Francois, Duc de la Rochefoucauld, was born in Paris on
September 15, 1613. Sprung from one of the noblest families of
France, handsome, winning, and brave to recklessness, he
intrigued and fought against Richelieu and Mazarin, and was
one of the leaders in the civil war of La Fronde. But though
marked by birth and talent for a high position in the state,
he failed in nearly everything he undertook, owing to his
extraordinary indolence of mind, and in the prime of his life
he became a rather embittered spectator of a world in which he
was not able to make his way. The "Memoirs," with their
studied tone of historical coldness, present a striking
contrast to the brilliant vivacity of the "Maxims." This, in
all probability, is due to the fact that while the latter were
frequently added to and edited during their author's lifetime,
no such fate befell the "Memoirs," of which the first edition,
published without La Rochefoucauld's authority, appeared in
1662. Barely a third of them could be attributed to their
reputed author, the work being compiled mainly from various
commonplace books. In spite of La Rochefoucauld's protests,
the pirated "Memoirs" continued to be printed, and it was not
until very many years after his death, in 1817, that an
authentic edition made its appearance. The "Memoirs" are of
great literary value, yielding in interest to no memoirs of
the time. La Rochefoucauld died in Paris on March 17, 1680.
_Court Intrigues_
King Louis XIII. was of feeble constitution, further impaired by
over-exertion in hunting. His temperament was severe and solitary; he
wished to be governed, but was sometimes impatient of government. His
mind took note only of details, and his knowledge of war was fit rather
for a subordinate officer than for a king. Cardinal Richelieu, who owed
all his elevation to the queen-mother, Marie de Médicis, was ruler of
the state. His vast and penetrating mind formed projects as bold as he
was personally timid. His policy was to establish the king's authority
and his own, by the ruin of the Huguenots and of the great houses of the
kingdom, and then to attack the house of Austria, a power most
redoubtable to France. He stuck at nothing, either to advance his
satellites or to destroy his enemies. The passion which he had long
cherished for the queen had changed to dislike, and she had an aversion
for Richelieu. The king was embittered against her by jealousy and by
the sterility of their marriage. The queen was an amiable woman, without
falsity of any kind, and with many virtues; her intimate friend was
Madame de Chevreuse, who was of her own age and of kindred sentiments.
But Madame de Chevreuse almost always brought misfortune to those whom
she interested in her projects. She had much spirit, ambition, and
beauty, and made full use of her charms to forward these enterprises of
hers. Already Cardinal Richelieu had accused the queen and her of
complicity in Chalais's plot against the king's life--for Chalais had
been her warm admirer--and the king believed in their guilt to the end
of his days. Again, when the young and handsome Lord Holland came to
France to arrange the marriage of the King of England to the sister of
the King of France, and quickly won the affection of Madame de
Chevreuse, the two lovers thought fit to celebrate their attachment by
inspiring a similar intrigue between the French queen and the Duke of
Buckingham, who had not so much as met one another. This astonishing
undertaking was successful. Buckingham came over to wed madame in the
name of his master, and his ardent love for the queen, which she fully
returned, deeply wounded both the king and Richelieu. The cardinal
sought his revenge through Lady Carlisle. That haughty and jealous
woman, to whom Buckingham had long been attached, noticed one night at a
ball in England that he was wearing diamonds which she had not seen
before, and contrived, unobserved, to detach them, in order that she
might send them to Richelieu. These diamonds had been the gift of the
King of France to his queen, and it was intended that the cardinal, by
showing them to the king, should prove the queen's weakness. But the
Duke of Buckingham discovered his loss the same night, and at once
suspected Lady Carlisle's design. He issued an immediate order that the
English ports should be closed, and that no one should be permitted,
under whatever pretext, to leave the country; and then, having had
exactly similar jewels prepared, he sent them to the Queen of France,
with an account of the whole matter.
It was at this time that the cardinal formed the project of the
destruction of the Huguenot party, and of laying siege to La Rochelle.
