XXIX. CHAP. Dutch, and Mansfeldt was summoned to the vicinity of Paris. The cardinal, indeed, proposed hard terms: he wanted the Hollanders to admit the Catholic worship and yield cautionary towns.* But he agreed in June to give them two and a half millions of francs, whilst Mansfeldt was to bring an army from England for their succour, and the relief of the Palatinate. Orders were at the same time issued for the raising of three armies, for the Bresse, the Metzin, and Picardy. Although this activity was in full accordance with the policy of La Vieuville, this prime minister, as he was considered, felt not a little jealous, and laboured in more than one direction to check the cardinal's influence. He took upon himself the negotiation of the marriage treaty, whilst he insinuated to the Spanish envoy that the three armies were a mere threat, intended to alarm. Richelieu revealed these imprudences of the marquis to the king, proved that he had consented to allow of the English marriage without the Pope's dispensation, and so wrought upon the monarch, that Vieuville was arrested and sent to Amboise, whilst the cardinal became sole director of affairs. (August 1624.)† The finances being too important a department to be entrusted to one person, Richelieu appointed two, "of neither too high nor too low a rank." And in order to raise a large sum for the warlike enterprises which he meditated, he instituted a chamber of justice to overhaul the accounts of all the financiers for the preceding years. The most wealthy of the class fled from the process. The others compounded with their prosecutor and paid eleven millions of livres. One should have thought that the minister would have * Herbert's and Kensington's letters. S. P. O. France, 169, 170. † Mémoires de Richelieu, those of Brienne, Fontenay-Mareuil, Bas sompierre, and especially the Correspondence of the English envoys, quoted above. Mercure Français, t. xi. endeavoured to put an end to such abuses by a better choice of agents, and a more stringent system of checks. He seemed, however, not to dislike the peculation which afforded him a sweeping sum whenever he might want it. And he proposed holding his chamber of justice periodically.* His system of fiscality was rather a trap to catch delinquents, than one to prevent their crimes. And the cardinal's ideas of justice were much of the same spirit. Richelieu then turned his attention to foreign affairs. His view of them was evidently akin to that of Henry the Fourth, and had been manifested in the urgent recommendations of the queen-mother to be lenient towards the Huguenots and mistrustful of Spain. As soon as it became manifest that the court of England had broken with that of Madrid, a scheme similar to that of the late king had been conceived and drawn up, for the humbling of the House of Austria. It was a league nominally for the recovery of the Valteline and the Palatinate, but really to force the dominant family from Germany and Italy. Mansfeldt was to be given forces for the attack of the Palatinate, to be supported by Denmark and the northern princes, and the Marquis de Cœuvres to occupy the Valteline with 8000 men. French king was to invade the Milanese in person with 40,000 foot and 16,000 horse, to be aided by the Venetians and by a Dutch fleet in the Mediterranean. The Duke of Savoy was to attack Genoa, and at least keep Savona. Openings were left for the accession of other powers, such as Tuscany, Mantua, and Modena. The Pope was to be aided to conquer the kingdom of Naples, he in return promising the voice and support of the clergy to elect Louis king of the Romans.† From this large scheme the Italian States shrunk, * Richelieu, however, avows in his Testament, that the remedy was worse than the disease. VOL. III. The † Copies of the League in 43 articles will be found in State Paper Office. France, 173-4. G G CHAP. XXIX. XXIX. CHAP. with the exception of the Duke of Savoy, and Richelieu's power was by no means so firmly established as to allow of his undertaking it. Louis the Thirteenth was the most jealous of princes, and it was by this sentiment he was to be wrought to good or to harm. He hated Spain, even more since his marriage with a Spanish princess, and Richelieu took advantage of this to crush Spanish power, especially in Italy. But the king, who was flattered by comparisons between him and his ancestor, St. Louis, also detested the Huguenots as rebellious subjects and profane heretics, and since damaging Spain was profit to them, Richelieu had to beware how he gave the monarch and the priestly party, which still had his ear, reason to question his zeal for Catholicism. Hence, when the English envoys proposed an alliance offensive and defensive as the corollary or preliminary to the marriage, Richelieu was obliged to evade the offer.