Chapter XVI: The Early Years of Louis XIII and the Rise of Richelieu (1)

THE REGENCY OF MARIE DE’ MEDICI

[Sidenote: [1610-1628 A.D.]]

The terrible instability of the monarchical government is revealed upon the death of Henry IV, who left as his successor a child of eight years. What follows is the opposite of what he desired; France turned inside out like a glove.

The treasure that Sully had amassed and protected is squandered in a moment, the domain that he cleared of debt is remortgaged, the possessions of the state are sold. All the institutions of this reign are abandoned, buildings are interrupted, canals given up. The manufactories of silk and of glass, the Savonnerie and the Gobelins are closed and the workmen discharged. The Louvre, which was to be degraded by lodging great inventors--the Louvre is left to the courtiers. Adieu to the museum of trades and the Jardin des Plantes; these hobbies of the king, and a thousand others sleep on the charts of Sully. At the Tuileries, at the arsenal, Henry’s favourite trees, his mulberries, are removed. But for fear of the people his monuments would be torn down. By an unexpected change the people discover that they loved Henry IV. The legend begins the day of his death; it will go on increasing by comparison of what is, with what was.

Paris at this moment was dominated by an extraordinary terror. The people believed themselves lost. Women tore their hair, less from grief than from fear. It was the same everywhere. The terror of the league returned to people’s minds and caused them to tremble. Hence there was a surprising, or rather a striking calm. For this great wisdom stuck to one thing--that is, that France, having neither idea, nor passion, nor moral interest, should no longer have a feeling of life. It was entirely identified with the king, with a man who had been killed; and what remained? A boy of eight who on the 15th of May surrendered the kingdom to his mother and on the 29th got a flogging.[b]

The last dispositions of Henry, on his intended departure to head his army, had appointed his queen, Marie de’ Medici, regent: this was strongly in her favour as dowager; and she now found little difficulty in assuming the same authority. The duke d’Épernon, her partisan, summoned the parliament, and procured their acquiescence, not, however, without having made some show of menace. This seemed unnecessary: of the princes of the blood, three in number, who could alone have pretended to the regency, Condé was absent in the Netherlands, his brother of Conti was imbecile, whilst their uncle, the count de Soissons, also absent, was at enmity with every influential personage.

[Sidenote: [1610-1614 A.D.]]

It was to Sully that Henry’s death came as the greatest blow. Sully was panic-struck; he saw in the murder a Catholic plot, and dreaded a renewal of the massacres of St. Bartholomew’s eve; he accordingly shut himself up with his followers in the Bastille, which he hastily provisioned by carrying off all the bread from the bakers’ shops around. By the morrow, however, his suspicions had subsided, and he appeared at the court of the regent. [He was cordially received; a reconciliation was effected, and the queen got what she was after,--the treasure that Sully had stored up in the Bastille.]

Marie de’ Medici was of a weak character; she was simple womanhood, unenforced by either firmness or sagacity. She had come to France a stranger; and wanting both charms and wit, she had never acquired any influence either with her husband or amongst the followers of his court. Marie, therefore, shrank back into her private circle, and made confidants and counsellors of her two Italian domestics, the woman, Leonora Galigaï, and Concini, the husband of Leonora. These upstart personages, full of all the meanness and narrowness of their calling, had frequently fanned the petty jealousies of the queen against Henry; and now it was to be feared their influence would be perniciously felt. Marie, however, was as yet too conscious of her weakness and inability. She had a vague idea of the justice of the late king’s policy in keeping down the noblesse, that now pressed around her, and terrified her with their pretensions and their quarrels. She therefore had recourse to those best fitted to guide her--the ministers of the late monarch, Villeroi the secretary, Sillery the chancellor, the president Jeannin, and Sully, superintendent of finances: these, except Sully, had none of the pretensions and haughty bearing of the noblesse; and Marie felt no loss of her will and authority in being guided by them.

It would prove a wearisome task either to narrate or to peruse an account of the cabals, quarrels, duels, and claims of the personages and princes amongst each other, and with or against the regent, during the three years which followed Henry’s death. They formed a repetition of the conspiracies and alliances of the aristocracy against Catherine de’ Medici half a century previous, except that at that time there were at least some noble characters and some serious aims. Whatever might be said of Châtillon or of Guise, they were animated by high views; but the political puppets who occupied the scene during Marie de’ Medici’s regency, wanted not courage--indeed they were quite as ready as their predecessors to slay each other in duels--but purpose, at least other purpose than immediate greed, they had none. There were some examples of ferocity in Louis XIII’s early days, which reminded one of Charles IX--the chevalier de Guise, meeting the baron de Luz and running him through the body, and being universally censured for the act until he redeemed the murder by slaying the young De Luz, son of the baron, in a fiercely-contested duel. This spirit, which showed itself in private broils, never rose into a public sentiment. One would have thought that in the army which Henry had formed, and amongst the officers whom he had honoured with his patronage and friendship, there might have been some who burned to distinguish themselves in prosecuting that war against the house of Austria which the monarch had planned. Not one noble opposed the peace; not one soldier of note raised his voice in behalf of the spirited policy of the late king; scarcely even a Huguenot. For Bouillon was immersed in the intrigues of Concini, and Lesdiguières was tempted by the title of duke and peer, as he afterwards was by that of constable.

