Richelieu expired with that minister. Many years afterwards, Louis XIV.
granted him a pension of 2000 francs as the first dramatic poet of the
world. He was wholly indifferent to gain; the actors paid him what they
pleased for his pieces; he never called them to account. He lived
frugally, but had little to live on. A few days before his death his
family were in considerable straits for want of money, and the king,
hearing of this, sent him 200 louis.
In these traits, recorded chiefly by his brother and his nephew,
Fontenelle, we see the genuine traces of a poet. Of a man whose heart is
set on the ideal, and whose mind is occupied by conceptions engendered
within itself--to whom the outward world is of slight account, except as
it influences his imagination or excites his affections. The political
struggles and civil wars, in which his youth was spent, gave a sort of
republican loftiness to his mind, energy without fierceness, somewhat at
variance with the French character.
Once, on entering a theatre at Paris, after a longer retreat than usual
in his native town, the actors stopped short: the great Condé, the
prince of Conti, together with the whole audience, rose: the acclamation
was general and long continued. Such flattering testimonials embarrassed
a man modest by nature, and unused to make a show of himself; but they
evince the generous spirit of his country. Marks of veneration followed
his death.
His character commanded and met with respect. He had long been the
eldest member of the academy: on his death his brother was elected to
succeed him. Racine contended for the honour of receiving the new
academician; on which occasion it was the custom to make a speech in
praise of the late member whose place the new one took. Racine's eulogy
on Corneille met with great applause, and he recited it a second time
before the king. He spoke with enthusiasm of his merits, and, in
particular, of "a certain strength, a certain elevation, which
transports, and renders his very defects, if he had any, more venerable
than the excellence of others." This testimony was honourable to Racine,
who had, indeed, so heartfelt an appreciation of his best passages,
that, although he interdicted dramas and poetry from his children, he
caused them to learn, and taught them to admire, various scenes in
Corneille. Many years after Voltaire discovered a descendant of the
great poet[19]: he spread the discovery abroad; he invited the young
lady to Ferney as to her home; and published for her benefit his two
volumes of commentary on her great ancestor's works. This commentary has
been found fault with for the degree of blame it contains. Voltaire says
himself, he wrote it chiefly to instruct future dramatic poets, and he
was sincere in his views, even if he were mistaken. It is chiefly
remarkable for the extent of its verbal criticism, and his earnest
endeavour to banish all familiar expressions from tragic dialogue, thus
rendering French tragedies more factitious than ever. It is strange to
remark the different genius of various languages. We endeavour
perpetually to bring back ours to the familiar and antique Saxon. We
regard our translation of the Bible as a precious treasure, even in this
light, being a source to which all good writers resort for true
unadulterated English. It has been remarked that the sublimest passages
of our greatest poets are written in _short words_, that is, in
Anglo-Saxon, or pure English. While Voltaire, on the contrary, tried to
substitute words unused in conversation, strangers to the real living
expression of passion, and which give a factitious and false air,
peculiar to the French buskin, and alien to true elevation of language.
So much has been said of Corneille's tragedies in the preceding pages
that we need scarcely revert to them. He originated the French theatre.
It was yet in the block when he took up his artist-tools. We grieve at
the mistakes he made--mistakes, as to the structure of the drama,
confirmed by subsequent writers, which mark classic French tragedy as an
artificial and contracted offspring of a school, instead of being the
free and genuine child of nature and genius. Corneille's originality,
however, often bursts through these trammels: he has more truth and
simplicity than any of his successors, and, as well as being the father
of the French drama, we may name him the most vigorous and sublime poet
that France has produced.
[Footnote 12:
"J'ai brûlé fort longtemps d'une amour assez grande,
Et que jusqu'au tombeau je dois bien estimer,
Puisque ce fut par-là que j'appris à rimer.
Mon bonheur commença quand mon ame fut prise.
Je gagnai de la gloire en perdant ma franchise.
