Chapter XLIII: Louis Xiv., the Fronde, and the Government of Cardinal (3)

“She is not tall, she has a good arm, a hand white and well made, but rather a man’s than a woman’s, a high shoulder,--a defect which she so well conceals by the singularity of her dress, her walk, and her gestures, that you might make a bet about it. Her face is large without being defective, all her features are the same and strongly marked, a pretty tolerable turn of countenance, set off by a very singular head-dress; that is, a man’s wig, very big, and very much raised in front; the top of the head is a tissue of hair, and the back has something of a woman’s style of head-dress. Sometimes she also wears a hat; her bodice, laced behind, crosswise, is made something like our doublets, her chemise bulging out all round her petticoat, which she wears rather badly fastened and not over straight. She is always very much powdered, with a good deal of pomade, and almost never puts on gloves. She has, at the very least, as much swagger and haughtiness as the great Gustavus, her father, can have had; she is mighty civil and coaxing, speaks eight languages, and principally French, as if she had been born in Paris. She knows as much about it as all our Academy and the Sorbonne put together, has an admirable knowledge of painting as well as of everything else, and knows all the intrigues of our court better than I. In fact, she is quite an extraordinary person.” “The king, though very timid at that time,” says Madame de Motteville, “and not at all well informed, got on so well with this bold, well-informed, and haughty princess, that, from the first moment, they associated together with much freedom and pleasure on both sides. It was difficult, when you had once had a good opportunity of seeing her, and above all of listening to her, not to forgive all her irregularities, though some of them were highly blamable.” All the court and all Paris made a great fuss about this queen, who insisted upon going everywhere, even to the French Academy, where no woman had ever been admitted. Patru thus relates to one of his friends the story of her visit: “No notice was given until about eight or nine in the morning of this princess’s purpose, so that some of our body could not receive information in time. M. de Gombault came without having been advertised; but, as soon as he knew of the queen’s purpose, he went away again, for thou must know that he is wroth with her because, he having written some verses in which he praised the great Gustavus, she did not write to him, she who, as thou knowest, has written to a hundred impertinent apes. I might complain, with far more reason; but, so long as kings, queens, princes, and princesses do me only that sort of harm, I shall never complain. The chancellor [Seguier, at whose house the Academy met] had forgotten to have the portrait of this princess, which she had given to the society, placed in the room; which, in my opinion, ought not to have been forgotten. Word was brought that the carriage was entering the court-yard. The chancellor, followed by the whole body, went to receive the princess. . . . As soon as she entered the room, she went off-hand, according to her habit, and sat down in her chair; and, at the same moment, without any order given us, we also sat down. The princess, seeing that we were at some little distance from the table, told us that we could draw up close to it. There was some little drawing up, but not as if it were a dinner-party. . . . Several pieces were read; and then the director, who was M. de la Chambre, told the queen that the ordinary exercise of the society was to work at the Dictionary, and that, if it were agreeable to her Majesty, a sheet should be read. ‘By all means,’ said she. M. de Mezeray, accordingly, read the word Jeux, under which, amongst other proverbial expressions, there was, _‘Jeux de princes, qui ne plaisent qu’a ceux qui les font.’ (Princes’ jokes, which amuse only those who make them.)_ She burst out laughing. The word, which was in fair copy, was finished. It would have been better to read a word which had to be weeded, because then we should all have spoken; but people were taken by surprise--the French always are. . . . After about an hour, the princess rose, made a courtesy to the company, and went away as she had come. Here is really what passed at this famous interview, which, no doubt, does great honor to the Academy.--The Duke of Anjou talks of coming to it, and the zealous are quite transported with this bit of glory.” [_OEuvres diverses de Patru,_ t. ii. p. 512.]

