earnestly urged upon them the necessity of making the most of the present
opportunity. There were people in plenty, he said, who would gladly see
the King take another course, for many influential persons about him were
altogether Spanish in their inclinations.
The King had been scandalized to hear from the Prince of Anhalt, without
going into details, that on his recent passage through the Netherlands he
had noticed some change of feeling, some coolness in their High
Mightinesses. The Duke advised that they should be very heedful, that
they should remember how much more closely these matters regarded them
than anyone else, that they should not deceive themselves, but be firmly
convinced that unless they were willing to go head foremost into the
business the French would likewise not commit themselves. Sully spoke
with much earnestness and feeling, for it was obvious that both he and
his master had been disappointed at the cautious and limited nature of
the instructions given to the ambassadors.
An opinion had indeed prevailed, and, as we have seen, was to a certain
extent shared in by Aerssens, and even by Sully himself, that the King's
military preparations were after all but a feint, and that if the Prince
of Conde, and with him the Princess, could be restored to France, the
whole war cloud would evaporate in smoke.
It was even asserted that Henry had made a secret treaty with the enemy,
according to which, while apparently ready to burst upon the House of
Austria with overwhelming force, he was in reality about to shake hands
cordially with that power, on condition of being allowed to incorporate
into his own kingdom the very duchies in dispute, and of receiving the
Prince of Conde and his wife from Spain. He was thus suspected of being
about to betray his friends and allies in the most ignoble manner and for
the vilest of motives. The circulation of these infamous reports no doubt
paralysed for a time the energy of the enemy who had made no requisite
preparations against the threatened invasion, but it sickened his friends
with vague apprehensions, while it cut the King himself to the heart and
infuriated him to madness.
He asked the Nuncius one day what people thought in Rome and Italy of the
war about to be undertaken. Ubaldini replied that those best informed
considered the Princess of Conde as the principal subject of hostilities;
they thought that he meant to have her back. "I do mean to have her
back," cried Henry, with a mighty oath, and foaming with rage, "and I
shall have her back. No one shall prevent it, not even the Lieutenant of
God on earth."
But the imputation of this terrible treason weighed upon his mind and
embittered every hour.
The commissioners assured Sully that they had no knowledge of any
coolness or change such as Anhalt had reported on the part of their
principals, and the Duke took his leave.
It will be remembered that Villeroy had, it was thought, been making
mischief between Anhalt and the States by reporting and misreporting
private conversations between that Prince and the Dutch ambassador.
As soon as Sully had gone, van der Myle waited upon Villeroy to ask, in
name of himself and colleagues, for audience of leave-taking, the object
of their mission having been accomplished. The Secretary of State, too,
like Sully, urged the importance of making the most of the occasion. The
affair of Cleve, he said, did not very much concern the King, but his
Majesty had taken it to heart chiefly on account of the States and for
their security. They were bound, therefore, to exert themselves to the
utmost, but more would not be required of them than it would be possible
to fulfil.
Van der Myle replied that nothing would be left undone by their High
Mightinesses to support the King faithfully and according to their
promise.
On the 5th, Villeroy came to the ambassadors, bringing with him a letter
from the King for the States-General, and likewise a written reply to the
declarations made orally and in writing by the ambassadors to his
Majesty.
The letter of Henry to "his very dear and good friends, allies, and
confederates," was chiefly a complimentary acknowledgment of the
expressions of gratitude made to him on part of the States-General, and
warm approbation of their sage resolve to support the cause of
Brandenburg and Neuburg. He referred them for particulars to the
confidential conferences held between the commissioners and himself. They
would state how important he thought it that this matter should be
settled now so thoroughly as to require no second effort at any future
time when circumstances might not be so propitious; and that he intended
to risk his person, at the head of his army, to accomplish this result.
To the ambassadors he expressed his high satisfaction at their assurances
of affection, devotion, and gratitude on the part of the States. He
approved and commended their resolution to assist the Elector and the
Palatine in the affair of the duchies. He considered this a proof of
their prudence and good judgment, as showing their conviction that they
were more interested and bound to render this assistance than any other
potentates or states, as much from the convenience and security to be
derived from the neighbourhood of princes who were their friends as from
dangers to be apprehended from other princes who were seeking to
appropriate those provinces. The King therefore begged the States to move
forward as soon as possible the forces which they offered for this
enterprise according to his Majesty's suggestion sent through de Bethune.
The King on his part would do the same with extreme care and diligence,
from the anxiety he felt to prevent My Lords the States from receiving
detriment in places so vital to their preservation.
He begged the States likewise to consider that it was meet not only to
make a first effort to put the princes into entire possession of the
duchies, but to provide also for the durable success of the enterprise;
to guard against any invasions that might be made in the future to eject
those princes. Otherwise all their present efforts would be useless; and
his Majesty therefore consented on this occasion to enter into the new
league proposed by the States with all the princes and states mentioned
in the memoir of the ambassadors for mutual assistance against all unjust
occupations, attempts, and baneful intrigues.
Having no special information as to the infractions by the Archdukes of
the recent treaty of truce, the King declined to discuss that subject for
the moment, although holding himself bound to all required of him as one
of the guarantees of that treaty.
In regard to the remonstrance made by the ambassadors concerning the
trade of the East Indies, his Majesty disclaimed any intention of doing
injury to the States in permitting his subjects to establish a company in
his kingdom for that commerce. He had deferred hitherto taking action in
the matter only out of respect to the States, but he could no longer
refuse the just claims of his subjects if they should persist in them as
urgently as they had thus far been doing. The right and liberty which
they demanded was common to all, said the King, and he was certainly
bound to have as great care for the interests of his subjects as for
those of his friends and allies.
Here, certainly, was an immense difference in tone and in terms towards
the Republic adopted respectively by their great and good friends and
allies the Kings of France and Great Britain. It was natural enough that
Henry, having secretly expressed his most earnest hope that the States
would move at his side in his broad and general assault upon the House of
Austria, should impress upon them his conviction, which was a just one,
that no power in the world was more interested in keeping a Spanish and
Catholic prince out of the duchies than they were themselves. But while
thus taking a bond of them as it were for the entire fulfilment of the
primary enterprise, he accepted with cordiality, and almost with
gratitude, their proposition of a close alliance of the Republic with
himself and with the Protestant powers which James had so superciliously
rejected.
It would have been difficult to inflict a more petty and, more studied
insult upon the Republic than did the King of Great Britain at that
supreme moment by his preposterous claim of sovereign rights over the
Netherlands. He would make no treaty with them, he said, but should he
find it worth while to treat with his royal brother of France, he should
probably not shut the door in their faces.
Certainly Henry's reply to the remonstrances of the ambassadors in regard
to the India trade was as moderate as that of James had been haughty and
peremptory in regard to the herring fishery. It is however sufficiently
amusing to see those excellent Hollanders nobly claiming that "the sea
was as free as air" when the right to take Scotch pilchards was in
question, while at the very same moment they were earnest for excluding
their best allies and all the world besides from their East India
monopoly. But Isaac Le Maire and Jacques Le Roy had not lain so long
disguised in Zamet's house in Paris for nothing, nor had Aerssens so
completely "broke the neck of the French East India Company" as he
supposed. A certain Dutch freebooter, however, Simon Danzer by name, a
native of Dordrecht, who had been alternately in the service of Spain,
France, and the States, but a general marauder upon all powers, was
exercising at that moment perhaps more influence on the East India trade
than any potentate or commonwealth.
He kept the seas just then with four swift-sailing and well-armed
vessels, that potent skimmer of the ocean, and levied tribute upon
Protestant and Catholic, Turk or Christian, with great impartiality. The
King of Spain had sent him letters of amnesty and safe-conduct, with
large pecuniary offers, if he would enter his service. The King of France
had outbid his royal brother and enemy, and implored him to sweep the
seas under the white flag.
