monarch; and the cardinal feared lest the presence of a warlike and renowned prince might excite the jealousy of Louis, or disturb his own ascendency. Gustavus continued to humble the party of Austria, until the hero of Sweden, a few weeks after the death of Montmorency, fell in the arms of victory at Lutzen. Richelieu still upheld his alliance with Sweden and the Protestant powers; and thus keeping the force of Austria employed, he was enabled to effect his next ambitious project, which was the occupation of Lorraine.

That province was in its origin feudatory to the empire, and was totally independent of France, except that from vicinity and interest its dukes were far more French than German. The Guises had drawn these ties closer. And now that the duke of Lorraine had harbored the duke of Orleans, and, against the king's consent, had given him his daughter Margaret in marriage, the latter had reason or pretext for anger. Richelieu, as usual, caused an army, with the king at its head, to march to Lorraine. The duke was alarmed, and sought to parry the attack by offering to espouse madame de Combalet, niece of the cardinal; but Richelieu refused to sacrifice the interests of the state to the aggrandizement of his family. Perhaps he saw in the offer a trap laid for him. Lorraine was invaded; and Nancy, its capital, besieged. The duchess of Orleans contrived to escape from it to Brussels; but Nancy fell into the power of the king. In vain did the duke negotiate, and make submissions; equally in vain did he resign his duchy in favor of his brother. The capital and fortresses were held in firm possession by Richelieu.

Here fell another noble, or rather an independent prince, from having espoused the quarrel of the duke of Orleans. Whilst the queen-mother gave signs ofʼincreased exasperation, by suborning an attempt to carry off the cardinal's niece, Gaston began to be weary of exile. His favorite, Puylaurens, who had chief influence with him, was still more anxious; and Richelieu offered great advantages to the latter, if he would induce the prince to submit. Gaston at length did so, quitted Brussels abruptly, and repaired to Paris, where he was graciously and splendidly received. Puylaurens received the hand of the cardinal's niece, and was created duc d'Aiguil lon for his services. But Richelieu was a dangerous friend, except to an all-devoted servant. He sought to break Gaston's marriage; and Gaston was obstinate in resisting. The cardinal laid the blame on the new duke d'Aiguillon, and without further pretext arrested and shut him up in the Bastile, where he soon after perished. Gaston was, as usual, enraged; and, as usual, allowed his rage to evaporate in vain menaces, and in vainer enterprises.

1635.

FRENCH ACADEMY.

41

Richelieu, victorious over every enemy, had now reached the height of power.. No longer occupied with climbing, or distracted by the task of keeping his supereminent position, he had leisure to look around and before him. The career which he had run, his private fortune and public achievements, had been such as might content the most soaring ambition; but the cardinal's avarice of fame was insatiable. In every direction, in every path, he sought it. The navy of France was re-created by him; commerce and industry reawoke at his call; and, except the noblesse, whose pride and power he blasted, all other classes seem to have started to fresh life beneath his sway. With all this care, this ubiquity of purpose and exertion, the minister was not the mere slave of office. He had the leisure and the power to shake off the calculations and dark thoughts of policy, and, adopting the recreations of the time, to act the gallant and the courtier. Thus greedy of the petty but flattering distinctions of private life, as well as of the greater honors of the statesman, Richelieu could not be blind to future fame. He had, in fact, the general characteristic of genius, -he. was endowed with the instinct of immortality: and he sought it, where indeed it was not yet found, in his country's literature. This was yet to be called into existence; and Richelieu has all the honor of that act. He collected the talent and taste of the capital into a privileged society for fixing and polishing the French language. Thus the French Academy took birth in the year 1635. In the realm of criticism, the cardinal sought to be as despotic as in that of state policy. He compelled his new doctors to censure the Cid of Corneille: but taste he found to be more stubborn than politics; and the minister who over came princes could not crush the fame of a poet.

These formed Richelieu's minor cares, the play and relaxation of his power. Sterner projects filled his mind. The nobles checked, the Huguenot power destroyed, it remained to abase still lower the house of Austria, and to extend the territories of France at its expense. To make the Rhine the limit of the empire was the darling aim of Richelieu, as of Henry IV. Gustavus Adolphus and the Protestant princes of Germany had hitherto been instruments in Richelieu's hand to effect or further this; but, since the death of the king of Sweden, the emperor had recovered his superiority, had defeated the Swedes, and reduced his enemies. It behoved France no longer to confine her efforts to negotiation; but to draw the sword, if she wished to preserve her ascendency or to prosecute her political schemes. She demanded certain advantages for thus declaring herself; and neither Sweden

nor the malcontent Germans were backward in paying the price. Oxenstiern, the Swedish chancellor, ceded the fortress of Philipsburg to France. The league of Protestants put the entire of Alsace and its important fortresses under her protection. Lorraine was already occupied; and now Richelieu pushed northwards, and garrisoned Treves, forming, at the same time, a defensive alliance with Holland. Spain, informed of this treaty, sent an expedition to surprise the town of Treves: and war was in consequence declared by France against the emperor and the king of Spain, in the commencement of 1635. A herald was sent to Brussels to announce it; the last time that this species of feudal etiquette was observed.

