Chapter III (2)

The time has come when justice of a new kind must be done to Monsieur, and probably it is the only time when a creditable fact will be recorded in his history. He stood firm in his determination to maintain his marriage. Try as the Cardinal might, and by all the means familiar to him from habitual use, he could not force Monsieur to relax his fidelity to his consort. D'Orléans was virtuous on this one point, but his manner of virtue was the manner of Gaston; there are different ways of sustaining the marriage vows, and Monsieur's way was not praiseworthy. His experience had passed as a veil blown away by the wind. His passion for intrigue still held sway, he always had at least one plot in process of infusion, and his results were fatal to his assistants. In the heat of his desire to rid himself of the Cardinal, he simulated change of heart so well that the Cardinal was deceived. Suspicious at first of the sincerity of Gaston's professions, after long and close observation he became convinced that the Prince was, in truth, repentant. It was at that epoch, when free exercise of an undisciplined will was made possible by Richelieu's conviction of his own security, that Monsieur laid his plan of assassination with de Soissons; at that time there was but opinion in France--de Richelieu was a tyrant, there could be no hope of pleasure while he lived. Let him die, let France hear that he was dead, and all the world could be happy and free to act, not according to the dogmas of an egotist by the grace of God, but by the rule of the greatest good to the greatest number.

The conspirators had found a time and a place favourable to their enterprise. It was during the siege of Corbie. The King was there attended by his Minister. Monsieur and the Count were there; so were the men whom they had engaged to kill the Cardinal. Culpable as the two scoundrels had always been, when the whole country was in arms it was impossible to find a reasonable excuse for refusing them commands, so they were at the front with all the representative men of the country, and they had good reason for supposing that one murder--a movement calculated to relieve the nation--might pass unnoticed in the general noise and motion of the siege. The time was ripe; Monsieur and Soissons had put their heads together and decided that the moment had come to strike the blow and rid the country of the Cardinal.

Their plans were well laid. A council of war had been called. De Richelieu was to pass a certain staircase on his way to it; de Soissons was to accompany Richelieu and distract his attention; Gaston was to be waiting at the foot of the stairs to give the signal to the assassins. But Monsieur had not changed since the days of Chalais, and he could not control his nerves. He was a slave to ungovernable panics. According to his plans the part which he had to play was easy. He had nothing to do but to give the signal; all the accomplices were ready; the assassins were awaiting the word; he himself was at his post; but when the Cardinal passed, haughty and calm, to take his place in his carriage, terror seized Monsieur and he turned and sprang up the stairway. As he fled one of his accomplices, thinking to hold him back, seized him by his cloak, and Gaston, rushing forward, dragged him after him.

The affrighted Prince and his astonished follower reached the first landing with the speed of lightning; and then, carried away by emotion, Monsieur, still dragging his companion, fled into an inner room, where he stopped, dazed; he did not know where he was, nor what he was doing, and when he tried to speak he babbled incoherent words which died in his throat. De Soissons was waiting in the courtyard; he had spoken so calmly that Richelieu had passed on unconscious of the unusual excitement among the courtiers.

Though the plot had failed, there had been no exposure; but the fact that the accomplices held the secret and that they had much to gain from the Cardinal by a denunciation of their principals made it unsafe for the conspirators to remain in Paris; before the Cardinal's policemen were warned they fled, Monsieur to Blois and de Soissons to Sedan. Not long after their flight the story was in the mouths of the gossips, and Mademoiselle knew that she could not hope for the Cardinal's assistance in the accomplishment of her marriage; so the child of the Tuileries advanced to maidenhood while her ambitious cousin (Soissons) turned grey at Sedan. When Anne-Marie-Louise reached her fourteenth year the Comte thought that the time had come to bring matters to a crisis. He was not a coward, and as there was no reason for hypocrisy or secrecy, he boldly joined the enemies of his country and invaded France with the armies of de Bouillon and de Guise. Arrived in France, he charged one of his former mistresses, Mme. de Montbazon, to finish the work begun by Campion. Mme. de Montbazon lent her best energies to the work, and right heartily.

I took great interest in M. le Comte de Soissons, [wrote
Mademoiselle]; his health was failing. The King went to Champagne
to make war upon him; and while he was on the journey, Mme. de
Montbazon--who loved the Count dearly and who was dearly loved by
him--used to come to see me every day, and she spoke of him with
much affection; she told me that she should feel extreme joy if
I would marry him, that they would never be lonely or bored at
the Hôtel de Soissons were I there; that they would not think of
anything but to amuse me, that they would give balls in my honour,
that we should take fine walks, and that the Count would have
unparalleled tenderness and respect for me. She told me everything
that would be done to render my condition happy, and of all that
could be done to make things pleasant for a personage of my age. I
listened to her with pleasure and I felt no aversion for the person
of M. le Comte.... Aside from the difference between my age and
his my marriage with him would have been feasible. He was a very
honest man, endowed with grand qualities; and although he was the
youngest of his house he had been accorded[76] with the Queen of
England.

