Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin/Chapter III

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Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin
by Victor Cousin, translated by Mary Louise Booth
Chapter III
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4032858Secret History of the French Court under Richelieu and Mazarin — Chapter IIIMary Louise BoothVictor Cousin
​

SECOND PART.

Madame de Chevreuse and Mazarin.

CHAPTER III.

MAY, JUNE, AND JULY, 1643.


Madame de Chevreuse returns to the Court and to Paris.—New Arrangements of the Queen.—Anne of Austria and Mazarin.—Efforts of Madame de Chevreuse in favor of the former Party of the Queen and against the Policy and the Partisans of Richelieu.—Her Solicitations in behalf of Châteauneuf, the Vendômes, and La Rochefoucauld.—Her Home and Foreign Policy.—Madame de Chevreuse the true Chief of the Party of the Importants.—Defeated in her efforts to gain the Queen, she resolves to have recourse to other means.—A Crisis becomes inevitable; it occurs on the occasion of the Quarrel between Madame de Montbazon and Madame de Longueville.


On the 20th of June, 1643, the following article appeared in Renaudot's Gazette, the Moniteur of the times:[1]

Their Majesties having despatched the Sieur de Boispille, steward of the household of the Duke de Chevreuse, to Brussels, to hasten the return of his wife, the duchess, she set out from there on the 6th of this month, accompanied by twenty carriages filled with the noblest lords and ladies of that court, who escorted her as far as Notre Dame de Hau. The next day she reached Mons in Hainault, passing through the Spanish army that lies encamped in the valley, where she lodged, and thence by Condé arrived on the 9th at Cambrai, being everywhere honorably received by the governors and the ​nobles of the country, and escorted by them a league beyond the said Cambrai, where the Sieur d'Hocquincourt[2] received her on the French frontier, and, conducting her to Peronne, of which he was governor, gave her there a magnificent reception. She was visited there by the Duchess de Chaulne, and on the 12th was conducted thence by the Duke de Chaulne[3] to his house, where she was splendidly entertained. Leaving Chaulne the same day, she reached Roye, where she lodged, and on the 13th arrived at Versine, the house of the Sieur de Saint Simon, brother of the duke of the same name, where the Duke de Chevreuse was awaiting her, and where she was received and treated in the same manner. Finally, on the 14th of this month, she reached Paris, ten years after having quitted it; in which absence this princess has shown what a brave spirit like her own can do, despite the strokes of adverse fortune which her constancy has surmounted. She went instantly to salute their majesties, in which visit she received so many tokens of the queen's affection, and gave to her so many proofs of zeal in every thing that related to her interests, and also of entire resignation to her will, that it seems most evident that neither absence, nor distance, nor the cares of business, can effect any change in any but vulgar souls. But the great retinue of court nobles who visit her continually, and fill her spacious palace to overflowing,[4] does not inspire one with so much ​admiration as does the fact that neither the fatigues of her long journeys, nor the ills of her rigorous fortune, have wrought any change in her natural magnanimity, nor, which is still more extraordinary, in her beauty.

Behold the seeming!—see now the reality. Madame de Chevreuse was then forty-three years of age. Her beauty, which had been tried by so many fatigues, was still surviving, but was beginning to decline. Her love for admiration still existed, but in a weaker degree, while her taste for politics took the lead. She had seen the most celebrated statesmen in Europe; she knew almost all the courts, with the strength and the weakness of the different governments, and she had gained in her journeyings a vast experience. She hoped to find Queen Anne such as she had left her, disliking business and very willing to let herself be guided by those for whom she had a particular affection; and as Madame de Chevreuse believed herself the first affection of the queen, she thought to exercise over her the two-fold ascendency of friendship and of talent. More ambitious for her friends than for herself, she saw them already recompensed for their long sacrifices, everywhere replacing the creatures of Richelieu, and at their head as prime minister, him for whom she had separated herself from the triumphant cardinal and had endured an imprisonment of ten years. She did not attach much importance to Mazarin, whom she did not know, whom she had never seen, ​and who seemed to her without support at the court and in France, while on the contrary she felt herself sustained by all its rank, its power, and its credit. She believed herself sure of Monsieur, who could easily rule his wife, the beautiful Marguerite, sister of Charles IV. Having just returned from Flanders, she could dispose of nearly all of the house of Rohan and of the house of Lorraine, particularly of the Duke de Guise and the Duke d'Elbeuf. She could count on the Vendômes, on the Duke d'Epernon, and on La Vieuville, her former companions of exile in England; on the Bouillons, if maltreated; on La Rochefoucauld, whose spirit and pretensions were known to her; on Lord Montagu, who had been her admirer, and who then possessed the entire confidence of Anne of Austria; on La Châtre, the friend of the Vendômes and colonel-general of the Swiss, on Tréville, on Beringhen, on Jars, on La Porte, and on many others who had lately quitted prison, exile, and disgrace. Among the women, her mother and sister-in-law, Madame de Montbazon and Madame de Guymené, the two great beauties of the day, who drew after them a numerous train of old and new admirers, seemed to her already gained. She knew, too, that one of the first acts of the new regent had been to recall near her person two noble victims of Richelieu, Madame de Senecé and Madame de Hautefort, whose piety and virtue would usefully conspire with other influences to give them a valuable support in the conscience of Anne of Austria. All these calculations seemed certain, all these hopes well founded, and Madame de Chevreuse quitted Brussels in the firm persuasion that she was about to enter the Louvre in triumph. She was mistaken; the queen was changed, or very nearly so.

If the time has come for restoring Louis XIII. to the place in history that belongs to him, it is also time to do justice to Anne of Austria. She was no ordinary person. Beautiful and needing to be loved, and at the same time vain and haughty, she had been deeply wounded by the coldness and ​neglect of her husband, and, in a spirit of vengeance as well as of coquetry, she had amused herself by exciting more than one passion in those about her, but without ever overstepping the limits of Spanish gallantry. She had submitted with impatience to be treated contemptuously, deprived of all power, and held in a sort of permanent disgrace by the king and Richelieu; but this aroused in her heart a subdued yet bitter opposition to the government of the cardinal. She had even been engaged in various enterprises which, as we have seen, had been unsuccessful and had involved her in great danger. She then called to her aid another of her womanly and Spanish talents, dissimulation. Misfortune speedily taught her this "ugly, but necessary virtue," as Madame de Motteville calls it,[5] and we have seen that she made rapid progress in it. Naturally indolent, she had no love for business; yet she was sensible and even courageous, and capable of understanding and of following counsel. Hitherto she had played a double game; striving to make to herself partisans in secret, to encourage and urge forward the malcontents, to endeavor to escape from the yoke of the cardinal, and notwithstanding, to look pleasantly on him, to lull him by false demonstrations, to humiliate herself when necessary, to gain time—and to wait. After the death of Richelieu, feeling herself stronger both by her two children and by the incurable malady of Louis XIII., she had but a single aim to which she sacrificed every thing—that of being regent—and she succeeded in this, thanks to a rare patience, to infinite caution, and to an adroit and well-sustained course of conduct; thanks also to the unhoped-for service rendered her by Mazarin, the principal minister of the king. Anne neglected nothing in order to subdue the king's resentment; she unceasingly lavished on him the tenderest cares, passing both days and nights by his side; she protested with tears that she had never failed in her duty to him, that ​she was a stranger to the plot of Chalais, and that all the accusations which had been heaped upon her were without foundation. All this had but little effect on the mind of the king, who contented himself with saying:[6] "In my present state, it is my duty to forgive her, but I am not obliged to believe her." He had always suspected her of being in correspondence with Spain and under the sway of Madame de Chevreuse, and he wished to exclude her from the regency, as well as his brother, the Duke d'Orleans, whom he neither loved nor respected. Mazarin had great difficulty in making him comprehend that it was impossible to deprive the queen of the title of regent, and that all that could be done was to take from her all power, by the appointment of a carefully arranged council whose advice she would be obliged to follow by acting in conformity with the voice of the majority. Anne submitted to these hard and humiliating conditions without a murmur; she acknowledged the royal declaration of the 21st of April, which restricted her authority within the narrowest limits, and perpetuated the exile of Châteauneuf and of Madame de Chevreuse; and signed it, pledging herself to maintain it. After all, she was in possession of the regency; and as she owed this to the same scheme which limited her power, far from being displeased with its author, she regarded it as a first service which merited some acknowledgment. Observe a fact which most historians have overlooked, but which has not escaped the penetration of La Rochefoucauld, who mingled in all the intrigues of the day: "The Cardinal Mazarin," says he, "justified in some sort this harsh declaration; he represented it as an important service rendered to the queen, it being the only means which could persuade the king to consent to the regency. He showed her that it mattered little to her on what conditions she had received it, provided it was with the consent of the king, and that means would not be ​wanting eventually for strengthening her power and enabling her to govern alone. These reasons, which were supported somewhat by appearances and urged with all the art of the cardinal, were the more readily accepted by the queen, that he who advanced them was beginning to be not altogether disagreeable to her."

