I. The Regency--The Romance of Anne of Austria and
Mazarin--Gaston's Second Wife.--II. Mademoiselle's New Marriage
Projects.--III. Mademoiselle Would Be a Carmelite Nun--The Catholic
Renaissance under Louis XIII. and the Regency.--IV. Women Enter
Politics. The Rivalry of the Two Junior Branches of the House of
France--Continuation of the Royal Romance.
I
The day after the death of Louis XIII. Paris was in a tumult. The
people were on duty, awaiting their young King, Louis XIV., a boy less
than five years old.
The country had been notified that the King would enter Paris by the
Chemin du Roule and the Faubourg Saint Honoré. Some of the people had
massed in the streets through which the procession was to pass; the
others were hurrying forward toward the bridge of Neuilly. "Never did
so many coaches and so many people come out of Paris," said Olivier
d'Ormesson, who, with his family, spent the day at a window in the
Faubourg Saint Honoré, watching to see who would follow and who would
not follow in the train of Anne of Austria.
Ormesson and his friends were close observers, who drew conclusions
from the general behaviour; they believed that they could read the fate
of the country in the faces of the courtiers. France hoped that the
Queen would give the nation the change of government which had been
vainly looked for when Richelieu died.
Anne of Austria was a determined, self-contained woman, an enigma to
the world. No one could read her thoughts, but the courtiers were sure
of one thing: she would have no prime minister. She had suffered too
deeply from the tyranny of Richelieu. She would keep her hands free!
There was enough in that thought to assure to the Queen the sympathy of
the people, and to arouse all the ambitious hopes of the nobility.
The Parisian flood met the royal cortège at Nanterre and, turning,
accompanied it and hindered its progress. "From Nanterre to the gates
of the city the country was full of wains and chariots," wrote Mme. de
Motteville, "and nothing was heard but plaudits and benedictions." When
the royal mourners surrounded by the multitude entered the Chemin du
Roule the first official address was delivered by the Provost of the
Merchants. The Regent answered briefly that she should instruct her
son "in the benevolence which he ought to show to his subjects."[87]
The applause was deafening. The cortège advanced so slowly that it was
six o'clock in the evening when Anne of Austria ascended the staircase
of the Louvre, saying that she could endure no more, and that she must
defer the reception of condolences until the following day.
Saturday, the 16th, was devoted to hearing addresses and to receiving
manifestations of reverence. The following Monday the Queen led her son
to Parliament, where, contrary to the intention expressed in the last
will and testament of Louis XIII., she, Anne of Austria, was declared
Regent "with full, entire, and absolute authority."
The evening of that memorable day a radiant throng filled the stifling
apartments of the Louvre. The great considered themselves masters of
France. Some of the courtiers were gossiping in a corner; all were
happy. Suddenly a rumour, first whispered, then spoken aloud, ran
through the rooms, _Mazarin had been made Chief of Council! The Queen
had appointed him immediately after she returned to her palace from
Parliament!_
The courtiers exchanged significant glances. Some were astounded,
others found it difficult to repress their smiles. The great had
helped Anne of Austria to seize authority because they had supposed
that she would be incapable of using it. Now that it was too late for
them to protect themselves she had come forth with the energy and
the initiative of a strong woman. In reality, though possessed of
reticence, she was a weak woman, acting under a strong influence, but
that fact was not evident.
The Queen-mother was forty-one years old. Her hair was beautiful; her
eyes were beautiful; she had beautiful hands, a majestic mien, and
natural wit. Her education had been as summary as Mademoiselle's; she
knew how to read and how to write. She had never opened a book; when
she first appeared in Council she was a miracle of ignorance. She had
always been conversant with the politics of France because her natural
love of intrigue had taught her many things concerning many people. She
had learned the lessons of life and the world from the plays presented
at the theatre, and from the witty and erudite frequenters of the
salons. She was enamoured of intellect, she delighted in eloquence, she
was a serious woman and a devoted mother. While Louis XIII. lived she
was considered amiable and indulgent to the failings of "low people,"
because her indifference made her appear complaisant. As soon as she
assumed the Regency her manner changed and her real nature came to
the surface. She astonished her deputies by the breathless resistance
which she opposed to any hint of a suggestion adverse to her mandates.
After the royal scream first startled Parliament there was hardly a man
of the French State who did not shrink at sight of the Regent's fair
flushed face and the determined glitter of her eye. Anne of Austria was
acting under guidance; the delicate hand of the woman lay under the
firm hand of a master, and her lover's will, not the judgment of the
deputies, was her law.
The people had received false impressions of the character of the
Queen; some had judged her too favourably (Mme. de Motteville
considered her beautiful); others--Retz among them--failed to do her
justice.
Anne of Austria was neither a stupid woman nor a great Queen, although
she was called both "great" and "foolish." She was born a Spaniard,
and in thought and in feeling she was a Spaniard to the end of her
life. Like all her race, she was imaginative; she indulged in dreams
and erected altars to her ideals. Her life had betrayed her illusions,
therefore she longed for vengeance; and as she was romantic, her
vengeance took a sentimental form. A study of her nature, as furnished
by the histories of her early years, makes her after-life and her
administration of the Regency comprehensible. Despite the latitude
of her morals she exhibited piety so detailed and so persistent that
the Parisians were displeased; one of her friends commented upon it
sharply. "She partakes of the communion too often, she reveres the
relics of the saints, she is devoted to the Virgin, and she offers the
presents and the novenas which the devout consider effectual when they
are trying to obtain favours from Heaven." This from a Parisian was
critical judgment.
As the Queen was born to rule, she could not comprehend any form of
government but absolute monarchy. Her Parliament was shocked when she
interrupted its Councils by shrill screams of "_Taisez-vous!_" But her
behaviour was consistent; she believed that she expressed the authority
of her son's kingship when she raised her high falsetto and shouted to
her deputies to hold their tongues.
The new Minister, Mazarin, was of Sicilian origin, and forty years
of age. In Paris, where he had officiated two years (1634-1636), as
Papal Nuncio, he was known by his original Italian name, Mazarini.
When he was first seen at Court he entered without ceremony and
installed himself with the natural ease of an habitué returned after
a forced absence. No one knew by what right he made himself at home.
Richelieu profited by his versatility and made use of him in various
ways. Mazarin was gifted with artistic taste, and he wielded a fluent
pen. His appointment as representative of the Holy See had proved
his capacity and blameless character. Paris knew that Richelieu had
written to him from his death-bed: "I give my book into your hands
with the approbation of our good Master, so that you may conduct it to
perfection."
Almost immediately after de Richelieu breathed his last the King called
Mazarin to the palace, where he remained hard at work as long as the
King lived. He had no special duties, but he lived close to the royal
invalid, did everything that de Richelieu had done, and made himself in
every way indispensable. To the wounds of the tired spirit whose peace
the scorching splendour of the great Cardinal had withered the calm
presence of the lesser Cardinal was balm. Mazarin employed his leisure
as he saw fit; how he employed it the world knew later. He was seldom
seen either in the palace or out of it. When Louis XIII. died and the
people, little and great, thronged the streets and the highways
and flocked to Parliament to witness the establishment of the Regent,
Mazarin was not in evidence. When the Provost's address and the other
addresses were read, and when the people welcomed their young King,
Mazarin was not seen, and as he was not at the funeral of the King, and
as no one had heard from him since the King's death, it was believed
that he had returned to his own country.
