Memoirs of Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz Part 15

Nevertheless, she seemed to protect the Coadjutor."]

She ordered thirty gendarmes and as many Light-horse to be posted where I pleased; I had forty men sent me, picked out of the sergeants and bravest soldiers of one of the regiments of Guards, and some of the officers of the city companies, and a.s.sembled a great number of substantial burghers, all of whom had pistols and daggers under their cloaks. I also sent many of my men to the eating-houses thereabouts, so that the Great Hall was, as it were, invested on every side with my friends. I posted thirty gentlemen as a reserve in a convenient chamber, who, in case of an attack, were to a.s.sault the party of the Prince in flank and rear. I had also laid up a store of grenades. In a word, my measures were so nicely concerted, both within and without the Parliament House, that Pont Notre-Dame and Pont Saint Michel, who were pa.s.sionately in my interest, only waited for the signal; so that in all likelihood I could not fail of being conqueror.

On the morning of the 21st all the Prince de Conde's humble servants repaired to his house, and my friends did the like to mine, particularly the Marquises of Rouillac and Camillac, famous both for their courage and extravagances. As soon as the latter saw Rouillac, he made me a low bow in a withdrawing posture, saying, "Monsieur, I came to offer you my service, but it is not reasonable that the two greatest fools in the kingdom should be of the same side." The Prince came to the House with a numerous attendance, and though I believe he had not so many as I, he had more persons of quality, for I had only the Fronde n.o.bility on my side, except three or four who, though in the Queen's interest, were nevertheless my particular friends; this disadvantage, however, was abundantly made up by the great interest I had among the people and the advantageous posts I was possessed of. After the Prince had taken his place, he said that he was surprised to see the Parliament House look more like a camp than a temple of justice; that there were posts taken, and men under command; and that he hoped there were not men in the kingdom so insolent as to dispute the precedence with him. Whereupon I humbly begged his pardon, and told him that I believed there was not a man in France so insolent as to do it; but that there were some who could not, nor indeed ought not, on account of their dignity, yield the precedence to any man but the King. The Prince replied that he would make me yield it to him. I told him he would find it no easy matter.

Upon this there was a great outcry, and the young councillors of both parties interested themselves in the contest, which, you see, began pretty warmly. The Presidents interposed between us, conjuring him to have some regard to the temple of justice and the safety of the city, and desiring that all the n.o.bility and others in the hall that were armed might be turned out. He approved of it, and bade M. de La Rochefoucault go and tell his friends so from him. Upon which I said, "I will order my friends to withdraw also." Young D'Avaux, now President de Mesmes, then in the Prince's interest, said, "What! monsieur, are you armed?"--"Without doubt," I said; though I had better have held my tongue, because an inferior ought to be respectful in words to his superior, though he may equal him in actions. Neither is it allowable in a Churchman when armed to confess it. There are some things wherein men are willing to be deceived. Actions very often vindicate men's reputations in what they do against the dignity of their profession, but nothing can justify words that are inconsistent with their character.

As I had desired my friends to withdraw, and was entering into the Court of Judicature, I heard an uproar in the hall of people crying out "To arms!" I had a mind to go back to see what was the matter; but I had not time to do it, for I found myself caught by the neck between the folding doors, which M. de La Rochefoucault had shut on me, crying out to MM.

Coligny and Ricousse to kill me.

[This action is very much disguised and softened in the Memoirs of Rochefoucault. M. Joly, in his Memoirs, vol. i., p. 155, tells it almost in... the same manner as the Cardinal de Retz.]

The first thought he was not in earnest, and the other told him he had no such order from the Prince. M. Champlatreux, running into the hall and seeing me in that condition, vigorously pushed back M. de La Rochefoucault, telling him that a murder of that nature was horrible and scandalous. He opened the door and let me in. But this was not the greatest danger I was in, as you will see after I have told you the beginning and end of it.