Mazarin, in truth, had had no share in the annoyances which the queen had endured; she had therefore no reason for disliking him except that he had been one of the intimate friends of Richelieu; but he had none of the disagreeable airs of the cardinal, he had taken part in the recall of the exiles, and had shielded the queen's regency from the suspicions of the king. His ability was proved, and Anne with her indolence and inexperience, in the beginning of a reign beset on every side from without and within with the greatest difficulties, had need of some one who would leave to her the honor of supreme authority while he took upon himself the weight of affairs; and she saw no one among her friends whose capacity was sufficiently tried to inspire her with confidence. She appreciated the talents and address of La Rochefoucauld, but she could not think of so young a minister. The two men nearest her, the Duke de Beaufort, youngest son of the Duke de Vendôme, and her grand almoner, Potier, Bishop of Beauvais, were devoted servants for whom she intended to do much at some future day, but whom she dared not yet intrust with the government. To wait a little, therefore, seemed the wisest course to her. Mazarin had more than one secret interview with her. He showed himself zealous to serve her, and not unwilling to sacrifice to her some of the former ministers of Richelieu who had displeased her most, and to act in concert with those of her friends to whom she deemed herself under indispensable obligations. He had the art to put himself on good terms with the Bishop of Beauvais, the spiritual director of the queen. He deceived him, as he deceived the Duke de Beaufort and all the rest, by affecting great disinterestedness, and ​by pretending to be on the point of going to enjoy the privileges and honors of the cardinalate at Rome, in the bosom of his family and the home of the arts.[7]

Lastly, there is a delicate point which La Rochefoucauld scarcely touches, but which history cannot leave in the shade without ignoring the cause which first gave power to Mazarin, and soon became the knot and the key of his position—Anne of Austria was a woman, and Mazarin did not displease her. To quote our own words in another work,[8] "After having been so long oppressed, the royal authority delighted Anne of Austria, and her Spanish soul craved respect and homage. Mazarin lavished them upon her. He threw himself at her feet in order to reach her heart. In her heart she was scarcely affected by the grave accusation which was already raised against him—that he was a foreigner—for she was also a foreigner; perhaps, indeed, this was a secret attraction to her, and she found a peculiar charm in conversing with her prime minister in her mother-tongue as with a fellow-countryman and a friend. Add to all this the mind and the manners of Mazarin; he was pliant and insinuating; always master of himself, of an immovable serenity in the gravest emergencies, full of confidence in his good star, and diffusing his confidence everywhere about him. It must also be said that—cardinal as he was—Mazarin was not a priest; that, nourished in the maxims of the gallantry of her country, Anne of Austria had always loved to please; that she was forty-one years of age and was still beautiful; that her minister was of the same age, and that he was well-made, with a pleasing face, in which refinement was joined with dignity. He had quickly perceived that without family, without establishment, and without support in France, surrounded by rivals and by enemies, all his power was in the ​queen. He therefore endeavored first of all to reach her heart, as Richelieu before him had attempted; but he possessed many more means of succeeding; and the handsome and pleasing cardinal did succeed. Once master of her heart, he easily guided the mind of Anne of Austria, and taught her the difficult art of always pursuing the same end under the most varied guises, according to the diversity of circumstances."

But how much time and pains were needed for Mazarin to bring Anne of Austria to this point, and to triumph over all her scruples! The history of the progress of Mazarin in the heart of the queen is the true history of the first three months of the regency. Anne commenced on the 18th of May, 1643, by easily persuading herself to retain, for a time at least, the minister whom Louis XIII. had bequeathed and commended to her. We shall see to what point she had arrived on the 2d of September of the same year.

It was impossible for her to preserve the order of the royal declaration which established Mazarin as prime minister and presiding officer of the council under the Prince, since she wished to have all this part of the testament of the late king broken by the parliament as limiting the authority of the regent, contrary to all usages. It was therefore agreed in preliminary cabals that Mazarin should renounce the sort of right which the royal declaration gave him, but that at the same time, the regent, freed from all fetters, should voluntarily offer him a similar place, so that he would hold his power, not from the will of the deceased king, but from the free gift of the queen. All this was concluded between them with such secrecy that the surprise was great and general when, on the 18th of May, the parliament was seen to invest the regent with the sovereign authority, while on the same day the Cardinal Mazarin was placed at the head of the cabinet. This was the result of a skilfully contrived plot which the queen had concealed from all her friends who were opposed to Mazarin. ​And from this day, too, the cardinal could perceive that he had found in Queen Anne, in respect to dissimulation and diplomatic conduct, a pupil worthy of himself, and already far advanced in her studies.

Mazarin soon established himself in the favor of Anne of Austria by his double talent as a laborious and indefatigable statesman and as a finished courtier. He took all the cares of government upon himself, while he never hesitated to yield her all the honors of success. He employed wonderful skill and assiduity in instructing without ever wounding her. His great art was to persuade her that he only wished for power in order to serve her better; that, a foreigner, without family and without friends, he depended entirely on her and wished to draw his support from her alone. Such language, supported by ability of the first order, could not fail to please, and it can be said with truth that the widow of Louis XIII. had already another Richelieu near her in the beginning of June, 1643, when Madame de Chevreuse quitted Brussels.

The disciple and the confidant of Richelieu and Louis XIII., Mazarin had inherited their opinions and their feelings concerning Madame de Chevreuse. He understood her although he had never seen her, and he profoundly distrusted her as well as her friend Châteauneuf. A favorite of such talents and of such a character, full of persuasion and of courage, an open advocate for peace, and secretly attached to the Duke of Lorraine, to Austria, and to Spain, who had at her beck an ambitious and capable man, was utterly incompatible with the favor to which he aspired, and with all his diplomatic and warlike designs. He felt that there was not room enough for both in the heart of Anne of Austria, and he prepared to combat her in his own manner, stealthily and by degrees as occasions might offer.

Mazarin possessed a secret and powerful ally against Madame de Chevreuse in the new and growing taste of the queen for repose and for a tranquil life. She had formerly been ​somewhat restless because she had been oppressed; now, having attained the supreme power, and happy in the beginning of a new attachment, she dreaded troubles and adventures, and feared Madame de Chevreuse almost as much as she loved her. The artful cardinal studied to nourish this disquietude. He was supported by the Princess de Condé, then high in favor with the queen by reason of her own merit, by that of her husband, M. le Prince, by the brilliant exploits of her son, the Duke d'Enghien, by the services of her son-in-law, the Duke de Longueville, who had honorably commanded the armies in Italy and Spain, and by the virtues of her daughter, Madame de Longueville, but lately married and already the delight of the salons and the court. Madame the Princess, Charlotte-Marguerite de Montmorenci, formerly so celebrated for her beauty, had also, at one time, loved homage like Queen Anne; but, although still beautiful, she had now become grave and zealously religious. She disliked Madame de Chevreuse, and she detested Châteauneuf, who, in 1632, had presided at Toulouse at the judgment and condemnation of her brother Henri. She labored, therefore, in concert with Mazarin, to destroy or at least to weaken Madame de Chevreuse with the queen. They were armed with the last will of Louis XIII., and nearly succeeded in raising a scruple in the queen as to violating it so speedily. They urged that days once gone by could never return, that the amusements and the passions of early youth were "bad accompaniments[9] of a riper ​age," that before all else she was a mother and a queen, that Madame de Chevreuse, passionate and frivolous as she was, no longer suited her, that she had never brought happiness to any one, and that by loading her with riches and honors, she would sufficiently acquit herself of her debt of gratitude.