_Disgrace of Sully_

As long, however, as the rigid Sully held the finances under his care, there was a check to spoliation, as well as a generous voice in the council to support the sage, the firm, and yet conciliating measures of the late monarch. He was at first retained, indeed, for the sake of the stern negative which he was wont to put on the demands of the greedy courtiers, as well as from fear or respect of his influence with the Huguenots. But his economical temper became soon a disagreeable restraint upon the queen herself; and the duke de Bouillon, an indefatigable votary of intrigue, offering to effect more than even Sully in conciliating and quieting the Huguenots, this old and upright minister of the great Henry, was dismissed. Despite his probity, his able administration, and the esteem of Henry, a cloud would rest on the character of Sully but for the honest and simple exculpation contained in his own memoirs. His austere and rude manners made him many enemies. Most of his contemporaries unite in accusing him; and, strange to say, the only family, beyond his own, whose friendship and good-will he preserved in his retreat, was that of Guise.

The disgrace of Sully left the treasure of the late king completely at the regent’s disposal, who dissipated it by bribing prince and noble to remain quiet. The favour of Leonora Galigaï and her husband Concini, now Marshal d’Ancre, became more apparent. The avarice of these foreigners knew no bounds: not content with the purchase of a marquisate, and the dignity of marshal, Concini contrived to get some of the principal fortresses of the kingdom in his possession--Péronne amongst others, and the citadel of Amiens. Épernon, on his side, secured Metz; whilst the count de Soissons and the prince of Condé, despite their pensions and their submission, by turns thwarted the court, and threw it into disorder by their private quarrels. Although the marshal d’Ancre and his wife were the chief favourites of the queen-regent, Villeroi was nevertheless the counsellor whose views, in matters of serious policy, she principally adopted. Villeroi, say the _Mémoires_ attributed to Richelieu,[e] bred in the civil wars, had imbibed their virulence, which he repressed during the life of Henry. Instead of now recommending that monarch’s conciliating policy, which Sully upheld, Villeroi said that there were but two parties in the state, Catholic and Protestant, and that the government must necessarily embrace one or the other. He leaned to the Catholic side, and supported the project of strengthening it by marrying the young king to a daughter of Spain, rather than to a princess of Lorraine or Savoy, as had been the advice of Henry. The prince of Condé, however, urged by the duke de Bouillon, opposed the ministry in this, for no reason, apparently, except the sake of making opposition. And for the time, Louis XIII being as yet but nine years of age, the project was allowed to slumber.[d]

_First Revolt of the Lords (1614 A.D.)_

The pretensions of the nobles grew with the weakness of the government. “The presents of the queen,” said Richelieu, “stilled the great hunger of their avarice and ambition; but it was by no means extinct. The treasury and the coffers of the Bastille were exhausted; then they aspired to so great things that royal authority could not possibly give them the increase of power which they demanded.” What they wanted in fact was governorships for themselves and their families, places of surety, and the dismemberment of France. Épernon was governor of Metz, but Henry, being afraid of that proud noble, had imposed a lieutenant upon him, who occupied the citadel and corresponded directly with the ministers. The very day of the king’s death Épernon hastened an order to take possession of the lieutenant and the citadel. He had a strong place at that time only two steps from the Spaniards, which people called “his kingdom of Austrasia.” Many lords at the news of the assassination had thus thrown themselves into the cities with which they had an understanding, and some did not wish to ever come out again or wished at any rate to return. “The time of kings is past,” they said, “that of the nobles is come.” The first refusal of the regent brought about a civil war. Condé took up arms and published a manifesto in which he accused the court of having debased the nobility, ruined the finances, and taxed the poor--singular reproaches in the mouth of a prince who with his friends had received the best part of this money of the poor. He concluded according to custom by demanding the convocation of the states-general to work at the reform of existing abuses.

Brought up in the Catholic faith, although born of a Protestant family, Condé hoped to rally both parties to his cause. A large number of lords came to take their places under his standard, at their head the dukes de Vendôme, de Longueville, de Luxemburg, de Mayenne, de Nevers, de Retz, etc. The Calvinists refused to be associated in this rising in arms. “We have all the liberty for our consciences,” said they, “which we could desire, and we do not wish to abandon our wives and our houses to satisfy the appetite of some factious persons.” The Catholics did not take fire either. Since the estates of the league, popular passions had been greatly appeased. The party of tolerant politicians born with L’Hôpital, and come to power under Henry IV, now counted nearly all members of the cloth and bourgeoisie. The experience which had been so cruelly bought by the civil war was not lost. The nation compared the twelve years of prosperity it had enjoyed, with those thirty-eight years of massacres and pillaging, and held close to the throne; leaving the great lords to exercise their sterile ambition in space. “The people,” wrote Malherbe at that moment, “remain obedient everywhere, and without them nothing can be done.” Let a firm hand take the rudder and even the most turbulent will return to the quiet in which Henry IV had held them. Some of Henry IV’s old ministers, Villeroi, Jeannin, counselled the queen to act with vigour. She preferred to make terms at Ste. Menehould (May 15th, 1614). The prince of Condé received 450,000 livres in cash; the duke of Mayenne 300,000 “to get married”; M. de Longueville 100,000 livres pension, etc. But the court, wanting to gain on one side what it had lost on the other, did not pay the stockholders of the Hôtel-de-Ville in that year. That was what was done for “the poor.”[f] And the court assented to the call of the states-general.