Having been unable to acquire the mother, de Soissons turned his attention to the daughter. Mademoiselle recorded:

M. le Comte sent M. le Comte de Fiesque to Monsieur to remind him
of the promise that he had made concerning me, and to remind him
that affairs were then in such a condition that they might be
terminated. M. le Comte de Fiesque very humbly begged Monsieur to
find it good that de Soissons should abduct me, because in that way
only could the marriage be accomplished. Monsieur would not consent
to that expedient at all, and so the answer that M. le Comte de
Fiesque carried back touched M. le Comte very deeply.

Not long after this episode the Comte de Soissons was killed at Marfée (6th July, 1641), and Mademoiselle's eyes were opened to the fact that she and M. le Comte "had not been created for each other." She wrote of his death as follows:

"I could not keep from weeping when he died, and when I went to see Madame his mother at Bagnolet, M. and Mlle. de Longueville and the whole household did nothing but manifest their grief by their continual cries."

Mademoiselle had desired with earnest sincerity to become the Comtesse de Soissons; it is difficult to imagine why,--unless, perhaps, because at her age girls build air-castles with all sorts of materials.

M. le Comte had been wept over and buried and sentiment had nothing more to do with Mademoiselle's dreams of establishment. Her fancy hovered over Europe and swooped down upon the princes who were bachelors or widowers, and upon the married nobles who were in a fair way to become widowers; more than once she was seen closely following the current reports when some princess was taken by sickness; and she abandoned or developed her projects, according to the turn taken by the diseases of the unfortunate ladies. The greater number of the hypothetical postulants upon whom she successively fixed her mind were strangers whom she had never seen, and among them were several who had never thought of her, and who never did think of her at any time; but she pursued her way with unflagging zeal, permitting indiscreet advances when she did not encourage them; she considered herself more or less the Queen or the Empress of France, of Spain, or of Hungary, as the prospect of the speedy bereavement of the incumbents of the different thrones brightened. La Grande Mademoiselle had not entered the world as the daughter of a degenerate with impunity; there were subjects upon which she was incapable of reasoning; in the ardour of her faith in the mystical virtues of the Blood she surpassed Corneille. She believed that the designs of princes ranked with the designs of God, and that they should be regarded as the devout regard the mysteries of religion. To quote her own words: "The intuitions of the great are like the mysteries of the Faith; it is not for men to fathom them! they ought to revere them; they ought to know that the thoughts of the great are given to their possessors for the well-being and for the salvation of the country."

Mademoiselle surpassed the Corneille of Tragedy in her disdainful rejection of love; Corneille was content to station love in the rear rank, and he placed it far below the manly passions in his classification of "the humanities." It will be remembered that by his listings the "manly passions" were Ambition, Vengeance, Pride of Blood, and "Glory." Mademoiselle believed that love could not exist between married people of rank; she considered it one of the passions of the inferior classes.

Le trône met une âme au dessus des tendresses.

_Pulcherie._

When we examine the subject we see that it was not remarkable that Mademoiselle recognised illegitimate love, although her own virtue was unquestionable. She liked lovers, and accepted the idea of love in the abstract; she repudiated the idea of love legalised because she was logical; she thought that married love proclaimed false ideas and gave a bad example. If married people loved each other and were happy together because of their common love, young noble girls would long to marry for love and to be happy in marriage because of love, and the time would come when there would be no true quality, because the nobles would have followed their desires or their weaker sentiments and formed haphazard unions brought about by natural selection. Man or maid would "silence the voice of glory in order to listen to the voice of love," should the dignity of hierarchical customs be brought down to the level of the lower passions. So Mademoiselle reasoned, and from her mental point of view her reasoning was sound. She was strong-minded; she realised the danger of permitting the heart to interfere in the marriage of the Elect.

The year 1641 was not ended when Mademoiselle appeared in spiritual mourning for a suitor who seems to us to have been nothing but a vision, the first vision of a series. Anne of Austria had never forgotten the Cardinal's cruel rebuke when he found Mademoiselle playing at man and wife with a child in long clothes. She had tried to console the little girl, and her manner had always been motherly and gentle. "It is true," she had said, "the Cardinal told the truth; my son is too small; you shall marry my brother!" When she had spoken thus she had referred to the Cardinal Infant,[77] who was in Flanders acting as Captain-General of the country and commanding the armies of the King of Spain.

The Prince was Archbishop of Toledo. He had not received Holy Orders. In that day it was not considered necessary to take orders before entering the Episcopate. "They taxed revenues, they delegated vicars-general for judicial action, and when the power of the Church was needed they delegated bishops. There were many prelates who were not priests." Henri de Lorraine II., Duc de Guise (born in 1614), was only fifteen years old when he received the Archbishopric of Rheims; he never received Holy Orders. In priestly vestments he presented every appearance of the most pronounced type of the ecclesiastical hybrid; he was an excellent Catholic, and a gallant and dashing pontiff-cavalier. His life as layman was far from religious. When he was twenty-seven years old he met a handsome widow, Mme. de Bossut. He married her on the spot without drum or cannon; and then, because some formality had been omitted, the marriage was confirmed by the Archbishop of Malines. The Church saw no obstacle to the marriage. Nicolas-François de Lorraine, Bishop of Toul, and Cardinal, was another example; "without being engaged in orders" he became "Duc de Lorraine" (1634) by the abdication of his brother Charles. He had political reasons for marrying his cousin "Claude" without delay, but he was stopped by an obstacle which did not emanate from his bishopric. Claude was his own cousin, and the prohibitions of the Church made it necessary for him to get a dispensation from Rome.

