dead, but his work survived him. On the very evening of the 3d
of December, Louis XIII. called to his council Cardinal
Mazarin [whom Richelieu had commended to him]. ... Scarcely
had the most powerful kings yielded up their last breath when
their wishes had been at once forgotten: Cardinal Richelieu
still governed in his grave." But now, after two and a half
centuries, "the castle of Richelieu is well-nigh destroyed;
his family, after falling into poverty, is extinct; the
Palais-Cardinal [his splendid residence, which he built, and
which he gave to the crown] has assumed the name of the
Palais-Royal; and pure monarchy, the aim of all his efforts
and the work of his whole life, has been swept away by the
blast of revolution. Of the cardinal there remains nothing but
the great memory of his power and of the services he rendered his
country. ... Richelieu had no conception of that noblest
ambition on which a human soul can feed, that of governing a
free country, but he was one of the greatest, the most
effective, and the boldest, as well as the most prudent
servants that France ever had." Louis XIII. survived his great
minister less than half a year, dying May 14, 1643. He had
never had confidence in Anne of Austria, his wife, and had
provided, by a declaration which she had signed and sworn to,
for a council (which included Mazarin) to control the queen's
regency during the minority of their son, Louis XIV. But the
queen contrived very soon to break from this obligation, and
she made Cardinal Mazarin her one counsellor and supreme
minister. "Continuing to humor all parties, and displaying
foresight and prudence, the new minister was even now master.
Louis XIII., without any personal liking, had been faithful to
Richelieu to the death. With different feelings, Anne of Austria
was to testify the same constancy towards Mazarin. A stroke of
fortune came at the very first to strengthen the regent's
position. Since the death of Cardinal Richelieu, the
Spaniards, but recently overwhelmed at the close of 1642, had
recovered courage and boldness; new counsels prevailed at the
court of Philip IV., who had dismissed Olivarez; the House of
Austria vigorously resumed the offensive; at the moment of
Louis XIII.'s death, Don Francisco de Mello, governor of the
Low Countries, had just invaded French territory by way of the
Ardennes, and laid siege to Rocroi, on the 12th of May [1643].
The French army was commanded by the young Duke of Enghien
[afterwards known as the Great Condé], the prince of Condé's
son, scarcely 22 years old; Louis XIII. had given him as his
lieutenant and director the veteran Marshal de l'Hôpital; and
the latter feared to give battle.
{1224}
The Duke of Enghien, who 'was dying with impatience to enter
the enemy's country, resolved to accomplish by address what he
could not carry by authority. He opened his heart to Gassion
alone. As he [Gassion, one of the boldest of Condé's officers]
was a man who saw nothing but what was easy even in the most
dangerous deeds, he had very soon brought matters to the point
that the prince desired. Marshal de l'Hôpital found himself
imperceptibly so near the Spaniards that it was impossible for
him any longer to hinder an engagement.' ... The army was in
front of Rocroi, and out of the dangerous defile which led to
the place, without any idea on the part of the marshal and the
army that Louis XIII. was dead. The Duke of Enghien, who had
received the news, had kept it secret. He had merely said in
the tone of a master 'that he meant to fight, and would answer
for the issue.'" The battle, which was fought May 19, 1643,
resulted in the destruction, almost total, of the Spanish
army. Of 18,000 men who formed its infantry, nearly 9,000 were
killed and 7,000 were made prisoners. The whole of the Spanish
artillery and 300 of their standards fell into the hands of
the victors, who lost, according to their own reports, only
2,000 men, killed and wounded. "'The prince was a born
captain,' said Cardinal de Retz. And all France said so with
him on hearing of the victory of Rocroi. The delight was all
the keener in the queen's circle, because the house of Condé
openly supported Cardinal Mazarin, bitterly attacked as he was
by the Importants [a court faction or party so called, which
was made up of 'those meddlers of the court at whose head
marched the Duke of Beaufort, all puffed up with the
confidence lately shown to him by her Majesty,' and all
expecting to count importantly among the queen's favorites],
who accused him of reviving the tyranny of Richelieu. ... And,
indeed, on pretext offered by a feminine quarrel [August,
1643] between the young Duchess of Longueville, daughter of
the prince of Condé, and the Duchess of Montbazon, the Duke of
Beaufort and some of his friends resolved to assassinate the
cardinal. The attempt was a failure, but the Duke of Beaufort,
who was arrested on the 2d of September, was taken to the
castle of Vincennes. Madame de Chevreuse, recently returned
[after being exiled by Richelieu] to court, where she would
fain have exacted from the queen the reward for her services
and her past sufferings, was sent into exile, as well as the
Duke of Vendôme. Madame d'Hautefort, but lately summoned by
Anne of Austria to be near her, was soon involved in the same
disgrace. ... The party of the Importants was dead, and the
power of Cardinal Mazarin seemed to be firmly established. 'It
was not the thing just then for any decent man to be on bad
terms with the court,' says Cardinal de Retz."
