War with England, and Huguenot revolt.
Richelieu's siege and capture of La Rochelle.
His great example of magnanimity and toleration.
The end of political Huguenotism.
"Richelieu now found himself dragged into a war against his
will, and that with the very power with which, for the
furtherance of his other designs, he most desired to continue
at peace. James I. of England had been as unable to live
except under the dominion of a favourite as Louis. Charles ...
had the same unfortunate weakness; and the Duke of Buckingham,
who had long been paramount at the court of the father,
retained the same mischievous influence at that of the son.
... In passing through France in 1623 he [Buckingham] had been
presented to the queen [Anne of Austria], and had presumed to
address her in the language of love. When sent to Paris to
conduct the young Princess Henrietta Maria to England, he had
repeated this conduct. ... There had been some little
unpleasantness between the two Courts shortly after the
marriage ... owing to the imprudence of Henrietta," who
paraded her Popery too much in the eyes of Protestant England;
and there was talk of a renewed treaty, which Buckingham
sought to make the pretext for another visit to Paris. But his
motives were understood; Louis "refused to receive him as an
ambassador, and Buckingham, full of disappointed rage,
instigated the Duke de Soubise, who was still in London, to
rouse the Huguenots to a fresh outbreak, promising to send an
English fleet to Rochelle to assist them. Rochelle was at this
time the general head-quarters not only of the Huguenots, but
of all those who, on any account, were discontented with the
Government. ...
{1221}
Soubise ... embraced the duke's offer with eagerness; and in
July, 1627, without any previous declaration of war, an
English fleet, with 16,000 men on board, suddenly appeared off
Rochelle, and prepared to attack the Isle of Rhé. The
Rochellois were very unwilling to co-operate with it"; but
they were persuaded, "against their judgment, to connect
themselves with what each, individually, felt to be a
desperate enterprise; and Richelieu, to whom the prospect thus
afforded him of having a fair pretence for crushing the
Huguenot party made amends for the disappointment of being
wantonly dragged into a war with England, gladly received the
intelligence that Rochelle was in rebellion. At first the Duke
d'Anjou was sent down to command the army, Louis being
detained in Paris by illness; but by October he had recovered,
his fondness for military operations revived, and he hastened
to the scene of action, accompanied by Richelieu, whose early
education had been of a military kind. ... He at once threw
across reinforcements into the Isle of Rhé, where M. Thoiras
was holding out a fort known as St. Martin with great
resolution, though it was unfinished and incompletely armed.
In the beginning of November, Buckingham raised the siege, and
returned home, leaving guns, standards and prisoners behind
him; and Richelieu, anticipating a renewal of the attack the
next year ... undertook a work designed at once to baffle
foreign enemies and to place the city at his mercy. Along the
whole front of the port he began to construct a vast wall ...
having only one small opening in the centre which was
commanded by small batteries. The work was commenced in
November, 1627; and, in spite of a rather severe winter, was
carried on with such ceaseless diligence, under the
superintending eye of the cardinal himself, that before the
return of spring a great portion of it was completed. ...
When, in May, 1628, the British fleet, under Lord Denbigh, the
brother-in-law of Buckingham, returned to the attack, they
found it unassailable, and returned without striking a blow."
_C. D. Yonge,
History of France under the Bourbons,
volume 1, chapter 7._
"Richelieu ... was his own engineer, general, admiral,
prime-minister. While he urged on the army to work upon the
dike, he organized a French navy, and in due time brought it
around to that coast and anchored it so as to guard the dike
and be guarded by it. Yet, daring as all this work was, it was
but the smallest part of his work. Richelieu found that his
officers were cheating his soldiers in their pay and
disheartening them; in face of the enemy he had to reorganize
the army and to create a new military system. ... He found,
also, as he afterward said, that he had to conquer not only
the Kings of England and Spain, but also the King of France.
At the most critical moment of the siege Louis deserted
him,--went back to Paris,--allowed courtiers to fill him with
suspicions. Not only Richelieu's place, but his life, was in
danger, and he well knew it; yet he never left his dike and
siege-works, but wrought on steadily until they were done; and
then the King, of his own will, in very shame, broke away from
his courtiers, and went back to his master. And now a Royal
Herald summoned the people of La Rochelle to surrender. But
they were not yet half conquered. Even when they had seen two
English fleets, sent to aid them, driven back from Richelieu's
dike, they still held out manfully. ... They were reduced to
feed on their horses,--then on bits of filthy
shell-fish,--then on stewed leather. They died in multitudes.