François visited his cousin and made his proposals. As a layman he needed a publication of his bans, and as a Catholic, in order to marry his cousin, he needed a dispensation from the Pope. Therefore he re-assumed the character of Bishop and issued a dispensation eliminating his bans, then, in the name of the Pope, he issued a dispensation making it spiritually lawful for him to marry his cousin to himself; that accomplished, he cast off the character of Bishop and was married by a regularly ordained priest like an ordinary mortal. In those days there was no abyss between the Church and the world. At most there was only a narrow ditch which the great lords crossed and recrossed at will, as caprice or interest moved them. In their portraits this species of oscillation, which was one of their distinguishing movements, is distinctly recorded and made evident even to the people of this century.

In the gallery of the Louvre we see a picture due to the brush of the Le Nain brothers, entitled, _Procession in a Church_. That part of the procession which is directly in front of the spectator is composed of members of the clergy, vested with all their churchly ornaments. The superb costumes are superbly worn by men of proud and knightly bearing. The portraits betray the true characters of their originals. These men are courtiers, utterly devoid of the collected and meditative tranquillity found in the legions of the Church. In the Le Nain brothers' picture the most notable figures are two warlike priests, who stand, like Norse kings, at the head of the procession, transfixing us with their look of bold assurance. No priests in ordinary, these, but natural soldiers, ready to die for a word or an idea! Their curled moustachios are light as foam; their beards are trimmed to a point, and under the embroidered dalmatica the gallant mien of the worldling frets as visibly as a lion in its cage. It is impossible to doubt it: these are soldiers; cavaliers who have but assumed the habit; who will take back the doublet and the sword, and with them the customs and the thoughts of men of war. Whatever their rank in the Church, hazard and birth alone have placed them there; and thus are they working out the sentence imposed by the ambition of their families; giving the lie to a calling for which they have neither taste nor capacity. The will of a strong man can defeat even pre-natal influences, and, knowing it, they make no hypocritical attempt to hide their character. They were not meant for priests, and every look and every action shows it.

The Cardinal-Infant, Archbishop of Toledo, was only a deacon, so there was nothing extraordinary in the thought that he might marry. I cannot say that he ever thought of marrying Mademoiselle; I have never found any proof that he entertained such a thought; the only thing absolutely certain in the whole affair is that Mademoiselle never doubted that he intended, or had intended, to marry her. Here is her own account of it, somewhat abridged and notably incoherent:

The Cardinal-Infant died of a tertian fever (9th November 1641),
which had not hindered his remaining in the army all through
the campaign.... His malady had not appeared very dangerous;
nevertheless he died a few days after he came back from Brussels;
which made them say that the Spaniards had poisoned him because
they were afraid that by forming an alliance with France he would
render himself master of Flanders,[78] and, in fact, that was his
design. The Queen told me that after the King died she found in his
strong-box memoranda showing that my marriage with that Prince had
been decided upon. She told me nothing but that ... when this loss
came upon them the King said to the Queen ... and he said it very
rudely--"Your brother is dead." That news, so coarsely announced,
added to her grief ... and for my own part, when I reflected
upon my interests I was very deeply grieved; because that would
have been the most agreeable establishment in the world for me,
because of the beauty of the country, lying as it does so near this
country, and because of the way in which they live there. As for
the qualities of his person, though I esteemed him much, that was
the least that I thought of.

The disappearance of the Cardinal-Infant was followed by events so tragic and so closely connected with Mademoiselle's life that her mind was distracted from her hunt for a husband. Despite her extreme youth, the affair Cinq-Mars constrained her to judge her father, and to the child to whom nothing was as dear as honour the revelation of his treachery was crushing.

IV

The death of Cinq-Mars was the dénouement of a great and tragic passion. Henry d'Effiat, Marquis de Cinq-Mars, was described as a handsome youth with soft, caressing eyes, marvellously graceful in all his movements.[79]

His mother was ambitious; she knew that men had risen to power by the friendship of kings. Richelieu's schemes required a thousand complicated accessories. So it was decided by the Cardinal and by Cinq-Mars's mother to present the child to the King and to place him in the royal presence to minister to the King's pleasure for an hour, as a beautiful flower is given to be cherished for a time, then cast away. The King was capricious and childish and, as Richelieu said, "he must always have his toy"; but elderly children, like very young children, soon tire of their toys and when they tire of them they destroy them; Louis XIII. had broken everything that he had played with, and his admiration inspired terror. Cinq-Mars was determined that he would not be a victim. Though very young, he knew the ways of the world and he had formed plans for his future. He was fond of the world and fond of pleasure. He was a natural lover, always sighing at the feet of women. He was brave and he had counted upon a military career. The thought of imprisonment in the Château of Saint Germain with a grumbling invalid whose ennui no one could vanquish was appalling; but after two years of resistance he yielded and entered the royal apartment as officer nearest to the King. It has been said that he lacked energy, but as he resisted two whole years before he gave up the struggle, and as the will which he opposed was the will of Richelieu, it is difficult to believe that he was not energetic.