Two or three of the Prince de Conde's mob cried out, as soon as they saw me, "A Mazarin!" Two of the Prince's soldiers drew their swords, those next to them cried out, "To your arms!" and in a trice all were in a fighting posture. My friends drew their swords, daggers, and pistols, and yet, as it were by a miracle, they stopped their hands on a sudden from action; for in that very instant of time, Crenan, one of my old friends, who commanded a company of the Prince de Conti's gendarmes, said to Laigues, "What are we doing? Must we let the Prince de Conde and the Coadjutor be murdered? Whoever does not put up his sword is a rascal!"

This expression coming from a man of great courage and reputation, every one did as he bade them. Nor is Argenteuil's courage and presence of mind to be less admired. He being near me when I was caught by the neck between the folding doors, and observing one Peche,--[Joly calls him "The great clamourer of the Prince." See his Memoirs, p. 157.]--a brawling fellow of the Prince's party, looking for me with a dagger in his hand, screened me with his cloak, and thereby saved my life, which was in the more danger because my friends, who supposed I was gone into the Great Chamber, stayed behind to engage with the Prince de Conde's party. The Prince told me since that it was well I kept on the defensive, and that had the noise in the hall continued but a minute longer, he would himself have taken me by the throat and made me pay for all; but I am fully persuaded that the consequences would have been fatal to both parties, and that he himself had had a narrow escape.

As soon as I reentered the Great Chamber I told the First President that I owed my life to his son, who on that occasion did the most generous action that a man of honour was capable of, because he was pa.s.sionately attached to the Prince de Conde, and was persuaded, though without a cause, that I was concerned in above twenty editions against his father during the siege of Paris. There are few actions more heroic than this, the memory of which I shall carry to my grave. I also added that M. de La Rochefoucault had done all he could to murder me.'

[The Duke answered, as he says himself in his Memoirs, that fear had disturbed his judgment, etc. See in the Memoirs of M. de La Rochefoucault, the relation of what pa.s.sed after the confinement of the Princes.]

He answered me these very words: "Thou traitor, I don't care what becomes of thee." I replied, "Very well, Friend Franchise" (we gave him that nickname in our party); "you are a coward" (I told a lie, for he was certainly a brave man), "and I am a priest; but dueling is not allowed us." M. de Brissac threatened to cudgel him, and he to kick Brissac. The President, fearing these words would end in blows, got between us. The First President conjured the Prince pathetically, by the blood of Saint Louis, not to defile with blood that temple which he had given for the preservation of peace and the protection of justice; and exhorted me, by my sacred character, not to contribute to the ma.s.sacre of the people whom G.o.d had committed to my charge. Both the Prince and I sent out two gentlemen to order our friends and servants to retire by different ways.

The clock struck ten, the House rose, and thus ended that morning's work, which was likely to have ruined Paris.

You may easily guess what a commotion Paris was in all that morning.

Tradesmen worked in their shops with their muskets by them, and the women were at prayers in the churches. Sadness sat on the brows of all who were not actually engaged in either party. The Prince, if we may believe the Comte de Fiesque, told him that Paris narrowly escaped being burnt that day. "What a fine bonfire this would have been for the Cardinal,"

said he; "especially to see it lighted by the two greatest enemies he had!"

The Duc d'Orleans, quite tired out with the cries of the people, who ran affrighted to his palace, and fearing that the commotion would not stop at the Parliament House, made the Prince promise that he would not go next day to the Parliament with above five in company, provided I would engage to carry no more. I begged his Royal Highness to excuse me if I did not comply, because I should be wanting in my respect to the Prince, with whom I ought not to make any comparison, and because I should be still exposed to a pack of seditious brawlers, who cried out against me, having no laws nor owning any chief. I added that it was only against this sort of people that I armed; that there was so little comparison between a private gentleman and his Highness that five hundred men were less to the Prince than a single lackey to me. The Duke, who owned I was in the right, went to the Queen to represent to her the evil consequences that would inevitably attend such measures.

