Chapter 13 Pamphleteering and Honour in Early Modern France: the Wars of the Mother and Son, 1619–1620

Edwin Andrew Goi

In the early hours of 22 February 1619, the Queen Mother of Louis xiii, Marie de Médicis, escaped from her captivity in the Château de Blois with the help of Jean-Louis de Nogaret de La Valette, Duc d’Épernon. She bolted towards Éper- non’s gouvernement of Angoulême, from where she would launch the first of her two rebellions against her son, which contemporaries coined as ‘the Wars of the Mother and Son’. Marie de Médicis was the and guardian of the kingdom’s affairs during Louis xiii’s minority and adolescence. Her political inaptitude and insensitivity, however, led her to adopt several unpopular poli- cies and favour her Florentine companions, Concino Concini and his spouse, Leonora Galigaï, too excessively. Marie alienated the of a faction led by Henri ii de Bourbon, de Condé and provoked them into four armed rebellions between 1614 and 1617.1 But when she came close to defeating the princes in April 1617, Louis xiii, exasperated with his continued exclusion from political affairs by the Queen Mother and her minister-favourite, decided to seize power. He had Concini assassinated and Marie exiled to Blois. Marie de Médicis’s subsequent escape and rebellion came as no surprise. Many were aware of her longstanding dissatisfaction with her new predica- ment and the ’s new regime. Marie resented the King’s own minister-­ favourite, Charles d’Albert, Duc de Luynes. She blamed him for her exile and house arrest at Blois, her frosty relationship with the King and her failures to secure a return to court. She also felt slighted by the King’s neglect to consult her on or invite her to the wedding of her daughter, Christine de France, to ­Victor Amadeus i, Prince of Piedmont.2

1 I am currently working on a doctoral dissertation which will illuminate the political contests of 1614–1617 and explore how pamphlets were used in the princely rebellions. One of its chap- ters will examine how aristocratic concerns with law and honour shaped the production and contents of the pamphlets. 2 Sharon Kettering, Power and Reputation at the Court of Louis xiii: The Career of Charles d’Albert, duc de Luynes (1578–1621) (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008), pp. 143–144.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:10.1163/9789004402522_015

Pamphleteering and Honour in Early Modern France 235

Marie de Médicis’s first rebellion was, however, a fiasco. She was unable to obtain the assistance of the political nation beyond Épernon. So with the royal armies closing in, Marie was forced to accept Louis xiii’s terms in the Treaty of Angoulême. But the treaty would not appease her for long. The King and Luynes were constantly late in their payments of her debts and more frustrat- ingly, they continued to exclude her from important decisions despite their publicised promises of goodwill.3 Marie, for instance, was not consulted on the appointment of a new for her favourite son, Gaston d’Orléans, or the proposed match between her daughter, Henriette-Marie de France, and the Prince of Wales.4 The King and Luynes’s decision to release her arch-enemy, Condé, from prison was the last straw. Marie correctly discerned the King and Luynes’s ploy to use the premier prince du sang as a counterweight to her. The King’s declaration which absolved Condé and attributed his incarceration to the abuse of power in 1616, she reckoned with reason, was no more than a pub- lic swipe at her late government.5 Feeling humiliated and victimised, Marie de Médicis raised the standards of rebellion once more in April 1620. She could count on the support of many such as the Comte de Soissons and the Ducs de Mayenne, Épernon, Vendôme, La Trémoille, Retz, Rohan and Longueville this time. But their com- mon hatred for Luynes, whose royal favour had become highly visible and scandalous in the past nine months, was not enough to bind the malcontent party together. The armed rebellion, though impressive on paper, lacked a clear leader and was impaired by the confederates’ divergent interests. Louis xiii was hence able to contain and suppress it quickly.6 And when he routed the main rebel armies at Pont-de-Cé, Marie had little choice but to accept the King’s new terms in the Treaty of Angers. The Wars of the Mother and Son were significant as the first major test for Louis xiii’s personal rule and an event which paved way for the political as- cendancy of Armand-Jean du Plessis, later Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu. The re- bellions, however, were also significant as a testament to the continued use of printed pamphlets in the conduct of power politics. The first rebellion saw the publication of at least 240 separate editions of pamphlets, and the second rebellion, 284. The Queen Mother’s party was out-published by the King’s by 184 to 340 editions. These political pamphlets were traditionally, and rightly,

3 Joseph Bergin, The Rise of Richelieu (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), p. 199. 4 Kettering, Power and Reputation, p. 147. 5 Bergin, The Rise of Richelieu, pp. 199–201. 6 Richard Bonney, The King’s Debts: Finance and Politics in France 1589–1661 (Oxford: , 1981), p. 104.