The Poisoners—The Marchioness of Brinvilliers—Penautier—La
Voisin and her accomplices and dupes—The “Chambre Ardente”—The
Countess of Soissons—The Duchess of Bouillon—The Duke of
Luxembourg—Stephen de Bray—The Abbé Primi—Andrew Morell—Madame
Guyon—Courtils de Sandraz—Constantine de Renneville—The
Man with the Iron Mask—Jansenists—Tiron, Veillant,
and Lebrun Desmarets—The Count de Bucquoy—The Duke de
Richelieu—Miscellaneous Prisoners.
In the year 1676, the Bastile received a criminal, whose guilt was of the
blackest dye, and who was soon followed by a crowd of imitators, more
profoundly wicked, if possible, than she herself was. Poisoning was their
crime, and the practice of it became so common, that Madame de Sévigné
expresses a fear that, in foreign countries, the words Frenchman and
poisoner would be considered as synonymous.
Foremost in the dark catalogue stands the Marchioness of Brinvilliers,
the daughter of Dreux d’Aubrai, the Civil Lieutenant. She was beautiful,
reserved in her manners, and apparently devout; but her heart was
corrupted to the core. From her own confession, it appears, that when
she was only seven years old, she had already lost her maiden innocence,
and had also set fire to a house. Her later years were worthy of this
beginning. Between 1666 and 1670, she poisoned her father, two brothers,
a sister, and many of her acquaintance. She is said to have administered
poison to her husband, though without effect; and also, with fatal
success, to the poor, and the sick in the hospitals, to whom she gave
biscuits, in which deadly drugs were mixed. The latter facts are denied
by Voltaire; they are, however, positively affirmed by Madame de Sévigné.
The diabolical art which she so widely practised was learned from St.
Croix, a young officer, who was her paramour. He was a friend of her
husband, who, in opposition to her real or feigned remonstrances, made
him an inmate of his house. A criminal intimacy soon took place between
the wife and the friend. The husband, a man of dissipated habits,
seems to have been regardless of their intrigue; but her father was so
disgusted by its shameless publicity that he obtained a lettre-de-cachet,
and St. Croix was lodged in the Bastile, where he continued for twelve
months. There St. Croix was placed in the same apartment with Exili,
an Italian, who was confined on suspicion of being, as he really was,
a compounder and vender of poisons. Exili taught St. Croix all his
detestable secrets, and the latter communicated them to the marchioness,
who was a willing scholar.
St. Croix died suddenly in 1672, and, as he had no relatives, the
government took possession of his effects. Among them was a small box,
which was importunately claimed by the marchioness. It was opened, and
found to contain a note, desiring that it might be delivered, without the
contents being disturbed, to Madame de Brinvilliers. The box was filled
with poisons of all kinds, some of the marchioness’s letters to him, and
a note of hand to him, for 30,000 livres, bearing her signature.
Disappointed in all attempts to gain possession of the box, and finding
that suspicion began to fall heavily upon her, Brinvilliers took flight.
After having visited England, she fixed her residence at Liege. Fresh
presumptions of her guilt having arisen, it was resolved to arrest her.
Desgrais, the exempt of police, was accordingly despatched to Liege.
He disguised himself as an Abbé, pretended to be enamoured of her,
insinuated himself into her good graces, and ultimately succeeded in
seizing the lady and her papers, and conveying them to Paris.
Brinvilliers now disavowed all knowledge of the box; but it was too
late. For a little while her spirits deserted her, and she made an
ineffectual attempt at suicide. She, however, soon rallied them, and
preserved her courage to the last. Among her papers was found a written
confession of the numerous crimes which she had committed. To extort an
oral confession, it was resolved to put her to the ordinary question,
which consisted in forcing down the throat of the culprit an immense
quantity of water. When she saw three buckets in the torture room, she
coolly observed, “This must be for the purpose of drowning me, for they
can never expect to make a woman of my size drink it all.” She was saved
from the trial, by making a full avowal of her misdeeds. Her sentence she
heard with an unaltered countenance. In the last twenty-four hours of
her existence she is said to have manifested sincere penitence. She was
beheaded, and her remains were burned, on the 16th of July, 1676. It will
perhaps scarcely be believed that, on the morrow, the besotted populace
collected her ashes; assigning as their reason for so doing, that she was
a saint!
With Brinvilliers was implicated Penautier, who held the lucrative
offices of treasurer-general of the clergy, and of the states of
Languedoc. He was known to be her intimate friend, and was believed,
apparently with reason, to be one of her favoured lovers. It is asserted,
that in the box which was left by St. Croix, there was a packet of
poison, addressed to Penautier. That the receiver-general had the
reputation of making use of such packets is certain, and was a subject
of public jest. Cardinal de Bonzi, archbishop of Narbonne, who was his
strenuous protector, used to say laughingly, “None of those who have
pensions on my benefices are long-lived, for my star is fatal to them
all.” The caustic Abbé Fouquet one day saw the prelate and Penautier in
a carriage together, and he told everybody that he had just met Cardinal
de Bonzi and his star. Penautier was imprisoned, and appears to have been
in imminent danger; from which he is said to have been extricated only by
the most powerful influence, and the sacrifice of half his riches.
Instead of operating as a warning, the execution of the marchioness would
rather seem to have stimulated others to the commission of the horrible
species of crime for which she suffered. After her death, poisoning is
said to have become prevalent to an extraordinary degree. Loud complaints
arose from numbers of families, members of which were supposed to have
been taken off secretly by their enemies, or by those who were eager to
inherit their riches. It was with reference to the latter motive that
the name of “powder of succession” was given to the drug administered.
We may believe that the complaints were not unfrequently groundless—for
it has always been the practice of weak minds to ascribe sudden death to
poison—but still, it is certain that there were very many cases in which
the suspicion was borne out by facts.
So general did the clamour become, that, in January, 1660, the king
issued an ordinance, naming commissioners, who were to hold their
sittings at the Arsenal, for the purpose of trying poisoners and
magicians! This commission is known by the name of _la Chambre Ardente_.
It has been supposed, that it derived this appellation from its being
established to take cognizance of crimes which were punishable by fire.
This appears to be a mistake; the name having, in old times, been given
to the hall in which criminals of high birth were tried, and which was
so called because it was hung with black, and lighted with torches. The
same title was, however, borne by a sort of committee, which Francis II.
instituted in each parliament, for the trial of protestants, and which
mercilessly condemned them to the flames.
The principal distributor of the poisons, a widow, by the name of
Monvoisin, but who was known under the appellation of La Voisin,
was already in the Bastile, with about forty persons charged as her
accomplices. The most prominent of these subordinate culprits were, a
female, named La Vigoureux, and her brother, and Cœuvrit, a priest,
who was called Lesage. La Voisin was a midwife; but her profession not
proving lucrative, she deserted it for the more profitable speculation of
turning to account the credulity, the folly, and at last the vices, of
mankind. The most innocent part of her employment consisted in telling
fortunes on the cards, discovering stolen goods, casting nativities, and
selling charms and spells, to render women beautiful and beloved, and men
invulnerable and fortunate! Her pretensions to supernatural skill did not
stop here; for she boldly undertook to show spirits, and even the devil
himself, to her dupes. Such is the cullibility of the crowd, whether of
high or low degree, that the number of her visitors, the majority of whom
were people of rank, soon enabled her to remove from a mean lodging into
a splendid mansion, and keep an equipage and a train of attendants. That
her house was made a convenience for the purposes of seduction, and for
carrying on illicit connexions, there can be no doubt; many of those who
frequented it, of both sexes, being notorious profligates. The round of
La Voisin’s occupations was completed by the sale of poisons to those who
were desirous of destroying the proof of incontinence, taking vengeance
on a rival or an enemy, or getting rid of superannuated husbands and
long-lived relatives.
The newly-established tribunal found the whole of the prisoners guilty.