The States' ambassador begged his masters to reflect whether this
"puissant and experienced corsair" should be permitted to serve Spaniard
or Frenchman, and whether they could devise no expedient for turning him
into another track. "He is now with his fine ships at Marseilles," said
Aerssens. "He is sought for in all quarters by the Spaniard and by the
directors of the new French East India Company, private persons who equip
vessels of war. If he is not satisfied with this king's offers, he is
likely to close with the King of Spain, who offers him 1000 crowns a
month. Avarice tickles him, but he is neither Spaniard nor Papist, and I
fear will be induced to serve with his ships the East India Company, and
so will return to his piracy, the evil of which will always fall on our
heads. If My Lords the States will send me letters of abolition for him,
in imitation of the French king, on condition of his returning to his
home in Zealand and quitting the sea altogether, something might be done.
Otherwise he will be off to Marseilles again, and do more harm to us than
ever. Isaac Le Maire is doing as much evil as he can, and one holds daily
council with him here."
Thus the slippery Simon skimmed the seas from Marseilles to the Moluccas,
from Java to Mexico, never to be held firmly by Philip, or Henry, or
Barneveld. A dissolute but very daring ship's captain, born in Zealand,
and formerly in the service of the States, out of which he had been
expelled for many evil deeds, Simon Danzer had now become a professional
pirate, having his head-quarters chiefly at Algiers. His English
colleague Warde stationed himself mainly at Tunis, and both acted
together in connivance with the pachas of the Turkish government. They
with their considerable fleet, one vessel of which mounted sixty guns,
were the terror of the Mediterranean, extorted tribute from the commerce
of all nations indifferently, and sold licenses to the greatest
governments of Europe. After growing rich with his accumulated booty,
Simon was inclined to become respectable, a recourse which was always
open to him--France, England, Spain, the United Provinces, vieing with
each other to secure him by high rank and pay as an honoured member of
their national marine. He appears however to have failed in his plan of
retiring upon his laurels, having been stabbed in Paris by a man whom he
had formerly robbed and ruined.
Villeroy, having delivered the letters with his own hands to the
ambassadors, was asked by them when and where it would be convenient for
the King to arrange the convention of close alliance. The Secretary of
State--in his secret heart anything but kindly disposed for this loving
union with a republic he detested and with heretics whom he would have
burned--answered briefly that his Majesty was ready at any time, and that
it might take place then if they were provided with the necessary powers.
He said in parting that the States should "have an eye to everything, for
occasions like the present were irrecoverable." He then departed, saying
that the King would receive them in final audience on the following day.
Next morning accordingly Marshal de Boisdaulphin and de Bonoeil came with
royal coaches to the Hotel Gondy and escorted the ambassadors to the
Louvre. On the way they met de Bethune, who had returned solo from the
Hague bringing despatches for the King and for themselves. While in the
antechamber, they had opportunity to read their letters from the
States-General, his Majesty sending word that he was expecting them with
impatience, but preferred that they should read the despatches before the
audience.
They found the King somewhat out of humour. He expressed himself as
tolerably well satisfied with the general tenour of the despatches
brought by de Bethune, but complained loudly of the request now made by
the States, that the maintenance and other expenses of 4000 French in the
States' service should be paid in the coming campaign out of the royal
exchequer. He declared that this proposition was "a small manifestation
of ingratitude," that my Lords the States were "little misers," and that
such proceedings were "little avaricious tricks" such as he had not
expected of them.
So far as England was concerned, he said there was a great difference.
The English took away what he was giving. He did cheerfully a great deal
for his friends, he said, and was always ready doubly to repay what they
did for him. If, however, the States persisted in this course, he should
call his troops home again.
The King, as he went on, became more and more excited, and showed decided
dissatisfaction in his language and manner. It was not to be wondered at,
for we have seen how persistently he had been urging that the Advocate
should come in person with "the bridle on his neck," and now he had sent
his son-in-law and two colleagues tightly tied up by stringent
instructions. And over an above all this, while he was contemplating a
general war with intention to draw upon the States for unlimited
supplies, behold, they were haggling for the support of a couple of
regiments which were virtually their own troops.
There were reasons, however, for this cautiousness besides those
unfounded, although not entirely chimerical, suspicions as to the King's
good faith, to which we have alluded. It should not be forgotten that,
although Henry had conversed secretly with the States' ambassador at full
length on his far-reaching plans, with instructions that he should
confidentially inform the Advocate and demand his co-operation, not a
word of it had been officially propounded to the States-General, nor to
the special embassy with whom he was now negotiating. No treaty of
alliance offensive or defensive existed between the Kingdom and the
Republic or between the Republic and any power whatever. It would have
been culpable carelessness therefore at this moment for the prime
minister of the States to have committed his government in writing to a
full participation in a general assault upon the House of Austria; the
first step in which would have been a breach of the treaty just concluded
and instant hostilities with the Archdukes Albert and Isabella.
That these things were in the immediate future was as plain as that night
would follow day, but the hour had not yet struck for the States to throw
down the gauntlet.
Hardly two months before, the King, in his treaty with the princes at
Hall, had excluded both the King of Great Britain and the States-General
from participation in those arrangements, and it was grave matter for
consideration, therefore, for the States whether they should allow such
succour as they might choose to grant the princes to be included in the
French contingent. The opportunity for treating as a sovereign power with
the princes and making friends with them was tempting, but it did not
seem reasonable to the States that France should make use of them in this
war without a treaty, and should derive great advantage from the
alliance, but leave the expense to them.
Henry, on the other hand, forgetting, when it was convenient to him, all
about the Princess of Conde, his hatred of Spain, and his resolution to
crush the House of Austria, chose to consider the war as made simply for
the love of the States-General and to secure them for ever from danger.
The ambassadors replied to the King's invectives with great respect, and
endeavoured to appease his anger. They had sent a special despatch to
their government, they said, in regard to all those matters, setting
forth all the difficulties that had been raised, but had not wished to
trouble his Majesty with premature discussions of them. They did not
doubt, however, that their High Mightinesses would so conduct this great
affair as to leave the King no ground of complaint.
Henry then began to talk of the intelligence brought by de Bethune from
the Hague, especially in regard to the sending of States' troops to
Dusseldorf and the supply of food for the French army. He did not
believe, he said, that the Archdukes would refuse him the passage with
his forces through their territory, inasmuch as the States' army would be
on the way to meet him. In case of any resistance, however, he declared
his resolution to strike his blow and to cause people to talk of him. He
had sent his quartermaster-general to examine the passes, who had
reported that it would be impossible to prevent his Majesty's advance. He
was also distinctly informed that Marquis Spinola, keeping his places
garrisoned, could not bring more than 8000 men into the field. The Duke
of Bouillon, however, was sending advices that his communications were
liable to be cut off, and that for this purpose Spinola could set on foot
about 16,000 infantry and 4000 horse.
If the passage should be allowed by the Archdukes, the King stated his
intention of establishing magazines for his troops along the whole line
of march through the Spanish Netherlands and neighbouring districts, and
to establish and fortify himself everywhere in order to protect his
supplies and cover his possible retreat. He was still in doubt, he said,
whether to demand the passage at once or to wait until he had began to
move his army. He was rather inclined to make the request instantly in
order to gain time, being persuaded that he should receive no answer
either of consent or refusal.
Leaving all these details, the King then frankly observed that the affair
of Cleve had a much wider outlook than people thought. Therefore the
States must consider well what was to be done to secure the whole work as
soon as the Cleve business had been successfully accomplished. Upon this
subject it was indispensable that he should consult especially with his
Excellency (Prince Maurice) and some members of the General Assembly,
whom he wished that My Lords the States-General should depute to the
army.
"For how much good will it do," said the King, "if we drive off Archduke
Leopold without establishing the princes in security for the future?
Nothing is easier than to put the princes in possession. Every one will
yield or run away before our forces, but two months after we have
withdrawn the enemy will return and drive the princes out again. I cannot
always be ready to spring out of my kingdom, nor to assemble such great
armies. I am getting old, and my army moreover costs me 400,000 crowns a
month, which is enough to exhaust all the treasures of France, Spain,
Venice, and the States-General together."
