Lucon and dreading his influence, had demanded and obtained from the king
this secret measure.  It was effectual; and, at the beginning of the year
1621, Richelieu had but a vague hope of the hat.  He had no idea, when he
heard of this check, that at the end of a few months Luynes would undergo
one graver still, would die almost instantaneously after having practised
a policy analogous to that which Richelieu was himself projecting, and
would leave the road open for him to obtain the cardinal's hat, and once
more enter into the councils of the king, who, however, said to the
queen-mother, "I know him better than you, madame; he is a man of
unbounded ambition."

The two victories won in 1620 by the Duke of Luynes, one over the
Protestants by the re-establishment in Warn of free worship for the
Catholics, and the other over his secret rival Richelieu, by preventing
him from becoming cardinal, had inspired him with great confidence in his
good fortune.  He resolved to push it with more boldness than he had yet
shown.  He purposed to subdue the Protestants as a political party whilst
respecting their religious creed, and to reduce them to a condition of
subjection in the state whilst leaving them free, as Christians, in the
church.  A fundamentally contradictory problem; for the different
liberties are closely connected, one with another, and have need to be
security one for another; but, at the commencement of the seventeenth
century, people were not so particular in point of consequence, and it
was thought possible to give religious liberty its guarantees whilst
refusing them to general political liberty.  That is what the Duke of
Luynes attempted to do; to all the towns to which Henry IV. had bound
himself by the edict of Nantes, he made a promise of preserving to them
their religious liberties, and he called upon them at the same time to
remain submissive and faithful subjects of the sovereign kingship.  La
Rochelle, Montauban, Saumur, Sancerre, Charite-sur-Loire, and St. Jean
d'Angely were in this category; and it was to Montauban, as one of the
most important of those towns, that Louis XIII. first addressed his
promise and his appeal, inconsistent one with the other.

Some years previously, in May, 1610, amidst the grief and anxiety
awakened by the assassination of Henry IV. by Ravaillac, the population
of Montauban had maintained and testified a pacific and moderate
disposition.  The synod was in assembly when the news of the king's death
arrived there.  We read in the report of the town-council, under date of
May 19, 1610,

"The ecclesiastics (Catholic) having come to the council, the consuls
gave them every assurance for their persons and property, and took them
under the protection and safeguard of the king and the town, without
suffering or permitting any hurt, wrong, or displeasure to be done them.
.  .  .  The ecclesiastics thanked them, and protested their desire to
live 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 notice
to the Parliament of Toulouse that everything shall remain peaceable.
.  .  .  Consul Beraud moves that "every one take forthwith the oath of
fidelity we owe to his Majesty, and that every one also testify, by
acclamation, his wishes and desires for the prosperity and duration of
his reign."

Ten years later, in 1620, the disposition of the Protestants was very
much changed; distrust and irritation had once more entered into their
hearts.  Henry IV. was no longer there to appease them or hold them in.
The restoration of the freedom of Catholic worship in Warn had alarmed
and offended them as a violation of their own exclusive right proclaimed
by Jeanne d'Albret.  In January, 1621, during an assembly held at La
Rochelle, they exclaimed violently against what they called "the woes
experienced by their brethren of Warn."  Louis XIII. considered their
remonstrances too arrogant to be tolerated.  On the 24th of April, 1621,
by a formal declaration, he confirmed all the edicts issued in favor of
the liberty of Protestants, but with a further announcement that he would
put down with all the rigor of the laws those who did not remain
submissive and tranquil in the enjoyment of their own rights.  This
measure produced amongst the Protestants a violent schism.  Some
submitted, and their chiefs gave up to the king the places they
commanded.  On the 10th of May, 1621, Saumur opened her gates to him.
Others, more hot-tempered and more obstinate, persisted in their
remonstrances.  La Rochelle, Montauban, and St. Jean d'Angely took that
side.  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 from
you that the most certain conjecture which can be formed from the current
news 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 here
is weakened, broken down, and ready to receive the yoke, through the
factions of certain evil spirits.  I have no fear lest the consternation
and cowardice of the rest should reach by contagion to you.  In days past
you swore in my presence the union of the churches.  Of a surety we will
get peace restored to you here.  I pray you to have confidence in me,
that on this occasion I will not desert you, whatever happen.  Though
there should be but two men left of my religion, I will be one of the
two.  My houses and my revenues are seized, because I would not bow
beneath the proclamation.  I have my sword and my life left.  Three stout
hearts are better than thirty that quail."