Charmé de deux beaux yeux, mon vers charma la cour;
Et ce que j'ai de nom je le dois à l'amour.
J'adorai donc Phylis, et la secrète estime
Que ce divin esprit faisait de notre rime.
Me fit devenir poète aussitôt qu'amoureux:
Elle eut mes premiers vers, elle eut mes premiers feux,
Et bien que maintenant cette belle inhumaine
Traite mon souvenir avec un peu de haine,
Je me trouve toujours en état de l'aimer;
Je me sens tout ému quand je l'entends nommer;
Et par le doux effet d'une prompte tendresse,
Mon cœur, sans mon aveu, reconnaît sa maîtresse.
Après beaucoup de vœux et de soumissions,
Un malheur rompt le cours de nos affections;
Mais tout mon amour en elle consommée,
Je ne vois rien d'aimable après l'avoir aimée;
Aussi n'aimé-je plus, et nul objet vainqueur
N'a possédé depuis ma veine ni mon cœur."]
CORNEILLE.--Poésies Diverses.]
[Footnote 13: See Voltaire's preface to his Commentary on the Cid, and
also the admirable account of Guillen de Castro, by Lord Holland.]
[Footnote 14: Voltaire says that he gives the cardinal credit for good
faith in this remark, since he saw and felt the defects of the "Cid."
Voltaire was himself accused of envy on account of the mass of criticism
he accumulated on Corneille, and was glad to show toleration for that
which he desired to be tolerated. Both, probably, were sincere in their
blame. The question is, how far covert envy (unacknowledged even to
themselves) opened their eyes to defects, which otherwise had passed
unnoticed.]
[Footnote 15: Fontenelle.]
[Footnote 16: It is curious enough that such pieces often replace the
higher tragedy with great effect in days when poetry is at a low ebb,
and an audience desires rather to be amused than deeply moved. Such at
this time are the delightful dramas of Sheridan Knowles, such the
charming "Lady of Lyons," which portray the serious romance of real
life, and impart the interest of situation and character, without
pretending to the sublime terrors or pathos of heroic tragedy.]
[Footnote 17: Corneille gives much the same account of himself in some
verses written in his youth, and which he calls a slight picture of
himself:--
"En matière d'amour je suis fort inégal;
J'en écris assez bien, et le fais assez mal;
J'ai la plume féconde, et la bouche sterile:
Bon galant au théâtre, et fort mauvais en ville;
Et l'on peut rarement m'écouter sans ennui;
Que quand je me produis par la bouche d'autrui."]
[Footnote 18: See his "Excuse à Arioste." In another place he says,--
"Si mes quinze lustres
Font encore quelque peine aux modernes illustres;
S'il en est de fâcheux jusqu'à se chagriner,
Je n'aurai pas longtemps à les importuner."]
[Footnote 19: Corneille had three sons: two entered the army; the third
became an ecclesiastic; one fell at the battle of Grave, in 1677; they
all died without posterity. He had one daughter, from whom descended the
family of Guenebaud.]
ROCHEFOUCAULD
1613-1680
Grimm, in his correspondence, records, that it was a saying of
d'Alembert, that, in life, "Ce n'est qu'heur et malheur," that it was
all luck or ill luck. The same thing may be said of many books; and,
perhaps, of none more than that which has given literary celebrity to
François, duke de la Rochefoucauld. The experience of a long life,
spent for the most part in the very nucleus of the intrigues of party
and the artifices of a court, reduced into sententious maxims, affords
food for curiosity, while it flatters our idleness. The most indolent
person may read a maxim, and ponder on its truth, and be led to
meditate, without any violent exertion of mind. In addition, knowledge
of the world, as it is called, always interests. Voltaire says of the
"Maxims," "Though there is but one truth in this collection, which is
that self-love is the motive of all, yet this thought is presented under
such various aspects that it is always impressive. If we considered the
pervading opinion of the book theoretically, we might be inclined to
parody this remark, and say, "though there is but one multiformed
falsehood in this collection,"--but we defer our consideration of the
principles of this work till we have given an account of its author, who
was no obscure man, meditating the lessons of wisdom in solitude, but
the leader of a party, a soldier, a man of gallantry and of fashion; one
such as is only produced, in its perfection, in a society highly
cultivated; yet the foundations of his character were thrown in times of
ignorance and turbulence."
