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d'Enghien, now prince of Conde by his father's death, afforded them the opportunity sought. The archduke Leopold commanded an army of 18,000 men. He had taken Lens in the month of August, and lay encamped beneath its walls. Condé advanced, meditating an attack, but retreated on observing the force of the position. Nordlingen and years had taught him prudence. As he retired he was followed by the Austrian general Beck, and a combat ensued betwixt him and the French rear, in which the advantage was alternate, each general supporting his men with reinforcements, till the two armies were drawn up in full presence. Condé as usual commenced and led the attack, was victorious wherever he personally appeared, and by his activity succeeded in routing an enemy whose order of battle was from the first confused.:

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This victory decided the superiority of France, and the peace of Westphalia was signed in October of the same year. By it the war with Austria was concluded. Its chief conse quences beyond the Rhine went to establish the independence of the Protestant powers, and to give an existence to that country, which afterwards grew into the kingdom of Prussia. Protestantism may almost pardon Richelieu for_reducing Rochelle, in exchange for having established its predominance in Germany. France made important acquisitions. The empire at length acknowledged her claim to Metz, Toul, and Verdun. Alsace was finally abandoned, by which the boundary of the Rhine was on that point secure. Lorraine was indeed to be nominally restored to its prince, but with retention of its fortresses, and on such conditions that the duke refused to take advantage of the stipulation. As to Spain, she refused to be included in the treaty, and war still continued with that branch of the house of Austria.

So low had the French aristocracy been brought by Richelieu, that after his death, Mazarin, a foreigner and an upstart, a mild and even timid minister, was able to triumph over them. Their petulance overcome, the course of his administration ran smooth, until it encountered the resistance of the magistracy. The rise of this body to independence in the state, by being allowed to purchase and bequeath their offices, has been stated. The wealthy families of the commons, secluded from the hope of being admitted amongst the territorial noblesse, directed their ambition to the offices of parliament, and therein formed an aristocracy of their own, that of the robe. The commons, or burgess class of France, cheated of their political rights by the cessation of the states-general, and of their civic rights by the abolition of municipal privi leges, looked up to the eminent of their own body, whom their

1648.

THE PARLIAMENT.

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wealth had invested with the dignities of judicia office These were considered as the chiefs, the representatives of the commons. The force of the magistracy lay in this sympathy and support. The growth of this third or fourth estate did not escape the jealous eye of Richelieu. He found no difficulty in depressing it. Had he found more, had he lived longer, or nad he the same sagacity in finance, which guided him in other branches of administration, it is probable that he would have abolished and replaced the parliaments; no easy task to complete, since not only were the prices of each place to be repaid, but the revenue arising from the yearly fines, which perpetuated them, was to be supplied from some other source.

Under Richelieu the parliaments had the wisdom to desist from their principal pretension, that of acting the part of a representative assembly, in examining and refusing to pass the pecuniary edicts of the crown. But the claim, though dormant, existed; and the despotic minister did all that his wars, his enemies, and his occupation would permit to undermine the power not only of the magistrates, but of all who held offices by right of purchase. He appointed intendants of justice, of finance, and of police, in the several provinces. State criminals he handed over to commissioners, not to the parliament; whilst in ceremonies of etiquette, an important matter in those days, the legists were made to feel their humble origin, by being compelled to walk, to kneel, to bare their head in the midst of courtiers seated and covered. But the supple Mazarin could not wield his predecessor's sceptre of iron; and when a few years allowed the parliament to recover breath and courage, a reaction took place, and the struggle recommenced betwixt the crown and that assembly; the latter putting forth all its dormant pretensions, and a great portion of the discontented nobility rallying round it.

And here may be stated that unpleasant part of the historian's task, in which the reader must participate, condemned to choose betwixt two parties, neither of which he can applaud; compelled to bestow his interest when but a small portion of approbation is due, and forced, by an immediate and as it were local sense of impartiality, to lean to the side which his general feelings abhor. It is thus that, in narrating Richelieu's conquest of the Huguenots and of the aristocracy, it is impossible not to sympathize in a degree with the despot, however his cruelty and crimes may from time to time excite a burst of indignation. But when the historian is convinced that the independence of Huguenot and aristocrat, had both lasted, would but have prolonged anarchy, without ever pro

ducing liberty, he resigns himself, not without tacit reluctance, to admiration of the minister's genius and success.

The want of these two qualities, at least of the first, shown by Mazarin in the quarrel which we are about to relate, leaves impartiality more free. The parliament revived its claim to refuse taxes. This claim, though spirited and salu tary if employed merely to deter the avarice of government was certainly as much an usurpation as the unlimited pre rogative of the crown. The parliament was selfish and wrong It assumed the rights of the states-general, the assembly of which it took care not to provoke. At the same time the despotic aims of the court were pregnant with ill. The reader will judge betwixt them by the light of modern experience, looking with favor probably on any check that could be established against the royal authority. But the intrinsic merits of either side at the time call from the historian but strict impartiality.