The whole assembly vehemently cheered this fiery speech.  The premier
consul of Montauban, Dupuy, swore to live and die in the cause of union
of the churches.  "The Duke of Rohan exerted himself to place Montauban
in a position to oppose a vigorous resistance to the royal troops.
Consul Dupuy, for his part, was at the same time collecting munitions and
victuals."  It was announced that the king's army was advancing; and
reports were spread, with the usual exaggeration, of the deeds of
violence it was already committing.  "At the news thereof, every nerve is
strained to advance the fortifications "there is none that shirks, of
whatever age, or sex, or condition; every other occupation ceases; night
serves to render the day's work bigger; the inhabitants are all a-sweat,
soiled with dust, laden with earth."  Whilst the multitude was thus
working pell-mell to put the town substantially in a state of defence,
the warlike population, gentlemen and burgesses, were arming and
organizing for the struggle.  They had chosen for their chief a younger
son of Sully's, Baron d'Orval, devoted to the Protestant cause, even to
the extent of rebellion, whilst his elder brother, the Marquis of Rosny,
was serving in the royal army.  Their aged father, Sully, went to
Montauban 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 was
possible.  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 Duke
of Mayenne, son of the great Leaguer, came up on the 18th of August,
1621, to besiege Montauban, with its population of from fifteen thousand
to twenty thousand.  Besiegers and besieged were all of them brave; the
former the more obstinate, the latter the more hare-brained and rash.
The siege lasted two months and a half with alternate successes and
reverses.  The people of the town were directed and supported by
commissions charged with the duty of collecting meal, preparing quarters
for the troops, looking after the sick and wounded, and distributing
ammunition.  "Day and night, from hour to hour, one of the consuls went
to inspect these services.  All was done without confusion, without a
murmur.  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 bellicose
fanaticism; he was never tired of calling to mind the calamities
undergone by the towns that had submitted to the royal army; he was
incessantly comparing Montauban to Bethulia, Louis XIII.  to
Nabuchodonosor, the Duke of Mayenne to Holofernes, the Montalbanese to
the people of God, and the Catholics to the Assyrians.  The indecision
and diversity of views in the royal camp formed a singular contrast to
the 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 the
siege; they proposed to build forts around Montauban, and leave there the
Duke of Mayenne "to harass the inhabitants, make them consume both their
gunpowder and their tooth-powder, and, peradventure, bring them to a
composition."  But the self-respect of the king and of the army was
compromised; the Duke of Luynes ardently desired to change his name for
that of Duke of Montauban; there was promise of help from the Prince of
Conde and the Duke of Vendome, who were commanding, one in Berry and the
other in Brittany.  These personal interests and sentiments carried the
day; the siege was pushed forward with ardor, although without combined
effort; the Duke of Mayenne was killed there on the 16th of September,
1621; and, amongst the insurgents, the preacher Chamier met, on the 17th
of October, the same fate.  It was in the royal army and the government
that fatigue and the desire of putting a stop to a struggle so costly and
of 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 a
proposal made to the Duke of Rohan, who was in residence at Castres, for
an interview, which Rohan accepted, notwithstanding the mistrust of the
people of Castres, and of the majority of his friends.  The conference
was held at a league's distance from Montauban.  After the proper
compliments, Luynes drew Rohan aside into an alley alone, and, "I thank
you," he said, "for having put trust in me; you shall not find it
misplaced; your safety is as great here as in Castres.  Having become
connected with you, I desire your welfare; but you deprived me, whilst my
favor lasted, of the means of procuring the greatness of your house.  You
have succored Montauban in the very teeth of your king.  It is a great
feather in your cap; but you must not make too much of it.  It is time to
act for yourself and your friends.  The king will make no general peace;
treat for them who acknowledge you.  Represent to them of Montauban that
their ruin is but deferred for a few days; that you have no means of
helping them.  For Castres and other places in your department, ask what
you will, and you shall obtain it.  For your own self, anything you
please (carte blanche) is offered you.  .  .  .  If you will believe me,
you will get out of this miserable business with glory, with the good
graces of the king, and with what you desire for your own fortunes, which
I 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's
good graces and your friendship.  I will never refuse from my king
benefits and honors, or from you the offices of a kind connection.  I do
well consider the peril in which I stand; but I beg you also to look at
yours.  You are universally hated, because you alone possess what
everybody desires.  Wars against them of the religion have often
commenced with great disadvantages for them; but the restlessness of the
French spirit, the discontent of those not in the government, and the
influence of foreigners have often retrieved them.  If you manage to make
the 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 only
against the disobedience it covers, and he will break the neck of other
parties without having met with anything disagreeable.  But, if you push
things to extremity, and the torrent of your successes does not
continue,--and you are on the eve of seeing it stopped in front of
Montauban,--every one will recover his as yet flurried senses, and will
give you a difficult business to unravel.  Bethink you that you have
gathered in the harvest of all that promises mingled with threats could
enable you to gain, and that the remnant is fighting for the religion in
which it believes.  For my own part, I have made up my mind to the loss
of my property and my posts; if you have retarded the effects thereof on
account of our connection, I am obliged to you for it; but I am quite
prepared to suffer everything, since my mind is made up, having solemnly
promised it and my conscience so bidding me, to hear of nothing but a
general peace."

