1614.

INSURRECTION OF THE NOBLES.

15

in balancing and thus quieting the contending parties of the state. But the madness of the mareschal d'Ancre, who, nov making the most intolerant demands for himself, then, irritated by refusal, leaguing with the princes, supporting demands of theirs equally insufferable, finally quarrelling with them, and adding the odium of his own conduct to the un popularity of the queen, rendered useless all the pruden efforts of the regent and the minister Villeroi. The latter again brought forward the project of an alliance betwixt the young king and a Spanish princess, by which he hoped to prop the tottering authority of the regent. The princes saw through his design: a union was effected amongst the whole body of nobles; jealousy of the queen and of her favorites was its bond; and the pique of the powerful dames of the court, on finding themselves excluded from the queen's private parties and amusements, was one of the principal causes of the revolt which ensued.

In the spring of 1614, the chief noblesse, with the princes at their head, retired from court, each to his government and province. They levied troops, and made a show of war. Villeroi proposed to march instantly upon them; but the chancellor and the favorites seconded the queen's wish to temporize and negotiate. She accordingly sought an accommodation. The demands of Condé were the assembly of the states-general, and the postponement of the Spanish match. These stipulations, made by the princes merely to give a popular color to their revolt, were acceded to by the regent; but large sums were, at the same time, paid to the several malcontents. Condé had 450,000 livres, and the château of Amboise. The treaty was concluded at St. Menehould, and was not a month old ere Condé showed himself again refractory, having, perhaps, spent his bribe. He quitted the court. The regent and the young king took a journey to Poitou, in order to counteract rebellion. The reunion of all parties in the states, which were summoned in October, gave some respite to hostilities and intrigue.

The states-general, assembled at Paris in 1614, demand especial attention, not only as the last of these national assemblies previous to the Revolution (at the commencement of which it was continually referred to as affording precedent), but as a scene in which the political feelings and views of the age were completely developed. We have an ample account of the sittings and discussions of the commons or third order, written by Florimond Rapine, a member, one of the king's advocates. From this we learn, that the majority of the lower chamber were lawyers, and a considerable portion nobles,

almost all the king's lieutenant-generals being elected by their several governments. The most important consideration in the eyes of all was evidently the respective dignity of persons and classes. The first two months were consumed in disputes of precedence, in ceremonials, in mutual compliments between the orders at first, and afterwards in mutual abuse. Miron, provost of the merchants of the city of Paris, was elected president. The address of the commons to the king was spoken by this magistrate on his knees; the deputies were clothed in simple black, whilst priests and nobles shone in gold, and an attempt of the president to wear his city robes of red and blue in a procession was looked upon as a monstrous piece of ambition.

The grievance most odious to the nation was, the enormity of pensions granted to the princes and chief officers. Against these the commons and the clergy joined in lifting up their voice. The next demand was to abolish the venality of the judicature, and the right of the paulette, a kind of annual fine, paid by the officers of parliament, in consideration of which their offices were considered hereditary.* This demand the chamber of the commons could not in decency oppose; but being principally lawyers and provincial governors, it was their interest to preserve the paulette, and they therefore slurred over the question, and laid greater stress on the necessity of abating the taille, which pressed upon the people. Thus, the nobles insisting on abolishing the hereditary right to the offices held by the legists, the legists or commons retaliated by demanding the retrenchment of pensions; and a struggle ensued between them. Savaron, an orator of eloquence in the tiers, exclaimed against the mercenary spiri of the noblesse, which, he said, had forsaken the pursuit of honor for the worship of the goddess Pecune, and bartered even its fidelity for a price. The nobles were indignant at this, and demanded an apology. De Mesme, another member of the tiers, was deputed to explain, and he made matters infinitely worse. France," said he, "had three children.The clergy, if not the eldest born, had at least, like Jacob, gotten the heritage and the blessing, and therefore were to be considered the eldest. Next came the noblesse, the second son: fiefs, counties, and commands, were its share. The youngest born was the commons, whose portion was the offices of the judicature. But," concluded the orator, “let not the

*The amount of pensions was calculated at six millions of livres. The paulette produced 1,500,000 livres annually. This last was an arrangement made by Henry IV. in the days of his distress.

1615.

THE STATES-GENERAL.

17

noblesse presume too much over the tier; since it often happens, that the cadets of a great family restore to it that honor and illustration, which has been thrown away by the elder brethren."

The difference of interest between the states rendered their meeting productive of no effect. The regent would willingly have reduced the pensions of the great, and destroyed the paulette, or hereditary right of the legists to their offices; but the feared to outrage the princes by the first, whilst uncertain of the support of the commons. Nothing accordingly was decided on. The cahiers or remonstrances of the states were presented, were smilingly received, and slept in the king's hands. The assembly was dissolved. The queen took her own inactivity and inability for prudence. It proved the contrary. The party of the princes leagued with that of the legists, the union being effected by the exertions and intrigues of the duc de Bouillon. As the assembly of the states had proved an empty ceremony, all its advice and remonstrance being disregarded, the legists of the parliament were urged to put themselves forward as the popular representatives, and finish the work that the states had vainly attempted. The chambers of parliament accordingly assembled, and began by summoning the great peers to join them, and form a court of peers for taking into consideration the affairs of the kingdom. This bold act was the inspiration of de Bouillon. The court was terrified, and with good cause; but the parliament itself was almost equally intimidated by its own boldness, and showed but hesitation when the queen put forth her authority. Nevertheless, the peers being forbidden to join the parliament,―an injunction that Condé had the weakness to obey,-the legists prepared their remonstrances; amongst which were not only all the demands of the states, but also a claim, that no act of the king should have force unless freely registered by the parliament, and that the parliament should have the right of summoning a court of peers and great officers, when occasion required. These remonstrances they insisted on reading in public before the young king, who showed a favorable and benign countenance, whilst that of the regent was convulsed with anger. But this bold attempt to put a check on the royal authority utterly failed: an edict of the king reproved the audacity of the parliament; and the latter, who had been urged on more by the intrigues of the princes than by any conscientious or firm love of liberty and the public good, yielded pusillanimously, when affairs began to assume the appearance of an open rupture. Condé acted pusillanimously also, in not declaring himself, and taking his place in the parlia

