Marie de Medicis: A Life in the Louvre
Guylaine Spencer
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A famous portrait of Marie de
Medicis by Peter Paul Rubens, c.
1621/1625. Told by a seer that
she would become the Queen of
France, Marie did become the
wife of King Henri IV, and her
life story is filled with joy,
betrayal, and heartbreak.
Click image to enlarge.
In this article, the author recounts the life of Queen Marie de Medicis of France (1573-1643), whose famous paintings by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens hang today in the Medicis Gallery of the Louvre.
Queen Marie de Medicis may not draw as many admirers as Mona Lisa does, but in some ways she is even more intriguing than her mysterious neighbor. The lady depicted in the Medicis Gallery paintings by Rubens in the Louvre was in modern terms a superwoman who had it all--money, power, husband, kids--then lost it all. Her riches-to-rags tale is full of blood, betrayal, conspiracy, and violent struggles for the throne.
Marie was born in Florence on April 26, 1573 to Francois de Medicis of the famous banking family and Jeanne d'Autriche, a princess from Innsbruck. Her mother died when she was only five, and although her father married his mistress in a private ceremony only a few weeks after the death, Marie never developed a close relationship with her stepmother Bianca. The little girl lost two siblings to early deaths, and her surviving sister married and left the country. Her father died when she was fourteen years old, at which point her Uncle Ferdinand became her guardian.
Although Marie received an excellent foundation in science and the arts, she was being prepared for one career only: wife and mother. An incident in her youth, however, must have given her hope for a more worldly future: A seer told Marie that she was destined to be the Queen of France.
When Marie came of age, Uncle Ferdinand began to look for a suitable spouse for her. Finally, the perfect prospect appeared. Forty-five-year-old King Henri IV of France was married, but the couple had no offspring. Henri's illegitimate children could not succeed to the throne. Henri therefore needed a new wife, and one with money, for the king had expensive hobbies--war and women--and was chronically in debt.
Although a painting in the "Life of Marie" series shows Love giving the King a portrait of Marie, neither love nor beauty counted for anything in this deal. The marriage negotiations were about money, period. The financial tug-of-war was further complicated by Henri's ongoing romantic entanglements. During the course of the prolonged dealings, the King's mistress, Gabrielle d'Estrees, became pregnant, and speculation arose that the king just might risk the scandal--and the ire of his financial advisors--and marry his lover. Luckily for the Florentine cause, though, Gabrielle died in April 10, 1599, leaving only the king's wife as an impediment. This barrier was removed when the pope annulled Henri's marriage in December 1599.
Throughout the spring of 1600, Marie and Henri conducted a brief courtship through letters. On October 5, 1600, an odd wedding ceremony--the first of two--took place in Florence. Although the bride was there, the groom was absent. Elaborate citywide celebrations followed. Then, on October 9, 1600, Marie left Florence. In November she landed at Marseilles.
Henri caught up with his bride in December in Lyon, where the French wedding ceremony was held. To Marie, accustomed to Medicis opulence, the ceremonies must have looked modest indeed.
Slowly, reality began to sink in. Marie's dream of becoming the Queen of France had finally come true, but it was not all as glorious as she had perhaps imagined. She still spoke little French, and she was shocked by the familiar, informal way that the French treated her. Introverted by nature, Marie also chafed at the lack of privacy that was part of her new public life.
The honeymoon with Henri didn't last long, either. Shortly after the wedding, the King abruptly left his new bride in Lyon to join his latest favorite, Henriette d'Entraigues.
This young woman, known later as the Marquise de Verneuil, was destined to become Marie's greatest rival. Beautiful and manipulative, and skilled in sarcasm, Henriette's ambition matched Marie's own. She had, in fact, sold herself to the King in exchange for a written promise on his behalf that he would marry her if she bore him a son.
Almost immediately upon Marie's arrival in court, the King introduced her to Henriette with the words, "This lady has been my mistress; she desires to be your personal servant." Marie responded civilly but inside she burned. To make matters worse, Louis soon gave Henriette rooms in the Louvre above Marie's own apartments.
Marie lost no time fulfilling her duty as producer of heirs. Louis III was born in the first year of marriage on October 6, 1601. Marie had to endure the humiliating experience of giving birth in her bedroom surrounded by a crowd of nobles, who were there to ensure that the first child was indeed the offspring of the Queen. For an introverted woman like Marie, this must have been traumatic, even worse than the overly familiar French manners that she was still having trouble accepting. Marie bore six babies in ten years.
Unfortunately for Marie, six weeks after the birth of the dauphin, her rival gave birth to her own son. Henriette immediately announced to the court that now, based on her contract with the King, she was the queen and her son was the dauphin. The King, infatuated with Henriette, ignored the Queen's pleas for help and kept both of the women half-way between hope and despair.
Marie found she could do nothing to change the king. When she complained too much, he threatened to send her back to Florence. Once she even tried to slap him, but Duc de Sully, the king's advisor, stepped in to prevent the affront, saying: "Are you mad, Madame?" he said. "He could have your head off in half-an-hour!"
In 1610, after ten years of marriage, the king agreed to Marie's coronation to ensure his son's future in the event of his early death. In later years, Marie recalled this as the most beautiful day of her life. The coronation took place in St-Denis Cathedral.