[Illustration: ANNE OF AUSTRIA]
Prominent Parisians who knew everything and every one had formed no
opinion of Mazarin's character or of his personal appearance. He had
been Nuncio; that was all that they knew of him. Olivier d'Ormesson,
who went everywhere, knew every one of any importance in Paris, yet
when Mazarin had been Prime Minister six months, d'Ormesson spoke of
him as if he had seen him but once. In d'Ormesson's _Journal_ we read:
Saturday morning, 4 November (1643). M. le Cardinal, Mazarin, came
to the Council to-day. He was late. The Chancellor had been waiting
for him half an hour. Cardinal Mazarin took his place as Chief
of Council and was the first to sign the resolutions; he wrote:
Cardinal _Massarini_. At first, as he knew neither the order of
the Court nor the names of the members, he was somewhat confused.
Judging by appearances he knows nothing of financial affairs. He
is tall, he carries himself well, he is handsome. His eyes are
clear and spiritual, the colour of his hair is chestnut brown;
the expression of his face is very gentle and sweet. Monsieur the
Chancellor instructed him in the Parliamentary procedure and then
every one addressed him directly and before they addressed any one
else....
The new Chief of Council was as modest as the unobtrusive Cardinal who
assumed the duties of the great de Richelieu. Mazarin found better
employment for his talents than the exhibition of his pomp. His design
was to render his position impregnable, and we know what means he
selected for its achievement. In his pocket diary (which the National
Library preserves) he employed three languages, French, Spanish, and
Italian. Whenever the Queen is mentioned the language is Spanish. The
ingenuous frankness with which the writer of the strange notes recorded
his intentions enables us to follow him step by step through all the
labyrinths of his relations with royalty. His reflections make it clear
that his aim was the Queen's heart: in the record dated August, 1634,
we read: "If I could believe what they tell me--that her Majesty is
making use of me because she needs my services, and that she has no
inclination for me,--I would not stay here three days."
Apropos of his enemies he wrote: "Well, they are laying their heads
together and planning a thousand intrigues to lessen my chances with
her Majesty."
(The Queen's friends had warned her that her Minister would compromise
her.)
"The Abbess of the Carmelites has been talking to her Majesty. When she
talked the Queen wept. She told the Abbess that in case the subject
should be mentioned again she would not visit the convent."
Mazarin's diary conveys the impression that the man who edited it so
carefully feared that he might forget something that he wished to say
to the Queen. He made a note of everything that he meant to advise her
to do, and of all the appeals and all the observations that he intended
to make.
Following is a very simple reminder of words to be used when next he
should see the Queen alone.
They tell me that her Majesty is forced to make excuses for her
manifestations of regard for me.... This is such a delicate subject
that her Majesty ought to pity me ... ought to take compassion
on me, even if I speak of it often ... I have no right to doubt,
since, in the excess of her kindness, her Majesty has assured me
that nothing can ever lower me from the place in her favour which
she has deigned to give me ... but in spite of everything because
Fear is the inseparable attendant of Love ... etc.
The "memorandum" which follows this last note gave proof of the
speed of his wooing, and of his progress: "The jaundice caused by an
excessive love...."
That Mazarin felt that he was strong was shown by the fact that he
made suggestions to the Queen and offered her advice of a peculiarly
intimate character. The note which follows covers the ground of one of
the lines of argument used by him for the subjection of his royal lady
and mistress:
"Her Majesty ought to apply herself to the winning over of all hearts
to my cause; she should do so by making me the agent from whose hand
they receive all the favours that she grants them."
After Anne of Austria qualified the Cardinal by the exequatur of her
love, Mazarin dictated the language of the State. In his diary we find,
verbatim, the diplomatic addresses and suggestions which were to be
delivered by the Queen.
While the Queen's lover was engaged in maintaining his position
against determined efforts to displace him, France enjoyed a few
delightful moments. The long-continued anxiety had passed, the tension
of the nation's nerves had yielded to the beneficent treatment of
the conscientious counsellors, and the peaceful quiet of a temporary
calm gave hope to the light-minded and strength and courage to the
far-sighted, who foresaw the coming storm. To the majority of the
people the resplendent victory of Rocroy (19th May, 1643), which
immediately followed the death of Louis XIII., seemed a proof that God
had laid His protecting hand upon the infant King and upon his mother.
This belief was daily strengthened. War had been carried to a foreign
country, and the testimony of French supremacy had come back from
many a battle-field. In the eyes of the world we occupied a brilliant
position. Success had followed success in our triumphant march from
Rocroy to the Westphalian treaties. Our diplomacy had equalled our
military strategy and the strength of our arms; and a part of our glory
had been the result of the efforts of the Prime Minister who ruled our
armies and the nation. In the opinion of our foreign enemies Mazarin
had fully justified Richelieu's confidence and the choice of Anne of
Austria.
His selection of agents had shown that he was in possession of all his
senses; he had divined the value of the Duc d'Enghien and appointed him
General-in-chief, though the boy was but twenty-two years old; he had
sounded the character of Turenne; he had judiciously listed the names
of the men to be appointed for the diplomatic missions, and he had
proved that he knew the strength of France by ordering the ministers
to hold their ground, to "stand firm," and not to concern themselves
either with the objections or the resistance of other nations. The
majority of the French people failed to recognise Cardinal Mazarin's
services until the proper time for their recognition had passed, but
Retz distinctly stated that Mazarin was popular in Paris during the
first months of his ministry:
France saw a gentle and benignant Being sitting on the steps of
the throne where the harsh and redoubtable Richelieu had blasted,
rather than governed men. The harassed country rejoiced in its new
leader,[88] who had no personal wishes and whose only regret was
that the dignity of his episcopal office forbade him to humiliate
himself before the world as he would have been glad to do. He
passed through the streets with little lackeys perched behind his
carriage; his audiences were unceremonious, access to his presence
was absolutely free, and people dined with him as if he had been a
private person.
The arrest of the Duc de Beaufort and the dispersion of the Importants
astonished the people, but did not affright them. Hope was the anchor
of the National Soul. They who had formed the party of Marie de Médicis
and the party of Anne of Austria hoped to bring about the success of
their former projects, and to enforce peace everywhere; they hoped
to substitute a Spanish alliance for the Protestant alliance. The
great families hoped to regain their authority at the expense of the
authority of the King. Parliament hoped to play a great political part.
The people hoped for peace; they had been told that the Queen had
taken a Minister solely for the purpose of making peace. The entire
Court from the first Prince of the Blood to the last of the lackeys
lived in hope of some grace or some favour, and as to that they were
rarely disappointed, for the Administration "refused nothing." Honours,
dignities, positions, and money were freely dispensed, not only to
those who needed them, but to those who were already provided with
them. La Feuillade said that there were but four words in the French
language: "_The Queen is good!_"
So many cases of private and individual happiness gave the impression
of public and general happiness. Paris expressed its satisfaction by
entering heart and soul into its amusements. It played by day and it
played by night, exhibiting the extraordinary appetite for pleasure
which has always distinguished it.
