HISTORY OF FRANCE BY M. GUIZOT VOLUME V. LIST OF STEEL ENGRAVINGS: CASTLE OF PAU FRONTISPIECE. GABRIELLE D'ESTREES 130 MARIE DE MEDICI. 147 RICHELIEU. 180 LOUIS XIV. 344 TURENNE. 444 LIST OF WOOD-CUT ILLUSTRATIONS. Henry IV. 11 Henry IV. At Ivry 26 "Do not lose Sight of my White Plume. " 30 Rosny Castle 30 Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma 32 Charles de Lorraine, Duke of Mayenne 35 Sully 37 Lemaitre, Mayenne, and the Archbishop of Lyons 53 Henry IV. 's Abjuration 56 The Castle of Monceaux 91 The Castle of St. Germain in the Reign of Henry IV. 107 The Castle of Fontainbleau 124 Henry IV. And his Ministers 138 The Arsenal in the Reign of Henry IV. 143 The Louvre 145 Concini, Leonora Galigai, and Mary de' Medici 149 Louis XIII. And Albert de Luynes 154 Murder of Marshal d'Ancre 155 Double Duel 188 "Tapping with his Finger-tips on the Window-pane. " 191 Henry, Duke of Montmorency, at Castelnaudary 199 The King and the Cardinal 204 Cinq-Mars and De Thou going to Execution 215 The Parliament of Paris reprimanded 217 The Barefoots 221 The Abbot of St. Cyran 234 Demolishing the Fortifications 244 The Harbor of La Rochelle 248 The King and Richelieu at La Rochelle 250 John Guiton's Oath 254 The Defile of Suza Pass 278 Richelieu and Father Joseph 280 Gustavus Adolphus 282 Death of Gustavus and his Page 290 The Palais-Cardinal 305 The Tomb of Richelieu 308 Descartes at Amsterdam 316 The King's Press 323 Peter Corneille 334 The Representation of "the Cid. " 335 Corneille at the Hotel Rambouillet 342 The Great Conde 348 Arrest of Broussel 352 Cardinal de Retz 352 "Ah, Wretch, if thy Father saw thee!" 354 President Mole 355 The Great Mademoiselle 373 Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin 394 Death of Mazarin. 399 Fouquet 404 Vaux le Vicomte 405a Colbert 405 Louis XIV. Dismissing Fouquet 407 Louvois 411 William III. , Prince of Orange 434 The Brothers Witt 436 Death of Turenne 443 An Exploit of John Bart's 446 Duquesne victorious over Ruyter 446 Marshal Luxembourg 461a Heinsius 461 Battle of St. Vincent 465a The Battle of Neerwinden 465 "Here is the King of Spain. " 475 News for William III. 481 Bivouac of Louis XIV. 503 The Grand Dauphin 505 Marshal Villars and Prince Eugene 512 Marly 525 Colonnade of the Louvre 525a The Louvre and the Tuileries 525b Versailles 526 Vauban 534 The Torture of the Huguenots 552 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes 556 Death of Roland the Camisard 569 Abbey of Port-Royal 580 Reading the Decree 581 Bossuet 591 Blaise Pascal 597 Fenelon and the Duke of Burgundy 610 La Rochefoucauld and his fair Friends 629 La Bruyere 633 Corneille reading to Louis XIV. 642 Racine 646 Boileau-Despreaux 650 La Fontaine, Boileau, Moliere, and Racine 657 Moliere 664 Death of Moliere 669 Lebrun 674 Le Poussin and Claude Lorrain 675 Lesueur 676 Mignard 677 Perrault 678 A POPULAR HISTORY OF FRANCE FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES. CHAPTER XXXV. ----HENRY IV. , PROTESTANT KING. (1589-1593. ) On the 2d of August, 1589, in the morning, upon his arrival in hisquarters at Meudon, Henry of Navarre was saluted by the Protestants Kingof France. They were about five thousand in an army of forty thousandmen. When, at ten o'clock, he entered the camp of the Catholics at St. Cloud, three of their principal leaders, Marshal d'Aumont, and Siresd'Humieres and de Givry, immediately acknowledged him unconditionally, asthey had done the day before at the death-bed of Henry III. , and they atonce set to work to conciliate to him the noblesse of Champagne, Picardy, and Ile-de-France. "Sir, " said Givry, "you are the king of the brave;you will be deserted by none but dastards. " But the majority of theCatholic leaders received him with such expressions as, "Better die thanendure a Huguenot king!" One of them, Francis d'O, formally declared tohim that the time had come for him to choose between the insignificanceof a King of Navarre and the grandeur of a King of France; if hepretended to the crown, he must first of all abjure. Henry firmlyrejected these threatening entreaties, and left their camp with an urgentrecommendation, to them to think of it well before bringing dissensioninto the royal army and the royal party which were protecting theirprivileges, their property, and their lives against the League. Onreturning to his quarters, he noticed the arrival of Marshal de Biron, who pressed him to lay hands without delay upon the crown of France, inorder to guard it and save it. But, in the evening of that day and onthe morrow, at the numerous meetings of the lords to deliberate upon thesituation, the ardent Catholics renewed their demand for the exclusion ofHenry from the throne if he did not at once abjure, and for referring theelection of a king to the states-general. Biron himself proposed not todeclare Henry king, but to recognize him merely as captain-general of thearmy pending his abjuration. Harlay de Sancy vigorously maintained thecause of the Salic law and the hereditary rights of monarchy. Biron tookhim aside and said, I had hitherto thought that you had sense; now Idoubt it. If, before securing our own position with the King of Navarre, we completely establish his, he will no longer care for us. The time iscome for making our terms; if we let the occasion escape us, we shallnever recover it. " "What are your terms?" asked Sancy. "If it pleasethe king to give me the countship of Perigord, I shall be his forever. "Sancy reported this conversation to the king, who promised Biron what hewanted. Though King of France for but two days past, Henry IV. Had alreadyperfectly understood and steadily taken the measure of the situation. Hewas in a great minority throughout the country as well as the army, andhe would have to deal with public passions, worked by his foes for theirown ends, and with the personal pretensions of his partisans. He made nomistake about these two facts, and he allowed them great weight; but hedid not take for the ruling principle of his policy and for his firstrule of conduct the plan of alternate concessions to the differentparties and of continually humoring personal interests; he set histhoughts higher, upon the general and natural interests of France as hefound her and saw her. They resolved themselves, in his eyes, into thefollowing great points: maintenance of the hereditary rights of monarchy, preponderance of Catholics in the government, peace between Catholics andProtestants, and religious liberty for Protestants. With him thesepoints became the law of his policy and his kingly duty, as well as thenation's right. He proclaimed them in the first words that he addressedto the lords and principal personages of state assembled around him. "You all know, " said he, "what orders the late king my predecessor gaveme, and what he enjoined upon me with his dying breath. It was chieflyto maintain my subjects, Catholic or Protestant, in equal freedom, untila council, canonical, general, or national, had decided this greatdispute. I promised him to perform faithfully that which he bade me, andI regard it as one of my first duties to be as good as my word. I haveheard that some who are in my army feel scruples about remaining in myservice unless I embrace the Catholic religon. No doubt they think meweak enough for them to imagine that they can force me thereby to abjuremy religion and break my word. I am very glad to inform them here, inpresence of you all, that I would rather this were the last day of mylife than take any step which might cause me to be suspected of havingdreamt of renouncing the religion that I sucked in with my mother's milk, before I have been better instructed by a lawful council, to whoseauthority I bow in advance. Let him who thinks so ill of me get him goneas soon as he pleases; I lay more store by a hundred good Frenchmen thanby two hundred who could harbor sentiments so unworthy. Besides, thoughyou should abandon me, I should have enough of friends left to enable me, without you and to your shame, with the sole assistance of their strongarms, to maintain the rights of my authority. But were I doomed to seemyself deprived of even that assistance, still the God who has preservedme from my infancy, as if by His own hand, to sit upon the throne, willnot abandon me. I nothing doubt that He will uphold me where He hasplaced me, not for love of me, but for the salvation of so many souls whopray, without ceasing, for His aid, and for whose freedom He has deignedto make use of my arm. You know that I am a Frenchman and the foe of allduplicity. For the seventeen years that I have been King of Navarre, Ido not think that I have ever departed from my word. I beg you toaddress your prayers to the Lord on my behalf, that He may enlighten mein my views, direct my purposes, bless my endeavors. And in case Icommit any fault or fail in any one of my duties, --for I acknowledge thatI am a man like any other, --pray Him to give me grace that I may correctit, and to assist me in all my goings. " [Illustration: Henry IV. ----11] On the 4th of August, 1589, an official manifesto of Henry IV. 'sconfirmed the ideas and words of this address. On the same day, in thecamp at St. Cloud, the majority of the princes, dukes, lords, andgentlemen present in the camp expressed their full adhesion to theaccession and the manifesto of the king, promising him "service andobedience against rebels and enemies who would usurp the kingdom. " Twonotable leaders, the Duke of Epernon amongst the Catholics, and the Dukeof La Tremoille amongst the Protestants, refused to join in thisadhesion; the former saying that his conscience would not permit him toserve a heretic king, the latter alleging that his conscience forbade himto serve a prince who engaged to protect Catholic idolatry. Theywithdrew, D'Epernon into Angoumois and Saintonge, taking with him sixthousand foot and twelve thousand horse; and La Tremoille into Poitou, with nine battalions of Reformers. They had an idea of attempting, bothof them, to set up for themselves independent principalities. Threecontemporaries, Sully, La Force, and the bastard of Angouleme, bearwitness that Henry IV. Was deserted by as many Huguenots as Catholics. The French royal army was reduced, it is said, to one half. As amake-weight, Saucy prevailed upon the Swiss, to the number of twelvethousand, and two thousand German auxiliaries, not only to continue inthe service of the new king, but to wait six months for their pay, as hewas at the moment unable to pay them. From the 14th to the 20th ofAugust, in Ile-de-France, in Picardy, in Normandy, in Auvergne, inChampagne, in Burgundy, in Anjou, in Poitou, in Languedoc, in Orleanness, and in Touraine, a great number of towns and districts joined in thedetermination of the royal army. The last instance of such adherence hada special importance. At the time of Henry III. 's rupture with theLeague, the Parliament of Paris had been split in two; the royalists hadfollowed the king to Tours, the partisans of the League had remained atParis. After the accession of Henry IV. , the Parliament of Tours, withthe president, Achille de Harlay, as its head, increased from day to day, and soon reached two hundred members, whilst the Parliament of Paris, orBrisson Parliament, as it was called from its leader's name, had onlysixty-eight left. Brisson, on undertaking the post, actually thought itright to take the precaution of protesting privately, making adeclaration in the presence of notaries "that he so acted by constraintonly, and that he shrank from any rebellion against his king andsovereign lord. " It was, indeed, on the ground of the heredity of themonarchy and by virtue of his own proper rights that Henry IV. Hadascended the throne; and M. Poirson says quite correctly, in his learned_Histoire du Regne d'Henri IV. _ [t. I. P. 29, second edition, 1862], "The manifesto of Henry IV. , as its very name indicates, was not acontract settled between the noblesse in camp at St. Cloud and theclaimant; it was a solemn and reciprocal acknowledgment by the noblesseof Henry's rights to the crown, and by Henry of the nation's political, civil, and religious rights. The engagements entered into by Henry wereonly what were necessary to complete the guarantees given for thesecurity of the rights of Catholics. As touching the succession to thethrone, the signataries themselves say that all they do is to maintainand continue the law of the land. " There was, in 1589, an unlawful pretender to the throne of France; andthat was Cardinal Charles de Bourbon, younger brother of Anthony deBourbon, King of Navarre, and consequently uncle of Henry IV. , solerepresentative of the elder branch. Under Henry III. , the cardinal hadthrown in his lot with the League; and, after the murder of Guise, HenryIII. Had, by way of precaution, ordered him to be arrested and detainedhim in confinement at Chinon, where he still was when Henry III. Was inhis turn murdered. On becoming king, the far-sighted Henry IV. At oncebethought him of his uncle and of what he might be able to do againsthim. The cardinal was at Chinon, in the custody of Sieur de Chavigny, "a man of proved fidelity, " says De Thou, "but by this time old andblind. " Henry IV. Wrote to Du Plessis-Mornay, appointed quite recentlygovernor of Saumur, "bidding him, at any price, " says Madame de Mornay, "to get Cardinal de Bourbon away from Chinon, where he was, withoutsparing anything, even to the whole of his property, because he wouldincontinently set himself up for king if he could obtain his release. "Henry IV. Was right. As early as the 7th of August, the Duke of Mayennehad an announcement made to the Parliament of Paris, and written noticesent to all the provincial governors, "that, in the interval until thestates-general could be assembled, he urged them all to unite with him inrendering with one accord to their Catholic king, that is to say, Cardinal de Bourbon, the obedience that was due to him. " The cardinalwas, in fact, proclaimed king under the name of Charles X. ; and eightmonths afterwards, on the 5th of March, 1590, the Parliament of Parisissued a decree "recognizing Charles X. As true and lawful king ofFrance. " Du Plessis-Mornay, ill though he was, had understood andexecuted, without loss of time, the orders of King Henry, going bailhimself for the promises that had to be made and for the sums that hadto be paid to get the cardinal away from the governor of Chinon. Hesucceeded, and had the cardinal removed to Fontenay-le-Comte in Poitou, "under the custody of Sieur de la Boulaye, governor of that place, whosevalor and fidelity were known to him. " "That, " said Henry IV. Onreceiving the news, "is one of the greatest services I could have hadrendered me; M. Du Plessis does business most thoroughly. " On the 9th ofMay, 1590, not three months after the decree of the Parliament of Pariswhich had proclaimed him true and lawful King of France, Cardinal deBourbon, still a prisoner, died at Fontenay, aged sixty-seven. A fewweeks before his death he had written to his nephew Henry IV. A letter inwhich he recognized him as his sovereign. The League was more than ever dominant in Paris; Henry IV. Could notthink of entering there. Before recommencing the war in his own name, hemade Villeroi, who, after the death of Henry III. , had rejoined the Dukeof Mayenne, an offer of an interview in the Bois de Boulogne to see ifthere were no means of treating for peace. Mayenne would not allowVilleroi to accept the offer. "He had no private quarrel, " he said, "with the King of Navarre, whom he highly honored, and who, to hiscertain knowledge, had not looked with approval upon his brothers' death;but any appearance of negotiation would cause great distrust amongsttheir party, and they would not do anything that tended against therights of King Charles X. " Renouncing all idea of negotiation, Henry IV. Set out on the 8th of August from St. Cloud, after having told off hisarmy in three divisions. Two were ordered to go and occupy Picardy andChampagne; and the king kept with him only the third, about six thousandstrong. He went and laid the body of Henry III. In the church ofSt. Corneille at Compiegne, took Meulan and several small towns on thebanks of the Seine and Oise, and propounded for discussion with hisofficers the question of deciding in which direction he should move, towards the Loire or the Seine, on Tours or on Rouen. He determined infavor of Normandy; he must be master of the ports in that province inorder to receive there the re-enforcements which had been promised him byQueen Elizabeth of England, and which she did send him in September, 1589, forming a corps of from four to five thousand men, Scots andEnglish, "aboard of thirteen vessels laden with twenty-two thousandpounds sterling in gold and seventy thousand pounds of gunpowder, threethousand cannon-balls, and corn, biscuits, wine, and beer, together withwoollens and even shoes. " They arrived very opportunely for the close ofthe campaign, but too late to share in Henry IV. 's first victory, thatseries of fights around the castle of Arques which, in the words of aneye-witness, the Duke of Angouleme, "was the first gate whereby Henryentered upon the road of his glory and good fortune. " After making a demonstration close to Rouen, Henry IV. , learning thatthe Duke of Mayenne was advancing in pursuit of him with an army oftwenty-five thousand foot and eight thousand horse, thought it imprudentto wait for him and run the risk of being jammed between forces soconsiderable and the hostile population of a large city; so he struckhis camp and took the road to Dieppe, in order to be near the coast andthe re-enforcements from Queen Elizabeth. Some persons even suggestedto him that in case of mishap he might go thence and take refuge inEngland; but at this prospect Biron answered, "There is no King ofFrance out of France;" and Henry IV. Was of Biron's opinion. At hisarrival before Dieppe, he found as governor there Aymar de Chastes, aman of wits and honor, a very moderate Catholic, and very strongly infavor of the party of policists. Under Henry III. He had expresslyrefused to enter the League, saying to Villars, who pressed him to doso, "I am a Frenchman, and you yourself will find out that the Spaniardis the real head of the League. " He had organized at Dieppe fourcompanies of burgess-guards, consisting of Catholics and Protestants, and he assembled about him, to consider the affairs of the town, a smallcouncil, in which Protestants had the majority. As soon as he knew, onthe 26th of August, that the king was approaching Dieppe, he went withthe principal inhabitants to meet him, and presented to him the keys ofthe place, saying, "I come to salute my lord and hand over to him thegovernment of this city. " "Ventre-saint-gris!" answered Henry IV. , "Iknow nobody more worthy of it than you are!" The Dieppese overflowedwith felicitations. "No fuss, my lads, " said Henry: "all I want is youraffections, good bread, good wine, and good hospitable faces. " When heentered the town, "he was received, " says a contemporary chronicler, "with loud cheers by the people; and what was curious, but exhilarating, was to see the king surrounded by close upon six thousand armed men, himself having but a few officers at his left hand. " He received atDieppe assurance of the fidelity of La Verune, governor of Caen, whither, in 1589, according to Henry III. 's order, that portion of theParliament of Normandy which would not submit to the yoke of the Leagueat Rouen, had removed. Caen having set the example, St. Lo, Coutances, and Carentan likewise sent deputies to Dieppe to recognize the authorityof Henry IV. But Henry had no idea of shutting himself up insideDieppe: after having carefully inspected the castle, citadel, harbor, fortifications, and outskirts of the town, he left there five hundredmen in garrison, supported by twelve or fifteen hundred well-armedburgesses, and went and established himself personally in the old castleof Arques, standing, since the eleventh century, upon a barren hill;below, in the burgh of Arques, he sent Biron into cantonments with hisregiment of Swiss and the companies of French infantry; and he lost notime in having large fosses dug ahead of the burgh, in front of all theapproaches, enclosing within an extensive line of circumvallation bothburgh and castle. All the king's soldiers and the peasants that couldbe picked up in the environs worked night and day. Whilst they were atwork, Henry wrote to Countess Corisande de Gramont, his favorite at thattime, "My dear heart, it is a wonder I am alive with such work as Ihave. God have pity upon me and show me mercy, blessing my labors, asHe does in spite of a many folks! I am well, and my affairs are goingwell. I have taken Eu. The enemy, who are double me just now, thoughtto catch me there; but I drew off towards Dieppe, and I await them in acamp that I am fortifying. Tomorrow will be the day when I shall seethem, and I hope, with God's help, that if they attack me they will findthey have made a bad bargain. The bearer of this goes by sea. The windand my duties make me conclude. This 9th of September, in the trenchesat Arques. " All was finished when the scouts of Mayenne appeared. But Mayenne alsowas an able soldier: he saw that the position the king had taken and theworks he had caused to be thrown up rendered a direct attack verydifficult. He found means of bearing down upon Dieppe another way, andof placing himself, says the latest historian of Dieppe, M. Vitet, between the king and the town, "hoping to cut off the king'scommunications with the sea, divide his forces, deprive him of hisre-enforcements from England, and, finally, surround him and capture him, as he had promised the Leaguers of Paris, who were already talking of theiron cage in which the Bearnese would be sent to them. "Henry IV. , "continues M. Vitet, "felt some vexation at seeing his forecastscheckmated by Mayenne's manoeuvre, and at having had so much earthremoved to so little profit; but he was a man of resources, confident asthe Gascons are, and with very little of pig-headedness. To change allhis plans was with him the work of an instant. Instead of awaiting thefoe in his intrenchments, he saw that it was for him to go and feel forthem on the other side of the valley, and that, on pain of beinginvested, he must not leave the Leaguers any exit but the very road theyhad taken to come. " Having changed all his plans on this new system, Henry breathed more freely; but he did not go to sleep for all that: hewas incessantly backwards and forwards from Dieppe to Arques, from Arquesto Dieppe and to the Faubourg du Pollet. Mayenne, on the contrary, seemed to have fallen into a lethargy; he had not yet been out of hisquarters during the nearly eight and forty hours since he had taken them. On the 17th of September, 1589, in the morning, however, a few hundredlight-horse were seen putting themselves in motion, scouring the countryand coming to fire their pistols close to the fosses of the royal army. The skirmish grew warm by degrees. "My son, " said Marshal de Biron tothe young count of Auvergne [natural son of Charles IX. And MaryTouchet], "charge: now is the time. " The young prince, without his hat, and his horsemen charged so vigorously that they put the Leaguers to therout, killed three hundred of them, and returned quietly within theirlines, by Biron's orders, without being disturbed in their retreat. These partial and irregular encounters began again on the 18th and 19thof September, with the same result. The Duke of Mayenne was nettled andhumiliated; he had his prestige to recover. He decided to concentrateall his forces right on the king's intrenchments, and attack them infront with his whole army. The 20th of September passed without a singleskirmish. Henry, having received good information that he would beattacked the next day, did not go to bed. The night was very dark. Hethought he saw a long way off in the valley a long line of lightedmatches; but there was profound silence; and the king and his officerspuzzled themselves to decide if they were men or glow-worms. On the21st, at five A. M. , the king gave orders for every one to be ready andat his post. He himself repaired to the battle-field. Sitting in a bigfosse with all his officers, he had his breakfast brought thither, andwas eating with good appetite, when a prisoner was brought to him, agentleman of the League, who had advanced too far whilst making areconnaissance. "Good day, Belin, " said the king, who recognized him, laughing: "embrace me for your welcome appearance. " Belin embraced him, telling him that he was about to have down upon him thirty thousand footand ten thousand horse. "Where are your forces?" he asked the king, looking about him. "O! you don't see them all, M. De Belin, " said Henry:"you don't reckon the good God and the good right, but they are ever withme. " The action began about ten o'clock. The fog was still so thick thatthere was no seeing one another at ten paces. The ardor on both sideswas extreme; and, during nearly three hours, victory seemed to twiceshift her colors. Henry at one time found himself entangled amongst somesquadrons so disorganized that he shouted, "Courage, gentlemen; pray, courage! Can't we find fifty gentlemen willing to die with their king?"At this moment Chatillon, issuing from Dieppe with five hundred pickedmen, arrived on the field of battle. The king dismounted to fight at hisside in the trenches; and then, for a quarter of an hour, there was afurious combat, man to man. At last, "when things were in this desperatestate, " says Sully, "the fog, which had been very thick all the morning, dropped down suddenly, and the cannon of the castle of Arques gettingsight of the enemy's army, a volley of four pieces was fired, which madefour beautiful lanes in their squadrons and battalions. That pulled themup quite short; and three or four volleys in succession, which producedmarvellous effects, made them waver, and, little by little, retire all ofthem behind the turn of the valley, out of cannon-shot, and finally totheir quarters. " Mayenne had the retreat sounded. Henry, master of thefield, gave chase for a while to the fugitives, and then returned toArques to thank God for his victory. Mayenne struck his camp and tookthe road towards Amiens, to pick up a Spanish corps which he wasexpecting from the Low Countries. [Illustration: Sully----37] For six months, from September, 1589, to March, 1590, the war continuedwithout any striking or important events. Henry IV. Tried to stop itafter his success at Arques; he sent word to the Duke of Mayenne by hisprisoner Belin, whom he had sent away free on parole, "that he desiredpeace, and so earnestly, that, without regarding his dignity or hisvictory, he made him these advances, not that he had any fear of him, butbecause of the pity he felt for his kingdom's sufferings. " Mayenne, wholay beneath the double yoke of his party's passions and his own ambitiousprojects, rejected the king's overtures, or allowed them to fall through;and on the 21st of October, 1589, Henry, setting out with his army fromDieppe, moved rapidly on Paris, in order to effect a strategic surprise, whilst Mayenne was rejecting at Amiens his pacific inclinations. Theking gained three marches on the Leaguers, and carried by assault thefive faubourgs situated on the left bank of the Seine. He would perhapshave carried terror-stricken Paris itself, if the imperfect breaking upof the St. Maixent bridge on the Somme had not allowed Mayenne, notwithstanding his tardiness, to arrive at Paris in time to enter withhis army, form a junction with the Leaguers amongst the population, andprevail upon the king to carry his arms elsewhither. " The people ofParis, " says De Thou, "were extravagant enough to suppose that thisprince could not escape Mayenne. Already a host of idle and credulouswomen had been at the pains of engaging windows, which they let verydear, and which they had fitted up magnificently, to see the passage ofthat fanciful triumph for which their mad hopes had caused them to makeevery preparation--before the victory. " Henry left some of hislieutenants to carry on the war in the environs of Paris, and himselfrepaired, on the 21st of November, to Tours, where the royalistParliament, the exchequer-chamber, the court of taxation, and all themagisterial bodies which had not felt inclined to submit to the despotismof the League, lost no time in rendering him homage, as the head and therepresentative of the national and the lawful cause. He reigned andruled, to real purpose, in the eight principal provinces of the North andCentre--Ile-de-France, Picardy, Champagne, Normandy, Orleanness, Touraine, Maine, and Anjou; and his authority, although disputed, wasmaking way in nearly all the other parts of the kingdom. He made war notlike a conqueror, but like a king who wanted to meet with acceptance inthe places which he occupied and which he would soon have to govern. Theinhabitants of Le Mans and of Alencon were able to reopen their shops onthe very day on which their town fell into his hands, and those ofVendome the day after. He watched to see that respect was paid by hissoldiers, even the Huguenots, to Catholic churches and ceremonies. Twosoldiers, having made their way into Le Mans, contrary to orders, afterthe capitulation, and having stolen a chalice, were hanged on the spot, though they were men of acknowledged bravery. He protected carefully thebishops and all the ecclesiastics who kept aloof from political strife. "If minute details are required, " says a contemporary pamphleteer, "outof a hundred or a hundred and twenty archbishops or bishops existing inthe realm of France not a tenth part approve of the counsels of theLeague. " It was not long before Henry reaped the financial fruits of hisprotective equity; at the close of 1589 he could count upon a regularrevenue of more than two millions of crowns, very insufficient, no doubt, for the wants of his government, but much beyond the official resourcesof his enemies. He had very soon taken his proper rank in Europe: theProtestant powers which had been eager to recognize him--England, Scotland, the Low Countries, the Scandinavian states, and ReformedGermany--had been joined by the republic of Venice, the most judiciouslygoverned state at that time in Europe, but solely on the ground ofpolitical interests and views, independently of any religious question. On the accession of Henry IV. , his ambassador, Hurault de Maisse, wasreceived and very well treated at Venice; he was merely excluded fromreligious ceremonies: the Venetian people joined in the policy of theirgovernment; the portrait of the new King of France was everywheredisplayed and purchased throughout Venice. Some Venetians went so far asto take service in his army against the League. The Holy Inquisitioncommenced proceedings against them for heresy; the government stopped theproceedings, and even, says Count Daru, had the Inquisitor thrown intoprison. The Venetian senate accredited to the court of Henry IV. Thesame ambassador who had been at Henry III. 's; and, on returning to Tours, on the 21st of November, 1589, the king received him to an audience instate. A little later on he did more; he sent the republic, as a pledgeof his friendship, his sword--the sword, he said in his letter, which hehad used at the battle of Ivry. "The good offices were mutual, " adds M. De Daru; the Venetians lent Henry IV. Sums of money which the badness ofthe times rendered necessary to him; but their ambassador had orders tothrow into the fire, in the king's presence, the securities for theloan. " As the government of Henry IV. Went on growing in strength and extent, two facts, both of them natural, though antagonistic, were beingaccomplished in France and in Europe. The moderate Catholics werebeginning, not as yet to make approaches towards him, but to see aglimmering possibility of treating with him and obtaining from him suchconcessions as they considered necessary at the same time that they intheir turn made to him such as he might consider sufficient for his partyand himself. It has already been remarked with what sagacity Pope SixtusV. Had divined the character of Henry IV. , at the very moment ofcondemning Henry III. For making an alliance with him. When Henry IV. Had become king, Sixtus V. Pronounced strongly against a heretic king, and maintained, in opposition to him, his alliance with Philip II. Andthe League. "France, " said he, "is a good and noble kingdom, which hasinfinity of benefices and is specially dear to us; and so we try to saveher; but religion sits nearer than France to our heart. " He chose forhis legate in France Cardinal Gaetani, whom he knew to be agreeable toPhilip II. And gave him instructions in harmony with the Spanish policy. Having started for his post, Gaetani was a long while on the road, halting at Lyons, amongst other places, as if he were in no hurry toenter upon his duties. At the close of 1589, Henry IV. , king for thelast five months and already victorious at Arques, appointed as hisambassador at Rome Francis de Luxembourg, Duke of Pinei, to try and enterinto official relations with the pope. On the 6th of January, 1590, Sixtus V. , at his reception of the cardinals, announced to them thisnews. Badoero, ambassador of Venice at Rome, leaned forward andwhispered in his ear, "We must pray God to inspire the King of Navarre. On the day when your Holiness embraces him, and then only, the affairs ofFrance will be adjusted. Humanly speaking, there is no other way ofbringing peace to that kingdom. " The pope confined himself to replyingthat God would do all for the best, and that, for his own part, he wouldwait. On arriving at Rome, "the Duke of Luxembourg repaired to theVatican with two and twenty carriages occupied by French gentlemen; but, at the palace, he found the door of the pope's apartments closed, thesentries doubled, and the officers on duty under orders to intimate tothe French, the chief of the embassy excepted, that they must lay asidetheir swords. At the door of the Holy Father's closet, the duke andthree gentlemen of his train were alone allowed to enter. Theindignation felt by the French was mingled with apprehensions of anambush. Luxembourg himself could not banish a feeling of vague terror;great was his astonishment when, on his introduction to the pontiff, thelatter received him with demonstrations of affection, asked him news ofhis journey, said he would have liked to give him quarters in the palace, made him sit down, --a distinction reserved for the ambassadors of kings, --and, lastly, listened patiently to the French envoy's long recital. Infact, the receptions _intra et, extra muros_ bore very little resemblanceone to the other, but the difference between them corresponded prettyfaithfully with the position of Sixtus V. , half engaged to the League byGaetani's commission and to Philip II. By the steps he had recentlytaken, and already regretting that he was so far gone in the direction ofSpain. " [_Sixtus V, _ by Baron Hiibner, late ambassador of Austria atParis and at Rome, t. Ii. Pp. 280-282. ] Unhappily Sixtus V. Died on the 27th of August, 1590, before havingmodified, to any real purpose, his bearing towards the King of France andhis instructions to his legate. After Pope Urban VIII. 's apparition ofthirteen days' duration, Gregory XIV. Was elected pope on the 5th ofDecember, 1590; and, instead of a head of the church able enough andcourageous enough to comprehend and practise a policy European andItalian as well as Catholic in its scope, there was a pope humbly devotedto the Spanish policy, meekly subservient to Philip II. ; that is, to thecause of religious persecution and of absolute power, without regard foranything else. The relations of France with the Holy See at once feltthe effects of this; Cardinal Gaetani received from Rome all theinstructions that the most ardent Leaguers could desire; and he gave hisapproval to a resolution of the Sorbonne to the effect that Henry deBourbon, heretic and relapsed, was forever excluded from the crown, whether he became a Catholic or not. Henry IV. , had convoked thestates-general at Tours for the month of March, and had summoned to thatcity the archbishops and bishops to form a national council, and todeliberate as to the means of restoring the king to the bosom of theCatholic church. The legate prohibited this council, declaring, beforehand, the excommunication and deposition of any bishops who shouldbe present at it. The Leaguer Parliament of Paris forbade, on pain ofdeath and confiscation, any connection, any correspondence, with Henryde Bourbon and his partisans. A solemn procession of the League tookplace at Paris, on the 14th of March, and a few days afterwards theunion was sworn afresh by all the municipal chiefs of the population. In view of such passionate hostility, Henry IV. , a stranger to any sortof illusion at the same time that he was always full of hope, saw thathis successes at Arques were insufficient for him, and that, if he wereto occupy the throne in peace, he must win more victories. Herecommenced the campaign by the siege of Dreux, one of the towns whichit was most important for him to possess in order to put pressure onParis, and cause her to feel, even at a distance, the perils and evilsof war. On Wednesday, the 14th of March, 1590, was fought the battle of Ivry, a village six leagues from Evreux, on the left bank of the Eure. "Starting from Dreux on the 12th of March" [Poirson, _Histoire du Regned'Henri IV. , __ t. I. P. 180], "the royal army had arrived the same dayat Nonancourt, marching with the greatest regularity by divisions andalways in close order, through fearful weather, frost having succeedingrain; moreover, it traversed a portion of the road during the shades ofevening. The soldier was harassed and knocked up. But scarcely had hearrived at his destination for the day, when he found large fires lightedeverywhere, and provisions in abundance, served out with intelligentregularity to the various quarters of cavalry and infantry. He soonrecovered all his strength and daring. " The king, in concert with theveteran Marshal de Biron, had taken these prudent measures. All thehistorians, contemporary and posterior, have described in great detailthe battle of Ivry, the manoeuvres and alternations of success thatdistinguished it; by rare good fortune, we have an account of the affairwritten the very same evening in the camp at Rosny by Henry IV. Himself, and at once sent off to some of his principal partisans who were absent, amongst others to M. De la Verune, governor of Caen. We will contentourselves here with the king's own words, striking in their precision, brevity, and freedom from any self-complacent gasconading on thenarrator's part, respecting either his party or himself. [Illustration: Henry IV. At Ivry----26] LETTER OF KING HENRY IV. TOUCHING THE BATTLE OF IVRY. "It hath pleased God to grant me that which I had the most desired, tohave means of giving battle to mine enemies; having firm confidence that, having got so far, God would give me grace to obtain the victory, as ithath happened this very day. You have heretofore heard how that, afterthe capture of the town of Honfleur, I went and made them raise the siegethey were laying to the town of Meulan, and I offered them battle, whichit seemed that they ought to accept, having in numbers twice the strengththat I could muster. But in the hope of being able to do so with moresafety, they made up their minds to put it off until they had been joinedby fifteen hundred lances which the Duke of Parma was sending them; whichwas done a few days ago. And then they spread abroad everywhere thatthey would force me to fight, wheresoever I might be; they thought tohave found a very favorable opportunity in coming to encounter me at thesiege I was laying before the town of Dreux; but I did not give them thetrouble of coming so far; for, as soon as I was advertised that they hadcrossed the river of Seine and were heading towards me, I resolved to putoff the siege rather than fail to go and meet them. Having learned thatthey were six leagues from the said Dreux, I set out last Monday, the12th of this month, and went and took up my quarters at the town ofNonancourt, which was three leagues from them, for to cross the riverthere. On Tuesday, I went and took the quarters which they meant to havefor themselves, and where their quarter-masters had already arrived. I put myself in order of battle, in the morning, on a very fine plain, about a league from the point which they had chosen the day before, andwhere they immediately appeared with their whole army, but so far from methat I should have given them a great advantage by going so forward toseek them; I contented myself with making them quit a village they hadseized close by me; at last, night constrained us both to get intoquarters, which I did in the nearest villages. "To-day, having had their position reconnoitred betimes, and after it hadbeen reported to me that they had shown themselves, but even farther offthan they had done yesterday, I resolved to approach so near to them thatthere must needs be a collision. And so it happened between ten andeleven in the morning; I went to seek them to the very spot where theywere posted, and whence they never advanced a step but what theymade to the charge; and the battle took place, wherein God was pleased tomake known that His protection is always on the side of the right; for inless than an hour, after having spent all their choler in two or threecharges which they made and supported, all their cavalry began to takeits departure, leaving their infantry, which was in large numbers. Seeing which, their Swiss had recourse to my compassion, and surrendered, colonels, captains, privates, and all their flags. The lanzknechts andFrench had no time to take this resolution, for they were cut to pieces, twelve hundred of one and as many of the other; the rest prisoners andput to the rout in the woods, at the mercy of the peasants. Of theircavalry there are from nine hundred to a thousand killed, and from fourto five hundred dismounted and prisoners; without counting those drownedin crossing the River Eure, which they crossed to Ivry for to put itbetween them and us, and who are a great number. The rest of the bettermounted saved themselves by flight, in very great disorder, having lostall their baggage. I did not let them be until they were close toMantes. Their white standard is in my hands, and its bearer a prisoner;twelve or fifteen other standards of their cavalry, twice as many more oftheir infantry, all their artillery; countless lords prisoners, and ofdead a great number, even of those in command, whom I have not yet beenable to find time to get identified. But I know that amongst othersCount Egmont, who was general of all the forces that came from Flanders, was killed. Their prisoners all say that their army was about fourthousand horse, and from twelve to thirteen thousand foot, of which Isuppose not a quarter has escaped. As for mine, it may have been twothousand horse and eight thousand foot. But of this cavalry, more thansix hundred horse joined me after I was in order of battle, on theTuesday and Wednesday; nay, the last troop of the noblesse from Picardy, brought up by Sire d'Humieres, and numbering three hundred horse, came upwhen half an hour had already passed since the battle began. "It is a miraculous work of God's, who was pleased, first of all, to giveme the resolution to attack them, and then the grace to be able sosuccessfully to accomplish it. Wherefore to Him alone is the glory; andso far as any of it may, by His permission, belong to man, it is due tothe princes, officers of the crown, lords, captains, and all thenoblesse, who with so much ardor rushed forward, and so successfullyexerted themselves, that their predecessors did not leave them morebeautiful examples than they will leave to their posterity. As I amgreatly content and satisfied with them, so I think that they are withme, and that they have seen that I had no mind to make use of themanywhere without I had also shown them the way. I am still following upthe victory with my cousins the princes of Conti, Duke of Montpensier, Count of St. Paul, Marshal-duke of Aumont, grand prior of France, LaTremoille, Sieurs de la Guiche and de Givry, and several other lords andcaptains. My cousin Marshal de Biron remains with the main army awaitingmy tidings, which will go on, I hope, still prospering. You shall hearmore fully in my next despatch, which shall follow this very closely, theparticulars of this victory, whereof I desired to give you these fewwords of information, so as not to keep you longer out of the pleasurewhich I know that you will receive therefrom. I pray you to impart it toall my other good servants yonder, and, especially, to have thanks giventherefor to God, whom I pray to have you in His holy keeping. "HENRY. "From the camp at Rosny, this 14th day of March, 1590. " [Illustration: Rosny Castle----30] History is not bound to be so reserved and so modest as the king wasabout himself. It was not only as able captain and valiant soldier thatHenry IV. Distinguished himself at Ivry; there the man was as conspicuousfor the strength of his better feelings, as generous and as affectionateas the king was farsighted and bold. When the word was given to marchfrom Dreux, Count Schomberg, colonel of the German auxiliaries calledreiters, had asked for the pay of his troops, letting it be understoodthat they would not fight if their claims were not satisfied. Henry hadreplied harshly, "People don't ask for money on the eve of a battle. " AtIvry, just as the battle was on the point of beginning, he went up toSchomberg. "Colonel, " said he, "I hurt your feelings. This may be thelast day of my life. I can't bear to take away the honor of a brave andhonest gentleman like you. Pray forgive me and embrace me. " "Sir, "answered Schomberg, "the other day your Majesty wounded me, to-day youkill me. " He gave up the command of the reiters in order to fight in theking's own squadron, and was killed in action. As he passed along thefront of his own squadron, Henry halted; and, "Comrades, " said he, "ifyou run my risks, I also run yours. I will conquer or die with you. Keep your ranks well, I beg. If the heat of battle disperse you for awhile, rally as soon as you can under those three pear trees you see upyonder to my right; and if you lose your standards, do not lose sight ofmy white plume; you will always find it in the path of honor, and, Ihope, of victory too. " [Illustration: "Do not lose Sight of my White Plume. "----30] Having galloped along the whole line of his army, he halted again, threwhis horse's reins over his arm, and clasped his hands, exclaiming, "OGod, Thou knowest my thoughts, and Thou dost see to the very bottom of myheart; if it be for my people's good that I keep the crown, favor Thou mycause and uphold my arms. But if Thy holy will have otherwise ordained, at least let me die, O God, in the midst of these brave soldiers who givetheir lives for me!" When the battle was over and won, he heard thatRosny had been severely wounded in it; and when he was removed to RosnyCastle, the king, going close up to his stretcher, said, "My friend, I amvery glad to see you with a much better countenance than I expected; Ishould feel still greater joy if you assure me that you run no risk ofyour life or of being disabled forever; the rumor was, that you had twohorses killed under you; that you had been borne to earth, rolled overand trampled upon by the horses of several squadrons, bruised and cut upby so many blows that it would be a marvel if you escaped, or if, at thevery least, you were not mutilated for life in some limb. I should liketo hug you with both arms. I shall never have any good fortune orincrease of greatness but you shall share it. Fearing that too muchtalking may be harmful to your wounds, I am off again to Mantes. Adieu, my friend; fare you well, and be assured that you have a good master. " Henry IV. Had not only a warm but an expansive heart; he could not helpexpressing and pouring forth his feelings. That was one of his charms, and also one of his sources of power. The victory of Ivry had a great effect in France and in Europe. But notimmediately and as regarded the actual campaign of 1590. The victoriousking moved on Paris, and made himself master of the little towns in theneighborhood with a view of investing the capital. When he tookpossession of St. Denis [on the 9th of July, 1590], he had the relics andall the jewelry of the church shown to him. When he saw the royal crown, from which the principal stones had been detached, he asked what hadbecome of them. He was told that M. De Mayehne had caused them to-beremoved. "He has the stones, then, " said the king; "and I have thesoil. " He visited the royal tombs, and when he was shown that ofCatherine de' Medici, " Ah!" said he smiling, "how well it suits her!"And, as he stood before Henry III. 's he said, "Ventre-saint-gris! Thereis my good brother; I desire that I be laid beside him. " As he thus wenton visiting and establishing all his posts around Paris, the investmentbecame more strict; it was kept up for more than three months, from theend of May to the beginning of September, 1590; and the city was reducedto a severe state of famine, which would have been still more severe ifHenry IV. Had not several times over permitted the entry of some convoysof provisions and the exit of the old men, the women, the children, infact, the poorest and weakest part of the population. "Paris must not bea cemetery, " be said; "I do not wish to reign over the dead. " "A trueking, " says De Thou, "more anxious for the preservation of his kingdomthan greedy of conquest, and making no distinction between his owninterests and the interests of his people. " Two famous Protestants, Ambrose Pare and Bernard Palissy, preserved, one by his surgical and theother by his artistic genius, from the popular fury, were still living atthat time in Paris, both eighty years of age, and both pleading for theliberty of their creed and for peace. "Monseigneur, " said Ambrose Pareone day to the Archbishop of Lyons, whom he met at one end of the bridgeof St. Michael, "this poor people that you see here around you is dyingof sheer hunger-madness, and demands your compassion. For God's sakeshow them some, as you would have God's shown to you. Think a little onthe office to which God hath called you. Give us peace or give uswherewithal to live, for the poor folks can hold out no more. " TheItalian Danigarola himself, Bishop of Asti and attache to the embassy ofCardinal Gaetani, having publicly said that peace was necessary, wasthreatened by the Sixteen with being sewn up in a sack and thrown intothe river if he did not alter his tone. Not peace, but a cessation ofthe investment of Paris, was brought about, on the 23d of August, 1590, by Duke Alexander of Parma, who, in accordance with express orders fromPhilip II. , went from the Low Countries, with his army, to join Mayenneat Meaux and threaten Henry IV. With their united forces if he did notretire from the walls of the capital. [Illustration: Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma----32] Henry IV. Offered the two dukes battle, if they really wished to put astop to the investment; but "I am not come so far, " answered the Duke ofParma, "to take counsel of my enemy; if my manner of warfare does notplease the King of Navarre, let him force me to change it, instead ofgiving me advice that nobody asks him for. " Henry in vain attempted tomake the Duke of Parma accept battle. The able Italian establishedhimself in a strongly intrenched camp, surprised Lagny, and opened toParis the navigation of the Marne, by which provisions were speedilybrought up. Henry decided upon retreating; he dispersed the differentdivisions of his army into Touraine, Normandy, Picardy, Champagne, Burgundy, and himself took up his quarters at Senlis, at Compiegne, inthe towns on the banks of the Oise. The Duke of Mayenne arrived on the18th of September at Paris; the Duke of Parma entered it himself with afew officers, and left it on the 13th of November with his army on hisway back to the Low Countries, being a little harassed in his retreat bythe royal cavalry, but easy, for the moment, as to the fate of Paris andthe issue of the war, which continued during the first six months of theyear 1591, but languidly and disconnectedly, with successes and reversessee-sawing between the two parties and without any important results. Then began to appear the consequences of the victory of Ivry and theprogress made by Henry IV. , in spite of the check he received beforeParis and at some other points in the kingdom. Not only did manymoderate Catholics make advances to him, struck with his sympatheticability and his valor, and hoping that he would end by becoming aCatholic, but patriotic wrath was kindling in France against Philip II. And the Spaniards, those fomenters of civil war in the mere interest offoreign ambition. We quoted but lately the words used by the governor ofDieppe, Aymar de Chastes, when he said to Villars, governor of Rouen, whopressed him to enter the League, "You will yourself find out that theSpaniard is the real head of this League. " On the 5th of August, 1590, during the investment of Paris, a placard was pasted all over the city. "Poor Parisians, " it said, "I deplore your misery, and I feel evengreater pity towards you for being still such simpletons. See you notthat this son of perdition of a Spanish ambassador [Bernard de Mendoza], who had our good king murdered, is making game of you, cramming you sowith pap that he would fain have had you burst before now in order to layhands on your goods and on France if he could? He alone prevents peaceand the repose of desolated France, as well as the reconciliation of theking and the princes in real amity. Why are ye so tardy to cast him in asack down stream, that he may return the sooner to Spain?" On the 6th ofAugust, there was found written with charcoal, on the gate of St. Anthony, the following eight lines:-- "Some folks, for Holy League bear more Than the prodigal son in the Bible bore; For he, together with his swine, On bean, and root, and husk would dine; Whilst they, unable to procure Such dainty morsels, must endure Between their skinny lips to pass Offal and tripe of horse or ass. " "These, " said a Latin inscription on the awnings of the butchers' shops, "are the rewards of those who expose their lives for Philip" [_Haec suntmunera pro iis qui vitam pro Philippo proferunt: Memoires de L'Estoile, _t. Ii. Pp. 73, 74]. In 1591 these public sentiments, reproduced anddilated upon in numerous pamphlets, imported dissension into the heart ofthe League itself, which split up into two parties, the Spanish Leagueand the French League. The Committee of Sixteen labored incessantly forthe formation and triumph of the Spanish League; and its principalleaders wrote, on the 2d of September, 1591, a letter to Philip II. , offering him the crown of France, and pledging their allegiance to him ashis subjects. "We can positively assure your Majesty, " they said, "thatthe wishes of all Catholics are to see your Catholic Majesty holding thesceptre of this kingdom and reigning over us, even as we do throwourselves right willingly into your arms as into those of our father, orat any rate establishing one of your posterity upon the throne. " Theseringleaders of the Spanish League had for their army the blindlyfanatical and demagogic populace of Paris, and were, further, supportedby four thousand Spanish troops whom Philip II. Had succeeded in gettingalmost surreptitiously into Paris. They created a council of ten, thesixteenth century's committee of public safety; they proscribed thepolicists; they, on the 15th of November, had the president, Brisson, andtwo councillors of the Leaguer Parliament arrested, hanged them to a beamand dragged the corpses to the Place de Grove, where they strung them upto a gibbet with inscriptions setting forth that they were heretics, traitors to the city and enemies of the Catholic princes. Whilst theSpanish League was thus reigning at Paris, the Duke of Mayenne was atLaon, preparing to lead his army, consisting partly of Spaniards, to therelief of Rouen, the siege of which Henry IV. Was commencing. Beingsummoned to Paris by messengers who succeeded one another every hour, hearrived there on the 28th of November, 1591, with two thousand Frenchtroops; he armed the guard of Burgesses, seized and hanged, in aground-floor room of the Louvre, four of the chief leaders of the Sixteen, suppressed their committee, re-established the Parliament in fullauthority, and, finally, restored the security and preponderance of theFrench League, whilst taking the reins once more into his own hands. Butthe French League before long found itself, in its turn, placed in asituation quite as embarrassing, if not so provocative of odium, as thatin which the Spanish League had lately been; for it had become itself thetool of personal and unlawful ambition. The Lorraine princes, it istrue, were less foreign to France than the King of Spain was; they hadeven rendered her eminent service; but they had no right to the crown. Mayenne had opposed to him the native and lawful heir to the throne, already recognized and invested with the kingly power by a large portionof France, and quite capable of disputing his kingship with the ablestcompetitors. By himself and with his own party alone, Mayenne was not ina position to maintain such a struggle; in order to have any chance hemust have recourse to the prince whose partisans he had just overthrownand chastised. [Illustration: Charles de Lorraine, Duke of Mayenne----35] On the 11th of November, 1591, Henry IV. Had laid siege to Rouen with astrong force, and was pushing the operations on vigorously. In order toobtain the troops and money without which he could not relieve thisimportant place, the leader of the French League treated humbly with thepatron of the Spanish League. "In the conferences held at La Fere and atLihom-Saintot, between the 10th and the 18th of January, 1592, " says M. Poirson, "the Duke of Parma, acting for the King of Spain, and Mayennedrew up conventions which only awaited. The ratification of Philip II. To be converted into a treaty. Mayenne was to receive four millions ofcrowns a year and a Spanish army, which together would enable him tooppose Henry IV. He had, besides, a promise of a large establishment forhimself, his relatives, and the chiefs of his party. In exchange, hepromised, in his own name and that of the princes of his house and thegreat lords of the League, that Philip II. 's daughter, the InfantaIsabella (Clara Eugenia), should be recognized as sovereign andproprietress of the throne of France, and that the states-general, convoked for that purpose, should proclaim her right and confer upon herthe throne. It is true, " adds M. Poirson, "that Mayenne stipulated thatthe Infanta should take a husband, within the year, at the suggestion ofthe councillors and great officers of the crown, that the kingdom shouldbe preserved in its entirety, and that its laws and customs should bemaintained. . . . It even appears certain that Mayenne purposed notto keep any of these promises, and to emend his infamy by a breach offaith. . . . But a conviction generally prevailed that he recognizedthe rights of the Infanta, and that he would labor to place her on thethrone. The lords of his own party believed it; the legate reported iteverywhere; the royal party regarded it as certain. During the wholecourse of the year 1592, this opinion gave the most disastrous assistanceto the intrigues and ascendency of Philip II. , and added immeasurably tothe public dangers. " [Poirson, _Histoire du Regne d'Henri IV. , _ t. I. Pp. 304-306. ] Whilst these two Leagues, one Spanish and the other French, wereconspiring thus persistently, sometimes together and sometimes oneagainst the other, to promote personal ambition and interests, at thesame time national instinct, respect for traditional rights, weariness ofcivil war, and the good sense which is born of long experience, werebringing France more and more over to the cause and name of Henry IV. In all the provinces, throughout all ranks of society, the populationnon-enrolled amongst the factions were turning their eyes towards him asthe only means of putting an end to war at home and abroad, the onlypledge of national unity, public prosperity, and even freedom of trade, ahazy idea as yet, but even now prevalent in the great ports of France andin Paris. Would Henry turn Catholic? That was the question askedeverywhere, amongst Protestants with anxiety, but with keen desire, andnot without hope, amongst the mass of the population. The rumor ranthat, on this point, negotiations were half opened even in the midst ofthe League itself, even at the court of Spain, even at Rome, where PopeClement VIII. , a more moderate man than his predecessor, Gregory XIV. , "had no desire, " says Sully, "to foment the troubles of France, and stillless that the King of Spain should possibly become its undisputed king, rightly judging that this would be laying open to him the road to themonarchy of Christendom, and, consequently, reducing the Roman pontiffsto the position, if it were his good pleasure, of his mere chaplains. "[_OEconomies royales, _ t. Ii. P. 106. ] Such being the existing state offacts and minds, it was impossible that Henry IV. Should not ask himselfroundly the same question, and feel that he had no time to lose inanswering it. At the beginning of February, 1593, he sent for Rosny, one evening verylate. "And so, " says Rosny, "I found his Majesty in bed, having alreadywished every one a good night; who, as soon as he saw me come in, ordereda hassock to be brought and me to kneel thereon against his bed, and saidto me, 'My friend, I have sent for you so late for to speak with youabout the things that are going on, and to hear your opinions thereon; Iconfess that I have often found them better than those of many others whomake great show of being clever. If you continue to leave me the care ofthat which concerns you, and yourself to take continual care of myaffairs, we shall both of us find it to our welfare. I do not wish tohide any longer that for a long time past I have had my eye upon you inorder to employ you personally in my most important affairs, especiallyin those of my finances, for I hold you to be honest and painstaking. For the present, I wish to speak with you about that large number ofpersons of all parties, all ranks, and different tempers, who would bedelighted to exert themselves for the pacification of the kingdom, especially if I can resolve to make some arrangement as regards religion. I am quite resolved not to hear of any negotiation or treaty, save onthese two conditions, that some result may be looked for tending bothto the advantage of the people of my kingdom and to the realre-establishment of the kingly authority. I know that it is your custom, whenever I put anything before you, to ask me for time to think wellthereon before you are disposed to tell me your opinion; in three or fourdays I shall send for you to tell me what has occurred to you touchingall these fine hopes that many would have me anticipate from theirinterventions; all of them persons very diverse in temper, purposes, interests, functions, and religion. " "Whereupon, " says Rosny, "the king having dismissed me with a goodevening, he did not fail to send for me again three days afterwards, inorder that I should go and see him again in bed, near the which havingmade me kneel as before, he said, 'Come, now, tell me this moment, andquite at leisurely length, all your foolish fancies, for so you havealways called the best counsels you have ever given me, touching thequestions I put to you the other evening. I am ready to listen to youright on to the end, without interrupting you. '" "Sir, " said Rosny, "I have reflected not only on what your Majesty waspleased to tell me three days ago, but also on what I have been able tolearn, as to the same affairs, from divers persons of all qualities andreligions, and even women who have talked to me in order to make me talk, and to see if I knew any particulars of your private intentions. . . . As it seems to me, sir, all these goings, comings, writings, letters, journeys, interventions, parleys, and conferences cannot be bettercompared than to that swarming of attorneys at the courts, who take athousand turns and walks about the great hall, under pretence of settlingcases, and all the while it is they who give them birth, and would bevery sorry for a single one to die off. In the next place, not a singleone of them troubles himself about right or wrong, provided that thecrowns are forthcoming, and that, by dint of lustily shouting, they arereputed eloquent, learned, and well stocked with inventions andsubtleties. Consequently, sir, without troubling yourself further withthese treaty-mongers and negotiators, who do nothing but lure you, boreyou, perplex your mind, and fill with doubts and scruples the minds ofyour subjects, I opine, in a few words, that you must still for some timeexercise great address, patience, and prudence, in order that there maybe engendered amongst all this mass of confusion, anarchy, and chimera, that they call the holy catholic union, so many and such oppositedesires, jealousies, pretensions, hatreds, longings, and designs, that, at last, all the French there are amongst them must come and throwthemselves into your arms, bit by bit, recognize your kingship alone aspossible, and look to nothing but it for protection, prop, or stay. Nevertheless, sir, that your Majesty may not regard me as a spirit ofcontradiction for having found nothing good in all these proposals madeto you by these great negotiators, I will add to my suggestions just onething; if a bit of Catholicism were quite agreeable to you, if it wereproperly embraced and accepted accordingly, in honorable and suitableform, it would be of great service, might serve as cement between you andall your Catholic subjects; and it would even facilitate your other greatand magnificent designs whereof you have sometimes spoken to me. Touching this, I would say more to you about it if I were of suchprofession as permitted me to do so with a good conscience; I contentmyself, as it is, with leaving yours to do its work within you on soticklish and so delicate a subject. " "I quite understand your opinions, " said the king; "they resolvethemselves almost into one single point: I must not allow theestablishment of any association or show of government having the leastappearance of being able to subsist, by itself or by its members, in anypart of my kingdom, or suffer dismemberment in respect of any one of theroyal prerogatives, as regards things spiritual as well as temporal. Such is my full determination. " "I answered the king, " continues Rosny, "that I was rejoiced to see himtaking so intelligent a view of his affairs, and that, for the present, Ihad no advice to give him but to seek repose of body and mind, and topermit me likewise to seek the same for myself, for I was dead sleepy, not having slept for two nights; and so, without a word more, the kinggave me good night, and, as for me, I went back to my quarters. " A few days before this conversation between the king and his friendRosny, on the 26th of January, 1593, the states-general of the Leaguehad met in the great hall of the Louvre, present the Duke of Mayenne, surrounded by all the pomp of royalty, but so nervous that his speech inopening the session was hardly audible, and that he frequently changedcolor during its delivery. On leaving, his wife told him that she wasafraid he was not well, as she had seen him turn pale three or fourtimes. A hundred and twenty-eight deputies had been elected; only fiftywere present at this first meeting. They adjourned to the 4th ofFebruary. In the interval, on the 28th of January, there had arrived, also, a royalist trumpeter, bringing, "on behalf of the princes, prelates, officers of the crown, and principal lords of the Catholicfaith, who were with the King of Navarre, an offer of a conferencebetween the two parties, for to lay down the basis of a peace eagerlydesired. " On hearing this message, Cardinal Pelleve, Archbishop of Sens, one of the most fiery prelates of the League, said, "that he was ofopinion that the trumpeter should be whipped, to teach him not toundertake such silly errands for the future;" "an opinion, " saidsomebody, "quite worthy of a thick head like his, wherein there is butlittle sense. " The states-general of the League were of a different opinion. After longand lively discussion, the three orders decided, each separately, on the25th of February, to consent to the conference demanded by the friends ofthe King of Navarre. On the 4th of February, when they resumed session, Cardinal Philip de Sega, Bishop of Placencia (in Spain) and legate ofPope Clement VIII. , had requested to be present at the deliberation ofthe assembly, but his request was refused; the states confined themselvesto receiving his benediction and hearing him deliver an address. The different fate of these two proposals was a clear indication of thefeelings of the assembly; they were very diverse in the three orderswhich constituted it; almost all the clergy, prelates, and popularpreachers were devoted to the Spanish League; the noblesse were not atall numerous at these states. "The most brilliant and most activemembers of it, " says M. Picot correctly, "had ranged themselves behindHenry IV. ; and it covered itself with eternal honor by having been thefirst to discern where to look for the hopes and the salvation ofFrance. " The third estate was very much divided; it contained thefanatical Leaguers, at the service of Philip II. And the court of Rome, the partisans, much more numerous, of the French League, who desiredpeace, and were ready to accept Henry IV. , provided that he turnedCatholic, and a small band of political spirits, more powerful in talentthan number. Regularly as the deputies arrived, Mayenne went to each of them, sayingprivately, "Gentlemen, you see what the question is; it is the verychiefest of all matters (_res maxima rerum agitur_). I beg you to giveyour best attention to it, and to so act that the adversaries steal nomarch on us and get no advantage over us. Nevertheless, I mean to abideby what I have promised them. " Mayenne was quite right: it was certainlythe chiefest of all matters. The head of the Protestants of France, theally of all the Protestants in Europe--should he become a Catholic andKing of France? The temporal head of Catholic Europe, the King of Spain--should he abolish the Salic law in France, by placing upon it hisdaughter as queen, and dismember France to his own profit and that of theleaders of the League, his hirelings rather than his allies? Or, peradventure, should one of these Leaguer-chiefs be he who should takethe crown of France, and found a new dynasty there? And which of theseLeaguer-chiefs should attain this good fortune? A half-German or a trueFrenchman? A Lorraine prince or a Bourbon? And, if a Lorraine prince, which? The Duke of Mayenne, military head of the League, or his uterinebrother, the Duke of Nemours, or his nephew the young Duke of Guise, sonof the Balafrc? All these questions were mooted, all these pretensionswere on the cards, all these combinations had their special intrigue. And in the competition upon which they entered with one another, at thesame time that they were incessantly laying traps for one another, theykept up towards one another, because of the uncertainty of their chances, a deceptive course of conduct often amounting to acts of downrighttreachery committed without scruple, in order to preserve for themselvesa place and share in the unknown future towards which they were moving. It was in order to have his opinion upon a position so dark andcomplicated, and upon the behavior it required, that Henry IV. , then atMantes, sent once more for Rosny, and had a second conversation, a fewweeks later, with him. "Well! my friend, " said the king, "what say you about all these plotsthat are being projected against my conscience, my life, and my kingdom?Since the death of the Duke of Parma [on the 2d of December, 1592, in theAbbey of St. Waast at Arras, from the consequences of a wound received inthe preceding April at the siege of Caudebec], it seems that deeds ofarms have given place to intrigues and contests of words. I fancy thatsuch gentry will never leave me at rest, and will at last, perhaps, attempt my liberty and my life. I beg you to tell me your opinionfreely, and what remedies, short of cruelty and violence, I might nowemploy to get rid of all these hinderances and cabals (monopoles) thatare going on against the rights which have come to me by the will of God, by birth, and by the laws of the realm. " "Sir, " said Rosny, "I do not fancy that deferments and temporizations, any more than long speeches, would now be seasonable; there are, it seemsto me, but two roads to take to deliver yourself from peril, but not fromanxiety, for from anxiety kings and princes, the greater they are, canthe less secure themselves if they wish to reign successfully. One ofthe two roads is to accommodate yourself to the desires and wishes ofthose of whom you feel distrust; the other, to secure the persons ofthose who are the most powerful, and of the highest rank, and mostsuspected by you, and put them in such place as will prevent them fromdoing you hurt; you know them pretty nearly all; there are some of themvery rich; you will be able for a long while to carry, on war. As foradvising you to go to mass, it is a thing that you ought not, it seems tome, to expect from me, who am of the religion; but frankly will I tellyou that it is the readiest and the easiest means of confounding allthese cabals (_monopoles_), and causing all the most mischievous projectsto end in smoke. " The King: "But tell me freely, I beg of you, what you would do if youwere in my place. " Rosny: I can assure you honestly, sir, that I have never thought aboutwhat I should feel bound to do for to be king, it having always seemed tome that I had not a head able or intended to wear a crown. As to yourMajesty it is another affair; in you, sir, that desire is not onlylaudable, but necessary, as it does not appear now this realm can berestored to its greatness, opulence, and splendor but by the sole meansof your eminent worth and downright kingly courage. But whatever rightyou have to the kingdom, and whatever need it has of your courage andworth for its restoration, you will never arrive at complete possessionand peaceable enjoyment of this dominion but by two sole expedients andmeans. In case of the first, which is force and arms, you will have toemploy strong measures, severity, rigor, and violence, processes whichare all utterly opposed to your temper and inclination: you will have topass through an infinity of difficulties, fatigues, pains, annoyances, perils, and labors, with a horse perpetually between your legs, harness[_halecret, _ a species of light cuirass] on back, helmet on head, pistolin fist, and sword in hand. And, what is more, you will have to bidadieu to repose, pleasure, pastime, love, mistress, play, hunting, hawking, and building; for you will not get out of such matters but bymultiplicity of town-takings, quantity of fights, signal victories, andgreat bloodshed. By the other road, which is to accommodate yourself, as regards religion, to the wish of the greatest number of your subjects, you will not encounter so many annoyances, pains, and difficulties inthis world, but as to the next, I don't answer for you; it is for yourMajesty to take a fixed resolution for yourself, without adopting it fromany one else, and less from me than from any other, as you well know thatI am of the religion, and that you keep me by you not as a theologian andcouncillor of church, but as a man of action and councillor of state, seeing that you have given me that title, and for a long space employedme as such. " The king burst out laughing, and, sitting up in his bed, said, afterscratching his head several times, to Rosny, -- "All you say to me is true; but I see so many thorns on every side thatit will go very hard but some of them will prick me full sore. You knowwell enough that my cousins, the princes of the blood, and ever so manyother lords, such as D'Epernon, Longueville, Biron, d'O, and Vitry, areurging me to turn Catholic, or else they will join the League. On theother hand, I know for certain that Messieurs de Turenne, de laTremoille, and their lot, are laboring daily to have a demand made, if Iturn Catholic, on behalf of them of the religion, for an assembly toappoint them a protector and an establishment of councils in theprovinces; all things that I could not put up with. But if I had todeclare war against them to prevent it, it would be the greatestannoyance and trouble that could ever happen to me: my heart could notbear to do ill to those who have so long run my risks, and have employedtheir goods and their lives in my defence. " At these last words, Rosny threw himself upon his knees, with his eyesfull of tears, and, kissing the king's hands, he said, "Sir, I amrejoiced beyond measure to see you so well disposed towards them of thereligion. I have always been afraid that, if you came to change yourreligion, as I see full well that you will have to do, you might bepersuaded to hate and maltreat those of us others, of the towns as wellas of the noblesse, who will always love you heartily and serve youfaithfully. And be assured that the number thereof will be so greatthat, if there rise up amongst them any avaricious, ambitious, andfactious, who would fain do the contrary, these will be constrained bythe others to return to their duty. What would, in my opinion, be verynecessary, would be to prevail upon the zealous Catholics to change thatbelief which they are so anxious to have embraced by all the rest, towit, that they of the religion are all damned. There are certainly, also, some ministers and other obtrusive spirits amongst the Huguenotswho would fain persuade us of the same as regards Catholics; for my ownpart, I believe nothing of the kind; I hold it, on the contrary, asindisputable that, of whatever religion men make outward profession, if they die keeping the Decalogue and believing in the Creed (Apostles'), if they love God with all their heart and are charitable towards theirneighbor, if they put their hopes in God's mercy and in obtainingsalvation by the death, merits, and justice of Jesus Christ, they cannotfail to be saved, because they are then no longer of any erroneousreligion, but of that which is most agreeable to God. If you werepleased to embrace it and put it in practice all the days of your life, not only should I have no doubt of your salvation, but I should remainquite assured that, not regarding us as execrable and damned, you wouldnever proceed to the destruction or persecution of those of our religionwho shall love you truly and serve you faithfully. From all suchreflections and discourse I conclude that it will be impossible for youever to reign in peace so long as you make outward profession of areligion which is held in such great aversion by the majority of bothgreat and small in your kingdom, and that you cannot hope to raise it tosuch general splendor, wealth, and happiness as I have observed you oftenprojecting. Still less could you flatter yourself with the idea of everarriving at the accomplishment of your lofty and magnifi cent designs forthe establishment of a universal most Christian republic, composed of allthe kings and potentates of Europe who profess the name of Christ; for, in order to bring about so great a blessing, you must needs have tranquilpossession of a great, rich, opulent, and populous kingdom, and be in acondition to enter into great and trustworthy foreign associations. "[_OEconomies royales, or Memoires de Sully, _ t. Ii. Pp. 81-100. ] One isinclined to believe that, even before their conversations, Henry IV. Wasvery near being of Rosny's opinion; but it is a long stride from anopinion to a resolution. In spite of the breadth and independence of hismind, Henry IV. Was sincerely puzzled. He was of those who, far fromclinging to a single fact and confining themselves to a single duty, takeaccount of the complication of the facts amidst which they live, and ofthe variety of the duties which the general situation or their ownimposes upon them. Born in the Reformed faith, and on the steps of thethrone, he was struggling to defend his political rights whilst keepinghis religious creed; but his religious creed was not the fruit of verymature or very deep conviction; it was a question of first claims and ofhonor rather than a matter of conscience; and, on the other hand, thepeace of France, her prosperity, perhaps her territorial integrity, weredependent upon the triumph of the political rights of the Bearnese. Evenfor his brethren in creed his triumph was a benefit secured, for it wasan end of persecution and a first step towards liberty. There is nomeasuring accurately how far ambition, personal interest, a king'segotism, had to do with Henry's IV. 's abjuration of his religion; nonewould deny that those human infirmities were present; but all this doesnot prevent the conviction that patriotism was uppermost in Henry's soul, and that the idea of his duty as king towards France, a prey to all theevils of civil and foreign war, was the determining motive of hisresolution. It cost him a great deal. To the Huguenot gentry andpeasantry who had fought with him he said, "You desire peace; I give ityou at my own expense; I have made myself anathema for the sake of all, like Moses and St. Paul. " He received with affectionate sadness theReformed ministers and preachers who came to see him. "Kindly pray toGod for me, " said he to them, "and love me always; as for me, I shallalways love you, and I will never suffer wrong to be done to you, or anyviolence to your religion. " He had already, at this time, the Edict ofNantes in his mind, and he let a glimpse of it appear to Rosny at theirfirst conversation. When he discussed with the Catholic prelates theconditions of his abjuration, he had those withdrawn which would havebeen too great a shock to his personal feelings and shackled his con ducttod much in the government, as would have been the case with the promiseto labor for the destruction of heresy. Even as regarded the Catholicfaith, he demand of the doctors who were preparing him for it somelatitude for his own thoughts, and "that he should not have such violencedone to his conscience as to be bound to strange oaths, and to sign andbelieve rubbish which he was quite sure that the majority of them did notbelieve. " [_Memoires de L'Estoile, _ t. Ii. P. 472. ] The most passionateProtestants of his own time reproached him, and some still reproach him, with having deserted his creed and having repaid with ingratitude hismost devoted comrades in arms and brothers in Christ. Perhaps there issome ingratitude also in forgetting that after four years of strugglingto obtain the mastery for his religious creed and his political rightssimultaneously, Henry IV. , convinced that he could not succeed in that, put a stop to religious wars, and founded, to last for eighty-sevenyears, the free and lawful practice of the Reformed worship in France, by virtue of the Edict of Nantes, which will be spoken of presently. Whilst this great question was thus discussed and decided between HenryIV. In person and his principal advisers, the states-general of theLeague and the conference of Suresnes were vainly bestirring themselvesin the attempt to still keep the mastery of events which were slippingaway from them. The Leaguer states had an appearance of continuing towish for the absolute proscription of Henry IV. , a heretic king, even onconversion to Catholicism, so long as his conversion was not recognizedand accepted by the pope; but there was already great, though timidlyexpressed, dissent as to this point in the assembly of the states andamongst the population in the midst of which it was living. Nearly ayear previously, in May, 1592, when he retired from France after havingrelieved Rouen from siege and taken Caudebec, the Duke of Parma, asclear-sighted a politician as he was able soldier, had said to one of themost determined Leaguers, "Your people have abated their fury; the resthold on but faintly, and in a short time they will have nothing to dowith us. " Philip II. And Mayenne perceived before long the urgency andthe peril of this situation: they exerted themselves, at one time inconcert and at another independently, to make head against this change inthe current of thoughts and facts. Philip sent to Paris an ambassadorextraordinary, the Duke of Feria, to treat with the states of the Leagueand come to an understanding with Mayenne; but Mayenne considered thatthe Duke of Feria did not bring enough money, and did not introduceenough soldiers; the Spanish army in France numbered but four thousandthree hundred men, and Philip had put at his ambassador's disposal buttwo hundred thousand crowns, or six hundred thousand livres of thosetimes; yet had he ordered that, in respect of the assembly, the payshould not come until after the service was rendered, i. E. After a votewas given in favor of his election or that of his daughter the InfantaIsabella to the throne. It was not the states-general only who had to bewon over; the preachers of the League were also, at any rate the majorityof them, covetous as well as fiery; both the former and the latter soonsaw that the Duke of Feria had not wherewith to satisfy them. "And suchas had come, " says Villeroi, "with a disposition to favor the Spaniardsand serve them for a consideration, despised them and spoke ill of them, seeing that there was nothing to be gained from them. " The artifices ofMayenne were scarcely more successful than the stingy presents ofPhilip II. ; when the Lorrainer duke saw the chances of Spain in theascendant as regarded the election of a King of France and the marriageof the Infanta Isabella, he at once set to work--and succeeded withoutmuch difficulty--to make them a failure; at bottom, it was always for thehouse of Lorraine, whether for the marriage of his nephew the Duke ofGuise with the Infanta Isabella or for the prolongation of his power, that Mayenne labored; he sometimes managed to excite, for the promotionof this cause, a favorable movement amongst the states-general or a blastof wrath on the part of the preachers against Henry IV. ; but it wasnothing but a transitory and fruitless effort; the wind no longer sat inthe sails of the League; on the 27th of May, 1593, a deputation of ahundred and twenty burgesses, with the provost of tradesmen at theirhead, repaired to the house of Count de Belin, governor of Paris, begginghim to introduce them into the presence of the Duke of Mayenne, to whomthey wished to make a demand for peace, and saying that their requestwould, at need, be signed by ten thousand burgesses. Next day, twocolonels of the burgess-militia spoke of making barricades; four daysafterwards, some of the most famous and but lately most popular preachersof the League were hooted and insulted by the people, who shouted at themas they passed in the streets that drowning was the due of all thosedeputies in the states who prevented peace from being made. Theconference assembled at Suresnes, of which mention has already beenmade, had been formed with pacific intentions, or, at any rate, hopes;accordingly it was more tranquil than the states-general, but it was nota whit more efficacious. It was composed of thirteen delegates for theLeague and eight for the king, men of consideration in the two parties. At the opening of its sessions, the first time the delegates of theLeague repaired thither, a great crowd shouted at them, "Peace! Peace!Blessed be they who procure it and demand it! Malediction and everydevil take all else!" In the villages they passed through, the peasantrythrew themselves upon their knees, and, with clasped hands, demanded ofthem peace. The conference was in session from the 4th of May to the11th of June, holding many discussions, always temperately and with dueregard for propriety, but without arriving at any precise solution of thequestions proposed. Clearly neither to this conference nor to thestates-general of the League was it given to put an end to this stormyand at the same time resultless state of things; Henry IV. Alone couldtake the resolution and determine the issue which everybody was awaitingwith wistfulness or with dread, but without being able to accomplish it. D'Aubigne ends his account of the conference at Suresnes with thesewords: "Those who were present at it reported to the king that there wereamongst the Leaguers so many heart-burnings and so much confusion thatthey were all seeking, individually if not collectively, some pretext forsurrendering to the king, and consequently, that one mass would settle itentirely. " [_Histoire Universelle, _ bk. Iii. Chap. Xx. P. 386. ] Powers that are conscious of their opportuneness and utility do not liketo lose time, but are prompt to act. Shortly after his conversationswith Rosny, whose opinion was confirmed by that of Chancellor de Chivernyand Count Gaspard de Schomberg, Henry IV. Set to work. On the 26th ofApril, 1593, he wrote to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand de' Medici, that he had decided to turn Catholic "two months after that the Duke ofMayenne should have come to an agreement with him on just and suitableterms;" and, foreseeing the expense that would be occasioned to him by"this great change in his affairs, " he felicitated himself upon knowingthat the grand duke was disposed to second his efforts towards a levy offour thousand Swiss, and advance a year's pay for them. On the 28th ofApril, he begged the Bishop of Chartres, Nicholas de Thou, to be one ofthe Catholic prelates whose instructions he would be happy to receive onthe 15th of July, and he sent the same invitation to several otherprelates. On the 16th of May, he declared to his council his resolve tobecome a convert. Next day, the 17th, the Archbishop of Bourgesannounced it to the conference at Suresnes. This news, everywhere spreadabroad, produced a lively burst of national and Bourbonic feeling evenwhere it was scarcely to be expected; at the states-general of theLeague, especially in the chamber of the noblesse, many members protested"that they would not treat with foreigners, or promote the election of awoman, or give their suffrages to any one unknown to them, and at thechoice of his Catholic Majesty of Spain. " At Paris, a part of theclergy, the incumbents of St. Eustache, St. Merri, and St. Sulpice, andeven some of the popular preachers, violent Leaguers but lately, andnotably Guincestre, boldly preached peace and submission to the king ifhe turned Catholic. The principal of the French League, in matters ofpolicy and negotiation, and Mayenne's adviser since 1589, Villeroi, declared "that he would not bide in a place where the laws, the honor ofthe nation, and the independence of the kingdom were held so cheap;" andhe left Paris on the 28th of June. Finally, on this same day, theParliament of Paris, all chambers assembled, issued a decree known by thename of the decree of President Lemaitre, who had the chief hand in it, and conceived as follows:-- "The court, having, as it has always had, no intention but to maintainthe Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion, and the state and crown ofFrance, under the protection of a most Christian, Catholic, and Frenchking, hath ordained and doth ordain that representations shall be made, this afternoon, by President Lemaitre, assisted by a proper number ofcouncillors of the said court, to the Duke of Mayenne, lieutenant-generalof the state and crown of France, to the end that no treaty be made forthe transfer of the crown to the hands of foreign princes or princesses, and that the fundamental laws of the realm be observed. . . . Andfrom the present moment, the said court hath declared and doth declareall treaties made or hereafter to be made for the setting up of foreignprince or princess null and of no effect or value, as being made to theprejudice of the Salic law and other fundamental laws of this realm. " It was understood that this decree excluded from the crown of France notonly Philip II. , the Infanta Isabella, Archduke Ernest, and all theSpanish and Austrian princes, but also all the princes of the house ofGuise, "because the qualification of foreigners applied to all theprinces who were not of the blood royal and who were issue of foreignhouses, even though they might have been born in France and wereregnicoles. " Mayenne refused, it is not known on what pretext, to receive thecommunication of this decree on the same day on which it was voted by theParliament. When President Lemaitre presented it to him the next daybefore a large attendance, Mayenne kept his temper, and confined himselfto replying gruffly, "My first care has always been to defend theCatholic religion and maintain the laws of the realm. It seems now thatI am no longer necessary to the state, and that it will be easy to dowithout me. I could have wished, considering my position, that theParliament had not decided anything in a matter of such importancewithout consulting me. However, I will do all that I find possible forme and that appears reasonable as to the two points of yourrepresentations. " On the following day, 30th of June, Mayenne was diningwith the Archbishop of Lyons, Peter d'Espinac; President Lemaitre wassent for, and the wrath of the lieutenant-general burst forth. "Theinsult put upon me is too palpable for me to be quiet under it; since Iam played fast and loose with in that way, I have resolved to quash thedecree of the Parliament. The Archbishop of Lyons is about to explain toyou my feelings and my motives. " [Illustration: Lemaitre, Mayenne, and the Archbishop of Lyons----53] The archbishop spoke long and bitterly, dwelling upon the expression that"the Parliament had played fast and loose " with the prince. PresidentLemaitre interrupted him. "I cannot unmoved hear you repeating, sir, that to which my respect made me shut my eyes when the prince spoke. Looking upon me as an individual, you might speak to me in any way, youthought proper; but so soon as the body I represent here is injured byinsulting terms, I take offence, and I cannot suffer it. Know then, sir, that the Parliament does not deceive or play fast and loose with anybody, and that it renders to every man his due. " The conversation wascontinued for some moments in this warm and serious tone; but the quarrelwent no further; from the account they received of it, the Parliamentapplauded the premier president's firmness, and all the members sworethat they would suffer anything rather than that there should be anychange in the decree. It remained intact, and Mayenne said no more aboutit. During these disputes amongst the civil functionaries, and continuing allthe while to make proposals for a general truce, Henry IV. Vigorouslyresumed warlike operations, so as to bring pressure upon his adversariesand make them perceive the necessity of accepting the solution he offeredthem. He besieged and took the town of Dreux, of which the castle alonepersisted in holding out. He cut off the provisions which were beingbrought by the Marne to Paris. He kept Poitiers strictly invested. Lesdiguieres defeated the Savoyards and the Spaniards in the valleys ofDauphiny and Piedmont. Count Mansfeld was advancing with a divisiontowards Picardy; but at the news that the king was marching to encounterhim, he retired with precipitation. From the military as well as thepolitical point of view, there is no condition worse than that ofstubbornness mingled with discouragement. And that was the state ofMayenne and the League. Henry IV. Perceived it, and confidently hurriedforward his political and military measures. The castle of Dreux wasobliged to capitulate. Thanks to the four thousand Swiss paid for him bythe Grand Duke of Florence, to the numerous volunteers brought to him bythe noblesse of his party, "and to the sterling quality of the oldHuguenot phalanx, folks who, from father to son, are familiarized withdeath, " says D'Aubigne, Henry IV. Had recovered, in June, 1593, so goodan army that "by means of it, " he wrote to Ferdinand de' Medici, "I shallbe able to reduce the city of Paris in so short a time as will cause yougreat contentment. " But he was too judicious and too good a patriot notto see that it was not by an indefinitely prolonged war that he would beenabled to enter upon definitive possession of his crown, and that it waspeace, religious peace, that he must restore to France in order to reallybecome her king. He entered resolutely, on the 15th of July, 1593, uponthe employment of the moral means which alone could enable him to attainthis end; he assembled at Mantes the conference of prelates and doctors, Catholic and Protestant, which he had announced as the preface to hisconversion. He had previously, on the 13th of May, given assurance tothe Protestants as to their interests by means of a declaration on thepart of eight amongst the principal Catholic lords attached to his personwho undertook, "with his Majesty's authorization, that nothing should bedone in the said assemblies to the prejudice of friendly union betweenthe Catholics who recognized his Majesty and them of the religion, orcontrary to the edicts of pacification. " On the 21st of July, theprelates and doctors of the conference transferred themselves from Mantesto St. Denis. On Friday, July 23, in the morning, Henry wrote to Gabrielle d'Estrees, "Sunday will be the day when I shall make the summersetthat brings down the house" (_le, saut perilleux_). A few hours afterusing such flippant language to his favorite, he was having a longconference with the prelates and doctors, putting to them the gravestquestions about the religion he was just embracing, asking them for moresatisfactory explanations on certain points, and repeating to them thegrounds of his resolution. "I am moved with compassion at the misery andcalamities of my people; I have discovered what they desire; and I wishto be enabled, with a safe conscience, to content them. " At the end ofthe conference, "Gentlemen, " he said, "I this day commit my soul to yourkeeping; I pray you, take heed to it, for, wheresoever you are causing meto enter, I shall never more depart till death; that I swear and protestto you;" and, in a voice of deep emotion, his eyes dim with tears, "Idesire no further delay; I wish to be received on Sunday and go to mass;draw up the profession of faith you think I ought to make, and bring itto me this evening; "when the Archbishop of Bourges and the Bishops of LeMans and Evreux brought it to him on the Saturday morning, he discussedit apart with them, demanding the cutting out of some parts which strucktoo directly at his previous creed and life; and Chancellor de Chivernyand two presidents of the Parliament, Harlay and Groulart, used theirintervention to have him satisfied. The profession of faith wasmodified. Next day, Sunday, the 25th of July, before he got up, Henryconversed with the Protestant minister Anthony de la Faye, and embracedhim two or three times, repeating to him the words already quoted, "I have made myself anathema for the sake of all, like Moses and St. Paul. " A painful mixture of the frivolous and the serious, of sincerityand captious reservations, of resolution and weakness, at which nobodyhas any right to be shocked who is not determined to be pitiless towardshuman nature, and to make no allowance in the case of the best men forcomplication of the facts, ideas, sentiments, and duties, under theinfluence of which they are often obliged to decide and to act. [Illustration: Henry IV. 's Abjuration----56] On Sunday the 25th of July, 1593, Henry IV. Repaired in great state tothe church of St. Denis. On arriving with all his train in front of thegrand entrance, he was received by Reginald de Beaune, Archbishop ofBourges, the nine bishops, the doctors and the incumbents who had takenpart in the conferences, and all the brethren of the abbey. "Who areyou?" asked the archbishop who officiated. "The king. " "What want you?""To be received into the bosom of the Catholic, Apostolic, and RomanChurch. " "Do you desire it?" "Yes, I will and desire it. " At thesewords the king knelt and made the stipulated profession of faith. Thearchbishop gave him absolution together with benediction; and, conductedby all the clergy to the choir of the church, he there, upon the gospels, repeated his oath, made his confession, heard mass, and was fullyreconciled with the church. The inhabitants of Paris, dispensing withthe passports which were refused them by Mayenne, had flocked in massesto St. Denis and been present at the ceremony. The vaulted roof of thechurch resounded with their shouts of Hurrah for the king! There was thesame welcome on the part of the dwellers in the country when Henryrepaired to the valley of Montmorency and to Montmartre to perform hisdevotions there. Here, then, was religious peace, a prelude to politicalreconciliation between the monarch and the great majority of hissubjects. CHAPTER XXXVI. ----HENRY IV. , CATHOLIC KING. (1593-1610. ) During the months, weeks, nay, it might be said, days immediatelymediately following Henry IV. 's abjuration, a great number of notablepersons and important towns, and almost whole provinces, submitted to theCatholic king. Henry was reaping the fruits of his decision; France wasflocking to him. But the general sentiments of a people are far fromsatisfying and subduing the selfish passions of the parties which havetaken form and root in its midst. Religious and political peaceresponded to and sufficed for the desires of the great majority ofFrenchmen, Catholic and Protestant; but it did not at all content thefanatics, Leaguer or Huguenot. The former wanted the completeextirpation of heretics; the latter the complete downfall of Catholicism. Neither these nor those were yet educated up to the higher principle ofreligious peace, distinction between the civil and the intellectualorder, freedom of thought and of faith guaranteed by political liberty. Even at the present day, the community of France, nation and government, all the while that they proclaim this great and salutary truth, do notaltogether understand and admit its full bearing. The sixteenth centurywas completely ignorant of it; Leaguers and Huguenots were equallyconvinced that they possessed, in the matter of religion, the truth, thewhole truth, and nothing but the truth, and that they were in their rightto propagate its empire at any price. Thence arose, in respect ofreligious peace, and of Henry IV. , who naturally desired it as therequirement and the wish of France, a great governmental difficulty. It is honorable to human nature that it never submits freely andsincerely to anything but what it considers not only useful, butessentially true and just; its passions bow to principles only; whereverthe higher principle is wanting, there also is wanting the force thatcompels respect from passion. Now the fanatics, Leaguer and Huguenot, had a fixed principle; with the former, it was the religious sovereigntyof the pope, as representative and depositary of the unity of theChristian church; with the others, it was the negation of thissovereignty and the revindication of the free regimen of the primitiveChristian church. To these fixed and peremptory principles thegovernment of Henry IV. Had nothing similar to oppose; it spoke in thename of social interests, of the public peace, and of mutual toleration;all excellent reasons, but with merits consisting in their practicalsoundness, not in their logical connection with the superior principle towhich the sixteenth century had not yet attained. It was all very wellfor Henry IV. To maintain the cause and to have the support of the greatmajority in France; but outside of this majority he was incessantlyencountering and incessantly having to put down or to humor two parties, or rather factions, full of discontent and as irreconcilable with him asamong themselves, for it was not peace and tolerance that they demandedof him, but victory and supremacy in the name of absolute right. This, then, was the scene; on one side a great majority of Catholics andProtestants favorable for different practical reasons to Henry IV. Turned Catholic king; on the other, two minorities, one of stubbornCatholics of the League, the other of Protestants anxious for their creedand their liberty; both discontented and distrustful. Such, after HenryIV. 's abjuration, was the striking feature in the condition of France andin the situation of her king. This triple fact was constantly present tothe mind of Henry IV. , and ruled his conduct during all his reign; allthe acts of his government are proof of that. His first embarrassments arose from the faction of Catholics to thebackbone. After his abjuration just as much as at his accession, theLeague continued to exist and to act against him. The legate, Gaetani, maintained that the bishops of France had no right, without the pope'sapproval, to give an excommunicated prince absolution; he opposed thethree months' truce concluded by Mayenne, and threatened to take hisdeparture for Rome. Mayenne, to appease him and detain him, renewed thealliance between the League and Spain, prevailed upon the princes andmarshals to renew also the oath of union, caused the states-general ofthe League to vote the adoption of the Council of Trent, and, onproroguing them, August 8, 1593, received from them a promise to returnat the expiration of the truce. For the members of that assembly it wasnot a burdensome engagement; independently of the compensation they hadfrom their provinces, which was ten livres (thirty-six francs, sixtycentimes) a day during each session, they received from the King of Spaina regular retainer, which raised it, for the five months from June toOctober, to seventy-two thousand one hundred and forty-four francs, whichthey divided between themselves. "It was presumed, " said Jehanl'Huillier, provost of tradesmen, to one of his colleagues who waspressing him to claim this payment from the ambassador of Spain, "thatthe money came from M. De Mayenne, not from foreigners; "but honestpeople, such as Du Vair and Thielement, did not content themselves withthis presumption, and sent to the Hotel-Dieu, for maintenance of thepoor, the share which was remitted to them. [Poirson, _Histoire du Regnede Henry IV. , _ t. I. P. 463. Picot, _Histoire des Etats generaux, _t. Iii. P. 249. ] The states-general of the League did not appear again; their prorogationwas their death. The year 1594, which came after them, was for Henry IV. A year of home conquests, some pacific and due to the spontaneousmovement of the inhabitants, others obtained after resistance andpurchased with gold. The town of Lyons set the example of the first. Arumor spread that the Spaniards were preparing an expedition against it;some burgesses met to consult, and sent a private message to Alphonsed'Ornano, who was conducting the war for the king in Dauphiny, pressinghim to move forward, on a day appointed, to the faubourg de laGuillotiere. A small force sent by Ornano arrived, accordingly, on the7th of February, about daybreak, at the foot of the bridge over theRhone, in the faubourg, and, after a stubborn resistance, dislodged theoutpost on duty there. At sound of the fighting, excitement broke out inthe town; and barricades were thrown up, amidst shouts of "Hurrah forFrench liberty!" without any mention of the king's name. The archbishop, Peter d'Espignac, a stanch Leaguer, tried to intimidate the burgesses, or at any rate to allay the excitement. As he made no impression, heretired into his palace. The people arrested the sheriffs and seized thearsenal. The king's name resounded everywhere. "The noise of thecheering was such, " says De Thou, "that there was no hearing the sound ofthe bells. Everybody assumed the white scarf with so much zeal that byevening there was not a scrap of white silk left at the tradesmen's. Tables were laid in the streets; the king's arms were put up on the gatesand in the public thoroughfares. " Ornano marched in over the barricades;royalist sheriffs were substituted for the Leaguer sheriffs, and hastenedto take the oath of allegiance to the king, who had nothing to do butthank the Lyonnese for having been the first to come over to him withoutconstraint or any exigency, and who confirmed by an edict all theirmunicipal liberties. At the very moment when the Lyonnese were thusspringing to the side of their king, there set out from Lyons the firstassassin who raised a hand against Henry IV. , Peter Parriere, a poorboatman of the Loire, whom an unhappy passion for a girl in the householdof Marguerite de Valois and the preachings of fanatics had urged on tothis hateful design. Assassin we have called him, although there was noton his part so much as an attempt at assassination; but he had, by hisown admission, projected and made preparations for the crime, to theextent of talking it over with accomplices and sharpening the knife hehad purchased for its accomplishment. Having been arrested at Melun andtaken to Paris, he was sentenced to capital punishment, and to all thetortures that ingenuity could add to it. He owned to everything, whilstcursing those who had assured him that "if he died in the enterprise, hissoul, uplifted by angels, would float away to the bosom of God, where hewould enjoy eternal bliss. " Moved by his torments and his repentance, the judge who presided at his execution took upon himself to shorten itby having him strangled. The judge was reported to the king for thisindulgence. Henry praised him for it, adding that he would have pardonedthe criminal if he had been brought before him. Thus commenced, at theopening of his reign, the series of attempts to which he was destined tosuccumb, after seventeen years of good, able, generous, and mildgovernment. In Normandy, at Rouen, the royalist success was neither so easy nor sodisinterested as it had been at Lyons. Andrew de Brancas, Lord ofVillars, an able man and valiant soldier, was its governor; he had servedthe League with zeal and determination; nevertheless, "from the month ofAugust, 1593, immediately after the king's conversion, he had shown adisposition to become his servant, and to incline thereto all those whomhe had in his power. " [_Histoire du Parlement de Normandi, _ by M. Floquet, t. Iii. Pp. 611-617. ] Henry IV. Commissioned Rosny to negotiatewith him; and Rosny went into Normandy, to Louviers first and then toRouen itself. The negotiation seemed to be progressing favorably, but adistrustful whim in regard to Villars, and the lofty pretensions he putforward, made Rosny hang back for a while, and tell the whole story tothe king, at the same time asking for his instructions. Henry replied, -- "My friend, you are an ass to employ so much delay and import so manydifficulties and manoeuvres into a business the conclusion of which is ofso great importance to me for the establishment of my authority and therelief of my people. Do you no longer remember the counsels you have somany times given to me, whilst setting before me as an example that givenby a certain Duke of Milan to King Louis XI. , at the time of the warcalled that of the Common Weal? It was to split up by considerations ofprivate interest all those who were leagued against him on generalpretexts. That is what I desire to attempt now, far preferring that itshould cost twice as much to treat separately with each individual as itwould to arrive at the same results by means of a general treatyconcluded with a single leader, who, in that way, would be enabled tokeep up still an organized party within my dominions. You know plenty offolks who wanted to persuade me to that. Wherefore, do not any longerwaste your time in doing either so much of the respectful towards thosewhom you wot of, and whom we will find other means of contenting, or ofthe economical by sticking at money. We will pay everything with thevery things given up to us, the which, if they had to be taken by force, would cost us ten times as much. Seeing, then, that I put entire trustin you and love you as a good servant, do not hesitate any longer to makeabsolute and bold use of your power, which I further authorize by thisletter, so far as there may be further need for it, and settle as soon aspossible with M. De Villars. But secure matters so well that there maybe no possibility of a slip, and send me news thereof promptly, for Ishall be in constant doubt and impatience until I receive it. And then, when I am peaceably king, we will employ the excellent manoeuvres ofwhich you have said so much to me; and you may rest assured that I willspare no travail and fear no peril in order to raise my glory and mykingdom to the height of splendor. Adieu, my friend. Senlis, this 18thday of March, 1594. " Amongst the pretensions made by Villars there was one which could not besatisfied without the consent of a man still more considerable than he, and one with whom Henry IV. Was obliged to settle--Biron. Villars hadreceived from Mayenne the title and office of admiral of France, and hewished, at any price, to retain them on passing over to the king'sservice. Now Henry IV. Had already given this office to Biron, who hadno idea of allowing himself to be stripped of it. It was all very fineto offer him in exchange the baton of a marshal of France, but he wouldnot be satisfied with it. "It was necessary, " says M. Floquet [_Histoiredu Parlement de Normandie, _ t. Iii. Pp. 613-616], "for the king's sister(Princess Catherine) to intervene. At last, a promise of one hundred andtwenty thousand crowns won Biron over, though against the grain. " But hewanted solid securities. Attention was then turned to the Parliament ofCaen, always so ready to do anything and sacrifice anything. Saldaigned'Incarville, comptroller-general of finance, having been despatched toCaen, went straight to the palace and reported to the Parliament theproposals and conditions of Villers and Biron. "The king, " said he, "nothaving been able to bring Rouen to reason by process of arms, and beingimpatient to put some end to these miseries, wishes now to try gentleprocesses, and treat with those whom he has not yet been able to subdue;but co-operation on the part of the sovereign bodies of the provinces isnecessary. " "To that which is for the good of our service is added yourprivate interest, " wrote Henry IV. To the Parliament of Caen; and hismessenger D'Incarville added, "I have left matters at Rouen so arrangedas to make me hope that before a fortnight is over you will be free toreturn thither and enter your homes once more. " At the first mention ofpeace and the prospect of a reconciliation between the royalistParliament of Caen and the leaguer Parliament of Rouen, the Parliament, the exchequer-chamber, and the court of taxation, agreed to a freshsacrifice and a last effort. The four presidents of the Parliament lostno time in signing together, and each for all, an engagement to guaranteethe hundred and twenty thousand crowns promised to Biron. . . . Themembers of the body bound themselves all together to guarantee the fourpresidents, in their turn, in respect of the engagement they werecontracting, and a letter was addressed on the spot to Henry IV. , "tothank the monarch for his good will and affection, and the honor he wasdoing the members of his Parliament of Normandy, by making themparticipators in the means and overtures adopted for arriving at thereduction of the town of Rouen. " [M. Floquet, _Histoire du Parlement deNormandi, _ t. Iii. Pp. 613-616. ] Here is the information afforded, as regards the capitulation of Villarsto Henry IV. , by the statement drawn up by Sully himself, of "the amountof all debts on account of all the treaties made for the reduction ofdistricts, towns, places, and persons to obedience unto the king, inorder to the pacification of the realm. " "To M. Villars, for himself, his brother, Chevalier d'Oise, the towns ofRouen and Havre and other places, as well as for compensation which hadto be made to MM. De Montpensier, Marshal de Biron, Chancellor deChiverny, and other persons included in his treaty . . . Threemillions four hundred and forty-seven thousand eight hundred livres. "[Poirson, _Histoire du Regne de Henry IV. , _ t. I. P. 667. ] These details have been entered into without hesitation because it isimportant to clearly understand by what means, by what assiduous efforts, and at what price Henry IV. Managed to win back pacifically manyprovinces of his kingdom, rally to his government many leaders of note, and finally to confer upon France that territorial and political unitywhich she lacked under the feudal regimen, and which, in the sixteenthcentury, the religious wars all but put it beyond her power to acquire. To the two instances just cited of royalist reconciliation--Lyons and thespontaneous example set by her population, and Rouen and the dearlypurchased capitulation of her governor Villars--must be added a third, ofa different sort. Nicholas de Neufville, Lord of Villeroi, after havingserved Charles IX. And Henry III. , had become, through attachment to theCatholic cause, a member of the League, and one of the Duke of Mayenne'sconfidants. When Henry IV. Was King of France, and Catholic king, Villeroi tried to serve his cause with Mayenne, and induce Mayenne to bereconciled with him. Meeting with no success, he made up his mind toseparate from the League, and go over to the king's service. He could doso without treachery or shame; even as a Leaguer and a servant ofMayenne's he had always been opposed to Spain, and devoted to a French, but, at the same time, a faithfully Catholic policy. He imported intothe service of Henry IV. The same sentiments and the same bearing; he wasstill a zealous Catholic, and a partisan, for king and country's sake, ofalliance with Catholic powers. He was a man of wits, experience, andresource, who knew Europe well and had some influence at the court ofRome. Henry IV. Saw at once the advantage to be gained from him, and, inspite of the Protestants' complaints, and his sister Princess Catherine'sprayers, made him, on the 25th of September, 1594, secretary of state forforeign affairs. This acquisition did not cost him so dear as that ofVillars: still we read in the statement of sums paid by Henry IV. Forthis sort of conquest, "Furthermore, to M. De Villeroi, for himself, hisson, the town of Pontoise, and other individuals, according to theirtreaty, four hundred and seventy-six thousand five hundred andninety-four livres. " It is quite true that this statement was drawn upby Sully, the unwavering supporter of Protestant alliances in Europe, and, as such, Villeroi's opponent in the council of Henry IV. ; but theother contemporary documents confirm Sully's assertion. Villeroi wasa faithful servant to Henry, who well repaid him by stanchness insupporting him against the repeated attacks of violent Reformers. In1594, when he became minister of foreign affairs, the following versewas in vogue at the Louvre:-- "The king could never beat the League; 'Twas Villeroi who did the thing; So well he managed his intrigue, That now the League hath got the king. " It is quite certain, however, that Henry IV. Was never of the opinionexpressed in that verse; for, ten years later, in 1604, Villeroi havingfound himself much compromised by the treachery of a chief clerk in hisdepartment, who had given up to the Spanish government some importantdespatches, the king, though very vexed at this mishap, "the consequencesof which rankled in his heart far more than he allowed to appear openly, nevertheless continued to look most kindly on Villeroi, taking thetrouble to call upon him, to console and comfort him under thisannoyance, and not showing him a suspicion of mistrust because of whathad happened, any more than formerly; nay, even less. " [_Journal deL'Estoile, _ t. Iii. Pp. 85-441. ] Never had prince a better or nobler wayof employing confidence in his proceedings with his servants, old or new, at the same time that he made clear-sighted and proper distinctionsbetween them. Henry IV. , with his mind full of his new character as a Catholic king, perceived the necessity of getting the pope to confirm the absolutionwhich had been given him, at the time of his conversion, by the Frenchbishops. It was the condition of his credit amongst the numerousCatholic population who were inclined to rally to him, but required toknow that he was at peace with the head of their church. He began bysending to Rome non-official agents, instructed to quietly sound thepope, amongst others Arnold d'Ossat, a learned professor in theUniversity of Paris, who became, at a later period, the celebratedcardinal and diplomat of that name. Clement VIII. [HippolytusAldobrandini] was a clever man, moderate and prudent to the verge oftimidity, and, one who was disinclined to take decisive steps as todifficult questions or positions until after they had been decided byevents. He refused to have any communication with him whom he stillcalled the Prince of Bearn, and only received the agents of Henry IV. Privately in his closet. But whilst he was personally severe andexacting in his behavior to then, he had a hint given them by one of hisconfidants not to allow themselves to be rebuffed by any obstacle, forthe pope would, sooner or later, welcome back the lost child who returnedto him. At this report, and by the advice of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand de' Medici, Henry IV. Determined to send a solemn embassy toRome, and to put it under the charge of a prince of Italian origin, Peterdi Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers. But either through the pope's stubbornresolve or the ambassador's somewhat impatient temper, devoted as he was, however, to the Holy See, the embassy had no success. The Duke of Neverscould not obtain an official reception as ambassador of the King ofFrance. It was in vain that he had five confidential audiences of thepope; in vain that he represented energetically to him all the progressHenry IV. Had already made, all the chances he had of definitive success, all the perils to which the papacy exposed itself by rejecting hisadvances; Clement VIII. Persisted in his determination. Philip II. AndMayenne still reigned in his ideas, and he dismissed the Duke of Neverson the 13th of January, 1594, declaring once more that he refused to theNavarrese absolution at the inner bar of conscience, absolution at theouter bar, and confirmation in his kingship. Henry IV. Did not put himself out, did not give himself the pleasure oftestifying to Rome his discontent; he saw that he had not as yetsufficiently succeeded--sufficiently vanquished his enemies, or won tohimself his kingdom with sufficient completeness and definitiveness--tomake the pope feel bound to recognize and sanction his triumph. He sethimself once more to work to grow still greater in France, and force thegates of Rome without its being possible to reproach him with violence orill temper. He had been absolved and crowned at St. Denis by the bishops of France;he had not been anointed at Rheims, according to the religious traditionsof the French monarchy. At Rheims he could not be; for it was still inthe power of the League. Researches were made, to discover whether theceremony of anointment might take place elsewhere; numerous instanceswere found, and in the case of famous kings: Pepin the Short had beenanointed first of all at Mayence, Charlemagne and Louis the Debonnair atRome, Charles the Bald at Mayence, several emperors at Aix-la-Chapelleand at Cologne. The question of the holy phial (ampoule) was alsodiscussed; and it was proved that on several occasions other oils, heldto be of miraculous origin, had been employed instead. Thesedifficulties thus removed, the anointment of Henry IV. Took place atChartres on the 27th of February, 1594; the Bishop of Chartres, Nicholasde Thou, officiated, and drew up a detailed account of all the ceremoniesand all the rejoicings; thirteen medals, each weighing fifteen goldcrowns, were struck, according to custom; they bore the king's image, andfor legend, _Invia virtuti nulla est via_ (To manly worth no road isinaccessible). Henry IV. , on his knees before the grand altar, took theusual oath, the form of which was presented to him by Chancellor deChiverny. With the exception of local accessories, which wereacknowledged to be impossible and unnecessary, there was nothing wantingto this religious hallowing of his kingship. But one other thing, more important than the anointment at Chartres, waswanting. He did not possess the capital of his kingdom the League werestill masters of Paris. Uneasy masters of their situation; but not souneasy, however, as they ought to have been. The great leaders of theparty, the Duke of Mayenne, his mother the Duchess of Nemours, his sisterthe Duchess of Montpensier, and the Duke of Feria, Spanish ambassador, were within its walls, a prey to alarm and discouragement. "Atbreakfast, " said the Duchess of Montpensier, "they regale us with thesurrender of a hamlet, at dinner of a town, at supper of a wholeprovince. " The Duchess of Nemours, who desired peace, exerted herself toconvince her son of all their danger. "Set your affairs in order, " shesaid;--if you do not begin to make your arrangements with the king beforeleaving Paris, you will lose this capital. I know that projects arealready afoot for giving it up, and that those who can do it, and in whomyou have most confidence, are accomplices and even authors of the plot. "Mayenne himself did not hide from his confidants the gravity of themischief and his own disquietude. "Not a day, " he wrote on the 4th ofFebruary, 1594, to the Marquis of Montpezat, "but brings some troublebecause of the people's yearning for repose, and of the weakness which isapparent on our side. I stem and stop this forment with as much courageas I can; but the present mischief is overwhelming; the King of Navarrewill in a few days have an army of twenty thousand men, French as well asforeigners. What will become of us, if we have not wherewithal not onlyto oppose him, but to make him lose the campaign? I can tell you of averity that, save for my presence, Paris would have already been lostbecause of the great factions there are in it, which I take all the painsin the world to disperse and break up, and also because of the small aid, or rather the gainsaying, I meet with from the ministers of the King ofSpain. " Mayenne tried to restore amongst the Leaguers both zeal anddiscipline; he convoked on the 2d of March, a meeting of all thatremained of the faction of the Sixteen; he calculated upon the presenceof some twelve hundred; scarcely three hundred came; he had an haranguedelivered to them by the Rev. John Boucher, charged them to be faithfulto the old spirit of the League, promised them that he would himself befaithful even to death, and exhorted them to be obedient in everything toBrissac, whom he had just appointed governor of the city, and to theprovost of tradesmen. On announcing to them his imminent departure forSoissons, to meet some auxiliary troops which were to be sent to him bythe King of Spain, "I leave to you, " he said, "what is dearest to me inthe world--my wife, my children, my mother, and my sister. " But when hedid set out, four days afterwards, on the 6th of March, 1594, he tookaway his wife and his children; his mother had already warned him thatBrissac was communicating secretly, by means of his cousin, Sieur deRochepot, with the royalists, and that the provost of tradesmen, L'Huillier, and three of the four sheriffs were agreed to bring the cityback to obedience to the king. When the Sixteen and their adherents sawMayenne departing with his wife and children, great were their alarm andwrath. A large band, with the incumbent of St. Cosmo (Hamilton) at theirhead, rushed about the streets in arms, saying, "Look to your city; thepolicists are brewing a terrible business for it. " Others, more violent, cried, "To arms! Down upon the policists! Begin! Let us make an end ofit!" The policists, that is, the burgesses inclined to peace, repairedon their side to the provost of tradesmen to ask for his authority toassemble at the Palace or the Hotel de Ville, and to provide for securityin case of any public calamity. The provost tried to elude theirentreaties by pleading that the Duke of Mayenne would think ill of theirassembling. "Then you are not the tradesmen's but M. De Mayenne'sprovost?" said one of them. "I am no Spaniard, " answered the provost;"no more is M. De Mayenne; I am anxious to reconcile you to the Sixteen. ""We are honest folks, not branded and defamed like the Sixteen; we willhave no reconciliation with the wretches. " The Parliament grew excited, and exclaimed against the insolence and the menaces of the Sixteen. "Wemust give place to these sedition-mongers, or put them down. " A decree, published by sound of trumpet on the 14th of March, 1594, throughout thewhole city, prohibited the Sixteen and their partisans from assembling onpain of death. That same day, Count de Brissac, governor of Paris, hadan interview at the abbey of St. Anthony, with his brother-in-law, Francis d'Epinay, Lord of St. Luc, Henry IV. 's grand-master of theordnance; they had disputes touching private interests, which theywished, they said, to put right; and on this pretext advocates hadappeared at their interview. They spent three hours in personalconference, their minds being directed solely to the means of putting theking into possession of Paris. They separated in apparent dudgeon. Brissac went to call upon the legate Gaetani, and begged him to excusethe error he had committed in communicating with a heretic; his interestin the private affairs in question was too great, he said, for him toneglect it. The legate excused him graciously, whilst praising him forhis modest conduct, and related the incident to the Duke of Feria, theSpanish ambassador. "He is a good fellow, M. De Brissac, " said theambassador; "I have always found him so; you have only to employ theJesuits to make him do all you please. He takes little notice, otherwise, of affairs; one day, when we were holding council in here, whilst we were deliberating, he was amusing himself by catching flies. "For four days the population of Paris was occupied with a solemnprocession in honor of St. Genevieve, in which the Parliament and all themunicipal authorities took part. Brissac had agreed with hisbrother-in-law D'Epinay that he would let the king in on the 22d ofMarch, and he had arranged, in concert with the provost of tradesmen, twosheriffs, and several district captains, the course of procedure. On the21st of March, in the evening, some Leaguers paid him a visit, and spoketo him warmly about the rumors current on the subject in the city, calling upon him to look to it. "I have received the same notice, " saidBrissac, coolly; "and I have given all the necessary orders. Leave me toact, and keep you quiet, so as not to wake up those who will have to besecured. To-morrow morning you will see a fine to-do and the policistsmuch surprised. " During all the first part of the night between the 21stand 22d of March, Brissac went his rounds of the city and the guards hehad posted, "with an appearance of great care and solicitude. " He hadsome trouble to get rid of certain Spanish officers, "whom the Duke ofFeria had sent him to keep him company in his rounds, with orders tothrow themselves upon him and kill him at the first suspicious movement;but they saw nothing to confirm their suspicions, and at two A. M. , Brissac brought them back much fatigued to the duke's, where he leftthem. " Henry IV. , having started on the 21st of March from Senlis, wherehe had mustered his troops, and arrived about midnight at St. Denis, immediately began his march to Paris. The night was dark and stormy;thunder rumbled; rain fell heavily; the king was a little behind time. At three A. M. . The policists inside Paris had taken arms and repaired tothe posts that had been assigned to them. Brissac had placed a guardclose to the quarters of the Spanish ambassador, and ordered the men tofire on any who attempted to leave. He had then gone in person, withL'Huillier, the provost of tradesmen, to the New Gate, which he hadcaused to be unlocked and guarded. Sheriff Langlois had done the same atthe gate of St. Denis. On the 22d of March, at four A. M. , the king hadnot yet appeared before the ramparts, nor any one for him. Langloisissued from the gate, went some little distance to look out, and came inagain, more and more impatient. At last, between four and five o'clock, a detachment of the royal troops, commanded by Vitry, appeared before thegate of St. Denis, which was instantly opened. Brissac's brother-in-law, St. Luc, arrived about the same time at the New Gate, with a considerableforce. The king's troops entered Paris. They occupied the differentdistricts, and met with no show of resistance but at the quay of L'Ecole, where an outpost of lanzknechts tried to stop them; but they were cut inpieces or hurled into the river. Between five and six o'clock Henry IV. , at the head of the last division, crossed the drawbridge of the New Gate. Brissac, Provost L'Huillier, the sheriffs, and several companies ofburgesses advanced to meet him. The king embraced Brissac, throwing hisown white scarf round his neck, and addressing him as "Marshal. " "Renderunto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, " said Brissac, as he calledupon the provost of tradesmen to present to the king the keys of thecity. "Yes, " said L'Huillier, "render them, not sell them. " The kingwent forward with his train, going along Rue St. Honore to the market ofthe Innocents and the bridge of Notre-Dame; the crowd increased at everystep. "Let them come near, " said Henry; "they hunger to see a king. " Atevery step, too, at sight of the smallest incident, the character ofHenry, his natural thoughtful and lovable kindliness, shone forth. Heasked if his entry had met with resistance anywhere; and he was told thatabout fifty lanzknechts had been killed at the quay of L'Ecole. "I wouldwillingly give fifty thousand crowns, " said he, "to be able to say that Itook Paris without costing the life of one single man. " As he marchedalong the Rue St. Honore, he saw a soldier taking some bread by forcefrom a baker's; he rushed at him, and would have struck him with hissword. As he passed in front of the Innocents, he saw at a window a manwho was looking at him, and pointedly keeping his hat on; the manperceived that the king' observed him, and withdrew, shutting down thewindow. Henry said, "Let nobody enter this house to vex or molest anyone in it. " He arrived in front of Notre-Dame, followed by five or sixhundred men-at-arms, who trailed their pikes "in token of a victory thatwas voluntary on the people's part, " it was said. There was no uproar, or any hostile movement, save on the left bank of the Seine, in theUniversity quarter, where the Sixteen attempted to assemble theirpartisans round the gate of St. Jacques; but they were promptly dispersedby the people as well as by the royal troops. On leaving Notre-Dame, Henry repaired to the Louvre, where he installed royalty once more. At ten o'clock he was master of the whole city; the districts ofSt. Martin, of the Temple, and St. Anthony alone remained still in thepower of three thousand Spanish soldiers under the orders of theirleaders, the Duke of Feria and Don Diego d'Ibarra. Nothing would havebeen easier for Henry than to have had them driven out by his own troopsand the people of Paris, who wanted to finish the day's work byexterminating the foreigners; but he was too judicious and toofar-sighted to embitter the general animosity by pushing his victorybeyond what was necessary. He sent word to the Spaniards that they mustnot move from their quarters and must leave Paris during the day, at thesame time promising not to bear arms any more against him, in France. They eagerly accepted these conditions. At three o'clock in theafternoon, ambassador, officers, and soldiers all evacuated Paris, andset out for the Low Countries. The king, posted at a window over thegate of St. Denis, witnessed their departure. They, as they passed, saluted him respectfully; and he returned their salute, saying, "Go, gentlemen, and commend me to your master; but return no more. " After his conversion to Catholicism, the capture of Paris was the mostdecisive of the issues which made Henry IV. Really King of France. Thesubmission of Rouen followed almost immediately upon that of Paris; andthe year 1594 brought Henry a series of successes, military and civil, which changed very much to his advantage the position of the kingship aswell as the general condition of the kingdom. In Normandy, in Picardy, in Champagne, in Anjou, in Poitou, in Brittany, in Orleanness, inAuvergne, a multitude of important towns, Havre, Honfleur, Abbeville, Amiens, Peronue, Montdidier, Poitiers, Orleans, Rheims, Chateau-Thierry, Beauvais, Sens, Riom, Morlaix, Laval, Laon, returned to the king'sauthority, some after sieges and others by pacific and personalarrangement, more or less burdensome for the public treasury, but veryeffective in promoting the unity of the nation and of the monarchy. Inthe table drawn up by Sully of expenses under that head, he estimatedthem at thirty-two millions, one hundred and forty-two thousand, ninehundred and eighty-one livres, equivalent at the present day, says M. Poirson, to one hundred and eighteen millions of francs. The renditionof Paris, "on account of M. De Brissac, the city itself and otherindividuals employed on his treaty, " figures in this sum total at onemillion, six hundred and forty-five thousand, four hundred livres. Territorial acquisitions were not the only political conquests of thisepoch; some of the great institutions which had been disjointed by thereligious wars, for instance, the Parliaments of Paris and Normandy, recovered their unity and resumed their efficacy to the advantage oforder, of the monarchy, and of national independence; their decreesagainst the League contributed powerfully to its downfall. Henry IV. Did his share in other ways besides warfare; he excelled in the art ofwinning over or embarrassing his vanquished foes. After the submissionof Paris, the two princesses of the house of Lorraine who had remainedthere, the Duchesses of Nemours and of Montpensier, one the mother andthe other the sister of the Duke of Mayenne, were preparing to go andrender homage to the conqueror; Henry anticipated them, and paid them thefirst visit. As he was passing through a room where hung a portrait ofHenry de Guise, he halted and saluted it very courteously. The Duchessof Montpensier, who had so often execrated him, did not hesitate toexpress her regret that "her brother Mayenne had not been there to letdown for him the drawbridge of the gate by which he had entered Paris. ""Ventre-saint-gris, " said the king, "he might have made me wait a longwhile; I should not have arrived so early. " He knew that the Duchess ofNemours had desired peace, and when she allowed some signs of vexation topeep out at her not having been able to bring her sons and grandsons tothat determination, "Madame, " said he, a there is still time if theyplease. " At the close of 1594, he imported disorganization into thehousehold of Lorraine by offering the government of Provence to the youngDuke Charles of Guise, son of the Balafre; who eagerly accepted it; andhe from that moment paved the way, by the agency of President Jeannin, for his reconciliation with Mayenne, which he brought to accomplishmentat the end of 1595. The close of this happy and glorious year was at hand. On the 27th ofSeptember, between six and seven P. M. , a deplorable incident occurred, for the second time, to call Henry IV. 's attention to the weak side ofhis position. He was just back from Picardy, and holding acourt-reception at Schomberg House, at the back of the Louvre. JohnChastel, a young man of nineteen, son of a cloth-merchant in the city, slipped in among the visitors, managed to approach the king, and dealthim a blow with a knife just as he was stooping to raise and embraceFrancis de la Grange, Sieur de Montigny, who was kneeling before him. The blow, aimed at the king's throat, merely slit his upper lip and brokea tooth. "I am wounded!" said the king. John Chastel, having droppedhis knife, had remained on the spot, motionless and confused. Montigny, according to some, but, according to others, the Count of Soissons, whohappened to be near him, laid hands upon him, saying, "Here is theassassin, either he or I. " Henry IV. , always prone to pass things over, pooh-poohed the suspicion, and was just giving orders to let the youngman go, when the knife, discovered on the ground close to Chastel, becamepositive evidence. Chastel was questioned, searched, and then handed, over to the grand provost of the household, who had him conveyed toprison at For-l'Eveque. He first of all denied, but afterwards admittedhis deed, regretting that he had missed his aim, and saying he was readyto try again for his own salvation's sake and that of religion. Hedeclared that he had been brought up amongst the Jesuits in Rue St. Jacques, and he gave long details as to the education he had receivedthere and the maxims he had heard there. The rumor of his crime and ofthe revelations he had made spread immediately over Paris and causedpassionate excitement. The people filled the churches and renderedthanks to God for having preserved the king. The burgesses took up armsand mustered at their guard-posts. The mob bore down on the college ofJesuits in Rue St. Jacques with threats of violence. The king and theParliament sent a force thither; Brizard, councillor in the high chamber, captain of the district, had the fathers removed, and put them insecurity in his own house. The inquiry was prosecuted deliberately andtemperately. It brought out that John Chastel had often heard repeatedat his college "that it was allowable to kill kings, even the kingregnant, when they were not in the church or approved of by the pope. "The accused formally maintained this maxim, which was found written outand dilated upon under his own hand in a note-book seized at hisfather's. "Was it necessary, pray, " said Henry IV. , laughing, "that theJesuits should be convicted by my mouth?" John Chastel was sentenced tothe most cruel punishment; and he underwent it on the 20th of December, 1594, by torch-light, before the principal entrance of Notre-Dame, without showing any symptom of regret. His mother and his sisters wereset at liberty. His father, an old Leaguer, had been cognizant of hisproject, and had dissuaded him from it, but without doing anything tohinder it; he was banished from the kingdom for nine years, and fromParis forever. His house was razed to the ground; and on the site wasset up a pyramid with the decree of the Parliament inscribed upon it. The proceedings did not stop there. At the beginning of this same year, and on petition from the University of Paris, the Parliament hadcommenced a general prosecution of the order of Jesuits, its maxims, tendencies, and influence. Formal discussions had taken place; theprosecution and the defence had been conducted with eloquence, and adecree of the court had ordained that judgment should be deferred. Several of the most respected functionaries, notably President Augustinde Thou, had pronounced against this decree, considering the question sograve and so urgent that the Parliament should make it their duty todecide upon the point at issue. When sentence had to be pronounced uponJohn Chastel, President de Thou took the opportunity of saying, "When Ilately gave my opinion in the matter of the University and the Jesuits, Inever hoped, at my age and with my infirmities, that I should live longenough to take part in the judgment we are about to pass to-day. It wasthat which led me, in the indignation caused me by the course at thattime adopted, to lay down an opinion to which I to-day recur with muchjoy. God be praised for having brought about an occasion whereon we havenothing to do but felicitate ourselves for that the enterprise which ourfoes did meditate against the state and the life of the king hath beenwithout success, and which proves clearly at the same time how much thethen opinion of certain honest men was wiser than that of persons who, from a miserable policy, were in favor of deferment!" The court, animated by the same sentiments as President do Thou, "declared themaxims maintained in the Jesuits' name to be rash, seditious, contrary tothe word of God, savoring of heresy and condemned by the holy canons; itexpressly forbade them to be taught publicly or privately, on pain, incase of contraveners, of being treated as guilty of treason against Godand man. It decreed, further, that the priests of the college in Rue St. Jacques, their pupils, and, generally, all members of that society, should leave Paris and all the towns in which they had colleges threedays after this decree had been made known to them, and the kingdomwithin a fortnight, as corrupters of youth, disturbers of the publicpeace, and enemies of the king and of the state. In default of obedienceon their part, their property, real and personal, should be confiscatedand employed for pious purposes. The court, besides, prohibited allsubjects of the king from sending their children as students to anyJesuits out of the kingdom, on pain of being declared enemies of thestate. " This decree was issued on the 29th of December, 1594. And as ifto leave no doubt about the sense and bearing of this legislation, it wasimmediately applied in the case of a Jesuit father, John Guignard, anative of Chartres; his papers were examined, and there were found in hishandwriting many propositions and provocatives of sedition, such as, "That a great mistake had been made at the St. Bartholomew in not havingopened the basilic vein, that is, in not having murdered Henry IV. Andthe Prince of Conde, who were of the blood royal; 2. That the crownmight have been, and ought to have been, transferred to a family otherthan that of the Bourbons; 3. That the Bearnese, in spite of hispretended conversion, ought to consider himself only too lucky if it wereconsidered sufficient to shave his head and shut him up in a convent todo penance there; that if the crown could not betaken from him withoutwar, then war must be made on him; and that if the state of things didnot admit of making war on him, he ought to be got rid of at any priceand in any way whatsoever. " For having, not published, but thought andwith his own hand written out all this, and probably taught it to hispupils, Father Guignard was obliged to retract, and was afterwards hangedin the Place de Greve on the 7th of January, 1595. The task of honest men and of right minds is greater and more difficultin our day than it was in the sixteenth century, for we have to reconcilethe laws and the requirements of moral and social order with far broaderprinciples and sentiments, as regards right and liberty, than were thoseof President Augustin de Thou and the worthy functionaries of his time. It was one of Henry IV. 's conspicuous qualities that no event, auspiciousor inauspicious, affected the correctness of his judgment, and that hewas just as much a stranger to illusion or intoxication in the hour ofgood fortune as to discouragement in the hour of ill. He had senseenough to see, in any case, things as they really were, and to estimateat the proper value the strength they brought or the obstacles theyformed to his government. He saw at a glance all the importance therewas for him in the submission of Paris, and what change in his conductwas required by that in his position. Certain local successes of theSpaniards at some points in his kingdom, the efforts of Mayenne toresuscitate the dying League, and John Chastel's attempt at assassinationdid not for a moment interfere with his confidence in his progress, orcause him to hesitate as to the new bearing he had to assume. He wroteon the 17th of December, 1594, to the estates of Artois and Hainault, "I have hitherto lacked neither the courage nor the power to repel theinsults offered me, and to send recoiling upon the head of the King ofSpain and his subjects the evils of which he was the author. But just aswere the grounds I had for declaring war against him, motives morepowerful and concerning the interests of all Christendom restrained me. At the present time, when the principal leaders of the factious havereturned to their duty and submitted to my laws, Philip still continueshis intrigues to foster troubles in the very heart of my kingdom. Aftermaturely reflecting, I have decided that it is time for me to act. Nevertheless, as I cannot forget the friendship my ancestors always feltfor your country, I could not but see with pain that, though you havetaken no share in Philip's acts of injustice, on you will fall the firstblows of a war so terrible, and I thought it my duty to warn you of mypurpose before I proceed to execute it. If you can prevail upon the Kingof Spain to withdraw the army which he is having levied on the frontier, and to give no protection for the future to rebels of my kingdom, I willnot declare war against him, provided that I have certain proof of yourgood intentions, and that you give me reasonable securities for thembefore the 1st of January in the approaching year. " [_Lettres missivesde Henri IV, _ p. 280--De Thou, _Histoire universelle, _ t. Xii. Pp. 328-342. ] These letters, conveyed to Arras by one of the king's trumpeters, received no answer. The estates of Flanders, in assembly at Brussels, somewhat more bold than those of Artois and Hainault, in vain representedto their Spanish governor their plaints and their desires for peace; fortwo months Henry IV. Heard not a word on the subject. Philip II. Persisted in his active hostility, and continued to give the King ofFrance no title but that of Prince of Bearn. On the 17th of January, 1595, Henry, in performance of what he had proclaimed, formally declaredwar against the King of Spain, forbade his subjects to have any com mercewith him or his allies, and ordered them to make war on him for thefuture just as he persisted in making it on France. This able and worthyresolve was not approved of by Rosny, by this time the foremost ofHenry's IV. 's councillors, although he had not yet risen in thegovernment, or, probably, in the king's private confidence, to thesuperior rank that he did attain by the eminence of his services and thecourageous sincerity of his devotion. In his _OEconomies royales_ it isto interested influence, on the part of England and Holland, that heattributes this declaration of war against Philip II. , "into which, " hesays, "the king allowed himself to be hurried against his own feelings. "It was assuredly in accordance with his own feelings and of his own freewill that Henry acted in this important decision; he had a politicalorder of mind greater, more inventive, and more sagacious than Rosny'sadministrative order of mind, strong common sense and painstakingfinancial abilities. To spontaneously declare war against Philip afterthe capitulation of Paris and the conquest of three quarters of Francewas to proclaim that the League was at death's door, that there was nolonger any civil war in France, and that her king had no more now thanforeign war to occupy him. To make alliance, in view of that foreignwar, with the Protestant sovereigns of England, Holland, and Germany, against the exclusive and absolutist patron of Catholicism, was on thepart of a king but lately Protestant, and now become resolutely Catholic, to separate openly politics from religion, and to subserve the temporalinterests of the realm of France whilst putting himself into the hands ofthe spiritual head of the church as regarded matters of faith. HenryIV. , moreover, discovered another advantage in this line of conduct; itrendered possible and natural the important act for which he was eventhen preparing, and which will be spoken of directly, the edict of Nantesin favor of the Protestants, which was the charter of religious toleranceand the securities for it, pending the advent of religious liberty andits rights, that fundamental principle, at this day, of moral and socialorder in France. Such were Henry IV. 's grand and premonitory instinctswhen, on the 17th of January, 1595, he officially declared against PhilipII. That war which Philip had not for a moment ceased to make on him. The conflict thus solemnly begun between France and Spain lasted threeyears and three months, from the 17th of January, 1595, to the 1st ofMay, 1598, from Henry IV. 's declaration of war to the peace of Vervins, which preceded by only four months and thirteen days the death of PhilipII. And the end of the preponderance of Spain in Europe. It is not worthwhile to follow step by step the course of this monotonous conflict, pregnant with facts which had their importance for contemporaries, butare not worthy of an historical resurrection. Notice will be drawn onlyto those incidents in which the history of France is concerned, and whichgive a good idea of Henry IV. 's character, the effectiveness of hisgovernment, and the rapid growth of his greatness in Europe, contrastedwith his rival's slow decay. Four months and a half after the declaration of war, and during thecampaign begun in Burgundy between the French and the Spaniards, on the5th of June, 1595, near Fontaine-Francaise, a large burgh a few leaguesfrom Dijon, there took place an encounter which, without ending in ageneral battle, was an important event, and caused so much sensation thatit brought about political results more important than the immediatecause of them. Henry IV. Made up his mind to go and reconnoitre inperson the approaches of Dijon, towards which the enemy were marching. He advanced, with about a hundred and fifty men-at-arms and as manymounted arquebusiers, close up to the burgh of Saint-Seine; from there hesent the Marquis of Mirebeau with fifty or sixty horse to "go, " saysSully, "and take stock of the enemy;" and he put himself on the track ofhis lieutenant, marching as a simple captain of light-horse, with thepurpose of becoming better acquainted with the set of the country, so asto turn it to advantage if the armies had to encounter. But he had notgone more than a league when he saw Mirebeau returning at more than afoot-pace and in some disorder; who informed him "that he had beensuddenly charged by as many as three or four hundred horse, who did notgive him leisure to extend his view as he could have desired, and that hebelieved that the whole army of the Constable of Castille was marching ina body to come and quarter themselves in the burgh of Saint-Seine. "Marshal de Biron, who joined the king at this moment, offered to go andlook at the enemy, and bring back news that could be depended upon; butscarcely had he gone a thousand paces when he descried, on the top of alittle valley, some sixty horse halted there as if they were on guard; hecharged them, toppled them over, and taking their ground, discovered thewhole Spanish army marching in order of battle and driving before them ahundred of the king's horse, who were flying in disorder. Biron haltedand showed a firm front to the enemy's approach; but he was himself hardpressed at many points, and was charged with such impetuosity that he wasobliged to begin a retreat which changed before long to a sort of flight, with a few sword-cuts about the ears. Thus he arrived within sight ofthe king, who immediately detached a hundred horse to support Biron andstop the fugitives; but the little re-enforcement met with the same fateas those it went to support; it was overthrown and driven pell-mell rightup to the king, who suddenly found himself with seven or eight hundredhorse on his hands, without counting the enemy's main army, which couldalready be discerned in the distance. Far from being dumbfounded, theking, "borrowing, " says Sully, "increase of judgment and courage from thegreatness of the peril, " called all his men about him, formed them intotwo squadrons of a hundred and fifty men each, gave one to M. De laTremoille with orders to go and charge the Spanish cavalry on one flank, put himself at the head of the other squadron, and the two charges of theFrench were "so furious and so determined, " says Sully, the king minglingin the thickest of the fight and setting an example to the boldest, "thatthe Spanish squadrons in dismay tumbled one over another, and retiredhalf-routed to the main body of Mayenne's army; who, seeing a dash madeto the king's assistance by some of his bravest officers with seven oreight hundred horse, thought all the royal army was there, and, fearingto attack those gentry of whose determination he had just made proof, hehimself gave his troops the order to retreat, Henry going on in pursuituntil he had forced them to recross the Sane below Gray, leaving Burgundyat his discretion. " A mere abridgment has been given of the story relating to this brilliantaffair as it appears in the (_OEconomies Royales_ of Sully [t. Ii. Pp. 377-387], who was present and hotly engaged in the fight. We willquote word for word, however, the account of Henry IV. Himself, who senta report four days afterwards to his sister Catherine and to theConstable Anne de Montmorency. To the latter he wrote on the 8th ofJune, 1595, from Dijon, "I was informed that the Constable of Castile, accompanied by the Duke of Mayenne, was crossing the River Sane with hisarmy to come and succor the castle of this town. I took horse the dayafter, attended by my cousin Marshal de Biron and from seven to eighthundred horse, to go and observe his plans on the spot. Whence ithappened that, intending to take the same quarters without having anycertain advices about one another, we met sooner than we had hoped, andso closely that my cousin the marshal, who led the first troop, wasobliged to charge those who had advanced, and I to support him. But ourdisadvantage was, that all our troops had not yet arrived and joined me, for I had but from two to three hundred horse, whereas the enemy had allhis cavalry on the spot, making over a thousand or twelve hundred drawnup by squadrons and in order of battle. However, my said cousin did nothaggle about them; and, seeing that they were worsting him, because thegame was too uneven, I determined to make one in it, and joined in it tosuch a purpose and with such luck, thank God, together with the followingI had, that we put them to the rout. But I can assure you that it wasnot at the first charge, for we made several; and if the rest of myforces had been with me, I should no doubt have defeated all theircavalry, and perhaps their foot who were in order of battle behind theothers, having at their head the said Constable of Castile. But ourforces were so unequal that I could do no more than put to flight thosewho would not do battle, after having cut in pieces the rest, as we haddone; wherein I can tell you, my dear cousin, that my said cousin Marshalde Biron and I did some good handiwork. He was wounded in the head by ablow from a cutlass in the second charge, for he and I had nothing on butour cuirasses, not having had time to arm ourselves further, so surprisedand hurried were we. However, my said cousin did not fail, after hiswound, to return again to the charge three or four times, as I too did onmy side. Finally we did so well that the field and their dead were leftto us to the number of a hundred or six score, and as many prisoners ofall ranks. Whereat the said Constable of Castile took such alarm that heat once recrossed the Sane; and I have been told that it was not withoutreproaching the Duke of Mayenne with having deceived him in not tellinghim of my arrival in this country. " The day before, June 7, Henry had written to his sister Catherine deBourbon, "My dear sister, the more I go on, the more do I wonder at thegrace shown me by God in the fight of last Monday, wherein I thought tohave defeated but twelve hundred horse; but they must be set down at twothousand. The Constable of Castile was there in person with the Duke ofMayenne; and they both of them saw me and recognized me quite well; theysent to demand of me a whole lot of Italian and Spanish captains oftheirs, the which were not prisoners. They must be amongst the dead whohave been buried, for I requested next day that they should be. Many ofour young noblemen, seeing me with them everywhere, were full of fire inthis engagement, and showed a great deal of courage; amongst whom I cameacross Gramont, Termes, Boissy, La Curse, and the Marquis of Mirebeau, who, as luck would have it, found themselves at it without any armor buttheir neck-pieces and _gaillardets_ (front and back plates), and didmarvels. There were others who did not do so well, and many who did veryill. Those who were not there ought to be sorry for it, seeing that Ihad need of all my good friends, and I saw you very near becoming myheiress. " [_Lettres missives de Henri IV. , _ t. Iv. Pp. 363-369; in the_Collection des Documents inedits sur l'Histoire de France_. ] This fight, so unpremeditated, at Fontaine-Francaise, and the presence ofmind, steady quicksightedness, and brilliant dash of Henry IV. , led offthis long war gloriously. Its details were narrated and sought afterminutely; people were especially struck with the sympathetic attentionthat in the very midst of the strife the king bestowed upon all hiscompanions in arms, either to give them directions or to warn them ofdanger. "At the hottest of the fight, " says the contemporary historianPeter Matthieu, "Henry, seizing Mirebeau by the arm, said, 'Chargeyonder!' which he did: and that troop began to thin off and disappear. "A moment afterwards, seeing one of the enemy's men-at-arms darting downupon the French, Henry concluded that the attack was intended forGilbert, de la Cure, a brave and pious Catholic lord, whom he calledfamiliarly _Monsieur le Cure, _ and shouted to him from afar, "Look out, La Curee!" which warned him and saved his life. The roughest warriorswere touched by this fraternal solicitude of the king's, and clung to himwith passionate devotion. It was at Rome, and in the case of an ecclesiastical question that HenryIV. 's steady policy, his fame for ability as well as valor, and theglorious affair of Fontaine-Francaise bore their first fruits. Mentionhas already been made of the formal refusal the king had met with fromPope Clement VIII. In January, 1594, when he had demanded of him, by theembassy extraordinary of the Duke of Nevers, confirmation of theabsolution granted him by the French bishops after his conversation atSt. Denis and his anointment at Chartres. The pope, in spite of hisrefusal, had indirectly given the royal agents to understand that theywere not to be discouraged; and the ablest of them, Arnold d'Ossat, hadremained at Rome to conduct this delicate and dark commission. WhenClement VIII. Saw Henry IV. 's government growing stronger and moreextensive day by day, Paris returned to his power, the League beaten andthe Gallican church upheld in its maxims by the French magistracy, fearof schism grew serious at Rome, and the pope had a hint given by Cardinalde Gondi to Henry that, if he were to send fresh ambassadors, they mightbe favorably listened to. Arnold d'Ossat had acquired veritable weightat the court of Rome, and had paved the way with a great deal of arttowards turning to advantage any favorable chances that might offerthemselves. Villeroi, having broken with the League, had become HenryIV. 