A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times Volume V Part 6

and of the government of France, pa.s.sed a just but severe judgment upon Albert de Luynes. "He was a mediocre and timid creature," he said, "faithless, ungenerous, too weak to remain steady against the a.s.sault of so great a fortune as that which ruined him incontinently; allowing himself to be borne away by it as by a torrent, without any foothold, unable to set bounds to his ambition, incapable of arresting it, and not knowing what he was about, like a man on the top of a tower, whose head goes round and who has no longer any power of discernment. He would fain have been Prince of Orange, Count of Avignon, Duke of Albret, King of Austrasia, and would not have refused more if he had seen his way to it."

[_Memoires de Richelieu,_ p. 169, in the _Pet.i.tot Collection,_ Series v., t. xxii.]

This brilliant and truthful portrait lacks one feature which was the merit of the Constable de Luynes: he saw coming, and he antic.i.p.ated, a long way off and to little purpose, but heartily enough, the government of France by a supreme kings.h.i.+p, whilst paying respect, as long as he lived, to religious liberty, and showing himself favorable to intellectual and literary liberty, though he was opposed to political and national liberty. That was the government which, after him, was practised with a high hand and rendered triumphant by Cardinal Richelieu to the honor, if not the happiness, of France.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.----LOUIS XIII., CARDINAL RICHELIEU, AND THE COURT.

(1622-1642.)

The characteristic of Louis XIV.'s reign is the uncontested empire of the sovereign over the nation, the authority of the court throughout the country. All intellectual movement proceeded from the court or radiated about it; the whole government, whether for war or peace, was concentrated in its hands. Conde, Turenne, Catinat, Luxembourg, Villars, Vendome belonged, as well as Louvois or Colbert, to the court; from the court went the governors and administrators of provinces; there was no longer any greatness existing outside of the court; there were no longer any petty private courts. As for the state, the king was it.

For ages past, France had enjoyed the rare good fortune of seeing her throne successively occupied by Charlemagne and Charles V., by St. Louis and Louis XI., by Louis XII., Francis I. and Henry IV., great conquerors or wise administrators, heroic saints or profound politicians, brilliant knights or models of patriot-kings. Such sovereigns had not only governed, but also impressed the imagination of the people; it was to them that the weak, oppressed by the great feudal lords, had little by little learned to apply for support and a.s.sistance; since the reign of Francis I., especially, in the midst of the religious struggles which had caused division amongst the n.o.blesse and were threatening to create a state within the state, the personal position of the grandees, and that of their petty private courts, had been constantly diminis.h.i.+ng in importance; the wise policy, the bold and prudent courage of Henry IV., and his patriotic foresight had pacified hatred and stayed civil wars; he had caused his people to feel the pleasure and pride of being governed by a man of a superior order. Cardinal Richelieu, more stern than Henry IV., set his face steadily against all the influences of the great lords; he broke them down one after another; he persistently elevated the royal authority; it was the hand of Richelieu which made the court and paved the way for the reign of Louis XIV. The Fronde was but a paltry interlude and a sanguinary game between parties. At Richelieu's death, pure monarchy was founded.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RICHELIEU----180]

In the month of December, 1622, the work was as yet full of difficulty.

There were numerous rivals for the heritage of royal favor that had slipped from the dying hands of Luynes. The Prince of Conde, a man of ability and moderation, "a good managing man (_homme de bon menage_)," as he was afterwards called by the cardinal, was the first to get possession of the mind of the king, at that time away from his mother, who was residing at Paris. "It was not so much from dislike that they opposed her," says Richelieu, "as from fear lest, when once established at the king's council, she might wish to introduce me there. They acknowledged in me some force of judgment; they dreaded my wits, fearing lest, if the king were to take special cognizance of me, it might come to his committing to me the princ.i.p.al care of his affairs." [_Memoires de Richelieu,_ t. ii. p. 193.] On returning to Paris, the king, nevertheless, could not refuse this gratification to his mother.