The reply was worthy of a great soul devoted to a great cause, a soul
that 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 take
account, before everything, of the general interests and the moral
sentiments of his party.  The chief of the royal party, the Duke of
Luynes, was, on the contrary, absorbed in the material and momentary
success of his own personal policy; he refused to treat for a general
peace with the Protestants, and he preferred to submit to a partial and
local defeat before Montauban, rather than be hampered with the
difficulties of national pacification.  At a council held on the 26th of
October, 1621, it was decided to publicly raise the siege.  The king and
the royal army departed in November from the precincts of Montauban,
which they purposed to attack afresh on the return of spring: the king
was in a hurry to go and receive at Toulouse the empty acclamations of
the mob, and he ordered Luynes to go and take, on the little town of
Monheur, in the neighborhood of Toulouse, a specious revenge for his
check before Montauban.  Monheur surrendered on the 11th of December,
1621.  Another little village in the neighborhood, Negrepelisse, which
offered resistance to the royal army, was taken by assault, and its
population infamously massacred.  But in the midst of these insignificant
victories, on the 14th of December, 1621, the royal favorite, the
constable, interim keeper of the seals, Duke Albert of Luynes, had an
attack of malignant fever, and died in three days at the camp of
Longueville.  "What was marvellously surprising, and gave a good idea of
the world and its vanity," says his contemporary, the Marquis of Fontaine
Mareuil, "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 who
would stay in his room, the door being open all the time, and anybody who
pleased coming in, as if he had been the most insignificant of men; and
when his body was taken to be interred, I suppose, to his duchy of
Luynes, instead of priests to pray for him, I saw some of his valets
playing piquet on his bier whilst they were having their horses baited."

It was not long before magnificence revisited the favorite's bier.  "On
the 11th of January, 1622, his mortal remains having arrived at Tours,
all the religious bodies went out to receive it; the constable was placed
in a chariot drawn by six horses, accompanied by pages, Swiss, and
gentlemen in mourning.  He was finally laid in the cathedral-church,
where there took place a service which was attended by Marshal de
Lesdiguieres, the greatest lords of the court, the judicature, and the
corporation.  It is a contemporary sheet, the _Mercure Francais,_ which
has preserved to us these details as to the posthumous grandeur of Albert
de Luynes, after the brutal indifference to which he had been subjected
at the moment of his death.

His brothers after him held a high historical position, which the family
have maintained, through the course of every revolution, to the present
day; a position which M. Cousin took pleasure in calling to mind, and
which the last duke but one of Luynes made it a point of duty to
commemorate by raising to Louis XIII. a massive silver statue almost as
large as life, the work of that able sculptor, M. Rudde, which figured at
the public exhibition set on foot by Count d'Haussonville, in honor of
the Alsace-Lorrainers whom the late disasters of France drove off in
exile 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 upon
Albert de Luynes.  "He was a mediocre and timid creature," he said,
"faithless, ungenerous, too weak to remain steady against the assault of
so great a fortune as that which ruined him incontinently; allowing
himself 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 not
knowing what he was about, like a man on the top of a tower, whose head
goes round and who has no longer any power of discernment.  He would fain
have been Prince of Orange, Count of Avignon, Duke of Albret, King of
Austrasia, 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 the
merit of the Constable de Luynes: he saw coming, and he anticipated, a
long way off and to little purpose, but heartily enough, the government
of France by a supreme kingship, whilst paying respect, as long as he
lived, to religious liberty, and showing himself favorable to
intellectual and literary liberty, though he was opposed to political
and national liberty.  That was the government which, after him, was
practised with a high hand and rendered triumphant by Cardinal Richelieu
to 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 the
sovereign over the nation, the authority of the court throughout the
country.  All intellectual movement proceeded from the court or radiated
about it; the whole government, whether for war or peace, was
concentrated in its hands.  Conde, Turenne, Catinat, Luxembourg, Villars,
Vendome belonged, as well as Louvois or Colbert, to the court; from the
court went the governors and administrators of provinces; there was no
longer any greatness existing outside of the court; there were no longer
any petty private courts.  As for the state, the king was it.