The family of La Rochefoucauld is one of the noblest in France: it ranks
equal with that of the sovereign, and enjoyed almost monarchical power
when residing on its own possessions; while its influence might give
preponderance to the party it espoused, and even shake the throne.
François, the eldest son of the duke then in possession, was born at
his paternal castle of Rochefoucauld, in Angoumois, in 1613, two years
subsequent to the assassination of Henry IV. He grew up, therefore,
during the reign of Louis XIII., and first came to court during the
height of cardinal de Richelieu's power. His education had been
neglected. Madame de Maintenon said of him, in after times, that "his
physiognomy was prepossessing, his demeanour dignified; that he had great
talent, and little knowledge." We have no details of his early life at
court. He was the friend of the duchess de Chevreuse, favourite of the
queen, Anne of Austria; and, when this lady was banished, the family of
la Rochefoucauld fell into disgrace, and retired to the shelter of their
estates.
But a few years before the nobles of France possessed greater power than
the king himself. The short reign and wise administration of Henry IV.
and Sully had infused a somewhat better spirit into the body politic of
the kingdom than that which for forty years had torn the country with
civil war; but the happy effects of that prosperous period were
obliterated on the accession of Louis XIII. After a series of struggles,
however, Richelieu became prime minister; and with unflinching courage,
and resolute and merciless policy, he proceeded to crush the nobility,
and to raise the monarchical power (invested, it may be said, in his own
person,) into absolute rule. The nobles in those days did not plot to
supplant each other in the favour of their royal master, nor to gain
some place near the royal person; they aimed at supremacy over the king
himself: reluctantly, and not without struggles that cost the lives and
fortunes of many of the chief among them, did the nobles yield to the
despotism of Richelieu. The mother of their sovereign was banished; his
brother disgraced; his queen enslaved; the prisons filled with victims;
the provinces with exiles; the blood of many flowed: the cardinal
reigned secure, and the power of the contending nobles was reduced to
feudal command in their own domains.
At length Richelieu died; and, for a moment, his vanquished enemies
fancied that their turn was come for acquiring dominion. The state
prisons were thrown open; the exiles hastened to return. The friends of
the family of la Rochefoucauld wrote to advise them to appear at court.
The reigning duke and his sons immediately followed this counsel.[20]
[Sidenote: 1642.
Ætat.
29.]
His eldest son was called prince de Marsillac: his name and person were
well known as the friend of the duchess of Chevreuse, and as a favourite
of Anne of Austria. He has left us an account of that period, in which
he details the high hopes of his party and subsequent disappointment.
"The persecution I had suffered," he writes[21], "during the power of
the cardinal de Richelieu, having finished with his life, I thought it
right to return to court. The ill health of the king, and the
disinclination that he manifested to confide his children and kingdom to
the queen, made me hope that I might soon find important occasions for
serving her, and of giving her, in the present state of things, the same
marks of attachment which she had received from me on all occasions when
her interests, and those of madame de Chevreuse, were in opposition to
those of cardinal de Richelieu. I arrived at court; and found it as
submissive to his will after his death as during his life. His relations
and his creatures continued to enjoy all the advantages they had gained
through him; and by a turn of fortune, of which there are few examples,
the king, who hated him, and desired his fall, was obliged, not only to
conceal his sentiments, but even to authorise the disposition made by
the cardinal in his will of the principal employments and most important
places in his kingdom. He chose cardinal Mazarin to succeed him in the
government. Nevertheless, as the health of the king was deplorable,
there was a likelihood that every thing would soon change, and that, the
queen or monsieur (the duke of Orleans, brother to Louis XIII.)
acquiring the regency, they would revenge on the followers of Richelieu
the outrages they had received from himself."