However, "the prince, who was in the habit of speaking very freely, and could not be mum about what he had on his mind, permitted himself to go so far as to say that she had been received into the council on two conditions, one, that she should have cognizance of nothing but what they pleased, and the other, that, though only a portion of affairs was communicated to her, she would serve as authority for all in the minds of the people." [_Memoires de Richelieu,_ t. ii. p. 194.] In fact, the queen-mother quite perceived that she was only shown the articles in the window, and did not enter the shop; "but, with all the prudence and patience of an Italian, when she was not carried away by pa.s.sion, she knew how to practise dissimulation towards the Prince of Conde and his allies, Chancellor Sillery and his son Puisieux, secretary of state. She accompanied her son on an expedition against the Huguenots of the South, which she had not advised, "foreseeing quite well that, if she were separated from the king, she would have no part either in peace or war, and that, if they got on without her for ten months, they would become accustomed to getting on without her." She had the satisfaction of at last seeing the Bishop of Lucon promoted to the cardinals.h.i.+p she had so often solicited for him in vain; but, at the same time, the king called to the council Cardinal Rochefoucauld, "not through personal esteem for the old cardinal," says Richelieu, "but to cut off from the new one all hope of a place for which he might be supposed to feel some ambition."

Nevertheless, in spite of his enemies' intrigues, in spite of a certain instinctive repugnance on the part of the king himself, who repeated to his mother, "I know him better than you, madame; he is a man of unbounded ambition," the "new cardinal" was called to the council at the opening of the year 1624, on the instance of the Marquis of La Vieuville, superintendent of finance and chief of the council, who felt himself unsteady in his position, and sought to secure the favor of the queen-mother. It was as the protege and organ of Mary de' Medici that the cardinal wrote to the Prince of Conde, on the 11th of May, 1624, "The king having done me the honor to place me on his council, I pray G.o.d with all my heart to render me worthy of serving him as I desire; and I feel myself bound thereto by every sort of consideration. I cannot sufficiently thank you for the satisfaction that you have been pleased to testify to me thereat. Therefore would I far rather do so in deed by serving you than by bootless words. And in that I cannot fail without failing to follow out the king's intention. I have made known to the queen the a.s.surance you give her by your letter of your affection, for which she feels all the reciprocity you can desire. She is the more ready to flatter herself with the hope of its continuance, in that she will be very glad to incite you thereto by all the good offices she has means of rendering you with His Majesty." [_Lettres du Cardinal de Richelieu,_ t. ii. p. 5.] On the 12th of August, however, M. de la Vieuville fell irretrievably, and was confined in the castle of Amboise.

A pamphlet of the time had forewarned him of the danger which threatened him when he introduced Richelieu into the council. "You are both of the same temper," it said; "that is, you both desire one and the same thing, which is, to be, each of you, sole governor. That which you believe to be your making will be your undoing."

From that moment the cardinal, in spite of his modest resistance based upon the state of his health, became the veritable chief of the council.

"Everybody knew that, amidst the mere private occupations he had hitherto had, it would have been impossible for him to exist with such poor health, unless he took frequent recreation in the country." [_Memoires de Richelieu,_ t. ii. p. 289.] Turning his attention to founding his power and making himself friends, he authorized the recall of Count Schomberg, lately disgraced, and of the Duke of Anjou's, the king's brother's, governor, Colonel Ornano, imprisoned by the Marquis of La Vieuville. He, at the same time, stood out against the danger of concentrating all the power of the government in a single pair of hands.

"Your Majesty," he said, "ought not to confide your public business to a single one of your councillors and hide it from the rest; those whom you have chosen ought to live in fellows.h.i.+p and amity in your service, not in partisans.h.i.+p and division. Every time, and as many times as a single one wants to do everything himself, he wants to ruin himself; but in ruining himself he will ruin your kingdom and you, and as often as any single one wants to possess your ear and do in secret what should be resolved upon openly, it must necessarily be for the purpose of concealing from Your Majesty either his ignorance or his wickedrnpss." [_Memoires de Richelieu,_ t. ii. p. 349.] Prudent rules and acute remarks, which Richelieu, when he became all-powerful, was to forget.