All but La Voisin were condemned to punishments short of death; to
imprisonment, exile, or the galleys. She alone was sentenced to be burned
alive on the Place de Grêve, and her ashes scattered to the winds. The
narrative of her last hours proves that, to a considerable portion of
brutal courage, or rather insensibility, she added the most disgusting
sensuality, vulgarity, and impiety. When she was informed of her doom,
she invited her guards to have a midnight revel with her, at which she
drank largely of wine, and sang twenty bacchanalian songs. The next
evening, after having undergone the question, she repeated the revel; and
when she was told that she had better think on God, and sing hymns, she
sang two hymns in a burlesque style. On the morning of her execution, she
was enraged at being refused any other food than soup. Before she was
placed in the sledge, she was advised to confess; but she obstinately
refused, and thrust away from her the confessor and the cross. At Nôtre
Dame, it was impossible to make her repeat the amende honorable, and when
she reached the Grêve she struggled furiously against the officers, and
it was not without using force that they could take her from the vehicle,
bind her, and place her on the pile. Consistent to the last, she several
times kicked off the straw, poured forth a volley of oaths, and did not
cease her violence till the flames deprived her of the power of motion
and speech.
Either with the hope of obtaining impunity, by implicating the great and
powerful in her crimes, or, which her character renders more probable,
that she might enjoy the malignant delight of involving them in her
ruin, La Voisin disclosed the names of many of the noblest personages
of the court, who had consulted her; and she stated circumstances which
gave rise to terrible suspicions against them. Among those whom she thus
dragged into public view, were the Countess of Soissons and the Duchess
of Bouillon, nieces of Cardinal Mazarin, the Princess de Tingri, Madame
de Polignac, and the Duke of Luxembourg. Against some of the suspected or
accused individuals, the Chamber issued warrants; others it summoned to
appear, and answer interrogatories.
The Countess of Soissons, mother of the celebrated Prince Eugene, was a
woman whose reputation was already sullied by the stains of political
and amorous intrigue. Among the crimes which were attributed to her,
was the death of her husband, who died suddenly in 1673. In her early
years, before he became enamoured of her sister Mary, Louis had paid her
some attentions. It was probably the remembrance of his transient flame
that induced him to send to the countess a message, that if she were
innocent he advised her to enter the Bastile, in which case he would
befriend her, but that, if she were guilty, she might retire wherever
she pleased. She replied that she was blameless, but that she could not
endure imprisonment. The countess immediately set off for Brussels, and
she never returned to France. It would, however, be doing her injustice
to conceal, that she offered to come back and justify herself, on
condition that she should not be confined while the trial was pending.
The condition was not granted, and she died in exile, in 1708.
The Duchess of Bouillon, her sister, passed through the ordeal more
triumphantly. There is something amusing in the flippant contempt with
which she treated her judges. The carriages of nine dukes went in
procession with her to the Chambre Ardente, into which she was handed
by her husband and the Duke of Vendôme. Before she would take notice of
any question that was put to her, she ordered the clerk to minute down,
“that she came there solely out of respect to the king’s orders, and not
at all to the Chamber, which she would not recognize, because she would
not derogate from the privilege of the ducal class.” She then answered,
but with no small disdain, the various questions, some of which were,
in truth, ridiculous enough. Her reason for going to La Voisin’s house
was, she said, that she wished to see the Sibyls, which that female had
promised to show her. La Reynie, one of the judges, being absurd enough
to ask if she had seen the devil, she replied that she saw him at that
moment, that he was very ugly and filthy, and was disguised in the garb
of a counsellor of state. As she quitted the court, she said aloud, that
she had never before heard so many foolish speeches so gravely uttered.
There being nothing more to urge against her than that she had been
credulous and sillily curious, no further proceedings were taken by the
court, but, angry at her having made laughing-stocks of his magistrates,
Louis sent her in exile to Nerac, in the distant province of Guienne.
If in France military talents of the highest order, and important
services rendered to the state, had possessed any protecting influence,
Francis Henry de Montmorenci, Duke of Luxembourg, would not have been
made a prisoner, and nearly a victim, by an implacable and unprincipled
minister. Luxembourg was the posthumous son of that Bouteville whom,
in a preceding chapter, we have seen consigned to the scaffold for the
crime of duelling. He was warmly patronised by the Princess of Condé,
who placed him as aide-de-camp to her son. The young Condé soon became
attached to him. At the battle of Lens, Bouteville distinguished himself
so greatly, that, though he was not more than twenty, Anne of Austria
made him a major-general.
During the war of the Fronde, Bouteville followed the fortunes of Condé;
he joined the Spaniards with him, acquired in numerous encounters a
well-merited reputation, and, finally, returned to his allegiance along
with his friend. There is an anecdote recorded of him, on the latter
occasion, which is much to his honour. After Bouteville had ceased to
bear arms against France, the Spanish monarch sent him 60,000 crowns, as
a reward for his services. He refused to take the money: “I never,” said
he, “considered myself in the service of Spain, and will receive favours
only from my own sovereign.” Soon after this, he married the heiress
of the house of Luxembourg, by which union he gained a dukedom, and a
splendid fortune. If we may believe St. Simon, rank and riches were all
that the husband derived from this match, the lady being “frightfully
ugly, both in figure and face,” and not at all atoning for her personal
defects by intellectual qualities. As far as regarded beauty, the pair
had no right to reproach each other; for Luxembourg himself had repulsive
features, a prominence on his chest, and another behind.
Between 1667 and 1679, Luxembourg, sometimes commander-in-chief,
sometimes as second to the great Condé and the Duke of Orleans,
displayed, in Franche Comté, Holland, and Flanders, a degree of skill
which gave him a conspicuous place in the first class of generals: in
fact, Turenne having fallen, and Condé retired, Luxembourg had no equal
in France. The marshal’s staff was conferred on him in 1675.
But neither the ancient descent, nor the high rank, nor the still higher
renown, of Luxembourg, were sufficient to shield him from the malice
of his potent enemy. That enemy was Louvois,—Louvois, the perpetual
inciter of Louis to war, the director of the horrible crimes committed
by the French troops in Holland, and the incendiary of the Palatinate.
He was, at one time, the friend of Luxembourg, but they quarrelled; and
he thenceforth hated him, with even a more deadly hatred than he had
cherished against Turenne. The affair of the poisoners seemed to afford
him an opportunity, which he eagerly seized, of disgracing, and perhaps
destroying, the duke.
It was by a credulous belief in the power of pretended sorcerers, that
Luxembourg was brought into peril. Bonnard, clerk to one of his lawyers,
had lost some papers, which were indispensable to the success of a
lawsuit instituted by the duke. To recover them, he applied to Lesage,
one of the confederates of La Voisin. Lesage required 2,000 crowns,
and the performance of certain mummeries by Bonnard; and his demand
was granted. The papers were then found to be in the hands of a girl
named Dupin, who refused to give them up. A power of attorney was now
obtained from the duke, by Bonnard, authorizing steps to be taken against
Dupin, to compel her to resign the papers. This he gave to Lesage, who,
between the body of the document and the signature, inserted two lines,
containing a transfer of the duke’s soul to his Satanic majesty. Luckily,
the clumsy forger had written these lines in a hand writing quite
different from that of the instrument itself. This compact with the devil
formed the main proof against Luxembourg. He appears, indeed, to have
afforded a further pretext for suspicion, by his weakness in applying to
Lesage for the horoscopes of various individuals.
It was on this slender foundation that the plot against him was built.
When his name began to be called in question, he is said to have been
insidiously counselled by Louvois, to save himself by flight. The brave
Cavoie, who was his friend, proved himself to be so, by advising him
to surrender himself voluntarily to the Bastile; and this advice was
wisely followed by the duke. On his arrival there, he was placed in a
comfortable chamber, and, on the second day, he underwent a preliminary
interrogation. But it was not the intention of the minister who had
driven him into a prison, that he should enjoy any comfort there; and
accordingly, on the third day, he was removed to one of the filthiest of
dungeons, not more than six feet and a half in diameter, and no further
notice was taken of him for five weeks. He claimed his privilege, as a
peer, of being tried by the Parliament, but no attention was paid to his
claim, and he was obliged to be contented with protesting against this
denial of justice. It was afterwards made a subject of reproach to him,
by some of the peers, that he had not stood up with sufficient boldness
for the rights of the peerage.