"All, both the little and the great, are happy," said Saint Evremond;
"the very air they breathe is charged with amusement and with love."
Mademoiselle preserved a grateful memory of that period of joyous
intoxication. "The first months of the Regency," she said in her
memoirs, "were the most beautiful that one could have wished. It was
nothing but perpetual rejoicing everywhere. Hardly a day passed that
there were not serenades at the Tuileries or in the place Royale."
The mourning for the late King hindered no one, not even the King's
widow, who passed her evenings in Renard's garden,[89] where she
frequently supped with her friends. Though the return of winter drove
the people from the public walks, the universal amusements went on.
"They danced everywhere," said Mademoiselle, "and especially at
my house, although it was not at all according to decorum to hear
violins in a room draped with mourning." We note here that at the time
Mademoiselle wrote thus she was regarded as a victim. It was rumoured
in Paris that her liberty and her pleasures were restricted, and the
indignation of the people seethed at thought of it. Mademoiselle
had lost her indulgent friend and governess, Mme. de Saint Georges.
Her new governess, Mme. de Fiésque, a woman of firm will who looked
with disfavour upon her pupil's untrammelled ways, made attempts to
discipline her. When Mme. de Fiésque exerted her authority the canaille
formed groups and threatened the palace of the Tuileries. Mademoiselle
was sixteen years old and the whole world knew it. The people thought,
as she thought, that she was too old to be imprisoned like a child. She
was quick to avenge her outraged dignity; the governess was headstrong.
Slap answered slap and, after the combat, Mademoiselle was under lock
and key six days.
But all that was forgotten.
Mademoiselle had in mind something more important than her childish
punishment. The death of Louis XIII. had enabled Gaston to send for his
wife. The Regency made but one condition,--the married pair were to be
remarried in France. The Princess Gaston was on the way, travelling
openly, entering France with the reputation of a heroine of romance.
Mademoiselle revelled in the thought of a step-mother as young and as
beautiful as an houri. They would dance together; they would run about
like sisters!
Twelve years previous to the death of Louis XIII., when Marguerite
de Lorraine committed the so-called "crime" which Richelieu's
jurisconsults qualified by a name for which we shall substitute the
less discouraging term "abduction," events separated the wedded pair at
the church door. The sacrament of marriage had just been administered.
Madame fled before the minions of the law reached Nancy and found
her way cut off by the French army. She donned the wig and garments
of a man, besmirched her face with suet, crossed the French line in
a cardinal's coach, covered twenty leagues on horseback, and joined
Monsieur in Flanders. The world called her courageous, and when she
exercised her impeccancy during a nine years' separation from her
husband, conjugal fidelity rare enough at any time, and especially
rare at that time, definitely ranged her among spectacular examples of
virtue.
Handsome, brave, free from restraint, and virtuous! Paris was curious
to see her.
At Meudon (27th May, 1643) the people made haste to reach the spot
before she alighted from her carriage. They were eager to witness her
meeting with the light-minded husband with whom France was at last to
permit her to cast her lot and from whom she had been separated so
long. Mademoiselle wrote:
I ran on ahead of them all so that I might be at Gonesse when she
arrived. From Gonesse she proceeded to Meudon without passing
through Paris. She did not wish to stop in Paris because she was
not in a condition to salute their Majesties. In fact, she could
not salute them, because she was not dressed in mourning. We
arrived at Meudon late, where Monsieur--having gone there to be
on the spot when she arrived--found her waiting in the courtyard.
Their first meeting took place in the presence of all who had
accompanied them. Every one was astonished to see the coldness with
which they met. It seemed strange! Monsieur had endured so much
persecution from the King, and from Richelieu, solely on account of
his marriage; and all his suffering had only seemed to confirm his
constancy to Madame, therefore coldness seemed unexpected.
Both Monsieur and Madame were much embarrassed; it was a trying thing
to meet after a separation of nine years.
Monsieur had not materially changed, although he had acquired a habit
of the gout which hindered him when he attempted to pirouette. Madame
appeared faded and ill-attired, but that was but a natural consequence
of the separation; it was to be expected.
When their marriage had been duly regulated and recorded in the Parish
Register, the couple established themselves in Gaston's palace, and the
Court found that it had acquired an hypochondriac. The romantic type of
constancy habitually hung upon the gate of Death. Mme. de Motteville
said:
She rarely left her home; she affirmed that the least excitement
brought on a swoon. Several times I saw Monsieur mock her; he told
the Queen that Madame would receive the sacrament in bed rather
than to go into her chapel, although the chapel was close by,--and
all that "though she had no ailment of any importance."
When Madame visited the Queen, as she did once in twenty-four months,
she was carried in a sedan chair, as other ladies of her quality were
carried, but her movements were attended by such distress and by so
much bustle that her arrival conveyed the impression of a miracle.
Frequently, when she had started upon a journey, or to pay a visit
to the Queen, before she had gone three yards she declared that she
had been suddenly seized by faintness, or by some other ill; then her
bearers were forced to make haste to return her to the house. She
lived in Gaston's palace in the Luxembourg. Mademoiselle's palace was
in the Tuileries, and the royal family lived either in the palace of
the Louvre, in the Palais Royal, or in the Château of Saint Germain.
Madame declared that her life had been one continuous agony. She
announced her evils not singly but in clusters, and although none
of them were evident to the disinterested observer, her diagnoses
displayed so thorough a knowledge of their essential character that to
harbour a doubt of their reality would be to confess a consciousness of
uncertainty akin to the skepticism of the ignorant.
At the advent of Madame the spiritual atmosphere of the Luxembourg
changed. The Princess was a moralist, and either because of her nervous
anxiety for his welfare, or for some other reason, she harangued her
husband day and night. The irresponsible Gaston was a signal example of
marital patience; he carried his burden bravely, listened attentively
to his wife's rebukes, sang and laughed, whistled and cut capers,
pulled his elf-locks in mock despair, and, clumsily whirling upon
his gouty heels, "made faces" behind Madame's drooping shoulders;
but he bore her plaintive polemics without a murmur, and although he
freely ridiculed her, he never left her side. "Madame loved Monsieur
ardently," and Monsieur returned Madame's love in the disorderly manner
in which he did everything. "One may say that he loved her, but that
he did not love her often," wrote Mme. de Motteville. The public soon
lost its interest in the spectacular household; Madame was less heroic
than her reputation. Mademoiselle despaired when Madame urged Monsieur
to be prudent; to her mind her father's prudence had invariably
exceeded the proportions of virtue. Generally speaking, Madame's first
relations with her step-daughter were cordial, but they were limited to
a purely conventional exchange of civilities. Speaking of that epoch,
Mademoiselle said: "I did all that I possibly could to preserve her
good graces, which I should not have lost had she not given me reason
to neglect them." Mademoiselle could not have loved her step-mother,
nor could she have been loved by her; Madame and Mademoiselle were of
different and distinct orders.
