was fixed as the day on which Henry was to place himself at
its head." But on the 16th of May (1610) he was struck down by
the hand of an assassin (François Ravaillac), and the whole
combination fell to pieces.
W. Hanna,
The Wars of the Huguenots,
chapter 8.
"The Emperor, the King of Spain, the Queen of France, the Duke
d'Epernon, the Jesuits, were all in turn suspected of having
instigated the crime, because they all profited by it; but the
assassin declared that he had no accomplices. ... He believed
that the King was at heart a Huguenot, and thought that in
ridding France of this monarch he was rendering a great
service to his country."
A. de Bonnechose,
History of France,
volume 1, page 450.
ALSO IN:
M. W. Freer,
The Last Decade of a Glorious Reign.
Duke of Sully,
Memoirs,
volumes 2-5.
Sir N. W. Wraxall,
History of France, 1574-1610,
volume 5, chapter 7-8, and volume 6.
FRANCE: A. D. 1603-1605.
First settlements in Acadia.
See CANADA: A. D. 1603-1605;
and 1606-1608.
FRANCE: A. D. 1605-1616.
Champlain's explorations and settlements in the Valley of the
St. Lawrence.
See CANADA: A. D. 1608-1611; 1611-1616; 1616-1628.
FRANCE: A. D. 1610.
Accession of King Louis XIII.
FRANCE: A. D. 1610-1619.
The regency of Marie de Medicis.
The reign of favorites and the riot of factions.
Distractions of the kingdom.
The rise of Richelieu.
"After the death of Henry IV. it was seen how much the power,
credit, manners, and spirit of a nation frequently depend upon
a single man. This prince had by a vigorous, yet gentle
administration, kept all orders of the state in union, lulled
all factions to sleep, maintained peace between the two
religions, and kept his people in plenty. He held the balance
of Europe in his hands by his alliance, his riches, and his
arms. All these advantages were lost in the very first year of
the regency of his widow, Mary of Medicis [whom Henry had
married in 1600, the pope granting a divorce from his first
wife, Margaret of Valois]. ... Mary of Medicis ... appointed
regent [during the minority of her son, Louis XIII.], though
not mistress of the kingdom, lavished in making of creatures
all that Henry the Great had amassed to render his nation
powerful. The army he had raised to carry the war into Germany
was disbanded, the princes he had taken under his protection
were abandoned. Charles Emanuel, duke of Savoy, the new ally
of Henry IV., was obliged to ask pardon of Philip III. of
Spain for having entered into a treaty with the French king,
and sent his son to Madrid to implore the mercy of the Spanish
court, and to humble himself as a subject in his father's name.
{1217}
The princes of Germany, whom Henry had protected with an army
of 40,000 men, now found themselves almost without assistance.
The state lost all its credit abroad, and was distracted at
home. The princes of the blood and the great nobles filled
France with factions, as in the times of Francis II., Charles
IX. and Henry III., and as afterwards, during the minority of
Lewis XIV. At length [1614] an assembly of the general estates
was called at Paris, the last that was held in France [prior
to the States General which assembled on the eve of the
Revolution of 1789]. ... The result of this assembly was the
laying open all the grievances of the kingdom, without being
able to redress one. France remained in confusion, and
governed by one Concini, a Florentine, who rose to be marechal
of France without ever having drawn a sword, and prime
minister without knowing anything of the laws. It was
sufficient that he was a foreigner for the princes to be
displeased with him. Mary of Medicis was in a very unhappy
situation, for she could not share her authority with the
prince of Condé, chief of the malcontents, without being
deprived of it altogether; nor trust it in the hands of
Concini, without displeasing the whole kingdom. Henry prince
of Condé, father of the great Condé, and son to him who had
gained the battle of Coutras in conjunction with Henry IV.,
put himself at the head of a party, and took up arms. The
court made a dissembled peace with him; and afterwards clapt
him up in the Bastile. This had been the fate of his father
and grandfather, and was afterwards that of his son. His
confinement encreased the number of the male contents. The
Guises, who had formerly been implacable enemies to the Condé
family, now joined with them. The duke of Vendome, son to
Henry IV., the duke of Nevers, of the house of Gonzaga, the
marechal de Bouillon, and all the rest of the male contents,
fortified themselves in the provinces, protesting that they
continued true to their king, and made war only against the
prime minister. Concini, marechal d'Anere, secure of the queen
regent's protection, braved them all. He raised 7,000 men at
his own expense, to support the royal authority. ... A young
man of whom he had not the least apprehension, and who was a
stranger like himself, caused his ruin, and all the
misfortunes of Mary of Medicis. Charles Albert of Luines, born
in the county of Avignon, had, with his two brothers, been
taken into the number of gentlemen in ordinary to the king,
and the companions of his education. He had insinuated himself
into the good graces and confidence of the young monarch, by his
dexterity in bird-catching. It was never supposed that these
childish amusements would end in a bloody revolution. The
marechal d'Ancre had given him the government of Amboise,
thinking by that to make him his creature; but this young man
conceived the design of murdering his benefactor, banishing
the queen, and governing himself; all which he accomplished
without meeting with any obstacle. He soon found means of
persuading the king that he was capable of reigning alone,
though he was not then quite 17 years old, and told him that
the queen-mother and Concini kept him in confinement. The
young king, to whom in his childhood they had given the name
of Just, consented to the murder of his prime minister; the
marquis of Vitri, captain of the king's guards, du Hallier his
brother, Persan, and others, were sent to dispatch him, who,
finding him in the court of the Louvre, shot him dead with
their pistols [April 24, 1617]: upon this they cried out,
'Vive le roi', as if they had gained a battle, and Lewis
XIII., appearing at a window, cried out, 'Now I am king.' The
queen-mother had her guards taken from her, and was confined
to her own apartment, and afterwards banished to Blois. The
place of marechal of France, held by Concini, was given to the
marquis of Vitri, his murderer." Concini's wife, Eleanor
Galigai, was tried on a charge of sorcery and burned, "and the
king's favourite, Luines, had the confiscated estates. This
unfortunate Galigai was the first promoter of cardinal
Richelieu's fortune; while he was yet very young, and called
the abbot of Chillon, she procured him the bishopric of Luçon,
and at length got him made secretary of state in 1616. He was
involved in the disgrace of his protectors, and ... was now
banished ... to a little priory at the farther end of Anjou.
