forward to "the time when he and his might make themselves sufficiently
strong to canton themselves and form a separate state," promised, in that
state, freedom and enjoyment of their property to all Catholics.  A piece
of strange and culpable blindness for which Rohan was to pay right
dearly.

It was in the midst of this cruel partisan war that the duke heard of the
fall of La Rochelle; he could not find fault "with folks so attenuated by
famine that the majority of them could not support themselves without a
stick, for having sought safety in capitulation;" but to the continual
anxiety felt by him for the fate of his mother and sister was added
disquietude 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 be
very easily cast down by adversity; the tradesmen annoyed at having no
more chance of turning a penny; the burgesses seeing their possessions in
ruins and uncultivated; all were inclined for peace at any price
whatever."  The Prince of  Conde, whilst cruelly maltreating the
countries in revolt, had elsewhere had the prudence to observe some
gentle measures towards the peaceable Reformers in the hope of thus
producing submission.  He made this quite clear himself when writing to
the Duke of Rohan: "Sir, the king's express commands to maintain them of
the religion styled Reformed in entire liberty of conscience have caused
me to hitherto preserve those who remain in due obedience to his Majesty
in all Catholic places, countries as well as towns, in entire liberty.
Justice has run its free course, the worship continues everywhere, save
in 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 rebel
cities have kept their commissions; in a word, the treatment of so-styled
Reformers, when obedient, has been the same as that of Catholics faithful
to the king .  .  ."  To which Henry de Rohan replied, "I confess to have
once taken up arms unadvisedly, in so far as it was not on behalf of the
affairs of our religion, but of those of yourself personally, who
promised to obtain us reparation for the infractions of our treaties,
and you did nothing of the kind, having had thoughts of peace before
receiving news from the general assembly.  Since that time everybody
knows that I have had arms in my hands only from sheer necessity, in
order to defend our properties, our lives, and the freedom of our
consciences.  I seek my repose in heaven, and God will give me grace to
always find that of my conscience on earth.  They say that in this war
you have, not made a bad thing of it.  This gives me some assurance that
you will leave our poor Uvennes at peace, seeing that there are more hard
knocks than pistoles to be got there."  The Prince of  Conde avenged
himself for this stinging reply by taking possession, in Brittany, of all
the Duke of Rohan's property, which had been confiscated, and of which
the king had made him a present.  There were more pistoles to be picked
up on the duke's estates than in the Cevennes.

The king was in Italy, and the Reformers hoped that his affairs would
detain him there a long while; but "God, who had disposed it otherwise,
breathed upon all those projects," and the arms of Louis XIII. were
everywhere victorious; peace was concluded with Piedmont and England,
without the latter treaty making any mention of the Huguenots.  The king
then turned his eyes towards Languedoc, and, summoning to him the Dukes
of Montmorency and Schomberg, he laid siege to Privas.  The cardinal soon
joined him there, and it was on the day of his arrival that the treaty
with England was proclaimed by heralds beneath the walls.  The besieged
thus learned that their powerful ally had abandoned them without reserve;
at the first assault the inhabitants fled into the country, the garrison
retired within the forts, and the king's-soldiers, penetrating into the
deserted streets, were able, without resistance, to deliver up the town
to pillage and flames.  When the affrighted inhabitants came back by
little and little within their walls, they found the houses confiscated
to the benefit of the king, who invited a new population to inhabit
Privas.

Town after town, "fortified Huguenot-wise," surrendered, opening to the
royal armies the passage to the Uvennes.  The Duke of Rohan, who had at
first taken position at Nimes, repaired to Anduze for the defence of the
mountains, the real fortress of the Reformation in Languedoc.  Alais
itself had just opened its gates.  Rohan saw that he could no longer
impose the duty of resistance upon a people weary of suffering, "easily
believing ill of good folks, and readily agreeing with those whiners who
blame everything and do nothing."  He sent "to the king, begging to be
received to mercy, thinking it better to resolve on peace, whilst he
could 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 his
neck."  The cardinal advised the king to show the duke grace, "well
knowing that, together with him individually, the other cities, whether
they wished it or not, would be obliged to do the like, there being but
little resolution and constancy in people deprived of leaders, especially
when they are threatened with immediate harm, and see no door of escape
open."

The general assembly of the Reformers, which was then in meeting at
Nimes, removed to Anduze to deliberate with the Duke of Rohan; a wish was
expressed to have the opinion of the province of the Cevennes, and all
the deputies repaired to the king's presence.  No more surety-towns;
fortifications everywhere razed, at the expense and by the hands of the
Reformers; the Catholic worship re-established in all the churches of the
Reformed towns; and, at this price, an amnesty granted for all acts of
rebellion, and religious liberties confirmed anew,--such were the
conditions of the peace signed at Alais on the 28th of June, 1629, and
made public the following month at Nimes, under the name of Edict of
Grace.  Montauban alone refused to submit to them.