_F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapters 41-43._
"Cardinal Richelieu was not so much a minister, in the precise
sense of the word, as a person invested with the whole power
of the crown. His preponderating influence in the council
suspended the exercise of the hereditary power, without which
the monarchy must cease to exist; and it seems as if that may
have taken place in order that the social progress, violently
arrested since the last reign, might resume its course at the
instigation of a kind of dictator, whose spirit was free from
the influences which the interest of family and dynasty
exercises over the characters of kings. By a strange
concurrence of circumstances, it happened that the weak
prince, whose destiny it was to lend his name to the reign of
the great minister, had in his character, his instincts, his
good or bad qualities, all that could supply the requirements
of such a post. Louis XIII., who had a mind without energy but
not without intelligence, could not live without a master; after
having possessed and lost many, he took and kept the one, who
he found was capable of conducting France to the point, which
he himself had a faint glimpse of, and to which he vaguely
aspired in his melancholy reveries. ... In his attempts at
innovation, Richelieu, as simple minister, much surpassed the
great king who had preceded him, in boldness. He undertook to
accelerate the movement towards civil unity and equality so
much, and to carry it so far, that hereafter it should be
impossible to recede. ... The work of Louis XI. had been
nearly lost in the depth of the troubles of the sixteenth
century; and that of Henry IV. was compromised by fifteen
years of disorder and weakness. To save it from perishing,
three things were necessary: that the high nobility should be
constrained to obedience to the king and to the law; that
Protestantism should cease to be an armed party in the State;
that France should be able to choose her allies freely in
behalf of her own interest and in that of European
independence. On this triple object the king-minister employed
his powerful intellect, his indefatigable activity, ardent
passions, and an heroic strength of mind. His daily life was a
desperate struggle against the nobles, the royal family, the
supreme courts, against all that existed of high institutions,
and corporations established in the country. For the purpose
of reducing all to the same level of submission and order, he
raised the royal power above the ties of family and the tie of
precedent; he isolated it in its sphere as a pure idea, the
living idea of the public safety and the national interest.
... He was as destitute of mercy as he was of fear, and
trampled under foot the respect due to judicial forms and
usages. He had sentences of death pronounced by commissioners
of his own selection: at the very foot of the throne he struck
the enemies of the public interest, and at the same time of
his own fortune, and confounded his personal hatreds with the
vengeance of the State. No one can say whether or not there
was deceit in that assurance of conscience which he manifested
in his last moments: God alone could look into the depth of
his mind. We who have gathered the fruit of his labours and of
his patriotic devotion at a distance of time--we can only bow,
before that man of revolution, by whom the ways which led to
our present state of society were prepared. But something sad
is still attached to his glory: he sacrificed everything to
the success of his undertaking; he stifled within himself and
crushed down in some noble spirits the eternal principles of
morality and humanity. When we look at the great things which
he achieved, we admire him with gratitude; we would, but we
cannot, love his character."
_A. Thierry,
Formation and Progress of the Tiers État
or Third Estate in France, chapter 8._
ALSO IN:
_V. Cousin,
Secret History of the French Court under
Richelieu and Mazarin,
chapters 3-4._
_V. Cousin,
The Youth of Madame de Longueville._
_Lord Mahon,
Life of Louis, Prince of Condé,
chapter 1._
_Cardinal de Retz,
Memoirs,
books 1-2._
_M'lle de Montpensier,
Memoirs,
chapter 2-3._
{1225}
FRANCE: A. D. 1643.