He added that, if the present occasion were neglected, the States would
afterwards bitterly lament and never recover it. The Pope was very much
excited, and was sending out his ambassadors everywhere. Only the
previous Saturday the new nuncius destined for France had left Rome. If
My Lords the States would send deputies to the camp with full powers, he
stood there firm and unchangeable, but if they remained cool in the
business, he warned them that they would enrage him.
The States must seize the occasion, he repeated. It was bald behind, and
must be grasped by the forelock. It was not enough to have begun well.
One must end well. "Finis coronat opus." It was very easy to speak of a
league, but a league was not to be made in order to sit with arms tied,
but to do good work. The States ought not to suffer that the Germans
should prove themselves more energetic, more courageous, than themselves.
And again the King vehemently urged the necessity of his Excellency and
some deputies of the States coming to him "with absolute power" to treat.
He could not doubt in that event of something solid being accomplished.
"There are three things," he continued, "which cause me to speak freely.
I am talking with my friends whom I hold dear--yes, dearer, perhaps, than
they hold themselves. I am a great king, and say what I choose to say. I
am old, and know by experience the ways of this world's affairs. I tell
you, then, that it is most important that you should come to me resolved
and firm on all points."
He then requested the ambassadors to make full report of all that he had
said to their masters, to make the journey as rapidly as possible, in
order to encourage the States to the great enterprise and to meet his
wishes. He required from them, he said, not only activity of the body,
but labour of the intellect.
He was silent for a few moments, and then spoke again. "I shall not
always be here," he said, "nor will you always have Prince Maurice, and a
few others whose knowledge of your commonwealth is perfect. My Lords the
States must be up and doing while they still possess them. Nest Tuesday I
shall cause the Queen to be crowned at Saint-Denis; the following
Thursday she will make her entry into Paris. Next day, Friday, I shall
take my departure. At the end of this month I shall cross the Meuse at
Mezieres or in that neighbourhood."
He added that he should write immediately to Holland, to urge upon his
Excellency and the States to be ready to make the junction of their army
with his forces without delay. He charged the ambassadors to assure their
High Mightinesses that he was and should remain their truest friend,
their dearest neighbour. He then said a few gracious and cordial words to
each of them, warmly embraced each, and bade them all farewell.
The next day was passed by the ambassadors in paying and receiving
farewell visits, and on Saturday, the 8th, they departed from Paris,
being escorted out of the gate by the Marshal de Boisdaulphin, with a
cavalcade of noblemen. They slept that night at Saint Denis, and then
returned to Holland by the way of Calais and Rotterdam, reaching the
Hague on the 16th of May.
I make no apology for the minute details thus given of the proceedings of
this embassy, and especially of the conversations of Henry.
The very words of those conversations were taken down on the spot by the
commissioners who heard them, and were carefully embodied in their report
made to the States-General on their return, from which I have transcribed
them.
It was a memorable occasion. The great king--for great he was, despite
his numerous vices and follies--stood there upon the threshold of a vast
undertaking, at which the world, still half incredulous, stood gazing,
half sick with anxiety. He relied on his own genius and valour chiefly,
and after these on the brain of Barneveld and the sword of Maurice. Nor
was his confidence misplaced.
But let the reader observe the date of the day when those striking
utterances were made, and which have never before been made public. It
was Thursday, the 6th May. "I shall not always be here," said the King,
. . . "I cannot be ready at any moment to spring out of my kingdom."
. . . "Friday of next week I take my departure."
How much of heroic pathos in Henry's attitude at this supreme moment! How
mournfully ring those closing words of his address to the ambassadors!
The die was cast. A letter drawn up by the Duc de Sully was sent to
Archduke Albert by the King.
"My brother," he said; "Not being able to refuse my best allies and
confederates the help which they have asked of me against those who wish
to trouble them in the succession to the duchies and counties of Cleve,
Julich, Mark, Berg, Ravensberg, and Ravenstein, I am advancing towards
them with my army. As my road leads me through your country, I desire to
notify you thereof, and to know whether or not I am to enter as a friend
or enemy."
Such was the draft as delivered to the Secretary of State; "and as such
it was sent," said Sully, "unless Villeroy changed it, as he had a great
desire to do."
Henry was mistaken in supposing that the Archduke would leave the letter
without an answer. A reply was sent in due time, and the permission
demanded was not refused. For although France was now full of military
movement, and the regiments everywhere were hurrying hourly to the places
of rendezvous, though the great storm at last was ready to burst, the
Archdukes made no preparations for resistance, and lapped themselves in
fatal security that nothing was intended but an empty demonstration.
Six thousand Swiss newly levied, with 20,000 French infantry and 6000
horse, were waiting for Henry to place himself at their head at Mezieres.
Twelve thousand foot and 2000 cavalry, including the French and English
contingents--a splendid army, led by Prince Maurice--were ready to march
from Holland to Dusseldorf. The army of the princes under Prince
Christian of Anhalt numbered 10,000 men. The last scruples of the usually
unscrupulous Charles Emmanuel had been overcome, and the Duke was quite
ready to act, 25,000 strong, with Marshal de Lesdiguieres, in the
Milanese; while Marshal de la Force was already at the head of his forces
in the Pyrenees, amounting to 12,000 foot and 2000 horse.
Sully had already despatched his splendid trains of artillery to the
frontier. "Never was seen in France, and perhaps never will be seen there
again, artillery more complete and better furnished," said the Duke,
thinking probably that artillery had reached the climax of perfect
destructiveness in the first decade of the seventeenth century.
His son, the Marquis de Rosny, had received the post of grand master of
artillery, and placed himself at its head. His father was to follow as
its chief, carrying with him as superintendent of finance a cash-box of
eight millions.
The King had appointed his wife, Mary de' Medici, regent, with an eminent
council.
The new nuncius had been requested to present himself with his letters of
credence in the camp. Henry was unwilling that he should enter Paris,
being convinced that he came to do his best, by declamation, persuasion,
and intrigue, to paralyse the enterprise. Sully's promises to Ubaldini,
the former nuncius, that his Holiness should be made king, however
flattering to Paul V., had not prevented his representatives from
vigorously denouncing Henry's monstrous scheme to foment heresy and
encourage rebellion.
The King's chagrin at the cautious limitations imposed upon the States'
special embassy was, so he hoped, to be removed by full conferences in
the camp. Certainly he had shown in the most striking manner the respect
he felt for the States, and the confidence he reposed in them.
"In the reception of your embassy," wrote Aerssens to the Advocate,
"certainly the King has so loosened the strap of his affection that he
has reserved nothing by which he could put the greatest king in the world
above your level."
He warned the States, however, that Henry had not found as much in their
propositions as the common interest had caused him to promise himself.
"Nevertheless he informs me in confidence," said Aerssens, "that he will
engage himself in nothing without you; nay, more, he has expressly told
me that he could hardly accomplish his task without your assistance, and
it was for our sakes alone that he has put himself into this position and
incurred this great expense."
Some days later he informed Barneveld that he would leave to van der Myle
and his colleagues the task of describing the great dissatisfaction of
the King at the letters brought by de Bethune. He told him in confidence
that the States must equip the French regiments and put them in marching
order if they wished to preserve Henry's friendship. He added that since
the departure of the special embassy the King had been vehemently and
seriously urging that Prince Maurice, Count Lewis William, Barneveld, and
three or four of the most qualified deputies of the States-General,
entirely authorized to treat for the common safety, should meet with him
in the territory of Julich on a fixed day.
The crisis was reached. The King stood fully armed, thoroughly prepared,
with trustworthy allies at his side, disposing of overwhelming forces
ready to sweep down with irresistible strength upon the House of Austria,
which, as he said and the States said, aspired to give the law to the
whole world. Nothing was left to do save, as the Ambassador said, to
"uncouple the dogs of war and let them run."
What preparations had Spain and the Empire, the Pope and the League, set
on foot to beat back even for a moment the overwhelming onset? None
whatever. Spinola in the Netherlands, Fuentes in Milan, Bucquoy and
Lobkowitz and Lichtenstein in Prague, had hardly the forces of a moderate
peace establishment at their disposal, and all the powers save France and
the States were on the verge of bankruptcy.