's minister of foreign affairs, and obtained some confidence at Romein return for the good will he testified towards the papacy. By hiscouncillor's advice, no doubt, the king made no official stir, sent nobrilliant embassy; D'Ossat quietly resumed negotiations, and aloneconducted them from the end of 1594 to the spring of 1595; and when a newenvoy was chosen to bring them to a conclusion, it was not a great lord, but a learned ecclesiastic, Abbot James du Perron, whose ability anddevotion Henry IV. Had already, at the time of his conversion, experienced, and whom he had lately appointed Bishop of Evreux. Evenwhen Du Perron had been fixed upon to go to Rome and ask for theabsolution which Clement VIII. Had seven or eight months before refused, he was in no hurry to repair thither, and D'Ossat's letters make itappear that he was expected there with some impatience. He arrived thereon the 12th of July, 1595, and, in concert with D'Ossat, he presented tothe pope the request of the king, who solicited the papal benediction, absolution from any censure, and complete reconciliation with the Romanchurch. Clement VIII. , on the 2d of August, assembled his consistory, whither went all the cardinals, save two partisans of Spain who excusedthemselves on the score of health. Parleys took place as to the form ofthe decree which must precede the absolution. The pope would have likedvery much to insert two clauses, one revoking as null and void theabsolution already given to the king by the French bishops at the time ofhis conversion, and the other causing the absolution granted by the popeto be at the same time considered as re-establishing Henry IV. In hisrights to the crown, whereof it was contended that he was deprived by theexcommunication and censures of Sixtus V. And Gregory XIV. , which thisabsolution was to remove. The two French negotiators rejected theseattempts, and steadily maintained the complete independence of the king'stemporal sovereignty, as well as the power of intervention of the Frenchepiscopate in his absolution. Clement VIII. Was a judicious and prudentpope; and he did not persist. The absolution was solemnly pronounced onthe 17th of September, 1595, by the pope himself, from a balcony erectedin St. Peter's Square, and in presence of the population. The gates ofthe church were thrown open and a Te Deum was sung. A grand ceremonytook place immediately afterwards in the church of St. Louis of theFrench. Rome was illuminated for three days, and, on the 7th of Novemberfollowing, a pope's messenger left for Paris with the bull of absolutiondrawn up in the terms agreed upon. Another reconciliation, of less solemnity, but of great importance, thatbetween the Duke of Mayenne and Henry IV. , took place a week after theabsolution pronounced by the pope. As soon as the civil war, continuedby the remnants of the dying League, was no more than a disgracefulauxiliary to the foreign war between France and Spain, Mayenne was in hissoul both grieved and disgusted at it. The affair of Fontaine-Francaisegave him an opportunity of bringing matters to a crisis; he next daybroke with the Constable of Castile, Don Ferdinand de Velasco, whodeclined to follow his advice, and at once entered into secretnegotiations with the king. Henry wrote from Lyons to Du Plessis-Mornay, on the 24th of August, 1595, "The Duke of Mayenne has asked me to allowhim three months for the purpose of informing the enemy of hisdetermination in order to induce them to join him in recognizing me andserving me. So doing, he has also agreed to bind himself from thispresent date to recognize me and serve me, whatever his friends may do. "On the 23d of September following, Henry IV. , still at Lyons, sent to M. De la Chatre:-- "I forward you the articles of a general truce which I have granted tothe Duke of Mayenne at his pressing instance, and on the assurance he hasgiven me that he will get it accepted and observed by all those who arestill making war within my kingdom, in his name or that of the League. "This truce was, in point of fact, concluded by a preliminary treatysigned at Chalons, and by virtue of which Mayenne ordered his lieutenantsto give up to the king the citadel of Dijon. The negotiations continued, and, in January, 1596, a royal edict, signed at Folembray, near Laon, regulated, in thirty-one articles and some secret articles, theconditions of peace between the king and Mayenne. The king granted him, himself and his partisans, full and complete amnesty for the past, besides three surety-places for six years, and divers sums, which, may befor payment of his debts, and may be for his future provision, amountedto three million five hundred and eighty thousand livres at that time(twelve million eight hundred and eighty-eight thousand francs of thepresent day). The Parliament of Paris considered these terms exorbitant, and did not consent to enregister the edict until April 9, 1596, afterthree letters jussory from the king. Henry IV. Nobly expressed, in thepreamble of the edict, the motives of policy that led to his generousarrangements; after alluding to his late reconciliation with the pope, "Our work, " he said, "would have been imperfect, and peace incomplete, ifour most dear and most beloved cousin, the Duke of Mayenne, chief of hisparty, had not followed the same road, as he resolved to do so soon as hesaw that our holy father had approved of our reunion. This hath made usto perceive better than heretofore the aim of his actions, to accept andtake in good part all that he hath exhibited against us of the zeal hefelt for religion, and to commend the anxiety he hath displayed topreserve the kingdom in, its entirety, whereof he caused not and sufferednot the dismemberment when the prosperity of his affairs seemed to givehim some means of it; the which he was none the more inclined to do whenhe became weakened, but preferred to throw himself into our arms ratherthan betake himself to other remedies, which might have caused the war tolast a long while yet, to the great damage of our people. This it iswhich hath made us desire to recognize his good intent, to love him andtreat him for the future as our good relative and faithful subject. "[_Memoires de la Ligue, _ t. Vi. P. 349. ] [Illustration: The Castle of Monceaux----91] To a profound and just appreciation of men's conduct Henry IV. Knew howto add a winning grace and the surprising charm of a familiar manner. After having signed the edict of Folembray, he had gone to rest a whileat Monceaux. Mayenne went to visit him there on the 31st of January, 1596. There is nothing to be added to or taken from the account given bySully of their interview. "The king, stepping forward to meet Mayenne, embraced him thrice, assuring him that he was welcome, and that heembraced him as cordially as if there had never been anything betweenthem. M. De Mayenne put one knee on the ground, embraced the king'sthigh, and assured him that he was his very humble servant and subject, saying that he considered himself greatly bounden to him, as well forhaving with so much, of gentleness, kindness, and special largessesrestored him to his duty, as for having delivered him from Spanisharrogance and Italian crafts and wiles. Then the king, having raised himup and embraced him once more, told him that he had no doubt at all ofhis honor and word, for a man of worth and of good courage held nothingso dear as the observance thereof. Thereupon he took him by the hand andbegan to walk him about at a very great pace, showing him the alleys andtelling all his plans and the beauties and conveniences of this mansion. M. De Mayenne, who was incommoded by a sciatica, followed as best hecould, but some way behind, dragging his limbs after him very heavily. Which the king observing, and that he was mighty red, heated, and waspuffing with thickness of breath, he turned to Rosny, whom he held, withthe other hand, and said in his ear, 'If I walk this fat carcass hereabout much longer, then am I avenged without much difficulty for all theevils he hath done us, for he is a dead man. ' And thereupon pulling up, the king said to him, 'Tell the truth, cousin, I go a little too fast foryou; and I have worked you too hard. ' 'By my faith, sir, ' said M. DeMayenne, slapping his hand upon his stomach, 'it is true; I swear to youthat I am so tired and out of breath that I can no more. If you hadcontinued walking me about so fast, for honor and courtesy did not permitme to say to you, "Hold! enough!" and still less to leave you, I believethat you would have killed me without a thought of it. ' Then the kingembraced him, clapped him on the shoulder, and said with a laughing face, open glance, and holding out his hand, 'Come, take that, cousin, for, byGod, this is all the injury and displeasure you shall ever have from me;of that I give you my honor and word with all my heart, the which I neverdid and never will violate. ' 'By God, sir, ' answered M. De Mayenne, kissing the king's hand and doing what he could to put one knee upon theground, 'I believe it and all other generous things that may be expectedfrom the best and bravest prince of our age. And you said it, too, in sofrank a spirit and with so kindly a grace that my feelings and myobligations are half as deep again. However, I swear to you over again, sir, by the living God, on my faith, my honor, and my salvation, that Iwill be to you, all my life long, loyal subject and faithful servant; Iwill never fail you nor desert you; I will have while I live no desiresor designs of importance which are not suggested by your Majesty himself;nor will I ever be cognizant of them in the case of others, though theywere my own children, without expressly opposing them and giving younotice of them at once. ' 'There, there, cousin, ' rejoined the kinm, 'Iquite believe it; and that you may be able to love me and serve me long, go rest you, refresh you, and drink a draught at the castle. I have inmy cellars some Arbois wine, of which I will send you two bottles, forwell I know that you do not dislike it. And here is Rosny, whom I willlend you to accompany you, to do the honors of the house and to conductyou to your chamber: he is one of my oldest servants, and one of thosewho have been most rejoiced to see that you would love me and serve mecordially. '" [(OEconomies royales, t. Iii. Pp. 7-10. ] Mayenne was as good as his word. After the edict of Folembray, he livedfourteen years at the court of Henry IV. , whom he survived only aboutsixteen months [for he died on the 4th of October, 1611, and Henry IV. Was assassinated by Ravaillac on the 13th of May, 1610], and during allthat time he was loyal and faithful to him, never giving him any but goodcounsels and sometimes rendering him useful services. A rare example ofa party-chief completely awakened and tamed by experience: it made himdisgusted with fanaticism, faction, civil war, and complicity with theforeigner. He was the least brilliant but the most sensible, the mosthonest, and the most French of the Guises. Henry IV. , when seriously illat Fontainebleau in 1608, recommended him to Queen Mary de' Medici as oneof the men whom it was most important to call to the councils of state;and, at the approach of death, Mayenne, weary and weak in the lap ofrepose, could conscientiously address those who were around him in suchgrand and Christian language as this: "It is no new thing to know that Imust die; for twelve years past my lingering and painful life has beenfor the most part an apprenticeship thereto. My sufferings have sodulled the sting of death that I rather count upon it than dread it;happy to have had so long a delay to teach me to make a good end, and torid me of the things which formerly kept me from that knowledge. Happyto meet my end amongst mine own people and to terminate by a peacefuldeath the sufferings and miseries of my life. I formerly sought deathamidst arms; but I am better pleased, for my soul's salvation, to meet itand embrace it on my bed than if I had encountered it in battle, for thesake of the glory of the world. " Let, us return to Henry IV. Since his declaration of war against PhilipII. He had gained much ground. He had fought gloriously, in his ownperson, and beaten the Spaniards at Fontaine-Francaise. He had obtainedfrom Pope Clement VIII. The complete and solemn absolution which had beenrefused to him the year before. Mayenne had submitted to him, and thatsubmission had been death to the League. Some military reverses wereintermingled with these political successes. Between the 25th of June, 1595, and the 10th of March, 1597, the Spanish armies took, in Picardyand Artois, Le Catelet, Doullens, Cambrai, Ardres, Ham, Guines and twotowns of more importance, Calais, still the object of English ambitionand of offers on the part of Queen Elizabeth to any one who could hand itover to her, and Amiens, one of the keys to France on the frontier of thenorth. These checks were not without compensation. Henry invested andtook the strong place of La Fere; and he retook Amiens after a sixmonths' struggle. A Spanish plot for getting possession of Marseillesfailed; the young Duke of Guise, whom Henry had made governor ofProvence, entered the city amidst shouts of Hurrah for the king!"Now I am king!" cried Henry, on receiving the news, so generally wasMarseilles even then regarded as the queen of the Mediterranean. TheDuke of Epernon, who had attempted to make of Provence an independentprincipality for himself, was obliged to leave it and treat with theking, ever ready to grant easy terms to those who could give up to him orsell him any portion of his kingdom. France was thus being rapidlyreconstituted. "Since the month of January, 1596, Burgundy, parts ofForez, Auvergne, and Velay, the whole of Provence, half Languedoc, andthe last town of Poitou had been brought back to their allegiance to theking. French territory and national unity had nothing more to wait for, to complete their re-establishment, than a portion of Brittany and fourtowns of Picardy still occupied by the Spaniards. " [Poirson, _Histoiredu Regne de Henri IV. , t. Ii. P. 159. ] But these results were only obtained at enormous expense and by means ofpecuniary sacrifices, loans, imposts, obligations of every sort, whichleft the king in inextricable embarrassment, and France in a condition ofexhaustion still further aggravated by the deplorable administration ofthe public finances. On the 15th of April, 1596, Henry IV. Wrote fromAmiens to Rosny, "My friend, you know as well as any of my servants whattroubles, labors, and fatigues I have had to go through to secure my lifeand my dignity against so many sorts of enemies and perils. NeverthelessI swear to you that all these traverses have not caused me so muchaffliction and bitterness of spirit as the sorrow and annoyance I nowfeel at finding thyself in continual controversies with those most inauthority of my servants, officers, and councillors of state, when Iwould fain set about restoring this kingdom to its highest splendor, andrelieving my poor people, whom I love as my dear children (God having atpresent granted me no others), from so many talliages, subsidies, vexations, and oppressions whereof they daily make complaints to me. . . . Having written to them who are of my council of finance how thatI had a design of extreme importance in hand for which I had need of afund of eight hundred thousand crowns, and therefore I begged andconjured them, by their loyalty and sincere affection towards me andFrance, to labor diligently for the certain raising of that sum, alltheir answers, after several delays, excuses, and reasons whereof onedestroyed another, had finally no other conclusion than representationsof difficulties and impossibilities. Nay, they feared not to send meword that so far from being able to furnish me with so notable a sum, they found great trouble in raising the funds to keep my household going. . . . I am resolved to know truly whether the necessities which areoverwhelming me proceed from the malice, bad management, or ignorance ofthose whom I employ, or, good sooth, from the diminution of my revenuesand the poverty of my people. And to that end, I mean to convoke thethree orders of my kingdom, for to have of them some advice and aid, andmeanwhile to establish among those people some loyal servant of mine, whom I will put in authority little by little, in order that he mayinform me of what passes in my council, and enlighten me as to that whichI desire to know. I have, as I have already told you, cast my eyes uponyou to serve me in this commission, not doubting at all that I shallreceive contentment and advantage from your administration. And I wishto tell you the state to which I am reduced, which is such that I am verynear the enemy, and have not, as you may say, a horse to fight on or awhole suit of harness to my back. My shirts are all torn, my doubletsout at elbows; my cupboard is often bare, and for the last two days Ihave been dining and supping with one and another; my purveyors say theyhave no more means of supplying my table, especially as for more than sixmonths they have had no money. Judge whether I deserve to be so treated, and fail not to come. I have on my mind, besides, two or three othermatters of consequence on which I wish to employ you the moment youarrive. Do not speak of all this to anybody whatsoever, not even to yourwife. Adieu, my friend, whom well I love. " Henry IV. Accomplished all that, when he wrote to Rosny, he had showedhimself resolved to undertake. External circumstances became favorableto him. Since his conversion to Catholicism, England and her queen, Elizabeth, had been colder in the cause of the French alliance. When, after his declaration of war against Philip II. , Henry demanded in Londonthe support on which he had believed that he might rely, Elizabethanswered by demanding in her turn the cession of Calais as the price ofher services. Quite determined not to give up Calais to England, Henry, without complaining of the demand, let the negotiation drag, confininghimself to saying that he was looking for friends, not for masters. Whenin April, 1596, it was known in London that Calais had been taken by theSpaniards, Elizabeth sent word to Henry, then at Boulogne, that she wouldsend him prompt assistance if he promised, when Calais was recovered fromthe Spaniards, to place it in the hands of the English. "If I must bedespoiled, " answered Henry, "I would rather it should be by my enemiesthan by my friends. In the former case it will be a reverse of fortune, in the latter I might be accused of poltroonery. " Elizabeth assured theFrench ambassador, Harlay de Sancy, "that it had never been her intentionto keep Calais, but simply to take care that, in any case, this importantplace should not remain in the hands of the common enemy whilst the kingwas engaged in other enterprises; anyhow, " she added, "she had orderedthe Earl of Essex, admiral of the English fleet raised against Spain, toarm promptly in order to go to the king's assistance. " There was anxietyat that time in England about the immense preparations being made byPhilip for the invasion he proposed to attempt against England, and forthe putting to sea of his fleet, the Grand Armada. In conversation withthe high treasurer, Lord Burleigh, Elizabeth's chief minister, Sancyfound him even colder than his queen; Burleigh laid great stress upon allthat the queen had already done for France, and on the one million fivehundred thousand gold crowns she had lent to the king. "It would be morebecoming, " he said, "in the king's envoys to thank the queen for the aidshe had already furnished than to ask for more; by dint of drawing waterthe well had gone dry; the queen could offer the king only three thousandmen, on condition that they were raised at his own expense. " "If theking, " replied Sancy, "must expect neither alliance nor effectual aid onyour part, he will be much obliged to the queen to let him know whatcourse she takes, because he, on his side, will take that which will bemost expedient for his affairs. " Some of the king's councillors regardedit as possible that he should make peace with the King of Spain, and didnot refrain from letting as much be understood. Negotiations in Londonseemed to be broken off; the French ambassadors had taken leave ofElizabeth. The news that came from Spain altered the tone of the Englishgovernment; threats of Spanish invasion became day by day more distinctand the Grand Armada more dreaded. Elizabeth sent word to theambassadors of France by some of her confidants, amongst others SirRobert Cecil, son of the high treasurer, that she was willing to givethem a last audience before their departure. The result of this audiencewas the conclusion of a treaty of alliance offensive and defensivebetween France and England against the King of Spain, with a mutualpromise not to make, one without the other, either peace or truce, withprecise stipulations as to the number and pay of the troops which theQueen of England should put in the field for the service of the King ofFrance, and, further, with a proviso establishing freedom of tradebetween the two states. The treaty was drawn up in London on the 24th ofMay, 1596, ratified at Rouen by Henry IV. On the 19th of Octoberfollowing, and on the 31st of October the States-General of Hollandacceded to it, whilst regulating, accordingly, the extent of theirengagements. Easy as to the part to be played by his allies in the war with Spain, Henry IV. Set to work upon the internal reforms and measures of which hestrongly felt the necessity. They were of two kinds; one administrativeand financial, the other political and religious; he wished at one andthe same time to consolidate the material forces of his government and togive his Protestant subjects, lately his own brethren, the legal libertyand security which they needed for their creed's sake, and to which theyhad a right. He began, about the middle of October, 1596, by bringing Rosny into thecouncil of finance, saying to him, "You promise me, you know, to be agood manager, and that you and I shall lop arms and legs from _MadameGrivelee, _ as you have so often told me could be done. " _Madame Grivelee(Mrs. Pickings)_ was, in the language of the day, she who presided overillicit gains made in the administration of the public finances. Rosnyat once undertook to accomplish that which he had promised the king. Hemade, in person, a minute examination of four receiver-generals' offices, in order, with that to guide him, to get a correct idea of the amountderived from imposts and the royal revenues, and of what became of thisamount in its passage from collection to employment for the defrayal ofthe expenses of the state. "When he went on his inspection, thetreasurers of France, receivers, accountants, comptrollers, eitherabsented themselves or refused to produce him any register; he suspendedsome, frightened others, surmounted the obstacles of every kind that wereput in his way, and he proved, from the principal items of receipt andexpenditure at these four general offices, so much and such fraudulencethat he collected five hundred thousand crowns (one million five hundredthousand livres of those times, and about five million four hundred andninety thousand francs of the present date), had these sums placed inseventy carts, and drove them to Rouen, where the king was and where theAssembly of Notables had just met. " It was not the states-general properly so called that Henry IV. Hadconvoked; he had considered that his authority was still too feeblyconstituted, and even too much disputed in a portion of the kingdom, toallow him to put it to such a test; and honest and sensible patriots hadbeen of the same opinion D'Aubigne himself, the most independent andfault-finding spirit amongst his contemporaries, expressly says, "Thetroubles which were not yet extinguished in France did not admit of alarger convocation; the hearts of the people were not yet subdued andkneaded to obedience, as appeared from the excitement which supervened. "[_Histoire universelle, _ t. Iii. P. 526. ] Besides, Henry himselfacknowledged, in the circular which he published on the 25th of July, 1596, at this juncture, the superior agency of the states-general. "We would gladly have brought them together in full assembly, " he said, "if the armed efforts of our enemies allowed of any longer delay infinding a remedy for the plague which is racking us so violently; ourintent is, pending the coming of the said states, to put a stop to allthese disorders in the best and quickest way possible. " "The king, moreover, " says Sully, "had no idea of imitating the kings hispredecessors in predilection for, and appointment of, certain deputiesfor whom he had a particular fancy; but he referred the nominationthereof to them of the church, of the noblesse, and of the people; andwhen they were assembled, he prescribed to them no rules, forms, orlimits, but left them complete freedom of their opinions, utterances, suffrages, and deliberations. " [OEconomies royales, t. Iii. P. 29. ]The notables met at Rouen to the number of eighty, nine of the clergy, nineteen of the noblesse, fifty-two of the third estate. The king openedthe assembly on the 4th of November, 1596, with these words, full ofdignity, and powerful in their vivid simplicity: "If I desired to win thetitle of orator, I would have learned by rote some fine, long speech, andwould deliver it to you with proper gravity. But, gentlemen, my desireprompts me towards two more glorious titles, the names of deliverer andrestorer of this kingdom. In order to attain whereto I have gathered youtogether. You know to your cost, as I to mine, that when it pleased Godto call me to this crown, I found France not only all but ruined, butalmost entirely lost to Frenchmen. By the divine favor, by the prayersand the good counsels of my servants who are not in the profession ofarms, by the sword of my brave and generous noblesse, from whom I singleout not the princes, upon the honor of a gentleman, as the holders of ourproudest title, and by my own pains and labors, I have preserved her fromperdition. Let us now preserve her from ruin. Share, my dear subjects, in this second triumph as you did in the first. I have not summoned you, like my predecessors, to get your approbation of their own wills. I havehad you assembled in order to receive your counsels, put faith in them, follow them, in short, place myself under guardianship in your hands; adesire but little congenial to kings, graybeards, and conquerors. Butthe violent love I feel towards my subjects, and the extreme desire Ihave to add those two proud titles to that of king, make everything easyand honorable to me. " L'Estoile relates that the king's favorite, Gabrielle d'Estrees, was atthe session behind some tapestry, and that, Henry IV. Having asked whatshe thought of his speech, she answered, "I never heard better spoken;only I was astonished that you spoke of placing yourself underguardianship. " "Ventre saint-gris, " replied the king, "that is true; butI mean with my sword by my side. " [_Journal de Pierre l'Estoile, _t. Iii. P. 185. ] The assembly of notables sat from November 4, 1596, to January 29, 1597, without introducing into the financial regimen any really effectivereforms; the rating board (_conseil de raison_), the institution of whichthey had demanded of the king, in connection with the fixing of impostsand employment of public revenues, was tried without success, and was notlong before, of its own accord, resigning its power into the king'shands; but the mere convocation of this assembly was a striking instanceof the homage paid by Henry IV. To that fundamental maxim of freegovernment, which, as early as under Louis XI. , Philip de Commynesexpressed in these terms: "There is no king or lord on earth who hathpower, over and above his own property, to put a single penny on hissubjects without grant and consent of those who have to pay, unless bytyranny and violence. " The ideas expressed and the counsels given by theassembly of notables were not, however, without good effect upon thegeneral administration of the state; but the principal and most salutaryresult of its presence and influence was the personal authority whichSully drew from it, and of which he did not hesitate to make full use. Having become superintendent-general of finance and grand master of theordnance, he exerted all his power to put in practice, as regarded thefinancial department, a system of receipts and expenses, and as regardedmaterials for the service of war, the reforms and maxims of economy, accountability, and supervision, which were suggested to him by his greatgood sense, and in which Henry IV. Supported him with the spirit of onewho well appreciated the strength they conferred upon his government, civil and military. His relations with the Protestants gave him embarrassments to surmountand reforms to accomplish of quite a different sort, and more difficultstill. At his accession, their satisfaction had not been untinged bydisquietude; they foresaw the sacrifices the king would be obliged tomake to his new and powerful friends the Catholics. His conversion toCatholicism threw into more or less open opposition the most zealous andsome of the ambitious members of his late church. It was not long beforetheir feelings burst forth in reproaches, alarms, and attacks. In 1597, a pamphlet, entitled _The Plaints of the Reformed Churches of France_[_Memoires de la Ligue, _ t. Vi. Pp. 428-486], was published and spreadprodigiously. "None can take it ill, " said the anonymous author, "thatwe who make profession of the Reformed religion should come forward toget a hearing for our plaints touching so many deeds of outrage, violence, and injustice which are daily done to us, and done not here orthere, but in all places of the realm; done at a time, under a reign inwhich they seemed less likely, and which ought to have given us betterhopes. . . . We, sir, are neither Spaniards nor Leaguers; we have hadsuch happiness as to see you, almost born and cradled, at any ratebrought up, amongst us; we have employed our properties, our lives, inorder to prevent the effects of ill will on the part of those who, fromyour cradle, sought your ruin; we have, with you and under your wise andvaliant leadership, made the chiefest efforts for the preservation of thecrown, which, thank God, is now upon your head. . . . We do beseechyou, sir, to give us permission to have the particulars of our grievancesheard both by your Majesty and all your French, for we do make plaint ofall the French. Not that in so great and populous a kingdom we shouldimagine that there are not still to be found some whose hearts bleed tosee indignities so inhuman; but of what avail to us is all they may havein them of what is good, humane, and French? A part of them are so soft, so timorous, that they would not so much as dare to show a symptom of notliking that which displeases them; and if, when they see us somaltreated, they do summon up sufficient boldness to look another way, and think that they have done but their duty, still do they tremble withfear of being taken for favorers of heretics. " The writer then enters upon an exposition of all the persecutions, allthe acts of injustice, all the evils of every kind that the reformershave to suffer. He lays the blame of them, as he has just said, upon thewhole French community, the noblesse, the commons, the magistracy, aswell as the Catholic priests and monks; he enumerates a multitude ofspecial facts in support of his plaints. "Good God!" he cries, "thatthere should be no class, no estate in France, from which we can hope forany relief! None from which we may not fear lest ruin come upon us!"And he ends by saying, "Stem, then, sir, with your good will and yourauthority, the tide of our troubles. Direct your counsels towards givingus some security. Accustom your kingdom to at least endure us, if itwill not love us. We demand of your Majesty an edict which may give usenjoyment of that which is common to all your subjects, that is to say, of far less than you have granted to your enemies, your rebels of theLeague. " We will not stop to inquire whether the matters stated in these plaintsare authentic or disputable, accurate or exaggerated; it is probable thatthey contain a great deal of truth, and that, even under Henry IV. , theProtestants had many sufferings to endure and disregarded rights torecover. The mistake they made and the injustice they showed consistedin not taking into, account all the good that Henry IV. Had done them andwas daily doing them, and in calling upon him, at a moment's notice, tosecure to them by an edict all the good that it was not in his power todo them. We purpose just to give a brief summary of the ameliorationsintroduced into their position under him, even before the edict ofNantes, and to transfer the responsibility for all they still lacked tothe cause indicated by themselves in their plaints, when they take totask all the French on the Catholic side, who, in the sixteenth century, disregarded in France the rights of creed and of religious life, just asthe Protestants themselves disregarded them in England so far as theCatholics were concerned. One fact immediately deserves to be pointed out; and that is the numberand the practical character of meetings officially held at this period bythe Protestants: an indisputable proof of the liberty they enjoyed. These meetings were of two sorts; one, the synods, were for the purposeof regulating their faith, their worship, their purely religious affairs. Between 1594 and 1609, under the sway of Henry IV. , Catholic king, sevennational synods of the Protestant church in France held their sessions inseven different towns, and discussed with perfect freedom such questionsof religious doctrine and discipline as were interesting to them. At thesame epoch, between 1593 and 1608, the French Protestants met at elevenassemblies, specially summoned to deliberate, not in these cases uponquestions of faith and religious discipline, but upon their temporal andpolitical interests, upon their relations towards the state, and upon theconduct they were to adopt under the circumstances of their times. Theprinciple to which minds, and even matters, to a certain extent, have nowattained, the deep-seated separation between the civil and the religiouslife, and their mutual independence, this higher principle was unknown tothe sixteenth century; the believer and the citizen were then but one, and the efforts of laws and governments were directed towards bringingthe whole nation entire into the same state of unity. And as they didnot succeed therein, their attempts produced strife instead of unity, warinstead of peace. When the French Protestants of the sixteenth centurymet in the assemblies which they themselves called political, they actedas one nation confronting another nation, and labored to form a statewithin state. We will borrow from the intelligent and learned _Histoired'Henri IV. , _ by M. Poirson, (t. Ii. Pp. 497-500), a picture of one ofthose assemblies and its work. "After the king's abjuration, and at theend of the year 1593, the French Huguenots renewed at Mantes their oldunion, and swore to live and die united in their profession of faith. Henry was in hopes that they would stop short at a religiousdemonstration; but they made it a starting-point for a new political andmilitary organization on behalf of the Calvinistic party. They tookadvantage of a general permission granted them by Henry, and met, not insynod, but in general assembly, at the town of Sainte Foy, in the monthof June, 1594. Thereupon they divided all France into nine greatprovinces or circles, composed each of several governments or provincesof the realm. Each circle had a separate council, composed of from fiveto seven members, and commissioned to fix and apportion the separateimposts, to keep up a standing army, to collect the supplies necessaryfor the maintenance and defence of the party. The Calvinistic republichad its general assemblies, composed of nine deputies or representativesfrom each of the nine circles. These assemblies were invested withauthority to order, on the general account, all that the juncturerequired, that is to say, with a legislative power distinct from that ofthe crown and nation. . . . If the king ceased to pay the sumsnecessary to keep up the garrisons in the towns left to the Reformers, the governors were to seize the talliages in the hands of the king'sreceivers, and apply the money to the payment of the garrisons. And incase the central power should attempt to repress these violentprocedures, or to substitute as commandant in those places a Catholic fora Protestant, all the Calvinists of the locality and the neighboringdistricts were to unite and rise in order to give the assistance of thestrong hand to the Protestant governors so attacked. Independently ofthe ordinary imposts, a special impost was laid on the Calvinists, andgave their leaders the disposal of a yearly sum of one hundred and twentythousand livres (four hundred and forty thousand francs of the presentday). The Calvinistic party had thus a territorial area, anadministration, finances, a legislative power and an executive powerindependent of those of the countr;y; or, in other words, the means oftaking resolutions contrary to those of the mass of the nation, and ofupholding them by revolt. All they wanted was a Huguenot stadtholder tooppose to the King of France, and they were looking out for one. " Henry IV. Did not delude himself as to the tendency of such organizationamongst those of his late party. "He rebuffed very sternly (andwisely), " says L'Estoile, "those who spoke to him of it. 'As for aprotector, ' he told them, 'he would have them to understand that therewas no other protector in France but himself for one side or the other;the first man who should be so daring as to assume the title would do soat the risk of his life; he might be quite certain of that. '" Had HenryIV. Been permitted to read the secrets of a not so very distant future, he might have told the Huguenots of his day that the time was not so faroff when their pretension to political organization and to the formationof a state within the state, would compromise their religious liberty andfurnish the absolute government of Louis XIV. With excuses for abolishingthe protective edict which Henry IV. 's sympathy was on the point ofgranting them, and which, so far as its purely religious provisions went, was duly respected by the sagacity of Cardinal Richelieu. After his conversion to Catholicism, and during the whole of hisreign, it was one of Henry IV. 's constant anxieties to show himselfwell-disposed towards his old friends, and to do for them all he could dowithout compromising the public peace in France, or abdicating in his ownperson the authority he needed to maintain order and peace. Some of theedicts published by his predecessors during the intervals of civil war, notably the edict of Poitiers issued by Henry III. , had granted theProtestants free exercise of their worship in the castles of theCalvinistic lords who had jurisdiction, to the number of thirty-fivehundred, and in the faubourgs of one town or borough of each bailiwick ofthe realm, except the bailiwick of Paris. Further, the holding ofproperties and heritages, union by marriage with Catholics, and theadmission of Protestants to the employments, offices, and dignities ofthe realm, were recognized by this edict. These rights, in black andwhite, had often been violated by the different authorities, or suspendedduring the wars; Henry IV. Maintained them or put them in force again, and supported the application of them or decreed the extension of them. It was calculated that there were in France eight hundred towns and threehundred bailiwicks or seneschalties; the treaties concluded with theLeague had expressly prohibited the exercise of Protestant worship inforty towns and seventeen bailiwicks; Henry IV. Tolerated it everywhereelse. The prohibition was strict as regarded Paris and ten leaguesround; but, as early as 1594, three months after his entry into Paris, Henry aided the Reformers in the unostentatious celebration of their ownform in the Faubourg St. Germain; and he authorized the use of it atcourt for religious ceremonies, especially for marriages. Threesuccessive edicts, two issued at Mantes in 1591 and 1593, and the thirdat St. Germain in 1597, confirmed and developed these signs of progressin the path of religious liberty. [Illustration: The Castle of St. Germain in the Reign of Henry IV. --107] The Parliaments had in general refused to enregister these decrees a factwhich gave them an incomplete and provisional character; but equitableand persistent measures on the king's part prevailed upon the Parliamentof Paris to enregister the edict of St. Germain; and the Parliament ofDijon and nearly all the other Parliaments of the kingdom followed thisexample. One of the principal provisions of this last edict declaredProtestants competent to fill all the offices and dignities of thekingdom. It had many times been inserted in preceding edicts, but alwaysrejected by the Parliaments or formally revoked. Henry IV. Brought itinto force and credit by putting it extensively in practice, withoutentering upon discussion of it and without adding any comment upon it. In 1590 he had given Palleseuil the government of Neuchatel in Normandy;he had introduced Hurault Dufay, Du Plessis-Mornay and Rosny into thecouncil of state; in 1594 he had appointed the last a member of thecouncil of finance; Soffray de Colignon, La Force, Lesdiguieres, andSancy were summoned to the most important functions; Turenne, in 1594, was raised to the dignity of marshal of France; and in 1595 La Tremoillewas made duke and peer. They were all Protestants. Their number andtheir rank put the matter beyond all dispute; it was a naturalconsequence of the social condition of France; it became an habitualpractice with the government. Nevertheless the complaints and requirements of the malcontentProtestants continued, and became day by day more vehement; in 1596 and1597 the assemblies of Saumur, Loudun, and Vendome became their organs ofexpression; and messengers were sent with them to the camp before LaFere, which Henry IV. Was at that time besieging. He deferred his reply. Two of the principal Protestant leaders, the Dukes of Bouillon and LaTremoille, suddenly took extreme measures; they left the king and hisarmy, carrying off their troops with them, one to Auvergne and the otherto Poitou. The deputies from the assembly of Loudun started back againat the same time, as if for the purpose of giving the word to arm intheir provinces. Du Plessis-Mornay and his wife, the most zealous of theProtestants who were faithful at the same time to their cause and to theking, bear witness to this threatening crisis. "The deputies, " saysMadame du Mornay in her Memoires, "returned each to his own province, with the intention of taking the cure of their evils into their ownhands, whence would infallibly have ensued trouble enough to complete theruin of this state had not the king, by the management of M. Du Plessis, been warned of this imminent danger, and by him persuaded to send off andtreat in good earnest with the said assembly. " "These gentry, rebuffedat court, " says Du Plessis-Mornay himself in a letter to the Duke ofBouillon, "have resolved to take the cure into their own hands; to thatend they have been authorized, and by actions which do not seem to leadthem directly thither they will find that they have passed the Rubiconright merrily. " It was as it were a new and a Protestant League justcoming to a head. Henry IV. Was at that time engaged in the mostimportant negotiation of his reign. After a long and difficult siege hehad just retaken. Amiens. He thought it a favorable moment at which totreat for peace with Spain, and put an end to an onerous war which he hadbeen for so long sustaining. He informed the Queen of England of hisintention, "begging her, if the position of her affairs did not permither to take part in the treaty he was meditating with Spain, to let himknow clearly what he must do to preserve amity and good understandingbetween the two crowns, for he would always prefer an ally like her toreconciled foes such as the Spaniards. " He addressed the samenotification to the Dutch government. Elizabeth on one hand and thestates-general on the other tried to dissuade him from peace with Spain, and to get him actively re-engaged in the strife from which they were notdisposed to emerge. He persisted in his purpose whilst setting beforethem his reasons for it, and binding himself to second faithfully theirefforts by all pacific means. A congress was opened in January, 1598, atVervins in Picardy, through the mediation of Pope Clement VIII. , anxiousto become the pacificator of Catholic Europe. The Frenchplenipotentiaries, Pomponne de Bellievre and Brulart de Silleri, hadinstructions to obtain the restoration to the king of all towns andplaces taken by the Spaniards from France since the treaty of peace ofCateau-Cambresis, and to have the Queen of England and the UnitedProvinces, if they testified a desire for it, included in the treaty, or, at any rate, to secure for them a truce. After three months' conferencesthe treaty of peace was concluded at Vervins on the 2d of May, 1598, theprincipal condition being, that King Philip II. Should restore to Francethe towns of Calais, Ardres, Doullens, Le Catelet, and Blavet; that heshould re-enter upon possession of the countship of Charolais; and that, if either of the two sovereigns had any claims to make against one of thestates their allies in this treaty, "he should prosecute them only by wayof law, before competent judges, and not by force, in any mannerwhatever. " The Queen of England took no decisive resolution. When oncethe treaty was concluded, Henry IV. , on signing it, said to the Duke ofEpernon, "With this stroke of my pen I have just done more exploits thanI should have done in a long while with the best swords in my kingdom. " A month before the conclusion of the treaty of peace at Vervins withPhilip II. , Henry IV. Had signed and published at Paris on the 13th ofApril, 1598, the edict of Nantes, his treaty of peace with the Protestantmalcontents. This treaty, drawn up in ninety-two open and fifty-sixsecret articles, was a code of old and new laws regulating the civil andreligious position of Protestants in France, the conditions andguarantees of their worship, their liberties, and their specialobligations in their relations whether with the crown or with theirCatholic fellow-countrymen. By this code Henry IV. Added a great dealto the rights of the Protestants and to the duties of the state towardsthem. Their worship was authorized not only in the castles of the lordshigh-justiciary, who numbered thirty-five hundred, but also in thecastles of simple noblemen who enjoyed no high-justiciary rights, provided that the number of those present did not exceed thirty. Twotowns or two boroughs, instead of one, had the same religious rights ineach bailiwick or seneschalty of the kingdom. The state was charged withthe duty of providing for the salaries of the Protestant ministers andrectors in their colleges or schools, and an annual sum of one hundredand sixty-five thousand livres of those times (four hundred andninety-five thousand francs of the present day) was allowed for thatpurpose. Donations and legacies to be so applied were authorized. Thechildren of Protestants were admitted into the universities, colleges, schools, and hospitals, without distinction between them and Catholics. There was great difficulty in securing for them, in all the Parliamentsof the kingdom, impartial justice; and a special chamber, called theedict-chamber, was instituted for the trial of all causes in which theywere interested. Catholic judges could not sit in this chamber unlesswith their consent and on their presentation. In the Parliaments ofBordeaux, Toulouse, and Grenoble, the edict-chamber was composed of twopresidents, one a Catholic and the other a Reformer, and of twelvecouncillors, of whom six were Reformers. The Parliaments had hithertorefused to admit Reformers into their midst; in the end the Parliamentof Paris admitted six, one into the edict-chamber and five into theappeal-chamber (enquetes). The edict of Nantes retained, at first foreight years and then for four more, in the hands of the Protestants thetowns which war or treaties had put in their possession, and whichnumbered, it is said, two hundred. The king was bound to bear theburden of keeping up their fortifications and paying their garrisons;and Henry IV. Devoted to that object five hundred and forty thousandlivres of those times, or about two million francs of our day. When theedict thus regulating the position and rights of Protestants waspublished, it was no longer on their part, but on that of the Catholics, that lively protests were raised. Many Catholics violently opposed theexecution of the new law; they got up processions at Tours to excite thepopulace against the edict, and at Le Mans to induce the Parliament ofNormandy to reject it. The Parliament of Paris put in the way of itsregistration retardations which seemed to forebode a refusal. Henrysummoned to the Louvre deputies from all the chambers. "What I havedone, " he said to them, "is for the good of peace. I have made itabroad; I wish to make it at home. Necessity forced me to this decree. They who would prevent it from passing would have war. You see me in mycloset. I speak to you, not in royal robe, or with sword and cape, asmy predecessors did, nor as a prince receiving an embassy, but as afather of a family in his doublet conversing familiarly with hischildren. It is said that I am minded to favor them of the religion;there is a mind to entertain some mistrust of me. . . . I know thatcabals have been got up in the Parliament, that seditious preachers havebeen set on. . . . The preachers utter words by way of doctrine forto build up rather than pull down sedition. That is the road formerly, taken to the making of barricades, and to proceeding by degrees to theparricide of the late king. I will cut the roots of all these factions;I will make short work of those who foment them. I have scaled thewalls of cities; you may be sure I shall scale barricades. You mustconsider that what I am doing is for a good purpose, and let my pastbehavior go bail for it. " Parliaments and Protestants, all saw that they had to do not only with astrong-willed king, but with a judicious and clearsighted man, a trueFrench patriot, who was sincerely concerned for the public interest, andwho had won his spurs in the art of governing parties by making for eachits own place in the state. It was scarcely five years ago that the kingwho was now publishing the edict of Nantes had become a Catholic; theParliaments enregistered the decree. The Protestant malcontents resignedthemselves to the necessity of being content with it. Whatever theirimperfections and the objections that might be raised to them, the peaceof Vervins and the edict of Narrtes were, amidst the obstacles and perilsencountered at every step by the government of Henry IV. , the two mosttimely and most beneficial acts in the world for France. Four months after the conclusion of the treaty of Vervins, on the 13th ofSeptember, 1598, Philip II. Died at the Escurial, "prison, cloister, andtomb all in one, " as M. Rosseeuw St. Hilaire very well remarks [_Histoired'Espagne, _ t. X. Pp. 335-363], situated eight leagues from Madrid. Philip was so ill, and so cruelly racked by gout and fever, that it wasdoubted whether he could be removed thither; "but a collection of relics, amassed by his orders in Germany, had just arrived at the Escurial, andthe festival of consecration was to take place within a few days. 'Idesire that I be borne alive thither where my tomb already is, ' saidPhilip. " He was laid in a litter borne by men who walked at a snail'space, in order to avoid all shaking. Forced to halt every instant, hetook six days to do the eight leagues which separated him from his lastresting-place. There he died in atrocious agonies, and after a verypainful operation, endured with unalterable courage and calmness; he hadordered to be placed in front of his bed the bier in which his body wasto lie and the crucifix which his father, Charles V. , at his death in themonastery of Yuste, had held in his hand. During a reign of forty-twoyears Philip II. Was, systematically and at any price, on the score ofwhat he regarded as the divine right of the Catholic church and of hisown kingship, the patron of absolute power in Europe. Earnest andsincere in his faith, licentious without open scandal in his privatelife, unscrupulous and pitiless in the service of the religious andpolitical cause he had embraced, he was capable of any lie, one mightalmost say of any crime, without having his conscience troubled by it. A wicked man and a frightful example of what a naturally cold and hardspirit may become when it is a prey to all the temptations of despotismand to two sole passions, egotism and fanaticism. After the death of Philip II. And during the first years of the reign ofhis son Philip III. , war continued between Spain on one side, andEngland, the United Provinces, and the German Protestants on the other, but languidly and without any results to signify. Henry IV. Held alooffrom the strife, all the while permitting his Huguenot subjects to takepart in it freely and at their own risks. On the 3d of April, 1603, a second great royal personage, Queen Elizabeth, disappeared from thescene. She had been, as regards the Protestantism of Europe, what PhilipII. Had been, as regards Catholicism, a powerful and able patron; but, what Philip II. Did from fanatical conviction, Elizabeth did frompatriotic feeling; she had small faith in Calvinistic doctrines, and noliking for Puritanic sects; the Catholic church, the power of the popeexcepted, was more to her mind than the Anglican church, and her privatepreferences differed greatly from her public practices. Besides, shecombined with the exigencies of a king's position the instincts of awoman; she had the vanities rather than the weaknesses of one; she wouldfain have inspired and responded to the passions natural to one; butpolicy always had the dominion over her sentiments without extinguishingthem, and the proud sovereign sent to the block the overweening andalmost rebel subject whom she afterwards grievously regretted. Theseinconsistent resolutions and emotions caused Elizabeth's life to be oneof agitation, though without warmth, and devoid of serenity as ofsweetness. And so, when she grew old, she was disgusted with it andweary of it; she took no pleasure any more in thing or person; she couldno longer bear herself, either in her court or in her bed or elsewhere;she decked herself out to lie stretched upon cushions and there remainmotionless, casting about her vague glances which seemed to seek afterthat for which she did not ask. She ended by repelling her physiciansand even refusing nourishment. When her ministers saw her thus, almostinsensible and dying, they were emboldened to remind her of what she hadsaid to them one day at White-Hall, "My throne must be a king's throne. "At this reminder she seemed to rouse herself, and repeated the samewords, adding, "I will not have a rascal (vaurien) to succeed me. " SirRobert Cecil asked her what she meant by that expression. "I tell youthat I must have a king to succeed me; who can that be but my cousin ofScotland?" After having indicated the King of Scotland, James Stuart, son of the fair rival whom she had sent to the block, Elizabeth remainedspeechless. The Archbishop of Canterbury commenced praying, breaking offat intervals; twice the queen signed to him to go on. Her advisersreturned in the evening, and begged her to indicate to them by signs ifshe were still of the same mind; she raised her arms and crossed themabove her head. Then she seemed to fall into a dreamy state. At threeo'clock, during the night, she quietly passed away. Some few hoursafterwards, her counsellors in assembly resolved to proclaim JamesStuart, King of Scotland, King of England, as the nearest of kin to thelate queen, and indicated by her on her death-bed. At the beginning of the seventeenth century Henry IV. Was the only oneremaining of the three great sovereigns who, during the sixteenth, haddisputed, as regarded religion and politics, the preponderance in Europe. He had succeeded in all his kingly enterprises; he had become a Catholicin France without ceasing to be the prop of the Protestants in Europe;he had made peace with Spain without embroiling himself with England, Holland, and Lutheran Germany. He had shot up, as regarded ability andinfluence, in the eyes of all Europe. It was just then that he gave thestrongest proof of his great judgment and political sagacity; he was notintoxicated with success; he did not abuse his power; he did not aspireto distant conquests or brilliant achievements; he concerned himselfchiefly with the establishment of public order in his kingdom and withhis people's prosperity. His well-known saying, "I want all my peasantryto have a fowl in the pot every Sunday, " was a desire worthy of LouisXII. Henry IV. Had a sympathetic nature; his grandeur did not lead himto forget the nameless multitudes whose fate depended upon hisgovernment. He had, besides, the rich, productive, varied, inquiring mind of one whotook an interest not only in the welfare of the French peasantry, but inthe progress of the whole French community, progress agricultural, industrial, commercial, scientific, and literary. The conversation of anindependent thinker like Montaigne had, at the least, as much attractionfor him as that of his comrades in arms. Long before Henry IV. Was Kingof France, on the 19th of December, 1584, Montaigne, wrote, "The King ofNavarre came to see me at Montaigne where he had never been before, andwas there two days, attended by my people without any of his ownofficers; he permitted neither tasting (essai) nor state-banquet(couvert), and slept in my bed. " On the 24th of October, 1587, afterwinning the battle of Contras, Henry stopped to dine at Montaigne'shouse, though its possessor had remained faithful to Henry III. , whosetroops had just lost the battle; and on the 18th of January, 1590, whenthe King of Navarre, now become King of France, besieged and took thetown of Lisieux, Montaigne wrote to him, "All the time through, sir, Ihave observed in you this same fortune that is now yours; and you mayremember that even when I had to make confession thereof to myparish-priest I did not omit to regard your successes with a kindly eye. Now, with more reason and freedom, I hug them to my heart. Yonder theydo you service by effects; but they do you no less service here byreputation. The report goes as far as the shot. We could not derivefrom the justice of your cause arguments so powerful in sustaining orreducing your subjects as we do from the news of the prosperity of yourenterprises. " Abroad the policy of Henry IV. Was as judicious and far sighted as it wasjust and sympathetic at home. There has been much writing anddissertation about what has been called his grand design. This name hasbeen given to a plan for the religious and political organization ofChristendom, consisting in the division of Europe amongst threereligions, the Catholic, the Calvinistic, and the Lutheran, and intofifteen states, great and small, monarchical or republican, with equalrights, alone recognized as members of the Christian confederation, regulating in concert their common affairs, and pacifically making uptheir differences, whilst all the while preserving their nationalexistence. This plan is lengthily and approvingly set forth, severaltimes over, in the _OEconomies royales, _ which Sully's secretaries wroteat his suggestion, and probably sometimes at his dictation. Henry IV. Was a prince as expansive in ideas as he was inventive, who was a masterof the art of pleasing, and himself took great pleasure in the freedomand unconstraint of conversation. No doubt the notions of the granddesign often came into his head, and he often talked about them to Sully, his confidant in what he thought as well as in what he did. Sully, forhis part was a methodical spirit, a regular downright putter in practice, evidently struck and charmed by the richness and grandeur of theprospects placed before his eyes by his king, and feeling pleasure inshedding light upon them whilst giving them a more positive and morecomplete shape than belonged to their first and original appearance. And thus came down to us the grand design, which, so far as Henry IV. Wasconcerned, was never a definite project. His true external policy wasmuch more real and practical. He had seen and experienced the evils ofreligious hatred and persecution. He had been a great sufferer from thesupremacy of the house of Austria in Europe, and he had for a long whileopposed it. When he became the most puissant and most regarded ofEuropean kings, he set his heart very strongly on two things--tolerationfor the three religions which had succeeded in establishing themselves inEurope and showing themselves capable of contending one against another, and the abasement of the house of Austria, which, even after the death ofCharles V. And of Philip II. , remained the real and the formidable rivalof France. The external policy of Henry from the treaty of Vervins tohis death, was religious peace in Europe and the alliance of CatholicFrance with Protestant England and Germany against Spain and Austria. Heshowed constant respect and deference towards the papacy, a power highlyregarded in both the rival camps, though much fallen from the substantialimportance it had possessed in Europe during the middle ages. Frenchpolicy striving against Spanish policy, such was the true and the onlyserious characteristic of the grand design. Four men, very unequal in influence as well as merit, Sully, Villeroi, Du Plessis-Mornay, and D'Aubigne, did Henry IV. Effective service, byvery different processes and in very different degrees, towardsestablishing and rendering successful this internal and external policy. Three were Protestants; Villeroi alone was a Catholic. Sully is beyondcomparison with the other three. He is the only one whom Henry IV. Called my friend; the only one who had participated in all the life andall the government of Henry IV. , his evil as well as his exaltedfortunes, his most painful embarrassments at home as well as his greatestpolitical acts; the only one whose name has remained inseparablyconnected with that of a master whom he served without servility as wellas without any attempt to domineer. There is no idea of entering hereupon his personal history; we would only indicate his place in that ofhis king. Maximilian de Bethune-Rosny, born in 1559, and six yearsyounger than Henry of Navarre, was barely seventeen when in 1576 heattended Henry on his flight from the court of France to go and recoverin Navarre his independence of position and character. Rosny was contentat first to serve him as a volunteer, "in order, " he said, "to learn theprofession of arms from its first rudiments. " He speedily did himselfhonor in several actions. In 1580 the King of Navarre took him aschamberlain and counsellor. On becoming King of France, Henry IV. , in1594, made him secretary of state; in 1596, put him on the council offinance; in 1597, appointed him grand surveyor of France, and, in 1599, superintendent-general of finance and master of the ordnance. In 1602 hewas made Marquis de Rosny and councillor of honor in the Parliament; thengovernor of the Bastille, superintendent of fortifications, and surveyorof Paris; in 1603, governor of Poitou. Lastly, in 1606, his estate ofSully-sur-Loire was raised to a duchy-peerage, and he was living underthis name, which has become his historical name, when, in 1610, theassassination of Henry IV. Sent into retirement, for thirty-one years, the confidant of all his thoughts and the principal minister of a reignwhich, independently of the sums usefully expended for the service of thestate and the advancement of public prosperity, had extinguished, according to the most trustworthy evidence, two hundred and thirty-fivemillions of debts, and which left in the coffers of the state, in readymoney or in safe securities, forty-three million, one hundred andthirty-eight thousand, four hundred and ninety livres. Nicholas de Neufville, Lord of Villeroi, who was born in 1543, and whosegrandfather had been secretary of state under Francis I. , was, whilstHenry III. Was still reigning, member of a small secret council at whichall questions relating to Protestants were treated of. Though a strictCatholic, and convinced that the King of France ought to be openly in theranks of the Catholics, and to govern with their support, he sometimesgave Henry III. Some free-spoken and wise counsels. When he saw himspending his time with the brotherhoods of penitents whose head he haddeclared himself, "Sir, " said he, "debts and obligations are consideredaccording to dates, and therefore old debts ought to be paid before newones. You were King of France before you were head of the brotherhoods;your conscience binds you to render to the kingship that which you owe itrather than to the fraternity that which you have promised it. You canexcuse yourself from one, but not from the other. You only wear thesackcloth when you please, but you have the crown always on your head. "When the wars of religion broke out, when the League took form and Henryde Guise had been assassinated at Blois, Villeroi, naturally a Leaguerand a moderate Leaguer, became the immediate adviser of the Duke ofMayenne. After Henry III. 's death, as soon as he heard that Henry IV. Promised to have himself instructed in the Catholic religion, heannounced his intention of recognizing him if he held to this engagement;and he held to his own, for he was during five years the intermediarybetween Henry IV. And Mayenne, incessantly laboring to reconcile them, and to prevent the estates of the League from giving the crown of Franceto a Spanish princess. Villeroi was a Leaguer of the patrioticallyFrench type. And so Henry IV. , as soon as he was firm upon his throne, summoned him to his councils, and confided to him the direction offoreign affairs. The late Leaguer sat beside Sully, and exerted himselfto give the prevalence, in Henry IV. 's external policy, to Catholicmaxims and alliances, whilst Sully, remaining firmly Protestant in theservice of his king turned Catholic, continued to be in foreign mattersthe champion of Protestant policy and alliances. There was thus seen, during the sixteenth century, in the French monarchy, a phenomenon whichwas to repeat itself during the eighteenth in the republic of the UnitedStates of America, when, in 1789, its president, Washington, summoned tohis cabinet Hamilton and Jefferson together, one the stanchest of thearistocratic federalists and the other the warm defender of democraticprinciples and tendencies. Washington, in his lofty and calmimpartiality, considered that, to govern the nascent republic, he hadneed of both; and he found a way, in fact, to make both of service tohim. Henry IV. Had perceived himself to be in an analogous position withFrance and Europe divided between Catholics and Protestants, whom heaspired to pacificate. He likewise succeeded. An incomplete success, however, as generally. Happens when the point attained is an adjournment of knotty questionswhich war has vainly attempted to cut, and the course of ideas and eventshas not yet had time to unravel. Henry IV. Made so great a case of Villeroi's co-operation and influence, that, without loving him as he loved Sully, he upheld him and kept him assecretary of state for foreign affairs to the end of his reign. Heprecisely defined his peculiar merit when he said, "Princes have servantsof all values and all sorts; some do their own business before that oftheir master; others do their master's and do not forget their own; butVilleroi believes that his master's business is his own, and he bestowsthereon the same zeal that another does in pushing his own suit orlaboring at his own vine. " Though short and frigidly written, theMemoires of Villeroi give, in fact, the idea of a man absorbed in hiscommission and regarding it as his own business as well as that of hisking and country. Philip du Plessis-Mornay occupied a smaller place than Sully and Villeroiin the government of Henry IV. ; but he held and deserves to keep a greatone in the history of his times. He was the most eminent and also themost moderate of the men of profound piety and conviction of whom theReformation had made a complete conquest, soul and body, and who placedtheir public fidelity to their religious creed above every other interestand every other affair in this world. He openly blamed and bitterlydeplored Henry IV. 's conversion to Catholicism, but he did not ignore theweighty motives for it; his disapproval and his vexation did not make himforget the great qualities of his king or the services he was renderingFrance, or his own duty and his earlier feelings towards him. Thisunbending Protestant, who had contributed as much as anybody to putHenry IV. On the throne, who had been admitted further than anybody, except Sully, to his intimacy, who ever regretted that his king hadabandoned his faith, who braved all perils and all disgraces to keep andmaintain his own, this Mornay, malcontent, saddened, all but banishedfrom court, assailed by his friends' irritation and touched by theirsufferings, never took part against the king whom he blamed, and of whomhe thought he had to complain, in any faction or any intrigue; on thecontrary, he remained unshakably faithful to him, incessantly striving tomaintain or re-establish in the Protestant church in France some littleorder and peace, and between the Protestants and Henry IV. Some littlemutual confidence and friendliness. Mornay had made up his mind to serveforever a king who had saved his country. He remained steadfast andactive in his creed, but without falling beneath the yoke of anynarrow-minded idea, preserving his patriotic good sense in the midst ofhis fervent piety, and bearing with sorrowful constancy his friends'bursts of anger and his king's exhibitions of ingratitude. Between 1597and 1605 three incidents supervened which put to the proof Henry IV. 'sfeelings towards his old and faithful servant. In October, 1597, Mornay, still governor of Saumur, had gone to Angers to concert plans withMarshal de Brissac for an expedition which, by order of the king, theywere to make into Brittany against the Duke of Mercoeur, not yet reducedto submission. As he was passing along the street with only three orfour of his men, he was unexpectedly attacked by one Sieur de Saint-Phal, who, after calling upon him to give some explanation as to a disagreementthat had taken place between them five months before, brutally struck hima blow on the head with a stick, knocked him down, immediately mounted ahorse that was held all ready on the spot, and fled in haste, leavingMornay in the hands of ten or a dozen accomplices, who dealt him severalsword-thrusts as he was rising to defend himself, and who, in their turn, fled. Some passers-by hurried up; Mornay's wounds were found to beslight; but the affair, which nobody hesitated to call murder, made agreat noise; there was general indignation; the king was at once informedof it; and whilst the question was being discussed at Saumur whetherMornay ought to seek reparation by way of arms or by that of law, HenryIV. Wrote to him in his own hand on the 8th of November, 1597:-- "M. Du Plessis: I am extremely displeased at the outrage you have metwith, wherein I participate both as king and as your friend. As theformer I will do you justice and myself too. If I bore only the secondtitle, you have none whose sword would be more ready to leap from itsscabbard than mine, or who would put his life at your service morecheerfully than I. Take this for granted, that, in effect, I will renderyou the offices of king, master, and friend. And on this truthfulassurance, I conclude, praying God to have you in His holy keeping. " Saint-Phal remained for a long while concealed in the very district, amongst his relatives; but on the 12th of January, 1599, he was arrestedand put in the Bastille; and, according to the desire of Mornay himself, the king decided that he should be brought before him, unarmed, shouldplace one knee on the ground, should ask his pardon, and then, assuminghis arms, should accordingly receive that pardon, first of all fromMornay, whom the king had not permitted to exact in another way thereparation due to him, and afterwards from the mouth of the king himself, together with a severe admonition to take heed to himself for the future. The affair having thus terminated, there was no more heard of Saint-Phal, and Mornay returned to Saumur with a striking mark of the king'ssympathy, who, in his own words, had felt pleasure "in avenging him asking and as friend. " The second incident was of more political consequence, and neither theking nor Mornay conducted themselves with sufficient discretion anddignity. In July, 1598, Mornay published a treatise on the institutionof the eucharist in the Christian church, how and by what degrees themass was introduced in its place. It was not only an attack upon thefundamental dogma and cult of the Catholic church; the pope was expresslystyled Antichrist in it. Clement VIII. Wrote several times about it toHenry IV. , complaining that a man of such high standing in the governmentand in the king's regard should treat so insultingly a sovereign inalliance with the king, and head of the church to which the kingbelonged. The pope's complaint came opportunely. Henry IV. Was at thistime desirous of obtaining from the court of Rome annulment of hismarriage with Marguerite de Valois, that he might be enabled to contractanother; he did not as yet say with whom. Mornay's book was vigorouslyattacked, not only in point of doctrine, but in point of fact; he wascharged with having built his foundation upon a large number ofmisquotations; and the Bishop of Evreux, M. Du Perron, a great friend ofthe king's, whom he had always supported and served, said that he wasprepared to point out as such nearly five hundred. The dispute grew warmbetween the two theologians; Mornay demanded leave to prove the falsehoodof the accusation; the bishop accepted the challenge. For all hisdefence of his book and his erudition, Mornay did not show any greathurry to enter upon the contest; and, on the other hand, the bishopreduced the number of the quotations against which he objected. The sumtotal of the quotations found fault with was fixed at sixty. Aconference was summoned to look into them, and six commissioners, threeCatholic and three Protestant, were appointed to give judgment; De Thouand Pithou amongst the former, Dufresne la Canaye and Casaubon amongstthe latter. Erudition was worthily represented there, and there wasevery probability of justice. The conference met on the 4th of May, 1600, at Fontainebleau, in presence of the king and many great lords, magistrates, ecclesiastics, and distinguished spectators. [Illustration: The Castle of Fontainbleau----124] Mornay began by owning that "out of four thousand quotations made by himit was unlikely that some would not be found wherein he might have erred, as he was human, but he was quite sure that it was never in bad faith. "He then said that, being pressed for time, he had not yet been able tocollate more than nineteen out of the sixty quotations speciallyattacked. Of these nineteen nine only were examined at this firstconference, and nearly all were found to be incorrect. Next day, Mornaywas taken "with a violent seizure and repeated attacks of vomiting, whichM. De la Riviere, the king's premier physician, came and deposed to. "The conference was broken off, and not resumed afterwards. The kingcongratulated himself beyond measure at the result, and even on the partwhich he had taken. "Tell the truth, " said he to the Bishop of Evreux, "the good right had good need of aid;" and he wrote, on the 6th of May tothe Duke of Epernon, "The diocese of Evreux has beaten that of Saumur. The bearer was present, and will tell you that I did wonders. Assuredlyit is one of the greatest hits for the church of God that have been madefor some time. " He evidently had it very much at heart that the popeshould be well informed of what had taken place, and feel obliged to himfor it. "Haven't you wits to see that the king, in order to gratify thepope, has been pleased to sacrifice my father's honor at his feet?" saidyoung Philip de Mornay to some courtiers who were speaking to him aboutthis sad affair. This language was reported to the king, who showedhimself much hurt by it. "He is a young man beside himself with grief, "they said, "and it is his own father's case. " "Young he is not, " repliedthe king; "he is forty years old, twenty in age and twenty from hisfather's teaching. " The king's own circle and his most distinguishedservants gladly joined in his self-congratulation. "Well, " he said toSully, "what think you of your pope?" "I think, sir, " answered Sully, "that he is more pope than you suppose; cannot you see that he gives ared hat to M. D'Evreux? Really, I never saw a man so dumbfounded, or onewho defended himself so ill. If our religion had no better foundationthan his crosswise legs and arms (Mornay habitually kept them so), Iwould abandon it rather to-day than to-morrow. " [_OEconomies royales, _t. Iii. P. 346. ] Sully desired nothing better than to find Mornay at fault, and to see theking fully convinced of it. Jealousy is nowhere more wide-awake and moreimplacable than at courts. However, amongst the grandees present at theconference of Fontainebleau there were some who did not share the generalimpression. "I saw there, " said the Duke of Mayenne as he went away fromit, "only a very old and very faithful servant very badly paid for somany services;" and, in spite of the king's letter, the Duke of Epernonsent word to Mornay that he still took him for a gentleman of honor, andstill remained his friend. Henry IV. Himself, with his delicate andready tact, was not slow to perceive that he had gone too far and hadbehaved badly. Being informed that Mornay was in deep suffering, he sentto him M. De LomLnie, his cabinet-secretary, to fully assure him that theking would ever be his good master and friend. "As for master, " saidMornay, "I am only too sensible of it; as for friend, he belongs not tome: I have known men to make attempts upon the king's life, honor, andstate, nay, upon his very bed; against them, the whole of them, he neverdisplayed so much severity as against me alone, who have done him serviceall my life. " And he set out on his way back to Saumur without seeingthe king again. He returned thither with all he had dearest in the world, his wife, Charlotte Arbaleste de la Borde, his worthy partner in all his trials--trials of prosperity as well as adversity. She has full right to a fewlines in this History, for it was she who preserved to us, in her_Memoires, _ the picture, so salutary to contemplate, of the life andcharacter of Mornay, in the midst of his friends' outbursts of passionand his adversaries' brutal exhibitions of hatred. As intelligent as shewas devoted, she gave him aid in his theological studies and labors aswell as in the confronting of public events. "During this expedition toFontainebleau, I had remained, " she says, "at Paris, in extremeapprehension, recently recovered from a severe illness, harassed by thedeadlock in our domestic affairs. And, as for all that, I felt it not incomparison with the inevitable mishap of this expedition. I had foundfor M. Du Plessis all the books of which he might possibly have need, hunted up, with great diligence considering the short time, in thelibraries of all our friends, and I got them into his hands, but somewhatlate in the day, because it was too late in the day when he gave me thecommission. " The private correspondence of these two noble persons is afine example of conjugal and Christian union, virtue, and affection. In1605, their only son, Philip de Mornay, a very distinguished young man, then twenty-six years of age, obtained Henry IV. 's authority to go andserve in the army of the Prince of Orange, Maurice of Nassau, at deadlywar with Spain. He was killed in it on the 23d of October, at theassault upon the town of Gueldres. On receiving news of his death, "I have now no son, " said his father; "therefore I have now no wife. "His sorrowful prediction was no delusion; six mouths after her son'sdeath Madame de Mornay succumbed, unable any longer to bear the burdenshe was supporting without a murmur. Her Memoires concludes with thisexpression: "It is but reasonable that this my book should end with him, as it was only undertaken to describe to him our pilgrimage in this life. And, since it hath pleased God, he hath sooner gone through, and moreeasily ended his own. Wherefore, indeed, if I feared not to causeaffliction to M. Du Plessis, who, the more mine grows upon me, makes methe more clearly perceive his affection, it would vex me extremely tosurvive him. " On learning by letter from Prince Maurice that the young man was dead, Henry IV. Said, with emotion, to those present, "I have lost the fairesthope of a gentleman in my kingdom. I am grieved for the father. I mustsend and comfort him. No father but he could have such a loss. " "Hedespatched on the instant, " says Madame de Mornay herself, "SieurBruneau, one of his secretaries, with very gracious letters to comfortus; with orders, nevertheless, not to present himself unless he were surethat we already knew of it otherwise, not wishing to be the first to tellus such sad news. " [_Memoires, _ t. Ii. P. 107. ] This touching evidenceof a king's sympathy for a father's grief effaced, no doubt, to someextent in Mornay's mind his reminiscences of the conference atFontainebleau; one thing is quite certain, that he continued to renderHenry IV. , in the synods and political assemblies of the Protestants, hisusual good offices for the maintenance or re-establishment of peace andgood understanding between the Catholic king and his malcontent formerfriends. A third Protestant, Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne, grandfather of Madame deMaintenon, has been reckoned here amongst not the councillors, certainly, but the familiar and still celebrated servants of Henry IV. He held nogreat post, and had no great influence with the king; he was, on everyoccasion, a valiant soldier, a zealous Protestant, an indefatigable loverand seeker of adventure, sometimes an independent thinker, frequently aneloquent and bold speaker, always a very sprightly companion. Henry IV. At one time employed him, at another held aloof from him, or forgot him, or considered him a mischief-maker, a faction-monger who must be put inthe Bastille, and against whom, if it seemed good, there would be enoughto put him on his trial. Madame de Chatillon, who took an interest inD'Aubigne, warned him of the danger, and urged him to depart that veryevening. "I will think about it, madame, " said he; "I will implore God'sassistance, and I will see what I have to do. " . . . "The inspirationthat came to me, " says he, "was to go next morning very early to see hisMajesty, and, after having briefly set before him my past services, toask him for a pension, which up to that time I had not felt inclined todo. The king, surprised, and at the same time well pleased to observe asomething mercenary behind all my proud spirit, embraced me, and grantedon the spot what I asked of him. " The next day D'Aubigne went to theArsenal; Sully invited him to dinner, and took him to see the Bastille, assuring him that there was no longer any danger for him, but only sincethe last twenty-four hours. [_La France Protestante, _ by MM. Haag, t. I. P. 170. ] If D'Aubigne had not been a writer, he would becompletely forgotten by this time, like so many other intriguing andturbulent adventurers, who make a great deal of fuss themselves, and tryto bring everything about them into a fuss as long as they live, and whodie without leaving any trace of their career. But D'Aubigne wrote agreat deal both in prose and in verse; he wrote the _Histoireuniverselle_ of his times, personal _Memoires, _ tales, tragedies, andtheological and satirical essays; and he wrote with sagacious, penetrating, unpremeditated wit, rare vigor, and original and almostprofound talent for discerning and depicting situations and characters. It is the writer which has caused the man to live, and has assigned him aplace in French literature even more than in French history. We purposeto quote two fragments of his, which will make us properly understand andappreciate both the writer and the man. During the civil war, in thereign of Henry III. , D'Aubigne had made himself master of the Island ofOleron, had fortified it, and considered himself insufficiently rewardedby the King of Navarre, to whom he had meant to render, and had, in fact, rendered service. After the battle of Coutras, in 1587, he was sleepingwith a comrade named Jacques de Caumont la Force, in the wardrobe of thechamber in which the King of Navarre slept. "La Force, " said D'Aubigneto his bed-fellow, "our master is a regular miser, and the mostungrateful mortal on the face of the earth. " "What dost say, D'Aubigne?"asked La Force, half asleep. "He says, " repeated the King of Navarre, who had heard all, that I am a regular miser, and the most ungratefulmortal on the face of the earth. " D'Aubigne, somewhat disconcerted, wasmum. "But, " he adds, "when daylight appeared, this prince, who likedneither rewarding nor punishing, did not for all that look any the moreblack at me, or give me a quarter-crown more. " Thirty years later, in1617, after the collapse of the League and after the reign of Henry IV. , D'Aubigne, wishing to describe the two leaders of the two great parties, sums them up in these terms: "The Duke of Mayenne had such probity as ishuman, a good nature and a liberality which made him most pleasant tothose about him; his was a judicious mind, which made good use ofexperience, took the measure of everything by the card; a courage rathersteady than dashing; take him for all in all, he might be called anexcellent captain. King Henry IV. Had all this, save the liberality; butto make up for that item, his rank caused expectations as to the futureto blossom, which made the hardships of the present go down. He had, amongst his points of superiority to the Duke of Mayenne, a marvellousgift of promptitude and vivacity, and far beyond the average. We haveseen him, a thousand times in his life, make pat replies without hearingthe purport of a request, and forestall questions without committinghimself. The Duke of Mayenne was incommoded by his great bodily bulk, which could not support the burden either of arms or of fatigue duty. The other, having worked all his men to a stand-still, would send forhounds and horses for to begin a hunt; and when his horses could go nofarther, he would run down the game afoot. The former communicated hisheaviness and his maladies to his army, undertaking no enterprise that hecould not support in person; the other communicated his own liveliness tothose about him, and his captains imitated him from complaisance and fromemulation. " [Illustration: GABRIELLE D'ESTREES--130] These politicians, these Christians, these warriors had, in 1600, a gravequestion to solve for Henry IV. , and grave counsel to give him. He wasanxious to separate from his wife, Marguerite de Valois, who had, infact, been separated from him for the last fifteen years, was leading avery irregular life, and had not brought him any children. But, in orderto obtain from the pope annulment of the marriage, it was first necessarythat Marguerite should consent to it, and at no price would she consentso long as the king's favorite continued to be Gabrielle d'Estrees, whomshe detested, and by whom Henry already had several children. Thequestion arose in in 1598, in connection with a son lately born toGabrielle, who was constantly spreading reports that she would be theking's wife. To give consistency to this report she took it into herhead to have her son presented at baptism as a child of France, and anorder was brought to Sully "to pay what was right to the heralds, trumpeters, and hautbois players who had performed at the baptism ofAlexander, Monsieur, child of France. " After looking at the order, Sullydetained it, and had another made out, which made no mention ofAlexander. The men complained, saying, "Sir, the sum we ought to havefor our attendance at the baptism of children of France has for a longwhile been fixed. " " Away, away!" said Sully, in a rage; "I'll donothing of the sort; there are no children of France. " And he told theking about it, who said, "There's malice in that, but I will certainlystop it; tear up that order. " And turning to some of his courtiers, "Seethe tricks that people play, and the traps they lay for those who serveme well and after my own heart. An order hath been sent to M. De Rosny, with the design of offending me if he honored it, or of offending theDuchess of Beaufort if he repudiated it. I will see to it. Go to her, my friend, " he said to Rosny; "tell her what has taken place; satisfy herin so far as you can. If that is not sufficient, I will speak like themaster, and not like the man. " Sully went to the cloister of St. Germain, where the Duchess of Beaufort was lodged, and told her that hecame by the king's command to inform her of what was going on. "I amaware of all, " said Gabrielle, "and do not care to know any more; I amnot made as the king is, whom you persuade that black is white. " "Ho!ho! madame, " replied Sully, "since you take it in that way, I kiss yourhands, and shall not fail to do my duty for all your furies. " Hereturned to the Louvre and told the king. "Here, come with me, " saidHenry; "I will let you see that women have not possession of me, ascertain malignant spirits spread about that they have. " He got intoSully's carriage, went with him to the Duchess of Beaufort's, and, takingher by the hand, said, "Now, madame, let us go into your room, and letnobody else enter except you, and Rosny, and me. I want to speak to youboth, and teach you to be good friends together. " Then, having shut thedoor quite close, and holding Gabrielle with one hand and Rosnywith the other, he said, "Good God! madame, what is the meaning of this?So you would vex me for sheer wantonness of heart in order to try mypatience? By God, I swear to you that, if you continue these fashions ofgoing on, you will find yourself very much out in your expectations. Isee quite well that you have been put up to all this pleasantry in orderto make me dismiss a servant whom I cannot do without, and who has alwaysserved me loyally for five and twenty years. By God, I will do nothingof the kind, and I declare to you that if I were reduced to such anecessity as to choose between losing one or the other, I could better dowithout ten mistresses like you than one servant like him. " Gabrielle stormed, was disconsolate, wept, threw herself at the king'sfeet, and, "seeing him more strong-minded than had been supposed by thosewho had counselled her to this escapade, began to calm herself, " saysSully, "and everything was set right again on every side. " But Sully was not at the end of his embarrassments or of the sometimesfeeble and sometimes sturdy fancies of his king. On the 10th of April, 1599, Gabrielle d'Estrees died so suddenly that, according to the bias ofthe times, when, in the highest ranks, crimes were so common that theywere always considered possible and almost probable, she was at firstsupposed to have been poisoned; but there seemed to be no likelihood ofthis. The consent of Marguerite de Valois to the annulment of hermarriage was obtained; and negotiations were opened at Rome by Arnoldd'Ossat, who was made a cardinal, and by Brulart de Sillery, ambassadorad hoc. But a new difficulty supervened; not for the negotiators, whoknew, or appeared to know, nothing about it, but for Sully. In three orfour weeks after the death of Gabrielle d'Estrees Henry IV. Was payingcourt to a new favorite. One morning, at Fontainebleau, just as he wasgoing out hunting, he took Sully by the hand, led him into the firstgallery, gave him a paper, and, turning the other way as if he wereashamed to see it read by Sully, "Read that, " said he, "and then tell meyour opinion of it. " Sully found that it was a promise of marriage givento Mdlle. Henriette d'Entraigues, daughter of Francis de Balzac, Lord ofEntraigues, and Marie Touchet, favorite of Charles IX. Sully went up tothe king, holding in his hand the paper folded up. "What do you think of it?" said the king. "Now, now, speak freely; yoursilence offends me far more than your most adverse expressions could. Imisdoubt me much that you will not give me your approval, if it were onlyfor the hundred thousand crowns that I made you hand over with so muchregret; I promise you not to be vexed at anything you can possibly say tome. " "You mean it, sir, and you promise not to be angry with me, whatever I may say or do?" "Yes, yes; I promise all you desire, sincefor anything you say it will be all the same, neither more nor less. "Thereupon, taking that written promise as if he would have given it backto the king, Sully, instead of that, tore it in two, saying, a "There, sir, as you wish to know, is what I think about such a promise. " "Ha!morbleu, what are you at? Are you mad?" "It is true, sir; I am a madmanand fool; and I wish I were so much thereof as to be the only one inFrance. " "Very well, very well: I understand you, " said the king, "andwill say no more, in order to keep my word to you; but give me back thatpaper. " "Sir, " replied Sully, "I have no doubt your Majesty is awarethat you are destroying all the preparatives for your dismarriage, for, this promise once divulged, --and it is demanded of you for no otherpurpose, --never will the queen, your wife, do the things necessary tomake your dismarriage valid, nor indeed will the pope bestow upon it hisApostolic blessing; that I know of my own knowledge. " The king made no answer, went out of the gallery, entered his closet, asked for pen and ink, remained there a quarter of an hour, wrote out asecond paper like that which had just been torn up, mounted his horsewithout saying a word to Sully whom he met, went hunting, and, during theday, deposited the new promise of marriage with Henriette d'Entraigues, who kept it or had it kept in perfect secrecy till the 2d of July, thetime at which her father, the Count of Entiaigues, gave her up to, theking in consideration of twenty thousand crowns cash. In the teeth of all these incidents, known or voluntarily ignored, thenegotiations for the annulment of the marriage of Henry IV. AndMarguerite de Valois were proceeded with at Rome by consent of the twoparties. Clement VIII. Had pronounced on the 17th of December, 1599, and transmitted to Paris by Cardinal de Joyeuse the decree of annulment. On the 6th of January, 1600, Henry IV. Gave his ambassador, Brulart deSillery, powers to conclude at Florence his marriage with Maryde' Medici, daughter of Francis I. De' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Joan, Archduchess of Austria and niece of the Grand Duke Ferdinand I. De' Medici, who had often rendered Henry IV. Pecuniary services dearlypaid for. As early as the year 1592 there had been something said aboutthis project of alliance; it was resumed and carried out on the 5th ofOctober, 1600, at Florence with lavish magnificence. Mary embarked atLeghorn on the 17th with a fleet of seventeen galleys; that of which shewas aboard, the _General, _ was all covered over with jewels, inside andout; she arrived at Marseilles on the 3d of November, and at Lyons on the2d of December, where she waited till the 9th for the king, who wasdetained by the war with Savoy. He entered her chamber in the middle ofthe night, booted and armed, and next day, in the cathedral-church ofSt. John, re-celebrated his marriage, more rich in wealth than it wasdestined to be in happiness. Mary de' Medici was beautiful in 1592, whenshe had first been talked about, and her portrait at that time hadcharmed the king; but in 1600 she was twenty-seven, tall, fat, withround, staring eyes and a forbidding air, and ill dressed. She knewhardly a word of French; and Henriette d'Entraigues, whom the king hadmade Marquise do Verneuil, could not help exclaiming when she saw her, "So that is the fat bankeress from Florence!" Henry IV. Seemed to have attained in his public and in his domestic lifethe pinnacle of earthly fortune and ambition. He was, at one and thesame time, Catholic king and the head of the Protestant polity in Europe, accepted by the Catholics as the best, the only possible, king for themin France. He was at peace with all Europe, except one petty prince, theDuke of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel I. , from whom he demanded back themarquisate of Saluzzo, or a territorial compensation in France itself onthe French side of the Alps. After a short campaign, and thanks toRosny's ordnance, he obtained what he desired, and by a treaty of January17, 1601, he added to French territory La Bresse, Le Bugey, the districtof Gex, and the citadel of Bourg, which still held out after the captureof the town. He was more and more dear to France, to which he hadrestored peace at home as well as abroad, and industrial, commercial, financial, monumental, and scientific prosperity, until lately unknown. Sully covered the country with roads, bridges, canals, buildings, andworks of public utility. The moment the king, after the annulment of hismarriage with Marguerite de Valois, saw his new wife, Mary de' Medici, atLyons, she had disgusted him, and she disgusted him more every day by hercantankerous and headstrong temper; but on the 27th of September, 1601, she brought him a son, who was to be Louis XIII. Henry used to go fordistraction from his wife's temper to his favorite, Henrietted'Entraigues, who knew how to please him at the same time that she washaughty and exacting towards him. He set less store upon the peace ofhis household than upon that of his kingdom; he had established hisfavorite at the Louvre itself, close beside his wife; and, his newmarriage once contracted, he considered his domestic life settled, aswell as his political position. He was mistaken on both points; he was not at the end of either hispolitical dangers or his amorous fancies. Since 1595, his principalcompanion in arms, or rather his camp-favorite, Charles de Gontaut, Baronde Biron, whom he had made admiral, duke, and marshal of France, was, allthe while continuing to serve him in the field, becoming day by day adetermined conspirator against him. He had begun by being a recklessgamester; and in that way he lost fifteen hundred thousand crowns, aboutsix millions (of francs) of our day. "I don't know, " said he, "whether Ishall die on the scaffold or not; but I will never come to thepoorhouse. " He added, "When peace is concluded, the king's love-affairs, the scarcity of his largesses, and the discontent of many will lead toplenty of splits, more than are necessary to embroil the most peacefulkingdoms in the world. And, should that fail, we shall find in religionmore than we want to put the most lukewarm Huguenots in a passion and themost penitent Leaguers in a fury. " Henry IV. Regarded Biron with tenderaffection. I never loved anybody as I loved him, " he used to say;"I would have trusted my son and my kingdom to him. He has done me goodservice; but he cannot say that I did not save his life three times. Ipulled him out of the enemy's hands at Fontaine-Francaise so wounded andso dazed with blows, that, as I had acted soldier in saving him, I alsoacted marshal as regarded the retreat. " Biron nevertheless prosecutedhis ambitious designs; the independent sovereignty of Burgundy was whathe aspired to, and any alliance, any plot, was welcome as astepping-stone. "Caesar or nothing, " he would say. "I will not diewithout seeing my head on a quarter-crown piece. " He entered intoflagrant conspiracy with the King of Spain, with the Duke of Savoy, withthe French malcontents, the Duke of Bouillon, and the Count of Auvergne. Henry IV. Knew it, and made every effort to appear ignorant of it, to winBiron back to him; he paid his debts; he sent him on an embassy hetempted him to confessions which should entitle him to a full pardon. "Let him weep, " he would say, "and I will weep with him; let him rememberwhat he owes me, and I will not forget what I owe him. I were loath thatMarshal de Biron should be the first example of my just severity, andthat my reign, which has hitherto been calm and serene, should be chargedall at once with thunder and lightning. " He employed Rosily to bringBiron to confess. "My friend, " said he, "here is an unhappy man, themarshal. It is a serious case. I am anxious to spare him. I cannotbring myself to harm a man who has courage, who has served me so long andbeen so familiar with me. My fear is that, though I spare him, he willnot spare me or my children, or my kingdom. He would never confessanything to me; he behaves to me like a man who has some mischief in hisheart. I beg you to see him. If he is open with you, assure him that hemay come to me and I will forgive him with all my heart. " Rosny triedand failed. "It is not I who want to destroy this man, " said the king;"it is he who wants to destroy himself. I will myself tell him that, ifhe lets himself be brought to justice, he has no mercy whatever to expectfrom me. " He saw Biron at Fontainebleau, received him after dinner, spoke to him with his usual familiarity, and pointing to his ownequestrian statue in marble which was on the mantelpiece, said, "Whatwould the King cf Spain say if he saw me like that, eh?" "He would notbe much afraid of you, " answered Biron. Henry gave him a stern look. The marshal tried to take back his words: "I mean, sir, if he were to seeyou in that statue yonder, and not in your own person. " The retreat wasnot successful; the shot had taken effect; Henry left the room, went backinto his closet, and gave orders to his captain of the guard to arresthim. Then he returned to the room and said, "Marshal, reflect upon whatI have said to you. " Biron preserved a frigid silence. "Adieu, Baron deBiron!" said the king, thus by a single word annulling all his dignities, and sending him before his proper judges to answer for his treasons. Onthe 18th of June, 1602, he brought the marshal before the court ofParliament. The inquiry lasted three weeks. Biron was unanimouslycondemned to death by a hundred and twenty-seven judges "for conspiraciesagainst the king's person, attempts upon his kingdom, and treasons andtreaties with the enemies of the kingdom. " The king gave to thissentence all the alleviations compatible with public interests. Heallowed Biron to make his will, remitted the confiscation of hisproperty, and ordered that the execution should take place at theBastille, in the presence of certain functionaries, and not on the Placede Greve and before the mob. When Biron found himself convicted andsentenced, he burst into a fury, loaded his judges with insults, androared out that "if he were driven to despair and frenzy, he wouldstrangle half of those present and force the other half to kill him. "The executioner was obliged to strike him unawares. Those presentwithdrew dumbfounded at the crime, the prisoner's rage, the execution, and the scene. When the question of conspiracies and conspirators--with Spain againstFrance and her king had thus been publicly raised and decided, itentailed another: had the Spanish monks, the Jesuits, to call them bytheir own name, taken part therein? Should proceedings accordingly betaken against them? They were no longer in France; they had beenbanished on the 29th of December, 1594, by a solemn decree of Parliament, after John Chatel's attempt. They were demanding their return. The popewas demanding it for them. If at other times, " they said, "the societyhad shown hostility to France and her king, it was because, though wellreceived everywhere else, especially in the dominions of the King ofSpain, they had met in France with nothing but persecutions and insults. If Henry would be pleased to testify good will towards them, he wouldsoon find them devoted to his person and his throne. " The question wasdebated at the king's council, and especially between Henry IV. And Sullywhen they were together. [Illustration: Henry IV. And his Ministers----138] Sully did not like the return of the Jesuits. "They are away, " said he;"let them remain so. If they return, it will be all very fine for themto wish, and all very fine for them to act; their presence, theirdiscourse, their influence, involuntary though it be, will be opposed toyou, will heat your enemies, will irritate your friends; hatred andmistrust will go on increasing. " The king was of a different opinion. "Of necessity, " he said to Sully, "I must now do one of two things: admitthe Jesuits purely and simply, relieve them from the defamation andinsults with which they have been blasted, and put to the proof all theirfine sentiments and excellent promises, or use against them allseverities that can be imagined to keep them from ever coming near me andmy dominions. In which latter case, there is no doubt it would be enoughto reduce them to utter despair, and to thoughts of attempting my life;which would render me miserable or listless, living constantly insuspicion of being poisoned or assassinated, for these gentry havecommunications and correspondence everywhere, and great dexterity indisposing men's minds as it seems good to them. It were better for me tobe dead, being therein of Caesar's opinion that the pleasantest death isthat which is least foreseen and apprehended. " The king then called toremembrance the eight projected or attempted assassinations which, sincethe failure of John Chatel, from 1596 to 1603, had been, and clearlyestablished to have been, directed against him. Upon this, Sully at oncewent over to the king's opinion. In September, 1603, letters for therestoration of the Jesuits were issued and referred to the Parliament ofParis. They there met, on the 24th of December, with strong oppositionand remonstrances that have remained celebrated, the mouthpiece being thepremier president Achille de Harlay, the same who had courageouslywithstood the Duke of Guise. He conjured the king to withdraw hisletters patent, and to leave intact the decree which had banished theJesuits. This was not, he said, the feeling of the Parliament of Parisonly, but also of the Parliaments of Normandy and Burgundy; that is, oftwo thirds of the magistrates throughout the king dom. Henry was touchedand staggered. He thanked the Parliament most affectionately; but, "Wemust not reproach the, Jesuits for the League, " said he; "it was thefault of the times. Leave me to deal with this business. I have managedothers far more difficult. " The Parliament obeyed, though with regret, and on the 2d of January, 1604, the king's letters patent wereenregistered. This was not the only business that Henry had at heart; he had another ofanother sort, and, for him, more difficult to manage. In February, 1609, he saw, for the first time, at the court of France, Charlotte Marguerite, third daughter of the Constable de Montmorency, only sixteen years old. "There was at that time, " say all contemporaries, "nothing so beautifulunder heaven, or more graceful, or more perfect. " Before presenting herat court, her father had promised her to Francis de Bassompierre, descended from a branch of the house of Cloves, thirty years old, andalready famous for his wit, his magnificence, and his gallantry. He wasone of the principal gentlemen of the chamber to the king. Henry IV. Sent for him one morning, made him kneel on a hassock in front of hisbed, and said that, obtaining no sleep, he had been thinking of him thenight before, and of getting him married. "As for me, " saysBassompierre, "who was thinking of nothing so little as of what he wantedto say to me, I answered that, if it were not for the constable's gout, it would have already been done. 'No, ' said he to me, 'I thought ofgetting you married to Mlle. D'Aumale, and, in consequence of thatmarriage, of renewing the Duchy of Aumale in your person. ' I asked himif he wanted me to have two wives. Then he said to me with a deep sigh, 'Bassompierre, I will speak to thee as a friend. I have become not onlyenamoured, but mad, beside myself, about Mlle. De Montmorency. If thouwed her and she love thee, I shall hate thee; if she loved me, thouwouldst hate me. It is better that this should not be the cause ofdestroying our good understanding, for I love thee affectionately andsincerely. I am resolved to marry her to my nephew the Prince of Conde, and keep her near my family. That shall be the consolation and thesupport of the old age which is coming upon me. I shall give my nephew, who is young and loves hunting ten thousand times better than women, ahundred thousand francs a year to pass his time, and I want no otherfavor from her but her affection, without looking for anything more. " Thoroughly astounded and put out as he was, Bassompierre reflected thatit was, so far as he was concerned, "an amour modified by marriage, " andthat it would be better to give way to the king with a good grace: and, "I withdraw, sir, " he said, on very good terms as regarded Mdlle. DeMontmorency as well as himself. The king embraced him, wept, promised tolove him dearly, saw him again in the evening in company with Mdlle. DeMontmorency, who knew nothing, and conversed a long while with the youngprincess. When she retired, perceiving that Bassompierre was watchingher, she shrugged her shoulders, as if to hint to him what the king hadsaid to her. "I lie not, " says Bassompierre: "that single action piercedme to the heart; I spent two days in tormenting myself like onepossessed, without sleeping, drinking, or eating. " Two or three daysafterwards the Prince of Conde, announced that he intended to marryMdlle. De Montmorency. The court and the city talked of nothing butthis romance and the betrothal which immediately followed. Henry IV. Was fifty-six. He had been given to gallantry all his life;and he had never been faithful or exacting in his attachments. He wasnot one of those on whom ridicule fastens as fair prey; but he was sounder the dominion of his new passion that the young Princess of Conde, who had at first exclaimed, "Jesus, my God, he is mad!" began to fancyto herself that she would be queen before long. Mary de Medici becamejealous and uneasy. She determined to take her precautions, and demandedto be crowned before the king set out on the campaign which, it was said, he was about to commence against Austria in accordance with his granddesign and in concert with the Protestant princes of Germany, his allies. The Prince of Conde had a fit of jealousy; he carried off his wife firstinto Picardy; and then to Brussels, where he left her. Henry IV. , inrespect, first, of going to see her, then of getting her to come back, then of threatening to go after her out of France, took some wild andpuerile steps, which, being coincident with his warlike announcements andpreparations, caused some strange language to be used, and were injuriousto his personal weight as well as to his government's character forsteadiness. Sully grew impatient and uneasy. Mary de' Medici wasinsisting strongly upon being crowned. The prospect of this coronationwas displeasing to Henry IV. , and he did not conceal it. "Hey! myfriend, " he said to Sully: "I know not what is the meaning of it, but myheart tells me that some misfortune will happen to me. " He was sittingon a low chair which had been made for him by Sully's orders at theArsenal, thinking and beating his fingers on his spectacle-case; then allon a sudden he jumped up, and slapping his hands upon his thighs, "ByGod, " he said, "I shall die in this city, and shall never go out of it. They will kill me; I see quite well that they have no other remedy intheir dangers but my death. Ah! accursed coronation! Thou wilt be thecause of my death. " "Jesus! Sir, " cried Sully, "what fancy of yours isthis? If it continue, I am of opinion that you should break off thisanointment and coronation, and expedition and war; if you please to giveme orders, it shall soon be done. " "Yes, break off the coronation, " saidthe king: "let me hear no more about it; I shall have my mind at restfrom divers fancies which certain warnings have put into it. To bidenothing from you, I have been told that I was to be killed at the firstgrand ceremony I should undertake, and that I should die in a carriage. ""You never told me that, sir; and so have I often been astounded to seeyou cry out when in a carriage, as if you had dreaded this petty peril, after having so many times seen you amidst cannon-balls, musketry, lance-thrusts, pike-thrusts, and sword-thrusts; without being a bitafraid. Since your mind is so exercised thereby, if I were you, I wouldgo away to-morrow, let the coronation take place without you, or put itoff to another time, and not enter Paris for a long while, or in acarriage. If you please, I will send word to Notre-Dame and St. Denisto stop everything and to withdraw the workmen. " "I am very muchinclined, " said the king; " but what will my wife say? For she hathgotten this coronation marvellously into her head. " "She may say whatshe likes; but I cannot think that, when she knows your opinion about it, she will persist any longer. " Whatever Sully might say, Mary de' Medici "took infinite offence at theking for his alarms: the matter was disputed for three days, with highwords on all sides, and at last the laborers were sent back to workagain. " Henry, in spite of his presentiments, made no change in his plans; he didnot go away; he did not defer the queen's coronation; on the contrary, hehad it proclaimed on the 12th of May, 1610, that she would be crownednext day, the 13th, at St. Denis, and that on Sunday, the 16th, she wouldmake her entry into Paris. On Friday, the 14th, he had an idea of goingto the Arsenal to see Sully, who was ill; we have the account of thisvisit and of the king's assassination given by Malherbe, at that timeattached to the service of Henry IV. , in a letter written on the 19th ofMay, from the reports of eye-witnesses, and it is here reproduced, wordfor word. [Illustration: The Arsenal in the Reign of Henry IV. ----143] "The king set out soon after dinner to go to the Arsenal. He deliberateda long while whether he should go out, and several times said to thequeen, 'My dear, shall I go or not?' He even went out two or threetimes, and then all on a sudden returned, and said to the queen, 'Mydear, shall I really go?' and again he had doubts about going orremaining. At last he made up his mind to go, and, having kissed thequeen several times, bade her adieu. Amongst other things that wereremarked he said to her, 'I shall only go there and back; I shall be hereagain almost directly. ' When he got to the bottom of the steps, wherehis carriage was waiting for him, M. De Praslin, his captain of theguard, would have attended him, but said to him, 'Get you gone; I wantnobody; go about your business. ' "Thus having about him only a few gentlemen and some footmen, he got intohis carriage, took his place on the back seat at the left hand side, andmade M. D'Epernon sit at the right. Next to him, by the door, were M. DeMontbazon and M. De la Force; and by the door on M. D'Epernon's side wereMarshal de Lavardin and M. De Crsqui; on the front seat the Marquis ofMirabeau and the first equerry. When he came to the Croix-du-Tiroir hewas asked whither it was his pleasure to go; he gave orders to go towardsSt. Innocent. On arriving at Rue de la Ferronnerie, which is at the endof that of St. Honors on the way to that of St. Denis, opposite theSalamandre he met a cart, which obliged the king's carriage to go nearerto the ironmongers' shops which are on the St. Innocent side, and even toproceed somewhat more slowly, without stopping, however, though somebody, who was in a hurry to get the gossip printed, has written to that effect. Here it was that an abominable assassin, who had posted himself againstthe nearest shop, which is that with the _Coeur couronng perce d'unefleche, _ darted upon the king, and dealt him, one after the other, twoblows with a knife in the left side; one, catching him between the armpitand the nipple, went upwards without doing more than graze; the othercatches him between the fifth and sixth ribs, and, taking a downwarddirection, cuts a large artery of those called venous. The king, bymishap, and as if to further tempt this monster, had his left hand on theshoulder of M. De Montbazon, and with the other was leaning on M. D'Epernon, to whom he was speaking. He uttered a low cry and made a fewmovements. M. De Montbazon having asked, 'What is the matter, sir?' heanswered, 'It is nothing, ' twice; but the second time so low that therewas no making sure. These are the only words he spoke after he waswounded. "In a moment the carriage turned towards the Louvre. When he was at thesteps where he had got into the carriage, which are those of the queen'sroom, some wine was given him. Of course some one had already runforward to bear the news. Sieur de Csrisy, lieutenant of M. De Praslin'scompany, having raised his head, he made a few movements with his eyes, then closed them immediately, without opening them again any more. Hewas carried up stairs by M. De Montbazon and Count de Curzon en Quercy, and laid on the bed in his closet, and at two o'clock carried to the bedin his chamber, where he was all the next day and Sunday. Somebody wentand gave him holy water. I tell you nothing about the queen's tears; allthat must be imagined. As for the people of Paris, I think they neverwept so much as on this occasion. " The grief was deep and general, at the court as well as amongst thepeople, in the provinces as well as at Paris; and with the grief weremingled surprise and alarm, and an idea, also, that the king had diedunhappy and uneasy. On the 14th of May, in the morning, before startingupon his visit to the Arsenal, he had gone to hear mass at theFeuillants' [order of St. Bernard]; and on his return he said to theDuke of Guise and to Bassompierre, who were in attendance, "You do notunderstand me now, you and the rest; but I shall die one of these days, and, when you have lost me, you will know my worth and the differencethere is between me and other kings. " "My God, sir, " said Bassompierre, "will you never cease vexing us by telling us that you will soon die?You will live, please God, some good, long years. You are only in theflower of your age, in perfect bodily health and strength, full of honormore than any mortal man, in the most flourishing kingdom in the world, loved and adored by your subjects, with fine houses, fine women, finechildren who are growing up. " Henry sighed as he said, "My friend, allthat must be left. " These are the last words that are to be found of his in contemporaryaccounts; a few hours afterwards he was smitten to death in his carriage, brought back to the Louvre, laid out on his bed; one of his councillorsof state, M. De Vie, seated on the same bed, had put to his mouth hiscross of the order, and directed his thoughts to God; Milon, his chiefphysician, was at the bedside, weeping: his surgeons wanted to dress hiswounds; a sigh died away on his lips, and "It is all over, " said thephysician; "he is gone. " Guise and Bassompierre went out to look afterwhat was passing out of doors; they met "M. De Sully with some fortyhorse, who, when he came up to us, said to us in tearful wise, 'Gentlemen, if the service ye vowed to the king is impressed upon yoursouls as deeply as it ought to be with all good Frenchmen, swear all ofye this moment to keep towards the king his son and successor the sameallegiance that ye showed him, and to spend your lives and your blood inavenging his death?' 'Sir, ' said Bassompierre, 'it is for us to causethis oath to be taken by others; we have no need to be exhorted thereto;'Sully turned his eyes upon him, he adds, and then went and shut himselfup in the Bastille, sending out to 'seize and carry off all the breadthat could be found in the market and at the bakers'. He also despatcheda message in haste to M. De Rohan, his son-in-law, bidding him face aboutwith six thousand Swiss, whose colonel-general he was, and march onParis. " Henry IV. Being dead, it was for France and for the kingshipthat Sully felt alarm and was taking his precautions. [Illustration: The Louvre----145] CHAPTER XXXVII. ----REGENCY OF MARY DE' MEDICI. (1610-1617. ) On the death of Henry IV. There was extreme disquietude as well as griefin France. To judge by appearances, however, there was nothing tojustify excessive alarm. The edict of Nantes (April 13, 1598) had put anend, so far as the French were concerned, to religious wars. The treatyof Vervins (May 2, 1598) between France and Spain, the twelve years'truce between Spain and the United Provinces (April 9, 1609), the deathof Philip II. (September 13, 1598), and the alliance between France andEngland seemed to have brought peace to Europe. It might have beenthought that there remained no more than secondary questions, such as thepossession of the marquisate of Saluzzo and the succession to the duchiesof C1eves and Juliers. But the instinct of peoples sees further than thenegotiations of diplomats. In the public estimation of Europe Henry IV. Was the representative of and the security for order, peace, national andequitable policy, intelligent and practical ideas. So thought Sullywhen, at the king's death, he went, equally alarmed and disconsolate, andshut himself up in the arsenal; and the people had grounds for being ofSully's opinion. Public confidence was concentrated upon the king'spersonality. Spectators pardoned, almost with a smile, those tenderfoibles of his which, nevertheless, his proximity to old age renderedstill more shocking. They were pleased at the clear-sighted and strictattention he paid to the education of his son Louis, the dauphin, towhose governess, Madame de Montglas, he wrote, "I am vexed with you fornot having sent me word that you have whipped my son, for I do wish andcommand you to whip him every time he shows obstinacy in anything wrong, knowing well by my own case that there is nothing in the world that doesmore good than that. " And to Mary de' Medici herself he added, "Of onething I do assure you, and that is, that, being of the temper I know youto be of, and foreseeing that of your son, you stubborn, not to sayheadstrong, madame, and he obstinate, you will verily have many a tussletogether. " [Illustration: Marie de Medicis----147] Henry IV. Saw as clearly into his wife's as into his son's character. Persons who were best acquainted with the disposition of Mary de' Medici, and were her most indulgent critics, said of her, in 1610, when she wasnow thirty-seven years of age, "that she was courageous, haughty, firm, discreet, vain, obstinate, vindictive and mistrustful, inclined toidleness, caring but little about affairs, and fond of royalty fornothing beyond its pomp and its honors. " Henry had no liking for her orconfidence in her, and in private had frequent quarrels with her. Hehad, nevertheless, had her coronation solemnized, and had provided byanticipation for the necessities of government. On the king's death, andat the imperious instance of the Duke of Epernon, who at once introducedthe queen, and said in open session, as he exhibited his sword, "It is asyet in the scabbard; but it will have to leap therefrom unless thismoment there be granted to the queen a title which is her due accordingto the order of nature and of justice, " the Parliament forthwith declaredMary regent of, the kingdom. Thanks to Sully's firm administration, there were, after the ordinary annual expenses were paid, at that time inthe vaults of the Bastille or in securities easily realizable, forty-onemillion three hundred and forty-five thousand livres, and there wasnothing to suggest that extraordinary and urgent expenses would come tocurtail this substantial reserve. The army was disbanded, and reduced tofrom twelve to fifteen thousand men, French or Swiss. For a long timepast no power in France had, at its accession, possessed so much materialstrength and so much moral authority. [Illustration: Concini, Leonora Galigai, and Mary de' Medici----149] But Mary de' Medici had, in her household and in her court, thewherewithal to rapidly dissipate this double treasure. In 1600, at thetime of her marriage, she had brought from Florence to Paris her nurse'sdaughter, Leonora Galigai, and Leonora's husband, Concino Concini, son_of a Florentine notary, both of them full of coarse ambition, covetous, vain, and determined to make the best of their new position so as toenrich themselves, and exalt themselves beyond measure, and at any price. Mary gave them, in that respect, all the facilities they could possiblydesire; they were her confidants, her favorites, and her instruments, asregarded both her own affairs and theirs. These private and subordinateservants were before long joined by great lords, court-folks, ambitiousand vain likewise, egotists, mischief-makers, whom the strong and ablehand of Henry IV. Had kept aloof, but who, at his death, returned uponthe scene, thinking of nothing whatever but their own fortunes and theirrivalries. They shall just be named here pell-mell, whether members orrelatives of the royal family or merely great lords the Condes, theContis, the Enghiens, the Dukes of Epernon, Guise, Elbeuf, Mayenne, Bouillon, and Nevers, great names and petty characters encountered atevery step under the regency of Mary de' Medici, and, with theirfollowing, forming about her a court-hive, equally restless and useless. Time does justice to some few men, and executes justice on the ruck: onemust have been of great worth indeed to deserve not to be forgotten. Sully appeared once more at court after his momentary retreat to thearsenal; but, in spite of the show of favor which Mary de' Medici thoughtit prudent and decent to preserve towards him for some little time, hesoon saw that it was no longer the place for him, and that he was of aslittle use there to the state as to himself; he sent in, one after theother, his resignation of all his important offices, and terminated hislife in regular retirement at Rosny and Sully-sur-Loire. Du Plessis-Mornay attempted to still exercise a salutary influence over his party. "Let there be no more talk amongst us, " said he, "of Huguenots orPapists; those words are prohibited by our edicts. And, though therewere no edict at all, still if we are French, if we love our country, ourfamilies, and even ourselves, they ought henceforth to be wiped out ofour remembrance. Whoso is a good Frenchman, shall to me be a citizen, shall to me be a brother. " This meritorious and patriotic language wasnot entirely without moral effect, but it no longer guided, no longerinspired the government; egotism, intrigue, and mediocrity in ideas aswell as in feelings had taken the place of Henry IV. Facts, before long, made evident the sad result of this. All the parties, all the personageswho walked the stage and considered themselves of some account, believedthat the moment had arrived for pushing their pretensions, and lost notime about putting them forward. Those persons we will just pass inreview without stopping at any one of them. History has no room for allthose who throng about her gates without succeeding in getting in andleaving traces of their stay. The reformers were the party to which thereign of Henry IV. Had brought most conquests, and which was bound tostrive above everything to secure the possession of them by extractingfrom them every legitimate and practicable consequence. Mary de' Medici, having been declared regent, lost no time about confirming, on the 22d ofMay, 1610, the edict of Nantes and proclaiming religious peace as the dueof France. "We have nothing to do with the quarrels of the grandees, "said the people of Paris; "we have no mind to be mixed up with them. "Some of the preachers of repute and of the party's old leaders used thesame language. "There must be nought but a scarf any longer between us, "Du Plessis-Mornay would say. Two great Protestant names were stillintact at this epoch: one, the Duke of Sully, without engaging inreligious polemics, had persisted in abiding by the faith of his fathers, in spite of his king's example and attempts to bring him over to theCatholic faith: the other, Du Plessis-Mornay, had always striven, and wascontinuing to strive, actively for the Protestant cause. These twoillustrious champions of the Reformed party were in agreement with thenew principles of national right, and with the intelligent instincts oftheir people, whose confidence they deserved and seemed to possess. But the passions, the usages, and the suspicions of the party were notslow in reappearing. The Protestants were highly displeased to see theCatholic worship and practices re-established in Bearn, whence QueenJeanne of Navarre had banished them; the rights of religious liberty werenot yet powerful enough with them to surmount their taste for exclusivedomination. As a guarantee for their safety, they had been put inpossession of several strong places in France; neither the edict ofNantes nor its confirmation by Mary de' Medici appeared to them asufficient substitute for this guarantee; and they claimed itscontinuance, which was granted them for five years. After Henry IV. 'sconversion to Catholicism, his European policy had no longer beenessentially Protestant; he had thrown out feelers and entered intonegotiations for Catholic alliances; and these, when the king's ownliberal and patriotic spirit was no longer there to see that they did notsway his government, became objects of great suspicion and antipathy tothe Protestants. Henry had constantly and to good purpose strivenagainst the spirit of religious faction and civil war; anxious, after hisdeath, about their liberty and their political importance, the Reformersreassumed a blind confidence in their own strength, and a hope of forminga small special state in the midst of the great national state. Theirprovincial assemblies and their national synods were, from 1611 to 1621, effective promoters of this tendency, which before long became a formaland organized design; at Saumur, at Tonneins, at Privas, at Grenoble, atLoudun, at La Rochelle, the language, the movements, and the acts of theparty took more and more the character of armed resistance, and, erelong, of civil war; the leaders, old and new. Duke Henry of Rohan as well as the Duke of Bouillon, the Marquis of LaForce as well as the Duke of Lesdiguieres, more or less timidly urged onthe zealous Protestants in that path from which the ancient counsels ofSully and Mornay were not successful in deterring them. On the 10th ofMay, 1621, in the assembly at La Rochelle, a commission of nine memberswas charged to present and get adopted a, plan of military organizationwhereby Protestant France, Warn included, was divided into eight circles, having each a special council composed of three deputies at the generalassembly, under a chief who had the disposal of all the military forces;with each army-corps there was a minister to preach; the royal moneys, talliages, aid and gabel, were to be seized for the wants of the army;the property of the Catholic church was confiscated, and the revenuestherefrom appropriated to the expenses of war and the pay of theministers of the religion. It was a Protestant republic, organized onthe model of the United Provinces, and disposed to act as regarded theFrench kingship with a large measure of independence. When, after thuspreparing for war, they came to actually make it, the Protestants soondiscovered their impotence; the Duke of Bouillon, sixty-five years of ageand crippled with gout, interceded for them in his letters to LouisXIII. , but did not go out of Sedan; the Duke of Lesdiguieres, to whom theassembly had given the command of the Protestants of Burgundy, Provence, and Dauphiny, was at that very moment on the point of abjuring theirfaith and marching with their enemies. Duke Henry of Rohan himself, whowas the youngest, and seemed to be the most ardent, of their new chiefs, was for doing nothing and breaking up. "If you are not disposed tosupport the assembly, " said the Marquis of Chateauneuf, who had been sentto him to bring him to a decision, "it will be quite able to defenditself without you. " "If the assembly, " said Rohan, feeling his honortouched, "does take resolutions contrary to my advice, I shall not severmyself from the interest of our churches; "and he sacrificed his betterjudgment to the popular blindness. The Dukes of La Tremoille and ofSoubise, and the Marquises of La Force and of Chatillon followed suit. As M. De Sismondi says, to these five lords and to a small number oftowns was the strength reduced of the party which was defying the King ofFrance. Thus, since the death of Henry IV. , the king and court of France weremuch changed: the great questions and the great personages haddisappeared. The last of the real chiefs of the League, the brother ofDuke Henry of Guise, the old Duke of Mayenne, he on whom Henry, in thehour of victory, would wreak no heavier vengeance than to walk him to astand-still, was dead. Henry IV. 's first wife, the sprightly and toofacile Marguerite de Valois, was dead also, after consenting to descendfrom the throne in order to make way for the mediocre Mary de' Medici. The Catholic champion whom Henry IV. Felicitated himself upon being ableto oppose to Du Plessis-Mornay in the polemical conferences between thetwo communions, Cardinal de Perron, was at the point of death. The decaywas general, and the same amongst the Protestants as amongst theCatholics; Sully and Mornay held themselves aloof or were barely listenedto. In place of these eminent personages had come intriguing orambitious subordinates, who were either innocent of or indifferent toanything like a great policy, and who had no idea beyond themselves andtheir fortunes. The husband of Leonora Galigai, Concini, had amassed agreat deal of money and purchased the Marquisate of Ancre; nay, more, hehad been created Marshal of France, and he said to the Count ofBassompiere, "I have learned to know the world, and I am aware that aman, when he has arrived at a certain pitch of prosperity, comes downwith a greater run the higher he has mounted. When I came to France, I was not worth a son, and I owed more than eight thousand crowns. My marriage and the queen's kind favor has given me much advancement, office, and honor; I have worked at making my fortune, and I pushed itforward as long as I saw the wind favorable. So soon as I felt itturning, I thought about beating a retreat and enjoying in peace thelarge property we have acquired. It is my wife who is opposed to thisdesire. At every crack of the whip we receive from Fortune, I continueto urge her. God knows whether warnings have been wanting. Mydaughter's death is the last, and, if we do not heed it, our downfall isat hand. " Then he quietly made out an abstract of all his property, amounting to eight millions, with which he purposed to buy from the popethe usufruct of the duchy of Ferrara, and leave his son, besides, a fineinheritance. But his wife continued her opposition; it would be cowardlyand ungrateful, she said, to abandon the queen: "So that, " cried he, "Isee myself ruined without any help for it; and, if it were not that I amunder so much obligation to my wife, I would leave her and go somewhither where neither grandees nor common folk would come to look afterme. " This modest style of language did not prevent Marshal d'Ancre fromoccasionally having strange fits of domineering arrogance. "By God, sir, " he wrote to one of his friends, "I have to complain of you; youtreat for peace without me; you have caused the queen to write to methat, for her sake, I must give up the suit I had commenced against M. DeMontbazon to get paid what he owes me. In all the devils' names, what dothe queen and you take me for? I am devoured to my very bones withrage. " In his dread lest influence opposed to his own should beexercised over the young king, he took upon himself to regulate hisamusements and his walks, and prohibited him from leaving Paris. LouisXIII. Had amongst his personal attendants a young nobleman, Albert deLuynes, clever in training little sporting birds, called butcher-birds(pies grieches, or shrikes), then all the rage; and the king made him hisfalconer and lived on familiar terms with him. Playing at billiards oneday, Marshal d'Ancre, putting on his hat, said to the king, "I hope yourMajesty will allow me to be covered. " The king allowed it, but remainedsurprised and shocked. His young page, Albert de Luynes, observed hisdispleasure, and being anxious, himself also, to become a favorite, hetook pains to fan it. [Illustration: Louis XIII. And Albert de Luynes----154] A domestic plot was set hatching against Marshal d'Ancre. What was itsextent and who were the accomplices in it? This is not clear. Howeverit may have been, on the 24th of April, 1617, M. De Vitry, captain of theguard (_capitaine de quartier_) that day in the royal army which wasbesieging Soissons, ordered some of his officers to provide themselveswith a pistol each in their pockets, and he himself went to that door ofthe Louvre by which the king would have to go to the queenmother's. WhenMarshal d'Ancre arrived at this door, "There is the marshal, " said one ofthe officers; and Vitry laid hands upon him, saying, "Marshal, I have theking's orders to arrest you. " "Me!" said the marshal in surprise, andattempting to resist. [Illustration: Murder of Marshal d'Ancre----155] The officer fired upon him, and so did several others. It was neverknown, or, at any rate, never told, whose shot it was that hit him; but, "Sir, " said Colonel d'Ornano, going up to the young king, "you are thisminute King of France: Marshal d'Ancre is dead. " And the young king, before the assembled court, repeated with the same tone of satisfaction, "Marshal d'Ancre is dead. " Baron de Vitry was appointed Marshal ofFrance in the room of the favorite whom he had just murdered. The dayafter the murder, the mob rushed into the church of St. German-l'Auxerrois, where the body of Marshal d'Ancre had been interred; theyheaved up the slabs, hauled the body from the ground, dragged it over thepavement as far as the Pont-Neuf, where they hanged it by the feet to agallows; and they afterwards tore it in pieces, which were sold, burned, and thrown into the Seine. The ferocious passions of the populace weresatisfied; but court-hatred and court-envy were not; they attacked themarshal's widow, Leonora Galigai. She resided at the Louvre, and, at thefirst rumor of what had happened, she had sent to demand asylum with thequeen-mother. Meeting with a harsh refusal, she had undressed herself inorder to protect with her body her jewels which she had concealed in hermattresses. The moment she was discovered, she was taken to the Bastilleand brought before the Parliament. She began by throwing all the blameupon her husband; it was he, she said, who had prevented her fromretiring into Italy, and who had made every attempt to push his fortunesfarther. When she was sentenced to death, Leonora recovered her courageand pride. "Never, " said a contemporary, "was anybody seen of moreconstant and resolute visage. " "What a lot of people to look at one poorcreature!" said she at sight of the crowd that thronged upon her passage. There is nothing to show that her firmness at the last earned her more ofsympathy than her weaknesses had brought her of compassion. The mob hasits seasons of pitilessness. Leonora Galigai died leaving one child, ason, who was so maltreated that he persisted in refusing all food, and, at last, would take nothing but the sweetmeats that the young queen, Anneof Austria, married two years before to Louis XIII. , had the kindness tosend him. We encounter in this very insignificant circumstance a trace of one ofthose important events which marked the earliest years of Mary de'Medici's regency and the influence of her earliest favorites. Conciniand his wife, both of them, probably, in the secret service of the courtof Madrid, had promoted the marriage of Louis XIII. With the Infanta Anneof Austria, eldest daughter of Philip III. , King of Spain, and that ofPhilip, Infante of Spain, who was afterwards Philip IV. , with PrincessElizabeth of France, sister of Louis XIII. Henry IV. , in his plan forthe pacification of Europe, had himself conceived this idea, andtestified a desire for this double marriage, but without taking anytrouble to bring it about. It was after his death that, on the 30th ofApril, 1612, Villeroi, minister of foreign affairs in France, and DonInigo de Caderiias, ambassador of the King of Spain, concluded thisdouble union by a formal deed. They signed on the same day, atFontainebleau, between the King and Queen-regent of France on one sideand the King, of Spain on the other, a treaty of defensive alliance tothe effect "that those sovereigns should give one another mutual succoragainst such as should attempt anything against their kingdoms or revoltagainst their authority; that they should, in such case, send one to theother, at their own expense for six months, a body of six thousand footand twelve hundred horse; that they should not assist any criminalcharged with high treason, and should even give them over into the handsof the ambassadors of the king who claimed them. " It is quite certainthat Henry IV. Would never have let his hands be thus tied by a treaty socontrary to his general policy of alliance with Protestant powers, suchas England and the United Provinces; he had no notion of servilesubjection to his own policy, but he would have taken good care not toabandon it; he was of those, who, under delicate circumstances, remainfaithful to their ideas and promises without systematic obstinacy andwith a due regard for the varying interests and requirements of theircountry and their age. The two Spanish marriages were regarded in Franceas an abandonment of the national policy; France was, in a greatmajority, Catholic, but its Catholicism differed essentially from theSpanish Catholicism: it affirmed the entire separation of the temporalpower and the spiritual power, and the inviolability of the former by thelatter; it refused assent, moreover, to certain articles of the councilof Trent. It was Gallican Catholicism, determined to keep a pretty largemeasure of national independence, political and moral, as opposed toSpanish Catholicism, essentially devoted to the cause of the papacy andof absolutist Austria. Under the influence of this public feeling, thetwo Spanish marriages and the treaty which accompanied them wereunfavorably regarded by a great part of France: a remedy was desired;it was hoped that one would be found in the convocation of thestates-general of the kingdom, to which the populace always lookedexpectantly; they were convoked first for the 16th of September, 1614, at Sens; and, afterwards, for the 20th of October following, when theyoung king, Louis XIII. , after the announcement of his majority, himselfopened them in state. Amongst the members there were one hundred andforty of the clergy, one hundred and thirty-two of the noblesse, and onehundred and ninety-two of the third estate. The clergy elected fortheir president Cardinal de Joyeuse who had crowned Mary de' Medici; thenoblesse Henry de Bauffremont, Baron of Senecey, and the third estateRobert Miron, provost of the tradesmen of Paris. These elections were not worth much, and have left no trace on history. The chief political fact connected with the convocation of the, states-general of 1614, was the entry into their ranks of the youthfulBishop of Lucon, Armand John dot Plessis de Richelieu, marked out by thefinger of God to sustain, after the powerful reign of Henry IV. And theincapable regency of Mary de' Medici, the weight of the government ofFrance. He was in, two cases elected to the states-general, by theclergy of Loudun and by that of Poitou. As he was born on the 5th ofSeptember, 1585, he was but twenty-eight years old in 1614. He had notbeen destined for the church, and he was pursuing a layman's course ofstudy at the college of Navarre, under the name of the Marquis deChillon, when his elder brother, Alphonse Louis du Plessis de Richelieu, became disgusted yith ecclesiastical life, turned Carthusian, andresigned the unpretending bishopric of Lucon in favor of his brotherArmand, whom Henry IV. Nominated to it in 1605, instructing Cardinal duPerron, at that time his charge d'affaires at Rome, to recommend to PopePaul V. That election which he had very much at heart. The youngprelate betook himself with so much ardor to his theological studies, that at twenty years of age he was a doctor, and maintained his thesesin rochet and camail as bishop-nominate. At Rome some objection wasstill made to his extreme youth; but he hastened thither, and deliveredbefore the pope a Latin harangue, which scattered all objections to thewind. After consecration at Rome, in 1607, he returned to Paris, andhastened to take possession of his see of Lucon, "the poorest and thenastiest in France, " as he himself said. He could support poverty, buthe also set great store by riches, and he was seriously anxious for theexpenses of his installation. "Taking after you, that is, being alittle vain, " he wrote to one of his fair friends, Madame de Bourges, with whom he was on terms of familiar correspondence about his affairs, "I should very much like, being more easy in my circumstances, to makemore show: but what can I do? No house; no carriage; furnishedapartments are inconvenient; I must borrow a coach, horses, and acoachman, in order to at least arrive at Lucon with a decent turn-out. "He purchased second-hand the velvet bed of one Madame de Marconnay, hisaunt; he made for himself a muff out of a portion of his uncle theCommander's martenskins. Silver-plate he was very much concerned about. "I beg you, " he wrote to Madame de Bourges, "to send me word what willbe the cost of two dozen silver dishes of fair size, as they are madenow; I should very much like to get them for five hundred crowns, for myresources are not great. I am quite sure that for a matter of a hundredcrowns more, you would not like me to have anything common. I am abeggar, as you know; in such sort that I cannot do much in the way ofplaying the opulent; but at any rate, when I have silver dishes, mynobility will be considerably enhanced. " He succeeded, no doubt, in getting his silver dishes and hiswell-appointed episcopal mansion; for when, in 1614, he was elected tothe states-general, he had acquired amongst the clergy and at the courtof Louis XIII. Sufficient importance to be charged with the duty ofspeaking, in presence of the king, on the acceptance of the acts of thecouncil of Trent, and on the restitution of certain property belongingto the Catholic church in Warn. He made skilful use of the occasion forthe purpose of still further exalting and improving the question and hisown position. He complained that for a long time past ecclesiastics hadbeen too rarely summoned to the sovereign's councils, "as if the honorof serving God, " he said, "rendered them incapable of serving the king;"he took care at the same time to make himself pleasant to the mightyones of the hour; he praised the young king for having, on announcinghis majority, asked his mother to continue to watch over France, and "toadd to the august title of mother of the king that of mother of thekingdom. " The post of almoner to the queen-regnant, Anne of Austria, washis reward. He carried still further his ambitious foresight; inFebruary, 1615, at the time when the session of the states-generalclosed, Marshal d'Ancre and Leonora Galigai were still favorites withthe queen-mother; Richelieu laid himself out to be pleasant to them, andreceived from the marshal in 1616 the post of secretary of state for warand foreign affairs. Marshal d'Ancre was at that time looking out forsupports against his imminent downfall. When, in 1617, he fell and wasmassacred, people were astonished to find Richelieu on good terms withthe marshal's court-rival Albert de Luynes, who pressed him to remain inthe council at which he had sat for only five months. To what extentwas the Bishop of Lucon at that time on terms of understanding with thevictor? There is no saying; but to accept the responsibility of the newfavorite's accession was a compromising act. Richelieu judged it moreprudent to remain Bishop of Lucon and to wear the appearance of defeatby following Mary de' Medici to Blois, whither, since the fall of herfavorites, she had asked leave to retire. He would there, he said, bemore useful to the government of the young king; for, remaining at theside of Mary de' Medici, he would be able to advise her and restrainher. He so completely persuaded Louis XIII. And Albert de Luynes, thathe received orders to set out for Blois with the queen-mother, which hedid on the 4th of May, 1617. The Bishop of Lucon, though still young, was already one of the ambitious sort who stake their dignity upon theultimate success of their fortunes, success gained no matter at whatprice, by address or by hardihood, by complaisance or by opposition, according to the requirements of facts and times. Dignity apart, theyoung bishop had accurately measured the expediency of the step he wastaking in the interest of his future, high-soaring ambition. On arriving at Blois with the queen-mother, he began by dividing his lifebetween that petty court in disgrace and his diocese of Lucon. He wishedto set Albert de Luynes at rest as to his presence at the court of Maryde' Medici, the devotion he showed her, and the counsels he gave her. Hehad but small success, however. The new favorite was suspicious andanxious. Richelieu appeared to be occupied with nothing but the dutiesof his office; he presided at conferences; and he published, against theProtestants, a treatise entitled _The Complete Christian (De laPerfection du Chretien)_. Luynes was not disposed to believe in theseexclusively religious preoccupations; he urged upon the king thatRichelieu should not live constantly in the queen-mother's neighborhood, and in June, 1617, he had orders given him to retire to the courtship ofAvignon. Pope Paul V. Complained that the Bishop of Lucon was exiledfrom his diocese. "What is to be done about residence, " said he, "whichis due to his bishopric? and what will the world say at seeing himprohibited from going whither his duty binds him to go?" The kinganswered that he was surprised at the pope's complaint. "Anecclesiastic, " said he, "could not possibly be in any better place thanAvignon, church territory; my lord the Bishop of Lucon is far fromfinding time for nothing but the exercises of his profession; I havediscovered that he indulged in practices prejudicial to my service. Heis one of those spirits that are carried away far beyond their duty, andare very dangerous in times of public disorder. " Richelieu obeyed without making any objection; he passed two years atAvignon, protesting that he would never depart from it without theconsent of Luynes and without the hope of serving him. The favor andfortune of the young falconer went on increasing every day. He had, in1617, married the daughter of the Duke of Montbazon, and, in 1619, prevailed upon the king to have the estate of Maille raised for him to aduchy-peerage under the title of Luynes. In 1621 he procured for himselfthe dignity of constable, to which he had no military claim. Louis XIII. Sometimes took a malicious pleasure in making fun of his favorite'scupidity and that of his following. "I never saw, " said he, "one personwith so many relatives; they come to court by ship-loads, and not asingle one of them with a silk dress. " "See, " said he one day to theCount of Bassompierre, pointing to Luynes surrounded by a numerousfollowing: "he wants to play the king, but I shall know how to preventit; I will make him disgorge what he has taken from me. " Friends atcourt warned Luynes of this language; and Luynes replied with a somewhatdisdainful impertinence, "It is good for me to cause the king a littlevexation from time to time: it revives the affection he feels for me. "Richelieu kept himself well informed of court-rumors, and was cautiousnot to treat them with indifference. He took great pains to make himselfpleasant to the young constable. "My lord, " he wrote to him in August, 1621, "I am extremely pleased to have an opportunity of testifying toyou, that I shall never have any possession that I shall not be mosthappy to employ for the satisfaction of the king and yourself. The queendid me the honor of desiring that I should have the abbey of Redon; butthe moment I knew that the king and you, my lord, were desirous ofdisposing of it otherwise, I gave it up with very good cheer, in orderthat being in your hands you might gratify therewith whomsoever youpleased; assuring you, my lord, that I have more contentment intestifying to you thereby that which you will on every occasion recognizein me, than I should have had by an augmentation of four thousand crowns'income. The queen is very well, thank God. I think it will be very meetthat from time to time, by means of those who are passing, you shouldsend her news of the king and of you and yours, which will give her greatsatisfaction " (Letters of Cardinal Richelieu, t. I. P. 690). Whilst Richelieu was thus behaving towards the favorite with complaisanceand modesty, Mary de' Medici, whose mouthpiece he appeared to be, assumeda different posture, and used different language; she complained bitterlyof the slavery and want of money to which she was reduced at Blois; aplot, on the part of both aristocrats and domestics, were contrived bythose about her to extricate her; she entered into secret relations witha great, a turbulent, and a malcontent lord, the Duke of Epernon; twoFlorentine servants, Ruccellai and Vincenti Ludovici, were theirgo-betweens; and it was agreed that she should escape from Blois and takerefuge at Angouleme, a lordship belonging to the Duke of Epernon. She atthe same time wrote to the king to plead for more liberty. He replied, "Madame, having understood that you have a wish to visit certain placesof devotion, I am rejoiced thereat. I shall be still more pleased if youtake a resolution to move about and travel henceforward more than youhave done in the past; I consider that it will be of great service toyour health, which is extremely precious to me. If business permitted meto be of the party, I would accompany you with all my heart. " Maryreplied to him with formal assurances of fidelity and obedience; shepromised before God and His angels "to have no correspondence which couldbe prejudicial to the king's service, to warn him of all intrigues, whichshould come to her knowledge, that were opposed to his will, and toentertain no design of returning to court save when it should please theking to give her orders to do so. " There was between the king, thequeen-mother, Albert de Luynes, the Duke of Epernon and their agents, anexchange of letters and empty promises which deceived scarcely anybody, and which destroyed all confidence as well as all truthfulness betweenthem. The Duke of Epernon protested that he had no idea of disobeyingthe king's commands, but that he thought his presence was more necessaryfor the king's service in Angoumois than at Metz. He complained at thesame time that for two years past he had received from the court only thesimple pay of a colonel at ten months for the year, which took it out ofhis power to live suitably to his rank. He set out for Metz at the endof January, 1619, saying, ii I am going to take the boldest step I evertook in my life. " The queen-mother made her exit from Blois on the night between the 21stand 22d of February, 1619, by her closet window, against which a ladderhad been placed for the desecnt to the terrace, whence a second ladderwas to enable her to descend right down. On arriving at the terrace shefound herself so fatigued and so agitated, that she declared it would beimpossible to avail herself of the second ladder; she preferred to haveherself let down upon a cloak to the bottom of the terrace, which had aslight slant. Her two equerries escorted her along the faubourg to theend of the bridge. Some officers of her household saw her pass withoutrecognizing her, and laughed at meeting a woman between two men, at nightand with a somewhat agitated air. "They take me for a bona roba, " saidthe queen. On arriving at the end of the faubourg of Blois, she did notfind her carriage, which was to hwe been waiting for her there. When shehad come up with it, there was a casket missing which contained herjewels; there was a hundred thousand crowns' worth in it; the casket hadfallen out two hundred paces from the spot; it was recovered, and thequeen-mother got into her carriage and took the road to Loches, where theDuke of Epernon had been waiting for her since the day before. He cameto meet her with a hundred and fifty horsemen. Nobody in the householdof Mary de'Medici had observed her departure. Great was the rumors when her escape became known, and greater still whenit was learned in whose hands she had placed herself. It was civil war, said everybody. At the commencement of the seventeenth century, therewere still two possible and even probable chances of civil war in France;one between Catholics and Protestants, and the other between whatremained of the great feudal or quasi-feudal lords and the kingship. Which of the two wars was about to commence? Nobody knew; on one sidethere was hesitation; the most contradictory moves were made. LouisXIII. , when he heard of his mother's escape, tried first of all todisconnect her from the Duke of Epernon. "I could never have imagined, "said be, "that there was any man who, in time of perfect peace, wouldhave had the audacity, I do not say to carry out, but to conceive theresolution of making an attempt upon the mother of his king . . . ; inorder to release you from the difficulty you are in, Madame, I havedetermined to take up arms to put you in possession of the liberty ofwhich your enemies have deprived you. " And he marched troops and cannonto Angoumois. "Many men, " says Duke Henry of Rohan, "envied the Duke ofEpernon his gallant deed, but few were willing to submit themselves tohis haughty temper, and everybody, having reason to believe that it wouldall end in a peace, was careful not to embark in the affair merely toincur the king's hatred, and leave to others the honors of theenterprise. " The king's troops were well received wherever they showedthemselves; the towns opened their gates to them. "It needs, " said acontemporary, "mighty strong citadels to make the towns of France obeytheir governors when they see the latter disobedient to the king's. Will. " Several great lords held themselves carefully aloof; othersdetermined to attempt an arrangement between the king and his mother; itwas known what influence over her continued to be preserved by the Bishopof Lucon, still in exile at Avignon; he was pressed to return; hisconfidant, Father Joseph du Tremblay, was of opinion that he should; andRichelieu, accordingly, set out. The governor of Lyons had him arrestedat Vienne in Dauphiny, and was much surprised to find him armed with aletter from the king, commanding that he should be allowed to pass freelyeverywhere. Richelieu was prepared to advise a reconciliation betweenking and queen-mother, and the king was as much disposed to exert himselfto that end as the queen-mother's friends. At Limoges the Bishop ofLucon was obliged to carefully avoid Count Schomberg, commandant of theroyal troops, who was not at all in the secret of the negotiation. Whenhe arrived at Angers a fresh difficulty supervened. The most daring, ofthe queen-mother's domestic advisers, Ruccellai, had conceived a hatredof the bishop, and tried to exclude him from the privy council. Richelieu let be, "Certain, " as he said, "that they would soon fall backupon him. " He was one of the patient as well as ambitious, who cancalculate upon success, even afar off, and wait for it. The Duke ofEpernon supported him; Ruccellai, defeated, left the queen-mother, takingwith him some of her most warmly attached servants. When thesubordinates were gone, recourse was had, accordingly, to Richelieu. Onthe 10th of August, 1619, he concluded at Angouleme between the king andhis mother a treaty, whereby the king promised to consign to oblivion allthat had passed since Blois; the queen-mother consented to exchange hergovernment of Touraine against that of Anjou; and the Duke of Epernonreceived from the town of Boulogne fifty thousand crowns in recompensefor what he had done, and he wrote to the king to protest his fidelity. The queen-mother still hesitated to see her son; but, at his entreaty, she at last sent off the Bishop of Lucon from Angouleme to makepreparations for the interview, and, five days afterwards, she set outherself, accompanied by the Duke of Epernon, who halted at the limits ofhis own government, not caring to come to any closer quarters with sorecently reconciled a court. The king received his mother, according tosome, in the little town of Cousieres, and, according to others, at Toursor Amboise. They embraced, with tears. "God bless me, my boy, how youare grown!" said the queen. "In order to be of more service to you, mother, " answered the king. The cheers of the people hailed theirreconciliation; not without certain signs of disquietude on the part ofthe favorite, Albert de Luynes, who was an eye-witness. After theinterview, the king set out for Paris again; and Mary de' Medici returnedto her government of Anjou to take possession of it, promising, she said, to rejoin her son subsequently at Paris. Du Plessis-Mornay wrote to oneof his friends at court, "If you do not get the queen along with you, youhave done nothing at all; distrust will increase with absence; themalcontents will multiply; and the honest servants of the king will haveno little difficulty in managing to live between them. " How to live between mother and son without being committed to one or theother, was indeed the question. A difficult task. For three months thecourtiers were equal to it; from May to July, 1619, the court and thegovernment were split in two; the king at Paris or at Tours, thequeen-mother at Angers or at Blois. Two eminent men, Richelieu amongstthe Catholics and Du Plessis-Mornay amongst the Protestants, advisedthem strongly and incessantly to unite again, to live and to governtogether. "Apply yourself to winning the king's good graces, " saidRichelieu to the queen-mother: "support on every occasion the interestsof the public without speaking of your own; take the side of equityagainst that of favor, without attacking the favorites and withoutappearing to envy their influence. " Mornay used the same language tothe Protestants. "Do not wear out the king's patience, " he said tothem: "there is no patience without limits. " Louis XIII. Listened tothem without allowing himself to be persuaded by them; the warlikespirit was striving within the young man; he was brave, and loved war aswar rather than for political reasons. The grand provost of Normandywas advising him one day not to venture in person into his province, saying, "You will find there nothing but revolt and disagreeables. ""Though the roads were all paved with arms, " answered the king, "I wouldmarch over the bellies of my foes, for they have no cause to declareagainst me, who have offended nobody. You shall have the pleasure ofseeing it; you served the late king my father too well not to rejoice atit. " The queenmother, on her side, was delighted to see herselfsurrounded at Angers by a brilliant court; and the Dukes of Longueville, of La Tremoille, of Retz, of Rohan, of Mayenne, of Epernon, and ofNemours, promised her numerous troops and effectual support. She might, nevertheless, have found many reasons to doubt and wait for proofs. Theking moved upon Normandy; and his quartermasters came to assign quartersat Rouen. "Where have you left the king?" asked the Duke ofLongueville. "At Pontoise, my lord; but he is by this time faradvanced, and is to sleep to-night at Magny. " "Where do you mean toquarter him here?" asked the duke. "In the house where you are, mylord. " "It is right that I yield him place, " said the duke, and thevery same evening took the road back to the district of Caux. It wasunder this aspect of public feeling that an embassy from the king and apacific mission from Rome came, without any success, to Rangers, andthat on the 4th of July, 1619, a fresh civil war between the king andthe partisans of the queen-mother was declared. It was short and not very bloody, though pretty vigorously contested. The two armies met at Ponts de Ce; they had not, either of them, anyorders or any desire to fight; and pacific negotiations were opened at LaFleche. The queen-mother declared that she had made up her mind to livehenceforth at her son's court, and that all she desired was to leavehonorably the party with which she was engaged. That was precisely thedifficulty. The king also declared himself resolved to receive hismother affectionately; but he required her to abandon the lords of herparty, and that was what she could not make up her mind to do. In theunpremeditated conflict that took place at Ponts de Ce, the troops of thequeen-mother were beaten. "They had two hundred men killed or drowned, "says Bassompierre, "and about as many taken prisoners. " This reversesilenced the queen's scruples; there was clearly no imperative cause forwar between her and the king, and the queen's partisans could not beblind to the fact that, if the struggle were prolonged, they would bebeaten. The kingship had the upper hand in the country, and a consent was givento the desired arrangements. "Assure the king that I will go and see himto-morrow at Brissac, " said the queen-mother. "I am perfectly satisfiedwith him, and all I think of is to please him, and pray God for himpersonally, and for the prosperity of his kingdom. " A treaty wasconcluded at Angers on the 10th of August, 1620; the queen-motherreturned to Paris; and the civil war at court was evidently, not put anend to never to recur, but stricken with feebleness and postponed. Two men of mark, Albert de Luynes and Richelieu, came out of this crisiswell content. The favorite felicitated himself on the king's victoryover the queen-mother, for he might consider the triumph as his own; hehad advised and supported the king's steady resistance to his mother'senterprises. Besides, he had gained by it the rank and power ofconstable; it was at this period that he obtained them, thanks to theretirement of Lesdiguieres, who gave them up to assume the title ofmarshal-general of the king's camps and armies. The royal favor did notstop there for Luynes; the keeper of the seals, Du Vair, died in 1621;and the king handed over the seals to the new constable, who thus unitedthe military authority with that of justice, without being either a greatwarrior or a great lawyer. All he had to do was to wait for anopportunity of displaying his double power. The defaults of the FrenchProtestants soon supplied one. In July, 1567, Henry IV. 