Bassompierre in the Bastille--He is informed that he has been
imprisoned “from fear lest he might be induced to do
wrong”--_Monsieur_ retires to Lorraine--The marshal’s nephew the
Marquis de Bassompierre is ordered to leave France--After a few
weeks of captivity, Bassompierre solicits his liberty, which is
refused--He falls seriously ill, but recovers--Death of his wife
the Princesse de Conti--Flight of the Queen-Mother to
Brussels--Death of Bassompierre’s brother the Marquis de
Removille--Execution of the Maréchal de Marillac--Montmorency’s
revolt--Trial and execution of the duke--Hopes of liberty, which,
however, do not materialise--Arrest of Châteauneuf--Arrival of the
Chevalier de Jars in the Bastille--A grim experience--Bassompierre
disposes of his post of Colonel-General of the Swiss to the Marquis
de Coislin--The marshal’s hopes of liberty constantly flattered and
as constantly deceived--Malignity of Richelieu--The ravages
committed by the contending armies upon his estates in Lorraine
reduce Bassompierre to the verge of ruin--The marshal’s niece,
Madame de Beuvron solicits her uncle’s liberty of
Richelieu--Mocking answer of the Cardinal--Some notes written by
Bassompierre in the margin of a copy of Dupleix’s history are
published under his name, but without his authority--The historian
complains to the Cardinal--Arrest of Valbois for reciting a sonnet
attacking Richelieu for his treatment of
Bassompierre--Apprehensions of the marshal--His despair at his
continued detention--Grief occasioned him by the death of a
favourite dog--The Duc de Guise dies in exile.
On the following day the Governor of the Bastille came to visit
Bassompierre, and told the marshal that he was instructed by the King to
inform him that “he had not caused him to be arrested for any fault
which he had committed, and that he regarded him as his good servant,
but from fear lest he might be induced to do wrong,” and that he should
not remain long in confinement. This assurance, Bassompierre tells us,
afforded him great consolation. Du Tremblay added that his Majesty had
given orders that the marshal was to be allowed complete liberty, save
that of leaving the fortress, and to take exercise in any part of the
Bastille, while he was also to be permitted to have with him such of
his servants as he might choose to attend him. Bassompierre, however,
contented himself with sending for two lackeys and a cook, who were
lodged in a room adjoining his own.
A day or two later Bassompierre sent to inquire of the King if his
nephew, the Marquis de Bassompierre, eldest son of the marshal’s
surviving brother, the Marquis de Removille, who was on a visit to
France, might be permitted to visit him. His Majesty replied that, not
only would he permit, but even wished, him to do so, and that he loved
him, both for himself and on account of his uncle.
In the second week in March, Louis XIII quitted Paris and marched on
Orléans, in order to compel _Monsieur_, who was threatening civil war,
to return to his obedience. The Marquis de Bassompierre requested
permission to accompany his Majesty, which was readily accorded, and his
uncle furnished him with money to defray the expenses of this journey.
On learning of the King’s approach, Gaston fled towards Burgundy,
accompanied by the Duc de Roannez, the Comte de Moret, and some troops
which he had raised. Bellegarde, Governor of Burgundy, declared in his
favour, but made no attempt to raise the province in insurrection; and
the prince proceeded to Franche-Comté and thence to Lorraine. The King
followed his brother so far as Dijon, where he launched a Declaration
against his companions (March 30), and then retraced his steps. The fact
that _Monsieur_ had again retired to Lorraine had incensed him against
Charles IV and all his subjects, and he sent to inform the Marquis de
Bassompierre that “it was not agreeable that he should follow him or
even remain in France.”
When, towards the end of April, Louis XIII returned to Paris, the
marshal solicited his liberty; but his request was refused. Soon
afterwards he fell ill “from a very dangerous swelling of the stomach,
arising perhaps from his not having taken the air,” for, for some reason
which he does not tell us, he had not left his room since he entered
the Bastille two months before. So ill did he become that he thought he
was dying, but having been persuaded to take daily exercise on the
terrace, his health soon began to improve.
