The Great Condé and the period of the Fronde. A historical sketch

Front matter

ERRATA TO VOL. I. Tage 2, line 9, for "Palliot" read "Paltrot." ,, ,, „ 23, „ "Courtias" „ "Courtras." 3, „ 23, „ "Court" „ "Count." „ 8, „ 4, ,, "universal" „ "general." „ 14, „ 27, omit "of" after "despite." ,, 15, „ 3, „ "on the Place de Greve." „ 19, „ 25, for "Zamet" read "ZamettL" „ 29, „ „ omit "the" before "captain." „ 63, „ 18, „ "." after "Bussy." « l ., i) 20, „ „ „ "Coligny." „ 64, „ 16, after "a second son" read "Armand." „ 65, „ 5, for "rich" read "pure." „ 67, „ 24, omit "the" after "by." ,, 78, „ 1, for " Madam oiselle" read "Mademoiselle." ,, 86, „ 6, ,, "Courtras" „ "Tournai." „ 87, „ 20, „ "achievement" „ "achievements." ,, 107, „ 22, ,, "Lu6on" „ "Luc'on." „ 117, „ 10, „ " ;" „ "," ,,. 121, „ 7, „ " crush" „ " curb." ,, 136, „ 11, „ "liason" „ "Liaison." „ 153, „ 22, ,, "Cincini" „ "Concini." „ 170, „ 12, „ "national" „ "material." „ 171, „ 10, ,, "Siamese" „ "Siennese." „ 202, „ 11, „ "nations" ,, "nation." „ 239, „ 15, „ "attact" „ "attack."

V 271, „ 2, after "and" „ "to." ,, 288, ,, 11, for " indiscriminating" read " undiscriminating. THE GREAT CONDE and the PERIOD OF THE FRONDE. AN HISTORICAL SKETCH. BY WALTER FITZ PATRICK. VOL. I. SECOND EDITION. HonDon : CHATTO AND WINDUS, PUBLISHERS. 1874. CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

Chapter I

The Conde* family — Louis, first prince — Henry, second prince — His career and suspicious death — Trial and conviction of his wife — The judgment annulled by the Parliament of Paris — Public characters of the sixteenth century — Henry IV. of France — His exaggerated renown — His real character — His conduct towards the Duke of Biron — His domestic relations — Margaret of Valois — Mary of Medicis — Gabrielle d'Estr6es— Henriette de Balzac — Charlotte of Montmorenci — Her marriage with the third Prince of Conde — Persecution and flight of Conde* — Henry IV. and the House of Austria — His assassination — Conde* and the regency of Mary of Medicis — Birth of the Duke of Enghien — His early life — Marries Cardinal Richelieu's niece — Death of Richelieu— Enghien commands on the Flemish frontier — Battle of Rocroi . . Pp. 1 to

Chapter II

Military operations— Marshal Gassion — Society in Paris during the regency of Anne of Austria— Brilliant position of Enghien — His sister the Duchess of Longueville— Her quarrel with the Duchess of Montbazon — And its consequences — Campaign of 1644 — Defeat of Marshal Rantzau in Germany — Enghien appointed to the command — Enghien and Count Mercy— The "Three Days of Fribourg" — Successes of the French — Enghien and Aldlle. Vigean — Campaign of 1645 — Defeat of Turenne at Mariendal — He is superseded by Enghien — Battle of Nordlingen — John of Werth— Illness of Enghien — Campaign of 1646 — Enghien in Flanders— Capture of Mardyke — And of Dunkirk — Enghien claims the post of Admiral of France— Death and character of his father — Splendid position of the new Prince of Condti — His extravagant projects — Campaign of 1647 — Conde in Spain — His defeat at Lerida — The revel of La Valliere — Condti and Cardinal Mazarin — Campaign of 1648 — Cond6 in Flanders — Battle of Lens— End of the "Thirty Years' War"— Civil war of the Fronde . . . Pp. 58 to 103

Chapter III

The reign of Louis XIII. of France — Alary of Medicis — The Constable de Luynes — Rise of Cardinal Rifchelieu — State of France in 1622— Character and policy of Richelieu — Opposition to his measures — Character of Louis XIII. — Of Anne of Austria— Confederacies of the nobles and the Huguenots with foreign powers — Final triumph and death of Richelieu — Rise and cha- V racter of Cardinal Mazarin — Position of parties after Richelieu's death — Death of Louis XIII. — Regency of Anne of Austria — Her skilful policy — She obtains ab solute power — Dangers of her position — The " Impor tants" — Struggles of the rival parties — Character and career of Madame de Chevreuse — Secret motives of Anne of Austria — Imprudence and fall of the feudal party— Elevation of Cardinal Mazarin . Pp. 104 to 151

