The kingdom was at peace, but anarchy still reigned within the walls of the palace.  It is true that the advancing age of the monarch appeared to offer a sufficient guarantee for his moral reformation, but the daily experience of the Queen sufficed to convince her that she must never hope for domestic happiness; and this conviction doubtless tended to place her more thoroughly in the power of those treacherous advisers who, in order to strengthen their own influence, did not hesitate to exaggerate (where exaggeration was possible) the painful errors of her husband.  She saw herself idolized by the people, who regarded her with earnest affection as the mother of two Princes whom they looked upon as pledges for the safety and prosperity of France, while she found herself at the same time an object of indifference to the monarch whom they were destined to succeed; and who, while he lavished upon his children incessant tokens of tenderness, sacrificed her personal happiness to every passing fancy, even at the time when he affected to reproach her with a coldness of which he was himself the cause.

Again we fearlessly repeat that the historians of the time have not done Marie de Medicis justice.  They expatiate upon her faults, they enlarge upon her weaknesses, they descant upon her errors; but they touch lightly and carelessly upon the primary influences which governed her after-life.  She arrived in her new kingdom young, hopeful, and happy—­young, and her youth was blighted by neglect; hopeful, and her hopes were crushed by unkindness; happy, and her happiness was marred by inconstancy and insult.  Her woman-nature, plastic as it might have been under more fortunate circumstances, became indurated to harshness; and it is not they who strive to work upon the most solid marble who should complain if the chisel with which they pursue their purpose become blunted in the process.

On the 5th of September of this year died M. de Bellievre, the Chancellor of France, whose probity and justice had rendered him dear to the people, in whose eyes the withdrawal of his Court favour only tended to enhance his valuable qualities.  He was, as a natural consequence, succeeded by Brulart de Sillery, who had already superseded him as Keeper of the Seals; and his body was attended to the church of St. Germain-l’Auxerrois by a vast concourse of the citizens.

His demise was, in November, followed by that of the Cardinal de Lorraine,[371] who, with the usual superstition of the age, was declared to have been bewitched because his malady had baffled the skill of his physicians; while that which renders the circumstance the more melancholy, is the fact that the individual accused of his destruction was burned alive at Nancy, after having been previously subjected to a course of lingering torture.[372]