The Duke of Buckingham came with a powerful fleet to aid La Rochelle,
but in vain; the fortress was taken, and the duke was assassinated in
England. This murder gave the cardinal an inhuman joy; he jested at the
queen's sorrows, and began to hope again.
After the ruin of the Huguenots I returned from the army to court, being
now seventeen years old, and began to notice the state of affairs. The
queen-mother and the cardinal were at enmity, and though everyone saw
that something would come of it, no one could foretell what would
happen. The cardinal's situation was precarious, the king had learned of
his love for the queen, and was quite ready to disgrace him, and even
asked the queen-mother to nominate someone to replace him. She
hesitated, and that hesitation was her ruin and saved the cardinal.
The reversal of the situation took place on the famous "day of dupes,"
on which the queen-mother, presuming too much on her power, challenged
the cardinal, in the king's presence, with his ingratitude and
treacheries. No one doubted but that Richelieu's day was over, and the
whole court crowded to the queen-mother to share her imaginary triumph.
But the king went the same day to Versailles, and the cardinal followed
him; the queen, fearing that she would find Versailles dull and
uncomfortable, remained behind; and the wily statesman made such good
use of his opportunity that the king's consent was won to the downfall
of his mother. She was soon arrested, and her sorrows lasted as long as
her life.
Many were implicated in her ruin, and were exiled or thrown into the
Bastille, or brought to the scaffold; and so much bloodshed and so many
fortunes reversed brought odium on the name of Richelieu. The mild
regency of Marie de Médicis was remembered, and all the great families
lamented that liberty was a thing of the past.
For my part, I thought that the queen's cause was the only one, which an
honourable man could follow. She was unhappy; the cardinal was rather
her tyrant than her lover; she had been good to me, and had trusted me;
Mademoiselle d'Hautefort, with whom I had great friendship, was her
friend, too--sufficient reasons, these, to dazzle a youth who had seen
almost nothing of the world, and to turn his steps in a direction quite
contrary to his interests. King and cardinal alike soon came to detest
me, and my life thenceforth was troubled by the visitations of their
displeasure. In recording the scenes in which I have had a part, I have
no intention of writing history, but only of touching on a few personal
episodes.
_Richelieu's Death_
War was declared in 1635 against the King of Spain, and I accompanied
the French army of twenty thousand men which marched to the support of
the Prince of Orange in Flanders. During neither this nor the following
winter was I allowed at court. Madame de Chevreuse, who had been sent to
Tours on the occasion of Richelieu's triumph had heard a good account of
me from the queen, and invited me to see her; we soon struck up a very
great friendship, and I came to be a confidential intermediary between
the queen and her, and was often entrusted by one or other of them with
most perilous commissions.
When I was at last readmitted to court in 1637, I found the queen in
great trouble. She had been accused of a crime against the state, a
treasonable understanding with the Spanish minister; some of her
servants were arrested; the chancellor examined her like a criminal; it
was even proposed to seclude her at Havre, annul her marriage, and
repudiate her altogether. In this extremity, abandoned by all the world,
she proposed that I should kidnap her and Mademoiselle d'Hautefort and
carry them off to Brussels. Difficult and dangerous as this project was,
it gave me greater joy than any I had known, for I was at an age when a
man likes to engage in dashing and heroic feats. Happily, however, the
chancellor's investigations proved her majesty not guilty.
But an unfortunate series of accidents led to my imprisonment for a week
in the Bastille. A signal had been agreed upon between the queen and
Madame de Chevreuse during the recent trouble. If all went well, Madame
de Chevreuse was to receive a prayer-book bound in green, but a red
binding was to indicate disaster. I never knew which of the two ladies
made the mistake, but when the queen was acquitted Madame de Chevreuse
received what she took to be the signal of misfortune; concluded that
both she and the queen were undone, and disguising herself as a man, she
fled to Spain. This escapade, so surprising at the very moment when the
Queen's troubles had come to an end, inspired the king and the cardinal
with the gravest suspicions that they had not, after all, fathomed her
majesty's treachery. The cardinal summoned me to Paris, and hinted at
unpleasant consequences if I did not reveal all I knew. I knew nothing;
and as my manner seemed more reserved and dry than he was accustomed to,
I was sent to the Bastille.