The Queen, who neither feared nor foresaw dangers, made no account of his remonstrances, for she was glad in the main of the dangers which seemed to be so near at hand. When Bertet and Brachet, who crept up to the garrets of the Palais Royal for fear of having their throats cut in the general commotion, had made her sensible that if the Prince and myself should perish in such a juncture it would occasion such a confusion that the very name of Mazarin might become fatal to the royal family, she yielded rather to her fears than to her convictions, and consented to send an order in the King's name to forbid both the Prince and me to go to the House. The First President, who was well a.s.sured that the Prince would not obey an order of that nature, which could not be forced upon him with justice, because his presence was necessary in the Parliament, went to the Queen and made her sensible that it would be against all justice and equity to forbid the Prince to be present in an a.s.sembly where he went only to clear himself from a crime laid to his charge. He showed her the difference between the first Prince of the blood, whose presence would be necessary in that conjuncture, and a Coadjutor of Paris, who never had a seat in the Parliament but by courtesy.

The Queen yielded at last to these reasons and to the entreaties of all the Court ladies, who dreaded the noise and confusion which was likely to occur next day in the Parliament House.

The Parliament met next day, and resolved that all the papers, both of the Queen, the Duc d'Orleans, and the Prince de Conde, should be carried to the King and Queen, that her Majesty should be humbly entreated to terminate the affair, and that the Duc d'Orleans should be desired to make overtures towards a reconciliation.

As the Prince was coming out of the Parliament House, attended by a mult.i.tude of his friends, I met him in his coach as I was at the head of a procession of thirty or forty cures of Paris, followed by a great number of people. Upon my approach, three or four of the mob following the Prince cried out, "A Mazarin!" but the Prince alighted and silenced them.

[M. de La Rochefoucault, in his Memoirs, says that the people abused the Coadjutor with scurrilous language, and would have torn him in pieces if the prince had not ordered his men to appease the tumult.]

He then fell on his knees to receive my blessing, which I gave him with my hat on, and then pulled it off in obeisance.

The Queen was so well pleased with my prudent conduct that I can truly say I was a favourite for some days. Madame de Carignan was telling her one day that I was very homely, to which the Queen replied, "He has a very fine set of teeth, and a man cannot be called homely who has this ornament." Madame de Chevreuse remembered that she had often heard the Queen say that the beauty of a man consisted chiefly in his teeth, because it was the only beauty which was of any use. Therefore she advised me to act my part well, and she should not despair of success.

"When you are with the Queen," said she, "be serious; look continually on her hands, storm against the Cardinal, and I will take care of the rest"

I asked two or three audiences of the Queen upon very trifling occasions, followed Madame de Chevreuse's plan very closely, and carried my resentment and pa.s.sion against the Cardinal even to extravagance. The Queen, who was naturally a coquette, understood those airs, and acquainted Madame de Chevreuse therewith, who pretended to be surprised, saying, "Indeed, I have heard the Coadjutor talk of your Majesty whole days with delight; but if the conversation happened to touch upon the Cardinal, he was no longer the same man, and even raved against your Majesty, but immediately relented towards you, though never towards the Cardinal."

Madame de Chevreuse, who was the Queen's confidante in her youth, gave me such a history of her early days as I cannot omit giving you, though I should have done it sooner. She told me that the Queen was neither in body nor mind truly Spanish; that she had neither the temperament nor the vivacity of her nation, but only the coquetry of it, which she retained in perfection; that M. Bellegarde, a gallant old gentleman, after the fas.h.i.+on of the Court of Henri III., pleased her till he was going to the army, when he begged for one favour before his departure, which was only to put her hand to the hilt of his sword, a compliment so insipid that her Majesty was out of conceit with him ever after. She approved the gallant manner of M. de Montmorency much more than she loved his person.