... The duke of Epernon, who had caused the queen to be
declared regent, went to the castle of Blois [February 22,
1619], whither she had been banished, and carried her to his
estate in Angoulême, like a sovereign who rescues his ally.
This was manifestly an act of high treason; but a crime that
was approved by the whole kingdom." The king presently "sought
an opportunity of reconciliation with his mother, and entered
into a treaty with the duke of Epernon, as between prince and
prince. ... But the treaty of reconciliation was hardly signed
when it was broken again; this was the true spirit of the
times. New parties took up arms in favour of the queen, and
always to oppose the duke of Luines, as before it had been to
oppose the marechal d'Ancre, but never against the king. Every
favourite at that time drew after him a civil war. Lewis and
his mother in fact made war upon each other. Mary was in Anjou
at the head of a small army against her son; they engaged each
other on the bridge of Cé, and the kingdom was on the point of
ruin. This confusion made the fortune of the famous Richelieu.
He was comptroller of the queen-mother's household, and had
supplanted all that princess's confidants, as he afterwards
did all the king's ministers. His pliable temper and bold
disposition must necessarily have acquired for him the first
rank everywhere, or have proved his ruin. He brought about the
accommodation between the mother and son; and a nomination to
the purple, which the queen asked of the king for him, was the
reward of his services. The duke of Epernon was the first to
lay down arms without making any demands, whilst the rest made
the king pay them for having taken up arms against him. The
queen-mother and the king her son had an interview at Brisac,
where they embraced with a flood of tears, only to quarrel
again more violently than ever. The weakness, intrigues, and
divisions of the court spread anarchy through the kingdom. All
the internal defects with which the state had for a long time
been attacked were now encreased, and those which Henry IV.
had removed were revived anew."
Voltaire, Ancient and Modern History,
chapter 145
(works translated by Smollett, volume 5).
ALSO IN:
C. D. Yonge,
History of France under the Bourbons,
volume 1, chapters 5-6.
A. Thierry,
Formation and Progress of the Tiers État in France,
volume 1, chapter 7.
S. Menzies,
Royal Favourites,
volume 1, chapter 9.
{1218}
FRANCE: A. D. 1620-1622.
Renewed jealousy of the Huguenots.
Their formidable organization and its political pretensions.
Restoration of Catholicism in Navarre and Béarn.
Their incorporation with France.
The Huguenot revolt.
Treaty of Montpelier.
"The Huguenot question had become a very serious one, and the
bigotry of some of the Catholics found its opportunity in the
insubordination of many of the Protestants. The Huguenots had
undoubtedly many minor causes for discontent. ... But on the
whole the government and the majority of the people were
willing to carry out in good faith the provisions of the edict
of Nantes. The Protestants, within the limits there laid down,
could have worshipped after their own conscience, free from
persecution and subject to little molestation. It was,
perhaps, all that could be expected in a country where the
mass of the population were Catholic, and where religious
fanaticism had recently supported the League and fostered the
wars of religion. But the Protestant party seem to have
desired a separate political power, which almost justifies the
charge made against them, that they sought to establish a
state within a state, or even to form a separate republic.
Their territorial position afforded a certain facility for
such endeavors. In the northern provinces their numbers were
insignificant. They were found chiefly in the southwestern
provinces--Poitou, Saintonge, Guienne, Provence, and
Languedoc,--while in Béarn and Navarre they constituted the
great majority of the population, and they held for their
protection a large number of strongly fortified cities. ...
Though there is nothing to show that a plan for a separate
republic was seriously considered, the Huguenots had adopted
an organization which naturally excited the jealousy and
ill-will of the general government. They had long maintained a
system of provincial and general synods for the regulation of
their faith and discipline. ... The assembly which met at
Saumur immediately after Henry's death, had carried still
further the organization of the members of their faith. From
consistories composed of the pastors and certain of the laity,
delegates were chosen who formed local consistories. These
again chose delegates who met in provincial synods, and from
them delegates were sent to the national synod, or general
assembly of the church. Here not only matters of faith, but of
state, were regulated, and the general assembly finally
assumed to declare war, levy taxes, choose generals, and act
both as a convocation and a parliament. The assembly of Saumur
added a system of division into eight great circles, covering
the territory where the Protestants were sufficiently numerous
to be important. All but two of these were south of the Loire.
They were subsequently organized as military departments, each
under the command of some great nobleman. ... The Huguenots
had also shown a willingness to assist those who were in arms
against the state, had joined Condé, and contemplated a union
with Mary de Medici in the brief insurrection of 1620. A
question had now arisen which was regarded by the majority of
the party as one of vital importance. The edict of Nantes,
which granted privileges to the Huguenots, had granted also to
the Catholics the right to the public profession of their
religion in all parts of France. This had formerly been
prohibited in Navarre and Béarn, and the population of those
provinces had become very largely Protestant. The Catholic
clergy had long petitioned the king to enforce the rights
which they claimed the edict gave them in Béarn, and to compel
also a restitution of some portion of the property, formerly
held by their church, which had been taken by Jeanne d'Albret,
and the revenues of which the Huguenot clergy still assumed to
appropriate entirely to themselves. On July 25, 1617, Louis
finally issued an edict directing the free exercise of the
Catholic worship in Béarn and the restitution to the clergy of
the property that had been taken from them. The edict met with
bitter opposition in Béarn and from all the Huguenot party.
