La Grande Mademoiselle

The chair in the little room stood ready for the visitors who paid their respects to the sick man when the travellers halted.

The table was carried for the convenience of the secretary, who wrote upon it, sorted his papers, dusted his ink with scented gold-powder, and pasted great wafers over the silken floss and the English ribands which tied his private correspondence.

Richelieu, as he travelled, dictated army orders and diplomatic despatches. When the little procession arrived at a halting-place, everything was ready for its reception; the house in which the Cardinal was to lodge had been prepared, the entire floor to be occupied by him had been gutted so that no inner partitions could interfere with his progress. The wains stopped, the inclined plane was set in position against the side of the house, and the heavy machine bearing the sick-room was rolled slowly into the breach and engulfed without a tremor.

When it was possible the room was drawn aboard a boat and the Cardinal was transported by water; in that case when he reached home he was disembarked opposite his palace near the Port au Foin, and borne through the crowd of people, who struggled and crushed each other so that they might know how a Cardinal-Minister looked, lying in his bed and entering Paris, dying, yet triumphant, after he had vanquished all his enemies.

Richelieu saw all that passed; his perceptions were as keen and his judgment was as just as in the days of his vigorous manhood. Entering Paris in his bed on his return from Lyons, he saw among the prostrate courtiers of his own party a man who had been compromised by the conspiracy, and then and there he summoned him from his knees and ordered him to present himself at the palace and give an account of his actions. Richelieu's word was law; no one questioned it. The weeks which followed the return from Lyons were tedious. After the exposure of the conspiracy the Cardinal suspected every one, the King included. His tired eyes searched the corners of the King's bed-chamber for assassins. He strove to force the King to dismiss some of the officers of his guard, but at that Louis revolted.

After violent discussions and long recriminative dialogues the Cardinal resorted to heroic means. He shut himself up in his palace, refused to receive the King's ambassadors, and threatened to send in his resignation. Then the King yielded, and peace was made.

The two moribunds were together when the precautions for the national safety were taken against Gaston d'Orléans. In his declaration Louis told the deputies that he had forgiven his brother five separate and distinct times, and that he should forgive him once more and once only. The declaration made it plain that the King was firm in his determination to protect himself against his brother. Gaston was to be stripped of all power and to be deprived of the government of Auvergne; his gendarmerie and his light cavalry were to be suppressed. The King made the declaration to Mathieu Molé, December 1, 1642. That same day the Cardinal passed a desperate crisis, and it was known that he must die.

He prepared for death with the firmness befitting a man of his calibre. When his confessor asked him if he had forgiven his enemies, he answered that he had "no enemies save the enemies of the state."⁸⁶ There was some truth in the answer, and in that truth lay his title to glory. At home or abroad, in France or in foreign lands, Richelieu received the first force of every blow aimed at France. He was the Obstacle, and all hostility used him as a mark. He was the shield as well as the sword of the State. His policy was governed by two immutable ideas: 1. His own will by the will of the King; 2. France. His object was to subject all individual wills to the supreme royal will, and to develop French influence throughout Europe. We have seen the position which France had taken under his direction; he had accomplished work fully as important in the State. "The idea of monarchical power was akin to a religious dogma," said Ranke, "and he who rejected the idea expected to be pursued with the same rigour, and with nearly the same formalities, with which national justice pursued the heretic. The time for an absolute monarchy was ripe. Louis XIV. might come; he would find his bed ready.

Richelieu gave up the ghost December 4, 1642. The news was immediately carried to the King, who received it with the comment, "A great politician is dead."

In France the feeling of relief was general. No one doubted that the Cardinal's death would change everything. The exiles expected to be recalled; the prisoners expected to be set free; the Opposition looked forward to taking the reins of State, and the great, who in spite of their greatness were probably more or less badly fed, dreamed of an Abbey of Thélème. The mass of Frenchmen loved change for the sake of novelty.