The Duke of Rohan left France and retired to Venice, where his wife and
daughter were awaiting him.  He had been appointed by the Venetian senate
generalissimo of the forces of the republic, when the cardinal, who had
no doubt preserved some regard for his military talents, sent him an
offer of the command of the king's troops in the Valteline.  There he for
several years maintained the honor of France, being at one time abandoned
and at another supported by the cardinal, who ultimately left him to bear
the 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 the
French troops driven out by the Grisons themselves, and then retired to
Geneva.  Being threatened with the king's wrath, he set out for the camp
of his friend Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar; and it was whilst fighting at
his side against the imperialists that he received the wound of which he
died in Switzerland, on the 16th of April, 1638.  His body was removed to
Geneva amidst public mourning.  A man of distinguished mind and noble
character, often wild in his views and hopes, and so deeply absorbed in
the interests of his party and of his church, that he had sometimes the
misfortune to forget those of his country.

Meanwhile the king had set out for Paris, and the cardinal was marching
on Montauban.  Being obliged to halt at Pezenas because he had a fever,
he there received a deputation from Montauban, asking to have its
fortifications preserved.  On the minister's formal refusal, supported by
a movement in advance on the part of Marshal Bassompierre with the army,
the town submitted unreservedly.  "Knowing that the cardinal had made up
his mind to enter in force, they found this so bitter a pill that they
could scarcely swallow it;" they, nevertheless, offered the dais to the
minister, as they had been accustomed to do to the governor, but he
refused it, and would not suffer the consuls to walk on foot beside his
horse.  Bassompierre set guards at the doors of the meeting-house, that
things might be done without interruption or scandal; it was ascertained
that the Parliament of Toulouse, "habitually intractable in all that
concerned religion," had enregistered the edict without difficulty; the
gentlemen of the neighborhood came up in crowds, the Reformers to make
their submission and the Catholics to congratulate the cardinal; on the
day of his departure the pickaxe was laid to the fortifications of
Montauban; those of Castres were already beginning to fall; and the
Huguenot party in France was dead.  Deprived of the political guarantees
which had been granted them by Henry IV., the Reformers had nothing for
it but to retire into private life.  This was the commencement of their
material prosperity; they henceforth transferred to commerce and,
industry all the intelligence, courage, and spirit of enterprise that
they had but lately displayed in the service of their cause, on the
battle-field or in the cabinets of kings.

"From that time," says Cardinal Richelieu, "difference in religion never
prevented me from rendering the Huguenots all sorts of good offices, and
I made no distinction between Frenchmen but in respect of fidelity."  A
grand assertion, true at bottom, in spite of the frequent grievances that
the Reformers had often to make the best of; the cardinal was more
tolerant than his age and his servants; what he had wanted to destroy was
the 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. could
have listened to and borne in mind the instructions given by Richelieu to
Count de Sault, commissioned to see after the application in Dauphiny of
the edicts of pacification: "I hold that, as there is no need to extend
in favor of them of the religion styled Reformed that which is provided
by the edicts, so there is no ground for cutting down the favors granted
them thereby; even now, when, by the grace of God, peace is so firmly
established in the kingdom, too much precaution cannot be used for the
prevention of all these discontents amongst the people.  I do assure you
that the king's veritable intention is to have all his subjects living
peaceably in the observation of his edicts, and that those who have
authority in the provinces will do him service by conforming thereto."
The era of liberty passed away with Henry IV.; that of tolerance, for the
Reformers, began with Richelieu, pending the advent with Louis XIV. of
the day of persecution.




CHAPTER XLI.----LOUIS XIII., CARDINAL RICHELIEU, AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

France was reduced to submission; six years of power had sufficed for
Richelieu to obtain the mastery; from that moment he directed his
ceaseless energy towards Europe.  "He feared the repose of peace," said
the ambassador Nani in his letters to Venice; "and thinking himself more
safe 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 blood
and so many tears to flow within and without the kingdom, that there is
nothing to be astonished at, if many people have represented him as
faithless, atrocious in his hatred, and inflexible in his vengeance.
But no one, nevertheless, can deny him the gifts that this world is
accustomed to attribute to its greatest men; and his most determined
enemies are forced to confess that he had so many and such great ones,
that he would have carried with him power and prosperity wherever he
might have had the direction of affairs.  We may say that, having brought
back unity to divided France, having succored Italy, upset the empire,
confounded England, and enfeebled Spain, he was the instrument chosen by
divine 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 be
no end to negotiations near and far," was his saying: he had found
negotiations succeed in France; he extended his views; numerous treaties
had already marked the early years of the cardinal's power; and, after
1630, his activity abroad was redoubled.  Between 1623 and 1642
seventy-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 with
Lorraine; one with the Grey Leagues of Switzerland; one with Portugal;
two with the revolters of Catalonia and Roussillon; one with Russia; two
with the Emperor of Morocco: such was the immense network of diplomatic
negotiations whereof the cardinal held the threads during nineteen
years.