Accession of Louis XIV.
FRANCE: A. D. 1643.
Enghien's (Condé's) campaign on the Moselle.
Siege and capture of Thionville.
"On the 20th of May ... Enghien made his triumphal entry into
Rocroy. He allowed his troops to repose for two days, and then
it was towards Guise that he directed his steps. He soon heard
that Don Francisco de Melo had taken shelter at Phillipeville,
that he was trying to rally his cavalry, but that of all his
infantry not above 2,000 men remained to him, and they
disarmed and nearly naked. No army any longer protected
Flanders, and the youthful courage of Enghien already
meditated its conquest. But the Court, which had expected to
sustain war in its own provinces, was not prepared to carry it
into foreign countries. It became necessary to give up all
idea of an invasion of Maritime Flanders and the siege of
Dunkirk, with which Enghien had at first flattered himself.
Then finding that the Spaniards had drawn off their troops
from the fortifications on the Moselle, Enghien proposed to
march thither, and take possession of them. ... Although this
project was very inferior to his first, its greatness
surprised the Council of Ministers: they at first refused
their consent, but the Duke insisted--and what could they
refuse to the victor of Rocroy? Thionville was at that time
considered to be one of the best fortresses in Europe. On
arriving before its walls, after a seven days' march, Enghien
... established his lines, erected bridges, raised redoubts,
and opened a double line of trenches on the 25th of June. The
French were several times repulsed, but always rallied; and
everywhere the presence of Enghien either prevented or
repaired the disorder. ... The obstinate resistance of the
garrison obliged the French to have recourse to mines, which,
by assiduous labor, they pushed forward under the interior of
the town. Then Enghien, wishing to spare bloodshed, sent a
flag of truce to the governor, and allowed him a safe conduct
to visit the state of the works. This visit convinced the
Spaniards of the impossibility of defending themselves any
longer. ... They evacuated the town on the 22d of August.
Thionville was then little more than a heap of ruins and
ashes. ... By this conquest Enghien soon became master of the
whole course of the Moselle down to the gates of Trèves.
Sierch alone ventured to resist him, but was reduced in 24
hours. Then, disposing his army in autumn quarters, he set off
for Paris."
_Lord Mahon,
Life of Louis, Prince of Condé,
chapter 1._
FRANCE: A. D. 1644-1646.
Campaigns in Catalonia.
The failures at Lerida.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1644-1646.
FRANCE: A. D. 1645-1648.
Campaigns in Flanders.
Capture of Dunkirk.
Loss of the Dutch alliance.
Conde's victory at Lens.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1634-1646; 1646-1648; 1647-1648.
FRANCE: A. D. 1646-1648.
The last campaigns of the Thirty Years War.
Turenne and the Swedes in Germany.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1646-1648.
FRANCE: A. D. 1646-1654.
Hostility to the Pope.
Siege of Orbitello.
Attempts to take advantage of the insurrection in Naples.
See ITALY: A. D. 1646-1654.
FRANCE: A. D. 1647-1648.
Conflict between Court and Parliament.
The question of the Paulette.
Events leading to the First Fronde.
"The war was conducted with alternate success and failure, but
with an unintermitted waste of the public revenue; and while
Guébriant, Turenne, and Condé were maintaining the military
renown of France, D'Emery, the superintendent of finance, was
struggling with the far severer difficulty of raising her ways
and means to the level of her expenditure. The internal
history of the first five years of the regency is
thenceforward a record of the contest between the court and
the Parliament of Paris; between the court, promulgating
edicts to replenish the exhausted treasury, and the
Parliament, remonstrating in angry addresses against the
acceptance of them." Of the four sovereign courts which had
their seat at that time in the Palais de Justice of Paris, and
of which the Parliament was the most considerable--the other
three being the Chamber 'des Comptes,' the Cour des Aides, and
the Grand Conseil--the counselors or stipendiary judges held
their offices for life. "But, in virtue of the law called
Paulette [named from Paulet, its originator, in the reign of
Henry IV.] ... they also held them as an inheritance
transmissible to their descendants. The Paulette ... was a
royal ordinance which imposed an annual tax on the stipend of
every judge. It was usually passed for a term of nine years
only. If the judge died during that term, his heir was
entitled to succeed to the vacant office. But if the death of
the judge happened when the Paulette was not in force, his
heir had no such right. Consequently, the renewal of the tax
was always welcome to the stipendiary counselors of the
sovereign courts; and, by refusing or delaying to renew it,
the king could always exercise a powerful influence over them.