The Protestants were as unwilling to allow the rites of the
Catholic Church in a province which they controlled, as the
Catholics to suffer a Huguenot conventicle within the walls of
Paris. The persecutions which the Huguenots suffered
distressed them less than the toleration which they were
obliged to grant. ... In the wars of religion the Huguenots
had been controlled, not always wisely or unselfishly, by the
nobles who had espoused their faith, but these were slowly
drifting back to Catholicism. ... The Condés were already
Catholics. Lesdiguières was only waiting till the bribe for
his conversion should be sufficiently glittering. [He was
received into the Church and was made Constable of France in
July, 1622.] Bouillon's religion was but a catch-weight in his
political intrigues. The grandson of Coligni was soon to
receive a marshal's baton for consenting to a peace which was
disastrous to his party. Sully, Rohan, Soubise, and La Force
still remained; but La Force's zeal moderated when he also was
made a marshal, and one hundred years later Rohans and the
descendants of Sully wore cardinal's hats. The party, slowly
deserted by the great nobles, came more under the leadership
of the clergy ... and under their guidance the party now
assumed a political activity which brought on the siege of La
Rochelle and which made possible the revocation of the edict
of Nantes. Béarn was not only strongly Protestant, but it
claimed, with Navarre, to form no part of France, and to be
governed only by its own laws. Its States met and declared
their local rights were violated by the king's edict; the
Parliament of Pau refused to register it, and it was not
enforced in the province. ... The disturbances caused by Mary
de Medici had delayed any steps for the enforcement of the
edict, but these troubles were ended by the peace of
Ponts-de-Cé in 1620. ... In October, 1620, Louis led his army
in Béarn, removed various Huguenot officials, and
reëstablished the Catholic clergy. ... On October 20th, an
edict was issued by which Navarre and Béarn were declared to
be united to France, and a parliament was established for the
two provinces on the same model as the other parliaments of
the kingdom. ... A general assembly of Protestants,
sympathizing with their brethren of these provinces, was
called for November 26, 1620, at La Rochelle. The king
declared those guilty of high treason who should join in that
meeting. ... The meeting was held in defiance of the
prohibition, and it was there resolved to take up arms. ...
The assembly proceeded in all respects like the legislative
body of a separate state.
{1219}
The king prepared for the war with vigor. ... He now led his
forces into southern France, and after some minor engagements
he laid siege to Montauban. A three months' siege resulted
disastrously; the campaign closed, and the king returned to
Paris. The encouragement that the Huguenots drew from this
success proved very brief. The king's armies proceeded again
into the south of France in 1622, and met only an irregular
and inefficient opposition. ... Chatillon and La Force each
made a separate peace, and each was rewarded by the baton of
marshal from the king and by charges of treachery from his
associates. ... The siege of Montpelier led to the peace
called by that name, but on terms that were unfavorable to the
Huguenots. They abandoned all the fortified cities which they
had held for their security except La Rochelle and Montauban;
no assemblies could meet without permission of the king,
except the local synods for ecclesiastical matters alone, and
the interests of Béarn and Navarre were abandoned. In return
the edict of Nantes was again confirmed, and their religious
privileges left undisturbed. Rohan accepted 800,000 livres for
his expenses and governments, and the king agreed that the
Fort of St. Louis, which had been built to overawe the
turbulence of La Rochelle, should be dismantled. La Rochelle,
the great Huguenot stronghold, continued hostilities for some
time longer, but at last it made terms. The party was fast
losing its power and its overthrow could be easily foretold.
La Rochelle was now the only place capable of making a
formidable resistance. ... In the meantime the career of
Luines reached its end." He had taken the great office of
Constable to himself, incurring much ridicule thereby. "The
exposures of the campaign and its disasters had worn upon him;
a fever attacked him at the little town of Monheur, and on
December 14, 1621, he died."
J. B. Perkins,
France under Mazarin, with a Review of the
Administration of Richelieu,
chapter 3 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
W. S. Browning,
History of the Huguenots,
chapters 54-56.
FRANCE: A. D. 1621.
Claims in North America conflicting with England.
See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1621-1631.
FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.
Richelieu in power.
His combinations against the Austro-Spanish ascendancy.
The Valtelline War.
Huguenots again in revolt.
The second Treaty of Montpelier.
Treaty of Monzon with Spain.
"The King was once more without a guide, without a favourite,
but his fate was upon him. A few months more of uncertain
drifting and he will fall into the hands of the greatest
politician France has ever seen, Cardinal Richelieu; under his
hand the King will be effaced, his cold disposition and narrow
intelligence will accept and be convinced by the grandeur of
his master's views; convinced, he will obey, and we shall
enter on the period in which the disruptive forces in France
will be coerced, and the elements of freedom and
constitutional life stamped down; while patriotism, and a firm
belief in the destinies of the nation will be fostered and
grow strong; France will assert her high place in Europe.
Richelieu, who had already in 1622 received the Cardinal's
hat, entered the King's Council on the
29th of April, 1624. ...
[Transcriber's note: The date printed is "19/29th of
April". Wikipedia gives the date as "appointed to the royal
council of ministers on 29 April 1624, (Lodge & Ketcham,
1903, p. 85.)".]
