credit, manners, and spirit of a nation frequently depend upon
a single man. This prince had by a vigorous, yet gentle
administration, kept all orders of the state in union, lulled
all factions to sleep, maintained peace between the two
religions, and kept his people in plenty. He held the balance
of Europe in his hands by his alliance, his riches, and his
arms. All these advantages were lost in the very first year of
the regency of his widow, Mary of Medicis [whom Henry had
married in 1600, the pope granting a divorce from his first
wife, Margaret of Valois]. ... Mary of Medicis ... appointed
regent [during the minority of her son, Louis XIII.], though
not mistress of the kingdom, lavished in making of creatures
all that Henry the Great had amassed to render his nation
powerful. The army he had raised to carry the war into Germany
was disbanded, the princes he had taken under his protection
were abandoned. Charles Emanuel, duke of Savoy, the new ally
of Henry IV., was obliged to ask pardon of Philip III. of
Spain for having entered into a treaty with the French king,
and sent his son to Madrid to implore the mercy of the Spanish
court, and to humble himself as a subject in his father's name.
{1217}
The princes of Germany, whom Henry had protected with an army
of 40,000 men, now found themselves almost without assistance.
The state lost all its credit abroad, and was distracted at
home. The princes of the blood and the great nobles filled
France with factions, as in the times of Francis II., Charles
IX. and Henry III., and as afterwards, during the minority of
Lewis XIV. At length [1614] an assembly of the general estates
was called at Paris, the last that was held in France [prior
to the States General which assembled on the eve of the
Revolution of 1789]. ... The result of this assembly was the
laying open all the grievances of the kingdom, without being
able to redress one. France remained in confusion, and
governed by one Concini, a Florentine, who rose to be marechal
of France without ever having drawn a sword, and prime
minister without knowing anything of the laws. It was
sufficient that he was a foreigner for the princes to be
displeased with him. Mary of Medicis was in a very unhappy
situation, for she could not share her authority with the
prince of Condé, chief of the malcontents, without being
deprived of it altogether; nor trust it in the hands of
Concini, without displeasing the whole kingdom. Henry prince
of Condé, father of the great Condé, and son to him who had
gained the battle of Coutras in conjunction with Henry IV.,
put himself at the head of a party, and took up arms. The
court made a dissembled peace with him; and afterwards clapt
him up in the Bastile. This had been the fate of his father
and grandfather, and was afterwards that of his son. His
confinement encreased the number of the male contents. The
Guises, who had formerly been implacable enemies to the Condé
family, now joined with them. The duke of Vendome, son to
Henry IV., the duke of Nevers, of the house of Gonzaga, the
marechal de Bouillon, and all the rest of the male contents,
fortified themselves in the provinces, protesting that they
continued true to their king, and made war only against the
prime minister. Concini, marechal d'Anere, secure of the queen
regent's protection, braved them all. He raised 7,000 men at
his own expense, to support the royal authority. ... A young
man of whom he had not the least apprehension, and who was a
stranger like himself, caused his ruin, and all the
misfortunes of Mary of Medicis. Charles Albert of Luines, born
in the county of Avignon, had, with his two brothers, been
taken into the number of gentlemen in ordinary to the king,
and the companions of his education. He had insinuated himself
into the good graces and confidence of the young monarch, by his
dexterity in bird-catching. It was never supposed that these
childish amusements would end in a bloody revolution. The
marechal d'Ancre had given him the government of Amboise,
thinking by that to make him his creature; but this young man
conceived the design of murdering his benefactor, banishing
the queen, and governing himself; all which he accomplished
without meeting with any obstacle. He soon found means of
persuading the king that he was capable of reigning alone,
though he was not then quite 17 years old, and told him that
the queen-mother and Concini kept him in confinement. The
young king, to whom in his childhood they had given the name
of Just, consented to the murder of his prime minister; the
marquis of Vitri, captain of the king's guards, du Hallier his
brother, Persan, and others, were sent to dispatch him, who,
finding him in the court of the Louvre, shot him dead with
their pistols [April 24, 1617]: upon this they cried out,
'Vive le roi', as if they had gained a battle, and Lewis
XIII., appearing at a window, cried out, 'Now I am king.' The
queen-mother had her guards taken from her, and was confined
to her own apartment, and afterwards banished to Blois. The
place of marechal of France, held by Concini, was given to the
marquis of Vitri, his murderer." Concini's wife, Eleanor
Galigai, was tried on a charge of sorcery and burned, "and the
king's favourite, Luines, had the confiscated estates. This
unfortunate Galigai was the first promoter of cardinal
Richelieu's fortune; while he was yet very young, and called
the abbot of Chillon, she procured him the bishopric of Luçon,
and at length got him made secretary of state in 1616. He was
involved in the disgrace of his protectors, and ... was now
banished ... to a little priory at the farther end of Anjou.