's mother, Jeanned'Albret, on becoming Queen of Navarre, had, at the demand of the Estatesof Bearn, proclaimed Calvinism as the sole religion of her petty kingdom;all Catholic worship was expressly forbidden there; religious liberty, which Protestants everywhere invoked, was proscribed in Bearn; moreover, ecclesiastical property was confiscated there. The Catholics complained, loudly; the Kings of France were supporters of their plaint; it had beenfor a long time past repudiated or eluded; but on the 13th of August, 1620, Louis XIII. Issued two edicts for the purpose of restoring in Bearnfree Catholic worship, and making restitution of their property to theecclesiastical establishments. The council of Pau, which had at firstrepudiated them, hastened to enregister these edicts in the hope ofretarding at least their execution; but the king said, "In two days Ishall be at Pau; you want me there to assist your weakness. " He wasasked how he would be received at Pau. "As sovereign of Warn, " said he. "I will dismount first of all at the church, if there be one; but, ifnot, I want no canopy or ceremonial entry; it would not become me toreceive honors in a place where I have never been, before giving thanksto God, from whom I hold all my dominions and all my power. " Religiousliberty was thus reestablished at Pau. "It is the king's intention, "said the Duke of Montmorency to the Protestants of Villeneuve-de-Berg, who asked that they might enjoy the liberty promised them by the edicts, "that all his subjects, Catholic or Protestant, be equally free in theexercise of their religion; you shall not be hindered in yours, and Iwill take good care that you do not hinder the Catholics in theirs. " TheDuke of Montmorency did not foresee that the son and successor of theking in whose name he was so energetically proclaiming religious liberty, Louis XIV. , would abolish the edict of Nantes whereby his grandfather, Henry IV. , had founded it. Justice and iniquity are often all butcontemporary. It has just been said that not only Luynes, but Richelieu too, had comewell content out of the crisis brought about by the struggle betweenLouis XIII. And the queen-mother. Richelieu's satisfaction was neitherso keen nor so speedy as the favorite's. Pope Paul V. Had announced, forthe 11th of January, 1621, a promotion of ten cardinals. At the news ofthis, the queen-mother sent an express courier to Rome with an urgentdemand that the Bishop of Lucon should be included in the promotion. TheMarquis of Coeuvres, ambassador of France at Rome, insisted ratherstrongly, in the name of the queen-mother and of the Duke of Luynes, fromwhom he showed the pope some very pressing letters. The pope, insurprise, gave him a letter to read in the handwriting of King LouisXIII. , saying that he did not at all wish the Bishop of Lucon to becomecardinal, and begging that no notice might be taken of anyrecommendations which should be forwarded on the subject. Theambassador, greatly surprised in his turn, ceased to insist. It wasevidently the doing of the Duke of Luynes, who, jealous of the Bishop ofLucon and dreading his influence, had demanded and obtained from the kingthis secret measure. It was effectual; and, at the beginning of the year1621, Richelieu had but a vague hope of the hat. He had no idea, when heheard of this check, that at the end of a few months Luynes would undergoone graver still, would die almost instantaneously after having practiseda policy analogous to that which Richelieu was himself projecting, andwould leave the road open for him to obtain the cardinal's hat, and oncemore enter into the councils of the king, who, however, said to thequeen-mother, "I know him better than you, madame; he is a man ofunbounded ambition. " The two victories won in 1620 by the Duke of Luynes, one over theProtestants by the re-establishment in Warn of free worship for theCatholics, and the other over his secret rival Richelieu, by preventinghim from becoming cardinal, had inspired him with great confidence in hisgood fortune. He resolved to push it with more boldness than he had yetshown. He purposed to subdue the Protestants as a political party whilstrespecting their religious creed, and to reduce them to a condition ofsubjection in the state whilst leaving them free, as Christians, in thechurch. A fundamentally contradictory problem; for the differentliberties are closely connected, one with another, and have need to besecurity one for another; but, at the commencement of the seventeenthcentury, people were not so particular in point of consequence, and itwas thought possible to give religious liberty its guarantees whilstrefusing them to general political liberty. That is what the Duke ofLuynes attempted to do; to all the towns to which Henry IV. Had boundhimself by the edict of Nantes, he made a promise of preserving to themtheir religious liberties, and he called upon them at the same time toremain submissive and faithful subjects of the sovereign kingship. LaRochelle, Montauban, Saumur, Sancerre, Charite-sur-Loire, and St. Jeand'Angely were in this category; and it was to Montauban, as one of themost important of those towns, that Louis XIII. First addressed hispromise and his appeal, inconsistent one with the other. Some years previously, in May, 1610, amidst the grief and anxietyawakened by the assassination of Henry IV. By Ravaillac, the populationof Montauban had maintained and testified a pacific and moderatedisposition. The synod was in assembly when the news of the king's deatharrived there. We read in the report of the town-council, under date ofMay 19, 1610, "The ecclesiastics (Catholic) having come to the council, the consulsgave them every assurance for their persons and property, and took themunder the protection and safeguard of the king and the town, withoutsuffering or permitting any hurt, wrong, or displeasure to be done them. . . . The ecclesiastics thanked them, and protested their desire tolive and die in that town, as good townsmen and servants of the king . . "On the 22d of May, in a larger council-general, the council gives noticeto the Parliament of Toulouse that everything shall remain peaceable. . . . Consul Beraud moves that "every one take forthwith the oath offidelity we owe to his Majesty, and that every one also testify, byacclamation, his wishes and desires for the prosperity and duration ofhis reign. " Ten years later, in 1620, the disposition of the Protestants was verymuch changed; distrust and irritation had once more entered into theirhearts. Henry IV. Was no longer there to appease them or hold them in. The restoration of the freedom of Catholic worship in Warn had alarmedand offended them as a violation of their own exclusive right proclaimedby Jeanne d'Albret. In January, 1621, during an assembly held at LaRochelle, they exclaimed violently against what they called "the woesexperienced by their brethren of Warn. " Louis XIII. Considered theirremonstrances too arrogant to be tolerated. On the 24th of April, 1621, by a formal declaration, he confirmed all the edicts issued in favor ofthe liberty of Protestants, but with a further announcement that he wouldput down with all the rigor of the laws those who did not remainsubmissive and tranquil in the enjoyment of their own rights. Thismeasure produced amongst the Protestants a violent schism. Somesubmitted, and their chiefs gave up to the king the places theycommanded. On the 10th of May, 1621, Saumur opened her gates to him. Others, more hot-tempered and more obstinate, persisted in theirremonstrances. La Rochelle, Montauban, and St. Jean d'Angely took thatside. Duke Henry of Rohan and the Duke of Soubise, his brother, supported them in their resistance. Rohan went to Montauban, and, mounting into the pulpit, said to the assembly, "I will not conceal fromyou that the most certain conjecture which can be formed from the currentnews is, that in a short time the royal army will camp around your walls, since St. Jean d'Angely is surrendered, and all that remains up to hereis weakened, broken down, and ready to receive the yoke, through thefactions of certain evil spirits. I have no fear lest the consternationand cowardice of the rest should reach by contagion to you. In days pastyou swore in my presence the union of the churches. Of a surety we willget peace restored to you here. I pray you to have confidence in me, that on this occasion I will not desert you, whatever happen. Thoughthere should be but two men left of my religion, I will be one of thetwo. My houses and my revenues are seized, because I would not bowbeneath the proclamation. I have my sword and my life left. Three stouthearts are better than thirty that quail. " The whole assembly vehemently cheered this fiery speech. The premierconsul of Montauban, Dupuy, swore to live and die in the cause of unionof the churches. "The Duke of Rohan exerted himself to place Montaubanin a position to oppose a vigorous resistance to the royal troops. Consul Dupuy, for his part, was at the same time collecting munitions andvictuals. " It was announced that the king's army was advancing; andreports were spread, with the usual exaggeration, of the deeds ofviolence it was already committing. "At the news thereof, every nerve isstrained to advance the fortifications "there is none that shirks, ofwhatever age, or sex, or condition; every other occupation ceases; nightserves to render the day's work bigger; the inhabitants are all a-sweat, soiled with dust, laden with earth. " Whilst the multitude was thusworking pell-mell to put the town substantially in a state of defence, the warlike population, gentlemen and burgesses, were arming andorganizing for the struggle. They had chosen for their chief a youngerson of Sully's, Baron d'Orval, devoted to the Protestant cause, even tothe extent of rebellion, whilst his elder brother, the Marquis of Rosny, was serving in the royal army. Their aged father, Sully, went toMontauban to counsel peace; not that he exactly blamed the resistance, but he said that it would be vain, and that a peace on good terms waspossible. He was listened to with respect, though he was not believed, and though the struggle was all the while persisted in. The royal army, with a strength of twenty thousand men, and commanded by the young Dukeof Mayenne, son of the great Leaguer, came up on the 18th of August, 1621, to besiege Montauban, with its population of from fifteen thousandto twenty thousand. Besiegers and besieged were all of them brave; theformer the more obstinate, the latter the more hare-brained and rash. The siege lasted two months and a half with alternate successes andreverses. The people of the town were directed and supported bycommissions charged with the duty of collecting meal, preparing quartersfor the troops, looking after the sick and wounded, and distributingammunition. "Day and night, from hour to hour, one of the consuls wentto inspect these services. All was done without confusion, without amurmur. Ministers of the Reformed church, to the number of thirteen, were charged to keep up the enthusiasm with chants, psalms, and prayers. One of them, the pastor Chamier, was animated by a zealous and bellicosefanaticism; he was never tired of calling to mind the calamitiesundergone by the towns that had submitted to the royal army; he wasincessantly comparing Montauban to Bethulia, Louis XIII. ToNabuchodonosor, the Duke of Mayenne to Holofernes, the Montalbanese tothe people of God, and the Catholics to the Assyrians. The indecisionand diversity of views in the royal camp formed a singular contrast tothe firm resolution, enthusiasm, and union which prevailed in the town. On the 16th and 17th of August the king passed his army in review;several captains were urgent in dissuading him from prosecuting thesiege; they proposed to build forts around Montauban, and leave there theDuke of Mayenne "to harass the inhabitants, make them consume both theirgunpowder and their tooth-powder, and, peradventure, bring them to acomposition. " But the self-respect of the king and of the army wascompromised; the Duke of Luynes ardently desired to change his name forthat of Duke of Montauban; there was promise of help from the Prince ofConde and the Duke of Vendome, who were commanding, one in Berry and theother in Brittany. These personal interests and sentiments carried theday; the siege was pushed forward with ardor, although without combinedeffort; the Duke of Mayenne was killed there on the 16th of September, 1621; and, amongst the insurgents, the preacher Chamier met, on the 17thof October, the same fate. It was in the royal army and the governmentthat fatigue and the desire of putting a stop to a struggle so costly andof such doubtful issue first began to be manifested. And, at the outset, in the form of attempts at negotiation. The Duke of Luynes himself had aproposal made to the Duke of Rohan, who was in residence at Castres, foran interview, which Rohan accepted, notwithstanding the mistrust of thepeople of Castres, and of the majority of his friends. The conferencewas held at a league's distance from Montauban. After the propercompliments, Luynes drew Rohan aside into an alley alone, and, "I thankyou, " he said, "for having put trust in me; you shall not find itmisplaced; your safety is as great here as in Castres. Having becomeconnected with you, I desire your welfare; but you deprived me, whilst myfavor lasted, of the means of procuring the greatness of your house. Youhave succored Montauban in the very teeth of your king. It is a greatfeather in your cap; but you must not make too much of it. It is time toact for yourself and your friends. The king will make no general peace;treat for them who acknowledge you. Represent to them of Montauban thattheir ruin is but deferred for a few days; that you have no means ofhelping them. For Castres and other places in your department, ask whatyou will, and you shall obtain it. For your own self, anything youplease (carte blanche) is offered you. . . . If you will believe me, you will get out of this miserable business with glory, with the goodgraces of the king, and with what you desire for your own fortunes, whichI am anxious to promote so as to be a support to mine. " Rohan replied, "I should be my own enemy if I did not desire my king'sgood graces and your friendship. I will never refuse from my kingbenefits and honors, or from you the offices of a kind connection. I dowell consider the peril in which I stand; but I beg you also to look atyours. You are universally hated, because you alone possess whateverybody desires. Wars against them of the religion have oftencommenced with great disadvantages for them; but the restlessness of theFrench spirit, the discontent of those not in the government, and theinfluence of foreigners have often retrieved them. If you manage to makethe king grant us peace, it will be to his great honor and advantage, for, after having humbled the party, without having received any check, and without any appearance of division within or assistance from without, he will have shown that he is not set against the religion, but onlyagainst the disobedience it covers, and he will break the neck of otherparties without having met with anything disagreeable. But, if you pushthings to extremity, and the torrent of your successes does notcontinue, --and you are on the eve of seeing it stopped in front ofMontauban, --every one will recover his as yet flurried senses, and willgive you a difficult business to unravel. Bethink you that you havegathered in the harvest of all that promises mingled with threats couldenable you to gain, and that the remnant is fighting for the religion inwhich it believes. For my own part, I have made up my mind to the lossof my property and my posts; if you have retarded the effects thereof onaccount of our connection, I am obliged to you for it; but I am quiteprepared to suffer everything, since my mind is made up, having solemnlypromised it and my conscience so bidding me, to hear of nothing but ageneral peace. " The reply was worthy of a great soul devoted to a great cause, a soulthat would not sacrifice to the hopes of fortune either friends or creed. It was a mark of Duke Henry of Rohan's superior character to takeaccount, before everything, of the general interests and the moralsentiments of his party. The chief of the royal party, the Duke ofLuynes, was, on the contrary, absorbed in the material and momentarysuccess of his own personal policy; he refused to treat for a generalpeace with the Protestants, and he preferred to submit to a partial andlocal defeat before Montauban, rather than be hampered with thedifficulties of national pacification. At a council held on the 26th ofOctober, 1621, it was decided to publicly raise the siege. The king andthe royal army departed in November from the precincts of Montauban, which they purposed to attack afresh on the return of spring: the kingwas in a hurry to go and receive at Toulouse the empty acclamations ofthe mob, and he ordered Luynes to go and take, on the little town ofMonheur, in the neighborhood of Toulouse, a specious revenge for hischeck before Montauban. Monheur surrendered on the 11th of December, 1621. Another little village in the neighborhood, Negrepelisse, whichoffered resistance to the royal army, was taken by assault, and itspopulation infamously massacred. But in the midst of these insignificantvictories, on the 14th of December, 1621, the royal favorite, theconstable, interim keeper of the seals, Duke Albert of Luynes, had anattack of malignant fever, and died in three days at the camp ofLongueville. "What was marvellously surprising, and gave a good idea ofthe world and its vanity, " says his contemporary, the Marquis of FontaineMareuil, "was that this man, so great and so powerful, found himself, nevertheless, to such a degree abandoned and despised, that for two days, during which he was in agony, there was scarcely one of his people whowould stay in his room, the door being open all the time, and anybody whopleased coming in, as if he had been the most insignificant of men; andwhen his body was taken to be interred, I suppose, to his duchy ofLuynes, instead of priests to pray for him, I saw some of his valetsplaying piquet on his bier whilst they were having their horses baited. " It was not long before magnificence revisited the favorite's bier. "Onthe 11th of January, 1622, his mortal remains having arrived at Tours, all the religious bodies went out to receive it; the constable was placedin a chariot drawn by six horses, accompanied by pages, Swiss, andgentlemen in mourning. He was finally laid in the cathedral-church, where there took place a service which was attended by Marshal deLesdiguieres, the greatest lords of the court, the judicature, and thecorporation. It is a contemporary sheet, the _Mercure Francais, _ whichhas preserved to us these details as to the posthumous grandeur of Albertde Luynes, after the brutal indifference to which he had been subjectedat the moment of his death. His brothers after him held a high historical position, which the familyhave maintained, through the course of every revolution, to the presentday; a position which M. Cousin took pleasure in calling to mind, andwhich the last duke but one of Luynes made it a point of duty tocommemorate by raising to Louis XIII. A massive silver statue almost aslarge as life, the work of that able sculptor, M. Rudde, which figured atthe public exhibition set on foot by Count d'Haussonville, in honor ofthe Alsace-Lorrainers whom the late disasters of France drove off inexile to Algeria. Richelieu, when he had become cardinal, premier minister of Louis XIII. And of the government of France, passed a just but severe judgment uponAlbert de Luynes. "He was a mediocre and timid creature, " he said, "faithless, ungenerous, too weak to remain steady against the assault ofso great a fortune as that which ruined him incontinently; allowinghimself to be borne away by it as by a torrent, without any foothold, unable to set bounds to his ambition, incapable of arresting it, and notknowing what he was about, like a man on the top of a tower, whose headgoes round and who has no longer any power of discernment. He would fainhave been Prince of Orange, Count of Avignon, Duke of Albret, King ofAustrasia, and would not have refused more if he had seen his way to it. "[_Memoires de Richelieu, _ p. 169, in the _Petitot Collection, _ Series v. , t. Xxii. ] This brilliant and truthful portrait lacks one feature which was themerit of the Constable de Luynes: he saw coming, and he anticipated, along way off and to little purpose, but heartily enough, the governmentof France by a supreme kingship, whilst paying respect, as long as helived, to religious liberty, and showing himself favorable tointellectual and literary liberty, though he was opposed to politicaland national liberty. That was the government which, after him, waspractised with a high hand and rendered triumphant by Cardinal Richelieuto the honor, if not the happiness, of France. CHAPTER XXXVIII. ----LOUIS XIII. , CARDINAL RICHELIEU, AND THE COURT. (1622-1642. ) The characteristic of Louis XIV. 's reign is the uncontested empire of thesovereign over the nation, the authority of the court throughout thecountry. All intellectual movement proceeded from the court or radiatedabout it; the whole government, whether for war or peace, wasconcentrated in its hands. Conde, Turenne, Catinat, Luxembourg, Villars, Vendome belonged, as well as Louvois or Colbert, to the court; from thecourt went the governors and administrators of provinces; there was nolonger any greatness existing outside of the court; there were no longerany petty private courts. As for the state, the king was it. For ages past, France had enjoyed the rare good fortune of seeing herthrone successively occupied by Charlemagne and Charles V. , by St. Louisand Louis XI. , by Louis XII. , Francis I. And Henry IV. , great conquerorsor wise administrators, heroic saints or profound politicians, brilliantknights or models of patriot-kings. Such sovereigns had not onlygoverned, but also impressed the imagination of the people; it was tothem that the weak, oppressed by the great feudal lords, had little bylittle learned to apply for support and assistance; since the reign ofFrancis I. , especially, in the midst of the religious struggles which hadcaused division amongst the noblesse and were threatening to create astate within the state, the personal position of the grandees, and thatof their petty private courts, had been constantly diminishing inimportance; the wise policy, the bold and prudent courage of Henry IV. , and his patriotic foresight had pacified hatred and stayed civil wars; hehad caused his people to feel the pleasure and pride of being governed bya man of a superior order. Cardinal Richelieu, more stern than HenryIV. , set his face steadily against all the influences of the great lords;he broke them down one after another; he persistently elevated the royalauthority; it was the hand of Richelieu which made the court and pavedthe way for the reign of Louis XIV. The Fronde was but a paltryinterlude and a sanguinary game between parties. At Richelieu's death, pure monarchy was founded. [Illustration: RICHELIEU----180] In the month of December, 1622, the work was as yet full of difficulty. There were numerous rivals for the heritage of royal favor that hadslipped from the dying hands of Luynes. The Prince of Conde, a man ofability and moderation, "a good managing man (_homme de bon menage_), " ashe was afterwards called by the cardinal, was the first to get possessionof the mind of the king, at that time away from his mother, who wasresiding at Paris. "It was not so much from dislike that they opposedher, " says Richelieu, "as from fear lest, when once established at theking's council, she might wish to introduce me there. They acknowledgedin me some force of judgment; they dreaded my wits, fearing lest, if theking were to take special cognizance of me, it might come to hiscommitting to me the principal care of his affairs. " [_Memoires deRichelieu, _ t. Ii. P. 193. ] On returning to Paris, the king, nevertheless, could not refuse this gratification to his mother. However, "the prince, who was in the habit of speaking very freely, andcould not be mum about what he had on his mind, permitted himself to goso far as to say that she had been received into the council on twoconditions, one, that she should have cognizance of nothing but what theypleased, and the other, that, though only a portion of affairs wascommunicated to her, she would serve as authority for all in the minds ofthe people. " [_Memoires de Richelieu, _ t. Ii. P. 194. ] In fact, thequeen-mother quite perceived that she was only shown the articles in thewindow, and did not enter the shop; "but, with all the prudence andpatience of an Italian, when she was not carried away by passion, sheknew how to practise dissimulation towards the Prince of Conde and hisallies, Chancellor Sillery and his son Puisieux, secretary of state. Sheaccompanied her son on an expedition against the Huguenots of the South, which she had not advised, "foreseeing quite well that, if she wereseparated from the king, she would have no part either in peace or war, and that, if they got on without her for ten months, they would becomeaccustomed to getting on without her. " She had the satisfaction of atlast seeing the Bishop of Lucon promoted to the cardinalship she had sooften solicited for him in vain; but, at the same time, the king calledto the council Cardinal Rochefoucauld, "not through personal esteem forthe old cardinal, " says Richelieu, "but to cut off from the new one allhope of a place for which he might be supposed to feel some ambition. "Nevertheless, in spite of his enemies' intrigues, in spite of a certaininstinctive repugnance on the part of the king himself, who repeated tohis mother, "I know him better than you, madame; he is a man of unboundedambition, " the "new cardinal" was called to the council at the opening ofthe year 1624, on the instance of the Marquis of La Vieuville, superintendent of finance and chief of the council, who felt himselfunsteady in his position, and sought to secure the favor of thequeen-mother. It was as the protege and organ of Mary de' Medici thatthe cardinal wrote to the Prince of Conde, on the 11th of May, 1624, "Theking having done me the honor to place me on his council, I pray God withall my heart to render me worthy of serving him as I desire; and I feelmyself bound thereto by every sort of consideration. I cannotsufficiently thank you for the satisfaction that you have been pleased totestify to me thereat. Therefore would I far rather do so in deed byserving you than by bootless words. And in that I cannot fail withoutfailing to follow out the king's intention. I have made known to thequeen the assurance you give her by your letter of your affection, forwhich she feels all the reciprocity you can desire. She is the moreready to flatter herself with the hope of its continuance, in that shewill be very glad to incite you thereto by all the good offices she hasmeans of rendering you with His Majesty. " [_Lettres du Cardinal deRichelieu, _ t. Ii. P. 5. ] On the 12th of August, however, M. De laVieuville fell irretrievably, and was confined in the castle of Amboise. A pamphlet of the time had forewarned him of the danger which threatenedhim when he introduced Richelieu into the council. "You are both of thesame temper, " it said; "that is, you both desire one and the same thing, which is, to be, each of you, sole governor. That which you believe tobe your making will be your undoing. " From that moment the cardinal, in spite of his modest resistance basedupon the state of his health, became the veritable chief of the council. "Everybody knew that, amidst the mere private occupations he had hithertohad, it would have been impossible for him to exist with such poorhealth, unless he took frequent recreation in the country. " [_Memoiresde Richelieu, _ t. Ii. P. 289. ] Turning his attention to founding hispower and making himself friends, he authorized the recall of CountSchomberg, lately disgraced, and of the Duke of Anjou's, the king'sbrother's, governor, Colonel Ornano, imprisoned by the Marquis of LaVieuville. He, at the same time, stood out against the danger ofconcentrating all the power of the government in a single pair of hands. "Your Majesty, " he said, "ought not to confide your public business to asingle one of your councillors and hide it from the rest; those whom youhave chosen ought to live in fellowship and amity in your service, not inpartisanship and division. Every time, and as many times as a single onewants to do everything himself, he wants to ruin himself; but in ruininghimself he will ruin your kingdom and you, and as often as any single onewants to possess your ear and do in secret what should be resolved uponopenly, it must necessarily be for the purpose of concealing from YourMajesty either his ignorance or his wickedrnpss. " [_Memoires deRichelieu, _ t. Ii. P. 349. ] Prudent rules and acute remarks, whichRichelieu, when he became all-powerful, was to forget. Eighteen months had barely rolled away when Colonel Ornano, latelycreated a marshal at the Duke of Anjou's request, was again arrested andcarried off a prisoner "to the very room where, twenty-four years ago, Marshal Biron had been confined. " For some time past "it had beencurrent at court and throughout the kingdom that a great cabal was goingon, " says Richelieu in his _Memoires, _ "and the cabalists said quiteopenly that under his ministry, men might cabal with impunity, for he wasnot a dangerous enemy. " If the cabalists had been living in thatconfidence, they were most wofully deceived. Richelieu was neithermeddlesome nor cruel, but he was stern and pitiless towards thesufferings as well as the supplications of those who sought to thwart hispolicy. At this period, he wished to bring about a marriage between theDuke of Anjou, then eighteen years old, and Mdlle. De Montpensier, thelate Duke of Montpensier's daughter, and the richest heiress in France. The young prince did not like it. Madame de Chevreuse, it was said, seeing the king an invalid and childless, was already anticipating hisdeath, and the possibility of marrying his widowed queen to hissuccessor. "I should gain too little by the change, " said Anne ofAustria one day, irritated by the accusations of which she was theobject. Divers secret or avowed motives had formed about the Duke ofAnjou what was called the "aversion" party, who were opposed to hismarriage; but the arrest of Colonel Ornano dismayed the accomplices for awhile. The Duke of Anjou protested his fidelity to his brother, andpromised the cardinal to place in the king's hands a written undertakingto submit his wishes and affections to him. The intrigue appeared tohave been abandoned. But the "_dreadful (epouvantable) faction, _" as theCardinal calls it in his _Memoires, _ conspired to remove the young princefrom the court. The Duke of Vendome, son of Henry IV. And Gabrielled'Estrees, had offered him an asylum in his government of Brittany; butthe far-sighted policy of the minister took away this refuge from theheir to the throne, always inclined as he was to put himself at the headof a party. The Duke of Vendome and his brother the Grand Prior, disquieted at the rumors which were current about them, hastened to goand visit the king at Blois. He received them with great marks ofaffection. "Brother, " said he to the Duke of Vendome, laying his handupon his shoulder, "I was impatient to see you. " Next morning, the 15thof June, the two princes were arrested in bed. "Ah! brother, " criedVendome, "did not I tell you in Brittany that we should be arrested?""I wish I were dead, and you were there, " said the Grand Prior. "I toldyou, you know, that the castle of Blois was a fatal place for princes, "rejoined the duke. They were conducted to Amboise. The king, continually disquieted by the projects of assassination hatched againsthis minister, gave him a company of musketeers as guards, and set off forNantes, whither the cardinal was not slow to go and join him. In theinterval, a fresh accomplice in the plot had been discovered. This time it was in the king's own household that he had been sought andfound. Henry de Talleyrand, Count of Chalais, master of the wardrobe, hare-brained and frivolous, had hitherto made himself talked about onlyfor-his duels and his successes with women. He had already been drawninto a plot against the cardinal's life; but, under the influence ofremorse, he had confessed his criminal intentions to the ministerhimself. Richelieu appeared touched by the repentance, but he did notforget the offence, and his watch over this "unfortunate gentleman, " ashe himself calls him, made him aware before long that Chalais wascompromised in an intrigue which aimed at nothing less, it was said, thanto secure the person of the cardinal by means an ambush, so as to ridhim at need. Chalais was arrested in his bed on the 8th of July. TheMarquis la Valette, son of the Duke of Epernon and governor or Metz hadbeen asked to give an asylum to Monsieur in case he decided upon flyingfrom the court, had answered after embarrassed fashion; the cardinal hadhis enemies in a trap He went to call on Monsieur; it was in Richelieu'sown house, and under pretext of demanding hospitality of him, that theconspirators calculated upon striking their blow. "I very much, regret, "said the cardinal to Gaston, "that your Highness did, not warn me thatyou and your friends meant to do me the honor of coming to sup with me. I would have exerted myself, to entertain them and receive them to thebest of my ability. " [_Journal de Bassompierre, _ t. Ii. ] Monsieur seemedto be dumbfounded; he still thought of flight, but Madame de Guise hadjust arrived at Nantes with her daughter, Mdlle. De Montpensier; Madamede Chevreuse had been driven from court; the young prince's friends hadbeen scared or won over; and President le Coigneux, his most honestadviser, counselled him get the cardinal's support with the king. "Thatrascal, " said the president, "gets so sharp an edge on his wits, that itis necessary to avail one's self of all sorts of means to undo what hedoes. " Monsieur at last gave way, and consented to married, providedthat the king would treat it as appanage. Louis XIII. , in his turn, hesitated, being attracted by the arguments of certain underlings, "folksever welcome, as being apparently out of the region of politicalinterests, and seeming to have an eye in everything to their master'sperson only. " They represented to the king that if the Duke of Anjouwere to have children, he would become of more importance in the country, which would be to the king's detriment. The minister, boldly demanded ofthe king the dismissal of "those petty folks who insolently abused hisear. " Louis XIII. , in his turn gave way; and on the 5th of August, 1626, the cardinal celebrated the marriage of Gaston, who became Duke ofOrleans on, the occasion, with Mary of Bourbon, Mdlle. De Montpesier. "No viols or music were heard that day and it was said in thebridegroom's circle that there was no occassion for having Monsieur'smarriage stained with blood. This was reported, to the king, and to thecardinal who did not at all like it. " When Chalais, in his prison, heard of the marriage, he undoubtedlyconceived some hope of a pardon, for he exclaimed, as the cardinalhimself says, "That is a mighty sharp trick, to have not only scattered agreat faction, but, by removing its object, to have annihilated all hopesof re-uniting it. Only the sagacity of the king and his minister couldhave made such a hit; it was well done to have caught Monsieur betweentouch-and-go (_entre bond et volee_). The prince, when he knows of this, will be very vexed, though he do not say so, and the count (of Soissons, nephew of Conde) will weep over it with his mother. " The hopes of Chalais were deceived. He had written to the king toconfess his fault. "I was only thirteen days in the faction, " he said;but those thirteen days were enough to destroy him. In vain did hisfriends intercede passionately for him; in vain did his mother write tothe king the most touching letter. "I gave him to you, sir, at eightyears of age; he is a grandson of Marshal Montluc and President Jeannin;his family serve you daily, but dare not throw themselves at your feetfor fear of displeasing you; nevertheless, they join with me in beggingof you the life of this wretch, though he should have to end his days inperpetual imprisonment, or in serving you abroad. " Chalais was condemnedto death on the 18th of August, 1626, by the criminal court establishedat Nantes for that purpose; all the king's mercy went no farther than aremission of the tortures which should have accompanied th execution. Hesent one of his friends to assure his mother of his repentance. "Tellhim, " answered the noble lady, that I am very glad to have theconsolation he gives me of, his dying in God; if I did not think that thesight of me would be too much for him, I would go to him and not leavehim until his head was severed from his body; but, being unable to be ofany help to him in that way, I am going to pray God for him. " And shereturned into the church of the nuns of Sainte-Claire. The friends ofChalais had managed to have the executioner carried off, so as to retardhis execution; but an inferior criminal, to whom pardon had been grantedfor the performance of this service, cut off the unfortunate culprit'shead in thirty-one strokes. [_Memoires d'un Favori du Duc d' Orleans(Archives curieuses de l'Histoire de France), _ 2d series, t. Iii. ] "Thesad news was brought to the Duke of Orleans, who was playing abbot; hedid not leave the game, and went on as if instead of death he had heardof deliverance. " An example of cruelty which might well have discouragedthe friends of the Duke of Orleans "from dying a martyr's death for him"like the unhappy Chalais. It has been said that Richelieu was neither meddlesome nor cruel, butthat he was stern and pitiless; and he gave proof of that the followingyear, on an occasion when his personal interests were not in any way atstake. At the outset of his ministry, in 1624, he had obtained from theking a severe ordinance against duels--a fatal custom which was at thattime decimating the noblesse. [Illustration: Double Duel----188] Already several noblemen, amongst others M. Du Plessis-Praslin, had beendeprived of their offices or sent into exile in consequence of theirduels, when M. De Bouteville, of the house of Montmorency, who had beenpreviously engaged in twenty-one affairs of honor, came to Paris to fightthe Marquis of Beuvron on the _Place Royale_. The Marquis's second, M. De fussy d'Amboise, was killed by the Count of Chapelles, Bouteville'ssecond. Beuvron fled to England. M. De Bouteville and his comrade hadtaken post for Lorraine; they were recognized and arrested at Vitry-le-Brule and brought back to Paris; and the king immediately orderedParliament to bring them to trial. The crime was flagrant and thedefiance of the kings orders undeniable; butthe culprit was connected with the greatest houses in the kingdom; he hadgiven striking proofs of bravery in the king's service; and all the courtinterceded for him. Parliament, with regret, pronounced condemnation, absolving the memory of Bussy d'Amboise, who was a son of President DeMesmes's wife, and reducing to one third of their goods the confiscationto which the condemned were sentenced. "Parliament has played the king, "was openly said in the queen's ante-chamber; "if the things proceed toexecution, the king will play Parliament. " The cardinal was much troubled in spirit, " says he himself it wasimpossible to have a noble heart and not pity this poor gentleman, whoseyouth and courage excited so much compassion. " However, whilstexpounding, according to his practice, to the king the reasons for andagainst the execution of the culprits, Richelieu let fall this astoundingexpression: "It is a question of breaking the neck of duels or of yourMajesty's edicts. " Louis XIII. Did not hesitate: though less stern than his brother, he was, more indifferent, and "the love he bore his kingdom prevailed over hiscompassion for these two gentlemen. " Both died with courage. "There wasno sign of anything weak in their words or mean in their actions. Theyreceived the news that they were to die with the same visage as theywould have that of pardon, " "in such sort that they who had lived likedevils were seen dying like saints, and they who had cared for nothingbut to foment duels serving towards the extinction of them. " [_Memoiresd'un Favori du Due d' Orleans (Archives curieuses de l'Histoire deFrance), _ t. Ii. ] The cardinal had got Chalais condemned as a conspirator; he had letBouteville be executed as a duellist; the greatest lords bent beneath hisauthority, but the power that depends on a king's favor is always menacedand tottering. The enemies of Richelieu had not renounced the idea ofoverthrowing him; their hopes even went on growing, since, for some timepast the queen-mother had been waxin jealous of the all powerfulminister, and no longer made common cause with him. The king hadreturned in triumph from the siege of La Rochelle; the queen-mother hopedto retain him by her at court; but the cardinal, ever on the watch overthe movements of Spain, prevailed upon Louis XIII. To support hissubject, the Duke of Nevers, legitimate heir to Mantua and Montferrat, ofwhich the Spaniards were besieging the capital. The army began to march, but the queen designedly retarded the movements of her son. The cardinalwas appointed generalissimo, and the king, who had taken upon himself theoccupation of Savoy, was before long obliged by his health to return toLyons, where he fell seriously ill. The two queens hurried to hisbedside; and they were seconded by the keeper of the seals, M. DeMarillac, but lately raised to power by Richelieu as a man on whom hecould depend, and now completely devoted to the queen-mother's party. At the news of the king's danger, the cardinal quitted St. Jean-de-Maurienne for a precipitate journey to Lyons; but he was soon obliged toreturn to his army. During the king's convalescence, the resentment ofthe queen-mother against the minister, as well as that of Anne ofAustria, had free course; and when the royal train took the road slowlyback to Paris, in the month of October, the ruin of the cardinal had beenresolved upon. What a trip was that descent of the Loire from Roanne to Briare in thesame boat and "at very close quarters between the queen-mother and thecardinal!" says Bassompierre. "She hoped that she would more easily beable to have her will, and crush her servant with the more facility, theless he was on his guard against it; she looked at him with a kindly eye, accepted his dutiful attentions and respects as usual, and spoke to himwith as much appearance of confidence as if she had wholly given it him. "[_Memoires de Richelieu, _ t. Iii. Pp. 303-305. ] The king had requested his mother "to put off for six weeks or two monthsthe grand move against the cardinal, for the sake of the affairs of hiskingdom, which were then at a crisis in Italy" [_Memoires deBassompierre, _ t. Iii. P. 276], and she had promised him; but Richelieu"suspected something wrong, and discovered more, " and, on the 12th ofNovember, 1630, when mother and son were holding an early conference atthe Luxembourg, a fine palace which Mary de' Medici had just finished, "the cardinal arrived there; finding the door of the chamber closed, heentered the gallery and went and knocked at the door of the cabinet, where he obtained no answer. Tired of waiting, and knowing the ins andouts of the mansion, he entered by the little chapel; whereat the kingwas somewhat dismayed, and said to the queen in despair, 'Here he is!'thinking, no doubt, that he would blaze forth. The cardinal, whoperceived this dismay, said to them, 'I am sure you were speaking aboutme. ' The queen answered, 'We were not. ' Whereupon, he having replied, 'Confess it, madam, ' she said yes, and thereupon conducted herself withgreat tartness towards him, declaring to the king 'that she would not putup with the cardinal any longer, or see in her house either him or any ofhis relatives and friends, to whom she incontinently gave theirdismissal, and not to them only, but even down to the pettiest of herofficers who had come to her from his hands. '" [_Memoires de Richelieu, _t. Iii. P. 428. ] The struggle was begun. Already the courtiers were flocking to theLuxembourg; the keeper of the seals, Marillac, had gone away to sleep athis country-house at Glatigny, quite close to Versailles, where the kingwas expected; and he was hoping that Louis XIII. Would summon him and putthe power in his hands. The king was chatting with his favorite St. Simon, and tapping with his finger-tips on the window-pane. "What do youthink of all this?" he asked. "Sir, " was the reply, "I seem to be inanother world, but at any rate you are master. " "Yes, I am, " answeredthe king, "and I will make it felt too. " He sent for Cardinal LaVallette, son of the Duke of Epernon, but devoted to Richelieu. "Thecardinal has a good master, " he said: "go and make my compliments to him, and tell him to come to me without delay. " [Memoires de Bassompierre, t. Iii. P. 276. ] [Illustration: "Tapping with his Finger-tips on the Window-pane. "----191] With all his temper and the hesitations born of his melancholy mind, Louis XIII. Could appreciate and discern the great interests of hiskingdom and of his power. The queen had supposed that the king wouldabandon the cardinal, and "that her private authority as mother, and thepious affection and honor the king showed her as her son, would prevailover the public care which he ought, as king, to take of his kingdom andhis people. But God, who holds in His hand the hearts of princes, disposed things otherwise: his Majesty resolved to defend his servantagainst the malice of those who prompted the queen to this wickeddesign. " [_Memoires de Richelieu. _] He conversed a long while with thecardinal, and when the keeper of the seals awoke the next morning, it wasto learn that the minister was at Versailles with the king, who hadlodged him in a room under his own, that his Majesty demanded the sealsback, and that the exons were at his, Marillac's, door to secure hisperson. At the same time was despatched a courier to headquarters at Foglizzo inPiedmont. The three marshals Schomberg, La Force, and Marillac, had allformed a junction there. Marillac, brother of the keeper of the seals, held the command that day; and he was awaiting with patience the news, already announced by his brother, of the cardinal's disgrace. MarshalSchomberg opened the despatches; and the first words that met his eyewere these, written in the king's own hand: "My dear cousin, you will notfail to arrest Marshal Marillac; it is for the good of my service and foryour own exculpation. " The marshal was greatly embarrassed; a great partof the troops had come with Marillac from the army of Champagne and weredevoted to him. Schomberg determined, on the advice of Marshal La Force, in full council of captains, to show Marillac the postcript. "Sir, "answered the marshal, "a subject must not murmur against his master, nor say of him that the things he alleges are false. I can protest withtruth that I have done nothing contrary to his service. The truth is, that my brother the keeper of the seals and I have always been theservants of the queen-mother; she must have had the worst of it, andCardinal Richelieu has won the day against her and her servants. "[_Memoires de Puy-Seyur. _] Thus arrested in the very midst of the army he commanded, MarshalMarillac was taken to the castle of St. Menehould and thence to Verdun, where a court of justice extraordinary sat upon his case. It was clearedof any political accusation: the marshal was prosecuted for peculationand extortion, common crimes at that time with many generals, and alwaysodious to the nation, which regarded their punishment with favor. "It isa very strange thing, " said Marillac, "to prosecute me as they do; mytrial is a mere question of hay, straw, wood, stones, and lime; there isnot case enough for whipping a lackey. " There was case enough forsentencing to death a marshal of France. The proceedings lasted eighteenmonths; the commission was transferred from Verdun to Ruel, to the veryhouse of the cardinal. Marillac was found guilty by a majority of oneonly. The execution took place on the 10th of May, 1632. The formerkeeper of the seals, Michael de Marillac, died of decline at Chateaudun, three months after the death of his brother. _Dupes' Day_ was over and lost. The queen-mother's attack on Richelieuhad failed before the minister's ascendency and the king's calculatingfidelity to a servant he did not like; but Mary de' Medici's anger wasnot calmed, and the struggle remained set between her and the cardinal. The Duke of Orleans, who had lost his wife after a year's marriage, hadnot hitherto joined his mother's party, but all on a sudden, excited byhis grievances, he arrived at the cardinal's, on the 30th of January, 1631, "with a strong escort, and told him that he would consider it astrange purpose that had brought him there; that, so long as he supposedthat the cardinal would serve him, he had been quite willing to show himamity; now, when he saw that he foiled him in everything that be hadpromised, to such extent that the way in which he, Monsieur, had behavedhimself, had served no end but to make the world believe that he hadabandoned the queen his mother, he had come to take back the word he hadgiven him to show him affection. " On leaving the cardinal's house, Monsieur got into his carriage and went off in haste to Orleans, whilstthe king, having received notice from Richelieu, was arriving with alldespatch from Versailles to assure his minister "of his protection, wellknowing that nobody could wish him ill, save for the faithful services herendered him. " [_Memoires de Richelieu, _ t. Ii. P. 444. ] The queen-mother had undoubtedly been aware of the Duke of Orleans'project, for she had given up to him Madame's jewels which he hadconfided to her; she nevertheless sent her equerry to the king, protesting "that she had been much astonished when she heard ofMonsieur's departure, that she had almost fainted on the spot, and thatMonsieur had sent her word that he was going away from court because hecould no longer tolerate the cardinal's violent proceedings against her. "When the king signified to her that he considered this withdrawal verystrange, and let her know that he had much trouble in believing that sheknew nothing about it, she took occasion to belch forth fire and flamesagainst the cardinal, and made a fresh attempt to ruin him in the king'sestimation, though she had previously bound herself by oath to take nomore steps against him. " [_Memoires de Richelieu, _ t. Ii. P. 465. ] The cardinal either had not sworn at all or did not consider himself morebound than the queen by oaths. Their Majesties set out for Compiegne;there the minister brought the affair before the council, explaining witha skilful appearance of indifference the different courses to be taken, and ending by propounding the question of his own retirement or thequeen-mother's. "His Majesty, without hesitation, made his own choice, taking the resolution of returning to Paris and of begging thequeen-mother to retire for the time being to one of his mansions, particularly recommending Moulins, which she had formerly expressed tothe late king a wish to have; and, in order that she might be the bettercontented with it, he offered her the government of it and of all theprovince. " Next day, February 23, 1631, before the queen-mother was up, her royal son had taken the road back to Paris, leaving Marshal D'Estreesat Compiegne to explain to the queen his departure and to hasten hismother's, a task in which the marshal had but small success, for Mary de'Medici declared that, if they, meant to make her depart, they would haveto drag her stark naked from her bed. She kept herself shut up in thecastle, refusing to go out and complaining of the injury the seclusiondid to her health; then she fled by night from Compiegne, attended by onegentleman only, to go and take refuge in Flanders, whence she arrivedbefore long at Brussels. The cardinal's game was definitively won. Mary de' Medici had lost allempire over her son, whom she was never to see again. The Duke of Orleans meanwhile had taken the road to Lorraine, seeking arefuge in the dominions of a prince able, crafty, restless, and hostileto France from inclination as well as policy. Smitten, before long, withthe duke's sister, Princess Margaret, Gaston of Orleans married herprivately, with a dispensation from the Cardinal of Lorraine, all whichdid not prevent either duke or prince from barefacedly denying themarriage when the king reproached them with having contracted thismarriage without his consent. In the month of June, 1632, the Duke ofOrleans entered France again at the head of some wretched regiments, refuse of the Spanish army, given to him by Don Gonzalvo di Cordova. Forthe first time, he raised the standard of revolt openly. For him it wasof little consequence, accustomed as he was to place himself at the headof parties that he abandoned without shame in the hour of danger; but hedragged along with him in his error a man worthy of another fate and ofanother chief. Henry, Duke of Montmorency, marshal of France, andgovernor of Languedoc, was a godson of Henry IV. , who said one day toM. De Villeroy and to President Jeannin, "Look at my son Montmorency, howwell made he is; if ever the house of Bourbon came to fail, there is nofamily in Europe which would so well deserve the crown of France as, his, whose great men have always supported it, and even added to it at theprice of their blood. " Shining at court as well as in arms, kind andcharitable, beloved of everybody and adored by his servants, the Duke ofMontmorency had steadily remained faithful to the king up to the fatalday when the Duke of Orleans entangled him in his hazardous enterprise. Languedoc was displeased with Richelieu, who had robbed it of some of itsprivileges; the duke had no difficulty in collecting adherents there; andhe fancied himself to be already wielding the constable's sword, fivetimes borne by a Montmorency, when Gaston of Orleans entered France andLanguedoc sooner than he had been looked for, and with a smallerfollowing than he had promised. The eighteen hundred men brought by theking's brother did not suffice to re-establish him, with the queen hismother, in the kingdom; the governor of Languedoc made an appeal to theEstates then assembled at Pezenas; he was supported by the Bishop of Albyand by that of Nimes; the province itself proclaimed revolt. The sumsdemanded by the king were granted to the duke, whom the deputies prayedto remain faithful to the interests of the province, just as theypromised never to abandon his. The Archbishop of Narbonne alone opposedthis rash act; he left the Estates, where he was president, and the dukemarched out to meet Monsieur as far as Lunel. "Troops were leviedthroughout the province and the environs as openly as if it had been forthe king. " But the regiments were slow in forming; the Duke of Orleanswished to gain over some of the towns; Narbonne and Montpellier closedtheir gates. The bishop's influence had been counted upon for makingsure of Nimes, and Montmorency everywhere tried to practise on theHuguenots; "but the Reformed ministers of Nimes, having had advices byletter from his Majesty, whereby he represented himself to have beenadvertised that the principal design of Monsieur was to excite them ofthe religion styled Reformed, considered themselves bound in their owndefence to do more than the rest for the king's service. They assembledthe consistory, resolved to die in obedience to him, went to seek theconsuls and requested them to have the town-council assembled, in orderthat it might be brought to take a similar resolution; which the consuls, gained over by M. De Montmorency, refused. " [_Memoires de Richelieu, _t. Iii. P. 160. ] Thereupon the ministers sent off in haste to MarshalLa Force, who had already taken position at Pont-Saint-Esprit with hisarmy; and, he having despatched some light horse on the 26th of July, thepeople cried, "Hurrah! for the king!" the bishop was obliged to fly, andthe town was kept to its allegiance. "Beaucaire, the governor of whichhad been won over, " made armed resistance. "If we beat the king's army, "said the Duke of Montmorency on returning to Pezenas after this incident, "we shall have no lack of towns; if not, we shall have to go and make ourcourt at Brussels. " At the news of his brother's revolt, the king, who happened to be on thefrontiers of Lorraine, had put himself in motion, but he marched at hisease and by short stages, "thinking that the fire Monsieur would kindlewould be only a straw fire. " He hurried his movements when he heard of Montmorency's uprising, andleft Paris after having put the seals upon the duke's house, who hadimprudently left five hundred and fifty thousand livres there; the moneywas seized and lodged in the royal safe. The Princess of Guemene, between whom and Montmorency there were very strong ties, went to see thecardinal, who was in attendance on the king. "Sir, " she said to him, "you are going to Languedoc; remember the great marks of attachment thatM. De Montmorency showed you not long ago; you cannot forget then withoutingratitude. " Indeed, when the king believed himself to be dying atLyons, he had recommended the cardinal to the Duke of Montmorency, whohad promised to receive him into his government. "Madam, " repliedRichelieu coldly, "I have not been the first to break off. " Already the Parliament of Toulouse, remaining faithful to the king, hadannulled the resolutions of the Estates, the letters and commissions ofthe governor; and the Parliament of Paris had just enregistered aresolution against the servants and adherents of the Duke of Orleans, asrebels guilty of high treason and disturbers of the common peace. Sixweeks were granted the king's brother to put an end to all acts ofhostility; else the king was resolved to decree against him, after thatinterval of delay, "whatsoever he should consider it his duty to do forthe preservation of his kingdom, according to the laws of the realm andthe example of his predecessors. " It was against Marshal Schomberg that Montmorency was advancing. Thelatter found himself isolated in his revolt, shut up within the limits ofhis government, between the two armies of the king, who was marching inperson against him. Calculations had been based upon an uprising ofseveral provinces and the adhesion of several governors, amongst othersof the aged Duke of Epernon, who had sent to Monsieur to say, "I am hisvery humble servant; let him place himself in a position to be served;"but no one moved, the king every day received fresh protestations offidelity, and the Duke of Epernon had repaired to Montauban to keep thatrestless city to its duty, and to prevent any attempt from being made inthe province. At three leagues' distance from Castelnaudary, Marshal Schomberg wasbesieging a castle called St. Felix-de-Carmain, which held out for theDuke of Orleans. Montmorency advanced to the aid of the place; he hadtwo thousand foot and three thousand horse; and the Duke of Orleansaccompanied him with a large number of gentlemen. The marshal had wonover the defenders of St. Felix, and he was just half a league fromCastelnaudary when he encountered the rebel army. The battle beganalmost at once. Count de Moret, natural son of Henry IV. And Jacquelinede Bueil, fired the first shot. Hearing the noise, Montmorency, whocommanded the right wing, takes a squadron of cavalry, and, "urged on bythat impetuosity which takes possession of all brave men at the likejuncture, he spurs his horse forward, leaps the ditch which was acrossthe road, rides over the musketeers, and, the mishap of finding himselfalone causing him to feel more indignation than fear, he makes up hismind to signalize by his resistance a death which he cannot avoid. " Onlya few gentlemen had followed him, amongst others an old officer namedCount de Rieux, who had promised to die at his feet and he kept his word. In vain had Montmorency called to him his men-at-arms and the regiment ofVentadour; the rest of the cavalry did not budge. Count de Moret hadbeen killed; terror was everywhere taking possession of the men. Theduke was engaged with the king's light horse; he had just received twobullets in his mouth. His horse, "a small barb, extremely swift, " camedown with him and he fell wounded in seventeen places, alone, without asingle squire to help him. A sergeant of a company of the guards saw himfall, and carried him into the road; some soldiers who were present burstout crying; they seemed to be lamenting their general's rather than theirprisoner's misfortune. Montmorency alone remained as if insensible tothe blows of adversity, and testified by the grandeur of his courage thatin him it had its seat in a place higher than the heart. " [_Journal duDuc de Montmorency (Archives curieuses de l'Histoire de France), _ t. Iv. ] [Illustration: Henry, Duke of Montmorency, at Castelnaudary----199] Whilst the army of the Duke of Orleans was retiring, carrying off theirdead, nearly all of the highest rank, the king's men were bearing awayMontnmorency, mortally wounded, to Castelnaudary. His wife, Mary Feliciades Ursins, daughter of the Duke of Bracciano, being ill in bed atBeziers, sent him a doctor, together with her equerry, to learn the truthabout her husband's condition. "Thou'lt tell my wife, " said the duke, "the number and greatness of the wounds thou hast seen, and thou'ltassure her that it which I have caused her spirit is incomparably morepainful, to me than all the others. " On passing through the faubourgs ofthe town, the duke desired that his litter should be opened, "and theserenity that shone through the pallor of his visage moved the feelingsof all present, and forced tears from the stoutest and the most stolid. "[_Journal du Due de Montmorency (Archives curieuses de l'Histoire deFrance)_, t. Iv. ] The Duke of Orleans did not lack the courage of the soldier; he wouldfain have rescued Montmorency and sought to rally his forces; but thetroops of Languedoc would obey none but the governor; the foreignersmutinied, and the king's brother had no longer an army. "Next day, whenit was too late, " says Richelieu, "Monsieur sent a trumpeter to demandbattle of Marshal Schomberg, who replied that he would not give it, butthat, if he met him, he would try to defend himself against him. "Monsieur considered himself absolved from seeking the combat, andhenceforth busied himself about nothing but negotiation. Alby, Beziers, and Pezenas hastened to give in their submission. It was necessary forthe Duchess of Montmorency, ill and in despair, to quicken her departurefrom Beziers, where she was no longer safe. "As she passed along thestreets she heard nothing but a confusion of voices amongst the people, speaking insolently of those who would withdraw in apprehension. " Theking was already at Lyons. He was at Pont-Saint-Esprit when he sent a message to his brother, fromwhom he had already received emissaries on the road. The first demandsof Gaston d'Orleans were still proud; he required the release ofMontmorency, the rehabilitation of all those who had served his party andhis mother's, places of surety and money. The king took no notice; anda second envoy from the prince was put in prison. Meanwhile, thesuperintendent of finance, M. De Bullion, had reached him from the king, and "found the mind of Monsieur very penitent and well disposed, but notthat of all the rest, for Monsieur confessed that he had been ill-advisedto behave as he did at the cardinal's house, and afterwards leave thecourt; acknowledging himself to be much obliged to the king for theclemency he had shown to him in his proclamation, which had touched himto the heart, and that he was bounden therefor to the cardinal, whom hehad always liked and esteemed, and believed that he also on his sideliked him. " [_Memoires de Richelieu, _ t. Viii. P. 196. ] The Duchess of Montmorency knew Monsieur, although she, it was said, had pressed her husband to join him; and all ill as she was, had beenfollowing him ever since the battle of Castelnaudary, in the fear lest heshould forget her husband in the treaty. She could not, unfortunately, enter Beziers, and it was there that the arrangements were concluded. Monsieur protested his repentance, cursing in particular FatherChanteloube, confessor and confidant of the queen his mother, "whom hewished the king would have hanged; he had given pretty counsel to thequeen, causing her to leave the kingdom; for all the great hopes he hadled her to conceive, she was reduced to relieve her weariness by prayingto God. " [_Memoires de Richelieu, _ t. Viii. P. 196. ] As for Monsieur, he was ready to give up all intelligence with Spain, Lorraine, and thequeen his mother, "who could negotiate her business herself. " He boundhimself to take no interest "in him or those who had connected themselveswith him on these occasions for their own purposes, and he would notcomplain should the king make them suffer what they had deserved. " It istrue that he added to these base concessions many entreaties in favor ofM. De Montmorency; but M. De Bullion did not permit him to be under anydelusion. "It is for your Highness to choose, " he said, "whether or notyou prefer to cling to the interests of M. De Montmorency, displease theking and lose his good graces. " The prince signed everything; then heset out for Tours, which the king had assigned for his residence, receiving on the way, from town to town, all the honors that would havebeen paid to his Majesty himself. M. De Montmorency remained in prison. "He awaited death with a resignation which is inconceivable, " says theauthor of his _Memoires;_ "never did man speak more boldly than he aboutit; it seemed as if he were recounting another's perils when he describedhis own to his servants and his guards, who were the only witnesses ofsuch lofty manliness. " His sister, the Princess of Conde, had a memorialprepared for his defence put before him. He read it carefully, then hetore it up, "having always determined, " he said, "not to (chicaner) gopettifogging for (or, dispute) his life. " "I ought by rights to answerbefore the Parliament of Paris only, " said he to the commission of theParliament of Toulouse instructed to conduct his trial, "but I give upwith all my heart this privilege and all others that might delay mysentence. " There was not long to wait for the decree. On arriving at Toulouse, October 27, at noon, the duke had asked for a confessor. "Father, " saidhe to the priest, "I pray you to put me this moment in the shortest andmost certain path to heaven that you can, having nothing more to hope orwish for but God. " All his family had hurried up, but without being ableto obtain the favor of seeing the king. "His Majesty had strengthenedhimself in the resolution he had taken from the first to make in the caseof the said Sieur de Montmorency a just example for all the grandees ofhis kingdom in the future, as the late king his father had done in theperson of Marshal Biron, " says Richelieu in his Memoires. The Princessof Conde could not gain admittance to his Majesty, who lent no ear tothe supplications of his oldest servants, represented by the aged Duke ofEpernon, who accused himself by his own mouth of having but latelycommitted the same crime as the Duke of Montmorency. "You can retire, duke, " was all that Louis XIII. Deigned to reply. "I should not be aking if I had the feelings of private persons, " said he to MarshalChatillon, who pointed out to him the downcast looks and swollen eyes ofall his court. It was the 30th of October, early: and the Duke of Montmorency wassleeping peacefully. His confessor came and awoke him. "_Surgite, eamus_ (rise, let us be going), " he said, as he awoke; and when hissurgeon would have dressed his wounds, "Now is the time to heal all mywounds with a single one, " he said, and he had himself dressed in theclothes of white linen he had ordered to be made at Lectoure for the dayof execution. When the last questions were put to him by the judges, heanswered by a complete confession; and when the decree was made known tohim, "I thank you, gentlemen, " said he to the commissioners, "and I begyou to tell all them of your body from me, that I hold this decree of theking's justice for a decree of God's mercy. " He walked to the scaffoldwith the same tranquillity, saluting right and left those whom he knew, to take leave of them; then, having with difficulty placed himself uponthe block, so much did his wounds still cause him to suffer, he said outloud, "_Domine Jesu, accipe spiritum meum (Lord Jesus, receive myspirit)!_" As his head fell, the people rushed forward to catch hisblood and dip their handkerchiefs in it. Henry de Montmorency was the last of the ducal branch of his house, andwas only thirty-seven. It was a fine opportunity for Monsieur to once more break hisengagements. Shame and anxiety drove him equally. He was universallyreproached with Montmorency's death; and he was by no means easy on thesubject of his marriage, of which no mention had been made in thearrangements. He quitted Tours and withdrew to Flanders, writing to theking to complain of the duke's execution, saying that the life of thelatter had been the tacit condition of his agreement, and that, hispromise being thus not binding, he was about to seek a secure retreat outof the kingdom. "Everybody knows in what plight you were, brother, andwhether you could have done anything else, " replied the king. "What think you, gentlemen, was it that lost the Duke of Montmorency hishead?" said Cardinal Zapata to Bautru and Barrault, envoys of France, whom he met in the antechamber of the King of Spain. "His crimes, "replied Bautru. "No, " said the cardinal, "but the clemency of hisMajesty's predecessors. " Louis XIII. And Cardinal Richelieu haveassuredly not merited that, reproach in history. So many and such terrible examples were at last to win the all-powerfulminister some years of repose. Once only, in 1636, a new plot on thepart of Monsieur and the Count of Soissons threatened not only his power, but his life. The king's headquarters were established at the castle ofDemuin; and the princes, urged on by Montresor and Saint-Ibal, hadresolved to compass the cardinal's death. The blow was to be struck atthe exit from the council. Richelieu conducted the king back to thebottom of the staircase. [Illustration: The King and the Cardinal----204] The two gentlemen were awaiting the signal; but Monsieur did not budge, and retired without saying a word. The Count of Soissons dared not goany further, and the cardinal mounted quietly to his own rooms, withoutdreaming of the extreme peril he had run. Richelieu was rather loftythan proud, and too clear-sighted to mistake the king's feelings towardshim. Never did he feel any confidence in his position; and never did hedepart from his jealous and sometimes petty watchfulness. Any influenceforeign to his own disquieted him in proximity to a master whose affairshe governed altogether, without ever having been able to get the masteryover his melancholy and singular mind. Women filled but a small space in the life of Louis XIII. Twice, however, in that interval of ten years which separated the plot ofMontmorency from that of Cinq-Mars, did the minister believe himself tobe threatened by feminine influence; and twice he used artifice to winthe monarch's heart and confidence from two young girls of his court, Louise de La Fayette and Marie d'Hautefort. Both were maids of honor tothe queen. Mdlle. D'Hautefort was fourteen years old when, in 1630, atLyons, in the languors of convalescence, the king first remarked herblooming and at the same time severe beauty, and her air of nobility andmodesty; and it was not long before the whole court knew that he hadremarked her, for his first care, at the sermon, was to send the youngmaid of honor the velvet cushion on which he knelt for her to sit upon. Mdlle. D'Hautefort declined it, and remained seated, like her companions, on the ground; but henceforth the courtiers' eyes were riveted on hermovements, on the interminable conversations in which she was detained bythe king, on his jealousies, his tiffs, and his reconciliations. Aftertheir quarrels, the king would pass the greater part of the day inwriting out what he had said to Mdlle. D'Hautefort and what she hadreplied to him. At his death, his desk was found full of these singularreports of the most innocent, but also most stormy and most troublesomelove-affair that ever was. The king was especially jealous of Mdlle. D'Hautefort's passionate devotion to the queen her mistress, Anne ofAustria. "You love an ingrate, " he said, "and you will see how she willrepay your services. " Richelieu had been unable to win Mdlle. D'Hautefort; and he did his best to embitter the tiff which separatedher from the king in 1635. But Louis XIII. Had learned the charm ofconfidence and intimacy; and he turned to Louise de La Fayette, acharming girl of seventeen, who was as virtuous as Mdlle. D'Hautefort, but more gentle and tender than she, and who gave her heart in allguilelessness to that king so powerful, so a-weary, and so melancholy atthe very climax of his reign. Happily for Richelieu, he had a means, more certain than even Mdlle. D'Hautefort's pride, of separating her fromLouis XIII. ; Mdlle. De La Fayette, whilst quite a child, had seriousideas of becoming a nun; and scruples about being false to her vocationtroubled her at court, and even in those conversations in which shereproached herself with taking too much pleasure, Father Coussin, herconfessor, who was also the king's, sought to quiet her conscience; hehoped much from the influence she could exercise over the king; butMdlle. De La Fayette, feeling herself troubled and perplexed, was urgent. When the Jesuit reported to Louis XIII. The state of his fair youngfriend's feelings, the king, with tears in his eyes, replied, "Though Iam very sorry she is going away, nevertheless I have no desire to be anobstacle to her vocation; only let her wait until I have left for thearmy. " She did not wait, however. Their last interview took place atthe queen's, who had no liking for Mdlle. De La Fayette; and, as theking's carriage went out of the court-yard, the young girl, leaningagainst the window, turned to one of her companions and said, "Alas! Ishall never see him again!" But she did see him again often for sometime. He went to see her in her convent, and "remained so long glued toher grating, " says Madame de Motteville, that Cardinal Richelieu, fallinga prey to fresh terrors, recommenced his intrigues to tear him from herentirely. And he succeeded. " The king's affection for Mdlle. D'Hautefort awoke again. She had just rendered the queen an importantservice. Anne of Austria was secretly corresponding with her twobrothers, King Philip IV. And the Cardinal Infante, a correspondencewhich might well make the king and his minister uneasy, since it wascarried on through Madame de Chevreuse, and there was war at the timewith Spain. The queen employed for this intercourse a valet namedLaporte, who was arrested and thrown into prison. The chancellor removedto Val-de-Grace, whither the queen frequently retired; he questioned thenuns and rummaged Anne of Austria's cell. She was in mortal anxiety, notknowing what Laporte might say or how to unloose his tongue, so as tokeep due pace with her own confessions to the king and the cardinal. Mdlle. D'Hautefort disguised herself as a servant, went straight to theBastille, and got a letter delivered to Laporte, thanks to the agency ofCommander de Jars, her friend, then in prison. The confessions ofmistress and agent being thus set in accord, the queen obtained herpardon, but not without having to put up with reproaches and conditionsof stern supervision. Madame de Chevreuse took fright, and went to seekrefuge in Spain. The king's inclination towards Mdlle. D'Hautefortrevived, without her having an idea of turning it to profit on her ownaccount. "She had so much loftiness of spirit that she could never havebrought herself to ask anything for herself and her family; and all thatcould be wrung from her was to accept what the king and queen werepleased to give her. " Richelieu had never forgotten Mdlle. D'Hautefort's airs: he feared her, and accused her to the king of being concerned in Monsieur's continualintrigues. Louis XIII. 's growing affection for young Cinq-Mars, son ofMarshal d'Effiat, was beginning to occupy the gloomy monarch; and he themore easily sacrificed Mdlle. D'Hautefort. The cardinal merely asked himto send her away for a fortnight. She insisted upon hearing the orderfrom the king's own mouth. "The fortnight will last all the rest of mylife, " she said: "and so I take leave of your Majesty forever. " She wentaccompanied by the regrets and tears of Anne of Austria, and leaving thefield open to the new favorite, the king's "rattle, " as the cardinalcalled him. M. De Cinq-Mars was only nineteen when he was made master of the wardrobeand grand equerry of France. Brilliant and witty, he amused the king andoccupied the leisure which peace gave him. The passion Louis XIII. Feltfor his favorite was jealous and capricious. He upbraided the young manfor his flights to Paris to see his friends and the elegant society ofthe Marais, and sometimes also Mary di Gonzaga, daughter of the Duke ofMantua, wooed but lately by the Duke of Orleans, and not indifferent, itwas said, to the vows of M. Le Grand, as Cinq-Mars was called. Thecomplaints were detailed to Richelieu by the king himself in a strangecorrespondence, which reminds one of the "reports" of his quarrels withMdlle. D'Hautefort. "I am very sorry, " wrote Louis XIII. On the 4th ofJanuary, 1641, "to trouble you about the ill tempers of M. Le Grand. Iupbraided him with his heedlessness; he answered that for that matter hecould not change, and that he should do no better than he had done. Isaid that, considering his obligations to me, he ought not to address mein that manner. He answered in his usual way: that he didn't want mykindness, that he could do very well without it, and that he would bequite as well content to be Cinq-Mars as M. Le Grand, but, as forchanging his ways and his life, he couldn't do it. And so, hecontinually knagging at me and I at him, we came as far as thecourt-yard, when I said to him that, being in the temper he was in, hewould do me the pleasure of not coming to see me. I have not seen himsince. Signed, Louis. " This time the cardinal reconciled the king andthe favorite, whom he had himself placed near him, but whose constantattendance upon the king his master he was beginning to find sometimesvery troublesome. "One day he sent word to him not to be for the futureso continually at his heels, and treated him even to his face with somuch tartness and imperiousness as if he had been the lowest of hisvalets. " Cinq-Mars began to lend an ear to those who were egging him onagainst the cardinal. Then began a series of negotiations and intrigues; the Duke of Orleanshad come back to Paris, the king was ill and the cardinal more so thanhe; thence arose conjectures and insensate hopes; the Duke of Bouillon, being sent for by the king, who confided to him the command of the armyof Italy, was at the same time drawn into the plot which was beginning tobe woven against the minister; the Duke of Orleans and the queen were init; and the town of Sedan, of which Bouillon was prince-sovereign, waswanted to serve the authors of the conspiracy as an asylum in case ofreverse. Sedan alone was not sufficient; there was need of an army. Whence was it to come? Thoughts naturally turned towards Spain. For so perilous a treaty a negotiator was required, and the grand equerryproposed his friend, Viscount de Fontrailles, a man of wit, who detestedthe cardinal, and who would have considered it a simpler plan toassassinate him; he consented, however, to take charge of thenegotiation, and he set out for Madrid, where his treaty was soonconcluded, in the name of the Duke of Orleans. The Spaniards were tofurnish twelve thousand foot and five thousand horse, four hundredthousand crowns down, twelve thousand crowns' pay a month, and threehundred thousand livres to fortify the frontier-town which was promisedby the duke. Sedan, Cinq-Mars, and the Duke of Bouillon were onlymentioned in a separate instrument. The king was then at Narbonne, on his way to his army, which wasbesieging Perpignan. The grand equerry was with him. Fontrailles wentto call upon him. "I do not intend to be seen by anybody, " said he, "butto make speedily for England, as I do not think I am strong enough toundergo the torture the cardinal might put me to in his own room on theleast suspicion. " On the 21st of April, the cardinal was dangerouslyill, and the king left him at Narbonne a prey to violent fever, with anabscess on the arm which prevented him from writing, whilst Cinq-Mars, ever present and ever at work, was doing his best to insinuate into hismaster's mind suspicion of the minister, and the hopes founded upon hisdisgrace or death. The king listened, as he subsequently avowed, inorder to discover his favorite's wicked thoughts and make him tell all hehad in his heart. "The king was tacitly the head of this conspiracy, "says Madame de Motteville: "the grand equerry was the soul of it; thename made use of was that of the Duke of Orleans, the king's onlybrother; and their counsel was the Duke of Bouillon, who joined with thembecause, having belonged to the party of M. De Soissons, he was in veryill odor at court. They all formed fine projects touching the changethat was to take place to the advantage of their aggrandizement andfortunes, persuading themselves that the cardinal could not live above afew days, during which he would not be able to set himself right with theking. " Such were their projects and their hopes when the Gazette deFrance, on the 21st of June, 1642, gave these two pieces of news bothtogether. "The cardinal-duke, after remaining two days at Arles, embarked on the 11th of this month for Tarascon, his health becomingbetter and better. The king has ordered under arrest Marquis de Cinq-Mars, grand equerry of France. " Great was the surprise, and still greater was the dismay, amongst thefriends of Cinq-Mars. "Your grand designs are as well known at Paris asthat the Seine flows under the Pont Neuf, " wrote Mary di Gonzaga to him afew days previously. Those grand designs so imprudently divulged caused a presentiment ofgreat peril. When left alone with his young favorite, and suddenlyoverwhelmed, amidst his army, with cares and business of which hisminister usually relieved him, the king had too much wit not to perceivethe frivolous insignificance of Cinq-Mars compared with the mightycapability of the cardinal. "I love you more than ever, " he wrote toRichelieu: "we have been too long together to be ever separated, as Iwish everybody to understand. In reply, the cardinal had sent him a copyof the treaty between Cinq-Mars and Spain. The king could not believe his eyes; and his wrath equalled hisastonishment. Together with that of the grand equerry he ordered theimmediate arrest of M. De Thou, his intimate friend; and the order wentout to secure the Duke of Bouillon, then at the head of the army ofItaly. He, caught, like Marshal Marillac, in the midst of his troops, had vainly attempted to conceal himself; but he was taken and conductedto the castle of Pignerol. Fontrailles had seen the blow coming. Hewent to visit the grand equerry, and, "Sir, " said he, "you are a finefigure; if you were shorter by the whole head, you would not cease to bevery tall; as for me, who am already very short, nothing could be takenoff me without inconveniencing me and making me cut the poorest figure inthe world; you will be good enough, if you please, to let me get out ofthe way of edged tools. " And he set out for Spain, whence he had hardlyreturned. What had become of the most guilty, if not the most dangerous, of all theaccomplices? Monsieur, "the king's only (unique) brother, " as Madame deMotteville calls him, had come as far as Moulins, and had sent to ask thegrand equerry to appoint a place of meeting, when he heard of hisaccomplice's arrest, and, before long, that of the Duke of Bouillon. Frightened to death as he was, he saw that treachery was safer thanflight, and, just as the king had joined the all but dying cardinal atTarascon, there arrived an emissary from the Duke of Orleans bringingletters from him. He assured the king of his fidelity; he entreatedChavigny, the minister's confidant, to give him "means of seeing hisEminence before he saw the king, in which case all would go well. " Heappealed to the cardinal's generosity, begging him to keep his letter asan eternal reproach, if he were not thenceforth the most faithful anddevoted of his friends. Abbe de La Riviere, who was charged to implore pardon for his master, was worthy of such a commission: he confessed everything, he signedeverything, though he "all but died of terror, " and, at the cardinal'sdemand, he soon brought all those poltrooneries written out in the Dukeof Orleans' own hand. The prince was all but obliged to appear at thetrial and deliver up his accomplices in the face of the whole world. The respect, however, of Chancellor Seguier for his rank spared him thiscrowning disgrace. The king's orders to his brother, after beingsubmitted to the cardinal, bore this note in the minister's hand:"Monsieur will have in his place of exile twelve thousand crowns a month, the same sum that the King of Spain had promised to give him. " "Paralysis of the arm did not prevent the head from acting;" the dyingcardinal had dictated to the king, stretched on a couch at his side, in achamber of his house at Monfrin, near Tarascon, those last commands whichcompleted the dishonor of the Duke of Orleans and the ruin of thefavorite. Louis XIII. Slowly took the road back to Fontainebleau in thecardinal's litter, which the latter had lent him. The prisoners wereleft in the minister's keeping, who ordered them before long to Lyons, whither he was himself removed. The grand equerry coming fromMontpellier, M. De Thou from Tarascon, in a boat towed by that of thecardinal, and the Duke of Bouillon from Pignerol, were all three lodgedin the castle of Pierre-Encise. Their examination was put off until thearrival of such magistrates "as should be capable of philosophizing andperpetually thinking of the means they must use for arriving at theirends. " That was useless, inasmuch as the grand equerry "never ceased tosay quite openly that he had done nothing to which the king had notconsented. " Louis XIII. Was, no doubt, affected by such language; for, scarcely hadhe arrived at Fontainebleau, whither he had been preceded by news of theend of the queen his mother, who had died at Cologne in exile andpoverty, when he wrote to all the parliaments of his kingdom, to thegovernors of the provinces, and to the ambassadors at foreign courts, togive his own account of the arrest of the guilty and the part he himselfhad played in the matter. "The notable and visible change which had forthe last year appeared in the conduct of Sieur de Cinq-Mars, our grandequerry, made us resolve, as soon as we perceived it, to carefully keepwatch on his actions and his words, in order to fathom them and discoverwhat could be the cause. To this end, we resolved to let him act andspeak with us more freely than heretofore. " And in a letter writtenstraight to the chancellor, the king exclaims in wrath, "It is true thathaving seen me sometimes dissatisfied with the cardinal, whether from theapprehension I felt lest he should hinder me from going to the siege ofPerpignan, or induce me to leave it, for fear lest my health mightsuffer, or from any other like reason, the said Sieur de Cinq-Mars leftnothing undone to chafe me against my said cousin, which I put up with solong as his evil offices were confined within the bounds of moderation. But when he went so far as to suggest to me that the cardinal must be gotrid of, and offered to carry it out himself, I conceived a horror of hisevil thoughts, and held them in detestation. Although I have only to sayso for you to believe it, there is nobody who can deem but that it musthave been so; for, otherwise, what motive would he have had for joininghimself to Spain against me, if I had approved of what he desired?" The trial was a foregone conclusion; the king and his brother made commoncause in order to overwhelm the accused, "an earnest of a peace which wasnot such as God announced with good will to man on Christmas day, " writesMadame de Motteville, "but such as may exist at court and amongstbrothers of royal blood. " The cardinal did not think it necessary to wait for the sentence. He hadarrived at his house at Lyons, in a sort of square chamber, covered withred damask, and borne on the shoulders of eighteen guards; there, stretched upon his couch, a table covered with papers beside him, heworked and chatted with whomsoever of his servants he had been pleased tohave as his companion on the road. It was in the same equipage that heleft Lyons to gain the Loire and return to Paris. On his passage, it wasnecessary to pull down lumps of wall and throw bridges over the fosses tomake way for this vast litter and the indomitable man that lay dyingwithin it. It was on the 12th of September, 1642, that the accused appeared beforethe commission; there were now but two of them; the Duke of Bouillon hadmade his private arrangement with the cardinal, confessing everything, and requesting "to have his life spared in order that he might employ itto preserve to the Catholic church five little children whom his deathwould leave to persons of the opposite religion. " In consideration ofthis pardon, a demand was made upon him to give up Sedan to the king, "though it were easy to gain possession of-it by investment. " The dukeconsented to all, and he awaited in his dungeon at Pierre-Bncise theexecution of his accomplices who had no town to surrender. Their deathwas to be the signal of his liberation. The two accused denied nothing. M. De Thou merely maintained that he hadnot been in any way mixed up with the conspiracy, proving that he hadblamed the treaty with Spain, and that his only crime was not havingrevealed it. "He believed me to be his friend, his one faithful friend, "said he, speaking of Cinq-Mars, "and I had no mind to betray him. " Thegrand equerry told in detail the story of the plot, his connection withthe Duke of Orleans, who had missed no opportunity of paying court tohim, the resolutions taken in concert with the Duke of Bouillon, and thetreaty concluded with Spain, "confessing that he had erred, and had nohope but in the clemency of the king, and of the cardinal, whosegenerosity would be so much the more shown in asking pardon for him as hewas the less bound to do so. " There was not long to wait for the decree;the votes were unanimous against the grand equerry, a single one of thejudges pronouncing in favor of M. De Thou. The latter turned towardsCinq-Mars, and said, "Ah! well, sir; humanly speaking, I might complainof you; you have placed me in the dock, and you are the cause of mydeath; but God knows how I love you. Let us die, sir, let us diecourageously, and win Paradise. " The decree against Cinq-Mars sentenced him to undergo the question inorder to get a more complete revelation of his accomplices. "It had beenresolved not to put him to it, " says Tallemant des Reaux: "but it wasexhibited to him nevertheless; it gave him a turn, but it did not makehim do anything to belie himself, and he was just taking off his doublet, when he was told to raise his hand in sign of telling the truth. " The execution was not destined to be long deferred; the very day on whichthe sentence was delivered saw the execution of it. "The grand equerryshowed a never-changing and very resolute firmness to the death, togetherwith admirable calmness and the constancy and devoutness of a Christian, "wrote M. Du Marca, councillor of state, to the secretary of stateBrionne; and Tallemant des Reaux adds, "He died with astoundingly greatcourage, and did not waste time in speechifying; he would not have hiseyes bandaged, and kept them open when the blow was struck. " M. De Thousaid not a word save to God, repeating the Credo even to the veryscaffold, with a fervor of devotion that touched all present. "We haveseen, " says a report of the time, "the favorite of the greatest and mostjust of kings lose his head upon the scaffold at the age of twenty-two, but with a firmness which has scarcely its parallel in our histories. Wehave seen a councillor of state die like a saint after a crime which mencannot justly pardon. There is nobody in the world who, knowing of theirconspiracy against the state, does not think them worthy of death, andthere will be few who, having knowledge of their rank and their finenatural qualities, will not mourn their sad fate. " [Illustration: Cinq-Mars and De Thou going to Execution----215] "Now that I make not a single step which does not lead me to death, I ammore capable than anybody else of estimating the value of the things ofthe world, " wrote Cinq-Mars to his mother, the wife of Marshal d'Effiat. "Enough of this world; away to Paradise!" said M. De Thou, as he marchedto the scaffold. Chalais and Montmorency had used the same language. Atthe last hour, and at the bottom of their hearts, the frivolous courtierand the hare-brained conspirator, as well as the great soldier and thegrave magistrate, had recovered their faith in God. CHAPTER XXXIX. ----LOUIS XIII. , CARDINAL RICHELIEU, AND THE PROVINCES. The story has been told of the conspiracies at court and the repeatedchecks suffered by the great lords in their attempts against CardinalRichelieu. With the exception of Languedoc, under the influence of itsgovernor the Duke of Montmorency, the provinces took no part in theseenterprises; their opposition was of another sort; and it is amongst theparliaments chiefly that we must look for it. "The king's cabinet and his bed-time business (_petit coucher_) cause memore embarrassment than the whole of Europe causes me, " said the cardinalin the days of the great storms at court; he would often have had lesstrouble in managing the parliaments and the Parliament of Paris inparticular, if the latter had not felt itself supported by a party atcourt. For a long time past a pretension had been put forward by thatgreat body to give the king advice, and to replace towards him thevanished states-general. "We hold the place in council of the princesand barons, who from time immemorial were near the person of the kings, "was the language used, in 1615, in the representations of the Parliament, which had dared, without the royal order, to summon the princes, dukes, peers, and officers of the crown to deliberate upon what was to be donefor the service of the king, the good of the state, and the relief of thepeople. This pretension on the part of the parliaments was what CardinalRichelieu was continually fighting against. He would not allow theintervention of the magistrates in the government of the state. When hetook the power into his hands, nine parliaments sat in France--Paris, Toulouse, Grenoble, Bordeaux, Dijon, Rouen, Aix, Rennes, and Pau: hecreated but one, that of Metz, in 1633, to severe in a definitive mannerthe bonds which still attached the three bishoprics to the Germanicempire. Trials at that time were carried in the last resort to Spires. Throughout the history of France we find the Parliament of Paris bolderand more enterprising than all the rest: and it did not belie itscharacter in the very teeth of Richelieu. When, after _Dupes' Day_ wasover, Louis XIII. Declared all the companions of his brother's escapeguilty of high treason, the Parliament of Dijon, to which the decree waspresented by the king himself, enregistered it without making anydifficulty. All the other parliaments followed the example; that ofParis alone resisted, and its decision on the 25th of April contained abitter censure upon the cardinal's administration. On the 12th of May, the decision of that Parliament was quashed by a decree of the royalcouncil, and all its members were summoned to the Louvre; on their kneesthey had to hear the severe reprimand delivered by Chateauneuf, keeper ofthe seals; and one president and three counsellors were at the same timedismissed. When the Parliament, still indomitable, would have had thosemagistrates sit in defiance of the royal order, they were not to be foundin their houses; the soldiery had carried them off. [Illustration: The Parliament of Paris reprimanded----217] The trial of Marshal Marillac, before a commission, twice modified duringthe course of proceedings, of the Parliament of Dijon, was the occasionof a fresh reclamation on the part of the Parliament of Paris; and theking's ill-humor against the magistrates burst forth on the occasion of acommission constituted at the Arsenal to take cognizance of the crime ofcoining. The Parliament made some formal objections the king, who was atthat time at Metz with his troops, summoned President Seguier and severalcounsellors. He quashed the decree of the Parliament. "You are onlyconstituted, " said he, "to judge between Master Peter and Master John(between John Doe and Richard Roe); if you go on as at present, I willpare your nails so close that you'll be sorry for it. " Five counsellorswere interdicted, and had great trouble in obtaining authority to sitagain. So many and such frequent squabbles, whether about points ofjurisdiction or about the registration of edicts respecting finances, which the Parliament claimed to have the right of looking into, causedbetween the king, inspired by his minister, and the Parliament of Parisan irritation which reached its height during the trial of the Duke ofLa Valette, third son of the Duke of Epernon, accused, not withoutgrounds, of having caused the failure of the siege of Fontarabia from jealousy towards the Prince of Conde. The affair was called on beforea commission composed of dukes and peers, some councillors of state andsome members of the Parliament, which demanded that the duke should beremoved to its jurisdiction. "I will not have it, " answered the king;"you are always making difficulties; it seems as if you wanted to keep mein leading-strings; but I am master, and shall know how to make myselfobeyed: It is a gross error to suppose that I have not a right to bringto judgment whom I think proper and where I please. " The king himselfasked the judges for their opinion. [_Isambert, Recueil des anciennesLois Francaises, _ t. Xvi. ] "Sir, " replied Counsellor Pinon, dean of thegrand chamber, "for fifty years I have been in the Parliament, and Inever saw anything of this sort; M. De La Valette had the honor ofwedding a natural sister of your Majesty, and he is, besides, a peerof France; I implore you to remove him to the jurisdiction of theParliament. " "Your opinion!" said the king, curtly. "I am of opinionthat the Duke of La Valette be removed to be tried before theParliament. " "I will not have that; it is no opinion. " "Sir, removal isa legitimate opinion. " "Your opinion on the case!" rejoined the king, who was beginning to be angry; "if not, I know what I must do. "President Bellievre was even bolder. "It is a strange thing, " said he toLouis XIII. 's face, to see a king giving his vote at the criminal trialof one of his subjects; hitherto kings have reserved to themselves therights of grace, and have removed to their officers' province thesentencing of culprits. Could your Majesty bear to see in the dock anobleman, who might leave your presence only for the scaffold? It isincompatible with kingly majesty. " "Your opinion on the case!" bade theking. "Sir, I have no other opinion. " The Duke of La Valette had takenrefuge in England: he was condemned and executed in effigy. Theattorney-general, Matthew Mold, "did not consider it his business tocarry out an execution of that sort: "and recourse was obliged to be hadto the lieutenant-governor of convicts at the Chatelet of Paris. The cup had overflowed, and the cardinal resolved to put an end to anopposition which was the more irritating inasmuch as it was sometimeslegitimate. A notification of the king's, published in 1641, prohibitedthe Parliament from any interference in affairs of state andadministration. The whole of Richelieu's home-policy is summed up in thepreamble to that instrument, a formal declaration of absolute powerconcentrated in the hands of the king. "It seemeth that, the institutionof monarchies having its foundation in the government of a single one, that rank is as it were the soul which animates them and inspires themwith as much force and vigor as they can have short of perfection. Butas this absolute authority raises states to the highest pinnacle of theirglory, so, when it happens to be enfeebled, they are observed, in a shorttime, to fall from their high estate. There is no need to go out ofFrance to find instances of truth. . . . The fatal disorders anddivisions of the League, which ought to be buried in eternal oblivion, owed their origin and growth to disregard of the kingly authority Henrythe Great, in whom God had put the most excellent virtues of a greatprince, on succeeding to the crown of Henry III. , restored by his valorthe kingly authority which had been as it were cast down and trampledunder foot. France recovered her pristine vigor, and let all Europe seethat power concentrated in the person of the sovereign is the source ofthe glory and greatness of monarchies, and the foundation upon whichtheir preservation rests. . . . We, then, have thought it necessaryto regulate the administration of justice, and to make known to ourparliaments what is the legitimate usage of the authority which thekings, our predecessors, and we have deposited with them, in order that athing which was established for the good of the people may not producecontrary effects, as would happen if the officers, instead of contentingthemselves with that power which makes them judges in matters of life anddeath and touching the fortunes of our subjects, would fain meddle in thegovernment of the state which appertains to the prince only. " The cardinal had gained the victory. Parliament bowed the head; itsattempts at independence during the Fronde were but a flash, and the yokeof Louis XIV. Became the more heavy for it. The pretensions of themagistrates were often foundationless, the restless and meddlesomecharacter of their assemblies did harm to their remonstrances; but for along while they maintained, in the teeth of more and more absolute kinglypower, the country's rights in the government, and they had perceived thedangers of that sovereign monarchy which certainly sometimes raisesstates to the highest pinnacle of their glory, but only to let them sinkbefore long to a condition of the most grievous abasement. Though always first in the breach, the Parliament of Paris was not alonein its opposition to the cardinal. The Parliament of Dijon protestedagainst the sentence of Marshal Marillac, and refused, to its shame, tobear its share of the expenses for the defence of Burgundy against theDuke of Lorraine, in 1636, a refusal which cost it the suspension of itspremier president. The Parliament of Brittany, in defence of its jurisdictional privileges, refused to enregister the decree which had for object the foundation of acompany trading with the Indies, "for the general trade between the Westand the East, " a grand idea of Richelieu's, the seat of which was to bein the roads of Morbihan; the company, already formed, was disheartened, thanks to the delays caused by the Parliament, and the enterprise failed. The Parliament of Grenoble, fearing a dearth of corn in Dauphiny, quashedthe treaties of supply for the army of Italy, at the time of the secondexpedition to Mantua; it went so far as to have the dealers' granariesthrown open, and the superintendent of finance, D'Emery, was obliged tocome to terms with the deputies of Dauphiny, "in order that they of theParliament of Grenoble, who said they had no interests but those of theprovince, might have no reason to prevent for the future the transport ofcorn, " says Richelieu himself in his Memoires. The Parliament of Rouen had always passed for one of the mostrecalcitrant. The province of Normandy was rich, and, consequently, overwhelmed with imposts; and several times the Parliament refused toenregister financial edicts which still further aggravated the distressof the people. In 1637 the king threatened to go in person to Rouen andbring the Parliament to submission, whereat it took fright andenregistered decrees for twenty-two millions. It was, no doubt, thisaugmentation of imposts that brought about the revolt of the Nu-pieds(Barefoots) in 1639. Before now, in 1624 and in 1637, in Perigord andRouergue, two popular risings of the same sort, under the name ofCroquants (Paupers), had disquieted the authorities, and the governor ofthe province had found some trouble in putting them down. The Nu-piedswere more numerous and more violent still; from Rouen to Avranches allthe country was a-blaze. At Coutances and at Vire, several monopoliersand gabeleurs, as the fiscal officers were called, were massacred; agreat number of houses were burned, and most of the receiving-officeswere pulled down or pillaged. Everywhere the army of suffering (_armeede souffrance_), the name given by the revolters to themselves, made, appeal to violent passions; popular rhymes were circulated from hand tohand, in the name of General _Nu-pieds (Barefoot), _ an imaginarypersonage whom nobody ever saw. Some of these verses are fair enough. [Illustration: The Barefoots----221] TO NORMANDY. "Dear land of mine, thou canst no more What boots it to have served so well? For see! thy faithful service bore This bitter fruit--the cursed gabelle. Is that the guerdon earned by those Who succored France against her foes, Who saved her kings, upheld her crown, And raised the lilies trodden down, In spite of all the foe could do, In spite of Spain and England too? "Recall thy generous blood, and show That all posterity may know-- Duke William's breed still lives at need: Show that thou hast a heavier hand Than erst came forth from Northern land; A hand so strong, a heart so high, These tyrants all shall beaten cry, 'From Normans and the Norman race Deliver us, O God of grace!'" The tumult was more violent at Rouen than anywhere else, and theParliament energetically resisted the mob. It had sent two counsellorsas a deputation to Paris to inform the king about the state of affairs. "You may signify to the gentlemen of the Parliament of Rouen, " saidChancellor Seguier, in answer to the delegates, "that I thank them forthe trouble they have taken on this occasion; I will let the king knowhow they have behaved in this affair. I beg them to go on as they havebegun. I know that the Parliament did very good service there. " In fact, several counsellors, on foot in the street and in the very midstof the revolters, had, at the peril of their lives, defended Le Tellierde Tourneville, receiver-general of gabels, and his officers, whilst thewhole Parliament, in their robes, with the premier president at theirhead, perambulated Rouen, amidst the angry mob, repairing at once to thepoints most threatened, insomuch that the presidents and counsellors were"in great danger and fear for their skins. " [_Histoire du Parlement deNormandy, _ by M. Floquet, t. Iv. ] It was this terror, born of tumultsand the sight of an infuriated populace, which, at a later period, retarded the Parliament in dealing out justice, and brought down uponit the wrath of the king and of the cardinal. Meanwhile the insurrection was gaining ground, and the local authoritieswere powerless to repress it. There was hesitation at the king's councilin choosing between Marshal Rantzau and M. De Gassion to command theforces ordered to march into Normandy. "That country yields no wine, "said the king "that will not do for Rantzau, or be good quarters forhim. " And they sent Colonel Gnssion, not so heavy a drinker as Rantzau, a good soldier and an inflexible character. First at Caen, then atAvranches, where there was fighting to be done, at Coutances and atElbeuf, Gassion's soldiery everywhere left the country behind them insubjection, in ruin, and in despair. They entered Rouen on the 31st ofDecember, 1639, and on the 2d of January, 1640, the chancellor himselfarrived to do justice on the rebels heaped up in the prisons, whom theParliament dared not bring up for judgment. "I come to Rouen, " he said, on entering the town, "not to deliberate, but to declare and execute thematters on which my mind is made up. " And he forbade all intervention onthe part of the archbishop, Francis de Harlay, who was disposed, inaccordance with his office of love as well as the parliamentary name hebore, to implore pity for the culprits, and to excuse the backwardjudges. The chancellor did not give himself the trouble to draw upsentences. "The decree is at the tip of my staff, " replied Picot, captainof his guards, when he was asked to show his orders. The executions werenumerous in Higher and Lower Normandy, and the Parliament received thewages of its tardiness. All the members of the body, even the most agedand infirm, were obliged to leave Rouen. A commission of fifteencouncillors of the Parliament of Paris came to replace provisionally theinterdicted Parliament of Normandy; and, when the magistrates wereempowered at last to resume their sitting, it was only a six months'term: that is, the Parliament henceforth found itself divided into twofragments, perfect strangers one to the other, which were to sitalternately for six months. "A veritable thunderbolt for that sovereigncourt, for by the six months' term, " says M. Floquet, "there was nolonger any Parliament, properly speaking, but two phantoms of Parliament, making war on each other, whilst the government had the field open tocarve and cut without control. " "All obedience is now from fear, " wrote Grotius to Oxenstiern, chancellorof Sweden; "the idea is to exorcise and annihilate hatred by means ofterror. " "This year, " wrote an inhabitant of Rouen, "there have been noNew Year's presents [_etrennes_], no singing of 'the king's drinking-song[_le roi boit_], in any house. Little children will be able to telltales of it when they have attained to man's estate; for never, thesefifty years past, so far as I can learn, has it been so. " [_Journal del'Abbe de la Rue_. ] The heaviest imposts weighed upon the wholeprovince, which thus expiated the crime of an insignificant portion ofits inhabitants. "The king shall not lose the value of this handkerchiefthat I hold, " said the superintendent Bullion, on arriving at Rouen. Andhe kept his word: Rouen alone had to pay more than three millions. Theprovince and its Parliament were henceforth reduced to submission. It was not only the Parliaments that resisted the efforts of CardinalRichelieu to concentrate all the power of the government in the hands ofthe king. From the time that the sovereigns had given up convoking thestates-general, the states-provincial had alone preserved the right ofbringing to the foot of the throne the plaints and petitions of subjects. Unhappily few provinces enjoyed this privilege; Languedoc, Brittany, Burgundy, Provence, Dauphiny, and the countship of Pau alone werestates-districts, that is to say, allowed to tax themselvesindependently and govern themselves to a certain extent. Normandy, though an elections-district, and, as such, subject to the royal agentsin respect of finance, had states which continued to meet even in 1666. The states-provincial were always convoked by the king, who fixed theplace and duration of assembly. The composition of the states-provincial varied a great deal, accordingto the districts. In Brittany all noblemen settled in the province hadthe right of sitting, whilst the third estate were represented by onlyforty deputies. In Languedoc, on the contrary, the nobility had buttwenty-three representatives, and the class of the third estate numberedsixty-eight deputies. Hence, no doubt, the divergences of conduct to beremarked in those two provinces between the Parliament and thestates-provincial. In Languedoc, even during Montmorency's insurrection, the Parliament remained faithful to the king and submissive to thecardinal, whilst the states declared in favor of the revolt: in Brittany, the Parliament thwarted Richelieu's efforts in favor of trade, which hadbeen enthusiastically welcomed by the states. In Languedoc as well as in Dauphiny the cardinal's energy was constantlydirected towards reducing the privileges which put the imposts, and, consequently, the royal revenues, at the discretion of the states. Montmorency's insurrection cost Languedoc a great portion of itsliberties, which had already been jeoparded, in 1629, on the occasion ofthe Huguenots' rising; and those of Dauphiny were completely lost; thestates were suppressed in 1628. The states of Burgundy ordinarily assembled every three years, but theywere accustomed, on separating, to appoint "a chamber of states-general, "whereat the nobility, clergy, and third estate were represented, andwhich was charged to watch over the interests of the province in theinterval between the sessions. When, in 1629, Richelieu proposed tocreate, as in Languedoc, a body of "elect" to arrange with the fiscalagents for the rating of imposts without the concurrence of the states, the assembly proclaimed that "it was all over with the liberties of theprovince if the edict passed, " and, in the chamber of the nobility, twogentlemen were observed to draw their swords. But, spite of thedisturbance which took place at Dijon, in 1630, on occasion of an imposton wines, and which was called, from the title of a popular ditty, _laSedition de Lanturlu, _ the province preserved its liberties, and remaineda states-district. It was the same subject that excited in Provence the revolt of the_Cascaveous, _ or bell-bearers. Whenever there was any question ofelections or "elect, " the conspirators sounded their bells as a rallyingsignal, and so numerous was the body of adherents that the bells wereheard tinkling everywhere. The Prince of Conde was obliged to marchagainst the revolters, and the states assembled at Tarascon foundthemselves forced to vote a subsidy of one million five hundred thousandlivres. At this cost the privileges of Provence were respected. The states of Brittany, on the contrary, lent the cardinal faithfulsupport, when he repaired thither with the king, in 1626, at the time ofthe conspiracy of Chalais; the Duke of Vendome, governor of Brittany, hadjust been arrested; the states requested the king "never to give them agovernor issue of the old dukes, and to destroy the fortifications of thetowns and castles which were of no use for the defence of the country. "The petty noblemen, a majority in the states, thus delivered over theprovince to the kingly power, from jealousy of the great lords. Theordinance, dated from Nantes on the 31st of July, 1626, rendered themeasure general throughout France. The battlements of the castles fellbeneath the axe of the demolishers, and the masses of the districtwelcomed enthusiastically the downfall of those old reminiscences offeudal oppression. As a sequel to the systematic humiliation of the great lords, even whenprovincial governors, and to the gradual enfeeblement of provincialinstitutions, Richelieu had to create in all parts of France, still sodiverse in organization as well as in manners, representatives of thekingly power, of too modest and feeble a type to do without him, butcapable of applying his measures and making his wishes respected. Beforenow the kings of France had several times over perceived the necessity ofkeeping up a supervision over the conduct of their officers in theprovinces. The inquisitors (_enquesteurs_) of St. Louis, the ridings ofthe revising-masters (_chevauehees des maitres des requetes_), thedepartmental commissioners (_commissaires departis_) of Charles IX. , wereso many temporary and travelling inspectors, whose duty it was to informthe king of the state of affairs throughout the kingdom. Richelieusubstituted for these shifting commissions a fixed and regularinstitution, and in 1637 he established in all the provinces overseers ofjustice, police, and finance, who were chosen for the most part fromamongst the burgesses, and who before long concentrated in their handsthe whole administration, and maintained the struggle of the kingly poweragainst the governors, the sovereign courts, and the states-provincial. At the time when the overseers of provinces were instituted, the battleof pure monarchy was gained; Richelieu had no further need of allies, hewanted mere subjects; but at the beginning of his ministry he had feltthe need of throwing himself sometimes for support on the nation, andthis great foe of the states-general had twice convoked the Assembly ofNotables. The first took place at Fontainebleau, in 1625-6. Thecardinal was at that time at loggerheads with the court of Rome: "If theMost Christian King, " said he, "is bound to watch over the interests ofthe Catholic church, he has first of all to maintain his own reputationin the world. What use would it be for a state to have power, riches, and popular government, if it had not character enough to bring otherpeople to form alliance with it?" These few words summed up the greatminister's foreign policy, to protect the Catholic church whilst keepingup Protestant alliances. The Notables understood the wisdom of thisconduct, and Richelieu received their adhesion. It was just the same thefollowing year, the day after the conspiracy of Chalais; the cardinalconvoked the Assembly of Notables. "We do protest before the livingGod, " said the letters of convocation, "that we have no other aim andintention but His honor and the welfare of our subjects; that is why wedo conjure in His name those whom we convoke, and do most expresslycommand them, without fear or desire of displeasing or pleasing any, togive us, in all frankness and sincerity, the counsels they shall judge ontheir consciences to be the most salutary and convenient for the welfareof the commonwealth. " The assembly so solemnly convoked opened itssittings at the palace of the Tuileries on the 2d of December, 1626. Thestate of the finances was what chiefly occupied those present; and thecardinal himself pointed out the general principles of the reform hecalculated upon establishing. "It is impossible, " he said, "to meddlewith the expenses necessary for the preservation of the state; it were acrime to think of such a thing. The retrenchment, therefore, must be inthe case of useless expenses. The most stringent rules are and appear tobe, even to the most ill-regulated minds, comparatively mild, when theyhave, in deed as well as in appearance, no object but the public good andthe safety of the state. To restore the state to its pristine splendor, we need not many ordinances, but a great deal of practical performance. " The performance appertained to Richelieu, and he readily dispensed withmany ordinances. The Assembly was favorable to his measures; but amongstthose that it rejected was the proposal to substitute loss of offices andconfiscation for the penalty of death in matters of rebellion andconspiracy. "Better a moderate but certain penalty, " said the cardinal, "than a punishment too severe to be always inflicted. " It was thenotables who preserved in the hands of the inflexible minister theterrible weapon of which he availed himself so often. The Assemblyseparated on the 24th of February, 1627, the last that was convokedbefore the revolution of 1789. It was in answer to its demands, as wellas to those of the states of 1614, that the keeper of the seals, MichaelMarillac, drew up, in 1629, the important administrative ordinance whichhas preserved from its author's name the title of _Code Michau_. The cardinal had propounded to the Notables a question which he hadgreatly at heart--the foundation of a navy. Already, when disposing, some weeks previously, of the government of Brittany, which had beentaken away from the Duke of Vendome, he had separated from the officethat of admiral of Brittany; already he was in a position to purchasefrom M. De Montmorency his office of grand admiral of France, so as tosuppress it and substitute for it that of grand master of navigation, which was personally conferred upon Richelieu by an edict enregistered onthe 18th of March, 1627 . "Of the power which it has seemed agreeable to his Majesty that I shouldhold, " he wrote on the 20th of January, 1627, "I can say with truth, thatit is so moderate that it could not be more so to be an appreciableservice, seeing that I have desired no wage or salary so as not to be acharge to the state, and I can add without vanity that the proposal totake no wage came from me, and that his Majesty made a difficulty aboutletting it be so. " The Notables had thanked the king, for the intention he had "of beingpleased to give the kingdom the treasures of the sea which nature had soliberally proffered it, for without [keeping] the sea one cannot profitby the sea nor maintain war. " Harbors repaired and fortified, arsenalsestablished at various points on the coast, organization of marineregiments, foundation of pilot-schools, in fact, the creation of apowerful marine which, in 1642, numbered sixty-three vessels andtwenty-two galleys, that left the roads of Barcelona after therejoicings for the capture of Perpignan and arrived the same evening atToulon--such were the fruits of Richelieu's administration of navalaffairs. "Instead, " said the bailiff of Forbin, "of having a handful ofrebels forcing us, as of late, to compose our naval forces of foreignersand implore succor from Spain, England, Malta, and Holland, we are atpresent in a condition to do as much for them if they continue inalliance with us, or to beat them when they fall off from us. " So much progress on every point, so many efforts in all directions, eighty-five vessels afloat, a hundred regiments of infantry, and threehundred troops of cavalry, almost constantly on a war footing, naturallyentailed enormous expenses and terrible burdens on the people. It wasRichelieu's great fault to be more concerned about his object thanscrupulous as to the means he employed for arriving at it. Hisprinciples were as harsh as his conduct. "Reason does not admit ofexempting the people from all burdens, " said he, "because in such case, on losing the mark of their subjection, they would also lose remembranceof their condition, and, if they were free from tribute, would think thatthey were from obedience also. " Cruel words those, and singularlydestitute of regard for Christian charity and human dignity, besidewhich, however, must be placed these: "If the subsidies imposed on thepeople were not to be kept within moderate bounds, even when they wereneeded for the service of the country, they would not cease to beunjust. " The strong common sense of this great mind did not allow him todepart for long from a certain hard equity. Posterity has preserved thememory of his equity less than of his hardness: men want sympathy morethan justice. CHAPTER XL. ----LOUIS XIII. , CARDINAL RICHELIEU, THE CATHOLICS AND THEPROTESTANTS. Cardinal Richelieu has often been accused of indifference towards theCatholic church; the ultramontanes called him the Huguenots' cardinal; inso speaking there was either a mistake or a desire to mislead; Richelieuwas all his life profoundly and sincerely Catholic; not only did no doubtas to the fundamental doctrines of his church trouble his mind, but healso gave his mind to her security and her aggrandizement. He was abeliever on conviction, without religious emotions and without themystic's zeal; he labored for Catholicism whilst securing for himselfProtestant alliances, and if the independence of his mind caused him tofeel the necessity for a reformation, it was still in the church and bythe church that he would have had it accomplished. Spirits more fervent and minds more pious than Richelieu's felt the sameneed. On emerging from the violent struggles of the religious wars, theCatholic church had not lost her faith, but she had neglected sweetnessand light. King Henry IV. 's conversion had secured to her the victory inFrance, but she was threatened with letting it escape from her hands byher own fault. God raised up for her some great servents who preservedher from this danger. The oratorical and political brilliancy of the Catholic church in thereign of Louis XIV. Has caused men to forget the great religious movementin the reign of Louis XIII. Learned and mystic in the hands of CardinalBerulle, humane and charitable with St. Vincent de Paul, bold and saintlywith M. De Saint Cyran, the church underwent from all quarters quickeninginfluences which roused her from her dangerous lethargy. The effort was attempted at all points at once. The priests had sunkinto an ignorance as perilous as their lukewarmness. Mid all thediplomatic negotiations which he undertook in Richelieu's name, and theintrigues he, with the queen-mother, often hatched against him, CardinalBerulle founded the con gregation of the Oratory, designed to train upwell-informed and pious young priests with a capacity for devotingthemselves to the education of children as well as the edification of thepeople. " It is a body, " said Bossizet, " in which everybody obeys andnobody commands. " No vow fettered the members of this celebratedcongregation, which gave to the world Malebranche and Massillon. It was, again, under the inspiration of Cardinal B6rulle, renowned for the piousdirection of souls, that the order of Carmelites, hitherto confined toSpain, was founded in France. The convent in Rue St. Jacques soonnumbered amongst its penitents women of the highest rank. The labors of Mgr. De Berulle tended especially to the salvation ofindividual souls; those of St. Vincent de Paul embraced a vaster field, and one offering more scope to Christian humanity. Some time before, in1610, St. Francis de Sales had founded, under the direction of Madame deChantal, the order of Visitation, whose duty was the care of the sick andpoor; he had left the direction of his new institution to M. Vincent, aswas at that time the appellation of the poor priest without birth andwithout fortune, who was one day to be celebrated throughout the worldunder the name of St. Vincent de Paul. This direction was not enough tosatisfy his zeal for charity; children and sick, the ignorant and theconvict, all those who suffered in body or spirit, seemed to summonM. Vincent to their aid; he founded in 1617, in a small parish of Bresse, the charitable society of Servants of the poor, which became in 1633, atParis, under the direction of Madame Legras, niece of the keeper of theseals Marillac, the sisterhood off Servants of the sick poor, and thecradle of the Sisters of Charity. "They shall not have, as a regularrule, " said St. Vincent, "any monastery but the houses of the sick, anychapel but their parish-church, any cloister but the streets of the townand the rooms of the hospitals, any enclosure but obedience, any gratingbut the fear of God, or any veil but the holiest and most perfectmodesty. " Eighteen thousand daughters of St. Vincent de Paul, of whomfourteen thousand are French, still testify at this day to thefar-sighted wisdom of their founder; his regulations have enduredlike his work and the necessities of the poor. It was to the daughters of Charity that M. Vincent confided the work inconnection with foundlings, when his charitable impulses led him, in1638, to take up the cause of the poor little abandoned things who wereperishing by heaps at that time in Paris. Appealing for help, on theiraccount, to the women of the world, one evening when he was in want ofmoney, he exclaimed at the house of the Duchess of Aiguillon, CardinalRichelieu's niece, "Come now, ladies; compassion and charity have madeyou adopt these, little creatures as your own children; you have beentheir mothers according to grace, since their mothers according to naturehave abandoned them. Consider, then, whether you too will abandon them;their life and their death are in your hands; it is time to pronouncetheir sentence, and know whether you will any longer have pity upon them. They will live if you continue to take a charitable care of them; theywill die and perish infallibly if you abandon them. " St. Vincent de Paulhad confidence in human nature, and everywhere on his path sprang up goodworks in response to his appeals; the foundation of Mission-priests orLazarists, designed originally to spread about in the rural districts theknowledge of God, still testifies in the East, whither they carry at oneand the same time the Gospel and the name of France, to that greatawakening of Christian charity which signalized the reign of Louis XIII. The same inspiration created the seminary of St. Sulpice, by means ofM. Olier's solicitude, the brethren of Christian Doctrine and theUrsulines, devoted to the education of childhood, and so many othercharitable or pious establishments, noble fruits of devoutness andChristian sacrifice. Nowhere was this fructuating idea of the sacrifice, the immolation of manfor God and of the present in prospect of eternity, more rigorouslyunderstood and practised than amongst the disciples of John du Vergier deHauranne, Abbot of St. Cyran. More bold in his conceptions than CardinalBerulle and St. Vincent de Paul, of a nature more austere and at the sametime more ardent, he had early devoted himself to the study of theology. Connected in his youth with a Fleming, Jansen, known under the name ofJansenius and afterwards created Bishop of Ypres, he adopted with fervorthe doctrines as to the grace of God which his friend had imbibed in theschool of St. Augustin, and employing in the direction of souls thatzealous ardor which makes conquerors, he set himself to work toregenerate the church by penance, sanctity, and sacrifice; God supreme, reigning over hearts subdued, that was his ultimate object, and hemarched towards it without troubling himself about revolts andsufferings, certain that he would be triumphant with God and for Him. [Illustration: The Abbot of St. Cyran----234] Victories gained over souls are from their very nature of a silent sort:but M. De St. Cyran was not content with them. He wrote also, and hisbook "Petrus Aurelius, " published under the veil of the anonymous, excited a great stir by its defence of the rights of the bishops againstthe monks, and even against the pope. The Gallican bishops welcomed atthat time with lively satisfaction, its eloquent pleadings in favor oftheir cause. But, at a later period, the French clergy discovered inSt. Cyran's book free-thinking concealed under dogmatic forms. "In caseof heresy any Christian may become judge, " said Petrus Aurelius. Who, then, should be commissioned to define heresy? So M. De St. Cyran wascondemned. He had been already by an enemy more formidable than the assemblies ofthe clergy of France. Cardinal Richelieu, naturally attracted towardsgreatness as he was at a later period towards the infant prodigy of thePascals, had been desirous of attaching St. Cyran to himself. "Gentlemen, " said he one day, as he led back the simple priest into themidst of a throng of his courtiers, "here you see the most learned man inEurope. " But the Abbot of St. Cyran would accept no yoke but God's: heremained independent, and perhaps hostile, pursuing, without troublinghimself about the cardinal, the great task he had undertaken. Havinghad, for two years past, the spiritual direction of the convent of PortRoyal, he had found in Mother Angelica Arnauld, the superior and reformerof the monastery, in her sister, Mother Agnes, and in the nuns of theirorder, souls worthy of him and capable of tolerating his austereinstructions. Before long he had seen forming, beside Port Royal and in the solitude ofthe fields, a nucleus of penitents, emulous of the hermits of the desert. M. Le Maitre, Mother Angelica's nephew, a celebrated advocate in theParliament of Paris, had quitted all "to have no speech but with God. "A howling (_rugissant_) penitent, he had drawn after him his brothers, MM. De Sacy and de Sericourt, and, ere long, young Lancelot, the learnedauthor of Greek roots: all steeped in the rigors of penitential life, allblindly submissive to M. De St. Cyran and his saintly requirements. Thedirector's power over so many eminent minds became too great. Richelieuhad comprehended better than the bishops the tendency of M. De St. Cyran's ideas and writings. "He continued to publish many opinions, newand leading to dangerous conclusions, " says Father Joseph in his_Memoires, _" in such sort that the king, being advertised, commanded himto be kept a prisoner in the Bois de Vincennes. " "That man is worse thansix armies, " said Cardinal Richelieu; "if Luther and, Calvin had beenshut up when they began to dogmatize, states would have been spared agreat deal of trouble. " The consciences of men and the ardor of their souls are not so easilystifled by prison or exile. The Abbot of St. Cyran, in spite of theentreaties of his powerful friends, remained at Vincennes up to the deathof Cardinal Richelieu; the seclusionists of Port Royal were driven fromtheir retreat and obliged to disperse; but neither the severities ofRichelieu, nor, at a later period, those of Louis XIV. , were the truecause of the ultimate powerlessness of Jansenism to bring about thatprofound reformation of the church which had been the dream of the Abbotof St. Cyran. He had wished to immolate sinful man to God, and heregarded sanctity as the complete sacrifice of human nature corrupt toits innermost core. Human conscience could not accept this cruel yoke;its liberty revolted against so narrow a prison; and the Protestantreformation, with a doctrine as austere as that of M. De St. Cyran, butmore true and more simple in its practical application, offered strongminds the satisfaction of direct and personal relations between God andman; it saw the way to satisfy them without crushing them; and that iswhy the kingly power in France succeeded in stifling Jansenism withouthaving ever been able to destroy the Protestant faith. Cardinal Richelieu dreaded the doctrines of M. De St. Cyran, and stillmore those of the reformation, which went directly to the emancipation ofsouls; but he had the wit to resist ecclesiastical encroachments, and, for all his being a cardinal, never did minister maintain more openly theindependence of the civil power. "The king, in things temporal, recognizes no sovereign save God. " That had always been the theory ofthe Gallican church. "The church of France is in the kingdom, and notthe kingdom in the church, " said the jurisconsult Loyseau, thussubjecting ecclesiastics to the common law of all citizens. The French clergy did not understand it so; they had recourse to theliberties of the Gallican church in order to keep up a certain measure ofindependence as regarded Rome, but they would not give up their ancientprivileges, and especially the right of taking an independent share inthe public necessities without being taxed as a matter of law andobligation. Here it was that Cardinal Richelieu withstood them: hemaintained that, the ecclesiastics and the brotherhoods not having theright to hold property in France by mortmain, the king tolerated theirpossession, of his grace, but he exacted the payment of seignorial dues. The clergy at that time possessed more than a quarter of the property inFrance; the tax to be paid amounted, it is said, to eighty millions. Thesubsidies further demanded reached a total of eight millions six hundredlivres. The clergy in dismay wished to convoke an assembly to determine theirconduct; and after a great deal of difficulty it was authorized by thecardinal. Before long he intimated to the five prelates who were mosthostile to him that they must quit the assembly and retire to theirdioceses. "There are, " said the Bishop of Autun, who was entirelydevoted to Richelieu, "some who show great delicacy about agreeing to allthat the king demands, as if they had a doubt whether all the property ofthe church belonged to him or not, and whether his Majesty, leaving theecclesiastics wherewithal to provide for their subsistence and a moderateestablishment, could not take all the surplus. " That sort of doctrinewould never do for the clergy; still they consented to pay five millionsand a half, the sum to which the minister lowered his pretensions. "Thewants of the state, " said Richelieu, "are real; those of the church arefanciful and arbitrary; if the king's armies had not repulsed the enemy, the clergy would have suffered far more. " Whilst the cardinal imposed upon the French clergy the obligations commonto all subjects, he defended the kingly power and majesty against theUltramoutanes, and especially against the Jesuits. Several of theirpamphlets had already been censured by his order when Father Sanctarelpublished a treatise on heresy and schism, clothed with the pope'sapprobation, and containing, amongst other dangerous propositions, thefollowing: "The pope can depose emperor and kings for their iniquities orfor personal incompetence, seeing that he has a sovereign, supreme, andabsolute power. " The work was referred to the Parliament, who ordered itto be burned in Place de Greve; there was talk of nothing less than thebanishment of the entire order. Father Cotton, superior of the French Jesuits, was summoned to appearbefore the council; he gave up Father Sanctarel unreservedly, making whatexcuse he best could for the approbation of the pope and of the generalof the Jesuits. The condemnation of the work was demanded, and it wassigned by sixteen French fathers. The Parliament was disposed to pushthe matter farther, when Richelieu, always as prudent as he was firm inhis relations with this celebrated order, represented to the king thatthere are "certain abuses which are more easily put down by passing themover than by resolving to destroy them openly, and that it was time totake care lest proceedings should be carried to a point which might be asprejudicial to his service as past action had been serviceable to it. "The Jesuits remained in France, and their college at Clermont was notclosed; but they published no more pamphlets against the cardinal. Theyeven defended him at need. Richelieu's grand quarrel with the clergy was nearing its end when theclimax was reached of a disagreement with the court of Rome, dating fromsome time back. The pope had never forgiven the cardinal for not havingaccepted his mediation in the affair with Spain on the subject of theValteline; he would not accede to the desire which Richelieu manifestedto become legate of the Holy See in France, as Cardinal d'Amboise hadbeen; and when Marshal d'Estrees arrived as ambassador at Rome, hisresolute behavior brought the misunderstanding to a head: the poperefused the customary funeral honors to Cardinal La Valette, who had diedin battle, without dispensation, at the head of the king's army inPiedmont. Richelieu preserved appearances no longer; the king refusedto receive the pope's nuncio, and prohibited the bishops from anycommunication with him. The quarrel was envenomed by a pamphlet called_Optatus Gallus_. The cardinal's enemies represented him as a new Lutherready to excite a schism and found a patriarchate in France. FatherRabardeau, of the Jesuits' order, maintained, in reply, that the actwould not be schismatical, and that the consent of Rome would be no morenecessary to create a patriarchate in France than it had been toestablish those of Constantinople and Jerusalem. Urban VIII. Took fright; he sent to France Julius Mazarin, at that timevice-legate, and already frequently employed in the negotiations betweenthe court of Rome and Cardinal Richelieu, who had taken a great fancy tohim. The French clergy had just obtained authority to vote the subsidyin an assembly; and the pope contented himself with this feebleconcession. Mazarin put the finishing touch to the reconciliation, andreceived as recompense the cardinal's hat. In fact, the victory of thecivil power was complete, and the independence of the crown clearlyestablished. "His Holiness, " said the cardinal, "ought to commend thezeal shown by his Majesty for the welfare of the church, and to remainsatisfied with the respect shown him by an appeal to his authority whichhis Majesty might have dispensed with in this matter, having hisParliaments to fall back upon for the chastisement of those who livedevilly in his kingdom. " In principle, the supreme question between thecourt of Rome and the kingly power remained undecided, and it showedwisdom on the part of Urban VIII. , as well as of Cardinal Richelieu, never to fix fundamentally and within their exact limits the rights andpretensions of the church or the crown. Cardinal Richelieu had another battle to deliver, and another victory, which was to be more decisive, to gain. During his exile at Avignon, hehad written against the Reformers, violently attacking their doctrinesand their precepts; he was, therefore, personally engaged in thetheological strife, and more hotly than has been made out; but he wasabove everything a great politician, and the rebellion of the Reformers, their irregular political assemblies, their alliances with the foreigner, occupied him, far more than their ministers' preaching. It was statewithin state that the reformers were seeking to found, and that thecardinal wished to upset. Seconded by the Prince of Conde, the king hadput an end to the war which cost the life of the constable De Luynes, butthe peace concluded at Montpellier on the 19th of November, 1622, hadalready received many a blow; pacific counsels amongst the Reformers werelittle by little dying out together with the old servants of Henry IV. ;Du Plessis-Mornay had lately died (November 11, 1623) at his castle ofForet-sur-Sevres, and the direction of the party fell entirely into thehands of the Duke of Rohan, a fiery temper and soured by misfortunes aswell as by continual efforts made on the part of his brother, the Duke ofSoubise, more restless and less earnest than he. Hostilities broke outafresh at the beginning of the year 1625. The Reformers complained that, instead of demolishing Fort Louis, which commanded La Rochelle, all hastewas being made to complete the ramparts they had hoped to see razed tothe ground: a small royal fleet mustered quietly at Le Blavet, andthreatened to close the sea against the Rochellese. The peace ofMontpellier had left the Protestants only two surety-places, Montaubanand La Rochelle; and they clung to them with desperation. On the 6th ofJanuary, 1625, Soubise suddenly entered the harbor of Le Blavet withtwelve vessels, and seizing without a blow the royal ships, towed themoff in triumph to La Rochelle--a fatal success, which was to cost thattown dear. The royal marine had hardly an existence; after the capture made bySoubise, help had to be requested from England and Holland; the marriageof Henrietta of France, daughter of Henry IV. , with the Prince of Wales, who was soon to become Charles I. , was concluded; the English promisedeight ships; the treaties with the United Provinces obliged theHollanders to supply twenty, which they would gladly have refused to sendagainst their brethren, if they could; the cardinal even required thatthe ships should be commanded by French captains. "One lubber may ruin awhole fleet, " said he, "and a captain of a ship, if assured by the enemyof payment for his vessel, may undertake to burn the whole armament, andthat the more easily inasmuch as he would think he was making a grandsacrifice to God, for the sake of his religion. " Meanwhile, Soubise had broken through the feeble obstacles opposed tohim by the Duke of Vendome, and, making himself master of all thetrading-vessels he encountered, soon took possession of the Islands ofRe and Oleron and effected descents even into Medoc, whilst the Duke ofRohan, leaving the duchess his wife, Sully's daughter, at Castres, wherehe had established the seat of his government, was scouring LowerLanguedoc and the Cevennes to rally his partisans. The insurrection wasvery undecided, and the movement very irregular. Nimes, Uzes, and Alaisclosed their gates; even Montauban hesitated a long while beforedeclaring itself. The Duke of Epernon ravaged the outskirts of thatplace. "At night, " writes his secretary, "might be seen a thousandfires. Wheat, fruit trees, vines, and houses were the food that fed theflames. " Marshal Themine did the same all round Castres, defended bythe Duchess of Rohan. There were negotiations, nevertheless, already. Rohan and Soubisedemanded to be employed against Spain in the Valteline, claiming thedestruction of Fort Louis; parleys mitigated hostilities; the Duke ofSoubise obtained a suspension of arms from the Dutch Admiral Haustein, and then, profiting by a favorable gust of wind, approached the fleet, set fire to the admiral's ship, and captured five vessels, which he towedoff to the Island of Re. But he paid dear for his treachery: theHollanders, in their fury, seconded with more zeal the efforts of theDuke of Montmorency, who had just taken the command of the squadron; theIsland of Re was retaken and Soubise obliged to retreat in a shallop toOleron, leaving for "pledge his sword and his hat, which dropped off inhis flight. " Nor was the naval fight more advantageous for Soubise. "The battle was fierce, but the enemy had the worst, " says Richelieu inhis Memoires: "night coming on was favorable to their designs;nevertheless, they were so hotly pursued, that on the morrow, atdaybreak, eight of their vessels were taken. " Soubise sailed away toEngland with the rest of his fleet, and the Island of Oleron surrendered. The moment seemed to have come for crushing La Rochelle, deprived of thenaval forces that protected it; but the cardinal, still at grips withSpain in the Valteline, was not sure of his allies before La Rochelle. In Holland all the churches echoed with reproaches hurled by thepreachers against states that gave help against their own brethren toCatholics; at Amsterdam the mob had besieged the house of AdmiralHaustein; and the Dutch fleet had to be recalled. The EnglishProtestants were not less zealous; the Duke of Soubise had been welcomedwith enthusiasm, and, though Charles I. , now King of England and married, had refused to admit the fugitive to his presence, he would not restoreto Louis XIII. The vessels, captured from that king and his subjects, which Soubise had brought over to Portsmouth. The game was not yet safe; and Richelieu did not allow himself to be ledastray by the anger of fanatics who dubbed him State Cardinal. "Thecardinal alone, to whom God gave the blessedness of serving the king andrestoring to his kingdom its ancient lustre, and to his person the powerand authority meet for royal Majesty which is the next Majesty after thedivine, saw in his mind the means of undoing all those tangles, clearingaway all those mists, and emerging to the honor of his master from allthose confusions. " [_Memoires de Richelieu, _ t. Iv. P. 2. ] Marshal Bassompierre was returning from his embassy to Switzerland, having secured the alliance of the Thirteen Cantons in the affair of theValteline, when it was noised abroad that peace with Spain was signed. Count du Fargis, it was said, had, in an excess of zeal, taken uponhimself to conclude without waiting for orders from Paris. Bassompierrewas preparing a grand speech against this unexpected peace, but duringthe night he reflected that the cardinal had perhaps been not so muchastonished as he would have made out. "I gave up my speech, " says he, "and betook myself to my jubilee. " The Huguenots, on their side, yielded at the entreaties of theambassadors who had been sent by the English to France, "with orders tobeg the Rochellese to accept the peace which the king had offered them, and who omitted neither arguments nor threats in order to arrive at thatconclusion; whence it came to pass that, by a course of conduct full ofunwonted dexterity, the Huguenots were brought to consent to peace forfear of that with Spain, and the Spaniards to make peace for fear of thatwith the Huguenots. The greatest difficulty the cardinal had to surmount was in the king'scouncil; he was not ignorant that by getting peace made with theHuguenots, and showing him that he was somewhat inclined to favor theircause with the king, he might expose himself to the chance of gettinginto bad odor at Rome. But in no other way could he arrive at hisMajesty's ends. His cloth made him suspected by the Huguenots; it wasnecessary, therefore, to behave so that they should think him favorableto them, for by so doing he found means of waiting more conveniently foran opportunity of reducing them to the terms to which all subjects oughtto be reduced in a state, that is to say, inability to form any separatebody, and liability to accept their sovereign's wishes. "It was a grievous thing for him to bear, to see himself so unjustlysuspected at the court of Rome, and by those who affected the name ofzealous Catholics; but he resolved to take patiently the rumors that werecurrent about him, apprehending that if he had determined to clearhimself of them effectually, he might not find that course of advantageto his master or the public. " The cardinal, in fact, took it patiently, revising and then confirmingthe treaty with Spain, and imposing on the Huguenots a peace so hard, that they would never have accepted it but for the hope of obtaining at alater period some assuagements, with the help of England, which refusedformally to help them to carry on the war. At the first parleys the kinghad said, "I am disposed enough towards peace; I am willing to grant itto Languedoc and the other provinces. As for La Rochelle, that isanother thing. " [_Memoires de Richelieu, _ t. Iii. ] It was ultimatelyLa Rochelle that paid the expenses of the war, biding the time when theproud city, which had resisted eight kings in succession, would have tosuccumb before Louis XIII. And his all-powerful minister. Already herindependence was threatened on all sides; the bastions and newfortifications had to be demolished; no armed vessel of war might bestationed in her harbor. "The way was at last open, " said the cardinal, "to the extermination of the Huguenot party, which, for a hundred yearspast, had divided the kingdom. " [_Memoires de Richelieu, _ t. Iii. P. 17. ] [Illustration: Demolishing the Fortifications----244] The peace of 1626, then, was but a preliminary to war. Richelieu waspreparing for it by land and sea; vessels of war were being built, troopswere being levied; and the temper of England furnished a pretext forcommencing the struggle. King Charles I. , at the instigation of hisfavorite the Duke of Buckingham, had suddenly and unfeelingly dismissedthe French servants of the queen his wife, without giving her even timeto say good by to them, insomuch that "the poor princess, hearing theirvoices in the court-yard, dashed to the window, and, breaking the glasswith her head, clung with her hands to the bars to show herself to herwomen and take the last look at them. The king indignantly dragged herback with so great an effort that he tore her hands right away. " LouisXIII. Had sent Marshal Bassompierre to England to complain of the insultdone to his sister; the Duke of Buckingham wished to go in person toFrance to arrange the difference, but the cardinal refused. "HasBuckingham ever undertaken any foreign commission without going awaydissatisfied and offended with the princes to whom he was sent?" saidCardinal Richelieu to the king. So the favorite of Charles I. Resolvedto go to France "in other style and with other attendants than he had asyet done; having determined to win back the good graces of the Parliamentand the people of England by the succor he was about to carry to theoppressed Protestant churches, " he pledged his property; he sold thetrading-vessels captured on the coasts of France; and on the 17th ofJuly, 1627, he set sail with a hundred and twenty vessels, heading for LaRochelle. Soubise was on board his ship; and the Duke of Rohan, notifiedof the enterprise, had promised to declare himself the moment the Englishset foot in France. Already he was preparing his manifesto to thechurches, avowing that he had summoned the English to his legitimatedefence, and that, since the king had but lately been justified inemploying the arms of the Hollanders to defeat them, much more reasonablymight he appeal to those of the English their brethren for protectionagainst him. This time the cardinal was ready; he had concluded an alliance with Spainagainst England, "declaring merely to the King of Spain that he wasalready at open war with England, and that he would put in practice withall the power of his forces against his own states all sorts ofhostilities permissible in honorable warfare, which his Majesty alsopromised to do by the month of June, 1628, at the latest. " The king setout to go and take in person the command of the army intended to give theEnglish their reception. He had gone out ill from the Parliament, wherehe had been to have some edicts enregistered. "I did nothing but trembleall the time I was holding my bed of justice, " he said to Bassompierre. "It is there, however, that you make others tremble, " replied themarshal. Louis XIII. Was obliged to halt at Villeroy, where the cardinalremained with him, "being all day at his side, and most frequently notleaving him at night; he, nevertheless, had his mind constantly occupiedwith giving orders, taking care above everything to let it appear beforethe king that he had no fear; he preferred to put himself in peril ofbeing blamed or ruined in well-doing, rather than, in order to securehimself, to do anything which might be a cause of illness to hisMajesty. " In point of fact, Richelieu was not without anxiety, for Sieurde Toiras, a young favorite of the king's, to whom he had entrusted thecommand in the Island of Re, had not provided for the defence of thatplace so well as had been expected; Buckingham had succeeded in effectinghis descent. The French were shut up in the Fort of St. Martin, scarcelyfinished as it was, and ill-provisioned. The cardinal "saw to itdirectly, sending of his own money because that of the king was not to beso quickly got at, and because he had at that time none to spare; hedespatched Abbe Marcillac, who was in his confidence, to see thateverything was done punctually and no opportunity lost. He did nottrouble himself to make reports of all the despatches that passed, andall the orders that were within less than a fortnight given on thesubject of this business during the king's illness, in order to providefor everything that was necessary, and to prepare all things in such wisethat the king and France might reap from them the fruit which was shortlyafterwards gathered in. " Meanwhile La Rochelle had closed her gates to the English, and the oldDuchess of Rohan had been obliged to leave the town in order to bringSoubise in with her. "Before taking any resolution, " replied theRochellese authorities to the entreaties of the duke, who was pressingthem to lend assistance to the English, "we must consult the whole bodyof the religion of which La Rochelle is only one member. " An assemblywas already convoked to that end at Uzes; and when it met, on the 11th ofSeptember, the Duke of Rohan communicated to the deputies from thechurches the letter of the inhabitants of La Rochelle, "not such an one, "he said, "as he could have desired, but such as he must make the bestof. " The King of England had granted his aid and promised not to relaxuntil the Reformers had firm repose and solid contentment, provided thatthey seconded his efforts. "I bid you thereto in God's name, " he added, "and for my part, were I alone, abandoned of all, I am determined toprosecute this sacred cause even to the last drop of my blood and to thelast gasp of my life. " The assembly fully approved of their chief'sbehavior, accepting "with gratitude the King of England's powerfulintervention, without, however, loosing themselves from the humble andinviolable submission which they owed to their king. " The consuls of thetown of Milhau were bolder in their reservations. "We have at diverstime experienced, " they wrote to the Duke of Rohan, whilst refusing tojoin the movement, "that violence is no certain means of obtainingobservation of our edicts, for force extorts many promises, but thehatred it engenders prevents them from taking effect. " The duke wasobliged to force an entrance into this small place. La Rochelle had justrenounced her neutrality and taken sides with the English, "flatteringourselves, " they said in their proclamation, "that, having good men forour witnesses and God for our judge, we shall experience the sameassistance from His goodness as our fathers had aforetime. " M. De La Milliere, the agent of the Rochellese, wrote to one of hisfriends at the Duke of Rohan's quarters, "Sir, I am arrived fromVilleroy, where the English are not held as they are at Paris to be amere chimera. Only I am very apprehensive of the September tides, andlest the new grapes should kill us off more English than the enemy will. I am much vexed to hear nothing from your quarter to second the exploitsof the English, being unable to see without shame foreigners showing morecare for our welfare than we ourselves show. I know that it will not beM. De Rohan's fault nor yours that nothing good is done. "I forgot to tell you that the cardinal is very glad that he is no longera bishop, for he has put so many rings in pawn to send munitions to theislands, that he has nothing remaining wherewith to give the episcopalbenediction. The most zealous amongst us pray God that the sea mayswallow up his person as it has swallowed his goods. As for me, I am notof that number, for I belong to those who offer incense to the powersthat be. " It was as yet a time when the religious fatherland was dearerthan the political; the French Huguenots naturally appealed for aid toall Protestant nations. It was even now an advance in national ideas tocall the English who had come to the aid of La Rochelle foreigners. Toiras, meanwhile, still held out in the Fort of St. Martin, andBuckingham was beginning to "abate somewhat of the absolute confidence hehad felt about making himself master of it, having been so ill-advised asto write to the king his master that he would answer for it. " The proofof this was that a burgess of La Rochelle, named Laleu, went to see theking with authority from the Duke of Angouleme, who commanded the army inhis Majesty's absence, and that "he proposed that the English shouldretire, provided that the king would have Fort Louis dismantled. TheDuke of Angouleme was inclined to accept this proposal, but the cardinalforcibly represented all the reasons against it: "It will be said, perhaps, that if the Island of Re be lost, it will be very difficult torecover it;" this he allowed, but he put forward, to counterbalance thisconsideration, another, that, if honor were lost, it would never berecovered, and that, if the Island of Re were lost, he considered thathis Majesty was bound to stick to the blockade of Rochelle, and that hemight do so with success. Upon this, his Majesty resolved to push thesiege of Rochelle vigorously, and to give the command to Mylord hisbrother; "but Monsieur was tardy as usual, not wanting to serve under theking when the health of his Majesty might permit him to return to hisarmy, so that the cardinal wrote to President Le Coigneux, one of thefavorite counsellors of the Duke of Orleans, to say that if imaginaryhydras of that sort were often taking shape in the mind of Monsieur, hehad nothing more to say than that there would be neither pleasure norprofit in being mixed up with his affairs. As for himself, he wouldalways do his duty. " Monsieur at last made up his mind to join the army, and it was resolved to give aid to the forts in the Island of Re. [Illustration: The Harbor of La Rochelle---248] It was a bold enterprise that was about to be attempted to hold LaRochelle invested and not quit it, and, nevertheless, to send the flowerof the force to succor a citadel considered to be half lost; to make adescent upon an island blockaded by a large naval armament; to expose thebest part of the army to the mercy of the winds and the waves of the sea, and of the English cannons and vessels, in a place where there was nolanding in order and under arms. " [_Memoires de Richelieu, _ t. Iii. P. 361]; but it had to be resolved upon or the Island of Re lost. Toirashad already sent to ask the Duke of Buckingham if he would receive him toterms. On the 8th of October, at eight A. M. , the Duke of Buckingham waspreparing to send a reply to the fort, and he was already rejoicing "tosee his felicity and the crowning of his labors, " when, on nearing thecitadel, "there were exhibited to him at the ends of pikes lots ofbottles of wine, capons, turkeys, hams, ox-tongues, and other provisions, and his vessels were saluted with lots of cannonades, they having cometoo near in the belief that those inside had no more powder. " During thenight, the fleet which was assembled at Oleron, and had been at sea fortwo days past, had succeeded in landing close to the fort, bringing upre-enforcements of troops, provisions, and munitions. At the same timethe king and the cardinal had just arrived at the camp before LaRochelle. [Illustration: The King and Richelieu at La Rochelle----250] Before long the English could not harbor a doubt but that the king's armyhad recovered its real heads: a grand expedition was preparing to attackthem in the Island of Re, and the cardinal had gone in person to Oleronand to Le Brouage in order to see to the embarkation of the troops. "Thenobility of the court came up in crowds to take leave of his Majesty, andtheir looks were so gay that it must be allowed that to no nation but theFrench is it given to march so freely to death for the service of theirking or for their own honor as to make it impossible to remark anydifference between him that inflicts it and him that receives. "[_Memoires de Richelieu, _ t. Iii. P. 398. ] Marshal Schomberg took theroad to Marennes, whence he sent to the cardinal for boats to carry overall his troops. "This took him greatly by surprise, and as his judgmentsare always followed by the effect he intended, he thought that this greatfollowing of nobility might hinder the said sir marshal from executinghis design so promptly. However, by showing admirable diligence, doubling both his vessels and his provisions, he found sufficient toembark the whole. " [_Siege de La Rochelle. Archives curieuses del'Histoire de France, _ t. Iii. P. 76. ] By this time the king's troops, in considerable numbers, had arrived in the island without the Englishbeing able to prevent their disembarkation; the enemy therefore took theresolution of setting sail, in spite of the entreaties which the Duke ofSoubise sent them on the part of the Rochellese, those latter promisinggreat assistance in men and provisions, more than they could afford. Tosatisfy them, the Duke of Buckingham determined to deliver a generalassault before he departed. The assault was delivered on the 5th and 6th of November, and everywhererepulsed, exhausted as the besieged were. "Those who were sick and laidup in their huts appeared on the bastions. There were some of them soweak that, unable to fight, they loaded their comrades' muskets; andothers, having fought beyond their strength, being able to do no more, said to their comrades, 'Friend, here are my arms for thee; prithee, makemy grave;' and, thither retiring, there they died. " The Duke ofBuckingham wrote to M. De Fiesque, who was holding Fort La Pree, that hewas going to embark, without waiting for any more men to make theirdescent upon the island; but the king, who trusted not his enemies, andleast of all the English, from whom, even when friends, he had receivedso many proofs of faithlessness and falsehood, besides that he knewBuckingham for a man who, from not having the force of character todecide on such an occasion, did not know whether to fight or to fly, continued in his first determination to transport promptly all those whoremained, in order to encounter the enemy on land, fight them, and makethem for the future quake with fear if it were proposed to them to tryanother descent upon his dominions. Marshal Schomberg, thwarted by bad weather, had just rallied his troopswhich had been cast by the winds on different parts of the coast, when itwas perceived that the enemy had sheered off. M. De Toiras, issuing fromhis fortress to meet the marshal, would have pursued them at once to givethem battle; but Schomberg refused, saying, "I ought to make them abridge of gold rather than a barrier of iron;" and he contented himselfwith following the English, who retreated to a narrow causeway which ledto the little Island of Oie. There, a furious charge of French cavalrybroke the ranks of the enemy, disorder spread amongst them, and whennight came to put an end to the combat, forty flags remained in the handsof the king's troops, and he sent them at once to Notre-Dame, by Claudede St. Simon, together with a quantity of prisoners, of whom the Kingmade a present to his sister, the Queen of England. "Such, " says the Duke of Rohan, in his Hemoires, "was the success of theDuke of Buckingham's expedition, wherein he ruined the reputation of hisnation and his own, consumed a portion of the provisions of theRochellese, and reduced to despair the party for whose sake he had cometo France. The Duke of Rohan first learned this bad news by the bonfireswhich all the Roman Catholics lighted for it all through the countship ofFoix, and, later on, by a despatch from the Duke of Soubise, who exhortedhim not to lose courage, saying that he hoped to come back next spring incondition to efface the affront received. " This latter prince had notcovered himself with glory in the expedition. "As recompense andconsolation for all their losses, " says the cardinal, "they carried offSoubise to England. He has not been mentioned all through this siege, because, whenever there was any question of negotiation, no one wouldapply to him, but only to Buckingham. When there was nothing for it butto fight, he would not hear of it. On the day the English made theirdescent, he was at La Rochelle; nobody knows where he was at the time ofthe assault, but he was one of the first and most forward in the rout. " Soubise had already been pronounced guilty of high-treason by decree ofthe Parliament of Toulouse; but the Duke of Rohan had been degraded fromhis dignities, and "a title offered to those who would assassinate him, which created an inclination in three or four wretches to undertake it, who had but a rope or the wheel for recompense, it not being in any humanpower to prolong or shorten any man's life without the permission ofGod. " The Prince of Conde had been commissioned to fight the valiantchief of the Huguenots, "for that he was their sworn enemy, " says thecardinal. In the eyes of fervent Catholics the name of Conde had manywrongs for which to obtain pardon. The English were ignominiously defeated; the king was now confronted bynone but his revolted subjects; he resolved to blockade the place at allpoints, so that it could not be entered by land or sea; and, to this end, he claimed from Spain the fleet which had been promised him, and whichdid not arrive. "The whole difficulty of this enterprise, " said thecardinal to the king, "lies in this, that the majority will only labortherein in a perfunctory manner. " His ordinary penetration did not deceive him: the great lords intrustedwith commands saw with anxiety the increasing power of Richelieu. "Youwill see, " said Bassompierre, "that we shall be mad enough to take LaRochelle. " "His Majesty had just then many of his own kingdom and allhis allies sworn together against him, and so much the more dangerouslyin that it was secretly. England at open war, and with all her maritimepower but lately on our coasts; the King of Spain apparently united tohis Majesty, yet, in fact, not only giving him empty words, but, undercover of the emperor's name, making a diversion against him in thedirection of Germany. Nevertheless the king held firm to his resolve;and then the siege of La Rochelle was undertaken with a will. " The old Duchess of Rohan (Catherine de Parthenay Larcheveque) had shutherself up in La Rochelle with her daughter Anne de Rohan, as pious andas courageous as her mother, and of rare erudition into the bargain; shehad hitherto refused to leave the town; but, when the blockade commenced, she asked leave to retire with two hundred women. The town had alreadybeen refused permission to get rid of useless mouths. "All theRochellese shall go out together, " was the answer returned to Madame deRohan. She determined to undergo with her brethren in the faith all therigors of the siege. "Secure peace, complete victory, or honorabledeath, " she wrote to her son the Duke of Rohan: the old device of Jeanned'Albret, which had never been forgotten by the brave chief of theHuguenots. At the head of the burgesses of La Rochelle, as determined as the Duchessof Rohan to secure their liberties or perish, was the president of theboard of marine, soon afterwards mayor of the town, John Gutton, a richmerchant, whom the misfortunes of the times had wrenched away from hisbusiness to become a skilful admiral, an intrepid soldier, accustomed foryears past to scour the seas as a corsair. "He had at his house, " says anarrative of those days, "a great number of flags, which he used to showone after another, indicating the princes from whom he had taken them. "When he was appointed mayor, he drew his poniard and threw it upon thecouncil-table. "I accept, " he said, "the honor you have done me, but oncondition that yonder poniard shall serve to pierce the heart of whoeverdares to speak of surrender, mine first of all, if I were ever wretchenough to condescend to such cowardice. " Of indomitable nature, ofpassionate and proud character, Guiton, in fact, rejected all proposalsof peace. "My friend, tell the cardinal that I am his very humbleservant, " was his answer to insinuating speeches as well as to threats;and he prepared with tranquil coolness for defence to the uttermost. Twomunicipal councillors, two burgesses, and a clergyman were commissionedto judge and to punish spies and traitors; attention was concentratedupon getting provisions into the town; the country was alreadydevastated, but reliance was placed upon promises of help from England;and religious exercises were everywhere multiplied. "We will hold out tothe last day, " reiterated the burgesses. [Illustration: John Guiton's Oath----254] It was the month of December; bad weather interfered with thesiege-works; the king was having a line of circumvallation pushedforward to close the approaches to the city on the land side; thecardinal was having a mole of stone-work, occupying the whole breadth ofthe roads, constructed; the king's little fleet, commanded by M. DeGuise, had been ordered up to protect the laborers; Spain had senttwenty-eight vessels in such bad condition that those which were rolledinto the sea laden with stones were of more value. "They were employedSpanish-fashion, " says Richelieu, "that is, to make an appearance so asto astound the Rochellese by the union of the two crowns. " A few daysafter their arrival, at the rumor of assistance coming from England, theSpanish admiral, who had secret orders to make no effort for France, demanded permission to withdraw his ships. "It was very shameful ofthem, but it was thought good to let them go without the king's consent, making believe that he had given them their dismissal, and desired themto go and set about preparing, one way or another, a large armament bythe spring. " The Rochellese were rejoicing over the treaty they hadjust concluded with the King of England, who promised "to aid them byland and sea, to the best of his kingly power, until he should havebrought about a fair and secure peace. " The mole was every moment beingwashed away by the sea; and, "whilst the cardinal was employing all thewits which God had given him to bring to a successful issue the siege ofLa Rochelle to the glory of God and the welfare of the state, and waslaboring to that end more than the bodily strength granted to him by Godseemed to permit, one would have said that the sea and the winds, favoring the English and the islands, were up in opposition andthwarting his designs. " The king was growing tired, and wished to go to Paris; but this was notthe advice of the cardinal, and "the truths he uttered were sodispleasing to the king that he fell somehow into disgrace. The dislikethe king conceived for him was such that he found fault with him abouteverything. " The king at last took his departure, and the cardinal, whohad attended him "without daring, out of respect, to take his sunshade toprotect him against the heat of the sun, which was very great that day, "was on his return taken ill with fever. "I am so downhearted that Icannot express the regret I feel at quitting the cardinal, fearing lestsome accident may happen to him, " the king had said to one