For ages past, France had enjoyed the rare good fortune of seeing her
throne successively occupied by Charlemagne and Charles V., by St. Louis
and Louis XI., by Louis XII., Francis I.  and Henry IV., great conquerors
or wise administrators, heroic saints or profound politicians, brilliant
knights or models of patriot-kings.  Such sovereigns had not only
governed, but also impressed the imagination of the people; it was to
them that the weak, oppressed by the great feudal lords, had little by
little learned to apply for support and assistance; since the reign of
Francis I., especially, in the midst of the religious struggles which had
caused division amongst the noblesse and were threatening to create a
state within the state, the personal position of the grandees, and that
of their petty private courts, had been constantly diminishing in
importance; the wise policy, the bold and prudent courage of Henry IV.,
and his patriotic foresight had pacified hatred and stayed civil wars; he
had caused his people to feel the pleasure and pride of being governed by
a man of a superior order.  Cardinal Richelieu, more stern than Henry
IV., set his face steadily against all the influences of the great lords;
he broke them down one after another; he persistently elevated the royal
authority; it was the hand of Richelieu which made the court and paved
the way for the reign of Louis XIV.  The Fronde was but a paltry
interlude 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 had
slipped from the dying hands of Luynes.  The Prince of Conde, a man of
ability and moderation, "a good managing man (_homme de bon menage_)," as
he was afterwards called by the cardinal, was the first to get possession
of the mind of the king, at that time away from his mother, who was
residing at Paris.  "It was not so much from dislike that they opposed
her," says Richelieu, "as from fear lest, when once established at the
king's council, she might wish to introduce me there.  They acknowledged
in me some force of judgment; they dreaded my wits, fearing lest, if the
king were to take special cognizance of me, it might come to his
committing to me the principal care of his affairs."  [_Memoires de
Richelieu,_ 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, and
could not be mum about what he had on his mind, permitted himself to go
so far as to say that she had been received into the council on two
conditions, one, that she should have cognizance of nothing but what they
pleased, and the other, that, though only a portion of affairs was
communicated to her, she would serve as authority for all in the minds of
the people."  [_Memoires de Richelieu,_ t. ii.  p. 194.] In fact, the
queen-mother quite perceived that she was only shown the articles in the
window, and did not enter the shop; "but, with all the prudence and
patience of an Italian, when she was not carried away by passion, she
knew how to practise dissimulation towards the Prince of Conde and his
allies, Chancellor Sillery and his son Puisieux, secretary of state.  She
accompanied her son on an expedition against the Huguenots of the South,
which she had not advised, "foreseeing quite well that, if she were
separated 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 become
accustomed to getting on without her."  She had the satisfaction of at
last seeing the Bishop of Lucon promoted to the cardinalship she had so
often solicited for him in vain; but, at the same time, the king called
to the council Cardinal Rochefoucauld, "not through personal esteem for
the old cardinal," says Richelieu, "but to cut off from the new one all
hope of a place for which he might be supposed to feel some ambition."
Nevertheless, in spite of his enemies' intrigues, in spite of a certain
instinctive repugnance on the part of the king himself, who repeated to
his mother, "I know him better than you, madame; he is a man of unbounded
ambition," the "new cardinal" was called to the council at the opening of
the year 1624, on the instance of the Marquis of La Vieuville,
superintendent of finance and chief of the council, who felt himself
unsteady in his position, and sought to secure the favor of the
queen-mother.  It was as the protege and organ of Mary de' Medici that
the cardinal wrote to the Prince of Conde, on the 11th of May, 1624, "The
king having done me the honor to place me on his council, I pray God with
all my heart to render me worthy of serving him as I desire; and I feel
myself bound thereto by every sort of consideration.  I cannot
sufficiently thank you for the satisfaction that you have been pleased to
testify to me thereat.  Therefore would I far rather do so in deed by
serving you than by bootless words.  And in that I cannot fail without
failing to follow out the king's intention.  I have made known to the
queen the assurance you give her by your letter of your affection, for
which she feels all the reciprocity you can desire.  She is the more
ready to flatter herself with the hope of its continuance, in that she
will be very glad to incite you thereto by all the good offices she has
means of rendering you with His Majesty."  [_Lettres du Cardinal de
Richelieu,_ t. ii.  p. 5.] On the 12th of August, however, M. de la
Vieuville fell irretrievably, and was confined in the castle of Amboise.
A pamphlet of the time had forewarned him of the danger which threatened
him when he introduced Richelieu into the council.  "You are both of the
same 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 to
be your making will be your undoing."