La Vieuville, under whose patronage he had been brought
forward, welcomed him into the Cabinet. ... But La Vieuville
was not fitted by nature for the chief place; he was rash,
violent, unpopular and corrupt. He soon had to give place to
Richelieu, henceforth the virtual head of the Council. La
Vieuville, thus supplanted, had been the first to reverse the
ruinous Spanish policy of the Court; ... he had promised help
to the Dutch, to Mansfield, to the Elector Frederick; in a
word, his policy had been the forecast of that of the
Cardinal, who owed his rise to him, and now stepped nimbly
over his head into his place. England had declared war on
Spain: France joined England in renewing the old offensive and
defensive alliance with the Dutch, England promising men and
France money. ... The Austro-Spanish power had greatly
increased during these years: its successes had enabled it to
knit together all the provinces which owed it allegiance. The
Palatinate and the Lower Rhine secured their connexion with
the Spanish Netherlands, as we may now begin to call them, and
threatened the very existence of the Dutch: the Valtelline
forts [commanding the valley east of Lake Como, from which one
pass communicates with the Engadine and the Grisons, and
another with the Tyrol] ... were the roadway between the
Spanish power at Milan and the Austrians on the Danube and in
the Tyrol. Richelieu now resolved to attack this threatening
combination at both critical points. In the North he did not
propose to interfere in arms: there others should fight, and
France support them with quiet subsidies and good will. He
pressed matters on with the English, the Dutch, the North
German Princes; he negotiated with Maximilian of Bavaria and
the League, hoping to keep the South German Princes clear of
the Imperial policy. ... The French ambassador at Copenhagen,
well supported by the English envoy, Sir Robert Anstruther, at
this time organised a Northern League, headed by Christian IV.
of Denmark [see GERMANY: A. D. 1624-1626]. ... The Lutheran
Princes, alarmed at the threatening aspect of affairs, were
beginning to think that they had made a mistake in leaving the
Palatinate to be conquered; and turned a more willing ear to
the French and English proposals for this Northern League. ...
By 1625 the Cardinal's plans in the North seemed to be going
well: the North-Saxon Princes, though with little heart and
much difference of opinion, specially in the cities, had
accepted Christian IV. as their leader; and the progress of
the Spaniards in the United Provinces was checked. In the
other point to which Richelieu's attention was directed,
matters had gone still better. [The inhabitants of the
Valtelline were mostly Catholics and Italians. They had long
been subject to the Protestant Grisons or Graubunden. In 1620
they had risen in revolt, massacred the Protestants of the
valley, and formed an independent republic, supported by the
Spaniards and Austrians. Spanish and German troops occupied
the four strong Valtelline forts, and controlled the important
passes above referred to. The Grisons resisted and secured the
support of Savoy, Venice and finally France. In 1623 an
agreement had been reached, to hand over the Valtelline forts
to the pope, in deposit, until some terms could be settled.
But in 1625 this agreement had not been carried out, and
Richelieu took the affair in hand.] ...
{1220}
Richelieu, never attacking in full face if he could carry his
point by a side-attack, allied himself with Charles Emmanuel,
Duke of Savoy, and with Venice; he easily persuaded the
Savoyard to threaten Genoa, the port by which Spain could
penetrate into Italy, and her financial mainstay. Meanwhile,
the Marquis of Cœuvres had been sent to Switzerland, and, late
in 1624, had persuaded the Cantons to arm for the recovery of
the Valtelline; then, heading a small army of Swiss and
French, he had marched into the Grisons. The upper districts
held by the Austrians revolted: the three Leagues declared
their freedom, the Austrian troops hastily withdrew. Cœuvres
at once secured the Tyrolese passes, and descending from the
Engadine by Poschiavo, entered the Valtelline: in a few weeks
the Papal and Spanish troops were swept out of the whole
valley, abandoning all their forts, though the French general
had no siege-artillery with which to reduce them. ... Early in
1625, the Valtelline being secured to the Grisons and French,
the aged Lesdiguières was sent forward to undertake the rest
of the plan, the reduction of Genoa. But just as things were
going well for the party in Europe opposed to Spain and
Austria, an unlucky outburst of Huguenot dissatisfaction
marred all: Soubise in the heart of winter had seized the Isle
of Ré, and had captured in Blavet harbour on the Breton coast
six royal ships; he failed however to take the castle which
commanded the place, and was himself blockaded, escaping only
with heavy loss. Thence he seized the Isle of Oléron: in May
the Huguenots were in revolt in Upper Languedoc, Querci, and
the Cevennes, led by Rohan on land, and Soubise by sea. Their
rash outbreak [provoked by alleged breaches of the treaty of
Montpelier, especially in the failure of the king to demolish
Fort Louis at La Rochelle] came opportunely to the aid of the
distressed Austrian power, their true enemy. Although very
many of the Huguenots stood aloof and refused to embarrass the
government, still enough revolted to cause great uneasiness.
The war in the Ligurian mountains was not pushed on with
vigour; for Richelieu could not now think of carrying out the
large plans which, by his own account, he had already formed,
for the erection of an independent Italy. ... He was for the
present content to menace Genoa, without a serious siege. At
this time James I. of England died, and the marriage of the
young king [Charles I.] with Henriette Marie was pushed on. In
May Buckingham went to Paris to carry her over to England; he
tried in vain to persuade Richelieu to couple the Palatinate
with the Valtelline question. ... After this the tide of
affairs turned sharply against the Cardinal; while Tilly with
the troops of the Catholic League, and Wallenstein, the new
general of the Emperor, who begins at this moment his brief
and marvellous career, easily kept in check the Danes and
their halfhearted German allies, Lesdiguières and the Duke of
Savoy were forced by the Austrians and Spaniards to give up
all thoughts of success in the Genoese country, and the French
were even threatened in Piedmont and the Valtelline. But the old
Constable of France was worthy of his ancient fame; he drove
the Duke of Feria out of Piedmont, and in the Valtelline the
Spaniards only succeeded in securing the fortress of Riva.
Richelieu felt that the war was more than France could bear,
harassed as she was within and without. ... He was determined
to free his hands in Italy, to leave the war to work itself
out in Germany, and to bring the Huguenots to reason. ... The
joint fleets of, Soubise and of La Rochelle had driven back
the king's ships, and had taken Ré and Oléron; but in their
attempt to force an entrance into the harbour of La Rochelle
they were defeated by Montmorency, who now commanded the royal
fleet: the islands were retaken, and the Huguenots sued for
peace. It must be remembered that the bulk of them did not
agree with the Rochellois, and were quiet through this time.