Eighteen months had barely rolled away when Colonel Ornano, lately created a marshal at the Duke of Anjou's request, was again arrested and carried off a prisoner "to the very room where, twenty-four years ago, Marshal Biron had been confined." For some time past "it had been current at court and throughout the kingdom that a great cabal was going on," says Richelieu in his _Memoires,_ "and the cabalists said quite openly that under his ministry, men might cabal with impunity, for he was not a dangerous enemy." If the cabalists had been living in that confidence, they were most wofully deceived. Richelieu was neither meddlesome nor cruel, but he was stern and pitiless towards the sufferings as well as the supplications of those who sought to thwart his policy. At this period, he wished to bring about a marriage between the Duke of Anjou, then eighteen years old, and Mdlle. de Montpensier, the late Duke of Montpensier's daughter, and the richest heiress in France.

The young prince did not like it. Madame de Chevreuse, it was said, seeing the king an invalid and childless, was already antic.i.p.ating his death, and the possibility of marrying his widowed queen to his successor. "I should gain too little by the change," said Anne of Austria one day, irritated by the accusations of which she was the object. Divers secret or avowed motives had formed about the Duke of Anjou what was called the "aversion" party, who were opposed to his marriage; but the arrest of Colonel Ornano dismayed the accomplices for a while. The Duke of Anjou protested his fidelity to his brother, and promised the cardinal to place in the king's hands a written undertaking to submit his wishes and affections to him. The intrigue appeared to have been abandoned. But the "_dreadful (epouvantable) faction,_" as the Cardinal calls it in his _Memoires,_ conspired to remove the young prince from the court. The Duke of Vendome, son of Henry IV. and Gabrielle d'Estrees, had offered him an asylum in his government of Brittany; but the far-sighted policy of the minister took away this refuge from the heir to the throne, always inclined as he was to put himself at the head of a party. The Duke of Vendome and his brother the Grand Prior, disquieted at the rumors which were current about them, hastened to go and visit the king at Blois. He received them with great marks of affection. "Brother," said he to the Duke of Vendome, laying his hand upon his shoulder, "I was impatient to see you." Next morning, the 15th of June, the two princes were arrested in bed. "Ah! brother," cried Vendome, "did not I tell you in Brittany that we should be arrested?"

"I wish I were dead, and you were there," said the Grand Prior. "I told you, you know, that the castle of Blois was a fatal place for princes,"

rejoined the duke. They were conducted to Amboise. The king, continually disquieted by the projects of a.s.sa.s.sination hatched against his minister, gave him a company of musketeers as guards, and set off for Nantes, whither the cardinal was not slow to go and join him. In the interval, a fresh accomplice in the plot had been discovered.

This time it was in the king's own household that he had been sought and found. Henry de Talleyrand, Count of Chalais, master of the wardrobe, hare-brained and frivolous, had hitherto made himself talked about only for-his duels and his successes with women. He had already been drawn into a plot against the cardinal's life; but, under the influence of remorse, he had confessed his criminal intentions to the minister himself. Richelieu appeared touched by the repentance, but he did not forget the offence, and his watch over this "unfortunate gentleman," as he himself calls him, made him aware before long that Chalais was compromised in an intrigue which aimed at nothing less, it was said, than to secure the person of the cardinal by means an ambush, so as to rid him at need. Chalais was arrested in his bed on the 8th of July. The Marquis la Valette, son of the Duke of Epernon and governor or Metz had been asked to give an asylum to Monsieur in case he decided upon flying from the court, had answered after embarra.s.sed fas.h.i.+on; the cardinal had his enemies in a trap He went to call on Monsieur; it was in Richelieu's own house, and under pretext of demanding hospitality of him, that the conspirators calculated upon striking their blow. "I very much, regret,"

said the cardinal to Gaston, "that your Highness did, not warn me that you and your friends meant to do me the honor of coming to sup with me.