From that moment the cardinal, in spite of his modest resistance based
upon the state of his health, became the veritable chief of the council.
"Everybody knew that, amidst the mere private occupations he had hitherto
had, it would have been impossible for him to exist with such poor
health, unless he took frequent recreation in the country."  [_Memoires
de Richelieu,_ t. ii.  p. 289.] Turning his attention to founding his
power and making himself friends, he authorized the recall of Count
Schomberg, lately disgraced, and of the Duke of Anjou's, the king's
brother's, governor, Colonel Ornano, imprisoned by the Marquis of La
Vieuville.  He, at the same time, stood out against the danger of
concentrating all the power of the government in a single pair of hands.
"Your Majesty," he said, "ought not to confide your public business to a
single one of your councillors and hide it from the rest; those whom you
have chosen ought to live in fellowship and amity in your service, not in
partisanship and division.  Every time, and as many times as a single one
wants to do everything himself, he wants to ruin himself; but in ruining
himself he will ruin your kingdom and you, and as often as any single one
wants to possess your ear and do in secret what should be resolved upon
openly, it must necessarily be for the purpose of concealing from Your
Majesty either his ignorance or his wickedrnpss." [_Memoires de
Richelieu,_ t. ii.  p. 349.] Prudent rules and acute remarks, which
Richelieu, when he became all-powerful, was to forget.

Eighteen months had barely rolled away when Colonel Ornano, lately
created a marshal at the Duke of Anjou's request, was again arrested and
carried off a prisoner "to the very room where, twenty-four years ago,
Marshal Biron had been confined."  For some time past "it had been
current at court and throughout the kingdom that a great cabal was going
on," says Richelieu in his _Memoires,_ "and the cabalists said quite
openly that under his ministry, men might cabal with impunity, for he was
not a dangerous enemy."  If the cabalists had been living in that
confidence, they were most wofully deceived.  Richelieu was neither
meddlesome nor cruel, but he was stern and pitiless towards the
sufferings as well as the supplications of those who sought to thwart his
policy.  At this period, he wished to bring about a marriage between the
Duke of Anjou, then eighteen years old, and Mdlle. de Montpensier, the
late 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 his
death, and the possibility of marrying his widowed queen to his
successor.  "I should gain too little by the change," said Anne of
Austria one day, irritated by the accusations of which she was the
object.  Divers secret or avowed motives had formed about the Duke of
Anjou what was called the "aversion"  party, who were opposed to his
marriage; but the arrest of Colonel Ornano dismayed the accomplices for a
while.  The Duke of Anjou protested his fidelity to his brother, and
promised the cardinal to place in the king's hands a written undertaking
to submit his wishes and affections to him.  The intrigue appeared to
have been abandoned.  But the "_dreadful (epouvantable) faction,_" as the
Cardinal calls it in his _Memoires,_ conspired to remove the young prince
from the court.  The Duke of Vendome, son of Henry IV. and Gabrielle
d'Estrees, had offered him an asylum in his government of Brittany; but
the far-sighted policy of the minister took away this refuge from the
heir to the throne, always inclined as he was to put himself at the head
of a party.  The Duke of Vendome and his brother the Grand Prior,
disquieted at the rumors which were current about them, hastened to go
and visit the king at Blois.  He received them with great marks of
affection.  "Brother," said he to the Duke of Vendome, laying his hand
upon his shoulder, "I was impatient to see you."  Next morning, the 15th
of June, the two princes were arrested in bed.  "Ah! brother," cried
Vendome, "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 told
you, 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 against
his minister, gave him a company of musketeers as guards, and set off for
Nantes, whither the cardinal was not slow to go and join him.  In the
interval, a fresh accomplice in the plot had been discovered.