History tells us that he was very nervous and that, although his will was feeble, he was subject to fits of anger. In 1638 he was in the King's household as Master of the Robes. He was eighteen years old. It was his business to select and order the King's garments, and the King was wont to reject whatever the boy selected because it was "too elegant." When Cinq-Mars was first seen in the King's apartment he was silent and very sad; the King's displeasure cowed him; the beautiful and gentle face and the appealing glance of the soft eyes irritated the sickly fancies of the monarch and he never noticed or addressed Cinq-Mars when he could avoid it. Cinq-Mars hated Saint Germain, and, truth to tell, even to an older and graver person, the lugubrious château would have seemed a prison. Sick at heart, weak in mind, tortured by fleshly ills, Louis XIII., sinking deeper into insignificance as the resplendent star of his Prime Minister rose, was but sorry company for any one.

Richelieu was the real ruler of France. Ranke, who used his relations with ambassadors as a means for increasing his store of personal and political data, said:

Dating our observations from the year 1629, we see a crowd of
soldiers and other attentive people thronging Richelieu's house and
even standing in the doors of his apartments. When he passes in his
litter he is saluted respectfully; one kneels, another presents
a petition, a third tries to kiss his vestments; all are happy
who succeed in obtaining a glance from him. It is as if all the
business of the country were already in his hands; he has assumed
the highest responsibilities ever borne by a subject....

As time went on his success augmented his power. He lived in absolute seclusion at Rueil. He was difficult of approach, and if an ambassador succeeded in gaining admission to his presence it was because he had been able to prove that he had something to communicate to Richelieu which it was of essential interest to the State, or to the Cardinal personally, to know. All the national business was in his hands. He was the centre of all State interests, the King frequently attended his councils. If Richelieu visited the King he was surrounded by a guard; he hired his guard himself, selecting his men with great care and paying them out of his own pocket, so that he might feel that he was safe from his enemies even in the King's presence.

The officers of his personal service were numerous, young and very exalted nobles. His stables were in keeping with his importance; and his house was more magnificent and his table better served than the King's. When in Paris he lived in the Palais Cardinal (now the Palais Royal) surrounded by princely objects, all treasures in themselves; his train was the train of an emperor. The Louvre, the King's residence, was a simple palace, but the Cardinal's palace, called in Court language the "Hôtel de Richelieu," was the symbol of the luxury and the art of France, toward which the eyes of the people of France and of all other lands were turned. In the Hôtel de Richelieu there were cabinets where the high officials sat in secret discussion, boudoirs for the fair ladies, ball-rooms, treasure galleries where works of art were lavishly displayed, a chapel, and two theatres. The basis of the Cardinal's library was the public library of Rochelle, which had been seized after the siege. The chapel was one of the chief sights of Paris. Everything used in the ceremonial of worship was of solid gold, ornamented with great diamonds. Among the precious objects in use were two church chandeliers,[80] all of massive gold, enamelled and enriched with two thousand five hundred and sixteen diamonds. The vases used in the service of the Mass were of fine, richly enamelled gold, and in them were set two hundred and sixty-two diamonds. The cross, which was between twenty and twenty-one inches high, bore a figure of Christ of massive gold and the crown of thorns and the loin-cloth were studded with diamonds.

FROM A CONTEMPORARY PRINT]

The Book of Prayer used by the Cardinal was bound in fine morocco leather; each side of the cover was enwreathed with sprigs of gold. On one side of the cover was a golden medallion, on which the Cardinal was depicted, like an emperor, holding the globe of the world in his hand; from the four corners of the cover angels were descending to crown his head with flowers. Beneath the device ran the Latin inscription, "_Cadat_." The ceiling of the grand gallery of the palace (destroyed under Louis XIV.) bore one of Philip de Champagne's masterpieces--a picture representing the glorious exploits of the Cardinal. One of the picture galleries called the "Gallery of Illustrious Men" contained twenty-five full-length portraits of the great men of France, chosen according to the Cardinal's estimate of greatness. At the foot of each portrait was a little "key," or historical representation of the principal acts of the original of the portrait, arranged as Fra Angelico and Giotto arranged the portraits of Saint Dominick and Saint François d'Assisi. Richelieu, who was not afflicted with false modesty, had placed his own portrait among the portraits in his gallery of the great men of France. Although he had amassed so many monuments of pride, he had passed a large portion of his life in relative poverty. He had travelled from the humble Episcopate to the steps of the throne of France on an income of 25,000 livres. When he died his income was nearly three millions of livres per annum,--the civil list of a powerful monarch. He was not an expert hoarder of riches, like Mazarin; he scattered money with full hands, while his master, the King, netted game-bags in a corner, cooked, or did other useful work, or gave himself up to his frugal pleasures.

