CHAP. XXIX.

defeat of the Maréchal de Guiche at Hennecourt, on the Scheldt, with the loss of 4000 men. Whilst the principal forces of the monarchy were employed in the south, the Spaniards might renew their invasion of 1637. Louis thought he had more need of Richelieu than ever. And writing to him early in June on the subject of this defeat and the means of repairing it, the king gave the assurance that he would never separate from him.* Cinq Mars in the meantime was warned by his friends that delay was dangerous. The Princess Marie de Gonzaga wrote to him from Paris that his enterprise was known there as clearly as the passage of the Seine under the Pont Neuf. Fontrailles, the negotiator of the treaty, resolved to withdraw to England, urging Cinq Mars to repair at once with Monsieur to Sedan. But the favourite, though anxious to quit the court, was desirous of doing so with dignity, and delayed, in order to appoint a day for marching with the Duke of Orleans.

Richelieu had meanwhile at Tarascon obtained a copy of the treaty with Spain. By what means or hands he got possession of it remains still a mystery. Some historians accuse Queen Anne of the treachery. She may, by her imprudence, as upon a former occasion, have put Richelieu on the track of this treaty; but it is not likely she herself betrayed it. Olivarez is also accused of sending it to the cardinal-another improbability. But Richelieu had spies and agents everywhere. On the 11th of June he procured, if not a copy of the Spanish treaty, at least such material proofs of its existence as might fully convince and satisfy the king. These he forwarded immediately by Chavigny to Narbonne.† A plot in which the Dukes of Orleans and Bouillon, as well as Spain, had joined, was as clearly against Louis himself as against Richelieu.

* Letter in Auberi.

from the Foreign Office Archives, † Letters of Chavigny, published by Cousin, Mad. de Chevreuse.

XXIX.

The king's resentment was accordingly great, and he CHAP. signed at once the order for the arrest of Cinq Mars as well as for that of the Duc de Bouillon, then with the army of Italy. De Thou was seized at his own house as an accomplice; and as for the Duke of Orleans, all that was demanded of him he was but too anxious to accord-a full confession of his own guilt, and of those with whom he had conspired.

It was not without remorse and hesitation that Louis gave up his favourite to the vengeance of Richelieu. But the king, even before he signed the fatal arrest, was in the hands of the cardinal's emissaries. De Noyers, Chavigny, and especially Mazarin, pointed out the weakness of sacrificing policy to affection, and refuted the doubt which haunted the king's mind, of one name being surreptitiously introduced for another in the treaty. Pained by the necessity of sacrificing the life of one whom he loved to another whom he hated, he hastened his return to Paris. The Rhone was the only road then north and south, and this obliged Louis to pass by Tarascon. An interview necessarily took place between him and Richelieu, although it was only effected by bringing them in their litters or couches close to each other. The king feared reproaches. The cardinal merely abounded in thanks. Thus the interview between the two dying personages, who agreed to send to the scaffold the youth whom their own waywardness had tempted and entrapped, was cordial. The vindictive passion of the churchman and the submissive despondency of the king harmonised with each other. Yet, when the king and cardinal next met, the former visiting the latter at Ruel, Richelieu bade his guards conceal their arms beneath their cloaks, and be present at the interview, so greatly did he fear the fate of a Turkish Vizier.*

Cinq Mars and De Thou were brought to Lyons and

* Montglat.

CHAP.
XXIX.

tried before a commission, at the head of which was the chancellor. For the former to deny the Spanish treaty was impossible, for the Duke of Orleans confessed and gave a copy of it, for which, though at first exiled to Annecy, and threatened with being sent out of the kingdom to Venice, he was permitted once more to reside at Blois. The Duke of Bouillon, arrested at Casale, was also confronted with the accused. His head had been in no slight peril, but he saved it on the condition of surrendering Sedan. The fate of Cinq Mars and of his friend, De Thou, who pleaded that he only knew the less guilty portions of the plot, and was not privy to the treaty, excited almost as much commiseration as that of Montmorency himself. Richelieu, however, knew no mercy, and showed his ruthlessness in dragging his prisoners after the boat in which he ascended the Rhone. Nor did the cardinal quit Lyons till he was assured of their condemnation. His young victims suffered death in that city in September, meeting their fate with touching friendship, religious resignation, and manly courage.