Guiton, the Mayor, kept a dagger on the city council-table to
stab any man who should speak of surrender. ... But at last
even Guiton had to yield. After the siege had lasted more than
a year, after 5,000 were found remaining out of 15,000, after
a mother had been seen to feed her child with her own blood,
the Cardinal's policy became too strong for him. The people
yielded [October 27, 1628], and Richelieu entered the city as
master. And now the victorious statesman showed a greatness of
soul to which all the rest of his life was as nothing. ... All
Europe ... looked for a retribution more terrible than any in
history. Richelieu allowed nothing of the sort. He destroyed
the old franchises of the city, for they were incompatible
with that royal authority which he so earnestly strove to
build. But this was all. He took no vengeance,--he allowed the
Protestants to worship as before,--he took many of them into
the public service,--and to Guiton he showed marks of
respect. He stretched forth that strong arm of his over the
city, and warded off all harm. ... For his leniency Richelieu
received the titles of Pope of the Protestants and Patriarch
of the Atheists. But he had gained the first great object of
his policy, and he would not abuse it: he had crushed the
political power of the Huguenots forever."
_A. D. White,
The Statesmanship of Richelieu
(Atlantic Monthly, May, 1862)._
"Whatever the benefit to France of this great feat, the
locality was permanently ruined. Two hundred and fifty years
after the event the Poitevin peasant is fanatic and
superstitious as the Bretons themselves. Catholic Rochelle is
still to be seen, with almost one-third less inhabitants
to-day than it had in 1627. The cardinal's dyke is still
there, but the insects have seized on the city. A plague of
white ants, imported from India, have fastened on its
timbers."
_R. Heath,
The Reformation in France,
volume 1, book 2, chapter 12._
ALSO IN:
_S. R. Gardiner,
History of England, 1603 to 1642,
chapters 56, 59-60, and 65._
FRANCE: A. D. 1627-1631.
War with Spain, Savoy and the Empire over the succession to
the duchy of Mantua.
Successes of Richelieu.
See ITALY: A. D. 1627-1631.
FRANCE: A. D. 1628.
New France placed under the Company of the Hundred Associates.
See CANADA: A. D. 1616-1628.
FRANCE: A. D. 1628-1632.
Loss and recovery of New France.
See CANADA: A. D. 1628-1635.
FRANCE: A. D. 1630-1632.
The Day of Dupes, and after.
On the return of Richelieu and the king from their Italian
expedition, in the beginning of August, 1630, "both the
monarch and his minister had passed in safety through a whole
tract infected with the plague; but, shortly after their
arrival at Lyons, Louis XIII. fell ill, and in a few days his
physicians pronounced his case hopeless. It was now that all
the hatred which his power had caused to hide its head, rose
up openly against Richelieu; and the two queens [Marie de
Medicis, the queen-mother, and Anne of Austria, the king's
wife], united only in their enmity towards the minister, never
quitted the bedside of the king but to form and cement the
party which was intended to work the cardinal's
destruction as soon as the monarch should be no more. ...