I would have exerted myself, to entertain them and receive them to the best of my ability." [_Journal de Ba.s.sompierre,_ t. ii.] Monsieur seemed to be dumbfounded; he still thought of flight, but Madame de Guise had just arrived at Nantes with her daughter, Mdlle. de Montpensier; Madame de Chevreuse had been driven from court; the young prince's friends had been scared or won over; and President le Coigneux, his most honest adviser, counselled him get the cardinal's support with the king. "That rascal," said the president, "gets so sharp an edge on his wits, that it is necessary to avail one's self of all sorts of means to undo what he does." Monsieur at last gave way, and consented to married, provided that the king would treat it as appanage. Louis XIII., in his turn, hesitated, being attracted by the arguments of certain underlings, "folks ever welcome, as being apparently out of the region of political interests, and seeming to have an eye in everything to their master's person only." They represented to the king that if the Duke of Anjou were to have children, he would become of more importance in the country, which would be to the king's detriment. The minister, boldly demanded of the king the dismissal of "those petty folks who insolently abused his ear." Louis XIII., in his turn gave way; and on the 5th of August, 1626, the cardinal celebrated the marriage of Gaston, who became Duke of Orleans on, the occasion, with Mary of Bourbon, Mdlle. de Montpesier.

"No viols or music were heard that day and it was said in the bridegroom's circle that there was no occa.s.sion for having Monsieur's marriage stained with blood. This was reported,to the king, and to the cardinal who did not at all like it."

When Chalais, in his prison, heard of the marriage, he undoubtedly conceived some hope of a pardon, for he exclaimed, as the cardinal himself says, "That is a mighty sharp trick, to have not only scattered a great faction, but, by removing its object, to have annihilated all hopes of re-uniting it. Only the sagacity of the king and his minister could have made such a hit; it was well done to have caught Monsieur between touch-and-go (_entre bond et volee_). The prince, when he knows of this, will be very vexed, though he do not say so, and the count (of Soissons, nephew of Conde) will weep over it with his mother."

The hopes of Chalais were deceived. He had written to the king to confess his fault. "I was only thirteen days in the faction," he said; but those thirteen days were enough to destroy him. In vain did his friends intercede pa.s.sionately for him; in vain did his mother write to the king the most touching letter. "I gave him to you, sir, at eight years of age; he is a grandson of Marshal Montluc and President Jeannin; his family serve you daily, but dare not throw themselves at your feet for fear of displeasing you; nevertheless, they join with me in begging of you the life of this wretch, though he should have to end his days in perpetual imprisonment, or in serving you abroad." Chalais was condemned to death on the 18th of August, 1626, by the criminal court established at Nantes for that purpose; all the king's mercy went no farther than a remission of the tortures which should have accompanied th execution. He sent one of his friends to a.s.sure his mother of his repentance. "Tell him," answered the n.o.ble lady, that I am very glad to have the consolation he gives me of, his dying in G.o.d; if I did not think that the sight of me would be too much for him, I would go to him and not leave him until his head was severed from his body; but, being unable to be of any help to him in that way, I am going to pray G.o.d for him." And she returned into the church of the nuns of Sainte-Claire. The friends of Chalais had managed to have the executioner carried off, so as to r.e.t.a.r.d his execution; but an inferior criminal, to whom pardon had been granted for the performance of this service, cut off the unfortunate culprit's head in thirty-one strokes. [_Memoires d'un Favori du Duc d' Orleans (Archives curieuses de l'Histoire de France),_ 2d series, t. iii.] "The sad news was brought to the Duke of Orleans, who was playing abbot; he did not leave the game, and went on as if instead of death he had heard of deliverance." An example of cruelty which might well have discouraged the friends of the Duke of Orleans "from dying a martyr's death for him"

like the unhappy Chalais.

It has been said that Richelieu was neither meddlesome nor cruel, but that he was stern and pitiless; and he gave proof of that the following year, on an occasion when his personal interests were not in any way at stake. At the outset of his ministry, in 1624, he had obtained from the king a severe ordinance against duels--a fatal custom which was at that time decimating the n.o.blesse.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Double Duel----188]

Already several n.o.blemen, amongst others M. du Plessis-Praslin, had been deprived of their offices or sent into exile in consequence of their duels, when M. de Bouteville, of the house of Montmorency, who had been previously engaged in twenty-one affairs of honor, came to Paris to fight the Marquis of Beuvron on the _Place Royale_. The Marquis's second, M.