Luxembourg remained for fourteen months in the noisome den into which
Louvois had thrown him. The fetid atmosphere which he breathed, the want
of exercise, and the disturbed state of his mind, brought on a fit of
illness, and so much injured his constitution that he never thoroughly
recovered. It must have been no small aggravation of his sufferings, that
he was occasionally drawn forth, to be confronted with the profligate
Lesage, and others of the same class, and to hear them impudently charge
him with the foulest crimes. Lesage maintained, that the duke had entered
into the compact with Satan for the purpose of procuring the death of
Dupin; his accomplices added, that by his order they had murdered her,
cut the body into quarters, and thrown it into the river. Besides this
improbable story, they told another, equally improbable, that he had
given poisoned wine to a brother of Dupin, and to a mistress whom that
brother kept, and had endeavoured to destroy several persons by means of
sorcery. Their depositions may, indeed, contest the palm of absurdity and
falsehood with those of Titus Oates and his perjured associates.
This, however, was not all. It would seem, from their evidence, that
the duke had driven a hard bargain with the prince of darkness, for
they asserted that the compact was designed not only to bring about the
murder of Dupin, but also to obtain the government of a province or a
fortress, and the marriage of his son with the daughter of Louvois. In a
letter to a friend, Luxembourg has left on record his dignified answer
to the last of these stupid calumnies. After treating with ridicule the
idea that he would sell his soul for a government, he says, with respect
to the remainder, “I replied that when the villain (Lesage) told such an
untruth, he did not know that I was of a family which did not purchase
alliances by crimes; that it would have been a great honour to me had
my son married Mdlle. de Louvois, but that I would not have adopted for
the purpose any means which would have subjected me to self-reproach;
and that when Matthew de Montmorenci espoused a queen of France, the
mother of a minor king, he did not give himself to the devil for this
marriage, since the thing was done by a resolution of the States General,
who declared that, to gain for the monarch the services of the lords of
Montmorenci, it was necessary to form this union. It was even out of
delicacy that I used the word _services_, for I believe that, in the
declaration, the word _protection_ is used.”
Such testimony as was produced against Luxembourg was not deemed by his
judges sufficient to warrant his conviction, even though a minister
of state was eager for his ruin. He was, in consequence, set free on
the 14th of May, 1680. Notwithstanding the duke’s acquittal, Louis
banished him from the court, and he remained in exile till the summer
of 1681, when he was recalled, and resumed his duties as captain of
the body-guards. It is somewhat remarkable, that Louis never made the
slightest allusion to what had passed.
For ten years, Luxembourg remained without a command. In 1690, however,
Louis himself placed him at the head of the army in Flanders. Luxembourg
had scarcely taken the field, before he gained the splendid victory of
Fleurus. The fall of Namur, or of Charleroi, would probably have been
the result of this success, had he not been thwarted by the malignant
Louvois, who forbade his besieging either of those fortresses, and
deprived him of the best part of his army, to reinforce Boufflers. In the
succeeding campaigns, Luxembourg pursued his triumphant progress, and
won the battles of Leuze, Steenkirk, and Neerwinden. Such a number of
standards were taken, and sent to be hung up in the cathedral of Nôtre
Dame, at Paris, that the Prince of Conti wittily denominated him “the
tapestry-hanger of Nôtre Dame.” Irritated by his defeats, William III. is
said to have exclaimed, “Am I never to beat that hunchback?” “Hunchback!”
said the duke, when he was told of this speech, “what does he know about
it? He has never seen my back!” The career of Luxembourg was abruptly
closed, by an illness of only five days, on the 4th of January, 1695.
Several persons of distinction were censured by the “Chambre Ardente,”
and were, in consequence, forbidden the court, or sent into exile. Among
the latter was Madame de Polignac. The monarch was so decidedly hostile
to her, that, five years afterwards, he spoke of her with unmeasured
severity, and interfered to prevent the marriage of her son with Mdlle.
de Rambures. It was said, that she had once formed the scheme of giving
him a philtre, to inspire him with a passion for her.
One of the humbler class of culprits who was imprisoned in the Bastile,
and who finally suffered the extreme sentence of the law, was Stephen de
Bray, described as the accomplice of James Dechaux and Jane Chanfrain,
who were perhaps rivals of La Voisin and her confederates in their
detestable trade. The crimes alleged against him were blasphemy,
sacrilege, and poisoning, and he was burned at the Grêve.
From poisoners, and mercenary pretenders to sorcery, we turn to an
adventurer of a less noxious species. The Abbé Primi was a native of
Bologna, in which city his father was a cap-maker. He had acuteness, wit,
and a pleasing person, and with these mental and corporeal qualities
he hoped to make his way at Paris. On his journey thither he became
acquainted with a man of talent, named Duval. One of the travellers in
the coach smelt so offensively that the others were anxious to get rid
of him; and accordingly Duval and Primi secretly concerted a scheme for
that purpose. Primi was to pretend to the gift of foretelling, from only
seeing a person’s handwriting, what had happened, and would happen, to
him. Primi, being questioned by Duval on this head, gave him elaborate
answers, which the latter admitted to be correct. Specimens of the
penmanship of the rest of the travellers, who were in the plot, were then
handed to Primi, and, of course, they were satisfied with the result. The
obnoxious passenger at length begged the oracular Italian to do for him
the same favour that he had done for the rest. When Primi looked at the
paper, he pretended to be shocked, and hastily gave it back, declining to
say more than that “he hoped he was mistaken.” The applicant, however,
solicited so earnestly to know his fate, that Primi told him he was
destined to be assassinated at Paris, if he went thither. This startling
intelligence produced the designed effect; the strong-scented querist
took the first opportunity to discontinue his journey, and return to his
home.
When they reached Paris, Duval presented Primi to the Abbé de la Baume,
who was afterwards archbishop of Embrun; and the abbé introduced him to
the Duke of Vendôme, and his brother, the Grand Prior. The trick played
off in the stage was talked over, and it was agreed that a repetition
of it in the French capital would be productive of infinite amusement.
Primi was therefore kept carefully secluded, for nearly two months, till
he had learned by heart the genealogy and the secret history of most of
the persons about the court. When he had obtained a thorough knowledge of
their connexions, amours, rivalships, enmities, and presumed motives, his
skill in his novel kind of divination was spread about by his employers,
and all the rank and fashion of France soon flocked to consult him.
Among the distinguished females who patronized him, were the Countess
of Soissons and the Duchess of Orleans; the latter of whom Primi firmly
convinced of his powers, by mentioning many circumstances relative to
her correspondence with the Count de Guiche. The duchess prevailed on
Louis XIV. to let her show his handwriting to the Italian. To her utter
astonishment, Primi no sooner saw it than he declared it to be written
by a miserly curmudgeon, who was not possessed of a single good quality.
When she returned the paper to Louis, and told him what Primi had said,
the king was no less astonished than she was. The paper was indeed
written by a man of whom his enemies spoke in the same manner as Primi.
It was the handwriting of Rose, the king’s cabinet secretary, who wrote
exactly like Louis, and whom he often employed to answer letters, that
he might himself avoid trouble. To get at the bottom of this mystery,
the king ordered Primi to be brought into his cabinet. “Primi,” said the
monarch, “I have only two words to say—disclose to me your secret, for
which I will pay you with a pension of two thousand livres—or else make
up your mind to be hanged.” There was no resisting the bribe and the
threat, and Primi consequently related his own history, and all that had
come to his knowledge since he had lived in the capital. On going into
the queen’s apartment, Louis mentioned, before the courtiers, that he had
admitted Primi to an interview, and he added, “I must acknowledge that
he told me things which no being of his kind has ever before revealed to
any one.” This strong testimony to the merit of Primi contributed not a
little to enhance his reputation.