Early in 1626 the treaty of Montpellier granted a hollow peace
on tolerable terms to the reformed churches; and soon after ...
peace was signed with Spain at Monzon in May, 1626. All was
done so silently that the interested parties, Savoy, the
Venetians, the Grisons, knew nothing of it till all was
settled: on Buckingham ... the news fell like a thunderclap.
... The Valtelline remained under the Grisons, with guarantees
for Catholic worship; France and Spain would jointly see that
the inhabitants of the valleys were fairly treated: the Pope
was entrusted with the duty of razing the fortresses: Genoa
and Savoy were ordered to make peace. It was a treacherous
affair; and Richelieu comes out of it but ill. We are bound,
however, to remember ... the desperate straits into which the
Cardinal had come. ... He did but fall back in order to make
that wonderful leap forward which changed the whole face of
European politics."
G. W. Kitchin,
History of France,
book 4, chapters 3 and 4 (volumes 2-3).
ALSO IN:
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapters 40-41.
J. B. Perkins,
France under Mazarin [and Richelieu],
volume 1, chapters 4-5.
G. Masson,
Richelieu,
chapter 5.
FRANCE: A. D. 1627-1628:
War with England, and Huguenot revolt.
Richelieu's siege and capture of La Rochelle.
His great example of magnanimity and toleration.
The end of political Huguenotism.
"Richelieu now found himself dragged into a war against his
will, and that with the very power with which, for the
furtherance of his other designs, he most desired to continue
at peace. James I. of England had been as unable to live
except under the dominion of a favourite as Louis. Charles ...
had the same unfortunate weakness; and the Duke of Buckingham,
who had long been paramount at the court of the father,
retained the same mischievous influence at that of the son.
... In passing through France in 1623 he [Buckingham] had been
presented to the queen [Anne of Austria], and had presumed to
address her in the language of love. When sent to Paris to
conduct the young Princess Henrietta Maria to England, he had
repeated this conduct. ... There had been some little
unpleasantness between the two Courts shortly after the
marriage ... owing to the imprudence of Henrietta," who
paraded her Popery too much in the eyes of Protestant England;
and there was talk of a renewed treaty, which Buckingham
sought to make the pretext for another visit to Paris. But his
motives were understood; Louis "refused to receive him as an
ambassador, and Buckingham, full of disappointed rage,
instigated the Duke de Soubise, who was still in London, to
rouse the Huguenots to a fresh outbreak, promising to send an
English fleet to Rochelle to assist them. Rochelle was at this
time the general head-quarters not only of the Huguenots, but
of all those who, on any account, were discontented with the
Government. ...
{1221}
Soubise ... embraced the duke's offer with eagerness; and in
July, 1627, without any previous declaration of war, an
English fleet, with 16,000 men on board, suddenly appeared off
Rochelle, and prepared to attack the Isle of Rhé. The
Rochellois were very unwilling to co-operate with it"; but
they were persuaded, "against their judgment, to connect
themselves with what each, individually, felt to be a
desperate enterprise; and Richelieu, to whom the prospect thus
afforded him of having a fair pretence for crushing the
Huguenot party made amends for the disappointment of being
wantonly dragged into a war with England, gladly received the
intelligence that Rochelle was in rebellion. At first the Duke
d'Anjou was sent down to command the army, Louis being
detained in Paris by illness; but by October he had recovered,
his fondness for military operations revived, and he hastened
to the scene of action, accompanied by Richelieu, whose early
education had been of a military kind. ... He at once threw
across reinforcements into the Isle of Rhé, where M. Thoiras
was holding out a fort known as St. Martin with great
resolution, though it was unfinished and incompletely armed.
In the beginning of November, Buckingham raised the siege, and
returned home, leaving guns, standards and prisoners behind
him; and Richelieu, anticipating a renewal of the attack the
next year ... undertook a work designed at once to baffle
foreign enemies and to place the city at his mercy. Along the
whole front of the port he began to construct a vast wall ...
having only one small opening in the centre which was
commanded by small batteries. The work was commenced in
November, 1627; and, in spite of a rather severe winter, was
carried on with such ceaseless diligence, under the
superintending eye of the cardinal himself, that before the
return of spring a great portion of it was completed. ...
When, in May, 1628, the British fleet, under Lord Denbigh, the
brother-in-law of Buckingham, returned to the attack, they
found it unassailable, and returned without striking a blow."
C. D. Yonge,
History of France under the Bourbons,
volume 1, chapter 7.
"Richelieu ... was his own engineer, general, admiral,
prime-minister. While he urged on the army to work upon the
dike, he organized a French navy, and in due time brought it
around to that coast and anchored it so as to guard the dike
and be guarded by it. Yet, daring as all this work was, it was
but the smallest part of his work. Richelieu found that his
officers were cheating his soldiers in their pay and
disheartening them; in face of the enemy he had to reorganize
the army and to create a new military system. ... He found,
also, as he afterward said, that he had to conquer not only
the Kings of England and Spain, but also the King of France.
At the most critical moment of the siege Louis deserted
him,--went back to Paris,--allowed courtiers to fill him with
suspicions. Not only Richelieu's place, but his life, was in
danger, and he well knew it; yet he never left his dike and
siege-works, but wrought on steadily until they were done; and
then the King, of his own will, in very shame, broke away from
his courtiers, and went back to his master. And now a Royal
Herald summoned the people of La Rochelle to surrender. But
they were not yet half conquered. Even when they had seen two
English fleets, sent to aid them, driven back from Richelieu's
dike, they still held out manfully. ... They were reduced to
feed on their horses,--then on bits of filthy
shell-fish,--then on stewed leather. They died in multitudes.
