CHAPTER XVI. THE EARLY YEARS OF LOUIS XIII AND THE RISE OF RICHELIEU

THE REGENCY OF MARIE DE’ MEDICI

[Sidenote: [1610-1628 A.D.]]

The terrible instability of the monarchical government is revealed upon

the death of Henry IV, who left as his successor a child of eight years.

What follows is the opposite of what he desired; France turned inside out

like a glove.

The treasure that Sully had amassed and protected is squandered in

a moment, the domain that he cleared of debt is remortgaged, the

possessions of the state are sold. All the institutions of this reign are

abandoned, buildings are interrupted, canals given up. The manufactories

of silk and of glass, the Savonnerie and the Gobelins are closed and

the workmen discharged. The Louvre, which was to be degraded by lodging

great inventors--the Louvre is left to the courtiers. Adieu to the museum

of trades and the Jardin des Plantes; these hobbies of the king, and a

thousand others sleep on the charts of Sully. At the Tuileries, at the

arsenal, Henry’s favourite trees, his mulberries, are removed. But for

fear of the people his monuments would be torn down. By an unexpected

change the people discover that they loved Henry IV. The legend begins

the day of his death; it will go on increasing by comparison of what is,

with what was.

Paris at this moment was dominated by an extraordinary terror. The

people believed themselves lost. Women tore their hair, less from grief

than from fear. It was the same everywhere. The terror of the league

returned to people’s minds and caused them to tremble. Hence there was

a surprising, or rather a striking calm. For this great wisdom stuck to

one thing--that is, that France, having neither idea, nor passion, nor

moral interest, should no longer have a feeling of life. It was entirely

identified with the king, with a man who had been killed; and what

remained? A boy of eight who on the 15th of May surrendered the kingdom

to his mother and on the 29th got a flogging.[b]

The last dispositions of Henry, on his intended departure to head his

army, had appointed his queen, Marie de’ Medici, regent: this was

strongly in her favour as dowager; and she now found little difficulty in

assuming the same authority. The duke d’Épernon, her partisan, summoned

the parliament, and procured their acquiescence, not, however, without

having made some show of menace. This seemed unnecessary: of the princes

of the blood, three in number, who could alone have pretended to the

regency, Condé was absent in the Netherlands, his brother of Conti was

imbecile, whilst their uncle, the count de Soissons, also absent, was at

enmity with every influential personage.

[Sidenote: [1610-1614 A.D.]]

It was to Sully that Henry’s death came as the greatest blow. Sully was

panic-struck; he saw in the murder a Catholic plot, and dreaded a renewal

of the massacres of St. Bartholomew’s eve; he accordingly shut himself

up with his followers in the Bastille, which he hastily provisioned by

carrying off all the bread from the bakers’ shops around. By the morrow,

however, his suspicions had subsided, and he appeared at the court of the

regent. [He was cordially received; a reconciliation was effected, and

the queen got what she was after,--the treasure that Sully had stored up

in the Bastille.]

Marie de’ Medici was of a weak character; she was simple womanhood,

unenforced by either firmness or sagacity. She had come to France a

stranger; and wanting both charms and wit, she had never acquired any

influence either with her husband or amongst the followers of his

court. Marie, therefore, shrank back into her private circle, and made

confidants and counsellors of her two Italian domestics, the woman,

Leonora Galigaï, and Concini, the husband of Leonora. These upstart

personages, full of all the meanness and narrowness of their calling,

had frequently fanned the petty jealousies of the queen against Henry;

and now it was to be feared their influence would be perniciously felt.

Marie, however, was as yet too conscious of her weakness and inability.

She had a vague idea of the justice of the late king’s policy in keeping

down the noblesse, that now pressed around her, and terrified her with

their pretensions and their quarrels. She therefore had recourse to those

best fitted to guide her--the ministers of the late monarch, Villeroi

the secretary, Sillery the chancellor, the president Jeannin, and

Sully, superintendent of finances: these, except Sully, had none of the

pretensions and haughty bearing of the noblesse; and Marie felt no loss

of her will and authority in being guided by them.

It would prove a wearisome task either to narrate or to peruse an

account of the cabals, quarrels, duels, and claims of the personages

and princes amongst each other, and with or against the regent, during

the three years which followed Henry’s death. They formed a repetition

of the conspiracies and alliances of the aristocracy against Catherine

de’ Medici half a century previous, except that at that time there were

at least some noble characters and some serious aims. Whatever might be

said of Châtillon or of Guise, they were animated by high views; but

the political puppets who occupied the scene during Marie de’ Medici’s

regency, wanted not courage--indeed they were quite as ready as their

predecessors to slay each other in duels--but purpose, at least other

purpose than immediate greed, they had none. There were some examples

of ferocity in Louis XIII’s early days, which reminded one of Charles

IX--the chevalier de Guise, meeting the baron de Luz and running him

through the body, and being universally censured for the act until he

redeemed the murder by slaying the young De Luz, son of the baron, in

a fiercely-contested duel. This spirit, which showed itself in private

broils, never rose into a public sentiment. One would have thought that

in the army which Henry had formed, and amongst the officers whom he had

honoured with his patronage and friendship, there might have been some

who burned to distinguish themselves in prosecuting that war against the

house of Austria which the monarch had planned. Not one noble opposed

the peace; not one soldier of note raised his voice in behalf of the

spirited policy of the late king; scarcely even a Huguenot. For Bouillon

was immersed in the intrigues of Concini, and Lesdiguières was tempted by

the title of duke and peer, as he afterwards was by that of constable.

_Disgrace of Sully_

As long, however, as the rigid Sully held the finances under his care,

there was a check to spoliation, as well as a generous voice in the

council to support the sage, the firm, and yet conciliating measures of

the late monarch. He was at first retained, indeed, for the sake of the

stern negative which he was wont to put on the demands of the greedy

courtiers, as well as from fear or respect of his influence with the

Huguenots. But his economical temper became soon a disagreeable restraint

upon the queen herself; and the duke de Bouillon, an indefatigable votary

of intrigue, offering to effect more than even Sully in conciliating and

quieting the Huguenots, this old and upright minister of the great Henry,

was dismissed. Despite his probity, his able administration, and the

esteem of Henry, a cloud would rest on the character of Sully but for the

honest and simple exculpation contained in his own memoirs. His austere

and rude manners made him many enemies. Most of his contemporaries unite

in accusing him; and, strange to say, the only family, beyond his own,

whose friendship and good-will he preserved in his retreat, was that of

Guise.

The disgrace of Sully left the treasure of the late king completely at

the regent’s disposal, who dissipated it by bribing prince and noble to

remain quiet. The favour of Leonora Galigaï and her husband Concini, now

Marshal d’Ancre, became more apparent. The avarice of these foreigners

knew no bounds: not content with the purchase of a marquisate, and the

dignity of marshal, Concini contrived to get some of the principal

fortresses of the kingdom in his possession--Péronne amongst others, and

the citadel of Amiens. Épernon, on his side, secured Metz; whilst the

count de Soissons and the prince of Condé, despite their pensions and

their submission, by turns thwarted the court, and threw it into disorder

by their private quarrels. Although the marshal d’Ancre and his wife were

the chief favourites of the queen-regent, Villeroi was nevertheless the

counsellor whose views, in matters of serious policy, she principally

adopted. Villeroi, say the _Mémoires_ attributed to Richelieu,[e] bred

in the civil wars, had imbibed their virulence, which he repressed

during the life of Henry. Instead of now recommending that monarch’s

conciliating policy, which Sully upheld, Villeroi said that there were

but two parties in the state, Catholic and Protestant, and that the

government must necessarily embrace one or the other. He leaned to the

Catholic side, and supported the project of strengthening it by marrying

the young king to a daughter of Spain, rather than to a princess of

Lorraine or Savoy, as had been the advice of Henry. The prince of Condé,

however, urged by the duke de Bouillon, opposed the ministry in this,

for no reason, apparently, except the sake of making opposition. And for

the time, Louis XIII being as yet but nine years of age, the project was

allowed to slumber.[d]

_First Revolt of the Lords (1614 A.D.)_

The pretensions of the nobles grew with the weakness of the government.

“The presents of the queen,” said Richelieu, “stilled the great hunger of

their avarice and ambition; but it was by no means extinct. The treasury

and the coffers of the Bastille were exhausted; then they aspired to

so great things that royal authority could not possibly give them the

increase of power which they demanded.” What they wanted in fact was

governorships for themselves and their families, places of surety, and

the dismemberment of France. Épernon was governor of Metz, but Henry,

being afraid of that proud noble, had imposed a lieutenant upon him, who

occupied the citadel and corresponded directly with the ministers. The

very day of the king’s death Épernon hastened an order to take possession

of the lieutenant and the citadel. He had a strong place at that time

only two steps from the Spaniards, which people called “his kingdom of

Austrasia.” Many lords at the news of the assassination had thus thrown

themselves into the cities with which they had an understanding, and some

did not wish to ever come out again or wished at any rate to return.