In April, 1647, the Paulette had expired, and the queen-mother
proposed the revival of it. But, to relieve the necessities of
the treasury, she also proposed to increase the annual per
centage which it imposed on the stipends of the counselors of
the Chamber 'des Comptes,' of the Cour des Aides, and of the
Grand Conseil. To concert measures of resistance to the
contemplated innovation, those counselors held a meeting in
the Great Hall of St. Louis; and at their request the
Parliament, though not personally and directly interested in
the change, joined their assembly." The queen sarcastically
replied to their remonstrances that the "king would not only
withdraw his proposal for an increase in the rate of the
annual tax on their stipends, but would even graciously
relieve them from that burden altogether. ... Exasperated by
the threatened loss of the heritable tenure of their offices,
and still more offended by the sarcastic terms in which that
menace was conveyed, the judges assembled in the hall of St.
Louis with increased zeal, and harangued there with yet more
indignant eloquence. Four different times the queen
interdicted their meetings, and four different times they
answered her by renewed resolutions for the continuance of
them. She threatened severe punishments, and they replied by
remonstrances. A direct collision of authority had thus
occurred, and it behooved either party to look well to their
steps." The queen began to adopt a conciliatory manner. "But
the associated magistrates derived new boldness from the
lowered tone and apparent fears of the government.
{1226}
Soaring at once above the humble topic on which they had
hitherto been engaged into the region of general politics,
they passed at a step from the question of the Paulette to a
review of all the public grievances under which their fellow
subjects were labouring. After having wrought during four
successive days in this inexhaustible mine of eloquence, they
at length, on the 30th of June, 1648, commenced the adoption
of a series of resolutions, which, by the 24th of July, had
amounted in number to 27, and which may be said to have laid
the basis of a constitutional revolution. ... Important as
these resolutions were in themselves, they were still more
important as the assertion, by the associated magistrates, of
the right to originate laws affecting all the general
interests of the commonwealth. In fact, a new power in the
state had suddenly sprung into existence. ... That was an age
in which the minds of men, in every part of Europe, had been
rudely awakened to the extent to which the unconstitutional
encroachments of popular bodies might be carried. Charles I.
was at that time a prisoner in the hands of the English
Parliament. Louis XIV. was a boy, unripe for an encounter with
any similar antagonists. ... The queen-mother, therefore,
resolved to spare no concessions by which the disaffected
magistracy might be conciliated. D'Emery was sacrificed to
their displeasure; the renewal of the Paulette on its ancient
terms was offered to them; some of the grievances of which
they complained were immediately redressed; and the young king
appeared before them in person, to promise his assent to their
other demands. In return, he stipulated only for the cessation
of their combined meetings, and for their desisting from the
further promulgation of arrêts, to which they ascribed the
force and authority of law. But the authors of this hasty
revolution were no longer masters of the spirits whom they had
summoned to their aid. ... With increasing audacity,
therefore, they persevered in defying the royal power, and in
requiring from all Frenchmen implicit submission to their own.
Advancing from one step to another, they adopted, on the 28th
of August, 1648, an arrêt in direct conflict with a recent
proclamation of the king, and ordered the prosecution of three
persons for the offense of presuming to lend him money. At
that moment their debates were interrupted by shouts and
discharges of cannon, announcing the great victory of Condé at
Lens. During the four following days religious festivals and
public rejoicings suspended their sittings. But in those four
days, the court had arranged their measures for a coup d'état.