The aversion she had to the pedantic behaviour of Cardinal de Richelieu, who in his amours was as ridiculous as he was in other things excellent, made her irreconcilable to his addresses. She had observed from the beginning of the Regency a great inclination in the Queen for Mazarin, but that she had not been able to discover how far that inclination went, because she (Madame de Chevreuse) had been banished from the Court very soon after; and that upon her return to France, after the siege of Paris, the Queen was so reserved at first with her that it was impossible for her to dive into her secrets. That since she regained her Majesty's favour she had sometimes observed the same airs in her with regard to Cardinal Mazarin as she used to display formerly in favour of the Duke of Buckingham; but at other times she thought that there was no more between them than a league of friends.h.i.+p. The chief ground for her conjecture was the impolite and almost rude way in which the Cardinal conversed with her Majesty. "But, however," said Madame de Chevreuse, "when I reflect on the Queen's humour, all this may admit of another interpretation.

Buckingham used to tell me that he had been in love with three Queens, and was obliged to curb all the three; therefore I cannot tell what to think of the matter."

To resume the history of more public affairs. I did not so far please myself with the figure I made against the Prince (though I thought it very much for my honour), but I saw clearly that I stood on a dangerous precipice.

"Whither are we going?" I said to M. Bellievre, who seemed to be overjoyed that the Prince had not been able to devour me; "for whom do we labour? I know that we are obliged to act as we do; I know, too, that we cannot do better; but should we rejoice at the fatal necessity which pushes us on to exert an action comparatively good and which will unavoidably end in a superlative evil?"

"I understand you," said the President, "and will interrupt you for one moment to tell you what I learned of Cromwell" (whom he had known in England). "He told me one day that it is then we are mounting highest when we ourselves do not know whither we are going."

"You know, monsieur," said I to Bellievre, "that I abhor Cromwell; and whatever is commonly reported of his great parts, if he is of this opinion, I must p.r.o.nounce him a fool."

I mentioned this dialogue for no other purpose than to observe how dangerous it is to talk disrespectfully of men in high positions; for it was carried to Cromwell, who remembered it with a great deal of resentment on an occasion which I shall mention hereafter, and said to M.

de Bourdeaux, Amba.s.sador of France, then in England, "I know but one man in the world who despises me, and that is Cardinal de Retz." This opinion of him was likely to have cost me very dear. I return from this digression.

On the 31st, Melayer, valet de chambre to the Cardinal, arrived with a despatch to the Queen, in which were these words: "Give the Prince de Conde all the declarations of his innocence that he can desire, provided you can but amuse him and hinder him from giving you the slip."

On the 4th the Prince de Conde insisted in Parliament on a formal decree for declaring his innocence, which was granted, but deferred to be published till the 7th of September (the day that the King came of age), on pretence of rendering it more authentic and solemn by the King's presence, but really to gain time, and see what influence the splendour of royalty, which was to be clothed that day with all the advantages of pomp, would have upon the minds of the people.

But the Prince de Conde, who had reason to distrust both the Fronde and the Court, did not appear at the ceremony, and sent the Prince de Conti to the King to desire to be excused, because the calumnies and treacheries of his enemies would not suffer him to come to the Palace; adding that he kept away out of pure respect to his Majesty. This last expression, which seemed to intimate that otherwise he might have gone thither without danger, provoked the Queen to that degree that she said, "The Prince or I must perish."

The Prince de Conde retired to Bourges,--further from Court. He was naturally averse to a civil war, nor would his adherents have been more forward than himself if they had found their interests in his reconciliation to the Court; but this seemed impracticable, and therefore they agreed upon a civil war, because none of them believed themselves powerful enough to conclude a peace. They know nothing of the nature of faction who imagine the head of a party to be their master. His true interest is most commonly thwarted by the imaginary interests even of his subalterns, and the worst of it is that his own honour sometimes, and generally prudence, joins with them against himself. The pa.s.sions and discontent which reigned then among the friends of the Prince de Conde ran so high that they were obliged to abandon him and form a third party, under the authority of the Prince de Conti, in case the Prince accomplished his reconciliation to the Court, according to a proposition then made to him in the name of the Duc d'Orleans. The subdivision of parties is generally the ruin of all, especially when it is introduced by cunning views, directly contrary to prudence; and this is what the Italians call, in comedy, a "plot within a plot," or a "wheel within a wheel."

