Chapter VI (2)

That such things should occur in a country governed as France was, is quite natural. Richelieu brooked not even the shadow of opposition; and, Louis, submissive slave though he was to an imperious minister, had all the brutal pride of an Oriental despot. In two instances (out of many which might be quoted), the one not long before, and the other shortly after, this period, the monarch, to whom parasites prostituted the title of “the just,” did not scruple to treat with contumelious insolence the parliament of Paris, a body of magistrates, eminent for their learning and other qualities. On the first occasion, having taken offence at a request which they made, he told them that, “in future, whenever he came to them, he should expect to be received outside the door of their hall, by four presidents on their knees, as the custom had formerly been.” The second time, when, with respect to the duke de Valette’s trial, the president Bellièvre, in decorous but dignified language, remonstrated with Louis on his gross violation of justice and proper feeling, in wishing the judges to sit in his own palace, while he was present to overawe them, he furiously replied, that he detested all those who opposed his trying a duke and peer wherever he pleased. They were, he told them, ignorant beings, unfit for their office, and he did not know whether he should not put others in their place. “I will be obeyed,” said he; “and I will soon make you see plainly that all privileges are founded only on a bad custom, and that I will not hear them talked about any more.” But from this—which, however, can scarcely be called a digression—let us return to his captives in the Bastile.

During a part of the time that de Jars was in the Bastile, there was within its walls a prisoner equally as brave, and of as honourable a character, as himself. This was Adrian de Montluc, count de Cramail, born in 1568, a grandson of that intrepid but cruel Montluc whose commentaries were called by Henry IV. the Soldier’s Bible. In the second of Regnier’s satires, which is addressed to Cramail, the poet winds up an animated panegyric on him, by declaring that he proves “virtue not to be dead in all courtiers.” There was more truth in this than is always to be found in the eulogies lavished by a poet. It appears, from various authorities, that he shone in conversation, was well informed, and was an honourable, benevolent and judicious man. As a military officer, he earned reputation in various battles. His conduct at the combat of Veillane, in 1630, where Montmorenci utterly defeated a force five times as numerous as his own, called forth a complimentary letter from cardinal Richelieu. “Fewer lines than you have received blows,” says his eminence, “will suffice to testify my joy that the enemy has cut out more work for your tailor than your surgeon. I pray to God that, after such rencounters, you may always have more to spend for clothes than plaisters; and that, for the advantage of the king’s service, and the glory of those who have acquired so much on this occasion, others of the same kind may often occur; among which there will, I hope, be some that will enable me to convince you that I am, &c. &c.”

The manner in which Richelieu proved his friendship for Cramail was by sending him to the Bastile. It has been stated that Cramail was put into confinement shortly after the Day of the Dupes, and his attachment to the prince of Condé was the cause of it. This, however, appears to be a mistake. Cramail was undoubtedly serving under Louis XIII. in Lorrain, as late as 1635, at the period when the French arms were under a temporary eclipse; and we learn from Laporte, and other writers, that, believing the king’s person to be in jeopardy, the count advised him to return to Paris. For this advice, reasonable as it was, he was incarcerated by Richelieu. His imprisonment did not terminate till after the death of the cardinal. He did not long survive his persecutor; his health was broken by captivity and harsh treatment, and he died in 1646. Cramail was the author of three works—“La Comédie des Proverbes;” “Les Jeux de l’Inconnu;” and “Les Pensées du Solitaire.”