II
[Illustration: VIEW OF THE LOUVRE FROM THE SEINE IN THE 17TH CENTURY
FROM AN OLD PRINT]
The routine requirements of Mademoiselle's periods of mourning diverted
her mind from her marriage projects, but she soon resumed her efforts.
She had no adviser, and no one cared for her establishment; Gaston was
too well employed in spending her money to concern himself with her
future, and, as the duties of daily life fatigued Madame, Mademoiselle
could not hope for assistance from her step-mother; the Queen was her
only hope, and the Queen's executor was jealously guarding her fine
principalities and keeping close watch over her person. In 1644 the
King of Spain, Philippe IV., the brother of Anne of Austria, became
a widower. He was the enemy of France, and it would have been folly to
give him a right to any portion of French territory; but Mademoiselle
did not consider that fact; her political intuitions were not keen.
All that she could see was that the King had a crown, and that it was
such a crown as would adorn the title of her own nobility. For some
occult reason which, as no one has ever located it, will probably
remain enigmatical, Mademoiselle imagined that Philippe IV. desired
to espouse her; and she passed her time forming plans and waiting for
the Spanish envoy who was to come to France to ask her father for her
hand. As it is difficult to believe that she ever could have dreamed
the story that she tells in her memoirs, we must suppose that there
was some foundation for her hopes. Possibly the expectations upon
which she artlessly dilated sprang from the intriguing designs of her
subalterns.[90]
The Queen bore witness to me that she passionately wished for the
marriage, and Cardinal Mazarin spoke of it in the same way; more
than that, he told me that he had received news from Spain which
had shown him that the affair was desired in that country. Both the
Queen and the Cardinal spoke of it repeatedly, not only to me but
to Monsieur. By feigned earnestness they impressed us with the idea
that they wished for the marriage. They lured us with that honour,
though they had no intention of obliging us; and our good faith was
such that we did not perceive their lack of sincerity. As we had
full belief in them, it was easy for them to elude the obligations
incurred by them when they aroused our expectations, and, in fact,
that was just what they did; having talked freely of it to us
during a certain period, they suddenly ceased to speak of it, and
everything thereafter was as it would have been had there been no
question of the marriage.
Mademoiselle's anxieties and hopes were fed alternately. To add to
her distress, a Spaniard was caught on French soil and cast into the
Bastille. Mademoiselle grieved bitterly over his fate; she supposed
that the prisoner had been sent by the Spanish King to negotiate
the marriage; it was her belief that Mazarin's spies had warned him
(Mazarin) of the arrival of the envoy, and that the Cardinal had
ordered the arrest to prevent the envoy from delivering his despatches;
the interpretation was chimerical. Our knowledge is confined to the
fact that nothing more was said of Mademoiselle's marriage, and that
when the King was ready to marry he married an Austrian.
The troubles of England provided Mademoiselle with a more serious
suitor. Queen Henriette, the daughter of Henry of Navarre, had fled to
France, and France, in the person of the Regent, had installed her in
the Louvre. Before that time Anne of Austria had moved from the Louvre
to the Palais Royal, which was a more commodious residence, well fitted
to the prevailing taste. Queen Henriette was ambitious, and she began
to form projects for an alliance with France before she recovered from
the fatigue of her journey.
Mademoiselle was a spirited Princess, very handsome, witty, and
an ardent partisan. Such a wife would be a credit to any king, and
the Montpensier estates were needed by the throne of England. Queen
Henriette was sanguine; she ignored the fact that her son's future
was dark and threatening. She made proposals to Mademoiselle and
Mademoiselle received them coldly. Her ideas of propriety were shocked
by the thought of such an alliance. The Queen of England was a refugee,
dependent upon the bounty of France. There could be no honour or profit
in marriage to her son!
Queen Henriette was the first of a series of exiled monarchs to whom
France gave hospitality, and it must be said that her manner of opening
a series was not a happy one. The sovereigns of former times were not
familiar with revolutions, and their ignorance made them fearless; they
despised precautions; they were improvident, they saved nothing for
a rainy day; they scorned foreign stocks; they avoided business, and
looked with contempt upon foreign bankers. If they lost their thrones
they fled to foreign countries and sought refuge in the kingdoms of
their friends, and there their comfort and their respectability were
matters of chance; their friends might be in easy circumstances, and
they might be on the verge of bankruptcy; a king's crown was not always
accompanied by a full purse.
When Queen Henriette arrived in Paris she was received with honours and
with promises. The courtiers donned their festive robes "broidered
with gold and with silver,"[91] and went to Montrouge to meet her and
escort her into Paris. Anne of Austria received her affectionately
and seated her at her right hand at banquets. Mazarin announced that
she was to draw a salary of twelve hundred francs per diem; in short,
everything was done to flatter the English guest. The credulous
Henriette accepted the flattery and the promises literally and she was
dazed, when, awaking to the truth, she found that she was a beggar.
Recording the history of that epoch, Mademoiselle said:
"The Queen of England had appeared everywhere in Paris attended
like a Queen, and with a Queen's equipage. With her we had always
seen her many ladies of quality, chariots, guards, and footmen.
Little by little all that disappeared and the time came when
nothing was more lacking to her dignity than her retinue and all
the pomps to which she had been accustomed."
Queen Henriette was obliged to sell her jewels and her silver dishes;
debts followed debts, and the penniless sovereign had no way to meet
them. The little court of the Louvre owed the baker and could not
pay its domestic servants. Mme. de Motteville visited the Louvre and
found Queen Henriette practically alone. She was sitting, dejectedly
meditating, in one of the great empty salles; her unpaid servitors had
abandoned her and her suite had gone where they could find nourishment.
[Illustration: HENRIETTA, DUCHESSE D'ORLÉANS
FROM A STEEL ENGRAVING]
In her account of her visit Mme. de Motteville said:
She showed us a little golden cup, from which she habitually drank,
and she swore to us that that was all the gold of any kind that had
been left in her possession. She said that, more than that, all her
servants had demanded their wages and said that they would leave
her service if she refused to satisfy their demands; and she said
she had not been able to pay them.
The spectacle of royal poverty and the tragical turn taken by English
affairs gave Mademoiselle cause for serious thought. She saw that
whatever the Prince might be in the future, he was not a desirable
suitor at the epoch existent; and she spoke freely:
Were I to marry that boy I should have to sell everything that
I might possess and go to war! I should not be able to help it.
I could not rest until I had staked my all on the chance of
reconquering his kingdom! But as I had always lived in luxury, and
as I had been free from care, the thought of such an uncertain
condition troubled me.
Had the Prince of Wales been a hero of the type of the _Cid_,
Mademoiselle would have thrown prudence to the winds. Personal
attraction, the magnetism of love, the arguments used by Lauzun would
have called her from her dreams of the pomp becoming her rank, and
she would have confronted poverty gaily; her whole career proved that
she was not of a calculating mind. The Prince of Wales was by three
years her junior; he was awkward and bashful, and so ignorant that
he had no conception of his own affairs. He lounged distractedly
through the vast, empty Louvre, absorbed in purposeless thought, and,
goaded by his mother, he frequented the Tuileries and besieged the
heart of his cousin, whom he amazed by the sluggish obstinacy of his
attentions. He paid his court with the inconsequent air of a trained
parrot; the details of his love-making were ordered by his mother, and
when, tormented by personal anxieties, the Queen of England forgot to
dictate his discourse, he sat before Mademoiselle with lips closed. He
talked so little that it was said he "opened his teeth only to devour
fat meat." At one of the banquets of the Queen of France he refused to
touch the ortolans, and falling upon an enormous piece of beef and upon
a shoulder of mutton he "ate as if there had been nothing else in the
world, and as if he had never eaten before."