As the Parliament retired from Notre Dame, where they had
attended at a solemn thanksgiving for the triumph of the arms
of France, they observed that the soldiery still stood to the
posts which, in honour of that ceremonial, had been assigned
to them in different quarters of the city. Under the
protection of that force, one of the presidents of the Chamber
'des Enquêtes,' and De Broussel, the chief of the
parliamentary agitators, were arrested and consigned to
different prisons, while three of their colleagues were exiled
to remote distances from the capital. At the tidings of this
violence, the Parisian populace were seized with a
characteristic paroxysm of fury. ... In less than three hours,
Paris had become an entrenched camp. ... They dictated their
own terms. The exiles were recalled and the prisoners
released. ... Then, at the bidding of the Parliament, the
people laid aside their weapons, threw down the barricades,
re-opened their shops, and resumed the common business of life
as quietly as if nothing had occurred. ... It was, however, a
short-lived triumph. The queen, her son, and Mazarin effected
their escape to St. Germains; and there, by the mediation of
Condé and of Gaston, duke of Orleans, the uncle of the king, a
peace was negotiated. The treaty of St. Germains was regarded
by the court with shame, and by the Parliament with
exultation." Fresh quarrels over it soon arose. "Condé was a
great soldier, but an unskillful and impatient peacemaker. By
his advice and aid, the queen-mother and the king once more
retired to St. Germains, and commanded the immediate
adjournment of the Parliament from Paris to Montargis. To
their remonstrances against that order they could obtain no
answer, except that if their obedience to it should be any
longer deferred, an army of 25,000 men would immediately lay,
siege to the city. War was thus declared."
_Sir J. Stephen,
Lectures on the History of France,
lecture 21._
ALSO IN:
_Cardinal De Retz,
Memoirs,
book 2 (volume 1)._
FRANCE: A. D. 1648.
The Peace of Westphalia.
Acquisition of Alsace, etc.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.
FRANCE: A. D. 1649.
The First Fronde.
Doubtful origin of the name.
Siege of Paris by Condé.
Dishonorable conduct of Turenne.
Deserted by his army.
The Peace of Reuil.
"The very name of this movement is obscure, and it is only
certain that it was adopted in jest, from a child's game. It
was fitting that the struggle which became only a mischievous
burlesque on a revolution should be named from the sport of
gamins and school-boys. Fronde is the name of a sling, and the
boys of the street used this weapon in their mimic contests.
How it came to be applied to the opponents of the government
is uncertain. Some claimed it was because the members of the
Parliament, like the young frondeurs, hurled their weapons at
Mazarin, but were ready to fly when the officers of the police
appeared. Others said the term had been used by chance by some
counsellor, and had been adopted by the writers of epigrams
and mazarinades. However derived, it was not ill applied."
_J. B. Perkins,
France Under Mazarin,
chapter 9 (volume 1)._
"Paul de Gondi, Coadjutor of Paris [Coadjutor, that is, of the
Archbishop of Paris, who was his uncle], famous afterwards
under the name of Cardinal de Retz, placed himself at the head
of the revolution. ... The Prince of Conti, brother of Condé,
the Duke of Longueville, the Duke of Beaufort, and the Duke of
Bouillon adopted the party of the coadjutor and the
parliament. Generals were chosen for an army with which to
resist the court. Although taxes levied by Mazarin had been
resisted, taxes were freely paid to raise troops--12,000 men
were raised; Condé [commanding for the queen] had 8,000
soldiers. These he threw around Paris, and invested 100,000
burgesses, and threatened to starve the town. The citizens,
adorned with feathers and ribbons, made sorties occasionally,
but their manœuvres were the subject of scorn by the soldiers.
... As Voltaire says, the tone of the civil discords which
afflicted England at the same time mark well the difference
between the national characters.
