraised arm, aroused him to unwonted courage. “I will not exile Richelieu. I leave him to settle his differences with you and your favourites—their claims do not concern me. I will have no more Concini, madame; I would rather abdicate at once.” And turning on his heel, without another word, or even saluting the Queen, he left the room.

A sudden dizziness, an overwhelming conviction of something new and strange in her position, sobered the passion of Marie de’ Medici the instant the King was gone. She stood motionless where he had left her, save that her uplifted arm dropped to her side. A mournful look—the shadow of coming misfortunes—clouded her face. Silent and dejected, the tears streaming from her eyes, she withdrew. When she had reached her own apartments, she commanded that no one should be admitted.

That same day the King left CompiÈgne, taking with him only two attendants. No one knew whither he was gone.

Early the next morning the Queen-mother’s ladies were startled by the appearance of Cardinal Richelieu in her anteroom. It was long since he, who was wont never to be absent from her service, had been seen there.

“Tell her Majesty,” he said to the Duchesse d’Epernon, “that I am come on urgent state business, by the express command of the King, and that I must speak with her in person.”

After some delay he was admitted into the Queen’s apartment.

Marie de’ Medici wears a long robe of black velvet, and a widow’s coif upon her head. She looks old, worn, and anxious; she is neither imperious nor angry. She begins to realise that power is passing from her; she is intensely curious, not to say alarmed, as to what the intelligence may be, of which the Cardinal is the bearer; and she now secretly repents that she has quarrelled with him.

The Cardinal wears a close-fitting black soutane bound with purple, and a beretta of the same colour on his head; he has nothing of the churchman in his appearance. He is still a young man, upright in figure and easy in manner, attractions which he owes to his early military training. He has piercing black eyes, light brown hair that lies straight upon his forehead, and a pale, thoughtful face, already lined with wrinkles. His closely shutting mouth, thin-lipped and stern, expresses inflexible determination. His manners are composed, almost gentle; his voice melodious. He has not yet become the imperious autocrat—the merciless butcher of the chivalrous nobles of France—of after years. Chalais and Montmorenci have not yet fallen by his order on the scaffold; and Cinq-Mars is a precocious lad, living with his mother on the banks of the Loire. Without vanity he knows that he has genius to conceive great deeds, and industry to elaborate every necessary detail. Already the consciousness of growing greatness forces itself upon him. The incompetence of the King, his indolent acquiescence in all his measures, the jealousy between Louis and his mother whom the King has hitherto not dared to check, his alienation from the young Queen his wife, open before Richelieu’s mental vision a vista of almost boundless power. Now he stands in the presence of his early benefactress, the sovereign to whom he would have been faithful, had such fidelity been consistent with the welfare of France and his own ambition. Spite of habitual self-control, he is greatly moved at her forlorn condition. He still hopes that he may save her from an overwhelming calamity.

Richelieu advances to where the Queen-mother is seated beside the hearth, and after making a profound obeisance waits for her to address him.

“You bear to me a message from my son. What can he have to say to me, that he cannot speak himself?” Marie asks with dignity.

“Nothing, my most gracious mistress,” replies Richelieu, almost submissively, “if your Majesty will deign to be guided by my counsel.”

“You call me your mistress, Cardinal,” says Marie bitterly; “but you have left my service, and you disobey my positive commands. How can I treat with such a hypocrite?”

“Madame, I beseech you, let not personal animosity towards myself—be I innocent or guilty of what you accuse me—blind you to the danger in which you now stand.”

“Danger! What do you mean? To what danger do you allude?”

“The danger that threatens you, Madame, in the displeasure of his Majesty.”

“Ah, I perceive. My son strikes through you, my creature, that he may crush me. I congratulate your eminence on your triumphant ingratitude.”

“Madame,” and the Cardinal wrings his hands and advances a step or two nearer the Queen with an air of earnest entreaty, “hear me, I implore you. Let us not lose precious time in mere words. I have come here in a twofold character, as your friend and as minister of state. Permit me first to address you as the former, Madame, your counsellor and your sincere friend.” As he speaks his voice trembles, his manner is almost humble as he seeks to allay the stormy passions that gather on the brow of his royal mistress.

Marie de’ Medici is so much taken aback at this unusual display of feeling in the stern Cardinal, that though her eyes glisten with anger she makes no reply.

“Your Majesty, in honour and greatness,” continued Richelieu, “stands next to the throne. Be satisfied, Madame, with the second place in the kingdom. Your own age, Madame,”—Marie starts—“and the increased experience of his Majesty, justify you in committing the reins of government into his hands and into the hands of such ministers as he may appoint.”