Among the contemporaries of Bassompierre, de Jars, and Cramail, within the walls of the Bastile, there was another of equal rank, but not of an equally noble mind. His hands were stained with blood; his earliest promotion was bought by perpetrating a cowardly murder. This personage was Nicholas de l’Hospital, marquis of Vitry, to whom I have slightly alluded in my notice of the marchioness d’Ancre. He was the degenerate son of a warrior, who was incapable of a dishonourable action. Vitry, who was born in 1611, succeeded his father as captain of the royal guards, and ingratiated himself with Luynes, the minion of Louis XIII. In concert with Luynes, he formed the plan of assassinating marshal d’Ancre, who was obnoxious to the king. Eager to win the marshal’s staff which was held by Concini, Vitry let slip no opportunity of irritating the king against the intended victim, and of pressing for permission to assassinate him. The monarch hesitated for a while, not from virtue but from fear; he ended by granting his sanction, and Vitry lost not a moment in acting upon it. With his brother du Hallier, and an associate named Perray, he waited for Concini at the entrance of the Louvre, and there the three confederates despatched him with pistols, which they had kept concealed beneath their cloaks. When Louis was informed that the deed was done, he had the ineffable baseness to look out at the palace window, and exclaim, “Many thanks to you, Vitry! I am now really king!” It must, however, be owned that the baseness of the monarch was kept in countenance by that of his courtiers and flatterers, who lauded the assassin as profusely as though he had been the saviour of the state.

For this disgraceful service, Vitry was rewarded by the great object of his ambition, the rank of marshal. On hearing of this, the duke of Bouillon indignantly declared that he blushed at being a French marshal, now that the marshal’s staff was made the recompense of one who traded in murder.

Though, of the two favourites of the queen mother, Vitry had slain the husband with his own hand, and thus been the cause of the wife’s public execution, and though at that time he had treated her with disgusting insolence, yet when, two years afterwards, a feigned reconcilement took place between Mary of Medicis and her son, she allowed Vitry to be presented to her. On this occasion a scene of dissimulation occurred, which has not often been paralleled. Vitry bent to kiss the hem of her garment, but she graciously stretched out her hand to raise him, saying, at the same time, “I have always praised your affectionate zeal in the king’s service.” To which, with equal sincerity, he replied, “it was that consideration alone which induced me to do all that the king desired; without, however, my having had the slightest idea of offending your majesty.” If we cannot praise the parts which these actors played, we must at least admit that they played them skilfully.

The military career of Vitry did not begin till the breaking out of the war between the protestants and catholics, in 1621. Though he was deficient in principle, he was not so in courage; in the course of the war he distinguished himself upon many occasions, particularly in the isle of Rhé and at the blockade of Rochelle. He obtained the government of Provence in 1631, and he held it for six years. At the expiration of that period, he was arrested, and sent to the Bastile. His having caned an archbishop, and misused his authority in various cases, were among the causes of his imprisonment. Richelieu said of him that, “though his courage and fidelity rendered him worthy to govern Provence, yet it was necessary to deprive him of office, because, being of a haughty and insolent disposition, he was not fit to rule a people so jealous as the Provençals were of their franchises and privileges.”

Vitry spent six years in the Bastile, from which prison he was not released till after the death of cardinal Richelieu. During the latter part of his imprisonment he participated in intrigues, which would have brought him to the block had they been discovered. In conjunction with Bassompierre, Cramail, and others, he entered into the plot of which the gallant count de Soissons was the head. The state prisoners in the Bastile were, at that period, allowed so much freedom of intercourse, both with their friends and among themselves, that they had plenty of opportunity to conspire. It was arranged, between Vitry, Bassompierre, and their associates, that, as soon as Soissons had gained a victory, they should seize the Bastile and the Arsenal, and call the citizens of Paris to arms. De Retz is of opinion that the success of their scheme would have been certain; but the death of Soissons, who fell in the battle of Marfée, at the moment of his victory, prevented the conspirators from carrying their design into effect. Fortunately for those who were concerned, their secret practices were never disclosed while cardinal Richelieu was alive.

Vitry was created a duke in 1644, but he died in a few months after he obtained this title. He left a son, possessed of talent far superior to his own, and who in character more resembled his grandfather than his father.