To do honor to her old friend, the queen sent La Rochefoucauld to meet her, but charged him to inform her of the new arrangements which she would find on her return. La Rochefoucauld had an earnest conversation with Anne of Austria, in which he did every thing to win her back to Madame de Chevreuse: "I spoke to her," says he, "perhaps, more freely than I ought. I placed before her eyes the fidelity of Madame de Chevreuse, her long services, and the harshness of the ​misfortunes which she had drawn upon herself. I entreated her to consider of what fickleness she would be thought capable, and what interpretation would be given to this fickleness, should she prefer Cardinal Mazarin to Madame de Chevreuse. This conversation was long and stormy; I saw clearly that I had incensed her."[10] However, he went to meet the duchess on the road to Brussels, and encountered her at Roye. Montagu had preceded him. La Rochefoucauld came in the name of the queen; Montagu in the name of Mazarin. This was no longer the brilliant Montagu, the friend of Holland and of Buckingham and the impassioned cavalier of Madame de Chevreuse, age had changed him also; he had turned devotee, and he entered the church a few years after. He still remained attached to the object of his former adoration; but before all else, he belonged to the queen, and consequently, to the interests of Mazarin.[11]

He came to place the homage of the prime minister at the feet of Madame de Chevreuse, and to strive to ally the old and the new favorites. La Rochefoucauld, always eager to assume a prominent character together with the air of a great politician, asserts that he "entreated Madame de Chevreuse not to attempt to rule the queen at first, but simply to endeavor to regain the place in her heart and affections of which she had been deprived, and to place herself in a position some day to protect or to destroy the cardinal, according to circumstances and his future course of conduct." Madame de Chevreuse wished also to hear the counsels of another of her friends—less illustrious but more devoted—that Alexandre de Campion, whom she had known two years before at Brussels, and who, ​after the death of the Count de Soissons, had entered the service of the Vendômes, together with his brother Henri, an officer of tried courage. She invited Alexandre de Campion to come to meet her at Peronne, and he seems to have given her the same counsel as La Rochefoucauld, if we may judge from the note which he wrote to her at the end of May, before quitting Paris to rejoin her:[12] "I do not know," says he, "what M. Montagu may negotiate with you, but I am certain that he will offer you money on the part of Cardinal Mazarin to pay your debts, and also that he has held out hopes to him of forming a firm friendship between you and him. I do not believe that he will find you strongly disposed to make this alliance, both because your best friends in France are not on very good terms with him, and because he seems leagued with the friends of the late cardinal. For my part, the counsel which I take the liberty of giving you on this subject is, that you do not take any decided resolution until you shall have seen the queen, by whose sentiments you will no doubt gladly shape your course, both on account of the zeal which you have for her and the friendship which she entertains for you. I am sure from my knowledge of your character that I shall have more trouble in holding you back than in urging you on, seeing the friendship which you have done me the honor to confess to me for a certain person, (evidently Châteauneuf;) but apart from this consideration and that of many other honorable men embarked in the same cause, I do not see the necessity of perpetuating a hatred so far as even to carry it beyond the death of our enemies. I have no love for the cardinal, but I wish no harm to any of his race. After all, Madame, all that I can write is not the twentieth part of what I have to say to you; and I dare assure you that at Peronne you will be as well informed of the prevailing feeling as if you were in Paris." Madame de Chevreuse listened to the counsels of her ​three friends and promised to follow them—and in fact, she did follow them, but in conformity with her character and with the interests of the party whom she had long served and would not now abandon. As the queen showed much joy at seeing her again, she did not at once perceive the change which had taken place in her feelings, and she persuaded herself that her constant presence would soon restore to her her former empire.

The first thing that Madame de Chevreuse proposed was the return of Châteauneuf. La Rochefoucauld gives us here a portrait of the ex-keeper of the seals, somewhat flattering perhaps, but not at all exaggerated, in which he imperfectly discloses the plan of the government which his friends, the Importants, wished to give to France—the same which the earliest Frondeurs afterwards acknowledged, and still later, the friends of the Duke de Bourgogne, the last Importants of the seventeenth century: "The good sense and the long political experience of M. de Châteauneuf," says La Rochefoucauld,[13] "were well known to the queen. He had endured a rigorous imprisonment for having been in her interest; he was firm, decisive, attached to the State, and more capable than any other in France of re-establishing the ancient system of government which Cardinal de Richelieu had begun to destroy. He was, besides, intimately attached to Madame de Chevreuse, and she well knew the surest methods of ruling him. She therefore urged his return with many entreaties." Châteauneuf had already obtained permission to exchange the gloomy prison where he had pined for ten years for a sort of exile on one of his estates.[14] Madame de Chevreuse demanded the end

​of even this modified exile, and that she might again see him who had suffered so deeply for the queen and for herself. Mazarin perceived that it was necessary to grant this, but he yielded slowly, without seeming of himself to repulse Châteauneuf, yet urging the necessity of managing the Condés, especially Madame the Princess, who, as we have already said, hated him as the judge of Henri de Montmorenci. Châteauneuf was therefore recalled, but with this reserve, professedly accorded to the last wishes of the king, that he should not appear at court, but remain at his estate of Montrouge, near Paris, where his friends could visit him.

The question was how to transfer him thence to the ministry. Châteauneuf was old, it is true, but neither his energy nor his ambition had abandoned him. and Madame de Chevreuse regarded it as a debt of honor which she owed him to replace him in the office of keeper of the seals, which he had formerly filled and had lost for her sake, and which all the former friends of the queen saw with indignation in the hands of one of the most servile of the creatures of Richelieu, Pierre Séguier. Séguier was a very capable man, laborious, well-informed, full of resources, and with no character of his own, whose suppleness, joined with his ability, rendered him a convenient and useful tool for a prime minister. His conduct in the trial of De Thou had made him odious. He had forced Monsieur to submit to an interrogation in this same affair;

​and previous to this in the affair of 1637, he had not respected the asylum of the queen at the Val-de-Grace. He had enriched himself, and his fortune had procured illustrious alliances for his daughters. An outcry was raised against him, and his dismissal was demanded from every side. Two things saved him. First, his successor could not be agreed upon. Châteauneuf was the candidate of the Importants and of Madame de Chevreuse, but President Bailleul, the superintendent of the finances, coveted the place for himself, the Bishop de Beauvais feared such a colleague in the cabinet as Châteauneuf, and the Condés opposed him. Then Séguier had a sister who was very dear to the queen, the Mother Jeanne, superior of the convent of the Carmelites of Pontoise. The virtues of the sister pleaded in favor of the brother, and Montagu, who was wholly devoted to the Mother Jeanne, warmly defended the keeper of the seals.

Madame de Chevreuse, perceiving that it was almost impossible to surmount so strong an opposition, took another road whereby to arrive at the same end; she contented herself with asking the smallest place in the cabinet for her friend, knowing that once there, Châteauneuf would know how to accomplish the rest, and to elevate his position. President Bailleul, superintendent of the finances, having shown an inferior capacity for this place, it became necessary to give him a new assistant when the Count d'Avaux, with whom he shared the duties of the office, went to Munster.[15] Madame de Chevreuse insinuated to the queen that she could easily introduce Châteauneuf into the council by appointing him the successor of D'Avaux, a modest position which could not excite the distrust of Mazarin; but the latter understood the manœuvre and baffled it. He easily persuaded the queen to ​sustain Bailleul, who was chancellor of her household, and for whom she had a regard, by placing near him as controller-general the able D'Hemery, who afterwards superseded him. At the same time that she was thus laboring to extricate from disgrace the man on whom all her political hopes depended, Madame de Chevreuse, not daring to attack Mazarin openly, insensibly mined the earth about him and prepared his ruin. Her practised eye enabled her easily to recognize the most favorable point of attack in the assault which was to gain the surrender of the queen, and the watchword which she gave was to maintain and to heighten the general feeling of reprobation which all the exiles, on returning to France, had excited and diffused against the memory of Richelieu. This feeling existed everywhere,—in the noble families, decimated or despoiled, in the Church, too sternly ruled not to be cruelly oppressed, in the parliaments, reduced to a mere judiciary body above which they very much aspired—it was still living in the heart of the queen, who could not forget the deep humiliation to which she had been subjected by Richelieu, and the fate which he had probably held in store for her. These tactics succeeded; a tempest rose on every side against violence and tyranny, and consequently, against the creatures of Richelieu, which Mazarin had much trouble in abating.[16]