“The time of kings is past,” they said, “that of the nobles is come.”

The first refusal of the regent brought about a civil war. Condé took up

arms and published a manifesto in which he accused the court of having

debased the nobility, ruined the finances, and taxed the poor--singular

reproaches in the mouth of a prince who with his friends had received the

best part of this money of the poor. He concluded according to custom by

demanding the convocation of the states-general to work at the reform of

existing abuses.

[Illustration: FRENCH COURTIERS, TIME OF LOUIS XIII]

Brought up in the Catholic faith, although born of a Protestant family,

Condé hoped to rally both parties to his cause. A large number of lords

came to take their places under his standard, at their head the dukes de

Vendôme, de Longueville, de Luxemburg, de Mayenne, de Nevers, de Retz,

etc. The Calvinists refused to be associated in this rising in arms. “We

have all the liberty for our consciences,” said they, “which we could

desire, and we do not wish to abandon our wives and our houses to satisfy

the appetite of some factious persons.” The Catholics did not take fire

either. Since the estates of the league, popular passions had been

greatly appeased. The party of tolerant politicians born with L’Hôpital,

and come to power under Henry IV, now counted nearly all members of the

cloth and bourgeoisie. The experience which had been so cruelly bought

by the civil war was not lost. The nation compared the twelve years of

prosperity it had enjoyed, with those thirty-eight years of massacres

and pillaging, and held close to the throne; leaving the great lords to

exercise their sterile ambition in space. “The people,” wrote Malherbe at

that moment, “remain obedient everywhere, and without them nothing can

be done.” Let a firm hand take the rudder and even the most turbulent

will return to the quiet in which Henry IV had held them. Some of Henry

IV’s old ministers, Villeroi, Jeannin, counselled the queen to act with

vigour. She preferred to make terms at Ste. Menehould (May 15th, 1614).

The prince of Condé received 450,000 livres in cash; the duke of Mayenne

300,000 “to get married”; M. de Longueville 100,000 livres pension, etc.

But the court, wanting to gain on one side what it had lost on the other,

did not pay the stockholders of the Hôtel-de-Ville in that year. That was

what was done for “the poor.”[f] And the court assented to the call of

the states-general.

_Last Assembly of the States-General_

The states-general, assembled at Paris in 1614, demands especial

attention, not only as the last of these national assemblies previous to

the Revolution (at the commencement of which it was continually referred

to as affording precedent), but as a scene in which the political

feelings and views of the age were completely developed. We have an

ample account of the sittings and discussions of the commons or third

order, written by Florimond Rapine,[g] a member, one of the king’s

advocates. From this we learn that the majority of the lower chamber

were lawyers, and a considerable portion nobles, almost all the king’s

lieutenant-generals being elected by their several governments. The most

important consideration in the eyes of all was evidently the respective

dignity of persons and classes. The first two months were consumed in

disputes of precedence, in ceremonials, in mutual compliments between the

orders at first, and afterwards in mutual abuse. Miron, provost of the

merchants of the city of Paris, was elected president. The address of

the commons to the king was spoken by this magistrate on his knees; the

deputies were clothed in simple black, whilst priests and nobles shone in

gold, and an attempt of the president to wear his city robes of red and

blue in a procession was looked upon as a monstrous piece of ambition.

The grievance most odious to the nation was the enormity of pensions

granted to the princes and chief officers. Against these the commons

and the clergy joined in lifting up their voice. The next demand

was to abolish the venality of the judicature, and the right of the

_paulette_, a kind of annual fine, paid by the officers of parliament,

in consideration of which their offices were considered hereditary. This

demand the chamber of the commons could not in decency oppose; but being

principally lawyers and provincial governors, it was their interest to

preserve the _paulette_, and they therefore slurred over the question,

and laid greater stress on the necessity of abating the _taille_, which

pressed upon the people. Thus, the nobles insisting on abolishing the

hereditary right to their offices held by the legists, the legists or

commons retaliated by demanding the retrenchment of pensions; and a

struggle ensued between them. Savaron, an orator of eloquence in the

_tiers_, exclaimed against the mercenary spirit of the noblesse, which,

he said, had forsaken the pursuit of honour for the worship of the

goddess Pecune, and bartered even its fidelity for a price. The nobles

were indignant at this, and demanded an apology. De Mesme, another

member of the _tiers_, was deputed to explain, and he made matters

infinitely worse. “France,” said he, “had three children: The clergy, if

not the eldest born, had at least, like Jacob, got the heritage and the

blessing, and therefore were to be considered the eldest. Next came the

noblesse, the second son--fiefs, counties, and commands, were its share.

The youngest born was the commons, whose portion was the offices of the

judicature. But,” concluded the orator, “let not the noblesse presume too

much over the _tiers_; since it often happens that the cadets of a great

family restore to it that honour and illustration which has been thrown

away by the elder brethren.”

[Sidenote: [1614-1615 A.D.]]

The difference of interest between the states rendered their meeting

productive of no effect. The regent would willingly have reduced the

pensions of the great, and destroyed the _paulette_, or hereditary

right of the legists to their offices; but she feared to outrage the

princes by the first, whilst uncertain of the support of the commons.

Nothing accordingly was decided on. The _cahiers_ or remonstrances

of the states were presented, were smilingly received, and slept in

the king’s hands. The assembly was dissolved. The queen took her own

inactivity and inability for prudence. It proved the contrary. The

party of the princes leagued with that of the legists, the union being

effected by the exertions and intrigues of the duke de Bouillon. As the

assembly of the states had proved an empty ceremony, all its advice and

remonstrance being disregarded, the legists of the parliament were urged

to put themselves forward as the popular representatives, and finish the

work that the states had vainly attempted. The chambers of parliament

accordingly assembled, and began by summoning the great peers to join

them, and form a court of peers for taking into consideration the affairs

of the kingdom.

This bold act was the inspiration of Bouillon. The court was terrified,

and with good cause; but the parliament itself was almost equally

intimidated by its own boldness, and showed but hesitation when the queen

put forth her authority. Nevertheless, the peers being forbidden to join

the parliament,--an injunction that Condé had the weakness to obey,--the

legists prepared their remonstrances; amongst which were not only all

the demands of the states, but also a claim that no act of the king

should have force unless freely registered by the parliament, and that

the parliament should have the right of summoning a court of peers and

great officers, when occasion required. These remonstrances they insisted

on reading in public before the young king, who showed a favourable and

benign countenance, whilst that of the regent was convulsed with anger.

But this bold attempt to put a check on the royal authority utterly

failed: an edict of the king reproved the audacity of the parliament; and

the latter who had been urged on more by the intrigues of the princes

than by any conscientious or firm love of liberty and the public good,

yielded pusillanimously, when affairs began to assume the appearance of

an open rupture. Condé acted pusillanimously, also, in not declaring

himself, and taking his place in the parliament, to which his secret

promises of support could not impart sufficient confidence. It ended

by the court obtaining the upper hand, and in the consequent revolt of

Condé; the queen resolving, at the same time, to fulfil the project of

the double marriage with Spain.

MAJORITY OF LOUIS XIII; MARRIAGE WITH ANNE OF AUSTRIA

[Sidenote: [1615-1616 A.D.]]

Marie de’ Medici, with the young king, set out for Bordeaux, to meet

his future spouse. It was a military enterprise rather than a nuptial

procession, the court marching at the head of an army, whilst it was

pursued by Condé with an equal force. Both sides avoided an action. The

king arrived at Bordeaux, despatched his sister Elizabeth, who was to

espouse the infante of Spain, to the Pyrenees, and received in return

Anne of Austria, a young and not unlovely princess of fifteen. The

marriage was celebrated at Bordeaux in November, 1615. Louis XIII was now

of age; the possession of a wife gave him the consciousness of manhood,

and he began accordingly to feel and to express a will of his own that

disquieted and constrained the queen-mother, no longer regent.

One of the young monarch’s most dominant tastes was falconry, and as he

was not allowed to follow it in the fields, he kept a number of these

birds of prey in his apartments. A young man, of the name of De Luynes,

charged with the care of them, interested the king by his knowledge and

conversation on such subjects. He soon became a favourite. And Marie de’

Medici, who discovered the rising sun, made repeated offers to resign

her authority, which Louis was not prepared to accept. She then sought

to conciliate Luynes, but he, ambitious and desirous of full power, held

aloof, and continued in the king’s presence to criticise the feeble

administration of Marie and the prodigal folly of Concini.

Feeling her influence undermined, and humouring the impatience of the

young monarch and his queen, who longed to visit Paris, she concluded a

new accommodation with Condé, greatly to the advantage of that prince.