According to Mme. de Motteville:

The King found himself reduced to the most miserable of earthly
lives, without a suite, without a Court, without power, and
consequently without pleasure and without honour. Thus a part of
his life passed at Saint Germain, where he lived like a private
individual; and while his enemies captured cities and won battles,
he amused himself by catching birds. That Prince was unhappy in all
manners, for he had not even the comfort of domestic life; he did
not love the Queen at all.... He was jealous of the grandeur of
his Minister ... whom he began to hate as soon as he perceived the
extreme authority which the Cardinal wielded in the kingdom ... and
as he was no happier without him than he was with him, he could not
be happy at all.

Cinq-Mars entered the King's service under the auspices of the Cardinal. When the King saw the new face in his apartment he retired into his darkest humour.

Cinq-Mars was very patient; he was attentive and modest, but the sound of his voice and the sight of his face irritated the sickly monarch. Days passed before the King addressed his new Master of the Robes. One day he caught the long appealing look of the gentle eyes; he answered it with a stare,--frowned, and looked again. That night he could not sleep; he longed for the morning. When Cinq-Mars entered the bed-chamber the King drew him to his side "and suddenly he loved him violently and fatally, as in former times he loved young Baradas."

* * * * *

The courtiers were accustomed to the King's fancies, but his passion for Cinq-Mars astonished them; it surpassed all that had preceded it.

It was an appalling and jealous love; exacting, suspicious, bitter, stormy, and fruitful in tears and quarrels. Louis XIII. overwhelmed his favourite with tokens of his tenderness; had it been possible he would have chained the boy to his side. When Cinq-Mars was away from him he was miserable.

Cinq-Mars was obliged to assist him in his new trade (he was learning to be a carpenter), to stand at the bench holding tools and taking measurements; and to listen to long harangues on dogs and on bird-training. The King and his new favourite were seen together constantly, driving the foxes to their holes and running in the snowy fields catching blackbirds in the King's sweep-net; they hunted with a dozen sportsmen who were said to be "low people and very bad company."

When they returned to the palace the King supped; when he had finished his supper he went to bed, and then Cinq-Mars, "fatigued to exasperation by the puerile duties of the day, cared for nothing but to escape from his gloomy prison, and to forget the long, yellow face and the interminable torrent of hunting stories." Stealing from the château, he mounted his horse and hurried to Paris. He passed the night as he pleased and returned to the château early in the morning, worn out, haggard, and with nerves unstrung. Although he left the château after the King retired to his bed, and returned from Paris early in the morning, before the King awoke, Louis XIII. knew where he had been and what he had been doing. Louis employed spies who watched and listened. He was particularly jealous of Cinq-Mars's young friends; he "made scenes" and reproached Cinq-Mars and the tormented boy answered him hotly; then with cries, weeping bitterly, they quarrelled, and the King went to Richelieu to complain of "M. le Grand." Richelieu was State Confidant, and to him the King entrusted the reconciliations. In 1639 (27th November) Louis wrote to the Cardinal:

You will see by the certificate that I send you, in what condition
is the reconciliation that you effected yesterday. When you put
your hand to an affair it cannot but go well. I give you good-day.

The certificate read as follows:

We, the undersigned, certify to all to whom these presents may
come, that we are very glad and well-satisfied with one another,
and that we have never been in such perfect unison as at present.
In faith of which we have signed the present certificate.

(signed) LOUIS; and by my order:

(signed) EFFIAT DE CINQ-MARS.

The laboured reconciliations were not durable; the months which followed the signing of the certificate were one long tempest. The objects of the King's bitterest jealousy were young men who formed a society called _Les messieurs du Marais_ because they met every evening at Mme. de Rohan's in the Palais Royal (the King then lived at the Louvre). Louis could not be silent; he exposed his spite on all occasions. January 5, 1640, he wrote to the Cardinal:

I am sorry to have to tell you again of the ill-humour of M. le
Grand. On his return from Rueil he gave me the packet which you
sent to me. I opened it and read it. Then I said to him:

"Monsieur, the Cardinal informs me that you have manifested great
desire to please me in all things; nevertheless you evince no wish
to please me in regard to that which I begged the Cardinal to speak
of: namely, your laziness." He answered that you did speak to him
of it, but that he could not change his character, and that in that
respect he should not do any better than he had been in the habit
of doing. That discourse angered me. I said to him that a man of
his condition ought to take some steps toward rendering himself
worthy to command armies (since he had told me that it was his
intention to lead armies). I told him that laziness was contrary
to military action. He answered me brusquely that he had never had
such an intention and that he had never pretended to have it. I
answered, "_Que si! You have!_" I did not wish to go any deeper
into the discourse (you know well what I mean). I then took up the
discourse on laziness. I told him that vice renders a man incapable
of doing anything good, and that he is good for nothing but the
society of the people of the Marais where he was nourished,--people
who have given themselves up to pleasure! I told him that if he
wishes to continue the life that he is now living among his old
friends, he may return to the place whence he came. He answered
arrogantly that he should be quite ready to do so!

I answered him: "If I were not wiser than you I know what I should
answer to that!" ... After that I said to him that he ought not
to speak to me in such fashion. He answered after the manner of
his usual discourse that at present his only duty appeared to be
to do good to me and to be agreeable to me and that as to such
business he could get along very well without it! He said that he
would as willingly be Cinq-Mars as to be M. le Grand; and that as
to changing his ways and his manner of life, he could not do it!
... And so it went! he pecking at me and I pecking at him until we
reached the courtyard; when I said to him that as he was in such
a humour he would do me pleasure if he would refrain from showing
himself before me any more. He bore witness that he would do that
same right willingly! I have not seen him since then.