"His taste," mused Mademoiselle, "appeared to me to be somewhat
indelicate; I was ashamed because he was not as good in other respects
as he bore witness that he was in his feeling for me."
After the banquet at which the Prince refused the ortolans, the cousins
were left alone, and, commenting upon the fact later, Anne-Marie-Louise
said: "It pleases me to believe that on that occasion his silence
resulted from an excess of respect for me rather than from lack of
tenderness; but I will avow the truth; I would have been better pleased
had he shown less stolidity and less deficiency in the transports
of the love-passion." It is but fair to say in behalf of the timid
suitor that, according to his feeble light, he acquitted himself
conscientiously; he gazed steadfastly in his cousin's pretty face,
he held the candle when her hair-dresser coiffed her hair; but as he
was only a great boy, just at the age of dumb stupidity, he had few
thoughts which were not personal, and few words to express even those.
He was neither _Chérubin_, _Fortunio_, nor _Rodrigue_. "He had not an
iota of sweetness," declared Mademoiselle. Worse than that, he had none
of the exalted sentiments by means of which the heroes of Corneille
manifested their identity, and to Mademoiselle that was a serious
matter. As the awkward suitor became more insistent Mademoiselle was
seized by a determination to be rid of him. Her records fix the date of
her adverse inspiration. "In 1647 toward the end of winter[92] a play
followed by a ball was given at the Palais Royal [the trago-comedy,
_Orpheus_, in music and Italian verse]." Anne of Austria, who had no
confidence in her niece's taste, insisted that the young lady should be
coiffed and dressed under her own eye. Mademoiselle said:
They were engaged three whole days arranging my coiffure; my robe
was all trimmed with diamonds and with white and black carnation
tufts. I had upon me all the stones of the Crown, and all the
jewels owned by the Queen of England [at that time she still
possessed a few]. No one could have been more magnificently bedight
than I was for that occasion, and I did not fail to find many
people to tell me of my splendour and to talk about my pretty
figure, my graceful and agreeable bearing, my whiteness, and the
sheen of my blonde hair, which they said adorned me more than all
the riches which glittered upon my person.
After the play a ball was given on a great, well-lighted stage. At the
end of the stage was a throne raised three steps high and covered by a
dais; according to Mademoiselle's account:
Neither the King nor the Prince of Wales would sit upon the throne,
and as I, alone, remained upon it, I saw the two Princes and all
the Princesses of the Court at my feet. I did not feel awkward or
ill at ease, and no one of all those who saw me failed to tell me
that I had never seemed less constrained than then, that I was of a
race to occupy the throne, and that I should occupy my own throne
still more freely and more naturally when the time came for me to
remain upon it.
Seen from the height of the throne, the Prince of Wales seemed less of
a man than he had ever seemed before, and from that day Mademoiselle
spoke of him as "that poor fellow." She said: "I pitied him. My heart
as well as my eyes looked down upon him, and the thought entered
my mind that I should marry an emperor." The thought of an emperor
entered her mind the previous year when Ferdinand III. became a
widower. Monsieur's favourite, the Abbé Rivière,--with a view to
his own interests, and possibly with some hope of adding to his
income,--announced the welcome tidings of the Empress's death as soon
as he received them; and Mademoiselle said:
"M. de la Rivière told me that I must marry either the Emperor or his
brother. I told him that I should prefer the Emperor."
Paris heard of the project that same evening. Mademoiselle did not
receive proposals from the Emperor at that time or at any other time,
but the idea that she was to be an Empress haunted her mind, and as she
was very frank, she told her hopes freely. La Rivière and others like
him, taking advantage of her public position and of her accessibility,
told her flattering tales and suggested alliances; she was informed
that the Court of Vienna, the Court of Germany, and in fact all the
Courts, desired alliance with her, and she believed all that was said.
The evening of the ball, Anne of Austria declared, by Mademoiselle's
own account, that she "wished passionately that the marriage with the
Emperor might be arranged, and that she should do all that lay in her
power to bring it about." Mademoiselle did not believe in the Regent's
promises, but she listened to them and shaped her course by them.
Gaston told her (in one of the rare moments when he remembered that
she was his daughter) that the Emperor was "too old," and that she
would not be happy in his country. Mademoiselle answered that she cared
more for her establishment than for the person of her suitor. Gaston
reflected upon the statement and promised to do everything possible
for the furtherance of her schemes. Mademoiselle recorded his promise
with the comment: "So after that I thought of the marriage continually
and my dream of the Empire so filled my mind that I considered the
Prince of Wales only as an object of pity." This folly, while it gave
free play to other and similar follies, clung to her mind with strange
tenacity, and long after the Emperor married the Austrian Mademoiselle
said archly: "The Empress is _enceinte_; she will die when she is
delivered, and then--." The Empress did die, either at the moment of
her deliverance or at some other moment, and Mademoiselle took the
field, determined to march on to victory. One of her gentlemen (of the
name of Saujon) whom she fancied "because he was half crazy," secretly
placed in her hand a regularly organised correspondence treating of her
marriage. Mademoiselle received all the letters, read them, approved
of them, and appointed Saujon chargé of her affairs. By her order
Saujon travelled to Germany to bring about the marriage. No one had
ever heard of a royal or a quasi-royal alliance negotiated by a private
individual, but Saujon boldly entered upon his mission. Incidentally
he revised Mademoiselle's despatches; adding and eliminating sentences
according to his own idea of the exigencies of the case. One of his
letters was intercepted and he was arrested and cast into prison. It
was rumoured that he had made an attempt to abduct the Princess so that
she might marry the Archduke Leopold.
At first Mademoiselle laughed at the rumours. She declared that people
knew her too well to think that she could do anything so ridiculous.
Mazarin cross-questioned Saujon,--and no one knew better than he how to
conduct an inquest,--but turn his victim as he might the Cardinal could
not wring from Saujon anything but the truth. Saujon insisted that
Mademoiselle had not known anything concerning the intercepted letter.
Anne of Austria, seconded by Monsieur, feigned to take the affair
seriously, and a violent scene ensued.
One evening (May 6, 1648, according to d'Ormesson) the Abbé de la
Rivière met Mademoiselle in the corridor of the Palais Royal, and
casually informed her that the Queen and Monsieur were angry. Almost at
the same instant Monsieur issued from the room adjoining the corridor
and ordered his daughter to enter the Queen's room.
Then [said Mademoiselle] I went into the Queen's gallery. Mlle.
de Guise, who was with me, would have followed me, but Monsieur
furiously shut the door in her face. Had not my mind been free from
all remorse I should have been frightened, but I knew that I was
innocent, and I advanced toward the Queen, who greeted me angrily.