About the same time, a loss more bitter even than that of his liberty
befell Bassompierre. The Princesse de Conti, to whom he was secretly
married and was undoubtedly most tenderly attached, died at the Château
of Eu on the last day of April, a victim, according to her
contemporaries, to the grief which the misfortunes which had overwhelmed
those whom she held dear had occasioned her. For, not only had the
Queen-Mother been disgraced and her husband sent to the Bastille, but
her eldest brother, the Duc de Guise, had deemed it prudent to go into
voluntary exile in Italy, to escape a worse fate.
Very discreet in general concerning the names of the ladies with whom he
had successes--“_Bassompierre fait l’amour sans dire mot_,” writes a
Court poet of the time--the marshal preserves about his relations with
the princess a scrupulous reserve, and his restrained emotion when he
announces her death is the only indication of his sentiments for her
which are to be found in his _Mémoires_:
“I learned at the same time of the death of the Princesse de Conti,
which occasioned me such affliction as was merited by the honour
which, since my arrival at the Court, I had received from this
princess, who, besides so many other perfections which have
rendered her worthy of admiration, had that of being a very good
and very obliging friend. I shall honour her memory and regret her
for the rest of my days. She was so overwhelmed by grief at seeing
herself separated from the Queen-Mother, with whom she had remained
since the latter came to France, so afflicted at seeing her family
persecuted and her friends and servants in disgrace, that she was
neither willing nor able to survive, and died at Eu, on Monday, the
last day of April, of that unhappy year 1631.”
Assured of the firm support of the King, Richelieu continued to carry
matters with a high hand. The Parlement of Paris refused to register the
Royal Declaration of March 30, which, without inculpating _Monsieur_,
stigmatised the accomplices of his flight as guilty of _lèse-majesté_.
On May 13 the magistrates were summoned in a body to the Louvre, where
Louis XIII curtly reminded them that their duty was to render justice to
his subjects, and not to concern themselves with affairs of State. And,
to give point to this rebuke, several presidents and counsellors were
banished from Paris.
The excitement which the dissensions in the Royal family had aroused,
and the fact that public opinion was distinctly hostile to the Cardinal,
rendered it essential to remove the Queen-Mother so far as possible from
the Court and Paris. Louis XIII requested her to retire to Moulins, with
the government of the Bourbonnais, as a kind of honourable exile. She
consented, but quickly altered her mind, pretending that her son had
fixed upon Moulins in order to send her from there to Florence. Then the
King offered her Angers as a residence. To this also she objected, but
agreed to go to Nevers for a time. When, however, she learned that
_Monsieur_ had quitted France, she declined to budge from Compiègne.
Early in July, the King, finding that neither his entreaties nor his
orders had any effect upon his mother, sent her a kind of ultimatum.
Instead of obeying, Marie resolved to retire to a frontier town and from
there dictate her conditions. One of her adherents, Vardes, who
commanded at La Capelle, in the name of his father, offered to deliver
the place to her; but the King, warned of his intention, sent the old
Marquis de Vardes in hot haste to La Capelle, who won over the garrison
and expelled his son and the Queen-Mother’s friends from the town. When
Marie, who had escaped from Compiègne on July 18, approached La Capelle,
she was met by the younger Vardes, who informed her of the failure of
their plans, which left her no alternative but to cross the Flemish
frontier and seek an asylum with the Spaniards at Brussels.
At the beginning of 1632 some hope of his regaining his liberty was held
out to Bassompierre. “But,” says he, “I believe that this was done
rather to redouble my sufferings by deceiving my hopes than to alleviate
my misfortunes.” Anyway, he remained a prisoner, and soon afterwards
another sorrow befell him in the death of his brother, the Marquis de
Removille, from an illness caused by the hardships he had undergone
while serving in the Imperial army during the preceding year.