He was allowed to participate in the government, and to sign the decrees

of the council. The queen objected to granting this power, but she was

overruled by Villeroi, who observed that this would put the prince always

in the king’s power, by bringing him to the Louvre.

“There is no danger,” said he, “in trusting the pen to a hand, the arm of

which you hold.” The duke de Longueville superseded the marshal D’Ancre

in the government of Picardy. The Huguenots, who had armed for Condé, had

also their recompense. The court and royal authority was, in fact, at the

feet of this young chief of the noblesse.

RICHELIEU APPEARS

The queen-dowager saw the condition to which her weakness had reduced

her. The marshal D’Ancre was her only friend, and, from the general odium

borne to him, he proved more a weight than a support. Another counsellor

indeed she had, a man attached both to her and D’Ancre, and who was well

capacitated to counsel her in this extremity. This was Armand du Plessis

Richelieu, bishop of Luçon, who had somewhat distinguished himself in the

states-general of 1614.[d]

[Illustration: COMING OF AGE OF LOUIS XIII. (BY RUBENS)

(From the painting in the Louvre)]

A painter who was remarkably faithful and conscientious in art and in

life--the Fleming, Philip de Champagne--has left us a true representation

of the fine, strong, and spare figure of the cardinal De Richelieu. This

Jansenist painter would have disdained to relieve or enrich the gray

image with a ray of light, as Rubens or Murillo would have done. That

would have been changing the nature of the grave, unpromising subject.

The eye would have been pleased and art better satisfied, but it would

not have been true to history. It must be remembered that this was the

epoch of the monochrome, when plain glass was replacing the stained glass

of the sixteenth century. In France especially the taste for colour was

dead.

Gray everywhere. Literary gray in Malherbe. Religious gray in Berulle and

the Oratory. The new-born Port-Royal aims at dullness, one might almost

say at mediocrity. Pascal will appear in thirty years. The colour is very

good here, but moderate in very truth, neither too much nor too little.

A learned master among masters, the good Philip nevertheless stuck so

closely to nature and went so deeply into it that he satisfies both the

conceptions of history and the popular impression. History recognises in

this gray-bearded phantom with its lustreless gray eye and its fine spare

hands the grandson of the prevost of Henry III who assassinated Guise.

He comes towards you, and you do not feel reassured. That personage has

indeed the appearance of life, but is it truly a man, a soul? Yes, an

intellect certainly, strong, clear, and shall we say luminous, or dark

and sinister? If he would take a few steps further we should be face

to face. He does not inspire anxiety, but one fears that this strong

head has nothing in its breast, neither heart nor vitals. In trials of

witchcraft there have been too many of these evil spirits that will not

remain in the lower regions, but return and disturb the world.

What contrasts in him--so hard, so yielding; so complete, so broken! By

how many tortures he must have been moulded, formed, and unformed, let us

say rather disarticulated, to have become that eminently artificial thing

which goes without going, advances without appearing, and noiselessly, as

though gliding over a deadened carpet--then, having arrived, overthrows

everything. He looks at you from the depths of his mystery, this

red-robed sphinx; one dare not say from the depths of his craftiness.

For, in contrast with the ancient sphinx, which dies if one divines it,

this one seems to say: “Whoever divines me shall die.” If one should

be densely and profoundly ignorant of Richelieu,[e] one must read his

_Mémoires_. All the people of this race, Sulla, Tiberius, and others,

have written memoirs or caused them to be written, in order to render

history difficult, to baffle men, to disconcert the public, and above

all to connect the beginning of their lives with the end and to disguise

somewhat the terrible contradictions of their different periods.

His ill-fortune forced him to have merit early. He was the youngest

of three brothers. His family was not rich, and had intermarried with

plebeians. The eldest brother, who was at court, spent everything. The

second, who held the bishopric of Luçon, became a Carthusian; and as this

bishopric did not leave the family, the third, our Richelieu, had to

become a churchman, in spite of his military taste. The eldest brother

was killed in a duel, too late for his cadet, who would have taken his

place and would never have become a priest. He perhaps was not born

ill-natured, but he became so. The contradiction between his character

and his robe gave him that rich fund of ill humour to which is due his

great strength--“the bitterness of blood, which alone makes him win

battles.” His battles as priest could only be theological. He promptly

transmitted his theses with great ostentation to the Sorbonne, dedicating

them to Henry IV, and offering himself to the king for important

services. Then he went to Rome to be consecrated, to offer himself to the

pope. Neither the king nor the pope responded to the impatience of the

ardent young politician.

Then he sadly fell back upon his bishopric of Luçon, which was poor

enough and in a country of disputes, near to La Rochelle and the

Huguenots. This nearness caused him annoyance; in spite of violent

headaches, he wrote against them. He is not without talent. His pen is

a sword, short and keen, well-fitted for disputation. He does not dwell

dully upon the absurd. If he writes nonsense he does not do it like a

fool. He has a happy insolence and bold turns of thought; and retreats

haughtily, and by this means he makes a very good showing.

For all that, he would have remained in his obscurity at Luçon if he had

had nothing but his controversy. But he was a handsome fellow, a fine

porcelain creature. Concini was of faience. The handsome Bellegarde,

a beau since the time of Henry III, was getting worn out. These

considerations influenced the queen-mother, and she took him as her

almoner.[b]

[Sidenote: [1616-1617 A.D.]]

It was the 30th of November, 1616, that Richelieu entered the ministry

for the first time. The Spanish ambassador, the duke of Monteleone,

showed keen satisfaction at his accession and wrote to Madrid that there

was “no better than he in France for the service of God, of the crown

of Spain, and of the public good”--of the public good, as the heirs of

Philip II understood it! This diplomat had not the gift of divination!

[Illustration: COSTUME OF THE TIME OF LOUIS XIII]

The majestic drama of the ministry of the great Richelieu thus opens

as a comedy of intrigue. It is by no means probable that he began his

career by deceiving the pope in order to obtain his bishop’s bull, but

it seems certain that he got into power by deceiving Spain and preparing

to deceive and supplant Concini. He was determined to gain power at any

price; he felt himself necessary; an irresistible force was driving him

forward! In this feverish need of action by which he is devoured he

passes over all obstacles, perhaps even over those of conscience and

personal dignity as over others. He flatters those who despise him,

caresses those who hate him, and lowers to vain mediocrity that brow

which was made for empire. He hides at the bottom of his soul all his

nobler and better feelings, as one would conceal criminal tendencies.

Unfortunate novitiate of political greatness! There will always be very

different opinions of Richelieu according to whether one studies the end

or the means, the public man or the private man. Richelieu never was

false to the duties of the statesman toward his country’s greatness,

but he was unfortunately less faithful to the laws of morality and of

humanity.[h]

Marie was not aware of the merit of this personage; yet it may have been

by his bold counsel that she ventured a stroke of policy, of boldness

unusual to her, in arresting Condé in the Louvre, and sending him to

the Bastille. The noblesse, his partisans, instantly fled to raise

their followers. The Parisian mob collected, and showed its humour by

pillaging the hôtel of the marshal D’Ancre; there, however, its fury

subsided. The queen was victorious, and the fugitive partisans of Condé

were reduced to impotent exclamation of vengeance and rage. Their cause,

however, was not lost. The young king had joined his mother in the

project for getting rid of Condé; but in delivering himself from one

master, Louis was mortified to find that he had given himself another.

The marshal D’Ancre now ruled uncontrolled at court and in council; and

the pride of Louis was even more hurt by the ascendency of the upstart

Concini than by that of Condé. Luynes, his favourite, and the young

nobles who composed his court, flattered the monarch’s pride, and fanned

his resentment. Marie de’ Medici deemed this knot of striplings to be

occupied in pleasure, whilst they meditated a plot. The arrest of Condé

was a precedent and example.[d]

ASSASSINATION OF MARSHAL D’ANCRE

It was well to have arrested the prince de Condé, said Richelieu;

one might have done as much for Concini. Strange forgetfulness of

circumstances; the king had no one, and his man Vitry, captain of the

guards, did not have the guards with him. Concini on the contrary never

went anywhere unless surrounded by thirty gentlemen. Vitry collected

fifteen with great difficulty, hid them, and armed them with pistols

under their coats.

They chose the moment when Concini came to make his usual morning visit

to the queen. He was on the Louvre bridge with his large escort. Vitry

was so frightened that he passed without seeing him, having him before

his eyes. When told, he returned. “I arrest you!” “_A mi!_” (“to my

aid!”) cried Concini. He had not finished when three or four pistol shots

went off and blew his brains out. “It is by order of the king,” said

Vitry. Only one of Concini’s men had put his hand to his sword (April

24th, 1617).