The Parisians had hoped for the spectacle of a fine funeral, and they were not disappointed. Richelieu's body lay in state in its Cardinal's robes, and so many people visited him that the procession consumed one whole day and night passing his bier. The parade lasted nearly a week. The burial took place the thirteenth day of December. It was a public triumph. The funeral car, drawn by six horses, was considered remarkable. But the changes hoped for did not arrive. La Grande Mademoiselle was the first to recognise the fact that Louis XIII. had given the kingdom false hopes. It had been supposed that the Cardinal's demise would give the King power to make the people happy. The Cardinal was dead, and there had been no change. Despite all that Gaston had done, Mademoiselle loved him; she could not separate him from her idea of the glory of her house. She noted in her memoirs the visit made to the Louvre in his behalf:

As soon as I knew that Richelieu was dead I went to the King to beg him to show some kindness to Monsieur. I thought that I had taken a very favourable occasion for moving him to pity, but he refused to do what I asked him, and the next day he went to the palace to register the declaration against Monsieur (as the subject of it is known I need not mention it or explain it here). When he entered Parliament I wished to throw myself at his feet; I wished to beg of him not to go to that extremity against Monsieur; but some one had warned him of my intention and he sent word to me forbidding me to appear. Nothing could make him swerve from his injurious designs.

The 4th December, after Mademoiselle made her unsuccessful visit, Louis XIII. summoned Mazarin to finish the work that Richelieu had begun.

The 5th December Louis sent out a circular letter announcing the death of Richelieu; he cut short the rumours of a political crisis by stating that he was resolved to maintain all the establishments by him decreed in Council with the late Prime Minister, and he further stated that to advance the foreign affairs of France and also to advance the internal interests of the State, – as he had always advanced them, – he should maintain the existent national policy.

The riches amassed by the Cardinal passed into the hands of his heirs, and the King supplemented the legacies by the distribution of a few official appointments. Richelieu was gone from earth, but his spirit still governed France. "All the Cardinal's evils are right here!" cried Mademoiselle; "when he went, they remained."

Montglat said that they "found it difficult to announce the Cardinal's death. No one was willing to take the first step. They spoke in whispers. It was as if they were afraid that his soul would come back to punish them for saying that he could die." It was said that "even the King had so respected the Cardinal when he was alive, that he feared him when he was dead."

Under such conditions it was difficult to make a change of any kind; nevertheless, after weeks had passed – when the King had accustomed himself to independent action – a few changes came about gradually and stealthily, one by one.

The thirteenth day of January, 1643, Monsieur was given permission to call at Saint Germain and pay his respects to the King. The 19th, Bassompierre and two other lords emerged from the Bastille.

In February the Vendômes returned from exile. Old Mme. de Guise also took the road to Paris, and when she arrived her granddaughter, La Grande Mademoiselle, received her with open arms, and gave her a ball and a comedy, and collations composed of confitures, and fruits trimmed with English ribands; and when the ball was over and the guests were departing in the grey fog of early morning, old Madame and young Mademoiselle laid their light heads upon the same pillow and dreamed that Cardinals were always dying and exiles joyfully returning to their own.

As time went on the King's clemency increased and he issued pardons freely. The reason was too plain to every one; the end was at hand. Paris had acquired a taste for her kindly sovereign. Louis knew that he was nearing the tideless sea, – he spoke constantly of his past; he exhibited his skeleton limbs covered with great white scars to his family and his familiar friends; he told the story of his wrongs. He told how he had been brought to the state that he was in by his "executioners of doctors" and by "the tyranny of the Cardinal." He said that the Cardinal had never permitted him to do things as he had wished to do them, and that he had compelled him to do things which had been repugnant to him, so that at last even he "whom Heaven had endowed with all the endurances," had succumbed under the load that had been heaped upon him. His friends listened and were silent.

To the last Louis XIII. was faithful to the sacraments and to France. He performed all his secular duties. When he lay upon his death-bed he summoned his deputies so that they might hear him read the declaration bestowing the title of Regent upon Anne of Austria and delivering the actual power of the Crown into the hands of a prospective Council duly nominated.

Louis XIII. had put his house in order: he had nothing more to do on earth. His sickness was long and tedious, and attended by all that makes death desirable; by cruel pains, by distressful nausea, and by all the torments of a death by inches. The unhappy man was long in dying; now rallying, now sinking, with fluctuations which deranged the intrigues of the Court and agitated Saint Germain.