Even James of Great Britain--shuddering at the vast thundercloud which
had stretched itself over Christendom growing blacker and blacker,
precisely at this moment, in which he had proved to his own satisfaction
that the peace just made would perpetually endure--even James did not
dare to traverse the designs of the king whom he feared, and the republic
which he hated, in favour of his dearly loved Spain. Sweden, Denmark, the
Hanse Towns, were in harmony with France, Holland, Savoy, and the whole
Protestant force of Germany--a majority both in population and resources
of the whole empire. What army, what combination, what device, what
talisman, could save the House of Austria, the cause of Papacy, from the
impending ruin?
A sudden, rapid, conclusive victory for the allies seemed as predestined
a result as anything could be in the future of human affairs.
On the 14th or 15th day of May, as he had just been informing the States'
ambassadors, Henry meant to place himself at the head of his army. That
was the moment fixed by himself for "taking his departure."
And now the ides of May had come--but not gone.
In the midst of all the military preparations with which Paris had been
resounding, the arrangements for the Queen's coronation had been
simultaneously going forward. Partly to give check in advance to the
intrigues which would probably at a later date be made by Conde,
supported by the power of Spain, to invalidate the legitimacy of the
Dauphin, but more especially perhaps to further and to conceal what the
faithful Sully called the "damnable artifices" of the Queen's intimate
councillors--sinister designs too dark to be even whispered at that
epoch, and of which history, during the lapse of more than two centuries
and a half, has scarcely dared to speak above its breath--it was deemed
all important that the coronation should take place.
A certain astrologer, Thomassin by name, was said to have bidden the King
to beware the middle of the next month of May. Henry had tweaked the
soothsayer by the beard and made him dance twice or thrice about the
room. To the Duc de Vendome expressing great anxiety in regard to
Thomassin, Henry replied, "The astrologer is an old fool, and you are a
young fool." A certain prophetess called Pasithea had informed the Queen
that the King could not survive his fifty-seventh year. She was much in
the confidence of Mary de' Medici, who had insisted this year on her
returning to Paris. Henry, who was ever chafing and struggling to escape
the invisible and dangerous net which he felt closing about him, and who
connected the sorceress with all whom he most loathed among the intimate
associates of the Queen, swore a mighty oath that she should not show her
face again at court. "My heart presages that some signal disaster will
befall me on this coronation. Concini and his wife are urging the Queen
obstinately to send for this fanatic. If she should come, there is no
doubt that my wife and I shall squabble well about her. If I discover
more about these private plots of hers with Spain, I shall be in a mighty
passion." And the King then assured the faithful minister of his
conviction that all the jealousy affected by the Queen in regard to the
Princess of Conde was but a veil to cover dark designs. It was necessary
in the opinion of those who governed her, the vile Concini and his wife,
that there should be some apparent and flagrant cause of quarrel. The
public were to receive payment in these pretexts for want of better coin.
Henry complained that even Sully and all the world besides attributed to
jealousy that which was really the effect of a most refined malice.
And the minister sometimes pauses in the midst of these revelations made
in his old age, and with self-imposed and shuddering silence intimates
that there are things he could tell which are too odious and dreadful to
be breathed.
Henry had an invincible repugnance to that coronation on which the Queen
had set her heart. Nothing could be more pathetic than the isolated
position in which he found himself, standing thus as he did on the
threshold of a mighty undertaking in which he was the central figure, an
object for the world to gaze upon with palpitating interest. At his
hearth in the Louvre were no household gods. Danger lurked behind every
tapestry in that magnificent old palace. A nameless dread dogged his
footsteps through those resounding corridors.
And by an exquisite refinement in torture the possible father of several
of his children not only dictated to the Queen perpetual outbreaks of
frantic jealousy against her husband, but moved her to refuse with
suspicion any food and drink offered her by his hands. The Concini's
would even with unparalleled and ingenious effrontery induce her to make
use of the kitchen arrangements in their apartments for the preparation
of her daily meals?
Driven from house and home, Henry almost lived at the Arsenal. There he
would walk for hours in the long alleys of the garden, discussing with
the great financier and soldier his vast, dreamy, impracticable plans.
Strange combination of the hero, the warrior, the voluptuary, the sage,
and the schoolboy--it would be difficult to find in the whole range of
history a more human, a more attractive, a more provoking, a less
venerable character.
Haunted by omens, dire presentiments, dark suspicions with and without
cause, he was especially averse from the coronation to which in a moment
of weakness he had given his consent.
Sitting in Sully's cabinet, in a low chair which the Duke had expressly
provided for his use, tapping and drumming on his spectacle case, or
starting up and smiting himself on the thigh, he would pour out his soul
hours long to his one confidential minister. "Ah, my friend, how this
sacrament displeases me," he said; "I know not why it is, but my heart
tells me that some misfortune is to befall me. By God I shall die in this
city, I shall never go out of it; I see very well that they are finding
their last resource in my death. Ah, accursed coronation! thou wilt be
the cause of my death."
So many times did he give utterance to these sinister forebodings that
Sully implored him at last for leave to countermand the whole ceremony
notwithstanding the great preparations which had been made for the
splendid festival. "Yes, yes," replied the King, "break up this
coronation at once. Let me hear no more of it. Then I shall have my mind
cured of all these impressions. I shall leave the town and fear nothing."
He then informed his friend that he had received intimations that he
should lose his life at the first magnificent festival he should give,
and that he should die in a carriage. Sully admitted that he had often,
when in a carriage with him, been amazed at his starting and crying out
at the slightest shock, having so often seen him intrepid among guns and
cannon, pikes and naked swords.
The Duke went to the Queen three days in succession, and with passionate
solicitations and arguments and almost upon his knees implored her to
yield to the King's earnest desire, and renounce for the time at least
the coronation. In vain. Mary de' Medici was obdurate as marble to his
prayers.
The coronation was fixed for Thursday, the 13th May, two days later than
the time originally appointed when the King conversed with the States'
ambassadors. On the following Sunday was to be the splendid and solemn
entrance of the crowned Queen. On the Monday, Henry, postponing likewise
for two days his original plan of departure, would leave for the army.
Meantime there were petty annoyances connected with the details of the
coronation. Henry had set his heart on having his legitimatized children,
the offspring of the fair Gabrielle, take their part in the ceremony on
an equal footing with the princes of the blood. They were not entitled to
wear the lilies of France upon their garments, and the King was
solicitous that "the Count"--as Soissons, brother of Prince Conti and
uncle of Conde, was always called--should dispense with those ensigns for
his wife upon this solemn occasion, and that the other princesses of the
blood should do the same. Thus there would be no appearance of
inferiority on the part of the Duchess of Vendome.
The Count protested that he would have his eyes torn out of his head
rather than submit to an arrangement which would do him so much shame. He
went to the Queen and urged upon her that to do this would likewise be an
injury to her children, the Dukes of Orleans and of Anjou. He refused
flatly to appear or allow his wife to appear except in the costume
befitting their station. The King on his part was determined not to
abandon his purpose. He tried to gain over the Count by the most splendid
proposals, offering him the command of the advance-guard of the army, or
the lieutenancy-general of France in the absence of the King, 30,000
crowns for his equipment and an increase of his pension if he would cause
his wife to give up the fleurs-de-lys on this occasion. The alternative
was to be that, if she insisted upon wearing them, his Majesty would
never look upon him again with favourable eyes.
The Count never hesitated, but left Paris, refusing to appear at the
ceremony. The King was in a towering passion, for to lose the presence of
this great prince of the blood at a solemnity expressly intended as a
demonstration against the designs hatching by the first of all the
princes of the blood under patronage of Spain was a severe blow to his
pride and a check to his policy.'
