Marie de Medicis: The Houdini of Château Blois.
Toy figures of Henry IV, Marie de Medicis and Louis XIII.
This is the last Post in a trilogy* cataloguing the despair of Louis XIII caused by his brother, King-in-Waiting, Gaston of Orléans, Gaston’s arch enemy, Cardinal Richelieu and, worst of all, his meddling mother Marie of Medici who each thought they would make a much better fist of being king of France.
Thorns in the flesh is putting it mildly.
Marie, who grew up an orphan in the magnificent Pitti Palace in Florence, was the richest heiress in Europe. Her uncle, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, married Christine of Lorraine, favourite grandchild of Catherine de Medicis.
Christine was Marie's legal guardian.
Catherine was Marie’s distant cousin.
Marie had a lonely childhood until the young Leonora Dori was appointed as her maid. They became bosom pals. Marie never made decisions without consulting her.
When Marie left Florence to marry Henry IV, Leonora was her chief lady in waiting.
Marie was godmother to Leonora’s son Henry named after Henry IV. The King was godfather to Leonora's daughter Marie, named after the Queen.
Leonora’s husband Concini travelled with Henry IV in his private carriage. Appointed First Gentleman of the Chamber, the King addressed him as ‘my cousin’.
1610. Henry IV was assassinated. Court gossip was that Marie was behind it.
Was she?
If so, it was hardly surprising. Henry treated her shamefully. Marie had every reason to bear grudges against her husband. This was a disastrous marriage. Twenty two years younger than Henry, when she left home to meet her future husband she was hurt, humiliated and very angry he didn’t bother to meet her at Marseilles on November 3.
They didn’t meet until their wedding night on December 9.
It was a bad start to the marriage and got worse.
Eager to be Queen of France, Henry didn’t arrange her coronation for ten years. She was insulted. After all, she had given France the Dauphin it had been waiting for over forty years.
Then there was his scandalous sex life. His sexual appetite was insatiable. He kept mistresses, several at a time, as well as engaging in random sexual encounters and visits to brothels.
Worse, he insisted Marie raise his many illegitimate children with hers. More humiliating, insulting behaviour. Nor was she unaware her husband referred to her behind her back as ‘the fat banker’ (the French royal family banked at the Medici Bank).
Marie’s close friend and ally, the duke of Épernon, who hated Henry IV refused to serve under him and made a secret treaty with Spain to bring him down. When Henry converted to Catholicism, Épernon appeared at Court posing as a loyal subject but joined every conspiracy against the King.
Épernon, who had known the assassin François Ravaillac for many years, kept him in protective custody following the murder. Ravaillac was known to have received money from Épernon via his mistress.
After Henry’s death, Épernon carried out a coup d' État to ensure Marie was appointed Regent for her young son Louis XIII.
Marie’s mandate as Regent expired in 1614 but she refused to resign and continued as Regent until Louis, now sixteen, exiled her from Court. She moved with nine carts of her personal belongings into Château Blois. He then ordered the murder of her oldest, closest, most loyal friends Concini and Léonora.
Under house arrest, Marie ordered a summer house be built on to the Château (her son Gaston of Orléans destroyed it to build a palace) but after two years of incarceration, she had had enough.
She and Épernon planned her escape. The details vary but the fact that she escaped is not in doubt.
1619 On 21 February, the forty-four year old Queen Mother yanked up her gown into which her jewels had been sewn, to climb through the window in her apartment. A squire, a maid, two guards, one dwarf and two Italian valets were to follow her.
Marie, a big woman, had difficulty extricating herself from the window.
She and her entourage climbed down a rope ladder to the terrace.
Marie was wrapped in a thick coat, tied to a rope, lowered down the ninety foot embankment and landed in the rubble of the building work being carried out near a wall that had collapsed.
She and her little band of helpers crossed the bridge over the Loire (the ruins of the original Pont Saint Louis Bridge can still be seen) to a waiting carriage.
Or not.
It was nowhere to be seen. Panic set in as they looked for it. It was found waiting for them with its lights out. The group set off towards Château Loches. It took three hours.
When confronted by her furious son, Marie said she had been kidnapped and feared for her life.
She took refuge in her Château Angoulême. Rallying the disaffected nobles to her, she provoked an uprising against the King. She tried again the following year.
Louis could not avoid her plots to unseat him as long as she was in exile so invited her to return to Court. There, Marie mentored her protégé Cardinal Richelieu and introduced him to the King. She didn’t notice his hold over her son. When she did, she plotted with her other son Gaston to get rid of him.
Louis had had enough of her plots. He exiled her from France.
Marie went to to the Netherlands, Brussels and England where she stayed for three years. Then it was on to Germany where she tried again to form a league against her son.
Living in Cologne in the house of the artist Peter Paul Rubens, she fell ill in 1642 with pleurisy.
She died a few months before Richelieu and her son.
Her battle for power was finally over. What did she achieve? Not a lot.
Her body was taken to the Basilica of Saint-Denis, Paris without ceremony.
* Gaston of Orleans Cardinal Richelieu
Post by Pamela (BA History of Art).
Pamela-Shields.com
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