She said to the Cardinal: "We must wait until her father comes; he
must hear it!" I went to the window, which was higher than the rest
of the gallery, and I listened with all the pride possible to one
who feels that her cause is just. When Monsieur arrived the Queen
said to me sharply: "Your father and I know all about your dealings
with Saujon. We know all your plans!" I answered that I did not
know to what plans she had reference, and that I was somewhat
curious to know what her Majesty meant.
Anne of Austria was angry, and her shrill falsetto conveyed an
impression of vulgarity. Mademoiselle, calmly contemptuous, on foot and
very erect, stood in the embrasure of the long window; Monsieur, who
dreaded his daughter's anger, had drawn close to the Queen; directly
behind Monsieur was Mazarin, visibly amused.
Mademoiselle listened to her accusers, and answered with a sneer that
she had nothing to do with it, that she was not interested in it, that
such a scheme was worthy of low people.
"This concerns my honour," she said coldly; "it is not a question
of the head of Cinq-Mars, nor of Chalais, whom Monsieur delivered
to death. No; nor is it an affair to be classed with the
examinations to which Richelieu subjected your Majesty!"
"It is a fine thing," screamed Anne of Austria, "to recompense a
man for his attachment to your service by putting his head upon the
block!"
"It would not be the first head that had visited the block, but it
would be the first one that I had put there," retorted Mademoiselle.
"Will you answer what you are asked?" demanded the Queen. I
obeyed [said Mademoiselle]. I told her that as I had never been
questioned, I should be embarrassed to answer. Cardinal Mazarin
listened to all that I said, and he laughed.... The discussion
seemed long to me. Repetitions which are not agreeable always
produce that effect. The conversation had lasted an hour and a
half. It bored me, and as I saw that it would never end if I did
not go away, I said to the Queen: "I believe that your Majesty
has nothing more to say to me." She replied that she had not. I
curtsied and went out from the combat, victorious, but very angry.
As I abandoned the field, the Abbé de la Rivière tried to address
me. I halted, and discharged my anger at him; then I went to my
room, where I was seized by fever.
Before she "abandoned the field" Mademoiselle rated Monsieur, who had
imprudently attempted to interpose a word in favour of the Queen.
Mme. de Motteville, to whom Anne of Austria told the story, reported
that Mademoiselle reproached her father bitterly because he had not
married her to the Emperor, when he "might easily have done so." She
told him that it was shameful for a man not to defend his daughter
"when her glory appeared to be attacked." The courtiers assembled in
the adjoining room, though unable to distinguish the words of the
discussion, had listened with curiosity. Mme. de Motteville said:
We could not hear what they were saying, but we heard the noise
of the accusations and we heard Mademoiselle's calm defence. The
Queen's Minister avoided showing that he was interested in it in
any way. Although there were but three voices there was so great
a clamour that we were anxious to know the result and the meaning
of the quarrel. Mademoiselle came out of the gallery looking more
haughty than ashamed, and her eyes shone with anger rather than
with repentance. That evening the Queen did me the honour to tell
me that had she been possessed of a daughter who had treated her as
Mademoiselle had treated Monsieur, she would have banished her and
never permitted her to return,--and that she should have shut her
up in a convent.
The day after the discussion guards were mounted at the door of
Mademoiselle's apartments. The Abbé de la Rivière visited Mademoiselle
to tell her that her father forbade her to receive any one--_no matter
whom_--until she was ready to confess what she knew of the intercepted
letter. Mademoiselle remained firm in her denial of any knowledge of it.
Though sick from grief, she held her ground ten days. Murmurs were
heard among the canaille, and little groups approached the palace,
looked threateningly into the courtyard, and gazed at Mademoiselle's
closed windows. It was known that Mademoiselle was in prison and the
people resented it. How long could she hold out? How would it end? "It
was known," wrote Olivier d'Ormesson, "that the Queen had called her
'an insolent girl' in the presence of her own father, and it was known
that she had indignantly repudiated all knowledge of the intercepted
letter; it was known that she had defended herself bravely." As the
hours passed the people's murmurs increased, the aspect of the canaille
became so menacing that the terrified Gaston sought counsel of Mazarin.
Mazarin favoured clemency; he believed that Mademoiselle had been
disciplined enough. By the advice of the angry Queen, Monsieur waited
one day longer; then word was sent to Mademoiselle that she was free
and that she might receive visits, and in an hour all the people of the
under-world of Paris were hurrying to the palace, laughing, shouting,
crying to each other in broken voices. They surged past the sentinel
and entered the courtyard; men wept, women, holding their children
above their heads, pointed to the open window where Mademoiselle,
emaciated by her ten days' trial, but still haughty and determined,
looking down into the upturned faces, smiled a welcome. Public sympathy
and the sympathy of both the Court and the city endorsed Mademoiselle's
conduct and condemned the conduct of Monsieur. According to
contemporary judgment Monsieur had betrayed his own flesh and blood: he
had been given an opportunity to prove himself a man and he had refused
it. Innocent or culpable, the custom of the day commanded the father to
defend his child.
I said to the Queen [said the worthy Motteville] that Mademoiselle
was justified in refusing to avow it. I said that, whether it were
true or untrue, Monsieur had not the right to forsake her. A girl
is not to blame for thinking of her establishment, but it is not
right to let it be known that she is thinking of it, nor is it
proper to confess that she is working to accomplish it.
All Monsieur's motives were known and they increased the contempt of
the people. When Mademoiselle attained her majority she expressed a
wish to take possession of her inheritance. She asked her father for
an accounting and her father accused her of indelicacy and undutiful
conduct. He continued to administer her fortune and to give her such
sums as he considered suitable for the maintenance of her home. In
justification of his conduct he alleged that he had no money of his
own, and that it was impossible to turn her property into funds.
"Several times," said Mme. de Motteville, "I have heard him say that
he had not a sou that his daughter did not give him. 'My daughter
possesses great wealth,' he used to ejaculate; 'were it not for that I
should not know where to go for bread.'" People remembered that he had
received a million of revenue when he married[93] and they judged his
conduct severely, but they were not astonished. "No one can hope much
from the conduct of Monsieur," wrote Olivier d'Ormesson.
After the quarrel the first meeting between father and daughter took
place in the gallery of the Luxembourg. Monsieur hung his head.
He changed colour [wrote Mademoiselle]; he appeared abashed; he
tried to reprimand me; he began as people begin such things, but he
knew that he ought to apologise to me rather than to blame me; and
in truth that was what he did; he apologised,--though he did not
seem to know that he was doing it.
As they talked Monsieur's eyes filled with tears and Mademoiselle wept
freely. To all appearances they were on the best of terms when they
parted.
