Chapter XVIII: The Supremacy of Mazarin (3)

A few months later Cromwell died (September 13th, 1658) at the age of fifty-five, in the midst of his projects for the strengthening of his power and the glory of his nation. Richard Cromwell succeeded peaceably and without opposition to the protectorate of his father, as a prince of Wales would have succeeded a king of England. The emperor Ferdinand III had died in 1657. His son Leopold, who was seventeen years old and already king of Hungary and Bohemia, had not been elected king of the Romans during the lifetime of his father. Mazarin wished to attempt to make Louis XIV emperor. This was a chimerical idea; it would have been necessary either to coerce or to bribe the electors. France was neither strong enough to seize the empire nor rich enough to buy it; so the first overtures made at Frankfort by Marshal de Grammont and by Lionne were abandoned almost as soon as they were proposed. Leopold was elected. All that Mazarin’s politics accomplished was to form an alliance, known as the League of the Rhine, with certain German princes,[107] to observe the Treaty of Westphalia, and to furnish a check to the authority of the emperor over the empire (August, 1658). France, after the battle of the Dunes, was powerful in her foreign relations through her glory and her arms as well as through the condition to which the other nations were reduced. But the country itself was suffering; it was stripped of money, and there was need of peace.

THE TREATY OF THE PYRENEES (1659 A.D.)

The cardinal had to do two things in order to bring his ministry to a happy close--make peace and insure the tranquillity of the state by the marriage of the king. The intrigues during the latter’s illness made Mazarin feel how necessary an heir to the throne was to the splendour of the minister. All these considerations determined him to marry Louis XIV promptly. Two princesses were proposed--the daughter of the king of Spain and the princess of Savoy. The king’s heart had made another choice: he was desperately in love with Mademoiselle Mancini, one of the cardinal’s nieces. Born with a tender heart and a firm will, full of passion and without experience, he would have been capable of resolving to marry the lady of his choice.

Madame de Motteville, the favourite of the queen-mother, whose _Mémoires_ have a great air of truth, claims that Mazarin was tempted to let the king’s love have its way and to place his niece on the throne. He had already married another niece to the prince de Conti, and one to the duke de Mercœur. The one whom Louis XIV loved had been asked in marriage by the king of England. These were titles enough to justify his ambitions. He adroitly sounded the queen-mother. “I fear,” he said, “that the king has too great a desire to marry my niece.” The queen, who knew the minister, understood that he desired what he feigned to fear. She replied to him with all the haughtiness of a princess of the blood of Austria, daughter, wife, and mother of kings, and with the bitterness which she had felt for some time towards a minister who affected to be independent of her. She said to him, “If the king were capable of this indignity I would place myself with my second son at the head of the whole nation against the king and yourself.”

Mazarin, it is said, never forgave the queen this reply; but he took the wiser course of thinking as she did. He made it a point of honour and merit to oppose the passion of Louis XIV. His power did not need a queen of his own blood to support him. He even feared the character of his niece; and he believed he would further strengthen the power of his ministry by avoiding the dangerous glory of elevating his own house too high.

In the year 1656 he had sent Lionne to Spain to negotiate peace and to ask the hand of the infanta; but Don Luis de Haro, convinced that, feeble as Spain was, France was not less so, rejected the cardinal’s offer. The infanta, daughter of Philip IV by his first wife, was intended for the young Leopold. By his second marriage Philip had at that time only a son whose sickly infancy caused fears for his life. It was desired that the infanta, who might be the heir to many states, should transfer her rights to the house of Austria and not to a hostile dynasty; but finally, Philip IV having had another son, Don Philip Prosper, and his wife being again _enceinte_, the danger involved in giving the infanta to the king of France seemed to him less great, and the battle of the Dunes made peace necessary to him.

The Spaniards promised the infanta and asked for a suspension of hostilities (1659). Mazarin and Don Luis de Haro repaired to the isle of Pheasants on the frontier of France and Spain. Although general peace and the marriage of the king of France were the objects of their conference, more than a month passed in regulating ceremonies and settling difficulties of precedence. The cardinals called themselves the equals of the kings and the superiors of other sovereigns. France, with greater justice, claimed pre-eminence over the other powers. Don Luis de Haro, however, assumed perfect equality between France and Spain.

The conferences lasted four months. Mazarin and Don Luis employed all the resources of their respective policies; that of the cardinal was strategy, that of Don Luis delay. The latter never gave promises: the former only equivocal ones. The genius of the Italian was to try to surprise; that of the Spaniard, to keep from being surprised.