Queen Christina returned the next year and passed some time at Fontainebleau. It was there, in a gallery that King Louis Philippe caused to be turned into apartments, which M. Guizot at one time occupied, that she had her first equerry, Monaldeschi, whom she accused of having betrayed her, assassinated almost before her own eyes; and she considered it astonishing, and very bad taste, that the court of France should be shocked at such an execution. “This barbarous princess,” says Madame de Motteville, “after so cruel an action as that, remained in her room laughing and chatting as easily as if she had done something of no consequence or very praiseworthy. The queen-mother, a perfect Christian, who had met with so many enemies whom she might have punished, but who had received from her nothing but marks of kindness, was scandalized by it. The king and Monsieur blamed her, and the minister, who was not a cruel man, was astounded.”

The queen-mother had other reasons for being less satisfied than she had been at the first trip of Queen Christina of Sweden. The young king testified much inclination for Mary de Mancini, Cardinal Mazarin’s niece, a bold and impassioned creature, whose sister Olympia had already found favor in his eyes before her marriage with the Count of Soissons. The eldest of all had married the Duke of Mercceur, son of the Duke of Vendome; the other two were destined to be united, at a later period, to the Dukes of Bouillon and La Meilleraye; the hopes of Mary went still higher; relying on the love of young Louis XIV., she dared to dream of the throne; and the Queen of Sweden encouraged her. “The right thing is to marry one’s love,” she told the king. No time was lost in letting Christina understand that she could not remain long in France: the cardinal, “with a moderation for which he cannot be sufficiently commended,” says Madame de Motteville, “himself put obstacles in the way of his niece’s ambitious designs; he sent her to the convent of Brouage, threatening, if that exile were not sufficient, to leave France and take his niece with him.”

“No power,” he said to the king, “can wrest from me the free authority of disposal which God and the laws give me over my family.” “You are king; you weep; and yet I am going away!” said the young girl to her royal lover, who let her go. Mary de Mancini was mistaken; he was not yet King.

Cardinal Mazarin and the queen had other views regarding the marriage of Louis XIV.; for a long time past the object of their labors had been to terminate the war by an alliance with Spain. The Infanta, Maria Theresa, was no longer heiress to the crown, for King Philip at last had a son; Spain was exhausted by long-continued efforts, and dismayed by the checks received in the, campaign of 1658; the alliance of the Rhine, recently concluded at Frankfurt between the two leagues, Catholic and Protestant, confirmed immutably the advantages which the treaty of Westphalia had secured to France. The electors had just raised to the head of the empire young Leopold I., on the death of his father, Ferdinand III., and they proposed their mediation between France and Spain. Whilst King Philip IV. was still hesitating, Mazarin took a step in another direction; the king set out for Lyons, accompanied by his mother and his minister, to go and see Princess Margaret of Savoy, who had been proposed to him a long time ago as his wife. He was pleased with her, and negotiations were already pretty far advanced, to the great displeasure of the queen-mother, when the cardinal, on the 29th of November, 1659, in the evening, entered Anne of Austria’s room. “He found her pensive and melancholy, but he was all smiles. ‘Good news, madam,’ said he. ‘Ah!’ cried the queen, ‘is it to be peace?’ ‘More than that, Madame; I bring your Majesty both peace and the Infanta.’” The Spaniards had become uneasy; and Don Antonio de Pimentel had arrived at Lyons at the same time with the court of Savoy, bearing a letter from Philip IV. for the queen his sister. The Duchess of Savoy had to depart and take her daughter with her, disappointed of her hopes; all the consolation she obtained was a written promise that the king would marry Princess Margaret, if the marriage with the Infanta were not accomplished within a year.