Affairs, however, took a very different turn. Mazarin and others, the
creatures of and successors to Richelieu, were less arrogant, less
ambitious, and less resolute than their master. They were willing to
acquire power by allying themselves to the adverse party. Mazarin, in
particular, felt that, on the death of Louis XIII., he should not
possess influence enough to cope with the persons who, by rank, were
destined to the regency; and he perceived, at once, that it was his best
policy to become the friend, instead of the rival, of the queen and the
duke of Orleans. Anne of Austria saw safety in encouraging him in this
conduct. Mazarin grew into a favourite, and supplanted those who had
stood by her during her years of adversity. Thus, while the surface of
things appeared the same, the spirit was changed. Rochefoucauld saw that
the queen entertained new views and new partialities, and was supported
by the same party by which she had been hitherto oppressed. As her
friend, he perceived the advantages she gained by this line of conduct,
and, by prudent concessions, retained her regard. When the king died,
and she became regent, Mazarin had made himself necessary to her, for it
was by his policy that the other members of the council of the regency
were reduced to insignificance; so that the queen, entirely attached to
him, anticipated with something of aversion the reappearance of madame
de Chevreuse, who, on the death of Louis XIII., hastened 1643 to return
to Paris.
[Sidenote: 1643.
Ætat.
30.]
The prince of Marsillac perceived her apprehensions, and asked her
permission to meet madame de Chevreuse on her way, which the queen
readily granted, hoping that the prince would dispose her former friend
to seek the friendship of Mazarin. This was, indeed, Marsillac's
purpose: he gave the fallen favourite the best advice that prudence
could suggest, and the duchess promised to follow it. In this she
failed. She fancied that she could supplant the cardinal in the queen's
favour; she acted with arrogance; and her imprudence insured her ruin.
_Le bon temps de la régence_ followed. For five years France enjoyed
external and internal prosperity. The former was insured by the battle
of Rocroi, and other successes, obtained by the prince of Condé and
Turenne, against the power of Spain. The latter was more fallacious. The
intrigues, cabals, and dissensions of the court were carried on with
virulence. Manners became every day more and more corrupt--the gulf
between Mazarin and his antagonists wider. We have little trace of
Marsillac's conduct during this interval. He followed the campaigns, and
served gallantly in several actions. He was present at the siege of
Mardike, in which he was wounded in the shoulder, which obliged him to
return to Paris. He bought the governorship of Poitou, and took up his
residence there. He visited Paris, but want of money prevented his
remaining. His secretary, Gourville, lets us into a view of the
corruption of the times, when he details how he enriched his master by
only obtaining from Emery, the comptroller of the finances, a man of low
extraction, whose extortion, luxuriousness, and debauchery disgusted the
nation, a passport for a thousand tons of wheat, to be brought from
Poitou to the capital; and the profit he gained by this transaction
enabled the prince, to his infinite joy, to remain in Paris.
There can be little doubt that, at this time, he had immersed himself in
political intrigue. Madame de Chevreuse was again banished; but affairs
had taken another and more important aspect than mere intrigues and
disputes among courtiers for royal favour. The extravagance of the
court, and corruption of the times, had thrown the finances into
disorder; and every means most subversive of the prosperity of the
people, and of justice, was resorted to by Emery to supply the royal
treasury. The consequence was universal discontent. Parliament resisted
the court by its decrees; the populace of Paris supported parliament;
and a regular system of resistance to the regent and her minister was
formed. This opposition received the name of the Fronde: the persons who
formed it were called Frondeurs. These were bent, the duke de la
Rochefoucauld tells us, in his memoirs, on arresting the course of the
calamities at hand; having the same object, though urged by a different
motive, as those who were instigated by hatred of the cardinal.