n.ent, o which his secret promises of support could not impart sufficient confidence. It ended by the court obtaining the upper hand, and in the consequent revolt of Condé; the queen resolving, at the same time, to fulfil the project of the double marriage with Spain.

Mary of Medicis, with the young king, set out for Bour deaux, to meet his future spouse. It was a military enterprise rather than a nuptial procession, the court marching at the head of an army, whilst it was pursued by Condé with an equal force. Both sides avoided an action. The king arrived at Bourdeaux, dispatched his sister Elizabeth, who was to espouse the infant of Spain, to the Pyrenees, and received in return Anne of Austria, a young and not unlovely princess of fifteen. The marriage was celebrated at Bourdeaux in November, 1615. Louis XIII. was now of age (the kings of France enjoy this privilege at fourteen), the possession of a wife gave him the consciousness of manhood; and he began accordingly to feel and to express a will of his own, that disquieted and constrained the queen-mother, no longer regent. He had already chosen a favorite, De Luynes, who of course excited his sovereign against the domineering queen, and her favorites, the marquis and marquise d'Ancre. Feeling her influence undermined, and humoring the impatience of the young monarch and his queen, who longed to visit Paris, she concluded a new accommodation with Condé, greatly to the advantage of that prince. He was allowed to participate in the government, and to sign the decrees of the council. The queen objected to granting this power, but she was overruled by Villeroi, who observed, that this would put the prince always in the king's power, by bringing him to the Louvre.-"There is no danger," said he, "in trusting the pen to a hand, the arm of which you hold." The duc de Longueville superseded the mareschal d'Ancre in the government of Picardy. The Huguenots, who had armed for Condé, had also their recompense. The court and royal authority was, in fact, at the feet of this young chief of the noblesse.

The queen-dowager saw the condition to which her weakness had reduced her. The mareschal d'Ancre was her only friend, and, from the general odium borne to him, he proved more a weight than a support. Another counsellor indeed she had, a man attached both to her and d'Ancre, and who was well capacitated to counsel her in this extremity. This was Richelieu, bishop of Luçon, who had somewhat distinguished himself in the states-general of 1614. Mary was not aware of the merit of this personage; yet it may have been by his bold counsel, that she ventured a stroke of policy, of boldness

1617.

DOWNFALL OF THE ANCRES.

19

unusual to her, in arresting Condé in the Louvre, and sending him to the Bastile. The noblesse, his partisans, instantly fled to raise their followers. The Parisian mob collected, and showed its humor by pillaging the hotel of the mareschal d'Ancre; there, however, its fury subsided. The queen was victorious, and the fugitive partisans of Condé were reduced to impotent exclamations of vengeance and rage. Their cause, however, was not lost. The young king had joined his mother in the project of getting rid of Condé; but in delivering himself from one master, Louis was mortified to find that he had given himself another. The mareschal d'Ancre now ruled uncontrolled at court and in council; and the pride of Louis was even more hurt by the ascendency of the start Concini than by that of Condé. De Luynes, his favorite, and the young nobles who composed his court, flattered the monarch's pride, and fanned his resentment. Mary of Medicis deemed this knot of striplings to be occupied in pleasure, whilst they meditated a plot. The arrest of Condé was a precedent and an example. Accordingly, as the mareschal d'Ancre was proceeding to the council-chamber in the Louvre, Vitri, captain of the guard, stopped him by the king's order, and demanded his sword. D'Ancre moved his hand to his weapon, whether to draw or to surrender it never could be ascertained, for he received at the moment several pistol-shots, and instantly expired. Louis immediately came forth, and declared himself to have ordered the deed, whilst the court hastened to abandon the queen-mother, and to throw itself at the feet of the monarch, who had thus manifested his authority. The body of the murdered Concini was seized and torn in pieces by the populace. His wife, Galigai, marchioness of Ancre, was torn from her affectionate mistress, and sent to prison.

The position of the queen-mother was mortifying and distressing. She had been deceived by the boy-king; stripped of her power; of her dearest friends one had perished, the life of the other was menaced; whilst of the band of courtiers, who so lately hung upon her smile, Richelieu alone evinced a deter mination to adhere to the fortunes of his mistress. Mary of Medicis besought an interview with her son. This favor wa long denied. De Luynes feared a mother's influence over a being so young and so weak as Louis. Mary was allowed to retire to Blois, whither Richelieu accompanied her. She saw her son at the moment of her departure. Louis was cold, and his mother in tears. She ventured to utter a word of intercession for her follower, Galigai, marchioness d'Ancre. The king's silence showed that the poor victim was not destined to be spared The unfortunate widow of Concini was