“Yourself, for instance,” breaks in Marie bitterly.

“Madame, I implore you, by the respect and the affection I bear you, not to interrupt me. Withdraw, graciously and cheerfully, from all interference with state affairs. Resign your place at the council. Dismiss those nobles who, by their rebellious conduct, excite his Majesty’s displeasure, specially the Duc d’Epernon.”

“Never!” exclaims Marie passionately. “I will not resign my place at the council, nor will I sacrifice my supporter, the Duc d’Epernon. My son is incapable of governing. He has ever been the tool of those about him. I am his best substitute. This is a miserable plot by which you basely seek to disgrace me by my own act—to rise by my fall.”

“Oh, Madame, to whom I owe so much,” pleads Richelieu, “whom I would now serve while I can, hear me. I speak from my heart—I speak for the last time. Be warned, I beseech you.” His hands are still clasped, his voice falters, tears flow down his cheeks. Any one less obstinately blind than the Queen would have been warned by the evidence of such unusual emotion in a man ordinarily so cold and impassible as the Cardinal.

“Ha, ha, you are an admirable actor, Cardinal!” cries she. “But what if I refuse to listen to a traitor? Who named me[22] ‘Mother of the kingdom?’ Who vowed to me ‘that the purple with which I invested him would be a solemn pledge of his willingness to shed his blood in my service’? I know you, Armand de Plessis.”

For some minutes neither utters a word. When he addresses the Queen again, Richelieu has mastered his feelings and speaks with calmness, but his looks express the profoundest pity.

“I am no traitor, Madame, but the unwilling bearer of a decision that will infinitely pain you, if you drive me to announce it. But if you will condescend to listen to my counsel, to conciliate your son the King, and disarm his wrath by immediate submission, then that terrible decision never need be revealed. That you should be wise in time, Madame,” adds he, in a voice full of gentleness, contemplating her with the utmost compassion, “is my earnest prayer.”

Before he had done speaking the Cardinal sinks on his knees at her feet, and draws forth from his breast a paper, to which are appended the royal seals. Marie, whose usual insolence and noisy wrath have given place to secret fear, still clings to the hope that she is too powerful to be dispensed with, and that by a dauntless bearing she will intimidate Richelieu, and, through him, the King, replies coldly—

“I have given you my answer. Now you can withdraw.” Then, rising from her chair, she turns her back upon Richelieu—who still kneels before her—and moves forward to leave the room.

“Stay, Madame!” cries Richelieu, rising, stung to the quick by her arrogant rejection of his sympathy, and ashamed of the unwonted emotion the forlorn position of his royal mistress had called forth; “stay and listen to this decree, in the name of his Majesty.” And he unfolds the parchment. “Once more, Madame, understand. Unless you will on the instant resign your seat in the Council of State and dismiss the Duc d’Epernon—a man suspected of a hideous crime, which you at least, Madame, ought never to have forgotten—from his attendance on your person, I am commanded by his Majesty——”

“Dismiss D’Epernon!—my only trusty servant, D’Epernon, who has defended me from your treachery!”—breaks in Marie passionately, her voice rising higher at every word—“Never—never! Let me die first! How dare you, Cardinal Richelieu, come hither to affront the mother of your King? I will NOT dismiss the Duc d’Epernon. It is you who shall be dismissed!”—and she glares upon him with fury—“despised, dishonoured, blasted, as you deserve.”

“If you refuse, Madame—and let me implore you to reflect well before you do,” continues the Cardinal, quite unmoved by her reproaches—“I have his Majesty’s commands to banish you from Court, and to imprison you during his pleasure within this palace.”[23]

No sooner has he uttered these words than the Queen, who stands facing the Cardinal, staggers backwards. A deadly pallor overspreads her face. She totters, tries to grasp the arm of the chair from which she has risen, and before Richelieu, who watches her agony with eyes rather of sorrow than of anger, can catch her, she has fallen fainting on the floor.

At his cries the Queen’s ladies appear. He leaves her to their care, and proceeds to the apartments of Anne of Austria, whom, through Madame de Chevreuse, he informs of what has occurred.

Anne of Austria, on hearing that the Queen-mother was disgraced, saw in her unfortunate mother-in-law, who had never ceased to persecute her and to arouse the jealousy of the King, only an unhappy parent. She flew to her, threw herself into her arms, and readily promised to employ all the influence she possessed to mitigate the royal wrath.