of hisservants: "tell him from me to take care of himself, to think what astate my affairs would be in if I were to lose him. " When the kingreturned to La Rochelle on the 10th of April, he found his armystrengthened, the line of circumvallation finished, and the mole welladvanced into the sea; the assault was becoming possible, and the kingsummoned the place to surrender. [_Siege de La Rochelle. Archiveseurieuses de l'Histoire de France, _ t. Iii. P. 102. ] "We recognize noother sheriffs and governors than ourselves, " answered the sergeant onguard to the improvised herald sent by the king; "nobody will listen toyou; away at once!" It was at last announced that the re-enforcements soimpatiently expected were coming from England. "The cardinal, who knewthat there was nothing so dangerous as to have no fear of one's enemy, had a long while before set everything in order, as if the English mightarrive any day. " Their fleet was signalled at sea; it numbered thirtyvessels, and had a convoy of twenty barks laden with provisions andmunitions, and it was commanded by the Earl of Denbigh, Buckingham'sbrother-in-law. The Rochellese, transported with joy, "had planted ahost of flags on the prominent points of their town. " The English cameand cast anchor at the tip of the Island of Re. The cannon of LaRochelle gave them a royal salute. A little boat with an English captainon board found means of breaking the blockade; and "Open a passage, " saidthe envoy to the Rochellese, "as you sent notice to us in England, and wewill deliver you. " But the progress made in the works of the molerendered the enterprise difficult; the besieged could not attemptanything; they waited and waited for Lord Denbigh to bring on anengagement; on the 19th of May, all the English ships got under sail andapproached the roads. The besieged hurried on to the ramparts; there wasthe thunder of one broadside, and one only; and then the vessels tackedand crowded sail for England, followed by the gaze "of the king's army, who returned to make good cheer without any fear of the enemy, and withgreat hopes of soon taking the town. " Great was the despair in La Rochelle: "This shameful retreat of theEnglish, and their aid which had only been received by faith, as they doin the Eucharist, " wrote Cardinal Richelieu, "astounded the Rochellese somightily that they would readily have made up their minds to surrender, if Madame de Rohan, the mother, whose hopes for her children were allcentred in the preservation of this town, and the minister Salbert, avery seditious fellow, had not regaled them with imaginary succor whichthey made them hope for. " The cardinal, when he wrote these words, knewnothing of the wicked proposals made to Guiton and to Salbert. "Couldn'tthe cardinal be got rid of by the deed of one determined man?" it wasasked: but the mayor refused; and, "It is not in such a way that Godwilleth our deliverance, " said Salbert; "it would be too offensive to Hisholiness. " And they suffered on. Meanwhile, on the 24th of May, the posterns were observed to open, andthe women to issue forth one after another, with their children and theold men; they came gliding towards the king's encampment, but "he orderedthem to be driven back by force; and further, knowing that they had sownbeans near the counterscarps of their town, a detachment was sent out tocut them down as soon as they began to come up, and likewise a littlecorn that they had sown in some dry spots of their marshes. " Louis theJust fought the Rochellese in other fashion than that in which Henry theGreat had fought the Parisians. The misery in the place became frightful; the poor died of hunger, orwere cut down by the soldiery when they ventured upon shore at low tideto look for cockles; the price of provisions was such that the richestalone could get a little meat to eat; a cow fetched two thousand livres, and a bushel of wheat eight hundred livres. Madame de Rohan had been thefirst to have her horses killed, but this resource was exhausted, and hercook at last "left the town and allowed himself to be taken, saying thathe would rather be hanged than return to die of hunger. " A rising eventook place amongst the inhabitants who were clamorous to surrender, butGuiton had the revolters hanged. "I am ready, " said he, "to cast lotswith anybody else which shall live or be killed to feed his comrade withhis flesh. As long as there is one left to keep the gates shut, it isenough. " The mutineers were seized with terror, and men died withoutdaring to speak. "We have been waiting three months for the effect of theexcellent letters we received from the King of Great Britain, " wroteGuiton on the 24th of August, to the deputies from La Rochelle who werein London, "and, meanwhile, we cannot see by what disasters it happensthat we remain here in misery without seeing any sign of succor; our mencan do no more, our inhabitants are dying of hunger in the streets, andall our families are in a fearful state from mourning, want, andperplexity; nevertheless, we will hold out to the last day, but in God'sname delay no longer, for we perish. " This letter never reached itsdestination; the watchmaker, Marc Biron; who had offered to convey it toEngland, was arrested whilst attempting to pass the royal lines, and wasimmediately hanged. La Rochelle, however, still held out. "Their rabidfury, " says the cardinal, "gave them new strength, or rather the avengingwrath of God caused them to be supplied therewith in extraordinarymeasure by his evil spirit, in order to prolong their woes; they werealready almost at the end thereof, and misery found upon them no moresubstance whereon it could feed and support itself; they were skeletons, empty shadows, breathing corpses, rather than living men. " At the bottomof his heart, and in spite of the ill temper their resistance caused inhim, the heroism of the Rochellese excited the cardinal's admiration. Buckingham had just been assassinated. "The king could not have lost amore bitter or a more idiotic enemy; his unreasoning enterprises endedunluckily, but they, nevertheless, did not fail to put us in great periland cause us much mischief, " says Richelieu "the idiotic madness of anenemy being more to be feared than his wisdom, inasmuch as the idiot doesnot act on any principle common to other men, he attempts everything andanything, violates his own interests, and is restrained by impossibilityalone. " It was this impossibility of any aid that the cardinal attempted toimpress upon the Rochellese by means of letters which he managed to getinto the town, representing to them that Buckingham, their protector, wasdead, and that they were allowing themselves to be unjustly tyrannizedover by a small number amongst them, who, being rich, had wheat to eat, whereas, if they were good citizens, they would take their share of thegeneral misery. These manoeuvres did not remain without effect: thebesieged resolved to treat, and a deputation was just about to leave thetown, when a burgess who had broken through the lines arrived in hothaste, on his return from England; he had seen, he said, the armament allready to set out to save them or perish; it must arrive within a week;the public body of La Rochelle had promised not to treat without the Kingof England's participation; he was not abandoning his allies; and so thedeputies returned home, and there was more waiting still. On the 29th of September, the English flag appeared before St. Martin deRe; it was commanded by the Earl of Lindsay, and was composed of ahundred and forty vessels, which carried six thousand soldiers, besidesthe crews; the French who were of the religion were in the van, commandedby the Duke of Soubise and the Count of Laval, brother of the Duke of LaTremoille, who had lately renounced his faith in front of La Rochelle, being convinced of his errors by a single lesson from the cardinal. "This armament was England's utmost effort, for the Parliament which wasthen being holden had granted six millions of livres to fit it out toavenge the affronts and ignominy which the English nation had encounteredon the Island of Re, and afterwards by the shameful retreat of theirarmament in the month of May. " But it was too late coming; the mole wasfinished, and the opening in it defended by two forts; and a floatingpalisade blocked the passage as well. The English sent some petardsagainst this construction, but they produced no effect; and when, nextday, they attacked the royal fleet, the French crews lost buttwenty-eight men; "the fire-ships were turned aside by men who fearedfire as little as water. " Lord Lindsay retired with his squadron to theshelter of the Island of Aix, sending to the king "Lord Montagu topropose some terms of accommodation. " He demanded pardon for theRochellese, freedom of conscience, and quarter for the English garrisonin La Rochelle; the answer was, "that the Rochellese were subjectss ofthe king, who knew quite well what he had to do with them, and that theKing of England had no right to interfere. As for the English, theyshould meet with the same treatment as was received by the French whomthey held prisoners. " Montagu set out for England to obtain furtherorders from the king his master. All hope of effectual aid was gone, and the Rochellese felt it; theFrench who were on board the English fleet had taken, like them, aresolution to treat; and they had already sent to the cardinal when, onthe 29th of October, the deputies from La Rochelle arrived at the camp. "Your fellows who were in the English army have already obtained grace, "said the cardinal to them; and when they were disposed not to believe it, the cardinal sent for the pastors Vincent and Gobert, late delegates toKing Charles I. "they embraced with tears in their eyes, not daring tospeak of business, as they had been forbidden to do so on pain of death. " The demands of the Rochellese were more haughty than befitted theirextreme case. "Though they were but shadows of living men, and theirlife rested solely on the king's mercy, they actually dared, nevertheless, to propose to the cardinal a general treaty on behalf ofall those of their party, including Madame de Rohan and Monsieur deSoubise, the maintenance of their privileges, of their governor, and oftheir mayor, together with the right of those bearing arms to march outwith beat of drum and lighted match" [with the honors of war]. The cardinal was amused at their impudence, he writes in his _Memoires, _and told them that they had no right to expect anything more than pardon, which, moreover, they did not deserve. "He was nevertheless anxious toconclude, wishing that Montagu should find peace made, and that theEnglish fleet should see it made without their consent, which wouldrender the rest of the king's business easier, whether as regardedEngland or Spain, or the interior of the kingdom. " On the 28th thetreaty, or rather the grace, was accordingly signed, "the king grantinglife and property to those of the inhabitants of the town who were thenin it, and the exercise of the religion within La Rochelle. " Thesearticles bore the signature of a brigadier-general, M. De Marillac, theking not having thought proper to put his name at the bottom of aconvention made with his subjects. Next day, twelve deputies issued from the town, making a request forhorses to Marshal de Bassompierre, whose quarters were close by, for theyhad not strength to walk. They dismounted on approaching the king'squarters, and the cardinal presented them to his Majesty. "Sir, " saidthey, "we do acknowledge our crimes and rebellions, and demand mercy;promising to remain faithful for the future, if your Majesty deigns toremember the services we were able to render to the king your father. " The king gazed upon these suppliants kneeling at his feet, deputies fromthe proud city which had kept him more than a year at her gates;fleshless, almost fainting, they still bore on their features the tracesof the haughty past. They had kept the lilies of France on their walls, refusing to the last to give themselves to England. "Better surrender toa king who could take Rochelle, than to one who couldn't succor her, "said the mayor, "John Guiton, who was asked if he would not become anEnglish subject. "I know that you have always been malignants, " said theking at last, "and that you have done all you could to shake off the yokeof obedience to me; I forgive you, nevertheless, your rebellions, andwill be a good prince to you, if your actions conform to yourprotestations. " Thereupon he dismissed them, not without giving them adinner, and sent victuals into the town; without which, all that remainedwould have been dead of hunger within two days. The fighting men marched out, "the officers and gentlemen wearing theirswords and the soldiery with bare (white) staff in hand, " according tothe conventions; as they passed they were regarded with amazement, therenot being more than sixty-four Frenchmen and ninety English: all the resthad been killed in sorties or had died of want. The cardinal at the sametime entered this city, which he had subdued by sheer perseverance;Guiton came to meet him with six archers; he had not appeared during thenegotiations, saying that his duty detained him in the town. "Away withyou!" said the cardinal, "and at once dismiss your archers, taking carenot to style yourself mayor any more on pain of death. " Guiton made noreply, and went his way quietly to his house, a magnificent dwelling tilllately, but now lying desolate amidst the general ruin. He was notdestined to reside there long; the heroic defender of La Rochelle wasobliged to leave the town and retire to Tournay-Boutonne. He returned toLa Rochelle to die, in 1656. The king made his entry into the subjugated town on the 1st of November, 1628: it was full of corpses in the chambers, the houses, the publicthoroughfares; for those who still survived were so weak that they hadnot been able to bury the dead. Madame de Rohan and her daughter, whohad not been included in the treaty, were not admitted to the honor ofseeing his Majesty. "For having been the brand that had consumed thispeople, " they were sent to prison at Niort; "there kept captive, withoutexercise of their religion, and so strictly that they had but onedomestic to wait upon them, all which, however, did not take from themtheir courage or wonted zeal for the good of their party. The mothersent word to the Duke of Rohan, her son, that he was to put no faith inher letters, since she might be made to write them by force, and that noconsideration of her pitiable condition should make her flinch to theprejudice of her party, whatever harm she might be made to suffer. "[_Memoires du Duc de Rohan, _ t. I. P. 395. ] Worn out by so muchsuffering, the old Duchess of Rohan died in 1631 at her castle Du Pare:she had been released from captivity by the pacification of the South. With La Rochelle fell the last bulwark of religious liberties. Single-handed, Duke Henry of Rohan now resisted at the head of a handfulof resolute men. But he was about to be crushed in his turn. Thecapture of La Rochelle had raised the cardinal's power to its height; ithad, simultaneously, been the death-blow to the Huguenot party and tothe factions of the grandees. "One of them was bold enough to say, " onseeing that La Rochelle was lost, "Now we may well say that we are alllost. " [_Memoires de Richelieu_] Upper Languedoc had hitherto refused to take part in the rising, and thePrince of Conde was advancing on Toulouse when the Duke of Rohanattempted a bold enterprise against Montpellier. He believed that he wassure of his communications with the interior of the town; but when thedetachment of the advance-guard got a footing on the draw-bridge theropes that held it were cut, and "the soldiers fell into a ditch, wherethey were shot down with arquebuses, at the same time that musketryplayed upon them from without. " The lieutenant fell back in all hasteupon the division of the Duke of Rohan, who retreated "to the bestVillages between Montpellier and Lunel, without ever a man fromMontpellier going out to follow and see whither he went. " The war waswasting Languedoc, Viverais, and Rouergue; the Dukes of Montmorency andVentadour, under the orders of the Prince of Conde, were pursuing thetroops of Rohan in every direction; the burgesses of Montauban haddeclared for the Reformers, and were ravaging the lands of their Catholicneighbors in return for the frightful ruin everywhere caused by the royaltroops. The wretched peasantry laid the blame on the Duke of Rohan, "for one of the greatest misfortunes connected with the position ofparty-chiefs is this necessity they lie under of accounting for all theiractions to the people, that is, to a monster composed of numberlessheads, amongst which there is scarcely one open to reason. " [_Memoires deMontmorency. ] "Whoso has to do with a people that considers nothingdifficult to undertake, and, as for the execution, makes no sort ofprovision, is apt to be much hampered, " writes the Duke of Rohan in his_Memoires_ (t. I. P. 376). It was this extreme embarrassment thatlanded him in crime. One of his emissaries, returning from Piedmont, where he had been admitted to an interview with the ambassador of Spain, made overtures to him on behalf of that power "which had an interest, hesaid, in a prolongation of the hostilities in France, so as to be able topeaceably achieve its designs in Italy. The great want of money in whichthe said duke then found himself, the country being unable to furnishmore, and the towns being unwilling to do anything further, there beingnothing to hope from England, and nothing but words without deeds havingbeen obtained from the Duke of Savoy, absolutely constrained him to findsome means of raising it in order to subsist. " And so, in the followingyear, the Duke of Rohan treated with the King of Spain, who promised toallow him annually three hundred thousand ducats for the keep of histroops and forty thousand for himself. In return the duke, who lookedforward to "the time when he and his might make themselves sufficientlystrong to canton themselves and form a separate state, " promised, in thatstate, freedom and enjoyment of their property to all Catholics. A pieceof strange and culpable blindness for which Rohan was to pay rightdearly. It was in the midst of this cruel partisan war that the duke heard of thefall of La Rochelle; he could not find fault "with folks so attenuated byfamine that the majority of them could not support themselves without astick, for having sought safety in capitulation;" but to the continualanxiety felt by him for the fate of his mother and sister was addeddisquietude as to the effect that this news might produce on his troops. "The people, weary of and ruined by the war, and naturally disposed to bevery easily cast down by adversity; the tradesmen annoyed at having nomore chance of turning a penny; the burgesses seeing their possessions inruins and uncultivated; all were inclined for peace at any pricewhatever. " The Prince of Conde, whilst cruelly maltreating thecountries in revolt, had elsewhere had the prudence to observe somegentle measures towards the peaceable Reformers in the hope of thusproducing submission. He made this quite clear himself when writing tothe Duke of Rohan: "Sir, the king's express commands to maintain them ofthe religion styled Reformed in entire liberty of conscience have causedme to hitherto preserve those who remain in due obedience to his Majestyin all Catholic places, countries as well as towns, in entire liberty. Justice has run its free course, the worship continues everywhere, savein two or three spots where it served not for the exercise of religion, but to pave the way for rebellion. The officers who came out of rebelcities have kept their commissions; in a word, the treatment of so-styledReformers, when obedient, has been the same as that of Catholics faithfulto the king . . . " To which Henry de Rohan replied, "I confess to haveonce taken up arms unadvisedly, in so far as it was not on behalf of theaffairs of our religion, but of those of yourself personally, whopromised to obtain us reparation for the infractions of our treaties, and you did nothing of the kind, having had thoughts of peace beforereceiving news from the general assembly. Since that time everybodyknows that I have had arms in my hands only from sheer necessity, inorder to defend our properties, our lives, and the freedom of ourconsciences. I seek my repose in heaven, and God will give me grace toalways find that of my conscience on earth. They say that in this waryou have, not made a bad thing of it. This gives me some assurance thatyou will leave our poor Uvennes at peace, seeing that there are more hardknocks than pistoles to be got there. " The Prince of Conde avengedhimself for this stinging reply by taking possession, in Brittany, of allthe Duke of Rohan's property, which had been confiscated, and of whichthe king had made him a present. There were more pistoles to be pickedup on the duke's estates than in the Cevennes. The king was in Italy, and the Reformers hoped that his affairs woulddetain him there a long while; but "God, who had disposed it otherwise, breathed upon all those projects, " and the arms of Louis XIII. Wereeverywhere victorious; peace was concluded with Piedmont and England, without the latter treaty making any mention of the Huguenots. The kingthen turned his eyes towards Languedoc, and, summoning to him the Dukesof Montmorency and Schomberg, he laid siege to Privas. The cardinal soonjoined him there, and it was on the day of his arrival that the treatywith England was proclaimed by heralds beneath the walls. The besiegedthus learned that their powerful ally had abandoned them without reserve;at the first assault the inhabitants fled into the country, the garrisonretired within the forts, and the king's-soldiers, penetrating into thedeserted streets, were able, without resistance, to deliver up the townto pillage and flames. When the affrighted inhabitants came back bylittle and little within their walls, they found the houses confiscatedto the benefit of the king, who invited a new population to inhabitPrivas. Town after town, "fortified Huguenot-wise, " surrendered, opening to theroyal armies the passage to the Uvennes. The Duke of Rohan, who had atfirst taken position at Nimes, repaired to Anduze for the defence of themountains, the real fortress of the Reformation in Languedoc. Alaisitself had just opened its gates. Rohan saw that he could no longerimpose the duty of resistance upon a people weary of suffering, "easilybelieving ill of good folks, and readily agreeing with those whiners whoblame everything and do nothing. " He sent "to the king, begging to bereceived to mercy, thinking it better to resolve on peace, whilst hecould still make some show of being able to help it, than to be forced, after a longer resistance, to surrender to the king with a rope round hisneck. " The cardinal advised the king to show the duke grace, "wellknowing that, together with him individually, the other cities, whetherthey wished it or not, would be obliged to do the like, there being butlittle resolution and constancy in people deprived of leaders, especiallywhen they are threatened with immediate harm, and see no door of escapeopen. " The general assembly of the Reformers, which was then in meeting atNimes, removed to Anduze to deliberate with the Duke of Rohan; a wish wasexpressed to have the opinion of the province of the Cevennes, and allthe deputies repaired to the king's presence. No more surety-towns;fortifications everywhere razed, at the expense and by the hands of theReformers; the Catholic worship re-established in all the churches of theReformed towns; and, at this price, an amnesty granted for all acts ofrebellion, and religious liberties confirmed anew, --such were theconditions of the peace signed at Alais on the 28th of June, 1629, andmade public the following month at Nimes, under the name of Edict ofGrace. Montauban alone refused to submit to them. The Duke of Rohan left France and retired to Venice, where his wife anddaughter were awaiting him. He had been appointed by the Venetian senategeneralissimo of the forces of the republic, when the cardinal, who hadno doubt preserved some regard for his military talents, sent him anoffer of the command of the king's troops in the Valteline. There he forseveral years maintained the honor of France, being at one time abandonedand at another supported by the cardinal, who ultimately left him to bearthe odium of the last reverse. Meeting with no response from the court, cut off from every resource, he brought back into the district of Gex theFrench troops driven out by the Grisons themselves, and then retired toGeneva. Being threatened with the king's wrath, he set out for the campof his friend Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar; and it was whilst fighting athis side against the imperialists that he received the wound of which hedied in Switzerland, on the 16th of April, 1638. His body was removed toGeneva amidst public mourning. A man of distinguished mind and noblecharacter, often wild in his views and hopes, and so deeply absorbed inthe interests of his party and of his church, that he had sometimes themisfortune to forget those of his country. Meanwhile the king had set out for Paris, and the cardinal was marchingon Montauban. Being obliged to halt at Pezenas because he had a fever, he there received a deputation from Montauban, asking to have itsfortifications preserved. On the minister's formal refusal, supported bya movement in advance on the part of Marshal Bassompierre with the army, the town submitted unreservedly. "Knowing that the cardinal had made uphis mind to enter in force, they found this so bitter a pill that theycould scarcely swallow it;" they, nevertheless, offered the dais to theminister, as they had been accustomed to do to the governor, but herefused it, and would not suffer the consuls to walk on foot beside hishorse. Bassompierre set guards at the doors of the meeting-house, thatthings might be done without interruption or scandal; it was ascertainedthat the Parliament of Toulouse, "habitually intractable in all thatconcerned religion, " had enregistered the edict without difficulty; thegentlemen of the neighborhood came up in crowds, the Reformers to maketheir submission and the Catholics to congratulate the cardinal; on theday of his departure the pickaxe was laid to the fortifications ofMontauban; those of Castres were already beginning to fall; and theHuguenot party in France was dead. Deprived of the political guaranteeswhich had been granted them by Henry IV. , the Reformers had nothing forit but to retire into private life. This was the commencement of theirmaterial prosperity; they henceforth transferred to commerce and, industry all the intelligence, courage, and spirit of enterprise thatthey had but lately displayed in the service of their cause, on thebattle-field or in the cabinets of kings. "From that time, " says Cardinal Richelieu, "difference in religion neverprevented me from rendering the Huguenots all sorts of good offices, andI made no distinction between Frenchmen but in respect of fidelity. " Agrand assertion, true at bottom, in spite of the frequent grievances thatthe Reformers had often to make the best of; the cardinal was moretolerant than his age and his servants; what he had wanted to destroy wasthe political party; he did not want to drive the Reformers to extremity, nor force them to fly the country; happy had it been if Louis XIV. Couldhave listened to and borne in mind the instructions given by Richelieu toCount de Sault, commissioned to see after the application in Dauphiny ofthe edicts of pacification: "I hold that, as there is no need to extendin favor of them of the religion styled Reformed that which is providedby the edicts, so there is no ground for cutting down the favors grantedthem thereby; even now, when, by the grace of God, peace is so firmlyestablished in the kingdom, too much precaution cannot be used for theprevention of all these discontents amongst the people. I do assure youthat the king's veritable intention is to have all his subjects livingpeaceably in the observation of his edicts, and that those who haveauthority in the provinces will do him service by conforming thereto. "The era of liberty passed away with Henry IV. ; that of tolerance, for theReformers, began with Richelieu, pending the advent with Louis XIV. Ofthe day of persecution. CHAPTER XLI. ----LOUIS XIII. , CARDINAL RICHELIEU, AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS. France was reduced to submission; six years of power had sufficed forRichelieu to obtain the mastery; from that moment he directed hisceaseless energy towards Europe. "He feared the repose of peace, " saidthe ambassador Nani in his letters to Venice; "and thinking himself moresafe amidst the bustle of arms, he was the originator of so many wars, and of such long-continued and heavy calamities, he caused so much bloodand so many tears to flow within and without the kingdom, that there isnothing to be astonished at, if many people have represented him asfaithless, atrocious in his hatred, and inflexible in his vengeance. But no one, nevertheless, can deny him the gifts that this world isaccustomed to attribute to its greatest men; and his most determinedenemies are forced to confess that he had so many and such great ones, that he would have carried with him power and prosperity wherever hemight have had the direction of affairs. We may say that, having broughtback unity to divided France, having succored Italy, upset the empire, confounded England, and enfeebled Spain, he was the instrument chosen bydivine Providence to direct the great events of Europe. " The Venetian's independent and penetrating mind did not mislead him;everywhere in Europe were marks of Richelieu's handiwork. "There must beno end to negotiations near and far, " was his saying: he had foundnegotiations succeed in France; he extended his views; numerous treatieshad already marked the early years of the cardinal's power; and, after1630, his activity abroad was redoubled. Between 1623 and 1642seventy-four treaties were concluded by Richelieu: four with England;twelve with the United Provinces; fifteen with the princes of Germany;six with Sweden; twelve with Savoy; six with the republic of Venice;three with the pope; three with the emperor; two with Spain; four withLorraine; one with the Grey Leagues of Switzerland; one with Portugal;two with the revolters of Catalonia and Roussillon; one with Russia; twowith the Emperor of Morocco: such was the immense network of diplomaticnegotiations whereof the cardinal held the threads during nineteenyears. An enumeration of the alliances would serve, without further comment, to prove this: that the foreign policy of Richelieu was a continuationof that of Henry IV. ; it was to Protestant alliances that he looked fortheir support in order to maintain the struggle against the house ofAustria, whether the German or the Spanish branch. In order to give hisviews full swing, he waited till he had conquered the Huguenots at home:nearly all his treaties with Protestant powers are posterior to 1630. So soon as he was secure that no political discussions in France itselfwould come to thwart his foreign designs, he marched with a firm steptowards that enfeeblement of Spain and that upsetting of the empire ofwhich Nani speaks. Henry IV. And Queen Elizabeth, pursuing the same end, had sought and found the same allies: Richelieu had the good fortune, beyond theirs, to meet, for the execution of his designs, with GustavusAdolphus, King of Sweden. Richelieu had not yet entered the king's council (1624), when thebreaking off of the long negotiations between England and Spain, on thesubject of the marriage of the Prince of Wales with the Infanta, wasofficially declared to Parliament. At the very moment when PrinceCharles, with the Duke of Buckingham, was going post-haste to Madrid, tosee the Infanta Mary Anne of Spain, they were already thinking, at Paris, of marrying him to Henrietta of France, the king's young sister, scarcelyfourteen years of age. King James I. Was at that time obstinately bentupon his plan of alliance with Spain; when it failed, his son and bigfavorite forced his hand to bring him round to France. His envoys atParis, the Earl of Carlisle and Lord Holland, found themselves confrontedby Cardinal Richelieu, commissioned, together with some of hiscolleagues, to negotiate the affair. M. Guizot, in his _Projet deMariage royal_ (1 vol. 18mo: 1863; Paris, Hachette et Cie), has saidthat the marriage of Henry IV. 's daughter with the Prince of Wales was, in Richelieu's eyes, one of the essential acts of a policy necessary tothe greatness of the kingship and of France. He obtained the bestconditions possible for the various interests involved, but without anystickling and without favor for such and such a one of these interests, skilfully adapting words and appearance, but determined upon attaininghis end. The tarryings and miscarriages of Spanish policy had warned Richelieu tomake haste. "In less than nine moons, " says James I. 's privatesecretary, James Howell, "this great matter was proposed, prosecuted, andaccomplished; whereas the sun might, for as many years, have run hiscourse from one extremity of the zodiac to the other, before the court ofSpain would have arrived at any resolution and conclusion. That gives agood idea of the difference between the two nations--the leaden step ofthe one and the quicksilver movements of the other. It also shows thatthe Frenchman is more noble in his proceedings, less full of scruple, reserve, and distrust, and that he acts more chivalrously. " In France, meanwhile, as well as in Spain, the question of religion wasthe rock of offence. Richelieu confined himself to demanding, in ageneral way, that, in this matter, the King of England should grant, in order to obtain the sister of the King of France, all that he hadpromised in order to obtain the King of Spain's. "So much was required, "he said, "by the equality of the two crowns. " The English negotiators were much embarrassed; the Protestant feelingsof Parliament had shown themselves very strongly on the subject of theSpanish marriage. "As to public freedom for the Catholic religion, " saysthe cardinal, "they would not so much as hear of it, declaring that itwas a deaign, under cover of alliance, to destroy their constitution evento ask such a thing of them. " "You want to conclude the marriage, " saidLord Holland to the queen-mother, "and yet you enter on the same pathsthat the Spaniards took to break it off; which causes all sorts of doubtsand mistrusts, the effect whereof the premier minister of Spain, CountOlivarez, is very careful to aggravate by saying that, if the popegranted a dispensation for the marriage with France, the king his masterwould march to Rome with an army, and give it up to sack. " "We will soon stop that, " answered Mary de' Medici quickly; "we will cutout work for him elsewhere. " At last it was agreed that King James andhis son should sign a private engagement, not inserted in the contract ofmarriage, "securing to the English Catholics more liberty and freedom inall that concerns their religion, than they would have obtained by virtueof any articles whatsoever accorded by the marriage treaty with Spain, provided that they made sparing use of them, rendering to the King ofEngland the "obedience owed by good and true subjects; the which king, of his benevolence, would not bind them by any oath contrary to theirreligion. " The promises were vague and the securities anything butsubstantial; still, the vanity as well as the fears of King James wereappeased, and Richelieu had secured, simultaneously with his ownascendency, the policy of France. Nothing remained but to send to Romefor the purpose of obtaining the dispensation. The ordinary ambassador, Count de Bethune, did not suffice for so delicate a negotiation;Richelieu sent Father Berulle. Father Berulle, founder of the brotherhoodof the Oratory, patron of the Carmelites, and the intimate friend ofFrancis de Sales, though devoid of personal ambition, had, been cleverenough to keep himself on good terms with Cardinal Richelieu, whosepolitical views he did not share, and with the court of Rome, whose mostfaithful allies, the Jesuits, he had often thwarted. He was devoted toQueen Mary de' Medici, and willingly promoted her desires in the matterof her daughter's marriage. He found the court of Rome in confusion, andmuch exercised by Spanish intrigue. "This court, " he wrote to thecardinal, "is, in conduct and in principles, very different from whatone would suppose before having tried it for one's self; for my part, Iconfess to having learned more of it in a few hours, since I have been onthe spot, than I knew by all the talk that I have heard. The dialconstantly observed in this country is the balance existing betweenFrance, Italy, and Spain. " "The king my master, " said Count de Bethune, quite openly, "has obtained from England all he could; it is no use towait for more ample conditions, or to measure them by the Spanish ell;I have orders against sending off any courier save to give notice ofconcession of the dispensation: otherwise there would be nothing butasking one thing after another. " "If we determine to act like Spain, we, like her, shall lose everything, " said Father Berulle. Some weeks later, on the 6th of January, 1625, Berulle wrote to the cardinal, "For a monthI have been on the point of starting, but we have been obliged to take somuch trouble and have so many meetings on the subject of transcripts andmissives as well as the kernel of the business . . . I will merelytell you that the dispensation is pure and simple. " King James I. Had died on the 6th of April, 1625; and so it was KingCharles I. , and not the Prince of Wales, whom the Duke of Chevreuserepresented at Paris on the 11th of May, 1625, at the espousals ofPrincess Henrietta Maria. She set out on the 2d of June for England, escorted by the Duke of Buckingham, who had been sent by the king tofetch her, and who had gladly prolonged his stay in France, smitten as hewas by the young Queen Anne of Austria. Charles I. Went to Dover to meethis wife, showing himself very amiable and attentive to her. Though shelittle knew how fatal they would be to her, the king of England's palaceslooked bare and deserted to the new queen, accustomed as she was toFrench elegance; she, however, appeared contented. "How can your Majestyreconcile yourself to a Huguenot for a husband?" asked one of her suite, indiscreetly. "Why not?" she replied, with spirit. "Was not my fatherone?" By this speech Henrietta Maria expressed, undoubtedly without realizingall its grandeur, the idea which had suggested her marriage and beenprominent in France during the whole negotiations. It was the policy ofHenry IV. That Henry IV. 's daughter was bringing to a triumphant issue. The marriage between Henrietta Maria and Charles I. , negotiated andconcluded by Cardinal Richelieu, was the open declaration of the factthat the style of Protestant or Catholic was not the supreme law ofpolicy in Christian Europe, and that the interests of nations should notremain subservient to the religious faith of the reigning or governingpersonages. Unhappily the policy of Henry IV. , carried on by Cardinal Richelieu, found no Queen Elizabeth any longer on the throne of England tocomprehend it and maintain it. Charles I. , tossed about between thehaughty caprices of his favorite Buckingham and the religious orpolitical passions of his people, did not long remain attached to thegreat idea which had predominated in the alliance of the two crowns. Proud and timid, imperious and awkward, all at the same time, he did notsucceed, in the first instance, in gaining the affections of his youngwife, and early infractions of the treaty of marriage; the dismissal ofall the queen's French servants, hostilities between the merchant naviesof the two nations, had for some time been paving the way for open war, when the Duke of Buckingham, in the hope of winning back to him the Houseof Commons (June, 1626), madly attempted the expedition against theIsland of Re. What was the success of it, as well as of the two attemptsthat followed it, has already been shown. Three years later, on the 24th of April, 1629, the King of Englandconcluded peace with France without making any stipulation in favor ofthe Reformers whom hope of aid from him had drawn into rebellion. "Ideclare, " says the Duke of Rohan, "that I would have suffered any sort ofextremity rather than be false to the many sacred oaths we had given himnot to listen to any treaty without him, who had many times assured usthat he would never make peace without including us in it. " The Englishaccepted the peace "as the king had desired, not wanting the King ofGreat Britain to meddle with his rebellious Huguenot subjects any morethan he would want to meddle with his Catholic subjects if they were torebel against him. " [_Memoires de Richelieu, _ t. Iv. P. 421. ] Thesubjects of Charles I. Were soon to rebel against him: and France kepther word and did not interfere. The Hollanders, with more prudence and ability than distinguishedBuckingham and Charles I. , had done better service to the Protestantcause without ever becoming entangled in the quarrels that dividedFrance; natural enemies as they were of Spain and the house of Austria, they readily seconded Richelieu in the struggle he maintained againstthem; besides, the United Provinces were as yet poor, and the cardinalalways managed to find money for his allies; nearly all the treaties heconcluded with Holland were treaties of alliance and subsidy; those of1641 and 1642 secured to them twelve hundred thousand livres a year outof the coffers of France. Once only the Hollanders were faithless totheir engagements: it was during the siege of Rochelle, when the nationalfeeling would not admit of war being made on the French Huguenots. Allthe forces of Protestantism readily united against Spain; Richelieu hadbut to direct them. She, in fact, was the great enemy, and herhumiliation was always the ultimate aim of the cardinal's foreign policy;the struggle, power to power, between France and Spain, explains, duringthat period, nearly all the political and military complications inEurope. There was no lack of pretexts for bringing it on. The first wasthe question of the Valteline, a lovely and fertile valley, which, extending from the Lake of Como to the Tyrol, thus serves as a naturalcommunication between Italy and Germany. Possessed but lately, as itwas, by the Grey Leagues of the Protestant Swiss, the Valteline, aCatholic district, had revolted at the instigation of Spain in 1620; theemperor, Savoy, and Spain had wanted to divide the spoil between them;when France, the old ally of the Grisons, had interfered, and, in 1623, the forts of the Valteline had been intrusted on deposit to the pope, Urban VIII. He still retained them in 1624, when the Grison lords, seconded by a French re-enforcement under the orders of the Marquis ofCeeuvres, attacked the feeble garrison of the Valteline; in a few daysthey were masters of all the places in the canton; the pope sent hisnephew, Cardinal Barberini, to Paris to complain of French aggression, and with a proposal to take the sovereignty of the Valteline from theGrisons; that was, to give it to Spain. "Besides, " said CardinalRichelieu, "the precedent and consequences of it would be perilous forkings in whose dominions it hath pleased God to permit diversity ofreligion. " The legate could obtain nothing. The Assembly of Notables, convoked by Richelieu in 1625, approved of the king's conduct, and warwas resolved upon. The siege of La Rochelle retarded it for two years;Richelieu wanted to have his hands free; he concluded a specious peacewith Spain, and the Valteline remained for the time being in the hands ofthe Grisons, who were one day themselves to drive the French out of it. Whilst the cardinal was holding La Rochelle besieged, the Duke of Mantuahad died in Italy, and his natural heir, Charles di Gonzaga, who wassettled in France with the title of Duke of Nevers, had hastened to puthimself in possession of his dominions. Meanwhile the Duke of Savoyclaimed the marquisate of Montferrat; the Spaniards supported him; theyentered the-dominions of the Duke of Mantua, and laid siege to Casale. When La Rochelle succumbed, Casale was still holding out; but the Duke ofSavoy had already made himself master of the greater part of Montferrat;the Duke of Mantua claimed the assistance of the King of France, whosesubject he was; here was a fresh battle-field against Spain; and scarcelyhad he been victorious over the Rochellese, when the king was on themarch for Italy. The Duke of Savoy refused a passage to the royal army, which found the defile of Suza Pass fortified with three barricades. [Illustration: The Defile of Suza Pass----278] Marshal Bassompierre went to the king, who was a hundred paces behind thestorming party, ahead of his regiment of guards. "'Sir, ' said he, 'thecompany is ready, the violins have come in, 'and the masks are at thedoor; when your Majesty pleases, we will commence the ballet. ' 'The kingcame up to me, and said to me angrily, "Do you know, pray, that we havebut five hundred pounds of lead in the park of artillery?" 'I said tohim, 'It is a pretty time to think of that. Must the ballet not dance, for lack of one mask that is not ready? Leave it to us, sir, and allwill go well. ' "Do you answer for it?" said he to me. 'Sir, ' replied. The cardinal, 'by the marshal's looks I prophesy that all will be well;rest assured of it. '" [_Memoires de Bassompiere. _] The French dashedforward, the marshals with the storming party, and the barricades weresoon carried. The Duke of Savoy and his son had hardly time to fly. "Gentlemen, " cried the Duke to some Frenchmen, who happened to be in hisservice, "gentlemen, allow me to pass; your countrymen are in a temper. " With the same dash, on debouching from the mountains, the king's troopsentered Suza. The Prince of Piedmont soon arrived to ask for peace; hegave up all pretensions to Montferrat, and promised to negotiate with theSpanish general to get the siege of Casale raised; and the effect wasthat, on the 18th of March, Casale, delivered "by the mere wind of therenown gained by the king's arms, saw, with tears of joy, the Spaniardsretiring desolate, showing no longer that pride which they had been wontto wear on their faces, --looking constantly behind them, not so much fromregret for what they were leaving as for fear lest the king's vengefulsword should follow after them, and come to strike their death-blow. "[_Memoires de Richelieu, _ t. Iv. P. 370. ] The Spaniards remained, however, in Milaness, ready to burst again uponthe Duke of Mantua. The king was in a hurry to return to France in orderto finish the subjugation of the Reformers in the south, commanded by theDuke of Rohan. The cardinal placed little or no reliance upon the Dukeof Savoy, whose "mind could get no rest, and going more swiftly than therapid movements of the heavens, made every day more than twice thecircuit of the world, thinking how to set by the ears all kings, princes, and potentates, one with another, so that he alone might reap advantagefrom their divisions. [_Memoires de Richelieu, _ t. Iv. P. 375. ] Aleague, however, was formed between France, the republic of Venice, theDuke of Mantua, and the Duke of Savoy, for the defence of Italy in caseof fresh aggression on the part of the Spaniards; and the king, who hadjust concluded peace with England, took the road back to France. Scarcely had the cardinal joined him before Privas when an imperialistarmy advanced into the Grisons, and, supported by the celebrated Spanishgeneral Spinola, laid siege to Mantua. Richelieu did not hesitate: heentered Piedmont in the month of March, 1630, to march before long onPignerol, an important place commanding the passage of the Alps; it, aswell as the citadel, was carried in a few days; the governor having askedfor time to "do his Easter" (take the sacrament), Marshal Crequi, who wasafraid of seeing aid arrive from the Duke of Savoy, had all the clocks inthe town put on, to such purpose that the governor had departed and theplace was in the hands of the French when the re-enforcements came up. The Duke of Savoy was furious, and had the soldiers who surrenderedPignerol cut in pieces. The king had put himself in motion to join his army. "The Frenchnoblesse, " said Spinola, "are very fortunate in seeing themselves honoredby the presence of the king their master amongst their armies; I havenothing to regret in my life but never to have seen the like on the partof mine. " This great general had resumed the siege of Casale when LouisXIII. Entered Savoy; the inhabitants of Chambery opened their gates tohim; Annecy and Montmelian succumbed after a few days' siege; Mauriennein its entirety made its submission, and the king fixed his quartersthere, whilst the cardinal pushed forward to Casale with the main body ofthe army. Rejoicings were still going on for a success gained beforeVeillane over the troops of the Duke of Savoy, when news arrived of thecapture of Mantua by the Imperialists. This was the finishing blow tothe ambitious and restless spirit of the Duke of Savoy. He saw Mantua inthe hands of the Spaniards, "who never give back aught of what falls intotheir power, whatever justice and the interests of alliance may makebinding on them;" it was all hope lost of an exchange which might havegiven him back Savoy; he took to his bed and died on the 26th of July, 1630, telling his son that peace must be made on any terms whatever. "By just punishment of God, he who, during forty or fifty years of hisreign, had constantly tried to set his neighbors a-blaze, died amidst theflames of his own dominions, which he had lost by his own obstinacy, against the advice of his friends and his allies. " The King of France, in ill health, had just set out for Lyons; andthither the cardinal was soon summoned, for Louis XIII. Appeared to bedying. When he reached convalescence, the truce suspending hostilitiessince the death of the Duke of Savoy was about to expire; MarshalSchomberg was preparing to march on the enemy, when there was broughtto him a treaty, signed at Ratisbonne, between the emperor and theambassador of France, assisted by Francis du Tremblay, now known asFather Joseph, perhaps the only friend and certainly the most intimateconfidant of the cardinal, who always employed him on delicate or secretbusiness. [Illustration: Richelieu and Father Joseph----280] But Marshal Schomberg was fighting against Spain; he did not allowhimself to be stopped by a treaty concluded with the emperor, andspeedily found himself in front of Casale. The two armies were alreadyface to face, when there was seen coming out of the intrenchments anofficer in the pope's service, who waved a white handkerchief; he cameup to Marshal Schomberg, and was recognized as Captain Giulio Mazarini, often employed on the nuncio's affairs; he brought word that theSpaniards would consent to leave the city, if, at the same time, theFrench would evacuate the citadel. Spinola was no longer there to make agood stand before the place; he had died a month previously, complainingloudly that his honor had been filched from him; and, determined not toyield up his last breath in a town which would have to be abandoned, hehad caused himself to be removed out of Casale, to go and die in aneighboring castle. Casale evacuated, the cardinal broke out violently against thenegotiators of Ratisbonne, saying that they had exceeded their powers, and declaring that the king regarded the treaty as null and void; therewas accordingly a recommencement of negotiations with the emperor as wellas the Spaniards. It was only in the month of September, 1631, that the states of Savoy andMantua were finally evacuated by the hostile troops. Pignerol had beengiven up to the new Duke of Savoy, but a secret agreement had beenentered into between that prince and France: French soldiers remainedconcealed in Pignerol; and they retook possession of the place in thename of the king, who had purchased the town and its territory, to securehimself a passage into Italy. The Spaniards, when they bad news of it, made so much the more uproar as they had the less foreseen it, and as itcut the thread of all the enterprises they were meditating againstChristendom. The affairs of the emperor in Germany were in too bad astate for him to rekindle war, and France kept Pignerol. The house ofAustria, in fact, was threatened mortally. For two years CardinalRichelieu had been laboring to carry war into its very heart. FerdinandII. Had displeased many electors of the empire, who began to bedisquieted at the advances made by his power. "It is, no doubt, a greataffliction for the Christian commonwealth, " said the cardinal to theGerman princes, "that none but the Protestants should dare to oppose suchpernicious designs; they must not be aided in their enterprises againstreligion, but they must be made use of in order to maintain Germany inthe enjoyment of her liberties. " The Catholic league in Germany, habitually allied as it was with the house of Austria, did not offer anyleader to take the field against her. The King of Denmark, after a longperiod of hostilities, had just made peace with the emperor; and, "intheir need, all these offended and despoiled princes looked, as sailorslook to the north, " towards the King of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus. [Illustration: Gustavus Adolphus----282] "The King of Sweden was a new rising sun, who, having been at war withall his neighbors, had wrested from them several provinces; he was young, but of great reputation, and already incensed against the emperor, not somuch on account of any real injuries he had received from him as becausehe was his neighbor. His Majesty had kept an eye upon him with a view ofattempting to make use of him in order to draw off, in course of time, the main body of the emperor's forces, and give him work to do in his owndominions. " [_Memoires de Richelieu, _ t. V. P. 119. ] ThroughRichelieu's good offices, Gustavus Adolphus had just concluded a longtruce with the Poles, with whom he had been for some time at war: thecardinal's envoy, M. De Charnace, at once made certain propositions tothe King of Sweden, promising the aid of France if he would take up thecause of the German princes; but Gustavus turned a cold ear to theseovertures, "not seeing in any quarter any great encouragement toundertake the war, either in England, peace with the Spaniards beingthere as good as determined upon, or in Holland, for the same reason, or in the Hanseatic towns, which were all exhausted of wealth, or inDenmark, which had lost heart and was daily disarming, or in France, whence he got not a word on which he could place certain reliance. " Theemperor, on his side, was seeking to make peace with Sweden, "and thepeople of that country were not disinclined to listen to him. " God, for the accomplishment of his will, sets at nought the designs andintentions of men. Gustavus Adolphus was the instrument chosen byProvidence to finish the work of Henry IV. And Richelieu. Negotiationscontinued to be carried on between the two parties, but, before hisalliance with France was concluded, the King of Sweden, taking a suddenresolution, set out for Germany, on the 30th of May, 1630, with fifteenthousand men, "having told Charnace that he would not continue the warbeyond that year, if he did not agree upon terms of treaty with the king;so much does passion blind us, " adds the cardinal, "that he thought it tobe in his power to put an end to so great a war as that, just as it hadbeen in his power to commence it. " By this time Gustavus Adolphus was in Pomerania, the duke whereof, maltreated by the emperor, admitted him on the 10th of July into Stettin, after a show of resistance. The Imperialists, in their fury, put to acruel death all the inhabitants of the said city who happened to be intheir hands, and gave up all its territory to fire and sword. "The Kingof Sweden, on the contrary, had his army in such discipline, that itseemed as if every one of them were living at home, and not amongststrangers; for in the actions of this king there was nothing to be seenbut inexorable severity towards the smallest excesses on the part of hismen, extraordinary gentleness towards the populations, and strict justiceon every occasion, all which conciliated the affections of all, and somuch the more in that the emperor's army, unruly, insolent, disobedientto its leaders, and full of outrage against the people, made theirenemy's virtues shine forth the brighter. " [_Memoires de Richelieu, _t. Vi. P. 419. ] Gustavus Adolphus had left Sweden under the impulse of love for thoseglorious enterprises which make great generals, but still more of adesire to maintain the Protestant cause, which he regarded as that ofGod. He had assembled the estates of Sweden in the castle of Stockholm, presenting to them his daughter Christina, four years old, whom heconfided to their faithful care. "I have hopes, " he said to them, "ofending by bringing triumph to the cause of the oppressed; but, as thepitcher that goes often to the well gets broken, so I fear it may be myfate. I who have exposed my life amidst so many dangers, who have sooften spilt my blood for the country, without, thanks to God, having beenwounded to death, must in the end make a sacrifice of myself; for thatreason I bid you farewell, hoping to see you again in a better world. "He continued advancing into Germany. "This snow king will go on meltingas he comes south, " said the emperor, Ferdinand, on hearing that GustavusAdolphus had disembarked; but Mecklenburg was already in his hands, andthe Elector of Brandenburg had just declared in his favor: he everywheremade proclamation, "that the inhabitants were to come forward and joinhim to take the part of their princes, whom he was coming to replace inpossession. " He was investing all parts of Austria, whose hereditarydominions he had not yet attacked; it was in the name of the empire thathe fought against the emperor. The diet was terminating at Ratisbonne, and it had just struck a fatalblow at the imperial cause. The electors, Catholic and Protestant, jealous of the power as well as of the glory of the celebratedWallenstein, creator and commander-in-chief of the emperor's army, whohad made him Duke of Friedland, and endowed him with the duchies ofMecklenburg, had obliged Ferdinand II. To withdraw from him the commandof the forces. At this price he had hoped to obtain their votes todesignate his son King of the Romans; the first step towards hereditaryempire had failed, thanks to the ability of Father Joseph. "This poorCapuchin has disarmed me with his chaplet, " said the emperor, "and forall that his cowl is so narrow he has managed to get six electoral hatsinto it. " The treaty he had concluded, disavowed by France, did not foran instant hinder the progress of the King of Sweden; and the cardinallost no time in letting him know that "the king's intention was in nowise to abandon him, but to assist him more than ever, insomuch as hedeemed it absolutely necessary in order to thwart the designs of thosewho had no end in view but their own augmentation, to the prejudice ofall the other princes of Europe. " On the 25th of January, 1631, atBernwald, the treaty of alliance between France and Sweden was finallysigned. Baron Charnace had inserted in the draft of the treaty the termprotection as between France and Gustavus Adolphus. "Our master asks forno protection but that of Heaven, said the Swedish plenipotentiaries;"after God, his Majesty holds himself indebted only to his sword and hiswisdom for any advantages he may gain. " Charnace did not insist; and thevictories of Gustavus Adolphus were an answer to any difficulties. The King of Sweden bound himself to furnish soldiers, --thirty thousandmen at the least; France was to pay, by way of subsidy, four hundredthousand crowns a year, and to give a hundred thousand crowns to coverpast expenses. Gustavus Adolphus promised to maintain the existingreligion in such countries as he might conquer, "though he said, laughingly, that there was no possibility of promising about that, exceptin the fashion of him who sold the bear's skin;" he likewise guaranteedneutrality to the princes of the Catholic league, provided that theyobserved it towards him. The treaty was made public at once, through theexertions of Gustavus Adolphus, though Cardinal Richelieu had chargedCharnace to keep it secret for a time. Torquato Conti, one of the emperor's generals, who had takenWallenstein's place, wished to break off warfare during the long frosts. "My men do not recognize winter, " answered Gustavus Adolphus. "Thisprince, who did not take to war as a pastime, but made it in order toconquer, " marched with giant strides across Germany, reducing everythingas he went. He had arrived, by the end of April, before Frankfurt-on-theOder, which he took; and he was preparing to succor Magdeburg, which hadearly pronounced for him, and which Tilly, the emperor's general, keptbesieged. The Elector of Saxony hesitated to take sides; he refusedGustavus Adolphus a passage over the bridge of Dessau, on the Elbe. Onthe 20th of May Magdeburg fell, and Tilly gave over the place to thesoldiery; thirty thousand persons were massacred, and the housescommitted to the flames. "Nothing like it has been seen since the takingof Troy and of Jerusalem, " said Tilly in his savage joy. The Protestantprinces, who had just been reconstituting the Evangelical Union, in thediet they had held in February at Leipzig, revolted openly, orderinglevies of soldiers to protect their territories; the Catholic League, renouncing neutrality, flew to arms on their side; the question becamenothing less than that of restoring to the Protestants all that had beengranted them by the peace of Passau. The soldiery of Tilly were alreadylet loose on electoral Saxony; the elector, constrained by necessity, intrusted his soldiers to Gustavus Adolphus, who had just receivedre-enforcements from Sweden, and the king marched against Tilly, stillencamped before Leipzig, which he had forced to capitulate. The Saxons gave way at the first shock of the imperial troops, but theKing of Sweden had dashed forward, and nothing could withstand him; Tillyhimself, hitherto proof against lead and steel, fell wounded in threeplaces; five thousand dead were left on the field of battle; and GustavusAdolphus dragged at his heels seven thousand prisoners. "Never did thegrace of God pull me out of so bad a scrape, " said the conqueror. Hehalted some time at Mayence, which had just opened its gates to him. Axel Oxenstiern, his most faithful servant and oldest friend, whoseintimacy with his royal master reminds one of that between Henry IV. AndSully, came to join him in Germany; he had hitherto been commissioned tohold the government of the conquests won from the Poles. He did notapprove of the tactics of Gustavus Adolphus, who was attacking theCatholic League, and meanwhile leaving to the Elector of Saxony thecharge of carrying the war into the hereditary dominions of Austria. . . . "Sir, " said he, "I should have liked to offer you myfelicitations on your victories, not at Mayence, but at Vienna. " "If, after the battle of Leipzig, the King of Sweden had gone straight toattack the emperor in his hereditary provinces, it had been all over withthe house of Austria, " says Cardinal Richelieu; "but either God did notwill the certain destruction of that house, which would perhaps have beentoo prejudicial to the Catholic religion, and he turned him aside fromthe counsel which would have been more advantageous for him to take, orthe same God, who giveth not all to any, but distributeth his giftsdiversely to each, had given to this king, as to Hannibal, the knowledgehow to conquer, but not how to use victory. " Gustavus Adolphus had resumed his course of success: he came up withTilly again on the Leek, April 10, 1632, and crushed his army; thegeneral was mortally wounded, and the King of Sweden, entering Augsburgin triumph, proclaimed religious liberty there. He had moved forward infront of Ingolstadt, and was making a reconnoissance in person. "A kingis not worthy of his crown who makes any difficulty about carrying itwherever a simple soldier can go, " he said. A cannon-ball carried offthe hind quarters of his horse and threw him down. He picked himself up, all covered with blood and mud. "The fruit is not yet ripe, " he cried, with that strange mixture of courage and fatalism which so oftencharacterizes great warriors; and he marched to Munich, on which heimposed a heavy war-contribution. The Elector of Bavaria, stronglyfavored by France, sought to treat in the name of the Catholic League;but Gustavus Adolphus required complete restitution of all territorieswrested from the Protestant princes, the withdrawal of the troopsoccupying the dominions of the evangelicals, and the absolute neutralityof the Catholic princes. "These conditions smacked rather of yourvictorious prince, who would lay down and not accept the law. " Hesummoned to him all the inhabitants of the countries he traversed inconqueror's style: _"Surgite d mortuis, "_ he said to the Bavarians, _"etvenite ad judieium" (Rise from the dead, and come to judgment)_. Protestant Suabia had declared for him, and Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, one of his ablest lieute ants, carried the Swedish arms to the very banksof the Lake of Constance. The Lutheran countries of Upper Austria hadtaken up arms; and Switzerland had permitted the King of Sweden torecruit on her territory. "Italy began to tremble, " says CardinalRichelieu; "the Genevese themselves were fortifying their town, and, tosee them doing so, it seemed as if the King of Sweden were at theirgates; but God had disposed it otherwise. " The Emperor Ferdinand had recalled the only general capable of making astand against Gustavus Adolphus. Wallenstein, deeply offended, had fora long while held out; but, being assured of the supreme command over thefresh army which Ferdinand was raising in all directions, he took thefield at the end of April, 1632. Wallenstein effected a junction withthe Elector of Bavaria, forcing Gustavus Adolphus back, little by little, on Nuremberg. "I mean to show the King of Sweden a new way of makingwar, " said the German general. The sufferings of his army in anintrenched camp soon became intolerable to Gustavus Adolphus. In spiteof inferiority of forces, he attacked the enemy's redoubts, and wasrepulsed; the king revictualled Nuremberg, and fell back upon Bavaria. Wallenstein at first followed him, and then flung himself upon Saxony, and took Leipzig; Gustavus Adolphus advanced to succor his ally, and thetwo armies met near the little town of Liitzen, on the 16th of November, 1632. There was a thick fog. Gustavus Adolphus, rising before daybreak, wouldnot put on his breastplate, his old wounds hurting him under harness:"God is my breastplate, " he said. When somebody came and asked him forthe watchword, he answered, "God with us;" and it was Luther's hymn, _"Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" (Our God is a strong tower), _ that theSwedes sang as they advanced towards the enemy. The king had givenorders to march straight on Lutzen. "He animated his men to the fight, "says Richelieu, "with words that he had at command, whilst Wallenstein, by his mere presence and the sternness of his silence, seemed to let hismen understand that, as he had been wont to do, he would reward them orchastise them, according as they did well or ill on that great day. " It was ten A. M. , and the fog had just lifted; six batteries of cannonand two large ditches defended the Imperialists; the artillery from theramparts of Liitzen played upon the king's army, the balls came whizzingabout him; Bernard of Saxe-Weimar was the first to attack, pushingforward on Liitzen, which was soon taken; Gustavus Adolphus marched on tothe enemy's intrenchments; for an instant the Swedish infantry seemed towaver; the king seized a pike and flung himself amidst the ranks. "Aftercrossing so many rivers, scaling so many walls, and storming so manyplaces, if you have not courage enough to defend yourselves, at leastturn your heads to see me die, " he shouted to the soldiers. Theyrallied: the king remounted his horse, bearing along with him a regimentof Smalandaise cavalry. "You will behave like good fellows, all of you, "he said to them, as he dashed over the two ditches, carrying, as he went, two batteries of the enemy's cannon. "He took off his hat and renderedthanks to God for the victory He was giving him. " Two regiments of Imperial cuirassiers rode up to meet him; the kingcharged them at the head of his Swedes; he was in the thickest of thefight; his horse received a ball through the neck; Gustavus had his armbroken; the bone came through the sleeve of his coat; he wanted to haveit attended to, and begged the Duke of Saxe-Altenburg to assist him inleaving the battle-field; at that very moment, Falkenberg, lieutenant-colonel in the Imperial army, galloped his horse on to the king and shothim, point-blank, in the back with a pistol. The king fell from hishorse; and Falkenberg took to flight, pursued by one of the king'ssquires, who killed him. Gustavus Adolphus was left alone with a Germanpage, who tried to raise him; the king could no longer speak; threeAustrian cuirassiers surrounded him, asking the page the name of thewounded man; the youngster would not say, and fell, riddled with wounds, on his master's body; the Austrians sent one more pistol-shot into thedying man's temple, and stripped him of his clothes, leaving him only hisshirt. The melley recommenced, and successive charges of cavalry passedover the hero's corpse; there were counted nine open wounds and thirteenscars on his body when it was recovered towards the evening. [Illustration: Death of Gustavus and his Page----290] One of the king's officers, who had been unable to quit the fight intime to succor him, went and announced his fall to Duke Bernard ofSaxe-Weimar. To him a retreat was suggested; but, "We mustn't think ofthat, " said he, "but of death or victory. " A lieutenant-colonel of acavalry regiment made some difficulty about resuming the attack: the dukepassed his sword through his body, and, putting himself at the head ofthe troops, led them back upon the enemy's intrenchments which he carriedand lost three times. At last he succeeded in turning the cannon uponthe enemy, and "that gave the turn to the victory, which, nevertheless, was disputed till night. " "It was one of the most horrible ever heard of, " says Cardinal Richelieu;"six thousand dead or dying were left on the field of battle, where DukeBernard encamped till morning. " When day came, he led the troops off to Weisenfeld. The army knewnothing yet of the king's death. The Duke of Saxe-Weimar had the bodybrought to the front. "I will no longer conceal from you, " he said, "themisfortune that has befallen us; in the name of the glory that you havewon in following this great prince, help me to exact vengeance for it, and to let all the world see that he commanded soldiers who rendered himinvincible, and, even after his death, the terror of his enemies. " Ashout arose from the host, "We will follow you whither you will, even tothe end of the earth. " "Those who look for spots on the sun, and find something reprehensibleeven in virtue itself, blame this king, " says Cardinal Richelieu, "for having died like a trooper; but they do not reflect that allconqueror-princes are obliged to do not only the duty of captain, but ofsimple soldier, and to be the first in peril, in order to lead theretothe soldier who would not run the risk without them. It was the casewith Caesar and with Alexander, and the Swede died so much the moregloriously than either the one or the other, in that it is more becomingthe condition of a great captain and a conqueror to die sword in hand, making a tomb for his body of his enemies on the field of battle, than tobe hated of his own and poniarded by the hands of his nearest anddearest, or to die of poison or of drowning in a wine-butt. " Just like Napoleon in Egypt and Italy, Gustavus Adolphus, had performedthe prelude, by numerous wars against his neighbors, to the grandenterprise which was to render his name illustrious. Vanquished in hisstruggle with Denmark in 1613, he had carried war into Muscovy, conqueredtowns and provinces, and as early as 1617 he had effected the removal ofthe Russians from the shores of the Baltic. The Poles made a pretence ofsetting their own king, Sigismund, upon the throne of Sweden; and foreighteen years Gustavus Adolphus had bravely defended his rights, andprotected and extended his kingdom up to the truce of Altenmarket, concluded in 1629 through the intervention of Richelieu, who had need ofthe young King of Sweden in order to oppose the Emperor Ferdinand and thedangerous power of the house of Austria. Summoned to Germany by theProtestant princes who were being oppressed and despoiled, and assured ofassistance and subsidies from the King of France, Gustavus Adolphus had, no doubt, ideas of a glorious destiny, which have been flippantly taxedwith egotistical ambition. Perhaps, in the noble joy of victory, when he"was marching on without fighting, " seeing provinces submit, one afteranother, without his being hardly at the pains to draw his sword, mighthe have sometimes dreamed of a Protestant empire and the imperial crownupon his head; but, assuredly, such was not the aim of his enterprise andof his life. "I must in the end make a sacrifice of myself, " he had saidon bidding farewell to the Estates of Sweden; and it was to the cause ofProtestantism in Europe that he made this sacrifice. Sincerely religiousin heart, Gustavus Adolphus was not ignorant that his principal politicalstrength was in the hands of the Protestant princes; and he put at theirservice the incomparable splendor of his military genius. In two yearsthe power of the house of Austria, a work of so many efforts and so manyyears, was shaken to its very foundations. The evangelical union ofProtestant princes was re-forming in Germany, and treating, as equal withequal, with the emperor; Ferdinand was trembling in Vienna, and theSpaniards, uneasy even in Italy, were collecting their forces to makehead against the irresistible conqueror, when the battle-field of Lutzensaw the fall, at thirty years of age, of the "hero of the North, thebulwark of Protestantism, " as he was called by his contemporaries, astounded at his greatness. God sometimes thus cuts off His noblestchampions in order to make men see that He is master, and He aloneaccomplishes His great designs; but to them whom He deigns to thus employHe accords the glory of leaving their imprint upon the times they havegone through and the events to which they have contributed. Two years ofvictory in Germany at the head of Protestantism sufficed to make the nameof Gustavus Adolphus illustrious forever. Richelieu had continued the work of Henry IV. ; and Chancellor Oxenstierndid not leave to perish that of his master and friend. Scarcely wasGustavus Adolphus dead when Oxenstiern convoked at Erfurt the deputiesfrom the Protestant towns, and made them swear the maintenance of theunion. He afterwards summoned to Heilbronn all the Protestant princes;the four circles of Upper Germany (Franconia, Suabia, the Palatinate, andthe Upper Rhine), and the elector of Brandenburg alone sent theirrepresentatives; but Richelieu had delegated M. De Feuquieres, whoquietly brought his weight to bear on the decision of the assembly, andgot Oxenstiern appointed to direct the Protestant party; the Elector ofSaxony, who laid claim to this honor, was already leaning towards thetreason which he was to consummate in the following year; France at thesame time renewed her treaty with Sweden and Holland; the great generalof the armies of the empire, Wallenstein, displeased with his master, wasmaking secret advances to the cardinal and to Oxenstiern; wherever he didnot appear in person the Imperial armies were beaten. The emperor wasjust having his eyes opened, when Wallenstein, summoning around him atPilsen his generals and his lieutenants, made them take an oath ofconfederacy for the defence of his person and of the army, and, beggingBernard of Saxe-Weimar and the Saxon generals to join him in Bohemia, hewrote to Feuquieres to accept the king's secret offers. Amongst the generals assembled at Pilsen there happened to be MaxPiccolomini, in whom Wallenstein had great confidence: he at oncerevealed to the emperor his generalissimo's guilty intrigues. Wallenstein fell, assassinated by three of his officers, on the 15th ofFebruary, 1634; and the young King of Hungary, the emperor's eldest son, took the command-in chief of the army under the direction of the veterangenerals of the empire. On the 6th of September, by one of thosereversals which disconcert all human foresight, Bernard of Saxe-Weimarand the Swedish marshal, Horn, coming up to the aid of Nordlingen, whichwas being besieged by the Austrian army, were completely beaten in frontof that place; and their army retired in disorder, leaving Suabia to theconqueror. Protestant Germany was in consternation; all eyes were turnedtowards France. Cardinal Richelieu was ready; the frequent treasons of Duke Charles ofLorraine had recently furnished him with an opportunity, whilst directingthe king's arms against him, of taking possession, partly by negotiationand partly by force, first of the town of Nancy, and then of the duchy ofBar; the duke had abdicated in favor of the cardinal, his brother, who, renouncing his ecclesiastical dignity, espoused his cousin, PrincessClaude of Lorraine, and took refuge with her at Florence, whilst Charlesled into Germany, to the emperor, all the forces he had remaining. Theking's armies were coming to provisionally take possession of all theplaces in Lothringen, where the Swedes, beaten in front of Nordlingen, being obliged to abandon the left bank of the Upper Rhine, placed in thehands of the French the town of Philipsburg, which they had but latelytaken from the Spaniards. The Rhinegrave Otto, who was commanding inElsass for the confederates, in the same way effected his retreat, delivering over to Marshal La Force Colmar, Schlestadt, and many smallplaces; the Bishop of Basle and the free city of Mulhausen likewiseclaimed French protection. On the 1st of November, the ambassadors of Sweden and of the ProtestantLeague signed at Paris a treaty of alliance, soon afterwards ratified bythe diet at Worms, and the French army, entering Germany, under MarshalsLa Force and Breze, caused the siege of Heidelberg to be raised on the23d of December. Richelieu was in treaty at the same time with theUnited Provinces for the invasion of the Catholic Low Countries. It wasin the name of their ancient liberties that the cardinal, in alliancewith the heretics of Holland, summoned the ancient Flanders to revoltagainst Spain; if they refused to listen to this appeal, the confederateswere under mutual promises to divide their conquest between them. Franceconfined herself to stipulating for the maintenance of the Catholicreligion in the territory that devolved to Holland. The army destinedfor this enterprise was already in preparation, and the king was settingout to visit it, when, in April, 1635, he was informed of ChancellorOxenstiern's arrival. Louis XIII. Awaited him at Compiegne. Thechancellor was accompanied by a numerous following, worthy of the man whoheld the command of a sovereign over the princes of the ProtestantLeague; he had at his side the famous Hugo Grotius, but lately exiledfrom his country on account of religious disputes, and now accredited asambassador to the King of France from the little queen, Christina ofSweden. It was Grotius who acted as interpreter between the king and thechancellor of Sweden. A rare and grand spectacle was this interviewbetween, on the one side, the Swede and the Hollander, both of them greatpolitical philosophers in theory or practice, and, on the other, theall-powerful minister of the King of France, in presence of that kinghimself. When Oxenstiern and Richelieu conferred alone together, the twoministers had recourse to Latin, that common tongue of the cultivatedminds of their time, and nobody was present at their conversation. Oxenstiern soon departed for Holland, laden with attentions and presents:he carried away with him a new treaty of alliance between Sweden andFrance, and the assurance that the king was about to declare war againstSpain. And it broke out, accordingly, on the 19th of May, 1635. The violationof the electorate of Treves by the Cardinal Infante, and the carrying-offof the elector-archbishop served as pretext; and Louis XIII. Declaredhimself protector of a feeble prince who had placed in his hands thecustody of several places. Alencon, herald-at-arms of France, appearedat Brussels, proclamation of war in hand; and, not be able to obtain aninterview with the Cardinal Infante, he hurled it at the feet of theBelgian herald-at-arms commissioned to receive him, and he affixed a copyof it to a post he set up in the ground in the last Flemish village, nearthe frontier. On the 6th of June, a proclamation of the king's summonedthe Spanish Low Countries to revolt. A victory had already been gainedin Luxembourg, close to the little town of Avein, over Prince Thomas ofSavoy, the duke-regnant's brother, who was embroiled with him, and whomSpain had just taken into her service. The campaign of 1635 appeared tobe commencing under happy auspices. These hopes were deceived; the LowCountries did not respond to the summons of the king and of hisconfederates; there was no rising anywhere against the Spanish yoke;traditional jealousy of the heretics of Holland prevented the Flandersfrom declaring for France; it was necessary to undertake a conquestinstead of fomenting an insurrection. The Prince of Orange was advancingslowly into Germany; the Elector of Saxony had treated with the emperor, and several towns were accepting the peace concluded between them atPrague; Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, supported by Cardinal Valette, at thehead of French troops, had been forced to fall back to Metz in order toprotect Lothringen and Elsass. In order to attach this great general tohimself forever, the king had just ceded to Duke Bernard the landgravateof Elsass, hereditary possession, as it was, of the house of Austria. The Prince of Conde was attacking Franche-Comte; the siege of Dole wasdragging its slow length along, when the emperor's most celebratedlieutenants, John van Weert and Piccolomini, who had formed a junction inBelgium, all at once rallied the troops of Prince Thomas, and, advancingrapidly towards Picardy, invaded French soil at the commencement of July, 1636. La Capelle and Le Catelet were taken by assault, and theImperialists laid siege to Corbie, a little town on the Somme fourleagues from Amiens. Great was the terror at Paris, and, besides the terror, the rage; thecardinal was accused of having brought ruin upon France; for a moment theexcitement against him was so violent that his friends were disquieted byit: he alone was unmoved. The king quitted St. Germain and returned toParis, whilst Richelieu, alone, without escort, and with his horses at awalk, had himself driven to the Hotel de Ville right through the mob intheir fury. "Then was seen, " says Fontenay-Mareuil, "what can be done bya great heart (vertu), and how it is revered even of the basest souls, for the streets were so full of folks that there was hardly room to pass, and all so excited that they spoke of nothing but killing him: as soon asthey saw him approaching, they all held their peace or prayed God to givehim good speed, that he might be able to remedy the evil which wasapprehended. " On the 15th of August, Corbie surrendered to the Spaniards, who crossedthe Somme, wasting the country behind them; but already alarm had givenplace to ardent desire for vengeance; the cardinal had thought ofeverything and provided for everything: the bodies corporate, from theParliament to the trade-syndicates, had offered the king considerablesums; all the gentlemen and soldiers unemployed had been put on theactive list of the army; and the burgesses of Paris, mounting in throngsthe steps of the Hotel de Ville, went and shook hands with the veteranMarshal La Force, saying, "Marshal, we want to make war with you. " Theywere ordered to form the nucleus of the reserve army which was to protectParis. The Duke of Orleans took the command of the army assembled atCompiegne, at the head of which the Count of Soissons already was; thetwo princes advanced slowly; they halted two days to recover the littlefortress of Roze; the Imperialists fell back; they retired into Artois;they were not followed, and the French army encamped before Corbie. Winter was approaching; nobody dared to attack the town; the cardinal hadno confidence in either the Duke of Orleans or the Count of Soissons. Hewent to Amiens, whilst the king established his headquarters at thecastle of Demuin, closer to Corbie. Richelieu determined to attack thetown by assault; the trenches were opened on the 5th of November; on the10th the garrison parleyed; on the 14th the place was surrendered. "I amvery pleased to send you word that we have recovered Corbie, " wroteVoiture to one of his friends, very hostile to the cardinal [_OEuvres deVoiture, _ p. 175]: "the news will astonish you, no doubt, as well as allEurope; nevertheless, we are masters of it. Reflect, I beg you, what hasbeen the end of this expedition which has made so much noise. Spain andGermany had made for the purpose their supremest efforts. The emperorhad sent his best captains and his best cavalry. The army of Flandershad given its best troops. Out of that is formed an army of twenty-fivethousand horse, fifteen thousand foot, and forty cannon. This cloud, bigwith thunder and lightning, comes bursting over Picardy, which it findsunsheltered, our arms being occupied elsewhere. They take, first of all, La Capelle and Le Catelet; they attack, and in nine days take, Corbie;and so they are masters of the river; they cross it, and they lay wasteall that lies between the Somme and the Oise. And so long as there is noresistance, they valiantly hold the country, they slay our peasants andburn our villages; but, at the first rumor that reaches them to theeffect that Monsieur is advancing with an army, and that the king isfollowing close behind him, they intrench themselves behind Corbie; and, when they learn that there is no halting, and that the march against themis going on merrily, our conquerors abandon their intrenchments. Andthese determined gentry, who were to pierce France even to the Pyrenees, who threatened to pillage Paris, and recover there, even in Notre-Dame, the flags of the battle of Avein, permit us to effect the circumvallationof a place which is of so much importance to them, give us leisure toconstruct forts, and, after that, let us attack and take it by assaultbefore their very eyes. Such is the end of the bravadoes of Piccolomini, who sent us word by his trumpeters to say, at one time, that he wished wehad some powder, and, at another, that we had some cavalry coming, and, when we had both one and the other, he took very good care to wait forus. In such sort, sir, that, except La Capelle and Le Catelet, which areof no consideration, all the flash made by this grand and victorious armyhas been the capture of Corbie, only to give it up again and replace itin the king's hands, together with a counterscarp, three bastions, andthree demilunes, which it did not possess. If they had taken ten more ofour places with similar success, our frontier would be in all the bettercondition for it, and they would have fortified it better than those whohitherto have had the charge of it. . . . Was it not said that weshould expend before this place many millions of gold and many millionsof men with a chance of taking it, perhaps, in three years? Yet, whenthe resolution was taken to attack it by assault, the month of Novemberbeing well advanced, there was not a soul but cried out. The bestintentioned avowed that it showed blindness, and the rest said that wemust be afraid lest our soldiers should not die soon enough of misery andhunger, and must wish to drown them in their own trenches. As for me, though I knew the inconveniencies which necessarily attend siegesundertaken at this season, I suspended my judgment; for, sooth to say, wehave often seen the cardinal out in matters that he has had done byothers, but we have never yet seen him fail in enterprises that he hasbeen pleased to carry out in person and that he has supported by hispresence. I believed, then, that he would surmount all difficulties; andthat he who had taken La Rochelle in spite of Ocean, would certainly takeCorbie too in spite of Winter's rains. . . . You will tell me, thatit is luck which has made him take fortresses without ever havingconducted a siege before, which has made him, without any experience, command armies successfully, which has always led him, as it were, by thehand, and preserved him amidst precipices into which he had thrownhimself, and which, in fact, has often made him appear bold, wise, andfar-sighted: let us look at him, then, in misfortune, and see if he hadless boldness, wisdom, and far sightedness. Affairs were not going overwell in Italy, and we had met with scarcely more success before Dole. When it was known that the enemy had entered Picardy, that all is a-flameto the very banks of the Oise, everybody takes fright, and the chief cityof the realm is in consternation. On top of that come advices fromBurgundy that the siege of Dole is raised, and from Saintonge that thereare fifteen thousand peasants revolted, and that there is fear lestPoitou and Guienne may follow this example. Bad news comes thickly, thesky is overcast on all sides, the tempest beats upon us in alldirections, and from no quarter whatever does a single ray of goodfortune shine upon us. Amidst all this darkness, did the cardinal seeless clearly? Did he lose his head during all this tempest? Did he notstill hold the helm in one hand, and the compass in the other? Did hethrow himself into the boat to save his life? Nay, if the great ship hecommanded were to be lost, did he not show that he was ready to diebefore all the rest? Was it luck that drew him out of this labyrinth, or was it his own prudence, steadiness, and magnanimity? Our enemies arefifteen leagues from Paris, and his are inside it. Every day comeadvices that they are intriguing there to ruin him. France and Spain, so to speak, have conspired against him alone. What countenance was keptamidst all this by the man who they said would be dumbfounded at theleast ill-success, and who had caused Le Havre to be fortified in orderto throw himself into it at the first misfortune? He did not make asingle step backward all the same. He thought of the perils of thestate, and not of his own; and the only change observed in him allthrough was that, whereas he had not been wont to go out but with anescort of two hundred guards, he walked about, every day, attended bymerely five or six gentlemen. It must be owned that adversity borne withso good a grace and such force of character is worth more than a greatdeal of prosperity and victory. To me he did not seem so great and sovictorious on the day he entered La Rochelle as then; and the journeys hemade from his house to the arsenal seem to me more glorious for him thanthose which he made beyond the mountains, and from which he returned withthe triumphs of Pignerol and Suza. " This was Cardinal Richelieu's distinction, that all his contemporaries, in the same way as Voiture, identified the mishaps and the successes oftheir country with his own fortunes, and that upon him alone were fixedthe eyes of Europe, whether friendly or hostile, when it supported orwhen it fought against France. For four years the war was carried on with desperation by land and sea inthe Low Countries, in Germany, and in Italy, with alternations of successand reverse. The actors disappeared one after another from the scene;the emperor, Ferdinand II. , had died on the 15th of February, 1637;--theelection of his son, Ferdinand III. , had not been recognized by Franceand Sweden; Bernard of Saxe-Weimar succumbed, at thirty-four years ofage, on the 15th of July, 1639, after having beaten, in the precedingyear, the celebrated John van Weert, whom he sent a prisoner to Paris. At his death the landgravate of Elsass reverted to France, together withthe town of Brisach, which he had won from the Imperialists. The Duke of Savoy had died in 1637; his widow, Christine of France, daughter of Henry IV. , was, so far as her brother's cause in Italy wasconcerned, but a poor support; but Count d'Harcourt, having succeeded, ashead of the army, Cardinal Valette, who died in 1638, had retaken Turinand Casale from the Imperialists in the campaign of 1640; two yearslater, in the month of June, 1642, the Princes Thomas and Maurice, brothers-in-law of the Duchess Christine, wearied out by the maladdressand haughtiness of the Spaniards, attached themselves definitively to theinterests of France, drove out the Spanish garrisons from Nice and Ivrea, in concert with the Duke of Longueville, and retook the fortress ofTortona as well as all Milaness to the south of the Po. Perpignan, besieged for more than two years past by the king's armies, capitulatedat the same moment. Spain, hard pressed at home by the insurrection ofthe Catalans and the revolt of Portugal at the same time, both supportedby Richelieu, saw Arras fall into the hands of France (August 9, 1640), and the plot contrived with the Duke of Bouillon and the Count ofSoissons fail at the battle of La Marfee, where this latter prince waskilled on the 16th of July, 1641. In Germany, Marshal Guebriant and theSwedish general Torstenson, so paralyzed that he had himself carried in alitter to the head of his army, had just won back from the empireSilesia, Moravia, and nearly all Saxony; the chances of war wereeverywhere favorable to France, a just recompense for the indomitableperseverance of Cardinal Richelieu through good and evil fortune. "Thegreat tree of the house of Austria was shaken to its very roots, and hehad all but felled that trunk which with its two branches covers theNorth and the West, and throws a shadow over the rest of the earth. "[_Lettres de Malherbe, _ t. Iv. ] The king, for a moment shaken in hisfidelity towards his minister by the intrigues of Cinq-Mars, had returnedto the cardinal with all the impetus of the indignation caused by theguilty treaty made by his favorite with Spain. All Europe thought as theyoung captain in the guards, afterwards Marshal Fabert, who, when theking said to him, "I know that my army is divided into two factions, royalists and cardinalists; which are you for?" answered, "Cardinalists, sir, for the cardinal's party is yours. " The cardinal and France weretriumphing together, but the conqueror was dying; Cardinal Richelieu hadjust been removed from Ruel to Paris. For several months past, the cardinal's health, always precarious, hadtaken a serious turn; it was from his sick-bed that he, a prey to cruelagonies, directed the movements of the army, and, at the same time, theprosecution of Cinq-Mars. All at once his chest was attacked; and thecardinal felt that he was dying. On the 2d of December, 1642, publicprayers were ordered in all the churches; the king went from St. Germainto see his minister. The cardinal was quite prepared. "I have thissatisfaction, " he said, "that I have never deserted the king, and that Ileave his kingdom exalted, and all his enemies abased. " He commended hisrelatives to his Majesty, "who on their behalf will remember myservices;" then, naming the two secretaries of state, Chavigny and DeNoyers, he added, "Your Majesty has Cardinal Mazarin; I believe him to becapable of serving the king. " And he handed to Louis XIII. Aproclamation which he had just prepared for the purpose of excludingthe Duke of Orleans from any right to the regency in case of the king'sdeath. The preamble called to mind that the king had five times alreadypardoned his brother, recently engaged in a new plot against him. The king had left the cardinal, but without returning to St. Germain. Heremained at the Louvre. Richelieu had in vain questioned the physiciansas to how long he had to live. One, only, dared to go beyond commonplacehopes. "Monsignor, " he said, "in twenty-four hours you will be dead orcured. " "That is the way to speak!" said the cardinal; and he sent forthe priest of St. Eustache, his parish. As they were bringing into hischamber the Holy Eucharist, he stretched out his hand, and, "There, " saidhe, "is my Judge before whom I shall soon appear; I pray him with all myheart to condemn me if I have ever had any other aim than the welfare ofreligion and of the state. " The priest would have omitted certaincustomary questions, but, "Treat me as the commonest of Christians, " saidthe cardinal. And when he was asked to pardon his enemies, "I never hadany but those of the state, " answered the dying man. The cardinal's family surrounded his bed; and the attendance wasnumerous. The Bishop of Lisieux, Cospdan, a man of small wits, but ofsincere devoutness, listened attentively to the firm speech, the calmdeclarations, of the expiring minister. "So much self-confidence appallsme, " he said below his breath. Richelieu died as he had lived, withoutscruples and without delicacies of conscience, absorbed by his great aim, and but little concerned about the means he had employed to arrive at it. "I believe, absolutely, all the truths taught by the church, " he had saidto his confessor, and this faith sufficed for his repose. The memory ofthe scaffolds he had caused to be erected did not so much as recur to hismind. "I have loved justice, and not vengeance. I have been severetowards some in order to be kind towards all, " he had said in his will, written in Latin. He thought just the same on his death-bed. The king left him, not without emotion and regret. The cardinal beggedMadame d'Aiguillon, his niece, to withdraw. "She is the one whom I haveloved most, " he said. Those around him were convulsed with weeping. ACarmelite whom he had sent for turned to those present, and, "Let those, "he said, "who cannot refrain from showing the excess of their weeping andtheir lamentation leave the room; let us pray for this soul. " Inpresence of the majesty of death and eternity human grandeur disappearsirrevocably; the all-powerful minister was at that moment only this soul. A last gasp announced his departure; Cardinal Richelieu was dead. He was dead, but his work survived him. On the very evening of the 3d ofDecember, Louis XIII. Called to his council Cardinal Mazarin; and nextday he wrote to the Parliaments and governors of provinces, "God havingbeen pleased to take to himself the Cardinal de Richelieu, I haveresolved to preserve and keep up all establishments ordained during hisministry, to follow out all projects arranged with him for affairs abroadand at home, in such sort that there shall not be any change. I havecontinued in my councils the same persons as served me then, and I havecalled thereto Cardinal Mazarin, of whose capacity and devotion to myservice I have had proof, and of whom I feel no less sure than if he hadbeen born amongst my subjects. " Scarcely had the most powerful kingsyielded up their last breath, when their wishes had been at onceforgotten: Cardinal Richelieu still governed in his grave. [Illustration: The Palais-Cardinal----305] The king had distributed amongst his minister's relatives the offices anddignities which he had left vacant; the fortune that came to them wasenormous; the legacies left to mere domestics amounted to more than threehundred thousand-livres. During his lifetime Richelieu had given to thecrown "my grand hotel, which I built, and called Palais-de-Cardinal, mychapel (or chapel-service) of gold, enriched with diamonds, my grandbuffet of chased silver, and a large diamond that I bought of Lopez. " Inhis will he adds, "I most humbly beseech his Majesty to think proper tohave placed in his hands, out of the coined gold and silver that I haveat my decease, the sum of fifteen hundred thousand livres, of which sumI can truly say that I made very good use for the great affairs of hiskingdom, in such sort, that if I had not had this money at my disposal, certain matters which have turned out well would have, to allappearances, turned out ill; which gives me ground for daring to beseechhis Majesty to destine this sum, that I leave him, to be employed ondivers occasions which cannot abide the tardiness of financial forms. " The minister and priest who had destroyed the power of the grandees inFrance had, nevertheless, the true instinct respecting the perpetuationof families. "Inasmuch as it hath pleased God, " he says in his will, "to bless my labors, and make them considered by the king, my kindmaster, showing recognition of them by his royal munificence, beyond whatI could hope for, I have esteemed it a duty to bind my heirs to preservethe estate in my family, in such sort that it may maintain itself for along while in the dignity and splendor which it hath pleased the king toconfer upon it, in order that posterity may know that, as I served himfaithfully, he, by virtue of a complete kingliness, knew what love toshow me, and how to load me with his benefits. " The cardinal had taken pleasure in embellishing the estate of Richelieu, in Touraine, where he was born, and which the king had raised to aduchy-peerage. Mdlle. De Montpensier, in her _Memoires, _ gives anaccount of a visit she paid to it in her youth. "I passed, " she says, "along a very fine street of the town, all the houses of which are in thebest style of building, one like another, and quite newly made, which isnot to be wondered at. MM. De Richelieu, though gentlemen of goodstanding, had never built a town; they had been content with theirvillage and with a mediocre house. At the present time it is the mostbeautiful and most magnificent castle you could possibly see, and all theornament that could be given to a house is found there. This will not bedifficult to believe if one considers that it is the work of the mostambitious and most ostentatious man in the world, premier minister ofstate too, who for a long while possessed absolute authority overaffairs. It is, nevertheless, inconceivable that the apartments shouldcorrespond so ill in size with the beauty of the outside. I hear thatthis arose from the fact that the cardinal wished to have the chamberpreserved in which he was born. To adjust the house of a simplegentleman to the grand ideas of the most powerful favorite there has everbeen in France, you will observe that the architect must have beenhampered; accordingly he did not see his way to planning any but verysmall quarters, which, by way of recompense, as regards gilding orpainting, lack no embellishment inside. "Amidst all that modern invention has employed to embellish it, there areto be seen, on the chimney-piece in a drawingroom, the arms of CardinalRichelieu, just as they were during the lifetime of his father, which thecardinal desired to leave there, because they comprise a collar of theHoly Ghost, in order to prove to those who are wont to misrepresent theorigin of favorites that he was born a gentleman of a good house. Inthis point, he imposed upon nobody. " The castle of Richelieu is well nigh destroyed; his family, after fallinginto poverty, is extinct; the Palais-Cardinal has assumed the name ofPalais-Royal; and pure monarchy, the aim of all his efforts and the workof his whole life, has been swept away by the blast of revolution. Ofthe cardinal there remains nothing but the great memory of his power andof the services he rendered his country. Evil has been spoken, with goodreason, of glory; it lasts, however, more durably than material successeseven when they rest on the best security. Richelieu had no conception ofthat noblest ambition on which a human soul can feed, that of governing afree country, but he was one of the greatest, the most effective, and theboldest, as well as the most prudent servants that France ever had. Cardinal Richelieu gave his age, whether admirers or adversaries, theidea which Malherbe expressed in a letter to one of his friends: "Youknow that my humor is neither to flatter nor to lie; but I swear to youthat there is in this man a something which surpasses humanity, and thatif our bark is ever to outride the tempests, it will be whilst thisglorious hand holds the rudder. Other pilots diminish my fear, this onemakes me unconscious of it. Hitherto, when we had to build anew orrepair some ruin, plaster alone was put in requisition. Now we seenothing but marble used; and, whilst the counsels are judicious andfaithful, the execution is diligent and magnanimous. Wits, judgment, andcourage never existed in any man to the degree that they do in him. Asfor interest, he knows none but that of the public. To that he clingswith a passion so unbridled, if I may dare so to speak, that the visibleinjury it does his constitution is not capable of detaching him from it. Sees he anything useful to the king's service, he goes at it withoutlooking to one side or the other. Obstacles tempt him, resistance piqueshim, and nothing that is put in his way diverts him; the disregard heshows of self, and of all that touches himself, as if he knew no sort ofhealth or disease but the health or disease of the state, causes all goodmen to fear that his life will not be long enough for him to see thefruit of what he plants; and moreover, it is quite evident that what heleaves undone can never be completed by any man that holds his place. Why, man, he does a thing because it has to be done! The space betweenthe Rhine and the Pyrenees seems to him not field enough for the liliesof France. He would have them occupy the two shores of theMediterranean, and waft their odors thence to the extremest countries ofthe Orient. Measure by the extent of his designs the extent of hiscourage. " [Letters to Racan and to M. De Mentin. _OEuvres de Malherbe, _t. Iv. ] [Illustration: The Tomb of Richelieu----308] The cardinal had been barely four months reposing in that chapel of theSorbonne which he had himself repaired for the purpose, and already KingLouis XIII. Was sinking into the tomb. The minister had died atfifty-seven, the king was not yet forty-two; but his always languishinghealth seemed unable to bear the burden of affairs which had been butlately borne by Richelieu alone. The king had permitted his brother toappear again at court. "Monsieur supped with me, " says Mdlle. DeMontpensier, "and we had the twenty-four violins; he was as gay as ifMM. Cinq-Mars and De Thou had not tarried by the way. I confess that Icould not see him without thinking of them, and that in my joy I feltthat his gave me a pang. " The prisoners and exiles, by degrees, received their pardon; the Duke of Vendome, Bassompierre, and MarshalVitry had been empowered to return to their castles, the Duchess ofChevreuse and the ex-keeper of the seals, Chateauneuf, were aloneexcepted from this favor. "After the peace, " said the declarationtouching the regency, which the king got enregistered by the Parliamenton the 23d of April. The little dauphin, who had merely been sprinkled, had just received baptism in the chapel of the Castle of St. Germain. The king asked him, next day, if he knew what his name was. "My name isLouis XIV. , " answered the child. "Not yet, my son, not yet, " said theking, softly. Louis XIII. Did not cling to life: it had been sad and burdensome to himby the mere fact of his own melancholy and singular character, not thatGod had denied him prosperity or success. He had the windows opened ofhis chamber in the new castle of St. Germain looking towards the Abbey ofSt. Denis, where he had, at last, just laid the body of the queen hismother, hitherto resting at Cologne. "Let me see my last resting-place, "he said to his servants. The crowd of courtiers thronged to the oldcastle, inhabited by the queen; visits were made to the new castle to seethe king, who still worked with his ministers; when he was alone, "he wasseen nearly always with his eyes open towards heaven, as if he talkedwith God heart to heart. " [_Memoires sur la Mort de Louis XIII. , _ by hisvalet-de-chambre Dubois; _Archives curieuses, _ t. V. P. 428. ] On the23d of April, it was believed that the last moment had arrived: the kingreceived extreme unction; a dispute arose about the government ofBrittany, given by the king to the Duke of La Meilleraye and claimed bythe Duke of Vendome; the two claimants summoned their friends; the queentook fright, and, being obliged to repair to the king, committed theimprudence of confiding her children to the Duke of Beaufort, Vendome'seldest son, a young scatter-brain who made a great noise about thisfavor. The king rallied and appeared to regain strength. He wassometimes irritated at sight of the courtiers who filled his chamber. "Those gentry, " he said to his most confidential servants, "come to seehow soon I shall die. If I recover, I will make them pay dearly fortheir desire to have me die. " The austere nature of Louis XIII. Wasawakened again with the transitory return of his powers; the severitiesof his reign were his own as much as Cardinal Richelieu's. He was, nevertheless, dying, asking God for deliverance. It wasThursday, May 14. "Friday has always been my lucky day, " said LouisXIII. : "on that day I have undertaken assaults that I have carried; Ihave even gained battles: I should have liked to die on a Friday. " Hisdoctors told him that they could find no more pulse; he raised his eyesto heaven and said out loud, "My God, receive me to mercy!" andaddressing himself to all, he added, "Let us pray!" Then, fixing hiseyes upon the Bishop of Meaux, he said, "You will, of course, see whenthe time comes for reading the agony prayers; I have marked them all. "Everybody was praying and weeping; the queen and all the court werekneeling in the king's chamber. At three o'clock, he softly breathed hislast, on the sane day and almost at the same moment at which his fatherhad died beneath the dagger of Ravaillac, thirty-three years before. France owed to Louis XIII. Eighteen years of Cardinal Richelieu'sgovernment; and that is a service which she can never forget. "Theminister made his sovereign play the second part in the monarchy and thefirst in Europe, " said Montesquieu: "he abased the king, but he exaltedthe reign. " It is to the honor of Louis XIII. That he understood andaccepted the position designed for him by Providence in the government ofhis kingdom, and that he upheld with dogged fidelity a power which oftengalled him all the while that it was serving him. CHAPTER XIII. ----LOUIS XIII. , RICHELIEU, AND LITERATURE. Cardinal Richelieu was dead, and "his works followed him, " to use thewords of Holy Writ. At home and abroad, in France and in Europe, he hadto a great extent continued the reign of Henry IV. , and had completelycleared the way for that of Louis XIV. "Such was the strength andsuperiority of his genius that he knew all the depths and all themysteries of government, " said La Bruyere in his admission-speech beforethe French Academy; "he was regardful of foreign countries, he kept inhand crowned heads, he knew what weight to attach to their alliance;with allies he hedged himself against the enemy. . . . And, can youbelieve it, gentlemen? this practical and austere soul, formidable to theenemies of the state, inexorable to the factious, overwhelmed innegotiations, occupied at one time in weakening the party of heresy, atanother in breaking up a league, and at another in meditating a conquest, found time for literary culture, and was fond of literature and of thosewho made it their profession!" From inclination and from personalinterest therein this indefatigable and powerful mind had courtedliterature; he had foreseen its nascent power; he had divined in theliterary circle he got about him a means of acting upon the whole nation;he had no idea of neglecting them; he did not attempt to subjugate themopenly; he brought them near to him and protected them. It is one ofRichelieu's triumphs to have founded the French Academy. We must turn back for a moment and cast a glance at the intellectualcondition which prevailed at the issue of the Renaissance and theReformation. For sixty years a momentous crisis had been exercising language andliterature as well as society in France. They yearned to get out of it. Robust intellectual culture had, ceased to be the privilege of theerudite only; it began to gain a footing on the common domain; people nolonger wrote in Latin, like Erasmus; the Reformation and the Renaissancespoke French. In order to suffice for this change, the language wastaking form; everybody had lent a hand to the work; Calvin with hisChristian Institutes (_Institution Chretienne_) at the same time asRabelais with his learned and buffoonish romance, Ramus with hisDialectics, and Bodin with his Republic, Henry Estienne with his essaysin French philology, as well as Ronsard and his friends by theirclassical crusade. Simultaneously with the language there was beingcreated a public intelligent, inquiring, and eager. Scarcely had thetranslation of Plutarch by Amyot appeared, when it at once became, asMontaigne says, "the breviary of women and of ignoramuses. " "God's life, my love, " wrote Henry IV. To Mary de' Medici, "you could not have sent meany more agreeable news than of the pleasure you have taken in reading. Plutarch has a smile for me of never-failing freshness; to love him is tolove me, for he was during a long while the instructor of my tender age;my good mother, to whom I owe everything, and who set so great store onmy good deportment, and did not want me to be (that is what she used tosay) an illustrious ignoramus, put that book into my hands, though I wasthen little more than a child at the breast. It has been like myconscience to me, and has whispered into my ear many good hints andexcellent maxims for my behavior and for the government of my affairs. " Thanks to Amyot, Plutarch "had become a Frenchman:" Montaigne would nothave been able to read him easily in Greek. Indifferent to theReformation, which was too severe and too affirmative for him, Montaigne, "to whom Latin had been presented as his mother-tongue, rejoiced in theRenaissance without becoming a slave to it, or intoxicated with it likeRabelais or Ronsard. "The ideas I had naturally formed for myself aboutman, " he says, "I confirmed and fortified by the authority of others andby the sound examples of the ancients, with whom I found my judgment inconformity. " Born in 1533, at the castle of Montaigne in Perigord, andcarefully brought up by "the good father God had given him, " Michael deMontaigne was, in his childhood, "so heavy, lazy, and sleepy, that hecould not be roused from sloth, even for the sake of play. " He passedseveral years in the Parliament of Bordeaux, but "he had never taken aliking to jurisprudence, though his father had steeped him in it, whenquite a child, to his very lips, and he was always asking himself whycommon language, so easy for every other purpose, becomes obscure andunintelligible in a contract or will, which made him fancy that the menof law had muddled everything in order to render themselves necessary. "He had lost the only man he had ever really loved, Stephen de la Boetie, an amiable and noble philosopher, counsellor in the Parliament ofBordeaux. "If I am pressed to declare why I loved him, " Montaigne usedto say, "I feel that it can only be expressed by answering, because hewas he, and I was I. " Montaigne gave up the Parliament, and travelled inSwitzerland and Italy, often stopping at Paris, and gladly returning tohis castle of Montaigne, where he wrote down what he had seen; "hungeringfor self-knowledge, " inquiring, indolent, without ardor for work, anenemy of all constraint, he was at the same time frank and subtle, gentle, humane, and moderate. As an inquiring spectator, withoutpersonal ambition, he had taken for his life's motto, "Who knows? (Quesais-je?)" Amidst the wars of religion he remained without political orreligious passion. "I am disgusted by novelty, whatever aspect it mayassume, and with good reason, " he would say, "for I have seen some verydisastrous effects of it. " Outside as well as within himself, Montaignestudied mankind without regard to order and without premeditated plan. "I have no drill-sergeant to arrange my pieces (of writing) savehap-hazard only, " he writes; "just as my ideas present themselves, I heapthem together; sometimes they come rushing in a throng, sometimes theystraggle single file. I like to be seen at my natural and ordinary pace, all a-hobble though it be; I let myself go, just as it happens. Theparlance I like is a simple and natural parlance, the same on paper as inthe mouth, a succulent and a nervous parlance, short and compact, not somuch refined and finished to a hair as impetuous and brusque, difficultrather than wearisome, devoid of affectation, irregular, disconnected, and bold, not pedant-like, not preacher-like, not pleader-like. " Thatfixity which Montaigne could not give to his irresolute and doubtful mindhe stamped upon the tongue; it came out in his Essays supple, free, andbold; he had made the first decisive step towards the formation of thelanguage, pending the advent of Descartes and the great literature ofFrance. The sixteenth century began everything, attempted everything; itaccomplished and finished nothing; its great men opened the road of thefuture to France; but they died without having brought their work wellthrough, without foreseeing that it was going to be completed. TheReformation itself did not escape this misappreciation and discouragementof its age; and nowhere do they crop out in a more striking manner thanin Montaigne. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Rabelais is asatirist and a cynic, he is no sceptic; there is felt circulating throughhis book a glowing sap of confidence and hope; fifty years later, Montaigne, on the contrary, expresses, in spite of his happy nature, in vivid, picturesque, exuberant language, only the lassitude of anantiquated age. Henry IV. Was still disputing his throne with the Leagueand Spain. Several times, amidst his embarrassments and his wars, theking had manifested his desire to see Montaigne; but the latter was ill, and felt "death nipping him continually in the throat or the reins. " Andhe died, in fact, at his own house, on the 13th of September, 1592, without having had the good fortune to see Henry IV. In peaceablepossession of the kingdom which was destined to receive from him, together with stability and peace, a return of generous hope. All thewriters of mark in the reign of Henry IV. Bear the same imprint; they allyearn to get free from the chaos of those ideas and sentiments which thesixteenth century left still bubbling up. In literature as well as inthe state, one and the same need of discipline and unity, one universalthirst for order and peace was bringing together all the intellects andall the forces which were but lately clashing against and hampering oneanother; in literature, as well as in the state, the impulse, everywheregreat and effective, proceeded from the king, without pressure or effort. "Make known to Monsieur de Geneve, " said Henry IV. To one of the friendsof St. Francis de Sales, "that I desire of him a work to serve as amanual for all persons of the court and the great world, withoutexcepting kings and princes, to fit them for living Christianly eachaccording to their condition. I want this manual to be accurate, judicious, and such as any one can make use of. " St. Francis de Salespublished, in 1608, the _Introduction to a Devout Life, _ a delightful andcharming manual of devotion, more stern and firm in spirit than in form, a true Christian regimen softened by the tact of a delicate and acuteintellect, knowing the world and its ways. "The book has surpassed myhope, " said Henry IV. The style is as supple, the fancy as rich, asMontaigne's; but scepticism has given place to Christianism; St. Francisde Sales does not doubt, he believes; ingenious and moderate withal, heescapes out of the controversies of the violent and the incertitudes ofthe sceptics. The step is firm, the march is onward towards theseventeenth century, towards the reign of order, rule, and method. The vigorous language and the beautiful arrangement in the style of themagistrates had already prepared the way for its advent. Descartes wasthe first master of it and its great exponent. [Illustration: Descartes at Amsterdam----316] Never was any mind more independent in voluntary submission to aninexorable logic. Rene Descartes, who was born at La Haye, near Tours, in 1596, and died at Stockholm in 1650, escaped the influence ofRichelieu by the isolation to which he condemned himself, as well as bythe proud and somewhat uncouth independence of his character. Engagingas a volunteer, at one and twenty, in the Dutch army, he marched overGermany in the service of several princes, returned to France, where hesold his property, travelled through the whole of Italy, and ended, in1629, by settling himself in Holland, seeking everywhere solitude androom for his thoughts. "In this great city of Amsterdam, where I amnow, " he wrote to Balzac, "and where there is not a soul, except myself, that does not follow some commercial pursuit, everybody is so attentiveto his gains, that I might live there all my life without being noticedby anybody. I go walking every day amidst the confusion of agreat people with as much freedom and quiet as you could do in yourforest-alleys, and I pay no more attention to the people who pass beforemy eyes than I should do to the trees that are in your forests and to theanimals that feed there. Even the noise of traffic does not interrupt myreveries any more than would that of some rivulet. " Having devotedhimself for a long time past to the study of geometry and astronomy, hecomposed in Holland his Treatise on the World (_Traite du Monde_). "Ihad intended to send you my _World_ for your New Year's gift, " he wroteto the learned Minime, Father Mersenne, who was his best friend; "but Imust tell you that, having had inquiries made, lately, at Leyden and atAmsterdam, whether Galileo's system of the world was to be obtainedthere, word was sent me that all the copies of it had been burned atRome, and the author condemned to some fine, which astounded me somightily that I almost resolved to burn all my papers, or at least notlet them be seen by anybody. I confess that if the notion of the earth'smotion is false, all the foundations of my philosophy are too, since itis clearly demonstrated by them. It is so connected with all parts of mytreatise that I could not detach it without rendering the remainderwholly defective. But as I would not, for anything in the world, thatthere should proceed from me a discourse in which there was to be foundthe least word which might be disapproved of by the church, so would Irather suppress it altogether than let it appear mutilated. " Descartes' independence of thought did not tend to revolt, as he hadproved: in publishing his _Discourse on Method_ he halted at thethreshold of Christianism without laying his hand upon the sanctuary. Making a clean sweep of all he had learned, and tearing himself free, by a supreme effort, from the whole tradition of humanity, he resolved"never to accept anything as true until he recognized it to be clearlyso, and not to comprise amongst his opinions anything but what presenteditself so clearly and distinctly to his mind that he could have nooccasion to hold it in doubt. " In this absolute isolation of his mind, without past and without future, Descartes, first of all assured of hisown personal existence by that famous axiom, "Cogito, ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am), drew from it, as a necessary consequence, the fact ofthe separate existence of soul and of body; passing oft by a sort ofinternal revelation which he called innate ideas, he came to the pinnacleof his edifice, concluding for the existence of a God from the notion ofthe infinite impressed on the human soul. A laborious reconstruction ofa primitive and simple truth which the philosopher could not, for asingle moment, have banished from his mind all the while that he waslaboring painfully to demonstrate it. By a tacit avowal of the weakness of the human mind, the speculations ofDescartes stopped short at death. He had hopes, however, of retardingthe moment of it. "I felt myself alive, " he said, at forty years of age, "and, examining myself with as much care as if I were a rich old man, Ifancied I was even farther from death than I had been in my youth. " Hehad yielded to the entreaties of Queen Christina of Sweden, who hadpromised him an observatory, like that of Tycho Brahe. He was delicate, and accustomed to follow a regimen adapted to his studies. "O flesh!"he wrote to Gassendi, whose philosophy contradicted his own: "O idea!"answered Gassendi. The climate of Stockholm was severe; Descartes caughtinflammation of the lungs; he insisted upon doctoring himself, and diedon the 11th of February, 1650. "He didn't want to resist death, " saidhis friends, not admitting that their master's will could be vanquishedby death itself. His influence remained for a long while supreme overhis age. Bossuet and Fenelon were Cartesians. "I think, therefore Iam, " wrote Madame de Sevigne to her daughter. "I think of you tenderly, therefore I love you; I think only of you in that manner, therefore Ilove you only. " Pascal alone, though adopting to a certain extentDescartes' form of reasoning, foresaw the excess to which other mindsless upright and less firm would push the system of the greatphilosopher. "I cannot forgive Descartes, " he said; "he would haveliked, throughout his philosophy, to be able to do without God, but hecould not help making Him give just a flick to set the world in motion;after that he didn't know what to do with God. " A severe, but a truesaying; Descartes had required everything of pure reason; he had felt aforeshadowing of the infinite and the unknown without daring to ventureinto them. In the name of reason, others have denied the infinite andthe unknown. Pascal was wiser and bolder when, with St. Augustine, hefound in reason itself a step towards faith. "Reason would never give inif she were not of opinion that there are occasions when she ought togive in. " By his philosophical method, powerful and logical, as well as by theclear, strong, and concise style he made use of to expound it, Descartesaccomplished the transition from the sixteenth century to the seventeeth;he was the first of the great prose-writers of that incomparable epoch, which laid forever the foundations of the language. At the same momentthe great Corneille was rendering poetry the same service. It had come out of the sixteenth century more disturbed and less formedthan prose; Ronsard and his friends had received it from the hands ofMarot, quite young, unsophisticated and undecided; they attempted, at thefirst effort, to raise it to the level of the great classic models ofwhich their minds were full. The attempt was bold, and the Pleiad didnot pretend to consult the taste of the vulgar. "The obscurity ofRonsard, " says M. Guizot, in his _Corneille et son Temps, _ "is not thatof a subtle mind torturing itself to make something out of nothing; it isthe obscurity of a full and a powerful mind, which is embarrassed by itsown riches, and has not learned to regulate the use of them. Furnished, by his reading of the ancients, with that which was wanting in ourpoetry, Ronsard thought he could perceive in his lofty and reallypoetical imagination what was needed to supply it; he cast his eyes inall directions, with the view of enriching the domain of poetry. 'Thou wilt do well to pick dexterously, ' he says, in his abridgment ofthe art of French poetry, 'and adopt to thy work the most expressivewords in the dialects of our own France; there is no need to care whetherthe vocables are Gascon, or Poitevin, or Norman, or Mancese, or Lyonnese, or of other districts, provided that they are good, and properly expresswhat thou wouldst say. ' Ronsard was too bold in extending his conquestsover the classical languages; it was that exuberance of ideas, thateffervescence of a genius not sufficiently master over its conceptions, which brought down upon him, in after times, the contempt of the writerswho, in the seventeenth century, followed, with more wisdom and taste, the road which he had contributed to open. 'He is not, ' said Balzac, 'quite a poet; he has the first beginnings and the making of a poet; wesee in his works nascent and half-animated portions of a body which is information, but which does not care to arrive at completion. ' " This body is that of French poetry; Ronsard traced out its firstlineaments, full of elevation, play of fancy, images, and a poetic fireunknown before him. He was the first to comprehend the dignity whichbefits grand subjects, and which earned him in his day the title ofPrince of poets. He lived in stormy times, not much adapted for poetry, and steeped in the most cruel tragedies; he felt deeply the misfortunesof his country rent by civil war, when he wrote, -- "A cry of dread, a din, a thundering sound Of men and clashing harness roars around; Peoples 'gainst peoples furiously rage; Cities with cities deadly battle wage; Temples and towns--one heap of ashes lie; Justice and equity fade out and die Unchecked the soldier's wicked will is done With human blood the outraged churches run; Bedridden Age, disbedded, perisheth, And over all grins the pale face of Death. " There was something pregnant, noble, and brilliant about Ronsard, inspite of his exaggerations of style and faults of taste; his friends anddisciples imitated and carried to an extreme his defects, withoutpossessing his talent; the unruliness was such as to call for reform. Peace revived with Henry IV. , and the court, henceforth in accord withthe nation, resumed that empire over taste, manners, and ideas, which itwas destined to exercise so long and so supremely under Louis XIV. Malherbe became the poet of the court, whose business it was to pleaseit, to adopt for it that literature which had but lately been reservedfor the feasts of the learned. "He used often to say, and chiefly whenhe was reproached with not following the meaning of the authors hetranslated or paraphrased, that he did not dress his meat for cooks, asif he had meant to infer that he cared very little to be praised by theliterary folks who understood the books he had translated, provided thathe was understood by the court-folks. " A complete revolution in theopposite direction to that which Ronsard attempted appeared to have takenplace, but the human mind never loses all the ground it has once won; inthe verses of Malherbe, often bearing the imprint of beauties borrowedfrom the ancients, the language preserved, in consequence of thecharacter given to it by Ronsard, a dignity, a richness of style, ofwhich the times of Marot showed no conception; and it was falling, moreover, under the chastening influence of an elegant correctness. Itwas for the court that Malherbe made verses, "striving, as he said, todegasconnize it, " seeking there his public and the source of honor aswell as profit. As passionate an admirer of Richelieu as of Henry IV. , naturally devoted to the service of the order established in the state aswell as in poetry, he, under the regency of Mary de' Medici, favored thetaste which was beginning to show itself for intellectual things, forrefined pleasures, and elegant occupations. It was not around the queenthat this honorable and agreeable society gathered; it was at the HotelRambouillet, around Catherine de Vivonne, in Rue St. Thomas du Louvre. Literature was there represented by Malherbe and Racan, afterwards byBalzac and Voiture, Gombault and Chapelain, who constantly met there, incompany with Princess de Conde and her daughter, subsequently Duchess deLongueville, Mademoiselle du Vigean, Madame and Mdlle. D'Epernon, and theBishop of Lucon himself, quite young as yet, but already famous. "Allthe wits were received at the Hotel Rambouillet, whatever theircondition, " says M. Cousin: "all that was asked of them was to have goodmanners; but the aristocratic tone was established there without anyeffort, the majority of the guests at the house being very great lords, and the mistress being at one and the same time Rambouillet and Vivonne. The wits were courted and honored, but they did not hold the dominion. "At that great period which witnessed the growth of Richelieu's power, andof the action he universally exercised upon French society, at theoutcome from the moral licentiousness which Henry IV. 's example hadencouraged in his court, and after a certain roughness, the fruit of longcivil wars, a lesson was taught at Madame de Rambouillet's of modesty, grace, and lofty politeness, together with the art of forming good ideasand giving them good expression, sometimes with rather too much offar-fetched and affected cleverness, always in good company, and withmuch sweetness and self-possession on the part of the mistress of thehouse. In 1627, Cardinal Richelieu, having become minister, sent theMarquis of Rambouillet as ambassador to Spain. He wanted to be repaidfor this favor. One of his friends went to call upon Madame deRambouillet. At the first hint of what was expected from her, "I do notbelieve that there are any intrigues between Cardinal Valette and theprincess, " said she, "and, even if there were, I should not be the properperson for the office it is intended to put upon me. Besides, everybodyis so convinced of the consideration and friendship I have for hisEminence that nobody would dare to speak ill of him in my presence; Icannot, therefore, ever have an opportunity of rendering him the servicesyou ask of me. " The cardinal did not persist, and remained well disposed towards HotelRambouillet. Completely occupied in laying solidly the foundations ofhis power, in checkmating and punishing conspiracies at court, and inbreaking down the party of the Huguenots, he had no leisure just yet tothink of literature and the literary. He had, nevertheless, in 1626, begun removing the ruins of the Sorbonne, with a view of reconstructingthe buildings on a new plan and at his own expense. He wrote, in 1627, to M. Saintot, "I thank him for the care he has taken of the Sorbonne, begging him to continue it, assuring him that, though I have manyexpenses on my hands, I am as desirous of continuing to build up thathouse as of contributing, to the best of my little ability, to pull downthe fortifications of La Rochelle. " The works were not completelyfinished at the death of the cardinal, who provided therefor by his will. [Illustration: The King's Press----323] At the same time that he was repairing and enriching the Sorbonne, thecardinal was helping Guy de la Brosse, the king's physician, to createthe Botanic Gardens (_Le Jardin des Plantes_), he was defending theindependence of the College of France against the pretensions of theUniversity of Paris, and gave it for its Grand Almoner his brother, theArchbishop of Lyons. He was preparing the foundation of the King's Press(_Imprimerie royale_), definitively created in 1640; and he gave theAcademy or King's College (college royal) of his town of Richelieu aregulation-code of studies which bears the imprint of his lofty andstrong mind. He prescribed a deep study of the French tongue. "It oftenhappens, unfortunately, that the difficulties which must be surmountedand the long time which is employed in learning the dead languages, before any knowledge of the sciences can be arrived at, have the effect, at the outset, of making young gentlemen disgusted and hasten to betakethemselves to the exercise of arms without having been sufficientlyinstructed in good literature, though it is the fairest ornament of theirprofession. . . . It has, therefore, been thought necessary toestablish a royal academy at which discipline suitable to their conditionmay be taught them in the French tongue, in order that they may exercisethemselves therein, and that even foreigners, who are curious about it, may learn to know its riches and the graces it hath in unfolding thesecrets of the highest discipline. " Herein is revealed the founder ofthe French Academy, skilful as he was in divining the wants of his day, and always ready to profit by new means of action, and to make them hisown whilst doing them service. Associations of the literary were not unknown in France; Ronsard and hisfriends, at first under the name of the brigade and then under that ofthe Pleiad, often met to read together their joint productions, and todiscuss literary questions; and the same thing was done, subsequently, inMalherbe's rooms. "Now let us speak at our ease, " Balzac would say, when the sitting wasover, "and without fear of committing solecisms. " When Malherbe was dead and Balzac had retired to his country house on theborders of the Charente, some friends, "men of letters and of merits verymuch above the average, " says Pellisson in his _Histoire de l'AcademieFrancaise, _ "finding that nothing was more inconvenient in this greatcity than to go often and often to call upon one another without findinganybody at home, resolved to meet one day in the week at the house of oneof them. They used to assemble at M. Conrart's, who happened to be mostconveniently quartered for receiving them, and in the very heart of thecity (Rue St. Martin). There they conversed familiarly as they wouldhave on an ordinary visit, and upon all sorts of things, business, news, and literature. If any one of the company had a work done, as, oftenhappened, he readily communicated its contents to all the others, whofreely gave him their opinion of it, and their conferences were followedsometimes by a walk and sometimes by a collation which they tooktogether. Thus they continued for three or four years, as I have heardmany amongst them say; it was an extreme pleasure and an incredible gain, insomuch that, when they speak nowadays of that time and of those earlydays of the Academy, they speak of it as a golden age during the which, without bustle and without show, and without any other laws but those offriendship, they enjoyed all that is sweetest and most charming in theintercourse of intellects and in rational life. " Even after the intervention and regulationizing of Cardinal Richelieu, the French Academy still preserved something of that sweetness and thatpolished familiarity in their relations which caused the regrets of itsearliest founders. [They were MM. Godeau, afterwards Bishop of Grasse, Conrart and Gombault who were Huguenots, Chapelain, Giry, Habert, Abbe deCerisy, his brother, M. De Serizay and M. De Maleville. ] The secret ofthe little gatherings was not so well kept but that Bois-Robert, thecardinal's accredited gossip, ever on the alert for news to divert hispatron, heard of them and begged before long to be present at them. "There was no probability of his being refused, for, besides that he wason friendly terms with many of these gentlemen, the very favor he enjoyedgave him some sort of authority and added to his consequence. He wasfull of delight and admiration at what he saw, and did not fail to givethe cardinal a favorable account of the little assembly, insomuch thatthe cardinal, who had a mind naturally inclined towards great things, andwho loved the French language, which he himself wrote extremely well, asked if those persons would not be disposed to form a body and assemblyregularly and under public authority. " Bois-Robert was intrusted withthe proposal. Great was the consternation in the little voluntary and friendly Academy. "There was scarcely one of these gentlemen who did not testifydispleasure: MM. De Serizay and de Maleville, who were attached to thehouseholds of the Duke of La Rochefoucauld and Marshal Bassompierre, onein retirement on his estates and the other a prisoner in the Bastille, were for refusing and excusing themselves as best they might to thecardinal. Chapelain, who had a pension from his Eminence, representedthat "in good truth he could have been well pleased to dispense withhaving their conferences thus bruited abroad, but in the position towhich things were reduced, it was not open to them to follow the moreagreeable of the two courses; they had to do with a man who willed in nohalf-hearted way whatever he willed, and who was not accustomed to meetresistance or to stiffer it with impunity; he would consider as an insultthe disregard shown for his protection, and might visit his resentmentupon each individual; he could, at any rate, easily prohibit theirassemblies, breaking up by that means a society which every one of themdesired to be eternal. " The arguments were strong, the members yielded;Bois-Robert was charged to thank his Eminence very humbly for the honorhe did them, assuring him that they were all resolved to follow hiswishes. "I wish to be of that assembly the protector and the father, "said Richelieu, giving at once divers proofs that he took a greatinterest in that establishment, a fact which soon brought the Academysolicitations from those who were most intimate with the cardinal, andwho, being in some sort of repute for wit, gloried in being admitted to abody which he regarded with favor. In making of this little private gathering a great national institution, Cardinal Richelieu yielded to his natural yearning for government anddominion; he protected literature as a minister and as an admirer; theadmirer's inclination was supported by the minister's influence. At thesame time, and perhaps without being aware of it, he was giving Frenchliterature a centre of discipline and union whilst securing for theindependence and dignity of writers a supporting-point which they hadhitherto lacked. Whilst recompensing them by favors nearly alwaysconferred in the name of the state, he was preparing for them afar offthe means of withdrawing themselves from that private dependence, theyoke of which they nearly always had to bear. Set free at his death fromthe weight of their obligations to him, they became the servants of thestate; ere long the French Academy had no other protector but the king. Order and rule everywhere accompanied Cardinal Richelieu; the Academydrew up its statutes, chose a director, a chancellor, and a perpetualsecretary: Conrart was the first to be called to that honor; the numberof Academicians was set down at forty by letters patent from the king. "As soon as God had called us to the conduct of this realm, we had foraim, not only to apply a remedy to the disorders which the civil wars hadintroduced into it, but also to enrich it with all ornaments suitable forthe most illustrious and the most ancient of the monarchies that are atthis day in the world. Although we have labored without ceasing at theexecution of this design, it hath been impossible for us hitherto to seethe entire fulfilment thereof. The disturbances so often excited in thegreater part of our provinces, and the assistance we have been obliged togive to many of our allies, have diverted us from any other thought butthat of war, and have hindered us for a long while from enjoying therepose we procured for others. . . . Our very clear and very muchbeloved cousin, the cardinal-duke of Richelieu, who hath had the partthat everybody knows in all these things, hath represented to us that oneof the most glorious signs of the happiness of a kingdom was that thesciences and arts should flourish there, and that letters should be inhonor there as well as arms; that, after having performed so manymemorable exploits, we had nothing further to do but to add agreeablethings to the necessary, and ornament to utility; and he was of opinionthat we could not begin better than with the most noble of all the arts, which is eloquence; that the French tongue, which up to the present hathonly too keenly felt the neglect of those who might have rendered it themost perfect of the day, is more than ever capable of becoming so, seeingthe number of persons who have knowledge of the advantages it possesses;it is to establish fixed rules for it that he hath ordained an assemblywhose propositions were satisfactory to him. For these reasons and inorder to secure the said conferences, we will that they continuehenceforth, in our good city of Paris, under the name of French Academy, and that letters patent be enregistered to that end by our gentry of theParliament of Paris. " The Parliament was not disposed to fulfil the formality ofenregistration. The cardinal had compressed it, stifled it, but he hadnever mastered it; the Academy was a new institution, it was regarded ashis work; on that ground it inspired great distrust in the public as wellas the magistrates. "The people, to whom everything that came from thisminister looked suspicious, knew not whether beneath these flowers therewere not a serpent concealed, and were apprehensive that thisestablishment was, at the very least, a new prop to support isdomination, that it was but a batch of folks in his pay, hired tomaintain all that he did and to observe the actions and sentiments ofothers. It went about that he cut down scavenging expenses of Paris byeighty thousand livres in order to give them a pension of two thousandlivres apiece; the vulgar were so frightened, without attempting toaccount for their terror, that a tradesman of Paris, who had taken ahouse that suited him admirably in Rue Cinq Diamants, where the Academythen used to meet at M. Chapelain's, broke off his bargain on no otherground but that he did not want to be in a street where a _'Cademy ofCanspirators (une Cademie e Manopoleurs)_ met every week. " The wits, like St. Evremond, in his comedy of the Academistes, turned into ridiculethe body which, as it was said, claimed to subject the language of thepublic to its decisions:-- "So I, with hoary head, to' school Must, like a child, go day by day, And learn my parts of speech, poor fool, when Death is taking speech away!" said Maynard, who, nevertheless, was one of the forty. The letters patent for establishment of the French Academy had been sentto the Parliament in 1635; they were not registered until 1637 at theexpress instance of the cardinal, who wrote to the premier President toassure him that "the foundation of the Academy was useful and necessaryto the public, and the purpose of the Academicians was quite differentfrom what it had been possible to make people believe hitherto. " The decree of verification, when it at length appeared, bore traces ofthe jealous prejudices of the Parliament. "They the said assembly andacademy, " it ran, "shall not be powered to take cognizance of anythingbut the ornamentation, embellishment, and augmentation of the Frenchlanguage, and of the books that shall be made by them and by otherpersons who shall desire it and want it. " The French Academy was founded; it was already commencing its Dictionaryin accordance with the suggestion enunciated by Chapelain at the secondmeeting; the cardinal was here carrying out that great moral idea ofliterature which he had expressed but lately in a letter to Balzac: "Theconceptions in your letters, " said he, "are forcible and as far removedfrom ordinary imaginations as they are in conformity with the commonsense of those who have superior judgment. Truth has this advantage, that it forces those who have eyes and mind sufficiently clear to discernwhat it is to represent it without disguise. " Neither Balzac and hisfriends, nor the protection of Cardinal Richelieu, sufficed as yet togive lustre to the Academy; great minds and great writers alone couldmake the glory of their society. The principle of the association of menof letters was, however, established: men of the world, friendly toliterature, were already preparing to mingle with them; the literary, but lately servitors of the great, had henceforth at their disposal aprivilege envied and sought after by courtiers; their independence grewby it and their dignity gained by it. The French Academy became aninstitution, and took its place amongst the glories of France. It hadthis piece of good fortune, that Cardinal Richelieu died without beingable to carry out the project he had conceived. He had intended to openon the site of the horse-market, near Porte St. Honore and behind thePalais-Cardinal, "a great Place which he would have called Ducale inimitation of the Royale, which is at the other end of the city, " saysPellisson; he had placed in the hands of M. De la Mesnardiere, amemorandum drawn up by himself for the plan of a college "which he wasmeditating for all the noble sciences, and in which he designed to employall that was most telling for the cause of literature in Europe. He hadan idea of making the members of the Academy directors and as it werearbiters of this great establishment, and aspired, with a feeling worthyof the immortality with which he was so much in love, to set up theFrench Academy there in the most distinguished position in the world, andto offer an honorable and pleasant repose to all persons of that classwho had deserved it by their labors. " It was a noble and a liberal idea, worthy of the great mind which had conceived it; but it would havestifled the fertile germ of independence and liberty which he hadunconsciously buried in the womb of the French Academy. Pensioned andbarracked, the Academicians would have remained men of letters, shut offfrom society and the world. The Academy grew up alone, favored indeed, but never reduced to servitude; it alone has withstood the cruel shockswhich have for so long a time agitated France; in a country where nothinglasts, it has lasted, with its traditions, its primitive statutes, itsreminiscences, its respect for the past. It has preserved its courteousand modest dignity, its habits of polite neutrality, the suavity andequality of the relations between its members. It was said just now thatRichelieu's work no longer existed save in history, and that revolutionshave left him nothing but his glory; but that was a mistake: the FrenchAcademy is still standing, stronger and freer than at its birth, and itwas founded by Richelieu, and has never forgotten him. Amongst the earliest members of the Academy the cardinal had placed hismost habitual and most intimate literary servants, Bois-Robert, Desmarets, Colletet, all writers for the theatre, employed by Richelieuin his own dramatic attempts. Theatrical representations were the onlypleasure the minister enjoyed, in accord with the public of his day. Hehad everywhere encouraged this taste, supporting with marked favor, Hardy and the _Theatre Parisien_. With his mind constantly exercised bythe wants of the government, he soon sought in the theatre a means ofacting upon the masses. He had already foreseen the power of the press;he had laid hands on Doctor Renaudot's _Gazette de France;_ King LouisXIII. Often wrote articles in it; the manuscript exists in the NationalLibrary, with some corrections which appear to be Richelieu's. As forthe theatre, the cardinal aspired to try his own hand at the work; hisliterary labors were nearly all political pieces; his tragedy of_Mirame, _ to which he attached so much value, and which he hadrepresented at such great expense for the opening of his theatre in thePalais-Cardinal, is nothing but one continual allusion, often bold evento insolence, to Buckingham's feelings towards Anne of Austria. Thecomedy, in heroic style, of Europe, which appeared in the name of_Desmarets, _ after the cardinal's death, is a political allegory touchingthe condition of the world. Francion and Ibere contend together for thefavors of Europe, not without, at the same time, paying court to thePrincess Austrasia (Lorraine). All the cardinal's foreign policy, hisalliances with Protestants, are there described in verses which do notlack a certain force: Germanique (the emperor) pleads the cause of Iberewith Europe:-- "No longer can he brook to gaze on such as these, Destroyers of the shrines, foes of the Deities, By Francion evoked from out the Frozen Main, [1] That he might cope with us and equal war maintain. EUROPE. O, call not by those names th' indomitable race, Who 'midst my champions hold honorable place. Unlike to us, they own no shrine, no sacrifice; But still, unlike Ibere, they use no artifice; About the Gods they speak their mind as seemeth best, Whilst he, with pious air, still keepeth me opprest; Through them I hold mine own, from harm and insult free, Their errors I deplore, their valor pleases me. What was that noble king, [2] that puissant conqueror, Who through thy regions, like a mighty torrent, tore? Who marched with giant strides along the path of fame, And, in the hour of death, left victory with his name? What are those gallant chiefs, who from his ashes rose, Whom still, methinks, his shade assists against their foes? [1] The Swedes. [2] Gustavus Adolphus. What was that Saxon heart, [1] so full of noble rage, He, whom thine own decrees drove from his heritage? Who, with his gallant few, full many a deed hath done Within thine own domains, and many a laurel won? Who, wasting not his strength in strife with granite walls, Routs thee in open field, and lo! the fortress falls? Who, taking just revenge for loss of all his own, Compressed thy boundaries, and cut thy frontiers down. How many virtues in that prince's[2] heart reside Who leads yon free-set[3] people's armies in their pride, People who boldly spurned Ibere and all his laws, Bravely shook off his yoke and bravely left his cause? Francion, without such aid, thou say'st would helpless be; What were Ibere without thy provinces and thee? GERMANIQUE. But I am of his blood:--own self same Deities. EUROPE. All they are of my blood:--gaze on the self-same skies Do all your hosts adore the Deities we own? Nay, from your very midst come errors widely sown. Ibere for chief support on erring men relies Yet, what himself may do, to others he denies. What! Francion favor error! This is idle prate: He who from irreligion thoroughly purged the state! Who brought the worship back to altars in decay; Who built the temples up that in their ashes lay; True son of them, who, spite of all thy fathers' feats, Replaced my reverend priests upon their holy seats! 'Twixt Francion and Ibere this difference remains: One sets them in their seats, and one in iron chains. " [1] Bernard of Saxe-Weimar. [2] Prince of Orange. [3] The Hollanders. Already, in Mirame, Richelieu had celebrated the fall of Rochelle and ofthe Huguenot party, bringing upon the scene the King of Bithynia, who istaking arms "To tame a rebel slave, Perched proudly on his rock washed by the ocean-wave. " As epigraph to Europe there were these lines:-- "All friends of France to this my work will friendly be; And all unfriends of her will say the author ill; Yet shall I be content, say, reader, what you will; The joy of some, the rage of others, pleases me. " The enemies of France did not wait for the comedy, in heroic style, ofEurope in order to frequently say ill of Cardinal Richelieu. Occupied as he was in governing the affairs of France and of Europeotherwise than in verse, the cardinal chose out work-fellows; there werefive of them, to whom he gave his ideas and the plan of his piece; heintrusted to each the duty of writing an act, and "by this means finisheda comedy a month, " says Pellisson. Thus was composed the comedy of the_Tuileries_ and the _Aveugle de Smyrne, _ which were printed in 1638;Richelieu had likewise taken part in the composition of the _Visionnairesof Desmarets, _ and supported in a rather remarkable scene the rule of thethree unities against its detractors. A new comedy, the _GrandePastorale, _ was in hand. "When he was purposing to publish it, " says the_History of the Academy, _ "he desired M. Chapelain to look over it, andmake careful observations upon it. These observations were brought tohim by M. De Bois-Robert, and, though they were written with muchdiscretion and respect, they shocked and nettled him to such a degree, either by their number or by the consciousness they caused him of hisfaults, that, without reading them through, he tore them up. But on thefollowing night, when he was in bed, and all his household asleep, havingthought over the anger he had shown, be did a thing incomparably moreestimable than the best comedy in the world, that is to say, he listenedto reason, for he gave orders to collect and glue together the pieces ofthat torn paper, and, having read it from one end to the other, and givengreat thought to it, he sent and awakened M. De Bois-Robert to tell himthat he saw quite well that the gentlemen of the Academy were betterinformed about such matters than he, and that there must be nothing moresaid about that paper and print. " The cardinal ended by permitting the liberties taken in literary mattersby Chapelain and even Colletet. His courtiers were complimenting himabout some success or other obtained by the king's arms, saying thatnothing could withstand his Eminence. "You are mistaken, " he answered, laughing; "and I find even in Paris persons who withstand me. There'sColletet, who, after having fought with me yesterday over a word, doesnot give in yet; look at this long letter that he has just written me!"He counted, at any rate, in the number of his five work-fellows one mindtoo independent to be subservient for long to the ideas and wishes ofanother, though it were Cardinal Richelieu and the premier minister. Inconjunction with Colletet, Bois-Robert, De l'Etoile, and Rotrou, PeterCorneille worked at his Eminence's tragedies and comedies. He handledaccording to his fancy the act intrusted to him, with so much freedomthat the cardinal was shocked, and said that he lacked, in his opinion, "the follower-spirit" (_l'esprit de suite_). Corneille did not appealfrom this judgment; he quietly took the road to Rouen, leaving henceforthto his four work-fellows the glory of putting into form the ideas of theall-powerful minister; he worked alone, for his own hand, for the gloryof France and of the human mind. [Illustration: Peter Corneille----334] Peter Corneille, born at Rouen on the 6th of June, 1606, in a family oflawyers, had been destined for the bar from his infancy; he was abriefless barrister; his father had purchased him two government posts, but his heart was otherwise set than "on jurisprudence;" in 1635, when hequietly renounced the honor of writing for the cardinal, Corneille hadalready had several comedies played. He himself said of the first, _Melite, _ which he wrote at three and twenty, "It was my first attempt, and it has no pretence of being according to the rules, for I did notknow then that there were any. I had for guide nothing but a littlecommon sense, together with the models of the late Hardy, whose vein wasrather fertile than polished. " "The comedies of Corneille had met withsuccess; praised as he was by his competitors in the career of thetheatre, he was as yet, in their eyes, but one of the supports of thatliterary glory which was common to them all. Tranquil in theirpossession of bad taste, they were far from foreseeing the revolutionwhich was about to overthrow its sway and their own. " [_Corneille et sonTemps, _ by M. Guizot. ] Corneille made his first appearance in tragedy, in 1633, with a _Medee_. "Here are verses which proclaim Corneille, " said Voltaire:-- "After so many boons, to leave me can he bear? After so many sins, to leave me can he dare?" They proclaimed tragedy; it had appeared at last to Corneille; itsfeatures, roughly sketched, were nevertheless recognizable. He wasalready studying Spanish with an old friend of his family, and wasworking at the _Cid, _ when he brought out his _Illusion Comique, _ amediocre piece, Corneille's last sacrifice to the taste of his day. Towards the end of the year 1636, the _Cid_ was played for the first timeat Paris. There was a burst of enthusiasm forthwith. "I wish you werehere, " wrote the celebrated comedian Mondory to Balzac, on the 18th ofJanuary, 1637, "to enjoy amongst other pleasures that of the beautifulcomedies that are being played, and especially a _Cid_ who has charmedall Paris. So beautiful is he that he has smitten with love all the mostvirtuous ladies, whose passion has many times blazed out in the publictheatre. Seated in a body on the benches of the boxes have been seenthose who are commonly seen only in gilded chamber and on the seat withthe fleurs-de-lis. So great has been the throng at our doors, and ourplace has turned out so small, that the corners of the theatre, whichserved at other times as niches for the pageboys, have been given as afavor to blue ribbons, and the scene has been embellished, ordinarily, with the crosses of knights of the order. " "It is difficult, " saysPellisson, "to imagine with what approbation this piece was received bycourt and people. " It was impossible to tire of seeing it, nothing elsewas talked of in company; everybody knew some portion by heart; it wastaught to children, and in many parts of France it had passed into aproverb to say, "Beautiful as the _Cid_. " Criticism itself was silencedfor a while; carried along in the general twirl, bewildered by itssuccess, the rivals of Corneille appeared to join the throng of hisadmirers; but they soon recovered their breath, and their first sign oflife was an effort of resistance to the torrent which threatened to carrythem away; with the exception of Rotrou, who was worthy to comprehend andenjoy Corneille, the revolt was unanimous. The malcontents and theenvious had found in Richelieu an eager and a powerful auxiliary. [Illustration: The Representation of "the Cid. "----335] Many attempts have been made to fathom the causes of the cardinal'sanimosity to the _Cid_. It was a Spanish piece, and represented in afavorable light the traditional enemies of France and of Richelieu; itwas all in honor of the duel which the cardinal had prosecuted with suchrigorous justice; it depicted a king simple, patriarchal, genial in theexercise of his power, contrary to all the views cherished by theminister touching royal majesty; all these reasons might have contributedto his wrath, but there was something more personal and petty in itsbitterness. In tacit disdain for the work that had been entrusted tohim, Corneille had abandoned Richelieu's pieces; he had retired to Rouen;far away from the court, he had only his successes to set against theperfidious insinuations of his rivals. The triumph of the _Cid_ seemedto the resentful spirit of a neglected and irritated patron a sort ofinsult. Therewith was mingled a certain shade of author's jealousy. Richelieu saw in the fame of Corneille the success of a rebel. Egged onby base and malicious influences, he attempted to crush him as he hadcrushed the house of Austria and the Huguenots. The cabal of bad taste enlisted to a man in this new war. Scudery wasstandard-bearer; astounded that such fantastic beauties should haveseduced knowledge as well as ignorance, and the court as well as the cit, and conjuring decent folks to suspend judgment for a while, and notcondemn without a hearing _Sophonisbe, Cesar, Cleopdtre, Hercule, Marianne, Cleomedon, _ and so many other illustrious heroes who hadcharmed them on the stage. " Corneille might have been satisfied; hisadversaries themselves recognized his great popularity and success. A singular mixture of haughtiness and timidity, of vigorous imaginationand simplicity of judgment! It was by his triumphs that Corneille hadbecome informed of his talents; but, when once aware, he had accepted theconviction thereof as that of those truths which one does not arrive atby one's self absolutely, without explanation, without modification. "I know my worth, and well believe men's rede of it; I have no need of leagues, to make myself admired; Few voices may be raised for me, but none is hired; To swell th' applause my just ambition seeks no claque, Nor out of holes and corners hunts the hireling pack: Upon the boards, quite self-supported, mount my plays, And every one is free to censure or to praise; There, though no friends expound their views or preach my cause, It hath been many a time my lot to win applause; There, pleased with the success my modest merit won, With brilliant critics' laws I seek to dazzle none; To court and people both I give the same delight, Mine only partisans the verses that I write; To them alone I owe the credit of my pen, To my own self alone the fame I win of men; And if, when rivals meet, I claim equality, Methinks I do no wrong to whosoe'er it be. " "Let him rise on the wings of composition, " said La Bruyere, "and he isnot below Augustus, Pompey, Nicodemus, Sertorius; he is a king and agreat king; he is a politician, he is a philosopher. " Modest and bashfnlin what concerns himself, when it has nothing to do with his works andhis talents, Corneille, who does not disdain to receive a pension fromCardinal Richelieu, or, in writing to Scudery, to call him "your masterand and mine, " becomes quite another creature when he defends his genius: "Leaving full oft the earth, soon as he leaves the goal, With lofty flight he soars into the upper air, Looks down on envious men, and smiles at their despair. " The contest was becoming fierce and bitter; much was written for andagainst the _Cid;_ the public remained faithful to it; the cardinaldetermined to submit it to the judgment of the Academy, thus exactingfrom that body an act of complaisance towards himself as well as an actof independence and authority in the teeth of predominant opinion. Athis instigation, Scudery wrote to the Academy to make them the judges inthe dispute. "The cardinal's desire was plain to see, " says Pellisson;"but the most judicious amongst that body testified a great deal ofrepugnance to this design. They said that the Academy, which was only inits cradle, ought not to incur odium by a judgment which might perhapsdisplease both parties, and which could not fail to cause umbrage to oneat least, that is to say, to a great part of France; that they werescarcely tolerated, from the mere fancy which prevailed that theypretended to some authority over the French tongue; what would be thecase if they proved to have exercised it in respect of a work which hadpleased the majority and won the approbation of the people? M. Corneilledid not ask for this judgment, and, by the statutes of the Academy, theycould only sit in judgment upon a work with the consent and at theentreaty of the author. " Corneille did not facilitate the task of theAcademicians: he excused himself modestly, protesting that suchoccupation was not worthy of such a body, that a mere piece(_un libelle_) did not deserve their judgment. . . . "At length, under pressure from M. De Bois-Robert, who gave him pretty plainly tounderstand what was his master's desire, this answer slipped from him:'The gentlemen of the Academy can do as they please; since you write meword that my Lord would like to see their judgment, and it would diverthis Eminence, I have nothing further to say. '" These expressions were taken as a formal consent, and as the Academystill excused themselves, " Let those gentlemen know, " said the cardinalat last, "that I desire it, and that I shall love them as they love me. " There was nothing for it but to obey. Whilst Bois-Robert was amusing hismaster by representing before him a parody of the _Cid, _ played by hislackeys and scullions, the Academy was at work drawing up theirSentiments respecting the _Cid_. Thrice submitted to the cardinal, who thrice sent it back with somestrong remarks appended, the judgment of the Academicians did not succeedin satisfying the minister. "What was wanted was the complaisance ofsubmission, what was obtained was only that of gratitude. " "I know quitewell, " says Pellisson, "that his Eminence would have wished to have the_Cid_ more roughly handled, if he had not been adroitly made tounderstand that a judge must not speak like a party to a suit, and thatin proportion as he showed passion, he would lose authority. " Balzac, still in retirement at his country-place, made no mistake as tothe state of mind either in the Academy or in the world when he wrote toScudery, who had sent him his _Observations sur le Cid, _ "Reflect, sir, that all France takes sides with M. Corneille, and that there is not one, perhaps, of the judges with whom it is rumored that you have come to anagreement, who has not praised that which you desire him to condemn; sothat, though your arguments were incontrovertible and your adversaryshould acquiesce therein, he would still have the wherewith to givehimself glorious consolation for the loss of his case, and be able totell you that it is something more to have delighted a whole kingdom thanto have written a piece according to regulation. This being so, I doubtnot that the gentlemen of the Academy will find themselves much hamperedin delivering a judgment on your case, and that, on the one hand, yourarguments will stagger them, whilst, on the other, the public approbationwill keep them in check. You have the best of it in the closet; he hasthe advantage on the stage. If the _Cid_ be guilty, it is of a crimewhich has met with reward; if he be punished, it will be after havingtriumphed; if Plato must banish him from his republic, he must crown himwith flowers whilst banishing him, and not treat him worse than heformerly treated Homer. " The Sentiments de l'Academie at last saw the light in the month ofDecember, 1637, and as Chapelain had foreseen, they did not completelysatisfy either the cardinal or Scudery, in spite of the thanks which thelatter considered himself bound to express to that body, or Corneille, who testified bitter displeasure. "The Academy proceeds against me withso much violence, and employs so supreme an authority to close my mouth, that all the satisfaction I have is to think that this famous production, at which so many fine intellects have been working for six months, may nodoubt be esteemed the opinion of the French Academy, but will probablynot be the opinion of the rest of Paris. I wrote the _Cid_ for mydiversion and that of decent folks who like Comedy. All the favor thatthe opinion of the Academy can hope for is to make as much way; at anyrate, I have had my account settled before them, and I am not at all surethat they can wait for theirs. " Corneille did not care to carry his resentment higher than the Academy. At the end of December, 1637, when writing to Bois-Robert a letter ofthanks for getting him his pension, which he calls "the liberalities ofmy Lord, " he adds, "As you advise me not to reply to the _Sentiments del'Academie, _ seeing what personages are concerned therein, there is noneed of interpreters to understand that; I am somewhat more of this worldthan Heliodorus was, who preferred to lose his bishopric rather than hisbook; and I prefer my master's good graces to all the reputations onearth. I shall be mum, then, not from disdain, but from respect. " The great Corneille made no further defence he had become a servitoragain; but the public, less docile, persisted in their opinion. "In vain against the Cid a minister makes league; All Paris, gazing on Chimene, thinks with Rodrigue; In vain to censure her th' Academy aspires; The stubborn populace revolts and still admires; " said Boileau subsequently. The dispute was ended, and, in spite of the judgment of the Academy, thecardinal did not come out of it victorious; his anger, however, hadceased: the Duchess of Aiguillon, his niece, accepted the dedication ofthe _Cid;_ when _Horace_ appeared, in 1639, the dedicatory epistle, addressed to the cardinal, proved that Corneille read his works to himbeforehand; the cabal appeared for a while on the point of making headagain. "_Horace, _ condemned by the decemvirs, was acquitted by thepeople, " said Corneille. The same year _Cinna_ came to give thefinishing touch to the reputation of the great poet:-- "To the persecuted Cid the Cinna owed its birth. " Corneille had withdrawn to the obscurity which suited the simplicity ofhis habits; the cardinal, it was said, had helped him to get married; hehad no longer to defend his works, their fame was amply sufficient. "Henceforth Corneille walks freely by himself and in the strength of hisown powers; the circle of his ideas grows larger, his style grows loftierand stronger, together with his thoughts, and purer, perhaps, without hisdreaming of it; a more correct, a more precise expression comes to him, evoked by greater clearness in idea, greater fixity of sentiment; genius, with the mastery of means, seeks new outlets. Corneille writes_Polyeucte_. " [_Corneille et son Temps, _ by M. Guizot. ] It was a second revolution accomplished for the upsetting of receivedideas, at a time when paganism was to such an extent master of thetheatre that, in the midst of an allegory of the seventeenth century, alluding to Gustavus Adolphus and the wars of religion, Richelieu andDesmarets, in the heroic comedy of _Europe, _ dared not mention the nameof God save in the plural. Corneille read his piece at the HotelRambouillet. "It was applauded to the extent demanded by propriety andthe reputation already achieved by the author, " says Fontenelle; "butsome days afterwards, M. De Voiture went to call upon M. Corneille, andtook a very delicate way of telling him that _Polyeucte_ had not been sosuccessful as he supposed, that the Christianism had been extremelydispleasing. " "The story is, " adds Voltaire, "that all the HotelRambouillet, and especially the Bishop of Vence, Godeau, condemned theattempt of _Polyeucte_ to overthrow idols. " Corneille, in alarm, wouldhave withdrawn the piece from the hands of the comedians who werelearning it, and he only left it on the assurance of one of thecomedians, who did not play in it because he was too bad an actor. Posterity has justified the poor comedian against the Hotel Rambouillet;amongst so many of Corneille's masterpieces it has ever given a placeapart to _Polyeucte;_ neither the _Saint-Genest_ of Rotrou, nor the_Zaire_ of Voltaire, in spite of their various beauties, have dethroned_Polyeucte;_ in fame as well as in date it remains the first of the fewpieces in which Christianism appeared, to gain applause, upon the Frenchclassic stage. [Illustration: Corneille at the Hotel Rambouillet---342] Richelieu was no longer there to lay his commands upon the court and uponthe world: he was dead, without having been forgiven by Corneille:-- "Of our great cardinal let men speak as they will, By me, in prose or verse, they shall not be withstood; He did me too much good for me to say him ill, He did me too much ill for me to say him good!" The great literary movement of the seventeenth century had begun; it hadno longer any need of a protector; it was destined to grow up aloneduring twenty years, amidst troubles at home and wars abroad, to flourishall at once, with incomparable splendor, under the reign and around thethrone of Louis XIV. Cardinal Richelieu, however, had the honor ofprotecting its birth; he had taken personal pleasure in it; he hadcomprehended its importance and beauty; he had desired to serve it whilsttaking the direction of it. Let us end, as we began, with the judgmentof La Bruyere: "Compare yourselves, if you dare, with the greatRichelieu, you men devoted to fortune, you who say that you know nothing, that you have read nothing, that you will read nothing. Learn thatCardinal Richelieu did know, did read; I say not that he had noestrangement from men of letters, but that he loved them, caressed them, favored them, that he contrived privileges for them, that he appointedpensions for them, that he united them in a celebrated body, and that hemade of them the French Academy. " The Academy, the Sorbonne, the Botanic Gardens (_Jardin des Plantes_), the King's Press have endured; the theatre has grown and been enriched bymany masterpieces, the press has become the most dreaded of powers; allthe new forces that Richelieu created or foresaw have become developedwithout him, frequently in opposition to him and to the work of his wholelife; his name has remained connected with the commencement of all thesewonders, beneficial or disastrous, which he had grasped and presaged, ina future happily concealed from his ken. CHAPTER XLIII. ----LOUIS XIV. , THE FRONDE, AND THE GOVERNMENT OF CARDINALMAZARIN. (1643-1661. ) [Illustration: LOUIS XIV. ----344] Louis XIII. Had never felt confidence in the queen his wife; and CardinalRichelieu had fostered that sentiment which promoted his views. When M. De Chavigny came, on Anne of Austria's behalf, to assure the dying kingthat she had never had any part in the conspiracy of Chalais, or dreamtof espousing Monsieur in case she was left a widow, Louis XIII. Answered, "Considering the state I am in, I am bound to forgive her, butnot to believe her. " He did not believe her, he never had believed her, and his declaration touching the Regency was entirely directed towardscounteracting by anticipation the power intrusted to his wife and hisbrother. The queen's regency and the Duke of Orleans' lieutenant-generalship were in some sort subordinated to a council composed of thePrince of Conde, Cardinal Mazarin, Chancellor Seguier, SuperintendentBouthillier, and Secretary of State Chavigny, "with a prohibition againstintroducing any change therein, for any cause or on any occasionwhatsoever. " The queen and the Duke of Orleans had signed and sworn thedeclaration. King Louis XIII. Was not yet in his grave when his last wishes wereviolated; before his death the queen had made terms with the ministers;the course to be followed had been decided. On the 18th of May, 1643, the queen, having brought back the little king to Paris, conducted him ingreat state to the Parliament of Paris to hold his bed of justice there. The boy sat down and said with a good grace that he had come to theParliament to testify his good will to it, and that his chancellor wouldsay the rest. The Duke of Orleans then addressed the queen. "The honorof the regency is the due altogether of your Majesty, " said he, "not onlyin your capacity of mother, but also for your merits and virtues; theregency having been confined to you by the deceased king, and by theconsent of all the grandees of the realm, I desire no other part inaffairs than that which it may please your Majesty to give me, and I donot claim to take any advantage from the special clauses contained in thedeclaration. " The Prince of Condo said much the same thing, but withless earnestness, and on the evening of the same day the queen regent, having sole charge of the administration of affairs, and modifying thecouncil at her pleasure, announced to the astounded court that she shouldretain by her Cardinal Mazarin. Not a word had been said about him atthe Parliament; the courtiers believed that he was on the point ofleaving France; but the able Italian, attractive as he was subtle, hadalready found a way to please the queen. She retained as chief of hercouncil the heir to the traditions of Richelieu, and deceived the hopesof the party of Importants, those meddlers of the court at whose headmarched the Duke of Beaufort, all puffed up with the confidence latelyshown to him by her Majesty. Potier, Bishop of Beauvais, the queen'sconfidant during her troubles, "expected to be all-powerful in the state;he sought out the Duke of Orleans and the Prince of Conde, promisingthem governorships of places, and, generally, anything they might desire. He thought he could set the affairs of state going as easily as he couldhis parish-priests; but the poor prelate came down from his high hopeswhen he saw that the cardinal was advancing more and more in the queen'sconfidence, and that, for him, too much was already thought to have beendone in according him admittance to the council, whilst flattering himwith a hope of the purple. " [_Memoires de Brienne, _ ii. 37. ] Cardinal Mazarin soon sent him off to his diocese. Continuing to humorall parties, and displaying foresight and prudence, the new minister waseven now master. Louis XIII. , without any personal liking, had beenfaithful to Richelieu to the death; with different feelings, Anne ofAustria was to testify the same constancy towards Mazarin. A stroke of fortune came at the very first to strengthen the regent'sposition. Since the death of Cardinal Richelieu, the Spaniards, butrecently overwhelmed at the close df 1642, had recovered courage andboldness; new counsels prevailed at the court of Philip IV. , who haddismissed Olivarez; the house of Austria vigorously resumed theoffensive; at the moment of Louis XIII. 