The Corsican Ornano took the king, raised him in his arms, and showed

him at the window. The people did not understand. It was first said that

Concini had wounded the king. But when it was known it was he on the

contrary who had been killed, there was an explosion of joy throughout

the whole city. The queen-mother was very much frightened. Her one

cry was “_Poveretta di me!_” However, what had she to fear? Whatever

antipathy her son might feel for her he could not dream of bringing her

to judgment. He was satisfied with removing her guards. The doors of

her apartments were walled up, save one. She showed no pity for Concini

or his widow. When someone said to her: “Madame, your majesty alone can

inform her of the death of her husband”--“Ah, I have many other things

to do! If you can’t tell it to her, sing it to her; cry in her ears:

_L’Hanno ammazzato_.” Terrible word; it was the very same that Concini

had used to the queen the day of Henry IV’s death, when he told her the

news that she knew only too well. Leonora tremblingly sought refuge with

her. She refused it. Then that woman to whom the queen had confided her

crown diamonds (as a resource in case of misfortune) undressed and went

to bed, hiding her diamonds under her. She was pulled from her bed;

everything was ransacked; the room was pillaged. She was taken to the

Conciergerie. Paris was in a state of celebration. The crowd hunted and

disinterred her husband’s body, which was solemnly burned in front of

Henry IV’s statue in token of expiation. It was said that a madman had

bitten out the heart and eaten a piece of it.

The life of the queen-mother hung by a thread. Among the murderers,

several would have liked to kill her, thinking that she might arise later

and avenge the death of her lover. But Luynes would have dared neither to

counsel the royal child to do such a thing nor to do it without orders.

He saved her by surrounding her with the king’s guards. The Capuchin

Travail, Père Hilaire, who had formerly intrigued against the marriage

of Marie de’ Medici, and who was actor and executor in the murder of her

favourite, thought that nothing was accomplished unless she perished.

He applied to a man of her party who had access to her at will, her

equerry Bressieux, trying to get him to kill her. The equerry refused.

“Never mind,” said Travail, “I will bring it about that the king goes

to Vincennes; and then I will have her torn in pieces by the people.”

Luynes, who had promised the Capuchin the archbishopric of Bourges if he

aided in killing Concini, did not wish to keep his word when the deed

had been done. Instead he profited by some sanguinary words which this

chatterer had uttered, out of folly and bravado, to have him judged and

broken on the wheel.

[Illustration: ALFRED DE LUYNES]

The king had caused parliament to be informed that he had ordered the

arrest of Concini, who, having resisted, had been killed. He spoke of

his mother only with respect, saying that he had prayed his lady and

mother to approve of his taking the rudder of state. Parliament came to

congratulate him. The action which could so easily be brought against

Concini and his wife was skilfully stifled and turned from the true

issue. A case of sorcery was made out of it. That was, moreover, the

custom of the century. The libidinous tyrannies practised by priests in

women’s convents, when by chance they came to light, were changed into

sorcery, and the devil was charged with everything. Leonora herself

thought the devil was in her body and had herself exorcised in the church

of the Augustines by priests who had come from Italy at her request. As

she suffered terribly in her head, Montalte, her Jewish physician, killed

a cock, and applied it to her head still warm, which was interpreted as a

sacrifice to hades. An astrological document was also found in her rooms,

the nativity of the queen and her children. It is not at all improbable

that when losing her influence she tried to keep her hold on the queen

by magic. It was the general folly of the age. Luynes believed in it

also. Richelieu says that he had two Piedmontese magicians come to find

him powders which he might put in the king’s garments, and herbs for his

shoes.

However much of truth there may have been in Leonora’s sorcery, it did

not deserve death, and her thefts even, her brazen-faced sales of places

and orders, would have merited only the whip. Court tradition, which was

very favourable to such people, as enemies of Henry IV, has not failed

to invent, to place in the mouth of Leonora proud and insolently daring

words--for example: “My charm was that of a mind set on folly.” She was

beheaded at the Grève and then burned.[b]

THE MINISTRY OF LUYNES (1617-1621 A.D.)

The position of the queen-mother was mortifying and distressing. She had

been deceived by the boy-king; stripped of her power; her dearest friends

had perished. Of the band of courtiers who so lately hung upon her smile,

Richelieu alone evinced a determination to adhere to the fortunes of

his mistress. Marie de’ Medici besought an interview with her son. This

favour was long denied. Luynes feared a mother’s influence over a being

so young and so weak as Louis. Marie was allowed to retire to Blois,

whither Richelieu accompanied her.

[Illustration: LOUIS XIII]

The wealth as well as the influence of Concini fell to the share of

Luynes, who was, however, neither a foreigner nor so rash and avaricious

as his predecessor. Louis XIII, from his very first moment of grasping

power, showed the same incapacity of wielding it that ever distinguished

him. The love of the chase was the only active quality the young monarch

seemed to have inherited from his father Henry. Luynes became hence sole

master of the state. He found two parties aspiring to influence--that of

the prince of Condé, and that of the queen-mother. One was in prison,

and the other exiled; so that Luynes found no difficulty in flattering

and giving hopes alternately to both, whilst he permitted neither the

liberation of the prince nor the return of Marie de’ Medici. The body

of the noblesse, who had flown to arms upon Condé’s arrest, and who had

returned on learning Concini’s fall, thought it a more serious step to

rebel against the king than against his mother and her favourite. The

young court, too, had charms; and the prince of Condé was now but ill

supported by that aristocratic band that had shared his envy and hatred

towards the family of Ancre.

Marie de’ Medici bore her disgrace with impatience. For some time she

lulled herself with the hope that Luynes was sincere in his promises of

allowing her to return. She expected in vain; and at length resolved to

work her deliverance by leaguing with the prince of Condé and her former

enemies. These intrigues coming to light, Richelieu, who was considered

to be the source of them, was ordered to quit Blois, where the queen

resided, and retire to his bishopric. But Marie had already profited by

the advice of this able counsellor. She kept up an active correspondence

with the duke d’Épernon, who was master of Metz, and through him with

such of the nobility as were envious of Luynes. Having by these means

formed a party, Marie escaped by night from the château of Blois; was met

by Épernon at the head of an armed body of gentlemen; and, retreating

south, soon found herself at the head of a party strong enough to defy

her enemies. There cannot be a stronger example of the overgrown power

of the nobles, and of the manner in which they absorbed the whole force

of the crown, than the authority wielded by Épernon at this time against

his sovereign. The duke had no less than five governments, viz., the

provinces of Saintonge, Auxerrois, the Limousin, the Bourbonnais, and the

Three Bishoprics. Add to these Metz, the bulwark of the kingdom adjoining

Lorraine; Loches, the strongest fortress of Touraine, which he held,

together with the command of all the French infantry, as colonel-general;

and it can be no longer a wonder that the defection of such a grandee

should have immediately reduced Louis and his favourite to treat with the

queen-mother.

[Sidenote: [1617-1620 A.D.]]

Richelieu was recalled from his diocese, and employed to effect an

accommodation, which took place. Marie de’ Medici was the principal

gainer: she obtained the government of Anjou, and the towns of Angers,

Chinon, and Pont-de-Cé, as fortresses of surety. The king promised to

restore Marie de’ Medici to his confidence, and to her place at court.

But this was postponed for the time. An interview took place betwixt

Louis and his mother. A light remark on one side, answered by a cold

compliment on the other, is all that is recorded of the meeting. “How

your majesty has grown!” exclaimed Marie. “Grown for your service,

madame,” was the young monarch’s reply. The queen-mother remained

at Angers, whilst the court returned to Paris. Épernon received

a written pardon for his rebellion, from which he had derived no

advantage; a circumstance that caused him to be taxed with folly by his

contemporaries. Disinterestedness was inconceivable to the age.

The first step of Luynes, in order to counteract the revived party of

the queen-mother, was to liberate Condé from Vincennes. But his long

captivity had secluded this prince from his ancient followers; and

Richelieu, who saw the object of Luynes, was able to succeed in not only

drawing over the whole body of the noblesse to the queen-mother, but

even in exciting the Huguenots to stir in her favour. These measures of

Richelieu, who was at the same time amusing Luynes by feigned friendship

and communications, became ripe in 1620, when, upon a fresh refusal to

admit Marie de’ Medici to court, all the great nobles, who had most

of them formerly conspired against her, now espoused her cause, and

quitted the court. Almost all France was in array against Louis and

Luynes. Épernon armed his five governments and his many towns. Marie

herself was in Anjou. The duke de Longueville held Normandy; the duke de

Vendôme, Brittany; the count of Soissons, Perche and Maine; the marshal

De Bois-dauphin had Poitou; De Retz, La Trémouille, Mayenne, Rouen, and

Nemours held the southern provinces betwixt them, except Languedoc, where

Montmorency remained neutral. The Huguenots were also against the court,

as was the duke de Rohan, their principal leader, and La Rochelle, their

chief town. This was owing to a decree, issued by Luynes, that the church

lands of Béarn, where Henry IV had established Protestantism, should

be restored to the Catholic priesthood. Thus Richelieu enlisted under

the banners of his mistress these two great malcontent and independent

powers in the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the reformers, which it

was afterwards the great aim and achievement of his policy to crush. In

thus wielding them successfully against the monarch, Richelieu became

acquainted with their danger, their strength, and their secret springs.