An enumeration of the alliances would serve, without further comment,
to prove this: that the foreign policy of Richelieu was a continuation
of that of Henry IV.; it was to Protestant alliances that he looked for
their support in order to maintain the struggle against the house of
Austria, whether the German or the Spanish branch.  In order to give his
views 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 itself
would come to thwart his foreign designs, he marched with a firm step
towards that enfeeblement of Spain and that upsetting of the empire of
which 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 Gustavus
Adolphus, King of Sweden.

Richelieu had not yet entered the king's council (1624), when the
breaking off of the long negotiations between England and Spain, on the
subject of the marriage of the Prince of Wales with the Infanta, was
officially declared to Parliament.  At the very moment when Prince
Charles, with the Duke of Buckingham, was going post-haste to Madrid, to
see the Infanta Mary Anne of Spain, they were already thinking, at Paris,
of marrying him to Henrietta of France, the king's young sister, scarcely
fourteen years of age.  King James I. was at that time obstinately bent
upon his plan of alliance with Spain; when it failed, his son and big
favorite forced his hand to bring him round to France.  His envoys at
Paris, the Earl of Carlisle and Lord Holland, found themselves confronted
by Cardinal Richelieu, commissioned, together with some of his
colleagues, to negotiate the affair.  M. Guizot, in his _Projet de
Mariage royal_ (1 vol.  18mo: 1863; Paris, Hachette et Cie), has said
that 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 to
the greatness of the kingship and of France.  He obtained the best
conditions possible for the various interests involved, but without any
stickling and without favor for such and such a one of these interests,
skilfully adapting words and appearance, but determined upon attaining
his end.

The tarryings and miscarriages of Spanish policy had warned Richelieu to
make haste.  "In less than nine moons," says James I.'s private
secretary, James Howell, "this great matter was proposed, prosecuted, and
accomplished; whereas the sun might, for as many years, have run his
course from one extremity of the zodiac to the other, before the court of
Spain would have arrived at any resolution and conclusion.  That gives a
good idea of the difference between the two nations--the leaden step of
the one and the quicksilver movements of the other.  It also shows that
the 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 was
the rock of offence.  Richelieu confined himself to demanding, in a
general 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 had
promised 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 feelings
of Parliament had shown themselves very strongly on the subject of the
Spanish marriage.  "As to public freedom for the Catholic religion," says
the cardinal, "they would not so much as hear of it, declaring that it
was a deaign, under cover of alliance, to destroy their constitution even
to ask such a thing of them."  "You want to conclude the marriage," said
Lord Holland to the queen-mother, "and yet you enter on the same paths
that the Spaniards took to break it off; which causes all sorts of doubts
and mistrusts, the effect whereof the premier minister of Spain, Count
Olivarez, is very careful to aggravate by saying that, if the pope
granted a dispensation for the marriage with France, the king his master
would march to Rome with an army, and give it up to sack."

"We will soon stop that," answered Mary de' Medici quickly; "we will cut
out work for him elsewhere."  At last it was agreed that King James and
his son should sign a private engagement, not inserted in the contract of
marriage, "securing to the English Catholics more liberty and freedom in
all that concerns their religion, than they would have obtained by virtue
of any articles whatsoever accorded by the marriage treaty with Spain,
provided that they made sparing use of them, rendering to the King of
England the "obedience owed by good and true subjects; the which king,
of his benevolence, would not bind them by any oath contrary to their
religion."  The promises were vague and the securities anything but
substantial; still, the vanity as well as the fears of King James were
appeased, and Richelieu had secured, simultaneously with his own
ascendency, the policy of France.  Nothing remained but to send to Rome
for 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 brotherhood
of the Oratory, patron of the Carmelites, and the intimate friend of
Francis de Sales, though devoid of personal ambition, had, been clever
enough to keep himself on good terms with Cardinal Richelieu, whose
political views he did not share, and with the court of Rome, whose most
faithful allies, the Jesuits, he had often thwarted.  He was devoted to
Queen Mary de' Medici, and willingly promoted her desires in the matter
of her daughter's marriage.  He found the court of Rome in confusion, and
much exercised by Spanish intrigue.  "This court," he wrote to the
cardinal, "is, in conduct and in principles, very different from what
one would suppose before having tried it for one's self; for my part, I
confess to having learned more of it in a few hours, since I have been on
the spot, than I knew by all the talk that I have heard.  The dial
constantly observed in this country is the balance existing between
France, Italy, and Spain."  "The king my master," said Count de Bethune,
quite openly, "has obtained from England all he could; it is no use to
wait for more ample conditions, or to measure them by the Spanish ell;
I have orders against sending off any courier save to give notice of
concession of the dispensation: otherwise there would be nothing but
asking 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 month
I have been on the point of starting, but we have been obliged to take so
much trouble and have so many meetings on the subject of transcripts and
missives as well as the kernel of the business .  .  .  I will merely
tell you that the dispensation is pure and simple."