Early in May Bassompierre learned of the tragic fate of his
fellow-marshal, Louis de Marillac, who, after having been kept a
prisoner at Sainte-Menehould for several months, was brought to trial
before a special commission sitting at Richelieu’s own château of Rueil,
on charges of malversation committed while in command of the Army of
Champagne, found guilty, condemned to death and executed in the Place de
Grève two days later.
A still more striking example of the danger of crossing the path of the
terrible Cardinal--for no one doubted that had not Louis de Marillac
been so ill-advised as to desert Richelieu’s cause for that of the
Queen-Mother, little or nothing would have been heard of his weakness
for enriching himself at the expense of the State--was afforded in the
following autumn.
In September _Monsieur_ and his friends, counting on Austro-Spanish aid,
which, however, failed them completely, attempted an invasion of France.
The Duc de Montmorency, Governor of Languedoc, irritated by the growing
power of Richelieu and his determination to reduce great nobles like
himself to political impotence, took up arms in Gaston’s cause. Defeated
and made prisoner by Schomberg at Castelnaudary, he was brought to trial
for high treason before the Parlement of Toulouse. Extraordinary efforts
were made to save him, but all to no purpose, and on October 29, 1632,
the head of “the noblest, wealthiest, handsomest and most pious
gentleman in the kingdom” rolled on the scaffold.[140]
Richelieu took advantage of Montmorency’s revolt to remove all hostile
or suspected governors of provinces and replace them by his own friends.
He himself had already obtained the government of Brittany and been
created duke and peer. He was triumphing everywhere, at home and abroad.
At the beginning of the following year Bassompierre had again great
hopes of recovering his liberty. Schomberg sent him word that, on the
return of the King from the South, he would be released, and he learned
that both Louis XIII and the Cardinal had said as much to several
persons. However, he was again doomed to disappointment, the fact that
_Monsieur_, after making his submission, had quitted France again, this
time for Flanders, being the pretext for his continued detention.
“In place of liberating me,” writes the poor marshal, “they
deprived me of that portion of my salary which had been paid me
during the two preceding years, notwithstanding that I was a
prisoner, amounting to one-third of what I had been accustomed to
draw every year. This made me see plainly that it was intended to
keep me eternally in the Bastille.”
On February 25--the same day on which two years before Bassompierre had
been sent to the Bastille--Châteauneuf, the Keeper of the Seals, who had
foolishly allowed himself to be drawn by Madame de Chevreuse, with whom
he was madly in love, into a fresh conspiracy against Richelieu, was
arrested at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and conducted to the Château of
Angoulême, where he remained in close confinement until the Cardinal’s
death, ten years later. At the same time, the gates of the Bastille
opened to admit his nephew, the Marquis de Leuville, and several other
persons who had been concerned in the affair, including Bassompierre’s
old friend, the Chevalier de Jars.
The Cardinal attached great importance to the arrest of Jars, as he
believed that he might be induced to reveal the part which Anne of
Austria had played in the conspiracy. But the chevalier, if a somewhat
feather-brained, was a brave and honourable, man, and, though he was
kept in close confinement for nearly a year and subjected to repeated
examinations by his Eminence’s myrmidons, he steadfastly refused to make
the least admission that might incriminate the Queen or any of her
friends. Finally, he was transferred to Troyes, and then brought to
trial for high treason before a special commission, at the head of which
was the notorious Laffemas, who was known as “the Cardinal’s
executioner,” and made it his boast that he could condemn any man, if he
had but two lines of his writing. Laffemas bullied and browbeat the
prisoner and “did all the mean things that the base soul is capable of
suggesting,”[141] but to no purpose, for he could wring nothing from
him. Accordingly, the judges proceeded to pass sentence of death on
Jars, who was in due course conducted to the scaffold, “where he made
his appearance with a demeanour full of courage, smiling at his enemies
and prepared to meet death without flinching.”[142] But it was only a
grim farce after all, for Richelieu had nothing to gain by the removal
of such small fry as the chevalier, and the only object of the trial had
been to intimidate him into betraying his accomplices. And so, at the
moment when the condemned man was about to lay his head on the block,
Laffemas interrupted the proceedings by producing an order from the King
which remitted the capital sentence and directed that the chevalier
should be conducted back to the Bastille.
