Memoirs of Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz Part 11

Then the informations were read against what they called "the public conspiracy from which it had pleased Almighty G.o.d to deliver the State and the royal family," after which I made a speech, in substance as follows:

"I do not believe, gentlemen, that in any of the past ages persons of our quality had ever received any personal summons grounded merely upon hearsay. Neither can I think that posterity will ever believe that this hearsay evidence was admitted from the mouths of the most infamous miscreants that ever got out of a gaol. Canto was condemned to the gallows at Pau, Pichon to the wheel at Mans, Sociande is a rogue upon record. Pray, gentlemen, judge of their evidence by their character and profession. But this is not all. They have the distinguis.h.i.+ng character of being informers by authority. I am sorely grieved that the defence of our honour, which is enjoined us by the laws of G.o.d and man, should oblige me to expose to light, under the most innocent of Kings, such abominations as were detested in the most corrupt ages of antiquity and under the worst of tyrants. But I must tell you that Canto, Sociande, and Gorgibus are authorised to inform against us by a commission signed by that august name which should never be employed but for the preservation of the most sacred laws, and which Cardinal Mazarin, who knows no law but that of revenge, which he meditates against the defenders of the public liberty, has forced M. Tellier, Secretary of State, to countersign.

"We demand justice, gentlemen, but we do not demand it of you till we have first most humbly implored this House to execute the strictest justice that the laws have provided against rebels, if it appears that we have been concerned directly or indirectly in raising this last disturbance. Is it possible, gentlemen, that a grandchild of Henri the Great, that a senator of M. Broussel's age and probity, and that the Coadjutor of Paris should be so much as suspected of being concerned in a sedition raised by a hot-brained fool, at the head of fifteen of the vilest of the mob? I am fully persuaded it would be scandalous for me to insist longer on this subject. This is all I know, gentlemen, of the modern conspiracy."

The applause that came from the Court of Inquiry was deafening; many voices were heard exclaiming against spies and informers. Honest Doujat, who was one of the persons appointed by the Attorney-General Talon, his kinsman, to make the report, and who had acquainted me with the facts, acknowledged it publicly by pretending to make the thing appear less odious. He got up, therefore, as if he were in a pa.s.sion, and spoke very artfully to this purpose:

"These witnesses, monsieur, are not to accuse you, as you are pleased to say, but only to discover what pa.s.sed in the meeting of the annuitants at the Hotel de Ville. If the King did not promise impunity to such as will give him information necessary for his service, and which sometimes cannot be come at without involving evidence in a crime, how should the King be informed at all? There is a great deal of difference between patents of this nature and commissions granted on purpose to accuse you."

You might have seen fire in 'the face of every member. The First President called out "Order!" and said, "MM. de Beaufort, le Coadjuteur, and Broussel, you are accused, and you must withdraw."

As Beaufort and I were leaving our seats, Broussel stopped us, saying, "Neither you, gentlemen, nor I are bound to depart till we are ordered to do so by the Court. The First President, whom all the world knows to be our adversary, should go out if we must."

I added, "And M. le Prince," who thereupon said, with a scornful air:

"What, I? Must I retire?"

"Yes, yes, monsieur," said I, "justice is no respecter of persons."

The President de Mesmes said, "No, monseigneur, you must not go out unless the Court orders you. If the Coadjutor insists that your Highness retire, he must demand it by a pet.i.tion. As for himself, he is accused, and therefore must go out; but, seeing he raises difficulties and objections to the contrary, we must put it to the vote." And it was pa.s.sed that we should withdraw.

Meanwhile, most of the members pa.s.sed encomiums upon us, satires upon the Ministry, and anathemas upon the witnesses for the Crown. Nor were the cures and the paris.h.i.+oners wanting in their duty on this occasion. The people came in shoals from all parts of Paris to the Parliament House.

Nevertheless, no disrespect was shown either to the King's brother or to M. le Prince; only some in their presence cried out, "G.o.d bless M. de Beaufort! G.o.d bless the Coadjutor!"

M. de Beaufort told the First President next day that, the State and royal family being in danger, every moment was precious, and that the offenders ought to receive condign punishment, and that therefore the Chambers ought to be a.s.sembled without loss of time. Broussel attacked the First President with a great deal of warmth. Eight or ten councillors entered immediately into the Great Chamber to testify their astonishment at the indolence and indifference of the House after such a furious conspiracy, and that so little zeal was shown to prosecute the criminals. MM. de Bignon and Talon, counsel for the Crown, alarmed the people by declaring that as for themselves they had no hand in the conclusions, which were ridiculous. The First President returned very calm answers, knowing well that we should have been glad to have put him into a pa.s.sion in order to catch at some expression that might bear an exception in law.