The next day, on May 14 at 4 p.m., tragedy struck the nation. In Rue de la Ferronerie, the King was killed by an assassin. The murderer, a religious fanatic, acted alone, but immediately after the event, no one knew if other plotters were behind the murder, or if any further murders were planned. Louis III was only eight years old at the time, so Marie was declared regent.
During her regency, Marie brought global artistic influences to France by bringing in artists from abroad and sponsoring artistic apprenticeship. In 1612 she acquired the Luxembourg property and started planning a home along the lines of the Pitti Palace in Florence--again bringing a foreign flavor to Paris. It was the beginning of Paris' famous cosmopolitanism that we still appreciate today. Marie also treated Paris to ballets and opera, and opened tapestry workshops for impoverished girls. She founded the Hospital of Charity and l'Hopital des Pauvres-Enfermes.
Politically, Marie's policy was generally one of pacification. Externally, she sought to strengthen alliances with Spain by betrothing her daughter to the future Philip IV of Spain and her son Louis III to Anne of Austria, daughter of King Philip III of Spain.
Internally, too, Marie's policy was to maintain the peace, even if it meant throwing money at power-hungry nobles. "I'd rather spend money than blood," Marie said.
The biggest threat to the Crown was the Prince de Conde, a nephew of Henri IV. When he failed to defeat Marie's armies in battle, he spread rumors that she was mismanaging finances and that she had plotted to murder her husband. In 1616, he tried unsuccessfully to seize the throne. Marie grabbed Conde and threw him in jail.
Perhaps Marie was so occupied with the threat from the rebel nobles that she didn't see another threat, within the Louvre itself.
On October 6, 1614, at his ceremony of majority, thirteen-year-old Louis XIII had thanked his mother the queen for her regency and asked her to continue to govern as before. But the child's passivity wouldn't last forever.
While still a teenage boy, Louis fell under the influence of a young man in his service, the royal hawker. Luynes convinced the malleable Louis that his mother and her advisor Concini were plotting to have him killed so that she could put her favorite, younger son, on the throne in his place. On April 23, 1617, Louis and Luynes staged a coup d'etat, murdered Concini, and then locked Marie into the Louvre.
When Marie discovered what was happening, she asked to see her son, but he refused. Instead, he sent workers to her apartment to seal three of her four exit doors, put bars on her windows and demolished the bridge from her room to a garden near the river. They also seized her childhood friend, Leonora, Concini's wife. She was eventually put on trial, condemned as a witch, and beheaded then burned at Place de Greve.
Isolated, frightened and deprived of counsel and comfort, Marie turned to a new advisor, Cardinal Richelieu. His name now adorns the wing of the Louvre that houses Marie's portraits. Ostensibly on the Queen's behalf but really for his own ends, he negotiated an agreement with the King. On May 3, Marie left Paris for Blois and supposedly permanent retirement.
The castle turned out to be a prison. After nearly two years in virtual house arrest, Marie escaped from the castle through a window on February 22, 1619. After battles between the king and Marie's allies, a treaty was signed, permitting Marie to return to Paris and the king's council.
Once back home, Marie set to work on Luxembourg Palace, and commissioned Rubens to paint two series of works: the "Life of Marie" and the "Life of Henri IV."
In 1630, however, Marie found herself voicing concerns over the increasingly aggressive direction of the state, and her son banished her once again, this time to Compiegne. In July of 1631, Marie made her second daring escape and fled to Brussels.
For the next eleven years, she lived the life of a wandering exile and outcast, boarding with friends here and there and with her daughter in England until political pressures forced her to move on. For a while her son Gaston, second in line to the throne, sided with his mother, but eventually Louis bought off the fickle boy and Gaston abandoned Marie.
In the meantime, Louis treated his mother as a public enemy, forbidding her return to France. He tried to bribe her into moving to Florence with promises of money, but Marie no longer thought of Italy as her home. She continued to dream of returning to Paris. Even in exile, the determined ex-queen tried to influence French politics; she wrote to the French parliament to warn them of Richelieu's plans to attack Germany, Italy, Spain and Holland--nations headed by some of her own offspring.
Eventually the moves and stress caught up with her. In the last years, this formerly wealthy banker's daughter was forced to sell her carpets, art and even her dishes to pay her bills.
Finally, on July 3, 1642, Marie died in Cologne, at the age of sixty-nine, after two weeks of physical agony. Cause of death? A combination of tuberculosis and cardiac trouble.
In February 1643, her remains were brought back to Paris. Despite the King's orders that there be no ceremonies for her along the way, people stopped the cortege en route to pay their respects to the former queen. Her funeral, held in St-Denis, was a modest affair, a sad contrast to her glorious day of coronation in that church.
It is fitting that the "Life of Marie de Medicis" paintings now hang in the Louvre. The exiled Queen has returned to her palace, where visitors can see her safely ensconced in her original seat of power and glory.
For related articles, visit The World & I Online archives:
--"The Gems of Florence: Renaissance Masterpieces Bring the City to Life," by Martin Gani, September 1998. (Article #17785)
--"Rubens: The Great Fleming," by Herb Greer, March 2005. (Article #24391)
Guylaine Spencer is a writer based in Ontario, Canada, whose
work has appeared in Americas, 50Plus,
International Living, and other publications.
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