... The duke of Epernon, who had caused the queen to be
declared regent, went to the castle of Blois [February 22,
1619], whither she had been banished, and carried her to his
estate in Angoulême, like a sovereign who rescues his ally.
This was manifestly an act of high treason; but a crime that
was approved by the whole kingdom." The king presently "sought
an opportunity of reconciliation with his mother, and entered
into a treaty with the duke of Epernon, as between prince and
prince. ... But the treaty of reconciliation was hardly signed
when it was broken again; this was the true spirit of the
times. New parties took up arms in favour of the queen, and
always to oppose the duke of Luines, as before it had been to
oppose the marechal d'Ancre, but never against the king. Every
favourite at that time drew after him a civil war. Lewis and
his mother in fact made war upon each other. Mary was in Anjou
at the head of a small army against her son; they engaged each
other on the bridge of Cé, and the kingdom was on the point of
ruin. This confusion made the fortune of the famous Richelieu.
He was comptroller of the queen-mother's household, and had
supplanted all that princess's confidants, as he afterwards
did all the king's ministers. His pliable temper and bold
disposition must necessarily have acquired for him the first
rank everywhere, or have proved his ruin. He brought about the
accommodation between the mother and son; and a nomination to
the purple, which the queen asked of the king for him, was the
reward of his services. The duke of Epernon was the first to
lay down arms without making any demands, whilst the rest made
the king pay them for having taken up arms against him. The
queen-mother and the king her son had an interview at Brisac,
where they embraced with a flood of tears, only to quarrel
again more violently than ever. The weakness, intrigues, and
divisions of the court spread anarchy through the kingdom. All
the internal defects with which the state had for a long time
been attacked were now encreased, and those which Henry IV.
had removed were revived anew."
_Voltaire, Ancient and Modern History,
chapter 145
(works translated by Smollett, volume 5)._
ALSO IN:
_C. D. Yonge,
History of France under the Bourbons,
volume 1, chapters 5-6._
_A. Thierry,
Formation and Progress of the Tiers État in France,
volume 1, chapter 7._
_S. Menzies,
Royal Favourites,
volume 1, chapter 9._
{1218}
FRANCE: A. D. 1620-1622.
Renewed jealousy of the Huguenots.
Their formidable organization and its political pretensions.
Restoration of Catholicism in Navarre and Béarn.
Their incorporation with France.
The Huguenot revolt.
Treaty of Montpelier.
"The Huguenot question had become a very serious one, and the
bigotry of some of the Catholics found its opportunity in the
insubordination of many of the Protestants. The Huguenots had
undoubtedly many minor causes for discontent. ... But on the
whole the government and the majority of the people were
willing to carry out in good faith the provisions of the edict
of Nantes. The Protestants, within the limits there laid down,
could have worshipped after their own conscience, free from
persecution and subject to little molestation. It was,
perhaps, all that could be expected in a country where the
mass of the population were Catholic, and where religious
fanaticism had recently supported the League and fostered the
wars of religion. But the Protestant party seem to have
desired a separate political power, which almost justifies the
charge made against them, that they sought to establish a
state within a state, or even to form a separate republic.