Richelieu, the destroyer of the Huguenots, was thus leagued with the Protestant powers of Europe against its Catholic princes; a clear proof that his principles were politic, not bigoted. This war, which lasted thirteen years against the emperor, and twenty-five against Spain, produced little glory to the minister, at least from its victories, and has brought as little interest to history. It is marked by as much want of spirit as of talent. Yet the thirty years' war in Germany, then drawing to its close, was marked with both. But religious differences had given ferocity to this war, which was carried on in the heart of Germany, and which put daily at stake the fate of kingdoms, capitals, and creeds. On the contrary, the war which we enter on was merely an extended line of frontier skirmishes, idle sieges, and fitful expeditions, in which Richelieu had the advantage, not from military but ministerial superiority. His vigorous administration enabled France to bear the expense and weight of the war, whilst the house of Austria, from the bad husbandry of more immense resources, became exhausted, and towards the close of it was in a tottering state. As to the lack of able generals, it may be observed, that great military talents must necessarily be wanting at the commencement of a war, and that it requires half a score of years' campaigning for the age and the nation to form its military system anew,-the old never sufficing,-and to find for that system a head and an arm capable of directing it. Turenne was a young officer at this epoch. It was not till the following reign that he and Condé were able to assert the superiority of French generalship.

France entered on the campaign with four armies, one in the Low Countries, one on the Rhine, the others in Italy and the Valteline. The first exploit was one of promise and éclat. The mareschal de Brezé was marching to join the Dutch through the country of Liege. Prince Thomas of Savoy, at the

1636.

SPANIARDS PASS THE SOMME.

43

head of the Spanish, sought to prevent the junction. He was defeated by Brezé at Avein, and lost all his cannon and colors. Tirlemont was given up to the pillage of the victors. Louvain was besieged, and Brussels threatened. The unfortunate Mary of Medicis was obliged to fly from the latter town, with the duchess of Orleans, pursued by the good fortune of her enemy Richelieu. Chance, however, may give a victory talents can alone make the most of it. The French were obliged to retire behind the Meuse. They and the Dutch, most ill-assorted allies, laid the blame of the tardiness upon each other.

In the following year the Imperialists had all the advantage. They penetrated into Picardy, passed the Somme, and took Corbie. Paris was in alarm, and her citizens began to retire southward. It was a critical moment for Richelieu. His ascendency over the king consisted solely in the monarch's opinion of his sagacity and good fortune as minister. This opinion was greatly shaken; yet Richelieu kept a good countenance, and did all that the emergency required. He made the king show himself to the people; he dispatched reinforcements to the count of Soissons, who commanded in Picardy. The Spanish knew as little as the French how to push an advantage. Instead of advancing upon the capital, they passed the time in pillaging, and were soon obliged to retreat. The court advanced to Amiens, whilst the army besieged and endeavored to retake Corbie.

Here Richelieu's good fortune saved him from new peril. The count of Soissons, son of that prince of the blood whose turbulence made him conspicuous in the first year of the regency of Mary of Medicis, had stepped from the obscurity in which he had been kept, on the unexpected invasion of his government by the enemy. He had valiantly resisted; but the cardinal, who dreaded the renown of a prince of the blood, avoided placing any large force at his disposal, and at length brought the king himself to command, and eclipse Soissons. The count vowed vengeance; he leagued with Gaston, ever ready to commence a plot; and they agreed to assassinate the cardinal at Amiens. Two gentlemen, named St. Ibal and Montresor, were charged with the execution, but were to wait for the signal to be given by the duke of Orleans. An opportunity offered. Richelieu was alone at the foot of his staircase, which he had descended to his carriage, and in the midst of the conspirators. The agents had their hands on pistols, eagerly watching the countenances both of the count of Soissons and the duke of Orleans for the signal. Neither had the courage to give it, and Richelieu walked on, for the

moinent unsuspicious of the danger that he had escaped. On reflection, the princes perceived that the danger lay in having meditated the deed, rather than in having executed it. They tried other means, leagued with the Spaniards, and endeavored to rouse the nobility to rebel. Epernon, to whom they chiefly applied, bade them, in answer, recollect the fate of Marillac and Montmorency. They did so, and fled from court; he count of Scissons to Sedan, and Gaston to Blois. But the atter was soon brought back by fair words.

In the midst of these intrigues, this warfare, these struggles betwixt nations and parties, Louis XIII. was perhaps the personage who felt the least interested. "He led," says

madame de Motteville, "the most wretched and sad life; without court, or friends, or power; spending his time in catching birds, whilst his armies were taking towns." He was plaintive, melancholy, retiring; not wanting either in good sense, or in any other manly quality perhaps, but cursed with a diffidence that neutralized them all. Thus he despaired of ever finding a minister like Richelieu; and, in fear of offending the cardinal, whom he might have controlled as well as employed, he resigned all authority into his hands. Another idea of his, proceeding from the same diffidence, and a great cause of discontent and sadness with him, was, that he despaired to render himself agreeable to the fair sex. He was cursed with a bashfulness and a backwardness that he blushed to avow, and that he concealed under the color of apathy and suspicion. This kept Louis XIII. for a number of years a stranger to his young and not unlovely queen; as the same defect produced, in after years, a similar result with his descendant, Louis XVI. Anne of Austria, piqued by this coldness of her spouse, avenged herself by ridicule and sarcasm. The king's indifference or distance thus became hatred; and Richelieu, who had cause to dread the young queen, fanned the latter sentiment. Louis nevertheless felt attracted towards female society, and he paid a kind of distant and formal court to mademoiselle de Hautefort. This young lady as little understood his bashful and susceptible temper as did the queen, and Louis soon accused them both of leaguing together to mock him. The attentions of the king were then turned towards a new object, mademoiselle de la Fayette, with whom the novel of De Genlis has perhaps rendered the reader familiar. She, of tenderer feelings and more penetration, knew how to appreciate the timid affections of the monarch. She cherished and returned them; never, however, overstepping the bounds of modesty. Louis, whose reserve, or “wisdom, to use the words of madame de Motteville, "equalled that of