This time it was in the king's own household that he had been sought and
found.  Henry de Talleyrand, Count of Chalais, master of the wardrobe,
hare-brained and frivolous, had hitherto made himself talked about only
for-his duels and his successes with women.  He had already been drawn
into a plot against the cardinal's life; but, under the influence of
remorse, he had confessed his criminal intentions to the minister
himself.  Richelieu appeared touched by the repentance, but he did not
forget the offence, and his watch over this "unfortunate gentleman," as
he himself calls him, made him aware before long that Chalais was
compromised in an intrigue which aimed at nothing less, it was said, than
to secure the person of the cardinal by means an ambush, so as  to rid
him at need.  Chalais was arrested in his bed on the 8th of July.  The
Marquis la Valette, son of the Duke of Epernon and governor or Metz had
been asked to give an asylum to Monsieur in case he decided upon flying
from the court, had answered after embarrassed fashion; the cardinal had
his enemies in a trap He went to call on Monsieur; it was in Richelieu's
own house, and under pretext of demanding hospitality of him, that the
conspirators calculated upon striking their blow.  "I very much, regret,"
said the cardinal to Gaston, "that your Highness did, not warn me that
you 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 the
best of my ability."  [_Journal de Bassompierre,_ t. ii.] Monsieur seemed
to be dumbfounded; he still thought of flight, but Madame de Guise had
just arrived at Nantes with her daughter, Mdlle. de Montpensier; Madame
de Chevreuse had been driven from court; the young prince's friends had
been scared or won over; and President le Coigneux, his most honest
adviser, counselled him get the cardinal's support with the king.  "That
rascal," said the president, "gets so sharp an edge on his wits, that it
is necessary to avail one's self of all sorts of means to undo what he
does."  Monsieur at last gave way, and consented to married, provided
that the king would treat it as appanage.  Louis XIII., in his turn,
hesitated, being attracted by the arguments of certain underlings, "folks
ever welcome, as being apparently out of the region of political
interests, and seeming to have an eye in everything to their master's
person only."  They represented to the king that if the Duke of Anjou
were to have children, he would become of more importance in the country,
which would be to the king's detriment.  The minister, boldly demanded of
the king the dismissal of "those petty folks who insolently abused his
ear."  Louis XIII., in his turn gave way; and on the 5th of August, 1626,
the cardinal celebrated the marriage of Gaston, who became Duke of
Orleans on, the occasion, with Mary of Bourbon, Mdlle. de Montpesier.
"No viols or music were heard that day and it was said in the
bridegroom's circle that there was no occassion for having Monsieur's
marriage stained with blood.  This was reported,to the king, and to the
cardinal who did not at all like it."

When Chalais, in his prison, heard of the marriage, he undoubtedly
conceived some hope of a pardon, for he exclaimed, as the cardinal
himself says, "That is a mighty sharp trick, to have not only scattered a
great faction, but, by removing its object, to have annihilated all hopes
of re-uniting it.  Only the sagacity of the king and his minister could
have made such a hit; it was well done to have caught Monsieur between
touch-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 to
confess his fault.  "I was only thirteen days in the faction," he said;
but those thirteen days were enough to destroy him.  In vain did his
friends intercede passionately for him; in vain did his mother write to
the king the most touching letter.  "I gave him to you, sir, at eight
years of age; he is a grandson of Marshal Montluc and President Jeannin;
his family serve you daily, but dare not throw themselves at your feet
for fear of displeasing you; nevertheless, they join with me in begging
of you the life of this wretch, though he should have to end his days in
perpetual imprisonment, or in serving you abroad."  Chalais was condemned
to death on the 18th of August, 1626, by the criminal court established
at Nantes for that purpose; all the king's mercy went no farther than a
remission of the tortures which should have accompanied th execution.  He
sent one of his friends to assure his mother of his repentance.  "Tell
him," answered the noble lady, that I am very glad to have the
consolation he gives me of, his dying in God; if I did not think that the
sight of me would be too much for him, I would go to him and not leave
him until his head was severed from his body; but, being unable to be of
any help to him in that way, I am going to pray God for him."  And she
returned into the church of the nuns of Sainte-Claire.  The friends of
Chalais had managed to have the executioner carried off, so as to retard
his execution; but an inferior criminal, to whom pardon had been granted
for the performance of this service, cut off the unfortunate culprit's
head in thirty-one strokes.  [_Memoires d'un Favori du Duc d' Orleans
(Archives curieuses de l'Histoire de France),_ 2d series, t. iii.] "The
sad news was brought to the Duke of Orleans, who was playing abbot; he
did not leave the game, and went on as if instead of death he had heard
of deliverance."  An example of cruelty which might well have discouraged
the 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, but
that he was stern and pitiless; and he gave proof of that the following
year, on an occasion when his personal interests were not in any way at
stake.  At the outset of his ministry, in 1624, he had obtained from the
king a severe ordinance against duels--a fatal custom which was at that
time decimating the noblesse.