Their territorial position afforded a certain facility for
such endeavors. In the northern provinces their numbers were
insignificant. They were found chiefly in the southwestern
provinces--Poitou, Saintonge, Guienne, Provence, and
Languedoc,--while in Béarn and Navarre they constituted the
great majority of the population, and they held for their
protection a large number of strongly fortified cities. ...
Though there is nothing to show that a plan for a separate
republic was seriously considered, the Huguenots had adopted
an organization which naturally excited the jealousy and
ill-will of the general government. They had long maintained a
system of provincial and general synods for the regulation of
their faith and discipline. ... The assembly which met at
Saumur immediately after Henry's death, had carried still
further the organization of the members of their faith. From
consistories composed of the pastors and certain of the laity,
delegates were chosen who formed local consistories. These
again chose delegates who met in provincial synods, and from
them delegates were sent to the national synod, or general
assembly of the church. Here not only matters of faith, but of
state, were regulated, and the general assembly finally
assumed to declare war, levy taxes, choose generals, and act
both as a convocation and a parliament. The assembly of Saumur
added a system of division into eight great circles, covering
the territory where the Protestants were sufficiently numerous
to be important. All but two of these were south of the Loire.
They were subsequently organized as military departments, each
under the command of some great nobleman. ... The Huguenots
had also shown a willingness to assist those who were in arms
against the state, had joined Condé, and contemplated a union
with Mary de Medici in the brief insurrection of 1620. A
question had now arisen which was regarded by the majority of
the party as one of vital importance. The edict of Nantes,
which granted privileges to the Huguenots, had granted also to
the Catholics the right to the public profession of their
religion in all parts of France. This had formerly been
prohibited in Navarre and Béarn, and the population of those
provinces had become very largely Protestant. The Catholic
clergy had long petitioned the king to enforce the rights
which they claimed the edict gave them in Béarn, and to compel
also a restitution of some portion of the property, formerly
held by their church, which had been taken by Jeanne d'Albret,
and the revenues of which the Huguenot clergy still assumed to
appropriate entirely to themselves. On July 25, 1617, Louis
finally issued an edict directing the free exercise of the
Catholic worship in Béarn and the restitution to the clergy of
the property that had been taken from them. The edict met with
bitter opposition in Béarn and from all the Huguenot party.
The Protestants were as unwilling to allow the rites of the
Catholic Church in a province which they controlled, as the
Catholics to suffer a Huguenot conventicle within the walls of
Paris. The persecutions which the Huguenots suffered
distressed them less than the toleration which they were
obliged to grant. ... In the wars of religion the Huguenots
had been controlled, not always wisely or unselfishly, by the
nobles who had espoused their faith, but these were slowly
drifting back to Catholicism. ... The Condés were already
Catholics. Lesdiguières was only waiting till the bribe for
his conversion should be sufficiently glittering. [He was
received into the Church and was made Constable of France in
July, 1622.] Bouillon's religion was but a catch-weight in his
political intrigues. The grandson of Coligni was soon to
receive a marshal's baton for consenting to a peace which was
disastrous to his party. Sully, Rohan, Soubise, and La Force
still remained; but La Force's zeal moderated when he also was
made a marshal, and one hundred years later Rohans and the
descendants of Sully wore cardinal's hats. The party, slowly
deserted by the great nobles, came more under the leadership
of the clergy ... and under their guidance the party now
assumed a political activity which brought on the siege of La
Rochelle and which made possible the revocation of the edict
of Nantes. Béarn was not only strongly Protestant, but it
claimed, with Navarre, to form no part of France, and to be
governed only by its own laws. Its States met and declared
their local rights were violated by the king's edict; the
Parliament of Pau refused to register it, and it was not
enforced in the province. ... The disturbances caused by Mary
de Medici had delayed any steps for the enforcement of the
edict, but these troubles were ended by the peace of
Ponts-de-Cé in 1620. ... In October, 1620, Louis led his army
in Béarn, removed various Huguenot officials, and
reëstablished the Catholic clergy. ... On October 20th, an
edict was issued by which Navarre and Béarn were declared to
be united to France, and a parliament was established for the
two provinces on the same model as the other parliaments of
the kingdom. ... A general assembly of Protestants,
sympathizing with their brethren of these provinces, was
called for November 26, 1620, at La Rochelle. The king
declared those guilty of high treason who should join in that
meeting. ... The meeting was held in defiance of the
prohibition, and it was there resolved to take up arms. ...