Madame de Chevreuse then entreated the queen to repair the long misfortunes of the Vendômes by giving them either the admiralty, to which immense power was attached, or the government of Brittany, which the head of the family, César de Vendôme, had formerly possessed, and which he held by the authority of his father, Henri IV., and by inheritance from his step-father, the Duke de Mercoeur. This was at once demanding the restoration of a friendly house, and the ​ruin of the two families which had most served Richelieu, and could best sustain Mazarin. The Marshal de La Meilleraie, grand master of the artillery, and recently invested with the government of Brittany, was a warrior of authority, and in possession of several regiments. The Duke Maillé de Brézé, step-brother of Richelieu, was also a marshal, and governor of the important province of Anjou; and his son, Armand de Brézé, then at the head of the admiralty, passed already, despite his youth, for the first sailor of his time. Mazarin warded off the blow aimed at him by the duchess by force of address and patience; never refusing, always eluding, and calling to his aid his great ally, as he styled it, Time. Before the return of Madame de Chevreuse, he had himself endeavored to gain the Vendômes, and to attach them to his interest. At the death of Richelieu, he had contributed much to their recall, and had since made them every kind of advances, but he soon perceived that he could not satisfy them except by ruining himself. The Duke César de Vendôme, son of Henri IV. and the Duchess de Beaufort, had early made the most lofty pretensions, and had shown himself as turbulent and factious as a legitimate prince. His life had been passed in rebellions and conspiracies, and in 1641 he had been forced to fly to England on the charge of an attempt to assassinate Richelieu. He did not return to France until after the death of the cardinal, and, as may well be imagined, he breathed nothing but vengeance against his memory. "He had much spirit," says Madame de Motteville, "and that was all the good that could be said of him."[17] To the ambition of the Vendômes, Mazarin skilfully opposed that of the Condés, who did not wish the aggrandizement of a house too near their own. They also owed it to themselves to sustain the Brézés, who had become their relatives by the marriage of Claire Clemence Maillé de Brézé, daughter of the duke and sister of ​the young and valiant admiral, with the, Duke d'Enghien; so that Mazarin had little trouble in retaining the command of the fleet and of the principal maritime towns of France in faithful hands. But it was very difficult to preserve Brittany to the Meilleraies against the claims of a son of Henri IV., who had formerly possessed it, and who claimed it as a sort of family property. Mazarin therefore resigned himself to the sacrifice of La Meilleraie, but first he made it of the least possible value. He persuaded the queen to assume to herself the government of Brittany, and to appoint a lieutenant-general, evidently commissioned over the Vendômes, who should reside with La Meilleraie. The latter could not be offended at being second to the queen; and to arrange every thing so as to fully satisfy a personage of such consequence, Mazarin asked for him the title of duke which the late king had promised him, together with the reversion of the grand mastership of the artillery for his son—the same son to whom he afterwards gave with his name, his own niece, the beautiful Hortense.

Mazarin was much less inclined to favor the Duke de Vendôme, as he then had a dangerous rival with the queen in his younger son, the Duke de Beaufort, who was youthful, brave, possessing every appearance of loyalty and chivalry, and affecting a passionate devotion for Anne of Austria which was not at all displeasing to her. A few days before the death of the king, she had placed her children in his care. This mark of confidence inflated his vanity; he conceived hopes which he disclosed too plainly and which finally offended the queen, while at the same time to heighten his inconsistency, he assumed the chains of the beautiful but notorious Duchess de Montbazon. Besides, Beaufort did not even possess the semblance of a statesman; he had little talent, no secrecy, was incapable of application or of business, and only fit for some daring and violent deed. La Rochefoucauld portrays him ​thus:[18] "The one who had conceived the greatest hopes was the Duke de Beaufort; he had long been warmly attached to the queen. She had just given him a public token of her esteem by confiding the Dauphin and the Duke d'Anjou to his care on the day that the king received the extreme unction. The Duke de Beaufort, on his part, availed himself of this distinction and of his other advantages to bring himself into favor by affecting to believe that she was already firmly established in the government. He was large, well-made, enduring, and skilled in all kinds of exercises; he was haughty and audacious, but artificial in every thing and very unreliable; his wit was heavy and unpolished, though he often attained his ends through the artifice of his blunt manners; he was envious and malicious, and his valor, though great, was unequal." Retz does not, like La Rochefoucauld, accuse Beaufort of artifice, but he represents him as a presumptuous egotist of marked incapacity:[19] "M. de Beaufort had not even comprehended the idea of great designs, he had only aspired to them; he had heard them discussed among the Importants and had retained some of their jargon, and this, mixed with the expressions which he had borrowed verbatim from Madame de Vendôme,[20] formed a language which would have disfigured even the good sense of a Cato. His own was dull and scanty, and was also rendered more obscure by his conceit. He fancied himself able, and this it was that made him seem artful, for it is well known that he had not mind enough for intrigue. He possessed much personal courage, more, in fact, than often belongs to a blusterer." This portrait, exaggerated as it is after the manner of Retz, is nevertheless tolerably faithful; but at the beginning of the regency in 1643, the faults of the Duke de ​Beaufort were not thus openly known, and they seemed to be eclipsed by his virtues. The queen only lost her liking for him by degrees. In the beginning of her friendship for him, she had offered him the place of grand-equerry, which had been vacant since the death of Cinq-Mars, and which would bring him in daily contact with her.[21] Beaufort had the folly to refuse this position, hoping for a better one; then, too late repenting his refusal, he asked it again, but in vain. The more his favor diminished, the more his irritation increased; and it was not long before he placed himself at the head of the enemies of the cardinal.

Madame de Chevreuse hoped to be more successful in asking the government of Havre for quite a different personage, of tried fidelity and the finest and rarest talents, La Rochefoucauld. She would thus have recompensed him for his services to the queen and to herself, have strengthened and enriched one of the chiefs of the party of the Importants, and have weakened Mazarin by taking an important command from a person of whom he was sure, the Duchess d'Aiguillon, niece of Richelieu. The cardinal succeeded in saving her without seeming to interfere in the matter. "This lady," says Madame de Motteville, "who, through her fine qualities, in many things surpassed ordinary women, knew so well how to defend her cause that she persuaded the queen that it was necessary for her own interests that she should leave her in command of this important place, saying that, having now none but enemies in France, her only safety and refuge was in the protection of her Majesty, who would always be the mistress of it; that, on the contrary, he to whom they wished her to give this government had too much talent, that he was capable of ambitious designs, and on the least discontent might join himself to some factious party, and that it was important for ​the good of the State that she should keep this place under her own control for the king. The tears of a woman who had once been so proud moved the queen, who, after having reflected on her reasons, deemed it proper to leave things as they were."[22] It was Mazarin doubtless who suggested to the Duchess d'Aiguillon the sound and politic reasons which persuaded the queen, so well do they accord with the language which he continually holds towards her in his Carnets. Madame de Motteville says that he "confirmed her in her inclination to preserve Havre to the Duchess d'Aiguillon." Here, as in many other things, the art of Mazarin consisted in seeming simply to confirm the queen in the resolutions which he himself had suggested.

Observe that it is not we who attribute these various designs, this judicious and logical course of policy, to Madame de Chevreuse, but La Rochefoucauld, who ought to be correctly informed on the matter—indeed, he attributes it to her both in her own affairs and in that of the Vendômes.[23] Mazarin was not deceived by her; and more than once we read in his private notes these words: "My greatest enemies are the Vendômes, and Madame de Chevreuse who animates them." He also informs us that she had formed the design of marrying her daughter, the beautiful Charlotte, then sixteen years of age,[24] to the Duke de Mercoeur, the eldest son of the Duke de Vendôme, while his brother Beaufort was to have espoused the noble and amiable Mademoiselle d'Epernon, who, baffling these and many more brilliant schemes, buried herself at twenty-four in a convent of the Carmelites.[25] These marriages, which would have allied, strengthened, and united so many noble houses already but ​indifferently attached to the queen and to her minister, alarmed the successor of Richelieu, and he persuaded the queen to break them off secretly, finding trouble enough already from the marriage of the beautiful Mademoiselle de Vendôme with the brilliant and restless Duke de Nemours.[26]

When we follow attentively the details of the opposing intrigues of Madame de Chevreuse and of Mazarin, we know not to which to award the prize for skill, for sagacity, and for address. Mazarin knew how to make sacrifices enough to avoid making too many of them, treating everybody with circumspection, suffering no one to despair, promising a great deal, performing as little as possible, and lavishing homage and attentions upon Madame de Chevreuse herself, without ever deceiving himself as to her real sentiments. She, on her part, paid him back in the same coin. La Rochefoucauld says, that at this early period Madame de Chevreuse and Mazarin coquetted with each other. Madame de Chevreuse, who had always mingled coquetry with politics, seems to have essayed the power of her charms on the cardinal. The latter did not fail to lavish gallant words on her, and "even sometimes endeavored to make her believe that she inspired him with love." These are the precise words of La Rochefoucauld. There were some other women, too, who would not have been sorry to have won a little admiration from the prime minister. Among these was the Princess de Guymené, one of the most celebrated beauties of the French court, and not of a savage humor. She and her husband were friendly to Mazarin, despite all the efforts of Madame de Montbazon and Madame de Chevreuse, her mother and sister-in-law. It was evident, indeed, that Mazarin was very attentive to Madame de Guymené, and that he did not scruple to offer her, as well as Madame de Chevreuse, a thousand compliments; but he went no further, and the two beautiful women ​knew not what to think of so many flatteries and so much reserve. They sometimes jestingly asked each other which of the two he wanted; and as he made no advances, though all the while continuing his gallant protestations, "these ladies," says Mazarin, "conclude thence that I am impotent."[27]