King James I. had died on the 6th of April, 1625; and so it was King
Charles I., and not the Prince of Wales, whom the Duke of Chevreuse
represented at Paris on the 11th of May, 1625, at the espousals of
Princess 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 to
fetch her, and who had gladly prolonged his stay in France, smitten as he
was by the young Queen Anne of Austria.  Charles I. went to Dover to meet
his wife, showing himself very amiable and attentive to her.  Though she
little knew how fatal they would be to her, the king of England's palaces
looked bare and deserted to the new queen, accustomed as she was to
French elegance; she, however, appeared contented.  "How can your Majesty
reconcile yourself to a Huguenot for a husband?" asked one of her suite,
indiscreetly.  "Why not?" she replied, with spirit.  "Was not my father
one?"

By this speech Henrietta Maria expressed, undoubtedly without realizing
all its grandeur, the idea which had suggested her marriage and been
prominent in France during the whole negotiations.  It was the policy of
Henry IV. that Henry IV.'s daughter was bringing to a triumphant issue.
The marriage between Henrietta Maria and Charles I., negotiated and
concluded by Cardinal Richelieu, was the open declaration of the fact
that the style of Protestant or Catholic was not the supreme law of
policy in Christian Europe, and that the interests of nations should not
remain subservient to the religious faith of the reigning or governing
personages.

Unhappily the policy of Henry IV., carried on by Cardinal Richelieu,
found no Queen Elizabeth any longer on the throne of England to
comprehend it and maintain it.  Charles I., tossed about between the
haughty caprices of his favorite Buckingham and the religious or
political passions of his people, did not long remain attached to the
great idea which had predominated in the alliance of the two crowns.
Proud and timid, imperious and awkward, all at the same time, he did not
succeed, in the first instance, in gaining the affections of his young
wife, and early infractions of the treaty of marriage; the dismissal of
all the queen's French servants, hostilities between the merchant navies
of 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 House
of Commons (June, 1626), madly attempted the expedition against the
Island of Re.  What was the success of it, as well as of the two attempts
that followed it, has already been shown.

Three years later, on the 24th of April, 1629, the King of England
concluded peace with France without making any stipulation in favor of
the Reformers whom hope of aid from him had drawn into rebellion.  "I
declare," says the Duke of Rohan, "that I would have suffered any sort of
extremity rather than be false to the many sacred oaths we had given him
not to listen to any treaty without him, who had many times assured us
that he would never make peace without including us in it."  The English
accepted the peace "as the king had desired, not wanting the King of
Great Britain to meddle with his rebellious Huguenot subjects any more
than he would want to meddle with his Catholic subjects if they were to
rebel against him."  [_Memoires de Richelieu,_ t. iv.  p. 421.]  The
subjects of Charles I. were soon to rebel against him: and France kept
her word and did not interfere.

