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MARIE

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 713 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MARIE  DE'

MEDICI (1573-1642), queen consort and queen regent of France, daughter of Francis de' Medici,
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grand duke of Tuscany, and Joanna, an
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Austrian archduchess, was born in Florence on the 26th of
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April 1573 . After Joanna's
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death in 1578 duke Francis married the notorious Bianca Capello, and the grand-ducal children were brought up away from their
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father at the Pitti Palace in Florence, where after the death of her
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brother and
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sister and the
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marriage of her elder sister Eleonora, duchess of Mantua, a companion was chosen for Marie, this being Leonora Dori, afterwards known as Leonora Galigal . She received a good
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education in
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company with her
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half-brother Antonio . After many projects of marriage for Marie had failed Henry IV. of France, who was under
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great monetary obligations to the house of Medici, offered himself as a suitor although his marriage with
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Marguerite de Valois was not yet dissolved; but the marriage was not celebrated until
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October 1600 . Her eldest son, the future Louis XIII., was born at
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Fontainebleau in September of the next
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year; the other children who survived were Gaston duke of Orleans; Elizabeth queen of Spain; Christine duchess of Savoy; and Henrietta Maria queen of England . During her
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husband's lifetime Marie de' Medici showed little sign of
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political taste or ability; but after his
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murder in 16ro when she became regent, she devoted herself to affairs with unfailing regularity and
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developed an inherited passion for power . She gave her confidence chiefly to Concini, the husband of Leonora Galigal, who squandered the public
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money and secured a series of important charges with the title of Marechal d'Ancre . Under the regent's lax and capricious
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rule the princes of the
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blood and the great nobles of the
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kingdom revolted; and the queen, too weak to assert her authority, consented at Sainte Menehould (May 15, 1614) to buy off the discontented princes . In 1616 her policy was strengthened by the accession to her
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councils of Richelieu, who had come to the front at the meeting of the states general in 1614 ; but Louis XIII., who was now sixteen years old, was determined to throw off the tutelage of his
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mother and Concini . By his orders Concini was murdered, Leonora Galigal was tried for sorcery and beheaded, Richelieu was banished to his bishopric, and the queen was exiled to
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Blois . After two years of virtual imprisonment she escaped in 1619 and became the centre of a new revolt . Louis XIII. easily dispersed the rebels, but through the mediation of Richelieu was reconciled with his mother, who was allowed to hold a small court at
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Angers, and resumed her place in the royal council in 1621 .

But

differences between her and the cardinal rapidly arose, and the queen mother intrigued to drive Richelieu again from court . For a single day the journee
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des dupes, the 12th of November 163o, she seemed to have succeeded; but the triumph of Richelieu was followedby her exile to
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Compiegne, whence she escaped in 1631 to Brussels . From that time till her death at Cologne on the 3rd of
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July 1642 she intrigued in vain against the cardinal . Among contemporary authorities for the
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history of Marie de' Medici, see Mathieu de Morgues, Deux faces de la
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vie et de la mort de Marie de Medicis (Antwerp, 1643) ; J . B . Matthieu, Eloge historial de Marie de Medicis (Paris, 1626) ; Florentin du Ruau, Le Tableau de la regence de Marie de Medicis (
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Poitiers, 1615) ; F . E . Mezeray, Histoire de la mere et du fils, ou de Marie de Medicis et de Louis XIII . (Amster-
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dam, 1730) ; and A . P . Lord, The Regency of Marie de Medicis (
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London, 1904) . For the political history see the bibliographies to HENRY IV. and Lou1s XIII .

There are lives by Thiroux d'Arconville (3 vols., Paris, 1774) by

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Miss J . S . H . Pardoe (London, 1852, and again 189o); and by B . Zeller,
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Henri IV. et Marie de Medicis (Paris, 1877) . There is a technical discussion of the causes of her death in A . Masson's La Sorcellerie et la science des poisons au xvii' siecle (Paris, 1904), and the Minutest details of her private
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life are in L . Batiffol's La Vie intime d'une
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rein de France (Paris, 1906; Eng. trans., 1908) .

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