The pension granted to him by Louis placed Primi above the necessity of
resorting to deception for a livelihood; nor, indeed, was the part which
he had been playing one which could be carried on for any length of
time. He married the daughter of Frederic Leonard, an eminent Parisian
printer, and sought to gain reputation by chronicling the actions of the
French monarch. In an Italian narrative, which he wrote, of the Dutch
campaign of Louis, he divulged the secret of the private treaty between
that monarch and our Charles II. For this he was sent to the Bastile;
but he was soon released, and received an ample present. The publication
is believed to have, in fact, been authorized by the king, to punish
the defection of Charles; the imprisonment of the author being merely a
blind, to prevent his master from being suspected.
Louvois, who will for ever be infamously remembered for his outrages
upon humanity, was the tyrant who twice consigned to the Bastile the
celebrated medallist, Andrew Morell. Berne was the native place of
Morell, who was born in 1646. He was remarkable for his memory and
acuteness. The study of history led him to that of numismatics, in which
he made an almost unequalled progress; and he learned drawing, in order
to render his medallic knowledge more perfect and available. Charles
Patin, the son of Guy, then an exile from France, who was himself no mean
numismatist, became acquainted with Morell, and aided him by his counsel
and purse. It was probably by his advice that, in 1680, Morell visited
Paris, where he met with a warm reception from the most distinguished men
of learning and science. Encouraged by them, he undertook the laborious
task of publishing a description of all the antique medals which were
contained in the numerous cabinets of Europe. As a prelude, he gave a
specimen to the world. But his scheme was interrupted, for the moment,
by a circumstance which would ultimately have benefited it, had he not
been ungenerously treated. He was appointed coadjutor of Rainssart,
the keeper of the king’s medals. In assiduously arranging and reducing
to order the vast collection which was placed under his care, he spent
several years. When he claimed his promised reward it was withheld, and,
on his venturing to resent this breach of faith, he was committed to the
Bastile, in 1688, by Louvois. His friends obtained his release; but, in
little more than twelve months, he was again immured in that prison,
probably for the same reason as before. Yet, while he was thus persecuted
by an arrogant minister, he continued to enjoy the esteem of Louis XIV.;
a curious fact, which proves how strong was the influence of Louvois
over his master. While he was in the Bastile, his colleague died, and he
was offered the vacant place of sole keeper of the king’s cabinet, on
condition that he would change his religion. Morell, however, rejected
the offer.
It was not till 1691, nor till the government of Berne had interfered
in his behalf, that Morell was set free. Disgusted with the treatment
which he had experienced, he returned to his native country. His
subsequent existence was embittered by severe bodily suffering. His
health was so much injured by confinement, and by vexation at his
favourite project being frustrated, that palsy deprived him of the use
of one side, and rendered him incapable of handling pen or pencil. He
was somewhat recovered, and had acquired the patronage of the Count of
Schwartzenburg-Armstadt, a lover of medals, when he was overturned in a
carriage, and one of his shoulders dislocated. This accident brought on
another attack of palsy, to which he fell a victim in 1703. The materials
for his unfinished work were arranged and published, by Havercamp, in
1734, with the title of “Thesaurus Morellianus.” Another of his works, a
“Numismatic History of the Twelve Emperors,” was given to the public, in
1753, by Havercamp, Schlegel, and Gori, who overlaid it with a ponderous
mass of confused and discordant commentaries.
The doctrines of Quietism, the origin of which may be traced to oriental
climes, but of which a Spanish monk, Michael Molinos, was the European
apostle, and finally the victim, were espoused by one of the most amiable
of French enthusiasts, and they brought on her, as they had brought on
him, calumny, persecution, and imprisonment. Madam Guyon, whose maiden
name was Bouvier de la Motte, was born at Montargis, in 1648. Even in
very early youth she had a strong tendency to mysticism, and would have
adopted a monastic life, had her parents not prevented her. At sixteen
she was married; at eight-and-twenty she became a widow. The visionary
ideas which she had cherished before marriage now resumed their empire,
and a powerful stimulus was given to them by her confessor, and by the
titular bishop of Geneva, and other ecclesiastics, all of whom laboured
to fill her with the belief that Heaven had destined her to play an
extraordinary part for the advancement of religion. “Left a widow when
she was still tolerably young,” says Voltaire, “with riches, beauty, and
a mind fitted for society, she became infatuated with what is called
_spiritualism_. A monk of Anneci, near Geneva, named Lacombe, was her
director. This man, characterized by a not uncommon mixture of passions
and religion, and who died mad, plunged the mind of his penitent into
the mystic reveries by which it was already affected. The longing desire
to be a French St. Theresa did not allow her to perceive how different
the French character is from the Spanish, and made her go much further
than St. Theresa. The ambition of having disciples, which is perhaps the
strongest of all the kinds of ambition, took entire possession of her
heart.” In ascribing such a motive to Madame Guyon, Voltaire does her
wrong, there not being a shadow of a reason for supposing that she was
actuated by any thing but a sincere though erroneous belief, that she was
fulfilling a solemn duty. He is more correct in the description which
he gives of her doctrines. “She taught a complete renunciation of self,
the silence of the soul, the annihilation of all its faculties, internal
worship, and the pure and disinterested love of God, which is neither
degraded by fear, nor animated by the hope of reward.” It must be owned
that, both in language and ideas, she often fell into enormous absurdity,
in her efforts to explain and enforce these doctrines.
For five years Madame Guyon wandered through Piedmont, Dauphiny, and
the adjacent provinces, spreading her opinions by the press as well
as by oral Communication. As was to be expected, she made many ardent
proselytes, and not a few enemies. In 1686 she returned to Paris, and
continued her labours, and was left unmolested for two years. At length
she attracted the notice of the archbishop of Paris, who affected to be
shocked at the resemblance which her tenets bore to those of Molinos.
The see of Paris was at that time filled by Harlay de Chamvallon,
an individual infamously celebrated for his profligate debauchery.
This prelate, who certainly was not likely to comprehend a pure and
disinterested love of God, or of man or woman either, procured Lacombe
to be sent to the Bastile as a seducer, and Madame Guyon to the
Visitandines convent. At the Visitandines she was generally beloved, and
made several converts. She was soon after snatched from the clutches of
Harlay by Madame de Maintenon, who admitted her at St. Cyr, and became
much attached to her. It was at St. Cyr that she was also introduced to
Fenelon; a friendship took place between them which nothing could ever
shake.
But though Fenelon continued true to his friend, Madame de Maintenon
ultimately deserted her. This desertion was the work of Godet-Desmarais,
bishop of Chartres, who was the religious director of St. Cyr and of
Madame de Maintenon. The mind of the king was also poisoned against her;
and she was exposed to a long series of persecutions, not the least
painful of which was a slanderous attack on her character, made in the
form of a letter from Lacombe, exhorting her to repent of their criminal
intimacy. Lacombe was then insane. So irreproachable, however, was her
conduct, that her innocence was universally acknowledged.
In 1695 she was sent to Vincennes, whence she was removed to the Bastile;
but she was released through the intervention of Noailles, who had
succeeded the shameless Harlay in the archbishopric of Paris. In 1698
she was again immured in the Bastile, and was not liberated till 1702.
After her liberation, she was exiled to Blois, where, for fifteen years,
her patience, piety, and charity, were admired by every one. She died in
1717, at the age of sixty-nine.
Influenced by prejudice, Voltaire has been unjust to Madame Guyon;
he denies that she possessed talent, and sneeringly says, that “she
wrote verses like Cotin, and prose like Punchinello.” This is not the
first time that truth has been sacrificed, for the sake of giving an
epigrammatic turn to a sentence. To the opinion of Voltaire may be
opposed that of the shrewd Duke of St. Simon, which is very different.
Nor is it probable that Fenelon would have held in high estimation
a mere senseless enthusiast. That in her writings, which extend to
nine-and-thirty volumes, much erroneous reasoning, mystic jargon, and
even nonsense, may be found, admits of no dispute; but they also contain
many fine sentiments strikingly expressed. That she was endowed with
a prevailing eloquence appears to be undeniable. There is an anecdote
recorded of her which proves, likewise, that in the common business of
life, she was possessed of a large share of penetration and sound sense.