Chapter IV

The " Fair days of the Regency " — Elements of political disorder — Tyrannical power of the crown — Unjust system of taxation — The Parliaments of the kingdom — The discontents and profligacy of the nobles — Misery of the " Third Estate " — Administration of the Chevalier d'Emery — Opposition and aims of the Parliament of Paris — The first president Mole* — Errors of Cardinal Mazarin — Arbitrary proceedings of the Government — Resistance of the magistrates — The " Decree of Union " — Violence of the Regent — Firm bearing of the Parliament — Mole and his colleagues frame a constitution — Deceitful conduct of the Regent — Gravity of the crisis— The leaders of the Fronde — The Coadjutor de Retz— The Duke of Bouillon— The Duke of la Rochefoucault — The Duke of Orleans — The Duke of Beaufort — News of the battle of Lens — The Regent arrests President Blancmesnil and Councillor Broussel — Insurrection of Paris — Proceedings of De Retz — He allays and then re-kindles the insurrection — Perilous mission of the Chancellor Seguier — Danger and courage of the Regent — She releases Blancmesnil and Broussel — Restoration of tranquillity Pp. 152 to VI

Chapter V

Dissimulation of the Regent and Mazarin— Intrigues of De Retz— The court quits Paris — Arrest of Chavigni and Chateauneuf — Conde joins the Regent at Ruel — Vigorous measures of the Parliament of Faris — Cond£ is adverse to repression — Declaration of October 24, 1648 — Treaty of Munster— General rejoicings— Secret anger of the Regent— She wins over Orleans and Conde* — Counter measures of De Retz— Madame de Longueville and Madame de Bouillon — The Regent retires to St. Germain by night — And resorts to arms — Bold measures of the Parliament — Skilful policy of De Retz — The Duke of Elbœuf, and the Prince of Conti — Conti is appointed commander-in-chief of the Fronde — Conde* besieges Paris — Exploits of the Parisians- Madame de Longueville queen of the Fronde — Storming of Charenton— Popularity of the Duke of Beaufort—General desire of peace— Opposed by De Retz and the feudal chiefs— Stratagems of De Retz frustrated by Mole* — Conference at Ruel — The great nobles negotiate with Spain— Turenne declares for the Parliament— Invasion of the Spaniards— Patriotism of M0I6 — Tumults in the Palace of Justice— Peril and heroism of M0I6— Turenne is deserted by his troops — Retreat of the Spaniards— Peace of Ruel— The Regent retires to Compiegne . . .Pp. 225 to THE GREAT CONDE AND THE PERIOD OE THE FRONDE.

Chapter I

The House of Bourbon is descended from a younger son of St. Louis. Charles of Bourbon, Duke of Vendome, who died in the year 1536, left three sons — Anthony, Duke of Vendome, who by his marriage with Jeanne d'Albret became King of Navarre ; the Cardinal of Bourbon, whom the Catholic League afterwards proclaimed King of France in opposition to his nephew, Henry TV. ; and Louis, first Prince of Conde. Louis embraced the reformed tenets, and was the leader of the Huguenot party in the religious troubles which broke out in France after the death of Henry II. He was an ambitious and turbulent prince of great courage and some capacity, but his fortunes paled VOL. I. B before the splendid genius of Francis Duke of Guise. He was about to be led to the block in 1559, when the sudden death of King Francis II., throwing the reins of government into the hands of the Queen-mother, Catherine de Medici, gave him life and liberty.

In 1562 he was defeated and taken prisoner by Guise at the battle of Dreux. After the assassination of the Great Duke by Palliot, an emissary of Admiral Coligni, while he was besieging Orleans in the following year, Conde again recovered his freedom, and held a leading position in the State until he was de feated and killed at the battle of Jarnac in 1569. The son of Louis, Henry, second Prince of Conde, was brought up in his father's faith, in intimate association with Jeanne d'Albret, and her son, the young Prince of Bearn, who succeeded to the kingdom of Navarre at his mother's death in 1572. Henry of Conde shared the fortunes of his cousin after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and during the early part of the wars of the League. He especially distinguished himself at the battle of Courtias in 1587.