Having appeased her father, Mademoiselle went to the Palais Royal
hoping to pacify the Queen. Anne of Austria greeted her with icy
reserve and Mademoiselle never could forget it. She had looked upon
Anne of Austria as children look upon an elder sister. Thenceforth,
feeling that she had no hope of support from her own family, she bent
every effort to the difficult task of finding a suitable husband and
of establishing her life on a firm and independent basis. Mazarin's
unswerving determination to prevent Mademoiselle's marriage was classed
among the most important of the causes which contributed to the
Fronde. The dangers attendant upon his conduct were real and serious;
practically he was Mademoiselle's only guardian, and Mademoiselle was
not only the favorite of the people but the Princess of the reigning
house. As the director of a powerful nation Mazarin had duties which no
State's minister is justified in ignoring. There were times when many
of his other errors were so represented as to appear pardonable, but
there never was a time when he was not blamed for the humiliation of
the haughty Princess who, by no fault of her own, had been left upon
the shores of life, isolated, hopeless of establishment, an object of
ridicule to the unobservant who failed to see the pathetic loneliness
of her position. The Parisians, high and low, thought that the Queen's
Minister had done Mademoiselle an irreparable wrong, and it was thought
that she knew that he had done her a wrong. It was believed that she
would be a dangerous adversary in the day when the French people called
him to account.
Mademoiselle knew her power and talked openly of what she could do. "I
am," she said, "a very bad enemy; hot-tempered, strong in anger; and
that, added to my birth, may well make my enemies tremble." She could
say it without boasting: she was a Free Lance and the great French
People was her clan.
III
Two years[94] previous to the serio-comic scene in the Palais Royal,
Emperor Ferdinand III. had barely escaped causing a catastrophe. Had
the catastrophe been effected the victim would have been the Princess
of a reigning house. This is a very roundabout way of saying that
Mademoiselle's anxiety to marry the Emperor led her to prepare for the
alliance by practising religion; and that once engaged in the practice,
she was seized by the desire to become a nun.
The turbulent Princess who so ardently aspired to the throne of
Ferdinand III. was as free in spirit as she was independent in action,
and being hampered by no religion but the religion of culture, she
followed her fancies and adopted a line of conduct in singular
opposition to her natural behaviour and inclinations. Lured by
ambitious policy to affect the attitude of religious devotion, she
fell into her own net and was so deceived by her feelings that she
supposed that she wished to take the veil. The fact that at heart her
wishes tended in a diametrically opposite direction furnished the most
striking proof of the power of hypnotic auto-suggestion. I am speaking
now of a time previous to Saujon's mission to Germany. In her own
words:
The desire to be an empress followed me wherever I journeyed, and
the effects of my wishes seemed to be so close at hand that I was
led to believe that it would be well for me to form habits best
suited to the habits and to the humour of the Emperor. I had heard
it said that he was very devout, and by following his example I
became so worshipful that after I had feigned the appearance of
devotion a while I longed to be a nun. I never breathed a word of
it to any one; but during the whole of eight days I was inspired by
a desire to become a Carmelite. I was so engrossed by this feeling
that I could neither eat nor sleep. And I was so beset by that
anxiety added to my natural anxiety, that they feared lest I should
fall ill. Every time that the Queen went into the convents--which
happened often--I remained in the church alone; and thinking of
all the persons who loved me and who would regret my retreat from
the world, I wept. So that which appeared to be a struggle with my
religious desire to break away from my worldly self was in reality
a struggle progressing in my heart between my wish to enter the
convent and my horror of leaving all whom I loved, and breaking
away from all my tenderness for them. I can say only this: during
these eight days the Empire was nothing to me. But I must avow that
I felt a certain amount of vanity because I was to leave the world
under such important circumstances.
Mademoiselle had hung out the sign-board of religion--if I may use such
a term--and she multiplied all the symptoms of religious conversion. To
quote her own words:
I did not appear at Court. I did not wear my patches, I did not
powder my hair,--in fact, I neglected my hair until it was so long
and so dusty that it completely disguised me. I used to wear three
kerchiefs around my neck,--one over the other,--and they muffled
me so that in warm weather I nearly smothered. As I wished to look
like a woman forty years old, I never wore any coloured riband.
As for pleasure, I took pleasure in nothing but in reading and
re-reading the life of Saint Theresa.
No one was astonished by religious demonstrations of that kind. Custom
did not oppose the admission of the public to the spectacle of intimate
mental or spiritual crises which it is now considered proper to
conceal. The only thing astonishing was that Mademoiselle had harboured
the idea of forsaking the world. Her friends ridiculed her, and, stung
by their raillery, she recanted. Speaking of it later, she said: "I
wondered at my ideas; I scoffed at my infatuation. I made excuses
because I had ever dreamed of such a project."
Monsieur was more surprised than his neighbours, and his surprise
assumed a more virulent form; when his daughter begged to be permitted
to enter a convent, when she declared that she would "better love to
serve God than to wear the royal crowns of all the world," he gave
way to a violent outburst of fury. Mademoiselle did not repeat her
petition; she begged him to let the subject drop; and thus ended the
comedy.
In any other quarter curiosity regarding details would have been
the only sentiment aroused by such a project. The daughters of many
noble families and the daughters of families beyond the pale of the
nobility entered convents. In the spiritual slough in which France
floundered toward the close of the sixteenth and the beginning of the
seventeenth century, the nun's veil and the monk's habit were the
only suitable coverings for mental distress, and in many cases the
convent and the monastery were the sole places of refuge in a world so
lamentable that Bérulle[95] and Vincent de Paul contemplated it with
anguish. The convent was the only safe shelter for souls in which the
germs of religious life had resisted the inroads of spiritual disease.
In certain parts of the country, the annihilation of the Christian
principle had resulted in the degradation of the Sacred Office and in
the increase of the number of skeptics in the higher classes.
Saving a few exceptions, who were types of the Temple of the Holy
Ghost, the Church set the example of every form and every degree of
contempt for its corporate body, for its individual members, and for
its consecrated accessories. I have already spoken of the elegant
cavaliers, who, in their leisure moments, played the part of priests.
In their eyes a bishopric was a sinecure like another sinecure.
The office of the priesthood entailed no special conduct, nor any
special duty. In general, priests were shepherds who passed their
lives at a distance from their flocks, revelling in luxury and in
pleasure. "Turning abruptly," said an ecclesiastical writer, "from
the pleasures of the Court to the austere duties of the priesthood,
without any preparation save the royal ordinance,--an ordinance,
peradventure, due to secret and unavowable solicitations,--men assumed
the office and became bishops before they had received Holy Orders.
Naturally, such haphazard bishops brought to the Episcopate minds
far from ecclesiastical." In that day cardinals and bishops were
seen distributing the benefits of their dioceses among their lower
domestic tributaries. Thus valets, cooks, barbers, and lackeys were
covered with the sacred vestments, and called to serve the altar.[96]
Being abandoned to their own devices, the lesser clergy--heirs to
all the failings and all the weaknesses of the lower classes of the
people--grovelled in ignorance and in disorder. The continually
augmenting evil was aggravated by the way in which the Church recruited
the rank and file of her legions. As a rule, the cure, or living of
the curé, was in the gift of the abbot. No one but the abbot had a
right to appoint a curé. The abbot's power descended to his successor.
That would have been well enough, had the abbot's virtues and good
judgment--if such there had been--descended to the man immediately
following him in office, but the abbot thus empowered to appoint the
curé was seldom capable of making a good choice or even a decent choice.
