Marie de' Medici

Marie de' Medici, wife of Henry IV. of France, was the daughter of Francis I., Grand-duke of Tuscany, and was born at Florence, 26th April 1573. She was married to Henry, 16th December 1600, and in the following September gave birth to a son, afterwards Louis XIII. The union, however, did not prove happy. Marie was an obstinate and passionate woman, and her quarrels with the king soon became the talk of Paris. She was wholly under the influence of her favourites, Leonore Galigaï and her husband Concini, and was by them encouraged in her dislike to her husband. The murder of Henry (May 14, 1610) did not greatly grieve her, although it is not true that she was privy to the plot. For the next seven years she governed as regent, but proved as worthless a ruler as she had been a wife. After the murder of Concini (24th April 1617), whom she had created Marquis d'Ancre, a domestic revolution took place, and the young Louis XIII. assumed royal power. The queen was confined to her own house, and her son refused to see her. Her partisans tried to bring about a civil war, but their attempts proved futile; and by the advice of Richelieu, then Bishop of Luçon, she made her submission to her son in 1619, and took her place at court. Marie hoped to win over Richelieu to her party, but she soon found out that he had no mind to be ruled by her, whereupon she tried to undermine his influence with the king. Her intrigues for this purpose failed; she was imprisoned in Compiègne, whence she escaped and fled to Brussels in 1631. Her last years were spent in utter destitution, and she is said to have died in a hayloft at Cologne, 3d July 1642. She loved the fine arts, and Paris owes to her the Luxembourg. See the Life by Miss Pardoe (2d ed. 3 vols. 1852).