Precisely as I have told you all that passed, in the presence of
Gordes.

LOUIS.

Post-Scriptum:

I have shown Gordes this memorandum before sending it, and he has
told me that there is nothing in it but the truth, exactly as he
heard it and saw it pass.

Cinq-Mars sulked and the King sulked, and as the quarrel promised to endure indefinitely, Richelieu bestirred himself, left his quiet home in Rueil and travelled to the house of the King to make peace between the ill-assorted pair.

FROM AN ENGRAVING BY SÉBASTIEN LECLERC]

Peace restored, Louis became joyful; he could not refuse his favourite anything. Cinq-Mars made the most of his opportunity. But he could not go far; the Cardinal barred his way. Cinq-Mars aspired to the peerage; he aimed to be a duke, to marry a princess, and to sit among the King's counsellors. Richelieu checked him, gave him rude orders, scolded him as he scolded his valet, called him an "insolent little fellow," and threatened to put him in a place "still lower" than the place from which he had raised him.[81] One day, when Richelieu was berating the favourite, he told him that he had appointed him to his office in the King's house so that he (Richelieu) might have a reliable spy, and that as he had been appointed for no other purpose, it would be advisable for him to begin to do the work that he was expected to do.

The revelation was a cruel blow to the proud and sensitive boy, and in the first moment of his anguish he conceived a ferocious hatred. It is probable that the knowledge that the Cardinal had placed him near the King's person against his will and in spite of his long and determined resistance solely to the end that he might be degraded to an ignoble office was the first cause of the Cinq-Mars conspiracy.

De Richelieu's ministry had never appeared more impregnable than it appeared at that time. Far and near its policy had been triumphant. Speaking of the position France had taken in Europe through the guidance of Richelieu, an impartial foreigner said:

What a difference between the French Government as it was when
Richelieu received it from the kingdom and the state to which his
efforts raised it! Before his day the Spaniards were in progress
on all the frontiers; no longer advancing by impetuous attacks,
but entering calmly and steadily by systematic invasion. Richelieu
changed all that, and, led by him, France forced the Spaniards
beyond the frontier.

Until the Cardinal assumed command the united forces of the Empire, the Catholic League and the Spanish armies, held not only the left bank of the Rhine but all the land divided by that great central artery of European life. By Richelieu's wise policy France regained dominion in Alsace and in the greater part of the Rhenish country, the armies of France took possession of central Germany, the Italian passes, which had been closed to the men of France, were opened to them, and large territories in upper Italy were seized and placed under French control; and the changes were wrought, not by a temporary invasion, but by orderly and skilfully planned campaigns.

* * * * *

The Cardinal's power had been made manifest everywhere. His rule had been to the glory of France. Among other important results were the triumphs of the French navies; the fleets, having proved their strength in the Ligurian Sea, had menaced the ports of Spain. The Ligurian Peninsula had been rent asunder by the revolt of two large provinces, one of which had arisen proclaiming its independent rights as a kingdom. There was, there had been, no end to Richelieu's diplomatic improvements; his victories had carried ruin to the enemy; the skirmishers of France had advanced to a point within two leagues of Madrid. The Croquemitaine of France, who held in terror both the Court and the canaille, had assured the Bourbons of an important place among the empires of the world. The day of Spain was past; the day of France was come.

A great fête marked this period of power and glory.

Richelieu was a man of many ambitions, and he aspired to the admiration of all of the population; he had extended his protecting arms over literature and the lettered; he had founded the French Academy; but he was not content; he was a man of too much independence and of too enterprising a mind to leave all the literary honours to the doctors of the law or to his mediums, Corneille and Rotrou, whose lines of work he fixed to follow a plan outlined to suit his own ideas. Usually, Richelieu's intellectual ambitions were quiescent, but at times the pedant, dormant in his hard nature, awoke and impelled him to add a few personal touches to the work of his agents. When under the influence of his afflatus he collaborated with Desmarets, the author of a dramatic poem entitled _Clovis_, and by the united efforts of the unique literary team the tragedy _Mirame_ was delivered to the world. Its first appearance was a Parisian event. None of the King's armies had been mounted with such solicitude and prodigality, The grand audience-room of the Palais Cardinal was built for _Mirame_; it was spaced to hold three thousand spectators; the stage material had been ordered from Italy by "Sieur Mazarini," ex-Papal Nuncio at Paris. Richelieu himself had chosen the costumes and the decorations; and he in person directed the rehearsals, and, as he supposed, superintended the listing of all the invitations. The play was ready for representation early in the year (1641).