On Christmas Day I preached such a sermon on Christian charity, without mentioning the present affairs, that the women even wept for the unjust persecution of an archbishop who had so great a tenderness for his very enemies.

On the 29th M. de Beaufort and I went to the Parliament House, accompanied by a body of three hundred gentlemen, to make it appear that we were more than tribunes of the people, and to screen ourselves from the insults of the Court party. We posted ourselves in the Fourth Chamber of the Inquests, among the courtiers, with whom we conversed very frankly, yet upon the least noise, when the debates ran high in the Great Chamber, we were ready to cut one another's throats eight or ten times every morning. We were all distrustful of one another, and I may venture to say there were not twenty persons in the House but were armed with daggers. As for myself, I had resolved to take none of those weapons inconsistent with my character, till one day, when it was expected the House would be more excited than usual, and then M. de Beaufort, seeing one end of the weapon peeping out of my pocket, exposed it to M. le Prince's captain of the guards and others, saying, "See, gentlemen, the Coadjutor's prayer-book." I understood the jest, but really I could not well digest it. We pet.i.tioned the Parliament that the First President, being our sworn enemy, might be expelled the House, but it was put to the vote and carried by a majority of thirty-six that he should retain his station of judge.

Paris narrowly escaped a commotion at the time of the imprisonment of Belot, one of the syndics of the Hotel de Ville annuitants, who, being arrested without a decree, President de la Grange made it appear that there was nothing more contrary to the declaration for which they had formerly so exerted themselves. The First President maintaining the legality of his imprisonment, Daurat, a councillor of the Third Chamber, told him that he was amazed that a gentleman who was so lately near being expelled could be so resolute in violating the laws so flagrantly.

Whereupon the First President rose in a pa.s.sion, saying that there was neither order nor discipline in the House, and that he would resign his place to another for whom they had more respect. This motion put the Great Chamber all in a ferment, which was felt in the Fourth, where the gentlemen of both parties hastened to support their respective sides, and if the most insignificant lackey had then but drawn a sword, Paris would have been all in an uproar.

We solicited very earnestly for our trial, which they delayed as much as it was in their power, because they could not choose but acquit us and condemn the Crown witnesses. Various were the pretences for putting it off, and though the informations were not of sufficient weight to hang a dog, yet they were read over and over at every turn to prolong the time.

The public began to be persuaded of our innocence, as also the Prince de Conde, and M. de Bouillon told me that he very much suspected it to be a trick of the Cardinal's.

On the 1st of January, 1650, Madame de Chevreuse, having a mind to visit the Queen, with whom she had carried on in all her disgrace an unaccountable correspondence, went to the King's Palace. The Cardinal, taking her aside in the Queen's little cabinet, said to her:

"You love the Queen. Is it not possible for you to make your friends love her?"

"How can that be?" said she; "the Queen is no more a Queen, but a humble servant to M. le Prince."

"Good G.o.d!" replied the Cardinal; "we might do great things if we could get some men into our interest. But M. de Beaufort is at the service of Madame de Montbazon, and she is devoted to Vigneul and the Coadjutor;"

at the mention of which he smiled. "I take you, monsieur," said Madame de Chevreuse; "I will answer for him and for her."

Thus the conversation began, and the Cardinal making a sign to the Queen, Madame de Chevreuse had a long conference that night with her Majesty, who gave her this billet for me, written and signed with her own hand:

Notwithstanding what has pa.s.sed and what is now doing, I cannot but persuade myself that M. le Coadjuteur is in my interest. I desire to see him, and that n.o.body may know it but Madame and Mademoiselle de Chevreuse. This name shall be your security. ANNE.

Being convinced that the Queen was downright angry with the Prince de Conde on account of a rumour spread abroad that he had some intriguing gallantries with her Majesty, I weighed all circ.u.mstances and returned the answer to the Queen:

Never was there one moment of my life wherein I was not devoted to your Majesty. I am so far from consulting my own safety that I would gladly die for your service . . . I will go to any place your Majesty shall order me.

My answer, with the Queen's letter enclosed, was carried back by Madame de Chevreuse and well received. I went immediately to Court, and was taken up the back staircase by the Queen's train-bearer to the pet.i.t oratoire, where her Majesty was shut up all alone. She showed me as much kindness as she could, considering her hatred against M. le Prince and her friends.h.i.+p for the Cardinal, though the latter seemed the more to prevail, because in speaking of the civil wars and of the Cardinal's friends.h.i.+p for me she called him "the poor Cardinal" twenty times over.