The King lay in the new château (the one built by his father); nothing remains of it but the "Pavillon Henri IV". Anne of Austria lived with the Court in the old château (the one familiar to all Parisians of the present day).

On "good days" the arrangement afforded the sufferer relative repose; but on "bad days," when he approached a crisis, the etiquette of the Court was torment. The courtiers hurried over to the new château to witness the death-agony. They crowded the sick-room and whispered with the celebrities who travelled daily from Paris to Saint Germain to visit the dying King. In the courtyard of the château the travellers' horses neighed and pawed the ground. Confused sounds and tormenting light entered by the windows; the air of the room was stifling and Louis begged his guests, in the name of mercy, to withdraw from his bed and let him breathe.

The crowds assembled in the courtyard hissed or applauded as the politicians entered or drove away. On the highway before the château the idle people stood waiting to receive the last sigh of the King, to be in at the death, or to make merry at the expense of celebrated men.

While the masters visited the dying King the coachmen, footmen, on-hangers, and other tributaries sat upon the carriage boxes, declared their politics, and issued their manifestos, and their voices rose above the neighing of the horses and ascended to the sick-room. When the tantalising periodically recurrent crises which kept the Court and country on foot were past, the celebrities and men of Parliament, with many of the courtiers, fled to Paris, where they forgot the sights and the sounds of the sick-room in the perfumed air of the Parisian salons.

Mademoiselle wrote of that time: "There never were as many balls as there were that year; and I went to them all."

The final crisis came the thirteenth day of May. Immediately after the King gave up the ghost, the Queen and all the Court retired from the death-chamber and made ready to depart from Saint Germain early in the morning. The moving was like breaking camp. At daybreak long files of baggage wagons laden with furniture and with luggage began to descend the hill of Saint Germain, and soon afterward crowded chariots, drawn by six horses, and groups of cavaliers, joined the lumbering wains. The suppressed droning of many voices accompanied the procession. At eleven o'clock silence fell upon the long, writhing line, and an army corps surrounding the royal mourners passed, escorted by the Marshals of France, dukes and peers, and the gentlemen of the Court, – all mounted.

The last of the battalions filed by the van of the procession, and the chariots and the wains moved on, mingling with the servitors and men of all trades, who in that day followed in the train of all the great.

Saint Germain was vacant. The last errand boy vanished, the murmur of the moving throng died in the distance; the shroud of silence wrapped the new château, and the curtain fell upon the fifth act of the reign of Louis XIII. There remained upon the stage only a corpse, light as a plume, watched by a lieutenant and his guard.

CHAPTER IV

I. The Regency – The Romance of Anne of Austria and Mazarin – Gaston's Second Wife. – II. Mademoiselle's New Marriage Projects. – III. Mademoiselle Would Be a Carmelite Nun – The Catholic Renaissance under Louis XIII. and the Regency. – IV. Women Enter Politics. The Rivalry of the Two Junior Branches of the House of France – Continuation of the Royal Romance.

I

The day after the death of Louis XIII. Paris was in a tumult. The people were on duty, awaiting their young King, Louis XIV., a boy less than five years old.

The country had been notified that the King would enter Paris by the Chemin du Roule and the Faubourg Saint Honoré. Some of the people had massed in the streets through which the procession was to pass; the others were hurrying forward toward the bridge of Neuilly. "Never did so many coaches and so many people come out of Paris," said Olivier d'Ormesson, who, with his family, spent the day at a window in the Faubourg Saint Honoré, watching to see who would follow and who would not follow in the train of Anne of Austria.

Ormesson and his friends were close observers, who drew conclusions from the general behaviour; they believed that they could read the fate of the country in the faces of the courtiers. France hoped that the Queen would give the nation the change of government which had been vainly looked for when Richelieu died.

Anne of Austria was a determined, self-contained woman, an enigma to the world. No one could read her thoughts, but the courtiers were sure of one thing: she would have no prime minister. She had suffered too deeply from the tyranny of Richelieu. She would keep her hands free! There was enough in that thought to assure to the Queen the sympathy of the people, and to arouse all the ambitious hopes of the nobility.