_Last Assembly of the States-General_

The states-general, assembled at Paris in 1614, demands especial attention, not only as the last of these national assemblies previous to the Revolution (at the commencement of which it was continually referred to as affording precedent), but as a scene in which the political feelings and views of the age were completely developed. We have an ample account of the sittings and discussions of the commons or third order, written by Florimond Rapine,[g] a member, one of the king’s advocates. From this we learn that the majority of the lower chamber were lawyers, and a considerable portion nobles, almost all the king’s lieutenant-generals being elected by their several governments. The most important consideration in the eyes of all was evidently the respective dignity of persons and classes. The first two months were consumed in disputes of precedence, in ceremonials, in mutual compliments between the orders at first, and afterwards in mutual abuse. Miron, provost of the merchants of the city of Paris, was elected president. The address of the commons to the king was spoken by this magistrate on his knees; the deputies were clothed in simple black, whilst priests and nobles shone in gold, and an attempt of the president to wear his city robes of red and blue in a procession was looked upon as a monstrous piece of ambition.

The grievance most odious to the nation was the enormity of pensions granted to the princes and chief officers. Against these the commons and the clergy joined in lifting up their voice. The next demand was to abolish the venality of the judicature, and the right of the _paulette_, a kind of annual fine, paid by the officers of parliament, in consideration of which their offices were considered hereditary. This demand the chamber of the commons could not in decency oppose; but being principally lawyers and provincial governors, it was their interest to preserve the _paulette_, and they therefore slurred over the question, and laid greater stress on the necessity of abating the _taille_, which pressed upon the people. Thus, the nobles insisting on abolishing the hereditary right to their offices held by the legists, the legists or commons retaliated by demanding the retrenchment of pensions; and a struggle ensued between them. Savaron, an orator of eloquence in the _tiers_, exclaimed against the mercenary spirit of the noblesse, which, he said, had forsaken the pursuit of honour for the worship of the goddess Pecune, and bartered even its fidelity for a price. The nobles were indignant at this, and demanded an apology. De Mesme, another member of the _tiers_, was deputed to explain, and he made matters infinitely worse. “France,” said he, “had three children: The clergy, if not the eldest born, had at least, like Jacob, got the heritage and the blessing, and therefore were to be considered the eldest. Next came the noblesse, the second son--fiefs, counties, and commands, were its share. The youngest born was the commons, whose portion was the offices of the judicature. But,” concluded the orator, “let not the noblesse presume too much over the _tiers_; since it often happens that the cadets of a great family restore to it that honour and illustration which has been thrown away by the elder brethren.”

[Sidenote: [1614-1615 A.D.]]

The difference of interest between the states rendered their meeting productive of no effect. The regent would willingly have reduced the pensions of the great, and destroyed the _paulette_, or hereditary right of the legists to their offices; but she feared to outrage the princes by the first, whilst uncertain of the support of the commons. Nothing accordingly was decided on. The _cahiers_ or remonstrances of the states were presented, were smilingly received, and slept in the king’s hands. The assembly was dissolved. The queen took her own inactivity and inability for prudence. It proved the contrary. The party of the princes leagued with that of the legists, the union being effected by the exertions and intrigues of the duke de Bouillon. As the assembly of the states had proved an empty ceremony, all its advice and remonstrance being disregarded, the legists of the parliament were urged to put themselves forward as the popular representatives, and finish the work that the states had vainly attempted. The chambers of parliament accordingly assembled, and began by summoning the great peers to join them, and form a court of peers for taking into consideration the affairs of the kingdom.

This bold act was the inspiration of Bouillon. The court was terrified, and with good cause; but the parliament itself was almost equally intimidated by its own boldness, and showed but hesitation when the queen put forth her authority. Nevertheless, the peers being forbidden to join the parliament,--an injunction that Condé had the weakness to obey,--the legists prepared their remonstrances; amongst which were not only all the demands of the states, but also a claim that no act of the king should have force unless freely registered by the parliament, and that the parliament should have the right of summoning a court of peers and great officers, when occasion required. These remonstrances they insisted on reading in public before the young king, who showed a favourable and benign countenance, whilst that of the regent was convulsed with anger. But this bold attempt to put a check on the royal authority utterly failed: an edict of the king reproved the audacity of the parliament; and the latter who had been urged on more by the intrigues of the princes than by any conscientious or firm love of liberty and the public good, yielded pusillanimously, when affairs began to assume the appearance of an open rupture. Condé acted pusillanimously, also, in not declaring himself, and taking his place in the parliament, to which his secret promises of support could not impart sufficient confidence. It ended by the court obtaining the upper hand, and in the consequent revolt of Condé; the queen resolving, at the same time, to fulfil the project of the double marriage with Spain.

MAJORITY OF LOUIS XIII; MARRIAGE WITH ANNE OF AUSTRIA

[Sidenote: [1615-1616 A.D.]]

Marie de’ Medici, with the young king, set out for Bordeaux, to meet his future spouse. It was a military enterprise rather than a nuptial procession, the court marching at the head of an army, whilst it was pursued by Condé with an equal force. Both sides avoided an action. The king arrived at Bordeaux, despatched his sister Elizabeth, who was to espouse the infante of Spain, to the Pyrenees, and received in return Anne of Austria, a young and not unlovely princess of fifteen. The marriage was celebrated at Bordeaux in November, 1615. Louis XIII was now of age; the possession of a wife gave him the consciousness of manhood, and he began accordingly to feel and to express a will of his own that disquieted and constrained the queen-mother, no longer regent.