A few months after this victory he died at St. Jean d'Angely. The circumstances surrounding his death excited strong suspicion of foul play on the part of his wife Charlotte, daughter of the Duke of la Tre mouille. She was accused of poisoning her husband in order to prevent his discovering her adul tery with a page named Belcastel, of which her condition was likely to afford conclusive evidence; and after a trial on this charge before a Huguenot tribunal at St. Jean d'.Angely, was condemned to death. Being with child, she was respited pend ing her accouchement, and imprisoned in a tower of the town, where later in the year she gave birth to a son. In the meantime the Parliament of Paris, claiming exclusive jurisdiction over criminals of her rank, declared the sentence of death invalid on account of the incompetency of the court, and, as on the death of Henry III. in the same year the acknowledged princes of the blood, the Prince of Conti, the Count of Soissons, and the Cardinal of Bourbon, were Catholics; the Huguenots, reluctant to injure the claims of the princess's child as next heir to his cousin, Henry IV., allowed the judgment to remain dor mant.

The princess, however, remained a prisoner till 1595, when Henry IV., firmly seated on the French throne, feeling dissatisfied at the turbulent proceedings of the Court of Soissons, an nulled the sentence of death. Although Henry had made no secret of his own conviction of her guilt, he granted Madame de Conde a new trial before the Parliament of Paris. The High Court de clared her innocent, whereupon the King acknowb ledged her son as first Prince of the blood, and caused him to be educated at St. Germain in the Catholic Faith. The 16th century undoubtedly forms one of the most important epochs in the history of the world. Never, at any other period, has the human mind been more deeply stirred by questions of more tremendous moment; no other period has produced a greater number of extraordinary characters.

But exactly in proportion to the vehemence of the strife which convulsed the leading nations of Europe, its passions, noble and ignoble, warped and clouded men's minds, and prevented their always estimating justly the characters of their leaders. The gods of the popular worship, as seen through the turbid haze of party enthusiasm, en throned on lofty pinnacles, and radiant with undying glory, occasionally prove, in the clear atmosphere of historical truth, mean and grovel ling idols, having fronts of brass and feet of clay. With perhaps one exception, there is no public character of great mark that bears worse the strong light which modern research has thrown upon the 16th century than Henri Quatre, to whom flatterers have given the much-abused title of The Great. The exception is Queen Elizabeth of England, whose real character is so vividly presented to us in the confidential correspondence of the singularly able and crooked statesmen, who, in their own interests, propped her throne, and were the sport and the victims of her cunning hypocrisy and capricious humours.

Vain, false, cruel, crafty, inconstant, and sordidly avaricious, joining much that is most repulsive in the rioting passions of a fierce and gross masculine nature to the most unloveable failings of her own sex — the coarse ferocity and ruthless temper of Henry VIII., to the fickle selfishness of a coquette, and the caressing guile of a tigress — these traits of Elizabeth's character are apparent, even from the reluctant evidence of modern historians of her own party. But we find scarcely a trace of the glorious intellect, not a glimpse of the greatness of soul, which popular fancy has attributed to the last of the Tudor sovereigns. In truth, Henry's claims to the lofty titles which sectarian prejudice and national vanity have lavished on him rest on as slender foundations. He had the restless energy, the buoyant spirit, and the brilliant — if somewhat boastful — courage characteristic of the Gascons, with a sagacious sense and a strong love of his own interests, un clouded and unfettered by any motive or restraint, except the ephemeral chains woven by an in satiable propensity to gallantry.

He had a pleasant wit, frank and familiar manners, not always free from deceit, and, when his interests or his passions did not arouse what was tyrannical in his disposition, an easy good nature, which was prone to degenerate into weakness. What perhaps has contributed most to his wide popularity is the say ing attributed to him, that he wished every French peasant to have a fowl boiling in his pot. This is one of those sounding sentiments of visionary benevolence which captivate the minds of men, especially of Frenchmen ; and which, if it had expressed in any degree the policy of their ruler, would have entitled Tiim to the gratitude of his subjects. But it was merely a gush of cheap philanthropy which he exemplified by loading his impoverished kingdom, desolated by the wars of the League, with excessive taxation, in order to extort the means of indulging his costly vices, and of plunging unwilling Europe, without any just pre text, into a desperate conflict, an earlier unchain ing of the fiendish passions and the unutterable woes of the Thirty Years' War.