de fussy d'Amboise, was killed by the Count of Chapelles, Bouteville's second. Beuvron fled to England. M. de Bouteville and his comrade had taken post for Lorraine; they were recognized and arrested at Vitry-le- Brule and brought back to Paris; and the king immediately ordered Parliament to bring them to trial. The crime was flagrant and the defiance of the kings orders undeniable; but the culprit was connected with the greatest houses in the kingdom; he had given striking proofs of bravery in the king's service; and all the court interceded for him. Parliament, with regret, p.r.o.nounced condemnation, absolving the memory of Bussy d'Amboise, who was a son of President De Mesmes's wife, and reducing to one third of their goods the confiscation to which the condemned were sentenced. "Parliament has played the king,"

was openly said in the queen's ante-chamber; "if the things proceed to execution, the king will play Parliament."

The cardinal was much troubled in spirit," says he himself it was impossible to have a n.o.ble heart and not pity this poor gentleman, whose youth and courage excited so much compa.s.sion." However, whilst expounding, according to his practice, to the king the reasons for and against the execution of the culprits, Richelieu let fall this astounding expression: "It is a question of breaking the neck of duels or of your Majesty's edicts."

Louis XIII. did not hesitate: though less stern than his brother, he was, more indifferent, and "the love he bore his kingdom prevailed over his compa.s.sion for these two gentlemen." Both died with courage. "There was no sign of anything weak in their words or mean in their actions. They received the news that they were to die with the same visage as they would have that of pardon," "in such sort that they who had lived like devils were seen dying like saints, and they who had cared for nothing but to foment duels serving towards the extinction of them." [_Memoires d'un Favori du Due d' Orleans (Archives curieuses de l'Histoire de France),_ t. ii.]

The cardinal had got Chalais condemned as a conspirator; he had let Bouteville be executed as a duellist; the greatest lords bent beneath his authority, but the power that depends on a king's favor is always menaced and tottering. The enemies of Richelieu had not renounced the idea of overthrowing him; their hopes even went on growing, since, for some time past the queen-mother had been waxin jealous of the all powerful minister, and no longer made common cause with him. The king had returned in triumph from the siege of La Roch.e.l.le; the queen-mother hoped to retain him by her at court; but the cardinal, ever on the watch over the movements of Spain, prevailed upon Louis XIII. to support his subject, the Duke of Nevers, legitimate heir to Mantua and Montferrat, of which the Spaniards were besieging the capital. The army began to march, but the queen designedly r.e.t.a.r.ded the movements of her son. The cardinal was appointed generalissimo, and the king, who had taken upon himself the occupation of Savoy, was before long obliged by his health to return to Lyons, where he fell seriously ill. The two queens hurried to his bedside; and they were seconded by the keeper of the seals, M. de Marillac, but lately raised to power by Richelieu as a man on whom he could depend, and now completely devoted to the queen-mother's party.

At the news of the king's danger, the cardinal quitted St. Jean-de- Maurienne for a precipitate journey to Lyons; but he was soon obliged to return to his army. During the king's convalescence, the resentment of the queen-mother against the minister, as well as that of Anne of Austria, had free course; and when the royal train took the road slowly back to Paris, in the month of October, the ruin of the cardinal had been resolved upon.

What a trip was that descent of the Loire from Roanne to Briare in the same boat and "at very close quarters between the queen-mother and the cardinal!" says Ba.s.sompierre. "She hoped that she would more easily be able to have her will, and crush her servant with the more facility, the less he was on his guard against it; she looked at him with a kindly eye, accepted his dutiful attentions and respects as usual, and spoke to him with as much appearance of confidence as if she had wholly given it him."

[_Memoires de Richelieu,_ t. iii. pp. 303-305.]

The king had requested his mother "to put off for six weeks or two months the grand move against the cardinal, for the sake of the affairs of his kingdom, which were then at a crisis in Italy" [_Memoires de Ba.s.sompierre,_ t. iii. p. 276], and she had promised him; but Richelieu "suspected something wrong, and discovered more," and, on the 12th of November, 1630, when mother and son were holding an early conference at the Luxembourg, a fine palace which Mary de' Medici had just finished, "the cardinal arrived there; finding the door of the chamber closed, he entered the gallery and went and knocked at the door of the cabinet, where he obtained no answer. Tired of waiting, and knowing the ins and outs of the mansion, he entered by the little chapel; whereat the king was somewhat dismayed, and said to the queen in despair, 'Here he is!'