This play lasted some time, but ended naturally on being carried into politics. Madame de Chevreuse grew impatient at obtaining nothing but words instead of any thing tangible and decisive. She had received a little money for herself either in reimbursement of that which she had formerly loaned the queen, as we have seen in the preceding chapter,[28] or for the acquittal of the debts contracted during her exile and in the interest of Anne of Austria. At an early period, she had taken her friend and protégé, Alexandre de Campion, from the service of the Vendômes to place him in a suitable position in the household of the queen.[29] Châteauneuf had been reinstated in his office of chancellor of the royal orders, and his former government of Touraine was afterwards restored to him, after the death of the Marquis de Gèvres, who was slain in the month of August, before Thionville.[30] But ​Madame de Chevreuse considered that this was doing but little for a man of the talent of Châteauneuf, who had staked his fortune and his life, and had suffered an imprisonment of ten years in the service of the queen. She perceived clearly that the perpetual postponement of the favors constantly promised to the Vendômes and to La Rochefoucauld, and as constantly deferred, were but so many artifices of the cardinal, and that she was his dupe; she complained loudly of this treatment, and began to indulge in bitter and sarcastic expressions against him. This was furnishing Mazarin with weapons against herself. He impressed the queen with the idea that Madame de Chevreuse wished to rule her, that she had but changed her mask and not her character, and that she was still the passionate and restless person who, with all her wit and her devotion, had never brought any thing but evil to the queen, and was only capable of ruining others and of destroying herself. By degrees, secret and hidden as it was, war was declared between them more openly. Rochefoucauld has admirably depicted the commencement and progress of this curious contest. The Carnets of Mazarin throw a new light on the subject, and infinitely exalt the talents of Madame de Chevreuse by showing to what degree Mazarin dreaded her.

Everywhere he regards her as the real chief of the party of the Importants. "It is Madame de Chevreuse," says he, unceasingly, "who animates them all."—"She studies to strengthen the Vendômes, she endeavors to gain all the house of Lorraine, she has already gained the Duke de Guise, and through him, she is attempting to win from me the Duke d'Elbeuf."—"She has a clear perception of everything; she readily divines that it is I who am acting in secret on the queen to hinder her from restoring the government of Brittany to the Duke de Vendôme. She has said so to her father, the Duke de Montbazon, and also to Montagu."—"She quarrels with Montagu himself because he opposes Châteauneuf by ​sustaining Séguier, the present keeper of the seals."—"Madame de Chevreuse is not discouraged. She says that the affairs of Châteauneuf are not yet desperate, and that she asks but three months to show what she can do. She entreats the Vendômes to have patience, and sustains them by promising them a speedy change of scene."—"Madame de Chevreuse still hopes to cause my dismissal. The reason which she assigns for this is that when the queen refused to place Châteauneuf at the head of the government, she told her that she could not do it at present on my account, whence Madame de Chevreuse has concluded that the queen has much esteem and affection for Châteauneuf, and that when I am no longer there, the place is assured to her friend. From this arise the hopes and illusions which they cherish."—"The art of Madame de Chevreuse and the rest of the Importants consists in hindering the queen from hearing any conversation but that which is favorable to their party and directed against me, and in rendering every one suspicious to her who does not belong to them and who expresses any regard for me."—"Madame de Chevreuse and her friends openly assert that the queen will soon recall Châteauneuf, and by this they deceive everybody and induce those who are thinking of their future to go to him and to seek his friendship. They excuse the queen for the delay which she makes in giving him my place by saying that she still has need of me for some time longer."—"It is told me that Madame de Chevreuse secretly guides Madame de Vendôme, (a devotee who had much influence with the bishops and the convents,) and gives her instructions so that she may act rightly, and that all the machines employed against me may work well towards accomplishing their end."[31]

This last passage proves that Madame de Chevreuse, without being religious herself in the slightest degree, knew well how to avail herself of the party of devotees, which powerfully ​influenced the mind of Anne of Austria and gave Mazarin much anxiety.

The chief difficulty of the prime minister lay in making Queen Anne—the sister of the king of Spain and herself possessing true Spanish piety—comprehend that it was absolutely necessary that, despite the engagements she had so often contracted, despite the urgent entreaties of the Court of Rome, and despite the solicitations of the chiefs of the episcopate, she should continue the alliance with Holland and the German Protestants, and persist in insisting on a general peace to be shared by our allies as well as ourselves, while the devotees were constantly repeating to her that she could make a partial peace and treat separately with Spain on most favorable terms, and that the scandal of an impious war between His Most Christian Majesty and the Catholic king would thus cease, and a much-needed relief be obtained for France. This was the policy of the former party of the queen. It was specious at least, and reckoned numerous partisans among the most enlightened and patriotic men. Mazarin, the disciple and heir of Richelieu, entertained higher thoughts which he was not yet willing to confide to Anne of Austria. He realized them by degrees, thanks to efforts unceasingly renewed and managed with infinite art; thanks most of all, to the victories of the Duke d'Enghien—for in every thing there is no more eloquent and persuasive advocate than success. However, the queen remained long undecided, and we see in the Carnets of Mazarin about the end of May, and through the months of June and July, that the great aim of the cardinal was to induce the regent not to abandon her allies, but to continue the war. Madame de Chevreuse, with Châteauneuf, defended the former policy of the party, and labored to win Anne of Austria back to it. "Madame de Chevreuse," says Mazarin, "causes it to be reported to the queen from every side that I do not wish for peace, that I have the same maxims as the Cardinal de Richelieu, and that to make a separate peace is both necessary and ​easy." He remonstrated often and earnestly against the dangers of such an arrangement, which would render useless the sacrifices of France during so many years. "Madame de Chevreuse wishes to ruin France!" he exclaims. He knew that, intimately allied with Monsieur, her former accomplice in every conspiracy plotted against Richelieu, she had persuaded him to the idea of a separate peace by holding out hopes to him of the marriage of his daughter. Mademoiselle de Montpensier, with the archduke, which would have obtained him the government of the Netherlands. He knew that she still retained all her influence over the Duke of Lorraine; and the Marshal de L'Hôpital, who commanded on that frontier, sent him word to distrust all the protestations of the Duke Charles, as he belonged wholly to Madame de Chevreuse. He knew lastly that she boasted of being able to effect a speedy peace through the Queen of Spain, whom she had at her disposal. He therefore entreated Queen Anne to repulse every proposal of Madame de Chevreuse, and to tell her plainly that she would not listen to any private arrangement, that she was determined not to separate herself from her allies, that she should insist on a general peace, that it was for this that she had sent ministers to Munster who were negotiating this important affair, and that it was useless to say any thing further on the subject.[32]

Repulsed at all these different points, Madame de Chevreuse would not yet own herself beaten. Seeing that she had employed insinuation, flattery, artifice, and every ordinary court intrigue in vain, her daring spirit did not recoil from the idea of resorting to other means of success. She continued to use the devotees and the bishops, and carried on her political plots with the chiefs of the Importants, while at the same time she attracted together that little cabal which formed in some sort the vanguard of the party, composed of ​men nurtured in the old intrigues, and accustomed to and always ready for surprises, who in former times had been engaged in more than one desperate enterprise against Richelieu, and who, in an extreme case, could be incited against Mazarin also. The memoirs of the time, particularly those of Retz and of La Rochefoucauld, describe them well. There were the Count de Montrésor, the Count de Fontrailles, the Count de Brion, the Count de Fiesque, the Count d'Aubijoux, the Count de Beaupuis, the Count de Saint-Ybar, Barrière, Varicarville, and many others beside,—impracticable spirits, intrepid hearts, of an unbounded fidelity to their cause and to their friends, professing the most ultra maxims, with a sort of worship for the unfortunate De Thou, continually invoking ancient Rome and Brutus, mingling amorous intrigues with all these, and urging themselves on in all their chimeras by the desire of pleasing the ladies. They gained the name of the Importants by their consequential airs, their affectation of ability and profundity, and their mysterious language.[33] Their chief favorite was the Duke de Beaufort, whom we already know, a personage of nearly the same stamp with themselves, made up at once of extravagance and of artifice, but professing great loyalty and devotion, and giving himself out as a man of action, and who, moreover, was wholly ruled by Madame de Montbazon, the youthful mother-in-law of Madame de Chevreuse. The former mistress of Chalais had no difficulty in gaining this little faction. She flattered it adroitly, while, with the art of a practised conspirator, she fomented ​its spirit of false honor, of transcendental devotion, and of extravagant courage. Mazarin, who, like Richelieu, had an admirable police, warned by it of the movements of Madame de Chevreuse, understood the danger to which he was exposed. He well knew that she had not joined herself without design to men like these. He was perfectly informed of every thing that was said and done in their cabals. "They talk only among themselves of generosity and devotion," says he, in the notes which he wrote for the queen and himself; "they repeat without ceasing that one must know how to sacrifice himself for his cause; and it is Madame de Chevreuse who sustains and strengthens them in maxims so dangerous to the State."—"Saint-Ybar (one of those who, with Montrésor and Varicarville, had proposed to Monsieur and to Count de Soissons to rid them of Richelieu) is extolled by Madame de Chevreuse as a hero."—"Visit of Campion, a devoted servant of the lady."—"Madame de Chevreuse wishes to purchase one of the isles of the Loire in order to establish Campion on it, and to go there from time to time to have a secret interview with the Spanish agent, Sarmiento."—"Madame de Chevreuse animates them all. She says that, if they do not resolve to rid themselves of me, affairs will never be any better, that the nobles will be quite as much enthralled as formerly, that my power with the queen will continually increase, and that it is necessary to hasten to bring matters to a crisis before the Duke d'Enghien returns from the army."[34]