One of the young monarch’s most dominant tastes was falconry, and as he was not allowed to follow it in the fields, he kept a number of these birds of prey in his apartments. A young man, of the name of De Luynes, charged with the care of them, interested the king by his knowledge and conversation on such subjects. He soon became a favourite. And Marie de’ Medici, who discovered the rising sun, made repeated offers to resign her authority, which Louis was not prepared to accept. She then sought to conciliate Luynes, but he, ambitious and desirous of full power, held aloof, and continued in the king’s presence to criticise the feeble administration of Marie and the prodigal folly of Concini.

Feeling her influence undermined, and humouring the impatience of the young monarch and his queen, who longed to visit Paris, she concluded a new accommodation with Condé, greatly to the advantage of that prince. He was allowed to participate in the government, and to sign the decrees of the council. The queen objected to granting this power, but she was overruled by Villeroi, who observed that this would put the prince always in the king’s power, by bringing him to the Louvre.

“There is no danger,” said he, “in trusting the pen to a hand, the arm of which you hold.” The duke de Longueville superseded the marshal D’Ancre in the government of Picardy. The Huguenots, who had armed for Condé, had also their recompense. The court and royal authority was, in fact, at the feet of this young chief of the noblesse.

RICHELIEU APPEARS

The queen-dowager saw the condition to which her weakness had reduced her. The marshal D’Ancre was her only friend, and, from the general odium borne to him, he proved more a weight than a support. Another counsellor indeed she had, a man attached both to her and D’Ancre, and who was well capacitated to counsel her in this extremity. This was Armand du Plessis Richelieu, bishop of Luçon, who had somewhat distinguished himself in the states-general of 1614.[d]

(From the painting in the Louvre)]

A painter who was remarkably faithful and conscientious in art and in life--the Fleming, Philip de Champagne--has left us a true representation of the fine, strong, and spare figure of the cardinal De Richelieu. This Jansenist painter would have disdained to relieve or enrich the gray image with a ray of light, as Rubens or Murillo would have done. That would have been changing the nature of the grave, unpromising subject. The eye would have been pleased and art better satisfied, but it would not have been true to history. It must be remembered that this was the epoch of the monochrome, when plain glass was replacing the stained glass of the sixteenth century. In France especially the taste for colour was dead.

Gray everywhere. Literary gray in Malherbe. Religious gray in Berulle and the Oratory. The new-born Port-Royal aims at dullness, one might almost say at mediocrity. Pascal will appear in thirty years. The colour is very good here, but moderate in very truth, neither too much nor too little. A learned master among masters, the good Philip nevertheless stuck so closely to nature and went so deeply into it that he satisfies both the conceptions of history and the popular impression. History recognises in this gray-bearded phantom with its lustreless gray eye and its fine spare hands the grandson of the prevost of Henry III who assassinated Guise. He comes towards you, and you do not feel reassured. That personage has indeed the appearance of life, but is it truly a man, a soul? Yes, an intellect certainly, strong, clear, and shall we say luminous, or dark and sinister? If he would take a few steps further we should be face to face. He does not inspire anxiety, but one fears that this strong head has nothing in its breast, neither heart nor vitals. In trials of witchcraft there have been too many of these evil spirits that will not remain in the lower regions, but return and disturb the world.

What contrasts in him--so hard, so yielding; so complete, so broken! By how many tortures he must have been moulded, formed, and unformed, let us say rather disarticulated, to have become that eminently artificial thing which goes without going, advances without appearing, and noiselessly, as though gliding over a deadened carpet--then, having arrived, overthrows everything. He looks at you from the depths of his mystery, this red-robed sphinx; one dare not say from the depths of his craftiness. For, in contrast with the ancient sphinx, which dies if one divines it, this one seems to say: “Whoever divines me shall die.” If one should be densely and profoundly ignorant of Richelieu,[e] one must read his _Mémoires_. All the people of this race, Sulla, Tiberius, and others, have written memoirs or caused them to be written, in order to render history difficult, to baffle men, to disconcert the public, and above all to connect the beginning of their lives with the end and to disguise somewhat the terrible contradictions of their different periods.

His ill-fortune forced him to have merit early. He was the youngest of three brothers. His family was not rich, and had intermarried with plebeians. The eldest brother, who was at court, spent everything. The second, who held the bishopric of Luçon, became a Carthusian; and as this bishopric did not leave the family, the third, our Richelieu, had to become a churchman, in spite of his military taste. The eldest brother was killed in a duel, too late for his cadet, who would have taken his place and would never have become a priest. He perhaps was not born ill-natured, but he became so. The contradiction between his character and his robe gave him that rich fund of ill humour to which is due his great strength--“the bitterness of blood, which alone makes him win battles.” His battles as priest could only be theological. He promptly transmitted his theses with great ostentation to the Sorbonne, dedicating them to Henry IV, and offering himself to the king for important services. Then he went to Rome to be consecrated, to offer himself to the pope. Neither the king nor the pope responded to the impatience of the ardent young politician.