Guiton, the Mayor, kept a dagger on the city council-table to
stab any man who should speak of surrender. ... But at last
even Guiton had to yield. After the siege had lasted more than
a year, after 5,000 were found remaining out of 15,000, after
a mother had been seen to feed her child with her own blood,
the Cardinal's policy became too strong for him. The people
yielded [October 27, 1628], and Richelieu entered the city as
master. And now the victorious statesman showed a greatness of
soul to which all the rest of his life was as nothing. ... All
Europe ... looked for a retribution more terrible than any in
history. Richelieu allowed nothing of the sort. He destroyed
the old franchises of the city, for they were incompatible
with that royal authority which he so earnestly strove to
build. But this was all. He took no vengeance,--he allowed the
Protestants to worship as before,--he took many of them into
the public service,--and to Guiton he showed marks of
respect. He stretched forth that strong arm of his over the
city, and warded off all harm. ... For his leniency Richelieu
received the titles of Pope of the Protestants and Patriarch
of the Atheists. But he had gained the first great object of
his policy, and he would not abuse it: he had crushed the
political power of the Huguenots forever."
A. D. White,
The Statesmanship of Richelieu
(Atlantic Monthly, May, 1862).
"Whatever the benefit to France of this great feat, the
locality was permanently ruined. Two hundred and fifty years
after the event the Poitevin peasant is fanatic and
superstitious as the Bretons themselves. Catholic Rochelle is
still to be seen, with almost one-third less inhabitants
to-day than it had in 1627. The cardinal's dyke is still
there, but the insects have seized on the city. A plague of
white ants, imported from India, have fastened on its
timbers."
R. Heath,
The Reformation in France,
volume 1, book 2, chapter 12.
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
History of England, 1603 to 1642,
chapters 56, 59-60, and 65.
FRANCE: A. D. 1627-1631.
War with Spain, Savoy and the Empire over the succession to
the duchy of Mantua.
Successes of Richelieu.
See ITALY: A. D. 1627-1631.
FRANCE: A. D. 1628.
New France placed under the Company of the Hundred Associates.
See CANADA: A. D. 1616-1628.
FRANCE: A. D. 1628-1632.
Loss and recovery of New France.
See CANADA: A. D. 1628-1635.
FRANCE: A. D. 1630-1632.
The Day of Dupes, and after.
On the return of Richelieu and the king from their Italian
expedition, in the beginning of August, 1630, "both the
monarch and his minister had passed in safety through a whole
tract infected with the plague; but, shortly after their
arrival at Lyons, Louis XIII. fell ill, and in a few days his
physicians pronounced his case hopeless. It was now that all
the hatred which his power had caused to hide its head, rose
up openly against Richelieu; and the two queens [Marie de
Medicis, the queen-mother, and Anne of Austria, the king's
wife], united only in their enmity towards the minister, never
quitted the bedside of the king but to form and cement the
party which was intended to work the cardinal's
destruction as soon as the monarch should be no more. ...
{1222}
The bold and the rash joined the faction of the queens; and
the prudent waited with wise doubt till they saw the result
they hoped for. Happy was it for those who did conceal their
feelings; for suddenly the internal abscess, which had nearly
reduced the king to the tomb, broke, passed away, and in a
very few days he appeared perfectly convalescent. Richelieu
might now have triumphed securely; ... but he acted more
prudently. He remembered that the queen-mother, the great
mover of the cabal against him, had formerly been his
benefactress; and though probably his gratitude was of no very
sensitive nature, yet he was wise enough to affect a virtue
that he did not possess, and to suffer the offence to be given
by her. ... At Paris [after the return of the court] ... the
queen-mother herself, unable to restrain any longer the
violent passions that struggled in her bosom, seemed resolved
to keep no terms with the cardinal." At an interview with him,
in the king's presence, "the queen forgot the dignity of her
station and the softness of her sex, and, in language more fit
for the markets than the court, called him rogue, and traitor,
and perturber of the public peace; and, turning to the king,
she endeavoured to persuade him that Richelieu wished to take
the crown from his head, in order to place it on that of the
count de Soissons. Had Richelieu been as sure of the king's
firmness as he was of his regard, this would have been exactly
the conduct which he could have desired the queen to hold; but
he knew Louis to be weak and timid, and easily ruled by those
who took a tone of authority towards him; and when at length
he retired at the command of the monarch ... he seems to have
been so uncertain how the whole would end, that he ordered his
papers and most valuable effects to be secured, and
preparations to be made for immediate departure. All these
proceedings had been watched by the courtiers: Richelieu had
been seen to quit the queen's cabinet troubled and gloomy, his
niece in tears; and, some time after, the king himself
followed in a state of excessive agitation, and ... left Paris
for Versailles without seeing his minister. The whole court
thought the rule of Richelieu at an end, and the saloons of
the Luxembourg were crowded with eager nobles ready to worship
the rising authority of the queen-mother." But the king, when he
reached Versailles, sent this message to his minister: "'Tell
the cardinal de Richelieu that he has a good master, and bid
him come hither to me without delay.' Richelieu felt that the
real power of France was still in his hands; and setting off
for Versailles, he found Louis full of expressions of regard
and confidence. Rumours every moment reached Versailles of the
immense concourse that was flocking to pay court to the
queen-mother: the king found himself nearly deserted, and all
that Richelieu had said of her ambition was confirmed in the
monarch's mind; while his natural good sense told him that a
minister who depended solely upon him, and who under him
exercised the greatest power in the realm, was not likely to
wish his fall. ... In the mean time, the news of these ...
events spread to Paris: the halls of the Luxembourg, which the
day before had been crowded to suffocation, were instantly
deserted; and the queen-mother found herself abandoned by all
those fawning sycophants whose confidence and disappointment
procured for the day of St. Martin, 1630, the title in French
history of The Day of Dupes."
G. P. R. James,
Eminent Foreign Statesmen,
volume 2, pages 88-92.