[Illustration: Double Duel----188]

Already several noblemen, amongst others M. du Plessis-Praslin, had been
deprived of their offices or sent into exile in consequence of their
duels, when M. de Bouteville, of the house of Montmorency, who had been
previously engaged in twenty-one affairs of honor, came to Paris to fight
the Marquis of Beuvron on the _Place Royale_.  The Marquis's second, M.
de fussy d'Amboise, was killed by the Count of Chapelles, Bouteville's
second.  Beuvron fled to England.  M. de Bouteville and his comrade had
taken post for Lorraine; they were recognized and arrested at Vitry-le-
Brule and brought back to Paris; and the king immediately ordered
Parliament to bring them to trial.  The crime was flagrant and the
defiance of the kings orders undeniable; but
the culprit was connected with the greatest houses in the kingdom; he had
given striking proofs of bravery in the king's service; and all the court
interceded for him.  Parliament, with regret, pronounced condemnation,
absolving the memory of Bussy d'Amboise, who was a son of President De
Mesmes's wife, and reducing to one third of their goods the confiscation
to which the condemned were sentenced.  "Parliament has played the king,"
was openly said in the queen's ante-chamber; "if the things proceed to
execution, the king will play Parliament."

The cardinal was much troubled in spirit," says he himself it was
impossible to have a noble heart and not pity this poor gentleman, whose
youth and courage excited so much compassion."  However, whilst
expounding, according to his practice, to the king the reasons for and
against the execution of the culprits, Richelieu let fall this astounding
expression: "It is a question of breaking the neck of duels or of your
Majesty'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 his
compassion for these two gentlemen."  Both died with courage.  "There was
no sign of anything weak in their words or mean in their actions.  They
received the news that they were to die with the same visage as they
would have that of pardon,"  "in such sort that they who had lived like
devils were seen dying like saints, and they who had cared for nothing
but to foment duels serving towards the extinction of them."  [_Memoires
d'un Favori du Due d' Orleans (Archives curieuses de l'Histoire de
France),_ t.  ii.]

The cardinal had got Chalais condemned as a conspirator; he had let
Bouteville be executed as a duellist; the greatest lords bent beneath his
authority, but the power that depends on a king's favor is always menaced
and tottering.  The enemies of Richelieu had not renounced the idea of
overthrowing him; their hopes even went on growing, since, for some time
past the queen-mother had  been waxin jealous of the all powerful
minister, and no longer made common cause with him.  The king had
returned in triumph from the siege of La Rochelle; the queen-mother hoped
to retain him by her at court; but the cardinal, ever on the watch over
the movements of Spain, prevailed upon Louis XIII. to support his
subject, the Duke of Nevers, legitimate heir to Mantua and Montferrat, of
which the Spaniards were besieging the capital.  The army began to march,
but the queen designedly retarded the movements of her son.  The cardinal
was appointed generalissimo, and the king, who had taken upon himself the
occupation of Savoy, was before long obliged by his health to return to
Lyons, where he fell seriously ill.  The two queens hurried to his
bedside; and they were seconded by the keeper of the seals, M. de
Marillac, but lately raised to power by Richelieu as a man on whom he
could 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 to
return to his army.  During the king's convalescence, the resentment of
the queen-mother against the minister, as well as that of Anne of
Austria, had free course; and when the royal train took the road slowly
back to Paris, in the month of October, the ruin of the cardinal had been
resolved upon.