* He adopted, however, several of the conditions of the large plan, such as aiding Mansfeldt, promising to allow him to march with an army levied in England, reinforced by French horse, across the North of France to the recovery of the Palatinate. He himself despatched the Marquis de Cœuvres with ample funds to raise troops for the liberation of the Valteline, whilst later it was arranged that the constable and the Duke of Savoy should invade the Genoese territories and take possession of the capital. The success of these attempts would have separated the Spaniards under Spinola in the Low Countries from Tilly and the Austrian armies in Germany, deprive these again of their communications with Milan by the Valteline, and forbid access from Spain to North Italy by Genoa, which was at once a port of passage and a bank for Philip. *Holland's Letters, Oct. 19. † Mémoires du Maréchal d'Estrées. The XXIX. But the zealous prosecution of even these three CHAP. schemes was too much for the influence of Richelieu. The only one of them in which he fully succeeded was that which he entrusted to De Cœuvres, who in the execution of it was beyond receiving counter orders or incurring disapproval. He raised an army in the midst of winter, placed himself at its head, drove not only the Spaniards from Coire and the Grisons proper, but compelled the Papal commander, to whom the fortresses of the Valteline had been entrusted, to surrender them. (December 1624.)* But this did not strengthen Richelieu's position at court, as it raised against him all the powerful agents of Madrid and Rome. negotiations for the English marriage were attended with great difficulty. Richelieu, to pay court to king and clergy, insisted on much harder conditions than Vieuville had done;† and demanded a greater degree of tolerance for Roman Catholics than the government of James could grant. Vieuville had been contented with a verbal promise to this effect; Richelieu would have an express article in the treaty. Nor was it till November 1625 that James consented to give, and France to receive, a secret writing, pledging the royal word to allow as much indulgence to the English Catholics as had been stipulated in the Spanish treaty. In this there was evasion on both sides, Richelieu insisting on a written engagement for more than he could expect to obtain, and the English making the promise under the assurance that the French merely insisted for appearance sake, and would not demand * Mercure Français, v. 10. †The seven articles, which contented the marquis, became twentysix in the hands of the cardinal. Vittorio Siri, 1. v. The English envoys were greatly disappointed at finding Vieuville superseded by Richelieu. The former had induced Lord Holland to make a hurried journey to Eng- XXIX. CHAP. the execution.* These were weak foundations for a national alliance, which offered the only hope of checking Austria and Spain in overrunning North Germany and Holland. In the treaty there was no one sincere save Buckingham, if one so fickle and so swayed by personal and passionate feeling could be considered such. Richelieu had higher and nobler political aims, but character and necessity rendered his march towards them tortuous. But in whatever degree the ministers of the two courts were zealous, the monarchs they represented, and nominally led, were so by no means. James plotted with the Spanish agents at his court against his own favourite. Louis objected to any scheme for driving Catholicism out of the Palatinate. To meet these his objections, Richelieu, whilst he concluded the English marriage-treaty, necessarily promising passage and aid to the English army of Mansfeldt, assured the Catholic league of German princes, at the same time, that this army should not march to the Palatinate until February, and that before that time a treaty for the settlement of the Palatinate, in such a way as would content Bavaria, should be brought about. Acting in obedience to this preconceived system of deception, which Richelieu himself minutely discloses,† the French government demanded to be released from the engagement of allowing Mansfeldt to land in France. A press had in the meantime gone forth through the towns of England, and Mansfeldt with his 15,000 recruits appeared before Calais. They were refused the permission to land, and Buckingham found himself, as he wrote, "in one of the * You will easily imagine some conflicts in the very entry of the business, which yet have been with more noise than hurt. For even by the confession of those whom we treat with, much thereof hath been to content the Pope and satisfy the world, by letting them see they were not untrue to the Catholic cause. The particular passage you will fully understand by the verbal relation of the bearer.-Kensington to Conway, June 14, 1624. + Memoirs, close of 1624. Carlisle's letter, December 31, 1624. S. P. |