At the beginning of 1634 Bassompierre received a promise that his salary
as Colonel-General of the Swiss, which had been suspended the previous
year, should be paid, but this promise was not kept. In the following
September, however, he learned that the King had given orders that he
was to receive it, but, pressed by his creditors, who since his
imprisonment had given him no rest, and believing that, if he ceased to
command the Swiss, one of the chief reasons for his continued detention
would be removed, he begged Richelieu, through the governor of the
Bastille, to obtain the King’s permission to sell his post. This was
granted, and he also obtained permission to offer it to the Marquis de
Rochefort, a friend of Du Tremblay. Rochefort, however, would give no
more than 400,000 livres, and the marshal, who while at liberty had
refused double that sum, declined to sell at this price. Thereupon
Rochefort endeavoured to persuade Richelieu to compel Bassompierre to
accept his offer; but though the Cardinal would not do this, the order
for the payment of the marshal’s salary was cancelled, and “he continued
his miserable imprisonment in the Bastille with great inconvenience in
his domestic affairs.”
Towards the middle of December, Du Tremblay came to visit the marshal
and told him that he was commissioned to make him an offer for his post,
which, if he accepted, his liberty was assured. The persons who had
empowered him to do this, whose names he was not at liberty to mention
at present, would not go beyond 400,000 livres, but they were people of
great influence at Court, who could powerfully assist him in obtaining
his release. Bassompierre consented, on condition that the arrears of
his salary were paid, and Du Tremblay promised that his brother Père
Joseph should go to Rueil and speak to the Cardinal about this. A day or
two later Du Tremblay informed him that Père Joseph and the two
Bouthilliers had undertaken to arrange the matter with Richelieu, and
that he thought that he would leave the Bastille before Christmas. And
he gave him to understand that the influential persons for whom he was
acting were the Baron de Pontchâteau and his son, the Marquis de
Coislin, who was married to a daughter of Pierre Séguier, Châteauneuf’s
successor in the post of Keeper of the Seals.
At the end of the year Louis XIII gave his consent to the Marquis de
Coislin succeeding Bassompierre in the command of the Swiss.
“And then it was divulged that the said Marquis de Coislin would be
Colonel-General of the Swiss, and the Keeper of the Seals sent me
some compliments on the matter through M. du Tremblay; and the
rumour of my release, which six weeks before had been very strong,
augmented to such a degree, that a number of persons came every day
to the Bastille to see if I were still there; and it was regarded
as certain that I should be released at Epiphany.”
Epiphany came and went, and Bassompierre still remained in the Bastille,
the population of which was about this time increased by the arrival of
several persons who were suspected of being concerned with Puylaurens
and Du Fargis, formerly French Ambassador at Madrid, in treasonable
relations with Spain. These two were imprisoned at Vincennes, where
Puylaurens died some months later.
On February 16 Bassompierre received a visit from the younger
Bouthillier.
“He assured me,” says he, “of the favour of the King and the
affection of the Cardinal, as also of my liberation, but without
specifying the time. He told me further that the King was
nominating the Marquis de Coislin as Colonel-General of the Swiss
in my place, who would pay me, in consideration of that, 400,000
livres in cash, and, as to that which concerned my pay and salary
due to me for the said charge, my friends, namely his father,
himself and Père Joseph, did not wish to make any proposal on that
matter, but would leave it to myself to negotiate after my release.
And in this I had no alternative but to acquiesce.”
The 400,000 livres was duly paid, the money being brought to the
Bastille, by Lopez and Séguier’s intendant Pepin, in instalments of
40,000 to 50,000 livres at a time, the whole transaction occupying
several days, as Bassompierre had insisted on being paid in livres
instead of in pistoles, and the money had, of course, to be counted and
weighed in his presence. Finally, the business was ended, and on March 8
he gave his receipt for the sum and the resignation of his post to his
successor’s agents.