But circumstances were singularly favourable to Henri Quatre. The last three kings of the house of Valois, his predecessors and contem poraries, were among the least estimable of French sovereigns. The brilliant sceptre of Francis I. had descended to the vile brood of Catherine of Medicis, the sickly and feeble-minded Francis II. ; Charles IX., whose brief and unhappy life was a restless condition of morbid self-torture, passing at intervals from the sullen frenzy of brooding suspicion to the wild frenzy of unbridled rage ; Henry III., the most infamous of mankind. Before Henry IV. was entitled to claim the succession to the French crown, the family of Lorraine-Guise, the most illustrious on the splen did roll of French nobility — perhaps the most illustrious in modern annals — which had furnished two generations of champions and martyrs to the Catholic cause, the grand figures of the men towering above a race of giants, the women peerless in beauty, in cultivated intellect, and in the noble fortitude that vanquishes misfortune, had been robbed of its strength and its glory by the hands of assassins.

A branch of the house of Lorraine, in comparison with which even the royal race of Capet was mean, the Guises traced back their august lineage through a long line of warrior princes to the Imperial figure of Charle magne. By one of those strange revolutions which time brings about, the house of Lorraine, deriving its origin, from the great Frank who re-established the Roman empire of the west — after many centuries of inferior, though not obscure, sovereignty — had risen again to the summit of greatness in three generations of Roman Emperors, when the Imperial fabric crumbled beneath the sword of a conqueror greater even than Charlemagne,' Francis, Duke of Guise is, by universal consent, one of the most splendid and stainless characters in history. He possessed in a superlative degree all the qualities that attract admiration and love, and his life was a noble example of public and private virtue.

His six brothers stood in repute second only to him. The Cardinal of Lorraine, besides be ing renowned throughout Europe as a theolo gian and a scholar, was the most profound, vigorous, and accomplished statesman France has produced, with the exception of Cardinal Richelieu. Nor were the women of the family inferior to the men. For courage, capacity for government, virtue, and beauty, Mary, wife of James V. of Scotland, had no equal among the princesses of her time. The brilliant and engaging qualities, the ardent attachment to their faith, the deep mutual affection binding its members together in unwavering fidelity, the extraordinary majesty and beauty of person, worthy of its Imperial origin and Imperial spirit, that distinguished the entire family, gave it an indisputable pre-eminence which is recognised with an admiration rising to wonder in the diplomatic correspondence of the period.

The son of Francis, Henry Duke of Guise, if of a character less lofty and pure than his heroic father, rivalled him in military and political genius, in the strength of his religious convictions, and in the splendour of his personal gifts. It is in reference to him that the Duchess of Retz, the most accomplished and fastidious lady of the court of Catherine of Medicis, and by no means a partial critic, says, " Those princes of the house of Lorraine have so noble and majestic a mien that in comparison to them, all other men appear plebeian and common." But when Henry of Guise fell in the hour of his triumph, perfidiously mur dered by Henry II., as his father had been cut off in his career of victory by an assassin suborned by Coligni, the house of Lorraine-Guise and the Catholic cause fell under the leadership of the self-seeking and sluggish Mayenne.

To Mayenne Henri Quatre was as superior as he was inferior to either Duke of Guise. At the very beginning of the struggle between them, when the chances of success seemed decidedly on the side of the Catholic League, Pope Sixtus V. said that the Bearnais must win, because he spent less time in bed than Mayenne did at his meals. In fact, when Henry had once made up his mind to conform to the Catholic faith, the issue of the conflict was no longer doubtful. And when France had again become united, and the religious passions of the b time began to cool down, the religious element which had been the essential feature of the Civil War was gradually lost sight of, or purposely dis regarded in favour of the political element which had been an accident. The old national spirit of rivalry to Spain, which had been overpowered for a time by a still stronger sentiment, revived in all its former intensity.