BOOK IV.

In December, 1651, the Parliament agreed to the following resolution: To send a deputation to the King to inform him of the rumours of Mazarin's return, and to beseech him to confirm the royal promise which he had made to his people upon that head; to forbid all governors to give the Cardinal pa.s.sage; to desire the King to acquaint the Pope and other Princes with the reasons that had obliged him to remove the Cardinal; and to send to all the Parliaments of the kingdom to make the like decree.

Somebody making a motion that a price might be set upon the Cardinal's head, I and the rest of the spiritual councillors retired, because clergymen are forbidden by the canon law to give their vote in cases of life and death.

They agreed also to send deputies to the King to entreat him to write to the Elector of Cologne to send the Cardinal out of his country, and to forbid the magistrates of all cities to entertain any troops sent to favour his return or any of his kindred or domestics. A certain councillor who said, very judiciously, that the soldiers a.s.sembling for Mazarin upon the frontiers would laugh at all the decrees of Parliament unless they were proclaimed to them by good musketeers and pikemen, was run down as if he had talked nonsense, and all the clamour was that it belonged only to the King to disband soldiers.

The Duc d'Orleans acquainted the House, on the 29th, that Cardinal Mazarin had arrived at Sedan; that Marechals de Hoquincourt and de la Ferte were gone to join him with their army to bring him to Court; and that it was high time to oppose his designs. Upon this it was immediately resolved that deputies should be despatched forthwith to the King; that the Cardinal and all his adherents should be declared guilty of high treason; that the common people should be commanded to treat them as such wherever they met them; that his library and all his household goods should be sold, and that 150,000 livres premium should be given to any man who should deliver up the said Cardinal, either dead or alive.

Upon this expression all the ecclesiastics retired, for the reason above mentioned.

A new decree was pa.s.sed on the 2d of January, 1652, wherein it was decided that all the Parliaments of France should be invited to issue their decrees against Mazarin, conformable to the last; that two more councillors should be added to the four sent to guard the rivers and to arm the common people; and that the troops of the Duc d'Orleans should oppose the march of Mazarin.

On the 24th the deputies who had been to Poitiers to remonstrate with the King against the return of the Cardinal, made their report in Parliament, to the effect that his Majesty, after having consulted with the Queen and her Council, returned for answer, that without doubt, when the Parliament issued their late decrees, they did not know that Cardinal Mazarin had made no levy of soldiers but by his Majesty's express orders; that it was he who commanded him to enter France with his troops, and that therefore the King did not resent what the company had done; but that, on the other hand, he did not doubt that when they had heard the circ.u.mstances he had just mentioned, and knew, moreover, that Cardinal Mazarin only desired an opportunity to justify himself, they would not fail to give all his subjects an exemplary proof of the obedience they owed to him. The Parliament was highly provoked, and next day resolved to admit no more dukes, peers, nor marshals of France till the Cardinal had left the kingdom.

Mazarin, arriving at Court again, persuaded the King to go to Saumur, though others advised him to march to Guienne against the Prince de Conde, with whom the Duc d'Orleans was now resolved to join forces. The King went from Saumur to Tours, where the Archbishop of Rouen carried complaints to the King, in the name of the bishops there, against the decrees of Parliament relating to the Cardinal.