In the previous July Marie de Medicis had expired at Cologne. All Richelieu's enemies were defeated or no more. His arms were equally triumphant-Perpignan surrendered, La Motte was victorious in Catalonia, as the Duc de Longueville was in the Milanese, and the Swedish ally of Richelieu, Torstenson, won a great battle near Leipzig over the emperor. Such were the glorious events which crowded round Richelieu towards the close of 1642. But disease and weakness, from which he had been never exempt, closed upon him at the same time. An abscess in the arm, and an ulcer which prevented other than a lying posture, rendered his journeying difficult, so that it was only by boat along river or canal, that he could reach Ruel. Mistrust, as well as disease, afflicted him. The manifestation of it when Louis visited him has been related.

And so apprehensive remained the great minister, that instead of employing his agents with the king, Chavigny and De Noyers, on serious matters of state, their efforts in November were directed to obtain the dismissal of four captains of the king's guard, whom Richelieu dreaded. They also were ordered to demand that the cardinal might be accompanied by his own. guards when visiting the monarch. When Louis hesitated, Chavigny said to him that the cardinal, if ordered to remove from his service any one hateful to his majesty, would not hesitate. "Then he had better get rid of you," replied the king, "for you are my aversion."

In such trivial quarrels were spent the time and the health (for both suffered from them) of king and cardinal during November. In the midst of this, on the 28th of the month, Richelieu were seized with a severe pain in the side and fever. He was carried to the Palais Cardinal, at Paris, the present Palais Royal. On the 1st of December he spat blood and his danger was apparent. The king visited him, and the cardinal seized the opportunity to recommend De Noyers, Chavigny and Mazarin as ministers, and to deprecate any power or influence being left to the Duke of Orleans. Having compelled his physician to inform him of his actual state, and learning that he had but a few hours to live, Richelieu had recourse to the consolations of religion, but with a confidence and courage far above the contrition of a Christian. He was told to forgive his enemies. "I have none," said the cardinal, "save those of the state." To the last he covered his cruelty and his crimes with the mantle of his policy. He invoked the sacrament, as it was brought near to him, as his future judge, and besought its condemnation if he had been actuated by other motives than those of religion and of the state. The prelate who attended declared himself shocked at so much assurance. Cardinal Richelieu expired on the 4th of December, 1642.

CHAP.

XXIX.

СНАР.
XXIX.

In less than six months Louis the Thirteenth followed his potent minister to the grave. The interval was unmarked by any great public event, and is filled in French history by intrigues for that power which had fallen from Richelieu and was passing from the hands of the king. Louis, after the cardinal's death, followed his last counsels and his policy, partly from a conviction of their wisdom, partly from a desire to persuade the world that, instead of having been the instrument of the cardinal, he had himself calculated and willed the daily acts of the government. De Noyers, Chavigny, and Mazarin, as Richelieu advised, were the royal ministers. The chief affair with them, as with the whole court-now crowded by expectants, for the king in his sinking health had allowed all the enemies of Richelieu to return from exile and from prison-was the disposal of the future regency. Almost all admitted that Anne of Austria was the fittest to be entrusted with the care of her children and the supreme power of the state, the duties being inseparable. The king was of a contrary opinion. He believed both his brother and his wife to be incapable of governing patriotically; and, moreover, he hated both. Of his counsellors one, De Noyers, declared for the queen; another, Chavigny, preferred Monsieur; the third, Mazarin, prudently displayed no preference, but secretly came to an understanding with Anne. The latter was embarrassed by the number who flocked and rallied to her. The fiercest enemies found themselves face to face in her salons, and ready to dispute in her antechambers. But the king, though languishing, had still a will to be respected. De Noyers, who came forward too boldly on the queen's behalf, was driven from office. And Chavigny fared no better in pleading for Monsieur. Louis, however, regulated what he wished to prevail after his death, and caused an ordonnance to be read in council, proclaiming Anne regent, and the