The count de la Châtre, in his Memoirs, relates a circumstance respecting the liberation of Vitry and his fellow prisoners. The anecdote shows, among other things, to what an extent Louis XIII. was infected with what Byron calls the “good old gentlemanly vice” of avarice. “The cardinal (Mazarin) and M. de Chavigny,” says la Châtre, “solicited the king for the deliverance of the marshals Vitry and Bassompierre, and the count de Cramail. The means which they employed on this occasion deserve to be recorded, as being rather pleasant; for, finding that the king was not very willing to comply, they attacked him on his weak side, and represented to him that these three prisoners cost him an enormous sum to keep them in the Bastile, and that, as they were no longer able to raise cabals in the kingdom, they might as well be at home, where they would cost him nothing. This indirect mode succeeded, this prince being possessed by such extraordinary avarice, that whoever asked him for money was an insufferable burthen to him; so far did he carry this, that, after the return of Treville, Beaupuy, and others, whom the violence of the late cardinal (Richelieu) had, when he was dying, forced him to abandon, he sought occasion to give a rebuff to each of them, that he might prevent them from hoping to be rewarded for what they had suffered for him.” Here we see a king beginning his reign by prompting his servants to commit murder, and ending it by displaying cold-blooded ingratitude to those who had been faithful to him—fit end for such a beginning!

From a noble, who stained his hands with blood, to win the favour of a king, we gladly turn to a plebeian, who risked his life, rather than violate his fidelity to the neglected and ill-used consort of that monarch. Peter de la Porte was this plebeian, who, though his trials were not carried to such a dreadful extent as those of the chevalier de Jars, has a legitimate claim, as far as regards probity and firmness of mind, to be placed in the same class with that distinguished character. La Porte was born in 1603, and entered into the service of Anne of Austria at the age of eighteen, as one of her cloak-bearers. It being suspected that he was trusted by the queen, he was deprived of his office in 1626, when a desperate attempt was made by the minister to implicate her in the conspiracy of La Chalais. He then entered into her body guards. In 1631, he was, however, allowed to resume his former situation.

Ever studying to abase the queen, Richelieu believed that he had at last found an opportunity to accomplish his purpose effectually. This was in 1637[7]. That the queen should privately keep up some correspondence with the king of Spain and the cardinal infant, who were her brothers, and also with the persons whom she valued in the courts of Madrid and Brussels, was natural, more especially in her discomfortable situation, slighted as she was by her husband, and thwarted and misrepresented by the minister and the minister’s satellites. But Anne of Austria had a sincere attachment to France, and there is no reason to believe that her letters contained anything which could prejudice her adopted country. Yet, it was not advisable that they should come into the hands of a man, who boasted that with only two lines of an innocent person’s writing he could ruin him—a boast which could be made by no one that was not dead to honour and shame. It was necessary, therefore, to provide a safe place, where the correspondence might be deposited. The queen’s favourite convent of Val de Grace, of which she was the foundress, was the place which she chose. There Anne had an elegant apartment, or oratory, in which, after her devotions were over, she could sometimes, free from the constraint and heartlessness of the court, enjoy a few hours of social intercourse with the inmates of the convent. One of the nuns received the letters from Spain and the Netherlands, and placed them in a closet, whence they were taken by the queen, whose answers were forwarded in the same manner.

Richelieu, who had spies in all quarters, discovered the secret of the correspondence which was carried on through the Val de Grace. He lost not a moment in filling the mind of the weak Louis with phantoms of danger, which was to arise from the queen’s unauthorised communications with her relatives. The queen was hurried off by her husband to Chantilly, where she was confined to her own room, scantily attended, and was obliged to submit to being interrogated by the chancellor. Such was the baseness of the courtiers that, believing her to be lost, not one of them would venture even to look up at her window. Her confidential servants were shut up in various prisons. The chancellor himself visited Val de Grace to make a rigorous search for papers; but he found nothing. That he failed in his search is not marvellous; for he is believed to have previously contrived to give the queen notice of the intended visit. All the papers had consequently been removed, and placed under the care of the marchioness of Sourdis.