Finance was then, as now, and as ever, the great, the insuperable difficulty of government. Richelieu had shown little skill in its management. Mazarin, a foreigner, ignorant of the habits of the people whom he governed, and of all the complicated mechanism of society, so necessary to be kept in view by him who would draw fresh revenue from the public, was less likely to succeed; and even his subaltern, especially charged with this part of the administration, was an Italian also, though wearing the French title of D'Emery. These ministers had an instinctive dread of the parliament; and when the expenses of the war and the court rendered an extraordinary supply indispensable, Emery rummaged in the book of ordonnances to find some old law, long registered, which might sanction a new levy, without having recourse to the legists. He found one a century old, which forbade any new buildings in the fauxbourgs or suburbs of Paris, under pain of demolition. It had been forgotten, and hundreds of new mansions had since arisen within these forbidden precincts. Emery proposed to raise a fine upon every such house, thus infringing the maxim of despots, "to feed their capital and tax the provinces." The outcry was general; the parliament stepped out of its jurisdiction, and forbade the fiscal officers to enforce the levy. Hence arose quarrels, negotiations, and finally sedition. The fines on houses in the suburbs were withdrawn, and a loan of eighteen millions to be forced on the notables of Paris was proposed in its stead. The parliament was to have the power of distributing this loan, and by thus allowing them to take part in finance arrangements, Mazarin induced them to registe the decree.

1648.

OPPOSITION TO MAZARIN.

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The whole force of the legists was here seen to consist in the support of the citizens. The decree, though registered, could not be executed. The parliament was divided into several chambers or courts, of which the several chiefs and members were wont to unite in the great hall, to register any edict of state, or to consult on important affairs. The grea hamber pretended to the exclusive right of convoking thi eneral assembly. It was composed of the elder and least violent of the body. They refused to summon the other chambers on the present occasion; and the younger members, of whom these were composed, became clamorous and indignant They assembled of their own accord. Mazarin lost presence of mind. Fear quenched his natural astuteness. The inferior chambers were bursting into hostility against the great. A schism was declaring itself, by which the minister might have profited. He precipitated matters, however; arrested the most turbulent chiefs of the inferior chambers; and thus afforded an opportunity for the elders of the great chamber to make common cause with their opponents, and redeem their having supported the minister by now demanding the liberation of their brethren. The consequence was, that Mazarin was obliged to yield, and to meditate another measure of authority. He brought the young king to parliament; and in a bed of justice caused him, sitting on his throne, to order the registry of nineteen fiscal edicts. The parliament dared not to murmur in the presence of royalty, though but infant, and the minister for this time triumphed.

In the following year Emery attempted to establish an octroi or tax on all articles of consumption entering Paris; but this he was obliged to abandon, and Mazarin in his distress recurred to the old ruinous routine of creating new offices and selling them. This he thought the scheme most acceptable to the parliament. But they were now acquainted with their strength, and with the timid character of the minister, who felt once more obliged to make use of the dignity of the king's presence. A bed of justice was accordingly held in February, 1648. The parliament registered in silence, but on the following day declared its assent to have been forced, and the registry invalid. The queen was enraged at this audacious act. She warmly expressed her indignation against the canaille, or rabble, who, to use the words of madame de Motteville, were infected with such a dangerous love of the public good. Confident of the royal rights, Anne of Austria sent to ask the parliament, "Did it believe itself to possess the right of limiting the king's authority?"—a dangerous question, at a time when the commons of England, bearing

the same name of parliament, by which the French judicial body was designated, had proclaimed republican principles, and were that very moment warring upon their monarch. There is no doubt that some of the younger members of the French judicature entertained a wish at this moment to imitate their insular neighbors. This was but a latent and rarely entertained idea, and whatever slight root it had, was utterly destroyed by the catastrophe of king Charles's execution in the following year.

At present the parliament gravely deliberated on the queen's question, and the speeches of many of its members no doubt echoed the great principles of liberty. We find some of these maxims in De Retz. "There is none but God who can subsist alone,"* said that personage, whose volume of memoirs appears to be one of more value, and to testify more genius than all the boasted chefs-d'œuvre of the age immediately succeeding. "The firmest monarchies, the most despotic kings, can only be supported by men and by laws united. One of them without the other will never suffice." He afterwards proceeds to assert, that kingly authority had ever been limited in France. The aristocracy and the parliament he considers the proper check, but the word statesgeneral never drops from his pen. He thus describes the conduct of the parliament::-"It grumbled on the subject of the edict, and no sooner was it heard to murmur, than the public started up. Half awake, we set about groping for the laws of the state. They were nowhere to be found. We were frightened; we clamored; we asked them of each other; and in the general agitation questions arose, exciting animosity here, dissatisfaction there. The people entered into the sanctuary, tore away the veil that ought for ever to cover all that can be said or thought upon the rights of subjects and the rights of kings, interests that can never agree but in silence. The hall of the judicial palace profaned these mysteries."

The question of the queen, and the debate upon it, instead of terrifying the magistrates, gave the younger fresh spirit to advance in opposition. These were moved by the free spirit of the times, and the wish to imitate the English parliament; the elder as well as the less speculative and tranqui members joining in the opposition from hatred to the cardinal, whose last edicts proposed a considerable reduction in their

* From De Retz, who could speak for order as well as liberty, though he so little practised the one or comprehended the other, is this other powerful maxim, analogous in its allusion,-Dieu obéit toujours à ce qu'il a com mandé une fois.

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