[Sidenote: 1648.
Ætat.
35.]
At first the remonstrances of parliament, and the opposition of the
court, was a war of words only; but when the court, enraged at any
opposition to its will, proceeded to arrest three principal members of
parliament, the people of Paris rose in a body; the day of the
barricades ensued, the members were set free, and the court forced to
yield.
But the tumults did not end here: the celebrated De Retz, then coadjutor
to the archbishop of Paris, who saw his towering ambition crushed by the
distrust of the court, resolved to make himself feared; and, instead of
permitting the spirit of sedition in the capital to subside, he excited
it to its utmost. It became necessary for him, in the system of
opposition that ensued, to secure some prince of the blood at the head
of his party. His eyes turned towards the great Condé; but he continued
faithful to the queen: the coadjutor was, therefore, forced to centre
his hopes in this prince's younger brother, the prince of Conti.
Rochefoucauld gives an account, in his memoirs, of the winning over of
this prince. "The prince of Conti," he writes, "was ill satisfied at not
possessing a place in the council, and even more at the neglect with
which the prince of Condé treated him; and as he was entirely
influenced by his sister, the duchess de Longueville, who was piqued at
the indifference her elder brother displayed towards her, he abandoned
himself without reserve to his resentment. This princess, who had a
great share afterwards in these affairs, possessed all the advantages of
talent and beauty to so great a degree, joined to so many charms, that
it appeared as if nature had taken pleasure in forming a perfect and
finished work in her: but these qualities lost a part of their
brilliancy through a defect which was never before seen in a person of
this merit; which was that, far from giving the law to those who had a
particular adoration for her, she transfused herself so entirely into
their sentiments that she entirely forgot her own. At this time the
prince de Marsillac had a share in her heart; and, as he joined his
ambition to his love, he inspired her with a taste for politics, to
which she had a natural aversion, and took advantage of her wish to
revenge herself on the prince of Condé by opposing Conti to him. De
Retz was fortunate in his project, through the sentiments entertained by
the brother and sister, who allied themselves to the Frondeurs by a
treaty, into which the duke de Longueville was drawn by his hopes of
succeeding, through the help of parliament, in his ill-founded
pretensions of being treated like a prince of the blood."[22]
The state of tumult and street warfare into which Paris was plunged by
these intrigues at last determined the queen to the most desperate
measures: she resolved to escape from the capital, with the young king,
the cardinal, and the whole court, and then to blockade it. In this plan
she succeeded, through her admirable presence of mind and fearlessness.
The court retreated to St. Germain. Here they were unprovided even with
necessaries. They lived in disfurnished apartments, they slept on straw,
and were exposed to a thousand hardships. The prince of Conti, and
Marsillac, and the duke de Longueville followed the court. De Retz was
confounded by their retreat; and sent the marquis de Noirmoutier to
learn the cause of their secession, and, if possible, to bring them
back. The motive of these princes in apparently deserting their party
was, it would seem, to further their own private interests.[23]
Marsillac left his secretary, Gourville, behind, to negotiate with the
leading members of parliament for the electing the prince of Conti
generalissimo of the Parisian troops. When this transaction was
arranged, the princes determined on their return to the capital. It was
a matter of danger and difficulty to escape from St. Germain. When the
method of so doing was arranged, Marsillac held a long conversation with
Gourville, telling him what account he was to carry to Paris, in case he
should be made prisoner, in which case he felt sure that he should be
decapitated. Gourville, however, begged him to write his last
instructions, as he was resolved to share his fortunes to the last.
Their attempt, however, was attended with success: the adventurers made
good their entrance into Paris; and, after some opposition, gained their
point, principally through the appearance of the beautiful duchesses de
Bouillon and Longueville, who presented themselves before the people of
Paris with their children, and excited a commotion in their favour. The
prince of Conti was elected generalissimo.