She was chosen as sole umpire in a cause in which she and twenty-two of
her relations were interested. After thirty days’ close investigation of
the documents and claims, she drew up an award, which received the prompt
and full approbation of all the contending parties. It may be doubted,
whether there have been many arbitrators who have given such universal
satisfaction as Madame Guyon.
About the time that Madame Guyon was released from the Bastile, that
prison became the abode of Gatien de Courtils de Sandraz, a fertile
writer, but whose productions are, for the most part, of a class which
merits censure rather than praise. This author, a Parisian, born in
1644, must be reckoned among those who poison the sources of history.
“He was,” says Voltaire, “one of the most culpable writers of this
kind. He inundated Europe with fictions under the name of histories.”
Many of those fictions profess to be written by persons who, during the
reigns of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., had borne a part in affairs of
state and court intrigues. More than forty volumes of memoirs of this
sort, biographies, romances, and political tracts, were produced by
his indefatigable pen. He was originally a captain in the regiment of
Champagne, but went to Holland in 1683, and staid in that country for
five years. It was while he was there that he gave some of his earliest
works to the press. In 1689, the partiality which he manifested on the
side of France occasioned him to be sent out of the Dutch territory,
and he went to Paris, where he continued till 1694. He then returned to
Holland, where he continued for eight years. In 1702, he went back to his
native land, but his reception was calculated to make him regret having
done so. He was immediately sent to the Bastile, where he languished for
nine years, during the first three of which he was very harshly treated.
His offence is not known; but his Annals of Paris and the court, in which
he attacked the character of some powerful personages, are conjectured to
have been the cause of his imprisonment. His decease took place in 1712.
Of those who suffered in the Bastile very few indeed revealed to the
world the secrets of the prison-house. The first who disclosed them was
René Augustus Constantine de Renneville, a Norman gentleman, who was born
at Caen, in 1650. De Renneville was the youngest of ten brothers, seven
of whom fell in the service of their country. After having borne arms in,
and retired from, the mousquetaires, he was patronised by Chamillart,
one of the ministers, who employed him in various confidential affairs,
and rewarded him by a respectable and lucrative office in Normandy. De
Renneville passed several years in his native province, filling up by
literary pursuits his intervals of leisure from his official duties.
The persecution of the protestants, of whom he was one, drove him, in
1699, into Holland. Being, however, unable to find there a satisfactory
establishment for his family, he yielded to the solicitations of
Chamillart, and returned, in 1702, to France. The minister received him
with open arms, gave him a pension, and promised him the first place
that might become vacant in his own department. But the scene soon
changed. Envy was excited by the reception which he had met with, and it
quickly found or made the means of crushing him. Some years before, in
a splenetic mood, he had written some _bouts rimés_, which were by no
means complimentary to France. As, however, this would hardly authorize
a heavy punishment, he was accused of being a spy, and of keeping up a
correspondence with foreign powers. In consequence of this he was sent
to the Bastile, in May 1702. He was placed in a wretched chamber, dirty,
gloomy, and swarming with fleas, and his bed was overrun with vermin of
a more disgusting kind. He was nevertheless tolerably well treated by
his jailers till after the escape of Count de Bucquoy, in which he was
supposed to have assisted. On this supposition he was thrown into one
of the worst dungeons of the fortress, where he remained till life was
nearly extinct. He tells us that his only sustenance was bread and water,
and that his sleeping place was the bare ground, where, without straw, or
even a stone to lay his head on, he lay stretched in the mire, and the
slaver of the toads. His situation when he was taken out was pitiable.
“My eyes,” says he, “were almost out of my head, my nose was as large
as a middling-sized cucumber, more than half my teeth, which previously
were very good, had fallen out by scurvy, my mouth was swelled, and
entirely covered with an eruption, and my bones came through my skin in
more than twenty places.” His captivity lasted for some years after his
removal from the dungeon, and as though he was not again reduced to the
same degree of misery, he was treated with much harshness. He bore his
misfortune with courage, and solaced his lonely hours by reading and
composition. His pen was a small bone, his ink was lampblack mixed with
wine, and he wrote between the lines, and on the margins, of books which
he had concealed. Under these disadvantages, he composed several works of
considerable length. Among these works was a “Treatise on the Duties of
a faithful Christian.” They were taken away from him by his persecutors,
and he deeply regretted the loss of them. After having been confined
for eleven years, he was set at liberty; but was ordered to quit France
for ever. It would have been strange had he wished to remain there.
De Renneville sought an asylum in England, where George I. gave him a
pension; and in 1715 he published his “French Inquisition, or the History
of the Bastile,” which went through three or four editions, and was
translated into various languages. It was probably at the instigation of
those who were branded in this book, that he was attacked in the street
by three cut-throats, whom, however, he bravely repulsed. De Renneville
was living in 1724; but the time and place of his decease are not known.
Among his works is a Collection of Voyages for the establishment, &c., of
the Dutch East India Company.
The next prisoner comes before us wrapped in such a mysterious cloud,
that he scarcely seems to wear the aspect of a being of this world. His
birth, his name, his country, his crime, are all unknown; all that we
really know of him is, that he was long a captive, and that he died. It
cannot be necessary to say, that the problematical individual alluded to
is the personage who is distinguished by the appellation of “The Man with
the Iron Mask.”
There appears to have been in France, during the first forty years of
the 18th century, a sort of indistinct tradition respecting a masked
prisoner, who had been in various state prisons. It was not, however,
till 1745 that any attempt was made to lift the veil which covered
the subject. In that year came out “Mémoires secrets pour servir à
l’histoire de Perse,” in which French characters were described under
oriental names. In these memoirs, which have been ascribed to several
writers, among whom is Voltaire, some particulars are given relative to
the masked man, and he is asserted to have been the Count de Vermandois,
natural son of Louis XIV., confined by his father for having struck the
dauphin.
The Memoirs gave rise to a controversy, and to an extravagant romance by
the Chevalier de Mouhy; but nothing definite was brought forward till
1751, when Voltaire published, under a feigned name, the first edition
of his “Age of Louis XIV.” Here he threw a ray of light on a part of the
question, leaving, however, the rest in as much darkness as ever.
“Some months after the decease of this minister (Mazarin) there
happened,” says he, “an event which has no parallel, and what is no
less singular is, that all the historians have been ignorant of it.
There was sent, with the utmost secrecy, to the castle of the isle of
St. Margaret, on the coast of Provence, an unknown prisoner, above the
common stature, young, and of a most handsome and noble figure. During
the journey, this prisoner wore a mask, the lower half of which had
steel springs, which allowed him to eat while the mask was on his face.
Orders were given to kill him if he uncovered himself. He remained in
the isle till a confidential officer, of the name of St. Marc, governor
of Pignerol, having been made governor of the Bastile in 1690, went to
the isle of St. Margaret to fetch him, and conducted him to the Bastile,
always masked. The Marquis de Louvois went to see him in that isle
before his removal, and spoke to him standing, and with a deference
which bordered on respect. This unknown personage was taken to the
Bastile, where he was lodged as comfortably as it was possible to be in
that fortress. Nothing that he asked for was refused. His predominant
taste was for linen of extreme fineness, and for lace. He played on the
guitar. His table was profusely served, and the governor rarely took a
seat in his presence. An old physician of the Bastile, who had often
attended this singular man when he was ill, said that he had never seen
his face, though he had frequently examined his tongue, and the rest of
his person. He was admirably made, said this physician; his skin was
rather brown; he excited an interest by the mere tone of his voice, but
never complained of his situation, nor gave any hint of who he was. This
unknown individual died in 1703, and was buried at night in the parish of
St. Paul’s.