The year had not yet rolled away, and the Duchess of Savoy had already lost every atom of illusion. Since the 13th of August, Cardinal Mazarin had been officially negotiating with Don Louis de Haro, representing Philip IV. The ministers had held a meeting in the middle of the Bidassoa, on the Island of Pheasants, where a pavilion had been erected on the boundary-line between the two states. On the 7th of November the peace of the Pyrenees was signed at last; it put an end to a war which had continued for twenty-three years, often internecine, always burdensome, and which had ruined the finances of the two countries. France was the gainer of Artois and Roussillon, and of several places in Flanders, Hainault, and Luxembourg; and the peace of Westphalia was recognized by Spain, to whom France restored all that she held in Catalonia and in Franche-Comte. Philip IV. had refused to include Portugal in the treaty. The Infanta received as dowry five hundred thousand gold crowns, and renounced all her rights to the throne of Spain; the Prince of Conde was taken back to favor by the king, and declared that he would fain redeem with his blood all the hostilities he had committed in and out of France. The king restored him to all his honors and dignities, gave him the government of Burgundy, and bestowed on his son, the Duke of Enghien, the office of Grand Master of France. The honor of the King of Spain was saved, he did not abandon his allies, and he made a great match for his daughter. But the eyes of Europe were not blinded; it was France that triumphed; the policy of Cardinal Richelieu and of Cardinal Mazarin was everywhere successful. The work of Henry IV. was completed, the house of Austria was humiliated and vanquished in both its branches; the man who had concluded the peace of Westphalia and the peace of the Pyrenees had a right to say, “I am more French in heart than in speech.”

The Prince of Conde returned to court, “as if he had never gone away,” says Mdlle. de Montpensier. [_Memoires,_ t. iii. p. 451.] “The king talked familiarly with him of all that he had done both in France and in Flanders, and that with as much gusto as if all those things had taken place for his service.” “The prince discovered him to be so great in every point that, from the first moment at which he could approach him, he comprehended, as it appeared, that the time had come to humble himself. That genius for sovereignty and command which God had implanted in the king, and which was beginning to show itself, persuaded the Prince of Conde that all which remained of the previous reign was about to be annihilated.” [_Memoires de Madame de Motteville,_ t. v. p. 39.] From that day King Louis XIV. had no more submissive subject than the great Conde.

The court was in the South, travelling from town to town, pending the arrival of the dispensations from Rome. On the 3d of June, 1660, Don Louis de Haro, in the name of the King of France, espoused the Infanta in the church of Fontfrabia. Mdlle. de Montpensier made up her mind to be present, unknown to anybody, at the ceremony. When it was over, the new queen, knowing that the king’s cousin was there, went up to her, saying, “I should like to embrace this fair unknown,” and led her away to her room, chatting about everything, but pretending not to know her. The queen-mother and King Philip IV. met next day, on the Island of Pheasants, after forty-five years’ separation. The king had come privately to have a view of the Infanta, and he watched her, through a door ajar, towering a whole head above the courtiers. “May I, ask my niece what she thinks of this unknown?” said Anne of Austria to her brother. “It will be time when she has passed that door,” replied the king. Young Monsieur, the king’s brother, leaned forward towards his sister-in-law, and, “What does your Majesty think of this door?” he whispered. “I think it very nice and handsome,” answered the young queen. The king had thought her handsome, “despite the ugliness of her head-dress and of her clothes, which had at first taken him by surprise.” King Philip IV. kept looking at M. de Turenne, who had accompanied the king. “That man has given me dreadful times,” he repeated twice or thrice. “You can judge whether M. de Turenne felt himself offended,” says Mdlle. de Montpensier. The definitive marriage took place at Saint-Jean-de-Luz on the 9th of June, and the court took the road leisurely back to Vincennes. Scarcely had the arrival taken place, when all the sovereign bodies sent a solemn deputation to pay their respects to Cardinal Mazarin and thank him for the peace he had just concluded. It was an unprecedented honor, paid to a minister upon whose head the Parliament had but lately set a price. The cardinal’s triumph was as complete at home as abroad; all foes had been reduced to submission or silence, Paris and France rejoicing over the peace and the king’s marriage; but, like Cardinal Richelieu, Mazarin succumbed at the very pinnacle of his glory and power; the gout, to which he was subject, flew to his stomach, and he suffered excruciating agonies. One day, when the king came to get his advice upon a certain matter, “Sir,” said the cardinal, “you are asking counsel of a man who no longer has his reason and who raves.” He saw the approach of death calmly, but not unregretfully. Concealed, one day, behind a curtain in the new apartments of the Mazarin Palace (now the National Library), young Brienne heard the cardinal coming. “He dragged his slippers along like a man very languid and just recovering from some serious illness. He paused at every step, for he was very feeble; he fixed his gaze first on one side and then on the other, and letting his eyes wander over the magnificent objects of art he had been all his life collecting, he said, ‘All that must be left behind!’ And, turning round, he added, ‘And that too! What trouble I have had to obtain all these things! I shall never see them more where I am going.’” He had himself removed to Vincennes, of which he was governor. There he continued to regulate all the affairs of state, striving to initiate the young king in the government. “Nobody,” Turenne used to say, “works so much as the cardinal, or discovers so many expedients with great clearness of mind for the terminating of much business of different sorts.” The dying minister recommended to the king MM. Le Tellier and de Lionne, and he added, “Sir, to you I owe everything; but I consider that I to some extent acquit myself of my obligation to your Majesty by giving you M. Colbert.” The cardinal, uneasy about the large possessions he left, had found a way of securing them to his heirs by making, during his lifetime, a gift of the whole of them to the king. Louis XIV. at once returned it. The minister had lately placed his two nieces, the Princess of Conti and the Countess of Soissons, at the head of the household of two queens; he had married his niece, Hortensia Mancini, to the Duke of La Meilleraye, who took the title of Duke of Mazarin. The father of this duke was the relative and protege of Cardinal Richelieu, for whom Mazarin had always preserved a feeling of great gratitude. It was to him and his wife that he left the remainder of his vast possessions, after having distributed amongst all his relatives liberal bequests to an enormous amount. The pictures and jewels went to the king, to Monsieur, and to the queens. A considerable sum was employed for the foundation and endowment of the _College des Quatre Nations (now the Palais de l’Institut),_ intended for the education of sixty children of the four provinces re-united to France by the treaties of Westphalia and the Pyrenees, Alsace, Roussillon, Artois, and Pignerol. The cardinal’s fortune was estimated at fifty millions.