Half an hour after, the Cardinal came in, who begged the Queen to dispense with the respect he owed her Majesty while he embraced me in her presence. He was pleased to say he was very sorry that he could not give me that very moment his own cardinal's cap. He talked so much of favours, gratifications, and rewards that I was obliged to explain myself, knowing that nothing is more destructive of new reconciliations than a seeming unwillingness to be obliged to those to whom you are reconciled. I answered that the greatest recompense I could expect, though I had saved the Crown, was to have the honour of serving her Majesty, and I humbly prayed the Queen to give me no other recompense, that at least I might have the satisfaction to make her Majesty sensible that this was the only reward I valued.

The Cardinal desired the Queen to command me to accept of the nomination to the cardinalate, "which," said he, "La Riviere has s.n.a.t.c.hed with insolence and acknowledged with treachery." I excused myself by saying that I had taken a resolution never to accept of the cardinals.h.i.+p by any means which seemed to have relation to the civil wars, to the end that I might convince the Queen that it was the most rigid necessity which had separated me from her service. I rejected upon the same account all the other advantageous propositions he made me, and, he still insisting that the Queen could do no less than confer upon me something that was very considerable for the signal service I was likely to do her Majesty, I answered:

"There is one point wherein the Queen can do me more good than if she gave me a triple crown. Her Majesty told me just now that she will cause M. le Prince to be apprehended. A person of his high rank and merit neither can nor ought to be always shut up in prison, for when he comes abroad he will be full of resentment against me, though I hope my dignity will be my protection. There are a great many gentlemen engaged with me who, in such a juncture, would be ready to serve the Queen. And if it seemed good to your Majesty to entrust one of them with some important employment, I should be more pleased than with ten cardinals' hats."

The Cardinal told the Queen that nothing was more just, and the affair should be considered between him and me.

We had several conferences, at which we agreed on gratifications for some of our friends and to arrest the Prince de Conde, the Prince de Conti, and the Duc de Longueville.

The Cardinal took occasion to speak of the treachery of La Riviere. "This man," said he, "takes me to be the most stupid creature living, and thinks he shall be to-morrow a cardinal. I diverted myself to-day with letting him try on some scarlet cloth I lately received from Italy, and I put it near his face to know whether a scarlet colour or carnation became him best."

I heard from Rome that his Eminence was not behindhand with La Riviere upon the score of treachery. For on the very day he got him nominated by the King, he wrote a letter to Cardinal Sach.e.l.li more fit to recommend him to a yellow cap than to a red one. This letter, nevertheless, was full of tenderness for La Riviere, which Mazarin knew was the only way to ruin him with Pope Innocent, who hated Mazarin and all his adherents.

Madame de Chevreuse undertook to see how the Duc d'Orleans would relish the design of imprisoning the Princes. She told him that, though the Queen was not satisfied with M. le Prince, yet she could not form a resolution of apprehending him without the concurrence of his Royal Highness. She magnified the advantages of bringing over to the King's service the powerful faction of the Fronde, and the daily dangers Paris was exposed to, both by fire and sword. This last reason touched him as much or more than all, for he trembled every time he came to the Parliament; M. le Prince very often could not prevail upon him to go at all, and a fit of colic was generally a.s.signed as the reason of his absence. At length he consented, and on the 18th of January the three Princes were put under arrest by three officers of the Queen's Guards.

The people having a notion that M. de Beaufort was apprehended, ran to their arms, which I caused to be laid down immediately, by marching through the streets with flambeaux before me. M. de Beaufort did the like, and the night concluded with bonfires.

The Queen sent a letter from the King to the Parliament with the reasons, which were neither strong nor well set out, why the Prince de Conde was confined. However, we obtained a decree for our absolution.

The Princesses were ordered to retire to Chantilly. Madame de Longueville went towards Normandy, but found no sanctuary there, for the Parliament of Rouen sent her a message to desire her to depart from the city. The Duc de Richelieu would not receive her into Havre, and from there she retired to Dieppe.

M. de Bouillon, who after the peace was strongly attached to the Prince de Conde, went in great haste to Turenne; M. de Turenne got into Stenai; M. de La Rochefoucault, then Prince de Marsillac, returned home to Poitou; and Marechal de Breze, father-in-law to the Prince de Conde, went to Saumur.

There was a declaration published and registered in Parliament against them, whereby they were ordered to wait on the King within fifteen days, upon pain of being proceeded against as disturbers of the public peace and guilty of high treason.

The Court carried all before them. Madame de Longueville, upon the King going into Normandy, escaped by sea into Holland, whence she went afterwards to Arras, to try La Tour, one of her husband's pensioners, who offered her his person, but refused her the place. She repaired at last to Stenai, whither M. de Turenne went to meet her, with all the friends and servants of the confined Princes that he could muster. The King went from Normandy to Burgundy, and returned to Paris crowned with laurels of victory.