One could not be better informed, and the plan of Madame ​de Chevreuse and the chiefs of the Importants was clearly laid open to the eyes of Mazarin; either by their incessant and skilfully concerted intrigues about the queen to cause her to abandon a minister for whom she had not yet openly declared herself, or to treat this minister as Luynes had treated the Marshal d'Ancre, and as Montrésor, Barrière, and Saint-Ybar had wished to treat Richelieu, The first part of the plan being unsuccessful, they began to think seriously of the second, and Madame de Chevreuse, the true head of the party, judiciously proposed to act before the return of the Duke d'Enghien, as the duke would protect Mazarin if at Paris; it was necessary, therefore, to profit by his absence to strike the decisive blow. Success seemed certain and even easy. They were sure of the people, who, wasted by a long war, and groaning beneath the weight of taxes, would joyfully welcome the hope of peace. They could count on the open support of the parliament, burning to regain that importance in the state which Richelieu had wrested from them, and which Mazarin disputed with them. They had the entire secret, and even public, sympathies of the episcopate, which, with Rome, detested the Protestant and demanded the Spanish alliance. They could not doubt the eager concurrence of the aristocracy, which still regretted its ancient and turbulent independence, and whose most illustrious descendants, the Vendômes, the Guises, the Bouillons, the Rochefoucaulds, were avowedly opposed to the rule of a foreign favorite, without fortune, without family, and as yet without glory. Even the princes of the blood resigned themselves to rather than loved Mazarin; Monsieur did not pride himself on an extreme fidelity to his friends, and the politic Prince de Condé would think twice on the subject before embroiling himself with the victors. He flattered all the parties by turns, but was only attached to his own interests. His son would act with his father, and they could gain him by loading him with honors. The next day there would be no resistance, and the day itself, scarce any ​opposition. The Italian regiments of Mazarin were with the army; there were scarcely any troops in Paris, except the regiments of the guards, of which nearly all the commanders, Chandenier, Tréville, and La Châtre, were devoted to the party. The queen herself had not yet renounced her former friendship. Even her prudence was misinterpreted. As she wished to be politic towards all and to satisfy all, she gave good words to everybody, and these good words were taken as tacit encouragements. She had not hitherto shown any great strength of character; though they believed indeed that she had some liking for the cardinal, and did not doubt the increasing force of an attachment of some months' standing.

On his side, Mazarin did not deceive himself. He could not yet have been master of the heart of Anne of Austria, since at this time, that is, during the month of July, 1643, he shows extreme disquietude in his most confidential notes. The dissimulation with which every one accused the queen alarmed him, and we see him pass through all the alternations of hope and of fear. It is curious to seize and follow the varying emotions of his soul. In his official letters to the generals and ambassadors,[35] he affects a security which he does not feel; with his intimate friends, he lets escape something of his perplexities, and they appear in his Carnets without disguise. In these we read the troubles of his mind in his passionate entreaties that the queen should declare herself. He feigns the most entire disinterestedness towards her, and only asks to give place to Châteauneuf if she has for him any secret preference. The ambiguous conduct of Anne of Austria drives him to despair, and he conjures her either to permit him to retire, or openly to declare herself in his favor.

"Every one says that Her Majesty has formed ​engagements with Châteauneuf. If this be true, let her Majesty tell me so. If she prefers to intrust her affairs to him, I will retire whenever she wishes."[36]—"They say that her Majesty is the greatest dissembler living, that no one can confide in her, that, if she seems to set any value on me, it is from sheer necessity, and that all her real confidence is in them."[37]—"If her Majesty wishes to retain me and to be benefited by me, she must throw off the mask, and give manifest tokens of the value that she sets on me."[38]—"I seek only the pleasure and the satisfaction of her majesty, but truth forces me to say that I cannot serve her as I ought with this perpetual anxiety, though I labor night and day to fulfil my duties."[39]—"It is certain that the Importants continue to assemble in the garden of the Tuileries, that those who style themselves the most devoted servants of the queen cry out against her government, that they are more than ever opposed to me, and always conclude by saying that, if they cannot destroy me by intrigue, they will attempt other means."[40]—"I receive a thousand warnings to take care of myself."[41]—"They inveigh against the queen more than ever. They are furious against Beringhen and Montagu. They say that the first practises a vile trade, and that they will give the second a beating; and that it is absolutely necessary to destroy all who are my friends."[42]—"I am told that ​there are so many incensed against me that it is impossible for me to avoid some great misfortune."[43]

He declares that he would retire willingly, if, by so doing, he believed that he could cause the storm to cease. "Ah!" exclaims he, "if the sea could be appeased by my sacrifice, I would cast myself into it as Jonah cast himself into the mouth of the whale."[44] He philosophizes sadly on the extreme difficulty of governing men, and especially Frenchmen, by reason and by the love of the public good. He consoles himself with the thought that he has not served France badly. In the beginning of his ministry, on the twenty-third of May, he had said to the queen: "Let her Majesty trust me during three months, and then let her do as she chooses."[45] Three months had not yet passed by, and France, victorious at Rocroy, was on the point of wresting from Austria the town which guarded the passage of the Rhine. Beyond the Alps, she was the arbiter of the differences of the Italian princes; the Pope himself recognized her mediation, despite the opposition of Spain; and in England, the king and parliament alike addressed themselves to her, to obtain her support.[46] Yet the chief author of this prosperity was calumniated, outraged, and menaced; and he knew not whether some officer of the guards or some one of ​the enthusiasts whom Madame de Chevreuse held at her disposal, was not reserving for him the fate of the Marshal d'Ancre. At the end of the month of June, he speaks in a letter to his friend, the Cardinal Bichy, just as he soliloquizes in the Carnets. "Every one sees," says he, "that I spare no fatigue, and that the crown has no more zealous, faithful, and disinterested subject than myself; yet I still think of returning to my own country when I can do so without being untrue to myself, to my duties, or to France; for although all my designs are good, although I protest that there is not one which has not for its object the glory of her Majesty, yet I unceasingly encounter a thousand obstacles and foresee greater ones yet in the future, the French having no real attachment to the good of the state, and holding all those in abhorrence who place it above their private interests. Thus, I confess it to your eminence, I pass a most unhappy life, and were it not for the goodness of the queen, who gives me a thousand proofs of affection, I would endure it no longer."[47]

Nothing was changed at the end of July and in the beginning of the month of August, 1643, or rather, every thing was aggravated; the violence of the Importants increased daily; and though the queen defended her minister, yet she also treated with his enemies, and hesitated to take the decided attitude which Mazarin demanded of her, not only for his private interest, but also for that of the government. All at once an incident, seemingly insignificant at first, but gradually growing in importance, hastened the inevitable crisis, and forced the queen openly to declare herself, and Madame de Chevreuse to plunge still deeper into the fatal enterprise which had already entered her mind—we speak of the quarrel of Madame de Montbazon and Madame de Longueville.[48]

​We have recounted this quarrel in detail elsewhere, and both ladies are known to the reader. Let us only observe that the Duchess de Montbazon, by her marriage with the father of Madame de Chevreuse, found herself the mother-in-law of Marie de Rohan, although younger than she, that the Duke de Beaufort was publicly a sort of attending cavalier to her, that the Duke de Guise paid her a very welcome court, and that she was thus allied on all sides to the Importants. Among her numerous lovers, she had counted the Duke de Longueville, whom she would gladly have retained, but who had just escaped her by espousing Mademoiselle de Bourbon. This marriage had greatly irritated the vain and selfish duchess; she detested Madame de Longueville, and blindly seized the first occasion which presented itself of carrying trouble into this new household. One evening, in her salon of the Rue de Béthizy or the Rue Barbette,[49] she picked up one or two letters in a woman's hand which some imprudent person had just let fall. With these she amused the whole company. The meaning of these letters was but too clear, and efforts were made to discover the author. The Duchess de Montbazon dared to attribute them to Madame de Longueville. This scandalous rumor spread rapidly, and the indignation of the hôtel de Condé may be imagined. Madame the Princess loudly demanded justice of the queen; and a reparation was exacted and agreed upon. The Duchess de Montbazon, forced to consent, apologized, but with a bad grace. A few days after, the queen having gone with Madame the Princess to the garden of Renard to a collation given her by Madame de Chevreuse, she found Madame de Montbazon there, and, when she entreated her to find some pretext for retiring in order to avoid a rencontre with Madame the Princess, the insolent duchess refused to obey. This offence, offered to the queen herself, could not remain unpunished, and the next day Madame de Montbazon ​received an order to quit the court and repair to one of her estates near Rochefort. The friends and admirers of the lady uttered loud complaints; the whole party of Importants were roused, and the affair changed its aspect; from a private it became a general quarrel, as often in war a private engagement or a precipitate manœuvre involves a whole army and determines a battle.