Then he sadly fell back upon his bishopric of Luçon, which was poor enough and in a country of disputes, near to La Rochelle and the Huguenots. This nearness caused him annoyance; in spite of violent headaches, he wrote against them. He is not without talent. His pen is a sword, short and keen, well-fitted for disputation. He does not dwell dully upon the absurd. If he writes nonsense he does not do it like a fool. He has a happy insolence and bold turns of thought; and retreats haughtily, and by this means he makes a very good showing.

For all that, he would have remained in his obscurity at Luçon if he had had nothing but his controversy. But he was a handsome fellow, a fine porcelain creature. Concini was of faience. The handsome Bellegarde, a beau since the time of Henry III, was getting worn out. These considerations influenced the queen-mother, and she took him as her almoner.[b]

[Sidenote: [1616-1617 A.D.]]

It was the 30th of November, 1616, that Richelieu entered the ministry for the first time. The Spanish ambassador, the duke of Monteleone, showed keen satisfaction at his accession and wrote to Madrid that there was “no better than he in France for the service of God, of the crown of Spain, and of the public good”--of the public good, as the heirs of Philip II understood it! This diplomat had not the gift of divination!

The majestic drama of the ministry of the great Richelieu thus opens as a comedy of intrigue. It is by no means probable that he began his career by deceiving the pope in order to obtain his bishop’s bull, but it seems certain that he got into power by deceiving Spain and preparing to deceive and supplant Concini. He was determined to gain power at any price; he felt himself necessary; an irresistible force was driving him forward! In this feverish need of action by which he is devoured he passes over all obstacles, perhaps even over those of conscience and personal dignity as over others. He flatters those who despise him, caresses those who hate him, and lowers to vain mediocrity that brow which was made for empire. He hides at the bottom of his soul all his nobler and better feelings, as one would conceal criminal tendencies. Unfortunate novitiate of political greatness! There will always be very different opinions of Richelieu according to whether one studies the end or the means, the public man or the private man. Richelieu never was false to the duties of the statesman toward his country’s greatness, but he was unfortunately less faithful to the laws of morality and of humanity.[h]

Marie was not aware of the merit of this personage; yet it may have been by his bold counsel that she ventured a stroke of policy, of boldness unusual to her, in arresting Condé in the Louvre, and sending him to the Bastille. The noblesse, his partisans, instantly fled to raise their followers. The Parisian mob collected, and showed its humour by pillaging the hôtel of the marshal D’Ancre; there, however, its fury subsided. The queen was victorious, and the fugitive partisans of Condé were reduced to impotent exclamation of vengeance and rage. Their cause, however, was not lost. The young king had joined his mother in the project for getting rid of Condé; but in delivering himself from one master, Louis was mortified to find that he had given himself another. The marshal D’Ancre now ruled uncontrolled at court and in council; and the pride of Louis was even more hurt by the ascendency of the upstart Concini than by that of Condé. Luynes, his favourite, and the young nobles who composed his court, flattered the monarch’s pride, and fanned his resentment. Marie de’ Medici deemed this knot of striplings to be occupied in pleasure, whilst they meditated a plot. The arrest of Condé was a precedent and example.[d]

ASSASSINATION OF MARSHAL D’ANCRE

It was well to have arrested the prince de Condé, said Richelieu; one might have done as much for Concini. Strange forgetfulness of circumstances; the king had no one, and his man Vitry, captain of the guards, did not have the guards with him. Concini on the contrary never went anywhere unless surrounded by thirty gentlemen. Vitry collected fifteen with great difficulty, hid them, and armed them with pistols under their coats.

They chose the moment when Concini came to make his usual morning visit to the queen. He was on the Louvre bridge with his large escort. Vitry was so frightened that he passed without seeing him, having him before his eyes. When told, he returned. “I arrest you!” “_A mi!_” (“to my aid!”) cried Concini. He had not finished when three or four pistol shots went off and blew his brains out. “It is by order of the king,” said Vitry. Only one of Concini’s men had put his hand to his sword (April 24th, 1617).

The Corsican Ornano took the king, raised him in his arms, and showed him at the window. The people did not understand. It was first said that Concini had wounded the king. But when it was known it was he on the contrary who had been killed, there was an explosion of joy throughout the whole city. The queen-mother was very much frightened. Her one cry was “_Poveretta di me!_” However, what had she to fear? Whatever antipathy her son might feel for her he could not dream of bringing her to judgment. He was satisfied with removing her guards. The doors of her apartments were walled up, save one. She showed no pity for Concini or his widow. When someone said to her: “Madame, your majesty alone can inform her of the death of her husband”--“Ah, I have many other things to do! If you can’t tell it to her, sing it to her; cry in her ears: _L’Hanno ammazzato_.” Terrible word; it was the very same that Concini had used to the queen the day of Henry IV’s death, when he told her the news that she knew only too well. Leonora tremblingly sought refuge with her. She refused it. Then that woman to whom the queen had confided her crown diamonds (as a resource in case of misfortune) undressed and went to bed, hiding her diamonds under her. She was pulled from her bed; everything was ransacked; the room was pillaged. She was taken to the Conciergerie. Paris was in a state of celebration. The crowd hunted and disinterred her husband’s body, which was solemnly burned in front of Henry IV’s statue in token of expiation. It was said that a madman had bitten out the heart and eaten a piece of it.