First of all there was a general rehearsal for the critics, who were represented by the men of letters and the comedians. The rehearsal took place before the Court and the social world of all Paris. The invited guests were seated by the Bishop of Chartres and by a president of the Parliament of France. Though too new and too fresh in its magnificence, the Audience Hall pleased the people exceedingly; when the curtain rose they could hardly repress cries of admiration. The stage was lined on both sides by splendid palaces and in the open space between the abodes of luxury were most delicious gardens adorned with grottoes, statues, fountains, and grand parterres of flowers descending terrace upon terrace to the sea, which lifted its waves with an agitation as natural as the movements of the real tide of a real ocean; on the broad waters passed two great fleets; one of them appeared as if two leagues away. Both fleets moved calmly on, passing like living things before the spectators.

The same decorations and scenery served the five acts of the play; but the sky was changed in each act, when the light faded, when the sun set or rose, and when the moon and the stars appeared to mark the flight of the hours. The play was composed according to the accepted formulas of the day, and it was neither better nor worse than its fellows. In its course the actors fought, poisoned each other, died, came to life, and quarrelled over a handsome princess; and while the scene-shifters manipulated the somewhat crude inventions of the stage scenery, and while the actors did their utmost to develop the plot to the best advantage, the master of the palace acted as chief of the _Claque_ and tried by every means in his power to arouse the enthusiasm of the audience. He stood in the front of his box and, leaning forward into space, manifested his pleasure by his looks; at times he called the attention of the people and imposed silence so that the finer passages might be heard.[82]

At the end of the play a curtain representing clouds fell upon the scene, and a golden bridge rolled like a tide to the feet of Anne of Austria. The Queen arose, crossed the bridge, and found herself in a magnificent ball-room; then, with the Prince and the Princess, she danced an impetuously ardent and swinging figure, and when that dance was over, the Bishop of Chartres, in Court dress, and baton in hand, like a _maître d'hôtel_, led the way to a fine collation. Later in the year the serviceable Bishop was made Archbishop of Rheims.

Politics interfered with _Mirame_. The play was assailed by difficulties similar to those which met Napoleon's _Vie de César_ under the Second Empire. The Opposition eagerly seized the occasion to annoy "Croquemitaine"; open protestations were circulated to the effect that the play was not worth playing. Some, rising above the question of literary merit, said that the piece was morally objectionable because it contained allusions to Anne of Austria's episode with Buckingham. Richelieu became the scapegoat of the hour; even the King had something to say regarding his Minister's literary venture. Louis was not gifted with critical discrimination; he knew it, and his timid pride and his prudence restrained him from launching into observations upon subjects with which he was not fitted to cope; but guided by the cherub detailed to protect the mentally incompetent, he struck with instinctive subtlety at the one vulnerable point in the Cardinal's armour and declared that he had nothing to say regarding the preciosity of the play, but that he had been "shocked by the questionable composition of the audience." It relieved the King's consciousness of his own inferiority to "pinch the Cardinal." He told Monsieur that he had been "shocked" when he realised "what species of society" he had been invited to meet. Monsieur, seizing the occasion to strike his enemy, answered that, to speak "frankly," he also had "been shocked" when he perceived "little Saint Amour among the Cardinal's guests." The royal brothers turned the subject in every light, and the more they studied it the darker grew its aspect. They agreed in thinking that the King's delicacy had been grossly outraged; they worked upon the fact until it assumed the proportions of a personal insult. Richelieu, visited by the indignant pair, was galvanised by the double current of their wrath. He knew that Saint Amour had not been in any earthly locality by his will; tact, if not religious prejudice, would have forbidden the admission of a personage of the doubtful savour of Saint Amour to the presence of the King. But Monsieur and the King had seen with their own eyes, and as no one would have dared to enter the Palais Cardinal uninvited, it was an undisputable fact that some one had tampered with the invitations. Richelieu's detectives were put upon the scent and they discovered that an Abbé who "could not refuse a woman anything" had been entrusted with the invitations-list.

Richelieu could not punish the amiable lady who had unconsciously sealed the Abbé's doom; but justice was wrought, and absolute ignorance of facts permits us to hope that it fell short of the justice meted out to Puylaurens. It was said that the Abbé had been sent back to his village. Wherever he was "sent," Louis XIII. refused to be comforted, and to the end of his days he told the people who surrounded him that the Cardinal had invited him to his palace to meet Saint Amour.

Richelieu's life was embittered by the incident, and to the last he was tormented by a confused impression of the fête which he had believed was to be the coming glory of his career. But an isolated detail could not alter facts, and it was universally known that his importance was "of all the colours." _Mirame_ had given the people an idea of the versatility of Richelieu's grandeur and of the composite quality of his power, and M. le Grand knew what he might expect should he anger the Cardinal. Cinq-Mars was always at the King's heels, and he knew the extent of Louis's docility.

The Cinq-Mars Conspiracy took shape in the months which immediately followed the presentation of _Mirame_. As the details of the conspiracy may be found in any history, I shall say only this: When an enterprise is based upon sentiments like the King's passion for his Grand Equerry[83] and the general hatred of Richelieu, it is not necessary to search for reasonable causes.

When the first steps in the conspiracy were taken Louis XIII., in his tenderness for Cinq-Mars and his bitter jealousy of Richelieu, unconsciously played the part of instigator.