thinking, no doubt, that he would blaze forth. The cardinal, who perceived this dismay, said to them, 'I am sure you were speaking about me.' The queen answered, 'We were not.' Whereupon, he having replied, 'Confess it, madam,' she said yes, and thereupon conducted herself with great tartness towards him, declaring to the king 'that she would not put up with the cardinal any longer, or see in her house either him or any of his relatives and friends, to whom she incontinently gave their dismissal, and not to them only, but even down to the pettiest of her officers who had come to her from his hands.'" [_Memoires de Richelieu,_ t. iii. p. 428.]

The struggle was begun. Already the courtiers were flocking to the Luxembourg; the keeper of the seals, Marillac, had gone away to sleep at his country-house at Glatigny, quite close to Versailles, where the king was expected; and he was hoping that Louis XIII. would summon him and put the power in his hands. The king was chatting with his favorite St.

Simon, and tapping with his finger-tips on the window-pane. "What do you think of all this?" he asked. "Sir," was the reply, "I seem to be in another world, but at any rate you are master." "Yes, I am," answered the king, "and I will make it felt too." He sent for Cardinal La Vallette, son of the Duke of Epernon, but devoted to Richelieu. "The cardinal has a good master," he said: "go and make my compliments to him, and tell him to come to me without delay." [Memoires de Ba.s.sompierre, t. iii. p. 276.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Tapping with his Finger-tips on the Window-pane."----191]

With all his temper and the hesitations born of his melancholy mind, Louis XIII. could appreciate and discern the great interests of his kingdom and of his power. The queen had supposed that the king would abandon the cardinal, and "that her private authority as mother, and the pious affection and honor the king showed her as her son, would prevail over the public care which he ought, as king, to take of his kingdom and his people. But G.o.d, who holds in His hand the hearts of princes, disposed things otherwise: his Majesty resolved to defend his servant against the malice of those who prompted the queen to this wicked design." [_Memoires de Richelieu._] He conversed a long while with the cardinal, and when the keeper of the seals awoke the next morning, it was to learn that the minister was at Versailles with the king, who had lodged him in a room under his own, that his Majesty demanded the seals back, and that the exons were at his, Marillac's, door to secure his person.

At the same time was despatched a courier to headquarters at Foglizzo in Piedmont. The three marshals Schomberg, La Force, and Marillac, had all formed a junction there. Marillac, brother of the keeper of the seals, held the command that day; and he was awaiting with patience the news, already announced by his brother, of the cardinal's disgrace. Marshal Schomberg opened the despatches; and the first words that met his eye were these, written in the king's own hand: "My dear cousin, you will not fail to arrest Marshal Marillac; it is for the good of my service and for your own exculpation." The marshal was greatly embarra.s.sed; a great part of the troops had come with Marillac from the army of Champagne and were devoted to him. Schomberg determined, on the advice of Marshal La Force, in full council of captains, to show Marillac the postcript. "Sir,"

answered the marshal, "a subject must not murmur against his master, nor say of him that the things he alleges are false. I can protest with truth that I have done nothing contrary to his service. The truth is, that my brother the keeper of the seals and I have always been the servants of the queen-mother; she must have had the worst of it, and Cardinal Richelieu has won the day against her and her servants."

[_Memoires de Puy-Seyur._]

Thus arrested in the very midst of the army he commanded, Marshal Marillac was taken to the castle of St. Menehould and thence to Verdun, where a court of justice extraordinary sat upon his case. It was cleared of any political accusation: the marshal was prosecuted for peculation and extortion, common crimes at that time with many generals, and always odious to the nation, which regarded their punishment with favor. "It is a very strange thing," said Marillac, "to prosecute me as they do; my trial is a mere question of hay, straw, wood, stones, and lime; there is not case enough for whipping a lackey." There was case enough for sentencing to death a marshal of France. The proceedings lasted eighteen months; the commission was transferred from Verdun to Ruel, to the very house of the cardinal. Marillac was found guilty by a majority of one only. The execution took place on the 10th of May, 1632. The former keeper of the seals, Michael de Marillac, died of decline at Chateaudun, three months after the death of his brother.