[Sidenote: [1620-1621 A.D.]]

Condé, however, inspired Luynes this time with additional vigour. The

prince himself was excited to avenge his long confinement upon the

queen-mother, who had caused it; and the king, therefore, was induced

to march with an army, headed by Condé, to reduce the rebels. He was

successful in Normandy; the insurgents retired everywhere before the

royal army, which turned southward, and drove the queen from even Angers,

her principal fortress. Luynes, contented with these advantages, showed

himself willing to treat, as did Richelieu, who was somewhat disgusted

by the want of alacrity and resolution evinced by the noblesse, his

partisans. Condé, however, pushed on the war; and although a treaty

was on the eve of being concluded, he attacked the forces of Marie’s

adherents, and put them to the rout at Pont-de-Cé.

This success, instead of breaking off negotiations, accelerated them; for

Luynes became instantly jealous of Condé, and feared his predominance,

if the queen-mother should be completely crushed. A treaty was therefore

concluded on similar terms to the preceding one, with the important

addition that the king should become really reconciled to his mother, and

that she should reside at court. Many doubts and accusations exist as to

the good faith of Richelieu in these transactions. The loss of Angers,

and the defeat of Pont-de-Cé, were said to be arranged and allowed by

him; and it is more than probable that, in disgust with the noblesse,

who were at once domineering to their friends and feeble towards their

enemies, Richelieu had conceived the project of reconciling Louis and the

queen-mother, as well as their respective favourites, Luynes and himself;

thus uniting the scattered elements of the government, and enabling it

to set its turbulent enemies at defiance. Richelieu, by this plan, hoped

to secure to himself a place in the council, where he felt confident

he would soon rule such weak spirits as Louis, the queen-mother, and

Luynes. But the latter had the sagacity to dread Richelieu’s superiority.

Although the bishop sedulously sought the favourite’s friendship, and

although an alliance took place betwixt their families, nevertheless

Luynes persevered in his jealousy; prevented, by his intrigues, the

cardinal’s hat stipulated for Richelieu in the late treaty, and kept the

doors of the council chamber inexorably closed against him.

_The Huguenot Uprising; The Siege of Montauban (1621 A.D.)_

Although Luynes had risen to power as a mere favourite, he still held

it with a firmer hand than Concini; nor was he without the views or

the sagacity of a statesman. Even previous to his having at court so

able a prompter as Richelieu, he had anticipated the future policy

of that minister in endeavouring to crush the Huguenots. Luynes was

determined upon restoring to the Catholic priesthood the church lands

of Béarn, which had been in the hands of the Protestants since the days

of Jeanne d’Albret. Louis was equally bent on rescuing from heresy

the native province of his family. After the Treaty of Pont-de-Cé,

the king marched into Béarn, and reduced not only the church lands to

his will, but the little province itself, the privileges of which he

annulled. The Huguenots were of course indignant and alarmed. This was

not the only infraction of the agreements made with them. Favas, their

deputy at court, declared that the government intended to reduce them

altogether. They accordingly summoned a general assembly of reform at

La Rochelle, despite the prohibition of the king; and their consistory

published a bold decree, dividing the Protestant regions of France into

circles, after the manner of Germany, uniting again those circles in a

general government, and establishing the rules by which this government

was to raise troops and taxes, to levy war and exercise independent

jurisdiction. The scheme was a direct imitation of the United Provinces

of Holland. It manifested fully the republican ideas and leanings of the

Huguenots, and roused the court, and above all Richelieu, to crush them.

An army was raised by Luynes,[d] and Louis XIII left Paris accompanied

by the good wishes of all zealous Catholics and those who were desirous

of peace. He had re-established the tax paid by judges, magistrates, and

financiers on their offices, to secure them to their sons in case of

death, contracted a loan, and obtained from the clergy an extraordinary

tax. On the 19th of May, 1621, he occupied Saumur, which he was able

to leave to Duplessis-Mornay in spite of his neutral attitude. It was

necessary to prevent all communication between the Protestants, both

north and south of the Loire. He afterwards received the submission of

the towns in Touraine and Poitou, with the exception of La Rochelle, and

St. Jean d’Angély. This latter place belonged to the duke de Rohan, who

placed a garrison there under the command of Soubise, whilst he himself

went to take command in Guienne.

Lesdiguières undertook the siege of it, which lasted twenty-five days,

from the 30th of May to the 25th of June, and was very murderous.

Soubise, seeing the royal troops continually increase, ended by

capitulating; he obtained for the garrison the honours of war, on

condition of his promising always to serve the king. The fortifications

of St. Jean were demolished, the trenches filled in, and its privileges

suppressed. Deliberations took place as to the besieging of La Rochelle,

or the advance on Guienne, where Rohan and La Force were raising arms on

all sides. The taking of La Rochelle would have ended the contest; but it

offered great difficulties, especially on the side next the sea, where

the royal fleet would scarcely hold its own against the numerous and

well-disciplined ships of the Calvinists.

Luynes wished to obtain peace by the quickest means; he believed it would

be much more rapidly accomplished by dividing the enemy and gaining over

the leaders. Therefore he sent Épernon with four or five thousand men to

blockade La Rochelle by land, whilst he himself took the Guienne route

with the king and the bulk of the army. Mayenne,[86] who commanded the

first division, carried Nérac by storm on the 9th of July; the little

towns hastened to throw open their gates. One of the principal Calvinist

_seigneurs_ of Guienne, De Boisse de Pardaillan, had made his submission

the moment the royal troops had arrived, so as not to obey La Force.

They received favourable intelligence on every side. In the north and

in the centre the Protestants allowed their arms to be taken from them

and the walls of their towns pulled down, without striking a blow. Condé

occupied and demolished without resistance the fortress of Sancerre,

in his government of Berri. They met with resistance only at Clérac, a

little town upon the Lot. It took the royal army twelve days to gain

possession of it; it then entered, August 5th, and inflicted the most

severe punishment. The chancellor Duvair, who accompanied the king, died

during this siege; Luynes did not hurry to appoint a successor, and

appropriated the seals meantime. This method of monopolising all the

power, all the military and civil honours, put the finishing touch to the

irritation caused by his favours, and furnished an inexhaustible subject

for the raillery of his enemies.

[Illustration: A FRENCH NOBLEMAN, TIME OF LOUIS XIII]

La Force was shut up at Montauban, where the minister Chamier, one of

the most fanatical Calvinists, and the mayor Dupuy, who showed an equal

devotion to the cause, co-operated with him most energetically. All the

future of the party lay in the defence of this place. Rohan scoured

Languedoc and the Cévennes to raise men, and to form a relieving army.

The king had the choice of pursuing Rohan, or of besieging Montauban. He

decided upon this last step, in the hopes of striking a decisive blow,

and after some useless parleying, with which Sully was intrusted, the

works were commenced without delay. Unfortunately they had not taken part

in any other siege for a long time, except that of St. Jean d’Angély;

they had fallen out of the way of taking part in real warfare, and they

were even obliged to employ Italian engineers. The royal army found

itself hardly sufficient for a siege of such importance. They believed in

vain that they might find some partisans in the place. They attempted to

surprise it, but were unsuccessful. Mayenne, who had opened the trenches

August 18th, wished to rush the attack, before the works were finished.

He lost many of his men, and, imprudently exposing himself, paid for his

temerity with his life.

The news of Mayenne’s death caused a stir in Paris, as his name had acted

as a spell on the populace, amongst whom the war against the Protestants

had awakened all the ancient passions of the league. The following day,

the 18th, they attempted with no better result to make a breach by aid

of the cannon. On the 28th, Rohan came to the assistance of the place in

spite of the vigilance of the dukes of Angoulême and Montmorency. He cut

himself a passage through at the point of the sword, although losing many

men, and gave to the besieged garrison the means for prolonging their

resistance. The king called together all the most experienced marshals

and military men. They recognised the fact that it was impossible to

carry Montauban before the winter. Luynes, who had become constable

without knowing how to command an army or direct a siege, incurred

the responsibility of this failure, but it did not disturb him. He

wished to make peace, contrary to the desires of the military men and

of the earnest Catholics. He asked for an interview with Rohan, and

tried to bribe him. Rohan refused to desert his party, all the more

because he was unable to do so, being under the direction of ministers

whose impassioned ideas allowed him very little personal freedom. The

Calvinists hoped that, thanks to the resistance of Montauban, they would

weary the king of his policy. They were not mistaken. A final attack,

attempted the 21st of October, failed like all the previous ones. The

royal army, weakened by fatigue and sickness, and decimated by little

battles, rapidly diminished. They had fired uselessly twenty thousand

cannon shots, an enormous total for the times. On the 2nd of November

Luynes decided to raise the siege, subject to a renewal in the spring.