It was difficult to be placed on worse ground. In the first place, the Duchess de Montbazon was as much despised for her manners and her character as celebrated for her beauty; and the object of her attack was a young woman who had but just appeared in society, and who was already the object of universal admiration; of a beauty so dazzling and ethereal that every one on seeing her compared her with an angel; of brilliant talents and a noble heart; the person, indeed, of all others, whom the Importants should have endeavored the most to gain, especially as her natural generosity did not lead her toward the side of the court, and had even given some umbrage to the prime minister. Madame de Longueville was then only occupied with wit, innocent coquetry, and, above all, the glory of her brother, the Duke d'Enghien. It must be confessed, however that there were then in her heart some germs of an Important which La Rochefoucauld afterwards knew but too well how to develop.[50] The injury which had been done her, the shameful ​motives of which were apparent to every one, was revolting to all honorable hearts. The impetuosity of Beaufort on this occasion was also very blamable. He had formerly paid his addresses to Mademoiselle de Bourbon, who had repulsed them, so that his conduct bore an air of odious revenge. Besides, it was the policy of Madame de Chevreuse to deprive Mazarin of his supporters; it was for this that she had excited the devotees against him and made them act on the queen; now Madame de Longueville was not less the idol of the Carmelites and the devout party, than of the hôtel de Rambouillet. Lastly, the Duke d'Enghien, already covered with the laurels of Rocroy and on the point of adding to them those of Thionville, was so evidently the arbiter of the question, that Madame de Chevreuse earnestly insisted that they should rid themselves of Mazarin while the young duke was employed at a distance and before his return from the army. To wound him through a sister whom he adored, to incense him unnecessarily and hasten his return, was an extravagant folly; therefore all who were sensible among the Importants, La Rochefoucauld, La Châtre, and Alexandre de Campion, were anxious to pacify and hush up this unhappy quarrel; and Madame de Chevreuse, careful to make her court to the queen at the same time that she plotted a dark intrigue against her minister, had prepared a little festival at Renard, designed to dissipate the effects of what had just passed. But all her policy was foiled by the foolish pride of a woman as destitute of talent as she was of heart.[51]


​Notwithstanding, Mazarin had profited by the blunders of his adversaries. At an early period he had joyfully seen, and had artfully increased, the enmity of the houses of Condé and Vendôme. In proportion as the Vendômes declared themselves more openly against him, he grew on better terms with the Condés. He had put to himself the question: "What must be done if the Vendômes and the Condés come to a rupture, presuming that the interest of the state be not involved in the quarrel?"[52]—a problem which he had evidently no difficulty in resolving, for the interest of the State and that of the cardinal were now united on the side of the Condés. At the same time that Madame de Montbazon and Beaufort offered this insult to Madame de Longueville, news came to Paris that the conqueror of Rocroy had just terminated the difficult siege of Thionville, and opened to France one of the gates of Germany. The sword of the young duke seemed everywhere to carry victory with it. The Marquis de Gèvres, who promised so fair, was slain; Gassion was grievously wounded; Turenne and Praslin were occupied in Italy; and Guébriant, closely pressed by Mercy, had just recrossed the Rhine. The Duke d'Enghien, with his boldness and his constantly increasing popularity, alone could exercise sufficient ascendency over the army to bring it back to Germany, and to dissipate the terror inspired by the memory of the defeat of Nortlingen. In the council, M. the Prince lent to Mazarin a selfish and wavering, yet essential and useful support. Madame the Princess was the best friend of the queen; she had openly declared herself in favor of the cardinal and against his rival

​Châteauneuf. To serve the Condés, therefore, was to serve the State, and also to serve himself. The choice of Mazarin could not be doubtful, and it is said that, far from soothing the queen, he incensed her the more.[53]

In this critical position, what course was left for Madame de Chevreuse to pursue? She endeavored to restrain Madame de Montbazon, but she could neither forsake her nor surrender herself. She therefore resolved to prosecute with energy the tragical scheme which had become the last hope, the final resource of the party. She had already broached the proposition of ridding themselves of Mazarin; and, through Madame de Montbazon, she had drawn Beaufort into it. The latter had gathered around him the men of action of whom we have spoken, and who were wholly devoted to him. A conspiracy had been formed, and all the measures concerted to surprise and kill the cardinal.