The life of the queen-mother hung by a thread. Among the murderers, several would have liked to kill her, thinking that she might arise later and avenge the death of her lover. But Luynes would have dared neither to counsel the royal child to do such a thing nor to do it without orders. He saved her by surrounding her with the king’s guards. The Capuchin Travail, Père Hilaire, who had formerly intrigued against the marriage of Marie de’ Medici, and who was actor and executor in the murder of her favourite, thought that nothing was accomplished unless she perished. He applied to a man of her party who had access to her at will, her equerry Bressieux, trying to get him to kill her. The equerry refused. “Never mind,” said Travail, “I will bring it about that the king goes to Vincennes; and then I will have her torn in pieces by the people.” Luynes, who had promised the Capuchin the archbishopric of Bourges if he aided in killing Concini, did not wish to keep his word when the deed had been done. Instead he profited by some sanguinary words which this chatterer had uttered, out of folly and bravado, to have him judged and broken on the wheel.

The king had caused parliament to be informed that he had ordered the arrest of Concini, who, having resisted, had been killed. He spoke of his mother only with respect, saying that he had prayed his lady and mother to approve of his taking the rudder of state. Parliament came to congratulate him. The action which could so easily be brought against Concini and his wife was skilfully stifled and turned from the true issue. A case of sorcery was made out of it. That was, moreover, the custom of the century. The libidinous tyrannies practised by priests in women’s convents, when by chance they came to light, were changed into sorcery, and the devil was charged with everything. Leonora herself thought the devil was in her body and had herself exorcised in the church of the Augustines by priests who had come from Italy at her request. As she suffered terribly in her head, Montalte, her Jewish physician, killed a cock, and applied it to her head still warm, which was interpreted as a sacrifice to hades. An astrological document was also found in her rooms, the nativity of the queen and her children. It is not at all improbable that when losing her influence she tried to keep her hold on the queen by magic. It was the general folly of the age. Luynes believed in it also. Richelieu says that he had two Piedmontese magicians come to find him powders which he might put in the king’s garments, and herbs for his shoes.

However much of truth there may have been in Leonora’s sorcery, it did not deserve death, and her thefts even, her brazen-faced sales of places and orders, would have merited only the whip. Court tradition, which was very favourable to such people, as enemies of Henry IV, has not failed to invent, to place in the mouth of Leonora proud and insolently daring words--for example: “My charm was that of a mind set on folly.” She was beheaded at the Grève and then burned.[b]

THE MINISTRY OF LUYNES (1617-1621 A.D.)

The position of the queen-mother was mortifying and distressing. She had been deceived by the boy-king; stripped of her power; her dearest friends had perished. Of the band of courtiers who so lately hung upon her smile, Richelieu alone evinced a determination to adhere to the fortunes of his mistress. Marie de’ Medici besought an interview with her son. This favour was long denied. Luynes feared a mother’s influence over a being so young and so weak as Louis. Marie was allowed to retire to Blois, whither Richelieu accompanied her.

The wealth as well as the influence of Concini fell to the share of Luynes, who was, however, neither a foreigner nor so rash and avaricious as his predecessor. Louis XIII, from his very first moment of grasping power, showed the same incapacity of wielding it that ever distinguished him. The love of the chase was the only active quality the young monarch seemed to have inherited from his father Henry. Luynes became hence sole master of the state. He found two parties aspiring to influence--that of the prince of Condé, and that of the queen-mother. One was in prison, and the other exiled; so that Luynes found no difficulty in flattering and giving hopes alternately to both, whilst he permitted neither the liberation of the prince nor the return of Marie de’ Medici. The body of the noblesse, who had flown to arms upon Condé’s arrest, and who had returned on learning Concini’s fall, thought it a more serious step to rebel against the king than against his mother and her favourite. The young court, too, had charms; and the prince of Condé was now but ill supported by that aristocratic band that had shared his envy and hatred towards the family of Ancre.

Marie de’ Medici bore her disgrace with impatience. For some time she lulled herself with the hope that Luynes was sincere in his promises of allowing her to return. She expected in vain; and at length resolved to work her deliverance by leaguing with the prince of Condé and her former enemies. These intrigues coming to light, Richelieu, who was considered to be the source of them, was ordered to quit Blois, where the queen resided, and retire to his bishopric. But Marie had already profited by the advice of this able counsellor. She kept up an active correspondence with the duke d’Épernon, who was master of Metz, and through him with such of the nobility as were envious of Luynes. Having by these means formed a party, Marie escaped by night from the château of Blois; was met by Épernon at the head of an armed body of gentlemen; and, retreating south, soon found herself at the head of a party strong enough to defy her enemies. There cannot be a stronger example of the overgrown power of the nobles, and of the manner in which they absorbed the whole force of the crown, than the authority wielded by Épernon at this time against his sovereign. The duke had no less than five governments, viz., the provinces of Saintonge, Auxerrois, the Limousin, the Bourbonnais, and the Three Bishoprics. Add to these Metz, the bulwark of the kingdom adjoining Lorraine; Loches, the strongest fortress of Touraine, which he held, together with the command of all the French infantry, as colonel-general; and it can be no longer a wonder that the defection of such a grandee should have immediately reduced Louis and his favourite to treat with the queen-mother.

[Sidenote: [1617-1620 A.D.]]