“What renders these circumstances doubly astonishing is, that at the
time when he was sent to the isle of St. Margaret no eminent personage
disappeared in Europe. Yet that the prisoner was one is beyond all
doubt, for the following event took place during an early period of his
residence in the isle. The governor himself put the dishes on the table,
and then withdrew, after having locked him in. The prisoner one day
wrote with his knife on a silver plate, and threw the plate out of the
window, towards a boat, which was near the shore, almost at the foot of
the tower. A fisherman, to whom the boat belonged, picked up the plate,
and took it to the governor. Greatly astonished, the latter asked the
fisherman, ‘Have you read what is written on this plate, or has anybody
seen you with it?’—‘I cannot read,’ replied the fisherman, ‘I have only
just found it, and nobody has seen it,’ This countryman was detained till
the governor was thoroughly convinced that he could not read, and that no
one had seen the plate. ‘You may go now,’ said he, ‘and think yourself
lucky that you know not how to read.’ Of the persons who had a direct
knowledge of this fact there is one, of undoubted veracity, who is still
living. M. de Chamillart was the last minister who was intrusted with
this strange secret. The second Marshal de Feuillade, his son-in-law,
told me that, when his father-in-law was on his death-bed, he begged him
on his knees to tell him who was the man who was never known by any other
name than that of the man with the iron mask. Chamillart replied that it
was a state secret, and that he had taken an oath never to reveal it.
There are, besides, others of my contemporaries who can testify to my
statement, and I know no fact which is more extraordinary or more firmly
established.”
At a later period, Voltaire, in the “Philosophical Dictionary,” corrected
some trifling errors which he had made in his account of the masked
prisoner. He states that the captive was first confined at Pignerol,
whence he was removed to the isle of St. Margaret, and that, a few days
before his death, he said that he believed himself to be about sixty.
Voltaire then controverts various guesses which had been hazarded as
to the name of the individual, and then adds, that the concealment of
his face must have been occasioned by “the fear that a too striking
resemblance might be recognised in his features.” In conclusion, he
hints, that he is well informed on the subject, but that he will not
communicate his knowledge. It would seem, however, that, after the lapse
of a few years, he changed his mind,—for, in another edition of the
Dictionary, there was inserted an article, ostensibly by the editor, but
which is generally supposed to be written by Voltaire himself. It is
there roundly asserted that the masked captive was an elder brother of
Louis XIV., illegitimate, and brought up in secrecy, whom for obvious
reasons of state the reigning monarch was obliged to hold in durance. In
the original account by Voltaire, his pointed mention of the prisoner’s
fondness for fine linen and lace, which was also characteristic of Anne
of Austria, appears to indicate that he believed her to be the mother of
the mysterious individual.
There is in the human mind a restless longing, and perpetual struggle,
to penetrate into every thing that is shrouded in mystery. Ever since
the man with the iron mask was first mentioned, he has been a subject of
inquiry and controversy; dissertations and volumes innumerable have been
written to dispel the Egyptian darkness which surrounds him. With the
exception perhaps of Junius, there is probably no personage who has been
the cause of so many books and theories; and in both cases no approach
to certainty has been made. It is not improbable that Junius may yet be
unveiled; but, with respect to the masked captive, so long a time has
gone by, so much care was taken after his decease to destroy all traces
of his existence, and it is so likely that the remaining documents, if
any there were, perished during the French revolution, that there is not
a chance of the world being enabled to say, “_This_ is certainly the man.”
At least twelve or thirteen candidates have been brought forward for
the melancholy honour of being the personage in question. Two of them
are English—the Duke of Monmouth and Henry Cromwell. Of the latter it
is only necessary to state that he lived a quiet country life after the
restoration, and died in Huntingdonshire in 1679. The Duke of Monmouth
is supposed, by M. de St. Foix, to have found some one obliging enough
to mount the scaffold in his stead, and to have been sent to France, to
be kept in safe custody. This ineffably absurd theory is demolished by
the fact, that, when Monmouth was executed, the man with the mask had
been for twenty years in prison. Equally baseless is the system of the
Chevalier de Taulès, who made a claim for Ardewicks, the patriarch of the
Armenians at Constantinople, who was kidnapped, taken to France, and
lodged in the Bastile by the Jesuits, to whom he had given offence. But
Ardewicks was not carried off till 1699 or 1700, and he is known to have
embraced catholicism, recovered his liberty, and died at Paris. A recent
French writer, of very considerable talent and research, has revived
the idea that Fouquet was the prisoner, and has supported his argument
with great skill; but it is impossible to reconcile his supposition with
the story told by Voltaire. With respect to Fouquet the precautions and
deference, which Voltaire mentions, would not have been deemed necessary.
We have seen that the author of the “Secret Memoirs on Persia” asserts
the Count of Vermandois to have been the unknown captive. Voltaire
contemptuously denies the truth of this assertion; which is, indeed,
sufficiently refuted by the well-ascertained fact, that the count died,
of small-pox, at the army in Flanders, in 1683, and was buried at Arras;
his death was notorious to numbers of persons. The Duke of Beaufort has
been invested with the mask on no better authority. There can be no doubt
that he was slain, in a sally, at the siege of Candia, in 1669. But, say
those who adopt him as their hero, his body was never found. It certainly
was not recognised; and for this plain reason, that the Turks stripped
it, and cut off the head. The next asserted owner of the mask is backed
by no less than four champions, Dutens, Roux-Fazillac, Delort, and the
late Lord Dover, and his cause has been ably supported by them all. The
claimant for whom they contend is Matthioli, secretary of the Duke of
Mantua, who, for having outwitted Louis in a negotiation respecting the
cession of Casal, was seized by order of the monarch, and imprisoned at
Pignerol and other places. There are, however, circumstances which seem
decisive against his being the man with the iron mask. It will perhaps
suffice to mention that, instead of meeting with respect and indulgence,
he was treated with the utmost harshness, and even cruelty. It has been
argued, as a presumption on his side, that his name bears a resemblance
to that of Marchiali, under which the unknown captive was buried. The
resemblance, I think, is not a whit closer than that which Fluellin so
ingeniously discovers between Macedon and Monmouth, and is a sorry basis
on which to build an argument. Another supposition gives the mask to Don
John de Gonzaga, a natural brother of the Duke of Mantua, who is imagined
to have accompanied Matthioli in disguise to the conference at which he
was seized. This supposition is rendered untenable, by irrefragable proof
that Matthioli was alone.
We have now arrived at the only remaining name which has been mentioned
as that of the mysterious prisoner. Voltaire, as we have seen, affirms
that he was a son of Anne of Austria. This assertion seems to receive
support from the language which is said to have been held by Louis XV.
Laborde, the head valet-de-chambre of that monarch, who enjoyed much of
his confidence, once endeavoured to obtain from him the long-concealed
secret. He did not succeed. “I pity him,” replied the king, “but his
detention was injurious only to himself, and _averted great misfortunes_.
Thou must not know the secret.” It is manifest that such a speech
could not be made with reference to any of the persons who have been
enumerated. It is equally manifest that, as Voltaire has intimated, the
mask could have been worn for no other purpose than to prevent a striking
likeness from being recognised.
Various conjectures have been made as to the paternity of the unknown
child, to which Anne of Austria is thought to have given birth. By some
the Duke of Buckingham has been assigned as its father, others have
attributed it to a French nobleman; some have imagined that it was the
fruit of a legitimate union with Cardinal Mazarin, a kind of union which,
however, could not take place; and others, with more tenderness for the
character of the queen, have represented it to be a twin brother of Louis
XIV. The theory of his royal birth may, perhaps, be as erroneous as all
the rest; but it appears to me to be the only one by which we can account
for the close and perpetual imprisonment, the pains taken to confine the
secret to as few persons as possible, the carefully concealed features,
and the respect and indulgence which are asserted to have been uniformly
shown to the unfortunate captive[8].
We must now turn our attention from the victim of state policy to some of
the victims of religious persecution.
To enumerate all whom Jansenism led to the Bastile would be a tedious
labour, and no less uninteresting than tedious, as little more than a
dry list of names would be the result. Among the Jansenists who towards
the close of Louis XIV.’s reign were sent to the Bastile, we find Tiron,
a Benedictine, who was prior of Meulan; Germain Veillant, an author;
and Lebrun-Desmarets, a man of much theological erudition. Tiron was
committed “for different writings, on matters of religion and state,
and against the king and the Jesuits.” The coupling together of the
king and the disciples of Loyola, as though they were coequal powers,
is a striking proof of the vast influence which the Society of Jesus
had acquired. Veillant’s offence was his being “a violent Jansenist, in
connexion with Father Quesnel, and having got his works printed, and
managed his affairs at Paris.” He was examined eighty-nine times, and was
probably treated with more than common harshness, for he fell ill on the
day that he was released, and died in the course of a few days.