The Duc d'Orleans complained in Parliament against the inconsistency of their proceedings, and said the King had sent him carte blanche in order to oblige him to consent to the restoration of the Cardinal, but that nothing would ever cause him to do it, nor to act apart from the Parliament. Yet their unaccountable proceedings perplexed him beyond expression, so that he commanded, or rather permitted, M. de Beaufort to put his troops in action. And because I told him that, considering the declarations he had so often repeated against Mazarin, I thought his conduct in setting his troops in motion against him did not add so much to the measure of the disgust he had already given to the Court that he need to apprehend much from it, he gave me for answer these memorable words which I have reflected upon a thousand times: "If you," said he, "had been born a Son of France, an Infante of Spain, a King of Hungary, or a Prince of Pales, you would not talk as you do. You must know that, with us Princes, words go for nothing, but that we never forget actions.

By to-morrow noon the Queen would not remember my declarations against the Cardinal if I would admit him tomorrow morning; but if my troops were to fire a musket she would not forgive me though we were to live two thousand years hence."

In February, 1652, I was made a cardinal, and was to receive the hat, as all French cardinals do, from the King. My enemies, who thought to ruin my credit with the Duc d'Orleans, gave out that I had been obliged to the Court for my dignity, attacked me in form as a secret favourer of Mazarin, and, while their emissaries gained over such of the dregs of the people as they could corrupt by money, they were supported by all the intrigues of the Cabinet. But the Duke, who knew better, only laughed at them; so that they confirmed me in his good opinion, instead of supplanting me, because in cases of slander every reflection that does not hurt the person attacked does him service. I said to the Duke that I wondered he was not wearied out with the silly stories that were told him every day against me, since they all harped upon one string; but he said, "Do you take no account of the pleasure one takes every morning in hearing how wicked men are under the cloak of religious zeal, and every night how silly they are under the mask of politicians?"

The servants of the Prince de Conde gave out such stories against me among the populace as were likely to have done me much more mischief.

They had a pack of brawling fellows in their pay who were more troublesome to me now than formerly, when they did not dare to appear before the numerous retinue of gentlemen and liverymen that accompanied me, for as I had not yet had the hat, I was obliged, wherever I went, to go incognito, according to the rules of the ceremonial. Those fellows said that I had betrayed the Duc d'Orleans, and that they would be the death of me. I told the Duke, who was afraid they would murder me, that he should soon see how little those hired mobs ought to be regarded. He offered me his guards, but though Marechal d'Estampes fell on his knees in my way to stop me, I went down-stairs with only two persons in company, and made directly towards the ruffians, demanding who was their leader. Upon which a beggarly fellow, with an old yellow feather in his hat, answered me, insolently, "I am." Then I called out to the guards at the gate, saying, "Let me have this rascal hanged up at these grates."

Thereupon he made me a very low bow, and said that he did not mean to affront me; that he only came with his comrades to tell me of the report that I designed to carry the Duc d'Orleans to Court, and reconcile him with Mazarin; that they did not believe it; that they were at my service, and ready to venture their lives for me, provided I would but promise them to be always an honest Frondeur.

The Duc d'Orleans took such delight in conversing with me that, on De Goulas, one of his secretaries, telling him that all the foreign officers took mighty umbrage at it, he pulled him up very sharply, and said, "Go to the devil, you and your foreign officers. If they were as good Frondeurs as Cardinal de Retz, they would be at their posts, and not tippling in the taverns of Paris." There was such a strong faction in the city of Orleans for the Court that his presence there was very necessary; but as it was much more so at Paris, the Duke was prevailed upon by his d.u.c.h.ess to let her go thither. M. Patru was pleased to say that as the gates of Jericho fell at the sound of trumpets, those of Orleans would open at the sound of fiddles, of which M. de Rohan was a very great admirer. But, in fact, though the King was just at hand with the troops, and though M. Mold, Keeper of the Seals, was at the gate demanding entrance for the King, the d.u.c.h.ess crossed the river in a barge, made the watermen break down a little postern, which had been walled up for a long time, and marched, with the acclamations of mult.i.tudes of the people, directly to the Hotel de Ville, where the magistrates were a.s.sembled to consider if they should admit the Keeper of the Seals. By this means she turned the scale, and MM. de Beaufort and de Nemours joined her.