“It was,” says he, “the same month, day and hour, that, twenty-one
years before, I had taken oath between the hands of the King for
the same charge of Colonel-General of the Swiss.”
A few days later the younger Bouthillier again came to see Bassompierre,
and informed him that the Cardinal had spoken to the King of his
liberation, that his Majesty had granted it, and that he was to leave
the Bastille almost immediately.
“Nevertheless,” says the marshal, “I pressed him strongly to name
the precise day on which I should be released, which he declined to
do, although he told me that I should be entirely free within a
week.”
Several weeks, however, passed without Bassompierre hearing any further
news of his liberation; and it was not until the last day of April that
the Governor of the Bastille received a letter from Père Joseph,
requesting him to assure the marshal that he would receive his liberty
on the return to Paris of the younger Bouthillier, who was to bring him
the order for his release. (The Court, it should be mentioned, was then
at Compiègne.) Bouthillier arrived on May 5, but, as the marshal heard
nothing from him, he sent his niece, Madame de Beuvron, to see him,
when the Minister told her that he had actually had the order for her
uncle’s release in his hands, but that, owing to the intelligence that
had arrived that _Monsieur_ had gone to Brittany, possibly with the
intention of embarking for England, it had been decided that the marshal
could not be set at liberty so soon, and the order had been cancelled. A
few days later it was ascertained that _Monsieur_ had gone to Brittany
merely to visit some friends of his, and that he was staying with the
Duc de Retz at Machecoul, and had not the least intention of leaving the
kingdom. However, this did not hasten Bassompierre’s release, and it
began to dawn upon the poor marshal that there never had been any
immediate intention of giving him his freedom, and that the assurances
which he had received were merely a bait to induce him to sell his post
of Colonel-General of the Swiss for about half its value.
Towards the end of May, Du Bois, Bassompierre’s _maître-d’hôtel_, who
was also commissary of the French and Swiss Guards, happened to go on
some business to Château-Thiery, where the Court then was. Louis XIII,
recognising Du Bois, for he had seen him frequently when he had been the
marshal’s guest, told him to come to his lodging and inquired when he
was returning to Paris. Du Bois replied that he intended to do so on the
following day. “Stay over Sunday,” said the King--it was a Friday--“and
I will give you an order for the release of the Marshal de Bassompierre,
which I will have made ready on Monday, after I have spoken to the
Cardinal.” Du Bois, greatly delighted, for he was much attached to
Bassompierre, readily promised to remain, and lost no time in sending
off a courier to bear the joyful tidings to the Bastille.
On the Monday, the elder Bouthillier went to visit the Cardinal, who was
staying at Condé, and, before starting, told Du Bois that, on his
return, he would give him the order of release, and that he could make
arrangements to leave for Paris the following morning. But when, on the
Minister’s return, Du Bois went to receive the despatch, Bouthillier
informed him that his Eminence had been so much occupied with important
affairs that day that Bouthillier had hardly been able to mention the
matter to him. However, he was coming to Château-Thiery on Wednesday to
see the King, when no doubt the order of release would be made out.
The Cardinal did not arrive until Friday, and when, after he had
concluded his business with the King and returned to Condé, Du Bois went
to Bouthillier, fully expecting to find the precious document awaiting
him, he was told that so many pressing affairs had had to be discussed
that there had been no time to deal with that of his master’s liberty,
but that the marshal might be assured that it would be decided on the
earliest possible opportunity. And he suggested that, if Du Bois wished,
he should go to Paris and return a few days later, when very probably
the order of release would be ready for him.
“On the Saturday,” writes Bassompierre, “_Monsieur le Comte_ sent
me word that he had learned on very good authority that my liberty
was resolved upon, and that in twenty-four hours I should be
released without fail. But on the Monday I saw Du Bois, who made me
understand that it was pure deceit; and, although the First
President sent to tell me the same day that I should go out before
the end of the week, I did not in the least believe that I should
be set at liberty.”