Such are the vicissitudes of human affairs that of this famous Peace of the Pyrenees, signed November 7th, 1659, not two articles have endured. The king of France retained Roussillon which he would have kept anyway, without this peace, also Artois and Cerdagne; but the Spanish monarchy has no more possessions in Flanders.

But if Don Luis de Haro said that Cardinal Mazarin could deceive, it has been said since that he could foresee. He long meditated the alliance of the houses of France and Spain. This famous letter of his, written during the negotiations at Münster, is cited: “If the most Christian king could have the Netherlands and Franche-Comté as dower upon espousing the infanta, then we might aspire to the Spanish succession, whatever we might have to relinquish to the infanta; and it would not be a very long wait, since there is only the life of the prince her brother that could exclude her from it.” This prince was Balthazar, who died in 1649.

The cardinal was evidently deceived in thinking that the Netherlands and Franche-Comté could be given to the infanta as her marriage portion. Not a single city was stipulated for her dower. On the other hand, important cities that had been conquered, like St. Omer, Ypres, Menin, Oudenarde, and other places, were restored to the Spanish monarchy. Some were retained. The cardinal was not mistaken in believing that this relinquishment would be useless some day. But those who gave him the honour of this prediction make him also foresee that Prince Don Balthazar would die in 1649; that later the three children of the second marriage would be cut off in the cradle; that Charles, the fifth of the male children, would die without issue; and that this Austrian king would one day make a will in favour of a grandson of Louis XIV. But at any rate Cardinal Mazarin foresaw what value this relinquishment would have in case the male line of Philip should become extinct: and after more than fifty years strange events justified him.

Maria Theresa, the infanta, able to have as dower the cities that France restored, brought by her marriage contract nothing else than 500,000 gold crowns; it cost the king more than that to go to receive her at the frontier. These 500,000 crowns, equivalent to 2,500,000 livres, were the subject of a great deal of dispute between the two ministers. In the end France never received but 100,000 francs. Instead of this marriage bringing any other real and immediate advantage than that of peace, the infanta renounced all rights she might ever have to any of her father’s lands. Louis XIV ratified this renunciation in the most solemn manner.[108]

[Sidenote: [1659-1661 A.D.]]

The duke of Lorraine, Charles IV, against whom France and Spain had much cause to complain, or rather who had much to complain of against them, was included in the treaty; but only as an unfortunate prince who was punished, because he could not make himself feared. France restored his states to him, demolishing Nancy, however, and forbade him to maintain troops. Don Luis de Haro forced Cardinal Mazarin to receive Condé into favour again, by threatening to leave in the sovereignty of the prince Rocroi, Le Catelet, and other places of which he was in possession. So France gained both these towns and the Great Condé. He lost his dignity of grand-master of the royal household, which was afterwards given to his son, and returned with scarcely anything but his glory.

Finally (August, 1660) Cardinal Mazarin brought the king with his new queen to Paris.[109] Mazarin acted exactly like a father who would marry his son without giving him charge of his own property. He returned more powerful and more jealous of his power, and even of honours, than ever. He required parliament to address him through deputies. This was something unparalleled in the monarchy, but it was not too great a reparation for the wrong that parliament had done him. He no longer gave his hand to the princes of the blood as formerly. He who had treated Don Luis de Haro as an equal tried to treat the Great Condé as an inferior. He went about with royal pomp, having besides his guards a company of musketeers, which was ever afterwards the second company of king’s musketeers. There was no more freedom of access to him. If anyone was a poor enough courtier to ask a favour of the king, he was lost. The queen-mother, so long the stubborn protectress of Mazarin against France, was without credit as soon as he had no more need of her. Her son, the king, brought up in blind submission to this minister, could not shake off the yoke that she had imposed upon him as well as upon herself; Louis XIV could not reign during the lifetime of Mazarin.

LAST YEARS AND DEATH OF MAZARIN (1659-1661 A.D.)

A minister is excusable for the evil he does when the helm of state is forced into his hands by tempests; but during a calm he is answerable for the good that he fails to do. Mazarin did good only to himself and his family. Eight years of absolute and undisturbed power, from his final return until his death, were marked by no glorious or useful establishment; for the college of the Four Nations was only created by his will.[110]

He controlled the finances like the steward of a lord involved in debt. The king sometimes asked money of Fouquet, who replied, “Sire, there is nothing in your majesty’s coffers, but the cardinal will lend you some.” Mazarin was worth about two hundred millions, reckoning in the money values of to-day (_i.e._, the middle of the eighteenth century). Several memoirs say that he amassed part of it by means far beneath the grandeur of his position. They relate that he shared with privateer captains the profits of their voyages. This has never been proved; but the Dutch suspected him of it, and they never would have suspected Cardinal Richelieu.[i]

In high spirits was Mazarin at the moment of signing the great treaty at Bidassoa (Treaty of the Pyrenees). He wrote to Paris: “All will soon be over. I shall not stay long in the Basque country, unless I find amusement in watching them hunt whales, in learning their language and their dances.”