The Princess-dowager, who had been ordered to retire to Bourges, came with a pet.i.tion to Parliament, praying for their protection to stay in Paris, and that she might have justice done her for the illegal confinement of the Princes her children. She fell at the feet of the Duc d'Orleans, begged the protection of the Duc de Beaufort, and said to me that she had the honour to be my kinswoman. M. de Beaufort was very much perplexed what to do, and I was nearly ready to die for shame; but we could do nothing for her, and she was obliged to go to Valery.

Several private annuitants, who had made a noise in the a.s.semblies at the Hotel de Ville, were afraid of being called to account, and therefore, after M. le Prince was arrested, they desired me to procure a general amnesty. I spoke about it to the Cardinal, who seemed very pliable, and, showing me his hatband, which was 'a la mode de la Fronde', said he hoped himself to be comprised in that amnesty; but he shuffled it off so long that it was not published and registered in Parliament till the 12th of May, and it would not have been obtained then had not I threatened vigorously to prosecute the Crown witnesses, of which they were mightily apprehensive, being so conscious of the heinousness of their crime that two of them had already made their escape.

The present calm hardly deserved that name, for the storm of war began to rise again in several places at once.

Madame de Longueville and M. de Turenne made a treaty with the Spaniards, and the latter joined their army, which entered Picardy and besieged Guise, after having taken Catelet; but for want of provisions the Archduke was obliged to raise the siege. M. de Turenne levied troops with Spanish money, and was joined by the greater part of the officers commanding the soldiers that went under the name of the Prince's troops.

The wretched conduct of M. d'Epernon had so confounded the affairs of Guienne that nothing but his removal could retrieve them.

One of the greatest mischiefs which the despotic authority of ministers has occasioned in the world in these later times is a practice, occasioned by their own private mistaken interests, of always supporting superiors against their inferiors. It is a maxim borrowed from Machiavelli, whom few understand, and whom too many cry up for an able man because he was always wicked. He was very far from being a complete statesman, and was frequently out in his politics, but I think never more grossly mistaken than in this maxim, which I observed as a great weakness in Mazarin, who was therefore the less qualified to settle the affairs of Guienne, which were in so much confusion that I believe if the good sense of Jeannin and Villeroi had been infused into the brains of Cardinal de Richelieu, it would not have been sufficient to set them right.

Senneterre, perceiving that Cardinal Mazarin and I were not cordial friends, undertook to reconcile us, and for that end took me to the Cardinal, who embraced me very tenderly, said he laid his heart upon the table, that was one of his usual phrases,--and protested he would talk as freely to me as if I were his own son. I did not believe a word of what he said, but I a.s.sured his Eminence that I would speak to him as if he were my father, and I was as good as my word. I told him I had no personal interest in view but to disengage myself from the public disturbances without any private advantage, and that for the same reason I thought myself obliged to come off with reputation and honour. I desired him to consider that my age and want of skill in public affairs could not give him any jealousy that I aimed to be the First Minister. I conjured him to consider also that the influence I had over the people of Paris, supported by mere necessity, did rather reflect disgrace than honour upon my dignity, and that he ought to believe that this one reason was enough to make me impatient to be rid of all these public broils, besides a thousand other inconveniences arising every moment, which disgusted me with faction. And as for the dignity of cardinal, which might peradventure give him some umbrage, I could tell him very sincerely what had been and what was still my notion of this dignity, which I once foolishly imagined would be more honourable for me to despise than to enjoy. I mentioned this circ.u.mstance to let him see that in my tender years I was no admirer of the purple, and not very fond of it now, because I was persuaded that an Archbishop of Paris could hardly miss obtaining that dignity some time or other, according to form, by actions purely ecclesiastical; and that he should be loth to use any other means to procure it.

I said that I should be extremely sorry if my purple were stained with the least drop of blood spilt in the civil wars; that I was resolved to clear my hands of everything that savoured of intrigue before I would make or suffer any step which had any tendency that way; that he knew that for the same reason I would neither accept money nor abbeys, and that, consequently, I was engaged by the public declarations I had made upon all those heads to serve the Queen without any interest; that the only end I had in view, and in which I never wavered, was to come off with honour, so that I might resume the spiritual functions belonging to my profession with safety; that I desired nothing from him but the accomplishment of an affair which would be more for the King's service than for my particular interest; that he knew that the day after the arrest of the Prince he sent me with his promise to the annuitants of the Hotel de Ville, and that for want of performance those men were persuaded that I was in concert with the Court to deceive them. Lastly, I told him that the access I had to the Duc d'Orleans might perhaps give him umbrage, but I desired him to consider that I never sought that honour, and that I was very sensible of the inconveniences attending it. I enlarged upon this head, which is the most difficult point to be understood by Prime Ministers, who are so fond of being freely admitted into a Prince's presence that, notwithstanding all the experience in the world, they cannot help thinking that therein consists the essence of happiness.