However, assurances of his approaching liberty were not wanting. First,
the younger Bouthillier told Madame de Beuvron that the delay in setting
her uncle at liberty was due solely to the suspicious conduct of
_Monsieur_, of whom apparently the marshal was regarded as so devoted an
adherent that it would be imprudent to give him his freedom until the
King could feel sure that his brother had no intention of causing
further trouble. Then, towards the end of June, Du Tremblay came to
inform Bassompierre that he was charged by the Bouthilliers, _père et
fils_, that he might never regard them again as honest men if he were
still a prisoner in a fortnight’s time. Finally, a week later the son
wrote that the Cardinal had given him his word that the marshal was to
be set at liberty, and had authorised him to tell him so.
And so the miserable game went on month after month, year after year,
the Cardinal gratifying his malignity by wantonly sporting with the
hopes of his hapless prisoner, who was continually receiving the most
confident assurances that his freedom was at hand, only to discover that
they were worthless. It is indeed astonishing that so great a man should
have descended to such paltry exhibitions of spite, and have persuaded,
not only his colleagues in the Ministry, but his sovereign as well, to
lend themselves to them. But Richelieu was a strange character, and
combined in a singular degree qualities worthy of the most profound
admiration with others which can provoke nothing but contempt.
But the cruel disappointments inflicted upon him by the malice of the
Cardinal were far from the only mortifications which Bassompierre had to
endure. His financial affairs were not in a prosperous condition, and
his sojourn in the Bastille brought him to the verge of ruin. His
creditors, whose appetites appear only to have been whetted by the sops
which the sale of his post of Colonel-General of the Swiss had enabled
him to fling to them, grew more clamorous than ever; his men of affairs
proved unworthy of the trust he reposed in them and pilfered the
_débris_ of his fortune, and an Italian bank, by means of a forged
document, seized upon a magnificent tapestry which he would not have
parted with upon any consideration. Nor was this all. With the entry of
France as a principal into the Thirty Years’ War, Lorraine had become
the battle-ground of the hostile armies, and Frenchmen, Imperialists,
and Swedes vied with one another in pillaging the châteaux and estates
of the marshal and his family:
“The last day of June [1635] _Monsieur le Prince_ arrived in Paris,
returning from his post of lieutenant-general of the King’s army in
Lorraine. On his departure, he had left orders that my château of
Bassompierre was to be demolished, and this was subsequently
executed.”
The destruction of this château, which was situated near Briey, may, of
course, have been an act of military necessity; but it was more probably
one of pure spite, since, as we know, there was little love lost between
the marshal and Condé.
“On the 12th January [1636], I received the sad news of the death
of my niece, the nun of Remiremont;[143] and, a few days later, I
learned that the King’s commissaries had carried off all the corn
from my house of Harouel, and this, not only without payment, but
without even giving a certificate that they had taken it.
“The month of February arrived, at the beginning of which I learned
from Lorraine that a certain Sieur de Villarceaux[144] had a
commission from the King to raze my house of Harouel to the ground.
This I felt most cruelly, and I sent to entreat the Cardinal to
avert this storm from me.”
Harouel was spared, though it is doubtful whether this was done out of
any consideration for its unfortunate owner.
In the following May Bassompierre succeeded in obtaining an ordinance
from the King for the restoration of his corn. But Gobelin, Intendant of
Justice and Finance in Lorraine, who in the days of the marshal’s
prosperity had been his intimate friend, protested against this; and it
was finally decided that he should be allowed to keep it for the use of
the army, nor was Bassompierre able to obtain any pecuniary
compensation.
“And, afterwards, when it was mentioned to the Cardinal de
Richelieu, he observed that it was very strange that I should ask
money of the King for my corn, seeing that I was so rich that I was
building a sumptuous house at Chaillot; that I was having such
splendid furniture made that the King had nothing like it, and that
during the six years I had been in prison I still maintained such
great state that it was impossible to equal it.[145]
“A few days later, in the same month, the Duke of Weimar was
authorised by the King to refresh his army in the county of
Vaudemont and in my marquisate of Harouel, which was delivered over
to pillage. This he executed so well, that every kind of plunder,
cruelty, and atrocity was practised there, and my estate entirely
destroyed, save the château, which could not be taken by this army,
which had no artillery.