's death, Don Francisco de Mello, governor of the Low Countries, had just invaded French territory by wayof the Ardennes, and laid siege to Rocroi, on the 12th of May. TheFrench army was commanded by the young Duke of Enghien, the Prince ofConde's son, scarcely twenty-two years old; Louis XIII. Had given him ashis lieutenant and director the veteran Marshal de l'Hopital; and thelatter feared to give battle. The Duke of Enghien, who "was dying withimpatience to enter the enemy's country, resolved to accomplish byaddress what he could not carry by authority. He opened his heart toGassion alone. As he was a man who saw nothing but what was easy even inthe most dangerous deeds, he had very soon brought matters to the pointthat the prince desired. Marshal de l'Hopital found himselfimperceptibly so near the Spaniards that it was impossible for him anylonger to hinder an engagement. " [_Relation de 31 de la Houssaye. _] Thearmy was in front of Rocroi, and out of the dangerous defile which led tothe place, without any idea on the part of the marshal and the army thatLouis XIII. Was dead. The Duke of Enghien, who had received the news, had kept it secret. He had merely said in the tone of a master "that hemeant to fight, and would answer for the issue. His orders given, hepassed along the ranks of his army with an air which communicated to itthe same impatience that he himself felt to see the night over, in orderto begin the battle. He passed the whole of it at the camp-fire of theofficers of Picardy. " In the morning "it was necessary to rouse fromdeep slumber this second Alexander. Mark him as he flies to victory ordeath! As soon as he had kindled from rank to rank the ardor with whichhe was animated, he was seen, in almost the same moment, driving in theenemy's right, supporting ours that wavered, rallying the half-beatenFrench, putting to flight the victorious Spaniards, striking terroreverywhere, and dumbfounding with his flashing looks those who escapedfrom his blows. There remained that dread infantry of the army of Spain, whose huge battalions, in close order, like so many towers, but towersthat could repair their breaches, remained unshaken amidst all the restof the rout, and delivered their fire on all sides. Thrice the youngconqueror tried to break these fearless warriors; thrice he was drivenknack by the valiant Count of Fuentes, who was seen carried about in hischair, and, in spite of his infirmities, showing that a warrior's soul ismistress of the body it animates. But yield they must: in vain throughthe woods, with his cavalry all fresh, does Beck rush down to fall uponour exhausted men the prince has been beforehand with him; the brokenbattalions cry for quarter, but the victory is to be more terrible thanthe fight for the Duke of Enghien. Whilst with easy mien he advances toreceive the parole of these brave fellows, they, watchful still, apprehend the surprise of a fresh attack; their terrible volley drivesour men mad; there is nothing to be seen but slaughter; the soldier isdrunk with blood, till that great prince, who could not bear to see suchlions butchered like so many sheep, calmed excited passions, and to thepleasure of victory joined that of mercy. He would willingly have savedthe life of the brave Count of Fuentes, but found him lying amidstthousands of the dead whose loss is still felt by Spain. The princebends the knee, and, on the field of battle, renders thanks to the God ofarmies for the victory he hath given him. Then were there rejoicingsover Rocroi delivered, the threats of a dread enemy converted to theirshame, the regency strengthened, France at rest, and a reign, which wasto be so noble, commenced with such happy augury. " [Bossuet, _Oraisonfunebre de Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Conde. _] Victory or death, belowthe cross of Burgundy, was borne upon most of the standards taken fromthe Imperialists; and "indeed, " says the Gazette de France, "the mostpart were found dead in the ranks where they had been posted. Which wasnobly brought home by one of the prisoners to our captains when, beingasked how many there had been of them, he replied, "Count the dead. "Conde was worthy to fight such enemies, and Bossuet to recount theirdefeat. "The prince was a born captain, " said Cardinal de Retz. And allFrance said so with him, on hearing of the victory of Rocroi. The delight was all the keener in the queen's circle, because the houseof Conde openly supported Cardinal Mazarin, bitterly attacked as he wasby the Importants, who accused him of reviving the tyranny of Richelieu. [Illustration: The Great Conde----348] A ditty on the subject was current in the streets of Paris:-- "He is not dead, he is but changed of age, The cardinal, at whom men gird with rage, But all his household make thereat great cheer; It pleaseth not full many a chevalier They fain had brought him to the lowest stage. Beneath his wing came all his lineage, By the same art whereof he made usage And, by my faith, 'tis still their day, I fear. He is not dead. "Hush! we are mum, because we dread the cage For he's at court--this eminent personage There to remain of years to come a score. Ask those Importants, would you fain know more And they will say in dolorous language, 'He is not dead. '" And indeed, on pretext offered by a feminine quarrel between the youngDuchess of Longueville, daughter of the Prince of Conde, and the Duchessof Montbazon, the Duke of Beaufort and some of his friends resolved toassassinate the cardinal. The attempt was a failure, but the Duke ofBeaufort, who was arrested on the 2d of September, was taken to thecastle of Vincennes. Madame de Chevreuse, recently returned to court, where she would fain have exacted from the queen the reward for herservices and her past sufferings, was sent into exile, as well as theDuke of Vendome. Madame d'Hautefort, but lately summoned by Anne ofAustria to be near her, was soon involved in the same disgrace. Proudand compassionate, without any liking for Mazarin, she was daring enough, during a trip to Vincennes, to ask pardon for the Duke of Beaufort. "The queen made no answer, and, the collation being served, Madamed'Hautefort, whose heart was full, ate nothing; when she was asked why, she declared that she could not enjoy anything in such close proximity tothat poor boy. " The queen could not put up with reproaches; and shebehaved with extreme coldness to Madame d'Hautefort. One day, atbedtime, her ill temper showed itself so plainly, that the old favoritecould no longer be in doubt about the queen's sentiments. As she softlyclosed the curtains, "I do assure you, Madame, " she said, "that if I hadserved God with as much attachment and devotion as I have your Majestyall my life, I should be a great saint. " And, raising her eyes to thecrucifix, she added, "Thou knowest, Lord, what I have done for her. " Thequeen let her go to the convent where Mademoiselle de la Fayette hadtaken refuge ten years before. Madame d'Hautefort left it ere long tobecome the wife of Marshal Schomberg; but the party of the Importants wasdead, and the power of Cardinal Mazarin seemed to be firmly established. "It was not the thing just then for any decent man to be on bad termswith the court, " says Cardinal de Retz. Negotiations for a general peace, the preliminaries whereof had beensigned by King Louis XIII. In 1641, had been going on since 1644 atMunster and at Osnabriick, without having produced any result; the Dukeof Enghien, who became Prince of Conde in 1646, was keeping up the warin Flanders and Germany, with the co-operation of Viscount Turenne, younger brother of the Duke of Bouillon, and, since Rocroi, a marshal ofFrance. The capture of Thionville and of Dunkerque, the victories ofFriburg and Nordlingen, the skilful opening effected in Germany as far asAugsburg by the French and the Swedes, had raised so high the reputationof the two generals, that the Prince of Conde, who was haughty andambitious, began to cause great umbrage to Mazarin. Fear of having himunoccupied deterred the cardinal from peace, and made all the harder theconditions he presumed to impose upon the Spaniards. Meanwhile theUnited Provinces, weary of a war which fettered their commerce, andskilfully courted by their old masters, had just concluded a privatetreaty with Spain; the emperor was trying, but to no purpose, to detachthe Swedes likewise from the French alliance, when the victory of Lens, gained on the 20th of August, 1648, over Archduke Leopold and GeneralBeck, came to throw into the balance the weight of a success as splendidas it was unexpected; one more campaign, and Turenne might be threateningVienna whilst Conde entered Brussels; the emperor saw there was no helpfor it, and bent his head. The house of Austria split in two; Spainstill refused to treat with France, but the whole of Germany clamored forpeace; the conditions of it were at last drawn up at Munster by MM. Servien and de Lionne; M. D'Avaux, the most able diplomatist that Francepossessed, had been recalled to Paris at the beginning of the year. Onthe 24th of October, 1648, after four years of negotiation, France atlast had secured to her Elsass and the three bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun; Sweden gained Western Pomerania, including Stettin, the Isleof Rugen, the three mouths of the Oder, and the bishoprics of Bremen andWerden, thus becoming a German power: as for Germany, she had won libertyof conscience and political liberty; the rights of the Lutheran orreformed Protestants were equalized with those of Catholics; henceforththe consent of a free assembly of all the Estates of the empire wasnecessary to make laws, raise soldiers, impose taxes, and decide peace orwar. The peace of Westphalia put an end at one and the same time to theThirty Years' War and to the supremacy of the house of Austria inGermany. So much glory and so many military or diplomatic successes cost dear;France was crushed by imposts, and the finances were discovered to be inutter disorder; the superintendent, D'Emery, an able and experienced man, was so justly discredited that his measures were, as a foregoneconclusion, unpopular; an edict laying octroi or tariff on the entry ofprovisions into the city of Paris irritated the burgesses, and Parliamentrefused to enregister it. For some time past the Parliament, which hadbeen kept down by the iron hand of Richelieu, had perceived that it hadto do with nothing more than an able man, and not a master; it began tohold up its head again; a union was proposed between the four sovereigncourts of Paris, to wit, the Parliament, the grand council, the chamberof exchequer, and the court of aids or indirect taxes; the queen quashedthe deed of union; the magistrates set her at nought; the queen yielded, authorizing the delegates to deliberate in the chamber of St. Louis atthe Palace of Justice; the pretensions of the Parliament were exorbitant, and aimed at nothing short of resuming, in the affairs of the state, theposition from which Richelieu had deposed it; the concessions whichCardinal Mazarin with difficulty wrung from the queen augmented theParliament's demands. Anne of Austria was beginning to lose patience, when the news of the victory of Lens restored courage to the court. "Parliament will be very sorry, " said the little king, on hearing of thePrince of Conde's success. The grave assemblage, on the 26th of August, was issuing from Notre Dame, where a Te Deum had just been sung, whenCouncillor Broussel and President Blancmesnil were arrested in theirhouses, and taken one to St. Germain and the other to Vincennes. Thiswas a familiar proceeding on the part of royal authority in itsdisagreements with the Parliament. Anne of Austria herself had practisedit four years before. [Illustration: Arrest of Broussel----352] It was a mistake on the part of Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarinnot to have considered the different condition of the public mind. A suppressed excitement had for some months been hatching in Paris and inthe provinces. "The Parliament growled over the tariff-edict, " saysCardinal de Retz; "and no sooner had it muttered than everybody awoke. People went groping as it were after the laws; they were no longer to befound. Under the influence of this agitation the people entered thesanctuary and lifted the veil that ought always to conceal whatever canbe said about the right of peoples and that of kings, which never accordso well as in silence. " The arrest of Broussel, an old man in highesteem, very keen in his opposition to the court, was like fire to flax. "There was a blaze at once, a sensation, a rush, an outcry, and ashutting up of shops. " Paul de Gondi, known afterwards as Cardinal deRetz, was at that time coadjutor of the Archbishop of Paris, his unclewitty, debauched, bold, and restless, lately compromised in the plots ofthe Count of Soissons against Cardinal Richelieu, he owed his office tothe queen, and "did not hesitate, " he says, "to repair to her, that hemight stick to his duty above all things. " [Illustration: Cardinal de Retz----352] There was already a great tumult in the streets when he arrived at thePalais-Royal: the people were shouting, "Broussel! Broussel!" Thecoadjutor was accompanied by Marshal la Meilleraye; and both of themreported the excitement amongst the people. The queen grew angry. "There is revolt in imagining that there can be revolt, " she said: "theseare the ridiculous stories of those who desire it; the king's authoritywill soon restore order. " Then, as old M. De Guitaut, who had just comein, supported the coadjutor, and said that he did not understand howanybody could sleep in the state in which things were, the cardinal askedhim, with some slight irony, "Well, M. De Guitaut, and what is youradvice?" "My advice, " said Guitaut, "is to give up that old rascal of aBroussel, dead or alive. " "The former, " replied the coadjutor, "wouldnot accord with either the queen's piety or her prudence; the lattermight stop the tumult. " At this word the queen blushed, and exclaimed, "I understand you, Mr. Coadjutor; you would have me set Broussel atliberty. I would strangle him with these hands first!" "And, as shefinished the last syllable, she put them close to my face, " says De Retz, "adding, 'And those who . . . ' The cardinal advanced and whispered inher ear. " Advices of a more and more threatening character continued toarrive; and, at last, it was resolved to promise that Broussel should beset at liberty, provided that the people dispersed and ceased to demandit tumultuously. The coadjutor was charged to proclaim this concessionthroughout Paris; he asked for a regular order, but was not listened to. "The queen had retired to her little gray room. Monsignor pushed me verygently with his two hands, saying, 'Restore the peace of the realm. 'Marshal Meilleraye drew me along, and so I went out with my rochet andcamail, bestowing benedictions right and left; but this occupation didnot prevent me from making all the reflections suitable to the difficultyin which I found myself. The impetuosity of Marshal Meilleraye did notgive me opportunity to weigh my expressions; he advanced sword in hand, shouting with all his might, 'Hurrah for the king! Liberation forBroussel!' As he was seen by many more folks than heard him, he provokedwith his sword far more people than he appeased with his voice. " Thetumult increased; there was a rush to arms on all sides; the coadjutorwas felled to the ground by a blow from a stone. He had just pickedhimself up, when a burgess put his musket to his head. "Though I did notknow him a bit, " says Retz, "I thought it would not be well to let himsuppose so at such a moment; on the contrary, I said to him, 'Ah!wretch, if thy father saw thee!' He thought I was the best friend of hisfather, on whom, however, I had never set eyes. " [Illustration: "Ah, Wretch, if thy Father saw thee!"----354] The coadjutor was recognized, and the crowd pressed round him, dragginghim to the market-place. He kept repeating everywhere that "the queenpromised to restore Broussel. " The fiippers laid down their arms, andthirty or forty thousand men accompanied him to the Palais-Royal. "Madame, " said Marshal Meilleraye as he entered, "here is he to whom Iowe my life, and your Majesty the safety of the Palais-Royal. " The queenbegan to smile. "The marshal flew into a passion, and said with an oath, 'Madame, no proper man can venture to flatter you in the state in whichthings are; and if you do not this very day set Broussel at liberty, to-morrow there will not be left one stone upon another in Paris. ' Iwished to speak in support of what the marshal said, but the queen cutme short, saying, with an air of raillery, 'Go and rest yourself, sir;you have worked very hard. '" The coadjutor left the Palais-Royal "in what is called a rage;" and hewas in a greater one in the evening, when his friends came and told himthat he was being made fun of at the queen's supper-table; that she wasconvinced that he had done all he could to increase the tumult; that hewould be the first to be made a great example of; and that the Parliamentwas about to be interdicted. Paul de Gondi had not waited for theirinformation to think of revolt. "I did not reflect as to what I coulddo, " says he, "for I was quite certain of that; I reflected only as towhat I ought to do, and I was perplexed. " The jests and the threats ofthe court appeared to him to be sufficient justification. "Whateffectually stopped my scruples was the advantage I imagined I had indistinguishing myself from those of my profession by a state of life inwhich there was something of all professions. In disorderly times, things lead to a confusion of species, and the vices of an archbishopmay, in an infinity of conjunctures, be the virtues of a party leader. "The coadjutor recalled his friends. "We are not in such bad case as yousupposed, gentlemen, " he said to them; "there is an intention of crushingthe public; it is for me to defend it from oppression; to-morrow beforemidday I shall be master of Paris. " For some time past the coadjutor had been laboring to make himselfpopular in Paris; the general excitement was only waiting to break out, and when the chancellor's carriage appeared in the streets in themorning, on the way to the Palace of Justice, the people, secretly workedupon during the night, all at once took up arms again. The chancellorhad scarcely time to seek refuge in the Hotel de Luynes; the mob rushedin after him, pillaging and destroying the furniture, whilst thechancellor, flying for refuge into a small chamber, and believing hislast hour had come, was confessing to his brother, the Bishop of Meaux. He was not discovered, and the crowd moved off in another direction. "Itwas like a sudden and violent conflagration lighted up from the Pont Neufover the whole city. Everybody without exception took up arms. Childrenof five and six years of age were seen dagger in hand; and the mothersthemselves carried them. In less than two hours there were in Paris morethan two hundred barricades, bordered with flags and all the arms thatthe League had left entire. Everybody cried, 'Hurrah! for the king!' butecho answered, 'None of your Mazarin!'" The coadjutor kept himself shut up at home, protesting his powerlessness;the Parliament had met at an early hour; the Palace of Justice wassurrounded by an immense crowd, shouting, "Broussel! Broussel!" TheParliament resolved to go in a body and demand of the queen the releaseof their members arrested the day before. "We set out in full court, "says the premier president Mole, "without sending, as the custom is, toask the queen to appoint a time, the ushers in front, with their squarecaps and a-foot: from this spot as far as the Trahoir cross we found thepeople in arms and barricades thrown up at every hundred paces. "[_Memoires de Matthieu Mole, _ iii. P. 255. ] [Illustration: President Mole----355] "If it were not blasphemy to say that there was any one in our age moreintrepid than the great Gustavus and the Prince, I should say it was M. Mole, premier president, " writes Cardinal de Retz. Sincerely devoted tothe public weal, and a magistrate to the very bottom of his soul, Mole, nevertheless, inclined towards the side of power, and understood betterthan his brethren the danger of factions. He represented to the queenthe extreme danger the sedition was causing to Paris and to France. "She, who feared nothing because she knew but little, flew into a passionand answered, furiously, 'I am quite aware that there is disturbance inthe city, but you shall answer to me for it, gentlemen of the Parliament, you, your wives, and your children. '" "The queen was pleased, " saysMole, in his dignified language, "to signify in terms of wrath that themagisterial body should be answerable for the evils which might ensue, and which the king on reaching his majority would remember. " The queen had retired to her room, slamming the door violently; theParliament turned back to the Palace of Justice; the angry mob throngedabout the magistrates; when they arrived at Rue St. Honore, just as theywere about to turn on to the Pont Neuf, a band of armed men fell uponthem, "and a cookshop-lad, advancing at the head of two hundred men, thrust his halbert against the premier president's stomach, saying, 'Turn, traitor, and, if thou wouldst not thyself be slain, give up to usBroussel, or Mazarin and the chancellor as hostages. '" Matthew Molequietly put the weapon aside, and, "You forget yourself, " he said, "andare oblivious of the respect you owe to my office. " "Thrice an effortwas made. To thrust me into a private house, " says his account in hisMemoires, "but I still kept my place; and, attempts having been made withswords and pistols on all sides of me to make an end of me, God would notpermit it, some of the members (Messieurs) and some true friends havingplaced themselves in front of me. I told President de Mesmes that therewas no other plan but to return to the Palais-Royal and thither take backthe body, which was much diminished in numbers, five of the presidentshaving dropped away, and also many of the members on whom the people hadinflicted unworthy treatment. " "Thus having given himself time to rallyas many as he could of the body, and still preserving the dignity of themagistracy both in his words and in his movements, the premier presidentreturned at a slow pace to the Palais-Royal, amidst a running fire ofinsults, threats, execrations, and blasphemies. " [_Memoires de Retz. _] The whole court had assembled in the gallery: Mole spoke first. "Thisman, " says Retz, "had a sort of eloquence peculiar to himself. He knewnothing of apostrophes, he was not correct in his language, but he spokewith a force which made up for all that, and he was naturally so boldthat he never spoke so well as in the midst of peril. Monsieur made asif he would throw himself on his knees before the queen, who remainedinflexible; four or five princesses, who were trembling with fear, didthrow themselves at her feet; the Queen of England, who had come that dayfrom St. Germain, represented that the troubles had never been so seriousat their commencement in England, nor the feelings so heated or united. "[_Histoire du Temps, _ 1647-48. (_Archives curieuses, _ vi. P. 162. )] Atlast the cardinal made up his mind; he "had been roughly handled in thequeen's presence by the presidents and councillors in their speeches, some of them telling him, in mockery, that he had only to give himselfthe trouble of going as far as the Pont Neuf to see for himself the statein which things were, " and he joined with all those present in entreatingAnne of Austria; finally, the release of Broussel was extorted from her, "not without a deep sigh, which showed what violence she did her feelingsin the struggle. " "We returned in full court by the same road, " says Matthew Mole, "and thepeople demanding, with confused clamor of voices, whether M. Brousselwere at liberty, we gave them assurances thereof, and entered by theback-door of my lodging; before crossing the threshold, I took leave ofPresidents De Mesmes and Le Coigneux, and waited until the members hadpassed, testifying my sentiments of gratitude for that they had beenunwilling to separate until they had seen to the security of my person, which I had not at all deserved, but such was their good pleasure. Afterthis business, which had lasted from six in the morning until seveno'clock, there was need of rest, seeing that the mind had been agitatedamidst so many incidents, and not a morsel had been tasted. " [_Memoiresde Matthieu Mole, _ t. Iii. P. 265. ] Broussel had taken his seat in the Parliament again. The Prince of Condehad just arrived in Paris; he did not like the cardinal, but he was angrywith the Parliament, which he considered imprudent and insolent. "Theyare going ahead, " said he:--"if I were to go ahead with them, I shouldperhaps do better for my own interests, but my name is Louis de Bourbon, and I do not wish to shake the throne; these devils of squarecaps, arethey mad about bringing me either to commence a civil war before long, orto put a rope round their own necks, and place over their heads and overmy own an adventurer from Sicily, who will be the ruin of us all in theend? I will let the Parliament plainly see that they are not where theysuppose, and that it would not be a hard matter to bring them to reason. "The coadjutor, to whom he thus expressed himself, answered that "thecardinal might possibly be mistaken in his measures, and that Paris wouldbe a hard nut to crack. " Whereupon the prince rejoined, angrily, "Itwill not be taken, like Dunkerque, by mining and assaults, but if thebread of Gonesse were to fail them for a week . . . " The coadjutortook the rest as said. Some days afterwards, during the night betweenthe 5th and 6th of January, 1649, the queen, with the little king and thewhole court, set out at four A. M. From Paris for the castle of St. Germain, empty, unfurnished, as was then the custom in the king'sabsence, where the courtiers had great difficulty in finding a bundle ofstraw. "The queen had scarcely a bed to lie upon, " says Mdlle. DeMontpensier, "but never did I see any creature so gay as she was thatday; had she won a battle, taken Paris, and had all who had displeasedher hanged, she could not have been more so, and nevertheless she wasvery far from all that. " Paris was left to the malcontents; everybody was singing, "A Fronde-ly wind Got up to-day, 'Gainst Mazarin It howls, they say. " On the 8th of January the Parliament of Paris, all the chambers inassembly, issued a decree whereby Cardinal Mazarin was declared an enemyto the king and the state, and a disturber of the public peace, andinjunctions were laid upon all subjects of the king to hunt him down; warwas declared. Scarcely had it begun, when the greatest lords came flocking to thepopular side. On the departure of the court for St. Germain, the Duchessof Longueville had remained in Paris; her husband and her brother thePrince of Conti were not slow in coming to look after her; and alreadythe Duke of Elbeuf, of the house of Lorraine, had offered his services tothe Parliament. Levies of troops were beginning in the city, and thecommand of the forces was offered to the Prince of Conti; the Dukes ofBouillon and Beaufort and Marshal de la Mothe likewise embraced the partyof revolt; the Duchesses of Longueville and Bouillon establishedthemselves with their children at the Hotel de Ville as hostages given bythe Fronde of princes to the Fronde of the people; the Parliaments of Aixand Rouen made common cause with that of Paris; a decree ordered theseizure, in all the exchequers of the kingdom, of the royal moneys, inorder that they might be employed for the general defence. Every eveningParis wore a festive air; there was dancing at the Hotel de Ville, andthe gentlemen who had been skirmishing during the day around the wallscame for recreation in the society of the princesses. "This comminglingof blue scarfs, of ladies, of cuirasses, of violins in the hall, and oftrumpets in the square, offered a spectacle which is oftener seen inromances than elsewhere. " [_Memoires du Cardinal de Retz, _ t. I. ]Affairs of gallantry were mixed up with the most serious resolves; Madamede Longueville was of the Fronde because she was in love with M. DeMarsillac (afterwards Duke of La Rochefoucauld), and he was on bad termswith Cardinal Mazarin. Meanwhile war was rumbling round Paris; the post of Charenton, fortifiedby the Frondeurs, had been carried by the Prince of Conde at the head ofthe king's troops; the Parliament was beginning to perceive its mistake, and desired to have peace again, but the great lords engaged in thecontest aspired to turn it to account; they had already caused the gatesof Paris to be closed against a herald sent by the queen to recall hersubjects to their duty; they were awaiting the army of Germany, commandedby M. De Tnrenne, whom his brother, the Duke of Bouillon, had drawn intohis culpable enterprise; nay, more, they had begun to negotiate withSpain, and they brought up to the Parliament a pretended envoy fromArchduke Leopold, but the court refused to receive him. "What! sir, "said President de Mesmes, turning to the Prince of Conti, "is it possiblethat a prince of the blood of France should propose to give a seat uponthe fleurs-de-lis to a deputy from the most cruel enemy of thefleurs-de-lis?" The Parliament sent a deputation to the queen, and conferences wereopened at Ruel on the 4th of March;. The great lords of the Fronde tookno part in it; "they contented themselves with having at St. Germainlow-voiced (a basses notes)--secret agents, " says Madame de Motteville, "commissioned to negotiate in their favor. " Paris was beginning to lackbread; it was festival-time, and want began to make itself felt; a"complaint of the Carnival" was current amongst the people:-- "In my extreme affliction, yet I can this consolation get, That, at his hands, my enemy, Old Lent, will fare the same as I: That, at the times when people eat, We both shall equal worship meet. Thus, joining with the whole of France In war against him _a outrance, _ Grim Lent and festive Carnival, Will fight against the cardinal. " It was against the cardinal, in fact, that all attacks were directed, butthe queen remained immovable in her fidelity. "I should be afraid, " shesaid to Madame de Motteville, "that, if I were to let him fall, the samething would happen to me that happened to the King of England (Charles I. Had just been executed), and that, after he had been driven out, my turnwould come. " Grain had found its way into Paris during the truce; andwhen, on the 13th of March, the premier president, Molt;, and the othernegotiators, returned to Paris, bringing the peace which they had signedat Ruel, they were greeted with furious shouts: "None of your peace!None of your Mazarin! We must go to St. Germain to seek our good king!We must fling into the river all the Mazarins!" A rioter had just laidhis hand on the premier president's arm. "When you have killed me, " saidthe latter, calmly, "I shall only want six feet of earth;" and, when hewas advised to get back into his house by way of the record-offices, "Thecourt never hides itself, " he said; "if I were certain to perish, I wouldnot commit this poltroonery, which, moreover, would but serve to givecourage to the rioters. They would, of course, come after me to my houseif they thought that I shrank from them here. " The deputies of theParliament were sent back to Ruel, taking a statement of the claims ofthe great lords: "according to their memorials, they demanded the wholeof France. " [_Memoires de Madame de Motteville, _ t. Iii. P. 247. ] Whilst Paris was in disorder, and the agitation, through its example, wasspreading over almost the whole of France, M. De Turenne, obliged to flyfrom his army, was taking refuge, he and five others, with the landgraveof Hesse; his troops had refused to follow him in revolt; the last hopeof the Frondeurs was slipping from them. They found themselves obliged to accept peace, not without obtaining somefavors from the court. There was a general amnesty; and the Parliament preserved all its rights. "The king will have the honor of it, and we the profit, " said Guy-Patin. The great lords reappeared one after another at St. Germain. "It is theway of our nation to return to their duty with the same airiness withwhich they depart from it, and to pass in a single instant from rebellionto obedience. " [_La Rochefoucauld. _] The return to rebellion was not tobe long delayed. The queen had gone back to Paris, and the Prince ofConde with her; he, proud of having beaten the parliamentary Fronde, affected the conqueror's airs, and the throng of his courtiers, the"petits maitres, " as they were called, spoke very slightingly of thecardinal. Conde, reconciled with the Duchess of Longueville, hissister, and his brother, the Prince of Conti, assumed to have the lion'sshare in the government, and claimed all the favors for himself or hisfriends; the Fondeurs made skilful use of the ill-humor which thisconduct excited in Cardinal Mazarin; the minister responded to theiradvances; the coadjutor was secretly summoned to the Louvre; the dowagerPrincess of Conde felt some apprehensions; but, "What have I to fear?"her son said to her; "the cardinal is my friend. " "I doubt it, " sheanswered. "You are wrong; I rely upon him as much as upon you. " "PleaseGod you may not be mistaken!" replied the princess, who was setting outfor the Palais-Royal to see the queen, said to be indisposed that day. Anne of Austria was upon her bed; word was brought to her that thecouncil was waiting; this was the moment agreed upon; she dismissed theprincess, shut herself up in her oratory with the little king, to whomshe gave an account of what was going to be done for his service; then, making him kneel down, she joined him in praying to God for the successof this great enterprise. As the Prince of Conde arrived in the grandgallery, he saw Guitaut, captain of the guards, coming towards him; atthe same instant, through a door at the bottom, out went the cardinal, taking with him Abbe de la Riviere, who was the usual confidant of theDuke of Orleans, but from whom his master had concealed the great secret. The prince supppsed that Guitaut was coming to ask him some favor; thecaptain of the guards said in his ear, "My lord, what I want to say is, that I have orders to arrest you, you, the Prince of Conti your brother, and M. De Longueville. " "Me, M. Guitaut, arrest me?" Then, reflectingfor a moment, "In God's name, " he said, "go back to the queen and tellher that I entreat her to let me have speech of her!" Guitaut went toher, whilst the prince, returning to those who were waiting for him, said, "Gentlemen, the queen orders my arrest, and yours too, brother, andyours too, M. De Longueville; I confess that I am astonished, I who havealways served the king so well, and believed myself secure of thecardinal's friendship. " The chancellor, who was not in the secret, declared that it was Guitaut's pleasantry. "Go and seek the queen then, "said the prince, "and tell her of the pleasantry that is going on; as forme, I hold it to be very certain that I am arrested. " The chancellorwent out, and did not return. M. Servien, who had gone to speak to thecardinal, likewise did not appear again. M. De Guitaut entered alone. "The queen cannot see you, my lord, " he said. "Very well; I am content;let us obey, " answered the prince: "but whither are you going to take us?I pray you let it be to a warm place. " "We are going to the wood ofVincennes, my lord, " said Guitaut. The prince turned to the company andtook his leave without uneasiness and with the calmest countenance: as hewas embracing M. De Brienne, secretary of state, he said to him, "Sir, asI have often received from you marks of your friendship and generosity, Iflatter myself that you will some day tell the king the services I haverendered him. " The princes went out; and, as they descended thestaircase, Conde leaned towards Comminges, who commanded the detachmentof guards, saying, "Comminges, you are a man of honor and a gentleman;have I anything to fear?" Comminges assured him he had not, and that theorders were merely to escort him to the wood of Vincennes. The carriageupset on the way; as soon as it was righted, Comminges ordered the driverto urge on his horses. The prince burst out laughing. "Don't be afraid, Comminges, " he said; "there is nobody to come to my assistance; I swearto you that I had not taken any precautions against this trip. " Onarriving at the castle of Vincennes, there were no beds to be found, andthe three princes passed the night playing at cards; the Princess ofConde and the dowager princess received orders to retire to theirestates; the Duchess of Longueville, fearing with good cause that shewould be arrested, had taken with all speed the road to Normandy, whithershe went and took refuge at Dieppe, in her husband's government. The state-stroke had succeeded; Mazarin's skill and prudence once morecheck-mated all the intrigues concocted against him; when the news wastold to Chavigny, in spite of all his reasons for bearing malice againstthe cardinal, who had driven him from the council and kept him for sometime in prison, he exclaimed, "That is a great misfortune for the princeand his friends; but the truth must be told: the cardinal has done quiteright; without it he would have been ruined. " The contest was begunbetween Mazarin and the great Conde, and it was not with the prince thatthe victory was to remain. Already hostilities were commencing; Mazarin had done everything for theFrondeurs who remained faithful to him, but the house of Conde wasrallying all its partisans; the Dukes of Bouillon and La Rochefoucauldhad thrown themselves into Bordeaux, which was in revolt against theroyal authority, represented by the Duke of Epernon. The Princess ofConde and her young son left Chantilly to join them; Madame deLongueville occupied Stenay, a strong place belonging to the Prince ofConde: she had there found Turenne; on the other hand, the queen had justbeen through Normandy; all the towns had opened their gates to her; itwas just the same in Burgundy; the Princess of Conde's able agent, Lenet, could not obtain a declaration from the Parliament of Dijon in her favor. Bordeaux was the focus of the insurrection; the people, passionatelydevoted to "the dukes, " as the saying was, were forcing the hand of theParliament; riots were frequent in the town; the little king, with thequeen and the cardinal, marched in person upon Bordeaux; one of thefaubourgs was attacked, the dukes negotiated and obtained a generalamnesty, but no mention was made of the princes' release. The Parliament of Paris took the matter up. The premier president spokein so bitter a tone of the unhappy policy of the minister, that thelittle king, feeling hurt, told his mother that, if he had thought itwould not displease her, he would have made the premier president holdhis tongue, and would have dismissed him. On the 30th of January, Anneof Austria sent word to the Parliament that she would consent to grantthe release of the princes, "provided that the armaments of Stenay and ofM. De Turenne might be discontinued. " But it was too late; the Duke ofOrleans had made a treaty with the princes. England served as pretext. Mazarin compared the Parliament to the House of Commons, and thecoadjutor to Cromwell. Monsieur took the matter up for his friends, andwas angry. He openly declared that he would not set foot again in thePalais-Royal as long as he was liable to meet the cardinal there, andjoined the Parliament in demanding the removal of Mazarin. The queenreplied that nobody had a right to interfere in the choice of ministers. By way of answer, the Parliament laid injunctions upon all the officersof the crown to obey none but the Duke of Orleans, lieutenant general ofthe kingdom. A meeting of the noblesse, at a tumultuous assembly in thehouse of the Duke of Nemours, expressed themselves in the same sense. Itwas the 6th of February, 1651: during the night, Cardinal Mazarin set outfor St. Germain; a rumor spread in Paris that the queen was preparing tofollow him with the king; a rush was made to the Palais-Royal: the kingwas in his bed. Next day, Anne of Austria complained to the Parliament. "The prince is at liberty, " said the premier president, "and the king, the king our master, is a prisoner. " "Monsieur, who felt no fear, " saysRetz, "because he had been more cheered in the streets and the hall ofthe palace than he had ever been, " answered with vivacity, "The king wasa prisoner in the hands of Mazarin; but, thank God, he is not anylonger. " The premier president was right; the king was a prisoner to theParisians; patrols of burgesses were moving incessantly round the Palais-Royal; one night the queen was obliged to let the people into herchamber; the king was asleep; and two officers of the town-guard watchedfor some hours at his pillow. The yoke of Richelieu and the omnipotenceof Mazarin were less hard for royalty to bear than the capricious andjealous tyranny of the populace. The cardinal saw that he was beaten; he made up his mind, and, anticipating the queen's officers, he hurried to Le Havre to release theprisoners himself; he entered the castle alone, the governor havingrefused entrance to the guards who attended him. "The prince told me, "says Mdlle. De Montpensier, "that, when they were dining together, Cardinal Mazarin was not so much in the humor to laugh as he himself was, and that he was very much embarrassed. Liberty to be gone had morecharms for the prince than the cardinal's company. He said that he feltmarvellous delight at finding himself outside Le Havre, with his sword athis side; and he might well be pleased to wear it; he is a pretty goodhand at using it. As he went out he turned to the cardinal and said, 'Farewell, Cardinal Mazarin, ' who kissed 'the tip of sleeve' to him. " The cardinal had slowly taken the road to exile, summoning to him hisnieces, Mdlles. Mancini and Martinozzi, whom he had, a short time since, sent for to court; he crossed from Normandy into Picardy, made some stayat Doullens, and, impelled by his enemies' hatred, he finally crossed thefrontier on the 12th of March. The Parliament had just issued orders forhis arrest in any part of France. On the 6th of April, he fixed hisquarters at Bruhl, a little town belonging to the electorate of Cologne, in the same territory which had but lately sheltered the last days ofMary de' Medici. The Frondeurs, old and new, had gained the day; but even now there wasdisorder in their camp. Conde had returned to the court "like a raginglion, seeking to devour everybody, and, in revenge for his imprisonment, to set fire to the four corners of the realm. " [_Memoires de Montglat. _]After a moment's reconciliation with the queen, be began to show himselfmore and more haughty towards her in his demands every day; he requiredthe dismissal of the ministers Le Tellier, Servien, and Lionne, all threecreatures of the cardinal and in correspondence with him at Bruhl; asAnne of Austria refused, the prince retired to St. Maur; he was alreadyin negotiation with Spain, being inveigled into treason by the influenceof his sister, Madame de Longueville, who would not leave the Duke ofLa Rochefoucauld or return into Normandy to her husband. Fatal resultsof a guilty passion which enlisted against his country the arms of thehero of Rocroi! When he returned to Paris, the queen had, in fact, dismissed her ministers, but she had formed a fresh alliance with thecoadjutor, and, on the 17th of August, in the presence of an assemblyconvoked for that purpose at the Palais-Royal, she openly denounced theintrigues of the prince with Spain, accusing him of being incorrespondence with the archduke. Next day Conde brought the matterbefore the Parliament. The coadjutor quite expected the struggle, andhad brought supporters; the queen had sent some soldiers; the princearrived with a numerous attendance. On entering, he said to the company, that he could not sufficiently express his astonishment at the conditionin which he found the palace, which seemed to him more like a camp than atemple of justice, and that it was not merely that there could be foundin the kingdom people insolent enough to presume to dispute (superiority)the pavement (disputer le pave) with him. "I made him a deep obeisance, "says Retz, "and said that, I very humbly begged his Highness to pardon meif I told him that I did not believe that there was anybody in thekingdom insolent enough to dispute the wall (le haut du pave) with him, but I was persuaded that there were some who could not and ought not, fortheir dignity's sake, to yield the pavement (quitter le pave) to any butthe king. The prince replied that he would make me yield it. I saidthat that would not be easy. " The dispute grew warm; the presidentsflung themselves between the disputants; Conde yielded to theirentreaties, and begged the Duke of La Rochefoucauld to go and tell hisfriends to withdraw. The coadjutor went out to make the same request tohis friends. "When he would have returned into the usher's littlecourt, " writes Mdlle. De Montpensier, "he met at the door the Duke of LaRochefoucauld, who shut it in his face, just keeping it ajar to see whoaccompanied the coadjutor; he, seeing the door ajar, gave it a good push, but he could not pass quite through, and remained as it were jammedbetween the two folds, unable to get in or out. The Duke of LaRochefoucauld had fastened the door with an iron catch, keeping it so toprevent its opening any wider. The coadjutor was 'in an ugly position, for he could not help fearing lest a dagger should pop out and take hislife from behind. A complaint was made to the grand chamber, andChamplatreux, son of the premier president, went out, and, by hisauthority, had the door opened, in spite of the Duke of LaRochefoucauld. " The coadjutor protested, and the Duke of Brissac, hisrelative, threatened the Duke of La Rochefoucauld; whereupon the lattersaid that, if he had them outside, he would strangle them both; to whichthe coadjutor replied, "My dear La Franchise (the duke's nickname), donot act the bully; you are a poltroon and I am a priest; we shall not doone another much harm. " There was no fighting, and the Parliament, supported by the Duke of Orleans, obtained from the queen a declarationof the innocence of the Prince of Conde, and at the same time a formaldisavowal of Mazarin's policy, and a promise never to recall him. Anneof Austria yielded everything; the king's majority was approaching, andshe flattered herself that under cover of his name she would be able towithdraw the concessions which she felt obliged to make as regent. Herdeclaration, nevertheless, deeply wounded Mazarin, who was still takingrefuge at Bruhl, whence he wrote incessantly to the queen, who did notneglect his counsels. "Ten times I have taken up my pen to write toyou, " he said on the 26th of September, 1651 [_Lettres du CardinalMazarin a la Reine, _ pp. 292, 293], "but could not, and I am so besidemyself at the mortal wound I have just received, that I am not surewhether anything I could say to you would have rhyme or reason. The kingand the queen, by an authentic deed, have declared me a traitor, a publicrobber, an incapable, and an enemy to the repose of Christendom, after Ihad served them with so many signs of my devotion to the advancement ofpeace: it is no longer a question of property, repose, or whatever elsethere may be of the sort. I demand the honor which has been taken fromme, and that I be let alone, renouncing very heartily the cardinalate andthe benefices, whereof I send in my resignation joyfully, consentingwillingly to have given up to France twenty-three years of the best of mylife, all my pains and my little of wealth, and merely to withdraw withthe honor which I had when I began to serve her. " The persistent hopesof the adroit Italian appeared once more in the postscript of the letter:"I had forgotten to tell you that it was not the way to set me right inthe eyes of the people to impress upon their mind that I am the cause ofall the evils they suffer, and of all the disorders of the realm, in suchsort that my ministry will be held in horror forever. " Conde did not permit himself to be caught by the queen's declarations:of all the princes he alone was missing at the ceremony of the bed ofjustice whereat the youthful Louis XIV. , when entering his fourteenthyear, announced, on the 7th of September, to his people that, accordingthe laws of his realm, he "intended himself to assume the government, hoping of God's goodness that it would be with piety and justice. " Theprince had retired to Chantilly, on the pretext that the new minister, the president of the council, Chateauneuf, and the keeper of the seals, Matthew Mole, were not friends of his. The Duchess of Longueville atlast carried the day; Conde was resolved upon civil war. "You would haveit, " he said to his sister on repelling the envoy, who had followed himto Bourges, from the queen and the Duke of Orleans; "remember that I drawthe sword in spite of myself, but I will be the last to sheathe it. " Andhe kept his word. A great disappointment awaited the rebels; they had counted upon the Dukeof Bouillon and M. De Turenne, but neither of them would join thefaction. The relations between the two great generals had not beenwithout rubs; Turenne had, moreover, felt some remorse because he, beinga general in the king's army, had but lately declared against the court, "doing thereby a deed at which Le Balafro and Admiral de Coligny wouldhave hesitated, " says Cardinal de Retz. The two brothers went, beforelong, and offered their services to the queen. Meanwhile Conde had arrived at Bordeaux: a part of Guienne, Saintonge, and Porigord had declared in his favor; Count d'Harcourt, at the head ofthe royal troops, marched against La Rochelle, which he took from therevolters under the very beard of the prince, who had come from Bordeauxto the assistance of the place, whilst the king and the queen, resolutelyquitting Paris, advanced from town to town as far as Poitiers, keepingthe centre of France to its allegiance by their mere presence. Thetreaty of the Prince of Conde with Spain was concluded: eight Spanishvessels, having money and troops on board, entered the Gironde. Condedelivered over to them the castle and harbor of Talmont. The queen hadcommissioned the cardinal to raise levies in Germany, and he had alreadyentered the country of Liege, embodying troops and forming alliances. Onthe 17th of November, Anne of Austria finally wrote to Mazarin to returnto the king's assistance. In the presence of Conde's rebellion she hadno more appearances to keep up with anybody; and it was already in themaster's tone that Mazarin wrote to the queen, on the 30th of October, toput her on her guard against the Duke of Orleans: "The power committed tohis Royal Highness and the neutrality permitted to him, being as he iswholly devoted to the prince, surrounded by his partisans, and adheringblindly to their counsels, are matters highly prejudicial to the king'sservice, and, for my part, I do not see how one can be a servant of theking's, with ever so little judgment and knowledge of affairs, and yetdispute these truths. The queen, then, must bide her time to remedy allthis. " The cardinal's penetration had not deceived him; the Duke of Orleans wasworking away in Paris, where the queen had been obliged to leave him, onthe Prince of Conde's side. The Parliament had assembled to enregisteragainst the princes the proclamation of high treason despatched fromBourges by the court; Gaston demanded that it should be sent back, threatened as they were, he said, with a still greater danger than therebellion of the princes in the return of Mazarin, who was even nowadvancing to the frontier; but the premier president took no notice, andput the proclamation to the vote in these words "It is a great misfortunewhen princes of the blood give occasion for such proclamations, but thisis a common and ordinary misfortune in the kingdom, and, for five or sixcenturies past, it may be said that they have been the scourges of thepeople and the enemies of the monarchy. " The decree passed by a hundredvotes to forty. On the 24th of December, the cardinal crossed the frontier with a largebody of troops, and was received at Sedan by Lieutenant General Fabert, faithful to his fortunes even in exile. The Parliament was furious, and voted, almost unanimously, that the cardinal and his adherents wereguilty of high treason; ordering the communes to hound him down, andpromising, from the proceeds of his furniture and library which wereabout to be sold, a sum of five hundred thousand livres to whoever shouldtake him dead or alive. At once began the sale of the magnificentlibrary which the cardinal had liberally opened to the public. Thedispersion of the books was happily stopped in time to still leave anucleus for the Mazarin Library. Meanwhile Mazarin had not allowed himself to be frightened byparliamentary decrees or by dread of assassins. Re-entering France withsix thousand men, he forced the passage of Pontsur-Yonne, in spite of thetwo councillors of the Parliaments who were commissioned to have himarrested; the Duke of Beaufort, at the head of Monsieur's troops, did noteven attempt to impede his march; and, on the 28th of January, thecardinal entered Poitiers, at once resuming his place beside the king, who had come to meet him a league from the town. The court tookleisurely the road to Paris. The coadjutor had received the price of his services in the royal cause;he was a cardinal "sooner, " said he, "than Mazarias would have had him;"and so the new prince of the church considered himself released from anygratitude to the court, and sought to form a third party, at the head ofwhich was to be placed the Duke of Orleans as nominal head. Monsieur, harried by intrigues in all directions, remained in a state of inaction, and made a pretension of keeping Paris neutral; his daughter, Mdlle. DeMontpensier, who detested Anne of Austria and Mazarin, and would haveliked to marry the king, had boldly taken the side of the princes; thecourt had just arrived at Blois, on the 27th of March, 1652; the keeperof the seals, Mole, presented himself in front of Orleans to summon thetown to open its gates to the king; at that very moment arrived Mdlle. , the great Mdlle. , as she was then called; and she claimed possession ofOrleans in her father's name. "It was the appanage of Monsieur; but thegates were shut and barricaded. After they had been told that it was I, "writes Mdlle. , "they did not open; and I was there three hours. Thegovernor sent me some sweetmeats, and what appeared to me rather funnywas that he gave me to understand that he had no influence. At thewindow of the sentry-box was the Marquis d'Halluys, who watched mewalking up and down by the fosse. The rampart was fringed with peoplewho shouted incessantly, 'Hurrah for the king! hurrah for the princes!None of your Mazarin!' I could not help calling out to them, 'Go to theHotel de Ville and get the gate opened to me!' The captain made signsthat he had not the keys. I said to him, 'It must be burst open, and youowe me more allegiance than to the gentlemen of the town, seeing that Iam your master's daughter. ' The boatmen offered to break open for me agate which was close by there. I told them to make haste, and I mountedupon a pretty high mound of earth overlooking that gate. I thought butlittle about any nice way of getting thither; I climbed like a cat; Iheld on to briers and thorns, and I leapt all the hedges without hurtingmyself at all; two boats were brought up to serve me for a bridge, and inthe second was placed a ladder by which I mounted. The gate was burst atlast. Two planks had been forced out of the middle; signs were made tome to advance; and as there was a great deal of mud, a footman took meup, carried me along, and put me through this hole, through which I hadno sooner passed my head than the drums began beating. I gave my hand tothe captain, and said to him, "You will be very glad that you can boastof having managed to get me in. " [Illustration: The Great Mademoiselle----373] The keeper of the seals was obliged to return to Blois, and Mdlle. KeptOrleans, but without being able to effect an entrance for the troops ofthe Dukes of Nemours and Beaufort, who had just tried a surprise againstthe court. Had it not been for the aid of Turenne, who had defended thebridge of Jargeau, the king might have fallen into the hands of hisrevolted subjects. The queen rested at Gien whilst the princes went onas far as Montargis, thus cutting off the communications of the courtwith Paris. Turenne was preparing to fall upon his incapable adversarieswhen the situation suddenly changed: the, Prince of Conde, weary of thebad state of his affairs in Guienne, where the veteran soldiers of theCount of Harcourt had the advantage everywhere over the new levies, hadtraversed France in disguise, and forming a junction, on the 1st ofApril, with the Dukes of Nemours and Beaufort, threw himself upon thequarters of Marshal d'Hocquincourt, defeated him, burned his camp, anddrove him back to Bldneau; a rapid march on the part of Turenne, comingto the aid of his colleague, forced Conde to fall back upon Chatillon;on the 11th of April he was in Paris. The princes had relied upon the irritation caused by the return ofMazarin to draw Paris into the revolt, but they were only halfsuccessful; the Parliament would scarcely give Conde admittance;President de Bailleul, who occupied the chair in the absence of Mole, declared that the body always considered it an honor to see the prince intheir midst, but that they would have preferred not to see him there inthe state in which he was at the time, with his hands still bloody fromthe defeat of the king's troops. Amelot, premier president of the Courtof Aids, said to the prince's face, "that it was a matter ofastonishment, after many battles delivered or sustained against hisMajesty's troops, to see him not only returning to Paris without havingobtained letters of amnesty, but still appearing amongst the sovereignbodies as if he gloried in the spoils of his Majesty's subjects, andcausing the drum to be beaten for levying troops, to be paid by moneycoming from Spain, in the capital of the realm, the most loyal citypossessed by the king. " The city of Paris resolved not to make "commoncause or furnish money to assist the princes against the king underpretext of its being against Mazarin. " The populace alone were favorableto the princes' party. Meanwhile Turenne had easy work with the secondary generals remaining atthe head of the factious army; by his able maneeuvres he had covered themarch of the court, which established itself at St. Germain. Conde assembled his forces encamped around Paris: he intended to fortifyhimself at the confluence of the Seine and the Marne, hoping to besupported by the little army which had just been brought up by DukeCharles of Lorraine, as capricious and adventurous as ever. Turenne andthe main body of his troops barred the passage. Conde threw himself backupon Faubourg St. Antoine, and there intrenched himself, at the outlet ofthe three principal streets which abutted upon Porte St. Antoine (nowPlace do la Bastille). Turenne had meant to wait for re-enforcements andartillery, but the whole court had flocked upon the heights of Charonneto see the fight; pressure was put upon him, and the marshal gave theword to attack. The army of the Fronde fought with fury. "I did not seea Prince of Conde, " Turenne used to say; "I saw more than a dozen. " Theking's soldiers had entered the houses, thus turning the barricades;Marshal Ferte had just arrived with the artillery, and was sweeping RueSt. Antoine. The princes' army was about to be driven back to the footof the walls of Paris, when the cannon of the Bastille, replying all on asudden to the volleys of the royal troops, came like a thunderbolt on M. De Turenne; the Porte St. Antoine opened, and the Parisians, under arms, fringing the streets, protected the return of the rebel army. Mdlle. DeMontpensier had taken the command of the city of Paris. For a week past the Duke of Orleans had been ill, or pretended to be; herefused to give any order. When the prince began his movement, on the 2dof July, early, he sent to beg Mdlle. Not to desert him. "I ran to theLuxembourg, " she says, "and I found Monsieur at the top of the stairs. 'I thought I should find you in bed, ' said I; 'Count Fiesque told me thatyou didn't feel well. ' He answered, 'I am not ill enough for that, butenough not to go out. ' I begged him to ride out to the aid of theprince, or, at any rate, to go to bed and assume to be ill; but I couldget nothing from him. I went so far as to say, 'Short of having a treatywith the court in your pocket, I cannot understand how you can takethings so easily; but can you really have one to sacrifice the prince toCardinal Mazarin?' He made no reply: all I said lasted quite an hour, during which every friend we had might have been killed, and the princeas well as another, without anybody's caring; nay, there were people ofMonsieur's in high spirits, hoping that the prince would perish; theywere friends of Cardinal de Retz. At last Monsieur gave me a letter forthe gentlemen of the Hotel, leaving it to me to tell them his intention. I was there in a moment, assuring those present that, if ill luck wouldhave it that the enemy should beat the prince, no more quarter would beshown to Paris than to the men who bore arms. Marshal de l'Hopital, governor of Paris for the king, said to me, 'You are aware, Mdlle. , thatif your troops had not approached this city, those of the king would nothave come thither, and that they only came to drive them away. ' Madamede Nemours did not like this, and began to argue the point. I broke offtheir altercation. 'Consider, sir, that, whilst time is being wasted indiscussing useless matters, the prince is in danger in your faubourgs. '"She carried with her the aid of the Duke of Orleans' troops, andimmediately moved forwards, meeting everywhere on her road her friendswounded or dying. "When I was near the gate, I went into the house of anexchequer-master (maitre des comptes). As soon as I was there, theprince came thither to see me; he was in a pitiable state; he had twofingers' breadth of dust on his face, and his hair all matted; his collarand his shirt were covered with blood, although he was not wounded; hisbreastplate was riddled all over; and he held his sword bare in his hand, having lost the scabbard. He said to me, 'You see a man in despair; Ihave lost all my friends; MM. De Nemours, de la Rochefoucauld, andClinchamps are wounded to death. ' I consoled him a little by telling himthat they were in better case than he supposed. Then I went off to theBastille, where I made them load the cannon which was trained right uponthe city; and I gave orders to fire as soon as I had gone. I went thenceto the Porte St. Antoine. The soldiers shouted, 'Let us do somethingthat will astonish them; our retreat is secure; here is Mdlle. At thegate, and she will have it opened for us, if we are hard pressed. ' Theprince gave orders to march back into the city; he seemed to me quitedifferent from what he had been early in the day, though he had notchanged at all; he paid me a thousand compliments and thanks for thegreat service he considered that I had rendered him. I said to him, 'I have a favor to ask of you: that is, not to say anything to Monsieurabout the laches he has displayed towards you. ' At this very moment upcame Monsieur, who embraced the prince with as gay an air as if he hadnot left him at all in the lurch. The prince confessed that he had neverbeen in so dangerous a position. " The fight at Porte St. Antoine had not sufficiently compromised theParisians, who began to demand peace at any price. The mob, devoted tothe princes, set themselves to insult in the street all those who did notwear in their hats a tuft of straw, the rallying sign of the faction. Onthe 4th of July, at the general assembly of the city, when the king'sattorney-general proposed to conjure his Majesty to return to Pariswithout Cardinal Mazarin, the princes, who demanded the union of theParisians with themselves, rose up and went out, leaving the assembly tothe tender mercies of the crowd assembled on the Place de Greve. "Downon the Mazarins!" was the cry; "there are none but Mazarins any longer atthe Hotel de Ville!" Fire was applied to the doors defended by thearchers; all the outlets were guarded by men beside themselves; more thanthirty burgesses of note were massacred; many died of their wounds, theHotel de Ville was pillaged, Marshal de l'Hopital escaped with greatdifficulty, and the provost of tradesmen yielded up his office toCouncillor Broussel. Terror reigned in Paris: it was necessary to dragthe magistrates to the Palace of Justice to decree, on the 19th of July, by seventy-four votes against sixty-nine, that the Duke of Orleans shouldbe appointed "lieutenant-general of the kingdom, and the Prince of Condecommandant of all the armies. " The usurpation of the royal authority wasflagrant, the city-assembly voted subsidies, and Paris wrote to all thegood towns of France to announce to them her resolution. ChancellorSeguier had the poltroonery to accept the presidency of the council, offered him by the Duke of Orleans; he thus avenged himself for thepreference the, queen had but lately shown for Mole by confiding theseals to him. At the same time the Spaniards were entering France; forall the strong places were dismantled or disgarrisoned. The king, obliged to confront civil war, had abandoned his frontiers; Gravelineshad fallen on the 18th of May, and the arch-duke had undertaken the siegeof Dunkerque. At Conde's instance, he detached a body of troops, whichhe sent, under the orders of Count Fuendalsagna, to join the Duke ofLorraine, who had again approached Paris. Everywhere the fortune of armsappeared to be against the king. "This year we lost Barcelona, Catalonia, and Casale, the key of Italy, " says Cardinal de Retz. We sawBrisach in revolt, on the point of falling once more into the hands ofthe house of Austria. We saw the flags and standards of Spain flutteringon the Pont Neuf, the yellow scarfs of Lorraine appeared in Paris asfreely as the isabels and the blues. " Dissension, ambition, andpoltroonery were delivering France over to the foreigner. The evil passions of men, under the control of God, help sometimes todestroy and sometimes to preserve them. The interests of the Spaniardsand of the Prince of Conde were not identical. He desired to become themaster of France, and to command in the king's name; the enemy werelaboring to humiliate France and to prolong the war indefinitely: Thearch-duke recalled Count Fuendalsagna to Dunkerque; and Turenne, withstanding the terrors of the court, which would fain have fled firstinto Normandy and then to Lyons, prevailed upon the queen to establishherself at Pontoise, whilst the army occupied Compiegne. At every pointcutting off the passage of the Duke of Lorraine, who had been re-enforcedby a body of Spaniards, Turenne held the enemy in check for three weeks, and prevented them from marching on Paris. All parties began to tire ofhostilities. Cardinal Mazarin took his line, and loudly demanded of the kingpermission to withdraw, in order, by his departure, to restore peace tothe kingdom. The queen refused. "There is no consideration shown, " shesaid, "for my son's honor and my own; we will not suffer him to go away. "But the cardinal insisted. Prudent and far-sighted as he was, he knewthat to depart was the only way of remaining. He departed on the 19th ofAugust, but without leaving the frontier: he took up his quarters atBouillon. The queen had summoned the Parliament to her at Pontoise. Asmall number of magistrates responded to her summons, enough, however, togive the queen the right to proclaim rebellious the Parliament remainingat Paris. Chancellor Srguier made his escape, in order to go and rejointhe court. Nobody really believed in the cardinal's withdrawal; men arefond of yielding to appear ances in order to excuse in their own eyes achange in their own purposes. Disorder went on increasing in Paris; thegreat lords, in their discontent, were quarrelling one with another; thePrince of Conde struck M. De Rieux, who returned the blow; the Duke ofNemours was killed in a duel by M. De Beaufort; the burgesses weregrowing weary of so much anarchy; a public display of feeling in favorof peace took place on the 24th of September in the garden of thePalais-Royal; those present stuck in their hats pieces of white paper inopposition to the Frondeurs' tufts of straw. People fought in thestreets on behalf of these tokens. For some weeks past Cardinal de Retzhad remained inactive, and his friends pressed him to move. "You seequite well, " they said, "that Mazarin is but a sort of jack-in-the-box, out of sight to-day and popping up to-morrow; but you also see that, whether he be in or out, the spring that sends him up or down is that ofthe royal authority, the which will not, apparently, be so very soonbroken by the means taken to break it. The obligation you are undertowards Monsieur, and even towards the public, as regards Mazarin, doesnot allow you to work for his restoration; he is no longer here, and, though his absence may be nothing but a mockery and a delusion, itnevertheless gives you an opportunity for taking certain steps whichnaturally lead to that which is for your good. " Retz lost no time ingoing to Compiegne, where the king had installed himself after Mazarin'sdeparture; he took with him a deputation of the clergy, and received indue form the cardinal's hat. He was the bearer of proposals for anaccommodation from the Duke of Orleans, but the queen cut him short. Thecourt perceived its strength, and the instructions of Cardinal Mazarinwere precise. The ruin of De Retz was from that moment resolved upon. The Prince of Conde was ill; he had left the command of his troops to M. Do Tavannes; during the night between the 5th and 6th of October, Turennestruck his camp at Villeneuve St. Georges, crossed the Seine at Corbeil, the Marne at Meaux, without its being in the enemy's power to stop him, and established himself in the neighborhood of Dammartin. Conde wasfurious. "Tavannes and Vallon ought to wear bridles, " he said; "they areasses;" he left his house, and placed himself once more at the head ofhis army, at first following after Turenne, and soon to sever himselfcompletely from that Paris which was slipping away from him. "He wouldfind himself more at home at the head of four squadrons in the Ardennesthan commanding a dozen millions of such fellows as we have here, withoutexcepting President Charton, " said the Duke of Orleans. "The prince waswasting away with sheer disgust; he was so weary of hearing all the talkabout Parliament, court of aids, chambers in assembly, and Hotel deVille, that he would often declare that his grandfather had never beenmore fatigued by the parsons of La Rochelle. " The great Conde wasathirst for the thrilling emotions of war; and the crime he committed wasto indulge at any price that boundless passion. Ever victorious at thehead of French armies, he was about to make experience of defeat in theservice of the foreigner. The king had proclaimed a general amnesty on the 18th of October; and onthe 21st he set out in state for Paris. The Duke of Orleans stillwavered. "You wanted peace, " said Madame, "when it depended but on youto make war; you now want war when you can make neither war nor peace. It is of no use to think any longer of anything but going with a goodgrace to meet the king. " At these words he exclaimed aloud, as if it hadbeen proposed to him to go and throw himself in the river. "And wherethe devil should I go?" he answered. He remained at the Luxembourg. Ondrawing near Paris, the king sent word to his uncle that he would have toleave the city. Gaston replied in the following letter:-- "MONSEIGNEUR: Having understood from my cousin the Duke of Danville and from Sieur d'Aligre, the respect that your Majesty would have me pay you, I most humbly beseech your Majesty to allow me to assure you by these lines that I do not propose to remain in Paris longer than tillto-morrow; and that I will go my way to my house at Limours, having no more passionate desire than to testify by my perfect obedience that I am, with submission, "Monseigneur, "Your most humble and most obedient servant and subject, "GASTON. " The Duke of Orleans retired before long to his castle at Blois, where hedied in 1660; deserted, towards the end of his life, by all the friendshe had successively abandoned and betrayed. "He had, with the exceptionof courage, all that was necessary to make an honorable man, " saysCardinal de Retz, "but weakness was predominant in his heart throughfear, and in his mind through irresolution; it disfigured the wholecourse of his life. He engaged in everything because he had not strengthto resist those who drew him on, and he always came out disgracefully, because he had not the courage to support them. " He was a prey to fear, fear of his friends as well as of his enemies. The Fronde was all over, that of the gentry of the long robe as well asthat of the gentry of the sword. The Parliament of Paris was once morefalling in the state to the rank which had been assigned to it byRichelieu, and from which it had wanted to emerge by a supreme effort. The attempt had been the same in France as in England, however differenthad been the success. It was the same yearnings of patriotism andfreedom, the same desire on the part of the country to take an activepart in its own government, which had inspired the opposition of theParliament of England to the despotism of Charles I. , and the oppositionof the French Parliaments to Richelieu as well as to Mazarin. It wasEngland's good fortune to have but one Parliament of politicians, insteadof ten Parliaments of magistrates, the latter more fit for the theorythan the practice of public affairs; and the Reformation had, beforehand, accustomed its people to discussion as well as to liberty. Its greatlords and its gentlemen placed themselves from the first at the head ofthe national movement, demanding nothing and expecting nothing forthemselves from the advantages they claimed for their country. Theremnant of the feudal system had succumbed with the Duke of Montmorencyunder Richelieu; France knew not the way to profit by the elements ofcourage, disinterestedness, and patriotism offered her by her magistracy;she had the misfortune to be delivered over to noisy factions of princesand great lords, ambitious or envious, greedy of honors and riches, asready to fight the court as to be on terms with it, and thinking far moreof their own personal interests than of the public service. Without anyunity of action or aim, and by turns excited and dismayed by the examplesthat came to them from England, the Frondeurs had to guide them noHampden or Cromwell; they had at their backs neither people nor army; theEnglish had been able to accomplish a revolution; the Fronde failedbefore the dexterous prudence of Mazarin and the queen's fidelity to herminister. In vain did the coadjutor aspire to take his place; Anne ofAustria had not forgotten the Earl of Strafford. --Cardinal de Retzlearned before long the hollowness of his hopes. On the 19th ofDecember, 1652, as he was repairing to the Louvre, he was arrested by M. De Villequier, captain of the guards on duty, and taken the same eveningto the Bois de Vincennes; there was a great display of force in thestreet and around the carriage; but nobody moved, whether it were, " saysRetz, "that the dejection of the people was too great, or that those whowere well-inclined towards me lost courage on seeing nobody at theirhead. " People were tired of raising barricades and hounding down theking's soldiers. "I was taken into a large room where there were neither hangings nor bed;that which was brought in about eleven o'clock at night was of Chinesetaffeta, not at all the thing for winter furniture. I slept very well, which must not be attributed to stout-heartedness, because misfortune hasnaturally that effect upon me. I have on more than one occasiondiscovered that it wakes me in the morning and sends me to sleep atnight. I was obliged to get up the next day without a fire, becausethere was no wood to make one, and the three exons who had been postednear me had the kindness to assure me that I should not be without it thenext day. He who remained alone on guard over me took it for himself, and I was a whole fortnight, at Christmas, in a room as big as a church, without warming myself. I do not believe that there could be found underheaven another man like this exon. He stole my linen, my clothes, myboots, and I was sometimes obliged to stay in bed eight or ten days forlack of anything to put on. I could not believe that I was subjected tosuch treatment without orders from some superior, and without some madnotion of making me die of vexation. I fortified myself against thatnotion, and I resolved at any rate not to die that kind of death. Atlast I got him into the habit of not tormenting me any more, by dint ofletting him see that I did not torment myself at all. In point of fact Ihad risen pretty nearly superior to all these ruses, for which I had asupreme contempt; but I could not assume the same loftiness of spirit inrespect of the prison's entity (substance), if one may use the term, andthe sight of myself, every morning when I awoke, in the hands of myenemies made me perceive that I was anything rather than a stoic. "The Archbishop of Paris had just died, and the dignity passed to hiscoadjutor; as the price of his release, Mazarin demanded his resignation. The clergy of Paris were highly indignant; Cardinal de Retz was removedto the castle of Nantes, whence he managed to make his escape in August, 1653; for nine years he lived abroad, in Spain, Italy, and Germany, everywhere mingling in the affairs of Europe, engaged in intrigue, andnot without influence; when at last he returned to France, in 1662, heresigned the archbishopric of Paris, and established himself in theprincipality of Commercy, which belonged to him, occupied up to the dayof his death in paying his debts, doing good to his friends and servants, writing his memoirs, and making his peace with God. This was in thosedays a solicitude which never left the most worldly: the Prince of Contihad died very devout, and Madame de Longueville had just expired at theCarmelites', after twenty-five years' penance, when Cardinal de Retz diedon the 24th of August, 1679. At the time of his arrest, it was a commonsaying of the people in the street that together with "Cardinal de Retzit would have been a very good thing to imprison Cardinal Mazarin aswell, in order to teach them of the clergy not to meddle for the futurein the things of this world. " Language which was unjust to the grandgovernment of Cardinal Richelieu, unjust even to Cardinal Mazarin. Thelatter was returning with greater power than ever at the moment whenCardinal de Retz, losing forever the hope of supplanting him in power, was beginning that life of imprisonment and exile which was ultimately togive him time to put retirement and repentance between himself and death. Cardinal Mazarin had once more entered France, but he had not returned toParis. The Prince of Conde, soured by the ill-success of the Fronde anddemented by illimitable pride, had not been ashamed to accept the titleof generalissimo of the Spanish armies; Turenne had succeeded in hurlinghim back into Luxembourg, and it was in front of Bar, besieged, thatMazarin, with a body of four thousand men, joined the French army; Barwas taken, and the campaign of 1652, disastrous at nearly every point, had just finished with this success, when the cardinal re-entered Parisat the end of January, 1653. Six months later, at the end of July, theinsurrection in Guienne was becoming extinguished by a series of privateconventions; the king's armies were entering Bordeaux; the revoltedprinces received their pardon, waiting, meanwhile, for the Prince ofConti to marry, as he did next year, Mdlle. Martinozzi, one of Mazarin'snieces; Madame de Longueville retired to Moulin's into the convent whereher aunt, Madame de Montmorency, had for the last twenty years beenmourning for her husband; Conde was the only rebel left, more dangerous, for France, than all the hostile armies he commanded. Cardinal Mazarinwas henceforth all-powerful; whatever may have been the nature of theties which united him to the queen, he had proved their fidelity andstrength too fully to always avoid the temptation of adopting the tone ofa master; the young king's confidence in his minister, who had broughthim up, equalled that of his mother; the merits as well as the faults ofMazarin were accordingly free to crop out: he was neither vindictive norcruel towards even his most inveterate enemies, whom he could not manage, as Richelieu did, to confound with those of the state; the excesses ofthe factions had sufficed to destroy them. "Time is an able fellow, " thecardinal would frequently say; if people often complained of being badlycompensated for their services, Mazarin could excuse himself on theground of the deplorable, condition of the finances. He neverthelessfeathered his own nest inordinately, taking care, however, not to rob thepeople, it was said. He confined himself to selling everything at aprofit to himself, even the offices of the royal household, withoutmaking, as Richelieu had made, any "advance out of his own money to thestate, when there was none in the treasury. " The power had been honestlywon, if the fortune were of a doubtful kind. M. Mignet has said with hismanly precision of language, "Amidst those unreasonable disturbanceswhich upset for a while the judgment of the great Turenne, which, in thecase of the great Conde, turned the sword of Rocroi against France, andwhich led Cardinal Retz to make so poor a use of his talent, there wasbut one firm will, and that was Anne of Austria's; but one man of goodsense, and that was Mazarin. " [_Introduction aux Negotiations pour laSuccession d'. Espagne. _] From 1653 to 1657, Turenne, seconded by Marshal La Ferte and sometimes byCardinal Mazarin in person, constantly kept the Spaniards and the Princeof Conde in check, recovering the places but lately taken from France andrelieving the besieged towns; without ever engaging in pitched battles, he almost always had the advantage. Mazarin resolved to strike adecisive blow. It was now three years since, after long negotiations, the cardinal had concluded with Cromwell, Protector of the Commonwealthof England, a treaty of peace and commerce, the prelude and first fruitsof a closer alliance which the able minister of Anne of Austria had notceased to wish for and pave the way for. On the 23d of March, 1657, theparleys ended at last in a treaty of alliance offensive and defensive;it was concluded at Paris between France and England. Cromwell promisedthat a body of six thousand English, supported by a fleet prepared tovictual and aid them along the coasts, should go and join the Frencharmy, twenty thousand strong, to make war on the Spanish Low Countries, and especially to besiege the three forts of Gravelines, Mardyk, andDunkerque, the last of which was to be placed in the hands of the Englishand remain in their possession. Six weeks after the conclusion of thetreaty, the English troops disembarked at Boulogne; they were regimentsformed and trained in the long struggles of the civil war, drilled to themost perfect discipline, of austere manners, and of resolute and sterncourage; the king came in person to receive them on their arrival; Mardykwas soon taken and placed as pledge in the hands of the English. Cromwell sent two fresh regiments for the siege of Dunkerque. In thespring of 1658, Turenne invested the place. Louis XIV. And Mazarin wentto Calais to be present at this great enterprise. "At Brussels, " says M. Guizot in his _Histoire de la Republiqued'Angleterre et de Cromwell, _ "neither Don Juan nor the Marquis ofCarracena would believe that Dunkerque was in danger; being at the sametime indolent and proud, they disdained the counsel, at one time ofvigilant activity and at another of prudent reserve, which was constantlygiven them by Conde; they would not have anybody come and rouse themduring their siesta if any unforeseen incident occurred, nor allow anydoubt of their success when once they were up and on horseback. Theyhurried away to the defence of Dunkerque, leaving behind them theirartillery and a portion of their cavalry. Conde, conjured them tointrench themselves whilst awaiting them; Don Juan, on the contrary, was for advancing on to the dunes and marching to meet the French army. 'You don't reflect, ' said Conde 'that ground is fit only for infantry, and that of the French is more numerous and has seen more service. ''I am persuaded, ' replied Don Juan, 'that they will not ever dare to lookHis Most Catholic Majesty's army in the face. ' 'Ah! you don't know M. DeTurenne; no mistake is made with impunity in the presence of such a manas that. ' Don Juan persisted, and, in fact, made his way on to the'dunes. ' Next day, the 13th of June, Conde, more and more convinced ofthe danger, made fresh efforts to make him retire. 'Retire!' cried DonJuan: 'if the French dare fight, this will be the finest day that evershone on the arms of His Most Catholic Majesty. ' 'Very fine, certainly, 'answered Conde, 'if you give orders to retire. ' Turenne put an end tothis disagreement in the enemy's camp. Having made up his mind to givebattle on the 14th, at daybreak, he sent word to the English general, Lockhart, by one of his officers who wanted at the same time to explainthe commander-in-chief's plan and his grounds for it. 'All right, 'answered Lockhart: 'I leave it to M. De Turenne; he shall tell me hisreasons after the battle, if he likes. ' A striking contrast between themanly discipline of English good sense and the silly blindness of Spanishpride. Conde was not mistaken: the issue of a battle begun under suchauspices could not be doubtful. 'My lord, ' said he to the young Duke ofGloucester, who was serving in the Spanish army by the side of hisbrother, the Duke of York, 'did you ever see a battle?' 'No, prince. ''Well, then, you are going to see one lost. ' The battle of the Duneswas, in fact, totally lost by the Spaniards, after four hours' very hardfighting, during which the English regiments carried bravely, and withheavy losses, the most difficult and the best defended position; all theofficers of Lockhart's regiment, except two, were killed or woundedbefore the end of the day; the Spanish army retired in disorder, leavingfour thousand prisoners in the hands of the conqueror. 'The enemy cameto meet us, ' wrote Turenne, in the evening, to his wife; 'they werebeaten, God be praised! I have worked rather hard all day; I wish yougood night, and am going to bed. ' Ten days afterwards, on the 23d ofJune, 1658, the garrison of Dunkerque was exhausted; the aged governor, the Marquis of Leyden, had been mortally wounded in a sortie; the placesurrendered, and, the next day but one, Louis XIV. Entered it, but merelyto hand it over at once to the English. 'Though the court and the armyare in despair at the notion of letting go what he calls a rather nicemorsel, ' wrote Lockhart, the day before, to Secretary Thurloe, 'nevertheless the cardinal is staunch to his promises, and seems as wellsatisfied at giving up this place to his Highness as I am to take it. The king, also, is extremely polite and obliging, and he has in his soulmore honesty than I had supposed. '" The surrender of Dunkerque was soon followed by that of Gravelines andseveral other towns; the great blow against the Spanish arms had beenstruck; negotiations were beginning; tranquillity reigned everywhere inFrance; the Parliament had caused no talk since the 20th of March, 1655, when, they having refused to enregister certain financial edicts, forwant of liberty of suffrage, the king, setting out from the castle ofVincennes, "had arrived early at the Palace of Justice, in scarlet jacketand gray hat, attended by all his court in the same costume, as if hewere going to hunt the stag, which was unwonted up to that day. When hewas in his bed of justice, he prohibited the Parliament from assembling, and, after having said a word or two, he rose and went out, withoutlistening to any address. " [_Memoires de Montglat, _ t. Ii. ] Thesovereign courts had learned to improve upon the old maxim of MatthewMole: "I am going to court; I shall tell the truth; after which the kingmust be obeyed. " Not a tongue wagged, and obedience at length wasrendered to Cardinal Mazarin as it had but lately been to CardinalRichelieu. The court was taking its diversion. "There were plenty of fine comediesand ballets going on. The king, who danced very well, liked themextremely, " says Mdlle. De Montpensier, at that time exiled from Paris;"all this did not affect me at all; I thought that I should see enough ofit on my return; but my ladies were different, and nothing could equaltheir vexation at not being in all these gayeties. " It was still worsewhen announcement was made of the arrival of Queen Christina of Sweden, that celebrated princess, who had reigned from the time she was six yearsold, and had lately abdicated, in 1654, in favor of her cousin, CharlesGustavus, in order to regain her liberty, she said, but perhaps, also, because she found herself confronted by the ever-increasing opposition ofthe grandees of her kingdom, hostile to the foreign fashions favored bythe queen, as well as to the design that was attributed to her ofbecoming converted to Catholicism. When Christina arrived at Paris, in1656, she had already accomplished her abjuration at Brussels, withoutassigning her motives for it to anybody. "Those who talk of them knownothing about them, " she would say; "and she who knows something aboutthem has never talked of them. " There was great curiosity at Paris tosee this queen. The king sent the Duke of Guise to meet her, and hewrote to one of his friends as follows: "She is not tall, she has a good arm, a hand white and well made, butrather a man's than a woman's, a high shoulder, --a defect which sheso well conceals by the singularity of her dress, her walk, and hergestures, that you might make a bet about it. Her face is large withoutbeing defective, all her features are the same and strongly marked, apretty tolerable turn of countenance, set off by a very singularhead-dress; that is, a man's wig, very big, and very much raised infront; the top of the head is a tissue of hair, and the back hassomething of a woman's style of head-dress. Sometimes she also wears ahat; her bodice, laced behind, crosswise, is made something like ourdoublets, her chemise bulging out all round her petticoat, which shewears rather badly fastened and not over straight. She is always verymuch powdered, with a good deal of pomade, and almost never puts ongloves. She has, at the very least, as much swagger and haughtiness asthe great Gustavus, her father, can have had; she is mighty civil andcoaxing, speaks eight languages, and principally French, as if she hadbeen born in Paris. She knows as much about it as all our Academy andthe Sorbonne put together, has an admirable knowledge of painting as wellas of everything else, and knows all the intrigues of our court betterthan I. In fact, she is quite an extraordinary person. " "The king, though very timid at that time, " says Madame de Motteville, "and not atall well informed, got on so well with this bold, well-informed, andhaughty princess, that, from the first moment, they associated togetherwith much freedom and pleasure on both sides. It was difficult, when youhad once had a good opportunity of seeing her, and above all of listeningto her, not to forgive all her irregularities, though some of them werehighly blamable. " All the court and all Paris made a great fuss aboutthis queen, who insisted upon going everywhere, even to the FrenchAcademy, where no woman had ever been admitted. Patru thus relates toone of his friends the story of her visit: "No notice was given untilabout eight or nine in the morning of this princess's purpose, so thatsome of our body could not receive information in time. M. De Gombaultcame without having been advertised; but, as soon as he knew of thequeen's purpose, he went away again, for thou must know that he is wrothwith her because, he having written some verses in which he praised thegreat Gustavus, she did not write to him, she who, as thou knowest, haswritten to a hundred impertinent apes. I might complain, with far morereason; but, so long as kings, queens, princes, and princesses do me onlythat sort of harm, I shall never complain. The chancellor [Seguier, atwhose house the Academy met] had forgotten to have the portrait of thisprincess, which she had given to the society, placed in the room; which, in my opinion, ought not to have been forgotten. Word was brought thatthe carriage was entering the court-yard. The chancellor, followed bythe whole body, went to receive the princess. . . . As soon as sheentered the room, she went off-hand, according to her habit, and sat downin her chair; and, at the same moment, without any order given us, wealso sat down. The princess, seeing that we were at some little distancefrom the table, told us that we could draw up close to it. There wassome little drawing up, but not as if it were a dinner-party. . . . Several pieces were read; and then the director, who was M. De laChambre, told the queen that the ordinary exercise of the society was towork at the Dictionary, and that, if it were agreeable to her Majesty, asheet should be read. 'By all means, ' said she. M. De Mezeray, accordingly, read the word Jeux, under which, amongst other proverbialexpressions, there was, _'Jeux de princes, qui ne plaisent qu'a ceux quiles font. ' (Princes' jokes, which amuse only those who make them. )_ Sheburst out laughing. The word, which was in fair copy, was finished. Itwould have been better to read a word which had to be weeded, becausethen we should all have spoken; but people were taken by surprise--theFrench always are. . . . After about an hour, the princess rose, madea courtesy to the company, and went away as she had come. Here is reallywhat passed at this famous interview, which, no doubt, does great honorto the Academy. --The Duke of Anjou talks of coming to it, and the zealousare quite transported with this bit of glory. " [_OEuvres diverses dePatru, _ t. Ii. P. 512. ] Queen Christina returned the next year and passed some time atFontainebleau. It was there, in a gallery that King Louis Philippecaused to be turned into apartments, which M. Guizot at one timeoccupied, that she had her first equerry, Monaldeschi, whom she accusedof having betrayed her, assassinated almost before her own eyes; and sheconsidered it astonishing, and very bad taste, that the court of Franceshould be shocked at such an execution. "This barbarous princess, " saysMadame de Motteville, "after so cruel an action as that, remained in herroom laughing and chatting as easily as if she had done something of noconsequence or very praiseworthy. The queen-mother, a perfect Christian, who had met with so many enemies whom she might have punished, but whohad received from her nothing but marks of kindness, was scandalized byit. The king and Monsieur blamed her, and the minister, who was not acruel man, was astounded. " The queen-mother had other reasons for being less satisfied than she hadbeen at the first trip of Queen Christina of Sweden. The young kingtestified much inclination for Mary de Mancini, Cardinal Mazarin's niece, a bold and impassioned creature, whose sister Olympia had already foundfavor in his eyes before her marriage with the Count of Soissons. Theeldest of all had married the Duke of Mercceur, son of the Duke ofVendome; the other two were destined to be united, at a later period, tothe Dukes of Bouillon and La Meilleraye; the hopes of Mary went stillhigher; relying on the love of young Louis XIV. , she dared to dream ofthe throne; and the Queen of Sweden encouraged her. "The right thing isto marry one's love, " she told the king. No time was lost in lettingChristina understand that she could not remain long in France: thecardinal, "with a moderation for which he cannot be sufficientlycommended, " says Madame de Motteville, "himself put obstacles in the wayof his niece's ambitious designs; he sent her to the convent of Brouage, threatening, if that exile were not sufficient, to leave France and takehis niece with him. " "No power, " he said to the king, "can wrest from me the free authority ofdisposal which God and the laws give me over my family. " "You are king;you weep; and yet I am going away!" said the young girl to her royallover, who let her go. Mary de Mancini was mistaken; he was not yetKing. [Illustration: Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin----394] Cardinal Mazarin and the queen had other views regarding the marriage ofLouis XIV. ; for a long time past the object of their labors had been toterminate the war by an alliance with Spain. The Infanta, Maria Theresa, was no longer heiress to the crown, for King Philip at last had a son;Spain was exhausted by long-continued efforts, and dismayed by the checksreceived in the, campaign of 1658; the alliance of the Rhine, recentlyconcluded at Frankfurt between the two leagues, Catholic and Protestant, confirmed immutably the advantages which the treaty of Westphalia hadsecured to France. The electors had just raised to the head of theempire young Leopold I. , on the death of his father, Ferdinand III. , andthey proposed their mediation between France and Spain. Whilst KingPhilip IV. Was still hesitating, Mazarin took a step in anotherdirection; the king set out for Lyons, accompanied by his mother and hisminister, to go and see Princess Margaret of Savoy, who had been proposedto him a long time ago as his wife. He was pleased with her, andnegotiations were already pretty far advanced, to the great displeasureof the queen-mother, when the cardinal, on the 29th of November, 1659, inthe evening, entered Anne of Austria's room. "He found her pensive andmelancholy, but he was all smiles. 'Good news, madam, ' said he. 'Ah!'cried the queen, 'is it to be peace?' 'More than that, Madame; I bringyour Majesty both peace and the Infanta. '" The Spaniards had becomeuneasy; and Don Antonio de Pimentel had arrived at Lyons at the same timewith the court of Savoy, bearing a letter from Philip IV. For the queenhis sister. The Duchess of Savoy had to depart and take her daughterwith her, disappointed of her hopes; all the consolation she obtained wasa written promise that the king would marry Princess Margaret, if themarriage with the Infanta were not accomplished within a year. The year had not yet rolled away, and the Duchess of Savoy had alreadylost every atom of illusion. Since the 13th of August, Cardinal Mazarinhad been officially negotiating with Don Louis de Haro, representingPhilip IV. The ministers had held a meeting in the middle of theBidassoa, on the Island of Pheasants, where a pavilion had been erectedon the boundary-line between the two states. On the 7th of November thepeace of the Pyrenees was signed at last; it put an end to a war whichhad continued for twenty-three years, often internecine, alwaysburdensome, and which had ruined the finances of the two countries. France was the gainer of Artois and Roussillon, and of several places inFlanders, Hainault, and Luxembourg; and the peace of Westphalia wasrecognized by Spain, to whom France restored all that she held inCatalonia and in Franche-Comte. Philip IV. Had refused to includePortugal in the treaty. The Infanta received as dowry five hundredthousand gold crowns, and renounced all her rights to the throne ofSpain; the Prince of Conde was taken back to favor by the king, anddeclared that he would fain redeem with his blood all the hostilities hehad committed in and out of France. The king restored him to all hishonors and dignities, gave him the government of Burgundy, and bestowedon his son, the Duke of Enghien, the office of Grand Master of France. The honor of the King of Spain was saved, he did not abandon his allies, and he made a great match for his daughter. But the eyes of Europe werenot blinded; it was France that triumphed; the policy of CardinalRichelieu and of Cardinal Mazarin was everywhere successful. The work ofHenry IV. Was completed, the house of Austria was humiliated andvanquished in both its branches; the man who had concluded the peace ofWestphalia and the peace of the Pyrenees had a right to say, "I am moreFrench in heart than in speech. " The Prince of Conde returned to court, "as if he had never gone away, "says Mdlle. De Montpensier. [_Memoires, _ t. Iii. P. 451. ] "The kingtalked familiarly with him of all that he had done both in France and inFlanders, and that with as much gusto as if all those things had takenplace for his service. " "The prince discovered him to be so great inevery point that, from the first moment at which he could approach him, he comprehended, as it appeared, that the time had come to humblehimself. That genius for sovereignty and command which God had implantedin the king, and which was beginning to show itself, persuaded the Princeof Conde that all which remained of the previous reign was about to beannihilated. " [_Memoires de Madame de Motteville, _ t. V. P. 39. ] Fromthat day King Louis XIV. Had no more submissive subject than the greatConde. The court was in the South, travelling from town to town, pending thearrival of the dispensations from Rome. On the 3d of June, 1660, DonLouis de Haro, in the name of the King of France, espoused the Infanta inthe church of Fontfrabia. Mdlle. De Montpensier made up her mind to bepresent, unknown to anybody, at the ceremony. When it was over, the newqueen, knowing that the king's cousin was there, went up to her, saying, "I should like to embrace this fair unknown, " and led her away to herroom, chatting about everything, but pretending not to know her. Thequeen-mother and King Philip IV. Met next day, on the Island ofPheasants, after forty-five years' separation. The king had comeprivately to have a view of the Infanta, and he watched her, through adoor ajar, towering a whole head above the courtiers. "May I, ask myniece what she thinks of this unknown?" said Anne of Austria to herbrother. "It will be time when she has passed that door, " replied theking. Young Monsieur, the king's brother, leaned forward towards hissister-in-law, and, "What does your Majesty think of this door?" hewhispered. "I think it very nice and handsome, " answered the youngqueen. The king had thought her handsome, "despite the ugliness of herhead-dress and of her clothes, which had at first taken him by surprise. "King Philip IV. Kept looking at M. De Turenne, who had accompanied theking. "That man has given me dreadful times, " he repeated twice orthrice. "You can judge whether M. De Turenne felt himself offended, "says Mdlle. De Montpensier. The definitive marriage took place atSaint-Jean-de-Luz on the 9th of June, and the court took the roadleisurely back to Vincennes. Scarcely had the arrival taken place, whenall the sovereign bodies sent a solemn deputation to pay their respectsto Cardinal Mazarin and thank him for the peace he had just concluded. It was an unprecedented honor, paid to a minister upon whose head theParliament had but lately set a price. The cardinal's triumph was ascomplete at home as abroad; all foes had been reduced to submission orsilence, Paris and France rejoicing over the peace and the king'smarriage; but, like Cardinal Richelieu, Mazarin succumbed at the verypinnacle of his glory and power; the gout, to which he was subject, flewto his stomach, and he suffered excruciating agonies. One day, when theking came to get his advice upon a certain matter, "Sir, " said thecardinal, "you are asking counsel of a man who no longer has his reasonand who raves. " He saw the approach of death calmly, but notunregretfully. Concealed, one day, behind a curtain in the newapartments of the Mazarin Palace (now the National Library), youngBrienne heard the cardinal coming. "He dragged his slippers along like aman very languid and just recovering from some serious illness. Hepaused at every step, for he was very feeble; he fixed his gaze first onone side and then on the other, and letting his eyes wander over themagnificent objects of art he had been all his life collecting, he said, 'All that must be left behind!' And, turning round, he added, 'And thattoo! What trouble I have had to obtain all these things! I shall neversee them more where I am going. '" He had himself removed to Vincennes, of which he was governor. There he continued to regulate all the affairsof state, striving to initiate the young king in the government. "Nobody, " Turenne used to say, "works so much as the cardinal, ordiscovers so many expedients with great clearness of mind for theterminating of much business of different sorts. " The dying ministerrecommended to the king MM. Le Tellier and de Lionne, and he added, "Sir, to you I owe everything; but I consider that I to some extent acquitmyself of my obligation to your Majesty by giving you M. Colbert. " Thecardinal, uneasy about the large possessions he left, had found a way ofsecuring them to his heirs by making, during his lifetime, a gift of thewhole of them to the king. Louis XIV. At once returned it. The ministerhad lately placed his two nieces, the Princess of Conti and the Countessof Soissons, at the head of the household of two queens; he had marriedhis niece, Hortensia Mancini, to the Duke of La Meilleraye, who took thetitle of Duke of Mazarin. The father of this duke was the relative andprotege of Cardinal Richelieu, for whom Mazarin had always preserved afeeling of great gratitude. It was to him and his wife that he left theremainder of his vast possessions, after having distributed amongst allhis relatives liberal bequests to an enormous amount. The pictures andjewels went to the king, to Monsieur, and to the queens. A considerablesum was employed for the foundation and endowment of the _College desQuatre Nations (now the Palais de l'Institut), _ intended for theeducation of sixty children of the four provinces re-united to France bythe treaties of Westphalia and the Pyrenees, Alsace, Roussillon, Artois, and Pignerol. The cardinal's fortune was estimated at fifty millions. Mazarin had scarcely finished making his final dispositions when hismalady increased to a violent pitch. "On the 5th of March, forty hours'public prayers were ordered in all the churches of Paris, which is notgenerally done except in the case of kings, " says Madame de Motteville. The cardinal had sent for M. Jolt, parish-priest of St. Nicholas desChamps, a man of great reputation for piety, and begged him not to leavehim. "I have misgivings about not being sufficiently afraid of death, "he said to his confessor. He felt his own pulse himself, muttering quitelow, "I shall have a great deal more to suffer. " The king had left himon the 7th of March, in the evening. He did not see him again and sentto summon the ministers. Already the living was taking the place of thedying, with a commencement of pomp and circumstance which excited wonderat the changes of the world. "On the 9th, between two and three in themorning, Mazarin raised himself slightly in his bed, praying to God andsuffering greatly; then he said aloud, 'Ah holy Virgin, have pity uponme; receive my soul, ' and so he expired, showing a fair front to death upto the last moment. " The queen-mother had left her room for the lasttwo, days, because it was too near that of the dying man. "She wept lessthan the king, " says Madame de Motteville, "being more disgusted with thecreatures of his making by reason of the knowledge she had of theirimperfections, insomuch that it was soon easy to see that the defects ofthe dead man would before long appear to her greater than they had yetbeen in her eyes, for he did not content himself with exercisingsovereign power over the whole realm, but he exercised it over thesovereigns themselves who had given it him, not leaving them liberty todispose of anything of any consequence. " [_Memoires de Madame deMotteville, _ t. V. P. 103. ] [Illustration: Death of Mazarin. ----399] Louis XIV. Was about to reign with a splendor and puissance withoutprecedent; his subjects were submissive and Europe at peace; he wasreaping the fruits of the labors of his grandfather Henry IV. , ofCardinal Richelieu, and of Cardinal Mazarin. Whilst continuing the workof Henry IV. Richelieu had rendered possible the government of Mazarin;he had set the kingly authority on foundations so strong that the princesof the blood themselves could not shake it. Mazarin had destroyed partyand secured to France a glorious peace. Great minister had succeededgreat king, and able man great minister; Italian prudence, dexterity, andfinesse had replaced the indomitable will, the incomparable judgment, andthe grandeur of view of the French priest and nobleman. Richelieu andMazarin had accomplished their patriotic work: the king's turn had come. CHAPTER XLIV. ----LOUIS XIV. , HIS WARS AND HIS CONQUESTS. 1661-1697. Cardinal Mazarin on his death-bed had given the young king this advice:"Manage your affairs yourself, sir, and raise no more premier ministersto where your bounties have placed me; I have discovered, by what I mighthave done against your service, how dangerous it is for a king to put hisservants in such a position. " Mazarin knew thoroughly the king whosebirth he had seen. "He has in him the making of four kings and onehonest man, " he used to say. Scarcely was the minister dead, when LouisXIV. Sent to summon his council: Chancellor Seguier, SuperintendentFouquet, and Secretaries of State Le Tellier, de Lionne, Brienne, Duplessis-Gueneguaud, and La Vrilliere. Then, addressing the chancellor, "Sir, " said he, "I have had you assembled together with my ministers andmy secretaries of state to tell you that until now I have been wellpleased to leave my affairs to be governed by the late cardinal; it istime that I should govern them myself; you will aid me with your counselswhen I ask for them. Beyond the general business of the seal, in whichI do not intend to make any alteration, I beg and command you, Mr. Chancellor, to put the seal of authority to nothing without my ordersand without having spoken to me thereof, unless a secretary of stateshall bring them to you on my behalf. . . . And for you, gentlemen, "addressing the secretaries of state, "I warn you not to sign anything, even a safety-warrant or passport, without my command, to report everyday to me personally, and to favor nobody in your monthly rolls. Mr. Superintendent, I have explained to you my intentions; I beg that youwill employ the services of M. Colbert, whom the late cardinalrecommended to me. " The king's councillors were men of experience; and they, all recognizedthe master's tone. From timidity or respect, Louis XIV. Had toleratedthe yoke of Mazarin, not, however, without impatience and in expectationof his own turn. [_Portraits de la Cour, Archives curieuses, _ t. Viii. P. 371. ] "The cardinal, " said he one day, "does just as he pleases, andI put up with it because of the good service he has rendered me, but Ishall be master in my turn;" and he added, "the king my grandfather didgreat things, and left some to do; if God gives me grace to live twentyyears longer, perhaps I may do as much or more. " God was to grant LouisXIV. More time and power than he asked for, but it was Henry IV. 's goodfortune to maintain his greatness at the sword's point, without everhaving leisure to become intoxicated with it. Absolute power is in itsnature so unwholesome and dangerous that the strongest mind cannot alwayswithstand it. It was Louis XIV. 's misfortune to be king for seventy-twoyears, and to reign fifty-six as sovereign master. "Many people made up their minds, " says the king in his _Memoires_[t. Ii. P. 392], "that my assiduity in work was but a heat which wouldsoon cool; but time showed them what to think of it, for they saw meconstantly going on in the same way, wishing to be informed of all thattook place, listening to the prayers and complaints of my meanestsubjects, knowing the number of my troops and the condition of myfortresses, treating directly with foreign ministers, receivingdespatches, making in person part of the replies and giving mysecretaries the substance of the others, regulating the receipts andexpenditures of my kingdom, having reports made to myself in personby those who were in important offices, keeping my affairs secret, distributing graces according to my own choice, reserving to myself aloneall my authority, and confining those who served me to a modest positionvery far from the elevation of premier ministers. " The young king, from the first, regulated his life and his time: "I laidit down as a law to myself, " he says in his _Instructions au Dauphin, _"to work regularly twice a day. I cannot tell you what fruit I reapedimmediately after this resolution. I felt myself rising as it were bothin mind and courage; I found myself quite another being; I discovered inmyself what I had no idea of, and I joyfully reproached myself for havingbeen so long ignorant of it. Then it dawned upon me that I was king, andwas born to be. " A taste for order and regularity was natural to Louis XIV. , and he soonmade it apparent in his councils. "Under Cardinal Mazarin, there wasliterally nothing but disorder and confusion; he had the council heldwhilst he was being shaved and dressed, without ever giving anybody aseat, not even the chancellor or Marshal Villeroy, and he was oftenchattering with his linnet and his monkey all the time he was beingtalked to about business. After Mazarin's death the king's councilassumed a more decent form. The king alone was seated, all the othersremained standing, the chancellor leaned against the bedrail, and M. DeLionne upon the edge of the chimney-piece. He who was making a reportplaced himself opposite the king, and, if he had to write, sat down on astool which was at the end of the table where there was a writing-deskand paper. " [_Histoire de France, _ by Le P. Daniel, t. Xvi. P. 89. ] "I will settle this matter with your Majesty's ministers, " said thePortuguese ambassador one day to the young king. "I have no ministers, Mr. Ambassador, " replied Louis XIV. ; "you mean to say my men ofbusiness. " Long habituation to the office of king was not destined to wear out, toexhaust, the youthful ardor of King Louis XIV. He had been for a longwhile governing, when he wrote, "You must not imagine, my son, thataffairs of state are like those obscure and thorny passages in thesciences which you will perhaps have found fatiguing, at which the mindstrives to raise itself, by an effort, beyond itself, and which repel usquite as much by their, at any rate apparent, uselessness as by theirdifficulty. The function of kings consists principally in leaving goodsense to act, which always acts naturally without any trouble. All thatis most necessary in this kind of work is at the same time agreeable; forit is, in a word, my son, to keep an open eye over all the world, to becontinually learning news from all the provinces and all nations, thesecrets of all courts, the temper and the foible of all foreign princesand ministers, to be informed about an infinite number of things of whichwe are supposed to be ignorant, to see in our own circle that which ismost carefully hidden from us, to discover the most distant views of ourown courtiers and their most darkly cherished interests which come to usthrough contrary interests, and, in fact, I know not what other pleasurewe would not give up for this, even if it were curiosity alone thatcaused us to feel it. " [_Memoires de Louis XIV. , _ t. Ii. P. 428. ] At twenty-two years of age, no more than during the rest of his life, wasLouis XIV. Disposed to sacrifice business to pleasure, but he did notsacrifice pleasure to business. It was on a taste so natural to a youngprince, for the first time free to do as he pleased, that SuperintendentFouquet counted to increase his influence and probably his power with theking. "The attorney-general [Fouquet was attorney-general in theParliament of Paris], though a great thief, will remain master of theothers, " the queen-mother had said to Madame de Motteville at the time ofMazarin's death. Fouquet's hopes led him to think of nothing less thanto take the minister's place. [Illustration: Fouquet----404] Fouquet, who was born in 1615, and had been superintendent of finance inconjunction with Servien since 1655, had been in sole possession of thatoffice since the death of his colleague in 1659. He had faithfullyserved Cardinal Mazarin through the troubles of the Fronde. The latterhad kept him in power in spite of numerous accusations of malversationand extravagance. Fouquet, however, was not certain of the cardinal'sgood faith; he bought Belle-Ile to secure for himself a retreat, andprepared, for his personal defence, a mad project which was destinedsubsequently to be his ruin. From the commencement of his reign, thecounsels of Mazarin on his death-bed, the suggestions of Colbert, thefirst observations made by the king himself, irrevocably ruined Fouquetin the mind of the young monarch. Whilst the superintendent was dreamingof the ministry and his friends calling him _the Future, _ when he waspreparing, in his castle of Vaux-le-Vicomte, an entertainment in theking's honor at a cost of forty thousand crowns, Louis XIV. , in concertwith Colbert, had resolved upon his ruin. The form of trial was decidedupon. The king did not want to have any trouble with the Parliament; andColbert suggested to Fouquet the idea of ridding himself of his office ofattorney-general. Achille de Harlay bought it for fourteen hundredthousand livres; a million in ready money was remitted to the king forhis Majesty's urgent necessities; the superintendent was buying upeverybody, even the king. [Illustration: Colbert----405] On the 17th of August, 1661, the whole court thronged the gardens ofVaux, designed by Le Netre; the king, whilst admiring the pictures of LeBrun, the _Facheux_ of Moliere represented that day for the first time, and the gold and silver plate which encumbered the tables, felt hisinward wrath redoubled. "Ah! Madame, " he said to the queen his mother, "shall not we make all these fellows disgorge?" He would have had thesuperintendent arrested in the very midst of those festivities, the verysplendor of which was an accusation against him. Anne of Austria, inclined in her heart to be indulgent towards Fouquet, restrained him. "Such a deed would scarcely be to your honor, my son, " she said;"everybody can see that this poor man is ruining himself to give you goodcheer, and you would have him arrested in his own house!" [Illustration: Vaux le Vicomte----405a] "I put off the execution of my design, " says Louis XIV. In his Memoires, "which caused me incredible pain, for I saw that during that time he waspractising new devices to rob me. You can imagine that at the age I thenwas it required my reason to make a great effort against my feelings inorder to act with so much self-control. All France commended especiallythe secrecy with which I had for three or four months kept a resolutionof that sort, particularly as it concerned a man who had such specialaccess to me, who had dealings with all that approached me, who receivedinformation from within and from without the kingdom, and who, ofhimself, must have been led by the voice of his own conscience toapprehend everything. " Fouquet apprehended and became reassured byturns; the king, he said, had forgiven him all the disorder which thetroubles of the times and the absolute will of Mazarin had possiblycaused in the finances. However, he was anxious when he followed LouisXIV. To Nantes, the king being about to hold an assembly of the states ofBrittany. "Nantes, Belle-Ile! Nantes, Belle-Ile!" he kept repeating. On arriving, Fouquet was ill and trembled as if he had the ague; he didnot present himself to the king. On the 5th of September, in the evening, the king himself wrote to thequeen-mother: "My dear mother, I wrote you word this morning about theexecution of the orders I had given to have the superintendent arrested;you know that I have had this matter for a long while on my mind, but itwas impossible to act sooner, because I wanted him first of all to havethirty thousand crowns paid in for the marine, and because, moreover, itwas necessary to see to various matters which could not be done in a day;and you cannot imagine the difficulty I had in merely finding means ofspeaking in private to D'Artagnan. I felt the greatest impatience in theworld to get it over, there being nothing else to detain me in thisdistrict. [Illustration: Louis XIV. Dismissing Fouquet----407] At last, this morning, the superintendent having come to work with me asusual, I talked to him first of one matter and then of another, and madea show of searching for papers, until, out of the window of my closet, Isaw D'Artagnan in the castle-yard; and then I dismissed thesuperintendent, who, after chatting a little while at the bottom of thestaircase with La Feuillade, disappeared during the time he was payinghis respects to M. Le Tellier, so that poor D'Artagnan thought he hadmissed him, and sent me word by Maupertuis that he suspected thatsomebody had given him warning to look to his safety; but he caught himagain in the place where the great church stands, and arrested him for meabout midday. They put the superintendent into one of my carriages, followed by my musketeers, to escort him to the castle of Angers, whilsthis wife, by my orders, is off to Limoges. . . . I have told thosegentlemen who are here with me that I would have no more superintendents, but myself take the work of finance in conjunction with faithful personswho will do nothing without me, knowing that this is the true way toplace myself in affluence and relieve my people. During the littleattention I have as yet given thereto, I observed some important matterswhich I did not at all understand. You will have no difficulty inbelieving that there have been many people placed in a great fix; but Iam very glad for them to see that I am not such a dupe as they supposed, and that the best plan is to hold to me. " Three years were to roll by before the end of Fouquet's trial. In vainhad one of the superintendent's valets, getting the start of all theking's couriers, shown sense enough to give timely warning to hisdistracted friends; Fouquet's papers were seized, and very compromisingthey were for him as well as for a great number of court-personages, ofboth sexes. Colbert prosecuted the matter with a rigorous justice thatlooked very like hate; the king's self-esteem was personally involved inprocuring the condemnation of a minister guilty of great extravagancesand much irregularity rather than of intentional want of integrity. Public feeling was at first so greatly against the superintendent thatthe peasants shouted to the musketeers told off to escort him from Angersto the Bastille, "No fear of his escaping; we would hang him with our ownhands. " But the length and the harshness of the proceedings, the effortsof Fouquet's family and friends, the wrath of the Parliament, out ofwhose hands the case had been taken in favor of carefully chosencommissioners, brought about a great change; of the two prosecutingcounsel (_conseillers rapporteurs_), one, M. De Sainte-Helene, wasinclined towards severity; the other, Oliver d'Ormesson, a man ofintegrity and courage, thought of nothing but justice, and treated withcontempt the hints that reached him from the court. Colbert took thetrouble one day to go and call upon old M. D'Ormesson, the counsel'sfather, to complain of the delays that the son, as he said, was causingin the trial: "It is very extraordinary, " said the minister, "that agreat king, feared throughout Europe, cannot finish a case against one ofhis own subjects. " "I am sorry, " answered the old gentleman, "that theking is not satisfied with my son's conduct; I know that he practiseswhat I have always taught him, --to fear God, serve the king, and renderjustice without respect of persons. The delay in the matter does notdepend upon him; he works at it night and day, without wasting a moment. "Oliver d'Ormesson lost the stewardship of Soissonness, to which he hadthe titular right, but he did not allow himself to be diverted from hisscrupulous integrity. Nay, he grew wroth at the continual attacks ofChancellor Seguier, more of a courtier than ever in his old age, andanxious to finish the matter to the satisfaction of the court. "I toldmany of the Chamber, " he writes, "that I did not like to have the whipapplied to me every morning, and that the chancellor was a sort ofchastiser I would not put up with. " [_Journal d' Oliver d' Ormesson, _t. Ii. P. 88. ] Fouquet, who claimed the jurisdiction of the Parliament, had at firstrefused to answer the interrogatory; it was determined to conduct hiscase "as if he were dumb, " but his friends had him advised not to persistin his silence. The courage and presence of mind of the accused morethan once embarrassed his judges. The ridiculous scheme which had beendiscovered behind a looking-glass in Fouquet's country-house was read;the instructions given to his friends in case of his arrest seemed toforeshadow a rebellion; Fouquet listened, with his eyes bent upon thecrucifix. "You cannot be ignorant that this is a state-crime, " said thechancellor. "I confess that it is outrageous, sir, " replied the accused;"but it is not a state-crime. I entreat these gentlemen, " turning to thejudges, "to kindly allow me to explain what a state-crime is. It is whenyou hold a chief office, when you are in the secrets of your prince, andwhen, all at once, you range yourself on the side of his enemies, enlistall your family in the same interest, cause the passes to be given up byyour son-in-law, and the gates to be opened to a foreign army, so as tointroduce it into the heart of the kingdom. That, gentlemen, is what iscalled a state-crime. " The chancellor could not protest; nobody hadforgotten his conduct during the Fronde. M. D'Ormesson summed up forbanishment, and confiscation of all the property of the accused; it wasall that the friends of Fouquet could hope for. M. De Sainte-Helenesummed up for beheadal. "The only proper punishment for him would berope and gallows, " exclaimed M. Pussort, the most violent of the wholecourt against the accused; "but, in consideration of the offices he hasheld, and the distinguished relatives he has, I relent so far as toaccept the opinion of M. De Sainte-Helene. " "What say you to thismoderation?" writes Madame de Sevigne to M. De Pomponne, like herself afaithful friend of Fouquet's: "it is because he is Colbert's uncle, andwas objected to, that he was inclined for such handsome treatment. Asfor me, I am beside myself when I think of such infamy. . . . Youmust know that M. Colbert is in such a rage that there is apprehensionof some atrocity and injustice which will drive us all to despair. If itwere not for that, my poor dear sir, in the position in which we now are, we might hope to see our friend, although very unfortunate, at any ratewith his life safe, which is a great matter. " "Pray much to your God and entreat your judges, " was the message sent toMesdames Fouquet by the queen-Snother, "for, so far as the king isconcerned, there is nothing to be expected. " "If he is sentenced, I shall leave him to die, " proclaimed Louis XIV. Fouquet was notsentenced; the court declared for the view of Oliver d'Ormesson. "PraiseGod, sir, and thank Him, " wrote Madame de Sevigne, on the 20th ofDecember, 1664, "our poor friend is saved; it was thirteen for M. D'Ormesson's summing-up, and nine for Sainte-He1ene's. It will be a longwhile before I recover from my joy; it is really too overwhelming; I canhardly restrain it. The king changes exile into imprisonment, andrefuses him permission to see his wife, which is against all usage; buttake care not to abate one jot of your joy; mine is increased thereby, and makes me see more clearly the greatness of our victory. " Fouquet wastaken to Pignerol, and all his family were removed from Paris. He diedpiously in his prison, in 1680, a year before his venerable mother, MarieMaupeou, who was so deeply concerned about her son's soul at the verypinnacle of greatness, that she threw herself upon her knees on hearingof his arrest, and exclaimed, I thank thee, O God; I have always prayedfor his salvation, and here is the way to it!" Fouquet was guilty; thebitterness of his enemies and the severities of the king have failed toprocure his acquittal from history any more than from his judges. Even those who, like Louis XIV. And Colbert, saw the canker in the state, deceived themselves as to the resources at their disposal for the cure ofit; the punishment of the superintendent and the ruin of the farmers oftaxes (traitants) might put a stop for a while to extravagances; thepowerful hand of Colbert might re-establish order in the finances, foundnew manufactures, restore the marine, and protect commerce; but the orderwas but momentary, and the prosperity superficial, as long as thesovereign's will was the sole law of the state. Master as he was overthe maintenance of peace in Europe, after so many and such long periodsof hostility, young Louis XIV. Was only waiting for an opportunity ofrecommencing war. " The resolutions I had in my mind seemed to me veryworthy of execution, " he says: "my natural activity, the ardor of my age, and the violent desire I felt to augment my reputation, made me veryimpatient to be up and doing; but I found at this moment that love ofglory has the same niceties, and, if I may say so, the same timidities, as the most tender passions; for, the more ardent I was to distinguishmyself, the more apprehensive I was of failing, and, regarding as a greatmisfortune the shame which follows the slightest errors, I intended, inmy conduct, to take the most extreme precautions. " The day of reverses was farther off from Louis XIV. Than that of errors. God had vouchsafed him incomparable instruments for the accomplishment ofhis designs. Whilst Colbert was replenishing the exchequer, all thewhile diminishing the imposts, a younger man than the king himself, theMarquis of Louvois, son of Michael Le Tellier, admitted to the council attwenty years of age, was eagerly preparing the way for those wars whichwere nearly always successful so long as he lived, however insufficientwere the reasons for them, however unjust was their aim. [Illustration: Louvois----411] Foreign affairs were in no worse hands than the administration of financeand of war. M. De Lionne was an able diplomatist, broken in for a long, time past to important affairs, shrewd and sensible, more celebratedamongst his contemporaries than in history, always falling into thesecond rank, behind Mazarin or Louis XIV. , "who have appropriated hisfame, " says M. Mignet. The negotiations conducted by M. De Lionne wereof a delicate nature. Louis XIV. Had never renounced the rights of thequeen to the succession in Spain. King Philip IV. Had not paid hisdaughter's dowry, he said; the French ambassador at Madrid, theArchbishop of Embrun, was secretly negotiating to obtain a revocation ofMaria Theresa's renunciation, or, at the very least, a recognition of theright of devolution over the Catholic Low Countries. This strangecustom of Hainault secured to the children of the first marriagesuccession to the paternal property, to the exclusion of the offspring ofthe second marriage. Louis XIV. Claimed the application of it to theadvantage of the queen his wife, daughter of Elizabeth of France. "It isabsolutely necessary that justice should sooner or later be done thequeen, as regards the rights that may belong to her, or that I should tryto exact it myself, " wrote Louis XIV. To the Archbishop of Embrun. Thisjustice and these rights were, sooth to say, the pivot of all thenegotiations and all the wars of King Louis XIV. "I cannot, all in amoment, change from white to black all the ancient maxims of this crown, "said the king. He obtained no encouragement from Spain, and he began tomake preparations, in anticipation, for war. In this view and with these prospects, he needed the alliance of theHollanders. Shattered as it had been by the behavior of the UnitedProvinces at the Congress of Munster and by their separate peace withSpain, the friendship between the States General and France had beenre-soldered by the far-sighted policy of John Van Witt, grand pensionaryof Holland, and preponderant, with good right, in the policy of hiscountry. Bold and prudent, courageous and wise, he had known better thananybody how to estimate the true interests of Holland, and how tomaintain them everywhere, against Cromwell as well as Mazarin, withhigh-spirited moderation. His great and cool judgment had inclined himtowards France, the most useful ally Holland could have. In spite of thedifficulties put in the way of their friendly relations by Colbert'scommercial measures, a new treaty was concluded between Louis XIV. Andthe United Provinces. "I am informed from a good quarter, " says a letterto John van Witt from his ambassador at Paris, Boreel, June 8, 1662, "that his Majesty makes quite a special case of the new alliance betweenhim and their High Mightinesses, which he regards as his own particularwork. He expects great advantages from it as regards the security of hiskingdom and that of the United Provinces, which, he says, he knows tohave been very affectionately looked upon by Henry the Great and hedesires that, if their High Mightinesses looked upon his ancestor as afather, they should love him from this moment as a son, taking him fortheir best friend and principal ally. " A secret negotiation was at thesame time going on between John van Witt and Count d'Estrades, Frenchambassador in Holland, for the formation and protection of a Catholicrepublic in the Low Countries, according to Richelieu's old plan, or forpartition between France and the United Provinces. John van Witt wasanxious to act; but Louis XIV. Seemed to be keeping himself hedged, inview of the King of Spain's death, feeling it impossible, he said, withpropriety and honor, to go contrary to the faith of the treaties whichunited him to his father-in-law. "That which can be kept secret for sometime cannot be forever, nor be concealed from posterity, " he said toCount d'Estrades, in a private letter: "any how, there are certain thingswhich are good to do and bad to commit to writing. " An understanding wascome to without any writing. Louis XIV. Well understood the noble heartand great mind with which he had to deal, when he wrote to Countd'Estrades, April 20, 1663, "It is clear that God caused M. De Witt to beborn [in 1632] for great things, seeing that, at his age, he has alreadyfor many years deservedly been the most considerable person in his state;and I believe, too, that my having obtained so good a friend in him wasnot a simple result of chance, but of Divine Providence, who is thusearly arranging the instruments of which He is pleased to make use forthe glory of this crown, and for the advantage of the United Provinces. The only complaint I make of him is, that, having so much esteem andaffection as I have for his person, he will not be kind enough to let mehave the means of giving him some substantial tokens of it, which I woulddo with very great joy. " Louis XIV. Was not accustomed to meet, atforeign courts, with the high-spirited disinterestedness of theburgess-patrician, who, since the age of five and twenty, had beengoverning the United Provinces. Thus, then, it was a case of strict partnership between France andHolland, and Louis XIV. Had remained faithful to the policy of Henry IV. And Richelieu when Philip IV. Died, on the 17th of September, 1665. Almost at the same time the dissension between England and Holland, aftera period of tacit hostility, broke out into action. The United Provincesclaimed the aid of France. Close ties at that time united France and England. Monsieur, the king'sonly brother, had married Henrietta of England, sister of Charles II. The King of England, poor and debauched, had scarcely been restored tothe throne when he sold Dunkerque to France for five millions of livres, to the great scandal of Cromwell's old friends, who had but lately helpedTurenne to wrest it from the Spaniards. "I knew without doubt that theaggression was on the part of England, " writes Louis XIV. In hisMemoires, "and I resolved to act with good faith towards the Hollanders, according to the terms of my treaty: but as I purposed to terminate thewar on the first opportunity, I resolved to act towards the English ashandsomely as could be, and I begged the Queen of England, who happenedto be at that time in Paris, to signify to her son that, with thesingular regard I had for him, I could not without sorrow form theresolution which I considered myself bound by the obligation of mypromise to take; for, at the origin of this war, I was persuaded that hehad been carried away by the wishes of his subjects farther than he wouldhave been by his own, insomuch that, between ourselves, I thought I hadless reason to complain of him than for him. It is certain that thissubordination which places the sovereign under the necessity of receivingthe law from his people is the worst calamity that can happen to a man ofour rank. I have pointed out to you elsewhere, my son, the miserablecondition of princes who commit their people and their own dignity to themanagement of a premier minister; but it is little beside the misery ofthose who are left to the indiscretion of a popular assembly; the moreyou grant, the more they claim; the more you caress, the more theydespise; and that which is once in their possession is held by so manyarms that it cannot be wrenched away without an extreme amount ofviolence. " In his compassion for the misery of the king of a freecountry, Louis XIV. Contented himself with looking on at the desperateengagements between the English and the Dutch fleets. Twice the Englishdestroyed the Dutch fleet under the orders of Admiral van Tromp. Johnvan Witt placed himself at the head of the squadron. "Tromp has courageenough to fight, " he said, "but not sufficient prudence to conduct agreat action. The heat of battle is liable to carry officers away, confuse them, and not leave them enough independence of judgment to bringmatters to a successful issue. That is why I consider myself bound byall the duties of manhood and conscience to be myself on the watch, inorder to set bounds to the impetuosity of valor when it would fain go toofar. " The resolution of the grand pensionary and the skill of AdmiralRuyter, who was on his return from an expedition in Africa, restored thefortunes of the Hollanders; their vessels went and offered the Englishbattle at the very mouth of the Thames. The French squadron did notleave the Channel. It was only against the Bishop of Munster, who hadjust invaded the Dutch territory, that Louis XIV. Gave his allieseffectual aid; M. De Turenne marched against the troops of the bishop, who was forced to retire, in the month of April, 1666. Peace wasconcluded at Breda, between England and Holland, in the month of July, 1667. Louis XIV. Had not waited for that moment to enter Flanders. Everything, in fact, was ready for this great enterprise: the regent ofSpain, Mary Anne of Austria, a feeble creature, under the thumb of oneFather Nithard, a Jesuit, had allowed herself to be sent to sleep by theskilful manoeuvres of the Archbishop of Embrun; she had refused to make atreaty of alliance with England and to recognize Portugal, to which LouisXIV. Had just given a French queen, by marrying Mdlle. De Nemours to KingAlphonso VI. The league of the Rhine secured to him the neutrality, atthe least, of Germany; the emperor was not prepared for war; Europe, divided between fear and favor, saw with astonishment Louis XIV. Take thefield in the month of May, 1667. "It is not, " said the manifesto sent bythe king to the court of Spain, "either the ambition of possessing newstates, or the desire of winning glory by arms, which inspires the MostChristian King with the design of maintaining the rights of the queen hiswife; but would it not be shame for a king to allow all the privileges ofblood and of law to be violated in the persons of himself, his wife, andhis son? As king, he feels himself obliged to prevent this injustice;as master, to oppose this usurpation; and, as father, to secure thepatrimony to his son. He has no desire to employ force to open thegates, but he wishes to enter, as a beneficent sun, by the rays of hislove, and to scatter everywhere, in country, towns, and private houses, the gentle influences of abundance and peace, which follow in his train. "To secure the gentle influences of peace, Louis XIV. Had collected anarmy of fifty thousand men, carefully armed and equipped under thesupervision of Turenne, to whom Louvois as yet rendered docile obedience. There was none too much of this fine army for recovering the queen'srights over the duchy of Brabant, the marquisate of Antwerp, Limburg, Hainault, the countship of Namur, and other territories. "Heaven nothaving ordained any tribunal on earth at which the Kings of France candemand justice, the Most Christian King has only his own arms to look tofor it, " said the manifesto. Louis XIV. Set out with M. De Turenne. Marshal Crequi had orders to observe Germany. The Spaniards were taken unprepared: Armentieres, Charleroi, Douai, andTournay had but insufficient garrisons, and they fell almost withoutstriking a blow. Whilst the army was busy with the siege of Courtray, Louis XIV. Returned to Compiegne to fetch the queen. The whole courtfollowed him to the camp. "All that you have read about--themagnificence of Solomon and the grandeur of the King of Persia, is not tobe compared with the pomp that attends the king in his expedition, " saysa letter to Bussy-Rabutin from the Count of Coligny. "You see passingalong the streets nothing but plumes, gold-laced uniforms, chariots, mules superbly harnessed, parade-horses, housings with embroidery of finegold. " "I took the queen to Flanders, " says Louis XIV. , "to show her tothe peoples of that country, who received her, in point of fact, with allthe delight imaginable, testifying their sorrow at not having had moretime to make preparations for receiving her more befittingly. " Thequeen's quarters were at Courtrai. Marshal Turenne had moved onDendermonde, but the Flemings had opened their sluices; the country wasinundated; it was necessary to fall back on Audenarde; the town was takenin two days; and the king, still attended by the court, laid siege toLille. Vauban, already celebrated as an engineer, traced out the linesof circumvallation; the army of M. De Crequi formed a junction with thatof Turenne; there was expectation of an attempt on the part of thegovernor of the Low Countries to relieve the place; the Spanish forcesent for that purpose arrived too late, and was beaten on its retreat;the burgesses of Lille had forced the garrison to capitulate; and LouisXIV. Entered it on the 27th of August, after ten days' open trenches. Onthe 2d of September, the king took the road back to St. Germain; butTurenne still found time to carry the town of Alost before taking up hiswinter-quarters. Louis XIV. 