The little time that I spent there showed me more vividly than anything
I had yet seen the picture of vengeance. I saw there men of great names
and of great merits, an infinite number of men and women of all ranks in
life, all unhappy in the affliction of long and cruel incarceration. The
sight of so many pitiable creatures did much to increase my natural
hatred for Cardinal Richelieu's administration. I was released in eight
days, and thought myself very fortunate to escape at a period when none
others were set at liberty.
But my disgrace was well repaid. The queen showed herself gratefully
aware of all that I had suffered in her service; Mademoiselle
d'Hautefort gave full expression to her esteem and friendship; and
Madame de Chevreuse was not less gracious. I enjoyed not only the favour
of those to whom I was attached, but also a certain approval which the
world is not slow to give to the unfortunate whose conduct has not
really been disgraceful. Under these conditions an exile of two or three
years from court was not intolerable. I was young; the king and the
cardinal were failing in health; I had everything to hope for from a
change. I was happy in my family, and enjoyed all the pleasures of
country life, and the neighbouring provinces were full of other exiles.
Cardinal Richelieu died on December 4, 1642. Although his enemies could
only rejoice at finding themselves free at last from so many
persecutions, the event has shown that the state could ill spare him. He
had made so many changes in public affairs that he alone was able to
direct them safely. No one before Richelieu had known all the power of
the kingdom, or had been able to gather it all up into the hands of the
sovereign. The severity of his adminstration had cost many lives; the
nobility had been humbled, and the common people had been loaded with
taxes; but the grandeur of his political designs, such as the taking of
La Rochelle, the destruction of the Huguenot party, and the weakening of
the house of Austria, no less than his intrepidity in carrying them out,
have secured for his memory a justly-merited fame.
_Under Mazarin's Rule_
I returned to Paris immediately after the death of Richelieu, thinking
that I might have occasion to serve the queen. In accordance with the
late cardinal's will, Cardinal Mazarin succeeded to his powers. The
king's state of health went from bad to worse, and the court was filled
with intrigues with regard to the regency which must so soon be
appointed. His death took place on May 14, 1643. The queen at once
brought her little son, Louis XIV., to Paris; two days later she was
declared regent in parliament; and the same evening, to the amazement of
his enemies, she appointed Cardinal Mazarin chief of the council.
Mazarin's mind was great, industrious, insinuating, and artful, and his
character was so supple that he could become as many different men as he
had occasion to personate. But he was shortsighted even in his grandest
projects; and, unlike his predecessor, whose mind was bold but his
temperature timid, Mazarin was bolder in temper than in conception. A
pretended moderation veiled his ambition and his avarice; he said he
wanted nothing for himself.
The court was now divided between the Duke of Beaufort and the cardinal,
and it was expected that the return of Madame de Chevreuse would incline
the queen to the former party. But the queen was in no hurry for that
lady's return, knowing well what turmoils she was apt to bring in her
train. Perhaps I urged her recall more boldly than was wise; at any
rate, I won my point, and her majesty sent me to form Madame de
Chevreuse for her appearance at court under the new conditions.
I represented to her how indispensable Cardinal Mazarin was to the
state; that he was accused of no crime, and was guiltless of Richelieu's
oppressions; and that the most fatal course she could take would be to
attempt to govern the queen. Madame de Chevreuse promised to follow my
advice, and came up to court, but her old instincts of domination were
too much for her, and she soon declared herself openly against the
minister who enjoyed all the queen's confidence. She even attempted his
overthrow, and for that purpose united herself to the party known as the
"_Importans_," which was led by the Duke of Beaufort.