It soothed the wounded pride of the monarch to hear his tyrant ridiculed, and he incited his "dear friend," the Marquis d'Effiat, to scoff at the Cardinal. Cinq-Mars and all the others were taken red-handed; doubt was impossible. In the words of Mme. de Motteville: "It was one of the most formidable, and at the same time one of the most extraordinary plots found in history; for the King was, tacitly, the chief of the conspirators." Monsieur enthusiastically entered into the plot; he ran to the Queen with the whole story; he told her the names of the conspirators, and urged her to take part in the movement.

"It must be innocent," he insisted; "if it were not the King would not be engaged in it."[84]

Richelieu's peaceful days were over. He was restless and suspicious. Suddenly, in June, 1642, when Louis XIII. was sick in Narbonne (and when Richelieu was sick in Tarascon) M. le Grand was arrested and delivered to the Cardinal for the crime of high treason. He deserved his fate. He had led Monsieur to treat with Spain; but the real cause of his death--if not of his disgrace--lay in the fact that he had lost his hold upon the King's love.

"The King had ceased to love him," said a contemporary. The end came suddenly and without a note of warning. The King, awaking as from a dream, remembered all the services that Richelieu had rendered unto France. He was so grateful that he hastened to Tarascon and begged Richelieu's pardon for having wished "to lose him," in other words, for having wished to accomplish his fall. The King was ashamed, and despite his sickness he ordered his bearers to carry him into Richelieu's bed-chamber where the two gentlemen passed several hours together, each in his own bed, effecting a reconciliation.

But their hearts were not in their words; wrongs like those in question between the Cardinal and the King cannot be forgotten.[85] The King had abetted a conspiracy against the Cardinal's life, and had the Cardinal been inclined to forget it, the King's weak self-reproach would have kept it in the mind of his contemplated victim. Louis could not refrain from harking back to his sin; he humiliated himself, he begged the Cardinal to forgive him; he gave up everything, including the amiable young criminal who, in Scriptural language, had lain in his bosom and been to him as a daughter. The judgment of the moralist is disarmed by the fact that Louis was, and always had been, a physical wreck, morally handicapped by the essence of his being. He had loved Cinq-Mars with unreasoning passion; he was forced by circumstances to sacrifice him; but we need not pity him; there was much of the monster in him, and before the head of Cinq-Mars fell, all the King's love for his victim had passed away.

Louis XIII. was of all the sovereigns of France the one most notably devoted to the public interest; in crises his self-sacrifice resembled the heroism of the martyr; but the defects of his qualities were of such a character that he would have been incomprehensible had he not been sick in body and in mind.

During the crisis which followed the exposure of Cinq-Mars's conspiracy Monsieur surpassed himself; he was alternately trembler, liar, sniveller, and informer; his behaviour was so abject that the echoes of his shame reverberated throughout France and, penetrating the walls of the Tuileries, reached the ears of his daughter. Monsieur shocked Mademoiselle's theological conception of Princes of the Blood; she could not understand how a creature partaking of the nature of the Deity could be so essentially contemptible; she was crushed by the enigma presented by her father.

The close of the reign resembled the dramatic tragedies in which the chief characters die in the fifth act; all the principal personages departed this life within a period of a few months. Marie de Médicis was the first to go. She died at Cologne 3d July, 1642, not, as was reported, in a garret, or in a hovel, but in a house in which Rubens had lived. If we may judge by the names of her legatees, she died surrounded by at least eighty servants. It is true that she owed debts to the tradesmen who furnished her household with the necessaries of life, and it is true that her people had advanced money when their living expenses required such advances; but the two facts prove no more than that royal households in which there is no order closely resemble the disorderly households of the ordinary classes. People of respectability in our own midst are now living regardless of system, devoid of economy, and indebted to their tradesmen, as the household of Marie de Médicis lived in the seventeenth century. To the day of her death the aged Queen retained possession of silver dishes of all kinds, and had her situation justified the rumours of extreme poverty which have been circulated since then she would have pawned them or sold them. We may be permitted to trust that Marie de Médicis did not end her days tormented by material necessities. She died just at the time when she had begun to resort to expedients. The old and corpulent sovereign had lived an agitated life; her chief foes were of her own temperament. She was the victim of paroxysmal wrath and it was generally known that she had made at least one determined though unfruitful attempt to whip her husband, the heroic Henry IV., Conqueror of Paris. Her life had not been of a character to inspire the love of the French people, and when she died no one regretted her. Had not the Court been forced by the prevailing etiquette to assume mourning according to the barbarous and complicated rites of the ancient monarchy, her death would have passed unperceived. The customs of the old regimen obliged Mademoiselle to remain in a darkened room, surrounded by such draperies as were considered essential to the manifestation of royal grief. The world mourned for the handsome boy who had been forced to enter the King's house, and to act as the King's favourite against his will, to die upon the scaffold. Monsieur was despised for his part in Cinq-Mars's death. Mademoiselle was shunned because she was her father's daughter and her obligatory mourning was a convenient veil. Her own record of the death of the Queen is a frankly sorrowful statement of her appreciation of the facts in the case, and of her knowledge of her father's guilt:

I observed the retreat which my mourning imposed upon me with all
possible regularity and rigour. If any one had come to see me it
would not have been difficult for me to refuse to receive them;
however, my case was the case of all who are undergoing misfortune;
no one called for me.