Médicis, Marie de (1573–1642)

The queen consort of King Henry IV of France. The daughter of Francesco de' Medici, the Duke of Tuscany, and the Archduchess Joanna of Austria, she married Henry in 1600. When Henry was assassinated in 1610, she served as regent for their son and successor, Louis XIII. She made a truce with the Habsburg dynasty, the traditional enemies of France, and allied with Spain through the marriage of her son Louis to Anne, a princess of the Habsburg clan. In control of the royal treasury, she squandered vast sums on court festivities and on bribes to nobles hostile to the crown. She also ordered important building projects in the capital of Paris, gracing the city with imposing monuments and palaces, including the Luxembourg Palace on the city's formerly neglected Left Bank. This palace was decorated with an important series of paintings describing her life, by the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens.

Marie's regency saw trouble brewing among the French nobility, which was asserting ancient rights to balance the authority of the king. A general assembly known as the Estates General was convened in 1614; at the same time Marie promoted an Italian friend, Concino Concini, to a powerful position within the government over the capable Duc de Sully. Resentment at the meddling of this outsider hardened opposition to the monarchy. Louis came to the throne in 1617, three years after his age of majority. Concini was assassinated on Louis' orders in the same year and the young king soon exiled his mother to the castle of Blois, fearing conspiracies on her part against him. In 1619 Marie escaped her virtual captivity and raised an open revolt against her son, but her forces were defeated. The son and his mother were reconciled in 1622, with Marie advancing her ally Cardinal Richelieu to the position of the king's chief minister. Within a few years Richelieu and Marie de' Médicis were adversaries, with the king eventually siding with Richelieu and again banishing Marie. After she mounted a foiled coup against the king, she was exiled by the king, this time to the city of Compiegne and then out of the kingdom permanently. Marie fled to the Netherlands, where she continued to rally opponents of Richelieu in hopes of returning to Paris in control of the royal court. She failed, however, and lived a shadowy life as an exile until her death in 1642.

See Also: Bourbon dynasty