Foiled in this attempt to reach the secret, Richelieu tried whether it might not be wrung from the servants of the queen. La Porte, as being supposed to possess a large share of her confidence, was of course most open to suspicion and persecution. There had, besides, been found upon him a letter from the queen to the duchess of Chevreuse, who was then in exile. In the month of August, 1637, he was committed to the Bastile. Here he was repeatedly and severely questioned, but nothing to criminate his royal mistress could be drawn from him. It was in vain that the cardinal himself employed threats and promises, to obtain the information which he so much desired. The obstinate fidelity of La Porte was not to be shaken, even when the commissary showed him a paper, which he said contained an order for applying to him the torture, and took him to the room that he might see the instruments. He was equally proof to the fear of death.

In May, 1638, it being then certain that, after being childless for two-and-twenty years, Anne of Austria was in a situation to give an heir to the throne, the liberation of La Porte was granted to her. He was, however, exiled to Saumur, where he resided till the decease of Louis XIII. When Anne became regent, she recalled him, and gave him a hundred thousand francs, that he might purchase the place of principal valet-de-chambre to the king. This office he held for several years. But La Porte was too honest to prosper in a corrupt court. Sincerely attached to the queen-regent, he thought it his duty to apprise her of the degrading reports which were spread, on the subject of her long interviews with Mazarin, and by this candour he cooled her friendship and gratitude, while, at the same time, he incurred the enmity of the cardinal himself, by communicating to her a circumstance, relative to the young king, which Mazarin was desirous of keeping concealed. In revenge, Mazarin deprived him of his place, and forbad him to appear at court. It was not till after the death of the cardinal that La Porte was again admitted to the king’s presence, and from him he met with a kind reception. He died in 1680.

Alchemy, the rock on which the peace and fortune of numbers have been wrecked, was still more fatal to Noel Pigard Dubois, a restless and certainly unprincipled adventurer, whom it deprived of liberty and life. He was a native of Coulomiers, adopted his father’s profession, that of a surgeon, then abandoned it, and voyaged to the Levant, where he spent four years. During his stay in the East, he studied the occult sciences. Returning to Paris, he passed there four years of an obscure and often intemperate existence, associating chiefly with pretenders to alchemical knowledge. Caprice, or a sudden fit of devotion, next induced him to enter a Capuchin convent, but he appears to have speedily become tired of restraint, and accordingly he scaled the walls and escaped. At the expiration of three years he re-embraced a monastic life, took the vows, and was ordained a priest, in which character he was known by the name of Father Simon. The quicksilver of his disposition seemed at length to be fixed, for he continued to wear the monkish habit during ten years; but he verified the proverb that the cowl does not make the monk, his unquiet spirit was again roused into action, and he fled into Germany. There he became a convert to the doctrines of Luther, and once more devoted himself to seeking for the philosopher’s stone.

Hoping, perhaps, that there would be more believers, or fewer rivals, in his own country than in Germany, he retraced his steps to Paris. Probably he was himself half dupe, half knave, almost believing that he had really found the great secret, but resolved at all events, to turn his supposed skill to his own advantage. His first step was to abjure protestantism; his next was to marry under a fictitious name. Rumours of his wonderful hermetic discoveries were speedily bruited about. They procured him the acquaintance of an Abbé Blondeau, an evidently credulous man, who introduced him to Father Joseph, the favourite and confident of Richelieu, as a person who might be useful to the state. For the services which Dubois was to render, it was stipulated that his past misdeeds should be buried in oblivion. France was at that time groaning under a heavy load of taxation, money was raised by the most abominable exactions; and, consequently, it was but just that an individual who promised to procure supplies more innocently than by grinding the face of the people, should be forgiven for offences which, though deserving of punishment, were somewhat less iniquitous than systematic tyranny and extortion.

