THE CAUSES WHICH LED TO THE _COUP D'ETAT_--THE ARREST OF THE PRINCES.
IN the first scenes of the shifting drama, the Court had supported Conde
in compassing the destruction of the Frondeurs; and Mazarin, with keen
policy, instigated the Prince to every act that could widen the breach
between him and the faction. Whichever succeeded, the party that
succumbed would be inimical to the Minister; and in their divisions was
his strength. But the pride and impetuosity of Conde were about this
time excited to such a degree by opposition and irritation, that it
approached to frenzy, and, unable to overpower at once the leaders of
the Fronde, the vehemence of his nature spent itself upon those who were
in reality supporting him. He still scoffed at, and openly insulted,
Mazarin; he accused the Government of not giving him sincere assistance
against the Fronde. He every day made enemies amongst the nobility by
his overbearing conduct and his rash, and often illegal, acts; and at
length the disgust and indignation of the whole Court was roused to put
a stop to a tyranny which could no longer be borne.
Anne of Austria long hesitated as to what she should do to deliver
herself from the domination of a man whom she feared without loving: but
at length an aggravated insult to herself, and the counsels of a woman
of a bold and daring character, removed her irresolution. The Duchess
de Chevreuse had been exiled from France, as we have seen, during the
greater part of that period in which Conde had principally distinguished
himself, and she did not share in the awe in which the Parisians held
him. She still kept up what De Retz calls an incomprehensible union with
the Queen, notwithstanding all her intrigues; nor did she scruple to
hold out to Anne of Austria a direct prospect of gaining the support of
the Fronde itself in favour of her Government, if that Government would
aid in avenging the Fronde upon the Prince de Conde.
Anne of Austria was unwilling to take a step which appeared to border
upon ingratitude, although the late conduct of the Prince might well be
supposed to cancel the obligation of his former services. It seems here
necessary to say a few words upon the connection of a series of sudden
political changes, in order that the reader may understand how such
startling results as those we are about to narrate were brought about.
The hollow treaty of peace of the 11th March, 1649, had scarcely been
signed ere the Prince de Conde showed himself day by day more strongly
attached to the faction which opposed the Court. Feeling his own
importance, determined to rule; quick, harsh, and impetuous in his
manners, he took a pleasure in insulting the Minister and embarrassing
the Queen. There were some personal grounds for this in the strong
dislike manifested towards his sister by Anne of Austria. That feeling
was signally shown on the occasion of Louis XIV. completing his eleventh
year; when a grand ball was given at the Hotel de Ville, at which the
young King, with all the principal members of the royal family and the
Court, were present. The Queen's orders were received with regard to all
the arrangements, every person of distinction being invited by her
command, except the Duchess de Longueville. That princess, influenced by
discontent, it is supposed, at the reception of the royal family in
Paris, had remained at Chantilly, on the pretence of drinking some
mineral waters in the neighbourhood. The Queen seized the same pretext
not to invite her, replying to those who pressed her to do so, that she
would not withdraw her from the pursuit of health; but at length the
Prince de Conde himself, demanded that she should receive a summons; and
his support was of too much consequence, and the bonds which attached
him to the Court too slight, for the Queen to trifle with his request.
To the surprise and dissatisfaction of most persons, however, Anne of
Austria commanded that the ball should take place in daylight;
acknowledging, in her own immediate circle, that it was in order to
mortify the ladies attached to the Fronde, the principal part of whom
employed methods of enhancing their beauty and heightening their
complexion to which the searching eye of day was very inimical. Human
malice, of course, took care that the Queen's motive should be
communicated to all the higher circles of Paris; and as vanity is not
only a more pugnacious passion, but a much more pertinacious adversary
than any other, the words of Anne of Austria rendered many opponents
irreconcilable, who might otherwise have been gained to her cause: the
family of the Prince de Conde naturally being among the number.
France was then able to count the cost of having created a
hero--_expendere Hannibalem_--a prince _a la Corneille_, who carried his
gaze to the stars, and only spoke to mortals from the summit of his
trophies. His sister, Madame de Longueville, had also in the same
fashion soared into the sphere of a goddess. The one and the other, in
the empyrean, no longer distinguished their fellow mortals from such a
height save with a smile of disdain. Great folks, as a contemporary
tells us, kicked their heels in their antechambers for hours, and, when
granted an audience, were received with yawning and gaping.
