1658.

ALLIANCE WITH ENGLAND

85

was covered an effected by the exertions of Condé. It was this year that Louis XIV. made his first campaign, showing that he did not want personal courage. He was frequently in the trenches, and exposed to the fire. In 1655 and 1656, Turenne assumed the offensive, and besieged Valenciennes. Condé repulsed and forced him to raise the siege. Generals and armies were too equally matched to admit of a decisive action; and both looked to strengthen their side by fresh alliances.

France and England had been for some time at variance, if not at war, owing to the reception granted by the former to the exiled king. Dunkirk had been lost owing to this, the English having blocked the port, whilst the Spanish besieged it. But now Charles was compelled to retire from Paris, and an alliance with Cromwell was solicited by Mazarin. Spain was equally solicitous to form a league with the usurper. She offered to aid him in conquering Calais. Her rival proposed that Dunkirk should be recaptured, and retained by the English. Cromwell decided for the French alliance; Spain, with her colonies and richly-laden fleets, being a more rich and less powerful enemy to prey on. Six thousand English joined the French army in Flanders, which, in 1658, laid siege to Dunkirk. The Spaniards under Don John, seconded by Condé, advanced to raise the siege; and the battle of the downs of Dunkirk was fought betwixt them. The prince of Condé dissuaded the attack; and, on finding his advice disregarded, he prepared for action, observing to the duke of York, that "if he never saw a battle lost, he would now enjoy that sight." Condé was victorious on his side at first; but the English, accustomed to their civil wars, charged and fought more "like incarnate devils than men," so that the Spaniards suffered a complete defeat. Louis XIV. entered Dunkirk, and gave it up to Cromwell, whom Mazarin at the same time styled in his letters "the greatest man upon earth"

The king soon after fell dangerously ill at Calais: his life was despaired of; and Mazarin was already in alarm, making preparations for flight, when an emetic was proposed as a remedy. It was a thing then unknown, and looked upon as unnatural and dangerous. It was administered, however; and Louis recovered, to the great joy of his minister. France in the mean time, though victorious, was anxious for peace. Cromwell's death rendered the alliance of England little profitable, and the finances of the kingdom were in a state of disorder and debt. Anne of Austria's desire was that he should espouse the infanta; but as there was a probability of

this princess becoming the heiress of the monarchy, the king of Spain was reluctant to have his rights confounded with those of the house of Bourbon. The future proved the justice and sagacity of his reluctance. Still, Spain had even more need of peace than France; and when Louis moved to the south of his dominions, and affected to pay court to a princess of Savoy, Don Louis de Haro, the Spanish minister, alarmed lest the sole opportunity and bond of peace should be destroyed by a marriage with Savoy, dispatched a private emissary to Mazarin, proposing the hand of the infanta, and negotiations for peace. The king at that time, it is said, preserved a lingering attachment for Maria Mancini; and the cardinal was not averse to see his niece queen of France. Anne of Austria, however, would not make this sacrifice to her friend and minister. She was peremptory; and the demoiselles Mancini were sent away from the court for a time.

The conferences for the peace commenced in August, 1659, and did not terminate till November. They were held in the Isle of Pheasants, in the midst of the Bidassoa, which divides both kingdoms; Mazarin and Don Louis de Haro acting personally as negotiators. The territorial arrangements were as follows:-The frontier line of France on the north commenced at Gravelines, including it, then ran south to Lillers, shutting out St. Omer and Aire: Landrecies and Quesnoy, Marienburgh and Philippeville, marked the boundary in Hainault.* To the right of the Meuse, Montmedy and Thionville were the extreme fortresses of the French. Lorraine became virtually French, although its duke was nominally restored; and Alsace was finally ceded to them. On the south-east, France gained the fortress of Pignerol, on the other side of the Alps, which secured it a passage into Italy. In the southwest, the Pyrenees became its boundary by the acquisition of Roussillon. Thus France assumed almost its present form and extent at the treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. Its subsequent acquisitions have been Franche-Comté and French Flanders.

The remaining articles of the treaty related to the marriage which was agreed upon betwixt the French king and the infanta, and to the restitution of the prince of Condé to his rank and possessions. This was the point most difficult to settle, Mazarin remaining firm against concessions to the prince. Don Louis threatened to form for Condé a principality of Rocroi, and other towns on the Flemish frontier; a

* Mazarin, according to Brienne, did not insist on having Cambray, on he condition that Spain was to support his pretensions to the popedom.

660.

MORTAL SICKNESS OF MAZARIN.

87

proposition that might well alarm the French minister. But Condé facilitated his return, by yielding certain of those towns to France, and making full submissions. At this price he was restored to his rank and estates, as well as to the government of Burgundy. To the article of the royal marriage was coupled a stipulation, that the infanta, on becoming queen of France, should solemnly renounce, for herself and her heirs, all right of succession to the crown or possessions of Spain; and Louis himself was required to join in the renunciation.