_Dupes' Day_ was over and lost. The queen-mother's attack on Richelieu had failed before the minister's ascendency and the king's calculating fidelity to a servant he did not like; but Mary de' Medici's anger was not calmed, and the struggle remained set between her and the cardinal.

The Duke of Orleans, who had lost his wife after a year's marriage, had not hitherto joined his mother's party, but all on a sudden, excited by his grievances, he arrived at the cardinal's, on the 30th of January, 1631, "with a strong escort, and told him that he would consider it a strange purpose that had brought him there; that, so long as he supposed that the cardinal would serve him, he had been quite willing to show him amity; now, when he saw that he foiled him in everything that be had promised, to such extent that the way in which he, Monsieur, had behaved himself, had served no end but to make the world believe that he had abandoned the queen his mother, he had come to take back the word he had given him to show him affection." On leaving the cardinal's house, Monsieur got into his carriage and went off in haste to Orleans, whilst the king, having received notice from Richelieu, was arriving with all despatch from Versailles to a.s.sure his minister "of his protection, well knowing that n.o.body could wish him ill, save for the faithful services he rendered him." [_Memoires de Richelieu,_ t. ii. p. 444.]

The queen-mother had undoubtedly been aware of the Duke of Orleans'

project, for she had given up to him Madame's jewels which he had confided to her; she nevertheless sent her equerry to the king, protesting "that she had been much astonished when she heard of Monsieur's departure, that she had almost fainted on the spot, and that Monsieur had sent her word that he was going away from court because he could no longer tolerate the cardinal's violent proceedings against her.

"When the king signified to her that he considered this withdrawal very strange, and let her know that he had much trouble in believing that she knew nothing about it, she took occasion to belch forth fire and flames against the cardinal, and made a fresh attempt to ruin him in the king's estimation, though she had previously bound herself by oath to take no more steps against him." [_Memoires de Richelieu,_ t. ii. p. 465.]

The cardinal either had not sworn at all or did not consider himself more bound than the queen by oaths. Their Majesties set out for Compiegne; there the minister brought the affair before the council, explaining with a skilful appearance of indifference the different courses to be taken, and ending by propounding the question of his own retirement or the queen-mother's. "His Majesty, without hesitation, made his own choice, taking the resolution of returning to Paris and of begging the queen-mother to retire for the time being to one of his mansions, particularly recommending Moulins, which she had formerly expressed to the late king a wish to have; and, in order that she might be the better contented with it, he offered her the government of it and of all the province." Next day, February 23, 1631, before the queen-mother was up, her royal son had taken the road back to Paris, leaving Marshal D'Estrees at Compiegne to explain to the queen his departure and to hasten his mother's, a task in which the marshal had but small success, for Mary de'

Medici declared that, if they, meant to make her depart, they would have to drag her stark naked from her bed. She kept herself shut up in the castle, refusing to go out and complaining of the injury the seclusion did to her health; then she fled by night from Compiegne, attended by one gentleman only, to go and take refuge in Flanders, whence she arrived before long at Brussels.

The cardinal's game was definitively won. Mary de' Medici had lost all empire over her son, whom she was never to see again.

The Duke of Orleans meanwhile had taken the road to Lorraine, seeking a refuge in the dominions of a prince able, crafty, restless, and hostile to France from inclination as well as policy. Smitten, before long, with the duke's sister, Princess Margaret, Gaston of Orleans married her privately, with a dispensation from the Cardinal of Lorraine, all which did not prevent either duke or prince from barefacedly denying the marriage when the king reproached them with having contracted this marriage without his consent. In the month of June, 1632, the Duke of Orleans entered France again at the head of some wretched regiments, refuse of the Spanish army, given to him by Don Gonzalvo di Cordova. For the first time, he raised the standard of revolt openly. For him it was of little consequence, accustomed as he was to place himself at the head of parties that he abandoned without shame in the hour of danger; but he dragged along with him in his error a man worthy of another fate and of another chief. Henry, Duke of Montmorency, marshal of France, and governor of Languedoc, was a G.o.dson of Henry IV., who said one day to M. de Villeroy and to President Jeannin, "Look at my son Montmorency, how well made he is; if ever the house of Bourbon came to fail, there is no family in Europe which would so well deserve the crown of France as, his, whose great men have always supported it, and even added to it at the price of their blood." s.h.i.+ning at court as well as in arms, kind and charitable, beloved of everybody and adored by his servants, the Duke of Montmorency had steadily remained faithful to the king up to the fatal day when the Duke of Orleans entangled him in his hazardous enterprise.