After various manoeuvres on the part of the cardinal and of Madame de
Chevreuse to get the upper hand, Mazarin discovered a plot against his
life, in which the Duke of Beaufort was implicated, and had the duke
arrested and imprisoned. At the same time Madame de Chevreuse was sent
away to Tours, and as I was unwilling to promise that I would have no
more to do with her, I lost the favour of the queen, provoked the
cardinal's displeasure, and soon found that Madame de Chevreuse herself
was forgetful of all I had done for her.
Kept in idleness, tantalised by promises of office which were never
fulfilled, and forbidden even to follow the wars, my wretched position
led me at last to seek some way of showing my resentment at the
treatment I had received from the queen and cardinal. The means were at
hand. Like many others, I had come under the spell of the beauty and
charm of Madame de Longueville, and thus come gradually into association
with the party of the Fronde. I followed the Duke of Enghien, her
brother, to the attack on Courtray, then to Mardick, where I was
wounded; and this time of military service united me more closely to his
later interests.
By the year 1647 everyone was weary of Mazarin's rule. His bad faith,
his weakness, and his trickiness were becoming known, provinces and
towns alike were groaning under taxation, and the citizens of Paris were
reduced to mere despair. Parliament tried respectful remonstrances in
vain; the cardinal thought himself safe in the servility of the nation.
But the great majority in France desired a change, and then smouldering
discontent soon burst into a flame.
The Duke of Enghien, who had become, by the death of his father, Prince
of Condé, had gained in 1648 a great victory in Flanders, and a solemn
thanksgiving was held in Notre Dame to celebrate it. Mazarin chose this
moment for the arrest of Broussel and other members of parliament who
had voiced most urgently the public distress. The action roused Paris to
a fury which astonished him; the people sought him to tear him to
pieces; barricades were erected in the streets, and the king and queen
were besieged in the royal palace. Resistance to the parliament's
demands were at the moment impossible; the prisoners had to be released.
I was at this time absent from Paris, having been sent down by the queen
to my government at Poitou, which I had purchased; the province was
almost in insurrection and I had to pacify it. I happened to be deeply
wounded by a new slight which Cardinal Mazarin had put upon me, when
Madame de Longueville sent for me to come to Paris, informing me that
the whole plan for a civil war had been drawn up, and asking for my
counsel in the matter. The news delighted me, and I arrived at the
capital eager for my revenge on the queen and the cardinal.
Mazarin, on the other hand, had formed his plan. Realising that Paris
was unsafe, he determined to leave it, to place the king at
Saint-Germain, and to lay siege to the city, which would soon be reduced
to famine and dissensions. Their escape was made at midnight on the eve
of Epiphany, 1649, all the court following in great disorder.
The city was for a time in much perplexity, but the arrival of the Duke
of Beaufort, who had broken prison at Vincennes, put heart into the
people, who took him for their liberator. Other great personages threw
in their lot with the popular cause; a large war-chest was quickly
raised and troops were levied, and the parliament of Paris put itself
into communication with the other parliaments of the kingdom. All
preparations were made for a civil war, the real basis of which was a
general hatred of Cardinal Mazarin, which was common to both parties. In
an early engagement outside the city I was so gravely wounded as to see
no more of this war, the events of which are hardly worth narrating. On
April 1, 1649, the Parliament received an amnesty from the king. Neither
party had vanquished the other; the cardinal and the parliament were
each as strong as before, but everyone was glad to be rid, for the time,
of the horrors of civil war.
_Wars of the Fronde_
The Prince of Condé, who had great influence in the council, showed
himself so contemptuous to Mazarin, and became so inconvenient to the
queen by his arrogance that she decided to arrest him, and to involve
Madame de Longueville, the duke, her husband, and the Prince of Conti in
the same disgrace. Accordingly, on January 18, 1650, the Prince of
Condé, the Duke of Longueville, and the Prince of Conti were seized and
imprisoned at Vincennes, and the order was given at the same time to
arrest Madame de Longueville and myself. But we succeeded in escaping
together to Dieppe, where we were forced to separate; Madame de
Longueville found refuge at Stenay, where she met with Turenne, and I
returned to my government of Poitou and formed an alliance there with
the Duke of Bouillon, Turenne's brother. Together the duke and I matured
designs which led to the civil war in the south.