[Sidenote: [1621-1622 A.D.]]

The king, on retiring, made his entry into Toulouse, the most Catholic of

the towns of the south, where he was received with general acclamation.

He decided to limit himself during the winter to the keeping open of the

communications between Toulouse and Bordeaux. Accordingly he ordered the

marshal De Rouquelaure and Bassompierre to besiege the little town of

Monheur, which the Calvinists occupied near Tonneins. The camp and the

court were full of divisions, as always happens after great reverses.

They threw on one another the responsibility for the errors that had

been committed. Luynes was naturally the one whom they attacked the

most. The most ardent Catholics reproached him with having desired peace

too much; the military men with having attempted the siege of Montauban

with insufficient forces, through avarice, some said. Father Arnoux,

the king’s confessor, and Puisieux, secretary of state, began to rise

up against him and tried to destroy his credit. On the 11th of December

Monheur capitulated.

_Death of Luynes (1621 A.D.)_

Their lives were granted to the garrison, but the town was pillaged and

burned for having given itself to the Huguenots. Three days after, on

the 14th, Luynes died suddenly of fever. He was just at the pinnacle

of his success. Nevertheless, Louis XIII, in spite of his caution and

his ordinary dissimulation, had begun to complain of his yoke, and to

lend an ear to the accusations of his adversaries. Luynes had had few

friends, and his enemies, whose numbers were increasing, were already

attacking him with extreme vigour. His ambition and his avidity, equally

unrestrained, had turned everyone against him. The greater number of

the authors who were contemporary with him, animated against him by

prejudice and the strongest personal feelings, had treated him unfairly,

and attributed all sorts of extravagances to him, as, for instance,

wishing to see himself made prince of Avignon, or king of Austrasia.

His political talents deserve more justice. Firm without illusion, and

knowing how to ally moderation with energy, he had conducted the war

briskly in the desire to arrive more quickly at a peace which he wished

to make prompt and certain. This end he never ceased to pursue, and

Richelieu, who gained it, only finished a work that had been begun.[i]

This check saved the Huguenots for the time, although it was

counterbalanced by the ascendency of Guise in Poitou. The treaty

was concluded in the following year at Montpellier, by which it was

stipulated that affairs should be replaced as they were before the war,

new conquests restored, and new fortifications demolished. One point

the king gained; this was that the Huguenots should no more have a lay

assembly. A synod of ecclesiastics was alone allowed them; thus obviating

the revival of that republican assembly at La Rochelle, which had roused

all the suspicions and energy of king and court. Louis, returning to his

capital, was welcomed as a hero. The two queens rivalled each other in

the brilliancy of their fêtes. But neither applause nor pleasure could

prevent the king from relapsing into that state of apathy which was

natural to him. Louis XIII was as completely the _roi fainéant_ as were

the last of the race of Clovis and Charlemagne. But times were altered;

the tree of royalty had taken root, and stood as erect, when withered and

sapless, as when in spring and leaf.

RICHELIEU’S RETURN TO THE MINISTRY

[Sidenote: [1622-1624 A.D.]]

Louis XIII had been inspired by Luynes with an aversion for Richelieu. It

was with great difficulty that Marie de’ Medici obtained for him in 1622

the cardinal’s hat stipulated in a former treaty; but all her efforts in

procuring him admission to the council were resisted. The marquis de la

Vieuville was favourite for the moment, and he strengthened the king’s

prejudice against the cardinal. Marie was persevering; and at length

Louis yielded. He permitted Richelieu to take his seat at the council

table, but on the express condition that he was to be without office, and

that he should not consider himself a minister. The cardinal expressed

himself perfectly contented with this arrangement: he took his seat; and

the inefficacy of all the precautions taken against him soon appeared.

They had bound the arms of a giant, who broke his bonds the instant that

it pleased him to be free. From the first moment that Richelieu spoke,

his genius dominated; and the monarch himself, as well as La Vieuville,

cowered beneath an ascendency that they found it vain to dispute.

To secure this ascendency over the monarch, Richelieu scorned to make

use of the same means which sufficed La Vieuville and Luynes. Instead

of flattering Louis, and directing him in the way of pleasure, the

cardinal at first strove to awaken the young king to a sense of the

country’s debasement, to its true interests, and its possible glory. He

pointed out the turbulent disobedience of the great, the sedition of

the Huguenot assemblies, the weakness of ministers, and the disorder of

the finances--the consequent poverty and misery of the kingdom, as well

as the decay of its influence and dignity in its relations with foreign

potentates. He pointed to the house of Austria, daily increasing its

strength and extending its territories, at that very moment triumphant

from the conquest of the Palatinate, and threatening to crush those

Protestant states of Germany which had defied the might of Charles V.

Louis listened, and was excited, not indeed to take vigorous counsels

himself, but to confide in a minister who had shown himself able to

conceive and execute them.[87]

The chief object then coveted by the house of Austria was the possession

of the Valtelline, a strip of Alpine territory which might serve to

connect the dominions of that family in Germany and in Italy. It had been

in subjection to the Grisons, a Protestant race; and Spain seized this

pretext to conquer it in the name of the pope. France had opposed this

with the usual feebleness of her diplomacy. The first act of Richelieu

was to cut short the negotiation, to defy both the pope and Spain, and

to send an army under the marshal D’Estrées into the Valtelline, which

expelled the Spaniards, and restored the region to its ancient masters.

Richelieu dared to show the same bold front to the Huguenots at the

same time. Determined on completely reducing them, his first endeavour

was to drive them from Poitou and La Rochelle, where they could at all

times receive succours from England, and to circumscribe their influence

to the provinces of the southeast. He refused to evacuate Montpellier;

and the Huguenots were thus provoked to rebel. The cardinal at the same

time deprived them of the aid of the English monarch, with whom he

was negotiating the marriage of Henrietta of France, sister of Louis.

Rohan, and a great number of the Protestants, thought it on this account

imprudent to recommence war; but his impetuous brother, Soubise, made an

attack on the port of Blavet, seized some ships that were fitting out

there, and sailing thence made a descent upon the island of Ré. He was

defeated, the Huguenots being neither decided nor prepared for a general

insurrection. The consequence of the rash attempt of Soubise was that

in the accommodation that ensued the royalists kept Fort Louis, merely

promising not to annoy from it the inhabitants or shipping of La Rochelle.

CONSPIRACY OF THE COURT AGAINST RICHELIEU

[Sidenote: [1624-1626 A.D.]]

Richelieu here postponed his design of completely reducing the Huguenots.

The conquest of La Rochelle could alone do this effectually, and that

required a large naval force, as well as such preparations of every kind

as would ensure success. Besides, for the present, the cardinal was

aware that he would soon have to encounter a court intrigue, a triumph

over which was more requisite to establish his power than even the

subjugation of La Rochelle. The marriage of the princess Henrietta with

Charles of England, which had been desired by Richelieu, as securing

the previous neutrality of the latter country in a war against the

Huguenots, had proved a source of difference rather than of alliance. The

gallant Buckingham, who had come to demand and escort back the princess,

had excited the jealousy of the cardinal. He had shown at the French

court the sample of such a minister as the age esteemed--gay, liberal,

handsome, looking as well as wielding command. He had admired the young

queen, and had boldly expressed his admiration. His friend, Lord Holland,

had paid court to the duchess de Chevreuse, the companion of the queen,

and the most lovely woman of the time. Richelieu admired Madame de

Chevreuse, nay, by some, is said to have pretended to the queen herself.

Whatever was the truth, Richelieu and Buckingham conceived for each

other a mutual hatred, which afterwards produced a rupture between their

respective sovereigns. And a strong pique at the same time arose between

the cardinal and the queen.

Another personage at court, now grown into importance, was Gaston, duke

of Orleans, brother of the king. Louis was extremely jealous of him.

A tutor, under whom the young duke improved and began to give promise

of good conduct and manly virtue, was superseded by a mere courtier,

calculated to give lessons in vice and dissipation. Ornano, who succeeded

this man, found the prince absorbed in pleasure, and debased. He

endeavoured to rouse Gaston, by explaining to him his rank, his hopes;

and he did succeed in awakening his ambition. The young duke of Orleans

demanded to enter the council. Richelieu, then in the commencement of his

influence, replied by banishing Ornano for a time. Gaston relapsed into

dissipation, and seemed little inclined to give umbrage or uneasiness to

the government.