The assembly proceeded in all respects like the legislative
body of a separate state.
{1219}
The king prepared for the war with vigor. ... He now led his
forces into southern France, and after some minor engagements
he laid siege to Montauban. A three months' siege resulted
disastrously; the campaign closed, and the king returned to
Paris. The encouragement that the Huguenots drew from this
success proved very brief. The king's armies proceeded again
into the south of France in 1622, and met only an irregular
and inefficient opposition. ... Chatillon and La Force each
made a separate peace, and each was rewarded by the baton of
marshal from the king and by charges of treachery from his
associates. ... The siege of Montpelier led to the peace
called by that name, but on terms that were unfavorable to the
Huguenots. They abandoned all the fortified cities which they
had held for their security except La Rochelle and Montauban;
no assemblies could meet without permission of the king,
except the local synods for ecclesiastical matters alone, and
the interests of Béarn and Navarre were abandoned. In return
the edict of Nantes was again confirmed, and their religious
privileges left undisturbed. Rohan accepted 800,000 livres for
his expenses and governments, and the king agreed that the
Fort of St. Louis, which had been built to overawe the
turbulence of La Rochelle, should be dismantled. La Rochelle,
the great Huguenot stronghold, continued hostilities for some
time longer, but at last it made terms. The party was fast
losing its power and its overthrow could be easily foretold.
La Rochelle was now the only place capable of making a
formidable resistance. ... In the meantime the career of
Luines reached its end." He had taken the great office of
Constable to himself, incurring much ridicule thereby. "The
exposures of the campaign and its disasters had worn upon him;
a fever attacked him at the little town of Monheur, and on
December 14, 1621, he died."
_J. B. Perkins,
France under Mazarin, with a Review of the
Administration of Richelieu,
chapter 3 (volume 1)._
ALSO IN:
_W. S. Browning,
History of the Huguenots,
chapters 54-56._
FRANCE: A. D. 1621.
Claims in North America conflicting with England.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1621-1631.
FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.
Richelieu in power.
His combinations against the Austro-Spanish ascendancy.
The Valtelline War.
Huguenots again in revolt.
The second Treaty of Montpelier.
Treaty of Monzon with Spain.
"The King was once more without a guide, without a favourite,
but his fate was upon him. A few months more of uncertain
drifting and he will fall into the hands of the greatest
politician France has ever seen, Cardinal Richelieu; under his
hand the King will be effaced, his cold disposition and narrow
intelligence will accept and be convinced by the grandeur of
his master's views; convinced, he will obey, and we shall
enter on the period in which the disruptive forces in France
will be coerced, and the elements of freedom and
constitutional life stamped down; while patriotism, and a firm
belief in the destinies of the nation will be fostered and
grow strong; France will assert her high place in Europe.
Richelieu, who had already in 1622 received the Cardinal's
hat, entered the King's Council on the
29th of April, 1624. ...
[Transcriber's note: The date printed is "19/29th of
April". Wikipedia gives the date as "appointed to the royal
council of ministers on 29 April 1624, (Lodge & Ketcham,
1903, p. 85.)".]