My father having died at Verteuil in March, 1650, I succeeded to the
title of Duke of La Rochefoucauld. I invited a large number of nobles
and gentlemen of that region to the funeral ceremonies; our plans were
put before them; though some of them held back, most were favourable;
and I soon found myself at the head of a force of two thousand horse and
eight hundred foot. The Duke of Bouillon and I were joined by the young
Princess of Condé, with her son the Duke of Enghien; we gathered more
troops at Turenne, and marched upon Bordeaux. After overcoming some
opposition, the princess entered that city in triumph on May 31, 1650,
and we joined her a few days later.
The grievance of the princess and the presence of her son excited the
liveliest enthusiasm, and the party opposed to Mazarin had entire
mastery of the town. The revolt of Bordeaux carried with it almost all
Guienne, and Mazarin determined to crush it before it should extend to
the neighbouring provinces. A royal army of veterans was sent down,
Bordeaux was closely invested, an obstinate defence was made, but the
town had to capitulate on September 28, on the condition of an amnesty
to the princess and her adherents.
Meanwhile Turenne, with a Spanish force, had made a vain attempt to
rescue the captive princes, and Mazarin had removed them to Havre, where
the government was devoted to him. There was now such general dread and
hatred of the cardinal, that people were willing to unite with those
whom they had considered their mortal enemies in order to secure his
ruin. In the early days of 1651 I was summoned to Paris by the Princess
Palatine, who united a taste for gallantry with a remarkable talent for
intrigue, and remained for some time hidden in her house, where I was
witness to many consultations for the removal of Mazarin from power. I
even made a last attempt to persuade the cardinal himself to release the
princes; in four nocturnal interviews I tried to show him how all
parties were uniting to compass his ruin, but was unable to convince him
without betraying secrets which were not my own. Mazarin gave me no hope
of their liberation.
Then arose a general storm against the minister, and he made his escape
on the night of February 7. The queen would have followed him with her
son, but the Frondeurs and the partisans of the princes kept her
prisoner in her palace. Without any hope of assistance, and daunted day
and night by an infuriated populate, she sent for me and gave me an
order to the governor of Havre to release the princes immediately. I
warned the leaders of the Fronde that her sincerity was not above
suspicion, and that all depended upon her close imprisonment, and so set
out along the northern road upon my mission. But the cardinal had been
beforehand with me, the princes were at liberty, and on February 16 they
entered Paris in triumph.
Mazarin, who had fled to Cologne, whence he continued to direct the
queen's cabinet, returned to France at the head of a small army in
January, 1652, and arrived at Poitiers without meeting any resistance.
The party opposed to him was rent by faction and strife, but the Prince
of Condé united it, and fought an indecisive engagement with the royal
troops on April 8. On the 11th the prince and I were well received in
Paris, but it was evident that the citizens were weary of all these
troubles, desired nothing so much as the king's return, and detested the
ambition of the leaders of faction. Indeed, the magistrates were
negotiating with Mazarin, and declared the city neutral. On July 2 the
Prince of Condé was marching his force from Saint-Cloud to Charenton
when he was attacked by Turenne; and in the sanguinary combat which
followed, and in which I was fighting beside the prince, I received a
wound in the head which prevented my taking any further part in these
disturbances.
Shortly afterwards, the Prince of Condé, his popularity wholly gone,
took service under the King of Spain; King Louis XIV., amid general
acclamations, returned to Paris on October 21; and Cardinal Mazarin,
having overcome all his enemies, entered the capital in a veritable
triumph, in February, 1653.
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