What a trip was that descent of the Loire from Roanne to Briare in the
same boat and "at very close quarters between the queen-mother and the
cardinal!" says Bassompierre.  "She hoped that she would more easily be
able to have her will, and crush her servant with the more facility, the
less 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 him
with 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 months
the grand move against the cardinal, for the sake of the affairs of his
kingdom, which were then at a crisis in Italy" [_Memoires de
Bassompierre,_ t. iii.  p. 276], and she had promised him; but Richelieu
"suspected something wrong, and discovered more," and, on the 12th of
November, 1630, when mother and son were holding an early conference at
the Luxembourg, a fine palace which Mary de' Medici had just finished,
"the cardinal arrived there; finding the door of the chamber closed, he
entered the gallery and went and knocked at the door of the cabinet,
where he obtained no answer.  Tired of waiting, and knowing the ins and
outs of the mansion, he entered by the little chapel; whereat the king
was somewhat dismayed, and said to the queen in despair, 'Here he is!'
thinking, no doubt, that he would blaze forth.  The cardinal, who
perceived this dismay, said to them, 'I am sure you were speaking about
me.'  The queen answered, 'We were not.'  Whereupon, he having replied,
'Confess it, madam,' she said yes, and thereupon conducted herself with
great tartness towards him, declaring to the king 'that she would not put
up with the cardinal any longer, or see in her house either him or any of
his relatives and friends, to whom she incontinently gave their
dismissal, and not to them only, but even down to the pettiest of her
officers 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 the
Luxembourg; the keeper of the seals, Marillac, had gone away to sleep at
his country-house at Glatigny, quite close to Versailles, where the king
was expected; and he was hoping that Louis XIII. would summon him and put
the 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 you
think of all this?" he asked.  "Sir," was the reply, "I seem to be in
another world, but at any rate you are master."  "Yes, I am," answered
the king, "and I will make it felt too."  He sent for Cardinal La
Vallette, son of the Duke of Epernon, but devoted to Richelieu.  "The
cardinal 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 his
kingdom and of his power.  The queen had supposed that the king would
abandon the cardinal, and "that her private authority as mother, and the
pious affection and honor the king showed her as her son, would prevail
over the public care which he ought, as king, to take of his kingdom and
his people.  But God, who holds in His hand the hearts of princes,
disposed things otherwise: his Majesty resolved to defend his servant
against the malice of those who prompted the queen to this wicked
design."  [_Memoires de Richelieu._]  He conversed a long while with the
cardinal, and when the keeper of the seals awoke the next morning, it was
to learn that the minister was at Versailles with the king, who had
lodged him in a room under his own, that his Majesty demanded the seals
back, and that the exons were at his, Marillac's, door to secure his
person.

At the same time was despatched a courier to headquarters at Foglizzo in
Piedmont.  The three marshals Schomberg, La Force, and Marillac, had all
formed 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.  Marshal
Schomberg opened the despatches; and the first words that met his eye
were these, written in the king's own hand: "My dear cousin, you will not
fail to arrest Marshal Marillac; it is for the good of my service and for
your own exculpation."  The marshal was greatly embarrassed; a great part
of the troops had come with Marillac from the army of Champagne and were
devoted 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 with
truth 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 the
servants of the queen-mother; she must have had the worst of it, and
Cardinal 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, Marshal
Marillac was taken to the castle of St. Menehould and thence to Verdun,
where a court of justice extraordinary sat upon his case.  It was cleared
of any political accusation: the marshal was prosecuted for peculation
and extortion, common crimes at that time with many generals, and always
odious to the nation, which regarded their punishment with favor.  "It is
a very strange thing," said Marillac, "to prosecute me as they do; my
trial is a mere question of hay, straw, wood, stones, and lime; there is
not case enough for whipping a lackey."  There was case enough for
sentencing to death a marshal of France.  The proceedings lasted eighteen
months; the commission was transferred from Verdun to Ruel, to the very
house of the cardinal.  Marillac was found guilty by a majority of one
only.  The execution took place on the 10th of May, 1632.  The former
keeper 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 Richelieu
had failed before the minister's ascendency and the king's calculating
fidelity to a servant he did not like; but Mary de' Medici's anger was
not 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, had
not hitherto joined his mother's party, but all on a sudden, excited by
his 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 a
strange purpose that had brought him there; that, so long as he supposed
that the cardinal would serve him, he had been quite willing to show him
amity; now, when he saw that he foiled him in everything that be had
promised, to such extent that the way in which he, Monsieur, had behaved
himself, had served no end but to make the world believe that he had
abandoned the queen his mother, he had come to take back the word he had
given him to show him affection."  On leaving the cardinal's house,
Monsieur got into his carriage and went off in haste to Orleans, whilst
the king, having received notice from Richelieu, was arriving with all
despatch from Versailles to assure his minister "of his protection, well
knowing that nobody could wish him ill, save for the faithful services he
rendered 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 had
confided to her; she nevertheless sent her equerry to the king,
protesting "that she had been much astonished when she heard of
Monsieur's departure, that she had almost fainted on the spot, and that
Monsieur had sent her word that he was going away from court because he
could no longer tolerate the cardinal's violent proceedings against her.

"When the king signified to her that he considered this withdrawal very
strange, and let her know that he had much trouble in believing that she
knew nothing about it, she took occasion to belch forth fire and flames
against the cardinal, and made a fresh attempt to ruin him in the king's
estimation, though she had previously bound herself by oath to take no
more steps against him."  [_Memoires de Richelieu,_ t. ii.  p. 465.]

The cardinal either had not sworn at all or did not consider himself more
bound than the queen by oaths.  Their Majesties set out for Compiegne;
there the minister brought the affair before the council, explaining with
a skilful appearance of indifference the different courses to be taken,