The Parisian flood met the royal cortège at Nanterre and, turning, accompanied it and hindered its progress. "From Nanterre to the gates of the city the country was full of wains and chariots," wrote Mme. de Motteville, "and nothing was heard but plaudits and benedictions." When the royal mourners surrounded by the multitude entered the Chemin du Roule the first official address was delivered by the Provost of the Merchants. The Regent answered briefly that she should instruct her son "in the benevolence which he ought to show to his subjects."⁸⁷ The applause was deafening. The cortège advanced so slowly that it was six o'clock in the evening when Anne of Austria ascended the staircase of the Louvre, saying that she could endure no more, and that she must defer the reception of condolences until the following day.

Saturday, the 16th, was devoted to hearing addresses and to receiving manifestations of reverence. The following Monday the Queen led her son to Parliament, where, contrary to the intention expressed in the last will and testament of Louis XIII., she, Anne of Austria, was declared Regent "with full, entire, and absolute authority."

The evening of that memorable day a radiant throng filled the stifling apartments of the Louvre. The great considered themselves masters of France. Some of the courtiers were gossiping in a corner; all were happy. Suddenly a rumour, first whispered, then spoken aloud, ran through the rooms, Mazarin had been made Chief of Council! The Queen had appointed him immediately after she returned to her palace from Parliament!

The courtiers exchanged significant glances. Some were astounded, others found it difficult to repress their smiles. The great had helped Anne of Austria to seize authority because they had supposed that she would be incapable of using it. Now that it was too late for them to protect themselves she had come forth with the energy and the initiative of a strong woman. In reality, though possessed of reticence, she was a weak woman, acting under a strong influence, but that fact was not evident.

The Queen-mother was forty-one years old. Her hair was beautiful; her eyes were beautiful; she had beautiful hands, a majestic mien, and natural wit. Her education had been as summary as Mademoiselle's; she knew how to read and how to write. She had never opened a book; when she first appeared in Council she was a miracle of ignorance. She had always been conversant with the politics of France because her natural love of intrigue had taught her many things concerning many people. She had learned the lessons of life and the world from the plays presented at the theatre, and from the witty and erudite frequenters of the salons. She was enamoured of intellect, she delighted in eloquence, she was a serious woman and a devoted mother. While Louis XIII. lived she was considered amiable and indulgent to the failings of "low people," because her indifference made her appear complaisant. As soon as she assumed the Regency her manner changed and her real nature came to the surface. She astonished her deputies by the breathless resistance which she opposed to any hint of a suggestion adverse to her mandates. After the royal scream first startled Parliament there was hardly a man of the French State who did not shrink at sight of the Regent's fair flushed face and the determined glitter of her eye. Anne of Austria was acting under guidance; the delicate hand of the woman lay under the firm hand of a master, and her lover's will, not the judgment of the deputies, was her law.

The people had received false impressions of the character of the Queen; some had judged her too favourably (Mme. de Motteville considered her beautiful); others – Retz among them – failed to do her justice.

Anne of Austria was neither a stupid woman nor a great Queen, although she was called both "great" and "foolish." She was born a Spaniard, and in thought and in feeling she was a Spaniard to the end of her life. Like all her race, she was imaginative; she indulged in dreams and erected altars to her ideals. Her life had betrayed her illusions, therefore she longed for vengeance; and as she was romantic, her vengeance took a sentimental form. A study of her nature, as furnished by the histories of her early years, makes her after-life and her administration of the Regency comprehensible. Despite the latitude of her morals she exhibited piety so detailed and so persistent that the Parisians were displeased; one of her friends commented upon it sharply. "She partakes of the communion too often, she reveres the relics of the saints, she is devoted to the Virgin, and she offers the presents and the novenas which the devout consider effectual when they are trying to obtain favours from Heaven." This from a Parisian was critical judgment.