La Vieuville, under whose patronage he had been brought
forward, welcomed him into the Cabinet. ... But La Vieuville
was not fitted by nature for the chief place; he was rash,
violent, unpopular and corrupt. He soon had to give place to
Richelieu, henceforth the virtual head of the Council. La
Vieuville, thus supplanted, had been the first to reverse the
ruinous Spanish policy of the Court; ... he had promised help
to the Dutch, to Mansfield, to the Elector Frederick; in a
word, his policy had been the forecast of that of the
Cardinal, who owed his rise to him, and now stepped nimbly
over his head into his place. England had declared war on
Spain: France joined England in renewing the old offensive and
defensive alliance with the Dutch, England promising men and
France money. ... The Austro-Spanish power had greatly
increased during these years: its successes had enabled it to
knit together all the provinces which owed it allegiance. The
Palatinate and the Lower Rhine secured their connexion with
the Spanish Netherlands, as we may now begin to call them, and
threatened the very existence of the Dutch: the Valtelline
forts [commanding the valley east of Lake Como, from which one
pass communicates with the Engadine and the Grisons, and
another with the Tyrol] ... were the roadway between the
Spanish power at Milan and the Austrians on the Danube and in
the Tyrol. Richelieu now resolved to attack this threatening
combination at both critical points. In the North he did not
propose to interfere in arms: there others should fight, and
France support them with quiet subsidies and good will. He
pressed matters on with the English, the Dutch, the North
German Princes; he negotiated with Maximilian of Bavaria and
the League, hoping to keep the South German Princes clear of
the Imperial policy. ... The French ambassador at Copenhagen,
well supported by the English envoy, Sir Robert Anstruther, at
this time organised a Northern League, headed by Christian IV.
of Denmark [see GERMANY: A. D. 1624-1626]. ... The Lutheran
Princes, alarmed at the threatening aspect of affairs, were
beginning to think that they had made a mistake in leaving the
Palatinate to be conquered; and turned a more willing ear to
the French and English proposals for this Northern League. ...
By 1625 the Cardinal's plans in the North seemed to be going
well: the North-Saxon Princes, though with little heart and
much difference of opinion, specially in the cities, had
accepted Christian IV. as their leader; and the progress of
the Spaniards in the United Provinces was checked. In the
other point to which Richelieu's attention was directed,
matters had gone still better. [The inhabitants of the
Valtelline were mostly Catholics and Italians. They had long
been subject to the Protestant Grisons or Graubunden. In 1620
they had risen in revolt, massacred the Protestants of the
valley, and formed an independent republic, supported by the
Spaniards and Austrians. Spanish and German troops occupied
the four strong Valtelline forts, and controlled the important
passes above referred to. The Grisons resisted and secured the
support of Savoy, Venice and finally France. In 1623 an
agreement had been reached, to hand over the Valtelline forts
to the pope, in deposit, until some terms could be settled.
But in 1625 this agreement had not been carried out, and
Richelieu took the affair in hand.] ...
