1638.

BIRTH OF A PRINCE.

45

the most modest dame," at length ventured to propose an apartment at Versailles to mademoiselle de la Fayette, who replied, after some hesitation, some intrigue, and certain interference, by retiring to a convent. The king wept, and was in despair; but his scruples would not permit him, like Louis XIV., to tear a beauty from the altar. He did not cease, however, to visit mademoiselle de la Fayette at her convent; and long conversations were wont to pass between them through the grille or iron railing of the parlor. The monarch felt the influence of this virtuous young woman; her counsels, to which her piety now gave weight and her secure position boldness, prompted him to mistrust Richelieu, whom she represented as supporting heresy against Catholicism, and to give peace to Europe.

Another voice, of equal weight with the king, was pouring the same sentiments into his ear. This was his confessor, the father Caussin, whom Richelieu had placed in that station, but who betrayed his confidence. To resist at once a mistress and a confessor was difficult, and the influence of the minister began to totter. One urgent counsel given to Louis by mademoiselle de la Fayette and Caussin was, that he should become reconciled to his queen; they showed, and even proved to him, that his suspicions against her were unjust. Richelieu, who observed the changed sentiments of the king towards Anne of Austria, was alarmed, and tried to prevent the reconciliation that he feared. Suspecting that the queen held a correspondence with Spain, he caused the police to visit and search her apartments at the Val de Grace. But his enemies were too adroit; no discovery was made, and the insult served but to display the unfounded rancor of the cardinal. After this the pious and generous voice of La Fayette had more influence; and, obedient to it, Louis XIII. became reconciled for the time to his queen. The happy and unexpected consequence was the birth of a prince (afterwards Louis XIV.) on the 5th of September following (1638). To this, however, the result was limited. Richelieu regained his ascendency over the king; the confessor was banished; La Fayette forgotten; and the queen, though no longer banished from the king's presence, had as little share as before of his influence or friendship.

The fresh hold which Richelieu here took of the monarch's confidence was owing, in a great measure, to the success of the war. In the beginning of the campaign two actions were fought at Rhinfeld; in the first of which the gallant duke of Rohan perished; in the second, the duke of Saxe Weimar lefeated the imperialists, and took their two generals, one of

The

whom, the famous John der Werth, was sent to Paris. principal consequence of this victory was the conquest of Brisach, the chief fortress of Alsace. The name of the town reminds us not to pass over the celebrated father Joseph, capuchin friar, the follower and confidant of Richelieu. We can scarcely imagine a statesman and an ambassador clothed in a monk's frock and sandals: yet such was father Joseph, a name more or less mingled in all the intrigues of the French court, and its negotiations with others. His influence was known, and he was dreaded by the court as a kind of evil spirit, in fact the demon of Richelieu. Although the latter never procured for his monkish friend the cardinal's hat which he demanded, still the people called father Joseph his " gray eminence," at once to distinguish him from and assimilate him to his "red eminence" the cardinal. They had been friends from youth; congenial spirits in ambition, depth, and talent: the monk, however, sacrificed his personal elevation to that of the cardinal. Richelieu was much indebted to him:—it was Joseph that roused and encouraged him, when stupefied and intimidated by the invasion of Picardy; and it was said that after his death Richelieu showed neither the same firmness nor sagacity. When father Joseph was on his death-bed, Richelieu stood by it: it was a scene such as a novelist might love to paint. The conversation of the two ecclesiastics was

l of this world; and the cardinal's last exhortation to the expiring monk was, "Courage, father Joseph, Brisach is ours!" a form of consolation characteristic of both.

A triumph without a victim was unintelligible to cardinal Richelieu; or, in other words, vengeance had become such a habit with him, that he could not live without an object to pursue and to crush. In this too he scorned ignoble game; and, one after another, the first nobles of the land fell sacrifices as well to his humor as to his policy. Bad success in an assault upon Fontarabia afforded a handle against the duc de la Valette, son of the famed and haughty Epernon. Richelieu brought the duke before a commission, despite the remonstrances of the parliament, who in vain expostulated, and represented to the cardinal from year to year their maxim, that the great should be judged only in a court of peers. Richelieu mocked at their legal scruples; tried La Valette after his own convenient fashion; and condemned him to an enormous fine and banishment. The entire family was included in his disgrace; and even the duke of Epernon himself, a grandee whose power had counterbalanced that of the great Henry, was compelled by the minister's mandate to surrender all his governments, and to retire alone to his château of Plas

1641.

REBELLION OF SOISSONS.

4**

sac. He was soon after conveyed to the castle of Loches, where he died at the advanced age of eighty-six.

Fortune smiled everywhere upon Richelieu. Alsace was now in the hands of the French. Arras surrendered to them in Flanders, and Turin in Italy: whilst the insurrections of Portugal and Catalonia against Spain paralyzed all the force of that kingdom. The intrigues of the cardinal fanned or excited all their troubles. Portugal is mainly indebted to him for her independence under the house of Braganza, now established. Catalonia, after a vain attempt at a republic, was brought to own Louis XIII. for sovereign; and the mareschal de Brezé was sent as viceroy to Barcelona. It was high time for the enemies of the cardinal to think of submitting. The duke of Lorraine took this step; ceded some of his dominions. and received the rest on the condition of forfeiting all right to them in the event of his ever proving unfaithful or hostile to France. The queen-mother, Mary of Medicis, herself thought it vain to struggle longer, and made overtures to return. But the cardinal would not admit her into France. He pointed out Florence as the place to which she should retreat. But the widow of Henry IV. shrunk from making her native city witness of her distresses and her fall. After having spent some time in England, she settled in Cologne; where she died a few months before the cardinal. It is impossible to regard without compassion the misfortunes of one who had held the sceptre, and who was the wife of a monarch and the mother of a line of kings. But her unfitness to reign, and, at the same time, her tenacity to grasp at sway, gave reason for the severity of Richelieu. In any other than him, the creature whom she had raised, it would have been justifiable. But reasons of state were set by him over every motive, virtue, honesty, and gratitude included.