The worst part of feudal tyranny was that it interfered with the private

affections of all men. Richelieu, wielding the power of Louis XIII, was

not content with commanding the loyal submission of the first prince of

the blood. He thought proper to impose a wife upon him, nay, to choose

one. The lady selected was Mademoiselle de Montpensier, rich, lovely,

allied to the crown, and heiress of the house of Guise. There could be no

objection to such a bride, except the compulsion that gave her. Gaston

rebelled. The projected marriage convulsed the entire court, and wellnigh

the kingdom also.

[Illustration: A FRENCH GENTLEMAN, TIME OF LOUIS XIII]

Richelieu’s object was to provide an heir to the crown, which Louis

seemed not destined long to wear. Anne of Austria, the little queen, as

she was called, to distinguish her from the queen-mother, was on the

other hand averse to Gaston’s marriage; and she joined the friends of the

latter in endeavouring to thwart the cardinal’s plan. Ornano had resumed

his influence and station in the prince’s household; and he it was who

chiefly urged Gaston to resist. Ornano was arrested. This increased

the rage of the duke of Orleans; and at length a plot was entered into

and approved by him, to get rid of the domineering Richelieu in the

same manner that Ancre had been removed. The cardinal then inhabited a

country house at Fleury. Gaston’s servants were to betake themselves

thither, under pretence that their master was to honour Richelieu on

that day with his company to dinner, and the murder was to have taken

place. Richelieu received warning. The count de Chalais, who was to have

been the chief perpetrator, ventured to sound a friend, who expressed at

once a lively abhorrence of the attempt, and threatened to denounce it.

Chalais became alarmed, and, resolving to anticipate the informer, went

himself to the cardinal, and made a disclosure. Gaston was astonished, in

consequence, by the appearance of the cardinal in his apartment, on the

morning appointed for the deed. “I am sorry,” said Richelieu, smiling,

“your highness did not give me warning of your intention to make use of

my residence. I should have been prepared. As it is, I abandon it to

your service.” Having so said, Richelieu handed his shirt to Gaston (one

of the ceremonials of etiquette observed at a prince’s levée) and then

retired.

The cardinal, not content with thus confounding his enemies, was resolved

to punish them and intimidate others by their example. By probing Chalais

and his family, it was discovered that the nobles upon whose aid Gaston

reckoned were the duke de Vendôme and his brother the grand prior,

illegitimate sons of Henry IV. The former was governor of Brittany.

Richelieu, dissembling his suspicions, enticed them to repair to the

court at Blois, where both were instantly arrested. The imprisonment of

all his friends, and the danger of some, would have roused to serious

resistance a prince of more energy than Gaston. The young duke was not

wanting in indignation; but Richelieu had prepossessed the monarch’s

mind, and had taught Louis to believe that his royal life had been aimed

at as well as his minister’s; that the young queen, Anne of Austria, was

privy to the plot; and that she was to have married the duke of Orleans

on his accession to the throne. These accusations hardened and enraged

the mind of Louis XIII. Gaston, in the power of the court, was forced to

espouse Mademoiselle de Montpensier; the count de Chalais perished on the

scaffold; the queen was publicly reproached by her husband with having

sought a second marriage, to which she indignantly replied that there was

not so much to be gained by the change. Her friend, Madame de Chevreuse,

was banished from court. Thus Richelieu, triumphant over his foes,

amongst whom the queen and the king’s brother were numbered, showed how

fatal it was to provoke his enmity, how fruitless to resist his power.[d]

[Sidenote: [1626-1627 A.D.]]

The Treaty of Montpellier in 1626 granted a hollow peace to the

Huguenots; and a few months later, that is to say in May, peace was

signed with Spain. Years before, Richelieu, then young and obscure, had

often discussed with his friend Father Joseph how best to subdue the

neighbouring town of La Rochelle, the stronghold of the Huguenots; and

time had not softened his views on the subject. The English people,

chafing under the influence of their French and Catholic queen, Henrietta

Maria, longed to assert their Protestantism; Buckingham, opposed to her

anti-Protestant policy, longed to provoke the French court. What then

would better serve their ends than adoption of the Huguenot cause? So war

was begun with France. Richelieu brought his forces up under the walls of

La Rochelle, and drew a cordon of forts around the unhappy town, cutting

off all approaches. To shut the city off from English aid, Richelieu

constructed a wonderful mole across the mouth of the harbour. This was

built of solid masonry, extending about seven yards from one shore and

four hundred yards from the other, the intervening space of six hundred

yards being partially blocked with sunken ships and further guarded by

a half-circle of ships lashed together with their prows outward. Inside

the boom a royal fleet watched against sallies, and outside another fleet

watched for the English.[a]

THE SIEGE OF LA ROCHELLE DESCRIBED BY SEIGNOBOS

The work of construction at first went on slowly, and the besieged could

do little to hinder it. They could only fire off a few guns or post a

few ambuscades in the path of the staff officers as they went from one

part of the army to the other; but it was winter time, and bad weather

often interrupted the work of construction. The besieged had sent to ask

the king of England to help them; and the latter pledged himself “to the

mayor, aldermen, peers, and citizens of La Rochelle, to help them by

land and sea according to his royal power until a firm peace had been

established.” As a result he promised to send an expedition to help them

in the spring, and to furnish them with provisions; in the meantime he

allowed a collection to be made for their benefit in his kingdom.

The inhabitants of La Rochelle, on their part, engaged themselves to

provide pilots for the English, to prepare magazines and shelters on

their coasts, and to equip vessels to help in the expedition. And if the

king of France should attack the territories of the king of England,

they would do all they could to create a diversion. It was agreed that

neither the besieged nor the king of England should make any treaty

without consulting the other. The king of England had wished to impose

two other conditions; he asked the besieged to send him the children of

their principal families as hostages, and to receive an English garrison

within their walls. They only consented to receive English ships into

their harbour. They accepted the king of England as an ally to help them

to defend their independence, but they did not wish to have him for a

master.

[Sidenote: [1627-1628 A.D.]]

The royal army encamped before La Rochelle did not suffer very much

from the winter. A tax had been levied in the principal towns in France

which had made it possible to provide the soldiers with good clothing.

The construction of the dike provided occupation for the men, and the

boats were manned by volunteers from picked regiments. Meanwhile Louis

XIII was wearying of this long siege with no fighting. He declared that

his health would suffer if he did not go to Paris for a time. Richelieu,

fearing lest the king’s departure might have a bad effect on the troops,

tried to afford him some distraction by giving false alarms; several

times a sortie was announced, and the king remained on horseback all

night waiting for it, but the besieged did not make any movement. At last

Richelieu felt he could no longer keep the king with the army, so he

wrote to him saying that he could now absent himself for a time “without

any injury to his cause.”

The king immediately announced his departure. In his absence the cardinal

was to be commander-in-chief, he was called “lieutenant-general of the

king in the army before La Rochelle.” He had full power over all the

troops, cavalry and infantry, and also over the artillery for continuing

the siege, and was even empowered to receive the submission of the

inhabitants and take possession of the town. The king admonished all the

generals and officers to “obey him as implicitly as they would their

king.”

On the 10th of February, 1628, Richelieu accompanied the king two leagues

from the camp; there they separated, embracing each other at parting.

Louis warned the cardinal to take good care of his health; but Richelieu,

out of respect for etiquette, had not dared to take his umbrella when

accompanying the king, and was very much upset by the winter sun and had

five attacks of intermittent fever. After being absent two months and a

half, Louis returned to the camp, where he was saluted by salvos from

the forts, the batteries, and the dike. He found his army stronger and

the military works considerably advanced. He had left his army reduced

by illness to eighteen thousand men; but owing to the recruits who had

joined from the neighbouring provinces, he now found a force twenty-five

thousand strong.

The whole line of circumvallation which was to cut off La Rochelle on the

land side was completed and furnished with redoubts. The shore on both

sides of the harbour was provided with batteries. The dike was almost

finished and was defended by a sort of floating palisade formed of ships

linked together. An attempt to surprise the town had failed, owing to bad

generalship. But the besieged had been unable to make any sorties or to

obtain any provisions; and hunger was beginning to make itself felt in

their ranks. The day after his return, on the 24th of April, Louis XIII

sent an envoy to call upon the besieged citizens to surrender. According

to the custom of the time the summons had to be made by a herald-at-arms,

but there was not one with the army and they could not even find the

insignia of the office. A tabard had therefore to be prepared in a hurry,

a clerk of finance put it on and went forth to play the part of a herald.

