Marie de Médicis, born April 26, 1573 in Florence, died July 3, 1642 in Cologne, Queen of France from 1600 to 1610, Queen Mother until her death in 1642.
Marie is the sixth child of Francis I de' Medici (1541-1587), Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Jeanne (1548-1578), Archduchess of Austria, daughter of Ferdinand I of the Holy Empire and Anne Jagiellon.
She married King Henry IV on December 16, 1600 in Lyon. Ballet performer, collector, her artistic patronage contributes to the development of the arts in France. Close to the artists of her native Florence, she was trained in drawing by Jacopo Ligozzi.
She is the mother of:
* Louis XIII, King of France
* Elisabeth, Queen of Spain
* Christine, Duchess of Savoy
* Nicolas, the "nameless prince" (1607-1611)
* Gaston, Duke of Orléans
* Henrietta, Queen of England.
Queen of France
The marriage of Henri IV with Marie de Médicis answered above all for the king of France to dynastic and financial concerns. Indeed, the Medici, creditor bankers of the King of France, promised a dowry of a total amount of 600,000 gold crowns, which gave the queen the nickname of "the fat banker".
His arrival in France in Marseille, after his Florentine marriage by proxy and before the ceremony in Lyon, is resounding. Two thousand people make up his suite. It was Antoinette de Pons, Marquise de Guercheville and lady-in-waiting to the future queen who was responsible for welcoming her to Marseille. The marquise had resisted the king's gallant projects so well that the latter had said to her:"Since you are really lady-in-waiting, you will be one of the queen, my wife". He keeps his word and the task of going to receive her in Marseille. After disembarking, Marie de Médicis joined her husband in Lyon where they spent their first wedding night.
Marie de Médicis was quickly pregnant and gave birth to the dauphin Louis on September 27, 1601, to the great satisfaction of the king and the kingdom, who had been waiting for the birth of a dauphin for more than forty years. Marie continued her role as a wife and gave her husband numerous offspring.
Marie de Médicis does not always get along with Henri IV. With a very jealous temperament, she cannot stand her husband's feminine adventures, and his many indelicacy towards her. Indeed he forces her to rub shoulders with her mistresses, and often refuses her the money necessary to pay all the expenses she intends to make to show everyone her royal rank. Household scenes take place between the two spouses, followed by periods of relative peace. Marie de Médicis is very keen to be officially crowned Queen of France, but Henri IV, for various reasons, political in particular, postpones the ceremony. It was not until May 13, 1610, and the forecast of a long absence of the king - Henri IV leaving to lead "an armed promenade" to settle a political problem between the princes of the Holy Empire, the affair of Cleves and Juliers - for that the queen be crowned in the Basilica of Saint-Denis in Saint-Denis and make her official entry into Paris. The next day, the king is assassinated.
The Regent
When Henri IV died on May 14, 1610, Marie de Médicis ensured the regency in the name of her son, Louis XIII, aged only 9, far too young to reign by himself. Marie is involved in the political affairs of France. She begins by keeping her husband's advisers. Afterwards, she parted ways. Regent, in a position of weakness with regard to the nobility of the kingdom and its European neighbours, she had no choice but to break with the policy of Henri IV, of reconquering French power, by making peace with Spain. In 1615, this rapprochement took the form of a double Franco-Spanish marriage. His daughter, Elisabeth, married the Infante Philip IV of Spain and his son, King Louis XIII, married Anne, Infanta of Spain.
The policy of the queen nevertheless causes discontent. On the one hand, Protestants are worried about Mary's rapprochement with His Most Catholic Majesty, the King of Spain, Philip III. On the other hand, Marie de Médicis, tries to strengthen the monarchical power, with the help of men like Concino Concini, husband of her foster sister, and ladies in finery like Leonora Galigaï which deeply displeases a certain part of the French nobility. The latter, tempted by xenophobia, designates as responsible the Italian immigrants supposed to surround Marie de Medici and harm the kingdom of France, by enriching themselves to the detriment of the French nobility. Taking advantage of the weakness caused by the regency, nobles from large families with the Prince of Condé at their head, revolted against Marie de Médicis to also obtain financial compensation.
It was many years later, when Marie de Médicis was exiled by her son, that the black legend of Marie de Médicis was slowly born:we then speak of the rise to power of her Italian favourites, of the financial waste caused by the financial appetite of the queen and her entourage, of the awkwardness and corruption of her policy which would have dominated under the government of Marie de Medici. Moreover, the queen and the king her son get along badly. Feeling humiliated by the behavior of his mother, in 1617, Louis XIII organized a coup d'etat by having Concino Concini assassinated. Taking power, he exiles the queen mother to the castle of Blois.
The political and cultural return
In 1619, the queen escaped from her prison and provoked an uprising against the king, her son ("war of mother and son"). A first treaty, the Treaty of Angoulême, negotiated by Richelieu, appeases the conflict. But the Queen Mother not being satisfied, relaunches the war by rallying the Greats of the kingdom to her cause ("second war of mother and son"). The noble coalition was quickly defeated at the Battle of Ponts-de-Cé by the king who pardoned his mother and the princes.
Aware that he could not avoid the formation of conspiracies as long as Marie de Médicis remained in exile, the king accepted her return to court. She then returned to Paris, where she attached herself to the construction of her Luxembourg Palace. On the death of Charles d'Albert, Duke of Luynes in 1622, she gradually made her political comeback. Richelieu played an important role in his reconciliation with the king. He even managed to bring the Queen Mother back to the King's Council.
At that time, Marie de Médicis played a very important role as patron of Parisian life by commissioning numerous paintings, notably from Guido Reni and especially from Rubens whom she brought from Antwerp for the execution of a gallery of paintings. devoted to his life. Nowadays, there are 22 paintings that are kept in the Louvre.
The fall and exile
Marie de Medici continues to attend the King's Council following the advice of Richelieu whom she introduced to the King as minister. Over the years, she does not notice the rising power of her protege and client. When she becomes aware of this, she breaks with the cardinal and seeks by all means to oust him. Still not understanding the personality of the king her son and still believing that it would be easy for her to demand the disgrace of Richelieu, she tried to obtain the dismissal of the minister. After the famous Day of Dupes, November 12, 1630, Richelieu remains the main minister and Marie de Medici is forced to reconcile with him.
She finally decides to withdraw from the court. The king, judging her too intriguing, managed to get her to leave for the Château de Compiègne. From there, she managed to flee to Brussels in 1631, where she intended to plead her case. Having taken refuge with the enemies of France, Marie was deprived of her status as Queen of France and therefore of her pensions.
For several years, she traveled to European courts, in England and then in Germany, without ever being able to return to France. Taking refuge in the house where Pierre-Paul Rubens was born, she died in 1642, a few months before Richelieu.