's first campaign had been nothing but playing at war, almostentirely without danger or bloodshed; it had, nevertheless, beensufficient to alarm Europe. Scarcely had peace been concluded at Breda, when another negotiation was secretly entered upon between England, Holland, and Sweden. It was in vain that King Charles II. Leaned personally towards analliance with France; his people had their eyes "opened to the dangers"--incurred by Europe from the arms of Louis XIV. "Certain persons of thegreatest influence in Parliament come sometimes to see me, without anylights and muffled in a cloak in order not to be recognized, " says aletter of September 26, 1669, from the Marquis of Ruvigny to M. DeLionne; "they give me to understand that common sense and the publicsecurity forbid them to see, without raising a finger, the whole of theLow Countries taken, and that they are bound in good policy to oppose thepurposes of this conquest if his Majesty intend to take all for himself. "On the 23d of January, 1668, the celebrated treaty of the Triple Alliancewas signed at the Hague. The three powers demanded of the King of Francethat he should grant the Low Countries a truce up to the month of May, inorder to give time for treating with Spain and obtaining from her, asFrance demanded, the definitive cession of the conquered places orFranche-Comte in exchange. At bottom, the Triple Alliance was resolvedto protect helpless Spain against France; a secret article bound thethree allies to take up arms to restrain Louis XIV. , and to bring himback, if possible, to the peace of the Pyrenees. At the same moment, Portugal was making peace with Spain, who recognized her independence. The king refused the long armistice demanded of him. "I will grant it upto the 31st of March, " he had said, "being unwilling to miss the firstopportunity of taking the field. " The Marquis of Castel-Rodriguo mademerry over this proposal. "I am content, " said he, "with the suspensionof arms that winter imposes upon the King of France. " The governor ofthe Low Countries made a mistake: Louis XIV. Was about to prove that hissoldiers, like those of Gustavus Adolphus, did not recognize winter. Hehad intrusted the command of his new army to the Prince of Conde, amnestied for the last nine years, but, up to that time, a stranger tothe royal favor. Conde expressed his gratitude with more fervor thanloftiness when he wrote to the king on the 20th of December, 1667, "Mybirth binds me more than any other to your Majesty's service, but thekindnesses and the confidence you deign to show me after I have so littledeserved them bind me still more than my birth. Do me the honor tobelieve, sir, that I hold neither property nor life but to cheerfullysacrifice them for your glory and for the preservation of your person, which is a thousand times dearer to me than all the things of the world. " "On pretence of being in Burgundy at the states, " writes Oliverd'Ormesson, the prosecutor of Fouquet, "the prince had obtained perfectknowledge that Franche-Comte was without troops and without apprehension, because they had no doubt that the king would accord them neutrality asin the last war, the inhabitants having sent to him to ask it of him. Hekept them amused. Meanwhile the king had set his army in motion withoutdisclosing his plan, and the inhabitants of Franche-Comte foundthemselves attacked without having known that they were to be. Besanconand Salins surrendered at sight of the troops. The king, on arriving, went to Dole, and superintended an affair of counterscarps and somedemilunes, whereat there were killed some four or five hundred men. Theinhabitants, astounded, and finding themselves without troops or hope ofsuccor, surrendered on Shrove Tuesday, February 14. The king at the sametime marched to Gray. The governor made some show of defending himself, but the Marquis of Yenne, governor-general under Castel-Rodriguo, whobelongs to the district and has all his property there, came andsurrendered to the king, and then, having gone to Gray, persuaded thegovernor to surrender. Accordingly, the king entered it on Sunday, February 19, and had a Te Deum sung there, having at his right thegovernor-general, and at his left the special governor of the town; and, the same day, he set out on his return. And so, within twenty-two daysof the month of February, he had set out from St. Germain, been inFranche-Comte, taken it entirely, and returned to St. Germain. This is agreat and wonderful conquest from every point of view. Having paid avisit to the prince to make my compliments, I said that the glory he hadwon had cost him dear, as he had lost his shoes; he replied, laughing, that it had been said so, but the truth was, that, happening to be at theguards' attack, somebody came and told him that the king had pushedforward to M. De Gadaignes' attack, that he had ridden up full gallop tobring back the king, who had put himself in too great peril, and that, having dismounted at a very moist spot, his shoe had come off, and he hadbeen obliged to re-shoe himself in the king's presence. " [_Journal d'Oliver d' Ormesson, _ t. Ii. P. 542. ] Louis XIV. Had good reason to "push forward to the attack and put himselfin too great peril;" a rumor had circulated that, having run the samerisk at the siege of Lille, he had let a moment's hesitation appear; theold Duke of Charost, captain of his guards, had come up to him, and, "Sir, " he had whispered in the young king's ear, "the wine is drawn, andit must be drunk. " Louis XIV. Had finished his reconnoissance, notwithout a feeling of gratitude towards Charost for preferring before hislife that honor which ended by becoming his idol. The king was back at St. Germain, preparing enormous armaments for themonth of April. He had given the Prince of Conde the government ofFranche-Comte. "I had always esteemed your father, " he said to the youngDuke of Enghien, "but I had never loved him; now I love him as much as Iesteem him. " Young Louvois, already in high favor with the king, as wellas his father, Michael Le Tellier, had contributed a great deal towardsgetting the prince's services appreciated; they still smarted under thereproaches of M. De Turenne touching the deficiency of supplies for thetroops before Lille in 1667. War seemed to be imminent; the last days of the armistice were at hand. "The opinion prevailing in France as to peace is a disease which isbeginning to spread very much, " wrote Louvois in the middle of March, "but we shall soon find a cure for it, as here is the time approachingfor taking the field. You must publish almost everywhere that it is theSpaniards who do not want peace. " Louvois lied brazenfacedly; theSpaniards were without resources, but they had even less of spirit thanof resources; they consented to the abandonment of all the places won inthe Low Countries during 1667. A congress was opened at Aix-la-Chapelle, presided over by the nuncio of the new pope, Clement IX. , as favorable toFrance as his predecessor, Innocent X. , had been to Spain. "A phantomarbiter between phantom plenipotentiaries, " says Voltaire, in the Sieclede Louis XIV. The real negotiations were going on at St. Germain. "I did not look merely, " writes Louis XIV. , "to profit by the presentconjuncture, but also to put myself in a position to turn to my advantagethose which might probably arrive. In view of the great increments thatmy fortune might receive, nothing seemed to me more necessary than toestablish for myself amongst my smaller neighbors such a character formoderation and probity as might assuage in them those emotions of dreadwhich everybody naturally experiences at sight of too great a power. I was bound not to lack means of breaking with Spain when I pleased;Franche-Comte, which I gave up, might become reduced to such a conditionthat I should be master of it at any moment, and my new conquests, wellsecured, would open for me a surer entrance into the Low Countries. "Determined by these wise motives, the king gave orders to sign the peace. "M. De Turenne appeared yesterday like a man who had received a blow froma club, " writes Michael Le Tellier to his son: "when Don Juan arrives, matters will change; he says that, meanwhile, all must go on just thesame, and he repeated it more than a dozen times, which made the princelaugh. " Don Juan did not protest, and on the 2d of May, 1668, the peaceof Aix-la-Chapelle was concluded. Before giving up Franche-Comte, theking issued orders for demolishing the fortifications of Dole and Gray;he at the same time commissioned Vauban to fortify Ath, Lille, andTournay. The Triple Alliance was triumphant, the Hollanders at the head. "I cannot tell your Excellency all that these beer-brewers write to ourtraders, " said a letter to M. De Lionne from one of his correspondents;"as there is just now nothing further to hope for, in respect of they LowCountries, I vent all my feelings upon the Hollanders, whom I hold atthis day to be our most formidable enemies, and I exhort your Excellency, as well for your own reputation as for the public satisfaction, to omitfrom your policy nothing that may tend to the discovery of means to abasethis great power, which exalts itself too much. " Louis XIV. Held the same views as M. De Lionne's correspondent, notmerely from resentment against the Hollanders, who had stopped him in hiscareer of success, but because he quite saw that the key to the barrierbetween the Catholic Low Countries and himself remained in the hands ofthe United Provinces. He had relied upon his traditional influence inthe Estates as well as on the influence of John van Witt; but thelatter's position had been shaken. "I learn from a good quarter thatthere are great cabals forming against the authority of M. De Witt, andfor the purpose of ousting him from it, " writel M. De Lionne on the 30thof March, 1668; Louis XIV. Resolved to have recourse to arms in order tohumiliate this insolent republic which had dared to hamper his designs. For four years, every effort of his diplomacy tended solely to makeHolland isolated in Europe. It was to England that France would naturally first turn her eyes. Thesentiments of King Charles II. And of his people, as regarded Holland, were not the same. Charles had not forgiven the Estates for havingdriven him from their territory at the request of Cromwell; the simpleand austere manners of the republican patricians did not accord with histaste for luxury and debauchery; the English people, on the contrary, despite of that rivalry in, trade and on the seas which had been thesource of so much ancient and recent hostility between the two nations, esteemed the Hollanders and leaned towards an alliance with them. LouisXIV. , in the eyes of the English Parliament, was the representative ofCatholicism and absolute monarchy, two enemies which it had vanquished, but still feared. The king's proceedings with Charles II. Had, therefore, necessarily to be kept secret; the ministers of the King ofEngland were themselves divided; the Duke of Buckingham, as mad and asprodigal as his father, was favorable to France; the Earl of Arlingtonhad married a Hollander, and persisted in the Triple Alliance. LouisXIV. Employed in this negotiation his sister-in-law, Madame Henriette, who was much attached to her brother, the King of England, and wasintelligent and adroit; she was on her return from a trip to London, which she had with great difficulty snatched from the jealoussusceptibilities of Monsieur, when she died suddenly at Versailles on the30th of June, 1670. "It were impossible to praise sufficiently theincredible dexterity of this princess in treating the most delicatematters, in finding a remedy for those hidden suspicions which often keepthem in suspense, and in terminating all difficulties in such a manner asto conciliate the most opposite interests; this was the subject of alltalk, when on a sudden resounded, like a clap of thunder, that astoundingnews, Madame is dying! Madame is dead! And there, in spite of that greatheart, is this princess, so admired and so beloved; there, as death hasmade her for us!" [Bossuet, _Oraison funebre d'Henriette d'Angleterre. _] Madame's work was nevertheless accomplished, and her death was notdestined to interrupt it. The treaty of alliance was secretly concluded, signed by only the Catholic councillors of Charles II. ; it bore that theKing of England was resolved to publicly declare his return to theCatholic church; the King of France was to aid him towards the executionof this project with assistance to the amount of two millions of livresof Tours; the two princes bound themselves to remain faithful to thepeace of Aix-la-Chapelle as regarded Spain, and to declare war togetheragainst the United Provinces the King of France would have to supply tohis brother of England, for this war, a subsidy of three million livresof Tours every year. When the Protestant ministers were admitted toshare the secret, silence was kept as to the declaration of Catholicity, which was put off till after the war in Holland; Parliament had grantedthe king thirteen hundred thousand pounds sterling to pay his debts, andeight hundred thousand pounds to "equip in the ensuing spring" a fleet offifty vessels, in order that he might take the part he considered mostexpedient for the glory of his kingdom and the welfare of his subjects. "The government of our country is like a great bell which you cannot stopwhen it is once set going, " said King Charles II. , anxious to commencethe war in order to handle the subsidies the sooner; he was, nevertheless, obliged to wait. Louis XIV. Had succeeded in dragging himinto an enterprise contrary to the real interests of his country as wellas of his national policy; in order to arrive at his ends he had set atwork all the evil passions which divided the court of England; he hadbought up the king, his mistresses, and his ministers; he had dangledbefore the fanaticism of the Duke of York the spectacle of Englandconverted to Catholicism; but his work was not finished in Europe; hewished to assure himself of the neutrality of Germany in the great duelhe was meditating with the republic of the United Provinces. As long ago as 1667 Louis XIV. Had practically paved the way towards theneutrality of the empire by a secret treaty regulating the eventualpartition of the Spanish, monarchy. In case the little King of Spaindied without children, France was to receive the Low Countries, Franche-Comte, Navarre, Naples, and Sicily; Austria was to keep Spain andMilaness. The Emperor Leopold therefore turned a deaf ear to theentreaties of the Hollanders who would fain have bound him down to theTriple Alliance; a new convention between France and the empire, secretlysigned on the 1st of November, 1670, made it reciprocally obligatory onthe two princes not to aid their enemies. The German princes were moredifficult to win over; they were beginning to feel alarm at thepretensions of France. The electors of Treves and of Mayence had alreadycollected some troops on the Rhine; the Duke of Lorraine seemed disposedto lend them assistance; Louis XIV. Seized the pretext of the restorationof certain fortifications contrary to the treaty of Marsal; on the 23d ofAugust, 1675, he ordered Marshal Crequi to enter Lorraine; at thecommencement of September, the whole duchy was reduced, and the duke afugitive. "The king had at first been disposed to give up Lorraine tosome one of the princes of that house, " writes Louvois; "but, just now, he no longer considers that province to be a country which he ought toquit so soon, and it appears likely that, as he sees more and more everyday how useful that conquest will be for the unification of his kingdom, he will seek the means of preserving it for himself. " In point of fact, the king, in answer to the emperor's protests, replied that he did notwant to turn Lorraine to account for his own profit, but that he wouldnot give it up at the solicitations of anybody. Brandenburg and Saxonyalone refused point blank to observe neutrality; France had renouncedProtestant alliances in Germany, and the Protestant electors comprehendedthe danger that threatened them. Sweden also comprehended it, butGustavus Adolphus and Oxenstiern were no longer there; there remainednothing but the remembrance of old alliances with France; the Swedishsenators gave themselves up to the buyer one after another. "When youhave made some stay at Stockholm, " wrote Courtin, the French ambassadorin Sweden, to M. Do Pomponne, "and seen the vanity of the Gascons of theNorth, the little honesty there is in their conduct, the cabals whichprevail in the Senate, and the feebleness and inertness of those whocompose it, you cannot be surprised at the delays and changes which takeplace. If the Senate of Rome had shown as little inclination as that ofSweden at the present time for war, the Roman empire would not have beenof so great an extent. " The treaty, however, was signed on the 14th ofApril, 1672; in consideration of an annual subsidy of six hundredthousand livres Sweden engaged to oppose by arms those princes of theempire who should determine to support the United Provinces. The gap wasforming round Holland. In spite of the secrecy which enveloped the negotiations of Louis XIV. , Van Witt was filled with disquietude; favorable as ever to the Frenchalliance, he had sought to calm the irritation of France, which set downthe Triple Alliance to the account of Holland. "I remarked, " says aletter in 1669, from M. De Pomponne, French ambassador at the Hague, "that it seemed to me a strange thing that, whereas this republic had twokings for its associates in the triple alliance, it affected in some sortto put itself at their head so as to do all the speaking, and that it waswilling to become the seat of all the manoeuvres that were going onagainst France, which was very likely to render it suspected of someprepossession in favor of Spain. " John Van Witt defended his countrywith dignified modesty. "I know not whether to regard as a blessing or acurse, " said he, "the incidents which have for several years past broughtit about that the most important affairs of Europe have been transactedin Holland. It must no doubt be attributed to the situation andcondition of this state, which, whilst putting it after all the crownedheads, cause it to be readily agreed to as a place without consequence;but, as for the prepossession of which we are suspected in favor ofSpain, it cannot surely be forgotten what aversion we have as it weresucked in with our milk towards that nation, the remnants that stillremain of a hatred fed by so much blood and such long wars, which make itimpossible, for my part, that my inclinations should ever turn towardsthat crown. " Hatred to Spain was not so general in Holland as Van Witt represented;and internal dissensions amongst the Estates, sedulously fanned byFrance, were slowly ruining the authority of the aristocratic andrepublican party, only to increase the influence of those who favored thehouse of Nassau. In his far-sighted and sagacious patriotism, John vanWitt had for a long time past foreseen the defeat of his cause, and hehad carefully trained up the heir of the stadtholders, William of Nassau, the natural head of his adversaries. It was this young prince whom thepolicy of Louis XIV. At that time opposed to Van Witt in the councils ofthe United Provinces, thus strengthening in advance the indomitable foewho was to triumph over all his greatness and vanquish him by dint ofdefeats. The despatch of an ambassador to Spain, to form there analliance offensive and defensive, was decided upon. "M. De Beverninck, who has charge of this mission, is without doubt a man of strength andability, " said M. De Pomponne, "and there are many who put him on a parwith M. De Witt; it is true that he is not on a par with the other thewhole day long, and that with the sobriety of morning he often loses thedesert and capacity that were his up to dinner-time. " The Spaniards atfirst gave but a cool reception to the overtures of the Hollanders. "They look at their monarchy through the spectacles of Philip II. , " saidBeverninck, "and they take a pleasure in deceiving themselves whilst theyflatter their vanity. " Fear of the encroachments of France carried theday, however. "They consider, " wrote M. De Lionne, "that, if they leftthe United Provinces to ruin, they would themselves have but the favorgranted by the Cyclops, to be eaten last;" a defensive league wasconcluded between Spain and Holland, and all the efforts of Francecould not succeed in breaking it. John van Witt was negotiating in every direction. The treaty of CharlesII. With France had remained a profound secret, and the Hollandersbelieved that they might calculate upon the good-will of the Englishnation. The arms of England were effaced from the Royal Charles, avessel taken by Van Tromp in 1667, and a curtain was put over a picture, in the town-hall of Dordrecht, of the victory at Chatham, representingthe ruart [inspector of dikes] Cornelius van Witt leaning on a cannon. These concessions to the pride of England were not made without astruggle. "Some, " says M. De Pomponne, "thought it a piece of basenessto despoil themselves during peace, of tokens of the glory they had wonin the war; others, less sensitive on this point of delicacy, and moreaffected by the danger of disobliging a crown which formed the first andat this date the most necessary of their connections, preferred the lessspirited but safer to the honorable but more dangerous counsels. "Charles II. Played with Boreel, ambassador of the United Provinces at thecourt of London; taking advantage of the Estates' necessity in order toserve his nephew the Prince of Orange, he demanded for him the office ofcaptain-general, which had been filled by his ancestors. Already theprince had been recognized as premier noble of Zealand, and he hadobtained entrance to the council; John van Witt raised against him thevote of the Estates of Holland, still preponderant in the republic. "The grand pensionary soon appeased the murmurs and complaints that werebeing raised against him, " writes M. De Pomponne. "He prefers thegreatest dangers to the re-estab lishment of the Prince of Orange, and tohis re-establishment on the recommendation of the King of England; hewould consider that the republic accepted a double yoke, both in theperson of a chief who, from the post of captain general, might rise toall those which his fathers had filled, and in accepting him at theinstance of a suspected crown. " The grand pensionary did not err. Inthe spring of 1672, in spite of the loss of M. De Lionne, who diedSeptember 1, 1671, all the negotiations of Louis XIV. Had succeeded; hisarmaments were completed; he was at last about to crush that little powerwhich had for so long a time past presented an obstacle to his designs. "The true way of arriving at the conquest of the Spanish Low Countries isto abase the Hollanders and annihilate them if it be possible, " saidLouvois to the Prince of Conde on the 1st of November, 1671; and the kingwrote in an unpublished memorandum, "In the midst of all my successesduring my campaign of 1667, neither England nor the empire, convinced asthey were of the justice of my cause, whatever interest they may have hadin checking the rapidity of my conquests, offered any opposition. Ifound in my path only my good, faithful, and old friends the Hollanders, who, instead of interesting themselves in my fortune as the foundationof their dominion, wanted to impose laws upon me and oblige me to makepeace, and even dared to use threats in case I refused to accept theirmediation. I confess that their insolence touched me to the quick, andthat, at the risk of whatever might happen to my conquests in the SpanishLow Countries, I was very near turning all my forces against this proudand ungrateful nation; but, having summoned prudence to my aid, andconsidered that I had neither number of troops nor quality of alliesrequisite for such an enterptise, I dissimulated, I concluded peace onhonorable conditions, resolved to put off the punishment of such perfidyto another time. " The time had come; to the last attempt towardsconciliation, made by Van Groot, son of the celebrated Grotius, in thename of the States General, the king replied with threateninghaughtiness. "When I discovered that the United Provinces were trying todebauch my allies, and were soliciting kings, my relatives, to enter intooffensive leagues against me, I made up my mind to put myself in aposition to defend myself, and I levied some troops; but I intend to havemore by the spring, and I shall make use of them at that time in themanner I shall consider most proper for the welfare of my dominions andfor my own glory. " "The king starts to-morrow, my dear daughter, " writes Madame de Sevigneto Madame de Grignan on the 27th of April "there will be a hundredthousand men out of Paris; the two armies will form a junction; the kingwill command Monsieur, Monsieur the prince, the prince M. De Turenne, andM. De Turenne the two marshals and even the army of Marshal Crequi. Theking spoke to M. De Bellefonds and told him that his desire was that heshould obey M. De Turenne without any fuss. The marshal, without askingfor time (that was his mistake), said that he should not be worthy of thehonor his Majesty had done him if he dishonored himself by an obediencewithout precedent. Marshal d'Humieres and Marshal Crequi said much thesame. M. De la Rochefoucauld says that Bellefonds has spoilt everythingbecause he has no joints in his mind. Marshal Crequi said to the king, 'Sir, take from me my baton, for are you not master? Let me serve thiscampaign as Marquis of Crequi; perhaps I may deserve that your Majestygive me back the baton at the end of the war. ' The king was touched; butthe result is, that they have all three been at their houses in thecountry planting cabbages (have ceased to serve). " "You will permit me to tell you that there is nothing for it but to obeya master who says that he means to be obeyed, " wrote Louvois to M. DeCrequi. The king wanted to have order and one sole command in his army:and he was right. The Prince of Orange, who had at last been appointed captain-general fora single campaign, possessed neither the same forces nor the sameauthority; the violence of party-struggles had blinded patrioticsentiment and was hampering the preparations for defence. Out ofsixty-four thousand troops inscribed on the registers of the Dutch army, a great number neglected the summons; in the towns, the burgesses roseup against the magistrates, refusing to allow the faubourgs to be pulleddown, and the peasants threatened to defend the dikes and close thesluices. " When word was sent yesterday to the peasants to come and workon the Rhine at the redoubts and at piercing the dikes, not a manpresented himself, " says a letter of June 28, from John van Witt to hisbrother Cornelius; "all is disorder and confusion here. " "I hope that, for the moment, we shall not lack gunpowder, " said Beverninck; "but asfor guncarriages there is no help for it; a fortnight hence we shall nothave more than seven. " Louvois had conceived the audacious idea ofpurchasing in Holland itself the supplies of powder and ball necessaryfor the French army and the commercial instincts of the Hollanders hadprevailed over patriotic sentiment. Ruyter was short of munitions inthe contest already commenced against the French and English fleet. "Out of thirty-two battles I have been in I never saw any like it, " saidthe Dutch admiral after the battle of Soultbay (Solebay) on the 7th ofJune. "Ruyter is admiral, captain, pilot, sailor, and soldier all inone, " exclaimed the English. Cornelius van Witt in the capacity ofcommissioner of the Estates had remained seated on the deck of theadmiral's vessel during the fight, indifferent to the bullets thatrained around him. The issue of the battle was indecisive; Countd'Estrees, at the head of the French flotilla, had taken little partin the action. It was not at sea and by the agency of his lieutenants that Louis XIV. Aspired to gain the victory; he had already arrived at the banks of theRhine, marching straight into the very heart of Holland. "I thought itmore advantageous for my designs, and less common on the score of glory, "he wrote to Colbert on the 31st of May, "to attack four places at once onthe Rhine, and to take the actual command in person at all four sieges. .. . I chose, for that purpose, Rheinberg, Wesel, Burick, and Orsoy, and Ihope that there will be no complaint of my having deceived publicexpectation. " The four places did not hold out four days. On the 12thof June, the king and the Prince of Conde appeared unexpectedly on theright bank of the intermediary branch of the Rhine, between the Wahal andthe Yssel. The Hollanders were expecting the enemy at the ford of, theYssel, being more easy to pass; they were taken by surprise; the king'scuirassier regiment dashed into the river, and crossed it partly byfording and partly by swimming; the resistance was brief; meanwhile theDuke of Longueville was killed, and the Prince of Conde was wounded forthe first time in his life. "I was present at the passage, which wasbold, vigorous, full of brilliancy, and glorious for the nation, " writesLouis XIV. Arnheim and Deventer had just surrendered to Turenne andLuxembourg; Duisbourg resisted the king for a few days; Monsieur wasbesieging Zutphen. John van Witt was for evacuating the Hague andremoving to Amsterdam the centre of government and resistance; the Princeof Orange had just abandoned the province of Utrecht, which wasimmediately occupied by the French; the defensive efforts wereconcentrated upon the province of Holland; already Naarden, three leaguesfrom Amsterdam, was in the king's hands. "We learn the surrender oftowns before we have heard of their investment, " wrote Van Witt. Adeputation from the States was sent on the 22d of June to the king'sheadquarters to demand peace. Louis XIV. Had just entered Utrecht, which, finding itself abandoned, opened its gates to him. On the sameday, John van Witt received in a street of the Hague four stabs with adagger from the hand of an assassin, whilst the city of Amsterdam, butlately resolved to surrender and prepared to send its magistrates asdelegates to Louis XIV. , suddenly decided upon resistance to the bitterend. " If we must perish, let us at any rate be the last to fall, "exclaimed the town-councillor Walkernier, "and let us not submit to theyoke it is desired to impose upon us until there remain no means ofsecuring ourselves against it. " All the sluices were opened and thedikes cut. Amsterdam floated amidst the waters. "I thus found myselfunder the necessity of limiting my conquests, as regarded the province ofHolland, to Naarden, Utrecht, and Werden, " writes Louis XIV. In hisunpublished Memoire touching the campaign of 1672, and he adds, with rareimpartiality, "the resolution to place the whole country under water wassomewhat violent; but what would not one do to save one's self fromforeign domination? I cannot help admiring and commending the zeal andstout-heartedness of those who broke off the negotiation of Amsterdam, though their decision, salutary as it was for their country, was veryprejudicial to my service; the proposals made to me by the deputies fromthe States General were very advantageous, but I could never prevail uponmyself to accept them. " Louis XIV. Was as yet ignorant what can be done amongst a proud people bypatriotism driven to despair; the States General offered him Maestricht, the places on the Rhine, Brabant and Dutch Flanders, with a war-indemnityof ten millions; it was an open door to the Spanish Low Countries, whichbecame a patch enclosed by French possessions; but the king wanted toannihilate the Hollanders; he demanded Southern Gueldres, the Island ofBonmel, twenty-four millions, the restoration of Catholic worship, and, every year, an embassy commissioned to thank the king for having a secondtime given peace to the United Provinces. This was rather too much; and, whilst the deputies were negotiating with heavy hearts, the people ofHolland had risen in wrath. From the commencement of the war, the party of the house of Nassau hadnever ceased to gain ground. John van Witt was accused of all themisfortunes of the state; the people demanded with loud outcries therestoration of the stadtholderate, but lately abolished by a law voted bythe States under the presumptuous title of perpetual edict. Dordrecht, the native place of the Van Witts, gave the signal of insurrection. Cornelius van Witt, who was confined to his house by illness, yielded tothe prayers of his wife and children, and signed the municipal act whichdestroyed his brother's work; the contagion spread from town to town, from province to province; on the 4th of July the States Generalappointed William of Orange stadtholder, captain-general, and admiral ofthe Union; the national instinct had divined the savior of the country, and with tumultuous acclamations placed in his hands the reins of thestate. [Illustration: William III. , Prince of Orange----434] William of Orange was barely two and twenty when the fate of revolutionssuddenly put him at the head of a country invaded, devastated, halfconquered; but his mind as well as his spirit were up to the level of histask. He loftily rejected at the assembly of the Estates the proposalsbrought forward in the king's name by Peter van Groot. "To subscribethem would be suicide, " he said: "even to discuss them is dangerous; but, if the majority of this assembly decide otherwise, there remains but onecourse for the friends of Protestantism and liberty, and that is, toretire to the colonies in the West Indies, and there found a new country, where their consciences and their persons will be beyond the reach oftyranny and despotism. " The States General decided to "reject the hardand intolerable conditions proposed by their lordships the Kings ofFrance and Great Britain, and to defend this state and its inhabitantswith all their might. " The province of Holland in its entirety followedthe example of Amsterdam; the dikes were everywhere broken down, at thesame time that the troops of the electors of Brandenburg and Saxony wereadvancing to the aid of the United Provinces, and that the emperor wassigning with those two princes a defensive alliance for the maintenanceof the treaties of Westphalia, the Pyrenees, and Aix-la-Chapelle. Louis XIV. Could no longer fly from conquest to conquest; henceforth histroops had to remain on observation; care for his pleasures recalled himto France; he left the command-in-chief of his army to M. De Turenne, andset out for St. Germain, where he arrived on the 1st of August. Beforeleaving Holland, he had sent home almost without ransom twenty thousandprisoners of war, who before long entered the service of the Statesagain. "It was an excess of clemency of which I had reason afterwardsto repent, " says the king himself. His mistake was, that he did notunderstand either Holland or the new chief she had chosen. Dispirited and beaten, like his country, John van Witt had just given inhis resignation as councillor pensionary of Holland. He wrote to Ruyteron the 5th of August, as follows: "The capture of the towns on the Rhinein so short a time, the irruption of the enemy as far as the banks of theYssel, and the total loss of the provinces of Gueldres, Utrecht, andOver-Yssel, almost without resistance and through unheard-of poltroonery, if not treason, on the part of certain people, have more and moreconvinced me of the truth of what was in olden times applied to the Romanrepublic: _Successes are claimed by everybody, reverses are put down toone (Prospera omnes sibi vindicant, adversa uni imputantur)_. That is myown experience. The people of Holland have not only laid at my door allthe disasters and calamities that have befallen our republic; they havenot been content to see me fall unarmed and defenceless into the hands offour individuals whose design was to murder me; but when, by the agencyof Divine Providence, I escaped the assassins' blows and had recoveredfrom my wounds, they conceived a violent hatred against such of theirmagistrates as they believed to have most to do with the direction ofpublic affairs; it is against me chiefly that this hatred has manifesteditself, although I was nothing but a servant of the state; it is thisthat has obliged me to demand my discharge from the office ofcouncillor-pensionary. " He was at once succeeded by Gaspard van Fagel, passionately devoted to the Prince of Orange. Popular passion is as unjust as it is violent in its excesses. Corneliusvan Witt, but lately sharing with his brother the public confidence, hadjust been dragged, as a criminal, to the Hague, accused by a wretchedbarber of having planned the assassination of the Prince of Orange. Invain did the magistrates of the town of Dordrecht claim their right ofjurisdiction over their fellow-citizen. Cornelius van Witt was put tothe torture to make him confess his crime. 'You will not force me toconfess a thing I never even thought of, " he said, whilst the pulleyswere dislocating his limbs. His baffled judges heard him repeatingHorace's ode: _Just um et tenacem propositi virum_. . . . At the endof three hours he was carried back to his cell, broken but indomitable. The court condemned him to banishment; his accuser, Tichelaer, was notsatisfied. Before long, at his instigation, the mob collected about the prison, uttering imprecations against the judges and their clemency. "They aretraitors!" cried Tichelaer, "but let us first take vengeance on thosewhom we have. " John van Witt had been brought to the prison by a messagesupposed to have come from the ruart. In vain had his daughter conjuredhim not to respond to it. "What are you come here for?" exclaimedCornelius, on seeing his brother enter. "Did you not send for me?""No, certainly not. " Then we are lost, " said John van Witt, calmly. Theshouts of the crowd redoubled; a body of cavalry still preserved order; arumor suddenly spread that the peasants from the environs were marchingon the Hague to plunder it; the States of Holland sent orders to theCount of Tilly to move against them; the brave soldier demanded a writtenorder. "I will obey, " he said, "but the two brothers are lost. " [Illustration: The Brothers Witt----436] The troops had scarcely withdrawn, and already the doors of the prisonwere forced; the ruart, exhausted by the torture, was stretched upon hisbed, whilst his brother sat by his side reading the Bible aloud; themadmen rushed into the chamber, crying, "Traitors, prepare yourselves;you are going to die. " Cornelius van Witt started up, joining his handsin prayer; the blows aimed at him did not reach him. John was wounded. They were both dragged forth; they embraced one another; Cornelius, struck from behind, rolled to the bottom of the staircase; his brotherwould have defended him; as he went out into the street, he received apike-thrust in the face; the ruart was dead already; the murderers ventedtheir fury on John van Witt; he had lost nothing of his courage or hiscoolness, and, lifting his arms towards heaven, he was opening his mouthin prayer to God, when a last pistol-shot stretched him upon his back. "There's the perpetual edict floored!" shouted the assassins, lavishingupon the two corpses insults and imprecations. It was only at night, andafter having with difficulty recognized them, so disfigured had theybeen, that poor Jacob van Witt was able to have his sons' bodies removed;he was before long to rejoin them in everlasting rest. William of Orange arrived next day at the Hague, too late for his fame, and for the punishment of the obscure assassins, whom he allowed toescape. The compassers of the plot obtained before long appointments andrewards. "He one day assured me, " says Gourville, "that it was quitetrue he had not given any orders to have the Witts killed, but that, having heard of their death without having contributed to it, he hadcertainly felt a little relieved. " History and the human heart havemysteries which it is not well to probe to the bottom. For twenty years John van Witt had, been the most noble exponent of hiscountry's traditional policy. Long faithful to the French alliance, hehad desired to arrest Louis XIV. In his dangerous career of triumph;foreseeing the peril to come, he had forgotten the peril at hand; he hadbelieved too much and too long in the influence of negotiations and thepossibility of regaining the friendship of France. He died unhappy, inspite of his pious submission to the will of God; what he had desired forhis country was slipping from him abroad as well as at home; Holland wascrushed by France, and the aristocratic republic was vanquished bymonarchical democracy. With the weakness characteristic of human views, he could not open his eyes to a vision of constitutional monarchy freelychosen, preserving to his country the independence, prosperity, and orderwhich he had labored to secure for her. A politician as, bold as andmore far-sighted than Admiral Coligny, twice struck down, like him, byassassins, John van Witt remained in history the unique model of a greatrepublican chief, virtuous and able, proud and modest, up to the day atwhich other United Provinces, fighting like Holland for their liberty, presented a rival to the purity of his fame, when they chose for theirgovernor General Washington. For all their brutal ingratitude, the instinct of the people of Hollandsaw clearly into the situation. John van Witt would have failed in thestruggle against France; William of Orange, prince, politician, andsoldier, saved his country and Europe from the yoke of Louis XIV. On quitting his army, the king had inscribed in his notebook, "Mydeparture. --I do not mean to have anything more done. " The temperaturefavored his designs; it did not freeze, the country remained inundatedand the towns unapproachable; the troops of the Elector of Brandenburg, together with a corps sent by the emperor, had put themselves in motiontowards the Rhine; Turenne kept them in check in Germany. Conde coveredAlsace; the Duke of Luxembourg, remaining in Holland, confined himself toburning two large villages--Bodegrave and Saammerdam. "There was a grillof all the Hollanders who were in those burghs, " wrote the marshal to thePrince of Conde, "not one of whom was let out of the houses. Thismorning we were visited by two of the enemy's drummers, who came to claima colonel of great note amongst them (I have him in cinders at thismoment), as well as several officers that we have not, and that aredemanded of us, who, I suppose, were killed at the approaches to thevillages, where I saw some rather pretty little heaps. " The attempts ofthe Prince of Orange on Charleroi had failed, as well as those ofLuxembourg on the Hague; the Swedes had offered their mediation, andnegotiations were beginning at Cologne; on the 10th of June, 1673, LouisXIV. Laid siege to Maestricht; Conde was commanding in Holland, withLuxembourg under his orders; Turenne was observing Germany. The king wasalone with Vauban. Maestricht held out three weeks. "M. De Vauban, inthis siege as in many others, saved a number of lives by his ingenuity, "wrote a young subaltern, the Count of Alligny. "In times past it wassheer butchery in the trenches, now he makes them in such a manner thatone is as safe as if one were at home. " "I don't know whether it oughtto be called swagger, vanity, or carelessness, the way we have of showingourselves unadvisedly and without cover, " Vauban used to say; " but it isan original sin of which the French will never purge themselves, if God, who is all-powerful, do not reform the whole race. " Maestricht taken, the king repaired to Elsass, where skilful negotiations delivered intohis hands the towns that had remained independent: it was time toconsolidate past conquests; the coalition of Europe was forming againstFrance; the Hollanders held the sea against the hostile fleets; afterthree desperate fights, Ruyter had prevented all landing in Holland; theStates no longer entertained the proposals they had but lately submittedto the king at Utrecht; the Prince of Orange had recovered Naarden, andjust carried Bonn, with the aid of the Imperialists, commanded byMontecuculli; Luxembourg had already received orders to evacuate theprovince of Utrecht; at the end of the campaign of 1673, Gueldres andOver-Yssel were likewise delivered from the enemies who had oppressed andplundered them; Spain had come forth from her lethargy; and the emperor, resuming the political direction of Germany, had drawn nearly all theprinces after him into the league against France. The Protestant qualmsof the English Parliament had not yielded to the influence of the Marquisof Ruvigny, a man of note amongst the French Reformers, and at this timeambassador of France in London; the nation desired peace with theHollanders; and Charles II. Yielded, in appearance at least, to thewishes of his people. On the 21st of February, 1674, he repaired to Parliament to announce tothe two Houses that he had concluded with the United Provinces "a promptpeace, as they had prayed, honorable, and, as he hoped, durable. " He atthe same time wrote to Louis XIV. , to beg to be condoled with, ratherthan upbraided, for a consent which had been wrung from him. Theregiments of English and Irish auxiliaries remained quietly in theservice of France; and the king did not withdraw his subsidies from hisroyal pensioner. Thus was being undone, link by link, the chain of alliances which LouisXIV. Had but lately twisted round Holland. France, in her turn, wasfinding herself alone, with all Europe against her; scared, and, consequently, active and resolute; the congress of Cologne had broken up;not one of the belligerents desired peace; the Hollanders had justsettled the heredity of the stadtholderate in the house of Orange. LouisXIV. Saw the danger. "So many enemies, " says he in his Memoires, "obliged me to take care of myself, and think what I must do to maintainthe reputation of my arms, the advantage of my dominions, and my personalglory. " It was in Franche-Comte that Louis XIV. Went to seek theseadvantages. The whole province was reduced to submission in the month ofJune, 1674. Turenne had kept the Rhine against the Imperialists; themarshal alone escaped the tyranny of the king and Louvois, and presumedto conduct the campaign in his own way; when Louis XIV. Sent himinstructions, he was by this time careful to add, "You will not bindyourself down to what I send you hereby as to my intentions, save whenyou think that the good of my service will permit you, and you will giveme of your news the oftenest you find it possible. " (30th of March, 1674. ) Turenne did not always write, and it sometimes happened that hedid not obey. This redounded to his honor in the campaign of 1674. Conde had gained, on the 11th of August, the bloody victory of Seneffe over the Prince ofOrange and the allied generals; the four squadrons of the king'shousehold, posted within range of the fire, had remained for eight hoursin order of battle, without any movement but that of closing up as themen fell. Madame de Sdvigne, to whom her son, standard-bearer in thedauphin's gendarmes, had told the story, wrote to M. De BussyRabutin, "But for the Te Deum, and some flags brought to Notre-Dame, we shouldhave thought we had lost the battle. " The Prince 6f Orange, everindomitable in his cold courage, had attacked Audenarde on the 15th ofSeptember; but he was not in force, and the, approach of Conde hadobliged him to raise the siege; to make up, he had taken Grave, spite ofthe heroic resistance made by the Marquis of Chemilly, who had held outninety-three days. Advantages remained balanced in Flanders; the resultof the campaign depended on Turenne, who commanded on the Rhine. "If theking had taken the most important place in Flanders, " he wrote toLouvois, "and the emperor were master of Alsace, even without Philipsburgor Brisach, I think the king's affairs would be in the worst plight inthe world; we should see what armies we should have in Lorraine, in theBishoprics, and in Champagne. I do assure you that, if I had the honorof commanding in Flanders, I would speak as I do. " On the 16th of Junehe engaged in battle, at Sinzheim, with the Duke of Lorraine, who wascoming up with the advance-guard. "I never saw a more obstinate fight, "said Turenne: "those old regiments of the emperor's did mighty well. "He subsequently entered the Palatinate, quartering his troops upon it, whilst the superintendents sent by Louvois were burning and plunderingthe country, crushed as it was under war-contributions. The king andLouvois were disquieted by the movement of the enemy's troops, and wantedto get Turenne back into Lothringen. "An army like that of the enemy, "wrote the marshal to Louvois, on the 13th of Septem ber, "and at theseason it is now, cannot have any idea but that of driving the king'sarmy from Alsace, having neither provisions nor means of getting intoLorraine, unless I be driven from the country. " On the 20th ofSeptember, the burgesses of the free city of Strasburg delivered upthe bridge over the Rhine to the Imperialists who were in the heartof Elsass. The victory of Ensheim, the fights of Mulhausen andTurckheim, sufficed to drive them back; but it was only on the 22dof January, 1675, that Turenne was at last enabled to leave Elsassreconquered. "There is no longer in France an enemy that is not aprisoner, " he wrote to the king, whose thanks embarrassed him. "Everybody has remarked that M. De Turenne is a little more bashful thanhe was wont to be, " said Pellisson. The coalition was proceeding slowly; the Prince of Orange was ill; theking made himself master of the citadel of Liege and some small places. Limburg surrendered to the Prince of Conde, without the allies havingbeen able to relieve it; Turenne was posted with the Rhine in his rear, keeping Montecuculli in his front; he was preparing to hem him in, andhurl him back upon Black Mountain. His army was thirty thousand strong. "I never saw so many fine fellows, " Turenne would say, "nor betterintentioned. " Spite of his modest reserve, he felt sure of victory. "This time I have them, " he kept saying; "they cannot escape me. " On the 27th of June, 1675, in the morning, Turenne ordered an attack onthe village of Salzbach. The young Count of St. Hilaire found him at thehead of his infantry, seated at the foot of a tree, into which he hadordered an old soldier to climb, in order to have a better view of theenemy's manoeuvres. The Count of Roye sent to conjure him to reconnoitrein person the German column that was advancing. "I shall remain where Iam, " said Turenne, "unless something important occur;" and he sent offre-enforcements to M. De Roye; the latter repeated his entreaties; themarshal asked for his horse, and, at a hard gallop, reached the right ofthe army, along a hollow, in order to be under cover from two smallpieces of cannon, which kept up an incessant fire. "I don't at all wantto be killed to-day, " he kept saying. He perceived M. Do St. Hilaire, the father, coming to meet him, and asked him what column it was onaccount of which he had been sent for. "My father was pointing it out tohim, writes young St. Hilaire, "when, unhappily, the two little piecesfired: a ball, passing over the quarters of my father's horse, carriedaway his left arm and the horse's neck, and struck M. De Turenne in theleft side; he still went forward about twenty paces on his horse's neck, and fell dead. I ran to my father, who was down, and raised him up. 'No need to weep for me, ' he said; 'it is the death of that great man;you may, perhaps, lose your father, but neither your country nor you willever have a general like that again. O, poor army, what is to become ofyou?' Tears fell from his eyes; then, suddenly recovering himself, 'Go, my son, and leave me, ' he said; 'with me it will be as God pleases; timepresses; go and do your duty. '" [_Memoires du Marquis de St. Hilaire, _t. I. P. 205. ] They threw a cloak over the corpse of the great general, and bore it away. "The soldiers raised a cry that was heard two leaguesoff, " writes Madame de Sevigne; "no consideration could restrain them;they roared to be led to battle, they wanted to avenge the death of theirfather, with him they had feared nothing, but they would show how toavenge him, let it be left to them; they were frantic, let them be led tobattle. " Montecuculli had for a moment halted. "Today a man has fallenwho did honor to man, " said he, as he uncovered respectfully. He threwhimself, however, on the rearguard of the French army, which was fallingback upon Elsass, and recrossed the Rhine at Altenheim. The death ofTurenne was equivalent to a defeat. [Illustration: Death of Turenne----443] The Emperor Napoleon said of Turenne, "He is the only general whomexperience ever made more daring. " He had been fighting for forty years, and his fame was still increasing, without effort or ostentation on hispart. "M. De Turenne, from his youth up, possessed all good qualities, "wrote Cardinal de Retz, who knew him well, "and the great he acquiredfull early. He lacked none but those that he did not think about. Hepossessed nearly all virtues as it were by nature; he never possessed theglitter of any. He was believed to be more fitted for the head of anarmy than of a party, and so I think, because he was not naturallyenterprising; but, however, who knows? He always had in everything, justas in his speech, certain obscurities, which were never cleared up saveby circumstances, but never save to his glory. " He had said, when he setout, to this same Cardinal de Retz, then in retirement at Commercy, "Sir, I am no _talker (diseur), _ but I beg you to believe that, if it were notfor this business in which perhaps I may be required, I would go intoretirement as you have gone, and I give you my word that, if I come back, I, like you, will put some space between life and death. " God did notleave him time. He summoned suddenly to Him this noble, grand, andsimple soul. "I see that cannon loaded with all eternity, " says Madamede Sevigne: "I see all that leads M. De Turenne thither, and I seetherein nothing gloomy for him. What does he lack? He dies in themeridian of his fame. Sometimes, by living on, the star pales. It issafer to cut to the quick, especially in the case of heroes whose actionsare all so watched. M. De Turenne did not feel death: count you that fornothing?" Turenne was sixty-four; he had become a convert to Catholicismin 1668, seriously and sincerely, as he did everything. For him Bossuethad written his Exposition of faith. Heroic souls are rare, and thosethat are heroic and modest are rarer still: that was the distinctivefeature of M. De Turenne. "When a man boasts that he has never mademistakes in war, he convinces me that he has not been long at it, " hewould say. At his death, France considered herself lost. "The premier-president of the court of aids has an estate in Champagne, and the farmerof it came the other day to demand to have the contract dissolved; he wasasked why: he answered that in M. De Turenne's time one could gather inwith safety, and count upon the lands in that district, but that, sincehis death, everybody was going away, believing that the enemy was aboutto enter Champagne. " [_Lettres de Madame de Sevigne_. ] "I should verymuch like to have only two hours' talk with the shade of M. De Turenne, "said the Prince of Conde, on setting out to take command of the army ofthe Rhine, after a check received by Marshal Crequi. "I would take theconsequences of his plans if I could only get at his views, and makemyself master of the knowledge he had of the country, and ofMontecuculli's tricks of feint. " "God preserves you for the sake ofFrance, my lord, " people said to him; but the prince made no reply beyonda shrug of the shoulders. [Illustration: TURENNE. ----444] It was his last campaign. The king had made eight marshals, "change fora Turenne. " Crequi began by getting beaten before Treves, whichsurrendered to the enemy. "Why did--the marshal give battle?" asked acourtier. The king turned round quickly. "I have heard, " said he, "thatthe Duke of Weimar, after the death of the great Gustavus, commanded theSwedish allies of France; one Parabere, an old blue ribbon, said to him, speaking of the last battle, which he had lost, 'Sir, why did you giveit?' 'Sir, ' answered Weimar, 'because I thought I should win it. ' Then, leaning over towards somebody else, he asked, 'Who is that fool with theblue ribbon?'" The Germans retired. Conde returned to Chantilly oncemore, never to go out of it again. Montecuculli, old and ill, refused toserve any longer. "A man who has had the honor of fighting againstMahomet Coprogli, against the prince, and against M. De Turenne, oughtnot to compromise his glory against people who are only just beginning tocommand armies, " said the, veteran general to the emperor on taking hisretirement. The chiefs were disappearing from the scene, the heroicperiod of the war was over. Europe demanded a general peace; England and Holland desired itpassionately. "I am as anxious as you for an end to be put to the war, "said the Prince of Orange to the deputies from the Estates, "providedthat I get out of it with honor. " He refused obstinately to separatefrom his allies. "It is not astonishing that the Prince of Orange doesnot at once give way even to things which he considers reasonable, " saidCharles II. , "he is the son of a father and mother whose obstinacy wascarried to extremes; and he resembles them in that. " Meanwhile, Williamhad just married (November 15, 1677), the Princess Mary, eldest daughterof the Duke of York and Anne Hyde. An alliance offensive and defensivebetween England and Holland was the price of this union, which struckLouis XIV. An unexpected blow. He had lately made a proposal to thePrince of Orange to marry one of his natural daughters. "The firstnotice I had of the marriage, " wrote the king, "was through the bonfireslighted in London. " "The loss of a decisive battle could not have scaredthe King of France more, " said the English ambassador, Lord Montagu. Formore than a year past negotiations had been going on at Nimeguen; LouisXIV. Resolved to deal one more great blow. [Illustration: An Exploit of John Bart's----446] The campaign of 1676 had been insignificant, save at sea. John Bart, acorsair of Dunkerque, scoured the seas and made foreign commerce tremble;he took ships by boarding, and killed with his own hands the Dutchcaptain of the Neptune, who offered resistance. Messina, in revoltagainst the Spaniards, had given herself up to France; the Duke ofVivonne, brother of Madame de Montespan, who had been sent thither asgovernor, had extended his conquests; Duquesne, quite young still, hadtriumphantly maintained the glory of France against the great Ruyter, whohad been mortally wounded off Catana; on the 21st of April. But alreadythe possession of Sicily was becoming precarious, and these distantsuccesses had paled before the brilliant campaign of 1677; the capture ofValenciennes, Cambrai, and St. Omer, the defence of Lorraine, thevictory of Cassel, gained over the Prince of Orange, had confirmed theking in his intentions. "We have done all that we were able and bound todo, " wrote William of Orange to the Estates, on the 13th of April, 1677, "and we are very sorry to be obliged to tell your High Mightinesses thatit has not pleased God to bless on this occasion the arms of the stateunder our guidance. " [Illustration: Duquesne victorious over Ruyter---446a] "I was all impatience, " says Louis XIV. In his Memoires, "to commencethe campaign of 1678, and greatly desirous of doing something therein asglorious as, and more useful than, what had already been done; but it wasno easy matter to come by it, and to surpass the lustre conferred by thecapture of three large places and the winning of a battle. I examinedwhat was feasible, and Ghent being the most important of all I couldattack, I fixed upon it to besiege. " The place was invested on the 1stof March, and capitulated on the 11th; Ypres, in its turn, succumbed onthe 25th, after a vigorous resistance. On the 7th of April the kingreturned to St. Germain, "pretty content with what I had done, " he says, "and purposing to do better in the future, if the promise I had given notto undertake anything for two months were not followed by the conclusionof peace. " Louis XIV. Sent his ultimatum to Nimeguen. Holland had weight in congress as well as in war, and her influence wasnow enlisted on the side of peace. "Not only is it desired, " said thegrand pensionary Fagel, "but it is absolutely indispensable, and I wouldnot answer for it that the States General, if driven to extremity by thesluggishness of their allies, will not make a separate peace with France. I know nobody in Holland who is not of the same opinion. " The Prince ofOrange flew out at such language. "Well, then, I know somebody, " saidhe, "and that is myself; I will oppose it to the best of my ability;but, " he added more slowly, upon reflection, "if I were not here, I knowquite well that peace would be concluded within twenty-four hours. " One man alone, though it were the Prince of Orange, cannot long withstandthe wishes of a free people. The republican party, for a while cast downby the death of John van Witt, had taken courage again, and Louis XIV. Secretly encouraged it. William of Orange had let out his desire ofbecoming Duke of Gueldres and Count of Zutphen: these foreshadowings ofsovereignty had scared the province of Holland, which refused itsconsent; the influence of the stadtholder was weakened thereby; theEstates pronounced for peace, spite of the entreaties of the Prince ofOrange. "I am always ready to obey the orders of the state, " said he, "but do not require me to give my assent to a peace which appears to menot only ruinous, but shameful as well. " Two deputies from the UnitedProvinces set out for Brussels. "It is better to throw one's self out of the window than from the top ofthe roof, " said the Spanish plenipotentiary to the nuncio, when he hadcognizance of the French proposals, and he accepted the treaty offeredhim. "The Duke of Villa Hermosa says that he will accept the conditions;for ourselves, we will do the same, " said the Prince of Orange, bitterly, "and so here is peace made, if France continues to desire it on thisfooting, which I very much doubt. " At one moment, in fact, Louis XIV. Raised fresh pretensions. He wishedto keep the places on the Meuse, until the Swedes, almost invariablyunfortunate in their hostilities with Denmark and Brandenburg, shouldhave been enabled to win back what they had lost. This was to postponepeace indefinitely. The English Parliament and Holland were disgusted, and concluded a new alliance. The Spaniards were preparing to take uparms again. The king, who had returned to the army, all at once cut theknot. "The day I arrived at the camp, " writes Louis XIV. , I receivednews from London apprising mee that the King of England would bindhimself to join me in forcing my enemies to make peace, if I consented toadd something to the conditions he had already proposed. I had a battleover this proposal, but the public good, joined to the glory of gaining avictory over myself, prevailed over the advantage I might have hoped forfrom war. I replied to the King of England that I was quite willing tomake the treaty he proposed to me, and, at the same time, I wrote to theStates General a letter, stronger than the first, being convinced that, since they were wavering, they ought not to have time given them to takecounsel upon the subject of peace with their allies, who did not wantit. " Beverninck went to visit the king at Ghent; and he showed so muchability that the special peace concluded by his pains received, inHolland, the name of Beverninck's peace. "I settled more business in anhour with M. De Beverninck than the plenipotentiaries would have beenable to conclude in several days, " said Louis XIV. ; "the care I had takento detach the allies one from another, overwhelmed them to such anextent, that they were constrained to submit to the conditions of which Ihad declared myself in favor at the commencement of my negotiations. Ihad resolved to make peace, but I wished to conclude one that would beglorious for me and advantageous for my kingdom. I wished to recompensemyself, by means of the places that were essential, for the probableconquests I was losing, and to console myself for the conclusion of a warwhich I was carrying on with pleasure and success. Amidst such turmoil, then, I was quite tranquil, and saw nothing but advantage for myself, whether the war went on or peace were made. " All difficulties were smoothed away Sweden had given up all stipulationsfor her advantage; the firm will of France had triumphed over thevacillations of Charles II. And the allies. "The behavior of the Frenchin all this was admirable, " says Sir W. Temple, an experienceddiplomatist, long versed in all the affairs of Europe, "whilst our owncounsels and behavior resembled those floating islands which winds andtide drive from one side to the other. " On the 10th of August, in the evening, the special peace between Hollandand France was signed after twenty-four hours' conference. The Prince ofOrange had concentrated all his forces near Mons, confronting MarshalLuxembourg, who occupied the plateau of Casteau; he had no official newsas yet from Nimeguen, and on the 14th he began the engagement outside theabbey of St. Denis. The affair was a very murderous one, and remainedindecisive: it did more honor to the military skill of the Prince ofOrange than to his loyalty. Holland had not lost an inch of herterritory during this war; so long, so desperate, and notoriouslyundertaken in order to destroy her; she had spent much money, she hadlost many men, she had shaken the confidence of her allies by treatingalone and being the first to treat, but she had furnished a chief to theEuropean coalition, and she had shown an example of indomitableresistance; the States General and the Prince of Orange alone, besidesLouis XIV. , came the greater out of the struggle. The King of Englandhad lost all consideration both at home and abroad, and Spain paid allthe expenses of the war. Peace was concluded on the 17th of September, thanks to the energeticintervention of the Hollanders. The king restored Courtray, Audenarde, Ath, and Charleroi, which had been given him by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Ghent, Linmburg, and St. Ghislain; but he kept by definitiveright St. Omer, Cassel, Aire, Ypres, Cambray, Bouchain, Valenciennes, andall Franche-Comte; henceforth he possessed in the north of France a lineof places extending from Dunkerque to the Meuse; the Spanish monarchy wasdisarmed. It still required a successful campaign under Marshal Crequi to bring theemperor and the German princes over to peace; exchanges of territory andindemnities re-established the treaty of Westphalia on all essentialpoints. The Duke of Lorraine refused the conditions on which the kingproposed to restore to him his duchy; so Louis XIV. Kept Lorraine. The King of France was at the pinnacle of his greatness and power. "Singly against all, " as Louvois said, he had maintained the struggleagainst Europe, and he came out of it victorious; everywhere, with goodreason, was displayed his proud device, _Nec pluribus impar_. "My willalone, " says Louis XIV. In his Memoires, "concluded this peace, so muchdesired by those on whom it did not depend; for, as to my enemies, theyfeared it as much as the public good made me desire it, and thatprevailed on this occasion over the gain and personal glory I was likelyto find in the continuation of the war. . . . I was in full enjoymentof my good fortune and the fruits of my good conduct, which had caused meto profit by all the occasions I had met with for extending the bordersof my kingdom at the expense of my enemies. " "Here is peace made, " wrote Madame de Sevigne to the Count of Bussy. "The king thought it handsomer to grant it this year to Spain and Hollandthan to take the rest of Flanders; he is keeping that for another time. " The Prince of Orange thought as Madame de Seigne: he regarded the peaceof Nimeguen as a truce, and a truce fraught with danger to Europe. Forthat reason did he soon seek to form alliances in order to secure therepose of the world against the insatiable ambition of King Louis XIV. Intoxicated by his successes and the adulation of his court, the King ofFrance no longer brooked any objections to his will or any limits to hisdesires. The poison of absolute power had done its work. Louis XIV. Considered the "office of king" grand, noble, delightful, "for he felthimself worthy of acquitting himself well in all matters in which heengaged. " "The ardor we feel for glory, " he used to say, "is not one ofthose feeble passions which grow dull by possession; its favors, whichare never to be obtained without effort, never, on the other hand, causedisgust, and whoever can do without longing for fresh ones is unworthy ofall he has received. " Standing at the king's side and exciting his pride and ambition, Louvoishad little by little absorbed all the functions of prime minister withoutbearing the title. Colbert alone resisted him, and he, weary of thestruggle, was about to succumb before long (1683), driven to desperationby the burdens that the wars and the king's luxury caused to weighheavily upon France. Peace had not yet led to disarmament; an army of ahundred and forty thousand men remained standing, ever ready to upholdthe rights of France during the long discussions over the regulation ofthe frontiers. In old papers ancient titles were found, and by degreesthe villages, Burghs, and even principalities, claimed by King Louis XIV. Were re-united quietly to France; King Charles XI. Was thus alienated, inconsequence of the seizure of the countship of Deux-Ponts, to whichSweden laid claim. Strasburg was taken by a surprise. This free cityhad several times violated neutrality during the war; Louvois had kept upcommunications inside the place; suddenly he had the approaches and thepassage over the Rhine occupied by thirty-five thousand men on the nightbetween the 16th and 17th of September, 1681; the burgesses sent up toask aid from the emperor, but the messengers were arrested; on the 30thStrasburg capitulated, and Louis XIV. Made his triumphant entry there onthe 24th of October. "Nobody, " says a letter of the day, "can recoverfrom the consternation caused by the fact that the French have takenStrasburg without firing a single shot; everybody says it is one of thewheels of the chariot to be used for a drive into the empire, and thatthe door of Elsass is shut from this moment. " The very day of the surrender of Strasburg (September 30, 1681), Catinat, with a corps of French troops, entered Casale, sold to Louis XIV. By theDuke of Mantua. The king thought to make sure of Piedmont by marryinghis niece, Monsieur's daughter, to the Duke of Savoy, Victor-Amadeo, quite a boy, delicate and taciturn, at loggerheads with his mother andwith her favorites. Marie Louise d'Orleans, elder sister of the youngDuchess of Savoy, had married the King of Spain, Charles II. , a sicklycreature of weak intellect. Louis XIV. Felt the necessity of forming newalliances; the old supports of France had all gone over to the enemy. Sweden and Holland were already allied to the empire; the German princesjoined the coalition. The Prince of Orange, with an ever-vigilant eye onthe frequent infractions of the treaties which France permitted herselfto commit, was quietly negotiating with his allies, and ready to take uparms to meet the common danger. "He was, " says Massillon, "a princeprofound in his views, skilful in forming leagues and banding spiritstogether, more successful in exciting wars than on the battle-field, moreto be feared in the privacy of the closet than at the head of armies, aprince and an enemy whom hatred of the French name rendered capable ofconceiving great things and of executing them, one of those geniuses whoseem born to move at their will both peoples and sovereigns. " Frenchdiplomacy was not in a condition to struggle with the Prince of Orange. M. De Pomponne had succeeded Lionne; he was disgraced in 1679. "I orderhis recall, " said the king, "because all that passes through his handsloses the grandeur and force which ought to be shown in executing theorders of a king who is no poor creature. " Colbert de Croissy, theminister's brother, was from that time employed to manage with foreigncountries all the business which Louvois did not reserve to himself. Duquesne had bombarded Algiers in 1682; in 1684, he destroyed severaldistricts of Genoa, which was accused of having failed in neutralitybetween France and Spain; and at the same time Marshals Humieres andCrequi occupied Audenarde, Courtray, and Dixmude, and made themselvesmasters of Luxemburg; the king reproached Spain with its delays in theregulation of the frontiers, and claimed to occupy the Low Countriespacifically; the diet of Ratisbonne intervened; the emperor, with the aidof Sobieski, King of Poland, was occupied in repelling the invasions ofthe Turks; a truce was concluded for twenty-four years; the empire andSpain acquiesced in the king's new conquests. "It seemed to beestablished, " said the Marquis de la Fare, "that the empire of France wasan evil not to be avoided by other nations. " Nobody was more convincedof this than King Louis XIV. He was himself about to deal his own kingdom a blow more fatal than allthose of foreign wars and of the European coalition. Intoxicated by somuch success and so many victories, he fancied that consciences were tobe bent like states, and he set about bringing all his subjects back tothe Catholic faith. Himself returning to a regular life, under theinfluence of age and of Madame de Maintenon, he thought it a fine thingto establish in his kingdom that unity of religion which Henry IV. AndRichelieu had not been able to bring about. He set at nought all therights consecrated by edicts, and the long patience of those Protestantswhom Mazarin called "the faithful flock;" in vain had persecution beentried for several years past; tyranny interfered, and the edict of Nanteswas revoked on the 13th of October, 1685. Some years later, theReformers, by hundreds of thousands, carried into foreign lands theirindustries, their wealth, and their bitter resentments. ProtestantEurope, indignant, opened her doors to these martyrs to conscience, living witnesses of the injustice and arbitrary power of Louis XIV. All the princes felt themselves at the same time insulted and threatenedin respect of their faith as well as of their puissance. In the earlymonths of 1686, the league of Augsburg united all the German princes, Holland, and Sweden; Spain and the Duke of Savoy were not slow to joinit. In 1687, the diet of Ratisbonne refused to convert the twenty years'truce into a definitive peace. By his haughty pretensions the king gaveto the coalition the support of Pope Innocent XI. ; Louis XIV. Was oncemore single-handed against all, when he invaded the electorate of Colognein the month of August, 1686. Philipsburg, lost by France in 1676, wasrecovered on the 29th of October; at the end of the campaign, the king'sarmies were masters of the Palatinate. In the month of January, 1689, war was officially declared against Holland, the emperor, and the empire. The commander-in-chief of the French forces was intrusted to the dauphin, then twenty-six years of age. "I give you an opportunity of making yourmerit known, " said Louis XIV. To his son: "exhibit it to all Europe, sothat when I come to die it shall not be perceived that the king is dead. " The dauphin was already tasting the pleasures of conquest, and thecoalition had not stirred. They were awaiting their chief; William ofOrange was fighting for them in the very act of taking possession of thekingdom of England. Weary of the narrow-minded and cruel tyranny oftheir king, James II. , disquieted at his blind zeal for the Catholicreligion, the English nation had summoned to their aid the champion ofProtestantism; it was in the name of the political liberties and thereligious creed of England that the Prince of Orange set sail on the 11thof November, 1688; on the flags of his vessels was inscribed the prouddevice of his house, I will maintain; below were the words, _Prolibertate et Protestante religione. _ William landed without obstacle atTorbay, on the 15th of November; on the 4th of January, King James, abandoned by everybody, arrived in France, whither he had been precededby his wife, Mary of Modena, and the little Prince of Wales; theconvention of the two Houses in England proclaimed William and Mary_kings_ (rois--? king and queen); the Prince of Orange had declined themodest part of mere husband of the queen. "I will never be tied to awoman's apron-strings, " he had said. By his personal qualities as well as by the defects and errors of hismind Louis XIV. Was a predestined acquisition to the cause of James II. ;he regarded the revolution in England as an insolent attack by the peopleupon the kingly majesty, and William of Orange was the most dangerousenemy of the crown of France. The king gave the fallen monarch amagnificent reception. "The king acts towards these majesties of Englandquite divinely, " writes Madame de Sevigne, on the 10th of January, 1689:"for is it not to be the image of the Almighty to support a kingout-driven, betrayed, abandoned as he is? The king's noble soul isdelighted to play such a part as this. He went to meet the Queen ofEngland with all his household and a hundred six-horse carriages; heescorted her to St. Germain, where she found herself supplied, like thequeen, with all sorts of knick-knacks, amongst which was a very richcasket with six thousand louis d'or. The next day the King of Englandarrived late at St. Germain; the king was there waiting for him, and wentto the end of the Guards' hall to meet him; the King of England bent downvery low, as if he meant to embrace his knees; the king prevented him, and embraced him three or four times over, very cordially. At parting, his Majesty would not be escorted back, but said to the King of England, 'This is your house; when I come hither you shall do me the honors of it, as I will do you when you come to Versailles. ' The king subsequentlysent the King of England ten thousand louis. The latter looked aged andworn, the queen thin and with eyes that have wept, but beautiful blackones; a fine complexion, rather pale, a large mouth, fine teeth, a finefigure and plenty of wits; all that makes up a very pleasing person. Allshe says is quite just and full of good sense. Her husband is not thesame; he has plenty of spirit, but a common mind which relates all thathas passed in England with a want of feeling which causes the sametowards him. It is so extraordinary to have this court here that it isthe subject of conversation incessantly. Attempts are being made toregulate ranks and prepare for permanently living with people so far fromtheir restoration. " In his pride and his kingly illusions, Louis XIV. Had undertaken a burdenwhich was to weigh heavily upon him to the very end of his reign. Catholic Ireland had not acquiesced in the elevation of William of Orangeto the throne of England; she invited over King James. Personally brave, and blinded by his hopes, he set out from St. Germain on the 25th ofFebruary, 1689. "Brother, " said the king to him on taking leave, "thebest I can wish you is not to see you back. " He took with him a corps ofFrench troops commanded by M. De Rosen, and the Count of Avaux asadviser. "It will be no easy matter to keep any secret with the King ofEngland, " wrote Avaux to Louis XIV. ; "he has said before the sailors ofthe St. Michael what he ought to have reserved for his greatestconfidants. Another thing which may cause us trouble is his indecision, for he has frequent changes of opinion, and does not always determineupon the best. He lays great stress on little things, over which hespends all his time, and passes lightly by the most essential. Besides, he listens to everybody, and as much time has to be spent in destroyingthe impressions which bad advice has produced upon him as in inspiringhim with good. It is said here that the Protestants of the north willintrench themselves in Londonderry, which is a pretty strong town forIreland, and that it is a business which will probably last some days. " The siege of Londonderry lasted a hundred and five days; most of theFrench officers fell there; the place had to be abandoned; the Englisharmy had just landed at Carrickfergus (August 25), under the orders ofMarshal Schomberg. Like their leader, a portion of Schomberg's men wereFrench Protestants who had left their native country after the revocationof the edict of Nantes; they fought to the bitter end against the Frenchregiments of Rosen. The Irish Parliament was beginning to have doubtsabout James II. "Too English, " it was said, "to render full justice toIreland. " There was disorder everywhere, in the government as well as inthe military operations; Schomberg held the Irish and French in check; atlast William III. Appeared. He landed on the 14th of June, and at once took the road to Belfast; theProtestant opposition was cantoned in the province of Ulster, peopled toa great extent by Cromwell's Scotch colonists; three parts of Irelandwere still in the hands of the Catholics and King James. "I haven't comehither to let the grass grow under my feet, " said William to those whocounselled prudence. He had brought with him his old Dutch and Germanregiments, and numbered under his orders thirty-five thousand men;representatives from all the Protestant churches of Europe were therein arms against the enemies of their liberties. The forces of King James were scarcely inferior to those of hisson-in-law; Louis XIV. Had sent him a re-enforcement of eight thousandmen under the orders of the Duke of Lauzun. On the 1st of July the twoarmies met on the banks of the Boyne, near the town of Drogheda. William had been slightly wounded in the shoulder the evening beforeduring a reconnaissance. "There's no harm done, " said he at once to histerrified friends, "but, as it was, the ball struck quite high enough. "He was on horseback at the head of his troops; at daybreak the wholearmy plunged into the river; Marshal Schomberg commanded a division; hesaw that the Huguenot regiments were staggered by the death of theirleader, M. De Caillemotte, younger brother of the Marquis of Ruvigny. He rushed his horse into the river, shouting, "Forward, gentlemen;yonder are your persecutors. " He was killed, in his turn, as he touchedthe bank. King William himself had just entered the Boyne; his horsehad taken to swimming, and he had difficulty in guiding it with hiswounded arm; a ball struck his boot, another came and hit against thebutt of his pistol; the Irish infantry, ignorant and undisciplined, everywhere took flight. "We were not beaten, " said a letter to Louvoisfrom M. De la Hoguette, a French officer, "but the enemy drove the Irishtroops, like sheep, before them, without their having attempted to firea single musket-shot. " All the burden of the contest fell upon thetroops of Louis XIV. And upon the Irish gentlemen, who fought furiously;William rallied around him the Protestants of Enniskillen, and led themback to the charge; the Irish gave way on all sides; King James hadprudently remained at a distance, watching the battle from afar; heturned bridle, and hastily took the road back to Dublin. On the 3d ofJuly he embarked at Waterford, himself carrying to St. Germain the newsof his defeat. "Those who love the King of England must be very glad tosee him in safety, " wrote Marshal Luxembourg to Louvois; "but those wholove his glory have good reason to deplore the figure he made. " "I wasin trouble to know what had become of the king my father, " wrote QueenMary to William III. ; "I dared not ask anybody but Lord Nottingham, andI had the satisfaction of learning that he was safe and sound. I knowthat I need not beg you to spare him, but to your tenderness add this, that for my sake the world may know that you would not have any harmhappen to him. You will forgive me this. " The rumor had spread at Paristhat King William was dead; the populace lighted bonfires in thestreets; and the governor of the Bastille fired a salute. The anger andhatred of a people are perspicacious. The insensate pride of king and nation was to be put to other trials; thecampaign of 1689 had been without advantage or honor to the king's arms. Disembarrassed of the great Conde, of Turenne, and even of MarshalLuxembourg, who was compromised in some distressing law proceedings, Louvois exercised undisputed command over generals and armies; his harshand violent genius encountered no more obstacles. He had planned adefensive war which was to tire out the allies, all the while ravagingtheir territories. The Palatinate underwent all its horrors. Manheim, Heidelberg, Spires, Worms, Bingen, were destroyed and burned. "I don'tthink, " wrote the Count of Tesse to Louvois, "that for a week past myheart has been in its usual place. I take the liberty of speaking to younaturally, but I did not foresee that it would cost so much to personallylook to the burning of a town with a population, in proportion, like thatof Orleans. You may rely upon it that nothing at all remains of thesuperb castle of Heidelberg. There were yesterday at noon, besides thecastle, four hundred and thirty-two houses burned; and the fire was stillgoing on. I merely caused to be set apart the family pictures of thePalatine House; that is, the fathers, mothers, grandmothers, andrelatives of Madame; intending, if you order me or advise me so, to makeher a present of them, and have them sent to her when she is somewhatdistracted from the desolation of her native country; for, exceptherself, who can take any interest in them? Of the whole lot there isnot a single copy worth a dozen livres. " The poor Princess Palatine, Monsieur's second wife, was not yet distracted from her native country, and she wrote in March, 1689, "Should it cost me my life, it isimpossible for me not to regret, not to deplore, having been, so tospeak, the pretext for the destruction of my country. I cannot look onin cold blood and see the ruin at a single blow, in poor Manheim, of allthat cost so much pains and trouble to the late prince-elector, myfather. When I think of all the explosions that have taken place, I amso full of horror that every night, the moment I begin to go to sleep, Ifancy myself at Heidelberg or Manheim, and an eye-witness of the ravagescommitted. I picture to myself how it all was in my time, and to whatcondition it has been reduced now, and I cannot refrain from weeping hottears. What distresses me above all is, that the king waited to revealhis orders until the very moment of my intercession in favor ofHeidelberg and Manheim. And yet it is thought bad taste for me to beafflicted!" The Elector of Bavaria, an able prince and a good soldier, had rousedGermany to avenge his wrongs; France had just been placed under the banof the empire; and the grand alliance was forming. All the Germanprinces joined it; the United Provinces, England, and Spain combined forthe restoration of the treaties of Westphalia and of the Pyrenees. Europe had mistaken hopes of forcing Louis XIV. To give up all hisconquests. Twenty years of wars and reverses were not to suffice forthat. Fortune, however, was tiring of being favorable to France;Marshals Duras and Humieres were unable to hamper the movements of theDuke of Lorraine, Charles V. , and of the Elector of Bavaria; the Frenchgarrisons of Mayence and of Bonn were obliged to capitulate after anheroic defence their munitions failed. The king recalled MarshalLuxembourg to the head of his armies. The able courtier had managed toget reconciled with Louvois. "You know, sir, " he wrote to him on the 9thof May, 1690, "with what pleasure I shall seek after such things as willpossibly find favor with the king and give you satisfaction. I am toowell aware how far my small authority extends to suppose that I canwithdraw any man from any place without having written to you previously. It is with some repugnance that I resolve to put before you what comesinto my head, knowing well that all that is good can come only from you, and looking upon anything I conceive as merely simple ideas produced bythe indolence in which we are living here. " [Illustration: Marshal Luxembourg---461] The wary indolence and the observations of Luxembourg were not long ingiving place to activity. The marshal crossed the Sambre on the 29th ofJune, entered Charleroi and Namur, and on the 2d of July attacked thePrince of Waldeck near the rivulet of Fleurus. A considerable body oftroops had made a forced march of seven leagues during the night, andcame up to take the enemy in the rear; it was a complete success, butdevoid of result, like the victory of Stafarde, gained by Catinat overthe Duke of Savoy, Victor-Amadeo, who had openly joined the coalition. The triumphant naval battle delivered by Tourville to the English andDutch fleets off Beachy Head was a great humiliation for the maritimepowers. "I cannot express to you, " wrote William III. To the grandpensionary Heinsius, holding in his absence the government of the UnitedProvinces, "how distressed I am at the disasters of the fleet; I am somuch the more deeply affected as I have been informed that my ships didnot properly support those of the Estates, and left them in the lurch. " [Illustration: Heinsius----461] William had said, when he left Holland, "The republic must lead off thedance. " The moment had come when England was going to take her part init. In the month of January, 1691, William III. Arrived in Holland. "I amlanguishing for that moment, " he wrote six months before to Heinsius. All the allies had sent their ambassadors thither. "It is no longer thetime for deliberation, but for action, " said the King of England to thecongress "the King of France has made himself master of all thefortresses which bordered on his kingdom; if he be not opposed, he willtake all the rest. The interest of each is bound up in the generalinterest of all. It is with the sword that we must wrest from his graspthe liberties of Europe, which he aims at stifling, or we must submitforever to the yoke of servitude. As for me, I will spare for thatpurpose neither my influence, nor my forces, nor my person, and in thespring I will come, at the head of my troops, to conquer or die with myallies. " The spring had not yet come, and already (March 15) Mons was invested bythe French army. The secret had been carefully kept. On the 21st, theking arrived in person with the dauphin; William of Orange collected histroops in all haste, but he did not come up in time: Mons capitulated onthe 8th of April; five days later, Nice, besieged by Catinat, surrenderedlike Mons; Louis XIV. Returned to Versailles, according to his customafter a brilliant stroke. Louvois was pushing on the war furiously; thenaturally fierce temper of the minister was soured by excess of work andby his decline in the king's favor; he felt his position towards the kingshaken by the influence of Madame de Maintenon; venting his wrath on theenemy, he was giving orders everywhere for conflagration and bombardment, when on the 17th of July, 1691, after working with the king, Louvoiscomplained of pain; Louis XIV. Sent him to his rooms; on reaching hischamber he fell down fainting; the people ran to fetch his third son, M. De Barbezieux; Madame do Louvois was not at Versailles, and his two eldersons were in the field; he arrived too late; his father was dead. "So he is dead, this great minister, this man of such importance, whoseegotism (_le moi_), as M. Nicole says, was so extensive, who was thecentre of so many things! What business, what designs, what projects, what secrets, what interests to unfold, what wars begun, what intrigues, what beautiful moves-in-check to make and to superintend! Ah! my God, grant me a little while; I would fain give check to the Duke of Savoy andmate to the Prince of Orange! No, no, thou shalt not have one, onesingle moment!" Thus wrote Madame do Sevigne to her daughter Madame deGrignan. Louis XIV. , in whose service Louvois had spent his life, wasless troubled at his death. "Tell the King of England that I have lost agood minister, " was the answer he sent to the complimentary condolence ofKing James, "but that his affairs and mine will go on none the worse. " In his secret heart, and beneath the veil of his majestic observance ofthe proprieties, the king thought that his business, as well as theagreeableness of his life, would probably gain from being no longersubject to the tempers and the roughnesses of Louvois. The GrandMonarque considered that he had trained (_instruit_) his minister, but hefelt that the pupil had got away from him. He appointed Barbezieuxsecretary for war. "I will form you, " said he. No human hand had formedLouvois, not even that of his father, the able and prudent Michael leTellier; he had received straight from God the strong qualities, resolution, indomitable will, ardor for work, the instinct oforganization and command, which had made of him a minister without equalfor the warlike and ambitious purposes of his master. Power had spoiledhim, his faults had prevailed over his other qualities without destroyingthem; violent, fierce, without principle and without scruple in theexecution of his designs, he had egged the king on to incessant wars, treating with disdain the internal miseries of the kingdom as well as anyidea of pity for the vanquished; he had desired to do everything, ordereverything, grasp everything, and he died at fifty-three, dreaded by all, hated by a great many, and leaving in the government of the country avoid which the king felt, all the time that he was angrily seeking tofill it up. Louvois was no more; negotiations were beginning to be whispered about, but the war continued by land and sea; the campaign of 1691 hadcompletely destroyed the hopes of James II. In Ireland; it was decided toattempt a descent upon England; a plot was being hatched to support theinvasion. Tourville was commissioned to cover the landing. He receivedorders to fight, whatever might be the numbers of the enemy. The windprevented his departure from Brest; the Dutch fleet had found time tojoin the English. Tourville wanted to wait for the squadrons of Estreesand Rochefort; Pontchartrain had been minister of finance and marinesince the death of Seignelay, Colbert's son, in 1690; he replied fromVersailles to the experienced sailor, familiar with battle from the ageof fourteen, "It is not for you to discuss the king's orders; it is foryou to execute them and enter the Channel; if you are not ready to do it, the king will put in your place somebody more obedient and less discreetthan you. " Tourville went out and encountered the enemy's squadronsbetween the headlands of La Hogue and Barfleur; he had forty-four vesselsagainst ninety-nine, the number of English and Dutch together. Tourvilleassembled his council of war, and all the officers were for withdrawing;but the king's orders were peremptory, and the admiral joined battle. After three days' desperate resistance, backed up by the most skilfulmanoeuvres, Tourville was obliged to withdraw beneath the forts of LaHogue in hopes of running his ships ashore; but in this King James andMarshal Bellefonds opposed him. [Illustration: Battle of St. Vincent 465a] Tourville remained at sea, and lost a dozen vessels. The consternationin France was profound; the nation had grown accustomed to victory; onthe 20th of June the capture of Namur raised their hopes again; this timeagain William III. Had been unable to succor his allies; he determinedto--revenge himself on Luxembourg, whom he surprised on the 31st ofAugust, between Enghaep and Steinkirk; the ground was narrow and uneven, and the King of England counted upon thus paralyzing the brilliant Frenchcavalry. M. De Luxembourg, ill of fever as he was, would fain havedismounted to lead to the charge the brigades of the French guards and ofthe Swiss, but he was prevented; the Duke of Bourbon, the Prince ofConti, the Duke of Chartres, and the Duke of Vendome, placed themselvesat the head of the infantry, and, sword in hand, led it against theenemy; a fortunate movement on the part of Marshal Boufflers resulted inrendering the victory decisive. Next year at Neerwinden (29th of July, 1693) the success of the day was likewise due to the infantry. On thatday the French guards had exhausted their ammunition; putting the bayonetat the end of their pieces they broke the enemy's battalions; this wasthe first charge of the kind in the French armies. The king's householdtroops had remained motionless for four hours under the fire of theallies: William III. Thought for a moment that his gunners made badpractice; he ran up to the batteries; the French squadrons did not moveexcept to close up the ranks as the files were carried off; the King ofEngland could not help an exclamation of anger and admiration. "Insolentnation!" he cried. [Illustration: The Battle of Neerwinden----465] The victory of Neerwinden ended in nothing but the capture of Charleroi;the successes of Catinat at Marsaglia, in Piedmont, had washed out theshame of the Duke of Savoy's incursion into Dauphiny in 1692. Tourvillehad remained with the advantage in several maritime engagements off CapeSt. Vincent, and burned the English vessels in the very roads of Cadiz. On every sea the corsairs of St. Malo and Dunkerque, John Bart andDuguay-Trouin, now enrolled in the king's navy, towed at their sternsnumerous prizes; the king and France, for a long time carried away by acommon passion, had arrived at that point at which victories no longersuffice in the place of solid and definitive success. The nation was atlast tiring of its glory. "People were dying of want to the sound of theTe Deum, " says Voltaire in the Siecle de Louis XIV. ; everywhere there wasweariness equal to the suffering. Madame de Maintenon and some of herfriends at that time, sincerely devoted to the public good, ratherChristians than warriors, Fenelon, the Dukes of Beauvilliers andChevreuse, were laboring to bring, the king over to pacific views; he sawgenerals as well as ministers falling one after another; MarshalLuxembourg, exhausted by the fatigues of war and the pleasures of thecourt, died on the 4th of January, 1695, at sixty-seven years of age. Anable general, a worthy pupil of the great Conde, a courtier of much witsand no shame, he was more corrupt than his age, and his private life wasinjurious to his fame; he died, however, as people did die in his time, turning to God at the last day. "I haven't lived like M. De Luxembourg, "said Bourdaloue, "but I should like to die like him. " History hasforgotten Marshal Luxembourg's death and remembered his life. Louis XIV. Had lost Conde and Turenne, Luxembourg, Colbert, Louvois, andSeignelay; with the exception of Vauban, he had exhausted the first rank;Catinat alone remained in the second; the king was about to be reduced tothe third: sad fruits of a long reign, of an incessant and devouringactivity, which had speedily used up men and was beginning to tire outfortune; grievous result of mistakes long hidden by glory, but glaringout at last before the eyes most blinded by prejudice! "The whole ofFrance is no longer anything but one vast hospital, " wrote Fenelon to theking under the veil of the anonymous. "The people who so loved you arebeginning to lose affection, confidence, and even respect; the alliesprefer carrying on war with loss to concluding a peace which would not beobserved. Even those who have not dared to declare openly against youare nevertheless impatiently desiring your enfeeblement and yourhumiliation as the only resource for liberty and for the repose of allChristian nations. Everybody knows it, and none dares tell you so. Whilst you in some fierce conflict are taking the battle-field and thecannon of the enemy, whilst you are storming strong places, you do notreflect that you are fighting on ground which is sinking beneath yourfeet, and that you are about to have a fall in spite of your victories. It is time to humble yourself beneath the mighty hand of God; you mustask peace, and by that shame expiate all the glory of which you have madeyour idol; finally you must give up, the soonest possible, to yourenemies, in order to save the state, conquests that you cannot retainwithout injustice. For a long time past God has had His arm raised overyou; but He is slow to smite you because He has pity upon a prince whohas all his life been beset by flatterers. " Noble and strong language, the cruel truth of which the king did not as yet comprehend, misled as hewas by his pride, by the splendor of his successes, and by the concert ofpraises which his people as well as his court had so long made toreverberate in his ears. Louis XIV. Had led France on to the brink of a precipice, and he had inhis turn been led on by her; king and people had given themselves upunreservedly to the passion for glory and to the intoxication of success;the day of awakening was at hand. Louis XIV. Was not so blind as Fenelon supposed; he saw the danger at thevery moment when his kingly pride refused to admit it. The King ofEngland had just retaken Namur, without Villeroi, who had succeededMarshal Luxembourg, having been able to relieve the place. Louis XIV. Had already let out that he "should not pretend to avail himself of anyspecial conventions until the Prince of Orange was satisfied as regardedhis person and the crown of England. " This was a great step towards thathumiliation recommended by Fenelon. The secret negotiations with the Duke of Savoy were not less significant. After William III. , Victor-Amadeo was the most active and most devoted aswell as the most able and most stubborn of the allied princes. In themonth of June, 1696, the treaty was officially declared. Victor-Amadeowould recover Savoy, Suza, the countship of Nice and Pignerol dismantled;his eldest daughter, Princess Mary Adelaide, was to marry the Duke ofBurgundy, eldest son of the dauphin, and the ambassadors of Piedmonthenceforth took rank with those of crowned heads. In return for so manyconcessions, Victor-Amadeo guaranteed to the king the neutrality ofItaly, and promised to close the entry of his dominions against theProtestants of Dauphiny who came thither for refuge. If Italy refusedher neutrality, the Duke of Savoy was to unite his forces to those of theking and command the combined army. Victory would not have been more advantageous for Victor-Amadeo than hisconstant defeats were; but, by detaching him from the coalition, LouisXIV. Had struck a fatal blow at the great alliance: the campaign of 1696in Germany and in Flanders had resolved itself into mere observations andinsignificant engagements; Holland and England were exhausted, and theircommerce was ruined; in vain did Parliament vote fresh and enormoussupplies. "I should want ready money, " wrote William III. To Heinsius, "and my poverty is really incredible. " There was no less cruel want in France. "I calculate that in theselatter days more than a tenth part of the people, " said Vauban, "arereduced to beggary, and in fact beg. " Sweden had for a long time beenproffering mediation: conferences began on the 9th of May, 1697, atNieuburg, a castle belonging to William III. , near the village ofRyswick. These great halls opened one into another; the French and theplenipotentiaries of the coalition of princes occupied the two wings, themediators sat in the centre. Before arriving at Ryswick, the mostimportant points of the treaty between France and William III. Werealready settled. Louis XIV. Had at last consented to recognize the king that England hadadopted; William demanded the expulsion of James II. From France; LouisXIV. Formally refused his consent. "I will engage not to support theenemies of King William directly or indirectly, " said he: "it would notcomport with my honor to have the name of King James mentioned in thetreaty. " William contented himself with the concession, and merelydesired that it should be reciprocal. "All Europe has sufficientconfidence in the obedience and submission of my people, " said LouisXIV. , "and, when it is my pleasure to prevent my subjects from assistingthe King of England, there are no grounds for fearing lest he should findany assistance in my kingdom. There can be no occasion for reciprocity;I have neither sedition nor faction to fear. " Language too haughty for aking who had passed his infancy in the midst of the troubles of theFronde, but language explained by the patience and fidelity of the nationtowards the sovereign who had so long lavished upon it the intoxicatingpleasures of success. France offered restitution of Strasburg, Luxembourg, Mons, Charleroi, andDinant, restoration of the house of Lorraine, with the conditionsproposed at Nimeguen, and recognition of the King of England. "We haveno equivalent to claim, " said the French plenipotentiaries haughtily;"your masters have never taken anything from ours. " On the 27th of July a preliminary deed was signed between MarshalBoufflers and Bentinck, Earl of Portland, the intimate friend of KingWilliam; the latter left the army and retired to his castle of Loo; thereit was that he heard of the capture of Barcelona by the Duke of Vendime;Spain, which had hitherto refused to take part in the negotiations, lostall courage, and loudly demanded peace; but France withdrew herconcessions on the subject of Strasburg, and proposed to give asequivalent Friburg in Brisgau and Brisach. William III. Did nothesitate. Heinsius signed the peace in the name of the States Generalon the 20th of September at midnight; the English and Spanishplenipotentiaries did the same; the emperor and the empire were alone instill holding out: the Emperor Leopold made pretensions to regulate inadvance the Spanish succession, and the Protestant princes refused toaccept the maintenance of the Catholic worship in all the places in whichLouis XIV. Had restored it. Here again the will of William III. Prevailed over the irresolution ofhis allies. "The Prince of Orange is sole arbiter of Europe, " PopeInnocent XII. Had said to Lord Perth, who had a commission to him fromJames II; "peoples and kings are his slaves; they will do nothing whichmight displease him. " "I ask, " said William, "where anybody can see a probability of makingFrance give up a succession for which she would maintain, at need, atwenty years' war; and God knows if we are in a position to dictate lawsto France. " The emperor yielded, despite the ill humor of the Protestantprinces. For the ease of their consciences they joined England andHolland in making a move on behalf of the French Reformers. Louis XIV. Refused to discuss the matter, saying, "It is my business, which concernsnone but me. " Up to this day the refugees had preserved some hope, henceforth their country was lost to them; many got themselvesnaturalized in the countries which had given them asylum. The revolution of 1789 alone was to re-open to their children the gatesof France. For the first time since Cardinal Richelieu, France moved back herfrontiers by the signature of a treaty. She had gained the importantplace of Strasburg, but she lost nearly all she had won by the treaty ofNimeguen in the Low Countries and in Germany; she kept Franche-Comte, butshe gave up Lothringen. Louis XIV. Had wanted to aggrandize himself atany price and at any risk; he was now obliged to precipitately break upthe grand alliance, for King Charles II. Was slowly dying at Madrid, andthe Spanish Succession was about to open. Ignorant of the supreme evilsand sorrows which awaited him on this fatal path, the King of Francebegan to forget, in this distant prospect of fresh aggrandizement andwar, the checks that his glory and his policy had just met with. CHAPTER XLV. ----LOUIS XIV. , HIS WARS AND HIS REVERSES. (1697-1713. ) France was breathing again after nine years of a desperate war, but shewas breathing uneasily, and as it were in expectation of fresh efforts. Everywhere the memorials of the superintendents repeated the samecomplaints. "War, the mortality of 1693, the, constant quarterings andmovements of soldiery, military service, the heavy dues, and thewithdrawal of the Huguenots have ruined the country. " "The people, " saidthe superintendent of Rouen, "are reduced to a state of want which movescompassion. Out of seven hundred and fifty thousand souls of which thepublic is composed, if this number remain, it may be taken for certainthat there are not fifty thousand who have bread to eat when they wantit, and anything to lie upon but straw. " Agriculture suffered for lackof money and hands; commerce was ruined; the manufactures established byColbert no longer existed; the population had diminished more than aquarter since the palmy days of the king's reign; Pontchartrain, secretary of finance, was reduced to all sorts of expedients for raisingmoney; he was anxious to rid himself of this heavy burden, and becamechancellor in 1699; the king took for his substitute Chamillard, alreadycomptroller of finance, honest and hard-working, incapable and docile;Louis XIV. Counted upon the inexhaustible resources of France, and closedhis ears to the grievances of the financiers. "What is not spoken of issupposed to be put an end to, " said Madame de Maintenon. The camp atCompiegne, in 1698, surpassed in splendor all that had till then beenseen; the enemies of Louis XIV. In Europe called him "the king ofreviews. " Meanwhile the King of Spain, Charles II. , dying as he was, was regularlybesieged at Madrid by the queen, his second wife, Mary Anne of Neuburg, sister of the empress, as well as by his minister, CardinalPorto-Carrero. The competitors for the succession were numerous; theKing of France and the emperor claimed their rights in the name of theirmothers and wives, daughters of Philip III. And Philip IV. ; the Electorof Bavaria put up the claims of his son by right of his mother, MaryAntoinette of Austria, daughter of the emperor; for a short time CharlesII. Had adopted this young prince; the child died suddenly at Madrid in1699. For a long time past King Louis XIV. Had been secretlynegotiating for the partition of the King of Spain's dominions, not--withthe emperor, who still hoped to obtain from Charles II. A will in favorof his second son, the Archduke Charles, but with England and Holland, deeply interested as they were in maintaining the equilibrium between thetwo kingly houses which divided Europe. William III. Considered himselfcertain to obtain the acceptance by the emperor of the conditionssubscribed by his allies. On the 13th and 15th of May, 1700, after longhesitation and a stubborn resistance on the part of the city ofAmsterdam, the treaty of partition was signed in London and at the Hague. "King William is honorable in all this business, " said a letter to theking from his ambassador, Count de Tallard; "his conduct is sincere; heis proud--none can be more so than he; but he has a modest manner, thoughnone can be more jealous in all that concerns his rank. " The treaty of partition secured to the dauphin all the possessions ofSpain in Italy, save Milaness, which was to indemnify the Duke ofLorraine, whose duchy passed to France; Spain, the Indies, and the LowCountries were to belong to Archduke Charles. Great was the wrath atVienna when it was known that the treaty was signed. "Happily, " said theminister, Von Kaunitz, to the Marquis of Villars, ambassador of France, "there is One on high who will work for us in these partitions. " "ThatOne, " replied M. De Villars, "will approve of their justice. " "It issomething new, however, for the King of England and for Holland topartition the monarchy of Spain, " continued the count. "Allow me, "replied M. De Villars, "to excuse them in your eyes; those two powershave quite recently come out of a war which cost them a great deal, andthe emperor nothing; for, in fact, you have been at no expense butagainst the Turks. You had some troops in Italy, and in the empire tworegiments only of hussars which were not on its pay-list; England andHolland alone bore all the burden. " William III. Was still negotiatingwith the emperor and the German princes to make them accept the treaty ofpartition, when it all at once became known in Europe that Charles II. Had breathed his last at Madrid on the 1st of November, 1700, and that, by a will dated October 2, he disposed of the Spanish monarchy in favorof the Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV. This will was the work of the council of Spain, at the head of which satCardinal Porto-Carrero. "The national party, " says M. Mignet in his"Introduction aux Documents relatifs de la Succession d'Espagne, _"detested the Austrians because they had been so long in Spain; it likedthe French because they were no longer there. The former had been theretime enough to weary by their dominion, whilst the latter were served bythe mere fact of their removal. " Singlehanded, Louis XIV. Appearedpowerful enough to maintain the integrity of the Spanish monarchy beforethe face and in the teeth of all the competitors. "The King of Spain wasbeginning to see the, things of this world by the light alone of thatawful torch which is lighted to lighten the dying. " [_Memoires de St. Simon, _ t. Iii. P. 16]; wavering, irresolute, distracted within himself, he asked the advice of Pope Innocent XII. , who was favorable to France. The hopes of Louis XIV. Had not soared so high; on the 9th of November, 1700, he heard at one and the same time of Charles II. 's death and thecontents of his will. It was a solemn situation. The acceptance by France of the King ofSpain's will meant war; the refusal did not make peace certain; indefault of a French prince the crown was to go to Archduke Charles;neither Spain nor Austria would hear of dismemberment; could they beforced to accept the treaty of partition which they had hitherto rejectedangrily? The king's council was divided; Louis XIV. Listened in silenceto the arguments of the dauphin and of the ministers; for a moment theresolution was taken of holding by the treaty of partition; next day theking again assembled his council without as yet making known hisdecision; on Tuesday, November 16, the whole court thronged into thegalleries of Versailles; it was known that several couriers had arrivedfrom Madrid; the king sent for the Spanish ambassador into his closet. "The Duke of Anjou had repaired thither by the back way, " says the Dukeof St. Simon in his Memoires; the king, introducing him to him, told himhe might salute him as his king. The instant afterwards the king, contrary to all custom, had the folding-doors thrown open, and orderedeverybody who was there--and there was a crowd--to come in; then, castinghis eyes majestically over the numerous company, "Gentlemen, " he said, introducing the Duke of Anjou, "here is the King of Spain. His birthcalled him to that crown; the last king gave it him by his will; thegrandees desired him, and have demanded him of me urgently; it is thewill of Heaven, and I have yielded with pleasure. " And, turning to hisgrandson, "Be a good Spaniard, " he said; "that is from this moment yourfirst duty; but remember that you are French born in order to keep up theunion between the two nations; that is the way to render them happy andto preserve the peace of Europe. " Three weeks later the young king wason the road to Spain. There are no longer any Pyrenees, " said LouisXIV. , as he embraced his grandson. The rights of Philip V. To the crownof France had been carefully reserved by a formal act of the king's. [Illustration: "Here is the King of Spain. "----475] Great were the surprise and wrath in Europe; William III. Felt himselfpersonally affronted. "I have no doubt, " he wrote to Heinsius, "thatthis unheard-of proceeding on the part of France has caused you as muchsurprise as it has me; I never had much confidence in engagementscontracted with France, but I confess I never could have supposed thatthat court would have gone so far as to break, in the face of Europe, so solemn a treaty before it had even received the finishing stroke. Granted that we have been dupes; but when, beforehand, you are resolvedto hold your word of no account, it is not very difficult to overreachyour mail. I shall be blamed perhaps for having relied upon France, Iwho ought to have known by the experience of the past that no treaty hasever bound her! Would to God I might be quit for the blame, but I haveonly too many grounds for fearing that the fatal consequences of it willmake themselves felt shortly. I groan in the very depths of my spirit tosee that in this country the majority rejoice to find the will preferredby France to the maintenance of the treaty of partition, and that too onthe ground that the will is more advantageous for England and Europe. This opinion is founded partly on the youth of the Duke of Anjou. 'He isa child, ' they say; 'he will be brought up in Spain; he will beindoctrinated with the principles of that monarchy, and hee will begoverned by the council of Spain;' but these are surmises which it isimpossible for me to entertain, and I fear that we shall before long findout how erroneous they are. Would it not seem as if this profoundindifference with which, in this country, they look upon everything thattakes place outside of this island, were a punishment from Heaven?Meanwhile, are not our causes for apprehension and our interests the sameas those of the peoples of the continent?" William III. Was a more far-sighted politician than his subjects eitherin England or Holland. The States General took the same view as theEnglish. "Public funds and shares have undergone a rise at Amsterdam, "wrote Heinsius to the King of Englaiid; "and although this rests onnothing solid, your Majesty is aware how much influence such a fact has. " Louis XIV. Had lost no time in explaining to the powers the grounds ofhis acceptance. "The King of Spain's will, " he said in his manifesto, "establishes the peace of Europe on solid bases. " "Tallard did not uttera single word on handing me his sovereign's letter, the contents of whichare the same as of that which the states have received, " wrote William toHeinsius. "I said to him that perhaps I had testified too eager a desirefor the preservation of peace, but that, nevertheless, my inclination inthat respect had not changed. Whereupon he replied, 'The king my master, by accepting the will, considers that he gives a similar proof of hisdesire to maintain peace. ' Thereupon he made me a bow and withdrew. " William of Orange had not deceived himself in thinking that Louis XIV. Would govern Spain in his grandson's name. Nowhere are the old king'sexperience and judgment more strikingly displayed than in his letters toPhilip V. "I very much wish, " he wrote to him, "that you were as sure ofyour own subjects as you ought to be of mine in the posts in which theymay be employed; but do not be astounded at the disorder you find amongstyour troops, and at the little confidence you are able to place in them;it needs a long reign and great pains to restore order and secure thefidelity of different peoples accustomed to obey a house hostile toyours. If you thought it would be very easy and very pleasant to be aking, you were very much mistaken. " A sad confession for that powerfulmonarch, who in his youth found "the vocation of king beautiful, noble, and delightful. " "The eighteenth century opened with a fulness of glory and unheard-ofprosperity; "but Louis XIV. Did not suffer himself to be lulled to sleepby the apparent indifference with which Europe, the empire excepted, received the elevation of Philip V. To the throne of Spain. On the 6thof February, 1701, the seven barrier towns of the Spanish Low Countries, which were occupied by Dutch garrisons in virtue of the peace of Ryswick, opened their gates to the French on an order from the King of Spain. "The instructions which the Elector of Bavaria, governor of the LowCountries, had given to the various governors of the places, were so wellexecuted, " says M. De Vault in his account of the campaign in Flanders, "that we entered without any hinderance. Some of the officers of theDutch troops grumbled, and would have complained, but the French generalofficers who had led the troops pacified them, declaring that they didnot come as enemies, and that all they wanted was to live in goodunderstanding with them. " The twenty-two Dutch battalions took the road back before long to theirown country, and became the nucleus of the army which William of Orangewas quietly getting ready in Holland as well as in England; his peopleswere beginning to open their eyes; the States General, deprived of thebarrier towns, had opened the dikes; the meadows were flooded. On the7th of September, 1701, England and Holland signed for the second timewith the emperor a Grand Alliance, engaging not to lay down arms untilthey had reduced the possessions of King Philip V. To Spain and theIndies, restored the barrier of Holland, and secured an indemnity toAustria, and the definitive severance of the two crowns of France andSpain. In the month of June the Austrian army had entered Italy underthe orders of Prince Eugene of Savoy-Carignano, son of the Count ofSoissons and Olympia Mancini, conqueror of the Turks and revoltedHungarians, and passionately hostile to Louis XIV. , who, in his youth, had refused to employ him. He had already crossed the Adige and theMincio, driving the French back behind the Oglio. Marshal Catinat, a manof prudence and far-sightedness, but discouraged by the bad condition ofhis troops, coldly looked upon at court, and disquieted by the aspect ofthings in Italy, was acting supinely; the king sent Marshal Villeroi tosupersede him; Catinat, as modest as he was warmly devoted to the gloryof his country, finished the campaign as a simple volunteer. The King of France and the emperor were looking up allies. The princesof the north were absorbed by the war which was being waged against hisneighbors of Russia and Poland by the young King of Sweden, Charles XII. , a hero of eighteen, as irresistible as Gustavus Adolphus in his impetuousbravery, without possessing the rare qualities of authority and judgmentwhich had distinguished the Lion of the North. He joined the GrandAlliance, as did Denmark and Poland, whose new king, the Elector ofSaxony, had been supported by the emperor in his candidature and in hisabjuration of Protestantism. The Elector of Brandenburg, recentlyrecognized as King of Prussia under the name of Frederic I. , and the newElector of Hanover were eager to serve Leopold, who had aided them intheir elevation. In Germany, only Maximilian, Elector of Bavaria, governor of the Low Countries, and his brother, the Elector of Cologne, embraced the side of France. The Duke of Savoy, generalissimo of theking's forces in Italy, had taken the command of the army. "But in thatcountry, " wrote the Count of Tesse, "there is no reliance to be placed onplaces, or troops, or officers, or people. I have had another interviewwith this incomprehensible prince, who received me with everymanifestation of kindness, of outward sincerity, and, if he were capableof it, I would say of friendship for him of whom his Majesty made use butlately in the work of peace in Italy. 'The king is master of my person, of my dominions, ' he said to me, 'he has only to give his commands; but Isuppose that he still desires my welfare and my aggrandizement. ' 'As foryour aggrandizement, Monseigneur, ' said I, 'in truth I do not see muchmaterial for it just at present; as for your welfare, we must be allowedto see your intentions a little more clearly first, and take the libertyof repeating to you that my prescience does not extend so far. I do himthe justice to believe that he really feels the greater part of all thathe expresses for your Majesty; but that horrid habit of indecision andputting off till to-morrow what he might do to-day is not eradicated, andnever will be. '" The Duke of Savoy was not so undecided as M. De Tess supposed; he managedto turn to good account the mystery which hung habitually over all hisresolutions. A year had not rolled by, and he was openly engaged in theGrand Alliance, pursuing, against France, the cause of thataggrandizement which he had but lately hoped to obtain from her, andwhich, by the treaty of Utrecht, was worth the title of king to him. Pending the time to declare himself he had married his second daughter, Princess Marie Louise Gabrielle, to the young King of Spain, Philip V. "Never had the tranquillity of Europe been so unstable as it was at thecommencement of 1702, " says the correspondence of Chamillard, publishedby General Pelet; "it was but a phantom of peace that was enjoyed, and itwas clear, from whatever side matters were regarded, that we were on theeve of a war which could not but be of long duration, unless, by someunforeseen accident, the houses of Bourbon and Austria should come to anarrangement which would allow them to set themselves in accord touchingthe Spanish succession; but there was no appearance of conciliation. " Louis XIV. Had just done a deed which destroyed the last faint hopes ofpeace. King James II. Was dying at St. Germain, and the king went to seehim. The sick man opened his eyes for a moment when he was told that theking was there [_Memoires de Dangeau, _ t. Viii. P. 192], and closed themagain immediately. The king told him that he had come to assure him thathe might die in peace as regarded the Prince of Wales, and that he wouldrecognize him as King of England, Ireland, and Scotland. All the Englishwho were in the room fell upon their knees, and cried, "God save theking!" James II. Expired a week later, on the 16th of September, 1701, saying to his son, as his last advice, "I am about to leave this world, which has been to me nothing but a sea of tempests and storms. TheOmnipotent has thought right to visit me with great afflictions; serveHim with all your heart, and never place the crown of England in thebalance with your eternal salvation. " James II. Was justified in givinghis son this supreme advice the solitary ray of greatness in his life andin his soul had proceeded from his religious faith, and his unwaveringresolution to remain loyal to it at any price and at any risk. "On returning to Marly, " says St. Simon, "the king told the whole courtwhat he had just done. There was nothing but acclamations and praises. It was a fine field for them: but reflections, too, were not less prompt, if they were less public. The king still flattered himself that he wouldhinder Holland and England, the former of which was so completelydependent, from breaking with him in favor of the house of Austria; herelied upon that to terminate before long the war in Italy, as well asthe whole affair of the succession in Spain and its vast dependencies, which the emperor could not dispute with his own forces only, or evenwith those of the empire. Nothing, therefore, could be more incompatiblewith this position, and with the solemn recognition he had given, at thepeace of Ryswick, of the Prince of Orange as King of England. It was tohurt him personally in the most sensitive spot, all England with him andHolland into the bargain, without giving the Prince of Wales, byrecognition, any solid support in his own case. " [Illustration: News for William III. ----481] William III. Was at table in his castle of Dieren, in Holland, when hereceived this news. He did not utter a word, but he colored, crushed hishat over his head, and could not command his countenance. The Earl ofManchester, English ambassador, left Paris without taking leave of theking, otherwise than by this note to M. De Torcy:-- "Sir: The king my master, being informed that his Most Christian. Majesty has recognized another King of Great Britain, does not considerthat his dignity and his service will permit him to any longer keep anambassador at the court of the king your master, and he has sent meorders to withdraw at once, of which I do myself the honor to advertiseyou by this note. " "All the English, " says Torcy, in his Memoires, "unanimously regard itas a mortal affront on the part of France, that she should pretend toarrogate to herself the right of giving them a king, to the prejudice ofhim whom they had themselves invited and recognized for many years past. " Voltaire declares, in the "Siecle de Louis XIV. , _ that M. De Torcyattributed the recognition of the Prince of Wales by Louis XIV. To theinfluence of Madame de Maintenon, who was touched by the tears of thequeen, Mary of Modena. "He had not, " he said, "inserted the fact in hisMemoires, because he did not think it to his master's honor that twowomen should have made him change a resolution to the contrary taken inhis council. " Perhaps the deplorable state of William III. 's health, andthe inclination supposed to be felt by Princess Anne of Denmark torestore the Stuarts to the throne, since she herself had lost the Duke ofGloucester, the last survivor of her seventeen children, might haveinfluenced the unfortunate resolution of Louis XIV. His kinglymagnanimity and illusions might have bound him to support James II. , dethroned and fugitive; but no obligation of that sort existed in thecase of a prince who had left England at his nurse's, breast, and who hadgrown up in exile. In the _Athalie_ of Racine, Joad (Jehoiada) invokesupon the impious queen: "That spirit of infatuation and error The fatal avant-courier of the fall of kings. " The recognition of the Prince of Wales as King of England was, in thecase of Louis XIV. , the most indisputable token of that fatal blindness. William III. Had paid dear for the honor of being called to the throneof England. More than once he had been on the point of abandonhig theungrateful nation which so ill requited his great services; he hadthought of returning to live in the midst of his Hollanders, affectionately attached to his family as well as to his person. Theinsult of the King of France restored to his already dying adversary allthe popularity he had lost. When William returned from Holland to open anew Parliament, on the 10th of January, 1702, manifestations of sympathywere lavished upon him on all sides of the house. "I have no doubt, "said he, "that the late proceedings of his Most Christian Majesty and thedangers which threaten all the powers of Europe have excited your mostlively resentment. All the world have their eyes fixed upon England;there is still time, she may save her religion and her liberty, but lether profit by every moment, let her arm by land and sea, let her lend herallies all the assistance in her power, and swear to show her enemies, the foes of her religion, her liberty, her government, and the king ofher choice, all the hatred they deserve. " This speech, more impassioned than the utterances of William III. Generally were, met with an eager echo from his people; the houses voteda levy of forty thousand sailors and fifty thousand soldiers; Holland hadpromised ninety thousand men; but the health of the King of England wenton declining; he had fallen from his horse on the 4th of March, andbroken his collarbone; this accident hastened the progress of the maladywhich was pulling him down; when his friend Keppel, whom he had made Earlof Albemarle, returned, on the 18th of March, from Holland, Williamreceived him with these words: "I am drawing towards my end. " He had received the consolations of religion from the bishops, and hadcommunicated with great self-possession; he scarcely spoke now, andbreathed with difficulty. "Can this last long?" he asked the physician, who made a sign in the negative. He had sent for the Earl of Portland, Bentinek, his oldest and most faithful friend; when he arrived, the kingtook his hand and held it between both his own, upon his heart. Thus heremained for a few moments; then he yielded up his great spirit to God, on the 19th (8th) of March, 1702, at eight in the morning. He was notyet fifty-two. In a greater degree perhaps than any other period, the eighteenth centurywas rich in men of the first order. But never did more of the spirit ofpolicy, never did loftier and broader views, never did steadier courageanimate and sustain a weaker body than in the case of William of Orange. Savior of Holland at the age of twenty-two in the war against Louis XIV. , protector of the liberties of England against the tyranny of James II. , defender of the independence of the European states against the unbridledambition of the King of France, he became the head of Europe by theproper and free ascendency of his genius; cold and reserved, more capableof feeling than of testifying sympathy, often ill, always unfortunate inwar, he managed to make his will triumph, in England despite Jacobiteplots and the jealous suspicions of the English Parliaments, in Hollanddespite the constant efforts of the republican and aristocratic party, in Europe despite envy and the waverings of the allied sovereigns. Intrepid, spite of his bad health, to the extent of being ready, if needwere, to die in the last ditch, of indomitable obstinacy in hisresolutions, and of rare ability in the manipulation of affairs, he wasone of those who are born masters of men, no matter what may at theoutset be their condition and their destiny. In vain had Cromwellrequired of Holland the abolition of the stadtholderate in the house ofNassau, in vain had John van Witt obtained the voting of the perpetualedict, William of Orange lived and died stadtholder of Holland and kingof that England which had wanted to close against him forever theapproaches to the throne in his own native countiy. When God has createda man to play a part and hold a place in this world, all efforts and allcounsels to the contrary are but so many stalks of straw under his feet. William of Orange at his death had accomplished his work: Europe hadrisen against Louis XIV. The campaigns of 1702 and 1703 presented an alternation of successes andreverses favorable, on the whole, to France. Marshal Villeroi had failedin Italy against Prince Eugene. He was superseded by the Duke ofVendome, grandson of Henry IV. And captor of Barcelona, indolent, debauched, free in tone and in conduct, but able, bold, beloved by thesoldiers, and strongly supported at court. Catinat had returned toFrance, and went to Versailles at the commencement of the year 1702. "M. De Chamillard had told him the day before, from the king, that hisMajesty had resolved to give him the command of the army in Germany; heexcused himself for some time from accepting this employment; the kingended by saying, 'Now we are in a position for you to explain to me, andopen your heart about all that took place in Italy during the lastcampaign. ' The marshal answered, 'Sir, those things are all past; thedetails I could give you thereof would be of no good to the service ofyour Majesty, and would serve merely, perhaps, to keep up eternalheart-burnings; and so I entreat you to be pleased to let me preserve aprofound silence as to all that. I will only justify myself, sir, bythinking how I may serve you still better, if I can, in Germany than Idid in Italy. '" Worn out and disgusted, Catinat failed in Germany as hehad in Italy; he took his retirement, and never left his castle of St. Gratien any more: it was the Marquis of Villars, lately ambassador atVienna, who defeated the imperialists at Friedlingen, on the 14th ofAugust, 1702; a month later Tallard retook the town of Landau. Theperfidious manoeuvres of the Duke of Savoy had just come to light. Theking ordered Vendome to disarm the five thousand Piedmontese who wereserving in his army. That operation effected, the prince sent Victor-Amadeo this note, written by Louis XIV. 's own hand:-- "Sir: As religion, honor, and your own signature count for nothingbetween us, I send my cousin, the Duke of Vendome, to, explain to you mywishes. He will give you twenty-four hours to decide. " The mind of the Duke of Savoy was made up, from this day forth the fatherof the Duchess of Burgundy and of the Queen of Spain took rank amongstthe declared enemies of France and Spain. Whilst Louis XIV. Was facing Europe, in coalition against him, withgenerals of the second and third order, the allies were discovering inthe Duke of Marlborough a worthy rival of Prince Eugene. A covetous andable courtier, openly disgraced by William III. In consequence of hisperfidious intrigues with the court of St. Germain, he had found hisfortunes suddenly retrieved by the accession of Queen Anne, over whom hiswife had for a long time held the sway of a haughty and powerfulfavorite. The campaigns of 1702 and 1703 had shown him to be a prudentand a bold soldier, fertile in resources and novel conceptions; and thosehad earned him the thanks of Parliament and the title of duke. Thecampaign of 1704 established his glory upon the misfortunes of France. Marshals Tallard and Marsin were commanding in Germany together with theElector of Bavaria; the emperor, threatened with a fresh insurrection inHungary, recalled Prince Eugene from Italy; Marlborough effected ajunction with him by a rapid march, which Marshal Villeroi would fainhave hindered, but to no purpose; on the 13th of August, 1704, thehostile armies met between Blenheim and Hochstett, near the Danube; theforces were about equal, but on the French side the counsels weredivided, the various corps acted independently. Tallard sustainedsingle-handed the attack of the English and the Dutch, commanded byMarlborough; he was made prisoner, his son was killed at his side; thecavalry, having lost their leader and being pressed by the enemy, took toflight in the direction of the Danube; many officers and soldiersperished in the river; the slaughter was awful. Marsin and the elector, who had repulsed five successive charges of Prince Eugene, succeeded ineffecting their retreat; but the electorates of Bavaria and Cologne werelost, Landau was recovered by the allies after a siege of two months, theFrench army recrossed the Rhine, Elsass was uncovered, and Germanyevacuated. In Spain the English had just made themselves masters ofGibraltar. "This shows clearly, sir, " wrote Tallard to Chamillard afterthe defeat, "what is the effect of such diversity of counsel, which makespublic all that one intends to do, and it is a severe lesson never tohave more than one man at the head of an army. It is a great misfortuneto have to deal with a prince of such a temper as the Elector ofBavaria. " Villars was of the same opinion; it had been his fate, in thecampaign of 1703, to come to open loggerheads with the elector. "Theking's army will march to-morrow, as I have had the honor to tell yourHighness, " he had declared. "At these words, " says Villars, the bloodmounted to his face; he threw his hat and wig on the table in a rage. 'I commanded, ' said he, 'the emperor's army in conjunction with the Dukeof Lorraine; he was a tolerably great general, and he never treated me inthis manner. ' 'The Duke of Lorraine, ' answered I, 'was a great princeand a great general; but, for myself, I am responsible to the king forhis army, and I will not expose it to destruction through the evilcounsels so obstinately persisted in. ' Thereupon I went out of theroom. " Complete swaggerer as he was, Villars had more wits andresolution than the majority of the generals left to Louis XIV. , but in1704 he was occupied in putting down the insurrection of the Camisards inthe south of France: neither Tallard nor Marsin had been able to imposetheir will upon the elector. In 1705 Villars succeeded in checking themovement of Marlborough on Lothringen and Champagne. "He flatteredhimself he would swallow me like a grain of salt, " wrote the marshal. The English fell back, hampered in their adventurous plans by theprudence of the Hollanders, controlled from a distance by the grandpensionary Heinsius. The imperialists were threatening Elsass; theweather was fearful; letters had been written to Chamillard to say thatthe inundations alone would be enough to prevent the enemy from investingFort Louis. "There is nothing so nice as a map, " replied Villars; "witha little green and blue one puts under water all that one wishes but ageneral who goes and examines it, as I have done, finds in divers placesdistances of a mile where these little rivers, which are supposed toinundate the country, are quite snug in their natural bed, larger thanusual, but not enough to hinder the enemy in any way in the world frommaking bridges. " Fort Louis was surrounded, and Villars found himselfobliged to retire upon Strasburg, whence he protected Elsass during thewhole campaign of 1706. The defeat of Hochstett, in 1704, had been the first step down theladder; the defeat of Ramillies, on the 23d of May, 1706, was the secondand the fatal rung. The king's personal attachment to Marshal Villeroiblinded him as to his military talents. Beaten in Italy by PrinceEugene, Villeroi, as presumptuous as he was incapable, hoped to retrievehimself against Marlborough. "The whole army breathed nothing butbattle; I know it was your Majesty's own feeling, " wrote Villeroi to theking, after the defeat: "could I help committing myself to a course whichI considered expedient?" The marshal had deceived himself as regardedhis advantages, as well as the confidence of his troops; there had beeneight hours' fighting at Hochstett, inflicting much damage upon theenemy; at Ramillies, the Bavarians took to their heels at the end of anhour; the French, who felt that they were badly commanded, followed theirexample; the rout was terrible, and the disorder inexpressible. Villeroikept recoiling before the enemy, Marlborough kept advancing; two thirdsof Belgium and sixteen strong places were lost, when Louis XIV. SentChamillard into the Low Countries; it was no longer the time when Louvoismade armies spring from the very soil, and when Vauban prepared thedefence of Dunkerque. The king recalled Villeroi, showing him to thelast unwavering kindness. "There is no more luck at our age, marshal, "was all he said to Villeroi, on his arrival at Versailles. "He wasnothing more than an old wrinkled balloon, out of which all the gas thatinflated it has gone, " says St. Simon: "he went off to Paris and toVilleroi, having lost all the varnish that made him glitter, and havingnothing more to show but the under-stratum. " The king summoned Vendome, to place him at the head of the army ofFlanders, "in hopes of restoring to it the spirit of vigor and audacitynatural to the French nation, " as he himself says. For two years past, amidst a great deal of ill-success, Vendome had managed to keep in checkVictor-Amadeo and Prince Eugene, in spite of the embarrassment caused himby his brother the grand prior, the Duke of La Feuillade, Chamillard'sson-in-law, and the orders which reached him directly from the king; hehad gained during his two campaigns the name of taker of towns, and hadjust beaten the Austrians in the battle of Cascinato. Prince Eugene had, however, crossed the Adige and the Po when Vendome left Italy. "Everybody here is ready to take off his hat when Marlborough's name ismentioned, " he wrote to Chamillard, on arriving in Flanders. The Englishand Dutch army occupied all the country from Ostend to Maestricht. The Duke of Orleans, nephew of the king, had succeeded the Duke ofVendome. He found the army in great disorder, the generals divided andinsubordinate, Turin besieged according to the plans of La Feuillade, against the advice of Vauban, who had offered "to put his marshal's batonbehind the door, and confine himself to giving his counsels for thedirection of the siege;" the prince, in his irritation, resigned hispowers into the hands of Marshal Marsin; Prince Eugene, who had effectedhis junction with Victor-Amadeo, encountered the French army between theRivers Doria and Stora. The soldiers remembered the Duke of Orleans atSteinkirk and Neerwinden; they asked him if he would grudge them hissword. He yielded, and was severely wounded at the battle of Turin, onthe 7th of September, 1706; Marsin was killed, discouragement spreadamongst the generals and the troops, and the siege of Turin was raised;before the end of the year, nearly all the places were lost, and Dauphinywas threatened. Victor-Amadeo refused to listen to a special peace: inthe month of March, 1707, the Prince of Vaudemont, governor of Milanessfor the King of Spain, signed a capitulation, at Mantua, and led back toFrance the troops which still remained to him. The imperialists weremasters of Naples. Spain no longer had any possessions in Italy. Philip V. Had been threatened with the loss of Spain as well as of Italy. For two years past Archduke Charles, under the title of Charles III. , had, with the support of England and Portugal, been disputing the crownwith the young king. Philip V. Had lost Catalonia, and had just failedin his attempt to retake Barcelona; the road to Madrid was cut off, thearmy was obliged to make its way by Roussillon and Warn to resume thecampaign; the king threw himself in person into his capital, whither hewas escorted by Marshal Berwick, a natural son of James II. , a Frenchmanby choice, full of courage and resolution, "but a great stick of anEnglishman, who hadn't a word to say, " and who was distasteful to theyoung queen, Marie-Louise. Philip V. Could not remain at Madrid, whichwas threatened by the enemy: he removed to Burgos; the English enteredthe capital, and there proclaimed Charles III. This was too, much; Spain could not let herself submit to have anAustrian king imposed upon her by heretics and Portuguese; the oldmilitary energy appeared again amongst that people besotted by priestsand ceremonials; war broke out all at once at every point; the foreignsoldiers were everywhere attacked openly or secretly murdered; the townsrose; a few horsemen sufficed for Berwick to recover possession ofMadrid; the king entered it once more, on the 4th of October, amidst thecheers of his people, whilst Berwick was pursuing the enemy, whom he hadcornered (_rencogne_), he says, in the mountains of Valencia. CharlesIII. Had no longer anything left in Spain but Aragon and Catalonia. TheFrench garrisons, set free by the evacuation of Italy, went to the aid ofthe Spaniards. "Your enemies ought not to hope for success, " wrote LouisXIV. To his grandson, "since their progress has served only to bring outthe courage and fidelity of a nation always equally brave and firmlyattached to its masters. I am told that your people cannot bedistinguished from regular troops. We have not been fortunate inFlanders, but we must submit to the judgment of God. " He had already lethis grandson understand that a great sacrifice would be necessary toobtain peace, which he considered himself bound to procure before longfor his people. The Hollanders refused their mediation. "The three menwho rule in Europe, to wit, the grand pensionary Heinsius, the Duke ofMarlborough, and Prince Eugene, desire war for their own interests, " wasthe saying in France. The campaign of 1707 was signalized in Spain bythe victory of Almanza, gained on the 13th of April by Marshal Berwickover the Anglo-Portuguese army, and by the capture of Lerida, whichcapitulated on the 11th of November into the hands of the Duke ofOrleans. In Germany, Villars drove back the enemy from the banks of theRhine, advanced into Suabia, and ravaged the Palatinate, crushing thecountry with requisitions, of which he openly reserved a portion forhimself. "Marshal Villars is doing very well for himself, " saidsomebody, one day, to the king. "Yes, " answered his Majesty, "and for metoo. " "I wrote to the king that I really must fat my calf, " saidVillars. The inexhaustible elasticity and marvellous resources of France wereenough to restore some hope in 1707. The invasion of Provence by Victor-Amadeo and Prince Eugene, their check before Toulon, and their retreat, precipitated by the rising of the peasants, had irritated the allies; theattempts at negotiation which the king had entered upon at the Hagueremained without result; the Duke of Burgundy took the command of thearmies of Flanders, with Vendome for his second; it was hoped that thelieutenant's boldness, his geniality towards the troops, and hisconsummate knowledge of war, would counterbalance the excessive gravity, austerity, and inexperience of the young prince so virtuous and capable, but reserved, cold, and unaccustomed to command; discord arose amongstthe courtiers; on the 5th of July Ghent was surprised; Vendome hadintelligence inside the place, the Belgians were weary of their newmasters. "The States have dealt so badly with this country, " saidMarlborough, "that all the towns are ready to play us the same trick asGhent, the moment they have the opportunity. " Bruges opened its gates tothe French. Prince Eugene advanced to second Marlborough, but he waslate in starting; the troops of the Elector of Bavaria harassed hismarch. "I shouldn't like to say a word against Prince Eugene, " saidMarlborough, "but he will arrive at the appointed spot on the Moselle tendays too late. " The English were by themselves when they encountered theFrench army in front of Audernarde. The engagement began. Vendome, whocommanded the right wing, sent word to the Duke of Burgundy. The latterhesitated and delayed; the generals about him did not approve ofVendome's movement. He fought single-handed, and was beaten. The excessof confidence of one leader, and the inertness of the other, causedfailure in all the operations of the campaign; Prince Eugene and the Dukeof Marlborough laid siege to Lille, which was defended by old MarshalBoufflers, the bravest and the most respected of all the king's servants. Lille was not relieved, and fell on the 25th of October; the citadel heldout until the 9th of December; the king heaped rewards on MarshalBouffers: at the march out from Lille, Prince Eugene had ordered all hisarmy to pay him the same honors as to himself. Ghent and Bruges wereabandoned to the imperialists. "We had made blunder upon blunder in thiscampaign, " says Marshal Berwick, in his Memoires, "and, in spite of allthat if somebody had not made the last in giving up Ghent and Bruges, there would have been a fine game the year after. " The Low Countrieswere lost, and the French frontier was encroached upon by the capture ofLille. For the first time, in a letter addressed to Marshal Berwick, Marlborough let a glimpse be seen of a desire to make peace; the kingstill hoped for the mediation of Holland, and he neglected the overturesof Marlborough: "the army of the allies is, without doubt, in evilplight, " said Chamillard. The campaign in Spain had not been successful; the Duke of Orleans, wearyof his powerlessness, and under suspicion at the court of Philip V. , hadgiven up the command of the troops; the English admiral, Leake, had takenpossession of Sardinia, of the Island of Minorca, and of Port Mahon; thearchduke was master of the isles and of the sea. The destitution inFrance was fearful, and the winter so severe that the poor were in wantof everything; riots multiplied in the towns; the king sent his plate tothe mint, and put his jewels in pawn; he likewise took a resolution whichcost him even more; he determined to ask for peace. "Although his courage appeared at every trial, " says the Marquis ofTorcy, "he felt within him just sorrow for a war whereof the weightoverwhelmed his subjects. More concerned for their woes than for his ownglory, he employed, to terminate them, means which might have inducedFrance to submit to the hardest conditions before obtaining a peace thathad become necessary, if God, protecting the king, had not, afterhumiliating him, struck his foes with blindness. " There are regions to which superior minds alone ascend, and which are notattained by the men, however distinguished, who succeed them. WilliamIII. Was no longer at the head of affairs in Europe; and the triumvirateof Heinsius, Marlborough, and Prince Eugene did not view the aggregate ofthings from a sufficiently calm height to free themselves from thehatreds and, bitternesses of the strife, when the proposals of Louis XIV. Arrived at the Hague. "Amidst the sufferings caused to commerce by thewar, there was room to hope, " says Torcy, "that the grand pensionary, thinking chiefly of his country's interest, would desire the end of a warof which he felt all the burdensomeness. Clothed with authority in hisown republic, he had no reason to fear either secret design or cabals todisplace him from a post which he filled to the satisfaction of hismasters, and in which he conducted himself with moderation. Up to thattime the United Provinces had borne the principal burden of the war. Theemperor alone reaped the fruit of it. One would have said that theHollanders kept the temple of peace, and that they had the keys of it intheir hands. " The king offered the Hollanders a very extended barrier in the LowCountries, and all the facilities they had long been asking for theircommerce. He accepted the abandonment of Spain to the archduke, andmerely claimed to reserve to his grandson Naples, Sardinia, and Sicily. This was what was secured to him by the second treaty of partition latelyconcluded between England, tine United Provinces, and France; he did noteven demand Lothringen. President Rouille, formerly French envoy toLisbon, arrived disguised in Holland; conferences were opened secretly atBodegraven. The treaties of partition negotiated by William of Orange, as well asthe wars which he had sustained against Louis XIV. With such persistentobstinacy, had but one sole end, the maintenance of the Europeanequilibrium between the houses of Bourbon and Austria, which were alonepowerful enough to serve as mutual counterpoise. To despoil one to theprofit of the other, to throw, all at once, into the balance on the sideof the empire all the weight of the Spanish succession, was to destroythe work of William III. 's far-sighted wisdom. Heinsius did not see it;but led on by his fidelity to the allies, distrustful and suspicious asregarded France, burning to avenge the wrongs put upon the republic, he, in concert with Marlborough and Prince Eugene, required conditions sohard that the French agent scarcely dared transmit them to Versailles. What was demanded was the abdication, pure and simple, of Philip V. :Holland merely promised her good offices to obtain in his favor Naplesand Sicily; England claimed Dunkerque; Germany wanted Strasburg and therenewal of the peace of Westphalia; Victor-Amadeo aspired to recover Niceand Savoy; to the Dutch barrier stipulated for at Ryswick were to beadded Lille, Conde, and Tournay. In vain was the matter discussedarticle by article; Rouille for some time believed that he had gainedLille. "You misinterpreted our intentions, " said the deputies of theStates General; "we let you believe what you pleased; at the commencementof April. Lille was still in a bad condition; we had reason to fear thatthe French had a design of taking advantage of that; it was a matter ofprudence to let you believe that it would be restored to you by thepeace. Lille is at the present moment in a state of security; do notcount any longer on its restitution. " "Probably, " said the States'delegate to Marlborough, "the king will break off negotiations ratherthan entertain such hard conditions. " "So much the worse for France, "rejoined the English general; "for when the campaign is once begun, things will go farther than the king thinks. The allies will never unsaytheir preliminary demands. " And he set out for England without evenwaiting for a favorable wind to cross. Louis XIV. Assembled his council, the same which, in 1700, had decidedupon acceptance of the crown of Spain. "The king felt all thesecalamities so much the more keenly, " says Torcy, "in that he hadexperienced nothing of the sort ever since he had taken into his ownhands the government of a flourishing kingdom. It was a terriblehumiliation for a monarch accustomed to conquer, belauded for hisvictories, his triumphs, his moderation when he granted peace andprescribed its laws, to see himself now obliged to ask it of his enemies, to offer them to no purpose, in order to obtain it, the restitution of aportion of his conquests, the monarchy of Spain, the abandonment of hisallies, and forced, in order to get such offers accepted, to apply tothat same republic whose principal provinces he had conquered in the year1692, and whose submission he had rejected when she entreated him togrant her peace on such terms as he should be pleased to dictate. Theking bore so sensible a change with the firmness of a hero, and with aChristian's complete submission to the decrees of Providence, being lessaffected by his own inward pangs than by the suffering of his people, andbeing ever concerned about the means of relieving it, and terminating thewar. It was scarcely perceived that he did himself some violence inorder to conceal his own feelings from the public; indeed; they were solittle known that it was pretty generally believed that, thinking more ofhis own glory than of the woes of his kingdom, he preferred to theblessing of peace the keeping of certain places he had taken in person. This unjust opinion had crept in even amongst the council. " The reading of the Dutch proposals tore away every veil; "the necessityof obtaining peace, whatever price it might cost, was felt so much themore. " The king gave orders to Rouille to resume the conferences, demanding clear and precise explanations. "If the worst comes to theworst, " said he, "I will give up Lille to the Hollanders, Strasburgdismantled to the Empire, and I will content myself with Naples withoutSicily for my grandson. You will be astounded at the orders contained inthis despatch, so different from those that I have given you hitherto, and that I considered, as it was, too liberal, but I have alwayssubmitted to the divine will, and the evils with which He is pleased toafflict my kingdom do not permit me any longer to doubt of the sacrificeHe requires me to make to Him of all that might touch me most nearly. Iwaive, therefore, my glory. " The Marquis of Torcy, secretary of statefor foreign affairs, followed close after the despatch; he had offeredthe king to go and treat personally with Heinsius. "The grand pensionary appeared surprised when he heard that his Majestywas sending one of his ministers to Holland. He had been placed at thatpost by the Prince of Orange, who put entire confidence in him. Heinsiushad not long before been sent to France to confer with Louvois, and, inthe discharge of that commission, he had experienced the bad temper of aminister more accustomed to speak harshly to military officers than totreat with foreigners; he had not forgotten that the minister hadthreatened to have him put in the Bastille. Consummate master ofaffairs, of which he had a long experience, he was the soul of the leaguewith Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough; but the pensionary wasnot accused either of being so much in love with the importance given himby continuance of the war as to desire its prolongation or of anypersonally interested view. His externals were simple, there was noostentation in his household; his address was cold without any sort ofrudeness, his conversation was polished, he rarely grew warm indiscussion. " Torcy could not obtain anything from Heinsius, any morethan from Marlborough and Prince Eugene, who had both arrived at theHague: the prince remained cold and stern; he had not forgotten theking's behavior towards his house. "That's a splendid post in France, that of colonel general, " said he one day; "my father held it; at hisdeath we hoped that my brother might get it; the king thought it betterto give it to one of his, natural sons. He is master, but all the sameis one not sorry sometimes to find one's self in a position to makeslights repented of. " "Marlborough displayed courtesy, insisting uponseeing in the affairs of the coalition the finger of God, who hadpermitted eight nations to think and act like one man. " The concessionsextorted from France were no longer sufficient: M. De Torcy gave upSicily, and then Naples; a demand was made for Elsass, and certain placesin Dauphiny and Provence; lastly, the allies required that the conditionsof peace should be carried out at short notice, during the two months'truce it was agreed to grant, and that Louis XIV. Should forthwith putinto the hands of the Hollanders three places by way of guarantee, incase Philip V. Should refuse to abdicate. This was to despoil himselfprematurely and gratuitously, for it was impossible to execute thedefinitive treaty of peace at the time fixed. "The king did not hesitateabout the only course there was for him to take, not only for his ownglory, but for the welfare of his kingdom, " says Torcy; he recalled hisenvoys, and wrote to the governors of the provinces and towns, -- "Sir: The hope of an imminent peace was so generally diffused throughoutmy kingdom, that I consider it due to the fidelity which my people haveshown during the course of my reign to give them the consolation ofinforming them of the reasons which still prevent them from enjoying therepose I had intended to procure for them. I would, to restore it, haveaccepted conditions much opposed to the security of my frontierprovinces; but the more readiness and desire I displayed to dissipate thesuspicions which my enemies affect to retain of my power and my designs, the more did they multiply their pretensions, refusing to enter into anyundertaking beyond putting a stop to all acts of hostility until thefirst of the month of August, reserving to themselves the liberty of thenacting by way of arms if the King of Spain, my grandson, persisted in hisresolution to defend the crown which God has given him; such a suspensionwas more dangerous than war for my people, for it secured to the enemymore important advantages than they could hope for from their troops. AsI place my trust in the protection of God, and hope that the purity of myintentions will bring down His blessing on my arms, I wish my people toknow that they would enjoy peace if it had depended only on my will toprocure them a boon which they reasonably, desire, but which must be wonby fresh efforts, since the immense conditions I would have granted areuseless for the restoration of the public peace. "Signed: Louis. " In spite of all the mistakes due to his past arrogance, the king had aright to make use of such language. In their short-sighted resentmentthe allies had overstepped reason. The young King of Spain felt thiswhen he wrote to his grandfather, "I am transfixed at the chimerical andinsolent pretensions of the English and Dutch regarding the preliminariesof peace; never were seen the like. I am beside myself at the idea thatanybody could have so much as supposed that I should be forced to leaveSpain as long as I have a drop of blood in my veins. I will use all myefforts to maintain myself upon a throne on which God has placed me, andon which you, after Him, have set me, and nothing but death shall wrenchme from it or make me yield it. " War re-commenced on all sides. Theking had just consented at last to give Chamillard his discharge. "Sir, I shall die over the job, " had for a long time been the complaint of theminister worn out with fatigue. "Ah! well, we will die together, " hadbeen the king's rejoinder. France was dying, and Chamillard was by no means a stranger to the cause. Louis XIV. Put in his place Voysin, former superintendent of Hainault, entirely devoted to Madame de Maintenon. He loaded with benefits theminister from whom he was parting, the only one whom he had really loved. The troops were destitute of everything. On assuming the command of thearmy of the Low Countries, Villars wrote in despair, "Imagine the horrorof seeing an army without bread! There was none delivered to-day untilthe evening, and very late. Yesterday, to have bread to serve out to thebrigades I had ordered to march, I made those fast that remained behind. On these occasions I pass along the ranks, I coax the soldier, I speak tohim in such a way as to make him have patience, and I have had theconsolation of hearing several of them say, 'The marshal is quite right;we must suffer sometimes. ' '_Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie_'(give us this day our daily bread), the men say to me as I go through theranks; it is a miracle how we subsist, and it is a marvel to see thesteadiness and fortitude of the soldier in enduring hunger; habit iseverything; I fancy, however, that the habit of not eating is not easyto acquire. " In spite of such privations and sufferings, Villars found the army inexcellent spirits, and urged the king to permit him to give battle. "M. De Turenne used to say that he who means to altogether avoid battlegives up his country to him who appears to seek it, " the marshal assuredhim; the king was afraid of losing his last army; the Dukes of Harcourtand Berwick were covering the Rhine and the Alps; Marlborough and PrinceEugene, who had just made themselves masters of Tournay, marched againstVillars, whom they encountered on the 11th of September, 1709, near thehamlet of Malplaquet. Marshal Boufflers had just reached the army toserve as a volunteer. Villars had intrenched himself in front of thewoods; his men were so anxious to get under fire, that they threw awaythe rations of bread just served out; the allies looked sulkily at theworks. "We are going to fight moles again, " they said. There was a thick fog, as at Lutzen; the fighting went on from seven inthe morning till midday. Villars had yielded the right wing, by way ofrespect, to Bouffiers as his senior, says the allies' account, but thegeneral command nevertheless devolved entirely upon him. "At the hottestof the engagement, the marshal galloped furiously to the centre attackedby Prince Eugene. It was a sort of jaws of hell, a pit of fire, sulphur, and saltpetre, which it seemed impossible to approach and live. One shotand my horse fell, " says Villars. "I jumped up, and a second broke myknee; I had it bandaged on the spot, and myself placed in a chair tocontinue giving my orders, but the pain caused a fainting-fit whichlasted long enough for me to be carried off without consciousness toQuesnoy. " The Prince of Hesse, with the imperial cavalry, had justturned the intrenchments, which the Dutch infantry had attacked to nopurpose; Marshal Boufflers was obliged to order a retreat, which wasexecuted as on parade. "The allies had lost more than twenty thousandmen, " according to their official account. "It was too much for thisvictory, which did not entail the advantage of entirely defeating theenemy, and the whole fruits of which were to end with the taking ofMons. " Always a braggart, in spite of his real courage and indisputablemilitary talent, Villars wrote from his bed to the king, on sending himthe flags taken from the enemy, "If God give us grace to lose suchanother battle, your Majesty may reckon that your enemies areannihilated. " Boufflers was more proud, and at the same time moremodest, when he said, "The series of disasters that have for some yearspast befallen your Majesty's arms, had so humiliated the French nationthat one scarcer dared avow one's self a Frenchman. I dare assure you, sir, that the French name was never in so great esteem, and was neverperhaps more feared, than it is at present in the army of the allies. " [Illustration: Bivouac of Louis XIV. ----503] Louis XIV. Was no longer in a position to delude himself, and tocelebrate a defeat, even a glorious one, as a victory. Negotiationsrecommenced. Heinsius had held to his last proposals. It was on thissorry basis that Marshal d'Huxelles and Abbe de Polignac began theparleys, at Gertruydenberg, a small fortress of Mardyk. They lasted fromMarch 9 to July 25, 1710; the king consented to give some fortresses asguarantee, and promised to recommend his grandson to abdicate; in case ofrefusal, he engaged not only to support him no longer, but to furnish theallies, into the bargain, with a monthly subsidy of a million, whilstgranting a passage through French territory; he accepted the cession ofElsass to Lothringen, the return of the three bishoprics to the empire;the, Hollanders, commissioned to negotiate in the name of the coalition, were not yet satisfied. "The desire of the allies, " they said, "is, thatthe king should undertake, himself alone and by his own forces, either topersuade or to oblige the King of Spain to give up all his monarchy. Neither money nor the co-operation of the French troops suit theirpurpose; if the preliminary articles be not complied with in the space oftwo months, the truce is broken off, war will recommence, even though onthe part of the king the other conditions should have been whollyfulfilled. The sole means of obtaining peace is to receive from theking's hands Spain and the Indies. " The French plenipotentiaries had been recommended to have patience. Marshal d'Huxelles was a courtier as smooth as he was clever; Abbe dePolignac was shrewd and supple, yet he could not contain his indignation. "It is evident that you have not been accustomed to conquer!" said hehaughtily to the Dutch delegates. When the allies' ultimatum reached theking, the pride of the sovereign and the affection of the father rose upat last in revolt. "Since war there must be, " said he, "I would ratherwage it against my enemies than against my grandson;" and he withdrew allthe concessions which had reduced Philip V. To despair. The allies hadalready invaded Artois; at the end of the campaign they were masters ofDouai, St. Venant, Bethune, and Aire; France was threatened everywhere, the king could no longer protect the King of Spain; he confined himselfto sending him Vendome. Philip V. , sustained by the indomitable courageof his young wife, refused absolutely to abdicate. "Whatever misfortunesmay await me, " he wrote to the king, "I still prefer the course ofsubmission to whatever it may please God to decide for me by fighting tothat of deciding for myself by consenting to an arrangement which wouldforce me to abandon the people on whom my reverses have hitherto producedno other effect than to increase their zeal and affection for me. " It was, therefore, with none but the forces of Spain that Philip V. , atthe outset of the campaign of 1710, found himself confronting the Englishand Portuguese armies. The Emperor Joseph, brother of Archduke Charles, had sent him a body of troops commanded by a distinguished general, Countvon Stahrenberg. Going from defeat to defeat, the young king foundhimself forced, as in 1706, to abandon his capital; he removed the seatof government to Valladolid, and departed, accompanied by more thanthirty thousand persons of every rank, resolved to share his fortunes. The archduke entered Madrid. "I have orders from Queen Anne and theallies to escort King Charles to Madrid, " said the English general, LordStanhope; when he is once there, God or the devil keep him in or turn himout; it matters little to me; that is no affair of mine. " Stanhope was in the right not to pledge himself; the hostility of thepopulation of Madrid did not permit the archduke to reside there long;after running the risk of being carried off in his palace on the Prado, he removed to Toledo; Vendome blocked the road against the Portuguese;the archduke left the town, and withdrew into Catalonia; Stahrenbergfollowed him on the 22d of November, harassed on his march by the Spanishguerrillas rising everywhere upon his route; every straggler, everywounded man, was infallibly murdered by the peasants; Stanhope, whocommanded the rearguard, found himself invested by Vendome in the town ofBrihuega; the Spaniards scarcely gave the artillery time to open abreach, the town was taken by assault, and the English made prisoners. Stahrenberg retraced his steps; on the 10th of December fighting begannear Villaviciosa; the advantage was for a long time undecided anddisputed; night came; the Austrian general spiked his guns and retreatedby forced marches; the Spaniards bivouacked on the battle-field, the kingslept on a bed made of the enemy's flags; the allies had taken refuge inCatalonia; Spain had won back her independence and her king. There wasgreat joy at Versailles, greater than in the kingdom; the sole aspirationwas for peace. An unexpected assistance was at hand. Queen Anne, wearied with thecupidity and haughtiness of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, hadgiven them notice to quit; the friends of the duke had shared his fall, and the Tories succeeded the Whigs in power. The chancellor of theexchequer, Harley, soon afterwards Earl of Oxford, and the secretary ofstate, St. John, who became Lord Bolingbroke, were inclined to peace. Advances were made to France. A French priest, Abbe Gautier, living inobscurity in England, arrived in Paris during January, 1711; he went tosee M. De Torcy at Versailles. "Do you want peace?" said he. "I havecome to bring you the means of treating for it, and concludingindependently of the Hollanders, unworthy of the king's kindnesses and ofthe honor he has so often done them of applying to them to pacificateEurope. " "To ask just then one of his Majesty's ministers if he desiredpeace, " says Torcy, "was to ask a sick man suffering from a long anddangerous disease if he wants to be cured. " Negotiations were secretlyopened with the English cabinet. The Emperor Joseph had just died (April17, 1711). He left none but daughters. From that moment ArchdukeCharles inherited the domains of the house of Austria, and aspired to theimperial crown; by giving him Spain, Europe re-established the monarchyof Charles V. ; she saw the dangers into which she was being drawn by theresentments or short-sighted ambition of the triumvirate; she fell backupon the wise projects of William III. Holland had abandoned them; toEngland fell the honor of making them triumphant. She has often made warupon the Continent with indomitable obstinacy and perseverance; but atbottom and by the very force of circumstances England remains, as regardsthe affairs of Europe, an essentially pacific power. War brings her noadvantage; she cannot pretend to any territorial aggrandizement inEurope; it is the equilibrium between the continental powers that makesher strength, and her first interest was always to maintain it. The campaign of 1711 was everywhere insignificant. Negotiations werestill going on with England, secretly and through subordinate agents:Manager, member of the Board of Trade, for France; and, for England, thepoet Prior, strongly attached to Harley. On the 29th of January, 1712, the general conferences were opened at Utrecht. The French had beenanxious to avoid the Hague, dreading the obstinacy of Heinsius in favorof his former proposals. Preliminary points were already settled withEngland; enormous advantages were secured in America to English commerce, to which was ceded Newfoundland and all that France still possessed inAcadia; the general proposals had been accepted by Queen Anne and herministers. In vain had the Hollanders and Prince Eugene made greatefforts to modify them; St. John had dryly remarked that England hadborne the greatest part in the burden of the war, and it was but justthat she should direct the negotiations for peace. For five years pastthe United Provinces, exhausted by the length of hostilities, hadconstantly been defaulters in their engagements; it was proved to PrinceEugene that the imperial army had not been increased by two regiments inconsequence of the war the emperor's ambassador, M. De Galas, displayedimpertinence: he was forbidden to come to the court; in spite of thereserve imposed upon the English ministers by the strife of parties in afree country, their desire for peace was evident. The queen had justordered the creation of new peers in order to secure a majority of theupper house in favor of a pacific policy. [Illustration: The Grand Dauphin----505] The bolts of Heaven were falling one after another upon the royal familyof France. On the 14th of April, 1711, Louis XIV. Had lost by small-poxhis son, the grand dauphin, a mediocre and submissive creature, ever themost humble subject of the king, at just fifty years of age. His eldestson, the Duke of Burgundy, devout, austere, and capable, the hope of goodmen and the terror of intriguers, had taken the rank of dauphin, and wasseriously commencing his apprenticeship in government, when he wascarried off on the 18th of February, 1712, by spotted fever (_rougeolepourpree_), six days after his wife, the charming Mary Adelaide of Savoy, the idol of the whole court, supremely beloved by the king, and by Madamede Maintenon, who had brought her up; their son, the Duke of Brittany, four years old, died on the 8th of March; a child in the cradle, weaklyand ill, the little Duke of Anjou, remained the only shoot of the elderbranch of the Bourbons. Dismay seized upon all France; poison was spokenof; the Duke of Orleans was accused; it was necessary to have a postmortem examination; only the hand of God had left its traces. Europe inits turn was excited. If the little Duke of Anjou were to die, the crownof France reverted to Philip V. The Hollanders and the ambassadors ofthe Emperor Charles VI. Recently crowned at Frankfurt, insisted on thenecessity of a formal renunciation. In accord with the Englishministers, Louis XIV. Wrote to his grandson, -- "You will be told what England proposes, that you should renounce yourbirthright, retaining the monarchy of Spain and the Indies, or renouncethe monarchy of Spain, retaining your rights to the succession in France, and receiving in exchange for the crown of Spain the kingdoms of Sicilyand Naples, the states of the Duke of Savoy, Montferrat, and the Mantuan, the said Duke of Savoy succeeding you in Spain; I confess to you that, notwithstanding the disproportion in the dominions, I have been sensiblyaffected by the thought that you would continue to reign, that I mightstill regard you as my successor, sure, if the dauphin lives, of a regentaccustomed to command, capable of maintaining order in my kingdom andstifling its cabals. If this child were to die, as his weakly complexiongives too much reason to suppose, you would enjoy the succession to mefollowing the order of your birth, and I should have the consolation ofleaving to my people a virtuous king, capable of commanding them, and onewho, on succeeding me, would unite to the crown states so considerable asNaples, Savoy, Piedmont, and Montferrat. If gratitude and affectiontowards your subjects are to you pressing reasons for remaining withthem, I may say that you owe me the same sentiments; you owe them to yourown house, to your own country, before Spain. All that I can do for youis to leave you once more the choice, the necessity for concluding peacebecoming every day more urgent. " The choice of Philip V. Was made; he had already written to hisgrandfather to say that he would renounce all his rights of successionto the throne of France rather than give up the crown of Spain. Thisdecision was solemnly enregistered by the Cortes. The English requiredthat the Dukes of Berry and Orleans should, likewise make renunciation oftheir rights to the crown of Spain. Negotiations began again, but warbegan again at the same time as the negotiations. The king had given Villars the command of the army of Flanders. Themarshal went to Marly to receive his last orders. "You see my plight, marshal, " said Louis XIV. "There are few examples of what is my fate--tolose in the same week a grandson, a grandson's wife and their son, all ofvery great promise and very tenderly beloved. God is punishing me; Ihave well deserved it. But suspend we my griefs at my own domestic woes, and look we to what may be done to prevent those of the kingdom. Ifanything were to happen to the army you command, what would be your ideaof the course I should adopt as regards my person?" The marshalhesitated. The king resumed: "This is what I think; you shall tell meyour opinion afterwards. I know the courtiers' line of argument; theynearly all wish me to retire to Blois, and not wait for the enemy's armyto approach Paris, as it might do if mine were beaten. For my part, I amaware that armies so considerable are never defeated to such an extent asto prevent the greater part of mine from retiring upon the Somme. I knowthat river; it is very difficult to cross; there are forts, too, whichcould be made strong. I should count upon getting to Peronne or St. Quentin, and there massing all the troops I had, making a last effortwith you, and falling together or saving the kingdom; I will neverconsent to let the enemy approach my capital. [_Memoires de Villars, t. Ii. P. 362. ]" God was to spare Louis XIV. That crowning disaster reserved for othertimes; in spite of all his defaults and the culpable errors of his lifeand reign, Providence had given this old man, overwhelmed by so manyreverses and sorrows, a truly royal soul, and that regard for his owngreatness which set him higher as a king than he would have been as aman. "He had too proud a soul to descend lower than his misfortunes hadbrought him, " says Montesquieu, "and he well knew that courage may righta crown and that infamy never does. " On the 25th of May, the kingsecretly informed his plenipotentiaries as well as his generals that theEnglish were proposing to him a suspension of hostilities; and he added, "It is no longer a time for flattering the pride of the Hollanders, but, whilst we treat with them in good faith, it must be with the dignity thatbecomes me. " "A style different from that of the conferences at theHague and Gertruydenberg, " is the remark made by M. De Torcy. That whichthe king's pride refused to the ill will of the Hollanders he granted tothe good will of England. The day of the commencement of the armisticeDunkerque was put as guarantee into the hands of the English, whorecalled their native regiments from the army of Prince Eugene; the kingcomplained that they left him the auxiliary troops; the English ministersproposed to prolong the truce, promising to treat separately with Franceif the allies refused assent to the peace. The news received by LouisXIV. Gave him assurance of better conditions than any one had dared tohope for. Villars had not been able to prevent Prince Eugene from becoming masterof Quesnoy on the 3d of July; the imperialists were already makingpreparations to invade France; in their army the causeway which connectedMarchiennes with Landrecies was called the Paris road. The marshalresolved to relieve Landrecies, and, having had bridges thrown over theScheldt, he, on the 23d of July, 1712, crossed the river between Bouchainand Denain; the latter little place was defended by the Duke ofAlbemarle, son of General Monk, with seventeen battalions of auxiliarytroops in the pay of the allies; Lieutenant General Albergotti, anexperienced soldier, considered the undertaking perilous. "Go and liedown for an hour or two, M. D'Albergotti, " said Villars; "to-morrow bythree in the morning you shall know whether the enemy's intrenchments areas strong as you suppose. " Prince Eugene was coming up by forced marchesto relieve Denain, by falling on the rearguard of the French army. Itwas proposed to Villars to make fascines to fill up the fosses of Denain. "Do you suppose, " said he, pointing to the enemy's army in the distance, "that those gentry will give us the time? Our fascines shall be thebodies of the first of our men who fall in the fosse. " "There was not an instant, not a minute to lose, " says the marshal in hisMemoires. "I made my infantry march on four lines in the most beautifulorder; as I entered the intrenchment at the head of the troops, I had notgone twenty paces when the Duke of Albemarle and six or seven of theemperor's lieutenant generals were at my horse's feet. I begged them toexcuse me if present matters did not permit me to show them all thepoliteness I ought, but that the first of all was to provide for thesafety of their persons. " The enemy thought of nothing but flight; thebridges over the Scheldt broke down under the multitude of vehicles andhorses; nearly all the defenders of Denain were taken or killed. PrinceEugene could not cross the river, watched as it was by French troops; hedid not succeed in saving Marchiennes, which the Count of Broglie, hadbeen ordered to invest in the very middle of the action in front ofDenain; the imperialists raised the siege of Landrecies, but withoutdaring to attack Villars, re-enforced by a few garrisons; the marshalimmediately invested Douai; on the 27th of August, the emperor's troopswho were defending one of the forts demanded a capitulation; the officerswho went out asked for a delay of four days, so as to receive orders fromPrince Eugene; the marshal, who was in the trenches, called hisgrenadiers. "This is my council on such occasions, " said he to theastonished imperialists. "My friends, these captains demand four days'time to receive orders from their general; what do you think?" "Leave itto us, marshal, " replied the grenadiers; "in a quarter of an hour we willslit their windpipes. " "Gentlemen, " said I to the officers, "they willdo as they have said; so take your own course. " The garrison surrenderedat discretion. Douai capitulated on the 8th of September; Le Quesnoy wastaken on the 4th of October, and Bouchain on the 18th; Prince Eugene hadnot been able to attempt anything; he fell back under the walls ofBrussels. On the Rhine, on the Alps, in Spain, the French and Spanisharmies had held the enemy in check. The French plenipotentiaries atUtrecht had recovered their courage. "We put on the face the Hollandershad at Gertruydenberg, and they put on ours, " wrote Cardinal de Polignacfrom Utrecht: "it is a complete turning of the tables. " "Gentlemen, peace will be treated for amongst you, for you and without you, " was theremark made to the Hollanders. Hereditary adversary of the Van Witts andtheir party, Heinsius had pursued the policy of William III. Without theforesight and lofty views of William Ill. ; he had not seen his way in1709 to shaking off the yoke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene in order totake the initiative in a peace necessary for Europe; in 1712 he submittedto the will of Harley and St. John, thus losing the advantages of thepowerful mediatorial position which the United Provinces had owed to theeminent men successively intrusted with their government. HenceforthHolland remained a free and prosperous country, respected and worthy ofher independence, but her political influence and importance in Europewere at an end. Under God's hand great men make great destinies andgreat positions for their country as well as for themselves. The battle of Denain and its happy consequences hastened the conclusionof the negotiations; the German princes themselves began to split up;the King of Prussia, Frederic William I. , who had recently succeeded hisfather, was the first to escape from the emperor's yoke. LordBolingbroke put the finishing stroke at Versailles to the conditions of ageneral peace; the month of April was the extreme limit fixed by Englandfor her allies; on the 11th peace was signed between France, England, theUnited Provinces, Portugal, the King of Prussia, and the Duke of Savoy. Louis XIV. Recovered Lijle, Aire, Bethune, and St. Venant; hestrengthened with a few places the barrier of the Hollanders; he likewisegranted to the Duke of Savoy a barrier on the Italian slope of the Alps;he recognized Queen Anne, at the same time exiling from France thePretender James III. , whom he had but lately proclaimed with so muchflourish of trumpets, and he razed the fortifications of Dunkerque. England kept Gibraltar and Minorca; Sicily was assigned to the Duke ofSavoy. France recognized the King of Prussia. The peace was anhonorable and an unexpected one, after so many disasters the King ofSpain held out for some time; he wanted to set up an independentprincipality for the Princess des Ursins, _camerera mayor_ to the queenhis wife, an able, courageous, and clever intriguer, all-powerful atcourt, who had done good service to the interests of France; he could notobtain any dismemberment of the United Provinces; and at last Philip V. In his turn signed. The emperor and the empire alone remained aloof fromthe general peace. War recommenced in Germany and on the Rhine. Villarscarried Spires and Kaiserlautern. He laid siege to Landau. Hislieutenants were uneasy. "Gentlemen, " said Villars, "I have heard thePrince of Conde say that the enemy should be feared at a distance anddespised at close quarters. " Landau capitulated on the 20th of August;on the 30th of September Villars entered Friburg; the citadel surrenderedon the 13th of November; the imperialists began to make pacificovertures; the two generals, Villars and Prince Eugene, were charged withthe negotiations. [Illustration: Marshal Villars and Prince Eugene----512] "I arrived at Rastadt on the 26th of November in the afternoon, " writesVillars in his Memoires, "and the Prince of Savoy half an hour after me. The moment I knew he was in the court-yard, I went to the top of thesteps to meet him, apologizing to him on the ground that a lame man couldnot go down; we embraced with the feelings of an old and true friendshipwhich long wars and various engagements had not altered. " The twoplenipotentiaries were headstrong in their discussions. "If we begin waragain, " said Villars, "where will you find money?" "It is true that wehaven't any, " rejoined the prince; "but there is still some in theempire. " "Poor states of the empire!" I exclaimed; "your advice is notasked about beginning the dance; yet you must of course follow theleaders. " Peace was at last signed on the 6th of March, 1714: Francekept Landau and Fort Louis; she restored Spires, Brisach, and Friburg. The emperor refused to recognize Philip V. , but he accepted the statusquo; the crown of Spain remained definitively with the house of Bourbon;it had cost men and millions enough; for an instant the very foundationsof order in Europe had seemed to be upset; the old French monarchy hadbeen threatened; it had recovered of itself and by its own resources, sustaining single-handed the struggle which was pulling down all Europein coalition against it; it had obtained conditions which restored itsfrontiers to the limits of the peace of Ryswick; but it was exhausted, gasping, at wits' end for men and money; absolute power had obtained fromnational pride the last possible efforts, but it had played itself out inthe struggle; the confidence of the country was shaken; it had been seenwhat dangers the will of a single man had made the nation incur; thetempest was already gathering within men's souls. The habit of respect, the memory of past glories, the personal majesty of Louis XIV. Still keptup about the aged king the deceitful appearances of uncontested power andsovereign authority; the long decadence of his great-grandson's reign wasdestined to complete its ruin. "I loved war too much, " was Louis XIV. 