In "Twenty Years After" Dumas dealt with the earlier stages of the
War of the Fronde,--the arrest of the three counsellors of the
Parliament of Paris, Charton, Blancmesnil, and Broussel, the "day of
barricades," of which the Abbé de Gondy, coadjutor to the Archbishop
of Paris, afterwards Cardinal de Retz, claims to have been the author,
and the flight of the queen regent, with the cardinal and the young
king, to Saint-Germain. In the present volumes he reverts to the same
extraordinary conflict at a later period, after several turns of the
political kaleidoscope had taken place, and nearly all the prominent
personages in the kingdom had changed sides again and again.
It will be remembered that the Prince de Condé, whose memorable victory
at Lens was of the same year as the day of the barricades and the Peace
of Westphalia, was among those who accompanied the queen and cardinal
to Saint-Germain, and was then, and for some time thereafter, the
commander-in-chief of the troops of the court party.
But when he had had the honor of escorting the court back to Paris in
triumph, he amused himself by making sport of it. "Considering that he
was not rewarded in proportion to his glory and his services," says
Voltaire, "he was the first to ridicule Mazarin, to defy the queen, and
insult the government he despised....
"No crime against the State could be imputed to Condé; nevertheless
he was arrested at the Louvre, he and his brother Conti, and his
brother-in-law Longueville, without ceremony, and simply because
Mazarin feared them. The proceeding was, in truth, contrary to all
laws, but laws were disregarded by all parties.
"The cardinal, to make himself master of the princes, resorted to a
piece of knavery, which was called shrewd politics. The Frondeurs were
accused of having made an attempt upon the Prince de Condé's life;
Mazarin led him to believe that it was proposed to arrest one of the
conspirators, and that it was advisable for his Highness, in order
to deceive the Frondeurs, to sign the order for the gendarmes of the
guard to be in readiness at the Louvre. Thus the great Condé himself
signed the order for his own detention. There could be no better proof
that politics often consists in lying, and that political cleverness
consists in unearthing the liar.
"We read in the 'Life of the Duchesse de Longueville,' that the queen
mother withdrew to her little oratory while the princes were being
secured, that she bade the king, then eleven years of age, to fall upon
his knees, and that they prayed earnestly together for the success of
the undertaking....
"A striking proof of the manner in which events deceive men as to their
results is afforded by the fact that the imprisonment of the three
princes, which seemed likely to calm the factions, actually excited
them to fever heat. The mother of the Prince de Condé, although exiled,
remained in Paris, despite the court, and presented petition after
petition to the Parliament. His wife, after passing through innumerable
dangers, took refuge in the city of Bordeaux; with the assistance of
the Ducs de La Rochefoucauld and Bouillon, she incited a revolt in that
city, and enlisted the aid of Spain."[1]
[Footnote 1: Siècle de Louis XIV., chap. V.]
The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, "the first French bishop to incite
civil war upon any other than a religious pretext," are largely
occupied with the diverse developments of this unique "war," so
different from any other known to history, and in which, from beginning
to end,--a period of five years,--he played so prominent a part. An
extract or two from these memoirs will serve to show us that, as
usual, Dumas' narrative adheres closely to the known facts of history.
"The storm that was gathering" (after the arrest of the princes)
"should have brought the cardinal to consider the state of affairs in
Guyenne, of which the wretched administration of M. d'Épernon was the
cause, and for which no other remedy could be found than to remove
him from that government. A thousand private quarrels, half of which
proceeded from the absurd chimera of his ignoble principality, had set
him upon ill terms with the Parliament and the magistrates of Bordeaux,
who were in most instances little wiser than he. Mazarin, who, in
my opinion, was in this matter the maddest of them all, interested
the royal authority in favor of M. d'Épernon, when a wise minister
might have made both parties answerable for what had passed, without
prejudice to the king, and rather to his advantage....
"On the day when ... the news came that Messieurs de Bouillon and de
la Rochefoucauld had carried safe into Bordeaux the Princesse de Condé
and the young duke her son, whom the cardinal had left in her hands,
instead of causing him to be brought up near the king, as Servien
advised. The Parliament of Bordeaux, of which the wisest and oldest
members used at that time to venture merrily at play at a single
sitting all that they were worth ... were not sorry that the people
had allowed the young duke to enter their city, but they preserved a
greater respect for the court than could have been expected, in view
of their climate, and the ill-humor they were in against M. d'Épernon.