The Court bestowed the abbeys on infants in the cradle, and the
titulars were generally the illegitimate children of the princes,
younger sons of great seigniors, notably gallant soldiers, and
notoriously "gallant" women. The abbots were laical protégés of every
origin, of every profession, and of every character. Henry IV.
bestowed abbeys indiscriminately. Among other notables who received the
office of abbot at his hands were a certain number of Protestants and
an equally certain number of women. Sully possessed four abbeys: "the
fair Corisande" possessed an abbey (the Abbey of Chatillon-sur-Seine,
where Saint Bernard had been raised). The fantastic abbots did not
exert themselves to find suitable curés, and even had they been
disposed to do so, where could they have gone to look for them? There
were no clerical nursery-gardens in which to sow choice seed and to
root cuttings for the parterres of the Church, and this was the chief
cause of the prevailing evil. As there were no seminaries, and as the
presbyterial schools were in decay, there were no places where men
could make serious preparation for the Episcopate. As soon as the
youth destined for Orders had learned so much Latin that he could
explain the gospels used in the service of the Mass, and translate
his breviary well enough to say his Office, he was considered fit for
the priesthood. It is not difficult to imagine what became of the
sacraments of the Church when they fell into such hands. There were
priests who eliminated all pretence of unction from Baptism. Others,
though they had received no sacerdotal authority, joined men and
women in marriage, and sent them away rejoicing at their escape from
a more binding formality. Some of the priests were ignorant of the
formula of Absolution, and in their ignorance they changed, abridged,
and transposed to suit their own taste the august words of the most
redoubtable of mysteries. Dumb as cattle, the ignoble priests deserted
the pulpit, so there were no more sermons; there was no catechism, and
the people, deprived of all instruction, were more benighted than their
pastors. In some parishes there were men and women who were ignorant of
the existence of God.[97]
The people had no teachers, and their manners were as neglected as
their spiritual education. With rare exceptions, the provincial priest
went to the wine-shops with his parishioners; if he saw fit, he went
without taking off his surplice,--nor was that the worst; in every
respect, and everywhere, and always, he set lamentable examples for his
people. "One may say with truth and with horror," cried the austere
Bourdoise, the friend of Père Bérulle, "that of all the evil done in
the world, the part done by the ecclesiastics is the worst." Père
Amelotte expressed his opinion with still more energy: "The name of
priest," he cried, "has become the synonym of ignorance and debauchery!"
After the religious wars there were neither churches nor presbyteries,
and therefore there were thousands of villages where there were no
priests, but it is to be doubted whether such villages were more
pitiable than those in which by their daily conduct the priests
constantly provoked the people to despise the earthly representative
of God. The abandoned villages were not plunged in thicker moral and
religious darkness, or in grosser or more abominable superstition, than
that into which the ignoble pastors led their flocks. In one half of
the total number of the provinces of France, the work that the first
missionaries to the Gauls had accomplished had all to be begun again.
In the world of the aristocracy the condition of Catholicism was little
better. When Vincent de Paul--by a mischance which was not to be the
only one in his career--was appointed Almoner to Queen Marguerite,
first wife of Henry IV., he was overwhelmed by what he saw and heard.
The Court was two thirds pagan.[98] A loose and reckless line of
thought, a moral libertinage, was considered a mark of elegance, and
that opinion obtained until the seventeenth century. The _jeunesse
dorée_, the "gilded youths" of the day, imitated the atheists and
gloried in manifesting their contempt for the "superstitions of
religion." They repeated after Vanini that "man ought to obey the
natural law," that "vice and virtue should be classed as products of
climate, of temperament, and of alimentation," that "children born with
feeble intellects are best fitted to develop into good Christians."
Among the higher classes, piety was not entirely extinct; that was
proven in the days of the triumphant Renaissance, when the Catholicism
of Bossuet and of Bourdaloue flamed with all the strength of a newly
kindled fire from the dying embers of the old religion. But the belief
in God and in the things of God was not to be avowed among people of
intellect. In a certain elegant, frivolous, and corrupt world, impiety
and wit marched hand in hand. A man was not absolutely perfect in
tone and manners unless he seasoned his conversation with a grain
of atheism.[99] Under Louis XIII. in the immediate neighbourhood of
royalty the tone changed, because the King's bigotry kept close watch
over the appearance of religion. Men knew that they could not air their
smart affectation of skepticism with impunity when their chief not
only openly professed and practised religion, but frowned upon those
who did not. All felt that the only way to be popular at Court was to
follow the example of the King, and all slipped their atheism up their
sleeves and bowed the knee with grace and dexterity, pulling on long
faces and praying as visibly as Louis himself. But many years passed
before the practice of religion expressed the feelings of the heart.
Richelieu[100] had several intimate friends who were openly confessed
infidels, and proud of their infidelity. While they were intellectual
and witty and devoted to the Cardinal's interests, they were permitted
to think as they pleased.
Long after the day of Richelieu,--in the reign of Louis XIV.,--the
great Condé and Princess Anne de Gonzague made vows to the "marvellous
victories of grace,"[101] but while they were "waiting for the
miracle," the more miscreant of the Court amused themselves by throwing
a piece of the wood of the true cross into the fire "to see whether it
would burn."
The current of moral libertinage, though it appeared sluggish after
the Fronde, had not run dry, and it was seen in the last third of the
seventeenth century and in the following century shallow, but flowing
freely.[102]
Whatever the general condition, the city was always better fortified
against spiritual libertinage than the Court, because it contained
stronger elements, and because it lacked the frivolity of the social
bodies devoted to pleasure. In the city mingled with the higher
bourgeoisie and the middle bourgeoisie were nobles of excellent stock
who did not visit the Louvre or the Palais Royal because, as they had
no title or position at Court, they could not claim the rank to which
their quality gave them right; to cite an instance: Mme. de Sévigné was
not of the Court; she was always of the city.
Taken altogether, the Parliamentary world, which had one foot at Court
and the other foot in the city, had preserved a great deal of religion
and morality. Olivier d'Ormesson's journal shows us the homes of the
serious and intellectual people of the great metropolitan centres to
whom piety and gravity had descended from their fathers.
The Parliamentary world of the provinces was notable for its moral
attitude and for its love of religion. Taken all in all the French
bourgeoisie had not felt the inroads of free thought, although there
had been a few cases of visible infiltration. In the country districts
the people practised religion more or less fervently.
Despite the few exceptions serving as luminous points in the universal
darkness, in the reign of Louis XIII. the situation was well fitted to
inspire creatures of ardent faith and exalted mysticism with horror.
There were many such people in Paris then, as there have been always.
Discouraged, hopeless of finding anything better in a world abandoned
to blasphemy and vice, the naturally pious fled to the cloisters
and too often they found within the walls of their refuges the same
scandals that had driven them from their homes. The larger number of
the monasteries were given over to depravity[103] and the monks were
like the people of the world. As we have seen, a few prelates of rare
faith and devotion furnished the exceptions to the rule, but set, as
they were, wide distances apart in the swarming mass of vociferous
immorality, they excited a pity which swallowed up all appreciation of
their importance.