“At the end of the month of May the troops of the said Duke of
Bernard of Weimar attacked our château of Removille, where five or
six hundred peasants of both sexes and of every age had taken
refuge. They carried it by assault on the 28th, and killed the men
and the old women who were there, carried away the young women,
after violating them, and, having pillaged the château, burned it
with the children who were in it.”
In July of the following year the Château of Harouel, which had been
occupied by the troops of the Duke of Lorraine, was bombarded by the
King’s troops, and, after seventy cannon-shot had been fired at it, was
surrendered to the French commander, who left a garrison of thirty
soldiers there, to be maintained at Bassompierre’s expense.
In August, 1636, Bassompierre’s niece, Madame de Beuvron, went to the
Cardinal to solicit her uncle’s liberty.
“But he answered her, in mockery, that I had been only three years
in the Bastille and that M. d’Angoulême had been there fourteen;
that the duke was returning very opportunely to give some good
advice on the subject of my liberation. I omitted to mention that,
at the alarm of the passage of the Somme,[146] MM. d’Angoulême, de
la Rochefoucauld, M. de Valençay and other persons who had been
exiled were recalled; but anger and hatred continued against me in
such fashion, that, not only had they neither consideration nor
compassion for my long sufferings, but, on the contrary, wished to
increase them by this derision and mockery.”
It might be supposed that if, in these circumstances, Bassompierre had
little to hope for, he had little to fear. Such, however, was not the
case. Some notes written by him in the margin of a history of the reigns
of Henri IV and Louis XIII, composed by the Historiographer Royal,
Scipion Dupleix, the proofs of which are said to have been corrected by
Richelieu himself, were published under his name, but entirely without
his authority, by a monk named Père Renaud, the confessor of his
fellow-prisoner the Abbé de Foix, to whom he had lent the copy
containing them. The marshal’s criticisms were probably pretty
stringent, but those which appeared in print were a great deal more so,
and the work aroused a considerable sensation. Dupleix complained to the
Cardinal, and, says Bassompierre, “they did not fail to report the
matter to the King and to tell him that it appeared evident from these
memoirs that I entertained an aversion to his person and State.”
About the same time, a soldier of the Light Cavalry named Valbois was
arrested and brought to the Bastille, charged with having recited a
sonnet against the Cardinal, beginning, ‘_Mettre Bassompierre en
prison_;’ and the marshal was warned by his friends outside to destroy
all his papers which might be capable of injuring him, as it was
intended to seize them, with a view to bringing him to trial.
“I confess,” writes Bassompierre, “that this last warning, which
followed so many unfortunate incidents, was almost sufficient to
destroy my reason. It was the 9th of October [1637] that I received
it. I passed six nights without closing an eye, and in an agony
which was worse to me than death.”
Finally, however, Valbois, after being interrogated several times,
probably with the object of ascertaining whether Bassompierre had had
anything to do with the composition of the objectionable sonnet, was set
at liberty, and, as no action was taken against him, the marshal’s mind
became calmer. Nevertheless, he appears to have lived in constant
apprehension lest his papers should be impounded; and this no doubt
accounts for the fact that, in his _Mémoires_, the composition of which
were now his chief occupation, he exercises a rigorous discretion in his
comments on current events, although he was kept informed by his friends
of everything that was happening in the world outside. “I shall say
nothing,” he writes naïvely, as though to shelter himself from all
reproach, “of the quarrel between the King and the Queen ... of the
punishment of the nuns of the Val-de-Grâce ... of the dismissal of the
King’s confessor, Père Caussin ... nor, finally, of the entry of the
Chancellor into the Val-de-Grâce, where he caused the Queen’s cabinets
and caskets to be broken open, in order to seize the papers which she
had placed in them.”
