Marie De Médicis (1573–1642)

MARIE DE MÉDICIS (1573–1642)

MARIE DE MÉDICIS (1573–1642), queen of France (1600–1610) and regent (1610–1617) for her son, Louis XIII. Marie de Médicis, the daughter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Archduchess of Austria, was born in Florence. Though her upbringing was marred by the early death of her mother and her father's neglect, she received an excellent education, which, in keeping with family tradition, gave her a sound foundation in the fine arts. In 1600 she was married to Henry IV of France (ruled 1589–1610) and took up residence in the Louvre the following year. She bore five children; a daughter, Henrietta-Maria, married Charles I of England; a son succeeded his father to the throne as Louis XIII. She is remembered in part as one of the most troublesome queen mothers in history—a lightning rod for discontent with her son's reign and especially with his chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu. But she also should be noted for her considerable patronage of the arts and her extensive building projects that still grace Paris.

After the assassination of her husband in 1610, Marie was made regent by the Parlement of Paris. Though politically inexperienced, she was not lacking in ambition: she was after all a Medici and confidently seized control of royal authority. Seeking peace to ensure tranquillity at home, she reversed Henry's anti-Habsburg policy, withdrew France's armies from Europe, and struck up an alliance with Spain that was sealed with the marriage of the fifteen-year-old Louis XIII to the Spanish Infanta, Anne of Austria. Her regency, however, was marked by instability. The weakness of royal authority invited a resurgence of aristocratic expectations of power sharing, and ultimately led to the calling of the Estates-General in 1614. The distribution of pensions and other spoils to great noblemen drained the treasury but did not prevent their mounting discontent. Several princes of the realm abandoned the court and threatened open revolt, the Huguenots grew restive at the prospect of royal wavering from the guarantees of the Edict of Nantes, and the prince of Condé was eventually arrested for challenging the queen's authority. Some of this discontent was really disguised opportunism in the face of a weakened royal authority under the regency. But some can be blamed on Marie's own poor judgment, in particular the promotion of her favorite, Concino Concini, to the point where this Italian outsider dominated both the court and the royal council. Indignation against Concini was compounded by the dubious reputation of his wife, Leonora Galigai, Marie's childhood friend.

The reign of the favorite and Marie's regency came dramatically to an end with the intervention of her son. In 1617 the fifteen-year-old Louis XIII instigated a veritable coup d'état against the favorite, which ended with the arrest of Marie and the deaths of the Concinis. Thus began nearly fifteen years of contretemps between Marie and her son, adding to the instability of Louis XIII's early reign. With the aid of her younger son, Gaston d'Orléans, Marie managed to escape from her captivity in 1619 and raised her standard against the king. Beaten in battle, she was reconciled with Louis through the good graces of Bishop Richelieu of Luçon, who soon entered the royal council. Though initially allied to Marie, Richelieu became the king's loyal servant and was instrumental in once again setting France on a course of opposition to Habsburg domination of Europe. Aided by Gaston, Marie actively conspired against Richelieu, hoping to depose him as chief minister. On the night of 10–11 November 1630, the so-called Day of Dupes, she nearly got her way. The king led her to believe that he was acceding to her demand to have Richelieu dismissed, but then in a dramatic turnaround backed his chief minister, arrested Marie, and subsequently put on trial those ministers most closely associated with her. Once again Marie managed to escape from her imprisonment in Compiègne and sought refuge in the Low Countries.

Marie's exile lasted until her death in Cologne in 1642. Though her political power was certainly diminished, she continued to exert influence as a rallying point for Richelieu's opponents. Mathieu de Morgues, a writer formerly in service to Richelieu, joined her entourage in Brussels and launched a barrage of pamphlets that attacked both the cardinal-minister's "tyranny" and France's anti-Habsburg policies and defended Marie de Médicis.

Beyond her political legacy, Marie played a role as a major patron of the arts. Shortly after Henry IV's assassination, she engaged Salomon de Brosse to begin work on a new palace, one that would prove more suitable than the dour, somewhat medieval Louvre as the residence of a queen. Completed in 1623, the Luxembourg Palace combined French tastes with Italian splendor. Its interior, the "Medici Gallery," was graced with a series of enormous paintings (now in the Louvre in Paris) executed by Peter Paul Rubens depicting "The Life of Marie de' Medici" from her birth to her reconciliation with the king in 1619.

See also Henry IV (France) ; Louis XIII (France) ; Medici Family ; Richelieu, Armand-Jean Du Plessis, cardinal ; Rubens, Peter Paul .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Carmona, Michel. Marie de Médicis. Paris, 1981.

Castelot, André. Marie de Médicis. Les désordres de la passion. Paris, 1995.

Millen, Ronald Forsyth, and Robert Erich Wolf. Heroic Deeds and Mystic Figures: A New Reading of Rubens' Life of Maria De' Medici. Princeton, 1999.

Robert A. Schneider