The Hollanders, with more prudence and ability than distinguished
Buckingham and Charles I., had done better service to the Protestant
cause without ever becoming entangled in the quarrels that divided
France; natural enemies as they were of Spain and the house of Austria,
they readily seconded Richelieu in the struggle he maintained against
them; besides, the United Provinces were as yet poor, and the cardinal
always managed to find money for his allies; nearly all the treaties he
concluded with Holland were treaties of alliance and subsidy; those of
1641 and 1642 secured to them twelve hundred thousand livres a year out
of the coffers of France.  Once only the Hollanders were faithless to
their engagements: it was during the siege of Rochelle, when the national
feeling would not admit of war being made on the French Huguenots.  All
the forces of Protestantism readily united against Spain; Richelieu had
but to direct them.  She, in fact, was the great enemy, and her
humiliation was always the ultimate aim of the cardinal's foreign policy;
the struggle, power to power, between France and Spain, explains, during
that period, nearly all the political and military complications in
Europe.  There was no lack of pretexts for bringing it on.  The first was
the question of the Valteline, a lovely and fertile valley, which,
extending from the Lake of Como to the Tyrol, thus serves as a natural
communication between Italy and Germany.  Possessed but lately, as it
was, by the Grey Leagues of the Protestant Swiss, the Valteline, a
Catholic district, had revolted at the instigation of Spain in 1620; the
emperor, 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 of
Ceeuvres, attacked the feeble garrison of the Valteline; in a few days
they were masters of all the places in the canton; the pope sent his
nephew, Cardinal Barberini, to Paris to complain of French aggression,
and with a proposal to take the sovereignty of the Valteline from the
Grisons; that was, to give it to Spain.  "Besides," said Cardinal
Richelieu, "the precedent and consequences of it would be perilous for
kings in whose dominions it hath pleased God to permit diversity of
religion."  The legate could obtain nothing.  The Assembly of Notables,
convoked by Richelieu in 1625, approved of the king's conduct, and war
was resolved upon.  The siege of La Rochelle retarded it for two years;
Richelieu wanted to have his hands free; he concluded a specious peace
with Spain, and the Valteline remained for the time being in the hands of
the Grisons, who were one day themselves to drive the French out of it.
Whilst the cardinal was holding La Rochelle besieged, the Duke of Mantua
had died in Italy, and his natural heir, Charles di Gonzaga, who was
settled in France with the title of Duke of Nevers, had hastened to put
himself in possession of his dominions.  Meanwhile the Duke of Savoy
claimed the marquisate of Montferrat; the Spaniards supported him; they
entered the-dominions of the Duke of Mantua, and laid siege to Casale.
When La Rochelle succumbed, Casale was still holding out; but the Duke of
Savoy had already made himself master of the greater part of Montferrat;
the Duke of Mantua claimed the assistance of the King of France, whose
subject he was; here was a fresh battle-field against Spain; and scarcely
had he been victorious over the Rochellese, when the king was on the
march 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 the
storming party, ahead of his regiment of guards.  "'Sir,' said he, 'the
company is ready, the violins have come in,'and the masks are at the
door; when your Majesty pleases, we will commence the ballet.'  'The king
came up to me, and said to me angrily, "Do you know, pray, that we have
but five hundred pounds of lead in the park of artillery?" 'I said to
him, '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 all
will 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 dashed
forward, the marshals with the storming party, and the barricades were
soon 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 his
service, "gentlemen, allow me to pass; your countrymen are in a temper."

With the same dash, on debouching from the mountains, the king's troops
entered Suza.  The Prince of Piedmont soon arrived to ask for peace; he
gave up all pretensions to Montferrat, and promised to negotiate with the
Spanish general to get the siege of Casale raised; and the effect was
that, on the 18th of March, Casale, delivered "by the mere wind of the
renown gained by the king's arms, saw, with tears of joy, the Spaniards
retiring desolate, showing no longer that pride which they had been wont
to wear on their faces,--looking constantly behind them, not so much from
regret for what they were leaving as for fear lest the king's vengeful
sword 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 upon
the Duke of Mantua.  The king was in a hurry to return to France in order
to finish the subjugation of the Reformers in the south, commanded by the
Duke of Rohan.  The cardinal placed little or no reliance upon the Duke
of Savoy, whose "mind could get no rest, and going more swiftly than the
rapid movements of the heavens, made every day more than twice the
circuit of the world, thinking how to set by the ears all kings, princes,
and potentates, one with another, so that he alone might reap advantage
from their divisions.  [_Memoires de Richelieu,_ t. iv.  p. 375.]  A
league, however, was formed between France, the republic of Venice, the
Duke of Mantua, and the Duke of Savoy, for the defence of Italy in case
of fresh aggression on the part of the Spaniards; and the king, who had
just concluded peace with England, took the road back to France.
Scarcely had the cardinal joined him before Privas when an imperialist
army advanced into the Grisons, and, supported by the celebrated Spanish
general Spinola, laid siege to Mantua.  Richelieu did not hesitate: he
entered Piedmont in the month of March, 1630, to march before long on
Pignerol, an important place commanding the passage of the Alps; it, as
well as the citadel, was carried in a few days; the governor having asked
for time to "do his Easter" (take the sacrament), Marshal Crequi, who was
afraid of seeing aid arrive from the Duke of Savoy, had all the clocks in
the town put on, to such purpose that the governor had departed and the
place was in the hands of the French when the re-enforcements came up.
The Duke of Savoy was furious, and had the soldiers who surrendered
Pignerol cut in pieces.