Bassompierre did not confine his literary activity to his _Mémoires_; he
wrote also the history of his embassies to Spain, Switzerland, and
England, which was first published in 1668. In 1802 an octavo volume,
bearing the title of _Nouveaux Mémoires du Maréchal de Bassompierre,
recueillis par le président Hénault et imprimés sur le manuscrit de cet
académicien_, appeared; but the best authorities on the period are
agreed in regarding this work as apocryphal.
* * * * *
The years passed, and Bassompierre still remained in the Bastille. So
far from uttering complaints, he sought rather, by his words and acts,
to disarm the enmity of the all-powerful Minister. He protested
vigorously whenever he learned that the malcontents or the enemies of
Richelieu claimed him as one of their number; he lent his house at
Chaillot to the Cardinal every time that he asked for it; and, what does
him more honour, when in 1636 France was invaded, he offered to serve as
a simple volunteer. All was useless. The most distinguished personages
solicited his liberty; the poets interested themselves in his fate and
attested by their verses a courageous gratitude for the favours which
the marshal had bestowed upon them in the days of his prosperity.
Richelieu remained deaf to all appeals.
“A rumour ran,” writes Bassompierre in 1638, “that the King had
said to the Cardinal that he had it on his conscience to keep me so
long a prisoner, and that, as there was nothing to allege against
me, he could not detain me any longer. To which the Cardinal
replied that, since the time of my being imprisoned, so many things
had passed through his mind, that he could not now recollect the
causes which had led the King to imprison me or him to advise it;
but that he had them among his papers, and would look for them and
show them to the King. I know not if this be true, but the rumour
was current in Paris.”
It is little wonder that, if the question of his liberty, after more
than eight years of detention, was treated in this fashion, the hapless
victim of the vindictive Minister and the cold-hearted King was
sometimes plunged into the depths of despair.
“I know not,” he writes, “whether those who conduct the King’s
affairs hate me or wish to overwhelm me with affliction that they
have detained me so long in the Bastille, where I can do nothing
but pray to God that He will put an end to my long sufferings by my
liberty or my death. What can I write concerning my life, since I
pass it always in the same manner, save that from time to time some
fatal accident happens to me?--For good fortune deserted me from
the time I was deprived of my freedom.”
In this state of depression we can well understand the bitter grief
which the death of a little dog, which was his constant companion,
appears to have occasioned him:--
“There happened in the month of September [1639] an accident which
is ridiculous merely to mention, and disgraceful for me to have
taken to heart as I did, but which was much more insupportable to
me than several others of more importance that have occurred to me
in the course of my life. I had a little toy greyhound, called
Médor, not more than six inches high, of a dun and white colour,
the prettiest markings imaginable. He was the most beautiful, the
liveliest, the most affectionate dog I have ever seen, a pup of my
old bitch Diane, who had given birth to him about a year before her
death, as though she had wished to leave me this consolation in my
prison. It was certainly a very great one, for he afforded me much
amusement and rendered my imprisonment more tolerable. I confess
that I had conceived too great an affection for him. It happened
that on Monday, the 12th of September, I ascended to the terrace of
the Bastille with the Comtes de Cramail[147] and du Fargis, Madame
de Gravelle,[148] and the Comte d’Estelan,[149] who had come to
visit me that day, when a great, ugly black greyhound belonging to
M. du Coudray, whom I always feared so much for my dog that I
generally carried him in my arms when I knew that the other was on
the terrace, started to play with him, and, in doing so, placed a
paw on his little body in such fashion that he crushed his heart
before my eyes. Assuredly, this accident crushed mine and
distressed me to such a degree that I was sad for a very long
while, and the memory of this poor beast torments my mind still.”
Bassompierre’s _Mémoires_ conclude in October, 1640, with a reference to
the death in exile of his brother-in-law Charles de Lorraine, Duc de
Guise, the news of which had just reached him and appears to have caused
him much distress.