Yet it was inconceivable that he could at such a moment commit so
superfluous and unmeaning a blunder. He had forced Conde into exile,
intrigue with the enemy, and rebellion, by open and audacious efforts to
destroy his domestic peace, and now he was willing to alienate one of his
most powerful subjects in order to place his bastards on a level with
royalty. While it is sufficiently amusing to contemplate this proposed
barter of a chief command in a great army or the lieutenancy-general of a
mighty kingdom at the outbreak of a general European war against a bit of
embroidery on the court dress of a lady, yet it is impossible not to
recognize something ideal and chivalrous from his own point of view in
the refusal of Soissons to renounce those emblems of pure and high
descent, those haughty lilies of St. Louis, against any bribes of place
and pelf however dazzling.
The coronation took place on Thursday, 13th May, with the pomp and
glitter becoming great court festivals; the more pompous and glittering
the more the monarch's heart was wrapped in gloom. The representatives of
the great powers were conspicuous in the procession; Aerssens, the Dutch
ambassador, holding a foremost place. The ambassadors of Spain and Venice
as usual squabbled about precedence and many other things, and actually
came to fisticuffs, the fight lasting a long time and ending somewhat to
the advantage of the Venetian. But the sacrament was over, and Mary de'
Medici was crowned Queen of France and Regent of the Kingdom during the
absence of the sovereign with his army.
Meantime there had been mysterious warnings darker and more distinct than
the babble of the soothsayer Thomassin or the ravings of the lunatic
Pasithea. Count Schomberg, dining at the Arsenal with Sully, had been
called out to converse with Mademoiselle de Gournay, who implored that a
certain Madame d'Escomans might be admitted to audience of the King. That
person, once in direct relations with the Marchioness of Verneuil, the
one of Henry's mistresses who most hated him, affirmed that a man from
the Duke of Epernon's country was in Paris, agent of a conspiracy seeking
the King's life.
The woman not enjoying a very reputable character found it impossible to
obtain a hearing, although almost frantic with her desire to save her
sovereign's life. The Queen observed that it was a wicked woman, who was
accusing all the world, and perhaps would accuse her too.
The fatal Friday came. Henry drove out, in his carriage to see the
preparations making for the triumphal entrance of the Queen into Paris on
the following Sunday. What need to repeat the tragic, familiar tale? The
coach was stopped by apparent accident in the narrow street de la
Feronniere, and Francis Ravaillac, standing on the wheel, drove his knife
through the monarch's heart. The Duke of Epernon, sitting at his side,
threw his cloak over the body and ordered the carriage back to the
Louvre.
"They have killed him, 'e ammazato,'" cried Concini (so says tradition),
thrusting his head into the Queen's bedchamber.
[Michelet, 197. It is not probable that the documents concerning
the trial, having been so carefully suppressed from the beginning,
especially the confession dictated to Voisin--who wrote it kneeling
on the ground, and was perhaps so appalled at its purport that he
was afraid to write it legibly--will ever see the light. I add in
the Appendix some contemporary letters of persons, as likely as any
one to know what could be known, which show how dreadful were the
suspicions which men entertained, and which they hardly ventured to
whisper to each other].
That blow had accomplished more than a great army could have done, and
Spain now reigned in Paris. The House of Austria, without making any
military preparations, had conquered, and the great war of religion and
politics was postponed for half a dozen years.
This history has no immediate concern with solving the mysteries of that
stupendous crime. The woman who had sought to save the King's life now
denounced Epernon as the chief murderer, and was arrested, examined,
accused of lunacy, proved to be perfectly sane, and, persisting in her
statements with perfect coherency, was imprisoned for life for her pains;
the Duke furiously demanding her instant execution.
The documents connected with the process were carefully suppressed. The
assassin, tortured and torn by four horses, was supposed to have revealed
nothing and to have denied the existence of accomplices.
The great accused were too omnipotent to be dealt with by humble accusers
or by convinced but powerless tribunals. The trial was all mystery,
hugger-mugger, horror. Yet the murderer is known to have dictated to the
Greflier Voisin, just before expiring on the Greve, a declaration which
that functionary took down in a handwriting perhaps purposely illegible.
Two centuries and a half have passed away, yet the illegible original
record is said to exist, to have been plainly read, and to contain the
names of the Queen and the Duke of Epernon.
Twenty-six years before, the pistol of Balthasar Gerard had destroyed the
foremost man in Europe and the chief of a commonwealth just struggling
into existence. Yet Spain and Rome, the instigators and perpetrators of
the crime, had not reaped the victory which they had the right to expect.
The young republic, guided by Barneveld and loyal to the son of the
murdered stadholder, was equal to the burthen suddenly descending upon
its shoulders. Instead of despair there had been constancy. Instead of
distracted counsels there had been heroic union of heart and hand. Rather
than bend to Rome and grovel to Philip, it had taken its sovereignty in
its hands, offered it successively, without a thought of
self-aggrandizement on the part of its children, to the crowns of France
and Great Britain, and, having been repulsed by both, had learned after
fiery trials and incredible exertions to assert its own high and foremost
place among the independent powers of the world.
And now the knife of another priest-led fanatic, the wretched but
unflinching instrument of a great conspiracy, had at a blow decapitated
France. No political revolution could be much more thorough than that
which had been accomplished in a moment of time by Francis Ravaillac.
On the 14th of May, France, while in spiritual matters obedient to the
Pope, stood at the head of the forces of Protestantism throughout Europe,
banded together to effect the downfall of the proud house of Austria,
whose fortunes and fate were synonymous with Catholicism. The Baltic
powers, the majority of the Teutonic races, the Kingdom of Britain, the
great Republic of the Netherlands, the northernmost and most warlike
governments of Italy, all stood at the disposition of the warrior-king.
Venice, who had hitherto, in the words of a veteran diplomatist, "shunned
to look a league or a confederation in the face, if there was any
Protestant element in it, as if it had been the head of Medusa," had
formally forbidden the passage of troops northwards to the relief of the
assailed power. Savoy, after direful hesitations, had committed herself
body and soul to the great enterprise. Even the Pope, who feared the
overshadowing personality of Henry, and was beginning to believe his
house's private interests more likely to flourish under the protection of
the French than the Spanish king, was wavering in his fidelity to Spain
and tempted by French promises: If he should prove himself incapable of
effecting a pause in the great crusade, it was doubtful on which side he
would ultimately range himself; for it was at least certain that the new
Catholic League, under the chieftainship of Maximilian of Bavaria, was
resolved not to entangle its fortunes inextricably with those of the
Austrian house.
The great enterprise, first unfolding itself with the episode of Cleve
and Berg and whimsically surrounding itself with the fantastic idyl of
the Princess of Conde, had attained vast and misty proportions in the
brain of its originator. Few political visions are better known in
history than the "grand design" of Henry for rearranging the map of the
world at the moment when, in the middle of May, he was about to draw his
sword. Spain reduced to the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees, but presented
with both the Indies, with all America and the whole Orient in fee; the
Empire taken from Austria and given to Bavaria; a constellation of States
in Italy, with the Pope for president-king; throughout the rest of
Christendom a certain number of republics, of kingdoms, of religions--a
great confederation of the world, in short--with the most Christian king
for its dictator and protector, and a great Amphictyonic council to
regulate all disputes by solemn arbitration, and to make war in the
future impossible, such in little was his great design.
Nothing could be more humane, more majestic, more elaborate, more utterly
preposterous. And all this gigantic fabric had passed away in an
instant--at one stroke of a broken table knife sharpened on a carriage
wheel.
Most pitiful was the condition of France on the day after, and for years
after, the murder of the King. Not only was the kingdom for the time
being effaced from the roll of nations, so far as external relations were
concerned, but it almost ceased to be a kingdom. The ancient monarchy of
Hugh Capet, of Saint-Louis, of Henry of France and Navarre, was
transformed into a turbulent, self-seeking, quarrelsome, pillaging,
pilfering democracy of grandees. The Queen-Regent was tossed hither and
thither at the sport of the winds and waves which shifted every hour in
that tempestuous court.