The besieged refused to receive the summons. A sort of revolution had

taken place in La Rochelle. The rich citizens who had hitherto governed

the town were anxious to bring the siege to an end, for it was ruining

their commerce and exposing them to the wrath of their king. The sailors,

who were on the side of resistance, seized the power and elected one of

themselves, a captain Guiton, as mayor. Guiton was a bold corsair, of

small stature, but brave and energetic. He had a splendidly furnished

house, full of flags which he had taken from the ships of his enemies;

he was fond of showing them and of saying from what kings and in what

seas he had captured them. He was not anxious to be made mayor, but when

he took possession of his office, he placed his dagger on the table in

the town hall and said to his companions: “You do not know what you have

done in choosing me; you had better think well about it, for it will be

useless to talk to me about surrendering. If anyone mentions it I will

kill him.”

Another English fleet set out to relieve the blockade of La Rochelle,

or at any rate to revictual the town. This fleet consisted of thirty

vessels and twenty boats laden with provisions and ammunition. It was

signalled on the 11th of May by three shots fired from the forts on

the island of Ré. The fleet took up its station near the point of the

island, opposite to La Rochelle. The besieged fired salvos as a sign

of rejoicing, and very soon their ramparts were fluttering with red,

white, and blue flags. The royal fleet of thirty-eight ships was divided

into four squadrons which were stationed in front of the dike; behind,

on the La Rochelle side, the dike was guarded by twenty-six galleys. A

light English ship succeeded in passing these batteries and in reaching

the harbour; she carried a captain, a native of La Rochelle on board,

and he was commissioned to ask his compatriots to open a passage before

their harbour, so that the ships laden with provisions might come in.

The English fleet, he said, had not come to fight. The inhabitants of La

Rochelle and the Protestant refugees on board the English ships begged

the admiral to force the passage; he replied that he only had orders to

cross to facilitate the entrance of the convoy with provisions, and that

he must spare his fleet. On the 18th of May, the English ships set sail,

drew close to the harbour, fired a salute, and sailed away to the open

sea. The besieged, deserted by their allies, found themselves in a very

critical position. One of them proposed to sacrifice himself and save

the town by assassinating Richelieu. That was the way in which Orleans

had formerly escaped from the duke of Guise. But he would not commit

this deed unless he was certain it was not a sin. He consulted Guiton,

who replied: “In such matters as this I never give advice.” He asked the

pastors what they thought; and they answered: “If God is going to save us

it will not be by means of a crime.” So he gave up the idea.

The besieged were suffering much from starvation. The rich still had

provisions which they kept concealed, but others were dying of hunger. On

the 26th of May they decided to drive out of the town all who were unable

to fight--women, children, old men, and all who were infirm. These poor

creatures made for the French camp; the soldiers, by the king’s order,

received them with a shower of bullets and forced them to go back to

the town. The royal troops also destroyed the crops of beans which the

besieged had sown at the bottom of the other side of the escarpment.

On the 1st of June some of the citizens who were anxious for peace

succeeded in opening communications with Bassompierre, proposing a

capitulation; but on the 10th a letter reached La Rochelle from the king

of England, promising that he would see his whole fleet destroyed rather

than fail to extricate the besieged from the peril they were in. They

therefore broke off the negotiations and began firing again. For three

months they waited for the promised help, while Richelieu continued his

dike. Towards the open sea he had had long beams bound together and fixed

in the ground at the bottom of the water to prevent access to the dike,

and on the harbour side he had placed a line of ships anchored and

chained together. Every day visitors came to the royal camp, and were

entertained; and sometimes, to amuse them, a skirmish was got up at which

they looked on. The king went out hunting and kept his court just as if

he had been in Paris.

Within La Rochelle the famine was becoming terrible. The rich were eating

horses, donkeys, dogs, and cats; and even for these they had to pay well,

the price of a cat being 45 livres. The poor were no longer able to go

and look for dead shellfish cast up by the tide and stranded in the mud,

for the guns of the besiegers made this dangerous. They had eaten up all

the green stuff and were reduced to boiling pieces of leather with fat

and moist sugar. Many left the town and would have given themselves up at

the outposts of the royal army; but they were sent back, so that the town

might not be enabled to hold out longer by having fewer mouths to feed.

The soldiers would take away their clothes and then drive them back to

the town with sticks or leather thongs. A great number of the inhabitants

had died from illness or privation. Even those who were defending the

town were so weak with hunger that they could only walk with sticks; they

could hardly drag themselves along and were quite unable to bear arms.

Often in the mornings sentinels were found dead of starvation at their

posts. Guiton still refused to surrender. He had some of those who wished

to capitulate imprisoned, and on the 22nd of July he had three or four

beheaded as traitors, and their heads placed on the gates of the town. On

the 9th of August the president of the presidial, an inferior court of

judicature, was imprisoned in his turn. The councillors were so alarmed

that two of them took refuge in the royal camp.

Louis XIII, hearing what great distress prevailed in La Rochelle, on the

16th of August sent a herald-at-arms to call upon the town to surrender.

This time it was a real herald in a tabard, cap on head, sceptre in hand.

Before him rode two trumpeters bearing waving pennants. They presented

themselves at one of the gates and asked to see the mayor. They were

kept waiting a long time; then, instead of the mayor, appeared a troop

of citizens and soldiers, whose leader told the herald with an oath to

go away at once, and pointed to his men’s guns ready cocked for firing.

The herald withdrew, placing on the ground two proclamations that he had

brought with him. The English fleet, on the point of sailing, had been

delayed by the murder of the duke of Buckingham. The longer the siege

went on the stronger became the temptation to fly to the royal camp;

and the chance of being killed seemed preferable to the certainty of

being starved to death. To rid themselves of these obtrusive fugitives

the besiegers adopted a cruel plan. They placed gibbets on the line of

circumvallation surrounding the town and every time a group of fugitives

arrived to give themselves up, they made them draw lots, and the one on

whom the lot fell was hanged while the rest were sent back to the town.

On the 29th of August Guiton read the citizens a letter from the king of

England saying that help was at hand. It was madness, he said, to hope

for mercy from the king of France: if the town surrendered it would be

sacked and the men massacred. They must stand firm as long as anyone

remained alive to shut the gates. “As for me,” he added, “if I am left

with only one other, and without food, I shall be quite willing to draw

lots to decide which of us is to eat the other.” On the 3rd of September,

Guiton, while speaking to the people who had assembled to hear the Sunday

sermon, was interrupted by a woman crying out that her child’s nurse

had not tasted food for a fortnight. Guiton to appease the crowd made a

pretence of negotiating. He sent two envoys to the king, who received

them fairly. But a native of La Rochelle, just arrived from England,

managed to make his way into the city in broad daylight and announced

that the English fleet was just setting sail; so again the negotiations

were broken off. A fortnight later, on the 28th of September, an English

fleet of 140 sail carrying 6,000 soldiers arrived, and taking up a

position before the harbour, tried to force the passage, which was

guarded by the French fleet. The French refugees asked to be allowed

to manage the fire-ships which were to be sent against their king. The

English wished to work them themselves, but the fire-ships proved a

failure, and would not act. They waited for a favourable wind, and on the

3rd of October began firing on the fleet and batteries of the besiegers.

The fighting continued for two days without much loss of life, and on

the evening of the 4th the English fleet withdrew to the isle of Aix. It

remained inactive for some days owing to stormy weather, and, when the

wind was once more favourable, the English, instead of making an attack,

sent an envoy to Richelieu.

Those inside La Rochelle, seeing they were deserted, resigned themselves

to the necessity of suing for peace. Richelieu received at the same time

the envoys from the town and those from the French Protestants on board

the English fleet. On the 29th of October the capitulation was signed,

the inhabitants of La Rochelle acknowledged the great offence of which

they had been guilty, “not only in resisting the just wishes of their

king, but in joining with foreigners who had taken up arms against the

state.” They begged the king to pardon them for this crime, and they

placed their town in his hands. The king, taking into consideration

“their repentance and protestations of sorrow,” promised them an amnesty,

the free exercise of their religion, and the restoration of any of their

property which had been confiscated. The officers and nobles might leave

the town wearing their swords, and the soldiers carrying white sticks,

and they would then be free. On the 30th of October the French army

entered La Rochelle and the garrison came out; they were reduced to

seventy-four Frenchmen and sixty-two English.[j]

Richelieu showed himself clement towards La Rochelle; there was

no vengeance taken, no victims were sacrificed. The town lost its

independence, which was, indeed, incompatible with the idea of

sovereignty; but its worship and its religious opinions were left free,

“the only avowed and open toleration,” says Hume[c] “which at that time

was granted in any European kingdom.”[d]

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTES

[86] [Henry, duke of Mayenne, son of that duke who was at one time the

head of the League.]

[87] [In Richelieu’s _Mémoires_, which he intended to serve as historical

material for his biography, it is stated that Richelieu in a single

interview dramatically placed this gigantic scheme before the young

king, and that Louis from this time was obedient to the minister. This,

however, is hardly in agreement with the facts. Richelieu seems hardly to

have found his policy at first; and he was not sure of Louis’ constancy

until after his success at La Rochelle.]

[Illustration]