Lebrun-Desmarets, a native of Rouen, who entered the Bastile in 1707,
two years previous to the destruction of Port-Royal monastery, was of
a family which was strongly attached to that persecuted establishment.
His father, a bookseller of Rouen, was condemned to the galleys, for
having printed books in vindication of it. The son was partly educated
in the convent, and never ceased to regard its inmates with affection
and reverence. In 1707, when they were involved in a harassing lawsuit
by their enemies, Lebrun espoused their cause so ardently that he was
imprisoned. He was held in durance for five years, and was treated
with great severity. After he recovered his liberty, he took up his
abode at Orleans, where he died, in 1731, at the age of eighty. On Palm
Sunday, the day before his death, fearing that a priest would refuse
to administer the sacrament to him, he dragged his enfeebled frame to
the church, that he might not quit the world without the consolation of
having participated in the rites of religion. Lebrun’s principal work is
a “Liturgical Journey in France,” in which he gives an account of the
most remarkable customs and ceremonies of the various churches.
We now revert once more to prisoners whose sins were political. Count
John Albert de Bucquoy, the next individual who comes under our notice,
was of the family of the celebrated Spanish and Imperial general, who
bore the same name and title. He was a native of Champagne, in which
province he was born about 1650. A line in Dryden’s severe description of
Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, will partly characterize Bucquoy; he
“Was every thing by starts, and nothing long.”
The circumstances of his having been left an orphan at the age of four
years, and having received a very imperfect education, may, perhaps,
account for some of his eccentricities. He embraced the military life;
but when he had served for five years, an escape from danger, which
he considered as miraculous, induced him to make a vow to withdraw
from all worldly pursuits. The rules of the Carthusian monks not being
strict enough to satisfy him, he entered at La Trappe, where he so
much injured his health by supererogatory austerities that the Abbé de
Rancé, the superior of the convent, was obliged to dismiss him. Bucquoy
then abruptly resumed his warlike attire; but soon after, with equal
abruptness, again cast it off, to dress himself in rags, and become a
hermit. Flying from the temptations of Paris, he next settled at Rouen,
where, under the name of La Mort, he for two years kept a school, to give
gratuitous instruction to the poor. The Jesuits of that city admired
his talents and his humble demeanour, and fruitlessly endeavoured to
enrol him in their fraternity. Having been accidentally recognised by a
person who had been a brother officer, he could no longer preserve his
incognito, and he therefore quitted Rouen, and bent his way to Paris.
There he formed the plan of founding a new monastic order, destined to
prove to unbelievers the truth of the Christian religion. It appears
to have been about this time that he assumed the garb and title of an
abbé. But while he was thus planning the demolition of incredulity, he
so bewildered himself in his theological speculations and reasonings,
that he became a sceptic. One thing which contributed much to produce the
change in him was, that, notwithstanding his self-inflicted severities,
he had failed to obtain the power of working miracles. This alone would
suffice to prove that his intellects were disordered. At this period,
his relatives, who had long believed him dead, were made acquainted with
his being in existence, and they procured for him a benefice. Bucquoy,
however, had got rid of his religious schemes, and had relapsed into
a taste for the profession of a soldier. His wish was now to raise a
regiment. But while he was indulging this new freak, he attracted the
attention of the government by his invectives against despotism and
the abuse of power. He was mistaken for the Abbé de la Bourlie, who
afterwards became notorious in England under the name of Guiscard, and
was arrested. When the mistake was discovered, he would have been set
free, had not his indiscreet language and conduct caused him to be
detained. He was committed to Fort-l’Evêque, from whence, however, he
contrived to escape. After having been at large for a considerable time,
he was caught and shut up in the Bastile, with a strict charge to the
keepers, that he should be closely watched, as being an enterprising
and dangerous person. The officers of that prison were seldom slack in
executing such orders, yet, in spite of all their vigilance, Bucquoy took
his measures so skilfully, and carried them into effect with so much
secrecy, that, in May 1709, after having been confined for two years, he
left his jailors in the lurch, and made good his retreat to Switzerland.
As soon as he was in safety, he began to negotiate with the French
ministers for his return to France, and the restoration of his property.
Failing in this, he journeyed to Holland, and submitted to the allies a
project for converting France into a republic, and annihilating arbitrary
power. This scheme, too, fell to the ground. It was, nevertheless,
beneficial to him, as it gained for him the friendship of General
Schulemburg, who, in 1714, introduced him, at Hanover, to George I. The
monarch was pleased with his conversation, admitted him to his table, and
gave him a pension. Bucquoy lived to nearly the age of ninety. In his
latter days, he wholly neglected his dress, suffered his beard to grow,
and might well have been mistaken for a squalid mendicant.
There was perhaps a spice of madness in Bucquoy, which sufficiently
accounts for his eccentric conduct. For the faults, or rather crimes, of
the personage who now comes under our notice there was no such excuse.
Throughout the whole of his existence, which, like that of Bucquoy, was
protracted far beyond the period usually allotted to man, the Marshal
Duke of Richelieu displayed as few virtues, and as many vices, as any
courtier on record. He had superficial talents, some wit, polished
manners, a handsome person, and much bravery; and this is all that
can be said for him. On the other hand, he was wholly without honour,
morals, and religion; a supporter and adulator of despotism, a political
intriguer, who could stoop to use the basest means for the accomplishment
of his purposes, a reckless duellist, and a systematic and heartless
seducer; he was, in fact, an impersonation of the profligacy and
corruption which distinguished the courts of the regent Duke of Orleans
and the fifteenth Louis.
Richelieu, who, in his early years, was known as the Duke of Fronsac, was
born in 1696. He was a seven months’ child, whom after his birth it was
necessary to keep in a box filled with cotton, and the preservation of
whose existence was long doubtful. When his health was established, he
was put under able preceptors; but he derived little benefit from their
instructions, and he never could spell with tolerable correctness. He
acquired, however, those showy graces which, undoubtedly, are an ornament
to virtue, but which, when the possessor has no virtue, can captivate
only persons of frivolous minds. He was introduced to the court at the
early age of fourteen, and soon, as St. Simon tells us, became its
darling. The female portion of it was in raptures with him, and seems to
have expressed its feelings without any regard to decorum. Fronsac, whose
passions were uncommonly precocious, met the forward with equal ardour,
and spared no pains to ensnare the few who were more timid or more
modest. He went to such a length that censure began to fall heavily on
the Duchess of Burgundy, and his own father deemed it prudent to request
a lettre-de-cachet against him, under which he was for fourteen months
confined in the Bastile. During his seclusion, Fronsac was attended by a
preceptor; and he consequently came out of prison with some knowledge of
Latin, and some addition to his scanty stock of useful information; but,
as far as concerned dignity of mind and purity of heart, no improvement
whatever had taken place.
The licentious career of Richelieu was suspended for a while, by his
serving as a volunteer in the army. He was present at the battle of
Denain, and at the sieges of the fortresses which were recovered by
Villars in consequence of his victory; and he distinguished himself so
much, that he was made aide-de-camp to the marshal, and was chosen by
him to convey to Paris the news of the surrender of Friburg. In 1715,
he succeeded to the title of Richelieu. On this occasion he performed
an action which merits praise; the property which was available for the
debts of his father was far from sufficient to cover them, he generously
paid to the creditors the full amount of their claims.