The ex-Huguenot leader was forgotten in the gallant king who had freed France from the domination of Philip II. National vanity, personified in later times by Voltaire, has invested the only sovereign of the disastrous period of French history that followed the death of Henry II. — whose character or capacity was not con temptible — with all the qualities that should adorn a sage and a hero. Whether we regard Henry IV. from an intellectual or a moral point of view, his claims to greatness do not bear investigation. His talents as a ruler were not more than respectable. In the beginning of his reign, when his council was com posed of men of but ordinary ability, and not always of ordinary integrity, his affairs fell into a state of frightful confusion, with which he was utterly unable of himself to grapple.

It was only when he virtually surrendered the two great de partments of the administration to two very able men — Villeroy, the most expert of politicians ; and Sully, stern, frugal, and unscrupulous, whose one rule of conduct was devotion to the interests of his master — that his government exhibited skill in diplomacy, or order in finance. -Aud the most anxious cares of Sully were caused by the unkingly follies and caprices that constantly thwarted the great minister's labours. The military talents of Henry were not of a high order. It is true that he won great renown as the victor at Arques and Ivry. And so far as the heroic spirit of a leader determines the fate of battles, he deserved his renown. But, besides that, whatever of warlike skill existed at the time in France, and perhaps at no period was French generalship at so low an ebb, had enlisted under the royal banner, Henry had on his side the sloth, the indecision, and the incapacity of his opponent, Mayenne.

When pitted against the Duke of Parma, the contrast between the royal " Captain of Horse " and the consummate Spanish general was ludicrous. The ease with which the great master of war, although sinking under a mortal illness, twice led his small army from the Nether lands into the heart of France, baffling with the calm contempt of superior science every effort of the French King to retard his movements or compel him to fight, and, without a blow, raising the sieges of Rouen and Paris ; his astonishing feat of carrying his troops, which, during one of the paroxysms of his disorder, had been shut up without supplies and without apparent possibility of escape, in an angle of the Seine, near Rouen, across the broad and rapid river, in the face of his amazed foes, without the loss of a single man or a single gun ; and the deliberate skill with which, when he had accomplished his objects, he slowly marched back again into Flanders, the whole chivalry of the kingdom following on his track in helpless rage and mortification, inflicted greater humiliation on the French arms than the loss of two pitched battles.

The moral character of Henry was despicable. The facility with which he changed his belief , as if it was merely a garment, outraged even the lax public morality of that age. The more distin guished leaders of the Protestant party through out Europe, however eminent for parts and for force of will, were not, as a rule, influenced by deep religious convictions. As in the case of Maurice of Saxony, probably the ablest of them all, their religion was a part of their policy. They were statesmen who regarded the vehement theo logical ferment, that stirred in the minds of their followers, as a vigorous power, which, if skilfully directed, might achieve empire. But though for the greater part unencumbered with scruples, they generally maintained in their outer conduct a decent show of conformity to the opinions and feelings of their adherents.

Henry, however, with a cynical levity peculiar to himself, habitually adapted his creed to his interests. .And to this shameless disregard of obligations, the most sacred amongst men, which enabled him to take full advantage of the sentiment of hereditary right, so strongly cherished by Frenchmen at that time, he owed his success, far more than to his political or military abilities. When established on the throne, his personal conduct as a ruler was seldom shaped in consonance with any standard of high principle or enlightened statesmanship. When he was not tyrannical he was weak. He was always selfish. The most sacred motives of justice and of honour, the longest and most brilliant services, weighed as nothing in his mind in comparison with the policy or inclination of the moment. He was easily moved to tears, to bursts of hysterical emotion at a grief that touched him self.

He would weep piteously in recounting what he suffered from some ludicrous freak of a coquettish mistress. But he was incapable alike of large-minded benevolence, or of a generous and lasting attachment. With the exception of the old Marshal Biron, who had died for his cause, no one had done more to seat him on the throne than the Marshal's son, the Duke of Biron. They had long been sworn comrades and brothers-in-arms. Biron was vain and irritable. Rightly or wrongly, he entertained the belief that his services had not been sufficiently recompensed; that others less deserving had been preferred to himself. Smarting under a sense of injustice, he gave ear to the perfidious counsels of a secretary, and while commanding an army against the Duke of Savoy, allowed himself to be drawn into a treasonable correspondence with the enemies of France.