{1220}
Richelieu, never attacking in full face if he could carry his
point by a side-attack, allied himself with Charles Emmanuel,
Duke of Savoy, and with Venice; he easily persuaded the
Savoyard to threaten Genoa, the port by which Spain could
penetrate into Italy, and her financial mainstay. Meanwhile,
the Marquis of Cœuvres had been sent to Switzerland, and, late
in 1624, had persuaded the Cantons to arm for the recovery of
the Valtelline; then, heading a small army of Swiss and
French, he had marched into the Grisons. The upper districts
held by the Austrians revolted: the three Leagues declared
their freedom, the Austrian troops hastily withdrew. Cœuvres
at once secured the Tyrolese passes, and descending from the
Engadine by Poschiavo, entered the Valtelline: in a few weeks
the Papal and Spanish troops were swept out of the whole
valley, abandoning all their forts, though the French general
had no siege-artillery with which to reduce them. ... Early in
1625, the Valtelline being secured to the Grisons and French,
the aged Lesdiguières was sent forward to undertake the rest
of the plan, the reduction of Genoa. But just as things were
going well for the party in Europe opposed to Spain and
Austria, an unlucky outburst of Huguenot dissatisfaction
marred all: Soubise in the heart of winter had seized the Isle
of Ré, and had captured in Blavet harbour on the Breton coast
six royal ships; he failed however to take the castle which
commanded the place, and was himself blockaded, escaping only
with heavy loss. Thence he seized the Isle of Oléron: in May
the Huguenots were in revolt in Upper Languedoc, Querci, and
the Cevennes, led by Rohan on land, and Soubise by sea. Their
rash outbreak [provoked by alleged breaches of the treaty of
Montpelier, especially in the failure of the king to demolish
Fort Louis at La Rochelle] came opportunely to the aid of the
distressed Austrian power, their true enemy. Although very
many of the Huguenots stood aloof and refused to embarrass the
government, still enough revolted to cause great uneasiness.
The war in the Ligurian mountains was not pushed on with
vigour; for Richelieu could not now think of carrying out the
large plans which, by his own account, he had already formed,
for the erection of an independent Italy. ... He was for the
present content to menace Genoa, without a serious siege. At
this time James I. of England died, and the marriage of the
young king [Charles I.] with Henriette Marie was pushed on. In
May Buckingham went to Paris to carry her over to England; he
tried in vain to persuade Richelieu to couple the Palatinate
with the Valtelline question. ... After this the tide of
affairs turned sharply against the Cardinal; while Tilly with
the troops of the Catholic League, and Wallenstein, the new
general of the Emperor, who begins at this moment his brief
and marvellous career, easily kept in check the Danes and
their halfhearted German allies, Lesdiguières and the Duke of
Savoy were forced by the Austrians and Spaniards to give up
all thoughts of success in the Genoese country, and the French
were even threatened in Piedmont and the Valtelline. But the old
Constable of France was worthy of his ancient fame; he drove
the Duke of Feria out of Piedmont, and in the Valtelline the
Spaniards only succeeded in securing the fortress of Riva.
Richelieu felt that the war was more than France could bear,
harassed as she was within and without. ... He was determined
to free his hands in Italy, to leave the war to work itself
out in Germany, and to bring the Huguenots to reason. ... The
joint fleets of, Soubise and of La Rochelle had driven back
the king's ships, and had taken Ré and Oléron; but in their
attempt to force an entrance into the harbour of La Rochelle
they were defeated by Montmorency, who now commanded the royal
fleet: the islands were retaken, and the Huguenots sued for
peace. It must be remembered that the bulk of them did not
agree with the Rochellois, and were quiet through this time.
Early in 1626 the treaty of Montpellier granted a hollow peace
on tolerable terms to the reformed churches; and soon after ...
peace was signed with Spain at Monzon in May, 1626. All was
done so silently that the interested parties, Savoy, the
Venetians, the Grisons, knew nothing of it till all was
settled: on Buckingham ... the news fell like a thunderclap.
... The Valtelline remained under the Grisons, with guarantees
for Catholic worship; France and Spain would jointly see that
the inhabitants of the valleys were fairly treated: the Pope
was entrusted with the duty of razing the fortresses: Genoa
and Savoy were ordered to make peace. It was a treacherous
affair; and Richelieu comes out of it but ill. We are bound,
however, to remember ... the desperate straits into which the
Cardinal had come. ... He did but fall back in order to make
that wonderful leap forward which changed the whole face of
European politics."
_G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
book 4, chapters 3 and 4 (volumes 2-3)._
ALSO IN:
_F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapters 40-41._
_J. B. Perkins,
France under Mazarin [and Richelieu],
volume 1, chapters 4-5._
_G. Masson,
Richelieu,
chapter 5._