's confession on his death bed. He had loved it madly and exclusively; but this fatal passion, which hadruined and corrupted France, had not at any rate remained infructuous. Louis XIV. Had the good fortune to profit by the efforts of hispredecessors as well as of his own servants: Richelieu and Mazarin, Condeand Turenne, Luxembourg, Catinat, Vauban, Villars, and Louvois, alltoiled at the same work; under his reign France was intoxicated withexcess of the pride of conquest, but she did not lose all its fruits; shewitnessed the conclusion of five peaces, mostly glorious, the last sadlyhonorable; all tended to consolidate the unity and power of the kingdom;it is to the treaties of the Pyrenees, of Westphalia, of Nimeguen, ofRyswick, and of Utrecht, all signed with the name of Louis XIV. , thatFrance owed Roussillon, Artois, Alsace, Flanders, and Franche-Comte. Herglory has more than once cost her dear; it has never been worth so muchand such solid increment to her territory. CHAPTER XLVI. ----LOUIS XIV. AND HOME ADMINISTRATION. It is King Louis XIV. 's distinction and heavy, burden in the eyes ofhistory that it is, impossible to tell of anything in his reign withoutconstantly recurring to himself. He had two ministers of the higherorder, Colbert and Louvois; several of good capacity, such as Seignelayand Torcy; others incompetent, like Chamillard; he remained as muchmaster of the administrators of the first rank as if they had beeninsignificant clerks; the home government of France, from 1661 to 1715, is summed up in the king's relations with his ministers. "I resolved from the first not to have any premier minister, " says LouisXIV. In his Memoires, "and not to leave to another the functions of kingwhilst I had nothing but the title. But, on the contrary, I made up mymind to share the execution of my orders amongst several persons, inorder to concentrate their authority in my own alone. I might have castmy eyes upon people of higher consideration than those I selected, butthey seemed to me competent to execute, under me, the matters with whichI purposed to intrust them. I did not think it was to my interest tolook for men of higher standing, because, as I wanted above all things toestablish my own reputation, it was important that the public shouldknow, from the rank of those of whom I made use, that I had no intentionof sharing my authority with them, and that they themselves, knowing whatthey were, should not conceive higher hopes than I wished to give them. " It has been said already that the court governed France in the reign ofLouis XIV. ; and what was, in fact, the court? The men who lived aboutthe king, depending on, his favor, the source or arbiter of theirfortunes. The great lords served in the army, with lustre, when theybore the name of Conde, Turenne, or Luxembourg; but they never had anyplace amongst the king's confidential servants. "Luck, in spite of us, has as much to do as wisdom--and more--with the choice of our ministers, "he says in his Memoires, "and, in respect of what wisdom may have to dotherewith, genius is far more effectual than counsel. " It was theirgenius which made the fortunes and the power of Louis XIV. 's two greatministers, Colbert and Louvois. In advance, and on the faith of Cardinal Mazarin, the king knew the worthof Colbert. "I had all possible confidence in him, " says he, "because Iknew that he had a great deal of application, intelligence, and probity. "Rough, reserved, taciturn, indefatigable in work, passionately devoted tothe cause of order, public welfare, and the peaceable aggrandizement ofFrance, Colbert, on becoming the comptroller of finance in 1661, broughtto the service of the state superior views, consummate experience, andindomitable perseverance. The position of affairs required no fewervirtues. "Disorder reigned everywhere, " says the king; "on casting overthe various portions of my kingdom not eyes of indifference, but the eyesof a master, I was sensibly affected not to see a single one which didnot deserve and did not press to be taken in hand. The destitution ofthe lower orders was extreme, and the finances, which give movement andactivity to all this great framework of the monarchy, were entirelyexhausted and in such plight that there was scarcely any resource to beseen; the affluent, to be seen only amongst official people, on the onehand cloaked all their malversations by divers kinds of artifices, anduncloaked them on the other by their insolent and audacious extravagance, as if they were afraid to leave me in ignorance of them. " The punishment of the tax-collectors (_traitants_), prosecuted at thesame time as superintendent Fouquet, the arbitrary redemption of rentes(_annuities_) on the city of Paris or on certain branches of the taxes, did not suffice to alleviate the extreme suffering of the people. Thetalliages from which the nobility and the clergy were nearly everywhereexempt pressed upon the people with the most cruel inequality. "The poorare reduced to eating grass and roots in our meadows like cattle, " said aletter from Blaisois those who can find dead carcasses devour them, and, unless God have pity upon them, they will soon be eating one another. "Normandy, generally so prosperous, was reduced to the uttermost distress. "The great number of poor has exhausted charity and the power of thosewho were accustomed to relieve them, " says a letter to Colbert from thesuperintendent of Caen. "In 1662 the town was obliged to throw open thedoors of the great hospital, having no longer any means of furnishingsubsistence to those who were in it. I can assure you that there arepersons in this town who have gone for whole days without anything toeat. The country, which ought to supply bread for the towns, is cryingfor mercy's sake to be supplied therewith itself. " The peasants, wastedwith hunger, could no longer till their fields; their cattle had beenseized for taxes. Colbert proposed to the king to remit the arrears oftalliages, and devoted all his efforts to reducing them, whilstregulating their collection. His desire was to arrive at theestablishment everywhere of real talliages, on landed property, &c. , instead of personal talliages, variable imposts, depending upon thesupposed means or social position of the inhabitants. He was only verypartially successful, without, however, allowing himself to be repelledby the difficulties presented by differences of legislation and customsin the provinces. "Perhaps, " he wrote to the superintendent of Aix, in1681, "on getting to the bottom of the matter and considering it indetail, you will not discover in it all the impossibilities you havepictured to yourself. " Colbert died without having completed his work;the talliages, however, had been reduced by eight millions of livreswithin the first two years of his administration. "All the imposts ofthe kingdom, " he writes, in 1662, to the superintendent of Tours, who iscomplaining of the destitution of the people, "are, as regards thetalliages, but about thirty-seven millions, and, for forty or fifty yearspast, they have always been between forty and fifty millions, exceptafter the peace, when his Majesty reduced them to thirty-two, thirty-three, and thirty-four millions. " Peace was of short duration in the reign of Louis XIV. , and often soprecarious that it did not permit of disarmament. At the very periodwhen the able minister was trying to make the people feel the importanceof the diminution in the talliages, he wrote to the king, "I entreat yourMajesty to read these few lines attentively. I confess to your Majestythat the last time you were graciously pleased to speak to me about thestate of the finances, my respect, the boundless desire I have always hadto please you and serve you to your satisfaction, without making anydifficulty or causing any hitch, and still more your natural eloquencewhich succeeds in bringing conviction of whatever you please, deprived meof courage to insist and dwell somewhat upon the condition of yourfinances, for the which I see no other remedy but increase of receiptsand decrease of expenses; wherefore, though this is no concern at all ofmine, I merely entreat your Majesty to permit me to say that in war aswell as in peace you have never consulted your finances for the purposeof determining your expenditure, which is a thing so extraordinary thatassuredly there is no example thereof. For the past twenty years duringwhich I have had the honor of serving your Majesty, though the receiptshave greatly increased, you would find that the expenses have muchexceeded the receipts, which might perhaps induce you to moderate andretrench such as are excessive. I am aware, Sir, that the figure Ipresent herein is not an agreeable one; but in your Majesty's servicethere are different functions; some entail nothing but agreeables whereofthe expenses are the foundation; that with which your Majesty honors meentails this misfortune, that it can with difficulty produce anythingagreeable, since the proposals for expenses have no limit; but one mustconsole one's self by constantly laboring to do one's best. " Louis XIV. Did not "moderate or retrench his expenses. " Colbert labored to increase the receipts; the new imposts excitedinsurrections in Angoumois, in Guyenne, in Brittany. Bordeaux rose in1695 with shouts of "_Hurrah! for the king without gabel_. " Marshald'Albret ventured into the streets in the district of St. Michel; he wasaccosted by one of the ringleaders. "Well, my friend, " said the marshal, "with whom is thy business? Dost wish to speak to me?" "Yes, " repliedthe townsman, "I am deputed by the people of St. Michel to tell you thatthey are good servants of the king, but that they do not mean to have anygabel, or marks on pewter or tobacco, or stamped papers, or _yreffed'arbitrage_ (arbitration-clerk's fee). " It was not until a yearafterwards that the taxes could be established in Gascony; troops had tobe sent to Rennes to impose the stamp-tax upon the Bretons. "Soldiersare more likely to be wanted in Lower Brittany than in any other spot, "said a letter to Colbert from the lieutenant general, M. De Lavardin; "itis a rough and wild country, which breeds inhabitants who resemble it. They understand French but slightly, and reason not much better. TheParliament is at the back of all this. " Riots were frequent, and wereput down with great severity. "The poor Low-Bretons collect by forty orfifty in the fields, " writes Madame de Sevigne on the 24th of September, 1675: "as soon as they see soldiers, they throw themselves on theirknees, saying, Mea culpa! all the French they know. . . . " "The severities are abating, " she adds on the 3d of November: "after thehangings there will be no more hanging. " All these fresh imposts, whichhad cost so much suffering and severity, brought in but two millions fivehundred thousand livres at Colbert's death. The indirect taxes, whichwere at that time called _fermes generales_ (farmings-general), amountedto thirty-seven millions during the first two years of Colbert'sadministration, and rose to sixty-four millions at the time of his death. "I should be apprehensive of going too far, and that the prodigiousaugmentations of the _fermes_ (farmings) would be very burdensome to thepeople, " wrote Louis XIV. In 1680. The expenses of recovering the taxes, which had but lately led to great abuses, were diminished by half. "Thebailiffs generally, and especially those who are set over the recovery oftalliages, are such terrible brutes that, by way of exterminating a goodnumber of these, you could not do anything more worthy of you thansuppress those, " wrote Colbert to the criminal magistrate of Orleans. "I am at this moment promoting two suits against the collectors oftalliages, in which I expect at present to get ten thousand crowns'damages, without counting another against an assessor's officer, whowounded one Grimault, the which had one of his daughters killed beforehis eyes, his wife, another of his daughters, and his female servantwounded with swords and sticks, the writ of distrainment being executedwhilst the poor creature was being buried. " The bailiffs weresuppressed, and the king's justice was let loose not only against thefiscal officers who abused their power, but also against tyrannicalnobles. Masters of requests and members of the Parliament of Paris wentto Auvergne and Velay and held temporary courts of justice, which werecalled _grands jours_. Several lords were found guilty; Sieur de laMothe actually died upon the scaffold for having unjustly despoiled andmaltreated the people on his estates. "He was not one of the worst, "says Flechier, in his _Journal des Grands Jours d'Auvergne_. The Duke ofBouillon, governor of the province, had too long favored the guilty. "I resolved, " says the king in his _Memoires, _ "to prevent the peoplefrom being subjected to thousands and thousands of tyrants, instead ofone lawful king, whose indulgence alone it is that causes all thisdisorder. " The puissance of the provincial governors, already curtailedby Richelieu, suffered from fresh attacks under Louis XIV. Everywherethe power passed into the hands of the superintendents, themselvessubjected in their turn to inspection by the masters of requests. "Acting on the information I had that in many provinces the people wereplagued by certain folks who abused their title of governors in order tomake unjust requisitions, " says the king in his _Memoires, _ "I posted menin all quarters for the express purpose of keeping myself more surelyinformed of such exactions, in order to punish them as they deserved. "Order was restored in all parts of France. "The _Auvergnats, _" said aletter to Colbert from President de Novion, "never knew so certainly thatthey had a king as they do now. " "A useless banquet at a cost of a thousand crowns causes me incrediblepain, " said Colbert to Louis XIV. , and yet, when it is a question ofmillions of gold for Poland, I would sell all my property, I would pawnmy wife and children, and I would go afoot all my life to provide for itif necessary. Your Majesty, if it please you, will forgive me thislittle transport. I begin to doubt whether the liberty I take isagreeable to your Majesty; it has seemed to me that you were beginning toprefer your pleasures and your diversions to everything else; at the verytime when your Majesty told me at St. Germain that the morsel must betaken from one's mouth to provide for the increment of the navalarmament, you spent two hundred thousand livres down for a trip toVersailles, to wit, thirteen thousand pistoles for your gambling expensesand the queen's, and fifty thousand livres for extraordinary banquets;you have likewise so intermingled our diversions, with the war on landthat it is difficult to separate the two, and, if your Majesty will begraciously pleased to examine in detail the amount of useless expenditureyou have incurred, you will plainly see that, if it were all deducted, you would not be reduced to your present necessity. The right thing todo, sir, is to grudge five sous for unnecessary things, and to throwmillions about when it is for your glory. " Colbert knew, in fact, how to "throw millions about" when it was forendowing France with new manufactures and industries. "One of the mostimportant works of peace, " he used to say, "is the re-establishment ofevery kind of trade in this kingdom, and to put it in a position to dowithout having recourse to foreigners for the things necessary for theuse and comfort of the subjects. " "We have no need of anybody, and ourneighbors have need of us;" such was the maxim laid down in a documentof that date, which has often been attributed to Colbert, and which hecertainly put incessantly into practice. The cloth manufactures weredying out, they received encouragement; a Protestant Hollander, VanRobais, attracted over to Abbeville by Colbert, there introduced themaking of fine cloths; at Beauvais and in the Gobelins establishment atParis, under the direction of the great painter Lebrun, the Frenchtapestries soon threw into the shade the reputation of the tapestries ofFlanders; Venice had to yield up her secrets and her workmen for theglass manufactories of St. Gobain and Tourlaville. The great lords andladies were obliged to give up the Venetian point with which theirdresses had been trimmed; the importation of it was forbidden, and lacemanufactories were everywhere established in France; there was even astrike amongst the women at Alencon against the new lace which it wasdesired to force them to make. "There are more than eighty thousandpersons working at lace in Alencon, Seez, Argentan, Falaise, and thecircumjacent parishes, " said a letter to Colbert from the superintendentof Alencon, "and I can assure you, my lord, that it is manna and ablessing from heaven over all this district, where even little childrenof seven years of age find means of earning a livelihood; the littleshepherd-girls from the fields work, like the rest, at it; they say thatthey will never be able to make such fine point as this, and that onewants to take away their bread and their means of paying their talliage. "Point d'Alencon won the battle, and the making of lace spread all overNormandy. Manufactures of soap, tin, arms, silk, gave work to amultitude of laborers; the home trade of France at the same time receiveddevelopment; the bad state of the roads was "a dreadful hinderance totraffic;" Colbert ordered them to be every where improved. "Thesuperintendents have done wonders, and we are never tired of singingtheir praises, " writes, Madame de Sevigne to her daughter during one ofher trips; "it is quite extraordinary what beautiful roads there are;there is not a single moment's stoppage; there are malls and walkseverywhere. " The magnificent canal of Languedoc, due to the generousinitiative of Riquet, united the Ocean to the Mediterranean; the canal ofOrleans completed the canal of Briare, commenced by Henry IV. The inlandcustom-houses which shackled the traffic between province and provincewere suppressed at divers points; many provinces demurred to theadmission of this innovation, declaring that, to set their affairs right, "there was need of nothing but order, order, order. " Colbert also wantedorder, but his views were higher and broader than those of Breton orGascon merchants; in spite of his desire to "put the kingdom in aposition to do without having recourse to foreigners for things necessaryfor the use and comfort of the French, " he had too lofty and toojudicious a mind to neglect the extension of trade; like Richelieu, hewas for founding great trading companies; he had five, for the East andWest Indies, the Levant, the North, and Africa; just as with Richelieu, they were with difficulty established, and lasted but a little while;it was necessary to levy subscriptions on the members of the sovereigncorporations; "M. De Bercy put down his name for a thousand livres, " saysthe journal of Oliver d'Ormesson. "M. De Colbert laughed at him, andsaid that it could not be for his pocket's sake; and the end of it was, that he put down three thousand livres. " Colbert could not get over themortifying success of the company of the Dutch Indies. "I cannot believethat they pay forty per cent. , " said he. It was with the Dutch that hemost frequently had commercial difficulties. The United Provincesproduced but little, and their merchant navy was exclusively engaged inthe business of transport; the charge of fifty sous per ton onmerchandise carried in foreign vessels caused so much ill humor amongstthe Hollanders that it was partly the origin of their rupture with Franceand of the treaty of the Triple Alliance. Colbert made great efforts todevelop the French navy, both the fighting and the merchant. "Thesea-traffic of all the world, " he wrote in 1669 to M. De Pomponne, thenambassador to Holland, "is done with twenty thousand vessels orthereabouts. In the natural order of things, each nation should have itsown share thereof in proportion to its power, population, and seaboard. The Hollanders have fifteen or sixteen thousand out of this number, andthe French perhaps four or five hundred at most. The king is employingall sorts of means which he thinks useful in order to approach a littlemore nearly to the number his subjects ought naturally to have. "Colbert's efforts were not useless; at his death, the maritime trade ofFrance had developed itself, and French merchants were effectuallyprotected at sea by ships of war. "It is necessary, " said Colbert in hisinstructions to Seignelay, "that my son should be as keenly alive to allthe disorders that may occur in trade, and all the losses that may beincurred by every trader, as if they were his own. " In 1692 the royalnavy numbered a hundred and eighty-six vessels; a hundred and sixtythousand sailors were down on the books; the works at the ports ofToulon, Brest, and Rochefort were in full activity; Louis XIV. Was in aposition to refuse the salute of the flag which the English had up tothat time exacted in the Channel from all nations. "The king my brotherand those of whom he takes counsel do not quite know me yet, " wrote theking to his ambassador in London, "when they adopt towards me a tone ofhaughtiness and a certain sturdiness which has a savor of menace. I knowof no power under heaven that can make me move a step by that sort ofway; evil may come to me, of course, but no sensation of fear. The Kingof England and his chancellor may, of course, see pretty well what mystrength is, but they do not see my heart; I, who feel and know full wellboth one and the other, desire that, for sole reply to so haughty adeclaration, they learn from your mouth that I neither seek nor ask forany accommodation in the matter of the flag, because I shall know quitewell how to maintain my right whatever may happen. I intend before longto place my maritime forces on such a footing that the English shallconsider it a favor if it be my good pleasure then to listen tomodifications touching a right which is due to me more legitimately thanto them. " Duquesne and Tourville, Duguay-Trouin and John Bart, permittedthe king to make good on the seas such proud words. From 1685 to 1712the French fleets could everywhere hold their own against the alliedsquadrons of England and Holland. So many and such sustained efforts in all directions, so many vastprojects and of so great promise, suited the mind of Louis XIV. As wellas that of his minister. "I tell you what I think, " wrote Louis XIV. ToColbert in 1674; "but, after all, I end as I began, by placing myselfentirely in your hands, being certain that you will do what is mostadvantageous for my service. " Colbert's zeal for his master's servicemerited this confidence. "O, " he exclaimed one day, "that I could renderthis country happy, and that, far from the court, without favor, withoutinfluence, the grass might grow in my very courts!" [Illustration: Marly----525] Louis XIV. Was the victim of three passions which hampered and in thelong-run destroyed the accord between king and minister: that for war, whetted and indulged by Louvois; that for kingly and courtlyextravagance; and that for building and costly fancies. Colbert likewiseloved "buildments" (_les batiments_), as the phrase then was; he urgedthe king to complete the Louvre, plans for which were requested ofBernini, who went to Paris for the purpose; after two years' infructuousfeelers and compliments, the Italian returned to Rome, and the work wasintrusted to Perrault, whose plan for the beautiful colonnade stillexisting had always pleased Colbert. The completion of the castle ofSt. Germain, the works at Fontainebleau and at Chambord, the triumphalarches of St. Denis and St. Martin, the laying out of the Tuileries, theconstruction of the Observatory, and even that of the Palais desInvalides, which was Louvois' idea, found the comptroller of the financeswell disposed, if not eager. [Illustration: Colonnade of the Louvre 525a] Versailles was a constant source of vexation to him. "Your Majesty iscoming back from Versailles, " he wrote to the king on the 28th ofSeptember, 1685. "I entreat that you will permit me to say two wordsabout the reflections I often make upon this subject, and forgive me, ifit please you, for my zeal. That mansion appertains far more to yourMajesty's pleasure and diversion than to your glory; if you would begraciously pleased to search all over Versailles for the five hundredthousand crowns spent within two years, you would assuredly have adifficulty in finding them. If your Majesty thinks upon it, you willreflect that it will appear forever in the accounts of the treasurers ofyour buildments that, whilst you were expending such great sums on thismansion, you neglected the Louvre, which is assuredly the most superbpalace in the world, and the most worthy of your Majesty's grandeur. Youare aware that, in default of splendid deeds of arms, there is nothingwhich denotes the grandeur and spirit of princes more plainly thanbuildments do, and all posterity measures them by the ellof those superb mansions which they have erected during their lives. O, what pity it were that the greatest king and the most virtuous in thattrue virtue which makes the greatest princes should be measured by theell of Versailles! And, nevertheless, there is room to fear thismisfortune. For my part, I confess to your Majesty that, notwithstandingthe repugnance you feel to increase the cash-orders [_comptants_], if Icould have foreseen that this expenditure would be so large, I shouldhave advised the employment of cash-orders, in order to hide theknowledge thereof forever. " [The cash-orders (_ordonnances au comptant_)did not indicate their object, and were not revised. The king merelywrote, Pay cash; I know the object of this expenditure (_Bon au comptant:je sais l'objet de cette depense_). ] [Illustration: Versailles---526] Colbert was mistaken in his fears for Louis XIV. 's glory; if the expensesof Versailles surpassed his most gloomy apprehensions, the palace whichrose upon the site of Louis XIV. 's former hunting-box was worthy of theking who had made it in his own image, and who managed to retain all hiscourt around him there, by the mere fact of his will and of his royalpresence. Colbert was dead before Versailles was completed; the bills amounted thento one hundred and sixteen millions; the castle of Marly, now destroyed, cost more than four millions; money was everywhere becoming scarce; thetemper of the comptroller of finances went on getting worse. "Whereasformerly it had been noticed that he set to his work rubbing his handswith joy, " says his secretary Perrault, brother of the celebratedarchitect, "he no longer worked but with an air of vexation, and evenwith sighs. From the good-natured and easy-going creature he had been, he became difficult to deal with, and there was not so much business, bya great deal, got through as in the early years of his administration. ""I do not mean to build any more, Mansard; I meet with too manymortifications, " the king would say to his favorite architect. He stillwent on building, however; but he quarrelled with Colbert over the costof the great railings of Versailles. There's swindling here, " said LouisXIV. "Sir, " rejoined Colbert, "I flatter myself, at any rate, that thatword does not apply to me?" "No, " said the king; "but more attentionshould have been shown. If you want to know what economy is, go toFlanders; you will see how little those fortifications of the conqueredplaces cost. " It was Vauban whose praise the king thus sang, and Vauban, devoted toLouvois, had for a long time past been embroiled with Colbert. Theminister felt himself beaten in the contest he had so long maintainedagainst Michael Le Tellier and his son. In 1664, at the death ofChancellor Seguier, Colbert had opposed the elevation of Le Tellier tothis office, "telling the king that, if he came in, he, Colbert, couldnot serve his Majesty, as he would have him thwarting everything hewanted to do. " On leaving the council, Le Tellier said to Brienne, "Yousee what a tone M. Colbert takes up; he will have to be settled with. "The antagonism had been perpetuated between Colbert and Louvois; theirrivalry in the state had been augmented by the contrary dispositions ofthe two ministers. Both were passionately devoted to their work, laborious, indefatigable, honest in money matters, and both of fierceand domineering temper; but Louvois was more violent, more bold, lessscrupulous as to ways and means of attaining his end, cruel in theexercise of his will and his wrath, less concerned about the sufferingsof the people, more exclusively absorbed by one fixed idea; both renderedgreat service to the king, but Colbert performing for the prince and thestate only useful offices in the way of order, economy, wise andfar-sighted administration, courageous and steady opposition; Louvoisever urging the king on according to his bent, as haughty and moreimpassioned than he, entangling him and encouraging him in wars whichrendered his own services necessary, without pity for the woes heentailed upon the nation. It was the misfortune and the great fault ofLouis XIV. That he preferred the counsels of Louvois to those of Colbert, and that he allowed all the functions so faithfully exercised by thedying minister to drop into the hands of his enemy and rival. At sixty-four years of age Colbert succumbed to excess of labor and ofcares. That man, so cold and reserved, whom Madame de Sevigne calledNorth, and Guy-Patin the Man of Marble (_Vir marmoreus_), felt thatdisgust for the things of life which appears so strikingly in theseventeenth century amongst those who were most ardently engaged in theaffairs of the world. He was suffering from stone; the king sent toinquire after him and wrote to him. The dying man had his eyes closed;he did not open them. "I do not want to hear anything more about him, "said he, when the king's letter was brought to him; "now, at any rate, let him leave me alone. " His thoughts were occupied with his soul'ssalvation. Madame de Maintenon used to accuse him of always thinkingabout his finances, and very little about religion. He repeatedbitterly, as the dying Cardinal Wolsey had previously said in the case ofHenry, "If I had done for God what I have done for that man, I had beensaved twice over; and now I know not what will become of me. " He expiredon the 6th of September, 1683; and on the 10th, Madame de Maintenon wroteto Madame de St. Geran, "The king is very well; he feels no more now thana slight sorrow. The death of M. De Colbert afflicted him, and a greatmany people rejoiced at that affliction. It is all stuff about thepernicious designs he had; and the king very cordially forgave him forhaving determined to die without reading his letter, in order to bebetter able to give his thoughts to God. M. De Seignelay was anxious tostep into all his posts, and has not obtained a single one; he has plentyof cleverness, but little moral conduct. His pleasures always haveprecedence of his duties. He has so exaggerated his father's talents andservices, that he has convinced everybody how unworthy and incapable heis of succeeding him. " The influence of Louvois and the king's ill humoragainst the Colberts peep out in the injustice of Madame de Maintenon. Seignelay had received from Louis XIV. The reversion of the navy; hisfather had prepared him for it with anxious strictness, and he hadexercised the functions since 1676. Well informed, clever, magnificent, Seignelay drove business and pleasure as a pair. In 1685 he gave theking a splendid entertainment in his castle of Sceaux; in 1686 he set offfor Genoa, bombarded by Duquesne; in 1689 he, in person, organized thefleet of Tourville at Brest. "He was general in everything, " says Madamede la Fayette; "even when he did not give the word, he had the exteriorand air of it. " "He is devoured by ambition, " Madame de Maintenon hadlately said: in 1689 she writes, "_Anxious (L'Inquiet, i. E. , Louvois_)hangs but by a thread; he is very much shocked at having the direction ofthe affairs of Ireland taken from him; he blames me for it. He countedon making immense profits; M. De Seignelay counts on nothing but perilsand labors. He will succeed if he do not carry things with too high ahand. The king would have no better servant, if he could rid himself alittle of his temperament. He admits as much himself; and yet he doesnot mend. " Seignelay died on the 3d of November, 1690, at the age ofthirty-nine. "He had all the parts of a great minister of state, " saysSt. Simon, "and he was the despair of M. De Louvois, whom he often placedin the position of having not a word of reply to say in the king'spresence. His defects corresponded with his great qualities. As a haterand a friend he had no peer but Louvois. " "How young! how fortunate howgreat a position!" wrote Madame de Sevigne, on hearing of the death of M. De Seignelay, "it seems as if splendor itself were dead. " Seignelay had spent freely, but he left at his death more than fourhundred thousand livres a year. Colbert's fortune amounted to tenmillions, legitimate proceeds of his high offices and the king'sliberalities. He was born of a family of merchants, at Rheims, ennobledin the sixteenth century, but he was fond of connecting it with theColberts of Scotland. The great minister would often tell his childrento reflect "what their birth would have done for them if God had notblessed his labors, and if those labors had not been extreme. " He hadmarried his daughters to the Dukes of Beauvilliers, Chevreuse, andMortemart; Seignelay had wedded Mdlle. De Matignon, whose grandmother wasan Orleans-Longueville. "Thus, " said Mdlle de Montpensier, "they havethe honor of being as closely related as M. Le Prince to the king; Mariede Bourbon was cousin-german to the king my grandfather. That lends agrand air to M. De Seignelay, who had by nature sufficient vanity. "Colbert had no need to seek out genealogies, and great alliances werenaturally attracted to his power and the favor he was in. He had inhimself that title which comes of superior merit, and which nothing canmake up for, nothing can equal. He might have said, as Marshal Lannessaid to the Marquis of Montesquieu, who was exhibiting a coat taken outof his ancestors' drawers, "I am an ancestor myself. " Louvois remained henceforth alone, without rival and without check. Thework he had undertaken for the reorganization of the army was prettynearly completed; he had concentrated in his own hands the wholedirection of the military service, the burden and the honor of which wereboth borne by him. He had subjected to the same rules and the samediscipline all corps and all grades; the general as well as the colonelobeyed him blindly. M. De Turenne alone had managed to escape from theadministrative level. "I see quite clearly, " he wrote to Louvois on the9th of September, 1673, "what are the king's wishes, and I will do all Ican to conform to them but you will permit me to tell you that I do notthink that it would be to his Majesty's service to give precise orders, at such a distance, to the most incapable man in France. " Turenne hadnot lost the habit of command; Louvois, who had for a long while beenunder his orders, bowed to the will of the king, who required apparentaccord between the marshal and the minister, but he never forgave Turennefor his cool and proud independence. The Prince of Conde more than onceturned to advantage this latent antagonism. After the death of Louvoisand of Turenne, after the retirement of Conde, when the central powerfell into the hands of Chamillard or of Voysin, the pretence of directingwar from the king's closet at Versailles produced the most fatal effects. "If M. De Chamillard thinks that I know nothing about war, " wrote Villarsto Madame de Maintenon, "he will oblige me by finding somebody else inthe kingdom who is better acquainted with it. " "If your Majesty, " hesaid again, "orders me to shut myself up in Bavaria, and if you want tosee your army lost, I will get myself killed at the first opportunityrather than live to see such a mishap. " The king's orders, transmittedthrough a docile minister, ignorant of war, had a great deal to do withthe military disasters of Louis XIV. 's later years. Meanwhile order reigned in the army, and supplies were regular. Louvoisreceived the nickname of great Victualler (_Vivrier_). The wounded weretended in hospitals devoted to their use. "When a soldier is once down, he never gets up again, " had but lately been the saying. "Had I been atmy mother's, in her own house, I could not have been better treated, "wrote M. D'Alligny on the contrary, when he came out of one of thehospitals created by Louvois. He conceived the grand idea of the Hoteldes Invalides. "It were very reasonable, " says the preamble of theking's edict which founded the establishment, "that they who have freelyexposed their lives and lavished their blood for the defence andmaintenance of this monarchy, who have so materially contributed to thewinning of the battles we have gained over our enemies, and who haveoften reduced them to asking peace of us, should enjoy the repose theyhave secured for our other subjects, and should pass the remainder oftheir days in tranquillity. " Up to his death Louvois insisted uponmanaging the Hotel des Invalides himself. Never had the officers of the army been under such strict and minutesupervision; promotion went, by seniority, by "the order on the list, " asthe phrase then was, without any favor for rank or birth; commanders wereobliged to attend to their corps. "Sir, " said Louvois one day to M. DeNogaret, "your company is in a very bad state. " "Sir, " answered Nogaret, "I was not aware of it. " "You ought to be aware, " said M. De Louvois:"have you inspected it?" "No, sir, " said Nogaret. "You ought to haveinspected it, sir. " "Sir, I will give orders about it. " "You ought tohave given them. A man ought to make up his mind, sir, either to openlyprofess himself a courtier or to devote himself to his duty when he is anofficer. " Education in the schools for cadets, regularity in service, obligation to keep the companies full instead of pocketing a portion ofthe pay in the name of imaginary soldiers who appeared only on theregisters, and who were called dummies (_passe-volants_), the necessityof wearing uniform, introduced into the army customs to which the Frenchnobility, as undisciplined as they were brave, had hitherto been utterstrangers. Artillery and engineering were developed under the influence of Vauban, "the first of his own time and one of the first of all times" in thegreat art of besieging, fortifying, and defending places. Louvois hadsingled out Vauban at the sieges of Lille, Tournay, and Douai, which hehad directed in chief under the king's own eye. He ordered him to renderthe places he had just taken impregnable. "This is no child's play, "said Vauban on setting about the fortifications of Dunkerque, "and Iwould rather lose my life than hear said of me some day what I hear saidof the men who have preceded me. " Louvois' admiration was unmixed whenhe went to examine the works. "The achievements of the Romans which haveearned them so much fame show nothing comparable to what has been donehere, " he exclaimed; "they formerly levelled mountains in order to makehighroads, but here more than four hundred have been swept away; in theplace where all those sand-banks were there is now to be seen nothing butone great meadow. The English and the Dutch often send people hither tosee if all they have been told is true; they all go back full ofadmiration at the success of the work and the greatness of the master whotook it in hand. " It was this admiration and this dangerous greatnesswhich suggested to the English their demands touching Dunkerque duringthe negotiations for the peace of Utrecht. The honesty and moral worth of Vauban equalled his genius; he was ashigh-minded as he was modest; evil reports had been spread aboutconcerning the contractors for the fortifications of Lille. Vaubandemanded an inquiry. "You are quite right in thinking, my lord, " hewrote to Louvois, to whom he was united by a sincere and faithfulfriendship, "that, if you do not examine into this affair, you cannot dome justice, and, if you do it me not, that would be compelling me to seekmeans of doing it myself, and of giving up forever fortification and allits concomitants. Examine, then, boldly and severely; away with alltender feeling, for I dare plainly tell you that in a question ofstrictest honesty and sincere fidelity I fear neither the king, nor you, nor all the human race together. Fortune had me born the poorestgentleman in France, but in requital she honored me with an honest heart, so free from all sorts of swindles that it cannot bear even the thoughtof them without a shudder. " It was not until eight years after the deathof Louvois, in 1699, when Vauban had directed fifty-three sieges, constructed the fortifications of thirty-three places, and repaired thoseof three hundred towns, that he was made a marshal, an honor that noengineer had yet obtained. "The king fancied he was giving himself thebaton, " it was said, "so often had he had Vauban under his orders inbesieging places. " [Illustration: Vauban----534] The leisure of peace was more propitious to Vauban's fame than to hisfavor. Generous and sincere as he was, a patriot more far-sighted thanhis contemporaries, he had the courage to present to the king a memorialadvising the recall of the fugitive Huguenots, and the renewal, pure andsimple, of the edict of Nantes. He had just directed the siege ofBrisach and the defence of Dunkerque when he published a great economicalwork entitled _la Dime royale, _ the fruit of the reflections of his wholelife, fully depicting the misery of the people and the system of impostshe thought adapted to relieve it. The king was offended; he gave themarshal a cold reception and had the work seized. Vauban received hisdeath-blow from this disgrace. The royal edict was dated March 19, 1707;the great engineer died on the 30th; he was not quite seventy-four. Theking testified no regret for the loss of so illustrious a servant, withwhom he had lived on terms of close intimacy. Vauban had appeared toimpugn his supreme authority; this was one of the crimes that Louis XIV. Never forgave. In 1683, at Colbert's death, Vauban was enjoying the royal favor, whichhe attributed entirely to Louvois. The latter reigned without any one tocontest his influence with the master. It had been found necessary tobury Colbert by night to avoid the insults of the people, who imputed tohim the imposts which crushed them. What an unjust and odious mistake ofpopular opinion which accused Colbert of the evils which he had foughtagainst and at the same time suffered under to the last day! AllColbert's offices, except the navy, fell to Louvois or his creatures. Claude Lepelletier, a relative of Le Tellier, became comptroller offinance; he entered the council; M. De Blainville, Colbert's second son, was obliged to resign in Louvois' favor the superintendence ofbuildments, of which the king had previously promised him the reversion. All business passed into the hands of Louvois. Le Tellier had beenchancellor since 1677; peace still reigned; the all-powerful ministeroccupied himself in building Trianon, bringing the River Eure toVersailles, and establishing unity of religion in France. "The counselof constraining the Huguenots by violent means to become Catholics wasgiven and carried out by the Marquis of Louvois, " says an anonymousletter of the time. "He thought he could manage consciences and controlreligion by those harsh measures which, in spite of his wisdom, hisviolent nature suggests to him almost in everything. " Louvois was theinventor, of the dragonnades; it was his father, Michael le Tellier, whoput the seals to the revocation of the edict of Nantes; and, a few daysbefore he died, full of joy at his last work, he piously sang thecanticle of Simeon. Louis XIV. And his ministers believed in good faiththat Protestantism was stamped out. "The king, " wrote Madame deMaintenon, "is very pleased to have put the last touch to the great workof the reunion of the heretics with the church. Father la Chaise, theking's confessor, promised that it would not cost a drop of blood, andM. De Louvois said the same thing. " Emigration in mass, the revolt ofthe Camisards, and the long-continued punishments, were a painfulsurprise for the courtiers accustomed to bend beneath the will of LouisXIV. ; they did not understand that "anybody should obstinately remain ofa religion which was displeasing to the king. " The Huguenots paid thepenalty for their obstinacy. The intelligent and acute biographer ofLouvois, M. Camille Rousset, could not defend him from the charge ofviolence in their case. On the 10th of June, 1686, he wrote to thesuperintendent of Languedoc, "On my representation to the king of thelittle heed paid by the women of the district in which you are to thepenalties ordained against those who are found at assemblies, his Majestyorders that those who are not demoiselles (that is, noble) shall besentenced by M. De Baville to be whipped, and branded with thefleur-de-lis. " He adds, on the 22d of July, "The king having thoughtproper to have a declaration sent out on the 15th of this month, wherebyhis Majesty orders that all those who are henceforth found at suchassemblies shall be punished by death, M. De Baville will take no noticeof the decree I sent you relating to the women, as it becomes useless byreason of this declaration. " The king's declaration was carried out, asthe sentences of the victims prove:--Condemned to the galleys, orcondemned to death--for the crime of assemblies. " This was the languageof the Roman emperors. Seventeen centuries of Christianity had notsufficed to make men comprehend the sacred rights of conscience. Therefined and moderate mind of Madame de Sevigne did not prevent her fromwriting to M. De Bussy on the 28th of October, 1685, "You have, nodoubt, seen the edict by which the king revokes that of Nantes; nothingcan be more beautiful than its contents, and never did or will any kingdo anything more memorable. " The noble libertine and freethinkerreplied to her, "I admire the steps taken by the king to reunite theHuguenots. The war made upon them in former times and the St. Bartholomew gave vigor to this sect; his Majesty has sapped it little bylittle, and the edict he has just issued, supported by dragoons andBourdaloues, has given it the finishing stroke. " It was the honorabledistinction of the French Protestants to proclaim during more than twocenturies, by their courageous resistance, the rights and duties whichwere ignored all around them. Whilst the reformers were undergoing conversion, exile, or death, war wasrecommencing in Europe, with more determination than ever on the part ofthe Protestant nations, indignant and disquieted as they were. Louvoisbegan to forget all about the obstinacy of the religionists, and preparedfor the siege of Philipsburg and the capture of Manheim and Coblentz. "The king has seen with pleasure, " he wrote to Marshal Boufflers, "that, after well burning Coblentz, and doing all the harm possible to theelector's palace, you were to march back to Mayence. " The haughtiness ofthe king and the violence of the minister went on increasing with thesuccess of their arms; they treated the pope's rights almost as lightlyas those of the Protestants. The pamphleteers of the day had reason towrite, "It is clearly seen that the religion of the court of France is apure matter of interest; the king does nothing but what is for that whichhe calls his glory and grandeur; Catholics and heretics, Holy Pontiff, church, and anything you please, are sacrificed to his great pride;everything must be reduced to powder beneath his feet; we in France areon the high road to putting the sacred rights of the Holy See on the samefooting as the privileges granted to Calvinists; all ecclesiasticalauthority is annihilated. Nobody knows anything of canons, popes, councils; everything is swallowed up in the authority of one man. " "Theking willeth it:" France had no other law any longer; and William III. Saved Europe from the same enslavement. The Palatinate was in flames; Louvois was urging on the generals andarmies everywhere, sending despatch after despatch, orders upon orders. "I am a thousand times more impatient to finish this business than youcan be, " was the spirited reply he received from M. De la Hoguette, whocommanded in Italy, in the environs of Cuneo; "besides the reasons ofduty which I have always before my eyes, I beg you to believe that thelast letters I received from you were quite strong enough to preventnegligence of anything that must be done to prevent similar ones, and todeserve a little more confidence; but the most willing man can do nothingagainst roads encumbered with ice and snow. " Louvois did not admit thisexcuse; he wanted soldiers to be able to cross the defiles of mountainsin the depths of winter just as he would have orange trees travel in themonth of February. "I received orders to send off to Versailles from LaMeilleraye the orange trees which the Duke of Mazarin gave the king, "writes Superintendent Foucauld in his journal. "M. Louvois, in spite ofthe representations I made him, would have them sent by carriage throughthe snow and ice. They arrived leafless at Versailles, and several aredead. I had sent him word that the king could take towns in winter, butcould not make orange trees bear removal from their hothouses. " Thenature and the consciences of the Protestants were all that withstoodLouis XIV. And Louvois. On the 16th of July, 1691, death suddenlyremoved the minister, fallen in royal favor, detested and dreaded inFrance, universally hated in Europe, leaving, however, the king, France, and Europe with the feeling that a great power had fallen, a great dealof merit disappeared. "I doubt not, " wrote Louis XIV. To MarshalBoufflers, "that, as you are very zealous for my service, you will besorry for the death of a man who served me well. " "Louvois, " said theMarquis of La Fare, "should never have been born, or should have livedlonger. " The public feeling was expressed in an anonymous epitaph: "Here lieth he who to his willBent every one, knew everythingLouvois, beloved by no one, still Leaves everybody sorrowing. " The king felt his loss, but did not regret the minister whose tyranny andviolence were beginning to be oppressive to him. He felt himself to bemore than ever master in the presence of the young or inexperienced mento whom he henceforth intrusted his affairs. Louvois' son, Barbezieux, had the reversion of the war department; Pontchartrain, who had beencomptroller of finance ever since the retirement of Lepelletier, had beenappointed to the navy in 1690, at the death of Seignelay. "M. DePontchartrain had begged the king not to give him the navy, " says Dangeauingenuously, "because he knew nothing at all about it; but the king'swill was absolute that he should take it. He now has all that M. DeColbert had, except the buildments. " What mattered the inexperience ofministers? The king thought that he alone sufficed for all. God had left it to time to undeceive the all-powerful monarch; he aloneheld out amidst the ruins; after the fathers the sons were falling aroundhim; Seignelay had followed Colbert to the tomb; Louvois was dead afterMichael Le Tellier; Barbezieux died in his turn in 1701. "This secretaryof state had naturally good wits, lively and ready conception, and greatmastery of details in which his father had trained him early, " writes theMarquis of Argenson. He had been spoiled in youth by everybody but hisfather. He was obliged to put himself at the mercy of his officials, buthe always kept up his position over them, for the son of M. De Louvois, their creator, so to speak, could not fail to inspire them with respect, veneration, and even attachment. Louis XIV. , who knew the defects of M. De Barbezieux, complained to him, and sometimes rated him in private, buthe left him his place, because he felt the importance of preserving inthe administration of war the spirit and the principles of Louvois. "Take him for all in all, " says St. Simon, "he had the making of a greatminister in him, but wonderfully dangerous; the best and most usefulfriend in the world so long as he was one, and the most terrible, themost inveterate, the most implacable and naturally ferocious enemy; hewas a man who would not brook opposition in anything, and whose audacitywas extreme. " A worthy son of Louvois, as devoted to pleasure as hewas zealous in business, he was carried off in five days, at the age ofthirty-three. The king, who had just put Chamillard into the place ofPontchartrain, made chancellor at the death of Boucherat, gave him thewar department in succession to Barbezieux, "thus loading such weakshoulders with two burdens of which either was sufficient to break downthe strongest. " Louis XIV. Had been faithfully and mightily served by Colbert andLouvois; he had felt confidence in them, though he had never had anyliking for them personally; their striking merits, the independence oftheir character, which peeped out in spite of affected expressions ofsubmission and deference, the spirited opposition of the one and thepassionate outbursts of the other, often hurt the master's pride, andalways made him uncomfortable; Colbert had preceded him in thegovernment, and Louvois, whom he believed himself to have trained, hadsurpassed him in knowledge of affairs as well as aptitude for work;Chamillard was the first, the only one of his ministers whom the king hadever loved. "His capacity was nil, " says St. Simon, who had veryfriendly feelings towards Chamillard, "and he believed that he kneweverything and of every sort; this was the more pitiable in that it hadgot into his head with his promotions, and was less presumption thanstupidity, and still less vanity, of which he had none. The joke is, that the mainspring of the king's great affection for him was this veryincapacity. He confessed it to the king at every step, and the king wasdelighted to direct and instruct him; in such sort that he grew jealousfor his success as if it were his own, and made every excuse for him. " The king loved Chamillard; the court bore with him because he was easyand good-natured, but the affairs of the state were imperilled in hishands; Pontchartrain had already had recourse to the most objectionableproceedings in order to obtain money; the mental resources of Colberthimself had failed in presence of financial embarrassments and increasingestimates. It is said that, during the war with Holland, Louvois inducedthe king to contract a loan; the premier-president, Lamoignon, supportedthe measure. "You are triumphant, " said Colbert, who had vigorouslyopposed it; "you think you have done the deed of a good man; what! didnot I know as well as you that the king could get money by borrowing?But I was careful not to say so. And so the borrowing road is opened. What means will remain henceforth of checking the king in hisexpenditure? After the loans, taxes will be wanted to pay them; and, ifthe loans have no limit, the taxes will have none either. " At the king'sdeath the loans amounted to more than two milliards and a half, thedeficit was getting worse and worse every day, there was no more money tobe had, and the income from property went on diminishing. "I have onlysome dirty acres which are turning to stones instead of being bread, "wrote Madame de Sevigne. Trade was languishing, the manufactures foundedby Colbert were dropping away one after another; the revocation of theedict of Nantes and the emigration of Protestants had drained France ofthe most industrious and most skilful workmen; many of the Reformers hadcarried away a great deal of capital; the roads, everywhere neglected, were becoming impracticable. "The tradesmen are obliged to put fourhorses instead of two to their wagons, " said a letter to Barbezieux fromthe superintendent of Flanders, "which has completely ruined thetraffic. " The administration of the provinces was no longer undersupervision. "Formerly, " says Villars, "the inspectors would pass wholewinters on the frontiers; now they are good for nothing but to take theheight and measure of the men and send a fine list to the court. " Thesoldiers were without victuals, the officers were not paid, the abusesbut lately put down by the strong hand of Colbert and Louvois werecropping up again in all directions; the king at last determined tolisten to the general cry and dismiss Chamillard. "The Dukes of Beauvilliers and Chevreuse were intrusted with thisunpleasant commission, as well as with the king's assurance of hisaffection and esteem for Chamillard, and with the announcement of themarks thereof he intended to bestow upon him. They entered Chamillard'spresence with such an air of consternation as may be easily imagined, they having always been very great friends of his. By their manner theunhappy minister saw at once that there was something extraordinary, and, without giving them time to speak, 'What is the matter, gentlemen?' hesaid with a calm and serene countenance. 'If what you have to sayconcerns me only, you can speak out; I have been prepared a long whilefor anything. ' They could scarcely tell what brought them. Chamillardheard them without changing a muscle, and with the same air and tone withwhich he had put his first question, he answered, 'The king is master. I have done my best to serve him; I hope another may do it more to hissatisfaction and more successfully. It is much to be able to count uponhis kindness and to receive so many marks of it. ' Then he asked whetherhe might write to him, and whether they would do him the favor of takingcharge of his letter. He wrote the king, with the same coolness, a pageand a half of thanks and regards, which he read out to them at once justas he had at once written it in their presence. He handed it to the twodukes, together with the memorandum which the king had asked him for inthe morning, and which he had just finished, sent word orally to his wifeto come after him to L'Etang, whither he was going, without telling herwhy, sorted out his papers, and gave up his keys to be handed to hissuccessor. All this was done without the slightest excitement; withouta sigh, a regret, a reproach, a complaint escaping him, he went down hisstaircase, got into his carriage, and started off to L'Etang, alone withhis son, just as if nothing had happened to him, without anybody'sknowing anything about it at Versailles until long afterwards. "[Memoires de St. Simon, t. Iii. P. 233. ] Desmarets in the finance and Voysin in the war department, bothsuperintendents of finance, the former a nephew of Colbert's andinitiated into business by his uncle, both of them capable and assiduous, succumbed, like their predecessors, beneath the weight of the burdenswhich were overwhelming and ruining France. "I know the state of myfinances, " Louis XIV. Had said to Desmarets; "I do not ask you to doimpossibilities; if you succeed, you will render me a great service; ifyou are not successful, I shall not hold you to blame for circumstances. "Desmarets succeeded better than could have been expected without beingable to rehabilitate the finances of the state. Pontchartrain hadexhausted the resource of creating new offices. "Every time your Majestycreates a new post, a fool is found to buy it, " he had said to the king. Desmarets had recourse to the bankers; and the king seconded him by thegracious favor with which he received at Versailles the greatest of thecollectors (_traitants_), Samuel Bernard. "By this means everything wasprovided for up to the time of the general peace, " says M. D'Argenson. France kept up the contest to the end. When the treaty of Utrecht wassigned, the fleet was ruined and destroyed, the trade diminished by twothirds, the colonies lost or devastated by the war, the destitution inthe country so frightful that orders had to be given to sow seed in thefields; the exportation of grain was forbidden on pain of death;meanwhile the peasantry were reduced to browse upon the grass in theroads and to tear the bark off the trees and eat it. Thirty years hadrolled by since the death of Colbert, twenty-two since that of Louvois;everything was going to perdition simultaneously; reverses in war anddistress at home were uniting to overwhelm the aged king, aloneupstanding amidst so many dead and so much ruin. [Illustration: Misery of the Peasantry----543] "Fifty years' sway and glory had inspired Louis XIV. With thepresumptuous belief that he could not only choose his ministers well, butalso instruct them and teach them their craft, " says M. D'Argenson. Hismistake was to think that the title of king supplied all the endowmentsof nature or experience; he was no financier, no soldier, noadministrator, yet he would everywhere and always remain supreme master;he had believed that it was he who governed with Colbert and Louvois;those two great ministers had scarcely been equal to the task imposedupon them by war and peace, by armies, buildments, and royalextravagance; their successors gave way thereunder and illusionsvanished; the king's hand was powerless to sustain the weight of affairsbecoming more and more disastrous; the gloom that pervaded the lateryears of Louis XIV. 's reign veiled from his people's eyes the splendor ofthat reign which had so long been brilliant and prosperous, though alwayslying heavy on the nation, even when they forgot their sufferings in theintoxication of glory and success. It is the misfortune of men, even of the greatest, to fall short of theirdestiny. Louis XIV. Had wanted to exceed his, and to bear a burden tooheavy for human shoulders. Arbiter, for a while, of the affairs of allEurope, ever absolute master in his own dominions, he bent at lastbeneath the load that was borne without flinching by princes lesspowerful, less fortunate, less adored, but sustained by the stronginstitutions of free countries. William III. Had not to serve him aConde, a Turenne, a Colbert, a Louvois; he had governed from afar his owncountry, and he had always remained a foreigner in the kingdom which hadcalled him to the throne; but, despite the dislikes, the bitternesses, the fierce contests of parties, he had strengthened the foundations ofparliamentary government in England, and maintained freedom in Holland, whilst the ancient monarchy of France, which reached under Louis XIV. The pinnacle of glory and power, was slowly but surely going down toperdition beneath the internal and secret malady of absolute power, without limit and without restraint. CHAPTER XLVII. ----LOUIS XIV. AND RELIGION. Independently of simple submission to the Catholic church, there werethree great tendencies which divided serious minds amongst them duringthe reign of Louis XIV. ; three noble passions held possession of pioussouls; liberty, faith, and love were, respectively, the groundwork aswell as the banner of Protestantism, Jansenism, and Quietism. It was inthe name of the fundamental and innate liberty of the soul, its personalresponsibility and its direct relations with God, that the Reformationhad sprung up and reached growth in France, even more than in Germany andin England. M. De St. Cyran, the head and founder of Jansenism, abandoned the human soul unreservedly to the supreme will of God; hisfaith soared triumphant over flesh and blood, and his disciples, disdaining the joys and the ties of earth, lived only for eternity. Madame Guyon and Fenelon, less ardent and less austere, discovered in thetender mysticism of pure love that secret of God's which is sought by allpious souls; in the name of divine love, the Quietists renounced all willof their own, just as the Jansenists in the name of faith. Jansenism is dead after having for a long while brooded in the depths ofthe most noble souls; Quietism, as a sect, did not survive itsillustrious founders; faith and love have withstood the excess of zealand the erroneous tendencies which had separated them from the aggregateof Christian virtues and doctrines; they have come back again into thepious treasury of the universal church. Neither time nor persecutionshave been able to destroy in France the strong and independent groundworkof Protestantism. Faithful to its fundamental principle, it hastriumphed over exile, the scaffold, and indifference, without other headthan God himself and God alone. Richelieu had slain the political hydra of Huguenots in France; from thattime the Reformers had lived in modest retirement. "I have no complaintto make of the little flock, " Mazarin would say; "if they eat bad grass, at any rate they do not stray. " During the troubles of the Fronde, theProtestants had resumed, in the popular vocabulary, their old nickname of_Tant s'en fault_ (Far from it), which had been given them at the time ofthe League. "Faithful to the king in those hard times when mostFrenchmen were wavering and continually looking to see which way the . Wind would blow, the Huguenots had been called _Tant s'en fault, _ asbeing removed from and beyond all suspicion of the League or ofconspiracy against the state. And so were they rightly designated, inasmuch as to the cry, '_Qui vive?_' (Whom are you for?) instead ofanswering 'Vive Guise!' or 'Vive la Ligue!' they would answer, '_Tants'en fault, vive le Roi!_' So that, when one Leaguer would ask another, pointing to a Huguenot, 'Is that one of ours?' 'Tant s'en fault, ' wouldbe the reply, 'it is one of the new religion. '" Conde had represented toCromwell all the Reformers of France as ready to rise up in his favor;the agent sent by the Protector assured him it was quite the contrary;and the bearing of the Protestants decided Cromwell to refuse allassistance to the princes. La Rochelle packed off its governor, who wasfavorable to the Fronde; St. Jean d'Angely equipped soldiers for theking; Montauban, to resist the Frondeurs, repaired the fortificationsthrown down by Richelieu. "The crown was tottering upon the king'shead, " said Count d' Harcourt to the pastors of Guienne, "but you havemade it secure. " The royal declaration of 1652, confirming and ratifyingthe edict of Nantes, was a recompense for the services and fidelity ofthe Huguenots. They did not enjoy it long; an edict of 1656 annulled, atthe same time explaining, the favorable declaration of 1652; in 1660 thelast national synod was held at Loudun. "His Majesty has resolved, " saidM. De la Magdelaine, deputed from the king to the synod, "that thereshall be no more such assemblies but when he considers it expedient. "Fifteen years had rolled by since the synod of Charenton in 1645. "Weare only too firmly persuaded of the usefulness of our synods, and howentirely necessary they are for our churches, after having been so longwith out them, " sorrowfully exclaimed the moderator, Peter Daille. For two hundred and twelve years the Reformed church of France wasdeprived of its synods. God at last restored to it this corner-stone ofits interior constitution. The suppression of the edict-chambers instituted by Henry IV. In all theParliaments for the purpose of taking cognizance of the affairs of theReformers followed close upon the abolition of national synods. Peterdu Bosq, pastor of the church of Caen, an accomplished gentleman andcelebrated preacher, was commissioned to set before the king therepresentations of the Protestants. Louis XIV. Listened to him kindly. "That is the finest speaker in my kingdom, " he said to his courtiersafter the minister's address. The edict-chambers were, nevertheless, suppressed in 1669; the half and half (_mi partie_) chambers, composed ofReformed and Catholic councillors, underwent the same fate in 1679, andthe Protestants found themselves delivered over to the intolerance andreligious prejudices of the Parliaments, which were almost everywhereharsher, as regarded them, than the governors and superintendents ofprovinces. "It seemed to me, my son, " wrote Louis XIV. In his _Memoires_ of the year1661, "that those who were for employing violent remedies against thereligion styled Reformed, did not understand the nature of this malady, caused partly by heated feelings, which should be passed over unnoticedand allowed to die out insensibly, instead of being inflamed afresh byequally strong contradiction, which, moreover, is always useless, whenthe taint is not confined to a certain known number, but spreadthroughout the state. I thought, therefore, that the best way ofreducing the Huguenots of my kingdom little by little, was, in the firstplace, not to put any pressure upon them by any fresh rigor against them, to see to the observance of all that they had obtained from mypredecessors, but to grant them nothing further, and even to confine theperformance thereof within the narrowest limits that justice andpropriety would permit. But as to graces that depended upon me alone, Ihave resolved, and I have pretty regularly kept my resolution ever since, not to do them any, and that from kindness, not from bitterness, in orderto force them in that way to reflect from time to time of themselves, andwithout violence, whether it were for any good reason that they deprivedthemselves voluntarily of advantages which might be shared by them incommon with all my other subjects. " These prudent measures, "quite in kindness and not in bitterness, " werenot enough to satisfy the fresh zeal with which the king had beeninspired. All-powerful in his own kingdom, and triumphant everywhere inEurope, he was quite shocked at the silent obstinacy of those Huguenotswho held his favor and graces cheap in comparison with a quietconscience; his kingly pride and his ignorant piety both equally urgedhim on to that enterprise which was demanded by the zeal of a portion ofthe clergy. The system of purchasing conversions had been commenced; andPellisson, himself originally a Protestant, had charge of the payments, asource of fraud and hypocrisies of every sort. A declaration of 1679condemned the relapsed to _honorable amends_ (public recantation, &c. ), to confiscation and to banishment. The door's of all employments wereclosed against Huguenots; they could no longer sit in the courts orParliaments, or administer the finances, or become medical practitioners, barristers, or notaries; infants of seven years of age were empowered tochange their religion against their parents' will; a word, a gesture, alook, were sufficient to certify that a child intended to abjure; itsparents, however, were bound to bring it up according to its condition, which often facilitated confiscation of property. Pastors were forbiddento enter the houses of their flocks, save to perform some act of theirministry; every chapel into which a new convert had been admitted was tobe pulled down, and the pastor was to be banished. It was foundnecessary to set a guard at the doors of the places of worship to driveaway the poor wretches who repented of a moment's weakness; the number of"places of exercise, " as the phrase then was, received a gradualreduction; "a single minister had the charge of six, eight, and tenthousand persons, " says Elias Benoit, author of the _Histoire de l'Editde Nantes, _ making it impossible for him to visit and assist thefamilies, scattered sometimes over a distance of thirty leagues round hisown residence. The wish was to reduce the ministers to give upaltogether from despair of discharging their functions. The chancellorhad expressly said, "If you are reduced to the impossible, so much theworse for you; we shall gain by it. " Oppression was not sufficient tobreak down the Reformers. There was great difficulty in checkingemigration, by this time increasing in numbers. Louvois proposedstronger measures. The population was crushed under the burden ofmilitary billets. Louvois wrote to Marillac, superintendent of Poitou, "His Majesty has learned with much joy the number of people who continueto become converts in your department. He desires you to go on payingattention thereto; he will think it a good idea to have most of thecavalry and officers quartered upon Protestants; if, according to theregular proportion, the religionists should receive ten, you can makethem take twenty. " The dragoons took up their quarters in peaceablefamilies, ruining the more well-to-do, maltreating old men, women, andchildren, striking them with their sticks or the flat of their swords, hauling off Protestants in the churches by the hair of their heads, harnessing laborers to their own ploughs, and goading them like oxen. Conversions became numerous in Poitou. Those who could fly left France, at the risk of being hanged if the attempt happened to fail. "Pray layout advantageously the money you are going to have, " wrote Madame deMaintenon to her brother, M. D'Aubigne. "Land in Poitou is to be had fornothing, and the desolation amongst the Protestants will cause more salesstill. You may easily settle in grand style in that province. " "We aretreated like enemies of the Christian denomination, " wrote, in 1662, aminister named Jurieu, already a refugee in Holland. "We are forbiddento go near the children that come into the world, we are banished fromthe bars and the faculties, we are forbidden the use of all the meanswhich might save us from hunger, we are abandoned to the hatred of themob, we are deprived of that precious liberty which we purchased with somany services, we are robbed of our children, who are a part ofourselves. . . . Are we Turks? Are we infidels? We believe in JesusChrist, we do; we believe Him to be the Eternal Son of God, the Redeemerof the world; the maxims of our morality are of so great purity that nonedare gainsay them; we respect the king; we are good subjects, goodcitizens; we are Frenchmen as much as we are Reformed Christians. " Jurieuhad a right to speak of the respect for the king which animated theFrench Reformers. There was no trace left of that political leaven whichformerly animated the old Huguenots, and made Duke Henry de Rohan say, "You are all republicans; I would rather have to do with a pack of wolvesthan an assembly of parsons. " "The king is hood winked, " the Protestantsdeclared; and all their efforts were to get at him and tell his Majestyof their sufferings. The army remained open to them, though without hopeof promotion; and the gentlemen showed alacrity in serving the king. "What a position is ours!" they would say; if we make any resistance, weare treated as rebels; if we are obedient, they pretend we are converted, and they hoodwink the king by means of our very submission. " [Illustration: The Torture of the Huguenots---552] The misfortunes were redoubling. From Poitou the persecution hadextended through all the provinces. Superintendent Foucauld obtained theconversion in mass of the province of Bearn. He egged on the soldiers totorture the inhabitants of the houses they were quartered in, commandingthem to keep awake all those who would not give in to other tortures. The dragoons relieved one another so as not to succumb themselves to thepunishment they were making others undergo. Beating of drums, blasphemies, shouts, the crash of furniture which they hurled from sideto side, commotion in which they kept these poor people in order to forcethem to be on their feet and hold their eyes open, were the means theyemployed to deprive them of rest. To pinch, prick, and haul them about, to lay them upon burning coals, and a hundred other cruelties, were thesport of these butchers. All they thought most about was how to findtortures which should be painful without being deadly, reducing theirhosts thereby to such a state that they knew not what they were doing, and promised anything that was wanted of them in order to escape fromthose barbarous bands. Languedoc, Guienne, Angoumois, Saintonge, all theprovinces in which the Reformers were numerous, underwent the same fate. The self-restraining character of the Norman people, their respect forlaw, were manifested even amidst persecution; the children were torn awayfrom Protestant families, and the chapels were demolished by act ofParliament; the soldiery were less violent than elsewhere, but themagistrates were more inveterate. "God has not judged us unworthy tosuffer ignominy for His name, " said the ministers condemned by theParliament for having performed the offices of their ministry. "The kinghas taken no cognizance of the case, " exclaimed one of the accused, Legendre, pastor of Rouen; "he has relied upon the judges; it is not hisMajesty who shall give account before God; you shall be responsible, andyou alone; you who, convinced as you are of our innocence, havenevertheless condemned us and branded us. " "The Parliament of Normandyhas just broken the ties which held us bound to our churches, " said Peterdu Bosq. The banished ministers took the road to Holland. The seaboardprovinces were beginning to be dispeopled. A momentary disturbance, which led to belief in a rising of the Reformers in the Cevennes and theVivarais, served as pretext for redoubled rigor. Dauphiny and Languedocwere given up to the soldiery; murder was no longer forbidden them, itwas merely punishing rebels; several pastors were sentenced to death;Homel, minister of Soyon in the Vivarais, seventy-five years of age, wasbroken alive on the wheel. Abjurations multiplied through terror. "There have been sixty thousand conversions in the jurisdiction ofBordeaux, and twenty thousand in that of Montauban, " wrote Louvois to hisfather in the first part of September, 1685; "the rapidity with whichthis goes on is such, that, before the end of the month, there will notremain ten thousand religionists in the district of Bordeaux, in whichthere were a hundred and fifty thousand on the 15th of last month. " "Thetowns of Nimes, Alais, Uzes, Villeneuve, and some others, are entirelyconverted, " writes the Duke of Noailles to Louvois in the month ofOctober, 1685; "those of most note in Nimes made abjuration in church theday after our arrival. There was then a lukewarmness; but matters wereput in good train again by means of some billets that I had put into thehouses of the most obstinate. I am making arrangements for going andscouring the Uvennes with the seven companies of Barbezieux, and my headshall answer for it that before the 25th of November not a Huguenot shallbe left there. " And a few days later, at Alais--"I no longer know what to do with thetroops, for the places in which I had meant to, post them get convertedall in a body, and this goes on so quickly that all the men can do is tosleep for a night at the localities to which I send them. It is certainthat you may add very nearly a third to the estimate given you of thepeople of the religion, amounting to the number of a hundred andeighty-two thousand men, and, when I asked you to give me until the, 25th of next month for their complete conversion, I took too long aterm, for I believe that by the end of the month all will be settled. Iwill not, however, omit to tell you that all we have done in theseconversions will be nothing but useless, if the king do not oblige thebishops to send good priests to instruct the people who want to hear thegospel preached. But I fear that the king will be worse obeyed in thatrespect by the priests than by the religionists. I do not tell you thiswithout grounds. " "There is not a courier who does not bring the kinggreat causes for joy, " writes Madame de Maintenon, "that is to say, conversions by thousands. I can quite believe that all theseconversions are not sincere, but God makes use of all ways of bringingback heretics. Their children, at any rate, will be Catholics; theiroutward reunion places them within reach of the truth; pray God toenlighten them all; there is nothing the king has more at heart. " In the month of August, 1684, she said, "The king has a design oflaboring for the entire conversion of the heretics. He often hasconferences about it with M. Le Tellier and M. De Chateauneuf, whereatI was given to understand that I should not be one too many. M. DeChateauneuf proposed measures which are not expedient. There must be noprecipitation; it must be conversion, not persecution. M. De Louvois wasfor gentleness, which is not in accordance with his nature and hiseagerness to see matters ended. The king is ready to do what is thoughtmost likely to conduce to the good of religion. Such an achievement willcover him with glory before God and before men. He will have broughtback all his subjects into the bosom of the church, and will havedestroyed the heresy which his predecessors could not vanquish. " The king's glory was about to be complete; the _gentleness_ of Louvoishad prevailed; he had found himself obliged to moderate the zeal of hissuperintendents; "nothing remained but to weed out the religionists ofthe small towns and villages;" by stretching a point the process had beencarried into the principality of Orange, which still belonged to thehouse of Nassau, on the pretext that the people of that district hadreceived in their chapels the king's subjects. The Count of Tesse, whohad charge of the expedition, wrote to Louvois, "Not only, on one and thesame day, did the whole town of Orange become converted, but the statetook the same resolution, and the members of the Parliament, who wereminded to distinguish themselves by a little more stubbornness, adoptedthe same course twenty-four hours afterwards. All this was done gently, without violence or disorder. There is only a parson named Chambrun, patriarch of the district, who persists in refusing to listen to reason;for the president, who did aspire to the honor of martyrdom, would, aswell as the rest of the Parliament, have turned Mohammedan, if I haddesired it. You would not believe how infatuated all these people were, and are still, about the Prince of Orange, his authority, Holland, England, and the Protestants of Germany. I should never end if I were torecount all the foolish and impertinent proposals they have made to me. "M. De Tesse did not tell Louvois that he was obliged to have the pastorsof Orange seized and carried off. They were kept twelve years in prisonat Pierre-Encise; none but M. De Chambrun, who had been taken to Valence, managed to escape and take refuge in Holland, bemoaning to the end of hisdays a moment's weakness. "I was quite exhausted by torture, and I letfall this unhappy expression: 'Very well, then, I will be reconciled. 'This sin has brought me down as it were into hell itself, and I havelooked upon myself as a dastardly soldier who turned his back on the dayof battle, and as an unfaithful servant who betrayed the interests of hismaster. " The king assembled his council. The lists of converts were so long thatthere could scarcely remain in the kingdom more than a few thousandrecalcitrants. "His Majesty proposed to take an ultimate resolution asregarded the Edict of Nantes, " writes the Duke of Burgundy in amemorandum found amongst his papers. "Monseigneur represented that, according to an anonymous letter he had received the day before, theHuguenots had some expectation of what was coming upon them, that therewas perhaps some reason to fear that they would take up arms, relyingupon the protection of the princes of their religion, and that, supposingthey dared not do so, a great number would leave the kingdom, which wouldbe injurious to commerce and agriculture, and, for that same reason, would weaken the state. The king replied that he had foreseen all forsome time past, and had provided for all; that nothing in the world wouldbe more painful to him than to shed a single drop of the blood of hissubjects, but that he had armies and good generals whom he would employin case of need against rebels who courted their own destruction. As forcalculations of interest, he thought them worthy of but littleconsideration in comparison with the advantages of a measure which wouldrestore to religion its splendor, to the state its tranquillity, and toauthority all its rights. A resolution was carried unanimously for thesuppression of the Edict of Nantes. " The declaration, drawn up byChancellor Le Tellier and Chateauneuf, was signed by the king on the 15thof October, 1685; it was despatched on the 17th to all thesuperintendents. The edict of pacification, that great work of theliberal and prudent genius of Henry IV. , respected and confirmed in itsmost important particulars by Cardinal Richelieu, recognized over andover again by Louis XIV. Himself, disappeared at a single stroke, carrying with it all hope of liberty, repose, and justice, for fifteenhundred thousand subjects of the king. "Our pains, " said the preamble ofthe edict, "have had the end we had proposed, seeing that the better andthe greater part of our subjects of the religion styled Reformed haveembraced the Catholic. The execution of the Edict of Nantes consequentlyremaining useless, we have considered that we could not do better, forthe purpose of effacing entirely the memory of the evils which this falsereligion has caused in our kingdom, than revoke entirely the aforesaidEdict of Nantes, and all that has been done in favor of the saidreligion. " [Illustration: Revocation of the Edict of Nantes----556] The edict of October 15, 1685, supposed the religion styled Reformed tobe already destroyed and abolished. It ordered the demolition of all thechapels that remained standing, and interdicted any assembly or worship;recalcitrant (_opiniatres_) ministers were ordered to leave the kingdomwithin fifteen days; the schools were closed; all new-born babies were tobe baptized by the parish priests; religionists were forbidden to leavethe kingdom on pain of the galleys for the men and confiscation of personand property for the women. "The will of the king, " said superintendentMarillac at Rouen, "is, that there be no more than one religion in thiskingdom; it is for the glory of God and the well-being of the state. "Two hours were allowed the Reformers of Rouen for making theirabjuration. One clause, at the end of the edict of October 15, seemed to extenuateits effect. "Those of our subjects of the religion styled Reformed whoshall persist in their errors, pending the time when it may please God toenlighten them like the rest, shall be allowed to remain in the kingdom, country, and lands, which obey the king, there to continue their tradeand enjoy their property without being liable to be vexed or hindered onpretext of prayer or worship of the said religion of whatsoever naturethey may be. " "Never was there illusion more cruel than that which thisclause caused people, " says Benoit, in his _Histoire de l'Edit deNantes_. " It was believed that the king meant only to forbid specialexercises, but that he intended to leave conscience free, since hegranted this grace to all those who were still Reformers, pending thetime when it should please God to enlighten them. Many gave up themeasures they had taken for leaving the country with their families, manyvoluntarily returned from the retreats where they had hitherto beenfortunate enough to lie hid. The most mistrustful dared not suppose thatso solemn a promise was only made to be broken on the morrow. They wereall, nevertheless, mistaken; and those who were imprudent enough toreturn to their homes were only just in time to receive the dragoonsthere. " A letter from Louvois to the Duke of Noailles put a stop to allillusion. "I have no doubt, " he wrote, "that some rather heavy billetsupon the few amongst the nobility and third estate still remaining of thereligionists will undeceive them as to the mistake they are under aboutthe edict M. De Chateauneuf drew up for us. His Majesty desires that youshould explain yourself very sternly, and that extreme severity should beemployed against those who are not willing to become of his religion;those who have the silly vanity to glory in holding out to the last mustbe driven to extremity. " The pride of Louis XIV. Was engaged in thestruggle; those of his subjects who refused to sacrifice their religionto him were disobedient, rebellious, and besotted with silly vanity. "It will be quite ridiculous before long to be of that religion, " wroteMadame de Maintenon. Even in his court and amongst his most useful servants the kingencountered unexpected opposition. Marshal Schomberg with greatdifficulty obtained authority to leave the kingdom; Duquesne was refused. The illustrious old man, whom the Algerian corsairs called "the oldFrench capitan, whose bride is the sea, and whom the angel of death hasforgotten, " received permission to reside in France without beingtroubled about his religion. "For sixty years I have rendered to Caesarthat which was Caesar's, " said the sailor proudly; "it is time to renderunto God that which is God's. " And, when the king regretted that hisreligion prevented him from properly recognizing his glorious career, "Sir, " said Duquesne, "I am a Protestant, but I always thought that myservices were Catholic. " Duquesne's children went abroad. When he died, 1688, his body was refused to them. His sons raised a monument to him atAubonne, in the canton of Berne, with this inscription: "This tomb awaitsthe remains of Duquesne. Passer, should you ask why the Hollanders haveraised a superb monument to Ruyter vanquished, and why the French haverefused a tomb to Ruyter's vanquisher, the fear and respect inspired by amonarch whose power extends afar do not allow me to answer. " Of the rest, only the Marquis of Ruvigny and the Princess of Tarento, daughter-in-law of the Duke of La Tremoille and issue of the house ofHesse, obtained authority to leave France. All ports were closed, allfrontiers watched. The great lords gave way, one after another. Accustomed to enjoy royal favors, attaching to them excessive value, living at court, close to Paris, which was spared a great deal during thepersecution, they, without much effort, renounced a faith which closed tothem henceforth the door to all offices and all honors. The gentlemen ofthe provinces were more resolute; many realized as much as they could oftheir property, and went abroad, braving all dangers, even that of thegalleys in case of arrest. The Duke of La Force had abjured, thenrepented of his abjuration, only to relapse again. One of his cousins, seventy-five years of age, was taken to the galleys. He had for hiscompanion Louis de Marolles, late king's councillor. "I live just nowall alone, " wrote the latter to his wife. "My meals are brought fromoutside; if you saw me in my beautiful convict-dress, you would becharmed. The iron I wear on my leg, though it weighs only three pounds, inconvenienced me at first far more than that which you saw me in at LaTournelle. " Files of Protestant galley-convicts were halted in thetowns, in the hope of inspiring the obstinate with a salutary terror. The error which had been fallen into, however, was perceived at court. The stand made by Protestants astounded the superintendents as well asLouvois himself. Everywhere men said, as they said at Dieppe, "We willnot change our religion for anybody; the king has power over our personsand our property, but he has no power over our consciences. " There wasfleeing in all directions. The governors grew weary of watching thecoasts and the frontiers. "The way to make only a few go, " said Louvois, "is to leave them liberty to do so without letting them know it. " Anyway was good enough to escape from such oppression. "Two days ago, "wrote M. De Tesse, who commanded at Grenoble, "a woman, to get safe away, hit upon an invention which deserves to be known. She made a bargainwith a Savoyard, an ironmonger, and had herself packed up in a load ofiron rods, the ends of which showed. It was carried to the custom-house, and the tradesman paid on the weight of the iron, which was weighedtogether with the woman, who was not unpacked until she was six leaguesfrom the frontier. " "For a long time, " says M. Floquet, "there was talkin Normandy of the Count of Marance, who, in the middle of a severewinter, flying with thirty-nine others on board a fishing-smack, encountered a tempest, and remained a long time at sea withoutprovisions, dying of hunger, he, the countess, and all the passengers, amongst whom were pregnant women, mothers with infants at the breast, without resources of any sort, reduced for lack of everything to a littlemelted snow, with which they moistened the parched lips of the dyingbabes. " It were impossible to estimate precisely the number ofemigrations; it was probably between three and four hundred thousand. "To speak only of our own province, " writes M. Floquet in his _Histoiredu Parlement de Normandie, _ "about one hundred and eighty-four thousandreligionists went away; more than twenty-six thousand habitations weredeserted; in Rouen there were counted no more than sixty thousand meninstead of the eighty thousand that were to be seen there a few yearsbefore. Almost all trade was stopped there as well as in the rest ofNormandy. The little amount of manufacture that was possible rotted awayon the spot for want of transport to foreign countries, whence vesselswere no longer found to come. Rouen, Darnetal, Elbeuf, Louviers, Caudebec, Le Havre, Pont-Audemer, Caen, St. Lo, Alencon, and Bayeux werefalling into decay, the different branches of trade and industry whichhad but lately been seen flourishing there having perished through theemigration of the masters whom their skilled workmen followed in shoals. "The Norman emigration had been very numerous, thanks to the extent of itscoasts and to the habitual communication between Normandy, England, andHolland; Vauban, however, remained very far from the truth when hedeplored, in 1688, "the desertion of one hundred thousand men, thewithdrawal from the kingdom of sixty millions of livres, the enemy'sfleets swelled by nine thousand sailors, the best in the kingdom, and theenemy's armies by six hundred officers and twelve thousand soldiers, whohad seen service. " It is a natural but a striking fact that theReformers who left France and were received with open arms inBrandenburg, Holland, England, and Switzerland carried in their hearts aprofound hatred for the king who drove them away from their country, andeverywhere took service against him, whilst the Protestants who remainedin France, bound to the soil by a thousand indissoluble ties, continuedat the same time to be submissive and faithful. "It is right, " saidChanlay, in a Memoire addressed to the king, "whilst we condemn theconduct of the new converts, fugitives, who have borne arms againstFrance since the commencement of this war up to the present, it is right, say I, to give those who have staid in France the praise and credit theydeserve. Indeed, if we except a few disturbances of little consequencewhich have taken place in Languedoc, we have, besides the fact of theirremaining faithful to the king in the provinces, and especially inDauphiny, even whilst the confederated armies of the emperor, of Spain, and of the Duke of Savoy were in the heart of that province in greaterstrength than the forces of the king, to note that those who were fit tobear arms have enlisted amongst the troops of his Majesty and done goodservice. " In 1745, after sixty years' persecution, consequent upon therevocation of the Edict of Nantes, Matthew Desubas, a young pastoraccused before the superintendent of Languedoc, Lenain, said withhigh-spirited modesty, "The ministers preach nothing but patience andfidelity to the king. " I am aware of it, sir, " answered thesuperintendent. The pastors were hanged or burned, the faithful flockdragged to the galleys and the Tower of Constance. Prayers for theking, nevertheless, were sent up from the proscribed assemblies in thedesert, whilst the pulpit of Saurin at the Hague resounded with hisanathemas against Louis XIV. , and the regiments of emigrant Huguenotswere marching against the king's troops under the flags of England orHolland. The peace of Ryswick had not brought the Protestants the hoped-foralleviation of their woes. Louis XIV. Haughtily rejected the petition ofthe English and Dutch plenipotentiaries on behalf of "those in afflictionwho ought to have their share in the happiness of Europe. " Thepersecution everywhere continued, --with determination and legality in thenorth, with violence and passion in the south, abandoned to the tyrannyof M. De Lamoignon de Baville, a crafty and cold-bloodedly cruelpolitician, without the excuse of any zealous religious conviction. Theexecution of several ministers who had remained in hiding in theCevennes, or had returned from exile to instruct and comfort theirflocks, raised to the highest pitch the enthusiasm of the Reformers ofLanguedoc. Deprived of their highly-prized assemblies and of theirpastors' guidance, men and women, graybeards and children, all at oncefancied themselves animated by the spirit of prophecy. Young girls hadcelestial visions; the little peasant lasses poured out their utterancesin French, sometimes in the language and with the sublime eloquence ofthe Bible, sole source of their religious knowledge. The rumor of thesemarvels ran from village to village; meetings were held to hear theinspired maidens, in contempt of edicts, the galleys, and the stake. Agentleman glass-worker, named Abraham de la Serre, was, as it were, theSamuel of this new school of prophets. In vain did M. De Baville havethree hundred children imprisoned at Uzes, and then send them to thegalleys; the religious contagion was too strong for the punishments. "Women found themselves in a single day husbandless, childless, houseless, and penniless, " says Court; they remained immovable in theirpious ecstasy; the assemblies multiplied; the troops which had so longoccupied Languedoc had been summoned away by the war of succession inSpain; the militia could no longer restrain the Reformers growing everyday more enthusiastic through the prophetic hopes which were born oftheir long sufferings. The arch-priest of the Cevennes, Abbe du Chayla, a tyrannical and cruel man, had undertaken a mission at the head of theCapuchins. His house was crammed with condemned Protestants; the breathof revolt passed over the mountains on the night of July 27, 1702, thecastle of the arch-priest was surrounded by Huguenots in arms, whodemanded the surrender of the prisoners. Du Chayla refused. The gateswere forced, the condemned released, the priests who happened to be inthe house killed or dispersed. The archpriest had let himself down by awindow; he broke his thigh; he was found hiding in a bush; the castle wasin flames. "No mercy, no mercy!" shouted the madmen; "the Spirit willeththat he die. " Every one of the Huguenots stabbed the poor wretch withtheir poniards: "That's for my father, broken on the wheel; that's for mybrother, sent to the galleys; that's for my mother, who died of grief;that's for my relations in exile!" He received fifty-two wounds. Nextday the Cevennes were everywhere in revolt. A prophet named Seguier wasat the head of the insurrection. He was soon made prisoner. "How dostthou expect me to treat thee?" asked his judge. "As I would have treatedthee, had I caught thee, " answered the prophet. He was burned alive inthe public square of Pont-de-Montvert, a mountain burgh. "Where do youlive?" he had been asked at his examination. "In the desert, " hereplied, "and soon in heaven. " He exhorted the people from the midst ofthe flames. The insurrection went on spreading. "Say not, What can wedo? we are so few; we have no arms!" said another prophet, named Laporte. "The Lord of hosts is our strength! We will intone the battle-psalms, and, from the Lozere to the sea, Israel shall arise! And, as for arms, have we not our axes? They will beget muskets!" The plain rose like themountain. Baron St. Comes, an early convert, and colonel of the militia, was assassinated near Vauvert; murders multiplied; the priests wereespecially the object of the revolters' vengeance. They assembled underthe name of _Children of God, _ and marched under the command of twochiefs, one, named Roland, who formerly served under Catinat, and theother, a young man, whiles a baker and whiles a shepherd, who was born inthe neighborhood of Anduze, and whose name has remained famous. John Cavalier was barely eighteen when M. De Baville launched hisbrother-in-law, the Count of Broglie, with a few troops upon therevolted Cevenols. The Catholic peasants called them Camisards, theorigin of which name has never been clearly ascertained. M. De Brogliewas beaten; the insurrection, which was entirely confined to thepopulace, disappeared all at once in the woods and rocks of the country, to burst once more unexpectedly upon the troops of the king. The greatname of Lamoignon shielded Baville; Chamillard had for a long whileconcealed from Louis XIV. The rising in the Cevennes. He never did knowall its gravity. "It is useless, " said Madame de Maintenon, "for theking to trouble himself with all the circumstances of this war; it wouldnot cure the mischief, and would do him much. " "Take care, " wroteChamillard to Baville, on superseding the Count of Broglie by MarshalMontrevel, "not to give this business the appearance of a serious war. "The rumor of the insurrection in Languedoc, however, began to spread inEurope. Conflagrations, murders, executions in cold blood or in theheat of passion, crimes on the part of the insurgents, as well ascruelties on the part of judges and generals, succeeded one anotheruninterruptedly, without the military authorities being able to crush arevolt that it was impossible to put down by terror or punishments. "Itake it for a fact, " said a letter to Chamillard from M. De Julien, anable captain of irregulars, lately sent into Languedoc to aid the Countof Broglie, "that there are not in this district forty who are realconverts, and are not entirely on the side of the Camisards. I includein that number females as well as males, and the mothers and daughterswould give the more striking proofs of their fury if they had thestrength of the men. . . . I will say but one word more, which is, that the children who were in their cradles at the time of the generalconversions, as well as those who were four or five years old, are nowmore Huguenot than the fathers; nobody, however, has set eyes upon anyminister; how, then, comes it that they are so Huguenot? Because thefathers and mothers brought them up in those sentiments all the timethey were going to mass. You may rely upon it that this will continuefor many generations. " M. De Julien came to the conclusion that theproper way was to put to the sword all the Protestants of the countrydistricts and burn all the villages. M. De Baville protested. "It isnot a question of exterminating these people, " he said, "but of reducingthem, of forcing them to fidelity; the king must have industrious peopleand flourishing districts preserved to him. " The opinion of the generalsprevailed; the Cevenols were proclaimed outlaws, and the pope decreed acrusade against them. The military and religious enthusiasm of theCamisards went on increasing. Cavalier, young and enterprising, dividedhis time between the boldest attempts at surprise and mysticalecstasies, during which he singled out traitors who would haveassassinated him or sinners who were not worthy to take part in theLord's Supper. The king's troops ravaged the country; the Camisards, byway of reprisal, burned the Catholic villages; everywhere the war wasbecoming horrible. The peaceable inhabitants, Catholic or Protestant, were incessantly changing from wrath to terror. Cavalier, naturallysensible and humane, sometimes sank into despondency. He would flinghimself on his knees, crying, Lord, turn aside the king from followingthe counsels of the wicked!" and then he would set off again upon a newexpedition. The struggle had been going on for two years, and Languedocwas a scene of fire and bloodshed. Marshal Montrevel had gained greatadvantages when the king ordered Villars to put an end to the revolt. "I made up my mind, " writes Villars, in his Memoires, "to tryeverything, to employ all sorts of ways except that of ruining one ofthe finest provinces in the kingdom, and that, if I could bring back theoffenders without punishing them, I should preserve the best soldiersthere are in the kingdom. They are, said I to myself, Frenchmen, verybrave and very strong, three qualities to be considered. " "I shallalways, " he adds, "have two ears for two sides. " "We have to do here with a very extraordinary people, " wrote the marshalto Chamillard, soon after his arrival; "it is a people unlike anything Iever knew--all alive, turbulent, hasty, susceptible of light as well asdeep impressions, tenacious in its opinions. Add thereto zeal forreligion, which is as ardent amongst heretics as Catholics, and you willno longer be surprised that we should be often very much embarrassed. There are three sorts of Camisards: the first, with whom we might arrangematters by reason of their being weary of the miseries of war. Thesecond, stark mad on the subject of religion, absolutely intractable onthat point; the first little boy or little girl that falls a-tremblingand declares that the Holy Spirit is speaking to it, all the peoplebelieve it, and, if God with all his angels were to come and speak tothem, they would not believe them more; people, moreover, on whom thepenalty of death makes not the least impression; in battle they thankthose who inflict it upon them; they walk to execution singing thepraises of God and exhorting those present, insomuch that it has oftenbeen necessary to surround the criminals with drums to prevent thepernicious effect of their speeches. Finally, the third: people withoutreligion, accustomed to pillage, to murder, to quarter themselves uponthe peasants; a rascalry furious, fanatical, and swarming withprophetesses. " Villars had arrived in Languedoc the day after the checks encountered bythe Camisards. The despondency and suffering were extreme; and themarshal had Cavalier sounded. "What do you want to lay down your arms?" said the envoy. "Threethings, " replied the Cevenol chief: "liberty of conscience, the releaseof our brethren detained in the prisons and the galleys, and if thesedemands are refused, permission to quit France with ten thousandpersons. " The negotiators were intrusted with the most flattering offersfor Cavalier. Sensible, and yet vain, moved by his country's woes, andflattered by the idea of commanding a king's regiment, the young Camisardallowed himself to be won. He repaired formally to Nimes for aninterview with the marshal. "He is a peasant of the lowest grade, " wroteVillars to Chamillard, "who is not twenty-two, and does not lookeighteen; short, and with no imposing air, qualities essential for thelower orders, but surprising good sense and firmness. I asked himyesterday how he managed to keep his fellows under. 'Is it possible, 'said I, 'that, at your age, and not being long used to command, you foundno difficulty in often ordering to death your own men?' 'No, sir, ' saidhe, 'when it seemed to me just. ' 'But whom did you employ to inflictit?' 'The first whom I ordered, and nobody ever hesitated to follow myorders. ' I fancy, sir, that you will consider this rather surprising. Furthermore, he shows great method in the matter of his supplies, and hedisposes his troops for an engagement as well as very experiencedofficers could do. It is a piece of luck if I get such a man away fromthem. " Cavalier's fellows began to escape from his sway. They had hoped, for awhile, that they would get back that liberty for which they had shedtheir blood. "They are permitted to have public prayer and chant theirpsalms. No sooner was that known all round, " writes Villars, "thanbehold my madmen rushing up from burghs and castles in the neighborhood, not to surrender, but to chant with the rest. The gates were closed;they leap the walls and force the guards. It is published abroad that Ihave indefinitely granted free exercise of the religion. " The bishopslet the marshal be. "Stuff we our ears, " said the Bishop of Narbonne, "and make we an end. "The Camisards refused to listen to Cavalier. "Thou'rt mad, " said Roland; "thou bast betrayed thy brethren; thoushouldst die of shame. Go tell the marshal that I am resolved to remainsword in hand until the entire and complete restoration of the Edict ofNantes!" The Cevenols thought themselves certain of aid from England;only a handful followed Cavalier, who remained faithful to hisengagements. He was ordered with his troop to Elsass; he slipped awayfrom his watchers and threw himself into Switzerland. At the head of aregiment of refugees he served successively the Duke of Savoy, theStates-General, and England; he died at Chelsea in 1740, the only oneamongst the Camisards to leave a name in the world. [Illustration: Death of Roland the Camisard----569] The insurrection still went on in Languedoc under the orders of Roland, who was more fanatical and more disinterested than Cavalier; he wasbetrayed and surrounded in the castle of Castelnau on the 16th of August, 1704. Roland just had time to leap out of bed and mount his horse; hewas taking to flight with his men by a back door when a detachment ofdragoons came up with him; the Camisard chief put his back against an oldolive and sold his life dearly. When he fell, his lieutenants letthemselves be taken "like lambs" beside his corpse. "They were destinedto serve as examples, " writes Villars, "but the manner in which they metdeath was more calculated to confirm their religious spirit in thesewrong heads than to destroy it. Lieutenant Maille was a fine young manof wits above the common. He heard his sentence with a smile, passedthrough the town of Nimes with the same air, begging the priest not toplague him; the blows dealt him did not alter this air in the least, anddid not elicit a single exclamation. His arms broken, he still hadstrength to make signs to the priest to be off, and, as long as he couldspeak, he encouraged the others. That made me think that the quickestdeath is always best with these fellows, and that their sentence shouldabove all things bear reference to their obstinacy in revolt rather thanin religion. " Villars did not carry executions to excess, even in thecase of the most stubborn; little by little the chiefs were killed off inpetty engagements or died in obscurity of their wounds; provisions werebecoming scarce; the country was wasted; submission became more frequentevery day. The principals all demanded leave to quit France. "There areleft none but a few brigands in the Upper Cevennes, " says Villars. Somepartial risings, alone recalled, up to 1709, the fact that the old leavenstill existed; the war of the Camisards was over. It was the soleattempt in history on the part of French Protestantism since Richelieu, a strange and dangerous effort made by an ignorant and savage people;roused to enthusiasm by persecution, believing itself called upon by thespirit of God to win, sword in hand, the freedom of its creed under theleadership of two shepherd soldiers and prophets. Only the ScottishCameronians have presented the same mixture of warlike ardor and piousenthusiasm, more gloomy and fierce with the men of the North, morepoetical and prophetical with the Cevenols, flowing in Scotland as inLanguedoc from religious oppression and from constant reading of the HolyScriptures. The silence of death succeeded everywhere in France to theplaints of the Reformers and to the crash of arms; Louis XIV. Might wellsuppose that Protestantism in his dominions was dead. It was a little before the time when the last of the Camisards, AbrahamMazel and Claris, perished near Uzes (in 1710), that the king struck thelast blow at Jansenism by destroying its earliest nest and its lastrefuge, the house of the nuns of Port-Royal des Champs. With truces andintervals of apparent repose, the struggle had lasted more than sixtyyears between the Jesuits and Jansenism. M. De St. Cyran, who left theBastille a few months after the death of Richelieu, had dedicated thelast days of his life to writing against Protestantism, being so much themore scared by the heresy in that, perhaps, he felt himself attractedthereto by a secret affinity. He was already dying when there appearedthe book Frequente Communion, by M. Arnauld, youngest son and twentiethchild of that illustrious family of Arnaulds in whom Jansenism seemed tobe personified. The author was immediately accused at Rome, and buriedhimself for twenty years in retirement. M. De St. Cyran was stillworking, dictating Christian thoughts and points touching death. _Stantem mori oportet_ (One should die in harness), he would say. On the3d of October, 1643, he succumbed suddenly, in the arms of his friends. "I cast my eyes upon the body, which was still in the same posture inwhich death had left it, " writes Lancelot, "and I thought it so full ofmajesty and of mien so dignified that I could not tire of admiring it, and I fancied that he would still have been capable, in the state inwhich he was, of striking with awe the most passionate of his foes, hadthey seen him. " It was the most cruel blow that could have fallen uponthe pious nuns of Port-Royal. "_Dominus in coelo!_ (Lord in heaven!)"was all that was said by Mother Angelica Arnauld, who, like M. De St. Cyran himself, centred all her thoughts and all her affections uponeternity. With his dying breath M. De St. Cyran had said to M. Gudrin, physician tothe college of Jesuits, "Sir, tell your Fathers, when I am dead, not totriumph, and that I leave behind me a dozen stronger than I. " With allhis penetration the director of consciences was mistaken; none of thosehe left behind him would have done his work; he had inspired with thesame ardor and the same constancy the strong and the weak, the violentand the pacific; he had breathed his mighty faith into the most diversesouls, fired with the same zeal penitents and nuns, men rescued from thescorching furnace of life in the world, and women brought up from infancyin the shade of the cloister. M. Arnauld was a great theologian, anindefatigable controversialist, the oracle and guide of his friends intheir struggle against the Jesuits; M. De Sacy and M. Singlin were wiseand able directors, as austere as M. De St. Cyran in their requirements, less domineering and less rough than he; but M. De St. Cyran alone wasand could be the head of Jansenism; he alone could have inspired thatidea of immolation of the whole being to the sovereign will of God, as tothe truth which resides in Him alone. Once assured of this point, M. DeSt. Cyran became immovable. Mother Angelica pressed him to appear beforethe archbishop's council, which was to pronounce upon his book _Theologiefamiliere_. "It is always good to humble one's self, " she said. "As foryou, " he replied, "who are in that disposition, and would not in anyrespect compromise the honor of the truth, you could do it; but as forme, I should break down before the eyes of God if I consented thereto;the weak are more to be feared sometimes than the wicked. " Mother Angelica Arnauld, to whom these lines were addressed, was the mostperfect image and the most accomplished disciple of M. De St. Cyran. More gentle and more human than he, she was quite as strong and quite aszealous. "It is necessary to be dead to everything, and after that toawait everything; such was the motto of her inward life and of theconstant effort made by this impassioned soul, susceptible of all tenderaffections, to detach herself violently and irrevocably from earth. Theinstinct of command, loftiness and breadth of views, find their placewith the holy priest and with the nun; the mind of M. De St. Cyran wasless practical and his judgment less simple than that of the abbess, habituated as she had been from childhood to govern the lives of her nunsas their conscience. A reformer of more than one convent since the daywhen she had closed the gates of Port-Royal against her father, M. Arnauld, in order to restore the strictness of the cloister, MotherAngelica carried rule along with her, for she carried within herself thegovernment, rigid, no doubt, for it was life in a convent, butcharacterized by generous largeness of heart, which caused the yoke to beeasily borne. "To be perfect, there is no need to do singular things, " she would oftenrepeat, after St. Francis de Sales; "what is needed is to do commonthings singularly well!" She carried the same zeal from convent toconvent, from Port-Royal des Champs to Port-Royal de Paris; fromMaubuisson, whither her superiors sent her to establish a reformation, toSt. Sacrement, to establish union between the two orders; ever devoted toreligion, without having chosen her vocation; attracting around her allthat were hers; her mother, a wife at twelve years of age, and astonishedto find herself obeying after having commanded her twenty children forfifty years; five of her sisters; nieces and cousins; and in "theDesert, " beside Port-Royal des Champs, her brothers, her nephews, herfriends, steeped like herself in penitence. Before her, St. Bernard had"dispeopled the world " of those whom he loved, by an error common tozealous souls and exclusive spirits, solely occupied with thoughts ofsalvation. Even in solitude Mother Angelica had not found rest. "I amnot fit to live on earth, " she would say; "I know not why I am stillthere; I can no longer bear either myself or others; there is none thatseeketh after God. " She was piously unjust towards her age, and stillmore towards her friends; it was the honorable distinction of M. De St. Cyran and his disciples that they did seek after God and holiness, atevery cost and every risk. Mother Angelica was nearing the repose of eternity, the only reposeadmitted by her brother M. Arnauld, when the storm of persecution burstupon the monastery. The Augustinus of Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres, afriend of M. De St. Cyran's, had just been condemned at Rome. Fivepropositions concerning grace were pronounced heretical. "The pope has aright to condemn them, " said the Jansenists, "if they are to be found inthe Augustinus, but, in fact, they are not to be found there. " Thedispute waxed hot; M. Arnauld threw himself into it passionately. He, inhis turn, was condemned by the Sorbonne. "This is the very day, " hewrote to his sister, Mother Angelica, "when I am to be wiped out from thenumber of the doctors; I hope of God's goodness that He will not on thataccount wipe me out from the number of His servants. That is the onlytitle I desire to preserve. " M. Arnauld's friends pressed him to protestagainst his condemnation. "Would you let yourself be crushed like achild?" they said. He wrote in the theologian's vein, lengthily andbitterly; his friends listened in silence. Arnauld understood them. "I see quite well that you do not consider this document a good one forits purpose, " said he, "and I think you are right; but you who areyoung, " and he turned towards Pascal, who had a short time since retiredto Port-Royal, "you ought to do something. " This was the origin of the_Lettres Provinciales_. For the first time Pascal wrote, something otherthan a treatise on physics. He revealed himself all at once andentirely. The recluses of Port-Royal were obliged to close theirschools; they had to disperse. Arnauld concealed himself with his friendNicole. "I am having search made everywhere for M. Arnauld, " said LouisXIV. To Boileau, who was supposed to be much attached to the Jansenists. "Your Majesty always was lucky, " replied Boileau; "you will not findhim. " The nuns' turn had come; orders were given to send away the pensioners(pupils); Mother Angelica set out for the house at Paris, "where was thebattle-ground. " [_Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire de Port-Royal, _t. Ii. P. 127. ] As she was leaving the house in the fields, which was sodear to her, she met in the court-yard M. D'Andilly, her brother, who waswaiting to say good by to her. When he came up to her, she said to him, "Good by, my dear brother; be of good courage, whatever happens. " "Fearnothing, my dear sister; I am perfectly so. " But she replied, "Brother, brother, let us be humble. Let us remember that humility withoutfortitude is cowardice, but that fortitude without humility ispresumption. " "When she arrived at the convent in Paris, she found usfor the most part very sad, " writes her niece, Mother Angelica de St. Jean, "and some were in tears. She, looking at us with an open andconfident countenance, said, 'Why, I believe there is weeping here!Come, my children, what is all this? Have you no faith? And at what areyou dismayed? What if men do rage? Eh? Are you afraid of that? Theyare but flies! You hope in God, and yet fear anything! Fear but Him, and, trust me, all will be well;' and to Madame de Chevreuse, who came tofetch her daughters, 'Madame, when there is no God I shall lose courage;but, so long as God is God, I shall hope in Him. '" She succumbed, however, beneath the burden; and the terror she had always felt of deathaggravated her sufferings. "Believe me, my children, " she would say tothe nuns, "believe what I tell you. People do not know what death is, and do not think about it. As for me, I have apprehended it all my life, and have always been thinking about it. But all I have imagined is lessthan nothing in comparison with what it is, with what I feel, and withwhat I comprehend at this moment. It would need but such thoughts todetach us from everything. " M. Singlin, being obliged to concealhimself, came secretly to see her; she would not have her nephew, M. DeSacy, run the same risk. "I shall never see him more, " she said; "it isGod's will; I do not vex myself about it. My nephew without God could beof no use to me, and God without my nephew will be all in all to me. "The grand-vicar of the Archbishop of Paris went to Port-Royal to makesure that the pensioners had gone. He sat down beside Mother Angelica'sbed. "So you are ill, mother, " said he; "pray, what is your complaint?""I am dropsical, sir, " she replied. "Jesus! my dear mother, you say thatas if it were nothing at all. --Does not such a complaint dismay you?" "No, sir, " she replied; "I am incomparably more dismayed at what I seehappening in our house. For, indeed, I came hither to die here, but Idid not come to see all that I now see, and I had no reason to expect thekind of treatment we are having. Sir, sir, this is man's day; God's daywill come, who will reveal many things and avenge everything. " She diedon the 6th of August, 1661, murmuring over and over again, "Good by; goodby!" And, when she was asked why she said that, she replied simply, "Because I am going away, my children. " She had given instructions tobury her in the preau (court-yard), and not to have any nonsense(_badineries_) after her death. "I am your Jonas, " she said to the nuns;"when I am thrown into the whale's belly the tempest will cease. " Shewas mistaken; the tempest was scarcely beginning. Cardinal de Retz was still titular Archbishop of Paris, and ratherfavorable to Jansenism. It was, therefore, the grandvicars who preparedthe exhortation to the faithful, calling upon them to accept the papaldecision touching Jansen's book. There was drawn up a formula orformulary of adhesion, "turned with some skill, " says Madame Perier herbiography of Jacqueline Pascal, and in such a way that subscription didnot bind the conscience, as theologians most scrupulous about the truthaffirmed; the nuns of Port-Royal, however, refused to subscribe. "Whathinders us, " said a letter to Mother Angelica de St. Jean from JacquelinePascal, Sister St. Euphemia in religion, "what hinders all theecclesiastics who recognize the truth, to reply, when the formulary ispresented to them to subscribe, 'I know the respect I owe the bishops, but my conscience does not permit me to subscribe that a thing is in abook in which I have not seen it, ' and after that wait for what willhappen? What have we to fear? Banishment and dispersion for the nuns, seizure of temporalities, imprisonment and death, if you will; but is notthat our glory, and should it not be our joy? Let us renounce the gospelor follow the maxims of the gospel, and deem ourselves happy to suffersomewhat for righteousness' sake. I know that it is not for daughters todefend the truth, though one might say, unfortunately, that since thebishops have the courage of daughters, the daughters must have thecourage of bishops; but, if it is not for us to defend the truth, it isfor us to die for the truth, and suffer everything rather than abandonit. " Jacqueline subscribed, divided between her instinctive repugnance and herdesire to show herself a "humble daughter of the Catholic church. " "Itis all we can concede, " she said; "for the rest, come what may, poverty, dispersion, imprisonment, death, all this seems to me nothing incomparison with the anguish in which I should pass the remainder of mylife if I had been wretch enough to make a covenant with death on soexcellent an occasion of paying to God the vows of fidelity which ourlips have pronounced. " "Her health was so shaken by the shock which allthis business caused her, " writes Madame Prier, "that she felldangerously ill, and died soon after. " "Think not, I beg of you, myfather, " she wrote to M. Arnauld, "firm as I may appear, that nature doesnot greatly apprehend all the consequences of this; but I hope that gracewill sustain me, and it seems to me as if I feel it. " "The king does allhe wills, " Madame de Guemenee had said to M. Le Tellier, whom she wastrying to soften towards Port-Royal; "he makes princes of the blood, hemakes archbishops and bishops, and he will make martyrs likewise. "Jacqueline Pascal was "the first victim" of the formulary. She was not the only one. "It will not stop there, " said the king, towhom it was announced that the daughters of Port-Royal consented to signthe formulary on condition only of giving an explanation of theirconduct. Cardinal de Retz had at last sent in his resignation. M. DuMarca, archbishop designate in succession to him, died three days afterreceiving the bulls from Rome; Hardouin de Porefix had just beennominated in his place. He repaired to Port-Royal. The days of gracewere over, the nuns remained indomitable. "What is the use of all your prayers?" said he to Sister ChristineBrisquet; "what ground for God to listen to you? You go to Him and say, 'My God, give me Thy spirit and Thy grace; but, my God, I do not mean tosubscribe; I will take good care not to do that for all that may besaid. ' After that, what ground for God to hearken to you?" He forbadethe nuns the sacraments. "They are pure as angels and proud as demons, "repeated the archbishop angrily, as he left the convent. On the 25th ofAugust he returned to Port-Royal, accompanied by a numerous escort ofecclesiastics and exons. "When I say a thing, so it must be, " he said ashe entered; "I will not eat my words. " He picked out twelve nuns, whowere immediately taken away and dispersed in different monasteries. M. D'Andilly was at the gate, receiving in his carriage his sister, MotherAgnes, aged and infirm, and his three daughters doomed to exile. "I hadborne up all day without weeping and without inclination thereto, " writesMother Angelica de St. Jean on arrival at the _Annonciades bleues;_ "butwhen night came, and, after finishing all my prayers, I thought to lay medown and take some rest, I felt myself all in a moment bruised andlacerated in every part by the separations I had just gone through; Ithen found sensibly that, to escape weakness in the hour of deepaffliction, there must be no dropping of the eyes that have been liftedto the mountains. " Ten months later the exiled nuns returned, withouthaving subscribed, to Port-Royal des Champs, a little before the momentwhen M. De Saci, who had become their secret director since the death ofM. Singlin, was arrested, together with his secretary, Fontaine, at sixin the morning, in front of the Bastille. "As he had for two years pastbeen expecting imprisonment, he had got the epistles of St. Paul bound uptogether so as to always carry them about with him. 'Let them do with mewhat they please, ' he was wont to say; 'wherever they put me, providedthat I have my St. Paul with me, I fear nothing. '" On the 13th of May, 1666, the day of his arrest, M. De Saci had for once happened to forgethis book. He was put into the Bastille, after an examination "whichrevealed a man of much wit and worth, " said the king himself. Fontaineremained separated from him for three months. "Liberty, for me, is to bewith M. De Saci, " said the faithful secretary; "open the door of his roomand that of the Bastille, and you will see to which of the two I shallrun. Without him everything will be prison to me; I shall be freewherever I see him. " At last he had the joy of recovering hiswell-beloved master, strictly watched and still deprived of thesacraments. Like Luther at Wartburg, he was finishing the revisal of histranslation of the Bible, when his cousins, MM. De Pomponne and Arnauld, entered his room on the 31st of October, 1668. They chatted a whilewithout any appearance of impatience on the part of M. De Saci. "You arefree, " said his friends at last, who had wanted to prove him; "and theyshowed him the king's order, which he read, " says Abbe Arnauld, "withoutany change of countenance, and as little affected by joy as he had been amoment before by the longinquity of his release. " He lived fifteen years longer, occupied, during the interval of restwhich the Peace of the Church restored to Port-Royal, in directing andfortifying souls. He published, one after another, the volumes of histranslation of the Bible, with expositions (_eclaircissements_) which hadbeen required by the examiners. In 1679 the renewal of the king'sseverities compelled him to retire completely to Pomponne. On the 3d ofJanuary, 1684, at seventy-one years of age, he felt ill and went to bed;he died next day, without being taken by surprise, as regarded either hisaffairs or his soul, by so speedy an end. "O blessed flames ofpurgatory!" he said, as he breathed his last. He had requested to beburied at Port-Royal des Champs; he was borne thither at night; the coldwas intense, and the roads were covered with snow; the carriages wereescorted by men carrying torches. The nuns looked a moment upon the faceof the saintly director, whom they had not seen for so many years; andthen he was lowered into his grave. "Needs hide in earth what is butearth, " said Mother Angelica de St. Jean, in deep accents and a lowlyvoice, "and return to nothingness what in itself is but nothing. " Shewas, nevertheless, heart-broken, and tarried only for this pious duty topass away in her turn. "It is time to give up my veil to him from whom Ireceived it, " said she. A fortnight after the death of M. De Saci, sheexpired at Port-Royal, just preceding to the tomb her brother M. DeLuzancy, who breathed his last at Pomponne, where he had lived with M. DeSaci. "I confess, " said the inconsolable Fontaine, "that when I saw thisbrother and sister stricken with death by that of M. De Saci, I blushed--I who thought I had always loved him--not to follow him like them; and Ibecame, consequently, exasperated with myself for loving so little incomparison with those persons, whose love had been strong as death. " Thehuman heart avenges itself for the tortures men pretentiously inflictupon it: the disciples of St. Cyran thought to stifle in their souls allearthly affections, and they died of grief on losing those they loved. "Their life ebbed away in those depths of tears, " as M. Vinet has said. [Illustration: Abbey of Port-Royal----580] The great Port-Royal was dead with M. De Saci and Mother Angelica de St. Jean, faithful and modest imitators of their illustrious predecessors. The austere virtue and the pious severance from the world existed stillin the house in the Fields, under the direction of Duguet; thepersecution too continued, persistent and noiseless; the king had giventhe direction of his conscience to the Jesuits; from Father La Chaise, moderate and prudent, he had passed to Father Letellier, violent andperfidious; furthermore, the long persistence of the Jansenists in theirobstinacy, their freedom of thought which infringed the unity so dear toLouis XIV. , displeased the monarch, absolute even in his hour ofhumiliation and defeat. The property of Port-Royal was seized, andCardinal de Noailles, well disposed at bottom towards the Jansenists, butso feeble in character that determination, disgusted him as if it were apersonal insult, ended by once more forbidding the nuns the sacraments;the house in the Fields was surpressed, and its title merged in that ofPort-Royal in Paris, for some time past replenished with submissive nuns. Madame de Chateau-Renaud, "the new abbess, went to take possession; thedaughters of Mother Angelica protested, but without violence, as shewould have done in their place. " On the 29th of October, 1709, afterprime, Father Letellier having told the king that Madame de Chateau-Renaud dared not to go to Port-Royal des Champs, being convinced thatthose headstrong, disobedient, and rebellious daughters would laugh atthe king's decree, and that, unless his Majesty would be pleased to giveprecise orders to disperse them, it would never be possible to carry itout, the king, being pressed in this way, sent his orders toM. D'Argenson, lieutenant of police. " [Illustration: Reading the Decree 581] He appeared at Port-Royal with a commissary and two exons. He asked forthe prioress; she was at church: when service was over, he summoned allthe nuns; one, old and very paralytic, was missing. "Let her bebrought, " said M. D'Argenson. "His Majesty's orders are, " he continued, "that you break up this assemblage, never to meet again. It is yourgeneral dispersal that I announce to you; you are allowed but three hoursto break up. " "We are ready to obey, sir, " said the mother-prioress;"half an hour is more than sufficient for us to say our last good by, andtake with us a breviary, a Bible, and our regulations. " And when heasked her whither she meant to go, "Sir, the moment our community isbroken up and dispersed, it is indifferent to me in what place I may bepersonally, since I hope to find God wherever I shall be. " They got intocarriages, receiving one after another the farewell and blessing of themother-prioress, who was the last to depart, remaining firm to the endthere were two and twenty, the youngest fifty years old; they all died inthe convents to which they were taken. A seizure was at once made of allpapers and books left in the cells; Cardinal Noailles did not interfere. M. De St. Cyran had depicted him by anticipation, when he said that theweak were more to be feared than the wicked. He was complaining one dayof his differences with his bishops. "What can you expect, Monsignor?"laughingly said a lady well disposed to the Jansenists; "God is just; itis the stones of Port-Royal tumbling upon your head. " The tombs weredestroyed; some coffins were carried to a distance, others left andprofaned; the plough passed over the ruins; the hatred of the enemies ofPort-Royal was satiated. A few of the faithful, preserving in theirhearts the ardent faith of M. De St. Cyran, narrowed, however, andabsorbed by obstinate resistance, a few theologians dying in exile, andleaving in Holland a succession of bishops detached from the Romanchurch, --this was all that remained of one of the noblest attempts evermade by the human soul to rise, here below, above that which is permittedby human nature. Virtues of the utmost force, Christianity zealouslypushed to its extremest limits, and the most invincible courage, sustained the Jansenists in a conscientious struggle against spiritualoppression; its life died out, little by little, amongst the dispersedmembers. The Catholic church suffered therefrom in its innermostsanctuary. "The Catholic religion would only be more neglected if therewere no more religionists, " said Vauban, in his Memoire in favor of theProtestants. It was the same as regarded the Jansenists. The Jesuitsand Louis XIV. , in their ignorant passion, for unity and uniformity, hadnot comprehended that great principle of healthy freedom and soundjustice of which the scientific soldier had a glimmering. The insurrection of the Camisards, in the Cevennes, had been entirely ofa popular character; the Jansenists had penitents amongst the great ofthis world, though none properly belonged to them or retired to theirconvents or their solitudes; it was the great French burgessdom, issuefor the most part of the magistracy, which supplied their most ferventassociates. Fenelon and Madame Guyon founded their little church atcourt and amongst the great lords; and many remained faithful to themtill death. The spiritual letters of Fenelon, models of wisdom, pioustact, moderation, and knowledge of the human heart, are nearly alladdressed to persons engaged in the life and the offices of the court, exposed to all the temptations of the world. It is no longer the desertof the penitents of PortRoyal, or the strict cloister of Mother Angelica;Fenelon is for only inward restrictions and an abstention purelyspiritual; from afar and in his retreat at Cambrai, he watches over hisfaithful flock with a tender pre-occupation which does not make himoverlook the duties of their position. "Take as penance for your sins, "he wrote, "the disagreeable liabilities of the position you are in: thevery hinderances which seem injurious to our advancement in piety turn toour profit, provided that we do what depends on ourselves. Fail not inany of your duties towards the court, as regards your office and theproprieties, but be not anxious for posts which awaken ambition. " Suchare, with their discreet tolerance, the teachings of Fenelon, adapted forthe guidance of the Dukes of Beauvilliers and Chevreuse, and of the Dukeof Burgundy himself. He went much further, and on less safe a road, whenhe was living at court, under the influence of Madame Guyon. A widow andstill young, gifted with an ardent spirit and a lofty and subtile mind, Madame Guyon had imagined, in her mystical enthusiasm, a theory of purelove, very analogous fundamentally, if not in its practical consequences, to the doctrines taught shortly before by a Spanish priest named Molinos, condemned by the court of Rome in 1687. It was about the same time thatMadame Guyon went to Paris, with her book on the _Moyen court et facilede faire l'Oraison du Coeur_ (Short and easy Method of making Orison withthe Heart). Prayer, according to this wholly mystical teaching, losesthe character of supplication or intercession, to become the simplesilence of a soul absorbed in God. "Why are not simple folks so taught?"she said. "Shepherds keeping their flocks would have the spirit of theold anchorites; and laborers, whilst driving the plough, would talkhappily with God: all vice would be banished in a little while, and thekingdom of God would be realized on earth. " It was a far cry from the sanguinary struggle against sin and the armedChristianity of the Jansenists; the sublime and specious visions ofMadame Guy on fascinated lofty and gentle souls: the Duchess of Charost, daughter of Fouquet, Mesdames de Beauvilliers, de Chevreuse, deMortemart, daughters of Colbert, and their pious husbands, were the firstto be chained to her feet. Fenelon, at that time, preceptor to thechildren of France (royal family), saw her, admired her, and becameimbued with her doctrines. She was for a while admitted to the intimacyof Madame de Maintenon. It was for this little nucleus of faithfulfriends that she wrote her book of _Torrents_. The human soul is atorrent which returns to its source, in God, who lives in perfect repose, and who would fain give it to those who are His. The Christian soul hasnothing more that is its, neither will nor desire. It has God for soul;He is its principle of life. " In this way there is nothingextraordinary. No visions, no ecstasies, no entrancements. The way issimple, pure, and plain; there the soul sees nothing but in God, as Godsees Himself and with His eyes. " With less vagueness, and quite asmystically, Fenelon defined the sublime love taught by Madame Guyon inthe following maxim, afterwards condemned at Rome: "There is an habitualstate of love of God which is pure charity, without any taint of themotive of self-interest. Neither fear of punishment nor desire of rewardhave any longer part in this love; God is loved not for the merit, or theperfection, or the happiness to be found in loving Him. " What singularseductiveness in those theories of pure love which were taught at thecourt of Louis XIV. , by his grandchildren's preceptor, at a woman'sinstigation, and zealously preached fifty years afterwards by President(of New Jersey College) Jonathan Edwards, in the cold and austereatmosphere of New England! Led away by the generous enthusiasm of his soul, Fenelon had not probedthe dangers of his new doctrine. The gospel and church of Christ, whilstpreaching the love of God, had strongly maintained the fact of humanindividuality and responsibility. The theory of mere (pure) loveabsorbing the soul in God put an end to repentance, effort to withstandevil, and the need of a Redeemer. Bossuet was not deceived. Theelevation of his mind, combined with strong common sense, caused him tosee through all the veils of the mysticism. Madame Guyon had submittedher books to him; he disapproved of them, at first quietly, thenformally, after a thorough examination in conjunction with two otherdoctors. Madame Guyon retired to a monastery of Meaux; she soon returnedto Paris, and her believers rallied round her. Bossuet, in his anger, nolonger held his hand. Madame Guyon was shut up first at Vincennes, andthen in the Bastille; she remained seven years in prison, and ended byretiring to near Blois, where she died in 1717, still absorbed in herholy and vague reveries, praying no more inasmuch as she possessed God, "a submissive daughter, however, of the Catholic, Apostolic, and RomanChurch, having and desiring to admit no other opinion but its, " as shesays in her will. Bourdaloue calls mere (pure) love "a bare faith, whichhas for its object no verity of the gospel's, no mystery of JesusChrist's, no attribute of God's, nothing whatever, unless it be, in aword, God. " In the presence of death, on the approach of the awfulrealities of eternity, Madame Guyon no doubt felt the want of a moresimple faith in the mighty and living God. Fenelon had not waited solong to surrender. The instinct of the pious and vigorous souls of the seventeenth centuryhad not allowed them to go astray: there was little talk of pantheism, which had spread considerably in the sixteenth century; but there hadbeen a presentiment of the dangers lurking behind the doctrines of MadameGuyon. Bossuet, that great and noble type of the finest period of theCatholic church in France, made the mistake of pushing his victory toofar. Fenelon, a young priest when the great Bishop of Meaux was alreadyin his zenith, had preserved towards him a profound affection and a deeprespect. "We are, by anticipation, agreed, however you may decide, " hewrote to him on the 28th of July, 1694: "it will be no specioussubmission, but a sincere conviction. Though that which I suppose myselfto have read should appear to me clearer than that two and two make four, I should consider it still less clear than my obligation to mistrust allmy lights, and to prefer before them those of a bishop such as you. Youhave only to give me my lesson in writing; provided that you wrote meprecisely what is the doctrine of the church, and what are the articlesin which I have slipped, I would tie myself down inviolably to thatrule. " Bossuet required more; he wanted Fenelon, recently promoted tothe Archbishopric of Cambrai, to approve of the book he was preparing on_Etats d'Oraison_ (States of Orison), and explicitly to condemn the worksof Madame Guyon. Fenelon refused with generous indignation. "So it isto secure my own reputation, " he writes to Madame de Maintenon, in 1696, "that I am wanted to subscribe that a lady, my friend, would plainlydeserve to be burned with all her writings, for an execrable form ofspirituality, which is the only bond of our friendship? I tell you, madame, I would burn my friend with my own hands, and I would burn myselfjoyfully, rather than let the church be imperilled. But here is a poorcaptive woman, overwhelmed with sorrows; there is none to defend her, none to excuse her; they are always afraid to do so. I maintain thatthis stroke of the pen, given by me against my conscience, from acowardly policy, would render me forever infamous, and unworthy of myministry and my position. " Fenelon no longer submitted his reason andhis conduct, then, to the judgment of Bossuet; he recognized in him anadversary, but he still spoke of him with profound veneration. "Fearnot, " he writes to Madame de Maintenon, "that I should gainsay M. DeMeaux; I shall never speak of him but as of my master, and of hispropositions but as the rule of faith. " Fenelon was at Cambrai, beingregular in the residence which removed him for nine months in the yearfrom the court and the children of France, when there appeared his_Explication des Maximes des Saints sur la Vie Interieure_ (Exposition ofthe Maxims of the Saints touching the Inner Life), almost at the samemoment as Bossuet's _Instruction sur les Etats d' Oraison_ (Lessons onStates of Orison). Fenelon's book appeared as dangerous as those ofMadame Guyon; he himself submitted it to the pope, and was getting readyto repair to Rome to defend his cause, when the king wrote to him, "I donot think proper to allow you to go to Rome; you must, on the contrary, repair to your diocese, whence I forbid you to go away; you can send toRome your pleas in justification of your book. " Fenelon departed to an exile which was to last as long as his life; onhis departure, he wrote to Madame de Maintenon, "I shall depart hence, madame, to-morrow, Friday, in obedience to the king. My greatest sorrowis to have wearied him and to displease him. I shall not cease, all thedays of my life, to pray God to pour His graces upon him. I consent tobe crushed more and more. The only thing I ask of his Majesty is, thatthe diocese of Cambrai, which is guiltless, may not suffer for the errorsimputed to me. I ask protection only for the sake of the church, andeven that protection I limit to not being disturbed in those few goodworks which my present position permits me to do, in order to fulfil apastor's duties. It remains for me, madame, only to ask your pardon forall the trouble I have caused you. I shall all my life be as deeplysensible of your former kindnesses as if I had not forfeited them, and myrespectful attachment to yourself, madame, will never diminish. " Fenelon made no mistake in addressing to Madame de Maintenon his farewelland his regrets; she had acted against him with the uneasiness of aperson led away for a moment by an irresistible attraction, andreturning, quite affrighted, to rule and the beaten paths. The mere lovetheory had no power to fascinate her for long. The Archbishop of Cambraidid not drop out of that pleasant dignity. The pious councillors of theking were working against him at Rome, bringing all the influence ofFrance to weigh upon Innocent XII. Fenelon had taken no part in thedeclarations of the Gallican church, in 1682, which had been drawn up byBossuet; the court of Rome was inclined towards him; the strife becamebitter and personal; pamphlets succeeded pamphlets, letters. Bossuetpublished a _Relation du Quietisme_ (An Account of Quietism), and remarksupon the reply of M. De Cambrai. "I write this for the people, " he said, "in order that, the character of M. De Cambrai being known, his eloquencemay, with God's permission, no more impose upon anybody. " Fenelonreplied with a vigor, a fullness, and a moderation which brought men'sminds over to him. "You do more for me by the excess of youraccusations, " said he to Bossuet, "than I could do myself. But what amelancholy consolation when we look at the scandal which troubles thehouse of God, and which causes so many heretics and libertines (free-thinkers) to triumph! Whatever end may be put by a holy pontiff to thismatter, I await it with impatience, having no wish but to obey, no fearbut to be in the wrong, no object but peace. I hope that it will be seenfrom my silence, my unreserved submission, my constant horror ofillusion, my isolation from any book and any person of a suspicious sort, that the evil you would fain have caused to be apprehended is aschimerical as the scandal has been real, and that violent measures takenagainst imaginary evils turn to poison. " Fenelon was condemned on the 12th of March, 1699; the sentence of Romewas mild, and hinted no suspicion of heresy; it had been wrested from thepope by the urgency of Louis XIV. "It would be painful to his Majesty, "wrote the Bishop of Meaux in the king's name, "to see a new schismgrowing up amongst his subjects at the very time that he is applyinghimself with all his might to the task of extirpating that of Calvin, andif he saw the prolongation, by manoeuvres which are incomprehensible, ofa matter which appeared to be at an end. He will know what he has to do, and will take suitable resolutions, still hoping, nevertheless, that hisHoliness will not be pleased to reduce him to such disagreeableextremities. " When the threat reached Rome, Innocent XII. Had alreadyyielded. Fenelon submitted to the pope's decision completely and unreservedly. "God gives me grace to be at peace amidst bitterness and sorrow, " hewrote to the Duke of Beauvilliers on the 29th of March, 1699. "Amongstso many troubles I have one consolation little fitted to be known in theworld, but solid enough for those who seek God in good faith, and thatis, that my conduct is quite decided upon, and that I have no longer todeliberate. It only remains for me to submit and hold my peace; that iswhat I have always desired. I have now but to choose the terms of mysubmission; the shortest, the simplest, the most absolute, the mostdevoid of any restriction, are those that I rather prefer. My conscienceis disburdened in that of my superior. In all this, far from having aneye to my advantage, I have no eye to any man; I see but God, and I amcontent with what He does. " Bossuet had triumphed: his vaster mind, his more sagacious insight, hisstronger judgment had unravelled the dangerous errors in which Fenelonhad allowed himself to be entangled. The Archbishop of Cambrai, however, had grown in the estimation of good men on account of his moderation, hisgentle and high-spirited independence during the struggle, hissubmission, full of dignity, after the papal decision. The mind ofBossuet was the greater; the spirit of Fenelon was the nobler and moredeeply pious. "I cannot consent to have my book defended evenindirectly, " he wrote to one of his friends on the 21st of July, 1699. "In God's name, speak not of me but to God only, and leave men to thinkas they please; as for me, I have no object but silence and peace aftermy unreserved submission. " Fenelon was not detached from the world and his hopes to quite such anextent as he would have had it appear. He had educated the Duke ofBurgundy, who remained passionately attached to him, and might hope for areturn of prosperity. He remained in the silence and retirement of hisdiocese, with the character of an able and saintly bishop, keeping openhouse, grandly and simply, careful of the welfare of the soldiery whopassed through Cambrai, adored by his clergy and the people. "Never aword about the court, or about public affairs of any sort that could befound fault with, or any that smacked the least in the world of baseness, regret, or flattery, " writes St. Simon; "never anything that could givea bare hint of what he had been or might be again. He was a tall, thinman, well made, pale, with a large nose, eyes from which fire andintellect streamed like a torrent, and a physiognomy such that I havenever seen any like it, and there was no forgetting it when it had beenseen but once. It combined everything, and there was no conflict ofopposites in it. There were gravity and gallantry, the serious and thegay; it savored equally of the learned doctor, the bishop, and the greatlord; that which appeared on its surface, as well as in his whole person, was refinement, intellect, grace, propriety, and, above all, nobility. It required an effort to cease looking at him. His manners correspondedtherewith in the same proportion, with an ease which communicated it toothers; with all this, a man who never desired to show more wits thanthey with whom he conversed, who put himself within everybody's rangewithout ever letting it be perceived, in such wise that nobody could drophim, or fight shy of him, or not want to see him again. It was this raretalent, which he possessed to the highest degree, that kept his friendsso completely attached to him all his life, in spite of his downfall, andthat, in their dispersion, brought them together to speak of him, tosorrow after him, to yearn for him, to bind themselves more and more tohim, as the Jews to Jerusalem, and to sigh after his return and hopecontinually for it, just as that unfortunate people still expects andsighs after the Messiah. " Those faithful friends were dropping one after another. The death of theDuke of Burgundy and of the Duke of Chevreuse in 1712, and that of theDuke of Beauvilliers in 1714, were a fatal blow to the affections as wellas to the ambitious hopes of Fenelon. Of delicate health, worn out bythe manifold duties of the episcopate, inwardly wearied by long and vainexpectation, he succumbed on the 7th of January, 1715, at the moment whenthe attraction shown by the Duke of Orleans towards him and "the king'sdeclining state" were once more renewing his chances of power. "He wasalready consulted in private and courted again in public, " says St. Simon, "because the inclination of the rising sun had already shownthrough. " He died, however, without letting any sign of yearning forlife appear, "regardless of all that he was leaving, and occupied solelywith that which he was going to meet, with a tranquillity, a peace, whichexcluded nothing but disquietude, and which included penitence, despoilment, and a unique care for the spiritual affairs of his diocese. "The Christian soul was detaching itself from the world to go before Godwith sweet and simple confidence. "O, how great is God! how all in all!How as nothing are we when we are so near Him, and when the veil whichconceals Him from us is about to lift!" [_Euvres de Fenelon, LettresSpirituelles, _ xxv. 128. ] [Illustration: Bossuet----591] So many fires smouldering in the hearts, so many different strugglesgoing on in the souls, that sought to manifest their personal andindependent life have often caused forgetfulness of the great mass of thefaithful who were neither Jansenists nor Quietists. Bossuet was the realhead and the pride of the great Catholic church of France in theseventeenth century; what he approved of was approved of by the immensemajority of the French clergy, what he condemned was condemned by them. Moderate and prudent in conduct as well as in his opinions, pious withoutbeing fervent, holding discreetly aloof from all excesses, he was aGallican without fear and without estrangement as regarded the papalpower, to which he steadfastly paid homage. It was with pain, and notwithout having sought to escape therefrom, that he found himself obliged, at the assembly of the clergy in 1682, to draw up the solemn declarationsof the Gallican church. The meeting of the clergy had been called forthby the eternal discussions of the civil power with the court of Rome onthe question of the rights of regale, that is to say, the rights of thesovereign to receive the revenues of vacant bishoprics, and to appoint tobenefices belonging to them. The French bishops were of independentspirit; the Archbishop of Paris, Francis de Harlay, was on bad terms withPope Innocent XI. ; Bossuet managed to moderate the discussions, and keptwithin suitable bounds the declaration which he could not avoid. He hadalways taught and maintained what was proclaimed by the assembly of theclergy of France, "that St. Peter and his successors, vicars of JesusChrist, and the whole church itself, received from God authority overonly spiritual matters and such as appertain to salvation, and not overtemporal and civil matters, in such sort that kings and sovereigns arenot subject to tiny ecclesiastical power, by order of God, in temporalmatters, and cannot be deposed directly or indirectly by authority of thekeys of the church; finally, that, though the pope has the principal partin questions of faith, and though his decrees concern all the churchesand each church severally, his judgment is, nevertheless, notirrefragable, unless the consent of the church intervene. " Old doctrinesin the church of France, but never before so solemnly declared and madeincumbent upon the teaching of all the faculties of theology in thekingdom. Constantly occupied in the dogmatic struggle against Protestantism, Bossuet had imported into it a moderation in form which, however, did notkeep out injustice. Without any inclination towards persecution, he, with almost unanimity on the part of the bishops of France, approved ofthe king's piety in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. "Take up yoursacred pens, " says he in his funeral oration over Michael Le Tellier, "ye who compose the annals of the church; haste ye to place Louis amongstthe peers of Constantine and Theodosius. Our fathers saw not as we haveseen an inveterate heresy falling at a single blow, scattered flocksreturning in a mass, and our churches too narrow to receive them, theirfalse shepherds leaving them without even awaiting the order, and happyto have their banishment to allege as excuse; all tranquillity amidst sogreat a movement; the universe astounded to see in so novel an event themost certain sign as well as the most noble use of authority, and theprince's merit more recognized and more revered than even his authority. Moved by so many marvels, say ye to this new Constantine, this newTheodosius, this new Marciaau, this new Charlemagne, what the six hundredand thirty Fathers said aforetime in the council of Chaloedon, You haveconfirmed the faith; you have exterminated the heretics; that is theworthy achievement of your reign, that is its own characteristic. Through you heresy is no more. God alone could have wrought this marvel. King of heaven, preserve the king of earth; that is the prayer of thechurches, that is the prayer of the bishops. " Bossuet, like Louis XIV. , believed Protestantism to be destroyed. "Heresy is no more, " he said. It was the same feeling that prompted Louis XIV. , when dying, to theedict of March 8, 1715. "We learn, " said he, "that, abjurations beingfrequently made in provinces distant from those in which our newlyconverted subjects die, our judges to whom those who die relapsed aredenounced find a difficulty in condemning them, for want of proof oftheir abjuration. The stay which those who were of the religion styledReformed have made in our kingdom since we abolished therein all exerciseof the said religion is a more than sufficient proof that they haveembraced the Catholic religion, without which they would have beenneither suffered nor tolerated. " There did not exist, there could notexist, any more Protestants in France; all who died without sacramentswere relapsed, and as such dragged on the hurdle. Those who were notmarried at a Catholic church were not married. M. Guizot was born atNimes on the 4th of October, 1787, before Protestants possessed any civilrights in France. Bossuet had died on the 12th of April, 1704. When troubles began againin the church, the enemies of the Jansenists obtained from the king adecree interdicting the _Reflexions morales cur le Nouveau Testament, _ anold and highly esteemed work by Father Quesnel, some time an Oratorian, who had become head of the Jansenists on the death of the great Arnauld. Its condemnation at Rome was demanded. Cardinal de Noailles, Archbishopof Paris, had but lately, as Bishop of Chalons, approved of the book; herefused to retract his approbation; the Jesuits made urgentrepresentations to the pope; Clement XI. Launched the bull _Unigenitus, _condemning a hundred and one propositions extracted from the _Reflexionsmorales_. Eight prelates, with Cardinal de Noailles at their head, protested against the bull; it was, nevertheless, enregistered at theParliament, but not without difficulty. The archbishop still held out, supported by the greater part of the religious orders and the majority ofthe doctors of Sorbonne. The king's confessor, Letellier, pressed him toprosecute the cardinal and get him deposed by a national council; theaffair dragged its slow length along at Rome; the archbishop hadsuspended from the sacred functions all the Jesuits of his diocese; thestruggle had commenced under the name of Jansenism against the wholeGallican church. The king was about to bring the matter before his bedof justice, when he fell ill. He saw no more of Cardinal de Noailles, and this rupture vexed him. "I am sorry to leave the affairs of thechurch in the state in which they are, " he said to his councillors. "Iam perfectly ignorant in the matter; you know, and I call you to witness, that I have done nothing therein but what you wanted, and that I havedone all you wanted. It is you who will answer before God for all thathas been done, whether too much or too little. I charge you with itbefore Him, and I have a clear conscience. I am but a know-nothing whohave left myself to your guidance. " An awful appeal from a dying king tothe guides of his conscience. He had dispeopled his kingdom, reduced toexile, despair, or falsehood fifteen hundred thousand of his subjects, but the memory of the persecutions inflicted upon the Protestants did nottrouble him; they were for him rather a pledge of his salvation and ofhis acceptance before God. He was thinking of the Catholic church, theholy priests exiled or imprisoned, the nuns driven from their convent, the division among the bishops, the scandal amongst the faithful. Thegreat burden of absolute power was evident to his eyes; he sought to letit fall back upon the shoulders of those who had enticed him or urged himupon that fatal path. A vain attempt in the eyes of men, whatever may bethe judgment of God's sovereign mercy. History has left weighing uponLouis XIV. The crushing weight of the religious persecutions orderedunder his reign. CHAPTER XLVIII. ----LOUIS XIV. , LITERATURE AND ART. It has been said in this History that Louis XIV. Had the fortune to findhimself at the culminating point of absolute monarchy, and to profit bythe labors of his predecessors, reaping a portion of their glory; he hadlikewise the honor of enriching himself with the labors of hiscontemporaries, and attracting to himself a share of their lustre; thehonor, be it said, not the fortune, for he managed to remain the centreof intellectual movement as well as of the court, of literature and artas well as affairs of state. Only the abrupt and solitary genius ofPascal or the prankish and ingenuous geniality of La Fontaine held alooffrom king and court; Racine and Moliere, Bossuet and Fenelon, La Bruyereand Boileau lived frequently in the circle of Louis XIV. , and enjoyed indifferent degrees his favor; M. De la Rochefoucauld and Madame de Sevignewere of the court; Lebrun, Rigaud, Mignard, painted for the king;Perrault and Mansard constructed the Louvre and Versailles; the learnedof all countries considered it an honor to correspond with the newacademies founded in France. Louis XIV. Was even less a man of lettersor an artist than an administrator or a soldier; but literature and art, as well as the superintendents and the generals, found in him the King. The puissant unity of the reign is everywhere the same. The king and thenation are in harmony. Pascal, had he been born later, would have remained independent andproud, from the nature of his mind and of his character as well as fromthe connection he had full early with Port-Royal, where they did not rearcourtiers; he died, however, at thirty-nine, in 1661, the very year inwhich Louis XIV. Began to govern. Born at Clermont, in Auvergne, educated at his father's and by his father, though it was not thoughtdesirable to let him study mathematics, he had already discovered byhimself the first thirty-two propositions of Euclid, when CardinalRichelieu, holding on his knee little Jacqueline Pascal, and looking ather brother, said to M. Pascal, the two children's father, who had cometo thank him for a favor, "Take care of them; I mean to make somethinggreat of them. " This was the native and powerful instinct of geniusdivining genius; Richelieu, however, died three years later, withouthaving done anything for the children who had impressed him beyond givingtheir father a share in the superintendence of Rouen; he thus put them inthe way of the great Corneille, who was affectionately kind toJacqueline, but took no particular notice of Blaise Pascal. The latterwas seventeen; he had already written his _Traite des Coniques_ (Treatiseon Conics) and begun to occupy himself with "his arithmetical machine, "as his sister, Madame Perier calls it. At twenty-three he had ceased toapply his mind to human sciences; "when he afterwards discovered theroulette (cycloid), it was without thinking, " says Madame Perier, "and todistract his attention from a severe tooth-ache he had. " He was nottwenty-four when anxiety for his salvation and for the glory of God hadtaken complete possession of his soul. It was to the same end that hecomposed the _Lettres Provinciales, _ the first of which was written insix days, and the style of which, clear, lively, precise, far removedfrom the somewhat solemn gravity of Port-Royal, formed French prose asMalherbe and Boileau formed the poetry. This was the impression of hiscontemporaries, the most hard of them to please in the art of writing. "That is excellent; that will be relished, " said the recluses of Port-Royal, in spite of the misgivings of M. Singlin. More than thirty yearsafter Pascal's ddath, Madame de Sevigne, in 1689, wrote to Madame deGrignan, "Sometimes, to divert ourselves, we read the little Letters (toa provincial). Good heavens, how charming! And how my son reads them!I always think of my daughter, and how that excess of correctness ofreasoning would suit her; but your brother says that you consider that itis always the same thing over again. Ah! My goodness, so much thebetter! Could any one have a more perfect style, a raillery morerefined, more natural, more delicate, worthier offspring of thosedialogues of Plato, which are so fine? And when, after the first tenletters, he addresses himself to the reverend Jesuit fathers, whatearnestness, what solidity, what force! What eloquence! What love forGod and for the truth! What a way of maintaining it and making itunderstood! I am sure that you have never read them but in a hurry, pitching on the pleasant places; but it is not so when they are read atleisure. " Lord Macaulay once said to M. Guizot, "Amongst modern works Iknow only two perfect ones, to which there is no exception to be taken, and they are _Pascal's Provincials_ and the _Letters of Madame deSevigne_. " [Illustration: Blaise Pascal----597] Boileau was of Lord Macaulay's opinion; at least as regarded Pascal. "Corbinelli wrote to me the other day, " says Madame de Sevigne, on the15th of January, 1690: "he gave me an account of a conversation and adinner at M. De Lamoignon's: the persons were the master and mistress ofthe house, M. De Troyes, M. De Toulon, Father Bourdaloue, a comrade ofhis, Desprdaux, and Corbinelli. The talk was of ancient and modernworks. Despreaux supported the ancient, with the exception of one singlemodern, which surpassed, in his opinion, both old and new. Bourdaloue'scomrade, who assumed the well-read air, and who had fastened on toDespreaux and Corbinelli, asked him what in the world this book could bethat was so remarkably clever. Despreaux would not give the name. Corbinelli said to him, 'Sir, I conjure you to tell me, that I may readit all night. ' Despreaux answered, laughing, 'Ah! sir, you have read itmore than once, I am sure. ' The Jesuit joins in, with a disdainful air, and presses Despreaux to name this marvellous writer. 