Again all the faculties of Richelieu were devoted to licentious
pleasures, which were now and then interrupted by a duel. In 1716 he
had a desperate encounter with the Count de Gacé, for which the regent
committed both parties to the Bastile, where they remained from March
till August. This imprisonment was, however, less severe than that which
he had to endure two years afterwards. In the spring of 1719, he was
sent, for the third time, to the Bastile, but, in this instance, he went
with the brand of traitor upon him, and was treated accordingly. He was
concerned in the Cellamare conspiracy, and had promised to deliver up
Bayonne to the Spaniards, and to join in exciting the south of France
to revolt. “If the Duke of Richelieu had four heads,” said the regent,
“I have proof enough against him to deprive him of them all.” On his
first arrival at the Bastile, the duke was placed in a dungeon; but
female influence soon obtained his removal to more comfortable quarters,
and permission for him to walk daily on the ramparts of the fortress.
His walks gave rise to an occurrence, which speaks volumes as to the
unblushing depravity of the high-born dames of France. During the hour
that he was walking, a string of elegant carriages, filled with women who
notoriously were or had been his mistresses, passed slowly backward and
forward in front of the spot where he was, and an intercourse of signs
was kept up between the prisoner and these unscrupulous ladies. It was by
the intercession of two princesses, who were enamoured of him, that his
release was obtained, after he had suffered a captivity of five months.
The danger to which Richelieu had been exposed on this occasion, though
it did not render him less vicious, rendered him, at least in one
respect, more prudent; he did not again put his head in the way of being
brought to the block. Thenceforward he limited his political intrigues,
in France, to acquiring benefits for himself, circumventing his rivals,
providing mistresses for the king, and making those mistresses the
instruments of his designs; and by these arts he became a thriving
courtier. Honours of all kinds, military and civil, were showered
upon him. At the age of twenty-four, without any literary pretensions
whatever, he was unanimously chosen a member of the French Academy;
and, in 1734, he was nominated an honorary member of the Academy of
Inscriptions and Belles Lettres. In the army he rose to the rank
of marshal; but his titles as a soldier were not unearned. At Kehl,
Philipsburg, Dettingen, Friburg, Fontenoy, Laufeldt, Genoa, and Minorca,
they were fairly won. In his last campaign, however, that of Hanover, in
1757, he sullied his laurels by the most infamous conduct. His rapacity
and extortion were a scorpion scourge to the country which France
had subdued; and, as though he feared that his own endless exactions
would not suffice to make him hated, he allowed, if not encouraged,
his troops to be guilty of marauding, and of various other enormities.
The subsequent defeats of the French army were the righteous result of
these dishonourable proceedings. As a negotiator, Richelieu manifested
considerable skill. He was twice employed in that capacity; at Vienna,
from 1725 to 1729, and at Dresden, in 1746. In both instances he fully
accomplished the purpose of his mission, and in both he displayed a
degree of ostentatious magnificence which had seldom been equalled.
When he entered Vienna, his train consisted of seventy-five carriages;
and his horses, and those of his officers, were shod with silver, the
shoes being slightly fastened, that they might fall off and be left for
the populace. In the state employments which he held, there appears to
have been but a solitary instance in which he was entitled to praise.
As lieutenant-general of the king in Languedoc, he once deviated into
the right path; by a judicious mixture of firmness and mildness, he
averted the disturbances which were about to arise from the persecution
of the protestants. But it was not in his nature to be permanently good.
At a later period, his harshness, in the same country, was rewarded by
his being appointed governor of Guienne and Gascony; and his pride and
tyranny very soon rendered him an object of detestation in both of these
provinces. At court, his influence and his example had a baneful effect.
He for more than a quarter of a century possessed the friendship of Louis
XV., and he foully abused it; he pandered to the monarch’s lusts, and
strained every nerve, with too much success, to prevent the misguided
sovereign from carrying into effect his occasional resolves, to lead in
future a life more suitable to his years, and to the lofty station which
he filled. He was the Mephistopheles of his royal master.
Richelieu was so fortunate as not to be exposed to the revolutionary
tempest; his disgraceful career was brought to a close in August, 1788,
when he had attained the age of ninety-two.
Of prisoners less known, or less important, during the period to which
this chapter refers, it will suffice to give a scanty specimen. Religious
intolerance contributed largely to people the jails. To enumerate all
who expiated in dungeons the crime of being protestants, would be an
endless task; in 1686 a hundred and forty-seven persons, and in 1689
sixty-one, were sent to the Bastile alone, almost all of whom were
hugonots. To unite in marriage the members of that proscribed class was
a heinous offence; a priest, named John de Pardieu, was doomed to the
Bastile for committing it. Whole families were immured for endeavouring
to leave the kingdom. Some of the victims were driven to despair by the
manner in which they were treated. Such was the case with the Sieur
Braconneau, who, as the register specifies, was “imprisoned on account of
religion, and died of a wound which he gave to himself with a knife.” The
protestants were, however, not the sole sufferers; the Jansenists, too,
came in for an ample share of persecution.
Real or pretended plots and evil speaking against the king were another
fruitful source of commitments. The following are a few instances: Don
Thomas Crisafi “suspected of intrigues with the Spanish ambassador
against the interests of the king.” Joseph Jurin, a footman, for having
said, “Who can prevent me from killing the king?” The Sieur Beranger de
Berliere, “for a plot against the king’s person.” The Count de Morlot,
accused of “detestable purposes against the king’s life.” Desvallons,
“for speaking insolently of the king.” Laurence Lemierre, shoemaker,
and his wife, for dangerous discourse about the king; and Francis
Brindjoug for the same offence. The Sieur Cardel, “for important reasons,
regarding the safety of the king’s person.” Jonas de Lamas, a baker,
“for execrations against the king.” This man was twenty years in the
Bastile, and was then removed to the Bicêtre. The Sieur de la Perche,
a fencing-master, accused of having said that “the king oppressed his
subjects, and thought only of amusing himself with his old woman; that he
would soon be a king of beggars; that his officers were starving; that he
had ruined the kingdom by driving away the hugonots; and that he cared
not a pin for his people.” The last article of the Sieur de la Perche’s
charge against the sovereign was made in language which is too vulgar to
be translated.
Under the head of miscellaneous offences may be mentioned the following:
Pierre His, “for having assisted several persons to go clandestinely
to America.” Those persons were probably hugonots. The Sieur Marini,
envoy from Genoa. This commitment, for which no reason is assigned,
took place in 1684, the year in which Louis XIV. made his disgraceful
attack on Genoa. Besnoit, called Arnonville, “an evil-minded woman, who
held improper discourse.” Charles Combon, called Count de Longueval, “a
maker of horoscopes, a fortune-teller, and vender of drugs to procure
abortion.” The Abbé Dubois, “a wicked and troublesome person.” Papillard,
“a bad catholic.” Saint Vigor, “affecting to be a hermit, but a man
of licentious manners.” John Blondeau, a hermit, “a suspected person.”
Peter John Mere, professing himself a physician, “for selling improper
drugs.” After having been thirty years in the Bastile, Mere was sent to
the Bedlam at Charenton. Bailly, a hatter, “for a design to establish a
hat manufactory in a foreign country.” Louisa Simon, a widow, “pretends
to tell fortunes, to have secrets for inspiring love, and to be able to
make marriages.” John Galembert, of the gens-d’armes, “a great traveller,
suspected of corresponding with the enemies of the state.” He was
subsequently exiled to Languedoc, his native province, within the limits
of which he was ordered to remain. The Prince de Riccia, “one of the
party at Naples that is against the French succession.” Nicholas Buissen,
“for insolent letters against Samuel Bernard (the court banker), with an
intention to hurt his credit.” The Sieur de Soulange, formerly a captain
of infantry in the Orleannois regiment, “a rogue, and spy on both sides.”
It will be seen that, in some of those instances, the individuals
deserved legal punishment; that, in others, the charges were trivial, or
vague, or ridiculous; and that in at least one case the French monarch
displayed gross contempt of the law of nations. His imprisonment of
Marini, the Genoese envoy, can only be paralleled by the manner in which
the Turks used to treat Christian ambassadors on the breaking out of
hostilities. But it was of a piece with the rest of his conduct towards
the Genoese republic. It was retributive justice that he, the wanton
disturber and insulter of Europe, should himself live to have his pride
trodden into the dust, and to dread the approach of a hostile army to the
walls of his own capital.