The king had put himself in motion to join his army.  "The French
noblesse," said Spinola, "are very fortunate in seeing themselves honored
by the presence of the king their master amongst their armies; I have
nothing to regret in my life but never to have seen the like on the part
of mine."  This great general had resumed the siege of Casale when Louis
XIII. entered Savoy; the inhabitants of Chambery opened their gates to
him; Annecy and Montmelian succumbed after a few days' siege; Maurienne
in its entirety made its submission, and the king fixed his quarters
there, whilst the cardinal pushed forward to Casale with the main body of
the army.  Rejoicings were still going on for a success gained before
Veillane over the troops of the Duke of Savoy, when news arrived of the
capture of Mantua by the Imperialists.  This was the finishing blow to
the ambitious and restless spirit of the Duke of Savoy.  He saw Mantua in
the hands of the Spaniards, "who never give back aught of what falls into
their power, whatever justice and the interests of alliance may make
binding on them;" it was all hope lost of an exchange which might have
given 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 his
reign, had constantly tried to set his neighbors a-blaze, died amidst the
flames 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; and
thither the cardinal was soon summoned, for Louis XIII. appeared to be
dying.  When he reached convalescence, the truce suspending hostilities
since the death of the Duke of Savoy was about to expire; Marshal
Schomberg was preparing to march on the enemy, when there was brought
to him a treaty, signed at Ratisbonne, between the emperor and the
ambassador of France, assisted by Francis du Tremblay, now known as
Father Joseph, perhaps the only friend and certainly the most intimate
confidant of the cardinal, who always employed him on delicate or secret
business.

[Illustration: Richelieu and Father Joseph----280]

But Marshal Schomberg was fighting against Spain; he did not allow
himself to be stopped by a treaty concluded with the emperor, and
speedily found himself in front of Casale.  The two armies were already
face to face, when there was seen coming out of the intrenchments an
officer in the pope's service, who waved a white handkerchief; he came
up to Marshal Schomberg, and was recognized as Captain Giulio Mazarini,
often employed on the nuncio's affairs; he brought word that the
Spaniards would consent to leave the city, if, at the same time, the
French would evacuate the citadel.  Spinola was no longer there to make a
good stand before the place; he had died a month previously, complaining
loudly that his honor had been filched from him; and, determined not to
yield up his last breath in a town which would have to be abandoned, he
had caused himself to be removed out of Casale, to go and die in a
neighboring castle.

Casale evacuated, the cardinal broke out violently against the
negotiators of Ratisbonne, saying that they had exceeded their powers,
and declaring that the king regarded the treaty as null and void; there
was accordingly a recommencement of negotiations with the emperor as well
as the Spaniards.

It was only in the month of September, 1631, that the states of Savoy and
Mantua were finally evacuated by the hostile troops.  Pignerol had been
given up to the new Duke of Savoy, but a secret agreement had been
entered into between that prince and France: French soldiers remained
concealed in Pignerol; and they retook possession of the place in the
name of the king, who had purchased the town and its territory, to secure
himself 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 it
cut the thread of all the enterprises they were meditating against
Christendom.  The affairs of the emperor in Germany were in too bad a
state for him to rekindle war, and France kept Pignerol.  The house of
Austria, in fact, was threatened mortally.  For two years Cardinal
Richelieu had been laboring to carry war into its very heart.  Ferdinand
II. had displeased many electors of the empire, who began to be
disquieted at the advances made by his power.  "It is, no doubt, a great
affliction for the Christian commonwealth," said the cardinal to the
German princes, "that none but the Protestants should dare to oppose such
pernicious designs; they must not be aided in their enterprises against
religion, but they must be made use of in order to maintain Germany in
the enjoyment of her liberties."  The Catholic league in Germany,
habitually allied as it was with the house of Austria, did not offer any
leader to take the field against her.  The King of Denmark, after a long
period of hostilities, had just made peace with the emperor; and, "in
their need, all these offended and despoiled princes looked, as sailors
look 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 with
all his neighbors, had wrested from them several provinces; he was young,
but of great reputation, and already incensed against the emperor, not so
much on account of any real injuries he had received from him as because
he was his neighbor.  His Majesty had kept an eye upon him with a view of
attempting 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 own
dominions."  [_Memoires de Richelieu,_ t. v.  p. 119.]  Through
Richelieu's good offices, Gustavus Adolphus had just concluded a long
truce with the Poles, with whom he had been for some time at war: the
cardinal's envoy, M. de Charnace, at once made certain propositions to
the King of Sweden, promising the aid of France if he would take up the
cause of the German princes; but Gustavus turned a cold ear to these
overtures, "not seeing in any quarter any great encouragement to
undertake the war, either in England, peace with the Spaniards being
there as good as determined upon, or in Holland, for the same reason,
or in the Hanseatic towns, which were all exhausted of wealth, or in
Denmark, which had lost heart and was daily disarming, or in France,
whence he got not a word on which he could place certain reliance."  The
emperor, on his side, was seeking to make peace with Sweden, "and the
people of that country were not disinclined to listen to him."