The reconciliation effected during the preceding year was rather, as has
been said, a truce between the parties than a solid peace. The
Parliament had retained the right of assembling and deliberating upon
affairs of state, which the Court had sought to prevent: and Mazarin
remained Minister, although the Parliament, the people, and even the
princes, had desired that he should cease to hold that office. It rarely
happens to states in like unfortunate emergencies that among the men who
show themselves most active and skilful in overthrowing a government
there are found those capable of conducting one; and when such do
appear, the chances almost always are that circumstances hinder them
from placing themselves in the front rank. It was to Gaston, the King's
uncle, Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, that belonged, in concert with
the Regent, the chief direction of affairs; but Gaston felt himself too
weak and too incapable to pretend to charge himself with such a burden.
He could never arrive at any decision, and took offence when any matter
was decided without him. Jealous of Mazarin's influence, more jealous
still of that of Conde, neither of the two could attempt to govern along
with him; and nevertheless Gaston was powerful enough to command a
party, and to hinder any one from governing without him: ready to offer
opposition to everything, but impotent to carry anything into execution.
If Anne of Austria had even consented to dismiss her favourite
Minister, and overcome her repugnance to the Fronde and the Frondeurs,
she could not have formed a government with the chiefs of that party.
The Duke de Beaufort, its nominal head, lacked both instruction and
intelligence. De Retz, its veritable chief--an eloquent, witty, and bold
man, skilful in the conduct of business, in the art of making partisans;
brave, generous, even loyal when he followed the impulses of his own
mind and natural inclination--was without faith, scruple, reticence, or
foresight when he abandoned himself to his passions, which urged him
unceasingly to the indulgence of an excessive and irrational
libertinage. Such a man could not have replaced him who for so long a
period had informed himself of the affairs of France under a master such
as Richelieu; who, deeply versed in dissimulation, was inaccessible to
any sentiment that might possibly derange the calculations of his
ambition. Besides, he, as well as Mazarin, would have had the Princes
against him, and could not have resisted successfully their numerous
partisans. De Retz had, through the ascendancy of his talents, great
influence with the Parisian Parliament, but it mistrusted him; and that
body, in its heterogeneous composition, offered rather the means for an
opposition than strength to the Government. Conde, to whom the state
owed its glory, and the Sovereign his safety, was therefore the sole
prop upon which Anne of Austria might have rested; but that young hero
had no capacity for business. He could not then have filled up the void
which Mazarin's retirement would have created. Conde, whose natural
pride was still further exalted by the flattery of the young nobles who
formed his train, and who obtained the nickname of _petits maitres_,
only used the influence which his position gave him to wring from
Mazarin the places and good things at his disposal, and of these he and
his adherents showed themselves insatiable. Thus, Conde rendered himself
formidable and odious to Mazarin, and made himself detested by the
people as Mazarin's supporter, at the same time that by his arrogance he
shocked the Parliament, already unfavourably disposed towards him on
account of his rapacity and his ambition.[1]
[1] Talon, mem. t. lxii. pp. 65-105.--Montpensier.
Such was the state of things, when the singular circumstances which
attended the murder of one of Conde's domestics made that prince believe
that the chiefs of the Fronde had conspired to assassinate him. He
thought, by such a crime, to have found an opportunity for crushing that
faction in the persons of its chiefs, and he instituted a process in
parliament against the contrivers of that murder. Public report
particularly pointed to two persons, De Retz and Beaufort; and Conde, by
his accusation, hoped to force them to quit Paris, where they found
their principal means of influence in the populace. But in attacking
thus, as it were, face to face, the two most popular men of the moment,
Conde showed no better tact than in dealing with the Prime Minister. He
conducted himself with so much haughtiness and arrogance, that the young
nobles who surrounded the soldier prince, when they wished to flatter
him, spoke of Mazarin as his slave.[2]
[2] Motteville, mem. t. xxxix. p. 4.--Guy-Joly.
The process went on nevertheless. Almost all the judges were convinced
of the innocence of the accused, but Conde pretended that they could not
be absolved without giving a deadly affront to himself. He demanded that
at the very least the Coadjutor and Beaufort should be made to quit
Paris under some honourable pretext, and the Princess-Dowager de Conde
declared that it was the height of insolence in them to remain in the
capital when it was her son's wish that they should leave it. The Queen,
who equally detested the Prince de Conde and the Frondeurs, could
scarcely conceal her joy at seeing them at daggers drawn with each
other; feeling certain that the moment was at hand when their
dissensions would restore her supremacy.
