The Life of Marie de Medicis, Queen of France, Consort of Henri IV, and Regent of the Kingdom under Louis XIII — Volume 2Pardoe, Miss (Julia)
History
The Life of Marie de Medicis, Queen of France, Consort of Henri IV, and Regent of the Kingdom under Louis XIII — Volume 2
Pardoe, Miss (Julia)
Marie de Médicis, Queen, consort of Henry IV, King of France, 1573-1642
From the moment in which the King decided upon personally superseding
the Maréchal de Lesdiguières[12] in his command of the army in
Champagne, he had been unwearied in his advice to the Queen for the
efficient government of the country. He exhorted her to great caution in
changing her ministers, earnestly impressing upon her the danger of
entrusting state affairs to individuals whose probity and experience
were not well assured, or of displacing others without great and serious
cause. He, moreover, especially besought her never to permit the
interference of foreigners in the internal economy of the kingdom, as by
such ill-placed confidence she could not fail to alienate from herself
the affections of all true Frenchmen; to uphold the authority of the
Parliament, but on no account to countenance its dictation, confining
its operations to their legitimate sphere, and enforcing its submission
to her own delegated supremacy; never to suffer herself to be misled by
her passions or prejudices, but to weigh all her measures maturely
before she insisted upon their enforcement; to protect the Jesuits, but
at the same time to be careful not to allow them to increase their
numbers, or to form establishments upon the frontiers; to attach the
nobility by favours which could not endanger the interests of the
throne, but to be cautious in her concessions where they might tend to
any undue aggrandizement of their former power and influence; and, above
all, not rashly to undertake any war against the Huguenots until she had
received full assurance of being enabled to terminate it successfully.
As regarded the Dauphin, he declared that his greatest desire was to see
him the husband of Mademoiselle de Lorraine, provided the Duke should
not have other children; as, in such case, the French nation would be
aggrandized by the territories of a state from which it had received
much and grievous injury. He expressed, moreover, the greatest
repugnance to the proposed marriage between Madame Elisabeth and the
Infant of Spain, alleging as his reason the perpetual rivalry of the two
powers, and the circumstance that the prosperity of the one must
necessarily involve the abasement of the other; and finally he declared
that were he compelled to give the hand of his daughter to a Spanish
Prince, it should be to a younger brother who might be declared Duke of
Flanders, and not to the heir to the throne.[13]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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