The negotiations, however, were still incomplete when he was struck with remorse, and, repairing to Lyons, confessed his treason to the King. Henry, taken by surprise, fell on his old friend's neck in a passion of tears, and granted him full pardon. After the termina tion of the war, Biron, who had retired to his government of Burgundy, received an invita tion from the King to repair to Fontainebleau. The missive contained the royal pledge that no harm should befal him. The Duke, contrary to the advice of his friends, went up to Court. He was received by Henry with a gush of tender affection, but after a few days, during which his movements were closely watched, he was suddenly arrested, and despite of pardon and pledge, was arraigned before the Parliament of Paris for the crime which had been condoned at Lyons, sentenced to death, and be headed on the Place de Greve.

It is true that Henry, who was keenly sensitive to the horror which this tyrannical act provoked throughout Europe, and to the feelings of indignation and distrust which it aroused in the French nobility, afterwards alleged, in his own justification, that proofs of new treasons on the part of Biron had come to light, and that the Duke's obstinacy in refusing to confess his guilt was the sole cause of his ruin. But Biron was entrapped by means of a formal pledge of safety sent to him by his sovereign when in full possession of all the evi dence. He denied to his last breath the additional accusations, which rested on the unsupported testimony of his secretary and tempter, a man of infamous character, who had been bought, if not suborned, by the Duke of Sully. .And the only really weighty charge preferred against the Duke at his trial, that which determined the judgment of the High Court, related to the acts which he did not deny, and for which he pleaded his sovereign's pardon.

Unfortunately for himself, in his reliance on the King's faith, he had scorned the prudent advice of the Constable Montmorenci to demand an official pardon under the Great Seal, which could have been produced in evidence ; and the remorseless policy of Sully, which, aimed by a terrible example to strike dismay into the haughty and turbulent nobles who treated him with open disdain, worked on the jealous fears of Henry, and rendered Biron's confidence in his master fatal to himself. Many other well-known incidents of his reign indicated, though in a less tragical way, how greatly, where the claims of past service and tried friendship clashed with a present purpose, Henry was prone to the ignoble vice of ingratitude. But it is in his relations with the fairer half of his subjects which formed not the least important feature in the history of his reign, and brought him into disgraceful collision with his young kins man, the Prince of Conde, that the true character of this king is most clearly seen.

In truth, it is difficult to conceive two human beings more essentially different than the Henri Quatre of Romance, the soul of chivalry, the wise and mag nanimous sovereign, the idol of the brave and the fair, and the Henri Quatre, mean-spirited, tyrannical, jealous, infatuated, supremely ridiculous, who has been sketched by the friendly pens of Sully, the Princess of Conti, Bassompierre, and others, among his most intimate associates. The slave of his passion for the sex, he seems never to have succeeded in gaming the love or respect of a woman. It is not easy to say whether his mar riages or his liaisons reflect more discredit on himself, or were more prolific of troubles to the State. His first wife, the beautiful and accomplished Margaret of Valbis, had been deeply attached in early life to Henry, Duke of Guise.

Charles IX., her brother, incited to a frantic jealousy of his great subject by the arts of her second brother, the Duke of Anjou, threatened to kill Guise with his own hand if he persisted in a suit in which his affections were engaged ; and is said to have resorted to personal violence to compel his sister to a union which she loathed. Despising and detesting a husband who took her for political convenience, and then in order to secure freedom in the pursuit of his pleasures, accorded her similar liberty of conduct, Margaret abandoned herself to shameless excesses. The marriage, irregular in itself, and endured with repugnance, proved unfruitful. Henry afterwards wrung from Margaret, when her kindred were all dead, and her friends abenated by her misconduct, a consent to a divorce, by threatening her with a public trial for the profligacy at which he had connived.

His second wife, Mary of Medicis, was a woman of high spirit and quick temper. The open insults passed on her by her husband and his imperious mistress, the Marchioness of Verneuil, who publicly challenged the validity of her mar riage, provoked her beyond endurance. The Court was torn by angry contentions. Domestic grievances generated dangerous political cabals, and the almost daily task of allaying the mutual animosities of the king, his wife and his mistress, severely taxed the patience and skill of Sully. Sounds of recrimination and violence frequently burst from the royal apartments. On one occasion Henry rushedundressedfrom his wife's bedchamber to complain to Sully that she had struck him in the face, and to concert measures with his minister for obtaining another divorce. So notorious were the quarrels of the royal pair, that on the assassi nation of the King, the crime was popularly attributed to the joint contrivance of Mary of Medicis and her former rival, the Marchioness of Verneuil, whom common thirst for revenge was supposed to have united for his destruction.