Richelieu was recalled from his diocese, and employed to effect an accommodation, which took place. Marie de’ Medici was the principal gainer: she obtained the government of Anjou, and the towns of Angers, Chinon, and Pont-de-Cé, as fortresses of surety. The king promised to restore Marie de’ Medici to his confidence, and to her place at court. But this was postponed for the time. An interview took place betwixt Louis and his mother. A light remark on one side, answered by a cold compliment on the other, is all that is recorded of the meeting. “How your majesty has grown!” exclaimed Marie. “Grown for your service, madame,” was the young monarch’s reply. The queen-mother remained at Angers, whilst the court returned to Paris. Épernon received a written pardon for his rebellion, from which he had derived no advantage; a circumstance that caused him to be taxed with folly by his contemporaries. Disinterestedness was inconceivable to the age.

The first step of Luynes, in order to counteract the revived party of the queen-mother, was to liberate Condé from Vincennes. But his long captivity had secluded this prince from his ancient followers; and Richelieu, who saw the object of Luynes, was able to succeed in not only drawing over the whole body of the noblesse to the queen-mother, but even in exciting the Huguenots to stir in her favour. These measures of Richelieu, who was at the same time amusing Luynes by feigned friendship and communications, became ripe in 1620, when, upon a fresh refusal to admit Marie de’ Medici to court, all the great nobles, who had most of them formerly conspired against her, now espoused her cause, and quitted the court. Almost all France was in array against Louis and Luynes. Épernon armed his five governments and his many towns. Marie herself was in Anjou. The duke de Longueville held Normandy; the duke de Vendôme, Brittany; the count of Soissons, Perche and Maine; the marshal De Bois-dauphin had Poitou; De Retz, La Trémouille, Mayenne, Rouen, and Nemours held the southern provinces betwixt them, except Languedoc, where Montmorency remained neutral. The Huguenots were also against the court, as was the duke de Rohan, their principal leader, and La Rochelle, their chief town. This was owing to a decree, issued by Luynes, that the church lands of Béarn, where Henry IV had established Protestantism, should be restored to the Catholic priesthood. Thus Richelieu enlisted under the banners of his mistress these two great malcontent and independent powers in the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the reformers, which it was afterwards the great aim and achievement of his policy to crush. In thus wielding them successfully against the monarch, Richelieu became acquainted with their danger, their strength, and their secret springs.

[Sidenote: [1620-1621 A.D.]]

Condé, however, inspired Luynes this time with additional vigour. The prince himself was excited to avenge his long confinement upon the queen-mother, who had caused it; and the king, therefore, was induced to march with an army, headed by Condé, to reduce the rebels. He was successful in Normandy; the insurgents retired everywhere before the royal army, which turned southward, and drove the queen from even Angers, her principal fortress. Luynes, contented with these advantages, showed himself willing to treat, as did Richelieu, who was somewhat disgusted by the want of alacrity and resolution evinced by the noblesse, his partisans. Condé, however, pushed on the war; and although a treaty was on the eve of being concluded, he attacked the forces of Marie’s adherents, and put them to the rout at Pont-de-Cé.

This success, instead of breaking off negotiations, accelerated them; for Luynes became instantly jealous of Condé, and feared his predominance, if the queen-mother should be completely crushed. A treaty was therefore concluded on similar terms to the preceding one, with the important addition that the king should become really reconciled to his mother, and that she should reside at court. Many doubts and accusations exist as to the good faith of Richelieu in these transactions. The loss of Angers, and the defeat of Pont-de-Cé, were said to be arranged and allowed by him; and it is more than probable that, in disgust with the noblesse, who were at once domineering to their friends and feeble towards their enemies, Richelieu had conceived the project of reconciling Louis and the queen-mother, as well as their respective favourites, Luynes and himself; thus uniting the scattered elements of the government, and enabling it to set its turbulent enemies at defiance. Richelieu, by this plan, hoped to secure to himself a place in the council, where he felt confident he would soon rule such weak spirits as Louis, the queen-mother, and Luynes. But the latter had the sagacity to dread Richelieu’s superiority. Although the bishop sedulously sought the favourite’s friendship, and although an alliance took place betwixt their families, nevertheless Luynes persevered in his jealousy; prevented, by his intrigues, the cardinal’s hat stipulated for Richelieu in the late treaty, and kept the doors of the council chamber inexorably closed against him.

_The Huguenot Uprising; The Siege of Montauban (1621 A.D.)_

Although Luynes had risen to power as a mere favourite, he still held it with a firmer hand than Concini; nor was he without the views or the sagacity of a statesman. Even previous to his having at court so able a prompter as Richelieu, he had anticipated the future policy of that minister in endeavouring to crush the Huguenots. Luynes was determined upon restoring to the Catholic priesthood the church lands of Béarn, which had been in the hands of the Protestants since the days of Jeanne d’Albret. Louis was equally bent on rescuing from heresy the native province of his family. After the Treaty of Pont-de-Cé, the king marched into Béarn, and reduced not only the church lands to his will, but the little province itself, the privileges of which he annulled. The Huguenots were of course indignant and alarmed. This was not the only infraction of the agreements made with them. Favas, their deputy at court, declared that the government intended to reduce them altogether. They accordingly summoned a general assembly of reform at La Rochelle, despite the prohibition of the king; and their consistory published a bold decree, dividing the Protestant regions of France into circles, after the manner of Germany, uniting again those circles in a general government, and establishing the rules by which this government was to raise troops and taxes, to levy war and exercise independent jurisdiction. The scheme was a direct imitation of the United Provinces of Holland. It manifested fully the republican ideas and leanings of the Huguenots, and roused the court, and above all Richelieu, to crush them.