They ordered that the Princesse de Condé, the duke her son, with
Messieurs de Bouillon and de la Rochefoucauld should be given leave to
remain at Bordeaux, provided that they would give their word to attempt
nothing there against the king's service, and that in the mean time
the Princesse de Condé's petition should be sent to his Majesty, with
the humble remonstrance of the Parliament of Bordeaux touching the
detention of the princes."
The cardinal's obstinate refusal to recall M. d'Épernon is alleged by
the coadjutor to have been the cause of the continued recalcitrancy of
the Parliament and people of Bordeaux, and of the consequent necessity
of undertaking an expedition against the city.
"The king set out for Guyenne in the beginning of July.... As soon
as he reached the neighborhood of that province, M. de Saint-Simon,
governor of Blaye, who had been wavering, came to court, and M.
de la Force, who had been in treaty with M. de Bouillon, remained
inactive.... The deputies of the Parliament of Bordeaux came to meet
the court at Libourne. They were commanded in a lofty tone to open
the city gates for the king and his troops. They answered that it was
one of their privileges to guard the person of their kings when they
were in their city. The Maréchal de la Meilleraie advanced between the
Dordogne and the Garonne; he took the castle of Vayre, where Pichon
[Richon] commanded 300 men for the Parliament of Bordeaux, and the
cardinal caused him to be hanged at Libourne very near the king's
lodgings. M. de Bouillon, by way of reprisal, ordered an officer in M.
de la Meilleraie's army, named Canolle, to be hanged likewise. Canolle
was playing at cards with some ladies of the city, when he was told to
prepare to die immediately."
Eventually Bordeaux was besieged in due form. "M. de Bouillon left
nothing undone of what might be expected from a wise politician and
a great general. M. de la Rochefoucauld signalized himself during
all this siege, particularly at the defence of a half-moon, where
the slaughter was great; but they were finally compelled to yield to
superior force."
The capture of Bordeaux was followed by negotiations which resulted
in a sort of peace, of which the terms were: "That a general amnesty
should be granted to all, without exception, who had taken up arms and
negotiated with Spain; that all troops should be disbanded save such
as the king should choose to take into his pay; that the Princesse
de Condé and her son should reside either upon one of her estates in
Anjou or at Mouzon; and that M. d'Épernon should be deprived of the
government of Guyenne."
Something less than a year later (February, 1651) the queen regent was
forced to set the princes free, and to banish her first minister from
the kingdom. Mazarin himself went to Havre, where the princes were then
confined, and restored their liberty. "He was received by them," says
Voltaire, "with the contempt he should have expected."
Condé returned to Paris, where his presence gave new life to the cabals
and dissensions, and once more it was found that the step which was
expected to put an end to the commotion, gave the signal for a renewal
of the conflict with more bitterness than ever.
The character of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld, author of the celebrated
"Maxims," in which he attributes the noblest actions of mankind to
self-esteem, has baffled more than one chronicler,--among the rest,
Cardinal de Retz, with whom he was always at enmity.
"There has always been something very mysterious in M. de La
Rochefoucauld," says the coadjutor. "He never was fit for war, though
an excellent soldier; neither was he ever of himself a good courtier,
although he always had a great inclination to be so; he never was a
good party-man, although all his life long involved in party conflicts."
Pierre Lenet, councillor of State, and _procureur-général_ to the
Parliament of Dijon, was the author of Memoirs,--"not so well known as
their interest entitles them to be," says Voltaire,--in which he gave
the history of the Prince de Condé from his birth in 1627 to the treaty
of the Pyrenees in 1659.
The non-historical characters in the "War of Women," introduced to
embellish and impart romantic flavor to a plot founded upon an incident
which is in itself by no means devoid of the element of romance,
include some of the most interesting and attractive of all Dumas'
creations. Cauvignac, the Gascon adventurer, is, in respect to the
qualities supposed to be most characteristic of the natives of Gascony,
a worthy compeer of the immortal D'Artagnan. The lovely, high-spirited,
and virtuous Vicomtesse de Cambes, and the equally lovely and
high-spirited favorite of the Duc d'Épernon, meet upon common ground in
their rivalry for the affection of Canolles. In Nanon de Lartigues, as
in Olympe de Clèves, Dumas has shown that we need not always look in
vain among women whose virtue is not without stain, for qualities of
mind and heart deserving of respect.