{1222}
The bold and the rash joined the faction of the queens; and
the prudent waited with wise doubt till they saw the result
they hoped for. Happy was it for those who did conceal their
feelings; for suddenly the internal abscess, which had nearly
reduced the king to the tomb, broke, passed away, and in a
very few days he appeared perfectly convalescent. Richelieu
might now have triumphed securely; ... but he acted more
prudently. He remembered that the queen-mother, the great
mover of the cabal against him, had formerly been his
benefactress; and though probably his gratitude was of no very
sensitive nature, yet he was wise enough to affect a virtue
that he did not possess, and to suffer the offence to be given
by her. ... At Paris [after the return of the court] ... the
queen-mother herself, unable to restrain any longer the
violent passions that struggled in her bosom, seemed resolved
to keep no terms with the cardinal." At an interview with him,
in the king's presence, "the queen forgot the dignity of her
station and the softness of her sex, and, in language more fit
for the markets than the court, called him rogue, and traitor,
and perturber of the public peace; and, turning to the king,
she endeavoured to persuade him that Richelieu wished to take
the crown from his head, in order to place it on that of the
count de Soissons. Had Richelieu been as sure of the king's
firmness as he was of his regard, this would have been exactly
the conduct which he could have desired the queen to hold; but
he knew Louis to be weak and timid, and easily ruled by those
who took a tone of authority towards him; and when at length
he retired at the command of the monarch ... he seems to have
been so uncertain how the whole would end, that he ordered his
papers and most valuable effects to be secured, and
preparations to be made for immediate departure. All these
proceedings had been watched by the courtiers: Richelieu had
been seen to quit the queen's cabinet troubled and gloomy, his
niece in tears; and, some time after, the king himself
followed in a state of excessive agitation, and ... left Paris
for Versailles without seeing his minister. The whole court
thought the rule of Richelieu at an end, and the saloons of
the Luxembourg were crowded with eager nobles ready to worship
the rising authority of the queen-mother." But the king, when he
reached Versailles, sent this message to his minister: "'Tell
the cardinal de Richelieu that he has a good master, and bid
him come hither to me without delay.' Richelieu felt that the
real power of France was still in his hands; and setting off
for Versailles, he found Louis full of expressions of regard
and confidence. Rumours every moment reached Versailles of the
immense concourse that was flocking to pay court to the
queen-mother: the king found himself nearly deserted, and all
that Richelieu had said of her ambition was confirmed in the
monarch's mind; while his natural good sense told him that a
minister who depended solely upon him, and who under him
exercised the greatest power in the realm, was not likely to
wish his fall. ... In the mean time, the news of these ...
events spread to Paris: the halls of the Luxembourg, which the
day before had been crowded to suffocation, were instantly
deserted; and the queen-mother found herself abandoned by all
those fawning sycophants whose confidence and disappointment
procured for the day of St. Martin, 1630, the title in French
history of The Day of Dupes."
_G. P. R. James,
Eminent Foreign Statesmen,
volume 2, pages 88-92._
The ultimate outcome of The Day of Dupes was the flight of
Marie de Medicis, who spent the remainder of her life in the
Netherlands and in England; the trial and execution of Marshal
de Marillac; the imprisonment or exile and disgrace of
Bassompierre and other nobles; a senseless revolt, headed by
Gaston, Duke of Orleans, the king's brother, which was crushed
in one battle at Castlenaudari, September 1, 1632, and which
brought the Duke de Montmorency to the block.
_C. D. Yonge,
History of France under the Bourbons,
volume 1, chapters 7-8._
ALSO IN:
_M. W. Freer,
Married Life of Anne of Austria,
volume 1, chapter 4._
_C. M. Yonge,
Cameos of English History, 6th series,
chapter 20._
_Miss Pardoe,
Life of Marie de Medicis,
book 3, chapters 7-13 (volume 3)._
FRANCE: A. D. 1631.
Treaty and negotiations with Gustavus Adolphus in Germany.
Promotion of the Protestant Union.
See GERMANY: A.D. 1631 (JANUARY);
1631-1632; and 1632-1634.
FRANCE: A. D. 1632-1641.
War in Lorraine.
Occupation and possession of the duchy.
See LORRAINE: A. D. 1624-1663.
FRANCE: A. D. 1635-1638.
Campaigns on the Flemish frontier.
Invasion by the Spaniards.
Paris in Peril.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1635-1638.
FRANCE: A. D. 1635-1639.
Active participation in the Thirty Years War.
Treaties with the Germans, Swedes, and Dutch.
Campaigns of Duke Bernhard in Lorraine, Alsace and
Franche-Comté.
The fruit gathered by Richelieu.
Alsace secured.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.
FRANCE: A. D. 1635-1642.
The war in northern Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1635-1659.
FRANCE: A. D. 1637-1642.
The war in Spain.
Revolt of Catalonia.
Siege and capture of Perpignan.
Conquest of Roussillon.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1637-1640, and 1640-1642.
FRANCE: A. D. 1640-1645.
Campaigns in Germany.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1640-1645, and 1643-1644.
FRANCE: A. D. 1641-1642.
The conspiracies of Count de Soissons and Cinq Mars.
Extinction of the Principality of Sedan.
"There were revolts in various quarters to resist [the yoke of
Richelieu], but they were quelled with uniform success. Once,
and once only, the fate of the Cardinal seemed finally sealed.