  1. ↑ No. 77, p. 519.
  2. ↑ The future Marshal d'Hocquincourt, a warrior and pleasure-lover, and a fickle politician, who, in the Fronde, strayed from Mazarin to Condé, and wrote to Madame de Montbazon, Peronne est à la belle des belles.
  3. ↑ The Duke and Marshal de Chaulne was the second brother of the Constable de Luynes.
  4. ↑ Not the Hôtel de Luynes, the residence of the son of the constable, on the Quai des Grands-Augustins, at the corner of the Rue Git-le-coeur, of which Perelle has executed a charming little engraving, and in which the Chancellor Séguier took refuge during the Fronde, when the populace attacked him on the Pont-Neuf when going to the parliament, but the Hôtel de Chevreuse, Rue Saint-Thomas du Louvre, next the Hôtel Rambouillet, a magnificent palace, built by the Marquis de Vieuville while he was superintendent of finances, and purchased in 1620 by the Constable de Luynes, and which, after his death and the new marriage of his widow, was called the Hôtel de Chevreuse, becoming afterwards the Hôtel d'Epernon, and still later, in 1663, the Hôtel de Longueville. Madame de Chevreuse then caused the beautiful palace of the Rue Saint-Dominique-Saint-Germain to be built by the celebrated artist Lemuet. This has also been represented by Perelle, and is now occupied by the Duke de Luynes.
  5. ↑ Vol. i., p. 186.
  6. ↑ La Rochefoucauld, Memoires, p. 369.
  7. ↑ See the beginning of Mazarin, La Rochefoucauld, Madame de Motteville, La Châtre, and both the Briennes.
  8. ↑ La jeunesse de Madame de Longueville, 3d edit., ch. iii., p. 217.
  9. ↑ These are the exact words of Madame de Motteville, vol. i., p. 162. This passage is so important that we must give it here entire: "Many visits and compliments were made to Madame de Chevreuse as to one who had once reigned in the heart of the queen, and who, in all her disgrace, had always maintained a correspondence with her and had seemed to possess her entire friendship. To this might be added the obligations of her sufferings, which had led her over all Europe; and although her travels might have tended to her glory, and have given her the means of triumphing over a thousand hearts, in respect to the queen they were chains which should have bound her more strongly than in the past. But the affairs of this world cannot always remain in the same state, and this change natural to mankind caused Madame de Chevreuse, who was distrusted and vilified by those aspiring to the ministry, to find the queen changed in her absence, while this same change also caused the queen to find the duchess wanting in the charms which had formerly fascinated her. The sovereign had become more thoughtful and religious, while the favorite still retained her former tastes for gallantry and frivolity, which were bad accompaniments of a riper age. Her rivals had assured the queen that she wished to rule her, and the queen was so strongly impressed with this fear that, considering the prohibition of it which the king had made, she had some difficulty in resolving on the speedy return of the duchess; this indeed was laudable in the queen, and should be respected. Madame the Princess, who hated Madame de Chevreuse, and whose tastes were similar to those of the queen, had used every effort in her power to disgust her with her former favorite. Absence had in some measure served to weaken the duchess' hold upon the mind of the queen, while her presence had contributed much to her friendship with, or rather to accustom her to, Madame the Princess. However, when the distinguished exile arrived, the queen seemed rejoiced to see her, and treated her with favor. I had returned to the court a few days before. As soon as I had the honor of approaching the queen, I saw what were her sentiments towards Madame de Chevreuse, and I knew that the new minister had exerted himself as much as possible to show her her faults."
  10. ↑ Memoires, ibid., p. 378.
  11. ↑ He had been on the side of Mazarin in the cabals which preceded the regency, and we find in the archives of foreign affairs, France, civ., the fragment of a letter from Montagu to the queen, without date, but written about this time, in which he pledges himself in a mystic language to turn a deaf ear to malcontents, and to remain attached to her ministry.
  12. ↑ Recueil, etc.
  13. ↑ Ibid., p. 380.
  14. ↑ Archives of foreign affairs, France, vol. c, p. 135. Autograph letter of Châteauneuf to Chavigny, March 23, 1643, during the lifetime of Louis XIII., in which he "thanks him for the assistance which he has lent his sister, Madame de Vaucelas, in attempting to release him from the rude and miserable condition in which he has been confined for ten years, at an advanced age, and full of maladies which have constantly tormented him." He was not released until the commencement of the regency. Ibid., p. 404: "Angoulesme, May 25, 1643. Sire, I render most humble thanks to your Majesty for the favor which she has been pleased to grant me after so long a detention, in permitting me to retire to one of my estates. The few days which remain to me shall be spent in praying to God for your Majesty that he may be pleased to grant her many years of happiness. These most devout supplications, Sire, are made for your Majesty by your most humble and obedient subject and servant, Châteauneuf."
  15. ↑ Carnet's Autographes de Mazarin, preserved at the Bihliothéque Nationale, ii. Carnet, p. 16. Non faccia sua Maestà sopraintendente Chatonof, se non vuol, restabilirlo intieramente.
  16. ↑ See La Jeunesse de Madame de Longueville, chap. iii., p. 216: the letter written by Mazarin concerning this to the Duke de Brézé, May 28, 1643.
  17. ↑ Vol. i., p. 126.
  18. ↑ Ibid., p. 372.
  19. ↑ Vol. i., p. 216.
  20. ↑ Madame de Vendôme was a person of exalted piety, and who always spoke in the language of devotion.
  21. ↑ Mazarin himself gives us this fact, which has been hitherto ignored. ii. Garnet, pp. 72, 73.
  22. ↑ Vol. i., p. 136.
  23. ↑ Ibid., pp. 380-384.
  24. ↑ Charlotte Marie de Lorraine was born in 1627.
  25. ↑ La Jeunesse de Madame de Longueville, chap, i., pp. 99-105.
  26. ↑ 1st Carnet, p. 112.
  27. ↑ III, Carnet, p. 39, "Si esamina la mia vita e si conclude che io sia impotente."
  28. ↑ See Chapter II.
  29. ↑ Recueil, etc., letter of June 12, 1643: "I am now with the queen, who honors me by treating me with favor. I have all the entrées, and she has also bestowed a gift on me from which I have hopes of receiving nearly a hundred thousand crowns. Madame de Chevreuse, who is friendly with her, continues the confidence which she has always shown me."
  30. ↑ II. Carnet, p. 22: Journal of Olivier d'Ormesson, under the date of Aug. 30, 1643; and among the Lettres françaises of Mazarin, preserved at the Bihliothèque Mazarine, that of the 13th of August, in which the cardinal announces to Châteauneuf that the queen restores to him the government of Touraine. Another letter of January 2, 1644, terms him M. the Count de Châteauneuf, chancellor of the royal orders and governor of Touraine.
  31. ↑ II. Carnet, pp. 65, 68, 75; III. Ibid., pp. 11, 19, 25, 29, 44.
  32. ↑ III. Carnet, pp. 27, 43, 55.
  33. ↑ To the well-known portraits of the Importants left us by Retz and La Rochefoucauld, may be added the following lines of Alexandre de Campion:—Recueil. "I have some friends who have not all the prudence that might be desired; they affect a passion for honor, and give to virtue so strange a garb, that it seems to me disguised; so that, though they may possess all its essential qualities, they use them so badly that the applause which they gain thereby, leads, perhaps, only to their destruction."
  34. ↑ II. Carnet, p. 70: ". . . . Si predica siempre que es menester perdie se."—Ibid., p. 83: "Saint-Ibar portato dalla dama come un eroe."—III. Ibid., pp. 5, 24, 25: "Que los majores enemigos que yo tenia eran los Vandomos et la dama que li anima todos, diciendo que se no si teneria luogo la resolucion de deshacerse de my, los negotios (no) irian bien, los grandes serian tan sujetos come antes, y yo siempre mas poderia con la reyna, y que era menester darse prima antes que Anghien concluviesse."
  35. ↑ See the valuable collection of French and Italian letters of Mazarin before cited, 5 vols, in fol., proceeding from Colbert, which are now in the Bibliothèque Mazarine, Letters of 1642-1645, 1719, C.
  36. ↑ II. Carnet, pp. 21, 22.
  37. ↑ Ibid., p. 42.
  38. ↑ Ibid., p. 65: "Sy S. M. quiere conservar me demanera que puede ser de provechio a su servitio, es menester quitarse la maschera, y azer obras que declarase la protection que quiere tener de mi persona."
  39. ↑ Ibid., p. 77: "Es imposibile servire con estos sobresaltos, mientras trovajo di dia y de noche per complir a mis obligationes."
  40. ↑ Ibid., p. 76: "Es sierto que continuan juntarse al jardin de Tullieri que ablan contra el gobierno de la reyna los que se dicen sus majores serbidores, y que son contra my mas que nunca, hasta concluir siempre que sy per cabalas no podrano destruirme, intentaran otros modos."
  41. ↑ Ibid. p. 93: "Ricevo mille avvisi di guardarmi."
  42. ↑ III. Ibid., p. 18: "Los Importantes ablan contra la reyna mas que nunca. Estan desperados contra Belingan y Montagu; dicen que el primero es un alcahuete (maquereau), y que all' otro daron mil palos; que es menester perder todos los que fueran de mi parte."
  43. ↑ Carnet, p. 24: "Que muchas personas eran de manera animadas contra my que era imposibile que no me succediesse algun gran mal."
  44. ↑ II. Ibid., p. 76: "Sy la mar puede sosegarse con echarmi como Jonas en la bocca de la balena."
  45. ↑ I. Ibid., p. 108.
  46. ↑ III. Ibid., p. 65: "La riputazione della Francia non è in cattivo stato, poiche, oltre li progressi che dà per tutto fanno le armi sue, è arbitra S. M. delle differenze dei principi d'Italia, e di quelle del re d'Inghiltera con il parlamento, non obstante che li Spagnuoli faccino il possibile e combattino per ogni verso questa qualità, sino a minacciare il papa se adherisce alli sentimenti et alli mediazione di Francia."
  47. ↑ Bibliothèque Mazarine. Italian letters of Mazarin, fol. 181: "30 giugno 1643."
  48. ↑ See La Jeunesse de Madame de Longueville, chap, iii., p. 225.
  49. ↑ For the hôtel de Montbazon, see Sauval, vol. ii., p. 124.
  50. ↑ About this time, or at least in the year 1644, Mazarin draws a severe portrait of Madame de Longueville, in which, if he does not calumniate her, he omits no blemish, pointing out all her defects without noticing her virtues, as though he already saw in her his most redoubtable enemy. V. Carnet, p. 23: "Ladetta Damaha tuttoil potere soprà il fratello. Fà vanità di disprezzare la corte, di odiare il favore, e disprezzar tutto quello che non vede a suoi piedi. Vorrebbe veder il fratello dominare e disporre di tutte grazie. È donna simulatissima; riceve tutte le deferenze e grazie come dovuteli. Vive d'ordinario con gran fredezza con tutti; ama la galanteria piu per acquistar servitori et amici al fratello che per alcun male; insinua nel fratello concetti alti alli quali per tanto egli è naturalmente portato; non fà conto della madre perche la crede troppo attaccata alla corte; crede con il fratello che tutte le grazie che si accordano alla sua persona, casa, parenti et amici li sieno dovute, e che si vorrebbe bene poter le negare, mà che non vi è corraggio di farlo per timore di disgustarli. Grande intelligenze con la marchesa di Sablè e duchessa di Lesdiguières. In casa di Sablè vi è un commercia continuo d'Andilly, la principessa di Ghimenè, Anghien, sua sorella, Nemur, e molti altri, e vi si parla di tutti liberamente. Bisogna haver qualcheduno là che possi avvertire di quello vi passerà."
  51. ↑ Alexandre de Campion, in the Recueil before cited, letter to Madame de Montbazon: "If my advice had been followed at Renard, you would have departed in obedience to the queen; in which case you would not now be residing at Rochefort, and we should not be exposed to the danger that threatens us."
  52. ↑ 1 III. Carnet, p. 100: "Come dovrei governarmi se nascesse querela trà il duca d'Enghien e la casa di Vendomo, senza che vi fosse intrigato il servitio della regina?"
  53. ↑ Madame de Motteville, vol. i., p. 83.
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