The espousals were celebrated in June of the following year (1660), with unusual magnificence. The courts and monarchs met in the Isle of Pheasants. Condé was received and pardoned. The weak Gaston duke of Orleans dying about this time, Louis XIV. granted his appanage and title to his own brother Philip, hitherto duke of Anjou, from whom is descended the reigning house of Orleans. Mazarin might now be said to have completed his career, or, in a political view, to have completed the career of Richelieu. Every great object of policy proposed by the latter had been gained: the nobles were humbled; the house of Austria weakened; and France, enriched, in territory at least, at her expense, had attained compactness and a powerful frontier. In his private fortune, Mazarin had been as successful: he married his nieces to the first nobles of Europe, who, though prizing high blood, did not think it derogatory to ally with power, however upstart. The pecuniary wealth, the valuables and pictures, of Mazarin, were immense. He was fond of hoarding,—a passion that seized him when he first found himself banished and destitute. His love of pictures was as strong as his love of power-stronger, since it survived. A fatal malady had seized on the cardinal, whilst engaged in the conferences of the treaty, and worn by mental fatigue. He brought it home with him to the Louvre. He consulted Guenaud, the great physician, who told him that he had two months to live. Some days after receiving this dread mandate, Brienne perceived the cardinal in night-cap and dressing-gown, tottering along his gallery, pointing to his pictures, and exclaiming, "Must I quit all these?" He saw Brienne, and seized him: "Look!" exclaimed he, "look at that Correggio! this Venus of Titian ! that incomparable Deluge of Caracci! Ah! my friend, I must quit all these. Farewell, dear pictures, that I loved so dearly and that cost me so much!" His friend surprised him slumbering in his chair at another time, and murmuring, "Guenaud has said it! Guenaud has said it!" A few days before his death. he caused himself to be dressed, shaved, rouged, and painted,

"so that he never looked so fresh and vermilion" in his life. In this state he was carried in his chair to the promenade, where the envious courtiers cruelly rallied, and paid him ironical compliments on his appearance. Cards were the amusement of his death-bed, his hand being held by others; and they were only interrupted by the visit of the papal nuncio, who came to give the cardinal that plenary indulgence to which the prelates of the sacred college are officially entitled. Mazarin expired on the 9th of March, 1661.

The first act of Louis XIV. on the death of his minister was to summon the council, and communicate to it his resolve, to govern henceforth alone, commanding the chancellor and the secretaries of state strictly to sign no paper but at his express bidding. The disgrace of Fouquet, superintendent of finance, was the first act of the king's authority. Fouquet was an expensive, prodigal, and licentious character, most unfit to have the management of a treasury, which he often converted to his personal grandeur and indulgence. Louis wisely preferred Colbert, stern, economical and orderly. But to disgrace or supplant a minister in those days required address and dissimulation even in a monarch. In the midst of a fête "outrageously" splendid, given by the superintendent to Louis, the latter was tempted to arrest him. The measure was only deferred till Fouquet's fortress of Belleisle could be seized simultaneously with his person. His process and his papers, in which so many were mentioned and implicated, threw the court into a ferment. He was condemned to perpetual imprisonfhent, and seems to have merited his fall; although his want of honesty as treasurer was redeemed by such traits of generosity and worth, as had won the attach.ment of La Fontaine and the sympathy of madame de Sévigné.

The best proof of the disorder of the finances under Fouquet is, that for the last four years of his administration no accounts whatever were forthcoming of the revenue or the expenditure. In a series of years taxes had been heaped on taxes, the receipt not increasing. The customs especially had been so severe that regular commerce was sacrificed completely to the contraband trade; the product of the duties diminishing as the duties themselves mounted up; and agriculture had been treated with an equal lack of mercy and of wisdom. Colbert, the new finance superintendent, found matters in this state, with arrears and debts amounting to twice the ninety millions of livres at which the year's revenue was computed. A chamber of justice or commission examined the accounts of the farmers of the tax discovered their

1667.

AMOURS OF LOUIS XIV.

89

frauds, and forced them to disgorge much of their gains. And Colbert, by the sole means of simplifying the public accounts, was enabled to relieve the people of three millions of the taille, with many vexatious restrictions on commerce, to pay off at the same time the onerous debt of the Hôtel de Ville, and yet, without the substitution of a single new tax, to show n amount of revenue increasing every year. Thus, in lieu of such an account as that of 1661, which presented eighty millions of livres revenue, from which fifty millions charges and expense of raising were to be deducted, Colbert in 1671 raised a similar sum of eighty millions, free of all expense of levy, and from taxes felt less by the people. If the great enterprises and efforts of the monarch and the minister be at the same time taken into consideration,-the purchase of Dunkirk from England, the establishment of the Gobelins, and so many new manufactures, the commencement of the canal of Languedoc, the building of the Louvre, the Invalides, and Versailles,-we have cause to admire the miracles that mere economy can work in finance. This was Colbert's only principle, as no progress had then been made in finance or political economy as a science: and of this the administration of Colbert, especially in his laws respecting the commerce of grain, offers ample proof.

As long as Anne of Austria lived, France preserved its amicable connexions with Spain, and remained universally at peace; the slight aid afforded to the Dutch, in their naval war with England, scarcely forming an exception. This period is chiefly filled with the amours of the monarch. The first, at least the first principal, object of his affections, was mademoiselle de la Vallière, maid of honor to madame, wife of the king's brother. La Vallière's character for tenderness and softness of heart, reflected and expressed in her lovely countenance, has become proverbial. She became publicly acknowledged as the king's mistress, and their children, styled M. de Blois and mademoiselle de Vermandois, were reared with all the care and honors of the blood royal. But the king was still fickle. Mademoiselle de Mortemar, another maid of honor, soon caught his attention. She had won the good graces of the queen by her affected devotion. She also insinuated herself into La Vallière's favor, and thus obtained a full opportunity of playing off her fascinating arts upon Louis. This lady, better known under the name of madame de Montespan, was beautiful in person, her beauty being of a sterner cast than that of her rival. But her wit, which she loved to exercise at the expense of her unsuccessful gallants, was what chiefly attracted the king. Such charms were mos