No man pretended to think of the State. Every man thought only of
himself. The royal exchequer was plundered with a celerity and cynical
recklessness such as have been rarely seen in any age or country. The
millions so carefully hoarded by Sully, and exhibited so dramatically by
that great minister to the enraptured eyes of his sovereign; that
treasure in the Bastille on which Henry relied for payment of the armies
with which he was to transform the world, all disappeared in a few weeks
to feed the voracious maw of courtiers, paramours, and partisans!
The Queen showered gold like water upon her beloved Concini that he might
purchase his Marquisate of Ancre, and the charge of first gentleman of
the court from Bouillon; that he might fit himself for the government of
Picardy; that he might elevate his marquisate into a dukedom. Conde,
having no further reason to remain in exile, received as a gift from the
trembling Mary de' Medici the magnificent Hotel Gondy, where the Dutch
ambassadors had so recently been lodged, for which she paid 65,000
crowns, together with 25,000 crowns to furnish it, 50,000 crowns to pay
his debts, 50,000 more as yearly pension.
He claimed double, and was soon at sword's point with the Queen in spite
of her lavish bounty.
Epernon, the true murderer of Henry, trampled on courts of justice and
councils of ministers, frightened the court by threatening to convert his
possession of Metz into an independent sovereignty, as Balagny had
formerly seized upon Cambray, smothered for ever the process of
Ravaillac, caused those to be put to death or immured for life in
dungeons who dared to testify to his complicity in the great crime, and
strode triumphantly over friends and enemies throughout France, although
so crippled by the gout that he could scarcely walk up stairs.
There was an end to the triumvirate. Sully's influence was gone for ever.
The other two dropped the mask. The Chancellor and Villeroy revealed
themselves to be what they secretly had always been--humble servants and
stipendiaries of Spain. The formal meetings of the council were of little
importance, and were solemn, tearful, and stately; draped in woe for the
great national loss. In the private cabinet meetings in the entresol of
the Louvre, where the Nuncius and the Spanish ambassador held counsel
with Epernon and Villeroy and Jeannin and Sillery, the tone was merry and
loud; the double Spanish marriage and confusion to the Dutch being the
chief topics of consultation.
But the anarchy grew day by day into almost hopeless chaos. There was no
satisfying the princes of the blood nor the other grandees. Conde, whose
reconciliation with the Princess followed not long after the death of
Henry and his own return to France, was insatiable in his demands for
money, power, and citadels of security. Soissons, who might formerly have
received the lieutenancy-general of the kingdom by sacrificing the lilies
on his wife's gown, now disputed for that office with his elder brother
Conti, the Prince claiming it by right of seniority, the Count denouncing
Conti as deaf, dumb, and imbecile, till they drew poniards on each other
in the very presence of the Queen; while Conde on one occasion, having
been refused the citadels which he claimed, Blaye and Chateau Trompette,
threw his cloak over his nose and put on his hat while the Queen was
speaking, and left the council in a fury, declaring that Villeroy and the
chancellor were traitors, and that he would have them both soundly
cudgelled. Guise, Lorraine, Epernon, Bouillon, and other great lords
always appeared in the streets of Paris at the head of three, four, or
five hundred mounted and armed retainers; while the Queen in her
distraction gave orders to arm the Paris mob to the number of fifty
thousand, and to throw chains across the streets to protect herself and
her son against the turbulent nobles.
Sully, hardly knowing to what saint to burn his candle, being forced to
resign his great posts, was found for a time in strange political
combination with the most ancient foes of his party and himself. The
kaleidoscope whirling with exasperating quickness showed ancient Leaguers
and Lorrainers banded with and protecting Huguenots against the Crown,
while princes of the blood, hereditary patrons and chiefs of the
Huguenots, became partisans and stipendiaries of Spain.
It is easy to see that circumstances like these rendered the position of
the Dutch commonwealth delicate and perilous.
Sully informed Aerssens and van der Myle, who had been sent back to Paris
on special mission very soon after the death of the King, that it took a
hundred hours now to accomplish a single affair, whereas under Henry a
hundred affairs were transacted in a single hour. But Sully's sun had
set, and he had few business conferences now with the ambassadors.
Villeroy and the Chancellor had fed fat their ancient grudge to the once
omnipotent minister, and had sworn his political ruin. The old secretary
of state had held now complete control of the foreign alliances and
combinations of France, and the Dutch ambassadors could be under no
delusion as to the completeness of the revolution.
"You will find a passion among the advisers of the Queen," said Villeroy
to Aerssens and van der Myle, "to move in diametrical opposition to the
plans of the late king." And well might the ancient Leaguer and present
pensionary of Spain reveal this foremost fact in a policy of which he was
in secret the soul. He wept profusely when he first received Francis
Aerssens, but after these "useless tears," as the Envoy called them, he
soon made it manifest that there was no more to be expected of France, in
the great project which its government had so elaborately set on foot.
Villeroy was now sixty-six years of age, and had been secretary of state
during forty-two years and under four kings. A man of delicate health,
frail body, methodical habits, capacity for routine, experience in
political intrigue, he was not personally as greedy of money as many of
his contemporaries, and was not without generosity; but he loved power,
the Pope, and the House of Austria. He was singularly reserved in public,
practised successfully the talent of silence, and had at last arrived at
the position he most coveted, the virtual presidency of the council, and
saw the men he most hated beneath his feet.
At the first interview of Aerssens with the Queen-Regent she was drowned
in tears, and could scarcely articulate an intelligible sentence. So far
as could be understood she expressed her intention of carrying out the
King's plans, of maintaining the old alliances, of protecting both
religions. Nothing, however, could be more preposterous than such
phrases. Villeroy, who now entirely directed the foreign affairs of the
kingdom, assured the Ambassador that France was much more likely to apply
to the States for assistance than render them aid in any enterprise
whatever. "There is no doubt," said Aerssens, "that the Queen is entirely
in the hands of Spain and the priests." Villeroy, whom Henry was wont to
call the pedagogue of the council, went about sighing dismally, wishing
himself dead, and perpetually ejaculating, "Ho! poor France, how much
hast thou still to suffer!" In public he spoke of nothing but of union,
and of the necessity of carrying out the designs of the King, instructing
the docile Queen to hold the same language. In private he was quite
determined to crush those designs for ever, and calmly advised the Dutch
government to make an amicable agreement with the Emperor in regard to
the Cleve affair as soon as possible; a treaty which would have been
shameful for France and the possessory princes, and dangerous, if not
disastrous, for the States-General. "Nothing but feverish and sick
counsels," he said, "could be expected from France, which had now lost
its vigour and could do nothing but groan."
Not only did the French council distinctly repudiate the idea of doing
anything more for the princes than had been stipulated by the treaty of
Hall--that is to say, a contingent of 8000 foot and 2000 horse--but many
of them vehemently maintained that the treaty, being a personal one of
the late king, was dead with him? The duty of France was now in their
opinion to withdraw from these mad schemes as soon as possible, to make
peace with the House of Austria without delay, and to cement the
friendship by the double marriages.
Bouillon, who at that moment hated Sully as much as the most vehement
Catholic could do, assured the Dutch envoy that the government was, under
specious appearances, attempting to deceive the States; a proposition
which it needed not the evidence of that most intriguing duke to make
manifest to so astute a politician; particularly as there was none more
bent on playing the most deceptive game than Bouillon. There would be no
troops to send, he said, and even if there were, there would be no
possibility of agreeing on a chief. The question of religion would at
once arise. As for himself, the Duke protested that he would not accept
the command if offered him. He would not agree to serve under the Prince
of Anhalt, nor would he for any consideration in the world leave the
court at that moment. At the same time Aerssens was well aware that
Bouillon, in his quality of first marshal of France, a Protestant and a
prince having great possessions on the frontier, and the brother-in-law
of Prince Maurice, considered himself entitled to the command of the
troops should they really be sent, and was very indignant at the idea of
its being offered to any one else.
[Aerssens worked assiduously, two hours long on one occasion, to
effect a reconciliation between the two great Protestant chiefs, but
found Bouillon's demands "so shameful and unreasonable" that he
felt obliged to renounce all further attempts. In losing Sully from
the royal councils, the States' envoy acknowledged that the Republic
had lost everything that could be depended on at the French court.