God, for the accomplishment of his will, sets at nought the designs and
intentions of men.  Gustavus Adolphus was the instrument chosen by
Providence to finish the work of Henry IV. and Richelieu.  Negotiations
continued to be carried on between the two parties, but, before his
alliance with France was concluded, the King of Sweden, taking a sudden
resolution, set out for Germany, on the 30th of May, 1630, with fifteen
thousand men, "having told Charnace that he would not continue the war
beyond 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 to
be in his power to put an end to so great a war as that, just as it had
been 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 a
cruel death all the inhabitants of the said city who happened to be in
their hands, and gave up all its territory to fire and sword.  "The King
of Sweden, on the contrary, had his army in such discipline, that it
seemed as if every one of them were living at home, and not amongst
strangers; for in the actions of this king there was nothing to be seen
but inexorable severity towards the smallest excesses on the part of his
men, extraordinary gentleness towards the populations, and strict justice
on every occasion, all which conciliated the affections of all, and so
much the more in that the emperor's army, unruly, insolent, disobedient
to its leaders, and full of outrage against the people, made their
enemy's virtues shine forth the brighter."  [_Memoires de Richelieu,_
t. vi.  p. 419.]

Gustavus Adolphus had left Sweden under the impulse of love for those
glorious enterprises which make great generals, but still more of a
desire to maintain the Protestant cause, which he regarded as that of
God.  He had assembled the estates of Sweden in the castle of Stockholm,
presenting to them his daughter Christina, four years old, whom he
confided to their faithful care.  "I have hopes," he said to them, "of
ending by bringing triumph to the cause of the oppressed; but, as the
pitcher that goes often to the well gets broken, so I fear it may be my
fate.  I who have exposed my life amidst so many dangers, who have so
often spilt my blood for the country, without, thanks to God, having been
wounded to death, must in the end make a sacrifice of myself; for that
reason I bid you farewell, hoping to see you again in a better world."
He continued advancing into Germany.  "This snow king will go on melting
as he comes south," said the emperor, Ferdinand, on hearing that Gustavus
Adolphus had disembarked; but Mecklenburg was already in his hands, and
the Elector of Brandenburg had just declared in his favor: he everywhere
made proclamation, "that the inhabitants were to come forward and join
him to take the part of their princes, whom he was coming to replace in
possession."  He was investing all parts of Austria, whose hereditary
dominions he had not yet attacked; it was in the name of the empire that
he fought against the emperor.

The diet was terminating at Ratisbonne, and it had just struck a fatal
blow at the imperial cause.  The electors, Catholic and Protestant,
jealous of the power as well as of the glory of the celebrated
Wallenstein, creator and commander-in-chief of the emperor's army, who
had made him Duke of Friedland, and endowed him with the duchies of
Mecklenburg, had obliged Ferdinand II. to withdraw from him the command
of the forces.  At this price he had hoped to obtain their votes to
designate his son King of the Romans; the first step towards hereditary
empire had failed, thanks to the ability of Father Joseph.  "This poor
Capuchin has disarmed me with his chaplet," said the emperor, "and for
all that his cowl is so narrow he has managed to get six electoral hats
into it."  The treaty he had concluded, disavowed by France, did not for
an instant hinder the progress of the King of Sweden; and the cardinal
lost no time in letting him know that "the king's intention was in no
wise to abandon him, but to assist him more than ever, insomuch as he
deemed it absolutely necessary in order to thwart the designs of those
who had no end in view but their own augmentation, to the prejudice of
all the other princes of Europe."  On the 25th of January, 1631, at
Bernwald, the treaty of alliance between France and Sweden was finally
signed.  Baron Charnace had inserted in the draft of the treaty the term
protection as between France and Gustavus Adolphus.  "Our master asks for
no protection but that of Heaven, said the Swedish plenipotentiaries;
"after God, his Majesty holds himself indebted only to his sword and his
wisdom for any advantages he may gain."  Charnace did not insist; and the
victories of Gustavus Adolphus were an answer to any difficulties.

The King of Sweden bound himself to furnish soldiers,--thirty thousand
men at the least; France was to pay, by way of subsidy, four hundred
thousand crowns a year, and to give a hundred thousand crowns to cover
past expenses.  Gustavus Adolphus promised to maintain the existing
religion in such countries as he might conquer, "though he said,
laughingly, that there was no possibility of promising about that, except
in the fashion of him who sold the bear's skin;" he likewise guaranteed
neutrality to the princes of the Catholic league, provided that they
observed it towards him.  The treaty was made public at once, through the
exertions of Gustavus Adolphus, though Cardinal Richelieu had charged
Charnace to keep it secret for a time.