Under such circumstances Conde had need of all his friends, but he
considered that he was set at defiance, and he gave way all the more to
his wonted pride and overbearing obstinacy. He seemed to take pleasure
in offending Anne of Austria and Mazarin. The young Duke de Richelieu
had been declared heir to an immense fortune, of which his aunt and
guardian, the Duchess d'Aiguillon, was the depositary. The stronghold of
Havre de Grace, which the Cardinal de Richelieu had formerly held as a
place of retreat, was by such title in the possession of the Duchess
d'Aiguillon. Conde desired to be master of it, either for himself or for
his brother-in-law, the Duke de Longueville. The young Duke de Richelieu
was engaged to be married to Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, but the Prince
having remarked that he had some liking for Madame de Pons, a sister of
his own first love, managed to marry him clandestinely to her in the
Chateau de Trye, lent him two thousand pistoles until he should be of
age to enter upon possession of his property, and made him take
possession of Havre de Grace. The Queen was mortally offended at such a
proceeding on the part of Conde, who had moreover threatened to throw
into the sea those she might send to Havre to seize the fortress; but
the Duchess d'Aiguillon's resentment was still deeper and more active.
She was the first to tell Anne of Austria, that she would never be queen
again until she had had the Prince de Conde arrested, assuring her that
all the Frondeurs would lend their hands to aid her in carrying out such
a resolution.
Almost at this moment, a gentleman named Jarze, attached to Conde,
foolishly took it into his head that the Queen entertained a liking for
him, and it reached her ears that Conde and his friends had amused
themselves whilst at table over their wine with Jarze's revelations of
his amour with her, and that he had begun to feel certain of getting rid
of Mazarin by that means. Mazarin himself probably became somewhat
alarmed, as he spoke pointedly to the Queen on the subject, who
pretended only to have contemplated the ridiculous side of her new
adorer's gallantries. But when Jarze next made his appearance in her
cabinet, she rated him roundly before the whole Court upon his absurd
fatuity, and forbade him ever to enter her presence again. The Prince de
Conde, pretending to feel hurt at the affront put upon Jarze, early next
morning paid the Prime Minister a visit, and insolently demanded that
Jarze should be received that very evening by the Queen. Anne of Austria
submitted to his dictation, but could not endure such humiliation
without seeking to avenge herself. In a woman's heart every other
species of resentment yields to that of wounded pride. A few lines
addressed to the Coadjutor in the Queen's own handwriting, and carried
by Madame de Chevreuse, brought to her side that wily priest and
formidable tribune, disguised _en cavalier_. Certain negotiations,
however, which had preceded this interview, had reached the ears of
Conde, who went to Mazarin to denounce the treachery. The Cardinal,
glowing with a hatred which would have stopped at nothing for its
gratification, laughed and jested, or flattered and soothed the object
of his concealed wrath. He turned the Archbishop of Corinth into
ridicule when Conde blamed him for his duplicity. "If I catch him," said
the Cardinal, "in the disguise you speak of--in his feathered hat, and
cloak, and military boots--I will get a sight of him for your Highness;"
and they roared at the idea of discovering the intriguer in so unfitting
an apparel. But shortly afterwards in the wintry gloom of a January
midnight (1650), disguised beyond the reach of detection, and guarded by
a passport from the Cardinal himself, De Retz was admitted at midnight
by a secret door into the Regent's room at the Palais Royal, and deep
conference was held between the two. The conditions of agreement were
readily stipulated. The Coadjutor with an inconceivable address and most
extraordinary success handled the threads of the intrigues consequent
upon such agreement. He succeeded in making himself the confidant of
Gaston; he made him renounce his favourite, the Abbe de la Riviere; he
engaged him in the coalition which had been just set on foot between the
Court and the Fronde, and he obtained his assent to the arrest of the
Princes. Everything succeeded that was agreed upon. The Queen-Regent, at
the moment of a council being held at the Palais-Royal, gave the fatal
order, and then withdrew into her oratory. There she made the young King
kneel down beside her in order to invoke Heaven in concert with herself
to obtain the happy achievement of an act of tyranny which was destined
to produce fresh woes to the realm, and to rekindle in it the flames of
civil war.
On the morrow of the 18th of January, 1650, all Paris was electrified at
the news of the arrest of the three Princes--Conde, Conti, and
Longueville. That bold _coup d'etat_ was effected very easily and
unceremoniously. The Princes went voluntarily, as it were, into the
mouse-trap, by attending a great council at the Palais Royal. Anne had
obtained from Conde an order for the seizure and detention of three or
four persons whose names were left in blank; and on the authority of his
own signature, the hero of Rocroy and the other two princes, were led
quietly down a back stair, given over to the custody of a small escort
of twenty men under the command of Guitaut and Comminges, and by them
conducted during the night to Vincennes.