It affords a striking proof to what an extent the delusions of alchemy prevailed in that age, that the strong-minded Richelieu instantly grasped at the bubble which floated before him. Had only the weak Louis done so, there would have been no cause for wonder. But the minister was full as eager as his nominal sovereign. It was arranged that Dubois should perform the “great work” in the presence of the king, the queen, and a throng of illustrious personages. The Louvre was the place at which the new and never-failing gold mine was to be opened.

When the important day arrived, Dubois adroitly acted in a manner which was calculated to inspire confidence. He requested that some one might be charged to keep an eye on his proceedings. One of his body guards, named Saint Amour, was chosen by the king for this purpose. Musket balls, given by a soldier, together with a grain of the powder of projection, were placed in a crucible, the whole was covered with cinders, and the furnace fire was soon raised to a proper pitch. The transmutation was now declared by Dubois to be accomplished, and he requested that Louis would himself blow off the ashes from the precious contents of the crucible. Eager to see the first specimen of the boundless riches which were about to flow in upon him, the king plied the bellows with such violence, that the eyes of the queen and many of the courtiers were nearly blinded with the dust. At last a lump of gold emerged to view, and his transports were boundless. He hugged Dubois with childish rapture, ennobled him, and appointed him president of the treasury, nominated Blondeau a privy counsellor, promised a cardinal’s hat to Father Joseph, and gave eight thousand livres to Saint Amour. The master of perennial treasures could afford to be generous.

The experiment is said to have been repeated, and with the same success as in the first instance. Dubois must at least have been a clever knave, an adept in legerdemain, to have deluded so many strongly interested spectators, and that, too, in spite of the precautions which he had himself daringly recommended, for the prevention of fraud.

But there was a rock on which the luckless adventurer was doomed to split. Humbler patrons than he had found might for a long while have been satisfied with the scanty portion of gold contained in the bottom of a crucible; but the desires of his powerful friends were of a more greedy and impatient kind, not to be fed with distant hopes, but demanding large and immediate fruition. Richelieu loudly called upon the alchemist to operate on an extensive scale; and he proved that it was necessary to do so, by requiring that Dubois should furnish weekly a sum which should not be less than six hundred thousand livres, about 25,000_l._ The startled Dubois requested time to make the requisite preparations, and time was granted. In truth, as the powder of projection was believed to be procurable only by a protracted and laborious process, it was impossible not to admit his claim for delay. The marvel is, that he did not avail himself of the respite, to get beyond the reach of danger. When the day arrived which he had named, he was of course compelled to own that he was not yet prepared.

Suspicion being excited, he was imprisoned at Vincennes, whence he was transferred to the Bastile. Offended pride and vanity and disappointed cupidity are often cruel passions. To punish Dubois for his sins against them, the cardinal appointed a commission to try him; but being averse from coming forward in the character of a dupe, he ordered him to be arraigned on a charge of dealing in magic. As the wretched man obstinately persisted in denying his guilt, he was put to the torture. To gain a brief reprieve from his sufferings, he offered to realise the golden dreams which he had excited. Faith was not quite extinct in his patrons, and he was allowed to make another experiment. It is needless to say that he failed. Being thus driven from his last hold, he avowed his imposture, was sentenced to death, and terminated his existence on the scaffold, on the 23d of June 1637.

The battle of Thionville, which was fought in 1639, and terminated in the defeat of the French, and the death of Feuquieres, their general, gave two prisoners to the Bastile; not foreign enemies, or rebellious Frenchmen, but officers who had combated for their country—the count de Grancé and the marquis de Praslin. At Thionville, the troops under their orders refused to advance, and finally ran away. It appears, from the testimony of Bassompierre, that no blame was attributable to the count or the marquis; they were nevertheless immured in the Bastile, though it does not seem easy to discern how the cowardice of soldiers is to be cured by imprisoning their officers. It was, however, in a similar kind of spirit, only somewhat more barbarous, that in England, more than a century afterwards, admiral Byng was sacrificed (murdered is the proper word); not, as Voltaire sarcastically observes, “to encourage the others,” but to divert public indignation from its proper objects. The system was carried to a horrible length in France, during the reign of terror. Less sanguinary, in this instance, than his imitators, Richelieu contented himself with inflicting a short deprivation of liberty. The two captives were restored to favour, and Grancé rose, in the next reign, to the rank of marshal.

