XXX. CHAP. Senneterre upon the Spanish right, which De Mello commanded in person. After a sharp contest, the French were repulsed, La Ferté badly wounded. The Maréchal de l'Hôpital coming to his rescue, shared the same fate. And the Spaniards, routing the French left, attacked their centre, took some of its artillery, and killed the officer who commanded it. Meantime the Duke d'Enghien on the right was as successful against his opponent Albuquerque, routing and dispersing his troops, and then, as the Spaniards had done, attacking the neighbouring centre. D'Enghien, however, showed more alacrity than his foes, charged through and through the Walloon and Italian infantry which formed their centre, and then perceiving the distress and defeat of his own left, the prince still pressed on, and took the victorious De Mello in the rear. The manœuvre decided the battle, every part of the Spanish army being driven back and put to the rout. The phalanx of native Spanish soldiers, between four and five thousand strong, was alone an exception, standing firm and unbroken under its commander, Fuentes, whilst all fled around it. Though unsuccessful, the Spaniards showed no intention of surrendering, but, on the contrary, opened a severe fire upon the French from a score of cannon within their ranks. The assailants, repelled first by the pikes of the Spanish soldiers, suffered seriously from this discharge. But at length cannon being brought up, and made to play with effect upon the serried phalanx, the French rushed into it and put the hitherto invincible Spanish infantry almost completely to the sword. This was the most fatal effect of the victory of Rocroy. Whilst Condé's spirit and military genius defeated the Spaniards in the field, Mazarin at first brought equal talent and felicity to the political struggle in which he was engaged at court. Numerous were his disadvantages. He was a foreigner, not speaking the tongue of the country he aspired to govern, and consequently obnoxious to ridicule in every word he uttered. He was not even of respectable family, had risen from humble beginnings, and gambling propensities formed the most notable traits of his youth.* He had risen, however, in the service of prelates, the only path to distinction, says Moncenigo, at the court of Rome. When the queen asked her English friend, Montague, as an impartial observer, what was his opinion of the cardinal, he replied, that Mazarin was the contrary of Richelieu, which in many respects was true. The late cardinal was endowed with the qualities fittest for dominating a monarch like Louis the Thirteenth,-sternness, ruthlessness, inflexibility. Mazarin possessed the qualities for captivating Anne of Austria; a humour so flexible, says La Rochefoucauld, that he seemed to have none. Agreeable in person, insinuating in manner, yet grave withal, "of a large and laborious intellect, however full of artifice," Anne could not have found a more capable, and at the same time a more pleasing, guide in her political conduct. Although he may have wanted Richelieu's high and disinterested patriotism, Mazarin was still sagaciously true to the interests of his sovereign and of France. La Rochefoucauld accuses him of "having small views in the midst of his great projects, and of a timid mind behind a bold heart, the contrary of Richelieu, who had a bold mind and a timid heart." But Mazarin was saved the trouble of forming any large plan, his predecessor having left one clearly shaped out, and three-fourths terminated. Mazarin's mission was to accomplish what his brother cardinal had commenced, his task to maintain his power in order to do so. This last, though facile at first, from the almost immediate hold which Mazarin obtained over the consideration * Cousin's Jeunesse de Mazarin ; De Retz; Walckenaer sur Sévigné ; Renée, Nièces de Mazarin; the col- CHAP. XXX. XXX. CHAP. and subsequently over the affections of the queen, became, as years and events rolled on, far more difficult. Whilst Richelieu governed by the awe which he inspired, the sternness he maintained, the cruelties he exercised, Mazarin was all benign, smiling, and joyous. Powers and parties, struck down as they germed in Richelieu's day, sprung up under Mazarin to interrupt his views and his authority. There was first the mockery of courtiers, not to be despised; then came the more serious discontent of the lower and middle class, and of the judicial body, on account of financial disorder and extortion. The habits of rule and of obedience, confirmed under Richelieu, overcame the first manifestations. But as his successor knew not how to introduce any order, or even clearness, in the financial disarray, the symptoms returned. Fearful of calling in to his aid the army and its successful general Condé, Mazarin betook himself almost as a suppliant to the parliament. In vain. The army and its chief were obliged to be called