As the Queen was born to rule, she could not comprehend any form of government but absolute monarchy. Her Parliament was shocked when she interrupted its Councils by shrill screams of "Taisez-vous!" But her behaviour was consistent; she believed that she expressed the authority of her son's kingship when she raised her high falsetto and shouted to her deputies to hold their tongues.

The new Minister, Mazarin, was of Sicilian origin, and forty years of age. In Paris, where he had officiated two years (1634-1636), as Papal Nuncio, he was known by his original Italian name, Mazarini. When he was first seen at Court he entered without ceremony and installed himself with the natural ease of an habitué returned after a forced absence. No one knew by what right he made himself at home. Richelieu profited by his versatility and made use of him in various ways. Mazarin was gifted with artistic taste, and he wielded a fluent pen. His appointment as representative of the Holy See had proved his capacity and blameless character. Paris knew that Richelieu had written to him from his death-bed: "I give my book into your hands with the approbation of our good Master, so that you may conduct it to perfection."

Almost immediately after de Richelieu breathed his last the King called Mazarin to the palace, where he remained hard at work as long as the King lived. He had no special duties, but he lived close to the royal invalid, did everything that de Richelieu had done, and made himself in every way indispensable. To the wounds of the tired spirit whose peace the scorching splendour of the great Cardinal had withered the calm presence of the lesser Cardinal was balm. Mazarin employed his leisure as he saw fit; how he employed it the world knew later. He was seldom seen either in the palace or out of it. When Louis XIII. died and the people, little and great, thronged the streets and the highways and flocked to Parliament to witness the establishment of the Regent, Mazarin was not in evidence. When the Provost's address and the other addresses were read, and when the people welcomed their young King, Mazarin was not seen, and as he was not at the funeral of the King, and as no one had heard from him since the King's death, it was believed that he had returned to his own country.

Prominent Parisians who knew everything and every one had formed no opinion of Mazarin's character or of his personal appearance. He had been Nuncio; that was all that they knew of him. Olivier d'Ormesson, who went everywhere, knew every one of any importance in Paris, yet when Mazarin had been Prime Minister six months, d'Ormesson spoke of him as if he had seen him but once. In d'Ormesson's Journal we read:

Saturday morning, 4 November (1643). M. le Cardinal, Mazarin, came to the Council to-day. He was late. The Chancellor had been waiting for him half an hour. Cardinal Mazarin took his place as Chief of Council and was the first to sign the resolutions; he wrote: Cardinal Massarini. At first, as he knew neither the order of the Court nor the names of the members, he was somewhat confused. Judging by appearances he knows nothing of financial affairs. He is tall, he carries himself well, he is handsome. His eyes are clear and spiritual, the colour of his hair is chestnut brown; the expression of his face is very gentle and sweet. Monsieur the Chancellor instructed him in the Parliamentary procedure and then every one addressed him directly and before they addressed any one else…

The new Chief of Council was as modest as the unobtrusive Cardinal who assumed the duties of the great de Richelieu. Mazarin found better employment for his talents than the exhibition of his pomp. His design was to render his position impregnable, and we know what means he selected for its achievement. In his pocket diary (which the National Library preserves) he employed three languages, French, Spanish, and Italian. Whenever the Queen is mentioned the language is Spanish. The ingenuous frankness with which the writer of the strange notes recorded his intentions enables us to follow him step by step through all the labyrinths of his relations with royalty. His reflections make it clear that his aim was the Queen's heart: in the record dated August, 1634, we read: "If I could believe what they tell me – that her Majesty is making use of me because she needs my services, and that she has no inclination for me, – I would not stay here three days."

Apropos of his enemies he wrote: "Well, they are laying their heads together and planning a thousand intrigues to lessen my chances with her Majesty."

(The Queen's friends had warned her that her Minister would compromise her.)

"The Abbess of the Carmelites has been talking to her Majesty. When she talked the Queen wept. She told the Abbess that in case the subject should be mentioned again she would not visit the convent."

Mazarin's diary conveys the impression that the man who edited it so carefully feared that he might forget something that he wished to say to the Queen. He made a note of everything that he meant to advise her to do, and of all the appeals and all the observations that he intended to make.

Following is a very simple reminder of words to be used when next he should see the Queen alone.