"All the others are time-serving friends," he said, "or saints
without miracles."--Aerssens to Barneveld, 11 June, 1610. ]
He advised earnestly therefore that the States should make a firm demand
for money instead of men, specifying the amount that might be considered
the equivalent of the number of troops originally stipulated.
It is one of the most singular spectacles in history; France sinking into
the background of total obscurity in an instant of time, at one blow of a
knife, while the Republic, which she had been patronizing, protecting,
but keeping always in a subordinate position while relying implicitly
upon its potent aid, now came to the front, and held up on its strong
shoulders an almost desperate cause. Henry had been wont to call the
States-General "his courage and his right arm," but he had always
strictly forbidden them to move an inch in advance of him, but ever to
follow his lead, and to take their directions from himself. They were a
part, and an essential one, in his vast designs; but France, or he who
embodied France, was the great providence, the destiny, the
all-directing, all-absorbing spirit, that was to remodel and control the
whole world. He was dead, and France and her policy were already in a
state of rapid decomposition.
Barneveld wrote to encourage and sustain the sinking state. "Our courage
is rising in spite and in consequence of the great misfortune," he said.
He exhorted the Queen to keep her kingdom united, and assured her that My
Lords the States would maintain themselves against all who dared to
assail them. He offered in their name the whole force of the Republic to
take vengeance on those who had procured the assassination, and to defend
the young king and the Queen-Mother against all who might make any
attempt against their authority. He further declared, in language not to
be mistaken, that the States would never abandon the princes and their
cause.
This was the earliest indication on the part of the Advocate of the
intention of the Republic--so long as it should be directed by his
counsels--to support the cause of the young king, helpless and incapable
as he was, and directed for the time being by a weak and wicked mother,
against the reckless and depraved grandees, who were doing their best to
destroy the unity and the independence of France, Cornelis van der Myle
was sent back to Paris on special mission of condolence and comfort from
the States-General to the sorely afflicted kingdom.
On the 7th of June, accompanied by Aerssens, he had a long interview with
Villeroy. That minister, as usual, wept profusely, and said that in
regard to Cleve it was impossible for France to carry out the designs of
the late king. He then listened to what the ambassadors had to urge, and
continued to express his melancholy by weeping. Drying his tears for a
time, he sought by a long discourse to prove that France during this
tender minority of the King would be incapable of pursuing the policy of
his father. It would be even too burthensome to fulfil the Treaty of
Hall. The friends of the crown, he said, had no occasion to further it,
and it would be much better to listen to propositions for a treaty.
Archduke Albert was content not to interfere in the quarrel if the Queen
would likewise abstain; Leopold's forces were altogether too weak to make
head against the army of the princes, backed by the power of My Lords the
States, and Julich was neither strong nor well garrisoned. He concluded
by calmly proposing that the States should take the matter in hand by
themselves alone, in order to lighten the burthen of France, whose vigour
had been cut in two by that accursed knife.
A more sneaking and shameful policy was never announced by the minister
of a great kingdom. Surely it might seem that Ravaillac had cut in twain
not the vigour only but the honour and the conscience of France. But the
envoys, knowing in their hearts that they were talking not with a French
but a Spanish secretary of state, were not disposed to be the dupes of
his tears or his blandishments.
They reminded him that the Queen-Regent and her ministers since the
murder of the King had assured the States-General and the princes of
their firm intention to carry out the Treaty of Hall, and they observed
that they had no authority to talk of any negotiation. The affair of the
duchies was not especially the business of the States, and the Secretary
was well aware that they had promised their succour on the express
condition that his Majesty and his army should lead the way, and that
they should follow. This was very far from the plan now suggested, that
they should do it all, which would be quite out of the question. France
had a strong army, they said, and it would be better to use it than to
efface herself so pitiably. The proposition of abstention on the part of
the Archduke was a delusion intended only to keep France out of the
field.
Villeroy replied by referring to English affairs. King James, he said,
was treating them perfidiously. His first letters after the murder had
been good, but by the following ones England seemed to wish to put her
foot on France's throat, in order to compel her to sue for an alliance.
The British ministers had declared their resolve not to carry out that
convention of alliance, although it had been nearly concluded in the
lifetime of the late king, unless the Queen would bind herself to make
good to the King of Great Britain that third part of the subsidies
advanced by France to the States which had been furnished on English
account!
This was the first announcement of a grievance devised by the politicians
now governing France to make trouble for the States with that kingdom and
with Great Britain likewise. According to a treaty made at Hampton Court
by Sully during his mission to England at the accession of James, it had
been agreed that one-third of the moneys advanced by France in aid of the
United Provinces should be credited to the account of Great Britain, in
diminution of the debt for similar assistance rendered by Elizabeth to
Henry. In regard to this treaty the States had not been at all consulted,
nor did they acknowledge the slightest obligation in regard to it. The
subsidies in men and in money provided for them both by France and by
England in their struggle for national existence had always been most
gratefully acknowledged by the Republic, but it had always been perfectly
understood that these expenses had been incurred by each kingdom out of
an intelligent and thrifty regard for its own interest. Nothing could be
more ridiculous than to suppose France and England actuated by
disinterested sympathy and benevolence when assisting the Netherland
people in its life-and-death struggle against the dire and deadly enemy
of both crowns. Henry protested that, while adhering to Rome in spiritual
matters, his true alliances and strength had been found in the United
Provinces, in Germany, and in Great Britain. As for the States, he had
spent sixteen millions of livres, he said, in acquiring a perfect
benevolence on the part of the States to his person. It was the best
bargain he had ever made, and he should take care to preserve it at any
cost whatever, for he considered himself able, when closely united with
them, to bid defiance to all the kings in Europe together.
Yet it was now the settled policy of the Queen-Regent's council, so far
as the knot of politicians guided by the Nuncius and the Spanish
ambassador in the entresols of the Louvre could be called a council, to
force the States to refund that third, estimated at something between
three and four million livres, which France had advanced them on account
of Great Britain.
Villeroy told the two ambassadors at this interview that, if Great
Britain continued to treat the Queen-Regent in such fashion, she would be
obliged to look about for other allies. There could hardly be doubt as to
the quarter in which Mary de' Medici was likely to look. Meantime, the
Secretary of State urged the envoys "to intervene at once to-mediate the
difference." There could be as little doubt that to mediate the
difference was simply to settle an account which they did not owe.
The whole object of the Minister at this first interview was to induce
the States to take the whole Cleve enterprise upon their own shoulders,
and to let France off altogether. The Queen-Regent as then advised meant
to wash her hands of the possessory princes once and for ever. The envoys
cut the matter short by assuring Villeroy that they would do nothing of
the kind. He begged them piteously not to leave the princes in the lurch,
and at the same time not to add to the burthens of France at so
disastrous a moment.
So they parted. Next day, however, they visited the Secretary again, and
found him more dismal and flaccid than ever.
He spoke feebly and drearily about the succour for the great enterprise,
recounted all the difficulties in the way, and, having thrown down
everything that the day before had been left standing, he tried to excuse
an entire change of policy by the one miserable crime.
He painted a forlorn picture of the council and of France. "I can myself
do nothing as I wish," added the undisputed controller of that
government's policy, and then with a few more tears he concluded by
requesting the envoys to address their demands to the Queen in writing.
This was done with the customary formalities and fine speeches on both
sides; a dull comedy by which no one was amused.
Then Bouillon came again, and assured them that there had been a chance
that the engagements of Henry, followed up by the promise of the
Queen-Regent, would be carried out, but now the fact was not to be
concealed that the continued battery of the Nuncius, of the ambassadors
of Spain and of the Archdukes, had been so effective that nothing sure or
solid was thenceforth to be expected; the council being resolved to
accept the overtures of the Archduke for mutual engagement to abstain
from the Julich enterprise.