in, and the prince imposed his will upon both the contending parties. Whilst there is all to pity and nothing to praise in these first six years of Anne and Mazarin's domestic administration, there is full scope for both praise and admiration in the fact, that the minister, whose power was thus disputed and discredited, still succeeded in maintaining the national arms victorious, and in compelling the great Catholic house of Austria to grant fair terms of peace and tolerance to the Protestant south, and to France the important extension of its territory to the Rhine. The first enemies that Mazarin encountered were the Importans. Their discontent at the cardinal's own elevation, the protection which he succeeded in extending to the partisans of Condé, and finally the queen's positive refusal, under Mazarin's advice, either to give the government of Britanny to Vendôme or the town of Sedan to the Duke de Bouillon, drove these magnates, their families, and their partisans, into open rebellion. Still the queen and the cardinal might have succeeded in holding the balance between the political parties, had not one of those small events, which convulse social life, and place women and their piques foremost in the quarrel, driven both sides to extremes. Madame de Montbazon, nearly related to Madame de Chevreuse, and a lady of many lovers, of whom the Duke of Beaufort was one, belonged of course to the Importans, with the consequent feelings of hostility towards the party of Condé. An amorous letter was found on the floor of her saloon, dropped by one of the gallants who frequented it. Coligny was the person from whose pocket it was supposed to have fallen. Having been read, and been the cause of laughter and comment, Madame de Montbazon chose to imagine that it had been written by Madame de Longueville, the beautiful sister of the Prince of Condé. The sup position, which was not true, was considered an outrage by the duchess's mother, the Princess Dowager of Condé, by the prince, and subsequently by the queen. Pacified for the moment, the quarrel broke out again; and the queen, to satisfy the Princess of Condé, exiled Madame de Montbazon from court, which was an affront to Madame de Chevreuse and the Duchess of Beaufort. They accused Mazarin as the instigator; and some of the Duke of Beaufort's followers, if not himself, laid in consequence an ambuscade for the cardinal, in which they proposed nothing less than to cut his throat. His eminence escaped by staying at home on the occasion. But the danger prompted Mazarin to precipitate the queen into a complete breach with the Importans. The Duke of Beaufort was arrested and sent to Vincennes; Madame de Chevreuse was exiled from court, as well as Madame de Hautefort; the Duke of Vendôme was obliged to CHAP. XXX. XXX. CHAP. retake the road to exile.* Thus, in three months after the death of Louis the Thirteenth (the arrest of Beaufort took place on the last day of August), Mazarin and the Condés reigned supreme under the authority of Anne.† An additional reason for getting rid of the Importans had been, that the revenues of the state were too scant to permit their division amongst so many. Condé was greedy; the Duke of Orleans lavished large sums at play; and Mazarin had all to pay, in addition to finding money for the many armies. A mild and incapable man, Bailleul, was superintendent of finance; but authority in this department was at first exercised secretly, and then openly, by the Sieur d'Emeri, born of an Italian merchant family settled at Lyons. His task was no easy one, Anne of Austria, on her taking the reins of government, having found the revenues of 1644-5-6 completely consumed.§ Loans were at first resorted to; but the 18,000,000 of rentes, due annually at the Hôtel de Ville, were so ill paid, that instead of borrowing au denier 14, as had been the rate, Emery could only do so au denier 4.|| The taille, or land-tax, which furnished 50,000,000 out of the 80,000,000 livres regularly levied, was soincapable of augmentation, that it was necessary to forgive arrears in order to get paid the dues of the current year. The townsfolk alone could furnish extraordinary supplies. Emery conceived a plan for raising 7,000,000 in Paris. A hundred years previous, an edict had gone forth forbidding new houses to be built in the suburbs. † Memoirs of Campion, Cousin's Chevreuse, and the almost illegible Carnets of Mazarin. *The Bishop of Beauvais is to Sir Thomas Rowe, S. P. 244, commanded to return to his bishop- France. ric, the Bishop of Lisieux to absent himself, Madame de Chevreuse to go out of town, Madame de Senecy and de Hautefort under a cloud, Chavigny restored to the council, and Mazarin his cavaliers and estaffiers to protect him, though yet no formal guard.-Browne's Letters Histoire du Tems. That is, that he could only get in capital four times the amount of annual interest he offered. |