Torquato Conti, one of the emperor's generals, who had taken
Wallenstein's place, wished to break off warfare during the long frosts.
"My men do not recognize winter," answered Gustavus Adolphus.  "This
prince, who did not take to war as a pastime, but made it in order to
conquer," marched with giant strides across Germany, reducing everything
as he went. He had arrived, by the end of April, before Frankfurt-on-the
Oder, which he took; and he was preparing to succor Magdeburg, which had
early pronounced for him, and which Tilly, the emperor's general, kept
besieged.  The Elector of Saxony hesitated to take sides; he refused
Gustavus Adolphus a passage over the bridge of Dessau, on the Elbe.  On
the 20th of May Magdeburg fell, and Tilly gave over the place to the
soldiery; thirty thousand persons were massacred, and the houses
committed to the flames.  "Nothing like it has been seen since the taking
of Troy and of Jerusalem," said Tilly in his savage joy.  The Protestant
princes, who had just been reconstituting the Evangelical Union, in the
diet they had held in February at Leipzig, revolted openly, ordering
levies of soldiers to protect their territories; the Catholic League,
renouncing neutrality, flew to arms on their side; the question became
nothing less than that of restoring to the Protestants all that had been
granted them by the peace of Passau.  The soldiery of Tilly were already
let loose on electoral Saxony; the elector, constrained by necessity,
intrusted his soldiers to Gustavus Adolphus, who had just received
re-enforcements from Sweden, and the king marched against Tilly, still
encamped before Leipzig, which he had forced to capitulate.

The Saxons gave way at the first shock of the imperial troops, but the
King of Sweden had dashed forward, and nothing could withstand him; Tilly
himself, hitherto proof against lead and steel, fell wounded in three
places; five thousand dead were left on the field of battle; and Gustavus
Adolphus dragged at his heels seven thousand prisoners.  "Never did the
grace of God pull me out of so bad a scrape," said the conqueror.  He
halted some time at Mayence, which had just opened its gates to him.
Axel Oxenstiern, his most faithful servant and oldest friend, whose
intimacy with his royal master reminds one of that between Henry IV. and
Sully, came to join him in Germany; he had hitherto been commissioned to
hold the government of the conquests won from the Poles.  He did not
approve of the tactics of Gustavus Adolphus, who was attacking the
Catholic League, and meanwhile leaving to the Elector of Saxony the
charge of carrying the war into the hereditary dominions of Austria.
.  .  .  "Sir," said he, "I should have liked to offer you my
felicitations on your victories, not at Mayence, but at Vienna."  "If,
after the battle of Leipzig, the King of Sweden had gone straight to
attack the emperor in his hereditary provinces, it had been all over with
the house of Austria," says Cardinal Richelieu; "but either God did not
will the certain destruction of that house, which would perhaps have been
too prejudicial to the Catholic religion, and he turned him aside from
the counsel which would have been more advantageous for him to take, or
the same God, who giveth not all to any, but distributeth his gifts
diversely to each, had given to this king, as to Hannibal, the knowledge
how to conquer, but not how to use victory."

Gustavus Adolphus had resumed his course of success: he came up with
Tilly again on the Leek, April 10, 1632, and crushed his army; the
general was mortally wounded, and the King of Sweden, entering Augsburg
in triumph, proclaimed religious liberty there.  He had moved forward in
front of Ingolstadt, and was making a reconnoissance in person.  "A king
is not worthy of his crown who makes any difficulty about carrying it
wherever a simple soldier can go," he said.  A cannon-ball carried off
the 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 often
characterizes great warriors; and he marched to Munich, on which he
imposed a heavy war-contribution.  The Elector of Bavaria, strongly
favored by France, sought to treat in the name of the Catholic League;
but Gustavus Adolphus required complete restitution of all territories
wrested from the Protestant princes, the withdrawal of the troops
occupying the dominions of the evangelicals, and the absolute neutrality
of the Catholic princes.  "These conditions smacked rather of your
victorious prince, who would lay down and not accept the law."  He
summoned to him all the inhabitants of the countries he traversed in
conqueror's style: _"Surgite d mortuis,"_ he said to the Bavarians, _"et
venite 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 banks
of the Lake of Constance.  The Lutheran countries of Upper Austria had
taken up arms; and Switzerland had permitted the King of Sweden to
recruit on her territory.  "Italy began to tremble," says Cardinal
Richelieu; "the Genevese themselves were fortifying their town, and, to
see them doing so, it seemed as if the King of Sweden were at their
gates; but God had disposed it otherwise."

The Emperor Ferdinand had recalled the only general capable of making a