The next two cases which are on record, afford a striking proof of the contempt in which Richelieu held justice and the law of nations, whenever they chanced to stand in the way of his political schemes, and the gratification of his vindictive spirit. On the death of the gallant warrior, Bernard of Saxe Weimar, which took place in the summer of 1639, the possession of his admirably trained army became an object which all the belligerent powers were eager to obtain. Among those who sought the prize was the Prince Palatine, a son of the unfortunate Frederic, who lost the crown of Bohemia and his own hereditary states. The prince was passing through France, from England, to enter on the negociation, when he was arrested, and sent to the Bastile, under pretence of his being an unknown and suspected person. Richelieu, meanwhile, pushed on his treaty with the officers of the deceased duke, and succeeded in purchasing their services for France. When this was accomplished, it was discovered that the arrest of the Prince Palatine was a mistake, and he was consequently set free.

The second case occurred in the following year, 1640, and was a still more flagrant violation of international laws, and more fraught with circumstances of baseness and malignity. Louis XIII. had a sister, Christina, beautiful, accomplished, and of winning manners; in a word, as worthy of being beloved as he was the contrary. This princess was the widow of the duke of Savoy, who left to her the regency of his states, during the minority of Emanuel Philibert, his son. On the decease of her husband, the ambition of his brothers prompted them to grasp at the reins of government, and, to effect their purpose, they called in the aid of Spain. The duchess was sorely pressed by her enemies. In this strait, nature and policy combined to make her apply to Louis for aid. The appeals to him, in her letters, are often affecting. Richelieu was willing enough to send succours, but he was determined that they should be bought at an extravagant rate. His object, in truth, was to place the dominions of the minor, and even the minor himself, at the mercy of France. He not only required that certain fortresses should be delivered up to him, but also that the young duke should be put into the hands of the French king, that is to say, into his own. To bring this about, he descended to the most unworthy intrigues and double dealing; alternately calumniating the duchess to her brothers-in-law, and them to her, in order to render impossible an accommodation between them. Borne down by necessity, the duchess at length consented to admit French garrisons into some of her fortresses, but she resolutely persisted in refusing to surrender her son.

The firmness of the duchess was sustained by count Philip d’Aglie, one of her principal ministers, a man of discernment and talent, who never slackened in his hostility to the scheme of Richelieu. He feared that the visit of the young duke to France would resemble the descent into Avernus—“_Sed revocare gradum, hoc opus, hic labor est._” The cardinal had hoped that, in an interview which the duchess had with Louis at Grenoble, she might be cajoled or terrified into compliance. But on that occasion her own firmness was backed by the presence of count d’Aglie, and the expectations of the ungodly churchman were in consequence frustrated. So irritated was he by his disappointment, that he proposed, in council, to arrest the count; but, powerful and feared as he was, he could not prevail upon the members to assent to this measure. It was therefore postponed to a better opportunity. In the meanwhile, calumny was set at work to blacken the character of the devoted individual, that when the happy time arrived for pouncing upon him, he might excite no sympathy. That the slander would wound the duchess also was a matter of little concern to the personage by whom it was propagated. It was roundly asserted, apparently without the shadow of a reason for it, that an illicit intercourse subsisted between the duchess and the minister, the latter of whom the cardinal, with an affectation of virtuous anger, was pleased to designate as “the wretch who was ruining the reputation of Christina.” It was not till the following year that he could succeed in wreaking his malice on the count. As soon as the French troops had recovered Turin from the Spaniards, Richelieu ordered d’Aglie to be seized; and, in spite of the remonstrances of the duchess against this gross violation of her sovereignty, he was hurried to France, and confined in the Bastile. The date of the count’s deliverance, I am unable to ascertain, but it is probable that his imprisonment was not protracted beyond the life of the cardinal.