However, the dancer was soon smitten by gout. His lungs became affected. The bed of the moribund, covered with cards, was a gaming table over which offices were sold. Cards and the sacrament went pell-mell.[b] It is said that on his death-bed he felt remorse, but outwardly he displayed courage. At least, he feared for his property, and he made the king a complete donation of it believing that the king would return it to him. He was not mistaken; the king returned the gift in three days. Finally he died at Vincennes, March 9th, 1661, and no one but the king seemed to mourn him, for this prince already knew how to dissemble. The yoke was beginning to weigh heavily upon him; he was impatient to reign. Nevertheless he wished to seem affected by a death that put him in possession of his throne. Louis XIV and the court wore mourning for Cardinal Mazarin, an unusual honour, and one which Henry IV had paid to the memory of Gabrielle d’Estrées.

We will not undertake [says Voltaire] to decide whether Mazarin was a great minister or not; his actions must speak for themselves. There is often a popular idea of a vast breadth of mind and an almost divine genius in those who have governed empires with some success. It is not a superior power of penetration that makes statesmen; it is their character. Men, if they have ever so little good sense, nearly all perceive their own interests. In this respect a citizen of Amsterdam or of Bern is as wise as Sejanus, Ximenes, Buckingham, Richelieu, or Mazarin; but our conduct and our enterprises depend solely upon the temper of our soul, and our successes depend upon fortune. For example, if such a genius as Pope Alexander VI or his son Borgia had had to take La Rochelle, he would have invited the principal leaders to his camp under a solemn oath and would have made away with them. Mazarin would have entered the city two or three years later by winning over and dividing the citizens. Don Luis de Haro would not have risked the enterprise. Richelieu built a dyke along the sea, after the example of Alexander, entered and took La Rochelle; but a less strong tide or a little greater promptness on the part of the English would have saved La Rochelle and made Richelieu seem foolhardy.

The character of men can be judged by their enterprises. It may well be said that the soul of Richelieu breathed pride and vengeance, that Mazarin was wise, pliant, and avaricious. But in order to tell in how far a minister has genius one must either have frequently heard him talk, or one must read what he has written. What is seen every day among courtiers often happens among statesmen: he who has most genius fails, while he who has in his character more of patience, force, pliancy, and persistence succeeds. On reading the letters of Cardinal Mazarin and the _Mémoires_ of Cardinal de Retz[j] one easily sees that De Retz was the superior genius. Nevertheless Mazarin was all-powerful and De Retz was overthrown. Finally, it is quite true that to make a powerful minister often nothing is needed but a mediocre mind, good sense, and luck; but to be a good minister a man must have love for the public welfare as his dominant passion. The great statesman is he who leaves to his country great and useful memorials.

The memorial that immortalises Cardinal Mazarin is the acquisition of Alsace. He gave this province to France at a time when France was enraged at him; and by a singular fatality he did more good for the kingdom when he was persecuted than in the tranquillity of absolute power.[i]

Mazarin’s end [says Michelet] was at least consistent with his life--he lived and died a cheat. He believed he had cheated the future. Fortunate player, he had all his plans well laid. The prophecies of his youth were fulfilled. He had appeared, at the age of twenty-five, upon a field of battle crying, “Peace! Peace!” From the noble and serious workers who had died painfully in preparing his opportunities, he filched the glory of the triumphant Peace of Westphalia and that of the Pyrenees. Richelieu sowed, Mazarin harvested. The one created the administration, the army, the navy, and died on the eve of Rocroi. The other spoiled everything and succeeded in everything. Great through the greatness of Condé, and greater through that of Turenne, his position was strengthened by even the futile tempest of the Fronde; he retains at least the honour of that forced and fatal peace into which France fell through sheer lassitude. This pedestal is still left him; his features even after death wear the mask of the Angel of Peace.