Nothing in truth could be more pitiable than the helpless drifting of the
once mighty kingdom, whenever the men who governed it withdrew their
attention for an instant from their private schemes of advancement and
plunder to cast a glance at affairs of State. In their secret heart they
could not doubt that France was rushing on its ruin, and that in the
alliance of the Dutch commonwealth, Britain, and the German Protestants,
was its only safety. But they trembled before the Pope, grown bold and
formidable since the death of the dreaded Henry. To offend his Holiness,
the King of Spain, the Emperor, and the great Catholics of France, was to
make a crusade against the Church. Garnier, the Jesuit, preached from his
pulpit that "to strike a blow in the Cleve enterprise was no less a sin
than to inflict a stab in the body of our Lord." The Parliament of Paris
having ordered the famous treatise of the Jesuit Mariana--justifying the
killing of excommunicated kings by their subjects--to be publicly burned
before Notre Dame, the Bishop opposed the execution of the decree. The
Parliament of Paris, although crushed by Epernon in its attempts to fix
the murder of the King upon himself as the true culprit, was at least
strong enough to carry out this sentence upon a printed, volume
recommending the deed, and the Queen's council could only do its best to
mitigate the awakened wrath of the Jesuits at this exercise of legal
authority.--At the same time, it found on the whole so many more
difficulties in a cynical and shameless withdrawal from the Treaty of
Hall than in a nominal and tardy fulfilment of its conditions that it
resolved at last to furnish the 8000 foot and 2000 horse promised to the
possessory princes. The next best thing to abandoning entirely even this
little shred, this pitiful remnant, of the splendid designs of Henry was
to so arrange matters that the contingent should be feebly commanded, and
set on foot in so dilatory a manner that the petty enterprise should on
the part of France be purely perfunctory. The grandees of the kingdom had
something more important to do than to go crusading in Germany, with the
help of a heretic republic, to set up the possessory princes. They were
fighting over the prostrate dying form of their common mother for their
share of the spoils, stripping France before she was dead, and casting
lots for her vesture.
Soissons was on the whole in favour of the Cleve expedition. Epernon was
desperately opposed to it, and maltreated Villeroy in full council when
he affected to say a word, insincere as the Duke knew it to be, in favour
of executing agreements signed by the monarch, and sealed with the great
seal of France. The Duke of Guise, finding himself abandoned by the
Queen, and bitterly opposed and hated by Soissons, took sides with his
deaf and dumb and imbecile brother, and for a brief interval the Duke of
Sully joined this strange combination of the House of Lorraine and chiefs
of ancient Leaguers, who welcomed him with transport, and promised him
security.
Then Bouillon, potent by his rank, his possessions, and his authority
among the Protestants, publicly swore that he would ruin Sully and change
the whole order of the government. What more lamentable spectacle, what
more desolate future for the cause of religious equality, which for a
moment had been achieved in France, than this furious alienation of the
trusted leaders of the Huguenots, while their adversaries were carrying
everything before them? At the council board Bouillon quarrelled
ostentatiously with Sully, shook his fist in his face, and but for the
Queen's presence would have struck him. Next day he found that the Queen
was intriguing against himself as well as against Sully, was making a
cat's-paw of him, and was holding secret councils daily from which he as
well as Sully was excluded. At once he made overtures of friendship to
Sully, and went about proclaiming to the world that all Huguenots were to
be removed from participation in affairs of state. His vows of vengeance
were for a moment hushed by the unanimous resolution of the council that,
as first marshal of France, having his principality on the frontier, and
being of the Reformed religion, he was the fittest of all to command the
expedition. Surely it might be said that the winds and tides were not
more changeful than the politics of the Queen's government. The Dutch
ambassador was secretly requested by Villeroy to negotiate with Bouillon
and offer him the command of the Julich expedition. The Duke affected to
make difficulties, although burning to obtain the post, but at last
consented. All was settled. Aerssens communicated at once with Villeroy,
and notice of Bouillon's acceptance was given to the Queen, when, behold,
the very next day Marshal de la Chatre was appointed to the command
expressly because he was a Catholic. Of course the Duke of Bouillon,
furious with Soissons and Epernon and the rest of the government, was
more enraged than ever against the Queen. His only hope was now in Conde,
but Conde at the outset, on arriving at the Louvre, offered his heart to
the Queen as a sheet of white paper. Epernon and Soissons received him
with delight, and exchanged vows of an eternal friendship of several
weeks' duration. And thus all the princes of the blood, all the cousins
of Henry of Navarre, except the imbecile Conti, were ranged on the side
of Spain, Rome, Mary de' Medici, and Concino Concini, while the son of
the Balafre, the Duke of Mayenne, and all their adherents were making
common cause with the Huguenots. What better example had been seen
before, even in that country of pantomimic changes, of the effrontery
with which Religion was made the strumpet of Political Ambition?
All that day and the next Paris was rife with rumours that there was to
be a general massacre of the Huguenots to seal the new-born friendship of
a Conde with a Medici. France was to renounce all her old alliances and
publicly to enter into treaties offensive and defensive with Spain. A
league like that of Bayonne made by the former Medicean Queen-Regent of
France was now, at Villeroy's instigation, to be signed by Mary de'
Medici. Meantime, Marshal de la Chatre, an honest soldier and fervent
Papist, seventy-three years of age, ignorant of the language, the
geography, the politics of the country to which he was sent, and knowing
the road thither about as well, according to Aerssens, who was requested
to give him a little preliminary instruction, as he did the road to
India, was to co-operate with Barneveld and Maurice of Nassau in the
enterprise against the duchies.
These were the cheerful circumstances amid which the first step in the
dead Henry's grand design against the House of Austria and in support of
Protestantism in half Europe and of religious equality throughout
Christendom, was now to be ventured.
Cornelis van der Myle took leave of the Queen on terminating his brief
special embassy, and was fain to content himself with languid assurances
from that corpulent Tuscan dame of her cordial friendship for the United
Provinces. Villeroy repeated that the contingent to be sent was furnished
out of pure love to the Netherlands, the present government being in no
wise bound by the late king's promises. He evaded the proposition of the
States for renewing the treaty of close alliance by saying that he was
then negotiating with the British government on the subject, who insisted
as a preliminary step on the repayment of the third part of the sums
advanced to the States by the late king.
He exchanged affectionate farewell greetings and good wishes with Jeannin
and with the dropsical Duke of Mayenne, who was brought in his chair to
his old fellow Leaguer's apartments at the moment of the Ambassador's
parting interview.
There was abundant supply of smooth words, in the plentiful lack of any
substantial nutriment, from the representatives of each busy faction into
which the Medicean court was divided. Even Epernon tried to say a
gracious word to the retiring envoy, assuring him that he would do as
much for the cause as a good Frenchman and lover of his fatherland could
do. He added, in rather a surly way, that he knew very well how foully he
had been described to the States, but that the devil was not as black as
he was painted. It was necessary, he said, to take care of one's own
house first of all, and he knew very well that the States and all prudent
persons would do the same thing.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
And now the knife of another priest-led fanatic
As with his own people, keeping no back-door open
At a blow decapitated France
Conclusive victory for the allies seemed as predestined
Epernon, the true murderer of Henry
Father Cotton, who was only too ready to betray the secrets
Great war of religion and politics was postponed
Jesuit Mariana--justifying the killing of excommunicated kings
No man pretended to think of the State
Practised successfully the talent of silence
Queen is entirely in the hands of Spain and the priests
Religion was made the strumpet of Political Ambition
Smooth words, in the plentiful lack of any substantial
Stroke of a broken table knife sharpened on a carriage wheel
The assassin, tortured and torn by four horses
They have killed him, 'e ammazato,' cried Concini
Things he could tell which are too odious and dreadful
Uncouple the dogs and let them run
Vows of an eternal friendship of several weeks' duration
What could save the House of Austria, the cause of Papacy
Wrath of the Jesuits at this exercise of legal authority
THE LIFE AND DEATH of JOHN OF BARNEVELD, ADVOCATE OF HOLLAND
WITH A VIEW OF THE PRIMARY CAUSES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR
By John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D.
Life and Death of John of Barneveld, v4, 1610-12