Languedoc was displeased with Richelieu, who had robbed it of some of its privileges; the duke had no difficulty in collecting adherents there; and he fancied himself to be already wielding the constable's sword, five times borne by a Montmorency, when Gaston of Orleans entered France and Languedoc sooner than he had been looked for, and with a smaller following than he had promised. The eighteen hundred men brought by the king's brother did not suffice to re-establish him, with the queen his mother, in the kingdom; the governor of Languedoc made an appeal to the Estates then a.s.sembled at Pezenas; he was supported by the Bishop of Alby and by that of Nimes; the province itself proclaimed revolt. The sums demanded by the king were granted to the duke, whom the deputies prayed to remain faithful to the interests of the province, just as they promised never to abandon his. The Archbishop of Narbonne alone opposed this rash act; he left the Estates, where he was president, and the duke marched out to meet Monsieur as far as Lunel. "Troops were levied throughout the province and the environs as openly as if it had been for the king." But the regiments were slow in forming; the Duke of Orleans wished to gain over some of the towns; Narbonne and Montpellier closed their gates. The bishop's influence had been counted upon for making sure of Nimes, and Montmorency everywhere tried to practise on the Huguenots; "but the Reformed ministers of Nimes, having had advices by letter from his Majesty, whereby he represented himself to have been advertised that the princ.i.p.al design of Monsieur was to excite them of the religion styled Reformed, considered themselves bound in their own defence to do more than the rest for the king's service. They a.s.sembled the consistory, resolved to die in obedience to him, went to seek the consuls and requested them to have the town-council a.s.sembled, in order that it might be brought to take a similar resolution; which the consuls, gained over by M. de Montmorency, refused." [_Memoires de Richelieu,_ t. iii. p. 160.] Thereupon the ministers sent off in haste to Marshal La Force, who had already taken position at Pont-Saint-Esprit with his army; and, he having despatched some light horse on the 26th of July, the people cried, "Hurrah! for the king!" the bishop was obliged to fly, and the town was kept to its allegiance. "Beaucaire, the governor of which had been won over," made armed resistance. "If we beat the king's army,"

said the Duke of Montmorency on returning to Pezenas after this incident, "we shall have no lack of towns; if not, we shall have to go and make our court at Brussels."

At the news of his brother's revolt, the king, who happened to be on the frontiers of Lorraine, had put himself in motion, but he marched at his ease and by short stages, "thinking that the fire Monsieur would kindle would be only a straw fire."

He hurried his movements when he heard of Montmorency's uprising, and left Paris after having put the seals upon the duke's house, who had imprudently left five hundred and fifty thousand livres there; the money was seized and lodged in the royal safe. The Princess of Guemene, between whom and Montmorency there were very strong ties, went to see the cardinal, who was in attendance on the king. "Sir," she said to him, "you are going to Languedoc; remember the great marks of attachment that M. de Montmorency showed you not long ago; you cannot forget then without ingrat.i.tude." Indeed, when the king believed himself to be dying at Lyons, he had recommended the cardinal to the Duke of Montmorency, who had promised to receive him into his government. "Madam," replied Richelieu coldly, "I have not been the first to break off."

Already the Parliament of Toulouse, remaining faithful to the king, had annulled the resolutions of the Estates, the letters and commissions of the governor; and the Parliament of Paris had just enregistered a resolution against the servants and adherents of the Duke of Orleans, as rebels guilty of high treason and disturbers of the common peace. Six weeks were granted the king's brother to put an end to all acts of hostility; else the king was resolved to decree against him, after that interval of delay, "whatsoever he should consider it his duty to do for the preservation of his kingdom, according to the laws of the realm and the example of his predecessors."