The ultimate outcome of The Day of Dupes was the flight of
Marie de Medicis, who spent the remainder of her life in the
Netherlands and in England; the trial and execution of Marshal
de Marillac; the imprisonment or exile and disgrace of
Bassompierre and other nobles; a senseless revolt, headed by
Gaston, Duke of Orleans, the king's brother, which was crushed
in one battle at Castlenaudari, September 1, 1632, and which
brought the Duke de Montmorency to the block.
C. D. Yonge,
History of France under the Bourbons,
volume 1, chapters 7-8.
ALSO IN:
M. W. Freer,
Married Life of Anne of Austria,
volume 1, chapter 4.
C. M. Yonge,
Cameos of English History, 6th series,
chapter 20.
Miss Pardoe,
Life of Marie de Medicis,
book 3, chapters 7-13 (volume 3).
FRANCE: A. D. 1631.
Treaty and negotiations with Gustavus Adolphus in Germany.
Promotion of the Protestant Union.
See GERMANY: A.D. 1631 (JANUARY);
1631-1632; and 1632-1634.
FRANCE: A. D. 1632-1641.
War in Lorraine.
Occupation and possession of the duchy.
See LORRAINE: A. D. 1624-1663.
FRANCE: A. D. 1635-1638.
Campaigns on the Flemish frontier.
Invasion by the Spaniards.
Paris in Peril.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1635-1638.
FRANCE: A. D. 1635-1639.
Active participation in the Thirty Years War.
Treaties with the Germans, Swedes, and Dutch.
Campaigns of Duke Bernhard in Lorraine, Alsace and
Franche-Comté.
The fruit gathered by Richelieu.
Alsace secured.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.
FRANCE: A. D. 1635-1642.
The war in northern Italy.
See ITALY: A. D. 1635-1659.
FRANCE: A. D. 1637-1642.
The war in Spain.
Revolt of Catalonia.
Siege and capture of Perpignan.
Conquest of Roussillon.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1637-1640, and 1640-1642.
FRANCE: A. D. 1640-1645.
Campaigns in Germany.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1640-1645, and 1643-1644.
FRANCE: A. D. 1641-1642.
The conspiracies of Count de Soissons and Cinq Mars.
Extinction of the Principality of Sedan.
"There were revolts in various quarters to resist [the yoke of
Richelieu], but they were quelled with uniform success. Once,
and once only, the fate of the Cardinal seemed finally sealed.
The Count de Soissons, a prince of the blood, headed the
discontented gentry in open war in 1641, and established the
headquarters of revolt in the town of Sedan. The Empire and
Spain came to his support with promises and money. Twelve
thousand men were under his orders, all influenced with rage
against Richelieu, and determined to deliver the king from his
degrading tutelage. Richelieu was taken unprepared; but delay
would have been ruin. He sent the Marshal Chatillon to the
borders of Sedan, to watch the proceedings of the
confederates, and requested the king to summon fresh troops
and go down to the scene of war. While his obedient Majesty
was busied in the commission, Chatillon advanced too far.
Soissons assaulted him near the banks of the Meuse, at a place
called Marfée, and gave him a total and irremediable
overthrow. The cavalry on the royalist side retreated at an
early part of the fight, and forced their way through the
infantry, not without strong suspicions of collusion with
their opponents."
{1223}
Paris itself was in dismay. The King and Cardinal expected to
hear every hour of the advance of the rebels; but no step was
taken. It was found, when the hurry of battle was over, that
Soissons was among the slain. The force of the expedition was
in that one man; and the defeat was as useful to the Cardinal
as a victory would have been. The malcontents had no leaders
of sufficient rank and authority to keep the inferiors in
check; for the scaffold had thinned the ranks of the great
hereditary chiefs, and no man could take his first open move
against the Court without imminent risk to his head. Great
men, indeed, were rising into fame, but of a totally different
character from their predecessors. Their minds were cast in a
monarchical mould from their earliest years. ... From this
time subserviency to the king became a sign of noble birth.
... Richelieu has the boast, if boast it can be called, of
having crushed out the last spark of popular independence and
patrician pride. ... One more effort was made [1642] to shake
off the trammels of the hated Cardinal. A conspiracy was
entered into to deliver the land by the old Roman method of
putting the tyrant to death; and the curious part of the
design is, that it was formed almost in presence of the king.
His favourite friend, young Cinq Mars, son of the Marshal
d'Effiat, his brother Gaston of Orleans, and his kinsman the
Duke de Bouillon, who were round his person at all hours of
the day, were the chief agents of the perilous undertaking.
Others, and with them de Thou, the son of the great French
historian, entered into the plan, but wished the assassination
to be left out. They would arrest and imprison him; but this
was evidently not enough. While Richelieu lived, no man could
be safe, though the Cardinal were in the deepest dungeon of
the Bastile. Death, however, was busy with their victim,
without their aid. He was sinking under some deep but
partially-concealed illness when the threads of the plot came
into his skilful hands. He made the last use of his strength
and intelligence in unravelling [it] and punishing the rebels,
as he called them, against the king's authority. The paltry
and perfidious Gaston was as usual penitent and pardoned, but
on Cinq Mars and de Thou the vengeance of the law and the
Cardinal had its full force. The triumphant but failing
minister reclined in a state barge upon the Rhone, towing his
prisoners behind him to certain death. On their arrival at
Lyons the process was short and fatal. The young men were
executed together, and the account of their behaviour at the
block is one of the most affecting narratives in the annals of
France."
J. White,
History of France,
chapter 12.
The Duke de Bouillon, implicated in both these
conspiracies--that of the Count de Soissons and that of Cinq
Mars--saved his life on the latter occasion by surrendering to
the crown the sovereignty of Sedan, which belonged to him, and
which had been the headquarters of the Soissons revolt. This
small independent principality--the town and a little
territory around it--had formerly been in the possession of
the powerful and troublesome family of La Marck, the last
heiress of whom brought it, together with the Duchy of
Bouillon, into the family of La Tour d'Auvergne. The Prince
and Duke who lost it was the second of that family who bore
the titles. He was the elder brother of the great soldier,
Turenne. The Principality of Sedan was extinguished from that
time.