The Count de Soissons, a prince of the blood, headed the
discontented gentry in open war in 1641, and established the
headquarters of revolt in the town of Sedan. The Empire and
Spain came to his support with promises and money. Twelve
thousand men were under his orders, all influenced with rage
against Richelieu, and determined to deliver the king from his
degrading tutelage. Richelieu was taken unprepared; but delay
would have been ruin. He sent the Marshal Chatillon to the
borders of Sedan, to watch the proceedings of the
confederates, and requested the king to summon fresh troops
and go down to the scene of war. While his obedient Majesty
was busied in the commission, Chatillon advanced too far.
Soissons assaulted him near the banks of the Meuse, at a place
called Marfée, and gave him a total and irremediable
overthrow. The cavalry on the royalist side retreated at an
early part of the fight, and forced their way through the
infantry, not without strong suspicions of collusion with
their opponents."
{1223}
Paris itself was in dismay. The King and Cardinal expected to
hear every hour of the advance of the rebels; but no step was
taken. It was found, when the hurry of battle was over, that
Soissons was among the slain. The force of the expedition was
in that one man; and the defeat was as useful to the Cardinal
as a victory would have been. The malcontents had no leaders
of sufficient rank and authority to keep the inferiors in
check; for the scaffold had thinned the ranks of the great
hereditary chiefs, and no man could take his first open move
against the Court without imminent risk to his head. Great
men, indeed, were rising into fame, but of a totally different
character from their predecessors. Their minds were cast in a
monarchical mould from their earliest years. ... From this
time subserviency to the king became a sign of noble birth.
... Richelieu has the boast, if boast it can be called, of
having crushed out the last spark of popular independence and
patrician pride. ... One more effort was made [1642] to shake
off the trammels of the hated Cardinal. A conspiracy was
entered into to deliver the land by the old Roman method of
putting the tyrant to death; and the curious part of the
design is, that it was formed almost in presence of the king.
His favourite friend, young Cinq Mars, son of the Marshal
d'Effiat, his brother Gaston of Orleans, and his kinsman the
Duke de Bouillon, who were round his person at all hours of
the day, were the chief agents of the perilous undertaking.
Others, and with them de Thou, the son of the great French
historian, entered into the plan, but wished the assassination
to be left out. They would arrest and imprison him; but this
was evidently not enough. While Richelieu lived, no man could
be safe, though the Cardinal were in the deepest dungeon of
the Bastile. Death, however, was busy with their victim,
without their aid. He was sinking under some deep but
partially-concealed illness when the threads of the plot came
into his skilful hands. He made the last use of his strength
and intelligence in unravelling [it] and punishing the rebels,
as he called them, against the king's authority. The paltry
and perfidious Gaston was as usual penitent and pardoned, but
on Cinq Mars and de Thou the vengeance of the law and the
Cardinal had its full force. The triumphant but failing
minister reclined in a state barge upon the Rhone, towing his
prisoners behind him to certain death. On their arrival at
Lyons the process was short and fatal. The young men were
executed together, and the account of their behaviour at the
block is one of the most affecting narratives in the annals of
France."
_J. White,
History of France,
chapter 12._
The Duke de Bouillon, implicated in both these
conspiracies--that of the Count de Soissons and that of Cinq
Mars--saved his life on the latter occasion by surrendering to
the crown the sovereignty of Sedan, which belonged to him, and
which had been the headquarters of the Soissons revolt. This
small independent principality--the town and a little
territory around it--had formerly been in the possession of
the powerful and troublesome family of La Marck, the last
heiress of whom brought it, together with the Duchy of
Bouillon, into the family of La Tour d'Auvergne. The Prince
and Duke who lost it was the second of that family who bore
the titles. He was the elder brother of the great soldier,
Turenne. The Principality of Sedan was extinguished from that
time.
_T. O. Cockayne,
Life of Turenne._
ALSO IN:
_W. Robson,
Life of Richelieu,
chapters 11-12._
_M. W. Freer,
Married Life of Anne of Austria,
volume 2, chapter 3._
_Miss Pardoe,
Life of Marie de Medicis,
book 3, chapter 13 (volume 3)._
FRANCE: A. D. 1642-1643.
The death of Richelieu and of Louis XIII.
Regency of Anne of Austria.
Cardinal Mazarin and the party of the Importants.
The victory at Rocroi.