Marie de Medici, The Queen Behind Luxembourg Palace And Gardens

If you have ever taken in a walk in the lovely Luxembourg gardens, you have probably seen Marie de Medici’s palace.  This stately former royal palace became home to the French Senate.

The palace is not open to the general public except by invitation from a senator, or on Jours de Patrimoine( Heritage Days).

Not surprising then, that few people realise that Luxembourg Gardens was the royal domain of Queen Marie de Medici since neither the palace nor gardens are named after her, yet it was she who had them constructed!

So who was Marie de Medici?  In many ways, her story reads like a Greek tragedy!

She seems to have taken a backseat in fame to her better known distant relative Catherine de Medici.   In writing about their histories, I am amazed by so many similarities in their destinies.

Both were born into the fabulously wealthy and prominent Florentine banking family.  Both had very sad childhoods and both became queens of France, after the premature death of their husbands.

They both had convoluted and turbulent relationships with some of their children and difficult reigns here.  Both produced future kings of France!

I like to call Marie,  the nicer one of the Medici’s, in comparison to sulphurous Catherine de Medici, which isn’t much of a compliment!  Catherine, her distant cousin was 56 years old when Marie was born.

Marie de Medici was born in 1575 into this very powerful and politically dominating Italian family.   The Medicis had already left an immense influence on the French court and culture through Catherine’s marriage to King Henri II and her reign following his death.

Marie’s childhood was very tragic in that she lost her mother at age five and then her father at age 12.  She was raised in Florence by her uncle Fernando in the Pitti Palace.  He was married to the granddaughter of Catherine de Medici!

At the age of 25, she was brokered off to be married to a man 22 years older than she.  King Henri IV of France had recently had his marriage annulled from Marguerite de Valois, who did not love him any more than he did her, leaving him without an heir.

By the way, the wild and strong-willed Marguerite, better known a la Reine Margot was the daughter of Catherine de Medici!  That made her husband’s former wife as a distant relative as well!

It was her uncle Fernando who thought this marriage would bring further alliance between  Tuscany and France and he knew that King Henri IV had a huge debt to the Medicis. King Henri accepted, despite his promise that he would marry his mistress Henriette,  knowing that his immense banking debts to the Medicis would be forgiven.

King Henri was so disinterested in poor Marie, considered a pretty young woman, that he could not be bothered to even attend their marriage in Florence held at the Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore on October 5, 1600!

He was too much in love with his mistress Henriette d’Entragues, so he sent a proxy that stood in for him.  He did not even want to be bothered enough to welcome her to France when she arrived in Marseille.

It wasn’t until December the 9 that they met and their marriage was consummated.  Soon afterwards, Marie was pregnant and delivered a boy who would grow up to be King Louis XIII.

There marriage being nothing more than an outright political arrangement was tumultuous and turned out as unhappy as her childhood.   With all of the abandonment issues she had in childhood, it is understandable that she was intensely jealous of his mistresses.

While Marie spent most of her nine years with him being pregnant; she had 6 children in that time span,  King Henri remained in love with his number one mistress, Henriette, though he had many other dalliances and illegitimate children with several.

It should be noted that Marie de Medici was much more wealthy than her husband and often got back at him by refusing to give him money to pay off his many expenses.

Marie was finally crowned Queen in 1610 after she had been pressuring her husband to do so many years prior, but he kept postponing the event.

The day after her crowning, King Henri IV was assassinated!   Due to this rather bizarre coincidence and her perceived nonchalance of Marie following his death, there were suspicions that she might have had a hand in the conspiracy.

Marie chased her late husband’s favourite mistress from the court and continued her life raising her 6 children.  The Dauphin, Louis was only 8 years old when his father died and of course being too young to act as king, Marie became his regent who oversaw governing the country.

She dismissed most of her late husband’s ministers and relied mainly on her maid and best friend’s husband Concino Concini for advice.  He became her most important counsellor, from whom she sought direction in all governmental affairs.

Though Marie de Medici is known to have brought in a lot of Italian artists and focused on elevating the arts, she often displeased the French public, who considered her too lavish in spending court money and resented her reliance on her Italian counsellor.

She also developed a close friendship with the painter Pierre Paul Rubens who painted a lovely series of portraits of her now housed in the Louvre.

Finding the Louvre palace too dark to stay in,  and holding a lot of unpleasant memories, Marie wanted a palace of her own. She dreamed of constructing one that would be full of light and would resemble the Pitti Palace where she had grown up.

With her own money, she bought land from a Count Luxembourg in the heart of left bank and began construction of her new palace in 1615.

Louis and his mother never had a close relationship.  I would imagine that Marie, having lost her own mother so young, probably was not able to mother her children with much warmth and affection, as she had little given and modelled to her during her childhood.

The other aspect to consider was that after the death of his father, whom Louis adored, he resented his mother’s attention and closeness to her Italian counsellor, and probably felt displaced in whatever affection she could display. This emotional neglect of her son caused Louis to develope tremendous resentment to him and further alienation from his mother.

After he was crowned King Louis XIII,  on April 26, 1617, he had his mother’s counsellor Concino Concini killed and banished his mother from the court to Chateau de Blois because he felt she was too dominating and wanted to usurp his power.

It should be noted that Louis developed what is now believed to be Crohn’s disease in his late adolescence, certainly aggravated by the chronic anger and resentment he maintained throughout his life towards his mother Marie.

She escaped from her chateau prison by lowering herself on a rope, and remained in exile while plotting an uprising of her son! This feuding between Marie and her son became known as the “mother-son war”!

Eventually,  Cardinal Richelieu was able to bring about a reconciliation and King Louis XIII pardoned his mother.  However, the rift between them remained.

When she returned to Paris, Marie de Medici initially devoted full time to finishing the Luxembourg palace and gardens.  However,  the discontent she felt with her son’s refusal to allow any input of her’s in governing, made her feel powerless.  She also had much jealously towards Cardinal Richelieu who she felt took over her power and influence on her son.

Tempers and turbulence between Marie de Medici escalated again between her and her son Louis. Marie, now feeling totally debunked and displaced as a former Queen of France, fled to Amsterdam for a while, then London and eventually Cologne.

While in Cologne, she died on July 3, 1642, of pleurisy.    Her son King Louis XIII died the following year in Mai 1643 of Crohn’s disease.

Aside from a rather unflattering statue of her amongst many other Queens and Princesses of France, I  find it rather sad that there is only one part of Luxembourg gardens named after her!

The beautiful and romantic Marie de Medici fountain with its shimmering reflecting pool, is a feminine and direct reminder of the one who created and designed what many consider the most beautiful garden of Paris!

P.S. For those interested in reading about Catherine de Medici, I wrote two articles about her in March 2015 and in July 2018.