XXVII.

The tax-gatherer was no longer an arbitrary tyrant; CHAP.
the judge much less of a fanatic partisan; the govern-
ment was solicitous and careful of manufactures and
trade, not neglectful of education and the arts. Henry
loved poetry and architecture as much as he did the
chase. If he was to his people a father, he was to his
courtiers a friend. He was too fond, indeed, of pleasure,
though his pursuit of it did not become indecorous till
His attachment to Gabrielle was

his later years.
constant and romantic. But when he lost her, he
unfortunately tried to replace her, and to live his
youth over again, as if years did not bring other sen-
timents and require strong abnegation. One turns
with disgust from the dissoluteness which his cotem-
poraries record. It is more pleasing to contemplate
the king and his court through a glass which merely
shows the prominent events and personages, and leaves
degrading details in the shade. One likes to contem-
plate Sully in his rough honesty of speech and purpose,
without the foibles of his vanity or greed; Villeroy
the patient secretary, the disciple of Catherine de
Medicis, becoming honest under an honest master.
Bouillon, Lesdiguières, Duplessis, Rohan, La Force,
are all great characters, the Huguenot nobles, indeed,
bearing away the palm as men of capacity and prin-
ciple. The League had corrupted their Catholic
compeers, who had been called exclusively to share
court favour and wield political influence, and who
showed themselves every way unequal to the task,
and unworthy of it.

CHAP. XXVIII.

CHAP. XXVIII.

LOUIS THE THIRTEENTH, TILL THE ADMINISTRATION
OF RICHELIEU.

1610-1624.

SELDOM has the death of a monarch been followed by so complete a change as that of Henry the Fourth. The power of France about to be exerted in arms against the house of Austria, both in Germany and Italy, passed at once into the hands of an Italian princess who admired Spain, was secretly in communication with its court, and had no more cherished object than to be allied with it. Yet both Henry and Sully, with their anti-Spanish leanings, had still prepared the way for this great change. The Huguenot statesman had contributed to the Florentine match, and Henry had filled the council and the chief offices of state with personages in papal and Spanish interests, such as Villeroy, Sillery, and Jeannin.* About to depart upon his military expedition, he had appointed the queen regent, though certainly with a council of fifteen personages of no certain faction, who were to have almost equal power with herself. But her being already invested with the title greatly facilitated her grasping the reality, which she did by the advice of

The printed materials from the reign of Louis the Thirteenth are so ample, as scarcely to require reference to manuscripts or letters. The Memoirs and the Letters of Richelieu, Sully, the Memoirs

of Bassompierre, Fontenay-Mareuil, La Force, with others of the Michaud collection, chronicled every event year by year, and thus obviate the necessity of continued references.

XXVIII

the three statesmen whom we have mentioned, and by CHAP. the aid of Epernon. The parliament was then sitting at the Augustins; and the chancellor, Sillery, who now assumed chief influence*, sent thither to have Marie acknowledged as regent. Epernon, who possessed most military power after the constable, with the appointment of all the officers of infantry, marshalled his guards †, and, entering the court, said to the judges that his sword, hitherto in the scabbard, must inevitably be drawn, if the queen was not declared regent. The judges bowed either to the threat, or to the conviction that Marie was, after all, the fittest regent; and they issued an arrêt in consequence. Of the three princes of the blood, the Count of Soissons, momentarily absent, was a turbulent intriguer, ever at variance with the late king; the Prince of Conti was imbecile; Condé at the court of the Spanish envoy of Milan. Even Sully could scarcely have opposed Marie's claim. Supposing that Henry's assassination was the signal of another St. Bartholomew's eve, he had shut himself up in the Bastille, and sent for his son-in-law with his Swiss regiments. He was afterwards convinced of the pacific intentions of the court, was induced to repair to it, and present his homage with the other courtiers to the queen. On the day after the catastrophe, she caused her son Louis the Thirteenth, then nine years of age, to be conducted to the parliament, and to hold what was called a bed of justice. There the young monarch was made to declare that he reposed all power in the hands of his mother.‡

After the successful assumption of the regency came the necessity of strengthening it by securing the adhesion of the princes and magnates, and of whatever might meditate resistance or rebellion. One firm and dignified

* Mémoires de Richelieu, end of liv. 8.

Ibid., liv. 1. Registres du

VOL. III.

Parlement, published in the Revue
Rétrospective.

C C

Ibid. Mercure Français, t. i.

XXVIII.

CHAP. personage who could wield a sword, and lead even but a small portion of the regular force, which Henry left, against the refractory, would soon, as was afterwards proved, have put down any and every malcontent. But Marie, like her relative Catherine de Medicis feared to employ a military chief who might become a rival, and, having at her command-what that queen had notabundance of money, as well as lucrative positions to be bestowed, she preferred purchasing the adhesion of the magnates to commanding it. The Count of Soissons, the first prince of the blood, had his ill humour appeased by the government of Normandy, and 200,000 crowns. Those already possessed of the government of provinces demanded to divert the revenues to their own purposes, which Henry had never allowed, and insisted on having the reversion of such high commands for their sons. This weakness and abandonment of the very sources of the revenue, filled the patriotic and economic spirit of Sully with disgust. He resisted, protested, and sought to inspire the Prince of Condé on his return with good counsels, telling him that he had only to keep himself aloof from court intrigues, and from that universal greed and corruption, which was destroying the character and revenue of the state, in order to find respect and authority, and the eyes of all turn to him in hope. Condé was incapable of following such advice, and allowed himself to be gorged and flattered for the present like the rest.* The queen did not wish to displace Sully at first, but to make use of him in resisting exorbitant pretensions and demands. But he stood Cerberus-like to guard the treasure of the Bastille from the queen herself and her favourites, as well as from princely suitors. The usual mode of overcoming his obstinacy was to present a grant or debt, with the signature of the late king, and with the queen's attestation at

*MSS. Fontanieu, 463-4-5.

bottom, of the signature being genuine. Notwithstanding the latter, Sully frequently objected and even denounced the forgery. Whilst he thus made enemies of the greedy and influential, he retained no friends. The chiefs of the Huguenots, had they held together, might have imposed upon Marie de Medicis not only respect for their interests as a body, but the maintenance of the Protestant cause in Europe. But no two of the Huguenots agreed. Sully had made an enemy of the Duke de Bouillon, who, a far better courtier than he, now returned it with interest. Both hated Duplessis, whilst Lesdiguières stood aloof from all.

There was little hope therefore, when the great questions of war and of alliance came for discussion, that the policy of Henry the Fourth might continue to prevail. The queen held habitually two councils, a secret and intimate one, composed of her Florentine favourite Concini, the husband of her bedchamber woman, Eleanor Galigai, Epernon, Villeroy, Jeannin, and Sillery, the Spanish ambassador, the Papal nuncio, and Father Cotton, the Jesuit confessor of the late king. These did not make their appearance in the larger and more public council which the prince and the constable, the Cardinal de Joyeuse, the Dukes of Sully, Mayenne, Guise, and Bouillon attended. Before these personages was mooted the urgent question of what was to be done with the armies on foot, the alliances concluded, and the entire foreign policy of the late king.

How exclusively the great scheme of reducing the House of Austria hung upon the life and determination of Henry the Fourth appeared in the fact that, since his death, even Sully did not press for its execution. All that he looked for was that France should observe its stipulations and keep faith with its allies. Sully himself proposed dismissing the greater number of the troops collected both in Dauphiné and Lorraine, still retaining a sufficient number to accomplish the reduc

CHAP. XXVIII.