The count of Soissons, on the failure of his scheme against the cardinal, had taken refuge with the duke of Bouillon in Sedan. All the enemies of the latter, especially the exiles, looked towards this prince of the blood as the rallying point, the support of their cause. Richelieu employed every art to pacify the count, remove his distrust, and entice him to court. All efforts proved vain; and Richelieu was even obliged to purchase the tranquillity of Soissons, and tolerate his independent posture. It was dangerous, however, to let such an example of disobedience subsist; and the cardinal at length sent an army, under the mareschal of Châtillon, to reduce Sedan, and take or humble the count of Soissons. Châtillon was both valorous and skilful; but nothing could compensate for the 1-humor and backwardness of the troops, who, with

their officers, felt more inclined to a gallant prince of the blood than to the domineering cardinal. In an action that took place at Marsée, near Sedan, the royal troops showed neither alacrity nor determination; and Châtillon, despite his efforts, was completely put to the rout. No obstacle seemed now to prevent the count of Soissons from marching to Paris, when the almost miraculous good fortune of Richelieu saved him from ruin. As Soissons rode over the field of battle, he pushed up his visor with his pistol; it was accidentally discharged, and the victor perished. Report did not fail to say that he was assassinated, and, of course, by the order of Richelieu; but there is no evidence to support such a rumor. Louis, who, on receiving tidings of the defeat, was preparing, with equanimity, to sacrifice the obnoxious minister, was now struck with his unvarying good fortune; and, with a superstitious feeling, bowed still lower to the cardinal's will.

The court did not share the monarch's obsequiousness; and every fresh triumph of the tyrant, as they considered him, filled his enemies with fresh indignation, and inspired them with new devices for getting rid of him. Cinq-Mars, son of the mareschal d'Effiat, was, for the present, the favorite of Louis: he had been chosen by Richelieu for his agreeable person, his frankness and frivolity, to fill this station, where the minister deemed him little dangerous. The youth, indeed, showed himself at first little ambitious of such eminence. Though loaded with wealth, honors, and the title of Grand Equerry, he shared the solitary habits and mean amusements of the king with impatience. These were to quarrel and complain of inattentions, to hunt the badger and the thrush in the forest of St. Germain. After the king retired for the night, Cinq-Mars used to gallop to Paris, join the gay society of the capital, and be back to attend Louis, when he rose. Such a life robbed the favorite of the spirits and vivacity requisite to please. The monarch complained of his apathy, and reproached him with ingratitude in return for wealth and favor. "And what have I to do with wealth?" replied the petulant youth; "I am ready to give it up. As plain Cinq-Mars I shall be happier than as grand equerry. One day in the societies of the Marais would afford me more pleasure than a month spent here."

A powerful cause soon came to remove this impatience of ennui, and to awake the ambition of the favorite. He became enamored of Mary of Gonzaga, that daughter of the duke of

* The Marais or Marsh was then the fashionable quarter of Paris. Though still containing the vast hôtels of the old extinct nobility, it is now the quarter of the obscure and humble citizen.

1642.

CONSPIRACY OF CINQ-MARS.

49

Nevers, the object of Gaston's love and the queen-mother's hatred. To obtain the hand of a princess, it was necessary to become more than a court favorite. He sought to become duke and peer: the minister refused. The youth dissembled, applied himself to please Louis, attempted to enter the council, and again the stern cardinal put back the pretender with a frown, which even the king dared not gainsay. Henceforth Cinq-Mars vowed vengeance against Richelieu; and in this he was strengthened by the friendship and counsels of De Thou, a son of the famous president, an enemy to the cardinal on account of his oppression of the magistracy, and attached to the fortunes of Anne of Austria, whose wrongs, owing to the calumnies of Richelieu, he compassionated. Through De Thou, Cinq-Mars became connected with the queen, and through her with all the malcontents of the kingdom; with Gaston, with the duke of Bouillon, with all the exiles, and the personal enemies of the minister. It was a formidable league, and became more formidable by the adhesion of the king himself; but a passive adhesion, however. The monarch complained of the tyranny of his minister; Cinq-Mars instantly proposed as a remedy to assassinate Richelieu: Louis showed no horror at the crime, nor any aversion to the act.

The cardinal, in the mean time, had his own views, and was plotting in the depths of his policy and ambition. The king's health was evidently on the decline; and Richelieu, though not without the warnings of disease, reckoned on surviving. Under a new reign, Anne of Austria being queenmother, he must look for dread retribution. The cardinal, therefore, from views of personal safety as well as of ambition, was necessitatd to aim at the regency for himself, to the exclusion both of the queen Anne and the duke of Orleans. In the furtherance of this plan, Richelieu determined to lead an army to the conquest of Roussillon, and to drag the monarch along with him; thus separating the latter from his queen, who remained in Paris. The duc de Bouillon he sought at once to gain, and to entice from Sedan, by offering him the command of the army in Italy, which the duke accepted with mistrust, but in obedience to the private solicitations of the queen. Amongst the nobility, Richelieu's only dependence was on the prince of Condé, and his son the duc d'Enghien, who had married Clémence de Maillé, niece of the cardinal.

Such were the views of both parties, when the court set out for Roussillon. Cinq-Mars had gained on the spirit of the king; and Richelieu was in such comparative disgrace and distrust, that he kept aloof from the monarch, and when