ANCRE (MARSHAL D’), AND WIFE.

Concino Concini, known by the name of marshal d’Ancre, abused the goodness of the queen-mother, Mary de Medici so excessively, that in order to stop the career of his ambition, it was thought fit to make away with him without any trial. It would have been too dangerous a thing to undertake it in due

form; which is sufficient to show that he was a wicked man. He was born at Florence, where his father, from a mere notary, came to be secretary of state. He came into France with Mary de Medici, the wife of Henry IV; and at first he was only gentleman to that princess, but he was made afterwards her master of the horse, and raised himself prodigiously by the credit that one of the queen’s maids, whom he married, had with her majesty. He bought the marquisate of Ancre a little after the death of Henry IV, and was governor of Amiens, Peronne, Roie, and Mondidier; he also became first gentleman of the king’s bedchamber, and afterwards marshal of France. He endeavoured to have the government of Picardy, but the duke of Longueville having the choice of that government, and of that of Normandy, chose the first, and by that means the marshal d’Ancre was excluded from his pretensions, but he obtained the second. He caused Quillebeuf to be fortified in that province, notwithstanding the parliament had forbidden it, and got the particular government of Pont de l’Arche, and endeavoured to have also that of Havre de Grace. In short, there was no longer reason to doubt that he designed to have all things at his disposal; for he removed the wisest heads from the king’s council, and filled their places with his creatures. He disposed of the finances, he distributed the offices, he got friends in the armies and in the towns, and terrified those who opposed his faction, by examples of a severe revenge.

There being no other remedy for all those great disorders, than that of killing him, a commission was given to Vitri, one of the captains of the lifeguards, who executed it on the drawbridge of the Louvre, the 24th of April 1617, where several pistols were fired at that marshal. The next day

the mob having taken the body out of the grave in the church of St Germain de l’Auxerrois, dragged it up and down the streets, and discharged their anger all manner of ways. The footman of a gentleman who had been lately put to death to gratify the marshal, began the tumult in the church of St Germain de l’Auxerrois. He cried out, that the body of that excommunicated jew ought to be taken out of his grave, and thrown on a dunghill, and the populace went about it immediately with so much fury, that if any one had represented to them that they ought to have some respect for the holiness of the place, they would have buried him alive in the marshal’s grave. When they had opened the coffin, they dragged the body to the end of the Pont-Neuf, and hanged it by the heels on one of the gallows that the deceased had caused to be set up for those who should speak ill of him. They cut off his nose, his ears,&c., and a little after took him down again, and dragged him to the Grève and to other places, and then dismembered him, and cut him into a thousand pieces. Every one would have some part of him; his ears were sold very dear; his entrails were thrown into the river; part of the body was burnt before the statue of Henry IV on the Pont-Neuf, and some roasted portions of his flesh in the fire, and gave it to their dogs. The author of the relation printed with the history of these favourites, relates some things that are still more surprising. The great provost appearing with his archers to put a stop to the beginning of the tumult in the church of St Germain de l’Auxerrois, was threatened to be buried alive if he advanced farther. The same author adds, that a man in a red coat was so enraged, that having thrust his hand into the dead body, he took it out again all bloody, and licked the blood, and swallowed also some little pieces that he had torn from the body; that another pulled his heart out, and broiled it on some coals, and eat it publicly with vinegar. That author relates the particulars of the conduct of the mob, according to the several stations where the body was hanged, dismembered, and burnt; he says, that on the next day the ashes were sold for fifteen sous an ounce. The parliament proceeded against the memory of the deceased, declared him convicted of high treason, both divine and human, condemned his wife to be beheaded, and declared their son ignoble.

The wife of the Marshal d’Ancre, Leonora Galigai, was daughter of a joiner, and of Mary de Medici’s nurse. That princess was much attached to her, and brought her into France on her marriage with Henry IV, and under the title of woman of the bedchamber she governed the queen entirely. Both husband and wife fermented the division between Henry IV and the queen, and by their artifices and false reports occasioned the domestic jars which made that great prince weary of his life. After his death they found it still more easy to manage the queen, and engrossed all the riches and best places in the kingdom. On the death of the marshal, they found in his pockets in assignments from the treasury, in notes of receivers, or in bonds, the sum of 1,985,000 livres. So great had been the pride of this woman, that M. Dupuy in his relation of the death of marshal d’Ancre, states that “ she would not even allow the princes, princesses, and the greatest persons of the kingdom, to come into her chamber, nor suffer people so much as to look her in the face; saying ‘ that she was frightened when people looked upon her, and that they might bewitch her by Booking upon her.’ For this reason she would not look full upon some of her servants, only for having looked on her; and towards the

end of her favour, she had even banished from her chamber, upon that account, M. de Lusson, and Feydeau, who had been the last in her favour.” Her superstition, as to witchcraft, and her ugliness, were the reason of this more than her vanity.