Was it really peace? Too late it had arrived: Germany, agonising in ruin, found no peace in the Treaty of Westphalia; Spain, dead and done with, was in no condition to reap benefit from the Peace of the Pyrenees. And France herself, entering by this door into a fifty years’ struggle for the Spanish succession, was to find in this peace fiscal war at home and bloody strife abroad.[b]

FOOTNOTES

[96] [Michelet[b] believes that the love affair of Mazarin and the queen began even earlier than their contemporaries think. He says: “It has been said that Louis XIV was the son of Mazarin--this is certainly wrong. He was of France, ballasted by Austria. But his brother, the second duke of Orleans (born September 22nd, 1640), like the first, Gaston, was thoroughly Italian in spirit and in manner. He was as much Mazarin as Gaston was Concini. I fully appreciate the difficulties. Their contemporaries believe that she did not give herself to him until later. There was at least one entr’acte in her favour.” To a court tradition, related, among others, by the Princess Palatine,[n] mother of the regent, is due a belief that Mazarin’s continued hold over the queen-mother is explained by the fact that they had been secretly married. Kitchin[o] says “there is no reason to doubt that they were actually married.” But Martin assures us that “there is not the slightest indication of this, either in their correspondence or in what we know of the _Carnets_[p] of Mazarin.”]

[97] [He was, however, a deacon, and so in lesser orders.]

[98] [This statement is not substantiated, and is not to be found in any contemporary writing. The first book that speaks of it bears the date 1694.]

[99] [The aged prince of Condé (Henry II de Bourbon) died December 26th, 1646, when the duke d’Enghien (Louis II de Bourbon) assumed his father’s title. He came to be known as “The Great Condé,” and we shall see much of him in the ensuing pages. He was born at Paris, September 8th, 1621; died, December 11th, 1686. The first prince of Condé (Louis I de Bourbon), whose death at the battle of Jarnac in 1569 will be recalled (see p. 363), was his great-grand-father. This first prince of Condé was the younger brother of Anthony, king of Navarre, the father of King Henry IV. So the Great Condé came honestly by his fighting propensities.]

[100] [Some historians refuse to credit Condé with these words. Indeed, Madame de Motteville reports a much less stirring harangue: “My friends, have good courage; we must of necessity fight to-day. It will be useless to back out. For I promise you that all the brave and the cowardly will fight; the ones of good will, the others through compulsion!” “This was perhaps,” adds Duruy,[h] “the only kind of language to impress the soldiers at that time.”]

[101] [Cardinal de Retz was the descendant of a Florentine family that came to the court of France in the suite of Catherine de’ Medici; it was his grand-uncle who figured so prominently in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. See above, pp. 369, 399.]

[102] [According to Voltaire,[i] so low were the royal resources that almost the entire court had to sleep, while at St. Germain, on straw. They were obliged to leave the crown jewels as security with the usurers. The young king often lacked necessities. The pages of his chamber were dismissed because there were no means to keep them. At the same time Louis’ aunt, Henrietta Maria of England, in refuge at Paris, was reduced to the extremes of poverty; her daughter, afterwards married to Louis’ brother, had to stay in bed to keep warm.]

[103] [He went first to Liège and afterwards to Cologne.]

[104] [In comparing these great rivals, Kitchin[q] says: “It has been well said of these two masters in war, that as Condé grew older he lost his early fire and military insight, without becoming wiser or more prudent, while each campaign made Turenne more daring as well as more skilful. The careers of the two great soldiers form a striking contrast: it is genius without industry pitted against high talent combined with infinite painstaking, and a belief in the scientific treatment of the art of war. The more brilliant Condé was sure to fail when pitted against Turenne.” Vicomte de Turenne (Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne) was a grandson of William the Silent. He was born in 1611 (September 11th, at Sedan), and was therefore now just over forty. Condé was ten years younger (born September 8th, 1621). The span of life of each of the great generals was destined to compass almost exactly the same period; Turenne being just under sixty-four, Condé just over sixty-five, at death.]

[105] [“Joan of Arc made France a nation against the English; Louis XIV made France a state against all Europe. The Fronde had none of these creative ideas--whence its incertitude and its weakness. Louis XIV had the idea of state--whence his firmness, his decision, and that famous phrase, ‘_L’État, c’est moi_,’ which has been taken for an expression of pride but was an expression of policy.”--SAINT-MARC GIRARDIN.]

[106] [See note, page 488.]

[107] [The three ecclesiastical electors, the duke of Bavaria, the princes of Brunswick and of Hesse, the kings of Sweden and Denmark.]

[108] [It has been suggested that Mazarin purposely made the dowry such as Spain could not well pay, so that the treaty must be broken. That clause once broken, the renunciation of the succession was also void, with the rest of the treaty. If such was really Mazarin’s plan, it was an extraordinary one.]

[109] [The marriage had taken place in June, 1660, at Fuenterrabia in the Pyrenees.]

[110] [We may add that he pensioned several writers--among them Descartes and the historian Mézeray--and that he provided for the splendid Mazarin library, opened later to the public. “Mazarin,” says Duruy,[h] “had the liveliest if not the best taste for art. He brought from Italy a number of paintings, statues, and curiosities--even actors and machinists who introduced the opera into France. In 1655 he founded the Academy of Painting and Sculpture.”]