They tell me that her Majesty is forced to make excuses for her manifestations of regard for me… This is such a delicate subject that her Majesty ought to pity me … ought to take compassion on me, even if I speak of it often … I have no right to doubt, since, in the excess of her kindness, her Majesty has assured me that nothing can ever lower me from the place in her favour which she has deigned to give me … but in spite of everything because Fear is the inseparable attendant of Love … etc.

The "memorandum" which follows this last note gave proof of the speed of his wooing, and of his progress: "The jaundice caused by an excessive love…"

That Mazarin felt that he was strong was shown by the fact that he made suggestions to the Queen and offered her advice of a peculiarly intimate character. The note which follows covers the ground of one of the lines of argument used by him for the subjection of his royal lady and mistress:

"Her Majesty ought to apply herself to the winning over of all hearts to my cause; she should do so by making me the agent from whose hand they receive all the favours that she grants them."

After Anne of Austria qualified the Cardinal by the exequatur of her love, Mazarin dictated the language of the State. In his diary we find, verbatim, the diplomatic addresses and suggestions which were to be delivered by the Queen.

While the Queen's lover was engaged in maintaining his position against determined efforts to displace him, France enjoyed a few delightful moments. The long-continued anxiety had passed, the tension of the nation's nerves had yielded to the beneficent treatment of the conscientious counsellors, and the peaceful quiet of a temporary calm gave hope to the light-minded and strength and courage to the far-sighted, who foresaw the coming storm. To the majority of the people the resplendent victory of Rocroy (19th May, 1643), which immediately followed the death of Louis XIII., seemed a proof that God had laid His protecting hand upon the infant King and upon his mother.

This belief was daily strengthened. War had been carried to a foreign country, and the testimony of French supremacy had come back from many a battle-field. In the eyes of the world we occupied a brilliant position. Success had followed success in our triumphant march from Rocroy to the Westphalian treaties. Our diplomacy had equalled our military strategy and the strength of our arms; and a part of our glory had been the result of the efforts of the Prime Minister who ruled our armies and the nation. In the opinion of our foreign enemies Mazarin had fully justified Richelieu's confidence and the choice of Anne of Austria.

His selection of agents had shown that he was in possession of all his senses; he had divined the value of the Duc d'Enghien and appointed him General-in-chief, though the boy was but twenty-two years old; he had sounded the character of Turenne; he had judiciously listed the names of the men to be appointed for the diplomatic missions, and he had proved that he knew the strength of France by ordering the ministers to hold their ground, to "stand firm," and not to concern themselves either with the objections or the resistance of other nations. The majority of the French people failed to recognise Cardinal Mazarin's services until the proper time for their recognition had passed, but Retz distinctly stated that Mazarin was popular in Paris during the first months of his ministry:

France saw a gentle and benignant Being sitting on the steps of the throne where the harsh and redoubtable Richelieu had blasted, rather than governed men. The harassed country rejoiced in its new leader,⁸⁸ who had no personal wishes and whose only regret was that the dignity of his episcopal office forbade him to humiliate himself before the world as he would have been glad to do. He passed through the streets with little lackeys perched behind his carriage; his audiences were unceremonious, access to his presence was absolutely free, and people dined with him as if he had been a private person.

The arrest of the Duc de Beaufort and the dispersion of the Importants astonished the people, but did not affright them. Hope was the anchor of the National Soul. They who had formed the party of Marie de Médicis and the party of Anne of Austria hoped to bring about the success of their former projects, and to enforce peace everywhere; they hoped to substitute a Spanish alliance for the Protestant alliance. The great families hoped to regain their authority at the expense of the authority of the King. Parliament hoped to play a great political part. The people hoped for peace; they had been told that the Queen had taken a Minister solely for the purpose of making peace. The entire Court from the first Prince of the Blood to the last of the lackeys lived in hope of some grace or some favour, and as to that they were rarely disappointed, for the Administration "refused nothing." Honours, dignities, positions, and money were freely dispensed, not only to those who needed them, but to those who were already provided with them. La Feuillade said that there were but four words in the French language: "The Queen is good!"