The end of all this was as fatal to the wife as to the husband. She was arraigned and tried by the Parliament, and sentenced to be beheaded and burnt; which was executed the 8th of July, 1617. She took up at last a good resolution, and died with constancy enough, and like a Christian. She was convicted, among other crimes, of having not only judaized, but likewise of having used magical arts to obtain her ends. She was condemned for high treason against God and the king, and for several other particular crimes. She was more united to her husband by interest than by affection. She heard without shedding tears, that he was murdered; and her first care was to save her jewels, which she put in her straw bed, and causing herself to be undressed, she went to bed. The provostmen that went into her chamber not finding the jewels, made her rise to search her bed, where they were found. She said afterwards to those that kept her, “ Well, they have killed my husband, is not this enough to satisfy them? Let them suffer me to go out of the kingdom.” When they told her they had hanged the corpse of the marshal, “ she seemed very much moved at it,” says Dupuy, “ without tears however; but yet she said, that he was a proud insolent man; that he had nothing but what he deserved; that she had not lain with him for the three last years; that he was an ill man; and that to part from him, she had resolved to retire into Italy this spring, and had made every thing ready for her journey; which she offered to justify.” When Messieurs Aubri and le Bailleul went to

interrogate her about her rings and other goods, she spoke to them with as much assurance as if she had no manner of fear; and even told them, she hoped to come again into favour.

Louis XIII was for several years a slave to these Florentines, an assertion which is no slander invented either by the marshal d’Ancre’s enemies, or by those of Louis XIII, since that prince owns his servitude himself in the letters that he wrote to the governors of the provinces the day that the marshal was killed. “ I make no doubt,” says he, “ that in the whole course of affairs ever since the death of the late king, my lord and father (whom God absolve), you have easily observed how the marshal d’Ancre and his wife, abusing my youth, and the power they acquired by degrees over the mind of the queen my lady and mother, have projected to usurp all the authority, to dispose absolutely of the affairs of my state, and debar me from the knowledge of them. This design they have carried so far, that there was nothing left to me hitherto but the name of king, and that it would have been a capital crime for any of my officers and subjects to see me in private, and to entertain me with any serious discourse. God of his infinite goodness having made me sensible of this, and of the imminent danger that my person and state would be exposed to in such exorbitant ambition, if I had given any sign of my resentment, and of the extreme desire I had to give the necessary orders against it; I have been forced to dissemble, and to hide my good intentions by my outward actions, waiting till it should please the same Divine Goodness to prepare the way, and afford me an opportunity to remedy it.” The author of the relation says, that when the king heard that the marshal was dead, he looked out at the window, and exclaimed, “ I thank you, I thank you, now I am a

king.” He went afterwards to other windows, and cried out, “ Take your arms, my friends; God be thanked, now I am a king.” The lieutenants, ensigns, and the exempt of the guards, whom he sent into the streets of Paris to prevent any disorder, cried out all over the city, “ Long live the king, the king is king.” The bishop of Luçon, who was afterwards cardinal Richelieu, had been one of the marshal’s favourites, and performed at that time the functions of first secretary of state. He came into the king’s chamber some time after the execution was done: “ Monsieur,” said the king to him, “ God be thanked, this day we are freed from your tyranny.” He did not know at that time that his deliverance would not continue long, and that he spoke to a man who was designed to leave him only the title of sovereign.

All however bent the knee to the idol whom they inwardly hated. The marshal said one day, that “ the people of France are not what they are thought to be; for although they speak very ill of me, yet as soon as I come into any part of the provinces, all the officers make speeches to me as to the king.” Such base flattery did not only deserve to be mentioned, but also to be described with more indignation than is found in the following passage from Le Grain.—“We must not omit that many princes and lords of the court, many deputies of the states, many of the chief magistrates, a great part of those who depended on the nobility, a great number of the officers and citizens of towns, did not only bear, but were not ashamed to advance the grandeur of that tyrant with all their might, in order to obtain his favour; and in the mean time they neglected the love and fidelity which God commands us to show to our king and country, and the ancient generositv being banished from the hearts of the

French, was altogether inclined to support the foreign usurper.”

In the memoirs of the regency of Mary de Medici by marshal d’Etrées, it will not be found that any of the actions of the marshal d’Ancre were at all flagitious, but I should act imprudently to prefer the testimony of this author before that of so many writers, who have spoken ill of Concino Concini. Not but that I think it very possible, that with indifferent faults, a man who has great imprudence and many enemies, may become the aversion of the people, and pass for a very wicked man. A cunning, malicious, and powerful enemy, will make the mob believe many lies. Nay I believe that many things have been strained concerning that unfortunate Florentine, and that no fewer obstacles must be overcome to discover the properties of the loadstone, than to know exactly, and with the nicest distinction, the truth of Concini’s affairs. And on this occasion I shall observe, that in many cases historical truths are not less impenetrable than physical ones It is chiefly as a forcible illustration of the truth of this remark that the article is retained.—Ed. ³².—ArticlesAncreandGaligai.