T. O. Cockayne,
Life of Turenne.
ALSO IN:
W. Robson,
Life of Richelieu,
chapters 11-12.
M. W. Freer,
Married Life of Anne of Austria,
volume 2, chapter 3.
Miss Pardoe,
Life of Marie de Medicis,
book 3, chapter 13 (volume 3).
FRANCE: A. D. 1642-1643.
The death of Richelieu and of Louis XIII.
Regency of Anne of Austria.
Cardinal Mazarin and the party of the Importants.
The victory at Rocroi.
Cardinal Richelieu died on the 4th of December, 1642. "He was
dead, but his work survived him. On the very evening of the 3d
of December, Louis XIII. called to his council Cardinal
Mazarin [whom Richelieu had commended to him]. ... Scarcely
had the most powerful kings yielded up their last breath when
their wishes had been at once forgotten: Cardinal Richelieu
still governed in his grave." But now, after two and a half
centuries, "the castle of Richelieu is well-nigh destroyed;
his family, after falling into poverty, is extinct; the
Palais-Cardinal [his splendid residence, which he built, and
which he gave to the crown] has assumed the name of the
Palais-Royal; and pure monarchy, the aim of all his efforts
and the work of his whole life, has been swept away by the
blast of revolution. Of the cardinal there remains nothing but
the great memory of his power and of the services he rendered his
country. ... Richelieu had no conception of that noblest
ambition on which a human soul can feed, that of governing a
free country, but he was one of the greatest, the most
effective, and the boldest, as well as the most prudent
servants that France ever had." Louis XIII. survived his great
minister less than half a year, dying May 14, 1643. He had
never had confidence in Anne of Austria, his wife, and had
provided, by a declaration which she had signed and sworn to,
for a council (which included Mazarin) to control the queen's
regency during the minority of their son, Louis XIV. But the
queen contrived very soon to break from this obligation, and
she made Cardinal Mazarin her one counsellor and supreme
minister. "Continuing to humor all parties, and displaying
foresight and prudence, the new minister was even now master.
Louis XIII., without any personal liking, had been faithful to
Richelieu to the death. With different feelings, Anne of Austria
was to testify the same constancy towards Mazarin. A stroke of
fortune came at the very first to strengthen the regent's
position. Since the death of Cardinal Richelieu, the
Spaniards, but recently overwhelmed at the close of 1642, had
recovered courage and boldness; new counsels prevailed at the
court of Philip IV., who had dismissed Olivarez; the House of
Austria vigorously resumed the offensive; at the moment of
Louis XIII.'s death, Don Francisco de Mello, governor of the
Low Countries, had just invaded French territory by way of the
Ardennes, and laid siege to Rocroi, on the 12th of May [1643].
The French army was commanded by the young Duke of Enghien
[afterwards known as the Great Condé], the prince of Condé's
son, scarcely 22 years old; Louis XIII. had given him as his
lieutenant and director the veteran Marshal de l'Hôpital; and
the latter feared to give battle.
{1224}
The Duke of Enghien, who 'was dying with impatience to enter
the enemy's country, resolved to accomplish by address what he
could not carry by authority. He opened his heart to Gassion
alone. As he [Gassion, one of the boldest of Condé's officers]
was a man who saw nothing but what was easy even in the most
dangerous deeds, he had very soon brought matters to the point
that the prince desired. Marshal de l'Hôpital found himself
imperceptibly so near the Spaniards that it was impossible for
him any longer to hinder an engagement.' ... The army was in
front of Rocroi, and out of the dangerous defile which led to
the place, without any idea on the part of the marshal and the
army that Louis XIII. was dead. The Duke of Enghien, who had
received the news, had kept it secret. He had merely said in
the tone of a master 'that he meant to fight, and would answer
for the issue.'" The battle, which was fought May 19, 1643,
resulted in the destruction, almost total, of the Spanish
army. Of 18,000 men who formed its infantry, nearly 9,000 were
killed and 7,000 were made prisoners. The whole of the Spanish
artillery and 300 of their standards fell into the hands of
the victors, who lost, according to their own reports, only
2,000 men, killed and wounded. "'The prince was a born
captain,' said Cardinal de Retz. And all France said so with
him on hearing of the victory of Rocroi. The delight was all
the keener in the queen's circle, because the house of Condé
openly supported Cardinal Mazarin, bitterly attacked as he was
by the Importants [a court faction or party so called, which
was made up of 'those meddlers of the court at whose head
marched the Duke of Beaufort, all puffed up with the
confidence lately shown to him by her Majesty,' and all
expecting to count importantly among the queen's favorites],
who accused him of reviving the tyranny of Richelieu. ... And,
indeed, on pretext offered by a feminine quarrel [August,
1643] between the young Duchess of Longueville, daughter of
the prince of Condé, and the Duchess of Montbazon, the Duke of
Beaufort and some of his friends resolved to assassinate the
cardinal. The attempt was a failure, but the Duke of Beaufort,
who was arrested on the 2d of September, was taken to the
castle of Vincennes. Madame de Chevreuse, recently returned
[after being exiled by Richelieu] to court, where she would
fain have exacted from the queen the reward for her services
and her past sufferings, was sent into exile, as well as the
Duke of Vendôme. Madame d'Hautefort, but lately summoned by
Anne of Austria to be near her, was soon involved in the same
disgrace. ... The party of the Importants was dead, and the
power of Cardinal Mazarin seemed to be firmly established. 'It
was not the thing just then for any decent man to be on bad
terms with the court,' says Cardinal de Retz."
F. P. Guizot,
Popular History of France,
chapters 41-43.
"Cardinal Richelieu was not so much a minister, in the precise
sense of the word, as a person invested with the whole power
of the crown. His preponderating influence in the council
suspended the exercise of the hereditary power, without which