Mazarin had scarcely finished making his final dispositions when his malady increased to a violent pitch. “On the 5th of March, forty hours’ public prayers were ordered in all the churches of Paris, which is not generally done except in the case of kings,” says Madame de Motteville. The cardinal had sent for M. Jolt, parish-priest of St. Nicholas des Champs, a man of great reputation for piety, and begged him not to leave him. “I have misgivings about not being sufficiently afraid of death,” he said to his confessor. He felt his own pulse himself, muttering quite low, “I shall have a great deal more to suffer.” The king had left him on the 7th of March, in the evening. He did not see him again and sent to summon the ministers. Already the living was taking the place of the dying, with a commencement of pomp and circumstance which excited wonder at the changes of the world. “On the 9th, between two and three in the morning, Mazarin raised himself slightly in his bed, praying to God and suffering greatly; then he said aloud, ‘Ah holy Virgin, have pity upon me; receive my soul,’ and so he expired, showing a fair front to death up to the last moment.” The queen-mother had left her room for the last two, days, because it was too near that of the dying man. “She wept less than the king,” says Madame de Motteville, “being more disgusted with the creatures of his making by reason of the knowledge she had of their imperfections, insomuch that it was soon easy to see that the defects of the dead man would before long appear to her greater than they had yet been in her eyes, for he did not content himself with exercising sovereign power over the whole realm, but he exercised it over the sovereigns themselves who had given it him, not leaving them liberty to dispose of anything of any consequence.” [_Memoires de Madame de Motteville,_ t. v. p. 103.]

Louis XIV. was about to reign with a splendor and puissance without precedent; his subjects were submissive and Europe at peace; he was reaping the fruits of the labors of his grandfather Henry IV., of Cardinal Richelieu, and of Cardinal Mazarin. Whilst continuing the work of Henry IV. Richelieu had rendered possible the government of Mazarin; he had set the kingly authority on foundations so strong that the princes of the blood themselves could not shake it. Mazarin had destroyed party and secured to France a glorious peace. Great minister had succeeded great king, and able man great minister; Italian prudence, dexterity, and finesse had replaced the indomitable will, the incomparable judgment, and the grandeur of view of the French priest and nobleman. Richelieu and Mazarin had accomplished their patriotic work: the king’s turn had come.