{1227}
The English had thrown into their civil war a balanced fury
and a mournful determination. ... The French on the other hand
threw themselves into their civil strife with caprice,
laughter, dissolution and debauchery. Women were the leaders
of factions--love made and broke cabals. The Duchess of
Longueville urged Turenne, only a short time back appointed
Marshal of France, to encourage his army to revolt, which he
was commanding for his king. Nothing can justify Turenne's
action in this matter. Had he laid down his command and taken
the side of his brother [the Duke de Bouillon], on account of
his family grievance [the loss of the principality of
Sedan--see above, A. D. 1641-1642], the feudal spirit which in
those days held affection for family higher than affection for
country, might have excused him; but, while in the service of
a sovereign and intrusted with the command of an army, to
endeavour to lead his troops over to the enemy can be regarded
as nothing short of the work of a traitor. He himself pleads
as his apology that Condé was starving the population of Paris
by the investment. ... As it was he sacrificed his honour, and
allowed his fair fame to be tarnished for the sake of a
worthless woman who secretly jeered at his passion, and cared
nothing for his heart, but merely for his sword for her own
worldly advantage. As it was he endeavoured to persuade his
army to declare for the parliament, and purposed taking it
into Champagne, and marching for the relief of the capital;
but the treachery of the marshal was no match for the subtlety
of the cardinal. Before Turenne issued his declaration to his
troops the colonels of his regiment had already been tampered
with. The cardinal's emissaries had promised them pensions,
and distributed £800,000 among the officers and soldiers. This
was a decisive argument for mercenaries, who taught Turenne by
forsaking him that mercenary services can only be commanded by
money. D'Erlach had also stood firm. The regiments of Turenne,
six German regiments, called by d'Erlach, marched one night to
join him at Brisach. Three regiments of infantry threw
themselves under the guns of Philipsburg. Only a small force
was left to Turenne, who, finding the blow he intended
hopeless, sent the troops still with him to join d'Erlach at
Brisach, and retired himself with fifteen or twenty of his
friends to Heilbron, thence to Holland, where he awaited the
termination of the civil war. The news of the abandonment of
Turenne was received with despair at Paris, with wild joy at
St. Germain. His banishment, however, was not long. The
leaders of the parliament became aware that the princes of the
Fronde were trying to obtain foreign assistance to overturn
the monarchy; that their generals were negotiating a treaty
with Spain. They felt that order, peace, and the independence
of parliament, which would in this case become dependent upon
the nobility, was in danger. They took the patriotic
resolution quickly to act of their own accord. A conference
had been opened between the parliament and the Court. Peace
was concluded at Reuil, which, notwithstanding the
remonstrances of Conti [brother of Condé, the family being
divided in the First Fronde], Bouillon, and the other nobles
of the Fronde, was accepted by the whole parliament. Peace was
proclaimed in Paris to the discontent of the populace. ...
Turenne, on the conclusion of the treaty of Reuil, embarked in
Zeeland, landed at Dieppe, and posted to Paris."
_H. M. Hozier,
Turenne,
chapter 6._
"After the signing of the peace, the Château of St. Germain
became the resort of many Frondeurs; the Duchess de
Longueville, the Prince of Conti, and nearly all the other
chiefs of the party, hastened to pay their respects to the
Queen. She received everybody without bitterness, some even
with friendship; and the Minister on his part affected much
general good-will. ... One of the first effects of the peace
between the parties was a reconciliation in the House of
Condé. The Princess Dowager employed herself with zeal and
success in reestablishing harmony between her children. Condé,
who despised his brother too much to hate him, readily agreed
to a reconciliation with him. As to his sister, he had always
felt for her great affection and confidence, and she no less
for him: these sentiments were revived at their very first
interview at Ruel, and he not only gave her back his
friendship, but began to enter into her views, and even to be
guided by her counsels. The Prince's policy was to make
Royalty powerful and respected, but not absolute. He said
publicly that he had done what he ought in upholding Mazarin,
because he had promised to do so: but for the future, if
things took a different line, he should not be bound by the
past. ... A prey to a thousand conflicting feelings, and
discontented with everybody, and perhaps with himself, he took
the resolution of retiring for several months to his
government in Burgundy. On returning from Dijon in the month
of August, the Prince found the Queen and the Cardinal at
Compiègne, and very much dejected. ... He ... pressed her to
return to Paris with her Minister, answering for Mazarin's
safety, at the risk of his own head. ... Their entry into
Paris took place a few days after."
_Lord Mahon,
Life of Louis, Prince of Condé,
chapter 3-4._
ALSO IN:
_Guy Joli,
Memoirs,
volume 1._
_Cardinal De Retz,
Memoirs,
book 2._
_Miss Pardoe,
Louis XIV.,
chapters 9-11._
FRANCE: A. D. 1650-1651.
The New Fronde, or the Petits Maitres.
Its alliance with Spain and defeat at Rethel.
Revolt, siege and reduction of Bordeaux.