'Do not press me, father, ' says Despreaux. The father persists. At last Despreaux takeshold of his arm, and squeezing it very hard, says, 'You will have it, father; well, then, egad! it is Pascal. ' 'Pascal, ' says the father, allblushes and astonishment; 'Pascal is as beautiful as the false can be. ''False, ' replied Despreaux: 'false! Let me tell you that he is as true ashe is inimitable; he has just been translated into three languages. ' Thefather rejoined, 'He is none the more true for that. ' Despreaux grewwarm, and shouted like a madman: 'Well, father, will you say that one ofyours did not have it printed in one of his books that a Christian wasnot obliged to love God? Dare you say that that is false?' 'Sir, ' saidthe father, in a fury, 'we must distinguish. ' 'Distinguish!' criedDespreaux; 'distinguish, egad! distinguish! Distinguish whether we areobliged to love God!' And, taking Corbinelli by the arm, he flew off tothe other end of the room, coming back again, and rushing about like alunatic; but he would not go near the father any more, and went off tojoin the rest of the company. Here endeth the story; the curtain falls. "Literary taste and religious sympathies combined, in the case of Boileau, to exalt Pascal. The provincials could not satisfy for long the pious ardor of Pascal'ssoul; he took in hand his great work on the _Verite de la Religion_. He had taken a vigorous part in the discussions of Port-Royal as tosubscription of the formulary: his opinion was decidedly in favor ofresistance. It was the moment when MM. Arnauld and Nicole had discovereda restriction, as it was then called, which allowed of subscribing with asafe conscience. "M. Pascal, who loved truth above all things, " writeshis niece, Marguerite Perier; "who, moreover, was pulled down by a painin the head, which never left him; who had exerted himself to make themfeel as he himself felt; and who had expressed himself very vigorously inspite of his weakness, was so grief-stricken that he had a fit, and lostspeech and consciousness. Everybody was alarmed. Exertions were made tobring him round, and then those gentlemen withdrew. When he was quiterecovered, Madame Perier asked him what had caused this incident. Heanswered, 'When I saw all those persons that I looked upon as being thosewhom God had made to know the truth, and who ought to be its defenders, wavering and falling. I declare to you that I was so overcome with griefthat I was unable to support it, and could not help breaking down. '"Blaise Pascal was the worthy brother of Jacqueline; in the former, aswell as the latter, the soul was too ardent and too strong for itscovering of body. Nearly all his relatives died young. "I alone amleft, " wrote Mdlle. Perier, when she had become, exceptionally, veryaged. "I might say, like Simon Maccabeus, the last of all his brethren, All my relatives and all my brethren are dead in the service of God andin the love of truth. I alone am left; please God I may never have athought of backsliding!" Pascal was unable to finish his work. "God, who had inspired my brotherwith this design and with all his thoughts, " writes his sister, "did notpermit him to bring it to its completion, for reasons to us unknown. "The last years of Pascal's life, invalid as he had been from the age ofeighteen, were one long and continual torture, accepted and supportedwith an austere disdain of suffering. Incapable of any application, hegave his attention solely to his salvation and the care of the poor. "I have taken it into my head, " says he, "to have in the house a sickpauper, to whom the same service shall be rendered as to myself;particular attention to be paid to him, and, in fact, no difference to bemade between him and me, in order that I may have the consolation ofknowing that there is one pauper as well treated as myself, in theperplexity I suffer from finding myself in the great affluence of everysort in which I do find myself. " The spirit of M. De St. Cyran is there, and also the spirit of the gospel, which caused Pascal, when he wasdying, to say, "I love poverty, because Jesus Christ loved it. I lovewealth, because it gives the means of assisting the needy. " A geniusunique in the extent and variety of his faculties, which were appliedwith the same splendid results to mathematics and physics, to philosophyand polemics, disdaining all preconceived ideas, going unerringly andstraightforwardly to the bottom of things with admirable force andprofundity, independent and free even in his voluntary submission to theChristian faith, which he accepts with his eyes open, after havingweighed it, measured it, and sounded it to its uttermost depths, toosteadfast and too simple not to bow his head before mysteries, all thewhile acknowledging his ignorance. "If there were no darkness, " says he, "man would not feel his corruption; if there were no light, man wouldhave no hope of remedy. Thus it is not only quite right, but useful, forus that God should be concealed in part, and revealed in part, since itis equally dangerous for man to know God without knowing his own misery, and to know his own misery without knowing God. " The lights of thisgreat intellect had led him to acquiesce in his own fogs. "One can bequite sure that there is a God, without knowing what He is, " says he. In 1627, four years after Pascal, and, like him, in a family of the longrobe, was born, at Dijon, his only rival in that great art of writingprose which established the superiority of the French language. Atsixteen, Bossuet preached his first sermon in the drawing-room of Madamede Rambouillet, and the great Conde was pleased to attend his theologicalexaminations. He was already famous at court as a preacher and apolemist when the king gave him the title of Bishop of Condom, almostimmediately inviting him to become preceptor to the dauphin. A difficultand an irksome task for him who had already written for Turenne anexposition of the Catholic faith, and had delivered the funeral orationsover Madame Henriette and the Queen of England. "The king has greatly atheart the dauphin's education, " wrote Father Lacoue to Colbert; "heregards it as one of his grand state-strokes in respect of the future. "The dauphin was not devoid of intelligence. "Monseigneur has plenty ofwits, " said Councillor Le Gout de Saint-Seine in his private journal, "but his wits are under a bushel. " The boy was indolent, with littleinclination for work, roughly treated by his governor, the Duke ofMontausier, who was endowed with more virtue than ability in thesuperintendence of a prince's education. "O, " cried Monseigneur, whenofficial announcement was made to him of the project of marriage whichthe king was conducting for him with the Princess Christine of Bavaria, "we shall see whether M. Huet (afterwards bishop of Avranches) will wantto make me learn ancient geography any more!" Bossuet had betterunderstood what ought to be the aim of a king's education. "Remember, Monseigneur, " he constantly repeated to him, "that destined as you are toreign some day over this great kingdom, you are bound to make it happy. "He was in despair at his pupil's inattention. "There is a great deal toendure with a mind so destitute of application, " he wrote to MarshalBellefonds; "there is no perceptible relief, and we go on, as St. Paulsays, hoping against hope. " He had written a little treatise oninattention, _De Incogitantia, _--in the vain hope of thus rousing hispupil to work. "I dread nothing in the world so much, " Louis XIV wouldsay, "as to have a sluggard (_faineant_) dauphin; I would much prefer tohave no son at all!" Bossuet foresaw the innumerable obstacles in theway of his labors. "I perceive, as I think, " he wrote to his friends, "in the dauphin the beginnings of great graces, a simplicity, astraightforwardness, a principle of goodness, an attention, amidst allhis flightiness, to the mysteries, a something or other which comes witha flash, in the middle of his distractions, to call him back to God. Youwould be charmed if I were to tell you the questions he puts to me, andthe desire he shows to be a good servant of God. But the world! theworld! the world! pleasures, evil counsels, evil examples! Save us, Lord! save us! Thou didst verily preserve the children from the furnace, but Thou didst send Thine angel; and, as for me, alas! what am I?Humility, trepidation, absorption into one's own nothingness!" It was not for Bossuet that the honor was reserved of succeeding in thedifficult task of a royal education. Fenelon encountered in the Duke ofBurgundy a more undisciplined nature, a more violent character, and moredangerous tendencies than Bossuet had to fight against in thegrand-dauphin; but there was a richer mind and a warmer heart; thepreceptor, too, was more proper for the work. Bossuet, nevertheless, labored conscientiously to instruct his little prince, studying for himand with him the classical authors, preparing grammatical expositions, and, lastly, writing for his edification the _Traite de la Connaissancede Dieu et de soi-mime_ (Treatise on the Knowledge of God and of Self), the _Discours sur l'Histoire Universelle_ (Discourse on UniversalHistory), and the _Politique tiree de l'Ecriture Sainte_ (Polity derivedfrom Holy Writ). The labor was in vain; the very loftiness of hisgenius, the extent and profundity of his views, rendered Bossuet unfit toget at the heart and mind of a boy who was timid, idle, and kept in fearby the king as well as by his governor. The dauphin was nineteen whenhis marriage restored Bossuet to the church and to the world; the kingappointed him almoner to the dauphiness, and, before long, Bishop ofMeaux. Neither the assembly of the clergy and the part he played therein, norhis frequent preachings at court, diverted Bossuet from his duties asbishop; he habitually resided at Meaux, in the midst of his priests. Thegreater number of his sermons, written at first in fragments, collectedfrom memory in their aggregate, and repeated frequently with divergencesin wording and development, were preached in the cathedral of Meaux. Thedauphin sometimes went thither to see him. "Pray, sir, " he had said tohim, in his childhood, "take great care of me whilst I am little; I willof you when I am big. " Assured of his righteousness as a priest and hisfine tact as a man, the king appealed to Bossuet in the delicateconjunctures of his life. It is related that it was the Bishop of Meauxwho dissuaded him from making public his marriage with Madame deMaintenon. She, more anxious for power than splendor, did not bear himany ill-will for it; amidst the various leanings of the court, divided asit was between Jansenism and Quietism, it was to the simple teaching ofthe Catholic church, represented by Bossuet, that she remainedpractically attached. Right-minded and strong-minded, but a littlecold-hearted, Madame de Maintenon could not suffer herself to be led awayby the sublime excesses of the Jansenists or the pious reveries of MadameGuyon; the Jesuits had influence over her, without her being a slave tothem; and that influence increased after the death of Bossuet. Theguidance of the Bishop of Meaux, in fact, answered the requirements ofspirits that were pious and earnest without enthusiasm: less ardent infaith and less absolute in religious practice than M. De St. Cyran andPort-Royal, less exacting in his demands than Father Bourdaloue, susceptible now and then of mystic ideas, as is proved by his letters toSister Cornuau, he did not let himself be won by the vague ecstasies ofabsolute (pure) love; he had a mind large enough to say, like MotherAngelica Arnauld, "I am of all saints' order, and all saints are of myorder; "but his preferences always inclined towards those saints andlearned doctors who had not carried any religious tendency to excess, andwho had known how to rest content with the spirit of a rule and a faiththat were practical. A wonderful genius, discovering by flashes, and asif by instinct, the most profound truths of human nature, and giving themexpression in an incomparable style, forcing, straining the language tomake it render his idea, darting at one bound to the sublimest height byuse of the simplest terms, which he, so to speak, bore away with him, wresting them from their natural and proper signification. "There, inspite of that great heart of hers, is that princess so admired and sobeloved; there, such as Death has made her for us!" Bossuet alone couldspeak like that. He was writing incessantly, all the while that he was preaching at Meauxand at Paris, making funeral orations over the queen, Maria Theresa, overthe Princess Palatine, Michael Le Tellier, and the Prince of Conde. TheEdict of Nantes had just been revoked; controversy with the Protestantministers, headed by Claude and Jurieu, occupied a great space in thelife of the Bishop of Meaux. He at that time wrote his _Histoire desVariations, _ often unjust and violent, always able in its attacks uponthe Reformation; he did not import any zeal into persecution, though allthe while admitting unreservedly the doctrines universally propagatedamongst Catholics. "I declare, " he wrote to M. De Baville, "that I amand have always been of opinion, first, that princes may by penal lawsconstrain all heretics to conform to the profession and practices of theCatholic church; secondly, that this doctrine ought to be held invariablein the church, which has not only conformed to, but has even demanded, similar ordinances from princes. " He at the same time opposed theconstraint put upon the new converts to oblige them to go to mass, without requiring from them any other act of religion. "When the emperors imposed a like obligation on the Donatists, " he wroteto the Bishop of Mirepoix, "it was on the supposition that they wereconverted, or would be; but the heretics at the present time, who declarethemselves by not fulfilling their Easter (communicating), ought to berather hindered from assisting at the mysteries than constrained thereto, and the more so in that it appears to be a consequence thereof toconstrain them likewise to fulfil their Easter, which is expressly togive occasion for frightful sacrilege. They might be constrained toundergo instruction; but, so far as I can learn, that would hardlyadvance matters, and I think that we must be reduced to three things; oneis, to oblige them to send their children to the schools, or, in default, to find means of taking them out of their hands; another is, to be firmas regards marriages; and the last is, to take great pains to becomeprivately acquainted with those of whom there are good hopes, and toprocure for them solid instruction and veritable enlightenment; the restmust be left to time and to the grace of God. I know of nothing else. "About the same time Fenelon, engaged upon the missions in Poitou, beingas much convinced as the Bishop of Meaux of a sovereign's rights over theconscience of the faithful, as well as of the terrible danger ofhypocrisy, wrote to Bossuet, telling him that he had demanded thewithdrawal of the troops in all the districts he was visiting: "It is nolight matter to change the sentiments of a whole people. What difficultymust the apostles have found in changing the face of the universe, overcoming all passions, and establishing a doctrine till then unheardof, seeing that we cannot persuade the ignorant by clear and expresspassages which they read every day in favor of the religion of theirancestors, and that the king's own authority stirs up every passion torender persuasion more easy for us! The remnants of this sect go onsinking little by little, as regards all exterior observance, into areligious indifference which cannot but cause fear and trembling. If onewanted to make them abjure Christianity and follow the Koran, there wouldbe nothing required but to show them the dragoons; provided that theyassemble by night, and withstand all instruction, they consider that theyhave done enough. " Cardinal Noailles was of the same mind as Bossuet andFEnelon. "The king will be pained to decide against your opinion asregards the new converts, " says a letter to him from Madame de Maintenon;"meanwhile the most general is to force them to attend at mass. Youropinion seems to be a condemnation of all that has been hitherto doneagainst these poor creatures. It is not pleasant to hark back so far, and it has always been supposed that, in any case, they must have areligion. " In vain were liberty of conscience and its inviolable rightsstill misunderstood by the noblest spirits, the sincerity andhigh-mindedness of the great bishops instinctively revolted againstthe hypocrisy engendered of persecution. The tacit assuagement of theseverities against the Reformers, between 1688 and 1700, was the fruit ofthe representations of Bossuet, Fenelon, and Cardinal Noailles. Madamede Maintenon wrote at that date to one of her relatives, "You areconverted; do not meddle in the conversion of others. I confess to youthat I do not like the idea of answering before God and the king for allthose conversions. " At the same time with the controversial treatises, the _Elevations surles Mysteres_ and the _Meditations sur l'Evangile_ were written at Meaux, drawing the bishop away to the serener regions of supreme faith. Theremight he have chanced to meet those Reformers, as determined as he in thestrife, as attached, at bottom, as he, for life and death, to themysteries and to the lights of a common hope. "When God shall give usgrace to enter Paradise, " St. Bernard used to say, "we shall be above allastonished at not finding some of those whom we had thought to meetthere, and at finding others whom we did not expect. " Bossuet had amoments glimpse of this higher truth; in concert with Leibnitz, a greatintellect of more range in knowledge and less steadfastness than he inreligious faith, he tried to reconcile the Catholic and Protestantcommunions in one and the same creed. There were insurmountabledifficulties on both sides; the attempt remained unsuccessful. The Bishop of Meaux had lately triumphed in the matter of Quietism, breaking the ties of old friendship with Fenelon, and more concernedabout defending sound doctrine in the church than fearful of hurting hisfriend, who was sincere and modest in his relations with him, and humblysubmissive to the decrees of the court of Rome. The Archbishop ofCambrai was in exile at his own diocese; Bossuet was ill at Meaux, still, however, at work, going deeper every day into that profound study of HolyWrit and of the fathers of the church which shines forth in all hiswritings. He had stone, and suffered agonies, but would not permit anoperation. On his death-bed, surrounded by his nephews and his vicars, he rejected with disdain all eulogies on his episcopal life. "Speak tome of necessary truths, " said he, preserving to the last the simplicityof a great and strong mind, accustomed to turn from appearances andsecondary doctrines to embrace the mighty realities of time and ofeternity. He died at Paris on the 12th of April, 1704, just when thetroubles of the church were springing up again. Great was theconsternation amongst the bishops of France, wont as they were to shapethemselves by his counsels. "Men were astounded at this mortal'smortality. " Bossuet was seventy-three. A month later, on the 13th of May, Father Bourdaloue in his turn died. A model of close logic and moral austerity, with a stiff and manlyeloquence, so impressed with the miserable insufficiency of humanefforts, that he said as he was dying, "My God, I have wasted life; it isjust that Thou recall it. " There remained only Fenelon in the firstrank, which Massillon did not as yet dispute with him. Malebranche wasliving retired in his cell at the Oratory, seldom speaking, writing his_Recherches sur la Verite_ (Researches into Truth), and his _Entretienssur la Metaphysique_ (Discourses on Metaphysics), bolder in thought thanhe was aware of or wished, sincere and natural in his meditations as wellas in his style. In spite of Flechier's eloquence in certain funeralorations, posterity has decided against the modesty of the Archbishop ofCambrai, who said at the death of the Bishop of Nimes, in 1710, "We havelost our master. " In his retirement or his exile, after Bossuet's death, it was around Fenelon that was concentrated all the lustre of the Frenchepiscopate, long since restored to the respect and admiration itdeserved. Fenelon was born in Perigord, at the castle of Fenelon, on the 6th ofAugust, 1651. Like Cardinal Retz he belonged to an ancient and noblehouse, and was destined from his youth for the church. Brought up at theseminary of St. Sulpice, lately founded by M. Olier, he for a short timeconceived the idea of devoting himself to foreign missions; his weakhealth and his family's opposition turned him ere long from his purpose, but the preaching of the gospel amongst the heathen continued to have forhim an attractionn which is perfectly depicted in one of the rare sermonsof his which have been preserved. He had held himself modestly aloof, occupied with confirming new Catholics in their conversion or withpreaching to the Protestants of Poitou; he had written nothing but his_Traite de l'Education des Filles, _ intended for the family of the Dukeof Beauvilliers, and a book on the _ministere du pasteur_. He was in badodor with Harlay, Archbishop of Paris, who had said to him curtly oneday, "You want to escape notice, M. Abbe, and you will;" nevertheless, when Louis XIV. Chose the Duke of Beauvilliers as governor to hisgrandson, the Duke of Burgundy, the duke at once called Fenelon, thenthirty-eight years of age, to the important post of preceptor. Whereas the grand-dauphin, endowed with ordinary intelligence, wasindolent and feeble, his son was, in the same proportion, violent, fiery, indomitable. "The Duke of Burgundy, " says St. Simon, "was a born demon(_naquit terrible_), and in his early youth caused fear and trembling. Harsh, passionate, even to the last degree of rage against inanimatethings, madly impetuous, unable to bear the least opposition, even fromthe hours and the elements, without flying into furies enough to make youfear that everything inside him would burst; obstinate to excess, passionately fond of all pleasures, of good living, of the chase madly, of music with a sort of transport, and of play too, in which he could notbear to lose; often ferocious, naturally inclined to cruelty, savage inraillery, taking off absurdities with a patness which was killing; fromthe height of the clouds he regarded men as but atoms to whom he bore noresemblance, whoever they might be. Barely did the princes his brothersappear to him intermediary between himself and the human race, althoughthere had always been an affectation of bringing them all three up inperfect equality; wits, penetration, flashed from every part of him, evenin his transports; his repartees were astounding, his replies always wentto the point and deep down, even in his mad fits; he made child's play ofthe most abstract sciences; the extent and vivacity of his wits wereprodigious, and hindered him from applying himself to one thing at atime, so far as to render him incapable of it. " As a sincere Christian and a priest, Fenelon saw from the first thatreligion alone could triumph over this terrible nature; the Duke ofBeauvilliers, as sincere and as christianly as he, without much wits, modestly allowed himself to be led; all the motives that act mostpowerfully on a generous spirit, honor, confidence, fear and love ofGod, were employed one after the other to bring the prince intoself-subjection. He was but eight years old, and Fenelon had been onlya few months with him, when the child put into his hands one day thefollowing engagement:-- "I promise M. L'Abbe de Fenelon, on the honor of a prince, to do at oncewhatever he bids me, and to obey him the instant he orders me anything, and, if I fail to, I will submit to any kind of punishment and disgrace. " "Done at Versailles the 29th of November, 1689. "Signed: Louis. " [Illustration: Fenelon and the Duke of Burgundy----610] The child, however, would forget himself, and relapse into his mad fits. When his preceptor was chiding him one day for a grave fault, he went sofar as to say, "No, no, sir; I know who I am and what you are. " Fenelonmade no reply; coldly and gravely he allowed the day to close and thenight to pass without showing his pupil any sign of either resentment oraffection. Next day the Duke of Burgundy was scarcely awake when hispreceptor entered the room. "I do not know, sir, " said he, "whether youremember what you said to me yesterday, that you know what you are andwhat I am. It is my duty to teach you that you do not know either one orthe other. You fancy yourself, sir, to be more than I; some lackeys, nodoubt, have told you so, but I am not afraid to tell you, since you forceme to it, that I am more than you. You have sense enough to understandthat there is no question here of birth. You would consider anybody outof his wits who pretended to make a merit of it that the rain of heavenhad fertilized his crops without moistening his neighbors. You would beno wiser if you were disposed to be vain of your birth, which addsnothing to your personal merit. You cannot doubt that I am above you inlights and knowledge. You know nothing but what I have taught you; andwhat I have taught you is nothing compared with what I might still teachyou. As for authority, you have none over me; and I, on the contrary, have it fully and entirely over you; the king and Monseigneur have toldyou so often enough. You fancy, perhaps, that I think myself veryfortunate to hold the office I discharge towards you; disabuse yourselfonce more, sir; I only took it in order to obey the king and givepleasure to Monseigneur, and not at all for the painful privilege ofbeing your preceptor; and, that you may have no doubt about it, I amgoing to take you to his Majesty, and beg him to get you another one, whose pains I hope may be more successful than mine. " The Duke ofBurgundy's passion was past, and he burst into sobs. "Ah! sir, " hecried, "I am in despair at what took place yesterday; if you speak tothe king, you will lose me his affection; if you leave me, what will bethought of me? I promise you. I promise you . . . That you shall besatisfied with me; but promise me . . . " Fenelon promised nothing; he remained, and the foundation of hisauthority was laid forever in the soul of his pupil. The young princedid not forget what he was, but he had felt the superiority of hismaster. "I leave the Duke of Burgundy behind the door, " he wasaccustomed to say, "and with you I am only little Louis. " God, at the same time with Fenelon, had taken possession of the Duke ofBurgundy's soul. "After his first communion, we saw disappearing littleby little all the faults which, in his infancy, caused us greatmisgivings as to the future, " writes Madame de Maintenon. "His piety hascaused such a metamorphosis that, from the passionate thing he was, hehas become self-restrained, gentle, complaisant; one would say that thatwas his character, and that virtue was natural to him. " "All his madfits and spites yielded at the bare name of God, " Fenelon used to say;"one day when he was in a very bad temper, and wanted to hide in hispassion what he had done in his disobedience, I pressed him to tell methe truth before God; then he put himself into a great rage and bawled, 'Why ask me before God? Very well, then, as you ask me in that way, Icannot deny that I committed that fault. ' He was as it were besidehimself with excess of rage, and yet religion had such dominion over himthat it wrung from him so painful an avowal. " "From this abyss, " writesthe Duke of St. Simon, "came forth a prince affable, gentle, humane, self-restrained, patient, modest, humble, and austere towards himself, wholly devoted to his obligations and feeling them to be immense; hethought of nothing but combining the duties of a son and a subject withthose to which he saw himself destined. " "From this abyss " came forth also a prince singularly well informed, fond of study, with a refined taste in literature, with a passion forscience; for his instruction Fenelon made use of the great works composedfor his father's education by Bossuet, adding thereto writings moresuitable for his age; for him he composed the _Fables_ and the _Dialoguesdes Morts, _ and a _Histoire de Charlemagne_ which has perished. In hisstories, even those that were imaginary, he paid attention beforeeverything to truth. "Better leave a history in all its dryness thanenliven it at the expense of truth, " he would say. The suppleness andrichness of his mind sufficed to save him from wearisomeness; theliveliness of his literary impressions communicated itself to his pupil. "I have seen, " says Fenelon in his letter to the French Academy, "I haveseen a young prince, but eight years old, overcome with grief at sight ofthe peril of little Joash; I have seen him lose patience with the chiefpriest for concealing from Joash his name and his birth; I have seen himweeping bitterly as he listened to these verses:-- 'O! miseram Euridicen anima fugiente vocabat; Euridicen toto referebant flumine ripx. '" The soul and mind of Fenelon were sympathetic; Bossuet, in writing forthe grand-dauphin, was responsive to the requirements of his own mind, never to those of the boy's with whose education he had been intrusted. Fenelon also wrote _Telemaque_. "It is a fabulous narrative, " he himselfsays, "in the form of an heroic poem, like Homer's or Virgil's, wherein Ihave set forth the principal actions that are meet for a prince whosebirth points him out as destined to reign. I did it at a time when I wascharmed with the marks of confidence and kindness showered upon me by theking; I must have been not only the most ungrateful but the mostinsensate of men to have intended to put into it satirical and insolentportraits; I shrink from the bare idea of such a design. It is true thatI have inserted in these adventures all the verities necessary forgovernment and all the defects that one can show in the exercise ofsovereign power; but I have not stamped any of them with a peculiaritywhich would point to any portrait or caricature. The more the work isread, the more it will be seen that I wished to express everythingwithout depicting anybody consecutively; it is, in fact, a narrative donein haste, in detached pieces and at different intervals; all I thought ofwas to amuse the Duke of Burgundy, and, whilst amusing, to instruct him, without ever meaning to give the work to the public. " _Telemaque_ was published, without any author's name and by anindiscretion of the copyist's, on the 6th of April, 1699. Fenelon was inexile at his diocese; public rumor before long attributed the work tohim; the _Maximes des Saints_ had just been condemned, _Telemaque_ wasseized, the printers were punished; some copies had escaped the police;the book was reprinted in Holland; all Europe read it, finding thereinthe allusions and undermeanings against which Fenelon defended himself. Louis XIV. Was more than ever angry with the archbishop. "I cannotforgive M. De Cambrai for having composed the Telemaque, " Madame deMaintenon would say. Fenelon's disgrace, begun by the _Maximes desSaints_ touching absolute (pure) love, was confirmed by his ideal pictureof kingly power. Chimerical in his theories of government, high-flown inhis pious doctrines, Fenelon, in the conduct of his life as well as inhis practical directions to his friends, showed a wisdom, a prudence, atact which singularly belied the free speculations of his mind or hisheart. He preserved silence amid the commendations and criticisms of the_Telemaque_. "I have no need and no desire to change my position, " hewould say; "I am beginning to be old, and I am infirm; there is nooccasion for my friends to ever commit themselves or to take any doubtfulstep on my account. I never sought out the court; I was sent forthither. I staid there nearly ten years without obtruding myself, without taking a single step on my own behalf, without asking thesmallest favor, without meddling in any matter, and confining myself toanswering conscientiously in all matters about which I was spoken to. I was dismissed; all I have to do is to remain at peace in my own place. I doubt not that, besides the matter of my condemned work, the policy of_Telemaque_ was employed against me upon the king's mind; but I mustsuffer and hold my tongue. " Every tongue was held within range of King Louis XIV. It was only on the22d of December, 1701, four years after Fenelon's departure, that theDuke of Burgundy thought he might write to him in the greatest secrecy:"At last, my dear archbishop, I find a favorable opportunity of breakingthe silence I have kept for four years. I have suffered many troublessince, but one of the greatest has been that of being unable to show youwhat my feelings towards you were during that time, and that my affectionincreased with your misfortunes, instead of being chilled by them. Ithink with real pleasure on the time when I shall be able to see youagain, but I fear that this time is still a long way off. It must beleft to the will of God, from whose mercy I am always receiving newgraces. I have been many times unfaithful to Him since I saw you, but Hehas always done me the grace of recalling me to Him, and I have not, thank God, been deaf to His voice. I continue to study all alone, although I have not been doing so in the regular way for the last twoyears, and I like it more than ever. But nothing gives me more pleasurethan metaphysics and ethics, and I am never tired of working at them. Ihave done some little pieces myself, which I should very much like to bein a position to send you, that you might correct them as you used to domy themes in old times. I shall not tell you here how my feelingsrevolted against all that has been done in your case, but we must submitto the will of God and believe that all has happened for our good. Farewell, my dear archbishop. I embrace you with all my heart; I askyour prayers and your blessing. --Louis. " "I speak to you of God and yourself only, " answered Fenelon in a letterfull of wise and tender counsels; it is no question of me. Thank God, Ihave a heart at ease; my heaviest cross is that I do not see you, but Iconstantly present you before God in closer presence than that of thesenses. I would give a thousand lives like a drop of water to see yousuch as God would have you. " Next year, in 1702, the king gave the Duke of Burgundy the command of thearmy in Flanders. He wrote to Fenelon, "I cannot feel myself so near youwithout testifying my joy thereat, and, at the same time, that which iscaused by the king's permission to call upon you on my way; he has, however, imposed the condition that I must not see you in private. Ishall obey this order, and yet I shall be able to talk to you as much asI please, for I shall have with me Saumery, who will make the third atour first interview after five years' separation. " The archbishop waspreparing to leave Cambrai so as not to be in the prince's way; he nowremained, only seeing the Duke of Burgundy, however, in the presence ofseveral witnesses; when he presented him with his table-napkin at supper, the prince raised his voice, and, turning to his old master, said, with atouching reminiscence of his childhood's passions, "I know what I oweyou; you know what I am to you. " The correspondence continued, with confidence and deference on the partof the prince, with tender, sympathetic, far-sighted, paternal intereston the part of the archbishop, more and more concerned for the perils andtemptations to which the prince was exposed in proportion as he saw himnearer to the throne and more exposed to the incense of the world. "Theright thing is to become the counsel of his Majesty, " he wrote to him onthe death of the grand dauphin, "the father of the people, the comfort ofthe afflicted, the defender of the church; the right thing is to keepflatterers aloof and distrust them, to distinguish merit, seek it out andanticipate it, to listen to everything, believe nothing without proof, and, being placed above all, to rise superior to every one. The rightthing is to desire to be father and not master. The right thing is notthat all should be for one, but that one should be for all, to securetheir happiness. " A solemn and touching picture of an absolute monarch, submitting to God and seeking His will alone. Fenelon had early imbuedhis pupil with the spirit of it; and the pupil appeared on the point ofrealizing it; but God at a single blow destroyed all these fair hopes. "All my ties are broken, " said Fenelon; "I live but on affection, and ofaffection I shall die; we shall recover ere long that which we have notlost; we approach it every day with rapid strides; yet a little while, and there will be no more cause for tears. " A week later he was dead, leaving amongst his friends, so diminished already by death, animmeasurable gap, and amongst his adversaries themselves the feeling of agreat loss. "I am sorry for the death of M. De Cambrai, " wrote Madame deMaintenon on the 10th of January, 1715; "he was a friend I lost throughQuietism, but it is asserted that he might have done good service in thecouncil, if things should be pushed so far. " Fenelon had not beenmistaken, when he wrote once upon a time to Madame de Maintenon, whoconsulted him about her defects, "You are good towards those for whom youhave liking and esteem, but you are cold so soon as the liking leavesyou; when you are frigid your frigidity is carried rather far, and, whenyou begin to feel mistrust, your heart is withdrawn too brusquely fromthose to whom you had shown confidence. " Fenelon had never shown any literary prepossessions. He wrote for hisfriends or for the Duke of Burgundy, lavishing the treasures of his mindand spirit upon his letters of spiritual guidance, composing, in order toconvince the Duke of Orleans, his _Traite de l'Existence de Dieu, _indifferent as to the preservation of the sermons he preached everySunday, paying more attention to the plans of government he addressed tothe young dauphin than to the publication of his works. Several were notcollected until after his death. In delivering their eulogy of him atthe French Academy, neither M. De Boze, who succeeded him, nor M. Dacier, director of the Academy, dared to mention the name of _Telemaque_. Clever (_spirituel_) "to an alarming extent" (_faire peur_) in theminutest detail of his writings, rich, copious, harmonious, but notwithout tendencies to lengthiness, the style of Fenelon is the reflex ofhis character; sometimes, a little subtle and covert, like the prelate'smind, it hits and penetrates without any flash (_eclat_) and withoutdealing heavy blows. "Graces flowed from his lips, " said Chancellord'Aguesseau, "and he seemed to treat the greatest subjects as if, so tospeak, they were child's play to him; the smallest grew to noblenessbeneath his pen, and he would have made flowers grow in the midst ofthorns. A noble singularity, pervading his whole person, and a somethingsublime in his very simplicity, added to his characteristics a certainprophet-like air. Always original, always creative, he imitated nobody, and himself appeared inimitable. " His last act was to write a letter toFather Le Tellier to be communicated to the king. "I have just receivedextreme unction; that is, the state, reverend father, when I am preparingto appear before God, in which I pray you with instance to represent tothe king my true sentiments. I have never felt anything but docilitytowards the church and horror at the innovations which have been imputedto me. I accepted the condemnation of my book in the most absolutesimplicity. I have never been a single moment in my life without feelingtowards the king personally the most lively gratitude, the most genuinezeal, the most profound respect, and the most inviolable attachment. Itake the liberty of asking of his Majesty two favors, which do notconcern either my own person or anybody belonging to me. The first is, that he will have the goodness to give me a pious and methodicalsuccessor, sound and firm against Jansenism, which is in prodigiouscredit on this frontier. The other favor is, that he will have thegoodness to complete with my successor that which could not be completedwith me on behalf of the gentlemen of St. Sulpice. I wish his Majesty along life, of which the church as well as the state has infinite need. If peradventure I go into the presence of God, I shall often ask thesefavors of Him. " How dread is the power of sovereign majesty, operative even at thedeath-bed of the greatest and noblest spirits, causing Fenelon in hisdying hour to be anxious about the good graces of a monarch ere long, like him, a-dying ! Our thoughts may well linger over those three great minds, Pascal, Bossuet, and Fenelon, --one layman and two bishops; all equally absorbedby the great problems of human life and immortality. With differentdegrees of greatness and fruitfulness, they all serve the same cause. Whether as defenders or assailants of Jansenism and Quietism, thesolitary philosopher or the prelates engaged in the court or in theguidance of men, all three of them serving God on behalf of the soul'shighest interests, remained unique in their generation, and withoutsuccessors as they had been without predecessors. Leaving the desert and the church, and once more entering the world, weimmediately encounter, amongst women, one, and one only, in the firstrank--Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marchioness of Sevigne, born at Paris onthe 5th of February, 1627, five months before Bossuet. Like aconsiderable number of women in Italy in the sixteenth century, and inFrance in the seventeenth, she had received a careful education. Sheknew Italian, Latin, and Spanish; she had for masters Menage andChapelain; and she early imbibed a real taste for solid reading, whichshe owed to her leaning towards the Jansenists and Port-Royal. She wasleft a widow at five and twenty by the death of a very indifferenthusband, and she was not disposed to make a second venture. Beforegetting killed in a duel, M. De Sevigne had made a considerable gap inthe property of his wife, who, however, had brought him more than fivehundred thousand livres. Madame de Sevigne had two children: she made upher mind to devote herself to their education, to restore their fortune, and to keep her love for them and for her friends. Of them she had many, often very deeply smitten with her; all remained faithful to her, and, she deserted none of them, though they might be put on trial andcondemned like Fouquet, or perfidious and cruel like her cousin M. DeBussy-Rabutin. The safest and most agreeable of acquaintances, everready to take part in the joys as well as the anxieties of those whom shehonored with her friendship, without permitting this somewhat superficialsympathy to agitate the depths of her heart, she had during her life butone veritable passion, which she admitted nobody to share with her. Herdaughter, Madame de Grignan, the prettiest girl in France, clever, virtuous, business-like, appears in her mother's letters fitful, cross-grained, and sometimes rather cold. Madame de Sevigne is a friendwhom we read over and over again, whose emotions we share, to whom we gofor an hour's distraction and delightful chat. We have no desire to chatwith Madame de Grignan; we gladly leave her to her mother's exclusiveaffection, feeling infinitely obliged to her, however, for havingexisted, inasmuch as her mother wrote letters to her. Madame deSevigne's letters to her daughter are superior to all her other letters, charming as they are. When she writes to M. De Pomponne, to M. DeCoulanges, to M. De Bussy, the style is less familiar, the heart lessopen, the soul less stirred. She writes to her daughter as she wouldspeak to her; it is not letters, it is an animated and charmingconversation, touching upon everything, embellishing everything with aninimitable grace. She gave her daughter in marriage to Count de Grignanin January, 1669; next year her son-in-law was appointed lieutenant-general of the king in Provence; he was to fill the place there of theDuke of Vendome, too young to discharge his functions as governor. Inthe month of January, 1671, M. De Grignan removed his wife to Aix: he wasa Provencal, he was fond of his province, his castle of Grignan, and hiswife. Madame de Sevigne found herself condemned to separation from thedaughter whom she loved exclusively. "In vain I seek my darlingdaughter; I can no longer find her, and every step she takes removes herfarther from me. I went to St. Mary's, still weeping and still dying ofgrief; it seemed as if my heart and my soul were being wrenched from me;and, in truth, what a cruel separation! I asked leave to be alone: I wastaken into Madame du Housset's room, and they made me up a fire. Agnessat looking at me without speaking: that was our bargain. I staid theretill five o'clock, without ceasing to sob: all my thoughts were mortal, wounds to me. I wrote to M. De Grignan, you can imagine in what key. Then I went to Madame de La Fayette's, who redoubled my griefs by theinterest she took in them. She was alone, ill and distressed at thedeath of one of the nuns; she was just as I could have desired. Ireturned hither at eight; but when I came in, O! can you conceive what Ifelt as I mounted these stairs? That room into which I used always togo, alas! I found the doors of it open, but I saw everythingdisfurnished, everything disarranged, and your little daughter, whoreminded me of mine. The wakenings of the night were dreadful; I thinkof you continuously: it is what devotees call an habitual thought, suchas one should have of God, if one did one's duty. Nothing gives me anydistraction. I see that carriage, which is forever going on and willnever come near me. I am forever on the highways; it seems as if I wereafraid sometimes that the carriage will upset with me. The rains therehave been for the last three days reduce me to despair; the Rhone causesme strange alarm. I have a map before my eyes, I know all the placeswhere you sleep. This evening you are at Nevers; on Sunday you will beat Lyons, where you will receive this letter. I have received only twoof yours; perhaps the third will come; that is the only comfort I desire:as for others, I seek for none. " During five and twenty years Madame deSevign~ could never become accustomed to her daughter's absence. She setout for the Rochers, near Vitry, a family estate of M. De Sevigne's. Herfriend the Duke of Chaulnes was governor of Brittany. "You shall nowhave news of our states as your penalty for being a Breton. M. DeChaulnes arrived on Sunday evening, to the sound of everything that canmake any in Vitry. On Monday morning he sent me a letter; I wrote backto say that I would go and dine with him. There are two dining-tables inthe same room; fourteen covers at each table. Monsieur presides at one, Madame at the other. The good cheer is prodigious; joints are carriedaway quite untouched, and as for the pyramids of fruit, the doors requireto be heightened. Our fathers did not foresee this sort of machine, indeed they did not even foresee that a door required to be higher thanthemselves. Well, a pyramid wants to come in, one of those pyramidswhich make everybody exclaim from one end of the table to the other; butso far from that boding damage, people are often, on the contrary, veryglad not to see any more of what they contain. This pyramid, then, withtwenty or thirty porcelain dishes, was so completely upset at the door, that the noise it made put to silence the violins, hautbois, andtrumpets. After dinner, M. De Locmaria and M. De Coetlogon danced withtwo fair Bretons some marvellous jigs (passe pipds) and some minuets in astyle that the court-people cannot approach; wherein they do the Bohemianand Breton step with a neatness and correctness which are charming. Iwas thinking all the while of you, and I had such tender recollections ofyour dancing and of what I had seen you dance, that this pleasure becamea pain to me. The States are sure not to be long; there is nothing to dobut to ask for what the king wants; nobody says a word, and it is alldone. As for the governor, he finds, somehow or other, more than fortythousand crowns coming in to him. An infinity of presents, pensions, repairs of roads and towns, fifteen or twenty grand dinner-parties, incessant play, eternal balls, comedies three times a week, a great showof dress, that is the States. I am forgetting three or four hundredpipes of wine which are drunk; but, if I did not reckon this little item, the others do not forget it, and put it first. This is what is calledthe sort of twaddle to make one go to sleep on one's feet; but it is whatcomes to the tip of your pen when you are in Brittany and have nothingelse to say. " Even in Brittany and at the Rochers, Madame de Sevigne always hassomething to say. The weather is frightful; she is occupied a good dealin reading the romances of La Calprenede and the _Grand Cyrus, _ as wellas the _Ethics_ of Nicole. "For four days it has been one continuoustempest; all our walks are drowned; there is no getting out any more. Our masons, our carpenters keep their rooms; in short, I hate thiscountry, and I yearn every moment for your sun; perhaps you yearn for myrain; we do well, both of us. I am going on with the _Ethics_ of Nicole, which I find delightful; it has not yet given me any lesson against therain, but I am expecting it, for I find everything there, and conformityto the will of God might answer my purpose, if I did not want a specificremedy. In fact, I consider this an admirable book; nobody has writtenas these gentlemen have, for I put down to Pascal half of all that isbeautiful. It is so nice to have one's self and one's feelings talkedabout, that, though it be in bad part, one is charmed by it. What iscalled searching the depths of the heart with a lantern is exactly whathe does; he discloses to us that which we feel every day, but have notthe wit to discern or the sincerity to avow. I have even forgiven theswelling in the heart (_l'enflure du coeur_) for the sake of the rest, and I maintain that there is no other word to express vanity and pride, which are really wind: try and find another word. I shall complete thereading of this with pleasure. " Here we have the real Madame de Sevigne, whom we love, on whom we rely, who is as earnest as she is amiable and gay, who goes to the very core ofthings, and who tells the truth of herself as well as of others. "Youask me, my dear child, whether I continue to be really fond of life. Iconfess to you that I find poignant sorrows in it, but I am even moredisgusted with death; I feel so wretched at having to end all thisthereby, that, if I could turn back again, I would ask for nothingbetter. I find myself under an obligation which perplexes me: I embarkedupon life without my consent, and I must go out of it; that overwhelmsme. And how shall I go? Which way? By what door? When will it be?In what condition? Shall I suffer a thousand, thousand pains, which willmake me die desperate? Shall I have brain-fever? Shall I die of anaccident? How shall I be with God? What shall I have to show Him?Shall fear, shall necessity bring me back to Him? Shall I have nosentiment but that of dread? What can I hope? Am I worthy of heaven?Am I worthy of hell? Nothing is such madness as to leave one's salvationin uncertainty, but nothing is so natural; and the stupid life I lead isthe easiest thing in the world to understand. I bury myself in thesethoughts, and I find death so terrible, that I hate life more because itleads me thereto than because of the thorns with which it is planted. You will say that I want to live forever then: not at all; but, if myopinion had been asked, I should have preferred to die in my nurse'sarms; that would have removed me from vexations of spirit, and would havegiven me Heaven full surely and easily. " Madame de Sevigne would have very much scandalized those gentlemen ofPort-Royal, if she had let them see into the bottom of her heart as sheshowed it to her daughter. Pascal used to say, "There are but threesorts of persons: those who serve God, having found Him; those who employthemselves in seeking Him, not having found Him; and those who livewithout seeking Him or having found Him. The first are reasonable andhappy; the last are mad and miserable; the intermediate are miserable andreasonable. " Without ever having sought and found God, in the absolutesense intended by Pascal, Madame de Sevigne kept approaching Him bygentle degrees. "We are reading a treatise by M. Namon of Port-Royal oncontinuous prayer; though he is a hundred feet above my head, henevertheless pleases and charms us. One is very glad to see that therehave been and still are in the world people to whom God communicates HisHoly Spirit in such abundance; but, O God! when shall we have somespark, some degree of it? How sad to find one's self so far from it, andso near to something else! O, fie! Let us not speak of such plight asthat: it calls for sighs, and groans, and humiliations a hundred times aday. " After having suffered so much from separation, and so often traversedFrance to visit her daughter in Provence, Madame de Sevigne had thehappiness to die in her house at Grignan. She was sixty-nine, and shehad been ill for some time; she was subject to rheumatism; her son'swildness had for a long while retarded the arrangement of her affairs;at last he had turned over a new leaf, he was married, he was a devotee. Madame de Grignan had likewise found a wife for her son, whom the kinghad made a colonel at a very early age; and a husband for her daughter, little Pauline, now Madame de Simiane. "All this together is extremelynice, and too nice, " wrote Madame de Sevigne to M. De Bussy, "for I findthe days going so fast, and the months and the years, that, for my part, my dear cousin, I can no longer hold them. Time flies, and carries mealong in spite of me; it is all very fine for me to wish to stay it, itbears me away with it, and the idea of this causes me great fear; youwill make a pretty shrewd guess why. " Death came at last, and Madame deSevigne lost all her terrors. She was attacked by small-pox whilst hersick daughter was confined to her bed, and died on the 19th of April, 1696, thanking God that she was the first to go, after having so oftentrembled for her daughter's health. "What calls far more for ouradmiration than for our regrets, " writes M. De Grignan to M. DeCoulanges, "is the spectacle of a brave woman facing death, of which shehad no doubt from the first days of her illness, with astounding firmnessand submission. This person, so tender and so weak towards all that sheloved, showed nothing but courage and piety when she believed that herhour was come; and we could not but remark of what utility and of whatimportance it is to have the mind stocked with good matter and holyreading, for the which Madame de Sevigne had a liking, not to say awonderful hungering, from the use she managed to make of that good storein the last moments of her life. " She had often taken her daughter totask for not being fond of books. "There is a certain person whoundoubtedly has plenty of wits, but of so nice and so fastidious a sort, that she cannot read anything but five or six sublime works, which is asign of distinguished taste. She cannot bear historical books; a greatdeprivation this, and of that which is a subsistence to everybody else. She has another misfortune, which is, that she cannot read twice overthose choice books which she esteems exclusively. This person says thatshe is insulted when she is told that she is not fond of reading: anotherbone to pick. " Madame de Sevigne's liking for good books accompanied herto the last, and helped her to make a good end. All the women who had been writers in her time died before Madame deSevigne. Madame de Motteville, a judicious and sensible woman, moreindependent at the bottom of her heart than in externals, had died in1689, exclusively occupied, from the time that she lost Queen Anne ofAustria, in works of piety and in drawing up her _Memoires_. Mdlle. DeMontpensier, "my great Mademoiselle, " as Madame de Sevigne used to callher, had died at Paris on the 5th of April, 1693, after a violentillness, as feverish as her life. Impassioned and haughty, with her headso full of her greatness that she did not marry in her youth, thinkingnobody worthy of her except the king and the emperor, who had no fancyfor her, and ending by a private marriage with the Duke of Lauzun, "acadet of Gascony, " whom the king would not permit her to espousepublicly; clever, courageous, hare-brained, generous, she has herselfsketched her own portrait. "I am tall, neither fat nor thin, of a veryfine and easy figure. I have a good mien, arms and hands not beautiful, but a beautiful skin and throat too. I have a straight leg and awell-shaped foot; my hair is light, and of a beautiful auburn; my face islong, its contour is handsome, nose large and aquiline; mouth neitherlarge nor small, but chiselled, and with a very pleasing expression; lipsvermilion; teeth not fine, but not frightful either. My eyes are blue, neither large nor small, but sparkling, soft, and proud, like my mien. Italk a great deal, without saying silly things or using bad words. I ama very vicious enemy, being very choleric and passionate, and that, addedto my birth, may well make my enemies tremble; but I have also a nobleand a kindly soul. I am incapable of any base and black deed; and so Iam more disposed to mercy than to justice. I am melancholic; I likereading good and solid books; trifles bore me, except verses, and them Ilike, of whatever sort they may be, and undoubtedly I am as good a judgeof such things as if I were a scholar. " A few days after Mademoiselle, died, likewise at Paris, Madelaine de laVergne, Marchioness of La Fayette, the most intimate friend of Madame deSevigne. "Never did we have the smallest cloud upon our friendship, " thelatter would say; "long habit had not made her merit stale to me, theflavor of it was always fresh and new; I paid her many attentions fromthe mere prompting of my heart, without the propriety to which we arebound by friendship having anything to do with it. I was assured, too, that I constituted her dearest consolation, and for forty years past ithad always been the same thing. " Sensible, clever, a sweet and safeacquaintance, Madame de La Fayette was as simple and as true in herrelations with her confidantes as in her writings. La Princesse deOlives alone has outlived the times and the friends of Madame de LaFayette. Following upon the "great sword-thrusts" of La Calprenede orMdlle. De Scudery, this delicate, elegant, and virtuous tale, with itspure and refined style, enchanted the court, which recognized itself atits best, and painted under its brightest aspect; it was farewell foreverto the "Pays de Tendre. " Madame de La Fayette had very bad health; shewrote to Madame de Sevigne on the 14th of July, 1693, "Here is what Ihave done since I wrote to you last. I have had two attacks of fever;for six months I had not been purged; I am purged once, I am purgedtwice; the day after the second time, I sit down to table. O, dear!I feel a pain in my heart; I do not want any soup. Have a little meatthen. No, I do not want any. Well, you will have some fruit. I think Iwill. Very well, then, have some. I don't know, I think I will havesomething by and by; let me have some soup and a chicken this evening. Here is the evening, and there are the soup and the chicken: I don't wantthem. I am nauseated; I will go to bed; I prefer sleeping to eating. Igo to bed, I turn round, I turn back, I have no pain, but I have no sleepeither. I call, I take a book, I shut it up. Day comes, I get up, I goto the window. It strikes four, five, six; I go to bed again, I dozetill seven, I get up at eight, I sit down to table at twelve, to nopurpose, as yesterday. I lay myself down in my bed again in the evening, to no purpose, as the night before. Are you ill? Nay. I am in thisstate for three days and three nights. At present I am getting somesleep again, but I still eat merely mechanically, horse-wise, rubbing mymouth with vinegar otherwise I am very well, and I haven't even so muchpain in the head. " Fault was found with Madame de La Fayette for notgoing out. "She had a mortal melancholy. What absurdity again! Is shenot the most fortunate woman in the world? That is what people said, "writes Madame de Sevigne; "it needed that she should be dead to provethat she had good reason for not going out, and for being melancholy. Her reins and her heart were all gone was not that enough to cause thosefits of despondency of which she complained? And so, during her life, she showed reason, and after death she showed reason, and never was shewithout that divine reason which was her principal gift. " Madame de La Fayette had in her life one great sorrow, which hadcompleted the ruin of her health. On the 16th of March, 1680, after theclosest and longest of intimacies, she had lost her best friend, the Dukeof La Rochefoucauld. Carried away in his youth by party strife and anardent passion for Madame de Longueville, he had at a later period soughtrefuge in the friendship of Madame de La Fayette. "When women havewell-formed minds, " he would say, "I like their conversation better thanthat of men; you find with them a certain gentleness which is not metwith amongst us, and it seems to me, besides, that they expressthemselves with greater clearness, and that they give a more pleasantturn to the things they say. " A meddler and intriguer during theFronde, sceptical and bitter in his _Maximes, _ the Duke of LaRochefoucauld was amiable and kindly in his private life. Factions andthe court had taught him a great deal about human nature; he had seen itand judged of it from its bad side. Witty, shrewd, and often profound, he was too severe to be just. The bitterness of his spirit breatheditself out completely in his writings; he kept for his friends thatkindliness and that sensitiveness of which he made sport. "He gave mewit, " Madame de La Fayette would say, "but I reformed his heart. " Hehad lost his son at the passage of the Rhine, in 1672. He was ill, suffering cruelly. "I was yesterday at M. De La Rochefoucauld's, "writes Madame de Sevigne, in 1680. "I found him uttering loud shrieks;his pain was such that his endurance was quite overcome without a singlescrap remaining. The excessive pain upset him to such a degree that hewas sitting out in the open air with a violent fever upon him. Hebegged me to send you word, and to assure you that the wheel-broken donot suffer during a single moment what he suffers one half of his life, and so he wishes for death as a happy release. " He died with Bossuet athis pillow. "Very well prepared as regards his conscience, " says Madamede Sevigne again; "that is all settled; but, in other respects, it mightbe the illness and death of his neighbor which is in question, he is notflurried about it, he is not troubled about it. Believe me, my daughter, it is not to no purpose that he has been making reflections all hislife; he has approached his last moments in such wise that they have hadnothing that was novel or strange for him. " M. De La Rochefoucauldthought worse of men than of life. "I have scarcely any fear ofthings, " he had said; "I am not at all afraid of death. " With all hisrare qualities and great opportunities he had done nothing butfrequently embroil matters in which he had meddled, and had never beenanything but a great lord with a good deal of wit. Actionlesspenetration and sceptical severity may sometimes clear the judgment andthe thoughts, but they give no force or influence that has power overmen. "There was always a something (_je ne sais quoi_) about M. De LaRochefoucauld, " writes Cardinal de Retz, who did not like him; "he wasfor meddling in intrigues from his childhood, and at a time when he hadno notion of petty interests, which were never his foible, and when hedid not understand great ones, which, on the other hand, were never hisstrength. He was never capable of doing anything in public affairs, andI am sure I don't know why. His views were not sufficiently broad, andhe did not even see comprehensively all that was within his range, buthis good sense, --very good, speculatively, --added to his suavity, hisinsinuating style, and his easy manners, which are admirable, ought tohave compensated more than it did for his lack of penetration. Healways showed habitual irresolution, but I really do not know to what toattribute this irresolution; it could not, with him, have come from thefertility of his imagination, which is anything but lively. He wasnever a warrior, though he was very much the soldier. He was never agood partyman, though he was engaged in it all his life. That air ofbashfulness and timidity which you see about him in private life wasturned in public life into an air of apology. He always consideredhimself to need one, which fact, added to his maxims, which do not showsufficient belief in virtue, and to his practice, which was always toget out of affairs with as much impatience as he had shown to get intothem, leads me to conclude that he would have done far better to knowhis own place, and reduce himself to passing, as he might have passed, for the most polite of courtiers and the worthiest (_le plus honnete_)man, as regards ordinary life, that ever appeared in his century. " [Illustration: La Rochefoucauld and his fair Friends----629] Cardinal de Retz had more wits, more courage, and more resolution thanthe Duke of La Rochefoucauld; he was more ambitious and more bold; hewas, like him, meddlesome, powerless, and dangerous to the state. Hethought himself capable of superseding Cardinal Mazarin, and far moreworthy than he of being premier minister; but every time he found himselfopposed to the able Italian he was beaten. All that he displayed, duringthe Fronde, of address, combination, intrigue, and resolution, wouldbarely have sufficed to preserve his name in history, if he had notdevoted his leisure in his retirement to writing his _Memoires_. Vigorous, animated, always striking, often amusing, sometimes showingrare nobleness and high-mindedness, his stories and his portraitstransport us to the very midst of the scenes he desires to describe andthe personages he makes the actors in them. His rapid, nervous, picturesque style is the very image of that little dark, quick, agileman, more soldier than bishop, and more intriguer than soldier, faithfully and affectionately beloved by his friends, detested by hisvery numerous enemies, and dreaded by many people, for the causticity ofhis tongue, long after the troubles of the Fronde had ceased, and he wasreduced to be a wanderer in foreign lands, still Archbishop of Pariswithout being able to set foot in it. Having retired to Commercy, hefell under Louis XIV. 's suspicion. Madame de Sevigne, who was one of hisbest friends, was anxious about him. "As to our cardinal, I have oftenthought as you, " she wrote to her daughter; "but, whether it be that theenemies are not in a condition to cause fear, or that the friends are notsubject to take alarm, it is certain that there is no commotion. Youshow a very proper spirit in being anxious about the welfare of a personwho is so distinguished, and to whom you owe so much affection. " "Can Iforget him whom I see everywhere in the story of our misfortunes, "exclaimed Bossuet, in his funeral oration over Michael Le Tellier, "that man so faithful to individuals, so formidable to the state, of acharacter so high that he could not be esteemed, or feared, or hated byhalves, that steady genius whom, the while he shook the universe, we sawattracting to himself a dignity which in the end he determined torelinquish as having been too dearly bought, as he had the courage torecognize in the place that is the most eminent in Christendom, and asbeing, after all, quite incapable of satisfying his desires, so consciouswas he of his mistake and of the emptiness of human greatness? But, solong as he was bent upon obtaining what he was one day to despise, hekept everything moving by means of powerful and secret springs, and, after that all parties were overthrown, he seemed still to uphold himselfalone, and alone to still threaten the victorious favorite with his sadbut fearless gaze. " When Bossuet sketched this magnificent portrait ofMazarin's rival, Cardinal de Retz had been six years dead, in 1679. Mesdames de Sevigne and de La Fayette were of the court, as were the Dukeof La Rochefoucauld and Cardinal de Retz. La Bruyere lived all his liferubbing shoulders with the court; he knew it, he described it, but he wasnot of it, and could not be of it. Nothing is known of his family. Hewas born at Dourdan in 1639, and had just bought a post in the Treasury(_tresorier de France_) at Caen, when Bossuet, who knew him, induced himto remove to Paris as teacher of history to the duke, grandson of thegreat Conde. He remained forever attached to the person of the prince, who gave him a thousand crowns a year, and he lived to the day of hisdeath at Conde's house. "He was a philosopher, " says Abbe d'Olivet inhis _Histoire de l'Academie Francaise;_ "all he dreamt of was a quietlife, with his friends and his books, making a good choice of both; notcourting or avoiding pleasure; ever inclined for moderate fun, and witha talent for setting it going; polished in manners, and discreet inconversation; dreading every sort of ambition, even that of displayingwit. " This was not quite the opinion formed by Boileau of La Bruyere. "Maximilian came to see me at Auteuil, " writes Boileau to Racine on the19th of May, 1687, the very year in which the _Caracteres_ was published;"he read me some of his _Theophrastus_. He is a very worthy (_honnete_)man, and one who would lack nothing, if nature had created him asagreeable as he is anxious to be. However, he has wit, learning, andmerit. " Amidst his many and various portraits, La Bruyere has drawn hisown with an amiable pride. "I go to your door, Ctesiphon; the need Ihave of you hurries me from my bed and from my room. Would to Heaven Iwere neither your client nor your bore. Your slaves tell me that you areengaged and cannot see me for a full hour yet; I return before the timethey appointed, and they tell me that you have gone out. What can you bedoing, Ctesiphon, in that remotest part of your rooms, of so laborious akind as to prevent you from seeing me? You are filing some bills, youare comparing a register; you are signing your name, you are putting theflourish. I had but one thing to ask you, and you had but one word toreply: yes or no. Do you want to be singular? Render service to thosewho are dependent upon you, you will be more so by that behavior than bynot letting yourself be seen. O man of importance and overwhelmed withbusiness, who in your turn have need of my offices, come into thesolitude of my closet; the philosopher is accessible; I shall not put youoff to another day. You will find me over those works of Plato whichtreat of the immortality of the soul and its distinctness from the body;or with pen in hand, to calculate the distances of Saturn and Jupiter. Iadmire God in His works, and I seek by knowledge of the truth to regulatemy mind and become better. Come in, all doors are open to you; myantechamber is not made to wear you out with waiting for me; come rightin to me without giving me notice. You bring me something more preciousthan silver and gold, if it be an opportunity of obliging you. Tell me, what can I do for you? Must I leave my books, my study, my work, thisline I have just begun? What a fortunate interruption for me is thatwhich is of service to you!" [Illustration: La Bruyere----633] From the solitude of that closet went forth a book unique of its sort, full of sagacity, penetration, and severity, without bitterness; apicture of the manners of the court and of the world, traced by the handof a spectator who had not essayed its temptations, but who guessed themand passed judgment on them all, --"a book, " as M. De Malezieux said to LaBruyere, "which was sure to bring its author many readers and manyenemies. " Its success was great from the first, and it excited livelycuriosity. The courtiers liked the portraits; attempts were made to namethem; the good sense, shrewdness, and truth of the observations struckeverybody; people had met a hundred times those whom La Bruyere haddescribed. The form appeared of a rarer order than even the matter; itwas a brilliant, uncommon style, as varied as human nature, alwayselegant and pure, original and animated, rising sometimes to the heightof the noblest thoughts, gay and grave, pointed and serious. Avoiding, by richness in turns and expression, the uniformity native to thesubject, La Bruyere riveted attention by a succession of touches making amasterly picture, a terrible one sometimes, as in his description of thepeasants' misery: To be seen are certain ferocious animals, male and female, scattered overthe country, dark, livid, and all scorched by the sun, affixed to thesoil which they rummage and throw up with indomitable pertinacity; theyhave a sort of articulate voice, and, when they rise to their feet, theyshow a human face; they are, in fact, men. At night they withdraw to thecaves, where they live on black bread, water, and roots. They spareother men the trouble of sowing, tilling, and reaping for theirlivelihood, and deserve, therefore, not to go in want of the very breadthey have sown. " Few people at the court, and in La Bruyere's day, wouldhave thought about the sufferings of the country folks, and conceived theidea of contrasting them with the sketch of a court-ninny. "Goldglitters, " say you, "upon the clothes of Philemon; it glitters as well asthe tradesman's. He is dressed in the finest stuffs; are they a whit theless so when displayed in the shops and by the piece? Nay; but theembroidery and the ornaments add magnificence thereto; then I give theworkman credit for his work. If you ask him the time, he pulls out awatch which is a masterpiece; his sword-guard is an onyx; he has on hisfinger a large diamond which he flashes into all eyes, and which isperfection; he lacks none of those curious trifles which are worn aboutone as much for show as for use; and he does not stint himself either ofall sorts of adornment befitting a young man who has married an oldmillionnaire. You really pique my curiosity: I positively must see suchprecious articles as those. Send me that coat and those jewels ofPhilemon's; you can keep the person. Thou'rt wrong, Philemon, if, withthat splendid carriage, and that large number of rascals behind thee, andthose six animals to draw thee, thou thiukest thou art thought more of. We take off all those appendages which are extraneous to thee to get atthyself, who art but a ninny. " More earnest and less bitter than La Rochefoucauld, and as brilliant andas firm as Cardinal de Retz, La Bruyere was a more sincere believer thaneither. "I feel that there is a God, and I do not feel that there isnone; that is enough for me; the reasoning of the world is useless to me. I conclude that God exists. Are men good enough, faithful enough, equitable enough to deserve all our confidence, and not make us wishat least for the existence of God, to whom we may appeal from theirjudgments and have recourse when we are persecuted or betrayed?" A verystrong reason and of potent logic, naturally imprinted upon an uprightspirit and a sensible mind, irresistibly convinced, both of them, thatjustice alone can govern the world. La Bruyere had just been admitted into the French Academy, in 1693. Inhis admission speech he spoke in praise of the living, Bossuet, Fenelon, Racine, La Fontaine; it was not as yet the practice. Those who were notpraised felt angry, and the journals of the time bitterly attacked thenew academician. He was hurt, and withdrew almost entirely from theworld. Four days before his death, however, "he was in company. All atonce he perceived that he was becoming deaf, yes, stone deaf. Hereturned to Versailles, where he had apartments at Conde's house. Apoplexy carried him off in a quarter of an hour on the 11th of May, 1696, " leaving behind him an incomparable book, wherein, according to hisown maxim, the excellent writer shows himself to be an excellent painter;and four dialogues against Quietism, still unfinished, full of lively andgood-humored hostility to the doctrines of Madame Guyon. They werepublished after his death. We pass from prose to poetry, from La Bruyere to Corneille, who had diedin 1684, too late for his fame, in spite of the vigorous returns ofgenius which still flash forth sometimes in his feeblest works. Throughout the Regency and the Fronde, Corneille had continued to occupyalmost alone the great French stage. Rotrou, his sometime rival with hispiece of Venceslas, and ever tenderly attached to him, had died, in 1650, at Dreux, of which he was civil magistrate. An epidemic was ravaging thetown, and he was urged to go away. "I am the only one who can maintaingood order, and I shall remain, " he replied. "At the moment of mywriting to you the bells are tolling for the twenty-second person to-day;perhaps to-morrow it will be for me; but my conscience has marked out myduty. God's will be done!" Two days later he was dead. Corneille had dedicated _Polyeucte_ to the regent Anne of Austria. Hepublished in a single year _Rodogune_ and the _Mort de Pompee, _dedicating this latter piece to Mazarin, in gratitude, he said, for anact of generosity with which his Eminence had surprised him. At the sametime he borrowed from the Spanish drama the canvas of the _Menteur, _ thefirst really French comedy which appeared on the boards, and whichMoliere showed that he could appreciate at its proper value. After thisattempt, due perhaps to the desire felt by Corneille to triumph over hisrivals in the style in which he had walked abreast with them, he lettragedy resume its legitimate empire over a genius formed by it. Hewrote _Heraclius_ and _Nicomede, _ which are equal in parts to his finestmasterpieces. But by this time the great genius no longer soared withequal flight. _Theodore_ and _Pertharite_ had been failures. "I don'tmention them, " Corneille would say, "in order to avoid the vexation ofremembering them. " He was still living at Rouen, in a house adjoiningthat occupied by his brother, Thomas Corneille, younger than he, alreadyknown by some comedies which had met with success. The two brothers hadmarried two sisters. "Their houses twain were made in one; With keys and purse the same was done; Their wives can never have been two. Their wishes tallied at all times; No games distinct their children' knew; The fathers lent each other rhymes; Same wine for both the drawers drew. " --[Ducis. ] It is said, that when Peter Corneille was puizled to end a verse he wouldundo a trap that opened into his brother's room, shouting, "Sans-souci, arhyme!" Corneille had announced his renunciation of the stage; he was translatinginto verse the _Imitation of Christ_. "It were better, " he had writtenin his preface to _Pertharite, _ "that I took leave myself instead ofwaiting till it is taken of me altogether; it is quite right that aftertwenty years' work I should begin to perceive that I am becoming too oldto be still in the fashion. This resolution is not so strong but that itmay be broken; there is every, appearance, however, of my abiding by it. " Fouquet was then in his glory, "no less superintendent of literature thanof finance, " and he undertook to recall to the stage the genius ofCorneille. At his voice, the poet and the tragedian rose up at a singlebound. "I feel the selfsame fire, the selfsame nerve I feel, That roused th' indignant Cid, drove home Iloratius' steel; As cunning as of yore this hand of mine I find, That sketched great Pompey's soul, depicted Cinna's mind, "-- wrote Corneille in his thanks to Fouquet. He had some months before saidto Mdlle. Du Pare, who was an actress in Moliere's company, which hadcome to Rouen, and who was, from her grand airs, nicknamed by the othersthe Marchioness, "Marchioness, " if Age hath set On my brow his ugly die; At my years, pray don't forget, You will be as--old as I. "Yet do I possess of charms One or two, so slow to fade, That I feel but scant alarms At the havoc Time hath made. "You have such as men adore, But these that you scorn to-day May, perchance, be to the fore When your own are worn away. "These can from decay reprieve Eyes I take a fancy to; Make a thousand, years believe Whatsoe'er I please of you. "With that new, that coming race, Who will take my word for it, All the warrant for your face Will be what I may have writ. " Corneille reappeared upon the boards with a tragedy called _OEdipe, _ moreadmired by his contemporaries than by posterity. On the occasion ofLouis XIV. 's marriage he wrote for the king's comedians the _Toisond'or, _ and put into the mouth of France those prophetic words:-- "My natural force abates, from long success alone; Triumphant blooms the state, the wretched people groan Their shrunken bodies bend beneath my high emprise; Whilst glory gilds the throne, the subject sinks and dies. " _Sertorius_ appeared at the commencement of the year 1662. "Pray wheredid Corneille learn politics and war?" asked Turenne when he saw thispiece played. "You are the true and faithful interpreter of the mind andcourage of Rome, " Balzac wrote to him; "I say further, sir, you are oftenher teacher, and the reformer of olden times, if they have need ofembellishment and support. In the spots where Rome is of brick, yourebuild it of marble; where you find a gap, you fill it with amasterpiece, and I take it that what you lend to history is alwaysbetter than what you borrow from it. . . . " "They are grander andmore Roman in his verses than in their history, " said La Bruyere. "Onceonly, in the Cid, Corneille had abandoned himself unreservedly to thereality of passion; scared at what he might find in the weaknesses of theheart, he would no longer see aught but its strength. He sought in manthat which resists and not that which yields, thus giving his times thesublime pleasure of an enjoyment that can belong to nought but the humansoul, a cherished proof of its noble origin and its glorious destiny, thepleasure of admiration, the appreciation of the beautiful and the great, the enthusiasm aroused by virtue. He moves us at sight of a masterpiece, thrills us at the sound of a noble deed, enchants us at the bare idea ofa virtue which three thousand years have forever separated from us. "(_Corneille et son temps, _ by M. Guizot. ) Every other thought, everyother prepossession, are strangers to the poet; his personages representheroic passions which they follow out without swerving and withoutsuffering themselves to be shackled by the notions of a morality whichis still far from fixed and often in conflict with the interests andobligations of parties, thus remaining perfectly of his own time and hisown country, all the while that he is describing Greeks, or Romans, orSpaniards. [Illustration: Corneille reading to Louis XIV. ----642] There is no pleasure in tracing the decadence of a great genius. Corneille wrote for a long while without success, attributing hisrepeated rebuffs to his old age, the influence of fashion, the capricioustaste of the generation for young people; he thought himself neglected, appealing to the king himself, who had ordered _Cinna_ and _Pompee_ to beplayed at court:-- "Go on; the latest born have naught degenerate, Naught have they which would stamp them illegitimate They, miserable fate! were smothered at the birth, And one kind glance of yours would bring them back to earth; The people and the court, I grant you, cry them down; I have, or else they think I have, too feeble grown; I've written far too long to write so well again; The wrinkles on the brow reach even to the brain; But counter to this vote how many could I raise, If to my latest works you should vouchsafe your praise! How soon so kind a grace, so potent to constrain, Would court and people both win back to me again! 'So Sophocles of yore at Athens was the rage, So boiled his ancient blood at five-score years of age, ' Would they to Envy cry, 'when OEdipus at bay Before his judges stood, and bore the votes away. '" Posterity has done for Corneille more than Louis XIV. Could have done: ithas left in oblivion _Agesilas, Attila, Titus, _ and _Pulcherie;_ itpreserved the memory of the triumphs only. The poet was accustomed tosay with a smile, when he was reproached with his slowness and emptinessin conversation, "I am Peter Corneille all the same. " The world haspassed similar judgment on his works; in spite of the rebuffs of hislatter years, he has remained "the great Corneille. " When he died, in 1684, Racine, elected by the Academy in 1673, foundhimself on the point of becoming its director; he claimed the honor ofpresiding at the obsequies of Corneille. The latter had not beenadmitted to the body until 1641, after having undergone two rebuffs. Corneille had died in the night. The Academy decided in favor of Abbe deLavau, the outgoing director. "Nobody but you could pretend to buryCorneille, " said Benserade to Racine, "yet you have not been able toobtain the chance. " It was only when he received into the Academy ThomasCorneille, in his brother's place, that Racine could praise to hisheart's content the master and rival who, in old age, had done him thehonor to dread him. "My father had not been happy in his speech at hisown admission, " says Louis Racine ingenuously; "he was in this, becausehe spoke out of the abundance of his heart, being inwardly convinced thatCorneille was worth much more than he. " Louis XIV. Had come in for asgreat a share as Corneille in Racine's praises. He, informed of thesuccess of the speech, desired to hear it. The author had the honor ofreading it to him, after which the king said to him, "I am very pleased;I would praise you more if you had praised me less. " It was on thisoccasion that the great Arnauld, still in disgrace and carefullyconcealed, wrote to Racine: "I have to thank you, sir, for the speechwhich was sent me from you. There certainly was never anything soeloquent, and the hero whom you praise is so much the more worthy of yourpraises in that he considered them too great. I have many things that Iwould say to you about that, if I had the pleasure of seeing you, but itwould need the dispersal of a cloud which I dare to say is a spot uponthis sun. I assure you that the ideas I have thereupon are notinterested, and that what may concern myself affects me very little. Achat with you and your companion would give me much pleasure, but I wouldnot purchase that pleasure by the least poltroonery. You know what Imean by that; and so I abide in peace and wait patiently for God to makeknown to this perfect prince that he has not in his kingdom a subjectmore loyal, more zealous for his true glory, and, if I dare say so, loving him with a love more pure and more free from all interest. Thatis why I should not bring myself to take a single step to obtain libertyto see my friends, unless it were to my prince alone that I could beindebted for it. " Fenelon and the great Arnauld held the same language, independent and submissive, proud and modest, at the same time. Onlytheir conscience spoke louder than their respect for the king. [Illustration: Racine----646] At the time when Racine was thus praising at the Academy the king and thegreat Corneille, his own dramatic career was already ended. He was born, in 1639, at La Ferte-Milon; he had made his first appearance on the stagein 1664 with the _Freres ennemis, _ and had taken leave of it in 1673 with_Phedre_. _Esther_ and _Athalie, _ played in 1689 and 1691 by the youngladies of St. Cyr, were not regarded by their author and his austerefriends as any derogation from the pious engagements he had entered into. Racine, left an orphan at four years of age, and brought up at Port-Royalunder the influence and the personal care of M. Le Maitre, who called himhis son, did not at first answer the expectations of his master. Theglowing fancy of which he already gave signs caused dismay to Lancelot, who threw into the fire one after the other two copies of the Greek tale_Theayene et Chariclee_ which the young man was reading. The third time, the latter learnt it off by heart, and, taking the book to his severecensor, "Here, " said he, "you can burn this volume too, as well as theothers. " Racine's pious friends had fine work to no purpose; nature carried theday, and he wrote verses. "Being unable to consult you, I was prepared, like Malherbe, to consult an old servant at our place, " he wrote to oneof his friends, "if I had not discovered that she was a Jansenist likeher master, and that she might betray me, which would be my utter ruin, considering that I receive every day letter upon letter, or ratherexcommunication upon excommunication, all because of a poor sonnet. " Todeter the young man from poetry, he was led to expect a benefice, and wassent away to Uzes to his uncle's, Father Sconin, who set him to studytheology. "I pass my time with my uncle, St. Thomas, and Virgil, " hewrote on the 17th of January, 1662, to M. Vitard, steward to the Duke ofLuynes; "I make lots of extracts from theology and some from poetry. Myuncle has kind intentions towards me, he hopes to get me something; thenI shall try to pay my debts. I do not forget the obligations I am underto you. I blush as I write; _Erubuit puer, salva res est_ (the lad hasblushed; it is all right). But that conclusion is all wrong; my affairsdo not mend. " Racine had composed at Uzes the _Freres ennemis, _ which was played on hisreturn to Paris in 1664, not without a certain success; _Alexandre_ metwith a great deal in 1665; the author had at first intrusted it toMoliere's company, but he was not satisfied and gave his piece to thecomedians of the Hotel de Dourgogne. Moliere was displeased, andquarrelled with Racine, towards whom he had up to that time testifiedmuch good will. The disagreement was not destined to disturb the equityof their judgments upon one another. When Racine brought out _LesPlaideurs, _ which was not successful at first, Moliere, as he left, saidout loud, "The comedy is excellent, and they who deride it deserve to bederided. " One of Racine's friends, thinking to do him a pleasure, wentto him in all haste to tell him of the failure of the _Misanthrope_ atits first representation. "The piece has fallen flat, " said he; "neverwas there anything so dull; you can believe what I say, for I was there. ""You were there, and I was not, " replied Racine, "and yet I don't believeit, because it is impossible that Moliere should have written a badpiece. Go again, and pay more attention to it. " Racine had just brought out _Alexandre_ when he became connected withBoileau, who was three years his senior, and who had already publishedseveral of his satires. "I have a surprising facility in writing myverses, " said the young tragic author ingenuously. "I want to teach youto write them with difficulty, " answered Boileau, "and you have talentenough to learn before long. " _Andromaque_ was the result of this noveleffort, and was Racine's real commencement. He was henceforth irrevocably committed to the theatrical cause. Nicoleattacking Desmarets, who had turned prophet after the failure of his_Clovis, _ alluded to the author's comedies, and exclaimed with all theseverity of Port-Royal, "A romance-writer and a scenic poet is a publicpoisoner not of bodies but of souls. " Racine took these words tohimself, and he wrote in defence of the dramatic art two letters sobitter, biting, and insulting towards Port-Royal and the protectors ofhis youth, that Boileau dissuaded him from publishing the second, andthat remorse before long took possession of his soul, never to beentirely appeased. He had just brought out _Les Plaideurs, _ which hadbeen requested of him by his friends and partly composed during thedinners they frequently had together. "I put into it only a fewbarbarous law-terms which I might have picked up during a lawsuit andwhich neither I nor my judges ever really heard or understood. " Afterthe first failure of the piece, the king's comedians one day riskedplaying it before him. "Louis XIV. Was struck by it, and did not thinkit a breach of his dignity or taste to utter shouts of laughter so loudthat the courtiers were astounded. " The delighted comedians, on leavingVersailles, returned straight to Paris, and went to awaken Racine. "Three carriages during the night, in a street where it was unusual tosee a single one during the day, woke up the neighborhood. There was arush to the windows, and, as it was known that a councillor of requests(law-officer) had made a great uproar against the comedy of the_Plaideurs, _ nobody had a doubt of punishment befalling the poet who haddared to take off the judges in the open theatre. Next day all Parisbelieved that he was in prison. " He had a triumph, on the contrary, with_Britannicus, _ after which the, king gave up dancing in the courtballets, for fear of resembling Nero. _Berenice_ was a duel betweenCorneille and Racine for the amusement of Madame Henriette. Racine boreaway the bell from his illustrious rival, without much glory. _Bajazet_soon followed. "Here is Racine's piece, " wrote Madame de Sevigne to herdaughter in January, 1672; if I could send you La Champmesle, you wouldthink it good, but without her, it loses half its worth. The characterof Bajazet is cold as ice, the manners of the Turks are ill observed init, they do not make so much fuss about getting married; the catastropheis not well led up to, there are no reasons given for that greatbutchery. There are some pretty things, however, but nothing perfectlybeautiful, nothing which carries by storm, none of those bursts ofCorneille's which make one creep. My dear, let us be careful never tocompare Racine with him, let us always feel the difference; never willthe former rise any higher than _Andromaque_. Long live our old friendCorneille! Let us forgive his bad verses for the sake of those divineand sublime beauties which transport us. They are master-strokes whichare inimitable. " Corneille had seen _Bajazet_. "I would take great carenot to say so to anybody else, " he whispered in the ear of Segrais, whowas sitting beside him, "because they would say that I said so fromjealousy; but, mind you, there is not in _Bajazet_ a single characterwith the sentiments which should and do prevail at Constantinople; theyhave all, beneath a Turkish dress, the sentiments that prevail in themidst of France. " The impassioned loyalty of Madame de Sevigne, and theclear-sighted jealousy of Corneille, were not mistaken; Bajazet is noTurk, but he is none the less very human. "There are points by which menrecognize themselves, though there is no resemblance; there are others inwhich there is resemblance without any recognition. Certain sentimentsbelong to nature in all countries; they are characteristic of man only, and everywhere man will see his own image in them. " [_Corneille et sontemps, _ by M. Guizot. ] Racine's reputation went on continuallyincreasing; he had brought out _Mithridate_ and _Iphigenie; Phedre_appeared in 1677. A cabal of great lords caused its failure at first. When the public, for a moment led astray after the _Phedre_ of Pradon, returned to the master-work of Racine, vexation and wounded pride haddone their office in the poet's soul. Pious sentiments ever smoulderingin his heart, the horror felt for the theatre by Port-Royal, andpenitence for the sins he had been guilty of against his friends there, revived within him; and Racine gave up profane poetry forever. "Theapplause I have met with has often flattered me a great deal, " said he ata later period to his son, "but the smallest critical censure, bad as itmay have been, always caused me more of vexation than all the praises hadgiven me of pleasure. " Racine wanted to turn Carthusian; his confessordissuaded him, and his friends induced him to marry. Madame Racine wasan excellent person, modest and devout, who never went to the theatre, and scarcely knew her husband's plays by name; she brought him somefortune. The king had given the great poet a pension, and Colbert hadappointed him to the treasury (_tresorier_) at Moulins. Louis XIV. , moreover, granted frequent donations to men of letters. Racine receivedfrom him nearly fifty thousand livres; he was appointed historiographerto the king. Boileau received the same title; the latter was notmarried, but Racine before long had seven children. "Why did not I turnCarthusian!" he would sometimes exclaim in the disquietude of hispaternal affection when his children were ill. He devoted his life tothem with pious solicitude, constantly occupied with their welfare, theirgood education, and the salvation of their souls. Several of hisdaughters became nuns. He feared above everything to see his eldest sondevote himself to poetry, dreading for him the dangers he considered hehimself had run. "As for your epigram, I wish you had not written it, "he wrote to him; "independently of its being commonplace, I cannot tooearnestly recommend you not to let yourself give way to the temptation ofwriting French verses which would serve no purpose but to distract yourmind; above all, you should not write against anybody. " This son, theobject of so much care, to whom his father wrote such modest, grave, paternal, and sagacious letters, never wrote verses, lived in retirement, and died young without ever having married. Little Louis, or Lionval, Racine's last child, was the only one who ever dreamt of being a writer. "You must be very bold, " said Boileau to him, "to dare write verses withthe name you bear! It is not that I consider it impossible for you tobecome capable some day of writing good ones, but I mistrust what iswithout precedent, and never, since the world was world, has there beenseen a great poet son of a great poet. " Louis Racine never was a greatpoet, in spite of the fine verses which are to be met with in his poems_la Religion_ and _la Grace_. His _Memoires_ of his father, written forhis son, describe Racine in all the simple charm of his domestic life. "He would leave all to come and see us, " writes Louis Racine; "an equerryof the duke's came one day to say that he was expected to dinner atConde's house. 'I shall not have the honor of going, ' said he; 'it ismore than a week since I have seen my wife and children who are makingholiday to-day to feast with me on a very fine carp; I cannot give updining with them. ' And, when the equerry persisted, he sent for thecarp, which was worth about a crown. 'Judge for yourself, ' said he, 'whether I can disappoint these poor children who have made up theirminds to regale me, and would not enjoy it if they were to eat this dishwithout me. ' He was loving by nature, " adds Louis Racine; "he was lovingtowards God when he returned to Him; and, from the day of his return tothose who, from his infancy, had taught him to know Him, he was sotowards them without any reserve; he was so all his life towards hisfriends, towards his wife, and towards his children. " Boileau had undertaken the task of reconciling his friend withPort-Royal. Nicole had made no opposition, "not knowing what war was. "M. Arnauld was intractable. Boileau one day made up his mind to take hima copy of _Phedre, _ pondering on the way as to what he should say to him. "Shall this man, " said he, "be always right, and shall I never be able toprove him wrong? I am quite sure that I shall be right to-day; if he isnot of my opinion, --he will be wrong. " And, going to M. Arnauld's, wherehe found a large company, be set about developing his thesis, pulling out_Phedre, _ and maintaining that if tragedy were dangerous, it was thefault of the poets. The younger theologians listened to himdisdainfully, but at last M. Arnauld said out loud, "If things are as hesays, he is right, and such tragedy is harmless. " Boileau declared thathe had never felt so pleased in his life. M. Arnauld being reconciled to_Phedre, _ the principal step was made next day the author of the tragedypresented himself. The culprit entered, humility and confusion depictedon his face; he threw himself at the feet of M. Arnauld, who took him inhis arms; Racine was thenceforth received into favor by Port-Royal. Thetwo friends were preparing to set out with the king for the campaign of1677. The besieged towns opened their gates before the poets had leftParis. "How is it that you had not the curiosity to see a siege?" theking asked them on his return: "it was not a long trip. " "True, sir, "answered Racine, always the greater courtier of the two, "but our tailorswere too slow. We had ordered travelling suits; and when they werebrought home, the places which your Majesty was besieging were taken. "Louis XIV. Was not displeased. Racine thenceforth accompanied him in allhis campaigns; Boileau, who ailed a great deal, and was of shydisposition, remained at Paris. His friend wrote to, him constantly, atone time from the camp and at another from Versailles, whither hereturned with the king. "Madame de Maintenon told me, this, morning, "writes Racine, "that the king had fixed our pensions at four thousandfrancs for me and two thousand for you: that is, not including ourliterary pensions. I have just come from thanking the king. I laid morestress upon your case than even my own. I said, in as many words, 'Sir, he has more wit than ever, more zeal for your Majesty, and more desire towork for your glory than ever he had. ' I am, nevertheless, really painedat the idea of my getting more than you. But, independently of theexpenses and fatigue of the journeys, from which I am glad that you aredelivered, I know that you are so noble-minded and so friendly, that I amsure you would be heartily glad that I were even better treated. I shallbe very pleased if you are. " Boileau answered at once: "Are you mad withyour compliments? Do not you know perfectly well that it was I whosuggested the way in which things have been done? And can you doubt ofmy being perfectly well pleased with a matter in which I am accorded allI ask? Nothing in the world could be better, and I am even more rejoicedon your account than on my own. " The two friends consulted one anothermutually about their verses; Racine sent Boileau his spiritual songs. The king heard the _Combat du Chretien_ sung, set to music by Moreau "O God, my God, what deadly strife! Two men within myself I see One would that, full of love to Thee, My heart were leal, in death and life; The other, with rebellion rife, Against Thy laws inciteth me. " He turned to Madame de Maintenon, and, "Madame, " said he, "I know thosetwo men well. " Boileau sends Racine his ode on the capture of Namur. "I have risked some very new things, " he says, "even to speaking of thewhite plume which the king has in his hat; but, in my opinion, if you areto have novel expressions in verse, you must speak of things which havenot been said in verse. You shall be judge, with permission to alter thewhole, if you do not like it. " Boileau's generous confidence was themore touching, in that Racine was sarcastic and bitter in discussion. "Did you mean to hurt me?" Boileau said to him one day. "God forbid!"was the answer. "Well, then, you made a mistake, for you did hurt me. " [Illustration: Boileau-Despreaux----650] Racine had just brought out _Esther_ at the theatre of St. Cyr. Madamede Brinon, lady-superior of the establishment which was founded by Madamede Maintenon for the daughters of poor noblemen, had given her pupils ataste for theatricals. "Our little girls have just been playing your_Andromaque, _ wrote Madame de Maintenon to Racine, "and they played it sowell that they never shall play it again in their lives, or any other ofyour pieces. " She at the same time asked him to write, in his leisurehours, some sort of moral and historical poem from which love should bealtogether banished. This letter threw Racine into a great state ofcommotion. He was anxious to please Madame de Maintenon, and yet it wasa delicate commission for a man who had a great reputation to sustain. Boileau was for refusing. "That was not in the calculations of Racine, "says Madame de Caylus in her Souvenirs. He wrote _Esther_. "Madame deMaintenon was charmed with the conception and the execution, " says Madamede La Fayette; "the play represented in some sort the fall of Madame deMontespan and her own elevation; all the difference was that Esther was alittle younger, and less particular in the matter of piety. The way inwhich the characters were applied was the reason why Madame de Maintenonwas not sorry to make public a piece which had been composed for thecommunity only and for some of her private friends. There was exhibiteda degree of excitement about it which is incomprehensible; not one of thesmall or the great but would go to see it, and that which ought to havebeen looked upon as merely a convent-play became the most serious matterin the world. The ministers, to pay their court by going to this play, left their most pressing business. At the first representation at whichthe king was present, he took none but the principal officers of hishunt. The second was reserved for pious personages, such as FatherLa Chaise, and a dozen or fifteen Jesuits, with many other devotees ofboth sexes; afterwards it extended to the courtiers. " "I paid my courtat St. Cyr the other day, more agreeably than I had expected writesMadame de Sevigne to her daughter: listened, Marshal Bellefonds and I, with an attention that was remarked, and with certain discreetcommendations which were not perhaps to be found beneath thehead-dresses' of all the ladies present. I cannot tell you howexceedingly delightful this piece is; it is a unison of music, verse, songs, persons, so perfect that there is nothing left to desire. Thegirls who act the kings and other characters were made expressly for it. Everything is simple, everything innocent, everything sublime andaffecting. I was charmed, and so was the marshal, who left his place togo and tell the king how pleased he was, and that he sat beside a ladywell worthy of having seen Esther. The king came over to our seats. 'Madame, ' he said to me, 'I am assured that you have been pleased. 'I, without any confusion, ' replied, 'Sir, I am charmed; what I feel isbeyond expression. ' The king said to me, 'Racine is very clever. 'I said to him, 'Very, Sir; but really these young people are very clevertoo; they throw themselves into the subject as if they had never doneaught else. ' 'Ah! as to that, ' he replied, 'it is quite true. ' And thenhis Majesty went away and left me the object of envy. The prince andprincess came and gave me a word, Madame de Maintenon a glance; she wentaway with the king. I replied to all, for I was in luck. " _Athalie_ had not the same brilliant success as _Esther_. The devoteesand the envious had affrighted Madame de Maintenon, who had requestedRacine to write it. The young ladies of St. Cyr, in the uniform of thehouse, played the piece quite simply at Versailles before Louis XIV. AndMadame de Maintenon, in a room without a stage. When the players gave arepresentation of it at Paris, it was considered heavy; it did not, succeed. Racine imagined that he was doomed to another failure like thatof _Phedre, _ which he preferred before all his other pieces. "I am apretty good judge, " Boileau kept repeating to him: "it is about the bestyou have done; the public will come round to it. " Racine died beforesuccess was achieved by the only perfect piece which the French stagepossesses, --worthy both of the subject and of the sources whence Racinedrew his inspiration. He had, with an excess of scrupulousness, abandoned the display of all the fire that burned within him; but beautynever ceased to rouse him to irresistible enthusiasm. Whilst reading thePsalms to M. De Seignelay, when lying ill, he could not refrain fromparaphrasing them aloud. He admired Sophocles so much that he neverdared touch the subjects of his tragedies. "One day, " says M. DeValicour, "when he was at Auteuil, at Boileau's, with M. Nicole and somedistinguished friends, he took up a Sophocles in Greek, and read thetragedy of _OEdipus, _ translating it as he went. He read so feelinglythat all his auditors experienced the sensations of terror and pity withwhich this piece abounds. I have seen our best pieces played by our bestactors, but nothing ever came near the commotion into which I was thrownby this reading, and, at this moment of writing, I fancy I still seeRacine, book in hand, and all of us awe-stricken around him. " Thus itwas that, whilst repeating, but a short time before, the verses of_Mithridate, _ as he was walking in the Tuileries, he had seen the workmenleaving their work and coming up to him, convinced as they were that hewas mad, and was going to throw himself into the basin. Racine for a long while enjoyed the favors of the king, who went so faras to tolerate the attachment the poet had always testified towardsPort-Royal. Racine, moreover, showed tact in humoring thesusceptibilities of Louis XIV. And his counsellors. "Father Bonhours andFather Rapin (Jesuits) were in my study when I received your letter, " hewrites to Boileau. "I read it to them, on breaking the seal, and I gavethem very great pleasure. I kept looking ahead, however, as I wasreading, in case there was anything too Jansenistical in it. I saw, towards the end, the name of M. Nicole, and I skipped boldly, or, rather, mean-spiritedly, over it. I dared not expose myself to the chance ofinterfering with the great delight, and even shouts of laughter, causedthem by many very amusing things you sent me. They are both of them, Iassure you, very friendly towards you, and indeed very good fellows. " All this caution did not prevent Racine, however, from dis pleasing theking. After a conversation he had held with Madame de Maintenon aboutthe miseries of the people, she asked him for a memorandum on thesubject. The king demanded the name of the author, and flew out at him. "Because he is a perfect master of verse, " said he, "does he think heknows everything? And because he is a great poet, does he want to beminister?"---Madame de Maintenon was more discreet in her relations withthe king than bold in the defence of her friends; she sent Racine wordnot to come and see her 'until further orders. ' "Let this cloud pass, "she said; "I will bring the fine weather back. " Racine was ill; hisnaturally melancholly disposition had become sombre. "I know, Madame, "he wrote to Madame de Maintenon, "what influence you have; but in thehouse of Port-Royal I have an aunt who shows her affection for me inquite a different way. This holy woman is always praying God to send medisgraces, humiliations, and subjects for penitence; she will have moresuccess than you. " At bottom his soul was not sturdy enough to endurethe rough doctrines of Port-Royal; his health got worse and worse; hereturned to court; he was re-admitted by the king, who received himgraciously. Racine continued uneasy; he had an abscess of the liver, andwas a long while ill. "When he was convinced that he was going to die, he ordered a letter to be written to the superintendent of finances, asking for payment, which was due, of his pension. His son brought himthe letter. 'Why, ' said he, 'did not you ask for payment of Boileau'spension too? We must not be made distinct. Write the letter over again, and let Boileau know that I was his friend even to death. ' When thelatter came to wish him farewell, he raised himself up in bed with aneffort. 'I regard it as a happiness for me to die before you, ' he saidto his friend. An operation appeared necessary. His son would havegiven him hopes. 'And you, too, ' said Racine, 'you would do as thedoctors, and mock me? God is the Master, and can restore me to life, butDeath has sent in his bill. '" He was not mistaken: on the 21st of April, 1699, the great poet, thescrupulous Christian, the noble and delicate painter of the purestpassions of the soul, expired at Paris, at fifty-nine years of age;leaving life without regret, spite of all the successes with which he hadbeen crowned. Unlike Corneille with the Cid, he did not take tragedy andglory by assault, he conquered them both by degrees, raising himself ateach new effort, and gaining over, little by little, the most passionateadmirers of his great rival. At the pinnacle of this reputation and thisvictory, at thirty-eight years of age, he had voluntarily shut the dooragainst the intoxications and pride of success; he had mutilated hislife, buried his genius in penitence, obeying simply the calls of hisconscience, and, with singular moderation in the very midst ofexaggeration, becoming a father of a family and remaining a courtier, atthe same time that he gave up the stage and glory. Racine was gentle andsensible even in his repentance and his sacrifices. Boileau gavereligion the credit for this very moderation. "Reason commonly bringsothers to faith; it was faith which brought M. Racine to reason. " Boileau had more to do with his friend's reason than he probably knew. Racine never acted without consulting him. With Racine, Boileau losthalf his life. He survived him twelve years without ever setting footagain within the court after his first interview with the king. "I havebeen at Versailles, " he writes to his publisher, M. Brossette, "where Isaw Madame de Maintenon, and afterwards the king, who overcame me withkind words; so, here I am more historiographer than ever. His Majestyspoke to me of M. Racine in a manner to make courtiers desire death, ifthey thought he would speak of them in the same way afterwards. Meanwhile that has been but very small consolation to me for the loss ofthat illustrious friend, who is none the less dead though regretted bythe greatest king in the universe. " "Remember, " Louis XIV. Had said, "that I have always an hour a week to give you when you like to come. "Boileau did not go again. "What should I go to court for?" he would say;"I cannot sing praises any more. " At Racine's death Boileau did not write any longer. He had entered thearena of letters at three and twenty, after a sickly and melancholychildhood. The _Art Poetique_ and the _Lutrin_ appeared in 1674; thefirst nine _Satires_ and several of the _Epistles_ had preceded them. Rather a witty, shrewd, and able versifier than a great poet, Boileaudisplayed in the _Lutrin_ a richness and suppleness of fancy which hisother works had not foreshadowed. The broad and cynical buffoonery ofScarron's burlesques had always shocked his severe and pure taste. "Yourfather was weak enough to read _Virgile travesti, _ and laugh over it, " hewould, say to Louis Racine, "but he kept it dark from me. " In the_Lutrin, _ Boileau sought the gay and the laughable under noble andpolished forms; the gay lost by it, the laughable remained stamped withan ineffaceable seal. "M. Despreaux, " wrote Racine to his son, "has notonly received from heaven a marvellous genius for satire, but he hasalso, together with that, an excellent judgment, which makes him discernwhat needs praise and what needs blame. " This marvellous genius forsatire did not spoil Boileau's natural good feeling. "He is cruel inverse only, " Madame de Sevigne used to say. Racine was tart, bitter indiscussion; Boileau always preserved his coolness: his judgmentsfrequently anticipated those of posterity. The king asked him one daywho was the greatest poet of his reign. "Moliere, sir, " answeredBoileau, without hesitation. "I shouldn't have thought it, rejoined theking, somewhat astonished; "but you know more about it than I do. "Moliere, in his turn, defending La Fontaine against the pleasantries ofhis friends, said to his neighbor at one of those social meals in whichthe illustrious friends delighted, " Let us not laugh at the good soul(bonhomme) he will probably live longer than the whole of us. " In thenoble and touching brotherhood of these great minds, Boileau continuedinvariably to be the bond between the rivals; intimate friend as he wasof Racine, he never quarrelled with Moliere, and he hurried to the kingto beg that he would pass on the pension with which he honored him to theaged Corneille, groundlessly deprived of the royal favors. He enteredthe Academy on the 3d of July, 1684, immediately after La Fontaine. Hissatires had retarded his election. "He praised without flattery; hehumbled himself nobly" says Louis Racine; "and when he said thatadmission to the Academy was sure to be closed against him for so manyreasons, he set a-thinking all the Academicians he had spoken ill of inhis works. " He was no longer writing verses when Perrault published his_Parallele des anciens et desmodernes-. "If Boileau do not reply, " saidthe Prince of Conti, "you may assure him that I will go to the Academy, and write on his chair, 'Brutus, thou sleepest. '" The ode on the captureof Namur, --intended to crush Perrault whilst celebrating Pindar, notbeing sufficient, Boileau wrote his _Reflexions sur Longin, _ bitter andoften unjust towards Perrault, who was far more equitably treated andmore effectually refuted in Fenelon's letter to the French Academy. [Illustration: La Fontaine, Boileau, Moliere, and Racine----657] Boileau was by this time old; he had sold his house at Auteuil, which wasso dear, but he did not give up literature, continuing to revise hisverses carefully, pre-occupied with new editions, and reproaching himselffor this pre-occupation. "It is very shameful, " he would say, "to bestill busying myself, with rhymes and all those Parnassian trifles, when, I ought to be thinking of nothing but the account I am prepared to go andrender to God. " He died on the 13th of March, 1711, leaving nearly allhe had to the poor. He was followed to the tomb by a great throng. "Hehad many friends, " was the remark amongst the people, "and yet we areassured that he spoke evil of everybody. " No writer ever contributedmore than Boileau to the formation of poetry; no more correct or shrewdjudgment ever assessed the merits of authors; no loftier spirit everguided a stronger and a juster mind. Through all the vicissitudesundergone by literature, and spite of the sometimes excessive severity ofhis decrees, Boileau has left an ineffaceable impression upon the Frenchlanguage. His talent was less effective than his understanding; hisjudgment and his character have had more influence fluence than hisverses. Boileau had survived all his friends. La Fontaine, born in 1621 atChateau-Thierry, had died in 1695. He had entered in his youth thebrotherhood of the Oratory, which he had soon quitted, being unable, heused to say, to accustom himself to theology. He went and came betweentown and town, amusing himself everywhere, and already writing a little. "For me the whole round world was laden with delights; My heart was touched by flower, sweet sound, and sunny day, I was the sought of friends and eke of lady gay. " Fontaine was married, without caring much for his wife, whom he left tolive alone at Chateau-Thierry. He was in great favor with Fouquet. Whenhis patron was disgraced, in danger of his life, La Fontaine put into themouth of the nymphs of Vaux his touching appeal to the king's clemency:-- "May he, then, o'er the life of high-souled Henry pore, Who, with the power to take, for vengeance yearned no more O, into Louis' soul this gentle spirit breathe. " Later on, during Fouquet's imprisonment at Pignerol, La Fontaine wrotefurther, -- "I sigh to think upon the object of my prayers; You take my sense, Ariste; your generous nature shares The plaints I make for him who so unkindly fares. He did displease the king; and lo his friends were gone Forthwith a thousand throats roared out at him like one. I wept for him, despite the torrent of his foes, I taught the world to have some pity for his woes. " La Fontaine has been described as a solitary being, without wit, andwithout external charm of any kind. La Bruyere has said, "A certain manappears loutish, heavy, stupid; he can neither talk nor relate what hehas just seen; he sets himself to writing, and it is a model ofstory-telling; he makes speakers of animals, trees; stones, everythingthat cannot speak. There is nothing but lightness and elegance, nothingbut natural beauty and delicacy in his works. " "He says nothing or willtalk of nothing but Plato, " Racine's daughters used to say. All hiscontemporaries, however, of fashion and good breeding did not form thesame opinion of him. The Dowager-duchess of Orleans, Marguerite ofLorraine, had taken him as one of her gentlemen-in-waiting; the Duchessof Bouillon had him in her retinue in the country; Madame de Montespanand her sister, Madame de Thianges, liked to have a visit from him. Helived at the house of Madame de La Sabliere, a beauty and a wit, whoreceived a great deal of company. He said of her, "Warm is her heart, and knit with tenderest ties To those she loves, and, elsewise, otherwise; For such a sprite, whose birthplace is the skies, Of manly beauty blent with woman's grace, No mortal pen, though fain, can fitly trace. " "I have only kept by me, " she would say, "my three pets (_animaux_): mydog, my cat, and La Fontaine. " When she died, M. And Madame d'Hervartreceived into their house the now old and somewhat isolated poet. AsD'Hervart was on his way to go and make the proposal to La Fontaine, hemet him in the street. "I was coming to ask you to put up at our house, "said he. "I was just going thither, " answered Fontaine with the mosttouching confidence. There he remained to his death, contenting himselfwith going now and then to Chateau-Thierry, as long as his wife lived, tosell, with her consent, some strip of ground. The property was going, old age was coming:-- "John did no better than he had begun, Spent property and income both as one: Of treasure saw small use in any way; Knew very well how to get through his day; Split it in two: one part, as he thought best, He passed in sleep--did nothing all the rest. " He did not sleep, he dreamed. One day dinner was kept waiting for him. "I have just come, " said he, as he entered, "from the funeral of an ant;I followed the procession to the cemetery, and I escorted the familyhome. " It has been said that La Fontaine knew nothing of naturalhistory; he knew and loved animals; up to his time, fable-writers hadbeen, merely philosophers or satirists; he was the first who was a poet, unique not only in France but in Europe, discovering the deep and secretcharm of nature, animating it, with his inexhaustible and gracefulgenius, giving lessons to men from the example of animals, without makingthe latter speak like man; ever supple and natural, sometimes elegant andnoble, with penetration beneath the cloak of his simplicity, inimitablein the line which he had chosen from taste, from instinct, and not fromwant of power to transport his genius elsewhither. He himself has said, "Yes, call me truly, if it must be said, Parnassian butterfly, and like the bees Wherein old Plato found our similes. Light rover I, forever on the wing, Flutter from flower to flower, from thing to thing, With much of pleasure mix a little fame. " And in _Psyche:_-- "Music and books, and junketings and love, And town and country--all to me is bliss; There nothing is that comes amiss; In melancholy's self grim joy I prove. " The grace, the naturalness, the original independence of the mind and theworks of La Fontaine had not the luck to please Louis XIV. , who neveraccorded him any favor, and La Fontaine did not ask for any:-- "All dumb I shrink once more within my shell, Where unobtrusive pleasures dwell; True, I shall here by Fortune be forgot Her favors with my verse agree not well; To importune the gods beseems me not. " Once only, from the time of Fouquet's trial, the poet demanded a favor:Louis XIV. , having misgivings about the propriety of the _Contes of LaFontaine, _ had not yet given the assent required for his election to theFrench Academy, when he set out for the campaign in Luxemburg. LaFontaine addressed to him a ballad:-- "Just as, in Homer, Jupiter we see Alone o'er all the other gods prevail; You, one against a hundred though it be, Balance all Europe in the other scale. Them liken I to those who, in the tale, Mountain on mountain piled, presumptuously Warring with Heaven and Jove. The earth clave he, And hurled them down beneath huge rocks to wail: So take you up your bolt with energy; A happy consummation cannot fail. "Sweet thought! that doth this month or two avail To somewhat soothe my Muse's anxious care. For certain minds at certain stories rail, Certain poor jests, which nought but trifles are. If I with deference their lessons hail, What would they more? Be you more prone to spare, More kind than they; less sheathed in rigorous mail; Prince, in a word, your real self declare A happy consummation cannot fail. " The election of Boileau to the Academy appeased the king's humor, whopreferred the other's intellect to that of La Fontaine. "The choice youhave made of M. Despreaux is very gratifying to me, " he said to the boardof the Academy: "it will be approved of by everybody. You can admit LaFontaine at once; he has promised to be good. " It was a rash promise, which the poet did not always keep. The friends, of La Fontaine had but lately wanted to reconcile him to hiswife. They had with that view sent him to Chateau-Thierry; he returnedwithout having seen her whom he went to visit. "My wife was not athome, " said he; "she had gone to the sacrament (_au salut_). " He wasbecoming old. Those same faithful friends--Racine, Boileau, and Maucroix--were trying to bring him home to God. Racine took him to church withhim; a Testament was given him. "That is a very good book, " said he;"I assure you it is a very good book. " Then all at once addressing AbbeBoileau, "Doctor, do you think that St. Augustin was as clever asRabelais?" He was ill, however, and began to turn towards eternity hisdreamy and erratic thoughts. He had set about composing pious hymns. "The best of thy friends has not a fortnight to live, " he wrote toMaucroix; "for two months I have not been out, unless to go to theAcademy for amusement. Yesterday, as I was returning, I was seized inthe middle of Rue du Chantre with a fit of such great weakness that Ireally thought I was dying. O, my dear friend, to die is nothing; butthinkest thou that I am about to appear before God? Thou knowest how Ihave lived. Before thou hast this letter, the gates of eternity will, perchance, be opened for me. " "He is as simple as a child, " said thewoman who took care of him in his last illness; "if he has done amiss, itwas from ignorance rather than wickedness. " A charming and a curiousbeing, serious and simple, profound and childlike, winning by reason ofhis very vagaries, his good-natured originality, his helplessness incommon life, La Fontaine knew how to estimate the literary merits as wellas the moral qualities of his illustrious friends. "When they happenedto be together, " says he, in his tale of _Psyche, _ "and had talked totheir heart's content of their diversions, if they chanced to stumbleupon any point of science or literature, they profited by the occasion, without, however, lingering too long over one and the same subject, butflitting from one topic to another like bees that meet as they go withdifferent sorts of flowers. Envy, malignity, or cabal had no voiceamongst them; they adored the works of the ancients, refused not themoderns the praises which were their due, spoke of their own withmodesty, and gave one another honest advice when any one of them fell illof the malady of the age and wrote a book, which happened now and then. In this case, Acanthus (Racine) did not fail to propose a walk in someplace outside the town, in order to hear the reading with less noise andmore pleasure. He was extremely fond of gardens, flowers, foliage. Polyphile (La Fontaine) resembled him in this; but then Polyphile mightbe said to love all things. Both of them were lyrically inclined, withthis difference, that Acanthus was rather the more pathetic, Polyphilethe more ornate. " When La Fontaine died, on the 13th of April, 1695, of the four friendslately assembled at Versailles to read the tale of _Psyche, _ Molierealone had disappeared. La Fontaine had admired at Vaux the young comicpoet, who had just written the _Facheux_ for the entertainment given byFouquet to Louis XIV. :-- "It is a work by Moliere; This writer, of a style so rare, Is nowadays the court's delight His fame, so rapid is its flight, Beyond the bounds of Rome must be: Amen! For he's the man for me. " In his old age he gave vent to his grief and his regret at Moliere'sdeath in this touching epitaph:-- "Beneath this stone Plautus and Terence lie, Though lieth here but Moliere alone Their threefold gifts of mind made up but one, That witched all France with noble comedy. Now are they gone: and little hope have I That we again shall look upon the three Dead men, methinks, while countless years roll by, Terentius, Plautus, Moliere will be. " [Illustration: Moliere----664] Moliere and French comedy had no need to take shelter beneath the mantleof the ancients; they, together, had shed upon the world incomparablelustre. Shakespeare might dispute with Corneille and Racine the sceptreof tragedy; he had succeeded in showing himself as full of power, withmore truth, as the one, and as full of tenderness, with more profundity, as the other. Moliere is superior to him in originality, abundance, andperfection of characters; he yields to him neither in range, norpenetration, nor complete knowledge of human nature. The lives of thesetwo great geniuses, authors and actors both together, present in otherrespects certain features of resemblance. Both were intended for anothercareer than that of the stage; both, carried away by an irresistiblepassion, assembled about them a few actors, leading at first a rovinglife, to end by becoming the delight of the court and of the world. JohnBaptist Poquelin, who before long assumed the name of Moliere, was bornat Paris in 1622; his father, upholstery-groom-of-the-chamber (_valet dechambre tapissier_) to Louis XIV. , had him educated with some care atClermont (afterwards Louis-le-Grand) College, then in the hands of theJesuits. He attended, by favor, the lessons which the philosopherGassendi, for a longtime, the opponent of Descartes, gave young Chapelle. He imbibed at these lessons, together with a more extensive course ofinstruction, a certain freedom of thinking which frequently cropped outin his plays, and contributed later on to bring upon him an accusation ofirreligion. In 1645 (?1643), Moliere had formed, with the ambitioustitle of _illustre theatre, _ a small company of actors, who, being unableto maintain themselves at Paris, for a long while tramped the provincesthrough all the troubles of the Fronde. It was in 1653 that Molierebrought out at Lyons his comedy _l'Etourdi, _ the first regular piece hehad ever composed. The _Depit amoureux_ was played at Beziers in 1656, at the opening of the session of the States of Languedoc; the companyreturned to Paris in 1658; in 1659, Moliere, who had obtained a licensefrom the king, gave at his own theatre _les Precieuses ridicules_. Hebroke with all imitation of the Italians and the Spaniards, and, takingoff to the life the manners of his own times, he boldly attacked theaffected exaggeration and absurd pretensions of the vulgar imitators ofthe Hotel de Rambouillet. "Bravo! Moliere, " cried an old man from themiddle of the pit; "this is real comedy. " When he published his piece, Moliere, anxious not to give umbrage to a powerful clique, took care tosay in his preface that he was not attacking real _precieuses, _ but onlythe bad imitations. Just as he had recalled Corneille to the stage, Fouquet was forprotecting Moliere upon it. The _Ecole des Mans_ and the _Facheux_ wereplayed at Vaux. Amongst the ridiculous characters in this latter, Moliere had not described the huntsman. Louis XIV. Himself indicated tohim the Marquis of Soyecour. "There's one you have forgotten, " he said. Twenty-four hours later, the bore of a huntsman, with all his jargon ofvenery, had a place forever amongst the _Facheux_ of Moliere. The _Ecoledes Femmes, _ the _Impromptu de Versailles, _ the _Critique de l'Ecole desFemmes, _ began the bellicose period in the great comic poet's life. Accused of impiety, attacked in the honor of his private life, Moliere, returning insult for insult, delivered over those amongst his enemies whooffered a butt for ridicule to the derision of the court and ofposterity. The _Festin de Pierre_ and the signal punishment of thelibertine (free-thinker) were intended to clear the author from thereproach of impiety; _la Princesse d'Elide_ and _l'Amour medecin_ werebut charming interludes in the great struggle henceforth institutedbetween reality and appearance. In 1666, Moliere produced _leMisanthrope, _ a frank and noble spirit's sublime invective against thefrivolity, perfidious and showy semblances of court. "This misanthrope'sdespitefulness against bad verses was copied from me; Moliere himselfconfessed as much to me many a time, " wrote Boileau one day. Theindignation of Alceste is deeper and more universal than that of Boileauagainst bad poets; he is disgusted with the court and the world becausehe is honest, virtuous, and sincere, and sees corruption triumphantaround him; he is wroth to feel the effects of it in his life, and almostin his own soul. He is a victim to the eternal struggle between good andevil without the strength and the unquenchable hope of Christianity. The_Misanthrope_ is a shriek of despair uttered by virtue, excited andalmost distraught at the defeat she forebodes. The _Tartuffe_ was a neweffort in the same direction, and bolder in that it attacked religioushypocrisy, and seemed to aim its blows even at religion itself. Molierewas a long time working at it; the first acts had been played in 1664, atcourt, under the title of _l'Hypocrite, _ at the same time as_la Princesse d'Elide_. "The king, " says the account of theentertainment in the _Gazette de Loret, _ "saw so much analogy of formbetween those whom true devotion sets in the way of heaven and those whoman empty ostentation of good deeds does not hinder from committing bad, that his extreme delicacy in respect of religious matters could withdifficulty brook this resemblance of vice to virtue; and though theremight be no doubt of the author's good intentions, he prohibited theplaying of this comedy before the public until it should be quitefinished and examined by persons qualified to judge of it, so as not tolet advantage be taken of it by others less capable of just discernmentin the matter. " Though played once publicly, in 1667, under the title of_l'Imposteur, _ the piece did not appear definitively on the stage until1669, having undoubtedly excited more scandal by interdiction than itwould have done by representation. The king's good sense and judgment atlast prevailed over the terrors of the truly devout and the resentment ofhypocrites. He had just seen an impious piece of buffoonery played. "I should very much like to know, " said he to the Prince of Conde, whostood up for Moliere, an old fellow-student of his brother's, the Princeof Conti's, "why people who are so greatly scandalized at Moliere'scomedy say nothing about _Scaramouche?_" "The reason of that, " answeredthe prince, "is, that Scaramouche makes fun of heaven and religion, aboutwhich those gentry do not care, and that Moliere makes fun of their ownselves, which they cannot brook. " The prince might have added that allthe blows in _Tartuffe, _ a masterpiece of shrewdness, force, and fearlessand deep wrath, struck home at hypocrisy. Whilst waiting for permission to have _Tartufe_ played, Moliere hadbrought out _le Medecin malgre lui, Amphitryon, Georges Dandin, _ and_l'Avare, _ lavishing freely upon them the inexhaustible resources of hisgenius, which was ever ready to supply the wants of kingly and princelyentertainments. _Monsieur de Pourceaugnac_ was played for the first timeat Chambord, on the 6th of October, 1669; a year afterwards, on the samestage, appeared _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, _ with the interludes and musicof Lulli. The piece was a direct attack upon one of the most frequentabsurdities of his day; many of the courtiers felt in their hearts thatthey were attacked; there was a burst of wrath at the firstrepresentation, by which the king had not appeared to be struck. Molierethought it was all over with him. Louis XIV. Desired to see the piece asecond time. "You have never written anything yet which has amused me somuch; your comedy is excellent, " said he to the poet; the court was atonce seized with a fit of admiration. The king had lavished his benefits upon Moliere, who had an hereditarypost near him as groom-of-the-chamber; he had given him a pension ofseven thousand livres, and the license of the king's theatre; he had beenpleased to stand godfather to one of his children, to whom the Duchess ofOrleans was godmother; he had protected him against the superciliousnessof certain servants of his bedchamber, but all the monarch's puissanceand constant favors could not obliterate public prejudice, and give thecomedian whom they saw every day on the boards the position and rankwhich his genius deserved. Moliere's friends urged him to give up thestage. "Your health is going, " Boileau would say to him, "because theduties of a comedian exhaust you. Why not give it up?" "Alas!" repliedMoliere, with a sigh, "it is a point of honor that prevents me. ""A what?" rejoined Boileau; "what! to smear your face with a mustache asSganarelle, and come on the stage to be thrashed with a stick? That is apretty point of honor for a philosopher like you!" Moliere might probably have followed the advice of Boileau, he mightprobably have listened to the silent warnings of his failing powers, ifhe had not been unfortunate and sad. Unhappy in his marriage, justlyjealous and yet passionately fond of his wife, without any consolationwithin him against the bitternesses and vexations of his life, he soughtin work and incessant activity the only distractions which had any charmfor a high spirit, constantly wounded in its affections and itslegitimate pride: _Psyche, Les Fourberies de Scapin, La Comtessed'Escarbagnas, _ betrayed nothing of their author's increasing sadness orsuffering. _Les Femmes Savantes_ had at first but little success; thepiece was considered heavy; the marvellous nicety of the portraits, thecorrectness of the judgments, the delicacy and elegance of the dialogue, were not appreciated until later on. Moliere had just composed_Le Malade Imaginaire, _ the last of that succession of blows which he hadso often dealt the doctors; he was more ailing than ever; his friends, even his actors themselves pressed him not to have any play. "What wouldyou have me do?" he replied; "there are fifty poor workmen who have buttheir day's pay to live upon; what will they do if we have no play? Ishould reproach myself with having neglected to give them bread for onesingle day, if I could really help it. " Moliere had a bad voice, adisagreeable hiccough, and harsh inflexions. "He was, nevertheless, " sayhis contemporaries, "a comedian from head to foot; he seemed to haveseveral voices, everything about him spoke, and, by a caper, by a smile, by a wink of the eye and a shake of the head, he conveyed more than, thegreatest speaker could have done by talking in an hour. " He played asusual on the 17th of February, 1673; the curtain had risen exactly atfour o'clock; Moliere could hardly stand, and he had a fit during theburlesque ceremony (at the end of the play) whilst pronouncing the wordJuro. He was icy-cold when he went back to Baron's box, who was waitingfor him, who saw him home to Rue Richelieu, and who at the same time sentfor his wife and two sisters of charity. When he went up again, withMadame Moliere, into the room, the great comedian was dead. He was onlyfifty-one. [Illustration: Death of Moliere----669] It has been a labor of love to go into some detail over the lives, works, and characters of the great writers during the age of Louis XIV. Theydid too much honor to their time and their country, they had too greatand too deep an effect in France and in Europe upon the successivedevelopments of the human intellect, to refuse them an important placein the history of that France to whose influence and glory they sopowerfully contributed. Moliere did not belong to the French Academy; his profession had shut thedoors against him. It was nearly a hundred years after his death, in1778, that the Academy raised to him a bust, beneath which was engraved, "O His glory lacks naught, ours did lack him. " It was by instinct and of its own free choice that the French Academy hadrefused to elect a comedian: it had grown, and its liberty had increasedunder the sway of, Louis XIV. In 1672, at the death of ChancellorSeguier, who became its protector after Richelieu, "it was so honoredthat the king was graciously pleased to take upon himself this office:the body had gone to thank him; his Majesty desired that the dauphinshould be witness of what passed on an occasion so honorable toliterature; after the speech of M. Harlay, Archbishop of Paris, and theman in France with most inborn talent for speaking, the king, appearingsomewhat touched, gave the Academicians very great marks of esteem, inquired the names, one after another, of those whose faces were notfamiliar to him, and said aside to M. Colbert, who was there in hiscapacity of simple Academician, 'You will let me know what I must do forthese gentlemen. ' Perhaps M. Colbert, that minister who was so zealousfor the fine arts, never received an order more in conformity with hisown inclinations. " From that time, the French Academy held its sittingsat the Louvre, and, as regarded complimentary addresses to the king onstate occasions, it took rank with the sovereign bodies. For thirty-five years the Academy had been working at its Dictionnaire. From the first, the work had appeared interminable:-- "These six years past they toil at letter F, And I'd be much obliged if Destiny would whisper to me, Thou shalt live to G, -- wrote Bois-Robert to Balzac. The Academy had intrusted Vaugelas with thepreparatory labor. "It was, " says Pellisson, "the only way of comingquickly to an end. " A pension, which he had, not been paid for a longtime past was revived in his favor. Vaugelas took his plan to CardinalRichelieu. "Well, sir, " said the minister, smiling with a somewhatcontemptuous air of kindness, "you will not forget the word pension inthis Dictionary. " "No, Monsignor, " replied M. De Vaugelas, with aprofound bow, "and still less _reconnaissance_ (gratitude). " Vaugelashad finished the first volume of his _Remarques sur la Langue Francaise, _which has ever since reniained the basis of all works on grammar. "Hehad imported into the body of the work a something or other so estimable(_d'honnete homme_), and so much frankness, that one could scarcely helploving its author. " He was working at the second volume when he died, in1649, so poor that his creditors seized his papers, making it verydifficult for the Academy to recover his _Memoires_. The Dictionary, having lost its principal author, went on so slowly that Colbert, curiousto know whether the Academicians honestly earned their modest medals forattendance (_jetons de presence_) which he had assigned to them, came oneday unexpectedly to a sitting: he was present at the whole discussion, "after which, having seen the attention and care which the Academy wasbestowing upon the composition of its Dictionary, he said, as he rose, that he was convinced that it could not get on any faster, and hisevidence ought to be of so much the more weight in that never man in hisposition was more laborious or more diligent. " The Academicians who were men of letters worked at the Dictionary; theAcademicians who were men of fashion had become pretty numerous; Arnauldd'Andilly and M. De Lamoignon, whom the body had honored by election, declined to join, and the Academy resolved to never elect anybody withouta previously expressed desire and request. At the time when M. DeLamoignon declined, the kin, fearing that it might bring the Academy intosome disfavor, procured the appointment, in his stead, of the Coadjutorof Strasbourg, Armand de Rohan-Soubise. "Splendid as your triumph maybe, " wrote Boileau to M. De Lamoignon, "I am persuaded, sir, from what Iknow of your noble and modest character, that you are very sorry to havecaused this displeasure to a body which is after all very illustrious, and that you will attempt to make it manifest to all the earth. I amquite willing to believe that you had good reasons for acting as you havedone. " The Academy from that moment regarded the title it conferred asirrevocable: it did not fill up the place of the Abbe de St. Pierre whenit found itself obliged to exclude him from its sittings, by order ofLouis XV. ; it did not fill up the place of Mgr. Dupanloup, when hethought proper to send in his resignation. In spite of court intrigues, it from that moment maintained its independence and its dignity. "M. Despreaux, " writes the banker Leverrier to the Duke of Noailles, "represented to the Academy, with a great deal of heat, that all was rackand ruin, since it was nothing more but a cabal of women that putAcademicians in the place of those who died. Then he read out loud someverses by M. De St. Aulaire. . . . Thus M. Despreaux, before the eyesof everybody, gave M. De St. Aulaire a black ball, and nominated, all byhimself, M. De Mimeure. Here, monseigneur, is proof that there areRomans still in the world, and, for the future, I will trouble you tocall M. Despreaux no longer your dear poet, but your dear Cato. " With his extreme deafness, Boileau had great difficulty in fulfilling hisAcademic duties. He was a member of the Academy of medals andinscriptions, founded by Colbert in 1662, "in order to render the acts ofthe king immortal, by deciding the legends of the medals struck in hishonor. " Pontchartrain raised to forty the number of the members of the_petite acadamie, _ extended its functions, and intrusted it thenceforthwith the charge of publishing curious documents relating to the historyof France. "We had read to us to-day a very learned work, but rathertiresome, " says Boileau to M. Pontchartrain, "and we were bored righteruditely; but afterwards there was an examination of another which wasmuch more agreeable, and the reading of which attracted considerableattention. As the reader was put quite close to me, I was in a positionto hear and to speak of it. All I ask you, to complete the measure ofyour kindnesses, is to be kind enough to let everybody know that, if I amof so little use at the Academy of Medals, it is equally true that I donot and do not wish to obtain any pecuniary advantage from it. " The Academy of Sciences had already for many years had sittings in one ofthe rooms of the king's library. Like the French Academy, it had owedits origin to private meetings at which Descartes, Gassendi, and youngPascal were accustomed to be present. "There are in the world scholarsof two sorts, " said a note sent to Colbert about the formation of the newAcademy. "One give themselves up to science because it is a pleasure tothem: they are content, as the fruit of their labors, with the knowledgethey acquire, and, if they are known, it is only amongst those with whomthey converse unambitiously and for mutual instruction; these are _bonafide_ scholars, whom it is impossible to do without in a design so greatas that of the _Academie royale_. There are others who cultivate scienceonly as a field which is to give them sustenance, and, as they see byexperience that great rewards fall only to those who make the most noisein the world, they apply themselves especially, not to making newdiscoveries, for hitherto that has not been recompensed, but to whatevermay bring them into notice; these are scholars of the fashionable world, and such as one knows best. " Colbert had the true scholar's taste; hehad brought Cassini from Italy to take the direction of the newObservatory; he had ordered surveys for a general map of France; he hadfounded the _Journal des Savants;_ literary men, whether Frenchmen orforeigners, enjoyed the king's bounties. Colbert had even conceived theplan of a Universal Academy, a veritable forerunner of the Institute. The arts were not forgotten in this grand project; the academy ofpainting and sculpture dated from the regency of Anne of Austria; thepretensions of the Masters of Arts (maitres is arts), who placed aninterdict upon artists not belonging to their corporation, had drivenCharles Lebrun, himself the son of a Master, to agitate for itsfoundation; Colbert added to it the academy of music and the academy ofarchitecture, and created the French school of painting at Rome. Besidethe palace for a long time past dedicated to this establishment, lived, for more than thirty-five years, Le Poussin, the first and the greatestof all the painters of that French school which was beginning to springup, whilst the Italian school, though blooming still in talent andstrength, was forgetting more and more every day the nobleness, thepurity, and the severity of taste which had carried to the highest pitchthe art of the fifteenth century. The tradition of the masters in voguein Italy, of the Caracci, of Guido, of Paul Veronese, had reached Pariswith Simon Vouet, who had long lived at Rome. He was succeeded there bya Frenchman "whom, from his grave and thoughtful air, you would havetaken for a father of Sorbonne, " says M. Vitet in his charming _Vie deLesueur_: "his black eye beneath his thick eyebrow nevertheless flashedforth a glance full of poesy and youth. His manner of living was notless surprising than his personal appearance. He might be seen walkingin the streets of Rome, tablets in hand, hitting off by a stroke or twoof his pencil at one time the antique fragments he came upon, at anotherthe gestures, the attitudes, the faces of the persons who presentedthemselves in his path. Sometimes, in the morning, he would sit on theterrace of Trinity del Monte, beside another Frenchman five or six yearsyounger, but already known for rendering landscapes with such fidelity, such, fresh and marvellous beauty, that all the Italian masters gaveplace to him, and that, after two centuries, he has not yet met hisrival. " [Illustration: Lebrun----674] "Of these two artists, the older evidently exercised over the other thesuperiority which genius has over talent. The smallest hints of LePoussin were received by Claude Lorrain with deference and respect; andyet, to judge from the prices at which they severally sold theirpictures, the landscape painter had for the time an indisputablesuperiority. " Claude Gelee, called Lorrain, had fled when quite young from the shop ofthe confectioner with whom his parents had placed him. He had foundmeans of getting to Rome; there he worked, there he lived, and there hedied, returning but once to France, in the height of his renown, for justa few months, without even enriching his own land with any great numberof his works; nearly all, of them remained on foreign soil. Le Poussin, born at the Andelys in 1593, made his way with great difficulty to Italy. He was by that time thirty years old, and had no more desire than Claudeto return to France, where painting was with difficulty beginning toobtain a standing. His reputation, however, had penetrated thither. King Louis XIII. Was growing weary of Simon Vouet's factitious lustre;he wanted Le Poussin to go to Paris. The painter for a long while heldout; the king insisted. "I shall go, " said Le Poussin, "like onesentenced to be sawn in halves and severed in twain. " He passed eighteenmonths in France, welcomed enthusiastically, lodged at the Tuileries, magnificently paid, but exposed to the jealousies of Simon Vouet and hispupils. Worried, thwarted, frozen to death by the hoarfrosts of Paris, he took the road back to Rome in November, 1642, on the pretext of goingto fetch his wife, and did not return any more. He had left in Francesome of his masterpieces, models of that, new, independent, andconscientious art, faithfully studied from nature in all its Italiangrandeur, and from the treasures of the antique. "How did you arrive atsuch perfection?" people would ask Le Poussin. "By neglecting nothing, "the painter would reply. In the same way Newton was soon to discover thegreat laws of the physical world, by always thinking thereon. " [Illustration: Le Poussin and Claude Lorrain----675] During Le Poussin's stay at Paris he had taken as a pupil EustacheLesueur, who had been trained in the studio of Simon Vouet, but had beenstruck from the first with the incomparable genius and proud independenceof the master sent to him by fate. Alone he had supported Le Poussin inhis struggle against the envious; alone he entered upon the road whichrevealed itself to him whilst he studied under Le Poussin. He was poor;he had great difficulty in managing to live. The delicacy, the purity, the suavity of his genius could shine forth in their entirety nowhere butin the convent of the Carthusians, whose cloister he was commissioned todecorate. There he painted the life of St. Bruno, breathing into thisalmost mystical work all the religious poetry of his soul and of histalent, ever delicate and chaste even in the allegorical figures ofmythology with which he before long adorned the Hotel Lambert. He hadreturned to his favorite pursuits, embellishing the churches of Pariswith incomparable works, when, overwhelmed by the loss of his wife, andexhausted by the painful efforts of his genius, he died at thirty-seven, in that convent of the Carthusians which he glorified with his talent, atthe same time that he edified the monks with his religious zeal. Lesueursuccumbed in a struggle too rude and too rough for his pure and delicatenature. Lebrun had returned from that Italy which Lesueur had never beenable to reach; the old rivalry, fostered in the studio of Simon Vouet, was already being renewed between the two artists; the angelic art gaveplace to the worldly and the earthly. Lesueur died; Lebrun found himselfmaster of the position, assured by anticipation, and as it were byinstinct, of sovereign, dominion under the sway of the young king forwhom he had been created. [Illustration: Lesueur----676] Old Philip of Champagne alone might have disputed with him the foremostrank. He had passionately admired Le Poussin, he had attached himself toLesueur. "Never, " says M. Vitet, "had he sacrificed to fashion; neverhad he fallen into the vagaries of the degenerate Italian style. " Thisupright, simple, painstaking soul, this inflexible conscience, lookingcontinually into the human face, had preserved in his admirable portraitsthe life and the expression of nature which he was incessantly trying toseize and reproduce. Lebrun was preferred to him as first painter to theking by Louis XIV. Himself; Philip of Champagne was delighted thereat; helived, in retirement, in fidelity to his friends of Port-Royal, whoseaustere and vigorous lineaments he loved to trace, beginning with M. DeSt. Cyran, and ending with his own daughter, Sister Suzanne, who wasrestored to health by the prayers of Mother Agnes Arnauld. [Illustration: Mignard 677] Lebrun was as able a courtier as he was a good painter. The cleverarrangement of his pictures, the richness and brilliancy of his talent, his faculty for applying art to industry, secured him with Louis XIV. Asway which lasted as long as his life. He was first painter to the king;he was director of the Gobelins and of the academy of painting. "He letnothing be done by the other artists but according to his own designs andsuggestions. The worker in tapestry, the decorative painter, thestatuary, the goldsmith, took their models from him: all came from him, all flowed from his brain, all bore his imprint. " The painter followedthe king's ideas, being entirely after his own heart. For fourteen yearshe worked for Louis XIV. , representing his life and his conquests, atVersailles; painting for the Louvre the victories of Alexander, whichwere engraved almost immediately by Audran and Edelinck. He was jealousof the royal favor, sensitive and haughty towards artists, honestlyconcerned for the king's glory and for the tasks confided to himself. The growing reputation of Mignard, whom Louvois had brought back fromRome, troubled and disquieted Lebrun. In vain did the king encouragehim. Lebrun, already ill, said in the presence of Louis XIV. That finepictures seem to become finer after the painter's death. "Do not you bein a hurry to die, M. Lebrun, " said the king; "we esteem your picturesnow quite as highly as posterity can. " [Illustration: Perrault 678] The small gallery at Versailles had been intrusted to Mignard. Lebrunwithdrew to Montmorency, where he died in 1690, jealous of Mignard at theend as he had been of Lesueur at the outset of his life. Mignard becamefirst painter to the king. He painted the ceiling of Val-de-Grace, whichwas celebrated by Moliere; but it was as a painter of portraits that heexcelled in France. "M. Mignard does them best, " said Le Poussin notlong before, with lofty good nature, "though his heads are all paint, without force or character. " To Mignard succeeded Rigaud as portraitpainter, worthy to preserve the features of Bossuet and Fenelon. Theunity of organization, the brilliancy of style, the imposing majestywhich the king's taste had everywhere stamped about him upon art as wellas upon literature, were by this time beginning to decay simultaneouslywith the old age of Louis XIV. , with the reverses of his arms, and theincreasing gloominess of his court; the artists who had illustrated hisreign were dying one after another, as well as the orators and the poets;the sculptor James Sarazin had been gone some time; Puget and theAnguiers were dead, as well as Mansard, Perrault, and Le Notre; Girardonhad but a few months to live; only Coysevox was destined to survive theking, whose statue he had many a time moulded. The great age wasdisappearing slowly and sadly, throwing out to the last some noblegleams, like the aged king who had constantly served as its centre andguide, like olden France, which he had crowned with its last and its mostsplendid wreath. END OF VOL. V.