An army was raised by Luynes,[d] and Louis XIII left Paris accompanied by the good wishes of all zealous Catholics and those who were desirous of peace. He had re-established the tax paid by judges, magistrates, and financiers on their offices, to secure them to their sons in case of death, contracted a loan, and obtained from the clergy an extraordinary tax. On the 19th of May, 1621, he occupied Saumur, which he was able to leave to Duplessis-Mornay in spite of his neutral attitude. It was necessary to prevent all communication between the Protestants, both north and south of the Loire. He afterwards received the submission of the towns in Touraine and Poitou, with the exception of La Rochelle, and St. Jean d’Angély. This latter place belonged to the duke de Rohan, who placed a garrison there under the command of Soubise, whilst he himself went to take command in Guienne.

Lesdiguières undertook the siege of it, which lasted twenty-five days, from the 30th of May to the 25th of June, and was very murderous. Soubise, seeing the royal troops continually increase, ended by capitulating; he obtained for the garrison the honours of war, on condition of his promising always to serve the king. The fortifications of St. Jean were demolished, the trenches filled in, and its privileges suppressed. Deliberations took place as to the besieging of La Rochelle, or the advance on Guienne, where Rohan and La Force were raising arms on all sides. The taking of La Rochelle would have ended the contest; but it offered great difficulties, especially on the side next the sea, where the royal fleet would scarcely hold its own against the numerous and well-disciplined ships of the Calvinists.

Luynes wished to obtain peace by the quickest means; he believed it would be much more rapidly accomplished by dividing the enemy and gaining over the leaders. Therefore he sent Épernon with four or five thousand men to blockade La Rochelle by land, whilst he himself took the Guienne route with the king and the bulk of the army. Mayenne,[86] who commanded the first division, carried Nérac by storm on the 9th of July; the little towns hastened to throw open their gates. One of the principal Calvinist _seigneurs_ of Guienne, De Boisse de Pardaillan, had made his submission the moment the royal troops had arrived, so as not to obey La Force. They received favourable intelligence on every side. In the north and in the centre the Protestants allowed their arms to be taken from them and the walls of their towns pulled down, without striking a blow. Condé occupied and demolished without resistance the fortress of Sancerre, in his government of Berri. They met with resistance only at Clérac, a little town upon the Lot. It took the royal army twelve days to gain possession of it; it then entered, August 5th, and inflicted the most severe punishment. The chancellor Duvair, who accompanied the king, died during this siege; Luynes did not hurry to appoint a successor, and appropriated the seals meantime. This method of monopolising all the power, all the military and civil honours, put the finishing touch to the irritation caused by his favours, and furnished an inexhaustible subject for the raillery of his enemies.

La Force was shut up at Montauban, where the minister Chamier, one of the most fanatical Calvinists, and the mayor Dupuy, who showed an equal devotion to the cause, co-operated with him most energetically. All the future of the party lay in the defence of this place. Rohan scoured Languedoc and the Cévennes to raise men, and to form a relieving army. The king had the choice of pursuing Rohan, or of besieging Montauban. He decided upon this last step, in the hopes of striking a decisive blow, and after some useless parleying, with which Sully was intrusted, the works were commenced without delay. Unfortunately they had not taken part in any other siege for a long time, except that of St. Jean d’Angély; they had fallen out of the way of taking part in real warfare, and they were even obliged to employ Italian engineers. The royal army found itself hardly sufficient for a siege of such importance. They believed in vain that they might find some partisans in the place. They attempted to surprise it, but were unsuccessful. Mayenne, who had opened the trenches August 18th, wished to rush the attack, before the works were finished. He lost many of his men, and, imprudently exposing himself, paid for his temerity with his life.

The news of Mayenne’s death caused a stir in Paris, as his name had acted as a spell on the populace, amongst whom the war against the Protestants had awakened all the ancient passions of the league. The following day, the 18th, they attempted with no better result to make a breach by aid of the cannon. On the 28th, Rohan came to the assistance of the place in spite of the vigilance of the dukes of Angoulême and Montmorency. He cut himself a passage through at the point of the sword, although losing many men, and gave to the besieged garrison the means for prolonging their resistance. The king called together all the most experienced marshals and military men. They recognised the fact that it was impossible to carry Montauban before the winter. Luynes, who had become constable without knowing how to command an army or direct a siege, incurred the responsibility of this failure, but it did not disturb him. He wished to make peace, contrary to the desires of the military men and of the earnest Catholics. He asked for an interview with Rohan, and tried to bribe him. Rohan refused to desert his party, all the more because he was unable to do so, being under the direction of ministers whose impassioned ideas allowed him very little personal freedom. The Calvinists hoped that, thanks to the resistance of Montauban, they would weary the king of his policy. They were not mistaken. A final attack, attempted the 21st of October, failed like all the previous ones. The royal army, weakened by fatigue and sickness, and decimated by little battles, rapidly diminished. They had fired uselessly twenty thousand cannon shots, an enormous total for the times. On the 2nd of November Luynes decided to raise the siege, subject to a renewal in the spring.

[Sidenote: [1621-1622 A.D.]]