It appears to have been about this time that there was published a bitter satire upon the cardinal, for which an unlucky author, who had no concern with it, was conveyed to the Bastile. The satire bore the title of “The Milliad,” from its consisting of a thousand lines. One edition is intituled, “The Present Government, or the Eulogy of the Cardinal.” It was attributed to Charles de Beys, a now-forgotten author, who wrote three plays and some verses, and was lauded as a rival of Malherbe, by a few of his ill-judging contemporaries. It must have been some mischievous joker that ascribed “The Milliad” to him, for Beys was not the sort of man to meddle with political satire, especially on such a dangerous subject; he was of an indolent, convivial disposition, and spent the largest portion of his time in enjoying the pleasures of the table. He was, nevertheless, pent up in the Bastile, as the libeller of the all-potent cardinal. Fortunately for him, he was able to prove his innocence, was set at liberty, and continued to follow his former course of life, till his constitution gave way, and he died, in 1659, at the age of forty.

In the winter of 1642, Richelieu, who had so largely fed the prisons and scaffolds of France, terminated his career of ambition and blood. There is extant a letter which, while the cardinal was on his death bed, was written to him by one of his victims, named Dussault. The letter bears date on the first of December, three days previous to the decease of the minister, and it seems never to have reached him. What was the offence of Dussault is not known; from a broad hint which is given in his epistle, it appears that he suffered for having refused to execute some sanguinary order given to him by Richelieu. When he penned the following lines, he had been more than eleven years an inmate of the Bastile.

“My Lord,—There is a time when man ceases to be barbarous and unjust; it is when his approaching dissolution compels him to descend into the gloom of his conscience, and to deplore the cares, griefs, pains, and misfortunes, which he has caused to his fellow creatures: allow me to say fellow creatures, for you must now see that of which you would never before allow yourself to be convinced, or persuade yourself to know, that the sovereign and excellent celestial workman has formed us all on the same model, and that he designed men to be distinguished from each other by their virtues alone. Now, then, my lord, you are aware that for eleven years you have subjected me to sufferings, and to enduring a thousand deaths in the Bastile, where the most disloyal and wicked subject of the king would be still worthy of pity and compassion. How much more then ought they to be shown to me, whom you have doomed to rot there, for having disobeyed your order, which, had I performed it, would have condemned my soul to eternal torment, and made me pass into eternity with blood-stained hands. Ah! if you could but hear the sobs, the lamentations and groans, which you extort from me, you would quickly set me at liberty. In the name of the eternal God, who will judge you as well as me, I implore you, my lord, to take pity on my sufferings and bewailings; and, if you wish that He should show mercy to you, order my chains to be broken before your death hour comes, for when that comes, you will no longer be at leisure to do me that justice which I must require only from you, and you will persecute me even after you are no more, from which God keep us, if you will permit yourself to be moved by the most humble prayer of a man who has ever been a loyal subject to the king.”

This application was made in vain. If the cardinal ever saw it, which is doubtful, it failed to penetrate his iron heart; he “died, and made no sign,” in favour of the wretched supplicant. From Dussault’s evident despair of ever being freed except by Richelieu, it may be conjectured that, as an agent of the minister, he had given inexpiable offence to some one on whom power was now likely to devolve; and this supposition is rendered more probable, by his captivity having been subsequently protracted to an extraordinary length. It was not till the 20th of June, 1692, that he was dismissed, after having languished in the Bastile for sixty one years! At his advanced age,—for he must at least have been between eighty and ninety—he could scarcely have deemed the boon of liberty a blessing. In the common course of nature, all his kindred and friends must have been gone, and as his habits were wholly unfitted for the turmoil of the world, and he was, perhaps, exposed to want, it is not unnatural to conclude that he may have been a solitary and starving wanderer for the brief remainder of his existence. A situation more forlorn than this it would be difficult to imagine.